Lesson 15

Man is mortal. The only way to gain eternal life is to believe in Jesus. This is a central unwavering truth of Christianity. Believing John 3:15-16 to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is the mark of a believing follower of Jesus. Jesus returns and collects his believers. Raising them into immortal spirit life, as he has promised them, it is then they will be born of the spirit, for they will be made of spirit. They rule for a thousand years as priests over those who are left alive after Jesus dispenses of the world’s armies. When Jesus came the first time he set up an ethereal kingdom in the hearts of men. With Satan banished, he will now begin his physical kingdom on earth. When the thousand years are over, the predicted rest of the dead will be resurrected back into a physical life like God promised the Israelites.

Revelation 20:2-5 Living Bible
2 He seized the Dragon—that old Serpent, the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so that he could not fool the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterwards he would be released again for a little while.
4 Then I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those who had been given the right to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus, for proclaiming the Word of God, and who had not worshiped the Creature or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They had come to life again and now they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
5 This is the First Resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.)

Being born physically, inhaling the spirit of God to take a first breath, then dieng, completes a full life cycle. When the rest of the dead come back to life, it will be the start of their second life cycle. Being mortal flesh, mankind is completely reliant upon God for life. Having a perfect memory, God knows us intimately, he knit us together in our mother’s wombs, he knows every hair on our body and he will resurrect us back to who we were. Humans’ second life will be lived on a utopic rebuilt earth, ruled with love. The obvious outcome of this Bible teaching is that humans will live two times. Once when they are born by their mothers and another when they are resurrected by God. Those who believe in Jesus are resurrected to immortality at the return of Jesus. The rest of the dead, resurrected as non-believers, are resurrected as physical, mortal people.
How do you fit these verses into your beliefs? Do they blend, or are they conflicting?
Are there other biblical explanations for how ‘the rest of the dead’ come back to life?