Matt 27:52-53

[Guest]

Dead and in the grave waiting the resurrection sean. Same as everyone else that ever died.

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Hebrews 11:5 (Enoch)

Hebrews 11:5
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

First of all, verse 13 of the same chapter says “these all [including Enoch] died.” Enoch lived three generations before Noah and was prophesying of judgment to come upon the wicked people of his time (Jude 14). Just as wicked people tried to kill Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Christ and many others who prophesied boldly for God, so Enoch’s evil contemporaries tried to kill him. Although God apparently protected him from an untimely death, Enoch ultimately fell asleep even as all the others listed in Hebrews 11. The word “translated” in Hebrews 11:5 is rendered as “carried over” in Acts 7:16, “removed” in Galatians 1:6 and “changed” in Hebrews 7:12. God moved Enoch from one place to another on the earth so that he would not at that time “see death,” that is, “die.”

Psalm 89:48
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?

Luke 2:26
And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

Thus he “was not found” by those who sought his life. Nowhere does Scripture say that God at that time gave Enoch everlasting life. Surely by now it is clear that Enoch cannot be alive in “heaven.”

From another angle, even if Enoch and Elijah were somehow totally unique examples of believers taken bodily to “heaven,” this could not be used to prove that any other believer has gone there or anywhere else at his death. As we have seen, a person needs a body in order to be alive. Therefore there is no valid connection between what happened to Enoch and Elijah and what happens to a believer who dies, is buried and rots away. He needs his body raised if he is to live again, and this will not happen until Christ appears.

Difficult Scriptures Explained

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[Guest]

Matt. 27:52-53 The bodies of dead saints arise and go in force in the city.

Can anyone explain or comment on this?

Col 1:15-18 indicates that our Lord Jesus is pre-eminent. He was the first-born of creation, and He was the first-born from the dead. So
Jesus was the first to have a true resurrection, that is, to be raised with an immortal body. All who were "raised" as recorded in the Old Testament, did not have a true resurrection, but were made alive in the same, although restored, mortal bodies. Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from death after he had been dead for days, was raised in the same mortal body. Doubtless, Lazarus died again.

But those who are raised immortal, like Jesus, will never die again.

I think those who were raised shortly after Jesus' resurrection, experienced a true resurrection even as Jesus did. They, along with Jesus, were "the first-fruits" of the resurrection, and went to heaven.
The overcoming saints will have to await the "main harvest" of the resurrection which occurs when Jesus comes again. Other saints will be raised in "the gleanings" of the resurrection at the end of the millenium.