Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise

"Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain" (Isa. 26:19-21). Here we have a prophecy from Isaiah about the first resurrection at the second coming of the Lord back to this world. Now that may sound a bit trite on the surface, but there are some really powerful and integral truths in this prophecy that dispel some very dangerous untruths that are so popular today, and that will become more popular in the future. The first verse in our text makes it abundantly clear that the righteous dead will rise bodily, even as Jesus rose from the dead bodily: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's AT HIS COMING [not comings, as plural] (I Cor. 15:20-23). And to be certain that the faithful will rise from the dead bodily, we have the apostle Paul, who said, "Who [Christ] shall CHANGE our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself" (Philip. 3:21). Next in the second verse of our text passage we see that God will hide his elect in their "chambers" until "the indignation is overpast." Some teach that this verse bears witness to "the rapture" doctrine that almost everyone adheres to, but what do the scriptures confirm about this verse? "So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!" So the truth is that this verse is only talking about the state of the righteous who are dead, as Job plainly states. Not only so, but the fact of the matter is, that is the only possible meaning of the verse, taken in context of the passage it is a part of.

The last verse in our text passage just plainly and emphatically confirms that the dead, who have been hidden from the indignation, are raised WHEN "the Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity," at which time "the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." So the end of the passage is saying the exact same thing that the beginning of the passage says; that being that "the earth shall cast out the dead," meaning of course the dead who died in faithfulness to the Lord. So first of all the whole "rapture" theory is debunked by the plain scriptural truth that the faithful dead will be raised WHEN the Lord comes from heaven to "punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity," or "AT HIS [ONE] COMING." In order to teach the rapture, we must teach that there are plural second comings of Jesus, or a second AND third coming, neither of which are found in the Bible. Secondly the ideal that the dead will not rise in their original bodies, howbeit changed to immortality; gives place to the old, lethal doctrinal poison of "the resurrection is past already" (II Tim. 2:18). When one believes that there is a "rapture" before the actual and ONLY second coming of Jesus, and/or that the elect will rise only in spirit, and not in body; that is where the overly spiritual apostate doctrine of "the resurrection is past already" can slip in, especially in the end time. Jesus addressed this very issue when speaking of his second coming, and the time before it: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also THE coming of the Son of man be" (Mat. 24:23-27). If we are to be "raptured" before the second coming, then why did he warn us of being deceived ABOUT his second coming? And note that he spoke only of ONE second coming. He did not chop anything up into a two or three part second coming, like almost everyone in effect teaches and believes today, in one form or another. Neither did he or any other writers of the scriptures do so elsewhere. Scriptures have to be taken out of context, and have idealism added to them in order to come up with any "rapture." No my friend, as the Bible clearly shows, those who die in faith and holiness will rise from the grave bodily in immortality at THE second coming of Jesus back to the earth [I Cor. 15:51-54]: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain [unto THE coming... - vs. 15] shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord ( I Thess. 4:16,17; Mat. 24:29-31). And that about says it. God bless.