There are three (3) classes of the dead who will arise at their appointed time.

1. The believing of Paul’s “Gospel of the grace of God” who are the redeemed “church, which, is “the His body” (Eph 1:22b-23a) will be resurrected to “the judgment seat of Christ” (cf. 1Cor 3:10-13) to determine their reward(s). Some will suffer loss of reward, but all here are eternally saved.
2. All the pre-Israel O.T. believers, and the believing of Israel’s “gospel of the kingdom” will be resurrected at Jesus Christ’s 2^nd coming, closing the Tribulation period. They will “reign with Him” in His Millennial Kingdom - “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection” (Revelation 20:4-5).

David wrote: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied (Heb saba, completed, filled), when I awake, with thy likeness.” (‘like the Lord,’ Psalm 17:15) This phrase above “with thy likeness” indicates these believers will be reawakened consciously and resurrected in glorious spirit-bodies like Jesus’s glorious resurrected body, fitted to live and serve and reign in Christ’s Millennial kingdom on earth. This will occur at Christ’s 2^nd coming… extending then to the time when the present heaven and earth are no more, replaced the remade “New Heaven and New Earth” (cf. Rev 21:1).

3. Upon death, All the lost souls of All ages will have gone to “the “grave” to await their resurrection unto the final “Great White Throne” judgment and their “2^nd death” of “eternal destruction” (2Thes 1:9) in “the lake of fire” (Rev 20:15).

“Awakening” in “resurrection” is God’s beautiful and poetic counterpart to man “sleeping” in death while “in the grave.” The Holy Spirit’s use of the word “awake” would seem intended to teach us the “resurrection” is an experience resembling returning to consciousness (a soul function) after a period of “sleep,” usually over the night, until the “morning” comes.

We note by the words of Job that the dead will “sleep” in the “dust of the earth” until “the morning.” This establishes a definite ‘location’ wherein the sleep of death actually takes place. “… now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning…” (Job 7:21). The words “the morning” are Biblically significant

“Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me (Solomon) for thy mercies' sake. ⁵ For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks? (Psalm 6:4-5)

“The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.” (Psalm 115:17)

“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

Jesus Himself is referred to as the “son of the morning.” All three of these texts are relative to Christ, “the morning star” of the 2^nd coming.

“We (Israel) have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star (Christ) arise in your hearts:” (2 Peter 1:19)

“And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations (Gentiles): ²⁷ And he (Christ) shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. ²⁸ And I will give him the ‘morning star.” (Revelation 2:26-28)

“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. ¹³ I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” (Revelation 22:12-13)

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David (Israel’s King), and the bright and ‘morning star.” (Revelation 22:16)

These verses refer to a new day of eternal life, joy, and happiness. In this all believers of Israel may take courage and rejoice, knowing that as Jesus’ first advent pointed to a fulfillment without completion of Old Testament prophecy, so they may have assurance of its final completion when Jesus comes again.

His coming at Bethlehem was the advent of “the dayspring from on high” (Luke 1:78). Those whose hearts are illumined by this celestial grace find that ‘the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day’ (Proverbs 4:18). For them “the morning star” that now gleams afar will then be known in all God’s fullness, which is none other than the fullness of the Son and his glory.

We as grace believers today live in the present night of this fallen world, but the light of the eternal day has already dawned in the hearts of all those who by faith have received him who is “the morning star” into their lives.

Since the awakening in resurrection is an event that will occur sometime yet future, we must note that today all the dead are still sleeping “in the dust” even now. It follows then, of course, that they can’t be sleeping in paradise, in heavenly places, or anywhere else; those who have fallen “asleep” must still reside within their “graves,” where the righteous and the wicked also “sleep.”

When Paul was “caught up to paradise” the “paradise of God” was in Heaven. It was not the fictitious paradise of tradition says paradise the good side of “hades” for the sleeping souls of the righteous. According to Revelation, this is the “paradise of God” contains “the Tree of life” that once was on earth, as seen here. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” (Revelation 2:7). There was in Genesis only the one “Eden” with gardens and the “Tree of life” called “paradise.” Even today there is only the one “paradise of God” and it is in heaven, but it will eventually come to “the new earth” of the eternal kingdom.

The believers of the O.T. and Jesus’ Jewish disciples of the “gospel of the Kingdom” to come on earth have never had a promise of heaven. Nowhere in the Bible is there such a promise for Israelites. Only “the body of Christ” is promised heaven (Philip. 3:20-21, 2Cor 5:1b). Israel does have the promise of a restored Davidic Kingdom “on earth” when the Messiah comes again. Note the promise of the so-called Lord’s prayer for His Jewish disciples says, “Thy kingdom come… On Earth.”

So, the dead as a group consists principally of two kinds of people.

1) The unbelieving dead who remain forever lost in Adam’s fallen race bearing the burden of sins at the hand of the Sin nature that was in them. They face judgment and the eternal loss of their living soul, which is the very life of their person; this is eternal death.

2) The believing dead of all generations, whose real and eternal life is found through faith “in Christ.”

a) The members of “body of Christ” will awake in new glorious body at His coming in the clouds, to co-reign with Christ in heaven forever (2Tim 2:12, 2Cor 5:1b).

b) These are the spirit-regenerated (rebirthed) Christ-people of Israel on earth. Old Testament believers will awake in new glorious body at His 2^nd coming. They will be perfectly fitted to co-reign with Christ in the Millennial kingdom on the earth.

Christ died to bring about four blessings for all genuine believers:

1. Christ died to relieve all believers of the burden and penalty of the sins they committed. He did this at the cross where He died “for us,” redeeming all believers of all sins (past, present and future), by His own shed blood. He paid the penalty for sins relieving us of the Penalty of sins.

“(Jesus) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (payment) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins…” (Romans 3:25)

2) Christ also died “as us,” relieving us of the Power of ‘Sin’ tyrannically ruling over the Old soul-life, which now has died with Christ (cf. Rom 6:3). This relieves believers of the tyranny of the Sin-nature that had had dominion over their Old Life.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

“We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, (so) that we might no longer be the slaves of sin. 7 For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men.” (Romans 6:6-7 AMP)

3) Then also He died to rise again as “the life-giving Spirit” (1Cor 15:45); to give unto all believers His own eternal resurrection “Spirit of life,” never to end or be lost.

“And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made (became) a quickening (the life-giving eternal) spirit.” (1 Corinthians 15:45)

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us Eternal Life, and This Life Is In His Son. ¹² He that hath the Son hath life (Zoë, Christ’s Spirit of life); he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1Jn 5:11-12)

4. Then, in the believer’s awakening and resurrection, He clothes them with a new glorious spirit-body like he has removes believers from the very presence of “Sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3) into His glorious presence.

“Who 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. (Philippians 3:21)

In particular, we as grace believers are reborn of the “LAST Adam (Christ)” (above). Note from this verse that Christ is not called the 2^nd Adam, but rather the last or final Adam – the final federal head of the final race of new creation people called Christians. These alone make up “the church, which is His body” (Eph 1:22b-23a). Believers, as to their Old Self Life, have been co-crucified with Him and now possess the Christ’s own resurrected eternal “Spirit of life” added into their “spirit of man” to ultimately be their only surviving “life” – life (Zoë), meaning “the eternal Spirit-life.”

Thus, via the cross and resurrection from the dead Christ established His new creation race of Christ-people to rein “on earth” and “in heaven.”

 “Therefore if any man be ‘in Christ,’ he is a new creature (new creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)