for they are His by birth. Their standing is in grace and not of works. They are His also by purchase (Acts

xx. 28; I Pet. i. 19); and seven times in John xvii does the Saviour declare that they are His by gift. Hence

when they fall asleep they are still called "the dead in Christ" (I Thess. iv. 16), and when they rise again they

are still spoken of as "they that are Christ's at His coming."  21

No wonder then that the Resurrection from the dead becomes the one all-powerful Hope of the Church, and

is bound up inseparably with the Lord's second advent.

It was this that Paul longed for in Phil. iii. 11, when he said "if by any means I might attain unto the

resurrection of the dead." If the wicked dead be raised at the same time we can hardly understand this

earnest desire. If all rise at one and the same time, of course he would rise, and there was no cause of such a

desire. But if the Saints are to rise "first," then there is every reason why he should so earnestly long to be

amongst those who on this account are pronounced "blessed and holy." The words which he uses here are

important and peculiar, for he takes the ordinary word "Resurrection" and prefixed a preposition which

means "out of" and repeats the same preposition by itself after it, so that the verse really reads "If by any

means I might attain unto the out-resurrection, that one from among the dead"! But why all this desire, and

why this force of language, if all the dead rise together? Why not say "from death" or "from the grave"?

instead of, "out from among the dead" unless it be to show (as in Rev. xx. 5), that "the rest of the dead lived

not again until the 1,000 years were finished."

Surely our Lord referred to the same truth when He said "The children of this world  22 marry and are given in

marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world,23 and the resurrection from the

dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the

angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the Resurrection" (Luke xx. 34-36). It is clear that

some are not accounted worthy. But the article before and after the word "Resurrection," and the

preposition "from" or from among or out of, gives the same emphasis on which Paul's hope was based.

We can understand also why the Disciples should question "one with another what the rising FROM the

dead should mean" (Mark ix. 10), because here Jesus uses the same preposition before the words "the

dead," and thus occasions their perplexity. They would have felt no such difficulty about the fact of a

resurrection, or a resurrection OF dead ones. This truth they were familiar with. Jesus said to Mary "Thy

brother shall rise again," and she replied, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day"

(John xi. 23, 24). But a Resurrection "out of" the dead, leaving other dead ones behind, was a new revelation

to them and caused the disciples to question among themselves what "from" the dead should mean.

We ought to observe here, as final and conclusive, that when ever this "first" resurrection of the Saints is

spoken of, this preposition "out of" or "from among" is always used in the Greek, though not always

preserved in the A.V. And further that whenever the resurrection of "the rest of the dead" is mentioned, or

the Resurrection itself, as a fact, this proposition is not used, and it reads simply "the Resurrection of dead

Those who hold that any of the members of Christ's body the Church will be left behind to pass through

the great tribulation or any part of it (1) fail to see how completely the members of His body are His by birth

and covenant relation, and not by conduct; and (2) are not clear as to the sense in which they use the word

Church. It is by no means necessary to include those who will pass through and be saved out of the great

Tribulation in "the Church." The Church will not include all the saved.

R.V. Margin "Age."