Isaiah
26:19
19 Thy dead [muwth] men shall
live [chayah], together with my dead body [n@belah] shall they arise [quwm].
Awake [quwts] and sing [ranan], ye that dwell [shakan] in
dust [`aphar]: for thy dew [tal] is as the dew [tal] of
herbs ['owrah], and the earth ['erets] shall cast out [naphal] the
dead [rapha']. KJV-Interlinear
19 Your dead shall live; their
bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your
dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. ESV
This is a resurrection passage in the Old
Testament. The words for dead and dead
body, respectively, ‘muwth,’ and ‘nabelah,’ refer to dead things, carrion,
decaying and putrid.
Live and arise, speak of life, to recover, to repair,
to restore.
And so we have here the declaration of a resurrection,
which will occur in the end times, and at the time when Christ returns in the
Second Advent. That principle is
addressed in verse 21, which is still a couple of studies way.
But for now, the dew of the herbs, is symbolic, of the
rising of herbs in the spring after a long winter where they have every
attribute of appearing dead, dried up and useless. But in the spring the dew, or moisture of the
earth restores their life and they return again to the living.
Our dew, however, is not the dew of the earth but the
dew of the Spirit, which is the dew not of water but of light. And it is the Holy Spirit who will restore
life, when that future time arrives.
The earth, which again holds the dead, will give them
up, and will not be able to prevent their life from returning.
Now, on the one hand we have a Messiah who will come
and secure salvation, and then return again to complete judgment and then
establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
This return means that He has to leave in order to
return.
The return, which we call the Second Advent, will be
the time of the resurrection for Old Testament believers.
Remember that we as church age believers will have our
resurrection at the Rapture, and we will return with Christ at the Second
Advent. The seven years of the Tribulation
separates our resurrection, from the resurrection of the Old Testament
believers.
Christ was the first resurrection, ours is the second
resurrection, the Old Testament believers will be the third resurrection, and
the millennial believers will be the fourth and final resurrection at the end
of the Millennium.
These four resurrections are the first group.
There is a second group, which will be all unbelievers
who will be raised up and brought before Christ at the Great White Throne at
the end of the Millennium, and from there, all those condemned, will be thrown
into the Lake of Fire, forever.
Then, this universe will be destroyed and a new
universe will be created and then eternity will begin and continue forever.
When the resurrection occurs there will be great
singing and celebration, needless to say.
