When Jesus promises to raise believers on “the last day,” how should we understand that promise alongside the resurrection passages elsewhere in Scripture? We already have life in Christ, yet our bodies still suffer and die. Our hope rests in the Savior who will raise His people, rather than in our ability to work out a date.
Jesus Will Raise His People Bodily
In John 6, Jesus repeatedly joins present eternal life with future resurrection. He speaks of everyone who sees the Son and believes, the person drawn by the Father, and the person who feeds on Christ. I understand that feeding as receiving Him by faith, in keeping with His explanation that the one who comes and believes will not hunger or thirst. He also promises to lose none of those the Father has given Him. Their future depends on His faithfulness.
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus Himself promises to raise the person who believes in Him. We can depend on Him for that bodily future while learning the order of events from the passages that give further details. I understand the “last day” to look ahead to the completion of God’s purposes for this present world. I do not take that expression to require every resurrection and judgment to occur in one instant. Revelation 20 distinguishes the resurrection of the saints before Christ’s thousand-year reign from the resurrection of the remaining dead afterward.
John 5 helps us distinguish spiritual life now from bodily resurrection still ahead. In verse 24, the person who hears Christ’s word and believes the Father already has everlasting life, has passed from death into life, and will not come into condemnation. A believer does not have to wait until the end of history to discover whether he has received life. God gives that life when we believe the gospel; salvation is not a future wage we earn by persevering long enough.
Jesus then describes an hour when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come out (John 5:28-29). This concerns their bodies, not merely an inward spiritual change. Those who have done good come to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. Read alongside His promise in verse 24, those outcomes do not introduce a second way of obtaining life through good deeds. Faith in the Son brings life, and the deeds reveal the truth of a person’s response to Him. Obedience is the fruit of new life, rather than payment for it.
Daniel 12:1-3 had already announced resurrection amid unparalleled trouble for Israel and deliverance for those written in the book. People sleeping in the dust would awake to different outcomes: everlasting life, or shame and everlasting contempt. Daniel presents those outcomes together without explaining every interval between them. Revelation 20 gives more detail about their order, and I read the two passages together as a developing explanation of the same future. The wise who shine in Daniel’s vision receive their honor from God. He will not forget the faithfulness of those who serve and suffer for Him.
Paul describes Christ as the firstfruits in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23. The first portion of a harvest anticipates what will follow; Jesus’ bodily resurrection assures us that those who belong to Him will also be raised. Our hope is life in a body no longer subject to corruption, weakness, and death.
The Savior who guarantees that future is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, who lived without sin. Our redemption rests on His perfection and His willingness to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, inflicting real suffering on His innocent body. He shed His blood and died for us. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were united in the work of redemption. His saving sacrifice through His blood and death was complete before His burial. On the third day, He rose bodily from the dead. Everyone who repents and believes in Him receives forgiveness and life. Those genuinely born again are indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit, and Christ will complete the bodily redemption of people who already belong to Him.
The Church Will Be Gathered Before the Tribulation
Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 4 to believers grieving over Christians who had died. They needed to know whether death would cause their loved ones to miss the Lord’s coming. Paul explained that the dead in Christ would rise first and that living believers would then be caught up together with them. The dead are not left behind, and the living do not receive an advantage over them. Both groups will be with the Lord.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
I believe this gathering occurs before the literal seven-year Tribulation. Paul describes the church’s deliverance from coming wrath, and Christ promises preservation from the coming hour of trial (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9; Revelation 3:10). I read these assurances as support for the church’s gathering before that period. They do not promise freedom from persecution in the present age. Christ’s coming for His church is an imminent hope, meaning that we can expect Him at any moment. Titus 2:13 directs us to the blessed hope of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ appearing.
Paul also explains the bodily transformation in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53. He calls it a mystery, a truth God has disclosed: not every believer will die, but all will be changed. The mortal body will put on immortality in an instant. This promise concerns every true believer in the church, rather than a privileged class who qualify through superior devotion. We cannot earn a place in this gathering by serving well enough.
After the church is gathered, the Tribulation brings judgment upon a rebellious world and severe refining for Israel. I understand Daniel’s seventieth week as this future seven-year period, with the judgments described in Revelation taking place during it. The beast rises to power, and the final campaign turns against Jerusalem. God will still save people and preserve a remnant during that time. The church’s earlier gathering does not mean that people can no longer receive salvation through Christ’s completed work.
At the end of the Tribulation, Jesus returns publicly in glory. Revelation 19 describes Him coming to defeat the beast and the false prophet and the rulers gathered against Him. Matthew 24:29-31 explicitly places His visible coming after the Tribulation, with cosmic signs and angels gathering the elect from the four winds. I distinguish this public return to judge and establish His reign from the church’s earlier gathering to meet Him in the air.
I understand the last trumpet in 1 Corinthians 15 and the trumpet of God in 1 Thessalonians 4 as descriptions of the same gathering of the church. Some readers also identify these with the great trumpet of Matthew 24:31, or with Revelation’s seventh trumpet. The shared language makes the comparison understandable, but the use of a trumpet does not by itself establish identical timing.
Matthew describes the gathering in the setting of the public return after the Tribulation. Revelation’s seventh trumpet belongs to that book’s unfolding judgments. Paul’s passages describe the dead in Christ rising and living believers being changed and caught up to meet the Lord. Those settings, together with the promises about the church, guide how I relate these events. The word last does not require me to place Paul’s trumpet after every other trumpet mentioned anywhere in prophecy.
The expectation that Christ may gather us at any moment gives us reason to watch for Him without trying to assign a date. We can receive the comfort Paul intended even while studying the sequence carefully. For the grounds of this position in greater detail, see the complete study on the Rapture.
The First Resurrection Leads Into Christ’s Thousand-Year Reign
Revelation 20 describes a resurrection whose participants are blessed and holy and will reign with Christ. John specifically includes people killed for their testimony to Jesus who refused the beast’s worship and mark. Their execution did not deprive them of the kingdom. God raises them to share in the reign of the One for whom they suffered.
“Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”
Christ is the firstfruits, the church is raised and gathered at His coming for her, and the slain Tribulation saints are raised to share in His kingdom. Reading these passages together, I understand the first resurrection as the resurrection to life accomplished in the order Christ appoints. It is not restricted to the martyrs named in Revelation 20 or to a single moment that excludes the church’s earlier resurrection. John contrasts those who share in this life with the rest of the dead, who do not live again until the thousand years are finished.
The saints’ security does not remove their accountability. Believers appear before the judgment seat of Christ, where He evaluates the service of people who already belong to Him (2 Corinthians 5:10). Paul describes work being tested, with reward or loss, while the person whose work is burned up can still be saved (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). Careless or self-serving work does not become acceptable merely because the worker is saved.
That evaluation is different from the Great White Throne. A genuine believer is not awaiting a verdict on whether his good deeds outweigh his sins. Christ’s sacrifice has dealt with those sins, and the Holy Spirit has sealed him. I should take Christ’s judgment of my service seriously without making the reward a condition for keeping salvation. The coming evaluation calls for faithful obedience, while His shed blood, resurrection, and promise give us assurance that the second death has no power over us.
John mentions the thousand-year period six times in Revelation 20. Satan is bound so that he cannot deceive the nations until that period is over, and the saints reign with Christ. The reign follows Christ’s victory in Revelation 19 and precedes Satan’s final release. The Great White Throne and the new creation follow afterward. I receive this as a literal reign fulfilling the prophets’ promises of righteous government under David’s Messiah.
The church’s salvation does not cancel Israel’s promised restoration or make the nations’ submission to Christ an empty figure. God keeps His promises to the people He named, while saving Jews and Gentiles through faith in the same Savior. Those kingdom promises are examined further in the complete study on the Millennium.
At the end of the thousand years, Satan is released and deceives nations into another rebellion. God defeats them and casts the devil into the Lake of Fire. These rebels should not be confused with the glorified saints whom the second death cannot touch. Their revolt shows that living under righteous government does not by itself change a rebellious heart. They had received the benefits of Christ’s rule, yet still needed the saving grace found only in Him.
The Unredeemed Will Be Raised for Final Judgment
After the thousand years and the final rebellion, John sees the Great White Throne. The sea, Death, and Hades give up the dead, and each person is judged according to what the books record. This is the later resurrection of the unredeemed, whose guilt is established from their own deeds. God’s sentence is neither arbitrary nor based on incomplete knowledge.
Another book is opened, the Book of Life. I understand Scripture to teach that every person begins with his name written there and that the names of those who finally reject the Messiah are blotted out. Anyone not found written in it is cast into the Lake of Fire. The books of deeds disclose guilt, while the Book of Life identifies those who possess life. No one repairs his record at this judgment or receives a further opportunity to obtain salvation afterward.
John calls the Lake of Fire the second death. Jesus warned that God can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna, and I understand this as the final destruction of the unredeemed person (Matthew 10:28). It is neither endless conscious torment for the human dead judged here nor a temporary correction leading to everyone’s eventual restoration. Revelation 20:10 separately states that the devil, beast, and false prophet will be tormented forever. We need to retain that specific statement alongside the death and destruction described for the unredeemed dead.
The later resurrection therefore leads to an irreversible judgment, while the first resurrection brings life beyond the second death’s reach. God will bring rebellion to its end and bring His people into the new creation. The studies on the Great White Throne and eternal conscious torment and final judgment examine the grounds for these conclusions more fully.
Resurrection Hope Changes the Way We Live
When believers die, we mourn real loss. They are consciously with Christ while awaiting the resurrection of their bodies, but we still feel their absence. Paul’s comfort was that Christ would raise them and gather His people together to be with Him forever. We can weep while trusting that promise. Grief does not establish that someone lacks faith in the resurrection.
Waiting for Christ does not require nervous calculations. Jesus said that the Father had kept times and seasons in His own authority (Acts 1:7). A confident prediction can still be false, and those who trust it may be left disappointed or confused. We have no instruction to manufacture a date in order to prove that we are watching for Christ.
John says that everyone who has this hope purifies himself as Christ is pure (1 John 3:3). The Lord who promises bodily resurrection already has authority over how I live in my body. His grace gives me no permission for lawlessness. Genuine new life should be evident in our actions, even though obedience cannot buy salvation or keep us saved.
Watchfulness means responding to that authority in ordinary life. If Christ exposes sin I have been excusing, readiness includes repentance now rather than a promise to deal with it later. We should remain in His Word, care for fellow believers, and make His gospel known. Paul concludes his resurrection teaching by calling believers to steadfast work because their labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). A parent caring for children, a worker doing an honest day’s work, and a church member helping someone in need can serve the returning King in those responsibilities.
The people around us also need more than an explanation of the timeline. They need the risen Jesus, who forgives sin and gives eternal life. I cannot use prophecy as an excuse to enjoy the prospect of another person’s judgment. Christ came to seek and save the lost, and the opportunity to hear and believe is before them now. We should speak plainly about His authority while treating the people we hope to reach with patience and compassion.
My Final Thoughts
Jesus will raise every believer, and His promise gives us hope beyond the grave. I understand Scripture to teach that the church will be gathered before the Tribulation, that Christ will return publicly to reign for a literal thousand years, and that the unredeemed dead will afterward be raised for final judgment. Our confidence rests in the Savior who has already died and risen for us. As we await Him, let’s receive His comfort, obey Him in the responsibilities before us, and make His saving work known.