Page 54 - Jesus is coming - Class version

OBJECTIONS. 51

The fallacy of this is easily seen, for these holy dead
enjoyed the spiritual resurrection before they "were be-
headed for the witness of Jesus." Clearly, it was because
of this spiritual life in Christ and their faith in the Word
of God, that they became witnesses for Jesus and refused
to worship the beast, or his image or receive his mark,
and therefore they were beheaded (see chap. 13:11-15).
Besides, i/t^as (psukas souls) means also life, person or
individual. See same word in Acts 2 :41, "there were
added unto them about three thousand souls (persons)"
and in Acts 7:14; 27:10-37; 1 Cor. 15:45; 1 Pet. 3:
20; Rev. 12:11; 16:3, it unmistakably means persons. 15
A spirit could not be beheaded. Only a person having
body and spirit could be beheaded, and such it is evident
these were. But they suffered physical death ; that is, separ-
ation of soul and body, and became part of the great com-
pany of the dead. The 5th verse emphatically confirms
this these being that portion of the dead ones (vocpoiv)
while "the rest of the dead lived not
who lived, again until
the thousand years were finished," and "this is the
-first
resurrection."
Tn this objection Post-millennialists manifest one of
their most remarkable inconsistencies. They labor assidu-
ously to disprove the literalism of the first resurrection,
described in verses where Cat" -zao= to live and
4-6,
dracrrao-is- anastasis= resurrection are each twice used,
while they hold that verses 12 and 13 do describe a literal
resurrection, though neither zao nor anastasis are used
therein. Consistency requires that, if either is spiritual,
it should be the latter. How much better to accept both
as literal.
(15) Acts 7:14. Then sent longsuffe? .'ng of God waited in
Joseph, and called his father the days of Noah, while the ark
Jacob to him, and all his kin- was preparing, wherein few, that
dred, threescore and fifteen souls. is, eight souls were saved by
Acts 27 :37. And we were in wa*er -
all in the ship two hundred Rev ' 16 :3 ' And the stjcond
,
gel poured out hls vlal u P n
threescore and sixteen souls. f
the sea ; and it became as the
1 Pet. 3:20. Which sometime blood of a dead man: and every
were disobedient, when once the living soul died in the sea.