The Resurrection Of Matt. 27

Q. Your Bible teaching has been a real blessing to me.

Perhaps you have answered this question already but I can’t find it in your website. Could you comment on the many bodies of the saints who were raised when Christ was raised from the dead? Was it only a select few or were all the saved OT saints raised? Did these people die again? What is the significance of this passage?

A. Matt. 27: 52 says that the bodies of many holy people were raised.  To me that doesn’t mean all.  On the morning of the Feast of First Fruits a sample of the harvest was brought to the Temple to be blessed.  It was called the Wave Offering because the sample sheaves were waved back and forth before the altar. I believe the people who came out of the grave with Jesus were the wave offering of the first resurrection.  I think Jesus took them with Him to Heaven when He ascended.  Five hundred years earlier the angel had told Daniel that the faithful of Israel will be raised at the end of the Great Tribulation. (Daniel 12:2)