I really enjoyed your recent article about Daniel 11/12. Very insightful.
In this article, you wrote, “As He returns to save them and set up His Kingdom, the faithful of Israel’s past will come out of the ground to receive the promise they died believing, that God would one day send a redeemer to pay for their sins so that He could dwell with them forever. ”
I thought that Christ went to paradise to remove these people after His resurrection and took them to Heaven. Am I missing something here?
Matt 27:52-53 says that the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
I assume that only some were given bodies in order to fulfill the wave offering, or sample of the harvest, for the Feast of First Fruits (Lev. 23:9-14) which was being celebrated at the Temple as the women discovered the empty tomb.
This makes sense because if all the faithful since Adam had visited Jerusalem they would probably have out numbered the living residents. And the Greek says that many were given bodies, implying not all. Furthermore Matthew, who wrote to the Jews, is the only gospel where this is mentioned. So it had to be something particularly Jewish in its focus.
Since Daniel 12:2 clearly says that for those who died in faith Israel’s resurrection occurs at the second coming, that must be when the rest of the faithful receive their resurrection bodies.