Isaiah 26:16-18 English Standard Version

16 O Lord, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.
17 Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O Lord;
18  we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
    and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

I can understand why Israel had a nationalistic view as it is stated in verse 2 “Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.”

Now in our life we are given the Word to understand what being born again means. I see how verse 18 might have been misunderstood by the religious leaders of that time. Giving birth to the Spirit because wind in that verse in the Hebrew is רוּחַ rûwach, roo’-akh; from H7306; wind; by resemblance breath. It could be misconstrued as something else and not the spiritual birth by the breath of God.

Hints of a future event that are not clearly understood will not sway people to give up their point of view. Israel held firmly to their nationalistic promises and ignored any personal connection. Here is an opinion that I found in the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia:  “It is very remarkable that a doctrine of life after death as an essential part of religion was of very late development in Israel, although this doctrine, often highly elaborated, was commonly held among the surrounding nations. The chief cause of this lateness was that Israel’s religion centered predominantly in the ideal of a holy nation. Consequently the individual was a secondary object of consideration, and the future of the man who died before the national promises were fulfilled either was merged in the future of his descendants or else was disregarded altogether.”

Perhaps this is why the words of Jesus were so readily accepted when the people heard them. He did not disregard them in any way. He took His message to the people who were thirsty for the Word because the religious leaders of the day did not give them a second thought.

When leaders stop tending to the needs of the people, the people stop listening.

Matthew 11:7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

A reed is not stiff and bends to the breath of God.

Exodus 32:9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.

Matthew 22:23-28 English Standard Version

Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

If they do not believe why ask?

The same thing could be said of anything and everything within the bible. The simple answer is that we do not understand everything perfectly. Those of us in Christ understand resurrection.

Or is our understanding imperfect?

Revelation 20:5-6

The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Since God’s Word is true, then is it possible that the millions of us that are hoping for the rapture to happen any minute now are to be disappointed that if it happens it isn’t a resurrection?

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

What we commonly call the Rapture is not identified as a resurrection. Risen to be with the Lord is not described here as coming to a new life. Lazarus has risen to his old life, not a new life.

Matthew 28:6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

We call that Sunday Resurrection Sunday but according to His Word Jesus has risen, not to a new life but rather to the life He had with the Father in the beginning. Maybe we do not have a proper understanding of resurrection. Or are we right? God only knows.