- 37 - 8. 8 The Resurrection of the Dead is not the resurrection of the Bodies The first desertion was the great revolt of the spirits led by Lucifer. That was the first ‘sin unto death’. 6. The Resurrection of the dead is therefore their repentant ascension from their exile in the realm of the spiritually dead into the kingdom of God. It is the homecoming of the former deserters. They have the Redeemer to thank for the fact that they can return and that Lucifer, the ruler of the kingdom hostile to God, may no longer hold them by force. By his victory over the ruler of the kingdom of the dead Christ secured the release of all those who sincerely repent of their ways and long to return to God.. Christ was the first to descend to the dead in hell without himself being one of those separated from God. He also was the first to ascend from hell to heaven. Before him, this had not been possible for any of the fallen spirits. Spirits, once they had entered hell, were powerless to escape from there to the heights. • Christ’s ascent from hell was the first ‘R e s u r r e c t i o n f r o m t h e d e a d ’ . To which frequent reference is made by Paul in his epistles, as in that to the Ephesians, in which he writes as for the phrase: Ephesians 4: 9: ‘Christ ascended on high, what does that mean but that he first descended to places lower than the earth?’ What Paul means here are the spheres of hell. They are, as I have told you on another occasion, lower than the terrestrial spheres. To the Colossians he wrote: Colossians 2: 15: ‘Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he triumphed over them.’ The powers and authorities to which Paul refers are those of hell, against which Christ fought, aided by the celestial legions, after his descent into hell, and which he overcame, forcing Lucifer, their ruler, to surrender those of his subjects who desired to escape from his rule. Paul refers to this in the same epistle with the words: Colossians 2: 12-13: ‘Because you belong to Christ, you were also raised with him.... You, too, who were once dead, God restored to life together with him.’ The Colossians, to whom Paul was writing, had also formerly been spiritually dead and Lucifer's subjects, but in time they came to believe in Christ and in the kingdom of God. Through their faith they gave their allegiance to Christ and shared in the kingdom of God, together with him. When it says here that Christ was restored to life, this does not mean that he had been spiritually dead, but that he had been in the realm of the spiritually dead and was outwardly separated from God’s kingdom. To all effects, Christ was, during his stay in hell, like someone who was spiritually dead, although he himself was not spiritually dead. God restored him to life insofar as He gave Christ the power to overcome the forces of the realm of the dead, and thus brought him back into the kingdom of celestial life.
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