29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
Verse 29 describes two resurrections, one for the lost and one for the believer. The first occurs before the millennial reign of Christ and the other at the end of the Millennium.
29 and come forth—
Those who are bodily dead will come out of their graves, and their bodies will once again be joined to their souls.
those who have done good [excellent],
The idea here is not that one has to do good to go to heaven. The “good” here is the by-product of salvation. The word “good” means excellent. It is the good that springs from faith. These words do not teach salvation by good works. The entire argument of the gospel of John asserts that a person is saved by what he or she believes (Jn 20:31).
to the resurrection of life,
For those who believe, there will be a future bodily resurrection unto eternal life. The resurrection to life will occur in stages. First, the Lord will rapture the church. Then He will resurrect the Tribulation saints at His Second Coming.
and those who have done evil [worthless things],
The words “done good” and “done evil” do not imply salvation by works or loss of salvation by evil deeds. The word for “evil” here is not moral evil but something worthless. It is an “evil” or worthless life to not trust in Christ for salvation.
to the resurrection of condemnation.
The resurrection of condemnation will occur at the end of the Millennium (Re 20:11-15). The lives of these people attest to their state of being lost eternally.
PRINCIPLE:
There are two resurrections: to life and to judgment.
APPLICATION:
There is only one reason why people are lost eternally—they reject the sacrifice of God’s Son for their salvation (Jn 3:36).
The dead will be raised in sequence (1 Co 15:22-24). There is an “order” to the resurrection of people. There will be a resurrection, and then “after that” another resurrection. First, believers will be raised at the Rapture (1 Th 4:16) and then the Old Testament and Tribulation saints at the end of the Tribulation (Re 20:4).
Revelation 20 indicates that there will be 1,000 years between the Rapture and the Great White Throne judgment. The first resurrection is of those who believed in Christ. The second resurrection includes anyone who died as an unbeliever.
God completely bypasses judgment for the believer because Jesus took our penalty for sin. He paid the price for our sin. There is no charge against the believer whereby he can be judged (Ro 8:33-34).
I have a concern about the first part of verse 29.
and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life,
I don’t see how bodies in the ground can be said to have “done good”. Bodies, in and of themselves, are just made up of the dust of the earth. But the Bible does speak of righteous or unrighteous souls.
2 Peter 2:8
8 for as long as that righteous man lived among them, day after day he was being tortured in his righteous soul by what he saw and heard in their lawless actions—
And here are two verses about souls being unrighteous.
Proverbs 21:10
10 The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.
Habakkuk 2:4
4 “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.
And here is a verse which shows that the body has nothing at all to do with the righteousness that God imparts to the soul of the believer and never to the body.
Romans 8:10
10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
Robert, the words “have done” are aorist, active, and participle. An aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. This verse speaks of what people did before they died.
And this verse talks about the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous which can’t just be physical bodies.
Acts 24:15
I have a hope in God, which these men themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection, both of the righteous and the unrighteous.
Robert, it is difficult to see your point. It is obvious that “resurrection” implies a living soul upon rising from the dead, whose body will be raised with his soul. Regarding the righteous, their souls go immediately to heaven at the point of their physical death (2 Cor 5:8) and their physical bodies will join with their souls in the resurrections. These resurrections are for a future day (John 6:40, 54). Those without Christ will experience a resurrection resulting in judgment. The idea is “to participate in a resurrection that issues in life and also a resurrection that issues in condemnation.” Both genitives indicate result.