John 5:24-29| Two Resurrections?

In the #3” href=”http://donkpreston.com/john-524-29-two-resurrections-3/” target=”_blank”>previous installment we exposed some of the inconsistency in the Dominionist camp in regard to John5, and the issue of the last days, the last day and the last hour. Be sure to read that installment here.

In this installment, I want to look closer at another major inconsistency in the Dominionist camp in regard to Daniel 12, John 5 and “church history.” This is a bit of a “side bar” discussion, but, it is one that is important nonetheless since it involves the charge of heresy that is so often leveled against advocates of the true preterist view.

We have shown that a growing number of Dominionists posit the fulfillment of Daniel 12 in AD 70. This raises an interesting issue.

 

John 5:24-29, Daniel 12 and Dominionist Inconsistency

Dominionists like to castigate preterists for being “out of step” with church history and scholarship. Preterists are just wrong to take positions that “no scholar” takes. However, when it comes to Daniel 12 there is a strange situation: Dominionists are increasingly rejecting church history and the consensus of scholarship!

Schmisek, comments on Daniel 12: “J. J. Collins sums it up best by saying, ‘there is virtually unanimous agreement among modern scholars that Daniel was referring to the actual resurrection of individuals from the dead, because of the explicit language of everlasting life. This is, in fact, the only generally accepted reference to resurrection in the Hebrew Bible.” (Brian Schmisek, Resurrection of the Flesh or Resurrection From the Dead, (CollegeVille, Min. Liturgical Press, 2013, p. 54). Okay, so, there is virtually universal scholarly consensus that Daniel 12 foretold a literal resurrection. But, what do a growing number of modern commentators believe, both Reformed Amillennialists and Postmillennialists?

James Jordan, with whom I had a formal public debate some years ago, considered six different views of the resurrection of Daniel 12, including a literal, physical resurrection. He rejected that view, concluding that Daniel 12, like Ezekiel 37, foretold a “national” corporate resurrection of Israel that took place in the first century (James Jordan, Handwriting on the Wall, (Powder Springs, GA. American Vision,2007)616.

Postmillennialist Kenneth Gentry, once accepted that Daniel foretold a literal, bodily resurrection (cf. (Kenneth Gentry, The Greatness of the Great Commission, (Tyler, Tx., Institute for Christian Economics, 1993)142). He now rejects that view, however– rejecting church history and scholarship– and says, in a dramatic turn around: “Daniel appears to be presenting Israel as a grave site under God’s curse; Israel as a corporate body is in the dust (Daniel 12:2; cp. Ge. 3:14, 19). In this he follows Ezekiel’s pattern in his vision of the dry bones, which represents Israel’s ‘death’ in the Babylonian dispersion (Ezekiel 37). In Daniel’s prophecy many will awaken, as it were, during the great tribulation to suffer the full fury of divine wrath, while others will enjoy God’s grace in receiving everlasting life” (He Shall Have Dominion, (Draper, VA., Apologetics Group, 2009)538).

So, we have now a radical change in the futurist camp, applying Daniel 12 to AD 70. But, if Daniel 12 was fulfilled in AD 70 then John 5:28-29 was fulfilled in AD 70.

Daniel foretold the resurrection of the just and the unjust.

John 5:28-29 foretold the resurrection of the just and the unjust.

Unless the futurists can prove that John 5. 28-29 is a different resurrection of the just and unjust from that in Daniel, then since they are now admitting that Daniel foretold the events of AD 70, this demands that John 5 was fulfilled in AD 70.

John 5:24-29, Daniel 12 – A Type of Something Greater?

Of course, what at least some of these men do is that, having surrendered Daniel 12 to the true preterist camp, they then claim– without so much as a syllable of proof– that even though John 5:24-29 clearly is an echo and reiteration of Daniel, that AD 70 was only a type and foreshadowing of the “real” resurrection at the so called end of time. But, this is completely untenable as I prove conclusively in my AD 70: A Shadow of the “Real” End? book. Be sure to get a copy of that to see that there is no Biblical support for the claim that AD 70 was a shadow of some other, some different resurrection.

 

Part of my point here is that even if one granted– for purely argument sake– that there are two resurrections in John 5:24-29, the fact that verses 28-29 reflect the prophecy of Daniel 12, and that since Daniel 12 foretold the events of AD 70, this would demand that the “final resurrection” of John 5:28-29 occurred in AD 70.

This fact is almost beyond possibility of refutation. Be sure to get a copy of my book:
Seventy Weeks Are Determined…For the Resurrection. It is one of the richest studies you will find demonstrating that the resurrection occurred at the end of the Old Covenant age of Israel in AD 70.

While we have not focused in this article on exegetical argumentation, I thought it important to show how inconsistent the opponents of Covenant Eschatology really are. They try to claim unity and “orthodoxy” in harmony with church history. And yet, they are clearly at direct variance with the world’s scholarship and with church history.

Stay tuned, we have more on John 5:24-29!