The Day is not only a judgment upon the living; it is also an awakening of the dead. And the New Testament does not let that resurrection happen all at once, but in an order — a sequence that gives the Day its inner structure and that, once seen, lets a great deal fall into place.
Paul sets down that order in the great resurrection chapter. Christ has been raised, he says, "as the Firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" — and then: each in his own order: Christ the Firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's, at His coming. The word he chooses is tagma, a military term: a rank, a division that takes its turn to fall in. The resurrection is no disordered mass but an ordered procession, and there are intervals between the ranks. The first rank has already fallen in: Christ, the Firstfruits — and not by chance did He rise on the day of the Feast of Firstfruits (chapter 12). The second rank falls in "at His coming," en tē parousia autou: those who are Christ's, at the return. And then, Paul says, "the end" (to telos), when He hands the kingdom over to God the Father, "when He shall have abolished all rule" — and the last enemy that is abolished is death.
Between those ranks lies time. Between the Firstfruits (then) and the second rank (at the parousia) lies already nearly two thousand years — the interval in which we live. That there may also lie an interval after the parousia, before "the end," is precisely what the resurrection chapter leaves open and what John fills in: a "first resurrection" of the blessed, and then "the rest of the dead who did not come to life until the thousand years were completed" (Rev 20:5). Paul's tagma-structure and the two resurrections of Revelation fit together: the resurrection is phased, with the thousand-year kingdom between the ranks. This book reads that premillennially — with the honest acknowledgment (chapter 4) that it is precisely the fitting-in of the millennium that is the weakest link, for the jom-phrases themselves do not reach explicitly into that interval. The order stands fast; the precise measure of the interval is weighed.
And the resurrection has its own signal, which by now you recognize everywhere: the trumpet. In an indivisible instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. "The last trumpet" — the same trumpet with which the Lord descends (1 Thess 4:16), the same trumpet that peals through the whole field of the Day, from Sinai to Zion. The resurrection is a trumpet-event, and it falls within the Day.
What does this mean for the believer who stands before the Day? It means that for him the Day is not, first of all, terror but victory. For here, at the close of Paul's argument, the Old Testament promise falls into place that Isaiah already gave in his apocalypse (chapter 7): "death shall be swallowed up in victory" (Isa 25:8). The Day on which the world sees its lights go out is, for the one who is in Christ, the day on which death itself dies. The last word about the Day in the New Testament is therefore not a word of wrath but of life: the graves open, the corruptible puts on incorruption, and God becomes "all in all" — the day of the LORD completed as the day of God.
So the New Testament closes its treatment of the Day as the OT began it: at the promise of life on the far side of the judgment. The Warrior who marches out, the Judge who comes, the winepress that is trodden — it does not end on an empty battlefield but on a resurrection in order, on a kingdom handed over to the Father, on a death swallowed up. Whoever sees the Day only as an ending has not read this chapter. For the one who belongs to the Lamb, the Day is the morning of the resurrection.
Excursus 18·1The tagma and the phased resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:23-26 orders the resurrection into "ranks" (tagmata) with intervals: (1) Christ, the Firstfruits — already risen; (2) "those who are Christ's, at His coming" (en tē parousia) — at the return; (3) "the end" (to telos), the handing over of the kingdom, with death as the last enemy abolished. That there lies a long interval between (1) and (2) (the present time) is undisputed; the question is whether there also lies an interval between (2) and (3). Revelation 20 fills that in: a "first resurrection" of the blessed who reign with Christ a thousand years, and only afterward the resurrection of "the rest of the dead" (20:4-6). The premillennial reading joins the two: Paul's tagma leaves the room, Revelation 20 fills it. Honestly noted (chapter 4): this is the place where this book acknowledges its own weakest link — the explicit jom JHWH-phrases do not demonstrably reach into the millennial interval; the fitting-in rests on Revelation 20 plus the tagma-structure, not on the Day-phrase itself. The amillennial and postmillennial readings are therefore noted as serious alternatives. *(The phased tagma: well-documented. The premillennial fitting-in of the interval: weighed; the millennium-placement: the weakest link.)*
Excursus 18·2"The last trumpet": which trumpet?
1 Corinthians 15:52 links the resurrection-change to "the last trumpet" (hē eschatē salpinx), and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 to "the trumpet of God." Three questions. (1) Is this the same as the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15? Some hold that it is (it would make the rapture posttribulational); others distinguish them (Paul's "last trumpet" is the resurrection-signal for the church, the trumpets of Revelation are judgment-signals over the world — a different series). This book keeps them weighed-distinct: the context of 1 Cor 15 is the resurrection-change of the believers, not the judgment of the world. (2) Paul speaks of "the trumpet of God" (1 Thess 4:16): God's own signal, not the shofar of a feast day. This book therefore does not bind the rapture to the Feast of Trumpets (chapter 12). (3) "Last" probably denotes not a numbered series but finality: the trumpet that ushers in the end. The term is therefore qualitative ("the decisive, concluding trumpet") rather than a position in a list. (The trumpet-link to resurrection/rapture: well-documented. The equation with Rev 11:15: contested; this book distinguishes, weighed.)
DossierThe resurrection in order
The ranks of 1 Cor 15:23-26, with their time-markers and parallels.
Rank (tagma)
Who
When
Parallel
Firstfruits
Christ
already risen
Lev 23 (Firstfruits); 1 Cor 15:20
Second rank
"those who are Christ's"
en tē parousia
1 Thess 4:16; Rev 20:4-6 (1st resurrection)
interval
(the millennium)
Rev 20:4-6
premillennial — weighed
The end (telos)
"the rest of the dead"
after the thousand years
Rev 20:5,11-15
Last enemy
death itself
abolished
1 Cor 15:26; Isa 25:8; Rev 21:4
(The ranks and their wording: well-documented. The millennial interval: weighed — the weakest link, honestly noted.)
Expert notetagma, aparchē and the inclusio with Isaiah 25:8
Three philological notes close the New Testament section. (1) τάγμα (tagma, 1 Cor 15:23) is a military term for an ordered division or rank that takes its turn to fall in (cf. the Latin ordo); Paul thus depicts the resurrection as a disciplined procession, not as a single moment — the intervals are in the word. (2) ἀπαρχή (aparchē, "firstfruits," 15:20,23) is exactly the term of the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev 23:10, LXX); Christ's resurrection on that feast day is its fulfillment, and guarantees the harvest that follows — the firstfruits are the pledge of the rest. (3) Paul closes his argument (15:54) with a citation of Isaiah 25:8, κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος ("death is swallowed up in victory"), from the Isaiah-apocalypse (chapter 7) — an inclusio that closes the whole field of the Day: what Isaiah 25 promised in the seed, the resurrection brings to pass. The last word about the Day is thereby drawn from the prophet who painted it most broadly. (The philology and the citation: well-documented.)
The Day is not only a judgment upon the living; it is also an awakening of the dead. And the New Testament does not let that resurrection happen all at once, but in an order — a sequence that gives the Day its inner structure and that, once seen, lets a great deal fall into place.
Paul sets down that order in the great resurrection chapter. Christ has been raised, he says, "as the Firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" — and then: each in his own order: Christ the Firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's, at His coming. The word he chooses is tagma, a military term: a rank, a division that takes its turn to fall in. The resurrection is no disordered mass but an ordered procession, and there are intervals between the ranks. The first rank has already fallen in: Christ, the Firstfruits — and not by chance did He rise on the day of the Feast of Firstfruits (chapter 12). The second rank falls in "at His coming," en tē parousia autou: those who are Christ's, at the return. And then, Paul says, "the end" (to telos), when He hands the kingdom over to God the Father, "when He shall have abolished all rule" — and the last enemy that is abolished is death.
Between those ranks lies time. Between the Firstfruits (then) and the second rank (at the parousia) lies already nearly two thousand years — the interval in which we live. That there may also lie an interval after the parousia, before "the end," is precisely what the resurrection chapter leaves open and what John fills in: a "first resurrection" of the blessed, and then "the rest of the dead who did not come to life until the thousand years were completed" (Rev 20:5). Paul's tagma-structure and the two resurrections of Revelation fit together: the resurrection is phased, with the thousand-year kingdom between the ranks. This book reads that premillennially — with the honest acknowledgment (chapter 4) that it is precisely the fitting-in of the millennium that is the weakest link, for the jom-phrases themselves do not reach explicitly into that interval. The order stands fast; the precise measure of the interval is weighed.
And the resurrection has its own signal, which by now you recognize everywhere: the trumpet. In an indivisible instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. "The last trumpet" — the same trumpet with which the Lord descends (1 Thess 4:16), the same trumpet that peals through the whole field of the Day, from Sinai to Zion. The resurrection is a trumpet-event, and it falls within the Day.
What does this mean for the believer who stands before the Day? It means that for him the Day is not, first of all, terror but victory. For here, at the close of Paul's argument, the Old Testament promise falls into place that Isaiah already gave in his apocalypse (chapter 7): "death shall be swallowed up in victory" (Isa 25:8). The Day on which the world sees its lights go out is, for the one who is in Christ, the day on which death itself dies. The last word about the Day in the New Testament is therefore not a word of wrath but of life: the graves open, the corruptible puts on incorruption, and God becomes "all in all" — the day of the LORD completed as the day of God.
So the New Testament closes its treatment of the Day as the OT began it: at the promise of life on the far side of the judgment. The Warrior who marches out, the Judge who comes, the winepress that is trodden — it does not end on an empty battlefield but on a resurrection in order, on a kingdom handed over to the Father, on a death swallowed up. Whoever sees the Day only as an ending has not read this chapter. For the one who belongs to the Lamb, the Day is the morning of the resurrection.
Excursus 18·1The tagma and the phased resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:23-26 orders the resurrection into "ranks" (tagmata) with intervals: (1) Christ, the Firstfruits — already risen; (2) "those who are Christ's, at His coming" (en tē parousia) — at the return; (3) "the end" (to telos), the handing over of the kingdom, with death as the last enemy abolished. That there lies a long interval between (1) and (2) (the present time) is undisputed; the question is whether there also lies an interval between (2) and (3). Revelation 20 fills that in: a "first resurrection" of the blessed who reign with Christ a thousand years, and only afterward the resurrection of "the rest of the dead" (20:4-6). The premillennial reading joins the two: Paul's tagma leaves the room, Revelation 20 fills it. Honestly noted (chapter 4): this is the place where this book acknowledges its own weakest link — the explicit jom JHWH-phrases do not demonstrably reach into the millennial interval; the fitting-in rests on Revelation 20 plus the tagma-structure, not on the Day-phrase itself. The amillennial and postmillennial readings are therefore noted as serious alternatives. *(The phased tagma: well-documented. The premillennial fitting-in of the interval: weighed; the millennium-placement: the weakest link.)*
Excursus 18·2"The last trumpet": which trumpet?
1 Corinthians 15:52 links the resurrection-change to "the last trumpet" (hē eschatē salpinx), and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 to "the trumpet of God." Three questions. (1) Is this the same as the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15? Some hold that it is (it would make the rapture posttribulational); others distinguish them (Paul's "last trumpet" is the resurrection-signal for the church, the trumpets of Revelation are judgment-signals over the world — a different series). This book keeps them weighed-distinct: the context of 1 Cor 15 is the resurrection-change of the believers, not the judgment of the world. (2) Paul speaks of "the trumpet of God" (1 Thess 4:16): God's own signal, not the shofar of a feast day. This book therefore does not bind the rapture to the Feast of Trumpets (chapter 12). (3) "Last" probably denotes not a numbered series but finality: the trumpet that ushers in the end. The term is therefore qualitative ("the decisive, concluding trumpet") rather than a position in a list. (The trumpet-link to resurrection/rapture: well-documented. The equation with Rev 11:15: contested; this book distinguishes, weighed.)
DossierThe resurrection in order
The ranks of 1 Cor 15:23-26, with their time-markers and parallels.
(The ranks and their wording: well-documented. The millennial interval: weighed — the weakest link, honestly noted.)
Expert notetagma, aparchē and the inclusio with Isaiah 25:8
Three philological notes close the New Testament section. (1) τάγμα (tagma, 1 Cor 15:23) is a military term for an ordered division or rank that takes its turn to fall in (cf. the Latin ordo); Paul thus depicts the resurrection as a disciplined procession, not as a single moment — the intervals are in the word. (2) ἀπαρχή (aparchē, "firstfruits," 15:20,23) is exactly the term of the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev 23:10, LXX); Christ's resurrection on that feast day is its fulfillment, and guarantees the harvest that follows — the firstfruits are the pledge of the rest. (3) Paul closes his argument (15:54) with a citation of Isaiah 25:8, κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος ("death is swallowed up in victory"), from the Isaiah-apocalypse (chapter 7) — an inclusio that closes the whole field of the Day: what Isaiah 25 promised in the seed, the resurrection brings to pass. The last word about the Day is thereby drawn from the prophet who painted it most broadly. (The philology and the citation: well-documented.)