When the trumpet of God sounds and the Lord Jesus returns to assume His rightful throne as King of kings and Lord of lords, then the bodies of all the saints, the elect of the new covenant and of all other covenants, will be raised from the dead. Their spirits and souls returning from Heaven with Jesus will enter their revived bodies—bodies now made eternally alive by the Holy Spirit.

Next, the living remnant, those who have survived all that has come to pass on the earth during the closing days of the Church Age, will be transformed from flesh-and-blood physical life into the Life of the Holy Spirit of God.

Then all the elect will ascend to meet the Lord Jesus in the air— not in Heaven but in the air. The purpose of our meeting Christ in the air is that we may be assigned to the thrones from which the fallen angels, who have ruled the nations from their spiritual vantage points in the air, have been cast down.

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (Ephesians 2:2)

"The prince of the power of the air."

The purpose of the resurrection of the saints is not that we may go to Heaven. We do not need to have our body raised from the dead in order to go to Heaven. We go to Heaven when our physical body dies and returns to the ground, provided we are rightly related to God through Christ.

The purpose of raising the bodies of the saints from their place of burial is that they may rise to meet the Lord in the air and then take over the thrones that have been vacated. The thrones have been vacated because the rebellious angels have been forced from them and hurled into the earth (Revelation 12:9).

The Seventh Aspect of the First Resurrection. The final event in the first resurrection from the dead will be the clothing of all the saints, including Enoch and Elijah and also those saints who rose from the dead after Jesus' resurrection, with a body like that of the glorified Jesus. We all shall be made perfect together.

Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:21)

For we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (II Corinthians 5:1)

The heavenly body that will clothe our revived mortal body is our reward for serving Jesus in this life. The grandeur, power, and capabilities of our heavenly body depend directly on the deeds we have practiced during our lifetime on the earth. Our new body is the consequence of our behavior now—in this world. Here is the perfect justice of God: we shall be clothed with our own works; we shall reap what we sow (II Corinthians 5:10).

To be continued.