You are wrong. The first resurrection, which ushers in the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ and His saints on this present earth, has to do with God's true Israel being vomited out by the planet and returning to the land that had in the previous 6000 years bereaved the nations
Ez. 36:11 And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
12 Yea, I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave them of men.
13 Thus saith the Lord God; Because they say unto you, Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy nations:
14 Therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither bereave thy nations any more, saith the Lord God.
15 Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord God.
This is about the 1000 year reign occupation of the land by the resurrected saints. Verse 12 says people will stop dying in the land of Israel. This did not happen when the Jews returned from Babylon. This will happen during the 1000 year reign." Everything said in Ez. 36 is true of the Resurrected Israel during the 1000 year reign. Some aspects of the return from Babylon might appear to have partially fulfilled Ez. 36, but the return from Babylon does not fufill all the things prophesied. You are selecting the things that were fulfilled, and are skipping over the parts that do not, pretending that the entire chapter perfectly fits and is certainly about the return from the Babylonian captivity.
Based on your false claim that Ez. 36 is certainly about the return from Babylon, you then staple Ez. 37:1-14 to chapter 36, as if it is a continuation of that prophecy and is also not about the resurrection. It is a different prophesy, which clarifies to the Jews how chapter36 will be brought about. How will the land ofIsrael be repopulated with immortal exiles? By the Holy Spirit raising them out of the ground at the resurrection and transporting them to the land of Israel as delimited in Ez. 47:13-23.
First of all, v.12 doesn't teach what you say. The NIV reads:
Ezek 37:12
12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
NIV
Or,
Ezek 37:12
12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel.
ESV
Or
Ezek 37:12
12 "Therefore prophesy, and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD," Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel
NASB
Or
Ezek 37:12
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, O my people, and bring you into the land of Israel.
Darby
Ezek 37 is a continuation of the previous chapter; for that chapter is also about the return to the land from their exile. Chapter 37 simply expands on the prophecy in chapter 36. And for your info, we are in the 1",000-year" reign of the kingdom. The general resurrection takes place only on the LAST DAY of this age, and your earthly kingdom is not on the last day. The Last Day is when Christ returns to RESTORE all things, which occurs when he recreates everything new!
Acts 3:21
21 He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God t
o restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.
NIV
Moreover, where are the OT prophecies by OT prophets that talk about this 1,000-year earthly kingdom? Point me to just one such prophecy in the OT.
Furthermore, in that wild and crazy and insane system of Dispensationalism, there will also be flesh and blood occupants; yet, scripture teaches that "flesh and blood" CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God!
1 Cor 15:50
50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
NIV
And this makes perfectly good sense since Christ's kingdom is NOT of this natural, earthly, ungodly world!
John 18:36
36 Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
NIV
Therefore, Dispensationalism is just as heretical as your false gospel is! Christ's kingdom is heavenly. It is the kingdom of a BETTER COUNTRY that Abraham and others sought after and longed for (Heb 11:6). The Kingdom of Christ consists of the New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven in which only the righteous will dwell after they are raised from the dead.
And one other thing before I forget. You said the other day that Ezek 37 isn't about "spiritual revival"! Yet, that is precisely what it's about. Read the first six chapters of Acts some day, and you'll discover that there were literally many thousands of Jews, including the religious elite, who came to believe in Christ after Pentecost arrived. And we shouldn't be surprised at this since Christ actually prayed for the forgiveness of sinners who crucified Him (Lk 23:34). And we certainly see that prayer being answered by the Father in the Book of Acts!
Also, here are two more "little factoids" about Ezek 37 that you won't like.
Ezek 37:14
14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.'"
NIV
Talk about you being a day late and a dollar short! The Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus and fulfilled at Pentecost! Yet, you have it's fulfillment at the beginning of this mythical earthly, "1,000-year" kingdom? And is that when the Jews returned the land from their exile in Babylon? Your wonky interpretation still has the Jews in exile in Babylon!
And how many times does God have to put his Holy Spirit into his people!? The first time in this Age of the Gentiles wasn't good enough? The gift of the Holy Spirit didn't take the first time, so God has to send his Spirit again to indwell Jews for this earthly kingdom?
Also, as I pointed out earlier, there will be no laws or commandments or decrees in the eternal New Order since ONLY the GLORIFIED righteous will dwell in the New Jerusalem, and the Law of God was never made for the righteous but only for the wicked (1Tim 1:8-11). The only law that will govern all the righteous is the Law of Love, since love can do no wrong -- and love never fails!
And more huge problems are found in these verses:
Ezek 37:26a-c
26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers... and I will put my sanctuary among them forever.
NIV
This "covenant of peace", in your eschatology, must be different from the eternal New Covenant. It can't be the eternal NC itself since that covenant was ratified at the Cross -- way before the "millennial" kingdom comes. So...are there two New Covenants? Do you know what the terms of this "covenant of peace" are? And what are the terms the Jews must fulfill?
Then we have this:
"...and I will put my sanctuary among them forever (26d).
The "sanctuary" that is promised to be among them "forever" cannot possibly be another physical temple, since the physical temple of the Old Covenant (a type of Christ) has been FOREVER replaced by Christ the antitype (Jn 2:19-21; Heb 9:1-12). (Typology is a one-way street; for the antitypes of the New Covernant never revert back to the weak, beggerarly, transitory types of the obsolete Old Covenant!) And by extension....Christ's Church since each member of his Church is in Christ and as such is a "living stone" to His Temple. of which Christ himself is the cornerstone (1Pet 1:5-6 ). The "sanctuary", therefore, that will be among God's people "forever" is none other than Christ himself and his Father. And, again, all this was inaugurated at Pentecost -- after the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ; and will finally be consummated on the LAST DAY when Christ returns (Rev 21:22).
It would be comical, if it weren't so sad, that you go to great lengths to twist and distort the prophecies in these two chapters that clearly predict that the exiled Jews in Babylon would one day return to their land. Instead, you have to go past this fulfilled prophecy and posit that the return to the land has to do with a different return to some fictional earthly kingdom. You do this because you don't like the implications to these two chapters -- that God does indeed act unilaterally. There are no conditions in either of these chapters to be fulfilled by the Jews. But the megabytes of irony with all your mental gymnastics that you perform on these chapters is that even if you were right, we find that God will act unilaterally in the New Eternal Order! There are a ton of first person pronouns in both these chapters, so there is no escaping the unconditional, unilateral nature of the promises stated therein. I have a very strong feeling you're not going to enjoy the New Order since God is going to be "forcing" his will upon all his servants.
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