Question: What Did You Mean When You Said The Righteous Don’t Die They Are Passed From Death To Life In Your Most Recent Audio ‘What Does It Profit A Man?’ Are You Saying The Righteous Don’t Or Can’t Die?
Donald Bohanon: No. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 that the living know that they shall die but the dead know not anything. It goes on to say that even their love, hatred, and their envy have perished with them neither do they have any more portion of anything that’s done under the sun. In other words, they simply cease to exist and are in a state of complete unconsciousness.
So when a person dies they have no knowledge or consciousness of being dead. So because God has promised the righteous that they will be resurrected to glory even though they may have been dead for centuries it will appear to the righteous that they were instantly transitioned into glory because they had no knowledge of being dead at all.
Sort of like a person who was in a deep coma for years only to wake up having no knowledge at all of being in a coma, only knowledge of awakening to a conscious state. It will appear as thou the transition or change took place instantaneously in the twinkling of an eye as the Bible states, even though the person may have been dead for centuries. This is what the Bible means when it says the righteous are passed from death to life.
Although mankind, in general, will experience the same thing the righteous will be resurrected to the real-life Christ promised to give, more abundantly, as spirit-born sons of God, to his servants first, and to most men later.
It will be a much more profound. magnificent, and glorious experience than simply being resurrected back to human life as the rest of humanity will be. Which will pale in comparison to being resurrected as spirit-born sons of God. They won’t be judged as other men will be because they are being judged now, and they don’t need to worry about condemnation if they are growing in faith, fruit, and obedience.
John 5:24 King James Version
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
1 Corinthians 15:51-52 King James Version
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 King James Version
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.