Every person from Adam forward was in the same structural position as Avraham in the dark, held inside a covenant they did not witness, asleep to what YHWH was sealing on their behalf. The resurrection of Yeshua is not the beginning of a future process. It is the declaration that the process is complete.
Document 2 of 3
The previous document established the structural foundation. YHWH passed between the pieces alone while Avraham slept. He held both sides. He swore by himself because he had no one greater to swear by. The covenant sealed in that passage was sealed for the seed, which is Mashiach, as Paul establishes in Galatians 3:16.
This document asks the question the foundation makes necessary: who else was in the condition of Avraham in the dark? Who else was held inside a covenant they did not witness, asleep to what YHWH was sealing on their behalf?
The answer is every human being who has ever lived.
Avraham was not the only one who slept through the sealing. He was the first documented one. From Adam forward every person outside the visible covenant was in the same structural position, asleep, held, carried inside a passage they did not make and could not fail.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, But in fact Mashiach has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Mashiach all shall be made alive.
The tradition has read those who have fallen asleep as a euphemism for physical death, those whose bodies lie in graves awaiting a future physical resurrection. This reading has produced a gospel that is not yet finished, a gospel where the cross accomplished something that remains incomplete body by body, death by death, until some future moment of mass physical resurrection. The tradition built elaborate sequences and timelines around this reading. Stages of resurrection. Categories of who rises when. A gospel that began at the cross but will not be complete until a future event closes it.
That is not the gospel. The gospel is finished. What was sealed at the cross was sealed completely. The covenant that YHWH completed in the aloneness of Golgotha, as established in Document 1 and Document 3 of this series, was completed as the Genesis 15 covenant was completed. Entirely. Unconditionally. For all flesh. At once. The resurrection of Yeshua does not begin a future sequence of individual physical resurrections still to occur. It declares that the covenant sealed for all who slept is confirmed and complete.
The resurrection of Yeshua is not the first event in a future process still unfolding body by body. It is the declaration that the covenant sealed for all who slept is already what it is, complete, confirmed, accomplished. The harvest is not pending. The firstfruits declares it finished.
The sleep that Paul describes is the covenantal condition, the structural position of being outside the participatory covenant, unconscious of what YHWH was sealing, asleep as Avraham slept when YHWH passed between the pieces. From Adam to Avraham there was no covenant framework at all. From Avraham forward the visible covenant reached a portion of humanity. Every person who lived outside its visible reach, every human being of every nation who never heard the name YHWH spoken, who lived and died without conscious covenant participation, was in the condition Paul calls sleep. Not excluded. Not condemned. Asleep. Held inside what YHWH was sealing on their behalf while they were not present to participate or to fail it.
The Greek word for firstfruits is aparche, the first portion of the harvest brought to YHWH as a declaration that the entire harvest belongs to him. The firstfruits does not cause the harvest to exist or initiate a process by which the rest of the harvest will gradually come in. The firstfruits represents and consecrates a harvest that is already complete, already in the field, already what it is, already belonging to YHWH. When Paul calls Yeshua the firstfruits of those who slept, he is not saying Yeshua’s resurrection is the first of many future resurrections that will eventually accumulate into a complete harvest. He is saying the resurrection of Yeshua is the declaration that the harvest, all who slept, all flesh from Adam, is already what it is. Confirmed. Consecrated. Complete.
This is the precision of as in Adam all, in Mashiach all. Paul uses pas, every one, the entire category, without exception. The all in Adam is not a sub-category of humanity. It is every human being descended from Adam, which is every human being who has ever lived. And Paul says the all in Mashiach is the same all. Not a smaller all. Not the all who believed or participated or responded. The same all. Because the covenant was sealed for the same all, the all that was asleep, the all that YHWH held both sides for, the all in whom the firstfruits declares the harvest complete.
As in Adam all, in Mashiach all. The same all. Every human being from Adam. The covenant sealed for all who slept was sealed for the same all that descended from Adam. Which is every human being who has ever lived.
Paul in Ephesians 5:14 quotes an early covenant declaration: awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Mashiach will shine on you. The sleeper is being addressed, called to wake, called to arise, called to receive the light of Mashiach. This is not a command to physically resurrect from a grave. It is the proclamation that wakes the one who has been held inside the completed covenant without knowing it. Awake does not mean become included. It means come to know that you were always included. The gospel is not the invitation to enter a covenant that is available to those who respond. It is the announcement to those who slept that the covenant sealed for them while they slept is complete and confirmed in the firstfruits.
The grief Paul addresses in 1 Thessalonians 4, I do not want you to grieve as those who have no hope, concerning those who have fallen asleep, is not grief over bodies in graves waiting for a future physical resurrection. It is grief over those who died outside visible covenant participation, apparently outside the reach of what YHWH had done. The comfort Paul offers is not a future event. It is the present reality that those who slept, who died in the condition of Avraham in the dark, outside the visible covenant, asleep to the passage between the pieces being made on their behalf, are held inside the completed covenant. The firstfruits has risen. The harvest they are part of is declared. There is no future physical resurrection program waiting to include them. They are already in what was already sealed for them before they were born.
The gospel is not a process. It is an accomplished declaration. Sin abolished. Righteousness constituted universal. Judgment finished. For all who slept. For all flesh. From Adam. The firstfruits declared the harvest complete. The covenant sealed while Avraham slept and completed while the Father’s presence withdrew at the cross is the covenant Paul is proclaiming, finished, unconditional, for the same all that is in Adam. Awake, O sleeper. Not become included. Wake up to what has always been true.
The firstfruits declares the harvest complete, not pending. All who slept are held inside what was sealed for them. The covenant is finished. Not ongoing.
The tradition read the sleep as physical death awaiting future resurrection.
This produced a gospel that is not yet finished.
The covenant reading is different.
The sleep is the covenantal condition, outside the participatory covenant, as Avraham slept.
The firstfruits declares the harvest already complete.
As in Adam all, in Mashiach all. The same all. Finished.
Awake, O sleeper.
Not become included.
Wake up to what was always true.
The covenant sealed for you while you slept is complete.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams