Resurrection - Hebrews 13:20

Resurrection

Common
Trinity
Soul
Heaven
Hell
Satan/Demons
"Saved"
Baptism
Resurrection
  Psalm 50:5
  Matthew 2:17,18
  John 5:28,29
  1 Cor. 7:14
  1 Cor. 15:22
  1 Cor. 15:52
  Philippians 4:3
  Hebrews 13:20
  1 John 1:9
  1 John 2:2
  Revelation 20:5
Antichrist

Unique
Catholic
Mormon
SDA
JW
British Israel
Church
of Christ
Pentecostal
Islam

Science
Miracles
Evolution
Creation
Carbon Dating

Inspiration
Partial
Contradictions
& Inaccuracies

Hebrews 13:20

"Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant."

Problem:

This is the principal verse cited to prove the theory that only the baptized will be raised to the Judgment Seat of Christ. This conclusion is based on the following premises:

That Jesus himself was raised from the dead by the blood of the everlasting Abrahamic covenant. (Heb. 13:20).
That this blood was his own blood which ratified and confirmed the covenant. (Rom. 15:8).

Therefore, unless a mortal man enters into the everlasting covenant by means of baptism (in this dispensation) and thereby is washed in the blood of Christ, he cannot rise from the dead since the agency of resurrection, (namely the blood of Christ) is not available to him.

Solution:

This theory distorts the significance of the blood of Christ and the scriptural teaching on the resurrection which is a means, or an instrument to an end - the distribution of rewards and punishments. The actual rising forth out of the ground is only an incidental event. This is proved by the fact that at the appearing of Christ, saints will go into the kingdom without experiencing death at all, (1 Thess. 4:15-17), yet all these have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev. 5:9; 7:14).
When the writer to the Hebrews declared that the Lord Jesus was brought again from the dead, he was not referring merely to the rising forth out of the ground but of the whole great and glorious bestowal of immortality. To confine the meaning of this verse to a mere rising out of the ground is a narrow, mechanical, and erroneous view of the whole process.
The following two passages indicated the way in which resurrection is not confined to a mere emergence from the ground, but rather a means to what follows thereafter:
1. When Paul declared, "of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question" (Acts 23:6), he was not confining his hope to mere emergence from the ground, but rather he was looking forward to being bestowed with the crown of life which fadeth not away. (cf. 2 Tim. 4:8; Phil. 3:20-21.
2. "In the resurrection whose wife of them is she?" (Luke 20:33). Would any assert that the meaning here is only the rising from the ground? It is obvious that the meaning here has to do with conditions after the actual raising from the dead has been accomplished.
Whatever interpretation is given to explain the blood of Christ as the agent for bringing again the dead, must also be the same explanation to apply to the quick (living). On the day appointed for the appearing of the Lord two classes of saints will be gathered at the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.
1. first - the dead
2. second - those who are alive and remain. (1 Thess. 4:13-17).
Whatever efficacy the blood of Christ has, it is just as efficacious for the quick as it is for the dead.
Even if it could be proven (which it cannot) that this passage means that all those touched with the blood of Christ will come out of the ground, it does not necessarily follow that only those touched with the blood of Christ will rise out of the ground. The logic involved in this theory is:
1. All baptized will be raised.
2. Therefore, all the raised are the baptized.
Which is like saying:
1. All crows are black birds.
2. Therefore, all black birds are crows.
(Obviously all black birds are not crows, some are pigeons.)
This legalistic theory of the blood of Christ which in fact means that God cannot raise those not baptized must be rejected as infringing on the sovereignty of God. It allows that mortal man can decide by his own act (or failure to act i.e., to be baptized) whether or not he will make himself accountable to his Creator. What more pernicious and erroneous theory than that which teaches a teen-ager that it rests in his own hands whether or not he makes himself accountable to God?