A Resurrection of Hope: God’s Plan for All Who Never Knew Him

Tick. Tock.

In the time it takes for you to read this sentence, around 20 people—a sister, a brother, a mother or father, a soldier, a prisoner, a child—have died.

Tick. Tock.

There are entire websites that are set up like clocks, ticking deaths each day, each second. It’s enough to make your heart pound a little harder, every heartbeat another tick of the clock. Every two seconds, two more have died.

Tick. Tock.

The magnitude of life and death is huge when you stop to think about it at this level. Who are these people dying every second? Were they scared? What was their last thought? Did they have hope of living again, or were they completely unaware of what God has in store for them?

“A future and a hope”

No matter what someone believed when they died, whether they thought there was a God or not, the Creator of us all has a plan for us all.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). While the context of this verse is toward the captive nation of Israel, Scripture as a whole shows God’s desire is for everyone to have a hopeful future.

We see that made plain in 2 Peter 3:9:

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (emphasis added).

This is for you—believer or not. It’s personal and broadly encompassing for every person who’s ever existed. No one is left behind.

There is one major caveat, though. We each must choose between life (through obedience to God) and death (through continuing in our own ways). God wants you to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). But to choose life—which is to choose to follow God’s laws, accept the revealed truths in Scripture and lovingly obey—God must open our mind to understand, as Christ did in Luke 24:45.

But Christ Himself says God’s way of life is a difficult path to stay on. Few in this life actually find it (Matthew 7:14).

And, tick, tock, people die every day. What does God have in store for those who never had an opportunity to really understand? We know it’s a future and a hope, but what does that look like? How will God bring that about?

A resurrection for all

Regardless of the popular belief that when you die you go to heaven or hell, the Bible actually reveals that death is more like sleeping, awaiting a resurrection at a future time (Job 3:11-17; Psalm 13:3; Ecclesiastes 9:5; Isaiah 57:1-2; Daniel 12:2; John 11:11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:30, 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:14).

Scripture reveals distinct resurrections at various phases of His plan for salvation. There is a resurrection for those who understand and commit to God while alive on this earth; it’s called the first resurrection and the better resurrection because it leads directly into eternal life in God’s family (1 Corinthians 15:50-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17; Hebrews 11:35; Revelation 20:4-5).  

But the second resurrection is different. It is a resurrection to a new physical lifetime to stand before God in judgment yet then with the opportunity to receive forgiveness and understanding to properly commit to following God, being offered the same gift of eternal life those in the first resurrection obtained.

The Bible tells us that this second resurrection occurs at the conclusion of the 1,000-year millennial reign of Christ on earth, pictured by the Feast of Tabernacles: “But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:5).

Continuing in verses 11-12, we see a more vivid picture of this resurrection:

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books [of the Bible] were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.”

Notice it is a resurrection into physical life (Ezekiel 37:4-6; Matthew 12:42), where people will be taught the ways of God for the first time, using the same Bible books we have today. They will be offered the same choice we all have—God’s way of life or the former ways of Satan, which lead to death.

This isn’t a second chance at salvation; rather, it is a first real opportunity to know the true God, free from Satan’s deception that has blinded every nation throughout the span of human history (Revelation 20:1-3).

It is not a resurrection into instantaneous sentencing, but into life, true understanding and later a final judgment.

Victory over death

Then afterward, those who choose obedience will then be offered the gift of eternal life in God’s family. They will no longer have physical bodies, but they will be given new, spiritual ones that will never decay or be destroyed, like those in the first resurrection:

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:53-57).

The second resurrection and all that it encompasses—a chance for everyone to live God’s way, judgment, eternal life granted, death destroyed—is something God’s Church celebrates and commemorates annually during the Eighth Day, sometimes referred to as the Last Great Day, the final festival of God listed in Leviticus 23:39.  

It is truly a great day, when God’s plan will finally be fully realized and every person will see it! There will be no more pain or sorrow, no tears, no death (Revelation 21:4). In deep anticipation of this wonderful future, we pray regularly as Christ did: “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . . For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:10, 13).

Until then . . .  

Tick. Tock.

Time continues to tick on. People are born, and people die. This is an inevitability. But it’s not the end! “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment . . .” (Hebrews 9:27).

For God’s Church, judgment is now (1 Peter 4:17). And as we read, everyone else will have their time of judgment, too, when the Millennium has ended and that great second resurrection is done.  

All who have ever lived, who never knew God or understood His ways, will have the opportunity to choose life for the first time.

So, the clock will continue to tick and tock. That may make our hearts pound a little faster, but knowing this great hope, may it be because we anticipate this day with great excitement, not because we fear the unknown.  

For each ticking second, our loving Father and Savior Jesus Christ have a plan for us all, a future and a hope. And that should calm our hearts and minds.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).