Are there any survivors in the apocalypse of John?

[Ben C. Smith]

Paul envisions that, at the advent of the Lord Jesus, some people will still be alive, and will thus never experience death:

1 Corinthians 15.51-52: 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

But there was a Jewish notion that every single human being would die by the end:

I wonder if Paul sees that those who are changed at the end are already technically 'dead', so it makes sense that their corruptible mortal body can be changed to an incorruptible immortal one (1 Cor 15:54) along with the actual dead:

Rom 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Maybe, but "we will not all sleep" has to mean something; here the metaphor seems to be sleep for death, not death for baptism in Christ, right?

[davidmartin]

another odd thing, and sorry i'm too busy to check, is someone assured me that in Revelation no-one goes into the 'lake of fire' except the few named individuals, contrary to the assumption this describes 'hell' , so everyone else just is dead

That looks very unlikely to me:

Revelation 13.8: 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

Revelation 20.15: 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

well there goes that theory, at least it wasn't mine!
there was a god who liked humans being burnt to him and it wasn't yahweh, great work of apocolyptic literature though one of the best

[andrewcriddle]

I'm not sure but Revelation 12:6

and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

may imply that there will be righteous survivors of the tribulation.

Andrew Criddle

[Ben C. Smith]

I'm not sure but Revelation 12:6

and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

may imply that there will be righteous survivors of the tribulation.

Andrew Criddle

Good one.

I am honestly not sure how Revelation 12 fits into the whole scope of the book, even aside from this detail.

[Ben C. Smith]

I'm not sure but Revelation 12:6

and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

may imply that there will be righteous survivors of the tribulation.

Andrew Criddle

What do you make of Revelation 12, Andrew? Surely it has to mean something that the number of days (1,260) here matches the number of days in Revelation 11 (the two witnesses' tenure). But is that time period the same as "time, times, and half a time" in 12.14? And then, after the dragon vows to make war on the woman's children (12.17), another period which could denote the same approximate range, 42 months, appears in 13.5; the dragon standing on the shore in 13.1 seems to be drawing continuity between chapters 12 and 13.

Even back during a time when I foolishly thought I had something of a grasp on this book, chapters 11 and 12 still rather perplexed me. Elaborate partition theories never took hold in my mind, with the only possible exceptions being those two chapters and the letters to the seven churches. I can see why some scholars have been led to think that this book is a sometimes clumsy attempt (despite all the apparent structuring using the number 7) to sew together various inconsistent sources.

ETA: If chapter 12 is a self contained unit which could theoretically span the entire time frame of the rest of the book — as it appears to be, at least at first glance — then the woman's sojourn in the wilderness may mean survivors exist. If, on the other hand, chapter 12 is part of the sequence of events — as 13.1 seems to imply — then events have not yet gotten to the point at which a meaningful category of survivors can exist.

[John2]

Paul envisions that, at the advent of the Lord Jesus, some people will still be alive, and will thus never experience death:

1 Corinthians 15.51-52: 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

But isn't the "change" that will happen to the living a kind of death? As he says in 15: 22-23, "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then at his coming, those who belong to him."

And as he goes on to say in 15:53-54: "For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

Here the living appear to be subject to the same victory over death that he thinks the resurrected will be.

[Ben C. Smith]

Paul envisions that, at the advent of the Lord Jesus, some people will still be alive, and will thus never experience death:

1 Corinthians 15.51-52: 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

But isn't the "change" that will happen to the living a kind of death? As he says in 15: 22-23, "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then at his coming, those who belong to him."

"In Adam all die." Yes, that is interesting. Yet "we shall not all sleep" has to mean something, as I intimated before.

And as he goes on to say in 15:53-54: "For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

Here the living appear to be subject to the same victory over death that he thinks the resurrected will be.

Well, never dying would be a victory over death, and it would be mortality (which is the capacity for death, not death itself) being overtaken by immortality. "In Adam all die" is impactful in this context in a way that these latter two verses are not.

[John2]

"We will not all sleep." Damn it, you're right, that does complicate things. Alright, but what about 15:24, "Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power"?

And 15:35-49:

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body as He has designed, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body ... It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

The spiritual, however, was not first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so also are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so also shall we bear the likeness of the heavenly man.

Here he again seems to be equating the "changed" living body with the resurrected body ("What you sow does not come to life unless it dies"). First one has a "natural" body, and then it "dies" and becomes a "spiritual" body, either by dying and resurrecting or by "changing," right?

[Ben C. Smith]

"We will not all sleep." Damn it, you're right, that does complicate things. Alright, but what about 15:24, "Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power"?

And 15:35-49:

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body as He has designed, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body ... It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

The spiritual, however, was not first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so also are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so also shall we bear the likeness of the heavenly man.

Here he again seems to be equating the "changed" living body with the resurrected body ("What you sow does not come to life unless it dies"). First one has a "natural" body, and then it "dies" and becomes a "spiritual" body, either by dying and resurrecting or by "changing," right?

I am pretty sure that throughout most of chapter 15 the focus is on the usual course of things, without necessarily implying that the usual is also the universal. None of the verses you have cited so far create any real discrepancy to my eye except possibly for "in Adam all die."

[John2]

I am pretty sure that throughout most of chapter 15 the focus is on the usual course of things, without necessarily implying that the usual is also the universal. None of the verses you have cited so far create any real discrepancy to my eye except possibly for "in Adam all die."

Alright, then what about 15:50: "Now I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." If "in Adam all die" and "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," I'm still thinking that the "change" of a living ("natural"/"perishable") body into a "spiritual" body is like dying too. Doesn't that understanding make "in Adam all die" not a discrepancy and keep Paul more or less in step with Revelation?