In the book of Philippians chapter 3 verse 10 Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”.  (NIV )

Paul talks about the need to somehow attain to the resurrection from the dead.  This contradicts current church teaching that a simple prayer to Jesus to ‘save us’ qualifies us for the resurrection from the dead.  It is clear that this was not the teaching of Paul the apostle.   We know from  Bible scriptures that there will be a universal resurrection of all the dead, both the saved and unsaved, to attend the judgement seat of Christ.  We won’t have to attain to this resurrection.

So Paul must be referring to some other resurrection from the dead.  One that requires a fellowship of his sufferings.  One that requires us to become like Christ in his death.  We need to find and look at teachings that give us some explanation of this resurrection that Paul is trying to attain to.  There are teachings out there.  I’ve listened to a teaching that says the saints who are prepared (strong soldiers) will be resurrected for the purpose of the thousand year reign of Christ.  This is one teaching, there may be others.

Some of the current teaching in the church about the resurrection is not aligning with scripture in its entirety.  It has to, otherwise, it has error.  We must rightly divide the Word of Truth.  The saints cannot be strengthened and encouraged with false teaching.  We must have more openness from church leadership to other thoughts and a willingness to set aside entrenched historical teachings that are found to be incomplete.

This process of adjusting church teaching to include prior unrecognized truth is not unusual.  This is how particular church movements occurred in the past.  A good example is Martin Luther’s revelation of truth that the ‘just will live by faith’.

There are problems with teachings in the church -and/or- the current setup of how the church is operated.  This is indisputable by looking at the fruit.  The saints are stagnant.  Their witness is weak.  In some cases whole congregations of saints are largely worldly.  They are in church hoping that Jesus will somehow help them to obtain the fulfillment of selfish lusts.   This situation and condition of the saints lies at the feet of church leaders.