As time goes on, more and more people are becoming very interested in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And I totally think that it is a warranted interest! One of the aspects of the Second Coming that attracts a large amount of curiosity is the Resurrection. What is it? Who will be resurrected? Will everyone be resurrected? How can I make sure I am resurrected?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches that the Resurrection will occur in stages. First, the righteous or the people who have accepted the Gospel and are alive on the earth at the time of his coming shall be "caught up" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:98).
In order to understand the second "stage" of the Resurrection, if you will, you need to understand what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints call the Plan of Salvation or the Plan of Happiness. We believe that we existed as Heavenly Father's children, before this life (Jeremiah 1:4-5) but out of a desire to become more like our Father in Heaven we came to the Earth to gain a body and to be perfected through trails. Because no unclean thing can enter into Heavenly Father's presence, one must live a sinless or perfect life. Of course nobody can life a perfect life, which is why a Redeemer was needed and that Redeemer is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only one who was able to live a perfect life! And he Redeemed all of us through the crucifixion on Calvary and his suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, so all of us could return to our Father in Heaven triumphant. In order for this to happen, we need to complete certain things, such as baptism, receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost and take part in temple blessing. The thing is all of these things need to be done on the Earth as they are Earthly ordinances. What about those people in remote areas and far back in time that never had the change to receive the Gospel or even her Jesus's message? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believes that doing proxy work such as baptisms for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29) in temples allow our ancestors the chance to accept the Gospel. Back to the second "stage" of the Resurrection. Those whose work has been done while they were dead will be resurrected next (Doctrine and Covenants 88:99). While all men, women, and children will be resurrected, not all will resurrected at the same time (Revelation 20:5-13). The righteous will be resurrected first, followed by unrepentant sinners.
We often hear or read the phrase "caught up" in scripture. Now I have always had a slight ambiguous idea as to what this meant. I mean where exactly are we going to be caught up too? As I was doing research for this, i came to the conclusion that there would be a few stops along the way to our ultimate destination, one of the glories (1 Corinthians 15:40-41). First according the Moroni, a prophet in the Book of Mormon we will be caught up "to the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah." (Moroni 10:34).
Joseph Smith, the first Prophet of this dispensation and the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God! Not only did he translate this entire book (around 500 pages) in less than two months, he started working on a translation of the bible that shed greater light on what was actually meant. When the Bible was being put together years ago, things were left out or even changed, so Joseph Smith went back to fix that. For example in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, what is the King James Bible states, is marginally different than what the Joseph Smith translation states. The JST clarifies that all of the righteous who are alive at the Second Coming may be caught up.
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