In the case of the Kingdom proclaimers yet in the flesh, their revival was to an earthly activity, to renewed preaching of “this good news of the kingdom” in all the inhabited earth “for a witness to all the nations.” (Matt. 24:14) Not yet were those spirit-begotten Christians to be glorified in heaven, to “be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Their experiencing this was not scheduled to “precede” the resurrection of Christians who had “fallen asleep in death through Jesus” down till 1918. Rather, as 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 points out, “those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first.” Fittingly, their resurrection first would precede the reviving or resuscitating of the Kingdom proclaimers to their further work in the flesh on earth during this “time of the end.” This reviving occurred in spring of 1919.

10. Whose resurrection, and this at what time, would be the true parallel of Jesus’ resurrection on Nisan 16, 33 C.E.?

¹⁰ The spiritual resurrection of the “dead in Christ” in the spring of 1918, three and a half years from the enthronement of Christ at the end of the Gentile Times in autumn of 1914, would parallel Jesus’ own resurrection on Nisan 16, 33 C.E., “at the half of the week.” (Dan. 9:27) Thus they did “rise first.” Their doing so did “precede” the resurrecting of those surviving to Christ’s “presence,” or parousia, and to the killing of Kingdom preaching.

14. To what class mentioned at 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 do these revived, reactivated witnesses of modern times belong, and how is what Jesus called “the last day” a “happy” one for them?

¹⁴ In modern times, the revived, reactivated remnant of spiritual Israelites who took up the witness work again in the spring of 1919 were those whom the apostle Paul spoke of as “we the living who survive to the presence of the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:15) They expect, after finishing the final Kingdom witness world wide, to die “in union with the Lord” and during his presence. Their death is during that “last day” during which, as Jesus said, he would raise up from the dead those disciples who are privileged to feed on his flesh and drink his blood. This signifies for them their being “caught away” to meet him, their Lord, “in the air.” This instantaneous resurrection of theirs to heavenly life is unseen to humans left behind on earth as if it were obscured by “clouds.” “Happy,” indeed, they are because they “die in union with the Lord from this time onward” during the “presence of the Lord,” not needing to sleep in death in expectation of his second coming.​—Rev. 14:13; John 6:53, 54; 1 Cor. 15:52, 53.