. In the uncertainty caused by the lack of revealed word, many personal ideas became the special points of discussion among the Nephites. Some supposed one thing, others something else. There were a number who understood that the segregation of the righteous from the wicked was “a first resurrection”; the spirits of the righteous being raised to a pre-eminent condition of peace, rest, and happiness, while those of the wicked were consigned to a state of misery and wretched expectancy. Alma admitted to his son that this “may be termed a resurrection,” but such is not the Resurrection of which all the holy prophets had spoken. Alma’s expression may be termed a resurrection shows the various meanings a word may have. The word resurrection as used in this sense was almost meaningless to Alma’s introspection, and its true prophetic meaning—the coming forth of men from the grave—was lost to him in a maze of uninspired thinking. By twisting and turning its evident sense the word was used by the advocates of that idea to designate the rising of the soul, the righteous to higher levels of peace and tranquility, and the spirits of the wicked to greater misery and unhappiness. This, they contended, was really a resurrection. Of this usage, Alma said, “It may be termed a resurrection,” but, he continued, the resurrection “of the souls and their consignation to happiness or misery. Ye cannot suppose that this is what it meaneth,” when the resurrection was spoken of by the holy prophets.
Now, those who understand that the rising of the spirits of the dead—the righteous to a state of happiness and the wicked to a state of misery—before their resurrection from the grave, were misguided in their thinking that it was a “first resurrection.” It was not! If and when we speak of a first resurrection, thus implying a second or a third, etc., we divide the Resurrection into parts, and make the gift of God a series of occurrences. We do as man does when he divides the day of twenty-four hours into A.M. and P.M. It, nevertheless, remains the same day. There are first hours of the day, but their continuity extends over them all. It is as one day with the Lord. The Resurrection began with Christ coming forth from the tomb. It will continue until all men are raised by the power of the Resurrection.