In that view, a person who was alive after having died would have been bodily raised from the dead, by God himself, so as to enter into the coming kingdom. That’s how the disciples interpreted Jesus’s resurrection. Moreover, that is why Jesus was understood to be the “first fruits” of those who had died (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:20): because he was the first to be raised, and all others were to be raised soon as well. In that sense his resurrection was the beginning of the general resurrection.
