What is the Doctrine of the Old Testament Worthies?
The Doctrine of the Old Testament Worthies is a traditional doctrine taught among the religions of the Christian world and the Body of Christ. It has become a common biblical teaching, based on Matthew 27:52-53 and inspired by the 11th chapter of Hebrews. Most teachers integrate Foxe’s Book of Martyrs with auxiliary metaphysical (speculative) scriptures which serve as support for this doctrine in addition to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Matthew’s two lone Scriptures placed into the crucifixion narrative of Jesus constitute the basis of the doctrine of the “Old Testament Worthies.” These two scriptures are intertwined, with the additional accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion, in the synoptic gospels of Mark 15:25-47, Luke 23:39-49 and John 19:16-42.
This doctrine presumes these Old Testament Worthies (from now on I will refer to them as OTW) were Old Testament prophets and Old Testament faithful followers who served God until their deaths.
The suppositional doctrine suggests the OTW were elect, chosen by God, in their own time of existence. Admittedly, they were not average everyday ordinary servants of God; they did have an impassioned drive and dynamic fixation upon God’s Will generated by their faith in God. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is used as text proof to give insight into these extra ordinary people.
The doctrine dogmatically teaches that God was biased in honoring these saints, rewarding them with a “PRE-RESURRECTION,” after the resurrection of Jesus.
This reasoning is fueled by the belief that these “worthies” contrary to common reason and counter to resurrection law (Hebrews 11:39-40), deserved to be in the First Resurrection. According to the doctrine, the OTW accumulated enough positive favor with God to warrant a reward for their faith and dedication. That reward for faithful dedication was the mercy of God granting them the ability to bypass the Second Resurrection with a special exempted “pre-resurrection” before the First Resurrection.
The Saints Arose 