In answer to a question about the dead rising first, Dale Black in his latest video (https://daleblack.org/understanding-rapture-dale-paula-black/#comment-4015) discusses at length the Scripture related to this question. Here I am going to go beyond what the Scripture tells us and bring in evidence from the eyewitnesses to heaven recorded in Heaven Is Beyond Imagination and evidence from science to give a broader answer to this question.
From all my study of the Scripture, the testimony of eyewitnesses, and the evidence from science, I have a broader perspective on this issue. Our physical bodies are made of molecules composed of many atoms. Unfortunately these molecules break down and have to be replaced. We eat to give our bodies the resources to rebuild and replace the broken molecules. Our heavenly bodies are incorruptible and last forever. So it appears that our heavenly bodies are not made of molecules that can break down, and the molecules from our earthly bodies have no purpose in heaven. Furthermore, eyewitnesses to heaven say we don’t have to eat there; in fact, we have no internal organs that are necessary to digest foods. There is delicious food to eat there but after we enjoy the eating of it, it just vaporizes. So in heaven we can eat if we like but it is not necessary. Bathrooms are not needed there and apparently our mansions do not have bathrooms (or bedrooms either because we do not need sleep to restore our bodies as we need to do here.)
Jesus had an earthlike body after he was resurrected, but it was not the same. He could appear in a room without going through a door. A body made of molecules cannot do that. He ate a fish and then disappeared, so the fish disappeared, too. So somehow his eating the fish transformed it into something else besides molecules. But it was necessary for Jesus to appear in an Earth-like body to prove he had been raised.
His heavenly body, as seen by heaven visitors, is fully glorious as are the bodies of other persons seen there. According to eyewitnesses, everyone in heaven has a heavenly body, including Jesus. It looks like the body we had at our prime in life (late twenties or early thirties). So it does not appear to me that our earthly molecule-based bodies have any role in our eternal afterlife. We will have eternal spiritual bodies like the ones the eyewitnesses of heaven reported when they saw friends and relatives in heaven in their short times of being temporarily “asleep”.
So what do I make of the phrase “the dead in Christ will rise first?” Since I don’t see any need or purpose in trying to reunite the molecules of our earthly bodies, why does it say they will be raised? They must be transformed into something completely different. But the bodies eyewitnesses have seen in heaven, including that of Jesus, are already transformed into glorious heavenly bodies. My resolution of this complication is that the first time we see our departed loved ones after they have died (except in a few glimpses people have been given of seeing a departed relative briefly) is when we see them in the air coming with Jesus when the last trumpet sounds. It will appear to us at that time that they have been raised from the dead. In fact, they will have been with Jesus in their spiritual bodies in heaven the whole time we knew only that their physical bodies were decaying in the grave.
The phrase “the dead in Christ will rise first” may be more of a description of how we who are alive at the time will see this. Hugh Ross (Reasons.org) has explained Genesis 1 by saying it is best understood from the perspective of being on Earth rather than from outer space. In that case, the sequence described matches what we know of Earth’s history from scientific investigation. Earth’s original atmosphere was opaque and the surface of the Earth was dark. Then through a miraculous event it became translucent. Then you could tell day and night but the sun and moon were not visible, even though they existed at that time, like on a cloudy day. Then with a few billion years of photosynthesis, the dominant CO2 was turned into dominant O2 and the atmosphere became transparent. An observer on Earth could finally see the sun and the moon.
I believe that here, too, God has given us a view of the events associated with Jesus’ return from the perspective of Earth rather than from heaven. This perspective also reconciles those cases in which someone’s body has been completely scattered and destroyed, like when a sailor dies in the ocean or a body is cremated. In my mind, this unifies Scripture, eyewitness testimony, and science, and is consistent with all three.
I hope this perspective helps.