Biblical Theology of Resurrection
Introduction
Around the globe and for the last two thousand years Christians have affirmed the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the belief and practice of our faith. Christians and non-Christians alike grant that death is the shared corporeal experience of every person that walks this planet. It is what happens after death, if anything, that defines worldviews, offers hope in this life and answers universal questions of purpose. The cosmic story given to us in Scripture, the true story for all people in all time, unfolds the mystery of life after death and reveals the key in the resurrection of Jesus. Death is not the final word, we will all be raised - some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2 [ESV]). The hope of resurrection covers the pages of Scripture and the story of God’s people from beginning to end, reaching its climax in the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ and securing a future hope for all who trust in Him alone.
Unfolding in the Old Testament
Understanding the progressive revelation of the good news of resurrection begins by understanding the bad news of fallen humanity and the introduction of death into this world. The first three chapters of Genesis tell the story of creation, of Adam and Eve and of their rebellion in the Garden of Eden. Upon eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, death was unleashed into the world with cataclysmic consequences for the entirety of creation. God declared that the earth was cursed, that work and childbearing would be painful and that they would “return to the ground…for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Prior to the first sin, everlasting life in the presence of the Lord was absolute. However, as a result of their disobedience, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden so that they would not be able to eat of the tree of life and live forever in their unredeemed state. Death appeared to swallow up life and became normative for every living thing. As the generations of Adam are recorded in Genesis 5, most verses simply end with “and he died.” Death is the end and there is no further comment. Physical death entered the world through sin and from thereafter humanity has had to contend with this reality.
Beginning with Abraham in Genesis 12 and through the rest of the Old Testament, Scripture tells the story of God calling a people to Himself. Israel was to belong to Him and image Him to the rest of the world, ultimately becoming a blessing to the nations. It is through Israel that God’s plan for humanity begins to unfold, a plan revealing that death does not have the final word. Russell Moore contends that “contrary to the claims of most contemporary biblical scholarship, the Old Testament never concludes that human life ends at the grave, nor does the text assume that the ‘afterlife’ is a shadowy land of despair.”[1] The language used in Scripture about the dwelling place of the dead, or Sheol as it is translated from Hebrew, is similar to other Ancient Near Eastern literature. It is a place of darkness (Job 10:21,22) a place of silence (Ps 94:17), and a place of continued existence (Ps 139:8). In contrast to other literature of its time however, P.S. Johnston notes that there are actually relatively few occurrences of Sheol and its synonyms in the Old Testament. It is mentioned in fewer than one hundred passages. He declares that “there is a striking disinterest in the fate of the dead…for Israel, Yahweh was the God of the living.”[2]
Hebrew writers assume that even in the afterlife God is present. The author of Psalm 139 exclaims that there is nowhere he can flee from God’s presence, insisting that Yahweh’s “universal sovereignty claimed Sheol also within his jurisdiction.”[3] And Job declares that “Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering” (Job 26:6). Other passages begin to paint the picture that not only is God present, but that He intends to rescue his people from Sheol and ultimately from death itself. The writer of Psalm 49:15 says, ‘But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.” Although the writer speaks specifically of the soul in this passage, “there is an expectation that the incomplete existence in Sheol will not be our final condition.”[4] Going one step further, Job seems to suggest that there will be embodied life after death. Even in his grief and despair, Job confidently asserts “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25-6, emphasis added). Job seems “to anticipate immortality in some bodily form.”[5] Though this language about the afterlife is not pervasive in the Old Testament, the seed of hope exists. There are glimpses of God’s eternal plan suggesting that His people will not only find life beyond the grave, but that they may indeed be raised with physical bodies to find everlasting life and fellowship with Him once again.
The prophets continue to fill out some of the imagery of resurrection. Ezekiel uses the language of resurrection to anticipate the restoration of the nation of Israel after the exile. This is true in his vision of the valley of dry bones. The Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy and to say to the bones “Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live… so I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army” (Ez 37:5,10). The Lord identifies the bones as the whole house of Israel that will be resurrected from the grave. He then goes on to connect the breath that brought the bones to life to His Spirit that he will put in His people bringing resurrection life (Ez 37:14). This imagery looks backward to Genesis 2:7 when God’s breath gives life to the first Adam. And it also looks forward, anticipating what God will do through the last Adam, Jesus Christ, who “became a life-giving Spirit” through His death and resurrection (1 Cor 15:45).
Other prophetic texts connect resurrection to judgement and the Last Days. Isaiah warns of God’s judgement on the earth and of punishment for the wicked in chapters 24-27. The good news for God’s people is that death will be swallowed up forever and there is yet another picture of bodily resurrection in the last days for the purpose of sharing in His glory. Isaiah rejoices saying, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” (Is 26:19a). Also looking to the last days, Daniel 12:1-4 reveals that there is a different fate for the righteous and the wicked at the time of judgement. He says “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” This is one of a handful of Old Testament passages that points to the resurrection of all people at the end of time with either life or punishment as their eternal just reward.
While the above Scripture refer to a distant and future hope for God’s people, 2 Kings 4:18-37 offers a powerful Old Testament story that brings the possibility of life after death from a future expectation into a present experience. Upon the death of her son, a Shunammite woman seeks out Elisha, whom she calls the “Man of God.” Elisha rushes to her son’s bedside and prays to the Lord, laying his hands upon him and putting his mouth to the boy’s mouth. In that moment the boy warms and comes back from the dead. 1 Kings 17:17-24 records a similar story of Elijah raising the son of a widow to back life. The reality is that both of these narratives are more akin to resuscitation as the boys will die again, but they hint powerfully toward the ultimate “Man of God” who comes in the middle of history and will raise the dead to life for eternity.
New Testament Affirmations of the Old Testament
It is impossible to understand from the Old Testament what the fullness of the resurrection will mean for all of creation until God reveals it in and through His Son, Jesus Christ. Millard Erickson states though that “While we must exercise care not to read too much of the New Testament revelation into the Old Testament, it is significant that Jesus and the New Testament writers maintained that the Old Testament teaches resurrection.”[6] As suggested by the above passages, resurrection is not a New Testament idea.
Jesus himself underscores that resurrection has always been part of God’s story when he confronts the Sadducees in Mark 12. Mark records in verse 18 that the Sadducees “say that there is no resurrection” and they attempt to ask Jesus a trick question by creating a complicated scenario of marriage in the resurrection to prove the absurdity of the claim. Jesus does not answer their question directly, but instead accuses them of not knowing the Scriptures and therefore not properly understanding the resurrection (Mark 12:24). He rebukes them with a new interpretation of Exodus 3:6, stating that even Moses knew that the God of the patriarchs is not the God of the dead, but of those who are alive. To the shame of these religious leaders, other passages affirm that Scripture had revealed enough for Jews to know that there was to be a resurrection. In John 11:24 when Jesus tells Martha that her brother will rise again, Martha confidently asserts, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” While she does not have the full picture of resurrection through Jesus, enough had been made clear so as to produce hope that death was not to be the end for Lazarus. Similarly, the writer of Hebrews asserts that even in Abraham’s day he believed that God could raise men back from the dead and proved so by being willing to sacrifice his only son (Heb 11:19).
Climaxing in Jesus Christ
While the Jews had hope that resurrection of the dead would take place in the last days, they were unprepared for God’s resurrection plan to be revealed and inaugurated in the middle of history. The drama of Scripture climaxes in the God-man Jesus Christ, the one who perfectly images God where Adam and Israel failed, and the one whose death and resurrection ultimately undoes the curse and restores fellowship between God and man. P. S. Johnston asserts that “this is part of the radical newness of the gospel…Until Christ’s resurrection, the afterlife was an unknown quantity, truly ‘in the shadows.’ This is the key to a biblical theology of death and resurrection, at once affirming the light shed by the gospel and the relative ignorance of pre-Christian times.”[7] This is illustrated in Martha and Jesus’ conversation. Based on her understanding, Martha can convey her certainty that her brother will be raised on the last day. Then with shocking, gospel-revelation Jesus declares: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-6). Jesus raises Lazarus back to life, much like Elisha and Elijah did, however His miracle is so that they would believe that he was sent by the Father and was who he claimed to be (11:42). Martha and Old Testament Jews had understood resurrection to be a future event, Jesus reveals that it is a person come in the flesh to bring deliverance now.
Though none would understand while He walked this earth, Jesus taught from the early days of his ministry that he would die and be resurrected. Upon cleansing the temple, Jesus said to the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2: 19). They were confounded, but John explains that he was speaking about the temple of his body, saying, “when therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (2:22). Jesus knew the purpose for which he had come and obeyed the Father all the way to death on a cross.
All four gospels record the cataclysmic events of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus. He was betrayed, beaten and mocked, called “King of the Jews” by those who were blind to fact that they truly were looking at the king over all of creation. Jeremy Treat writes, “Fallen human logic sees a defeated messianic pretender on the cross. Faith sees and understands that Christ’s cross is truly the throne from which he is ransoming his people from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God.”[8] It is through Jesus’ death on the cross that atonement is accomplished, sin is forgiven and we are reconciled to God (Heb 9:22, 1 Pet 1:19, Rom 5:10). The cross represents the defeat of Satan. Hebrews 2:14-15 declares that, “through death [Jesus] might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” And Paul says that in nailing our sin to the cross, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col 2:15). Jesus’ death represents the turning point in the middle of history where Satan is defeated, sin is atoned for and God and man can be reconciled. Though the cross looks like defeat, the unfolding story of Scripture reveals that it is in fact glorious news.
Three days after His death and burial Jesus Christ rose victorious from the grave, just as He promised. At the tomb, an angel of the Lord announces, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said” (Matt 28:4-6). The overjoyed women, the disciples and more than five thousand men would then see the risen Christ (1 Cor 15:6) walking, talking and eating with them before ascending into Heaven. The theological significance of the resurrected Christ cannot be overstated. While the cross unquestionably seals our pardon and overthrows the power of Satan, it is the resurrection that is the definitive declaration of victory. It is the confirmation that Jesus is who He said He was. Missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin asserts, “The resurrection is the revelation to chosen witnesses of the fact that Jesus who died on the cross is indeed king - conqueror of death and sin, Lord and Savior of all. The resurrection is not the reversal of a defeat but the proclamation of a victory.”[9] The victory has been won through the cross and announced through the resurrection, and new order has been established for all of creation.
Resurrection as Our Now and Coming Hope
Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers expound upon the profound implications of Jesus’ resurrection for those who put their hope in Him. As a Biblical theology of resurrection reaches its climax in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s ultimate answer for death and the rescue for His people is unveiled. The grave does not win and God has indeed ransomed His people from Sheol. In fact, this is revealed as the hope not only of humanity, but of all creation. What was anticipated by the prophets and psalmists is finally accomplished in the raising of the Last Adam. Jesus’ resurrection is the dawn of new creation, it is the first fruits of our own bodily resurrection, it unites us with him and offers power for our lives now as we await his glorious return.
Paul clearly sees the historic event as the turning point in cosmic history. “Christ's resurrection is an innately eschatological event. In fact, as much as any, it is the key inaugurating event of eschatology, the dawn of the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 6:15), the arrival of the age to come (Rom. 12:2, Gal. 1:4).”[10] Though we await the consummation of our hope at the end of time, Christ’s resurrection begins the work of re-creation for all of God’s creation. Just as humanity will be raised to life, Romans 8:18-22 tells us that creation will also be liberated from its bondage as a result of the resurrection. We see the hope of renewal and reversing of the curse that sin brought into the world. Just as through Adam all of creation was subject to death, through Jesus Christ all of creation has hope for life. N.T. Wright says, “the New Testament image of the future hope of the whole cosmos, grounded in the resurrection of Jesus, gives as coherent a picture as we need or could have of the future that is promised to the whole world, a future in which, under the sovereign and wise rule of the creator God, decay and death will be done away with and a new creation born.”[11]
Nowhere is the meaning of the resurrection for the believer more profoundly articulated than in Paul’s treatise in 1 Corinthians 15. He chronicles the historic fact of the resurrection, recounting the people who saw Jesus after he was raised. He then connects the resurrection to our salvation and our future hope, exclaiming “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins…If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” According to Paul the resurrection provides objective grounds for our salvation. Elsewhere he has stated that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25). Paul continues, in 1 Cor 15:20-23, to establish the basis for his argument that believers will follow Christ’s resurrection path stating that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” Paul’s point is that Christ’s resurrection guarantees our own. The language of ‘firstfruits’ is significant. Richard Gaffin Jr states that “the metaphor conveys the idea of organic connection or unity; the first-fruits is the initial quantity brought into view only as it is a part of and so inseparable from toe whole: in that sense it represents the whole.”[12] There is a profound connection between the reality of the resurrected Christ and those who are found in him. We too will be raised. As hinted toward in the Old Testament, here is definitive commentary that God’s people will see resurrection and that it will be bodily in nature. Paul indicates that just as Christ was raised with an imperishable body, so too will those whose hope is in him. The path to restoration and future glory for God’s people has been paved by Jesus’ own resurrection.
Paul’s writing also makes it clear that Jesus’ resurrection has implications, not just for our future, but also here and now. In Romans 6 Paul argues that the reason we are able to walk in newness of life is because we have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection. He exclaims, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that…we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:5-6) Sin and death no longer have dominion over us and we are alive to God because we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection. As well, it gives us the power and motivation to press on in the face of suffering now. Paul states that he has suffered loss in order that he may “know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:10-12). Michael Bird says that “resurrection becomes the goal, the telos, and the prize of our journey. Resurrection encourages us to finish the race even as we share in Christ’s sufferings and follow his example…The risen Christ has made us his own so that we would run toward our glorious home.”[13] The resurrection then not only gives us hope for the future, it gives us victory and power to live in the complexity and brokenness of our world here and now.
Personal Reflections
It is remarkable to see how the theme of resurrection plays out over the whole of Scripture. Generally, when I think about the resurrection it has to do with Easter and celebrating the resurrection of Christ. But what I have come to see, and what this study has helped to clarify even more, is that resurrection is central to the whole of God’s story and all of creation and it has been since the fall. He was giving glimpses of it to the prophets, to Job and the Psalmists throughout the Old Testament so that His people would know that this life is not all there is. I never gave much thought as to what happens if resurrection is removed from God’s story. But, as Paul says, our faith is futile and we are to be most pitied. I was struck with how empty and hopeless the vague idea of Sheol was and the uncertainty that would come without the clear picture we have now of resurrection life and new creation. On this side of the cross and resurrection I can have such confidence regarding life after death as well as a purpose for suffering and self-denial. Studying this more has helped to clarify the hope that I have and want to offer to others in the midst of brokenness and despair in this world. Yes, God’s plan of resurrection reaches its climax at Easter, but we carry around His resurrection every day. As Wright concludes, “Our task in the present… is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day, with our Christian life, corporate and individual, in both worship and mission, as a sign of the first and a foretaste of the second.”[14] I can live with assurance that Christ’s bodily resurrection has made a way for my own eternal life in the new heavens and new earth, and I can also work with resurrection power and confidence now knowing that my work is not in vain and that one day God will make all things new.
Conclusion
Among God’s first utterances on the pages of Scripture is the declaration that His work is good; and in the case of humanity, very good. Though we rebelled against Him and seemingly destroyed His intentions of everlasting life in His presence, God was never done with His good creation. From the earliest writings and throughout the whole Old Testament God’s unfolding narrative always included life after death. Not just spiritual life in a shadowy underworld, but embodied life in His presence for eternity. The resurrection of the incarnate deity, Jesus Christ, finally unveils the fullness of God’s plan to destroy death forever and make a way for God’s people to live with Him in eternity. We currently find ourselves between Christ’s resurrection and the time when we will be raised in glory like Him. As we wait, we are shaped by the hope of Christ’s resurrection, seeing that “God has invaded and disrupted the present order of things by bringing life in the face of death, justification in the midst of condemnation, and rays of hope in the caverns of fear. God’s new day has risen in the raising of his Son.”[15]
[1] Dr. Daniel L. Akin, ed., A Theology for the Church, Revised Edition. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2014), 860.
[2] T. D. Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, eds., New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), 444
[3] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2001), 1017.
[4] Millard Erickson, Christian Theology 3rd Ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2013), 1194.
[5] Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2nd ed, 1017.
[6] Erickson, Christian Theology, 1195.
[7] T. D. Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, eds., New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000),
443.
[8] Jeremy R. Treat, The Crucified King, Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2014), 107.
[9] Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans
Publishing Company,1986), 127.
[10] Richard B. Gaffin Jr. “Redemption and Resurrection: An Exercise in Biblical-Systematic Theology” Themelios,
27, no 2 (Spring 2002): 19.
[11] N.T. Wright. Surprised by Hope, Rethinking the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. (New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), p107
[12] Gaffin, “Redemption and Resurrection: An Exercise in Biblical-Systematic Theology,” 18.
[13] Michael F Bird,. Evangelical Theology, A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2013), 446.
[14] Wright, Surprised by Hope, 30.
[15] Bird, Evangelical Theology, 441.