What does resurrection mean?
Resurrection is not a vague hope that something of us survives death — the writers in this collection insist it is a definite event with a definite object: the body that was buried. What follows traces what the word itself demands, what happened to Christ, and what it guarantees for those who are His.
Out of the grave
The word carries its own built-in limit. It refers to something that was put in a grave and then comes back out of it.
A. J. PollockBut remember, resurrection must mean that what goes into the grave must come out of the grave, or else resurrection is a meaningless term.
That also marks off resurrection from the giving of life to a dead soul. The two are related but not the same thing.
J. N. DarbyResurrection is not the communication of life… Resurrection involves the reunion of soul and body, not the communication of life… Resurrection unto life, in John 5, is not communicating life, but refers to those to whom life had been given, and explicitly to their coming up out of their graves.
The same body, transformed
If the body raised were simply a replacement issued from heaven, death would keep what it took. Writers here hold instead that the body sown is the body raised, though profoundly altered.
James BoydThe dead shall be raised in incorruption, power, and glory — a spiritual body; and we, the living, shall be changed; for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. Our body is changed surely, but it is our body that is changed (Phil. 3:21). It is not an exchange of bodies, one body left in the grave and another raised.
Christ raised first
Resurrection is not first a doctrine about us. It is a fact about Christ, and He came up out of death as the beginning of a harvest.
J. N. DarbyChrist, in rising, came up from among the dead. It is the favour and the power of God coming in, to bring back from among the dead the One who had in His grace gone down into death… and to put a public seal on the work of redemption, to display openly in man the victory over all the power of the enemy. So Christ rose from among all the other dead (for death could not hold Him)… and He became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, who, having His life, wait for the exercise of His power.
God's verdict on the cross
Because it was God who raised Him, the empty tomb functions as a public statement about the death that came before it.
A. J. PollockHis resurrection was God's Amen of approval to all that the Lord claimed to be, of every word He spoke, of every step He took, of every action He performed. Above all it was God's clear approval and acceptance of the glorious work of atonement on the cross of Calvary as satisfying Him about the whole question of sin. "God raised Him from the dead" (Acts 13:30).
Raised from among the dead
Several writers press a distinction hidden by older translations: between a general rising of all the dead and a rising out from among them, leaving others still in their graves. It explains why the disciples were puzzled by something every religious Jew already believed.
J. N. DarbyThe fact is that in a number of passages the power is lost, because the word is translated "resurrection of the dead" instead of "resurrection from among the dead." This was the character of Christ's resurrection, when He was declared to be the Son of God with power by being raised from among the dead. And we shall be like Christ, in that He will raise us up from among the dead, because we have the Spirit of Christ, and life from Christ.
Two outcomes, not one event
Everyone will be raised — but Scripture, these writers argue, never merges the two into a single moment.
William KellyScripture never speaks of one common, simultaneous, indiscriminate resurrection. There will indeed be a resurrection of both just and unjust. But God's word is clear and definite that the resurrection of the just differs from that of the unjust not only in character and consequence but in time. So the Lord calls the first a resurrection of life, the second a resurrection of judgment (John 5:29).
Its power at work now
Resurrection is future for the body, yet the same power is said to be already at work in the believer.
J. N. DarbyIt is the coming in of God's own living divine power, breaking through the bands of death, and taking up those who are God's from among the wicked dead. This resurrection, realised in the power of the Spirit, is our present standing, though we still wait for the redemption of the body.
Summary
- Grave — Resurrection means what went into the grave comes out of it; a raising that leaves the body behind empties the word of meaning.
- Body — The same body is raised, not swapped: sown in corruption, raised in incorruption, glory and power.
- Firstfruits — Christ came up from among the dead first, sealing redemption publicly and becoming the firstfruits of those who sleep.
- Verdict — God raising Him is God's approval of the cross; the resurrection is His answer about the whole question of sin.
- Two — All will rise, but not together: a resurrection of life for those who are Christ's, and a resurrection of judgment for the rest.