Elder Goh Kee Tai

 

Biblical Teachings on

The Resurrection

The Christian faith hinges on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the one most important central event which is the cornerstone of God’s redemption for humanity. Its potency is gloriously declared by our Lord Himself: ‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die’ (Jn 11:25,26). Its significance is best conveyed by Paul in 1 Cor 15:17: ‘And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins’

 

The man, Adam, was created in righteousness and holiness in the image and likeness of the Creator God Who Himself is Righteousness and Holiness (Jer 23:6; 1 Pet 1:16). God’s special creation of humanity was that man would exercise dominion over all creation on His behalf under His sovereign reign. Coupled with this great privilege was the immense blessings of man’s unbroken fellowship with God which was to last for eternity.

 

But alas, Adam chose to sin and came under God’s curse of both physical and spiritual death. Henceforth, man will die thrice. By the first departure, man is shut off from God and from worship. Spiritual death destroyed and ended the sweet fellowship and communion that Adam had with God when he was alive; and upon death, his soul (spirit) would be alienated from God to enter into eternal damnation. By Adam’s one act of rebellion and disobedience, the whole human race was plunged into abysmal condemnation of God for eternity. If he dies in his sin, he will then die the ultimate death which the Bible calls the second death i.e. to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire.

 

Though Adam lived for 930 years and died physically, his spirit (soul) lives on. Death is the great Divider of the body from the spirit (Js 2:26). The body returns to dust ‘for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return’ (Gen 3:19), but the soul which is the real you and me never dies. Henceforth all souls upon death live on for eternity – the righteous soul returns to God in heaven; the impious doomed for hell fire (Lk 16:22,23).

 

But our God is merciful and gracious and has promised humanity since Adam’s fall, to send a Saviour in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ (Gen 3:15). By His death at Calvary, Jesus paid for our sins in full. By His resurrection, all who have believed in Him shall receive everlasting life for these shall live forever and ever with Him in heaven (Rm 5:17-19).

 

Teachings in the Old Testament

Although the doctrine of resurrection of the dead is not so prominently emphasised in the Old Testament, the patriarchs and prophets of old were generally well acquainted with this great spiritual truth that life would continue after death.

 

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ‘looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God’ (Heb 11:10). They considered themselves pilgrims and strangers in this world and ‘desired a better country, that is, an heavenly’ (Heb 11:16). That they would live on beyond the graves in the eternal celestial city of light and glory that fadeth not away was the blessed promise that filled and inflamed their total being to look beyond their onerous earthly sojourn.

 

Abraham’s faith emerged victorious when he readily and obediently offered Isaac, his only son as a burnt offering to God. His firm belief in that ‘God was able to raise him up, even from the dead’ (Heb 11:19) ensured Abraham of the divine guarantor, who had imparted the promise of resurrection to His children.

 

In Job we see a man of unwavering confidence and faith in his Creator. Sorely tested by God when he was suddenly deprived of all his possessions and children in quick succession followed by a terrible skin affliction which he thought would soon lead to his death Job held on to His God. He looked beyond the grave to an everlasting life after death and proclaimed his deep entrenched hope of that God-appointed blessed day of resurrection when he shall be changed, when his body and soul would reunite and live again: ‘all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee’ (Job 14:14-15). Nothing could be more explicit when he declared with utmost confidence and certainty of his own future resurrection when he will see Jesus Christ face to face: ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me’ ( Job 19: 25-27). It is the blessed Holy Spirit who gave Abraham and Job this spiritual enlightenment and utterances.

 

Isaiah explicitly taught the doctrine of bodily resurrection: ‘The dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead’ (Is 26:19).

 

King David spoke prophetically of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and also described his own spiritual inheritance - his own future resurrection in Christ: ‘For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption’ (Ps 16:10). He was assured of resurrection and eternal life: ‘I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness’ (Ps 17:15).

 

Daniel predicted the resurrection of the righteous at the Second Coming of Christ and of the wicked at the end of Christ’s millennial rule on earth for judgment: ‘And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt’ (Dan 12:2).

 

God declared Himself as the Creator of life by His mighty acts of rapture and resurrection of the dead. Enoch and Elijah were ‘caught up’ (raptured) to everlasting life in heaven while they were still actively serving God (Gen 5:24;2 Ki 2:11). The son of the widow of Zarephath and the son of the Shunammite woman were raised from the dead to life by Elijah (1 Ki 17: 21,22) and Elisha (2 Ki 4: 34,35), respectively, by the power of God.

 

Teachings in the New Testament

Christ explicitly taught the doctrine of death and resurrection in His earthly ministry. God is the sovereign Giver of life, so is Jesus Christ, the Son of God: ‘For as the Father raised up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will….For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself’ (Jn 5:21,26). He declared: ‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die’ (Jn 11:25,26). He repeatedly taught that he would be crucified and rise again on the third day (Mk 8:31; 10:34).

 

The Sadducees, a Jewish sect, who did not believe in resurrection, challenged His teachings despite the miraculous signs which accompanied His gospel messages (Mk 12:18). Miracles by Jesus Christ included raising to life the dead daughter of Jairus (Mk 5:41), the son of the widow of Nain (Lk 7:14,15) and Lazarus (Jn 11:43,44), thus authenticating His claim that He is the Lord of life. He refuted the scepticism of the Sadducees by pointing out that when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He identified Himself as the God of the living and therein was the doctrine of resurrection: ‘But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living’ (Mt 22:31,32):‘for all live unto him’ (Lk 20:38). This is an undoubted truth that there is life with God our Creator, after this life on earth ends. God has a continuing fellowship with the patriarchs of old even though they had died so long ago. These are now with God for eternity. All true believers, who die in Christ, shall live beyond the grave. Jesus affirmed that Abraham rejoiced in seeing Him and was richly rewarded: ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad’ (Jn 8:56).

 

God has also given His Son the authority to judge the world. Jesus affirmed Daniel’s prophecy that all will be resurrected after death for judgment: ‘all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation’ (Jn 5:28,29). For the unregenerates, dead in trespasses and sins, who continue to reject Christ will be banished from the Divine presence in utmost miseries and torments in hell’s fire (Lk 16:24). These will be resurrected to stand before the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of Christ’s millennial reign on earth, and to be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. This is termed the second death, which is eternal separation from God (Rev 20:14). Believers will also have to appear before the Great White Throne Judgment also called the judgment seat of Christ, though they will not lose their salvation (1 Cor 3:14;2 Cor 5:10).

 

Death and resurrection of Jesus Christ

The four gospels provide indisputable records of the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fulfilment of Old Testament messianic prophets, He rose on the third day. The empty tomb itself evidenced a risen Christ, confirmed by the angel (Mt 28:6). His resurrection appearances, on at least ten different occasions over a period of 40 days before His ascension to heaven, and witnessed in one occasion by more than 500 disciples all at the same time were carefully documented (1 Cor 15:6). That so many actually saw Jesus of Nazareth alive was the best proof for the Bible’s testimony pointing to the historicity of this earth-shaking event! The risen Lord appeared last to Saul of Tarsus, that terrible persecutor and antagonist of early Christians, who was subsequently converted by grace when Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus (Act 9:6).

 

Resurrection of believers

Not only did Jesus rise from the dead, but He also promised to raise all believers to everlasting life at the last day: ‘And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day’ (Jn 6: 39, 40). Christ spoke of believers as ‘the children of God, being the children of the resurrection’ (Lk 20:36). Following the death and resurrection of Jesus, many saints who had died came out of their graves and went to Jerusalem (Mt 27:52,53).

 

Paul assured the Thessalonian Christians the certainty of resurrection based on Christ’s own resurrection: ‘For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him’ (1 Th 4:14). He further elaborated on this doctrine to the Christians at Corinth that as Jesus had resurrected, all who believe in Him will follow likewise: ‘But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruit; and afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming’ (1 Cor 15:20-23).

 

Believers will be spared from the wrath of God during the seven-year Great Tribulation Period under the reign of the Antichrist, the most evil world dictator (1 Th 5:9). Before God’s fury and judgment is unleashed against this wicked world, Jesus shall ‘descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God’ (1 Th 4:16) to take His redeemed to be with Him in the clouds. This is the first resurrection when believers who had already died shall hear and obey the voice of Christ Who shall instantaneously change them by His divine power and put life into them (Jn 5:28,29). They will be resurrected first, followed by the rapture of saints who are still alive to meet the Lord in the air and be with Him forever and ever (1Th 4:16,17). This miraculous event will occur ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye’ (1 Cor 15:52). The sound of the trumpet is a call to believers, resurrected and raptured, to experience the climax of their salvation; i.e. glorification (1 Corinthians 15:52). This must not be confused with the trumpet judgements in Revelation which are for the purpose of condemnation against a sinful world. All believers who die during the Great Tribulation will be resurrected immediately the moment they die. They will enter heaven in the glorified body unlike believers who die in Christ today who enter heaven only in spirit.

 

Nature of the resurrection body

Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit described the nature of the resurrection bodyThe body and spirit of the saved will be reunited. He illustrated this with the seed that is sown on the ground, apparently dead, but revived, quickened, and sprouted again (1 Cor 15:36-38). The divine power of Almighty God Who created matter out of nothing to bring forth man, the celestial bodies and diverse living creatures in land, sea and air, shall not He raise the dead from the grave?

 

This literal bodily resurrection of God’s children shall bear the image of the heavenly, like that of Christ when He ascended to heaven (1 Jn 3:2; Ph 3:21), for ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption’ (1 Cor 15:50). The resurrection body must be incorruptible (1 Cor 15: 42), spiritual (1 Cor 15:44), glorified (1 Cor 15: 43) and powerful (1 Cor 15:43).

 

Jesus was supernaturally resurrected from the dead bodily. Our Lord’s resurrection body has both physical and supernatural characteristics. It is not just a spirit (Lk 24:39). His disciples could recognise Him with His pierced hands and feet and wounded side (Jn 20:19,20). He could be touched physically (Mt 28:9) as He has ‘flesh and bones’(Lk 24:39). Moreover, He ate a piece of broiled fish and an honeycomb (Lk 24:42,43), though physical food is not a necessity for life beyond the grave (1Cor 6:13). He appeared and disappeared suddenly and instantaneously, even in completely locked room (Jn 20:19; Lk 24:31). This is the glorified resurrection body.

 

Resurrected saints would no longer marry or be able to bring forth children: ‘For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven’ (Mt 22:30).This resurrection body cannot be afflicted by any disease and decay, pain, hunger, thirst and fatigue. For this is the supernatural, glorified sinless body meet for heaven.

 

Implications of Christ’s resurrection

At Calvary, death lost its sting when once and for all, it was vanquished by Christ, the Lord of life. Through His teaching, He brought life and immortality to us confirmed by His own resurrection (2 Tim 1:10). By His atoning death and resurrection, He has redeemed us of our sins and condemnation, delivered us from the terror of death and shielded us from the wrath of God to come. Only Jesus is able to pay our debts and satisfies God’s justice so that we can now stand before the thrice Holy God fully justified (Rm 4:25).

 

If Christ had not risen from the dead, the preaching of the Apostles would be in vain, the faith of the believers is also in vain, and we are yet in our sins (1 Cor 15: 14,17), for we will continue to be under the power of death with no forgiveness of sin, justification and salvation. By the sin of Adam, we all die; by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we receive pardon and immortality (1 Cor 15:22).

 

To the Apostles, the resurrection of Christ was a harbinger of their own future resurrection. This effectively and remarkably transformed them from cowardly and weak Apostles to fearless defenders and bold witnesses, willing to do die for their faith.

 

The change in the day of holy worship of the Lord by the Apostles, who had been devout Jews, from the Sabbath to Sunday following the resurrection of Christ ushered in a new order for the church.

 

The sacrament of water baptism is a reminder that believers are buried with Him and raised with Him from the dead (Col 2:12). The Lord’s Supper emphasizes the believers’ thankful remembrance of the death and resurrection of the living and triumphant Saviour and the oneness within the body of Christ and fellowship among believers: ‘Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day’ ( Jn 6:54).

 

Without the resurrection of Christ, there would be no gospel and no salvation and there is no Christianity .

 

Conclusion

The very foundation of the Christian faith rests upon the doctrine of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He had ascended to be with His heavenly Father with the sure promise that He will return to earth again to take His redeemed to be with Him (1 Th 4:16,17). That all His blood-bought children will have this blessed salvation and resurrection to life everlasting with Christ in heaven after death sets the ethos for sanctified living.

 

Jesus will return in the clouds. The righteous dead will meet the Lord with their glorified resurrection bodies followed by the rapture of the living saints with their glorified bodies.

 

All believers and unbelievers shall be resurrected to appear before Christ to give an account of what they had done, be it good or evil: the righteous to eternal life; the reprobates and impious to second death and the lake of fire for eternity (Rev 19:14). For the righteous born twice, first physically and the second, spiritually, will die but once; but the wicked and unregenerate who have been born once, will die thrice with eternal death after their departure from this earth.

 

For believers, death does not and cannot destroy, but rather, death consummates our blessed hope in heaven. Death has no power over all who died in Christ. Jesus refers to death as ‘sleep’ ( Mt 5:39), and the grave is likened to a bed where they sleep to be awakened on the day of resurrection, and ushered into the presence of God, full of joy and in fellowship with other saints in heaven. So though we, in the flesh and blood, may grieve over our loved ones who have gone Home to be with the Lord, let us henceforth remember they are but asleep, waiting for that day when we will be reunited in heaven.

 

Our security and confidence is salvation in our Saviour Christ. Heaven is home and not this wicked world (Ph 3:20). Living each day with eternity’s value in view and not resting our affection on things of this earth should be the guiding principle in our sojourn here (Col 3:1,2). To walk in newness of life (Rm 6:4) by the power of our risen Lord with all our confidence in Him, constantly dying to this world and quickened by the Holy Spirit should be our preoccupation (2 Cor 4:10; Eph 2:1). Redeem our time and serve Him with our all ought to be our filial duty. Assurance of our salvation and that of our loved ones should be our top priority.

 

Life after death is a reality, not just a hope. The resurrected life in Jesus is the wondrous reality that translates believers from death to eternal life. Amen.