the Third Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Dictionaries
Resurrection
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or (See JESUS; LAW.) His resurrection is the earnest or "firstfruits" of ours. His life is ours by vital union with Him, and because He lives we shall live also (1 Corinthians 15:23; John 14:19). Christ from Exodus 3:6; Exodus 3:16 proves the resurrection and charges the Sadducees with ignorance of Scripture and of God's "power" (Mark 12:24) as the root of their "error." God said, "I AM the God of Abraham" when Abraham was dead; but God is the God of the living, Abraham must therefore live again and already lives in God's sure purpose, not a disembodied spirit, which would be no restoration of man in his integrity, but as heir of an abiding city suited to man with perfect body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 11:8-16). (See SADDUCEES.) God promised "to thee will I give this land," not merely to thy posterity. This can only be fulfilled by Abraham rising and, in integrity of parts, inheriting the antitypical Canaan. Disembodied spirits require a body if they are to exercise the functions of life. Abraham's soul now receives blessings from God, but will only "live unto God" when he receives again the body.
Rabbi Simai argues on Exodus 6:3-4, "it is not, said, to give you, but to give them, whereby the resurrection of the dead appeareth out of the law." So Manasseh ben Israel, "God said to Abraham, I will give to thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger; but Abraham did not possess that land; wherefore it is of necessity that they should be raised up to enjoy the good promises, else God's promise would be vain." The Pharisees in holding this preserved the faith gleaned from the Old Testament by the pious fathers of the nation; such was Martha's and Paul's faith (John 11:25; Acts 26:6-8). Jacob's dying ejaculation "I have waited for Thy salvation" (Genesis 49:18) and Balaam's, "let me die the death of the righteous," etc. (Numbers 23:10), assume a future state. (See JOB expressly asserts his anticipation of the resurrection through his Redeemer (Job 19:23-27) (See REDEEMER for the translated.) So David (Psalms 16:9-11; Psalms 17:14-15) anticipates his "soul not being left in hades," so that "his flesh shall rest in hope," and his "awaking with Jehovah's likeness"; fulfilled in Christ the Head first (Acts 2:25-31), and hereafter to be so in His members.
So Isaiah (Isaiah 26:19), "thy dead shall live ... my dead body shall they arise"; Christ's dead body raised is the pledge of the resurrection of all Jehovah's people. Daniel (Daniel 12:2): Hebrew "many from among the sleepers, these (the partakers of the first resurrection, Revelation 20) shall be unto everlasting life; but those (the rest who do not rise until after the thousand years) shall be unto shame" (1 Corinthians 15:23). The wicked too shall rise (John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:13). Essentially the same body wherewith the unbeliever sinned shall be the object of punishment (Jeremiah 2:10; Isaiah 3:9-11; Revelation 22:11-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10), "that every one may receive the things done by the instrumentality of ('dia ') the body." Self consciousness witnesses the identity between the body of the infant and full grown man, though that identity does not consist in the sameness of the particles which compose the body at different stages.
Possibly there is some indestructible material germ at the basis of identity between the natural (psychic, i.e. soulish or animal) body and the resurrection body which 1 Corinthians 15:44-45 call a "spirit-animated body," in contrast to the "natural." "Christ will transfigure our body of humiliation (2 Corinthians 4:10; 2 Timothy 2:11-12; 'not vile, nothing that He made is vile:' Whately on his death bed), that it may be conformed unto the body of His glory" (Philippians 3:21). The mere animal functions of flesh and blood shall no longer be needed they do not marry, but are equal to the angels (Luke 20:35-36; 1 Corinthians 6:13; 1 Corinthians 15:35-57; 1 Peter 1:3-4) The time is fixed for the Lord's coming (Colossians 3:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 20). (See REGENERATION.)
These files are public domain.
Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Resurrection'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/r/resurrection.html. 1949.
