Resurrection and New Creation (Part 1) – The Jewish Concept of Resurrection
Though resurrection was the central message of the early Apostolic Church and a central theme through the New Testament, resurrection is of such minor note in the Old Testament it cannot even warrant being called a theme. It only is literally discussed in two passages. If resurrection is not even a theme in the Old Testament, let alone a major theme, how can we explain the phenomenon that resurrection became a (if not the) central theme in the New Testament? The easy and immediate answer is that a resurrection had in fact occurred, to one person in advance of all others, such that this this shocking occurrence became the determining characteristic of the burgeoning new movement. It was believed that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, far from being an isolated event, hailed the inauguration of the renewal of creation, the restoration of all things, which the prophets and sages of eras past had proclaimed.
In this series I would like to discuss the notion that the resurrection of Jesus inaugurated the eschatological reign of God, in which the powers of Sin and Death themselves are defeated and the entire creation is being renewed. Not simply being a confirmation of what happened at the cross, the resurrection was the beginning of a new age for planet earth. Through the resurrected Lord, a door has swung open through which the power of life over death has begun to permeate a world long pining under the slow torture of decay and the inevitability of death. The springtime of all creation has begun, after the long era of winter’s curse, causing life to be born anew and future hope to slowly emerge from beneath the shadows of despair. This life is not only future, but amazingly, mysteriously and dynamically present.
Before I get specifically to addressing how the New Testament shows the startling truth of Jesus’ resurrection inauguration of New Creation, I would like to describe the Jewish concept of resurrection. First as a word of clarity, “resurrection” does not simply mean to “life-after-death.” Resurrection was a specific kind of expectation which would involve the revivification of bodily life on earth. For a person to have an existence as a “spirit” was not what anyone meant when they spoke of “resurrection.”
It comes as a shock to many that not only does the Old Testament very rarely speak of resurrection, but much of it holds out little or no hope beyond the grave. Just a few passages will show this:
Psalm 115:17 – “The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any that go down into silence.”
Isaiah 38:10-11, 18-19 – “I said: In the noontide of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. I said, I shall not see the LORD in the land of the living; I shall look upon mortals no more among the inhabitants of the world. For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, they thank you, as I do this day; fathers make known to children your faithfulness.”
2 Samuel 14:14 – “We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up.”
Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, 10 – “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun… Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”
(cf. Job 17:13-16; Psalm 6:5; 30:9; 88:3-7, 10-12)
Other passages show the end of human life as returning to the dust:
Genesis 3:19 – “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Job 34:14-15 – “If he should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and all mortals return to dust.”
Psalm 90:3 – “You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’”
(cf. Psalm 104:27-29; Ecc. 3:20)
Many, many passages use “sleep” as a way of describing death, meaning this state of inactivity, which forms part of the cycle of our lives, was the nearest approximation they could use to speak of death. The phrase “and he slept with his ancestors” to describe the death of a person is used dozens and dozens of times (cf. 1 Kings 2:10; 11:21; 22:50; 2 Kings 14:22; 16:20; 2 Chronicles 9:31; 12:16; etc.)
Resurrection is specifically spoken of in Daniel 12 and Isaiah 25. It is metaphorically described in Ezekiel 37 and possibly Hosea 6, in which the meaning of both passages refer explicitly to the restoration of Israel, not physical resurrection. This brief glimmering expectation became significantly developed in the inter-testimonial period, in which resurrection became a significant theme in Jewish literature. By the time the first century arrived, resurrection was a major (though not universal) aspect of the Jewish hope for the kingdom of God, which meant freedom, liberation, restoration and renewal of life on earth. Such a hope was frequently expressed in terms of a new exodus, in which God would act on behalf of Israel like he had when they were slaves in Egpyt, bringing salvation, deliverance and redemption. This expectation was linked with the concept of resurrection through the use of Ezekiel 37, which speaks of the restoration of Israel and return from exile metaphorically as resurrection. Resurrection thus functioned as synechoche, as a focal point for the sum total of Israel’s eschatological hope. By the first century, this was also being interpreted literally as part of the “freedom-package” that the “freedom-God” would give to his people.[3]
Jesus’ proclamation of the Reign of God put him right in line with these expectations, which he made little effort to downplay. “To affirm the resurrection was to affirm the fact that Israel’s God was at work in a new way, turning the world upside down.”[4] Jesus’ life and ministry rode in the current of these Jewish hopes. The hope was not for a disembodied state, or even the reconstrual of life after death, but indeed, the reversal of death itself. Resurrection stands to overturn and cast out the very interloper that entered the earth at the fall of humanity. Implicit in the idea of resurrection is the reversal of the curse from Genesis three and the new creation of all things.
This resurrection was expected simultaneously, corporately, and bodily at the time of eschatological fulfillment, when God’s future for the world arrives and the new age begins.[5] Individuals may be resuscitated at times (1 Kgs. 17:17-24; 2 Kgs. 4.18-37; 13.21), but not resurrected. Those individuals were brought to life, but would die again. Resurrection looked forward to the day when God himself “will swallow up death forever” (Isa. 25.8). The announcement of the angels that “he has risen” (Lk. 24.6) would strike the hearers as remarkable not simply because it was miraculous, but because the expectation of resurrection was universal, not individual. When later Christians describe what happened to Jesus by calling him the “firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1.18; Rev. 1.5) or “first fruits of those who sleep” (1 Cor. 15.20), it becomes clear that they did not see Jesus’ raising as resuscitation. Rather, it was the first in a sequence. Jesus’ resurrection was not an isolated event, but was part of the inauguration of the eschatological liberation of God, the launching of the new-exodus, the beginning of the new age. The resurrection was not simply a confirmation of Jesus’ divinity, but a sign that the eschaton is upon us. Implicit in Jesus’ resurrection, indeed nearly conceived of as the same event, is the resurrection of all of God’s people and the restoration of God’s good world. God’s freedom-movement is now in full swing and is swiftly breaking upon human affairs. The world is at present being turned upside down; it is at present being made new. Leander Keck summarizes this understanding of the resurrection when he says,
“…the way Paul made Jesus’ cross/resurrection central itself relies on an important dimension of apocalyptic theology. Like Pharisaic, apocalyptic, and earliest Christian theology, Paul regarded resurrection as an eschatological event; whoever affirms that a resurrection has occurred affirms also that an end-time scenario is now launched. This scenario entails the definitive resolution of every aspect of the human dilemma, a resolution which is not the culmination of historical processes but a definitive alternative.”[6]
[1] N.T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 86-7.
[2] Ibid, 103-8.
[3] Ibid, 428.
[4] Ibid, 427.
[5] N.T. Wright, “Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins” in Gregorianum vol. 83 no. 4 (2002). Retrieved from www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm on February 27, 2007.
[6] Keck, “Paul and Apocalyptic Theology” (Intepretation) 38.3: 236.
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Reading the Bible in the Right Direction (Part 4) – The Overarching Story of Scripture »
Comments
Comment from Richard
Time: October 28, 2009, 9:19 pm
Unfortunately, I will not be covering those other things because resurrection does not mean “life after death” however we construe such, but only refers properly to an embodied “life-after-life-after-death.” And much of the OT does not seem to recognize any form of “life-after-death” aside from one’s posterity. While some parts of the OT hint at some post-mortem hope (although many of these verses are more likely about bodily deliverance in this life), they are not about “resurrection” unless the specifically refer to re-embodiment.
Comment from Ben Varner
Time: October 31, 2009, 12:25 am
So resurrection does not entail, for example, Israel being regathered to her land, never to be dispersed again? The rains faithfully coming so that the fields yield abundant crops every season? Cypress trees instead of thorns, and myrtle trees in place of briers? Because I guess I was under the impression that these were all examples of resurrection?
Comment from Richard
Time: October 31, 2009, 4:56 am
We can speak of all those other realities metaphorically as resurrection. But resurrection literally only refers to re-embodiment, often with the notion of immortality (that was not a universally clear assertion in Second Temple Judaism, although resurrection was clearly understood in terms of immortal bodily existence in early Christianity). However, resurrection functioned as a synecdoche, such that resurrection came to speak emblematically of the entire restoration and renewal program in God’s eschatological purposes. So properly, resurrection is just re-embodiment, but metaphorically came to imply and evoke all the dimensions of God’s eschatological restoration
Comment from Richard
Time: October 31, 2009, 5:03 am
ahhh…I get your first question now – I thought by “other things” you meant the intermediate state, of which I will not be discussing anytime soon (because the Bible has so little to say about it). Give me time and I’m sure I will talk about all those other realities specifically (e.g., the social, cultural, political, agricultural, ecological aspects of restoration).
Comment from Ben Varner
Time: October 28, 2009, 9:15 pm
I agree that resurrection is not a major OT theme so long as you’re just talking about a person’s physical body, but resurrection entails much more than just that, and the OT gives quite a bit of volume to those other things. Will you be talking about that in a following post? I hope so.