The Resurrection of the Dead is God’s act of raising the body from the grave.
Christ has already been raised as the firstfruits.
An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out.
The hope of the church is not that the soul slips free of matter. It is that the dead in Christ will rise, and this mortal body will put on immortality.
Israel’s hope was never only that a name would be remembered. Job said that in his flesh he would see God. Daniel said that many who sleep in the dust of the earth would awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame. The Sadducees denied the resurrection. Jesus answered that they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God, and that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. He called Himself the resurrection and the life. He raised Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus as signs. Then He rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures. Paul said that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, preaching is vain, faith is vain, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. But in fact Christ has been raised, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. At His coming those who belong to Him will be raised. John saw the rest of the dead, and he saw a resurrection to judgment as well as to life. The gospel therefore stands or falls with a real rising of real bodies by the power of God.
- Resurrection means the dead are raised, not that they merely live on as spirits.
- Christ’s empty tomb is the firstfruits and the proof.
- All who are in the tombs will hear His voice: some to life, some to judgment.
- The resurrection body is sown perishable and raised imperishable.
- Denial of the resurrection is a denial of the gospel Paul preached.
- Present fellowship with Christ does not cancel the future rising of the body.
- The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
- Firstfruits – Christ raised first; those who belong to Him at His coming.
- The Voice of the Son – The dead hear Him and come out.
- Two Outcomes – Resurrection of life and resurrection of judgment.
- The Body – What is sown in weakness is raised in power.
- At His Coming – The dead in Christ rise first; the living are changed.
- Against the Sadducees – God is the God of the living; the Scriptures teach the rising.
- Death Destroyed – When the perishable puts on the imperishable, death is swallowed up in victory.
- 1 Corinthians 15:12-14, 20-23 – “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”
- 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 52-54 – “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable… It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body… for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed… then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’”
- John 5:28-29 – “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”
- John 11:25-26 – “Jesus said to her, ‘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.’”
- Luke 20:37-38 – “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”
- Daniel 12:2 – “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.”
- Job 19:25-27 – “For 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.”
- 1 Thessalonians 4:14-16 – “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep… And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
- Acts 24:15 – “Having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.”
- Acts 26:8, 23 – “Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?… that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”
- Philippians 3:20-21 – “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
- Romans 8:11, 23 – “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you… we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
- Revelation 20:4-6, 12-13 – The first resurrection of those who reign with Christ; the dead, great and small, standing before the throne; the sea giving up the dead.
- Matthew 22:31-32 – “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?”
- Hebrews 6:1-2 – The resurrection of the dead is named among the elementary doctrines of Christ.
- Isaiah 26:19 – “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!”
- Ezekiel 37:12-14 – “Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people… And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.”
- John 6:39-40 – “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”
- 2 Timothy 2:18 – Hymenaeus and Philetus “have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened.”
- 1 Peter 1:3 – “He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
If the dead are not raised, the gospel is empty. But in fact He has been raised.
An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice.
Do not say the resurrection has already happened and leave the body behind.
Wait for the redemption of the body. The trumpet will sound. The dead will be raised imperishable.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.
Entry compiled for the JESUSaves.com Bible Glossary. Optimized for wiki.js Visual Editor.