Old Testament on Jesus’ Resurrection

I am pretty sure the internet is devoid of commentary on prophecy (that’s sarcasm, folks), so I’d better throw in a (just a pinch today) of red-hot, mind-blowing prophetic power to light up your life.

Prophesy Friday is my attempt to counteract some of the atrocious sea of false prophecy and sensationalism out there. If these posts are a blessing to you, please consider sharing them with a friend.

…the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev. 19:10

Let’s strengthen our mutual faith together, brothers and sisters. Foresight and clarity of Bible prophecy is one of (if not the) greatest means of growing in our faith in the true God.

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In light of this past Resurrection Sunday, I’d like to highlight two passages of Old Testament Scripture that speak of the resurrection of Jesus.

1000 Years Before the Resurrection

As Peter preached his first Spirit-filled sermon on the day of Pentecost, he flourishes about his best friend Jesus, saying

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—²³ Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; ²⁴ whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. ²⁵ For David says concerning Him:

‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face,
For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.
²⁶ Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad;
Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope.
²⁷ For You will not leave my soul in Hades,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
²⁸ You have made known to me the ways of life;
You will make me full of joy in Your presence’ (Acts 2:22-28 NKJV).

There in verse 27, he quotes from Psalm 16, written 1,000 years before the resurrection. The Holy Spirit gave a glorious, though veiled reference to this central event in the victory of Jesus over sin, death, and the devil. This sermon of Peter’s was perfect, pure, and right in every way (having been written down as Scripture, it cannot be anything else), and he rightly cited the prophecy of David in writing about the resurrection of Jesus in veiled terms so long before.

750 Years Before the Resurrection

As with last week’s Prophecy Friday, Isaiah 53 is the controlling text of Old Testament prophecy about Jesus. Within this glorious passage, Jesus stands tall upon His atoning cross, and rises high from His grave. Look with me at 7-10a

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, (to be killed)
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
⁸ He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living; (He died)

For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. (He died in our place)

⁹ And they made His grave with the wicked— (He was buried)

But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief. (God punished Jesus in our place to set us free)

OK, see all that? He died under the penalty we deserved. He was buried as a corpse.

But then Isaiah sees something strange, verses 10b-12

10 When You make His soul an offering for sin, (His life in the stead of ours, His pure, infinite life as a sin-offering for the impure, finite people He came to redeem)

He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, (How does someone who dies live to see a prolonging of His days?)

And the pleasure of Yahweh shall prosper in His hand.
¹¹ He shall see the labor of His soul,and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities. (There it is right there, friends. He both dies, and yet He lives. There is only one way for this to happen: resurrection)

¹² Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.

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Glory to the risen Lamb. Read and re-read until a fire catches in your soul. Jesus lives.

Thanks for reading,

-Justin

Denial of the Resurrection vs. Reality: Tuesdays with Uncle Athanasius

Athanasius (c.297-373), my favorite early church father, fought heretics with all of his soul. I am brought to tears reading his glorious writings. Please indulge with me each Tuesday as we sit at the feet of our forefather in the faith – a warrior for Christ who relentlessly pursued truth in all the churches. I’ve been posting quotes from his magnum opus “On the Incarnation of the Word” each Tuesday so far.

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Uncle Ath?

Yes, kids?

We found someone who says Jesus didn’t truly rise from the dead with His same body that He died on this cross. His name is Marcus Borg, and he seems to be a popular, intelligent theologian. 

Let me see what he said about the matter, kids.

OK, here:

Because of the common meaning of “physical/bodily” in modern English, I do not think the resurrection of Jesus means this. Physical/ bodily means fleshly, molecular, protoplasmic, corpuscular existence.

But the risen Jesus is not in this sense a physical/bodily reality. The resurrection stories in the New Testament make that clear. The risen Jesus appears in a locked room (John 20). He journeys with two of his followers for a couple of hours and is not recognized – and when he is recognized, he vanishes (Luke 24). He appears in both Jerusalem (Luke and John) and Galilee (Matthew and John). He appears to Stephen in his dying moments (Acts 7). He appears to Paul in or near Damascus as a brilliant light (Acts 9). He appears to the author of Revelation on an island off the coast of Turkey in the late 90s of the first century (Rev. 1).

These texts are not about Jesus being restored to his previous life as a physical being. If such events happen, they are resuscitations: resuscitated persons resume the finite physical life they had before, and will die again someday. Whatever affirming the resurrection of Jesus means, it does not mean this.

Moreover, what would it mean to say that the risen Jesus is a physical/bodily reality? That he continues to be a molecular, protoplasmic, corpuscular being existing somewhere? Does that make any sense? How can the risen and living Jesus be all around us and with us, present everywhere, if he is bodily and physical?

So Uncle Ath, what do you say to Dr. Borg?

Well, let me come at it like this:

Fitting indeed, then, and wholly consonant was the death on the cross for us; and we can see how reasonable it was, and why it is that the salvation of the world could be accomplished in no other way. Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker. Then, having once let it be seen that it was truly dead, He did not allow that temple of His body to linger long, but forthwith on the third day raised it up, impassable and incorruptible, the pledge and token of His victory.

It was, of course, within His power thus to have raised His body and displayed it as alive directly after death. But the all-wise Savior did not do this, lest some should deny that it had really or completely died. Besides this, had the interval between His death and resurrection been but two days, the glory of His incorruption might not have appeared. He waited one whole day to show that His body was really dead, and then on the third day showed it incorruptible to all. The interval was no longer, lest people should have forgotten about it and grown doubtful whether it were in truth the same body.

No, while the affair was still ringing in their ears and their eyes were still straining and their minds in turmoil, and while those who had put Him to death were still on the spot and themselves witnessing to the fact of it, the Son of God after three days showed His once dead body immortal and incorruptible; and it was evident to all that it was from no natural weakness that the body which the Word indwelt had died, but in order that in it by the Savior’s power death might be done away.

A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Savior has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection.

But that devil who of old wickedly exulted in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he alone it is who remains truly dead. There is proof of this too; for men who, before they believe in Christ, think death horrible and are afraid of it, once they are converted despise it so completely that they go eagerly to meet it, and themselves become witnesses of the Savior’s resurrection from it. Even children hasten thus to die, and not men only, but women train themselves by bodily discipline to meet it. So weak has death become that even women, who used to be taken in by it, mock at it now as a dead thing robbed of all its strength. Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him. So has death been conquered and branded for what it is by the Savior on the cross. It is bound hand and foot, all who are in Christ trample it as they pass and as witnesses to Him deride it, scoffing and saying, “O Death, where is thy victory? O Grave, where is thy sting?”

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Who are you going to side with? A 20th century speculation artist who lives in posh academic comfort, or a fourth-century, hardscrabble father of the faith who could see back in history just a few generations to the people who actually knew and walked with, and died in witness to the bodily, risen Jesus Christ? I hear Marcus Borg is a perfect gentleman, and I know he is very intelligent. Yet here is an example of one having become wise in his own eyes – yet he has become a fool – missing the most plain reality in human history: Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

Thanks for those gracious words, Uncle Athanasius.

Grace to all those who love the Lord Jesus,

-Justin