No 41: To Secure Our Resurrection from the Dead

There's a dramatic moment in St Paul's life when he artfully manages to split the Sanhedrin down the middle by suddenly saying: "I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead!" (Acts 23:6).  At which point "there was a great uproar" - proving that Jews too could sometimes fall out over theology.  It's not just a Christian speciality.

Jesus said to Martha, grieving for her brother Lazarus' death: "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will not die forever" (John 11:26).  Jesus brought several people back to life, to this life as we know it; and so did Elijah and Elisha before Him.  But they more seem to be examples of 'extreme healing'.  None left any account of what they experienced, if anything. 

Jesus was the first man to die and then return to life with a body of quite a different sort: as physical as ours, not an apparition or ghost, but not confined by the laws of space-time. He could walk through walls!  Disappear and be somewhere else instantly!  So He has provided us with the first real glimpse of what our future resurrected life may look like.

Jesus always said He would take His life up again (e.g. John 10:17), in other places it is said that the Father raised Him to life (e.g. Galatians 1:1).  Both are true because Jesus and the Father are One.  In Jesus, our God totally identified our fate with His Own.  When God suffered death on our behalf and came out on the other side in glorious new life, it has ever since been possible to believe fully His determined intention to rescue us completely and eternally.  Jesus' forefathers did experience God's forgiveness, favour and salvation: but what God planned for them in eternity remained an open question for them.  The only answer they saw then was death, though they hoped for much more.

This is why St Paul calls death "the last enemy" (1 Corinthians 15:26).  When Jesus rose from the dead, complete faith was finally given to us that God would never loose His firm, loving hold on us, "even though we die" (cf John 11:26).