It may have been noticed, in reading our Common Version, that the New Testament writers, in alluding to the doctrine of the resurrection, call it sometimes the resurrection of the dead, and sometimes the resurrection from the dead; but it seems to have escaped notice that this distinction of language is founded on a corresponding distinction in the original, and is of real significance. To point out this distinction, to estimate its value, and to show its connection with the commonly received doctrine of the resurrection, is the object of this article.
Whenever allusion is made in Scripture to the resurrection of all men, without any reference to character, it is called simply the resurrection, or the resurrection of the dead. Thus when Paul preached at Athens, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers said, "He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange Gods; because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." (Acts xvii, 18. See also verse 32; and xxiii, 6, 8; and Heb. vi, 2.) The Greek word here translated resurrection is anastasis.
But whenever the resurrection of Christ and of his saints is expressly referred to, an additional word, a preposition, is employed. It is not simply anastasis, or anastasis nekron, but, anastasis ek ton nekron, and in one case, Phil. iii, 11, exanastasis ton nekron; and in all cases, excepting the last, is rendered, very properly, the resurrection from the dead. In this case the translators seem to have overlooked the force of the preposition in composition. The same particle is employed also in quite a number of passages in connection with the verb; as when it is said, 1 Cor. xv, 20, "But now is Christ risen from the dead," etc. The ex evidently denotes, not merely the future separation of the righteous and the wicked, which, as we suppose all evangelical Christians believe, will begin at the second coming of Christ and the resurrection; but it denotes also that the resurrection of Christ, and of his followers, differs in kind from that of the wicked.
This expression, "resurrection from the dead," has a deep moral significance, exactly corresponding with a passage in Gal. vi, 7, 8, "For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." The resurrection of the wicked is a resurrection of the dead in the moral sense of that word—the dead in trespasses and sins; a resurrection in corruption27and of corruption; of which the only fit emblem on earth can be found in the putridity of the charnel-house. It is an eternal triumph of the loathsomeness of death, as well as of its agony.
But the resurrection of the righteous is a resurrection from among the dead; and the completion of that moral separation from the ungodly which was begun in regeneration; the seal of the divine approbation by which God marks them as his own and reserves them for himself—as the resurrection of the wicked is the seal of their reprobation. The former is a resurrection of life, the latter of damnation. In either case there is something in the composition and condition of the resurrection-body which marks the destination of its owner to the world of purity and glory, or to the world of shame and despair.
That the distinction pointed out is no mere fancy, may be learned from the answer of Christ to the Sadducees, Luke xx, 35, "But they that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry," etc. No one will allege that the resurrection, of itself, is something which must be "obtained." Multitudes who have never so much as heard of it will share in it. The resurrection from the dead is, then, something more than the resurrection of the dead. But the words of Paul, in a passage already quoted, exhibit most forcibly the necessity of this distinction: "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead;" which should have been rendered—"from the dead." Paul's anxiety was, not in regard simply to the resurrection, which he knew would be universal, but in regard to his own condition in it, whether he should be raised in corruption or in incorruption, with a body like unto Christ's glorious body. He says, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. . . . that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection," etc. His fear was lest God should gather his soul with the wicked; his desire, that he might be found at the right hand of the Judge, in the congregation of the righteous.