A listener, “Ash,” recalled me saying that the New Testament doctrine of resurrection is incoherent without the doctrine of deification (i.e., that the Christian is a partaker of the divine nature with the end goal of being “made God”). He asked if I would flesh out the point. Below, I do just that by considering three questions: “What is resurrection?” “Who is resurrected?” “How is resurrection accomplished?” I suggest that these three questions bring to light why the doctrine of deification is essential to making sense of the New Testament teachings.
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Dear “Ash,”
Yes, you heard me correctly. I did, indeed, say that I believe the New Testament teachings on resurrection are incoherent unless paired with the doctrine of deification: That is, the Eastern patristic doctrine that the Christian partakes of the divine nature through union with Christ, thereby being “made God” by participation in God.
Ironically, I came to this conclusion long before I ever studied the Eastern Church fathers. As you know, I was a student of philosophy and religion for well over a decade before discovering the Eastern fathers. During these years, I devoted a season to a comparative study of mortality, the soul, reincranation, the afterlife, and resurrection across pagan, Jewish, and Christian thought. At the time I was a full-throated nominalist materialist, if you can believe that.1 So while I had more in common with the Epicureans than with the Jews or the Christians, I nonetheless strived to make an honest accounting of the views represented in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
My study of the New Testament was particularly surprising because I kept stumbling across odd claims that, truthfully, seemed either indefensible or at odds with competing claims within the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.
For example, I was struck by St. Paul’s claim that Christ, having been raised from the dead, can no longer die — or “dies no more” (οὐκέτι ἀποθνῄσκει) (Romans 6:9). The claim is stronger than a declaration that Christ will not die again. The Apostle claims he cannot die again. And the reasoning is causal: Having been raised, immunity to death follows. The case seemed obviously false. Why would reanimation make one immune to a second death? The Bible offers several accounts of individuals being raised back to life by miracle, in both the Old and New Testaments. Are we to believe that the widow’s son or Lazarus or others are still among us, unable to die a second time? By Paul’s reasoning, the answer would seem to be yes: Having been raised, they cannot die again. But I presume Paul would not advocate for this conclusion. Hence, the argument seemed to me an obvious non sequitur.
To choose a second oddity of note, I was struck by Paul’s statement that he hopes to attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11). The phrase seemed odd, since my study of Jewish thought — or of the sects that believed in the resurrection of the dead — indicated belief in a universal resurrection for judgment: A day will come when God will raise all, righteous and wicked, to give account for the deeds done while in the flesh. Hoping to be judged righteous on that dread day certainly makes sense. But hoping to be resurrected seems rather strange. For resurrection is guaranteed. Why, then, hope to attain to the resurrection from the dead?
These two statements were far from the only anomalies I ran across. Yet, suffice it to say that the accumulating oddities led me to conclude that the New Testament writers believe there is a difference between reanimation, on the one hand, and resurrection, on the other. The latter carries with it a change that makes one immune to death and corruption, and I would eventually trace the source of this change to the righteous partaking of God’s own immortality. Only later did I connect this conclusion with the Eastern patristic understanding of the Christian gospel, to which partaking of the divine nature is central.
So, with this prelude, let’s look at the New Testament teachings that pushed me to this conclusion. I find it useful to consider the matter by asking three simple questions: Who is resurrected? What is resurrection? How is resurrection accomplished?
Who is resurrected?
The belief that God will one day resuscitate all of humanity for judgement can be found amongst Jewish writers long before the resurrection of Jesus. We find it in the writings of the prophet Daniel, who prophesied:
At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever…. (Daniel 12:1-3)
The prophet Isaiah, too, testifies to the same, declaring:
“As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord. “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” (Isaiah 66:22-24)
These two passages are far from the only testimony to the belief. We find this same expectation that the dead will rise for judgment in Wisdom of Solomon (2:24-3:10 and 4:15-5:15) and the second book of Maccabees (7:9). In addition, the belief appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q521), in the second of The Eighteen Benedictions (Shemoneh Ezreh),2 and in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus.3 And though the Sadducees of the first century rejected the doctrine, it was evidently held by the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, as testified to in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 12:18; Acts 23:6-8).
Now, several common traits emerge across these texts on resurrection. First, the dead will be reanimated. Second, God will judge those raised for deeds done while in the flesh. And third, there will be vindication for the righteous and condemnation for the wicked. One additional element that sometimes appears can be seen in the above passage from the book of Daniel, namely, “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” Such a statement anticipates the teachings of the New Testament, and its meaning will become clear as we continue. For now, however, let’s focus on the three more common claims.
All three claims echo in the New Testament. For example, Jesus proclaims: “[T]he hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29). Likewise, in the book of Revelation, we read:
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne…. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done…. [A]nd anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (20:12-15)
In the New Testament, however, the teachings about resurrection develop beyond these three points. This development becomes clear if we consider the question I mentioned at the outset of this letter, Did Lazarus — or any of the others who were raised prior to Christ — experience resurrection? If we take resurrection to be nothing more than reanimation, then the answer is plainly Yes. However, Paul’s remarks on resurrection seem to require a different reply.
Consider three of Paul’s statements on resurrection. The first we have already touched on, this being in his epistle to the Romans. He writes, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (6:9). Can the same be said of Lazarus? Rather than speculate, I will appeal to Christian tradition on the point. According to tradition, Lazarus rose only to die again. Methodius of Olympus writes, “Among [those raised from the dead prior to the resurrection of Christ] is the son of the widow of Sarepta, and the son of the Shunammite, and Lazarus. We must say: These rose to die again; but we are speaking of those who shall never die after their rising.”4 To be sure, Methodius is certainly not alone in this claim. The point that these rose only to die again echoes in other Church fathers, including Irenaeus of Lyons and John Chrysostom.5 And lest there be any doubt, I have visited the church in Cyprus where Lazarus was bishop and venerated his bones.
In this light, it seems we either reject St. Paul’s point that death no longer has dominion over those who have been raised or conclude that the resurrection of Christ is something categorically different from the reanimation of Lazarus (et al.) who rose only to die again.
The conclusion that resurrection and reanimation are not the same makes sense of another of Paul’s statement. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he writes:
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be made to live [ζωοποιηθήσονται]. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ (15:20-23; see also Col 1:17-18).
Here, Paul places great significance on Christ being the first to experience the resurrection from the dead. The significance is twofold. First, just as death came to humanity through a human being, namely Adam, so the resurrection from the dead comes to humanity through a human being, namely Jesus. Second, Christ, being the one through whom the resurrection of the dead comes to humanity, is the first fruits of this resurrection. Both points require that Christ is the first to experience the resurrection from the dead. And lest we take Christ to have ushered resurrection into the world by the raising of Lazarus (or anyone else), Paul makes clear that the resurrection of the dead is ushered into the world by Christ’s own resurrection, Jesus being the first to be raised — each in his own order, with Christ first.
The same point appears in Paul’s letter to the Colossians where Paul identifies Christ as “the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything” (1:17-18). For Paul, the resurrection from the dead begins with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. All who were reanimated before this event did not experience the resurrection from the dead, which is why they rose only to die again. For only those who experience the resurrection that Christ himself experienced are immune to death.
A third noteworthy statement of Paul’s, which reinforces the previous point, is his statement to the Philippians, which I touched on in my prelude to the topic. Reacll that Paul writes, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (3:10-11). As already noted, Paul’s hope is not that he will be judged righteous after he is raised — vindication being unsure but resurrection being sure. Paul’s hope is that he will attain the resurrection from the dead. Paul apparently does not presume all will experience this resurrection. Were resurrection nothing more than reanimation, however, the presumption would defy both the OT and NT, which testify that all will be raised for judgment. Yet, Paul identifies the resurrection from the dead as something to hope for, something to attain, something that not all experience. The point, once again, beckons the conclusion that Paul understands something categorically different to transpire in the resurrection of Christ and subsequently in the resurrections of those who belong to Christ. For this is the resurrection after which Paul strives.
Notice that a distinction between two types of resurrection echoes in Christ’s own words quoted above: “the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.” While we may be accustomed to thinking of the difference between the righteous and the wicked as a difference in judicial pronouncements after being raised, Christ locates the difference in the type of resurrection that each one experiences. One experiences the resurrection of life (ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς); the other experiences the resurrection of condemnation (ἀνάστασιν κρίσεως).
We find something similar in Revelation. John pronounces a blessing over the Saints who participate in “the first resurrection.” He writes, “Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death [ὁ δεύτερος θάνατος] has no authority” (20:6). John’s words echo Paul’s claim that Christ, having been resurrected, is no longer subject to death. The same is true, says John, of those who experience the first resurrection. Yet, the same cannot be said of those who are raised for judgment after this. In fact, John omits entirely the word resurrection (ἀνάστασις) when speaking of those who are raised next in his vision. There is a very real difference in the experience of these two groups (see Revelation 20:12-15).
I find it rather noteworthy that Greek icons, which display writing that identifies the scene depicted, also omit the word resurrection (ἀνάστασις) when labeling the raising of Lazarus. Rather, the icon is labeled he egersis tou lazarou (ἡ ἔγερσις τοῦ Λαζάρου), “The Raising of Lazarus.”
In this light, who is resurrected?