Q&A Podcast Episode 0716 – Is The Resurrection In The Old Testament?

transcript

This is the Village Church Q & A podcast where our goal is to create digital, shareable and helpful content. To make disciples who will go, grow and overcome.

Pastor Michael: Welcome to the Village Church Q & A podcast, Pastor Michael here with you, with Pastor Craig Jarvis. Hello Craig.

Pastor Craig: Hey, thanks Michael for having me in.

Pastor Michael: Craig, how many episodes have we recorded today?

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Pastor Craig: Uh, twelve.

Pastor Michael : Seven.

Pastor Craig: Oh, seven. I was so close.

Pastor Michael: It’s pastor math.

Pastor Craig: Yeah, that’s right

Pastor Michael: Well, we are answering everyday this week a different question on the resurrection. So Craig, the question for today is, is the resurrection in the Old Testament, particularly the resurrection of Jesus?

Pastor Craig: There are several things that we can look to that demonstrate that this answer is yes. The biggest one is actually in first Corinthians 15 where it reiterates the gospel; it says that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Paul is referring to Old Testament. Indications that there would be a Messiah to come who would suffer and yet die and yet reign for all eternity. So there’s a conceptual truth and then there’s the literal truth.

I’m going to deal with the literal truth and then Michael, if you want to take the conceptual idea, like all of these feasts and festivals, that demonstrate this as well.

In the Old Testament there are several prophets that indicate that there will be a resurrection from the dead. Job talks about ‘I will see God’. Psalms, that’s in Job 19, Psalm 17, Isiah 26; there’s all these different passages in Scripture that indicate that there will be some sort of a resurrection from the dead. Someday where we would not die again and an indication that that would be solidified in the resurrection of the Messiah. Daniel 12:2 says ‘many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake and come to everlasting life and some will be raised to shame, some to everlasting contempt’.

There seems to be, and again, I imagine this one in Isiah 26:9. ‘The dead shall live, the body shall rise. Those who dwell in the dust will awake and sing for joy’.

There’s writing in the Old Testament from prophets who indicate that yes, there will be a bodily resurrection someday for those who follow Yahweh, God. Even Jesus Christ who lived in Old Testament times. Jesus never went to church. Jesus went to the temple. He did all of the festivals and feasts and did Old Testament law; kept them all. And yet, Jesus Christ constantly talked about resurrection from the dead, that we would raise someday from the dead and He prophesied his own resurrection from the dead.

Again there is an indicative nature of a bodily resurrection that is exemplified in the message of Jesus Christ. If you believe in Jesus, you will bodily raise from the dead someday. That’s in the Old Testament. Jesus taught it in the gospels and it’s reiterated in the New Testament whenever it says ‘according to the Scriptures’.

Pastor Michael: When we think about Old Testament, prophesies, about the Messiah, Isiah has the most total package if you will. Isiah talks about two different aspects of the Messiah.

Number 1, He’s the suffering servant. Number 2, He’s the king over the entire world. How do you suffer and die for the sins of the people and rule simultaneously over the entire world in a new earth? There’s this implicit notion that the only way that the Messiah is going to reign is going to be if He’s first dead. There’s no way to make sense of any of the Scriptures. If you are reading Isiah and you’re a Jew, 700 B.C., you’re going to come to one conclusion if you’re thoughtfully reading which is, Oh Wow, the Messiah’s going to die and the Messiah is going to reign over the entire earth in a resurrected state.

Even the idea of a resurrected state where the lion and the lamb are together and the Messiah is reignig over the entire world, this new earth literally necessitates a resurrection which again, wasn’t a new concept to Isiah. The way He articulated it was really new to the Jewish people, but all their concepts were already basically, fundamentally there.

When the Sadducees in the first century and the Pharisees had a debate, the Pharisees were, listen, Daniel talks about a resurrection, Hosea talks about a resurrection, Isiah implies a resurrection. This idea that the Sadducees had that there would be really no physical resurrection that was also because they didn’t have a high view of Scriptures. They were very much more of a cultural, political class of Jewish leaders than they were a religious group of leaders. They didn’t even believe in the Miraculous, let alone the resurrection. They didn’t believe that angels were even real. They were very almost secular, humanistic version of Jewish people.

The faith for them even seems to be more of a culture, where as the Pharisees doctrinely, they really believed in a dynamic relationship between the spirit and the physical realm.

So the resurrection in the Old Testament is, a, explicitly mentioned, but b, implied that Jesus, the Messiah must die and then must be raised again. You can’t have any reading of the Messiah and Isiah without coming to that necessary conclusion. I think the Apostle Paul in the first Corinthians 15 can confidently say that Jesus was going to be raised in accordance with the Scriptures. Of course, He’s going to be raised. He’s the suffering servant of Isiah and also the Messianic king who is going to reign over the entire resurrected world.

It would stand to reason that the Old Testament thinks He’s going to raise from the dead. In Daniel, when it talks about the double resurrection of the righteous and the good, some to everlasting torment, some to everlasting life, that would also stand to reason that Jesus would also raise from the dead. Jesus is that first fruits. He’s the first of many to come. That fulfills that Jewish festival. Jesus fulfills it perfectly. As more people are resurrected at the end, we are the ones who come after Jesus, the first fruits, were the harvest of resurrection that reaps the ladder. The Old Testament is replete with resurrection language. Any notion that the resurrection isn’t there is probably not done with a careful reading of the Old Testament.

So Craig, last word and we’re going to our final podcast of the week. It’s coming up tomorrow. What’s your final word?

Pastor Craig: The thing that I love about this idea of continuity of Scripture is when the writers in the New Testament and Jesus Christ quite frankly, use according to the Scriptures. Jesus would say “as it is written” or “haven’t you read”? He’s always, these writers in the New Testament and Jesus himself, are always referring to Old Testament truths that are being fulfilled in Jesus Christ or explained in a very powerful way; in the New Testament for all the shadows of the old. In all of these feasts and festivals that they held, there are different parts of the aspects of these festivals and feasts that demonstrate the truth. That there would be a saviour who would die and yet reign for eternity on David’s throne.

I just love the continuity that we find in Scripture from Old to New and how it joins together to make one complete story. Even to the point where you get to Revelation Chapter 5. One of my favorite passages in Scripture where this lamb that looks like He was slain is the only one that has the authority to open the scroll for the finalities of what would happen on earth.

Quite frankly, Jesus himself when He appears to John in this revelation in John, Chapter 1, refers to himself as the lamb who is slain and yet is risen and lives again. That gives a continuity from Genesis 3:15. We’re promised a redemption of sins through a sacrifice and then at the end, we’re told that was done in Jesus Christ.

Every festival, every feast pointed toward it. Jesus fulfilled it and the New Testament points back to it. It’s a continual story of the same truth that Jesus is a lamb given for the salvation of the world and because He rose from the dead, He is the first fruits of those who will rise from the dead someday. I love it.

Pastor Michael: Awesome.

Come back tomorrow. We’re going to be answering the last question of the week ‘Where did Jesus go after the crucifixion, but before His resurrection’?[/bg_collapse]

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