Weaver1has's Blog

A general introduction on the Resurrection

Before we move into 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I felt it important to look at general ideas about the resurrection in the English-speaking world.  This is the order that I will follow;

• Everyday use of the word resurrection
• Historical roots of the word ‘resurrection ‘in the English-speaking world
• Vines definitions found in the Greek New Testament
• Resurrection in the New Testament
• Work will then begin on 1 Corinthians 15

So, let us look at a definition found in the Learners Definition of the Resurrection;

“The act of causing something that had ended or been forgotten or lost to exist again, to be used again, etc.”

Every day Use

A resurrection from a secular perspective can be negative or positive. 

“Stop resurrecting old news!”

A person does not want to be reminded about something that happened in the past.

“We can now make a pudding from Gran’s resurrected recipe”

Something that was important to the family has been found again and they will be able to enjoy the food that they enjoyed when they were small.

History and Etymology for resurrection

“Middle English resurreccioun, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin resurrection-, resurrectio act of rising from the dead, from resurgere to rise from the dead, from Latin, to rise again, from re- + surgere to rise — more at surge”  From: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resurrection

I find the etymology here very interesting because we have two parts for the English. Re when put on the front of words means again, for example ‘revamp’ making something new.  We also have the word surge which in modern English is used in English in various ways

• Electrical surge; When too much power goes through and cause havoc
• Sea waves surge; Water rising and moving fast
• A mob of people surging forward.

In all of these words we have an idea of ‘power’ involved.

So, re-surging some ‘powerful force moving forward again’.

As well as that the word erect (standing).

In the end we have the word resurrection.

So even within a natural point of view there is a reanimation of something that was dead.  In this word there is energy, there is life and there is something that can bring a dead stone to life.

The word resurrection then is a beautiful word which has a lot of meaning in the English-speaking world as it came down to us.

• Middle English
• from Late Latin
• Anglo-French

Vines Definition from the Greek page 290

So, the words is anastasis and it means a raising or a raising up and it is made up of two words; ana = up and histemi= to cause to stand.

The word anastasis is used here, Romans 1⁴

⁴ who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, NASB from BibleGateway.

The word resurrection in the New Testament

This is just a very general brush but as you can see at first glance one can see that the word resurrection is a central concept in the New Testament.   It is dealing with an ultimate question. Is there life after death? The New Testament answer to this is a resolute yes. I could have also looked at other words such as ‘rose’ from the dead and I would have an even larger list.  This list will suffice, however.  

The Gospels

The first thing I noticed that the word resurrection for the synoptic Gospels usually starts in the second half of the Gospels.  This is telling because the resurrection is centrally linked to the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection.  From the Gospels point of view including Johns Gospel, the central theme revolves around the life and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.  There are many stories of resurrections even today but for the Apostles who penned down information about the resurrection, it was mostly if not completely linked to Christ.  For the book of Acts which is the second edition of Luke’s work, the resurrection is central to the whole book of Acts!

Jesus is risen from the dead and what does this mean to you, to me and to the world?  The resurrection of Christ is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of; What happens after death?

The ancient world realized this, and they dropped Paganism and turned to the Christian religion.   This is also important to us!  The world today in the West has been turning its back on Christianity and has begun to take science as having all the answers.  My friend’s science cannot answer this ultimate question about the resurrection.  Science can make us more comfortable and helps us to live longer and helps to find new ways to feed the world, but it is not the ultimate answer.  Politics is the same. Politics can make us more comfortable and make things work for our good and give us things, make us rich but it cannot answer the ultimate question about our ultimate destiny; Our destiny to meet death.  What then?  The West has gone out of its way to make you comfortable and live the hedonist way (not all).  It has failed on the ultimate question of life after death.  As you can see 1 Corinthians 15 is a central chapter in the whole of the New Testament that goes out of its way to answer this ultimate question. Next time I will start to go through this chapter.  Let us go through chapter 15 then and turn to Jesus Christ as our personal saviour who can bring us into a living relationship with God. 

You can also visit my other blog at; https://hasan-godtalk.blogspot.com/       

This entry was posted on December 4, 2020 at 8:40 pm and is filed under 1 Corinthians Course. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.