by Mike Randall
Former editor of the Baptist Bible Tribune
A key teaching of New Testament Christianity is the resurrection from the dead of both the saved and the lost, the righteous and the wicked, those who believe and those who do not. This teaching is one of the basic truths or fundamentals of historic Christianity. It was adopted as such in the famous Bible conference held near Niagara Falls in 1895. Based upon the statement of Jesus Christ in John 5:28-29, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
Life after death is a common teaching. Civilizations, world religions and philosophers endorse the idea of an existence after death. Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and even American Indians held to this belief. Present-day world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucian-ism and Islam believe in existence after death, as did Socrates and other philosophers. Only in the Bible are evidences and proofs established BOTH for life after death AND a bodily resurrection.
Bodily resurrection is a biblical teaching. The idea of a bodily resurrection is taught in both the Old and New Testaments. Job 19:25-27 declares, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” See also Genesis 22:5, Hebrews 11:19, Psalm 16:9-11, 17:15, Isaiah 26:19, Hosea 13:14, and Daniel 12:1-3, 13.
Christ declared a bodily resurrection. Christ’s statement in John 5:28-29 confirms a bodily resurrection because, “all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth …” Christ warns not to marvel at this truth because it is contrary to the natural world and the experience of mankind regarding the dead. It requires God’s supernatural intervention. Christ further confirmed bodily resurrection when He said, “… I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:25-26).
Christ accomplished a bodily resurrection. Besides His statements, Christ guaranteed a bodily resurrection by His own death, burial and resurrection. R. A. Torrey, in The Fundamentals, has written, “While the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of Christian doctrine, it is also the Gibraltar of Christian evidence, and the Waterloo of infidelity and rationalism. If the scriptural assertions of Christ’s resurrection can be established as historic certainties, the claims and doctrines of Christianity rest upon an impregnable foundation.”
Christianity confirms science and philosophy. Theologian Henry Thiessen suggests that the scientific concept of the indestructibility of matter and conservation of energy makes a bodily resurrection possible and reasonable. Further, the philosophical concept that after death the wrongs of this life will be righted makes bodily resurrection a necessity. The possibility and necessity of these two disciplines is made a certainty in Scripture.
We may choose our resurrection. In Christ’s statement, two classes are identified, “they that have done good … and they that have done evil.” We have a choice in regards to these two classes. Charles Spurgeon explains the difference:
“I answer, he that doeth good is a man who, having believed in Jesus Christ, and received the new life, doeth good in his new nature, and with his newborn spirit, with all the intensity of his heart. As for his sins and infirmities, into which by reason of his old nature he falleth, these being washed away by the precious blood of Jesus, are not mentioned in the day of account, and he rises up as a man who hath done good, his good remembered, but the evil washed away. As for the evil, of whom it is asserted that they may do good, we answer, so they may do good in the judgment of their fellow men, and as towards their fellow mortals, but good towards God from an evil heart cannot proceed … The evil man’s good is good to you, his child, his wife, his friend, but he hath no care for God, no reverence, no esteem for the great Lawgiver … O sirs, there are some of you, who with all your excellences and moralities, have never done good as God measures good, for you have never thought of God to honour him, you have never even confessed that you had dishonoured him, in fact, you have remained proudly indifferent to God’s judgment of you as a sinner, and you have set yourself up as being all you should be. How shall it be possible, while you disbelieve your God, that you could do anything that can please him? Your whole life is evil in God’s sight – only evil. And as for you who fear his name, or trust you do, take heed unto your actions … and make it clear before God, that your heart is right …”
(Charles H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume XV, pp. 584-585).