The Jewishness of the Resurrection

Believers in Jesus often have difficulty stating what they think heaven will be like. When many of us think about it, images of clouds, singing, floating, worship, and angels might come to mind. When we attempt to picture eternal life, we tend to come up with an otherworldly, disembodied existence that sounds like a never-ending worship service in the sky.

You may be surprised to hear that this version of “heaven” has more to do with Greek philosophy than it does with the New Testament hope. Ultimately, the New Testament rests upon the Jewish understanding of heaven and the resurrection of the dead as the expectation for the age to come. The apostle Paul may have had the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures in mind when he attempted to describe it: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9; cf. Isaiah 64:4).

The Importance of Resurrection

The New Testament’s vision for the believers’ future is a bodily resurrection that enables us to live with Messiah eternally on a restored earth (Revelation 21:1–5; Romans 8:18–25). A believer’s eternal existence will still involve everything a physical life requires, even eating and drinking (Luke 22:30; 24:41–43)! Those who follow God through Messiah will arise to a new life in a new body, but this time without sin. Believers’ hope is founded on their belief in the resurrection from the grave.

The idea of resurrection was so important to the apostle Paul that he sternly warned the Corinthians that their Greek understanding of the afterlife undermined the faith (1 Corinthians 15:12–19). Some in the Corinthian church still seemed to cling to a Greek philosophical approach, which asserts that the soul separates from the body at death and continues to live on eternally.^[1] Paul argues, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised” (1 Corinthians 15:13). In Paul’s mind, the alternative to resurrection is not souls floating on clouds, but eternal loss; without Messiah’s resurrection, no one could be raised from the dead.

Paul made it clear: A believer’s hope must be founded on resurrection, which was nothing new for Paul. He believed much the same thing before he encountered Yeshua (Jesus) on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). As a Pharisee, Paul had a deep knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Timothy 4:13) and understood that resurrection was a very Jewish belief.

Resurrection in the Hebrew Bible

The Torah of Moses (the Pentateuch) was more interested in moral and procedural issues on earth rather than discussions about heaven. Every so often, a reference is made to Sheol, the realm of the dead, but this is dimly illuminated. Some prophets had visions of heavenly scenes (Isaiah 6:1–3; Zechariah 3:1–7), but they did not dwell on what happened after an Israelite died. The New Testament gives us a better sense of clarity regarding resurrection, yet the examples and predictions of resurrection (Enoch, Elijah, etc.—though not exactly a resurrection as they did not die) in the Old Testament establish the foundation for this glorious hope that is more explicitly revealed in the New Testament. 

The book of Job is one of the earliest written books of the Hebrew Bible. Amid Job’s suffering, he put his trust in the resurrection. At first, Job questioned whether anyone who dies will live again (Job 14:12–14) since he was torn between what he believed and the pain he was experiencing. Eventually, his faith in God prevailed, and he powerfully declared:

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me! (Job 19:25–27)

For Job, the decay of his flesh was not the end. Somehow, God would enable Job to see Him with resurrected eyes.

The great prophet Isaiah also wrote that God will one day “swallow up death for all time” (Isaiah 25:8). He will wipe away the tears of His people, Israel, which is wonderful news! Isaiah continues:

Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits. (Isaiah 26:19)

The idea of resurrection can be found in other prophets and in the book of Psalms. The prophet Ezekiel used the image of resurrection to describe Israel’s physical and spiritual rebirth in the land of Israel (Ezekiel 37). Hosea wrote that God would resurrect fallen Israel after three days (Hosea 6:1–3). The sons of Korah said that God would redeem their souls from the hand of Sheol (Psalm 49:14–15). Likewise, David declared that God would not abandon him to Sheol or allow His “holy one” to see bodily decay (Psalm 16:10–11).

All these references are enough to show that the ancient Israelites hoped in a coming resurrection from the dead, but Daniel removes all doubt when he described a great resurrection that will come after “a time of distress”: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2).

This verse tells us that all people will be resurrected, but only some will awake to “everlasting life.” This proclamation serves as a capstone text for the Hebrew Bible’s theology about the resurrection from the dead—there is an afterlife that can be filled either with eternal joy in God’s presence or eternal disgrace. By the time of Jesus, resurrection was a central doctrine within Judaism, especially for the Pharisaic sect.

Resurrection in Second Temple Judaism

After the Jewish people returned from the Babylonian exile and lived in Israel again, they began separating into groups based on doctrinal differences. The resurrection was one of the main points of disagreement. One example of the resurrection hope during the time between the Testaments comes from the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees. It tells the story of several Jewish martyrs who were tortured to death by the Greco-Syrian king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who ruled over Israel during the second century BCE. One of the martyrs boldly proclaimed to Antiochus that a martyred Jewish man like himself “cannot but . . . cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by Him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!” (2 Maccabees 7:14).^[2]

From the New Testament, we learn that the most prominent group, the Pharisees, accepted the resurrection of the dead, but another group, the Sadducees, rejected it (Acts 23:8). This hope was also embraced by rabbinic Judaism when the resurrection-believing Pharisees were the only sect that survived the Roman invasions. The resurrection was so important to the early rabbis that they made sure to praise God for His resurrection power in the central prayer of the daily prayer service, which is called the Amidah, from the Hebrew word meaning “to stand,” as the prayer is always recited while standing. This prayer is still recited by religious Jewish people three times a day. The second section of the prayer reads:

You are mighty forever, O Lord, you bring to life the dead, you are mighty to save. You sustain the living with steadfast love, you bring the dead to life. . . . Yes, you are faithful to bring the dead to life. Blessed are you, O Lord, who raises the dead.^[3]

Resurrection in the New Testament

As a collection of writings by Jewish authors, the New Testament is a thoroughly Jewish work. It affirms the teaching of the Pharisees regarding the resurrection. Not only were Pharisees a part of the early church (Acts 15:5), but the best-known Messianic Jewish person of his day, the apostle Paul, publicly declared twenty-five years after his “conversion” that he was still a Pharisee (Acts 23:6)—and one who believed the resurrection of the dead had begun with the resurrection of Jesus! His resurrection is the bedrock for belief and arises within a Jewish context.

Conclusion

Belief in the resurrection of the dead to new life is both biblical and Jewish. The resurrection of Jesus and of the dead more broadly is the very hope and foundation of our faith. However, our belief in the resurrection should not simply be a doctrine we agree with; we need to make the resurrection personal. How do we do this? We begin by recognizing our own human frailty and that our future without God’s presence is bleak.

The resurrection gives us hope that God has already raised us in Messiah (Colossians 3:1) and will raise us from our graves to live with Jesus forever. Death is not the end; it is the continuation of life for those who put their trust in the Messiah who died for our sins and rose to conquer sin and death. He offers us the hope of new life today and everlasting life for all eternity.

As Yeshua once said to Nicodemus, a Jewish leader,

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (John 3:16–17)

^[1]            Plato, Phaedo 66-67; 82-83; Timaeus 90; Republic 517.

^[2]            The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989.

^[3]            Dr. John Fischer and Dr. David Bronstein, סדור ליהודים משיחים: Siddur for Messianic Jews, 3rd edition (Palm Harbor, FL: Menorah Ministries, 1988), 47.