RESURRECTION: FUTURE EXPECTATION OR PRESENT REALITY? From Daniel’s Hope To Christ’s Fulfillment
One of the most significant assumptions brought to the study of biblical eschatology is that the Bible presents only one kind of resurrection, one kind of death, and one universal expectation extending indiscriminately across both covenants. Yet when Scripture is allowed to speak in its own covenantal context, a different picture begins to emerge. The resurrection hope proclaimed throughout the Old Testament was not presented as an abstract doctrine about the end of world history. Rather, it was inseparably connected to the coming of Israel’s Messiah, the vindication of God’s covenant people, the destruction of His enemies, the establishment of His everlasting kingdom, and the close of the age governed by Moses. The New Testament does not relocate those expectations thousands of years into the future. Instead, it repeatedly declares that they were standing at the very threshold of fulfillment. Once that covenantal resurrection had occurred, believers under the New Covenant were no longer described as waiting to be raised from the dead in the same covenantal sense. Instead, they were said already to have been raised with Christ through regeneration, justification, adoption, and union with Him.
The Old Testament consistently binds together several great themes. The Messiah would come. He would judge God’s enemies. He would deliver His people. He would establish an everlasting kingdom. He would raise the dead. These were never presented as unrelated events. Psalm 2 announces that God’s Anointed King would inherit the nations and crush His enemies with a rod of iron. Psalm 110 pictures the Messiah seated at God’s right hand until His enemies are made His footstool, ruling in the midst of His enemies while judging the nations. Isaiah 9 declares that the government would rest upon His shoulders and that of His kingdom there would be no end. Isaiah 11 describes the Branch of Jesse judging in righteousness while filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. Isaiah 25 joins together the destruction of God’s enemies, the removal of the veil over the nations, and the swallowing up of death forever (Isaiah 25:6-9). Isaiah 26 continues by proclaiming, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise” (Isaiah 26:19), immediately before describing the Lord coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the land (Isaiah 26:20-21). Ezekiel 37 portrays the resurrection of the dry bones as the restoration and vindication of covenant Israel under David, their king. Hosea promises, “After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up” (Hosea 6:2), while later declaring that God will ransom His people from Sheol and redeem them from death (Hosea 13:14). Finally, Daniel 7 speaks of the Son of Man receiving an everlasting kingdom after judgment falls upon the beast, and Daniel 12 announces that at “that time” Michael would stand, there would be unprecedented tribulation, God’s people would be delivered, and “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake” (Daniel 12:1-3). The sequence is unmistakable. Tribulation. Judgment. Kingdom. Resurrection.
The Jews of the first century inherited this expectation precisely. Martha expressed it perfectly when Jesus delayed in coming to Bethany. She confessed, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). Her statement was not the invention of later Christianity. It reflected centuries of Jewish expectation rooted especially in Daniel 12. The resurrection belonged to the coming of the Messiah and the arrival of the last day of the Old Covenant world.
Jesus did not deny Martha’s expectation. Instead, He transformed it by centering it entirely upon Himself. “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). What follows deserves far more careful attention than it often receives. Jesus makes two distinct promises. First: “He who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Second: “Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
These are often treated as synonymous statements, but the first speaks directly to Martha’s Old Covenant paradigm. Those saints who died before the consummation of the Messiah’s work would indeed live. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Isaiah, Daniel, and every faithful believer who entered Sheol in hope would not remain under the dominion of death. Though they died before the kingdom reached its covenantal consummation, they would nevertheless live because Messiah Himself is the Resurrection. This corresponds beautifully with Hebrews 11, where the faithful all died in faith “not having received the promises,” because “apart from us they should not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39-40). Their resurrection belonged to the completion of the Messiah’s redemptive mission.
The second statement points beyond the transition itself. “Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” Jesus changes both the subject and the tense. He is no longer speaking primarily about those who died awaiting the fulfillment of the promise. He speaks of those who live in union with Him after His resurrection life has been fully manifested. For these believers, death no longer possesses covenantal dominion. They possess eternal life as a present reality. This perfectly harmonizes with John’s Gospel as a whole. Jesus repeatedly declares that the believer “has eternal life” (John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47). John 5:24 states that the believer “has passed from death unto life.” Immediately afterward, Jesus declares, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live” (John 5:25). Resurrection is already breaking into history through union with Christ.
Paul develops this same reality with remarkable consistency. Believers have died with Christ (Romans 6:3-5). They have been buried with Him. They have been raised with Him. They walk in newness of life. Ephesians 2 declares that even when we were dead in sins, God “made us alive together with Christ… and raised us up together, and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-6). Colossians 2 teaches that believers have been buried and raised with Christ through faith. Colossians 3 begins, “If then you have been raised with Christ…” The resurrection is not merely future expectation; it is present participation. Regeneration, justification, adoption, and union with Christ constitute entrance into resurrection life because Christ Himself is the Resurrection.
This explains why the New Testament’s language changes after the passing of the Old Covenant. The resurrection anticipated by Daniel belonged to Israel’s covenantal future. Once fulfilled, the Church is no longer described as awaiting participation in that covenantal resurrection. Instead, believers are continually described as already possessing the life that resurrection anticipated. Physical death remains the dissolution of the body, but it is no longer covenantal death under the condemnation of Adam or the unfinished economy of Moses. The believer departs to be with Christ because he is already united to the risen Christ.
The time texts of the New Testament reinforce this conclusion. Jesus repeatedly declared that His coming in judgment would occur before that generation passed away (Matthew 16:27-28; 24:34; 26:64). John the Baptist announced that the axe was already laid to the root of the trees (Matthew 3:10-12). Hebrews states that the Old Covenant was becoming obsolete and ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:13), that the way into the heavenly sanctuary had not yet been fully manifested while the first tabernacle still stood (Hebrews 9:8), that Christ appeared at the consummation of the ages (Hebrews 9:26), and that “yet a very little while, and He who is coming will come and will not delay” (Hebrews 10:37). James declared that the Judge was standing at the door (James 5:8-9). Peter announced that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7). Revelation opens and closes by insisting that its prophecies concern things that “must shortly take place,” “for the time is near” (Revelation 1:1-3; 22:6, 10, 12, 20).
If these declarations are taken seriously, they point toward the climactic judgment upon apostate Jerusalem in AD 70. There the Old Covenant order reached its divinely appointed end. The temple was destroyed exactly as Jesus foretold. The Mosaic administration passed away. The kingdom stood openly vindicated. The enemies of the Messiah were judged. The age anticipated by Daniel reached its consummation. The resurrection promised to the covenant faithful was fulfilled as Christ completed His victory over death, Hades, and the Old Covenant order that had held the faithful awaiting the fullness of redemption.
This understanding does not diminish the believer’s hope; it magnifies Christ’s accomplishment. The Old Testament saints looked forward in hope to the day when the Messiah would conquer death, establish His everlasting kingdom, vindicate His people, and judge His enemies. The New Testament declares that this was not postponed into an indefinitely distant future but fulfilled in the generation to whom Christ and His apostles spoke. The Church now lives not awaiting the inauguration of resurrection life but because resurrection life has already been given. Christ is risen. His kingdom has been established. His covenant has been consummated. Those who died in faith before His victory were raised just as He promised Martha. Those who now live and believe in Him shall never die, for we have already passed from death unto life and are forever united to the One who is Himself the Resurrection and the Life.
What seems so Inexplicable to me is that this explanation is viewed by so many Christians as unorthodox.
Article posted with permission from Bill Evans
