R.L. Whiteside
The word dead in the phrase, “resurrection from the dead,” sometimes, at least, refers to the death state. People are raised from the dead—that is, the death state. But it is contended by the future-kingdom folks that there will be two resurrections—the righteous to be raised from among the dead, and the rest of the dead will be raised later. They insist that the phrase, “from the dead,” shows that some of the dead will be left. But their arguments have never seemed conclusive to me.
It would be hard to get two resurrections more than a thousand years apart out of the following language of the Savior:
Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in their tombs 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 judgment” (John 5:28-29).
There is to be an hour, or period, in which all, both good and bad shall come forth from the dead at the call of Jesus. The same thought—that is, that both will be raised at the same time—is presented in Acts 4:1-2: “And as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being sore troubled because they taught the people, and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.” Here we have the phrase, “resurrection from the dead” (ek nekron). The priests and the captain of the temple were Sadducees. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of anybody. With them death ended all. Are we to believe that they stirred up all this trouble because the apostles taught that the righteous would be raised before he wicked? That point did not concern them, but to preach that the dead would be raised did disturb them. The apostles preached in Jesus a universal resurrection from the dead. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Before Felix, Paul preached that he had hope toward God that there would be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust. (Acts 24:15.) It was that sort of preaching that so exasperated the Sadducees. Hence, when the apostles at Jerusalem preached that all would be raised from the dead (ek nekron), it infuriated the Sadducees. But the Pharisees believed in a universal resurrection. Paul took advantage of this difference between the Sadducees and Pharisees, when he was brought before the council in Jerusalem, and said: “Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees: touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question” (Acts 23:6).
The two-resurrectionists seek to make a point on Paul’s effort to “attain unto the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:11). After quoting Phil. 3:10-14, Charles M. Neal says:
To present and emphasize this thought, Paul invents a new word. This word, exanastasis, occurs but this one time in the New Testament. The phrase ‘resurrection from the dead/is translated by Rotherham as ‘out-resurrection from among the dead,’ and in the Emphatic Diaglott as ‘resurrection from among the dead’.
It is true that the word occurs in the New Testament only in this one place. But we become somewhat doubtful of one who quotes as authority the Emphatic Diaglott, a translation that is printed and sold by the Russellites. And surely no one would seriously put Rotherham up against the great body of scholars who gave the American Standard Version.
But to seek to make exanastasis mean out-resurrection from is to venture beyond the lexicons. Liddell and Scott gives the New Testament meaning as the resurrection. Thayer: a rising up; a rising again; resurrection. Thus it is seen that Thayer, though himself a premillennialist, gives no support to the idea in defining the word. When a man gives a definition of a word that is not sustained by either of these lexicons, nor by the greatest body of scholars that was ever gathered for any purpose, he puts entirely too much stress upon himself.
It is true that ek or ex when standing alone as a preposition, usually has the general meaning of “out of”; but when used as a part of a compound word, as in exanastasis, it sometimes merely intensifies the meaning of the word to which it is joined, giving the idea of utterly, entirely. See Thayer and Liddell and Scott. If one has the time and opportunity, he may also examine Winer (page 429) and Robertson’s Grammar of the Greek New Testament (pages 562-564, 598). If ex adds any meaning to the word here, it merely means that Paul was striving to obtain a complete resurrection, a perfect resurrection—that is, a resurrection to life that is life indeed. In that respect there is a decided difference between the resurrection of a faithful Christian and a sinner, for a sinner is not raised to real life.
Sometimes the preposition adds nothing to the meaning of the word with which it is compounded— that is, so far as we can see. Take, for illustration, the verb from which we have exanastasis. It occurs in Mark 12:19 and Luke 20:28—“raised up seed unto his brother.” Here we have ex joined to the verb; but in the parallel passage in Matt. 22:24, where the meaning is bound to be exactly the same, the preposition ex is left off. If adding ex to the verb does not change this verb, how can one dogmatically argue that it changes the noun that is derived from the verb? The argument built on exanastasis is about as flimsy an argument as one could find. A cause that depends on such arguments cannot have a substantial basis. But a wild theory is often supported by very tame arguments.
