“I am the resurrection and the life (Joh 11:25).”

I teach National Guard Army staff officers the staff process.  It is a practical approach.  We give the officers an order that was supposedly produced by their higher headquarters, we teach a step of the process, and then they do that step of the process.  When it is complete the staff has produced their own order that would then be issued to their subordinate organizations.  One of the challenges is that the order we give them is never perfect.  In fact, it is often riddled with errors.  One of the ways we address this is by briefing the order to the staff.  That way they can get a better understanding of the intent of that order.  At the conclusion of the brief, we love to show a slide that shows Homer Simpson handing a manuscript to Mr. Burns.  The caption reads, “It was the best of times it was the blurst of times.”  To which Homer replies, “You stupid monkey!”

The idea is based on the infinite monkey theorem; a monkey typing random keys for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text. In the case of Homer and Mr. Burns the monkeys almost produced War and Peace. Given more time, they would have eventually fixed their error. The problem is, especially in the case of our staff, their doesn’t exist an infinite amount of time. It almost never fails, that at the end of the exercise as we, the instructors, are going over the mistakes in the produced order that some staff officer will respond, “Stupid Monkeys!”

I’ve been wrestling with Jesus’ response to Martha after He told her, “Your brother will rise again (Joh 11:23).”  Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day (Joh 11:24).”  Jesus then tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life (Joh 11:25).”  What does it mean to be the resurrection and the life?

The term resurrection never actually appears in the Old Testament and so there were factions in Jesus’ day that did not believe in the concept. It was one of the doctrinal points that separated the Pharisees from the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in a resurrection and the Sadducees did not. However, even among those who believed in resurrection there was a diversity in opinion. Scott Identifies seven intertestamental thoughts on resurrection. (1) That a good person would be remembered, (2) the survival of the righteous soul, (3) bodily resurrection, (4) the eternality of reason over pain and death, (5) the fires of Gehenna as both punishment and purging before heaven, (6) that the dead would go to somewhere until bodily resurrection and (7) eternal life for God’s people and annihilation for the rest (Scott 1995, 279-280). Ideas almost as diverse as those held today.

In Jesus’ day, “many understood salvation to include immortality and resurrection (Scott 1995, 278).” While the term resurrection may be absent the idea is grounded in the Old Testament. Solomon wrote, “In the path of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death (Pro 12:28).” The Old Testament term Shoel is, “an obscure, shadowy, gloomy place of existence and forgetfulness after death (Scott 1995, 278).” It was the abode of the dead. Yet against the dread of Shoel was set the Old Testament hope that God would not leave them in that place. “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption (Psa 16:10).”

But perhaps in Daniel we find the clearest statement of the idea of resurrection, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Dan 12:2).”  Where the ESV translates many the NIV translates multitudes.  The idea isn’t that some will, and some won’t awake but that the number of those who awake is large.  In fact, apart from those who are alive it will be all those who have lived at one time.  That will be a great multitude indeed.

So, what did Jesus mean when He said that He was the resurrection?  To be the resurrection was to be the same power that not only brought you into being but will one day resurrect you into eternal life or eternal contempt.  In essence it is a claim to deity.  The problem is that no one can live in the presence of deity, the righteous judge, and live.  “But you, are to be feared!  Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused?  From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still… (Psa 76:7-9).”  When will God’s anger be roused?  At the judgment.  “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment (Heb 9:27).”  Will you be able to stand at your resurrection?  Make no mistake, on that day, you will stand before Jesus the resurrection!

The good news is that not only is Jesus the resurrection, but He is the life.  I quoted Psalm 76 above, but I did not finish the thought.  In the ninth verse we read, “God arose to establish judgment, to save all the humble of the earth (Psa 76:9).”  The hope of the Old Testament was that God would not leave them to this judgment and the good news of the New Testament is that the judgment has already come!  The psalmist wrote, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me (Psa 49:15)” and “…great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol (Psa 86:13).”

Jesus said that He, “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mar 10:45).”  That is what He means when He says He is the life.  Paul, told Timothy that Jesus, “gave himself as a ransom for all (1Ti 2:5-6),” Peter wrote that Jesus’ blood ransomed us (1Pe 1:18-19), and John wrote that Jesus blood ransomed us for God (Rev 5:9-10).  To be the resurrection and the life is to be both the power of resurrection and the love that will deliver you from the judgment to come.

This was the plan of God from before the beginning developed by His mind alone and perfect in its execution and result. It was not devised by man (2Pe 1:16) or dare I say stupid monkeys over the course of an eternity. Anything produced by man or monkey will be woefully incapable of salvation or a grotesque distortion of God’s plan; equally incapable of salvation. Believe on Jesus and live (Joh 11:25-26)!

Scott, J. Julius. Jewish Backgrounds Of The New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995.