COLUMN: Resuscitation and resurrection. What is the difference?
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Food for Thought by John Sterrett
At first glance, one of the more bizarre beliefs that Christians hold is that Jesus rose from the dead. In fact, Christians believe that all human beings will rise from the dead at some point. However, the truth is that many, maybe most, will be merely “resuscitated” as opposed to “resurrected.”
Ironically, an Old Testament passage, written long before Jesus lived on Earth, describes resurrection. In a vision, God told the prophet Ezekiel “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” (Ezekiel 37.4-6).
The dead bodies in Ezekiel’s vision were nothing but dry bones. They’d been dead for a long time. According to all natural, medical processes, there was no way they could be revived, let alone brought back to life. That’s how dramatic resurrection is. Both are about bringing someone back to life, but resurrection is being brought back to life when there is no other way but by God’s power.
You can resuscitate someone who isn’t really dead – you can restore them to consciousness and get their body processes working again if conditions are right and you do the right things. But the biblical prophecies about resurrection tell us that God can and will bring people back from the dead after they have been really, really dead! Even after they’ve been dead for decades, or even hundreds or thousands of years. Resurrection only happens when all hope is gone. It can only be caused by God.
Another characteristic of resurrection as opposed to resuscitation is that it is permanent. It can’t be undone. Once you’re resurrected, you’ll live forever. This is why most of the incidents in the Bible in which people were brought back to life were simply “resuscitation.”
People were brought back from unconsciousness, or even from death – like Lazarus who was famously brought back to life by Jesus after being dead four days. Martha even protested when Jesus asked for Lazarus’s tomb to be opened, “But, Lord… by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days.” (John 11.39). In the King James Version she says “he stinketh”. Miraculous as this was, even involving reversal of bodily decay, it was only bringing a man back to life, to the life he’d had before. In other words, he would have to die again.
When someone is resurrected from the dead, however, they will not have to die again. They will be given a new body and new breath. They will be the same person, and yet they’ll be new and will live forever.
Ezekiel’s vision is describing the end of the world as we know it. I find it exciting, especially when I walk through the graveyard surrounding St Andrew’s Church in Golspie that I, one day, might hear what Ezekiel heard… “there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them… So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.” (Ezekiel 37.7-10).
Resurrection will only happen to those who believe it will happen. But the Bible says all will face God someday. Ask yourself, will I be resuscitated to face Him, or will I be resurrected?
Rev John Sterrett is the minister of St Andrew’s Church, Golspie.
