Did Jesus Raise Himself from the Dead?

St. Ignatius of Antioch, a Christian bishop who was martyred in the early second century, wrote the following concerning Jesus Christ in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans:

For he suffered all these things for our sakes, in order that we might be saved; and he truly suffered just as he truly raised himself—not, as certain unbelievers say, that he suffered in appearance only (it is they who exist in appearance only!). (Smyrn. 1.1-2.1)1

In this passage, Ignatius asserts that Jesus had raised himself from the dead. The statement occurs in a longer paragraph in which he praises the Smyrnaean church for their conviction in the concrete historical realities of Jesus' life: his descent from David, birth from a virgin, baptism by John, crucifixion under Pilate and Herod, and resurrection. The point that he is most keen to emphasise is that Jesus' suffering and resurrection 'truly' happened and not did not merely appear to happen. The causal agency of Jesus' resurrection is not a point he belabours; indeed, elsewhere in his writings—including in this same letter—Ignatius describes Jesus as having been raised by the Father.2 Thus, for Ignatius, 'he raised himself' is simply another way of describing Jesus' resurrection. That he provides no further comment or clarification suggests that he does not regard his statement as novel or controversial, but assumed that it would be acceptable to his Smyrnaean readers.

Now, throughout the New Testament literature (all or nearly all of which predates Ignatius), the normative way of referring to Jesus' resurrection is not 'Jesus raised himself from the dead' but 'God raised Jesus from the dead' or simply 'Jesus was raised from the dead,' a divine passive that implicitly identifies God as the subject of the action. The pre-Pauline credal formula quoted in 1 Cor. 15:3-4 uses such a divine passive, and throughout the Pauline corpus we consistently read that God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 4:24; 8:11; 10:9; 1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:20; Col. 2:12; 1 Thess. 1:10). The same language is used throughout Acts (2:24; 3:15; 4:10; 13:30, 34; 17:31) and also appears in 1 Peter (1:21). As for the Gospels, all four of them use divine passives, for instance in the post-resurrection narratives (Matt. 28:6-7; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:6, 34; John 21:14).

Juxtaposing the consistency of the New Testament in describing Jesus' resurrection as 'God raised Jesus' with Ignatius' seemingly uncontroversial statement that Jesus 'raised himself' leads to an obvious question: where did Ignatius (and presumably at least some of his contemporaries) get the idea that Jesus raised himself from the dead?

The most plausible answer is that Ignatius took the idea from the Gospel of John. Now, it is not certain that Ignatius knew the Gospel of John. Over a century ago, a committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology made a close study of literary dependence on the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. They gave a 'B' rating to Ignatius' knowledge of John, meaning they considered it 'highly probable,' but not 'beyond reasonable doubt,' that Ignatius knew the Fourth Gospel.3 A subsequent study by Walter J. Burghardt found that literary dependence of Ignatius on John's Gospel was the most plausible explanation of the affinity between the two, but that other forms of dependency (such as oral tradition or the influence of a post-apostolic 'Johannine school') could not be ruled out.4 Thus, we cannot take it for granted that Ignatius knew the text of the Gospel of John as we have it today, but it is almost certain that he was familiar with Johannine ideas in some form.

The Gospel of John does not state as explicitly as Ignatius that Jesus raised himself from the dead. However, there are also two passages in John that imply that Jesus raised himself from the dead. The first of these reads as follows:

19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken. (John 2:19-22 NABRE)

John explains the temple metaphor that Jesus used in this saying: the temple refers to his body (cf. John 1:14, which says literally that the Logos 'tabernacled among us, and became flesh'). Thus, as v. 22 confirms, in saying 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,' Jesus was foretelling his death and resurrection. The first-person statement, 'I will raise it up' (egerō auton) cannot be explained away as though necessitated by the temple metaphor. Jesus could easily have said, 'Destroy this temple and in three days it will rise again' or 'Destroy this temple and in three days it will be rebuilt.' Instead, he foregrounded his own agency. What is more, this statement parallels the fourfold statement of Jesus in John 6:39-54, 'I will raise him/it up on the last day' (although the latter uses a different verb, anastēsō). In that text, Jesus is clearly referring to his own future agency in raising the dead. Thus, we have every reason to think that the same idea is in view in John 2:19: Jesus foretold that he would raise his own body from the dead.5^,6 We must emphasise that this notion is not opposed to the idea that Jesus was raised from the dead by God—to the contrary, the latter idea does appear in this very context (v. 22) through the use of a divine passive. (The same is true, as we noted already, in Ignatius' Letter to the Smyrnaeans). 

How could John have conceived of both God and Jesus raising Jesus from the dead? The answer lies in different levels of causal agency. The temple metaphor is helpful here: the Jerusalem temple, forty-six years in the making, was called Herod's Temple because it was Herod's project. However, Herod probably was not involved in the day-to-day construction operations and almost certainly did not do any of the heavy lifting. Thus it would be correct to say that Herod built the temple and it would also be correct to say that workers built the temple. The second Johannine text that implies Jesus' agency in his own resurrection provides more detail about the respective causal roles of the Father and the Son:

17 This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father. (John 10:17-18 NABRE)

Here, Jesus describes his death and resurrection in terms of laying down his life and taking it up again. Notice that he specifically emphasises his volition: 'I lay it down on my own.' He then declares, literally, 'authority I have to lay it down' (or, 'to give it up,' exousian echō theinai autēn), 'and authority I have to take it up again' (or, 'to take it back', exousian echō palin labein autēn). Word order in Greek conveys emphasis and here the word order squarely emphasises Jesus' own agency. According to this text, Jesus took back his life in the same willful sense that he gave it up. As Jerome H. Neyrey states, 'John 10:17-18 and 28-38 both assert that Jesus has God's eschatological power over death, both to raise himself and to raise his followers.'7 However, the text is not saying that this was done independently of the Father. The last clause stresses that the authority with which Jesus was to act was received from the Father.8

Other passages in John's Gospel shed further light on Jesus' role in the resurrection of others (already seen in John 6:39-54). In John 11:24-25, just prior to demonstrating his power to raise the dead by raising Lazarus, Jesus responds to Martha's faith in 'the resurrection on the last day' by declaring his own definitive role therein: 'I am the resurrection and the life'. However, the Gospel's most detailed material on Jesus' role in the resurrection comes in John 5:19-29. The overarching theme here is that, a son does not work independently of his father, and the Son is no different: the Father loves him and shows him all that he does, and the Son does likewise. Here we have precisely the kind of dual Father-Son agency that is implied in the above references to Jesus' involvement in his own resurrection. John 5:21-22 gives two concrete examples of how the Son imitates the Father: resurrection and judgment. 'just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes'. 'Taking back' his own life after giving it up (John 10:18) was just such a volitional act of the Son. Jesus goes on to declare that it is the voice of the Son that will give life to the dead in the resurrection (John 5:25, 28). Jesus says in v. 26 that 'just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself.' 'Having life in oneself' appears to refer to self-existence, a divine attribute. We have then the paradoxical idea that the Son has received self-existence as a gift from the Father. That the Son 'has life in himself' helps to explain how, having died, he would still have authority to reclaim his life.

We can now understand a bold Christological move that was first made in the Fourth Gospel, and then taken up by Ignatius. Because the Father gave the Son to have life in himself, and authorised him to dispense life to whomever he wished—already during his lifetime, in the case of Lazarus, and ultimately 'on the last day'—why should the Son not also have exercised this agency in his own resurrection, by 'taking back' his life as deliberately as he had given it up? After all, Jesus' resurrection was not a separate event from the eschatological resurrection. It was, in Paul's words, the firstfruits of the same harvest (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). Or, to return to Ignatius, 'our Lord' was 'truly nailed in the flesh for us under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrach...in order that he might raise a banner for the ages through his resurrection for his saints and faithful people' (Smyrn. 1.2).9

What are the theological implications of the notion that Jesus raised himself from the dead? There are profound implications, not only for Christology—Jesus' divine authority over death is absolute—but also for anthropology. Clearly, in order to raise himself from the dead, Jesus must have still consciously existed while he was dead. This implies that death, for humans, is not the extinction of all existence.10

Footnotes

• 1 Trans. Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 186.
• 2 'They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up' (Smyrn. 6.2, trans. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 189); 'Be deaf, therefore, whenever anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, who was the son of Mary; who really was born, who both ate and drank; who really was persecuted under Pontius Pilate, who really was crucified and died while those in heaven and on earth and under the earth looked on; who, moreover, really was raised from the dead when his Father raised him up, who—his Father, that is—in the same way will likewise also raise us up in Christ Jesus who believe in him, apart from whom we have no true life' (Trall. 9.1-2, trans. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 165).
• 3 A Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology. The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905).
• 4 Walter J. Burghardt, 'Did Saint Ignatius of Antioch Know the Fourth Gospel?', Theological Studies 1(2) (1940): 130-56.
• 5 Robert H. Gundry writes, 'Jesus' saying [in John 2:19] — with John's editorial comment — makes Jesus raise himself from the dead just as in John 10:17-18' ('Jesus' Blasphemy according to Mark 14:61b-64 and Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:5,' in Robert H. Gundry, The Old is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations [Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2010], 109; previously published by Mohr Siebeck).
• 6 Frederick Dale Bruner writes, 'Usually in the New Testament it is God who is said to raise Jesus. But John here, and notably in chapter 10 (vv. 17-18), records Jesus speaking of raising himself. Most of us are most comfortable with the majority New Testament representation: that God raised Jesus from the dead. But if John is so convinced of Jesus' full deity that he believes Jesus also contributed to his Resurrection, without any compromising of Jesus' true humanity (a true humanity that John, too, is deeply eager to maintain), then most of us have felt we can live with John's record as well, since in the final analysis, a Resurrection is mystery enough in itself' (The Gospel of John: A Commentary [Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012], 195).
• 7 An Ideology of Revolt: John's Christology in Social-Science Perspective (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 79. Previously published by Fortress Press.
• 8 Bruner again: 'Usually in the New Testament it is God the Father who is reported to have raised Jesus. But here Jesus speaks of raising himself — though, notice, he says he can both "lay down" and "take back" his life only because, as he continues immediately, "I have authority" to do so (from the Father)' (The Gospel of John, 765).
• 9 Trans. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 186.
• 10 One could escape this implication by asserting that unless death for Jesus was a metaphysically different experience than death for the rest of humanity. This, however, would be a soteriologically dangerous claim to make, since it is precisely our relatedness to Jesus' death that gives us hope (see, e.g., Rom. 6:4-5; Heb. 2:9, 14).

Christadelphians, Litigation, and Social Justice (Part 2)

In the first part of this series, we described the historical Christadelphian position1 on litigation—namely, that it is morally wrong to 'recover debts by legal coercion'—and considered the argument for this position by its most ardent proponent, Christadelphian pioneer Robert Roberts. We then took a close look at one of the biblical texts used to justify the position—namely, the 'do not resist evil' saying and accompanying concrete examples from the Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42).

In this article, we will look at the other major passage seen as prohibiting believers from engaging in litigation (1 Corinthians 6:1-9a), and will then consider overarching moral-theological issues, particularly the respective roles and jurisdictions of Church and State, and close by mentioning a historical account of litigation undertaken by a Christian in the mid-second century.

1 Corinthians 6:1-9a

1 How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? 2 Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? 4 If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? 6 But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. 9 Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? (NABRE)

In this passage, Paul issues a sharp rebuke to some of the believers in Corinth in response to a situation that had occurred (whether once or more than once, we do not know) in which one believer sued another believer in a secular court. Paul regards this behaviour as unacceptable, because he considers the secular courts to be fundamentally 'unjust,' and because it is 'in any case' a failure (with respect to the love ethic) for brothers to sue one another, and detrimental to Christian witness. Paul mentions two options for handling the matter that would have been better than going to court. The first option would have been to adjudicate the matter internally, within the church. (Here, Paul lays the foundation for the idea of an ecclesiastical court, which will be discussed further below.) The second option would have been for the plaintiff to 'put up with injustice' and let himself be cheated. It is important to notice that 'put up with injustice...let yourselves be cheated' is not presented as the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case should have been settled justly without going to court. 'Rather put up with injustice...rather let yourselves be cheated' is not ideal from the point of view of justice, but it is better to endure injustice than to inflict it; it is better to be cheated than to cheat. Yet some Christadelphian writers remove 'let yourself be cheated' (or, in King James English, 'suffer yourselves to be defrauded') from this relative setting and make it a timeless moral principle. It is noble to sacrifice one's own right to justice; our Lord did so on the cross. However, when we allow ourselves to be cheated by our brother or sister in Christ, we are allowing our brother's or sister's sin to go unchecked. It is better that the matter be adjudicated by a competent authority within the church, so that the parties can be instructed and corrected as needed, and no injustice is done.

This passage only directly concerns the issue of a believer suing a fellow believer; it does not touch on the question of a believer engaging in litigation against a non-believer. Christadelphian writers have generally inferred that what holds in the one case also holds in the other, for two reasons. (i) Paul says the secular courts are fundamentally 'unjust,' so believers should have no recourse to them. (ii) The moral obligations of the believer are toward all men, and not only to fellow believers. Thus, if it is wrong for 'brother to go to court against brother,' it is also wrong for a believer to go to court against anyone else. To address (i) , we must consider the relative competencies of secular courts ancient and modern to render just judgment. Commentators provide abundant empirical evidence of the fundamentally unjust character of courts in the Roman world generally and in Corinth specifically.2 Suits were largely decided on the relative social standing of the litigating parties, rather than the merits of the case. Bribery was endemic, and judicial functions fell to procurators and governors, who were often installed in their positions for reasons other than expertise in matters of law (to put it lightly). It is very different today, particularly in the developed world. Legal and judicial systems have been built on the foundations of Judaeo-Christian morality. Strong accountability and transparency mechanisms are in place. Lawyers and judges are very well-trained. Of course, human justice systems remain far from perfect and the legal profession retains a reputation for willingness to manipulate truth and justice. However, we cannot fairly assume today, as Paul could in his day, that taking a civil matter before the secular courts is intrinsically unjust and tantamount to 'cheating.'

This brings us to the second consideration: treating unbelievers as we treat believers. As Paul indicated, the ideal outcome of a dispute is a just resolution. Thus, the ideal way to handle a dispute is the way most likely to lead to a just resolution. All would agree that settling a matter out of court, and avoiding costly and potentially bitter legal costs, is better than litigation. However, it is hard to deny that involving lawyers and other professional experts is preferable to asking the local church to resolve the kinds of complex legal and financial disputes that can arise today. Do most church leaders (or local church governance bodies) have the necessary expertise to determine a fair child custody arrangement or a fair amount of child support, to divide up a contested estate, or to liquidate the assets of a failed business partnership? And, in any case, a party to the dispute who is not a Christian (or even who does not belong to the same Christian community) is not going to recognise the other party's local church as a competent and impartial authority to adjudicate the matter.

If a Christian finds him/herself in a serious dispute and engages professional legal counsel, the motive must be to find a just resolution, not to achieve the best possible outcome from the perspective of the client's own financial and other welfare. This should be taken into account when choosing a lawyer. Every possible effort should be made to arrive at a mutually satisfactory settlement rather than a court judgment (cf. Matt. 5:25-26). Allowing oneself to be wronged is certainly an option the believer should consider (especially given the 'resistance through non-resistance' principle discussed in the previous article). However, there are circumstances—above all, those involving the welfare of children—when litigation may be the most prudent outcome to satisfy the demands of love-of-neighbour toward all involved.

The Legal Jurisdiction of the Church and the State

Paul infers in 1 Corinthians 6:1-3 that the Church has the God-given authority to judge matters involving its members (see also 1 Cor. 5:12-13). He makes an a fortiori argument: if the saints are judge the world and even angels in the eschatological future, how much more are they qualified to exercise judgment today? Thus Paul lays the foundation for ecclesiastical courts and tribunals, which would develop in the Church and still exist in the Catholic Church to this day. The question is, what are the scope and jurisdiction of the Church's judicial prerogatives, relative to the scope and jurisdiction of the secular courts?

This is a question that receives a fairly clear answer already in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus' opponents tried to trap him with a tricky question about paying tribute to Caesar, Jesus issued his famous line, 'Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God' (Luke 20:25). Of course, in the final analysis everything belongs to God, but in the present age, Jesus and his disciples concede jurisdiction over this-worldly affairs (such as taxation) to the State. Elsewhere in the same Gospel, Jesus extends this principle to a typical litigation scenario of his day: a dispute over an inheritance. A man in the crowd appeals to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me" (Luke 20:13). The man is effectively suing his brother with Jesus as the judge. Jesus responds, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" signifying that such disputes fall under the jurisdiction of Caesar, not God; of the State, not the Church.

The State's jurisdiction to govern and enforce earthly laws is powerfully defended by Paul in Romans 13:1-7, and his principle in 1 Corinthians 5:12 is that the Church's jurisdiction is over those who are within the Church. The things that belong to God (as opposed to Caesar) are spiritual matters; matters of faith and morals, of sin and salvation. Now often the same situation may have a this-worldly dimension (e.g. finances and taxes) as well as a spiritual dimension. In such cases, both the Church and the State must be involved. For instance, dioceses of the Catholic Church have marriage tribunals to adjudicate marital matters from a spiritual point of view (e.g., whether a marriage was validly constituted before God, or should be annulled) but defers to the secular courts regarding distribution of marital assets, in case of an annulment or separation. In the clerical sex abuse scandal, priests have gravely transgressed the laws of the Church, and so must be judged by the Church, but have also broken the just laws of nations, and so must be judged in secular courts as well.

Once it is recognised that, in the present divine economy, both the Church and the State—God and Caesar—have their respective, legitimate jurisdictions, it becomes clear that bringing a this-worldly dispute to secular courts for resolution is not intrinsically wrong. To say otherwise is to impugn the legitimacy of the State's authority, contrary to the clear teachings of Jesus and Paul. (As quoted in the previous article, Robert Roberts avers that believers need not concern themselves with the consequences of not exercising their prerogative to defend their rights through legal means, since "We are in [God's] hands." However, what if the institutions of the State are one of the primary means by which God exercises this providence? In that case, to eschew legal recourse is to eschew God's providence.)3 Nevertheless, it may be extremely imprudent for a believer to litigate a dispute before the secular courts, particularly in a social context where the secular courts are thoroughly corrupt, where the dispute is with a fellow believer, and/or where the dispute is small and simple enough to be settled through dialogue or informal arbitration.

Epilogue: St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology

We have an account from very early in Church history of a believer engaging in litigation against an unbeliever. Chapter 2 of St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology (mid-second century C.E.) relates the story of a certain married woman who converted to Christianity. Both she and her husband had previously engaged in licentious behaviour, and after repenting she tried unsuccessfully to persuade her husband to change his ways. Though prevailed upon by her advisers to remain in the marriage in the hope that he might yet change, his behaviour instead became worse and so she obtained a legal divorce (Latin: repudium) and separated from him. The husband then made a legal accusation that she was a Christian. In response, she submitted a petition to the emperor to be allowed to first set her financial affairs in order before answering the charge. In their commentary on Justin's apologies, Minns and Parvis explain that "In Roman law, dowry passed to the control of the husband for the duration of a marriage but reverted to the woman or her father at its dissolution through death or divorce."4 Thus, the woman's petition was intended to secure the reversion of the dowry. The petition was granted, but the husband then made accusations against the woman's Christian teacher, which led to his martyrdom and that of others who defended him (2 Apology 2.1-20). Since Justin includes this account in an apology (defense of the faith) addressed to the same Roman Emperor who had granted the woman's petition, he clearly did not regard her litigation against her husband as contrary to the Christian faith.

Footnotes

• 1 I must reiterate that, while this position has been 'on the books' in Christadelphian Statements of Faith since the 19th century, the extent to which these historic documents remain normative for doctrine and practice today varies from one ecclesia to the next.
• 2 To give just two examples, the Roman historian Dio Chrysostom (a younger contemporary of Paul) states that in Corinth there were 'lawyers innumerable perverting justice' (Orations 8.9). Cicero (In verrem 1.1.1) refers to rumours that throughout the Roman world 'the courts will never convict any man, however guilty, if only he has money.' For these and other examples, see David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 196-97.
• 3 This reminds one of the famous preacher's story about the man caught on a roof during a flood.
• 4 Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 275 n. 4.