As I read through Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Jesus-God and Man yesterday I had something I would call a “duh” moment. I have often heard the question, “So what is the difference between Jesus being raised from the dead and someone like Lazarus being raised?” A long time ago I heard this simple answer, “Jesus did not die again.” But that is not, at all, the most important distinction between the resurrection of Christ and the temporary “resurrection” of someone by Elijah, or Elisha, or Jesus, or an apostle.

Instead, Pannenberg opened my eyes when I read the following,

…[O]ne must sharply distinguish the resurrection of the dead in the Christian hope for the future from those resuscitations of corpses which are otherwise reported occasionally in ancient literature as especially marvelous miracles, even from the resuscitations accomplished by Jesus himself, according to the accounts of the Evangelists, such as the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the daughter of Jarius (Mark 5:35-43 and parallels), or Lazarus (John, ch. 11)….Jesus’ resurrection and the Christian hope of resurrection involved a life completely different from all life with which we are familiar, an imperishable life no longer limited by death, which at any rate, therefore, must be basically different from the organic form of life with which we are familiar. The subsequent tradition of the church also maintained this profound substantial difference between the eschatological resurrection of the dead and the temporary revivifaction of a dead person. (pg. 69)

The reality of the matter is Jesus did not return to the same type of body, as Paul made clear in 1 Corinthians 15, but received a glorified body. This means Jesus’ resurrection is more about God’s new creation continuing, yet superceeding, the current creative order, than it is about simply staying alive.

Again, this is a “duh” moment, and something that I knew, but that sadly has never come to the forefront of my mind when I am asked what makes Jesus’ resurrection so special.