Pointed Paragraphs:
Jesus and Paul were not contentious, yet they contended earnestly for the truth. They were the greatest fighters of all time. They were moved by two Loves. They loved man so much that they fought with determination anything and everything that would hurt man. They loved the truth so much that they fought everything that was in the way of its progress. And they stirred people as none others ever did.
It has been said that it is useless to quote the Bible to one who disbelieves it. But Jesus quoted it to the devil. There is power in an appropriate passage of Scripture that even a disbeliever cannot evade.
Before following any advice it is better to find out the character of him who gives the advice and what possible interest he may have in our following his advice.
RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD
The following question came to me recently:
Brother Whiteside: Do you not think that the expression, “resurrection from the dead,” has reference to the death state, rather than the meaning that some will come “out from among” the other dead ones? Say something to us in the Gospel Advocate along this line. John S. Clark.
In the growth of language it is common for words to take on additional meanings. This, of course, is common knowledge and needs no proof.
In the phrase, “from the dead” (ek nekron), the word “dead” is plural in the Greek, but by a sort of figure of speech, or extension of the meaning of the word, it applies to the state of death; at least, some passages of Scripture set forth that idea. In Rom. 6:13 we have the phrase, “alive from the dead,” and in I John 3:14 we have the phrase, “passed out of death into life.” In both passages the meaning is the same; yet in Romans the Greek word from which we have “dead” is plural, and in John we have another word in the singular. The Romans had been dead in sins, but were made alive from that death. The Cambridge Greek Testament has this note: “Ek nekron, as men that are alive after being dead.” Bloomfield: “Ex nekron zontas, as those who, after having been (spiritually) dead, are now alive.” Thayer: “Zeen ek nekron, tropically, out of moral death to enter upon a new life, dedicated and acceptable to God (Rom. 6:13.)” In defining “ek,” Thayer has this: “5. Of the condition or state out of which one comes or is brought: ... zontes ek nekron, alive from being dead—i. e., who had been dead and were alive again (Rom. 6:13.)” It is plain, therefore, that the word “dead” in Rom. 6:13 refers to the death state. It is true that it refers here to spiritual death, but its use in describing the state of the sinner is a figurative use of the same expression that is applied to the state of those who are dead physically.
We have the same phrase in Rom. 11:15—“life from the dead” (ek nekron). On this passage Thayer has this: “Zoa ek nekron, life breaking forth from the abode of the dead.” Bloomfield gives the following as the sense of the whole verse: “If their sin, which occasioned this casting away, has been the means of reconciling the world, by bringing about the death of Christ, what shall the receiving of them again into the divine favor be (whenever it shall take place), but so happy a change, both to themselves and to the Gentiles, as may, in a manner, be said to raise the whole world from death to life? Zoe ek nekron, by a figure common to all languages, denotes (as Turretin and Stuart explain) something great and surprising, like what a general resurrection from the dead would be.” So, according to Bloomfield, “life from the dead” is life from death.