The religion of Americanism teaches us that God’s law is not valid outside of the church; maybe the last six of the Ten Commandments are valid (and even that is considered debatable), but certainly not the first four.  Modern theologians like to divide the ten commandments into parts, as if God has two minds.  We are told that the Law was only given to Israel, and thus today it is only for the visible church.  This comes from both evangelical pulpits and from Civics 101 in public education. There is not much difference between the two.

Americanism is the name I have given to a new dominant religion in our beloved nation.  It is a final reference point for almost every moral and political issue, and it has the endorsement of most all conservative pastors in this country. To challenge this new religion means a quick cancellation, especially in evangelical circles.
This new religion is mostly derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The religion of Americanism interprets the First Amendment as guaranteeing the right of every American citizen to say anything they want to say (except a few things like shouting fire in a public place, or racial slurs), to turn art into blasphemy (Christ in a bottle of urine), or to worship any god of their own choosing (including Allah).
It also protects the right of men to express themselves physically as women, the right of BLM to destroy private property in public protests, the right to produce and distribute pornography, and the right for university students to call for genocide.  It protects the right of anyone to burn the American flag.  It protects the right to erect Satanic idols in state capitol buildings.  It protects the rights of Drag Queens to read stories to children in public libraries.  It protects debauchery.  And yet, in this new religion of Americanism, the First Amendment is still considered sacred even by leading evangelicals.
The protection of debauchery was never the intent of our founding fathers. The First Amendment was created to limit the power of the Congress, and not the power of the individual States.  At the time of the adoption of the First Amendment, most states had either officially or unofficially adopted the Christian Faith as the State religion. State legislators could establish an official religion, but Congress could not.  State churches were legal, but a national church was not.  There would be no Church of the United States as there was a Church of England across the pond. Thus, Congress was prohibited from establishing a national church, but States had every right to establish a State Church.  States were respected as sovereign entities. This was a long time ago, but it demonstrates the value of studying history.
The Church of England was the official church in the State of Virginia.  State taxes were used to pay the Anglican clergymen, who alone were allowed to preach in the Commonwealth.  Soon, however, both Baptists and Presbyterians were given the freedom to preach (without going to jail).  The First Amendment became a basis for guaranteeing free speech to all Christian Protestants (not all religions).  The First Amendment was still rightly understood.
However, things have changed.  The First Amendment may soon be used to curtail the free speech of Christians because Christian morals are in direct opposition to the public morals of the day. This is already happening in universities and corporations. Outside the safety of the visible church, employees of both colleges and businesses are walking around on eggshells afraid that they might use the wrong pronoun and put their jobs in jeopardy with a visit from the DEI police.
The problem with the First Amendment as presently interpreted is that it contradicts the First Commandment.  The First Commandment says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” God does not tolerate competition.  A First Amendment that allows for gods other than the God of the Bible to be worshiped is contrary to the First Commandment. The First Commandment also summarizes the other nine Commandments.  Neither does God tolerate decadence.  Under the First Commandment, not only are the worship of all other gods forbidden, but derivative events like gay-pride parades would be prohibited. The riotous destruction of private or public property would be forbidden.  Drag Queens in public would be forbidden. And on and on!
Baptists give strong devotion to the First Amendment because they identify themselves with a history of persecution.  They believe that the First Amendment protects their rights to believe and preach according to their own consciences.  They are big supporters of Americanism.  However, I believe they need to get beyond the Munster cages of the 16th century and realize that with their large numbers in America today, the roles would be reversed in a hypothetical theocracy. The vision of a Baptist Prince is more realistic in our day than a Presbyterian Prince.  However, to be more sensible, I think all of us are all in the same boat now.
More broadly speaking Americanism finds its hope in the United States Constitution.  The only problem with this is that the meaning of the Constitution cannot be predicted anymore.  Whoever thought just fifty years ago that the rights to abortion and homosexual marriage would be discovered in the Constitution?  The Constitution only means what five Supreme Court judges in black robes say what it means. Even as frightening, the United States Congress no longer has any realistic function.  Civil power is now in the hands of either a sitting President or a bureaucracy of unelected college graduates from elite and secular universities. Christians are expected to leave the public square and wait for either death or the rapture, whichever comes first.
Americanism also puts a great amount of faith in democracy, where the people vote to decide who will hold office and thus, and consequently, what will be considered publicly right and wrong in our nation.  However, even that hope now is teetering.  So many people have lost their confidence in the integrity of elections that this tenet of Americanism is dying.
Americanism believes in American exceptionalism. Indeed, we have seen our glory days, but many other nations in the world now view America as the great whore. We are still building on the capital from the past, but decadent immorality has painted us as a prostitute on the world stage. We lost admiration a long time ago. Putin’s Russia or Mao’s China may both be a holy step above us because they have banned homosexual marriage and transgenderism.  Militarism for the sake of securing democracy around the world is now viewed as a failure.  It was a recipe for death, and has only created more enemies than friends.
The religion of Americanism teaches us that God’s law is not valid outside of the church; maybe the last six of the Ten Commandments are valid (and even that is considered debatable), but certainly not the first four.  Modern theologians like to divide the ten commandments into parts, as if God has two minds.  We are told that the Law was only given to Israel, and thus today it is only for the visible church.  This comes from both evangelical pulpits and from Civics 101 in public education. There is not much difference between the two.
The only problem with this is that it is not true.  Paul in Romans 13 says plainly that the civil magistrate is a servant of God and is to promote good and restrain evil.  Paul wrote this while living under a Roman hegemony, looking forward to the day when all nations would be Christianized through the preaching of a gospel that would teach them to obey God’s law, as Jesus had spoken.  Good and evil can only be defined by God’s law—all of it, including the first four commandments.
Our forefathers understood this. They knew that the United Sates would not survive apart from being a Christian nation.  John Adams reflected this when he said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  By the word religious, he was referring to Christianity.  Although I believe that the Enlightenment had a major impact on our founding forefathers, they still maintained enough Christian heritage to understand that Christianity must be the foundation of this nation or this nation will perish.
In a Christian nation, foreigners from other nations are welcome to enjoy the blessings of God with us, but they would not be allowed to worship their gods in public within the boundaries of our country. God’s goodness to us might be an avenue for their conversion. What a blessing it would be to preach the gospel to them in such a context.
What am I saying?  I am saying that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as presently interpreted by most institutions including the church is in direct opposition to the First Commandment.  Yes, this is a radical statement, but we live in radical times when our presuppositions must be reexamined. Yes, it is revolutionary.  But is it true?  That is the question.
Since the dominant religion of America moved from Christianity to Americanism, we are watching the demise of this nation. We are under attack by Cultural Marxism, and the religion of Americanism will not protect Christians.  As a matter of fact, it will be used against them.
Under the guise of the Constitution, we have brought the Middle East and her wars to America.  We dilute our heritage with illegal immigration.  We have substituted a constitutional republic with tyranny.  We have declared that all gods are equal, contrary to the First Commandment of God. We once had a Christian nation, but now we have sanctioned polytheism. God hates polytheism.  He always has.
I know it is too late to do anything about it, save for a biblical revival and reformation, but I do pray that the America I knew as a child will survive.  I’m not calling for a revolution.  I’m only identifying the problems. When future generations ask what went wrong with the American Experiment, I hope they will learn from our mistakes.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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How might leaders make the best decisions that contribute to the best congregational singing? That is not an easy question to answer. It involves paying attention to the broad principles for worship, which are based on the authority of the Bible. But it also involves application to many congregations and many circumstances.

As we saw previously, meetings for worship should be conducted for the glory of God, and for the purpose of building up the people, the Christian community. Everything in worship should be oriented to these goals. Building on the principles set out in Part I, we now concentrate on congregational singing, in distinction from performances. Congregational singing, like other elements in worship, should serve to glorify God and build up the people. That is what it means for it to be spiritually healthy.
Now, how might leaders make the best decisions that contribute to the best congregational singing? That is not an easy question to answer. It involves paying attention to the broad principles for worship, which are based on the authority of the Bible. But it also involves application to many congregations and many circumstances. The applications may vary with the circumstances. When it comes to application, people may sometimes sincerely disagree about how best to embody biblical principles.
Flexibility
Application calls for flexibility in a few ways. There are many cultures and languages in the world, and with the cultures come different kinds of music. This diversity holds not only with respect to cultures in different continents, but subcultures within the United States and subcultures in other countries. Music can be chosen with attention to the cultural setting. There is room for music especially suited for children, or for young people, or for people for whom English is a second language, or for multi-ethnic congregations, or for youth camps, or for evangelistic concerts, or for prayer meetings. Special music can be presented by soloists and choirs. Leaders may occasionally include musical styles that are less familiar or that appeal to the preferences of only some portion of the congregation.
But leaders need also to keep in mind what are the long-range goals. At its best, flexibility allows us space to choose the most effective path toward the goal; it does not mean ignoring the goal because we tell ourselves that we may do as we please.
So let us consider some features in song selection that promote healthy congregational singing in the long run. I offer these features as my opinions and as my suggestions. Others may disagree. Whatever conclusions different people reach, I want to encourage us to be thoughtful about why we make the choices we make.
Verbal Content
The first feature to consider in congregational singing is the verbal content of what is sung. That content should be orthodox in doctrine. It should set forth truths that are based on the teaching of the Bible. This principle follows from what Col. 3:16 says about teaching. In church, singing is a form of teaching. Singing is supposed to communicate “the word of Christ.” Since Christ is God, and the Bible is the word of God, the whole Bible can be the contents of Christian songs.[1] The contents are not limited to the recorded words of Christ while he lived on earth. But contents must be solidly based on the Bible, not on modern ideas.
Care should also be taken to see that the content is rich. We need to inspect the content, not only for orthodoxy, but for substance. Does the content predominantly set forth main themes of the Bible and main tenets of the gospel? In other words, are we majoring on majors, or only on minors? To major on majors means that we should not despise simpler and more elementary expressions of the central truths of the gospel. Simple they may be, but they also have depth. We should never tire of hearing what one song calls “the old, old story of Jesus and his love.”
In addition, content includes the riches of the Bible. So, complementary to our attention to the simplicity of the gospel, we should pay attention to the riches of the gospel. We may ask, “Does our song content at any point go deeper than the simplest expressions of truth? Does the content honor God, in his greatness? Does it honor Christ, in his compassion, his obedience, his righteousness, his suffering, his resurrection, and his present-day rule from heaven? Or does it merely focus on human feelings? Is the content too repetitious?”
We should also ask questions about balance. In the selection of words from week to week, do people get a balanced diet, so to speak? Is there adequate attention to darker topics, such as suffering, death, and the wrath of God? Or is everything tailored to create a superficial happy mood? Does the content reflect on the past, including the Old Testament? Does it reflect on the future (the Second Coming)? Or it is always narrowed focused on us as we live in the present?
There is much need for discernment. If a congregation is composed primarily of believers who are new converts, simpler content is desirable. If a congregation is composed primarily of believers who are much more mature, a diet of only very simple truths can be frustrating, as well as not maximally effective in using the opportunity for teaching. There is no simple recipe that will fit every circumstance. In all circumstances, we need to be guided by the long-range goal of glorifying God and building up the church, not simply by short-term preferences.
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ABSTRACT: Jesus and his apostles claim that his resurrection on the third day was “according to the Scriptures.” The hope of the resurrection stretches back far beyond the empty tomb to the hopes and prophecies of God’s old-covenant people. At the same time, Jesus’s rising inaugurates God’s new creation in the present and points us to the day when all the tombs will be emptied — and God’s people will rise to meet their Lord with resurrected bodies.
For our ongoing series of feature articles by scholars for pastors, leaders, and teachers, we asked Jason DeRouchie, research professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Bethlehem College & Seminary, to trace the hope of resurrection from Genesis to Revelation. You can also download and print a PDF of the article.
We are nearly two decades into the twenty-first century, and Christians all over the world are still hoping in the resurrection. This hope is not new. We have longed for resurrection since God first awakened faith in the earliest Old Testament saints. Equally, resurrection also should have been dreaded by rebels who persist in their unbelief, for after resurrection comes the judgment.
Following the original creation of humanity, Jesus’s resurrection unto glory is the most decisive event in the history of mankind, for it brings the dawning of the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and validates that those in Christ are no longer imprisoned under sin, the payment for which is death (Romans 6:23; 1 Corinthians 15:17). The New Testament is clear that the Scriptures foresaw “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead” (Luke 24:46; cf. Luke 24:7; John 20:9; Acts 17:2–3; 1 Corinthians 15:4) and that, “by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light” both to the Jews and the Gentiles (Acts 26:22–23). These statements raise the question: Where does the Old Testament anticipate the third-day resurrection? A close assessment of a number of New Testament texts that cite or allude to specific Old Testament texts gives us an initial clue how those living at the dawn of the new creation were seeing anticipations of the resurrection in their Bible.
New Testament Citations and Allusions of Old Testament Resurrection Texts1
In arguing against the Sadducees that the resurrection should be hoped in, Jesus stressed that God “is not God of the dead, but of the living,” as is clear when he identified himself to Moses at the burning bush as “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Mark 12:26–27; cf. Exodus 3:6). Similarly, when asserting his God-given authority to judge, Jesus alluded to Daniel 12:2, declaring that “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28–29). Later, when defending himself before Felix in Caesarea, Paul alluded to the same Old Testament text when he claimed that those of the Way (i.e., Christians) have “hope in God . . . that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:14–15).
In Acts, both Peter and Paul identify that Psalm 16:10–11 foretold Christ’s resurrection (Acts 2:25–31; 13:34–35). After citing Psalm 16:10 that “you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption,” Peter stressed of David that “he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ” (Acts 2:27, 31). Paul speaks similarly, adding to Psalm 16:10 citations from Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 55:3:
We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, “I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.” Therefore he says also in another psalm, “You will not let your Holy One see corruption.” For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. (Acts 13:32–37)
Finally, 1 Corinthians 15:54–58 recalls both Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14 to stress for the church in Corinth the certainty of their hope for resurrection.
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Whereas Isaiah had declared that Yahweh would “swallow up death forever,” thus identifying him as the anticipated savior (Isaiah 25:8–9), the immediate context of God’s original queries through Hosea offered little hope: “Shall I ransom them [i.e., Ephraim] from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes” (Hosea 13:14).2 Such judgments would not remain forever, however, for he tore them that he could ultimately heal them (Hosea 6:1–2), moving them to seek Yahweh their God and David their king (Hosea 3:5) and healing their apostasy as they would find shelter under the shadow of their royal representative (Hosea 14:4–8). Thus, the sting of death would be overcome through the victory of our Lord Christ, just as Paul declared.
Potential Third-Day Resurrection Typologies in the Old Testament3
It is noteworthy that none of the above texts that the New Testament points to includes any mention of a third-day resurrection, yet both Jesus (Luke 24:46) and Paul (1 Corinthians 15:4) stress that the prediction of Christ’s being raised on the third day was “written” and was “in accordance with the Scriptures.” It seems likely, therefore, that we should look for typologies that foreshadow a third-day resurrection event, and when we broaden our perspective here, a number of further texts become possible sources for the New Testament claims. We will look at them by moving from back to front through the canon.
First, Jesus paralleled his own coming resurrection with Jonah’s resurrection-like deliverance from the belly of the fish: “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40; cf. Jonah 1:17–2:10[2:1–11]).4 Jesus reads the Jonah story typologically, seeing it as both pointing to his exaltation through trial and clarifying how his resurrection would signal salvation through judgment.
Second, building off what was already noted, Hosea declared that the end of Israel’s exile would be like a resurrection after three days:
Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. (Hosea 6:1–3)
Significantly, the prophets are clear that the Christ would represent Israel, bearing the people’s name and saving representatives from both Israel and the other nations (Isaiah 49:3, 6). At the end of his book, Hosea himself appears to make this connection between the one and the many when he relates a plural people with a singular “Israel,” under whose shadow they will find refuge (Hosea 14:4–8 in the Hebrew, seen in the ESV footnotes; cf. Zechariah 3:7–9). Thus, in Christ’s resurrection on the third day, the true Israel in him rises to life.5
Third, Christ portrays his death as a baptism (Luke 12:50), and the New Testament authors portray the judgments of both the flood (1 Peter 3:20–21) and the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10:2) as baptisms. Because the initial Passover sacrifice marks Israel’s birth as a nation, and because the parting of the Red Sea likely happened on the third day after this new creation, the great exodus event also may point typologically to Christ’s third-day resurrection.6 Significantly, on the mount of Jesus’s transfiguration, Moses and Elijah identified Jesus’s coming work in Jerusalem as an “exodus” (Luke 9:30–31, ESV = “departure”), thus signaling the fulfillment of the second exodus anticipated throughout the prophets (e.g., Isaiah 11:10–12:6; Jeremiah 23:7–8; Zephaniah 3:19–20).
Fourth, it was “on the third day” of his journey to sacrifice his son that Abraham promised his servants, “I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you” (Genesis 22:4–5). Reflecting on this story, the writer of Hebrews declares of the Patriarch, “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:19). Yahweh promised, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named” (Genesis 21:12), and this offspring, who was distinct from Isaac, would be the one who would multiply like the stars, who would possess his enemies’ gate, and who would be the channel of divine blessing to the nations (Genesis 22:17–18). Thus, the substitutionary sacrifice that saved Isaac’s life (Genesis 22:13) and the youth’s own deliverance pointed ahead to the greater offspring who would triumph only through great tribulation.
Fifth, the New Testament portrays both baptism (e.g., Romans 6:4–5; Colossians 2:12) and sprouting seeds (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:35–38) as images of resurrection. As such, we may see the earliest anticipations of Jesus’s third-day resurrection in the fact that the first sprouts came forth out of the watery chaos on the third day following the original creation (Genesis 1:11–13).7
Other Old Testament Resurrection Texts8
Beyond the texts already cited, the Old Testament supplies a number of other anticipations or predictions of future resurrection. First, there are three examples of nonpermanent resurrections — that is, types of resuscitations wherein God temporarily revives a person who has recently died. Elijah, for example, brings to life the son of the widow from Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17–23), and the act validates his prophetic role (1 Kings 17:24). Similarly, God uses Elisha to restore the woman’s son in Shunem (2 Kings 4:18–37), and after Elisha dies, a man’s corpse is revived when it touches Elisha’s own corpse in a tomb (2 Kings 13:20–21). The author of Hebrews wrote that some prophets were agents of resurrection (Hebrews 11:35), thus identifying how all these Old Testament events foreshadow and give hope for the more ultimate resurrection that will include permanent glorified bodies.
Next, with Israel’s exile and following restoration in view, Yahweh declares through Moses, “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (Deuteronomy 32:39; cf. 1 Samuel 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7). Because “healing” always follows “wounding,” it is clear that God’s “making alive” after “killing” envisions the restoration blessing of resurrection following the curse of death. Kenneth Turner has noted that, by using words like perish, destroy, annihilate, and the like, Moses in Deuteronomy portrays Israel’s exile as a “death,” by which the nation as Yahweh’s elect son and servant “loses her identity, history, and covenant relationship with Yahweh. Restoration from exile, then, is a resurrection from death to life.”9 And because Jesus Christ, as “Israel” the person, represents “Israel” the people (Isaiah 49:3, 6), his bodily resurrection following his bearing the curse-judgment (Galatians 3:13) inaugurates the fulfillment of this promise.
Living in the midst of exile, Ezekiel envisioned the fulfillment of Yahweh’s Mosaic predictions of the people’s resurrection. Whereas covenant obedience could have led to life (Leviticus 18:5; Ezekiel 20:11, 13, 21), Israel’s covenant rebellion had resulted in the nation’s exilic death, so that God portrays them as dried up bones filling a field (Ezekiel 37:1; cf. Jeremiah 8:1–2). Nevertheless, Yahweh promises, “Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live” (Ezekiel 37:5), and the result was that God resupplied them human form, breathed into them the breath of life, “and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army” (Ezekiel 37:10). The vision anticipated how God would “raise you from your graves,” putting “my Spirit within you,” resulting in life and making his people his temple (Ezekiel 37:13–14; cf. 36:27). Thus, “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Ezekiel 37:27; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:16).
Earlier, building off his claim that Yahweh would “swallow up death forever” (Isaiah 25:8; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:54), Isaiah declared, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” (Isaiah 26:19). The means for this awakening and exultation is then unpacked in the fourth servant song. The prophet first highlights the servant-person’s resurrection when he identifies his seeing offspring after his substitutionary sacrifice: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10). We then hear Yahweh declare, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). Because Yahweh declared his servant-person righteous (cf. Isaiah 50:8), this righteous one would be able to bear the sins of many in death, and through his victorious resurrection all those in him — his spiritual progeny — would be declared righteous. Yahweh’s servant person was “Israel” (Isaiah 49:3), and “in the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory” (Isaiah 45:25).
Beyond Psalms 2:7 and 16:9–11, noted above (cf. Acts 2:25–31; 13:32–35), the Psalter includes a number of other pointers to resurrection. For example, in Psalm 22, the very one forsaken of God and afflicted to the point of death (Psalm 22:1–21[2–22]) promises to proclaim God’s name to his brothers (Psalm 22:22[23]), which implies resurrection (cf. Matthew 28:10; Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:12). Furthermore, we are told that before the Lord “shall bow all who go down to the dust,” which highlights a future beyond the grave for those who die (Psalm 22:29[30]). The sons of Korah end Psalm 48 with the testimony of the faithful that God “will guide us beyond death” (ESV footnote). They then assert in Psalm 49 that the proud “are appointed for Sheol” but that “the upright [ones] shall rule over them in the morning” (Psalm 49:14[15]). With the voice of the royal representative, they declare, “God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me” (Psalm 49:15[16]). At the very least, such assertions point to a spiritual resurrection. Similarly, in Psalm 71, the psalmist points to life after death when he writes, “You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again” (Psalm 71:20). Two psalms later, Asaph contrasts the terrifying end of the proud (Psalm 73:17–22) with God’s commitment to bring the humble to glory and to be their strength and portion forever (Psalm 73:24–26).
Finally, both Job and the Preacher in Ecclesiastes point to the hope of resurrection. Job questions, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14). He seems to answer in the affirmative, for he then states, “All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.” And again, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25–26). We also learn that at the end of Job’s trial-filled life, which included the death of his ten children (Job 1:2, 18–19), he had another “seven sons and three daughters” (Job 42:13). But because we are told earlier that “the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10), the text may imply the spiritual resurrection of his earlier kids, similar to the way Jesus spoke of Yahweh’s declaring, “I am the God of Abraham” — not “of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32).10
The Preacher was convinced that death would come to all, both those who are good and those who are evil (Ecclesiastes 9:2–3), and that “there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing” (Ecclesiastes 7:15). Nevertheless, “Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 8:12). The Preacher was certain in a future hope beyond the grave for the righteous.
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