Expert: Mel and Guyna Horne - 12/12/2006

Question
are there other scriptures that say Jesus raised himself? thanks - pete
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

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Who rasied Jesus from the dead - God, or Jesus himself.
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Hi Pete,

We apologize for the delay in answering. The system did not forward your question to us or else it got lost in the mail. We only found your question after we answered another question and the system showed your question was "pending".

 
There are 27 or more scriptures in eight NT books that say that God raised Christ from the dead.  There are at least ten scriptures that show the dead "are raised", passive tense. In other words the action is performed by another.

Acts 2:32  "This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses."

Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Mel and Guyna  

Answer
Hi Pete,

There are two scriptures that could be read that way in the English translations.

John 2:19, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

This appears to say that Christ would resurrect himself, but since that would contradict many other scriptures, we should look at it in context of all scripture.  The Greek word "egeiro" is  translated here as the phrase, "I will raise" but it is also translated as "rise" and  "arise" in 76 other places. For Christ to say "I will rise" or "I will arise" would not amount to a contradiction of the many scriptures that show that God the Father resurrected Christ.

The word "egeiro" is also used in 1Cor. 15:29 and 32, ". . . if the dead rise not . . .".  Obviously the "dead" do not resurrect themselves.

In verse 22 John wrote, "When therefore he was risen from the dead, . . . ".   John could have said: "When he raised himself from the dead", but the the emphasis appears to be on being alive again, rather than how that is accomplished.  

Continuing with verse 22, ". . . "his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."  
The point is proof and belief rather than how something happens.




The second scripture:
John 10:17, "Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
         :18,   No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."

Here, the Greek word "exousia", translated as "power" is most often used in the sense of "power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases, leave or permission".

Christ said of his death, "no man takes it [life] from me". Yet, he was killed by men, not by suicide.  The choice to die was made by Christ (Jn. 6:51, 10:11, 15, 17, 15:13) not by the men who killed him.
By living a perfect life, he made the choice to be resurrected to eternal life.  He made the choice. God the Father did the resurrecting.

God gives us all a choice of "eternal life or death" (Deu. 30:15, 19, Mat. 19:17, Jn 5:29, ).  The choice of eternal life or death is up to each of us and in that sense, God has given us the power to accomplish it even though He, and now Christ, have to do the actual resurrecting.

We hope that this helps.

Sincerely,
Mel and Guyna