Resurrection in John 5 and Daniel 12
(avg. read time: 8–17 mins.)
I have previously written about the opening of Dan 12, both as the last entry in my series on resurrection in the OT and in my dissertation. Interestingly, though it is the clearest OT resurrection text, it is nowhere quoted in the NT. However, that does not mean that its influence is absent. One can see its effects on the language and imagery in Matt 12:41–42 // Luke 11:31–32; Matt 13:43; 25:46; 27:52; John 11:24; Acts 24:15; Phil 2:15; and 3:19–21. One can also see it particularly in the connections with the books, final judgment, and the resurrection in Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; and 21:27. One text that is not mentioned above is one I want to explore today. The references to two kinds of resurrection in John 5:19–30 appear to build on Dan 12.
This whole section of Jesus’s speech is framed by declarations that Jesus can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing or in doing the will of the Father (vv. 19, 30). The addition made in v. 30 after all that precedes is Jesus saying, “just as I hear I judge, and my judgment is right/righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” Of course, this fits with a theme established from the Prologue that Jesus is the executor of God’s will and that he thus identifies God as the one who sent him to enact that will (1:9, 11–15; 3:17, 30–31, 34; 4:34; 5:23–24, 30, 36–40; 6:29–60; 7:16–18, 25–43, 52; 8:14–18, 22–29, 42–47; 9:4, 28–33; 10:36; 11:42; 12:44–50; 13:1–3; 14:24–26; 15:21–26; 16:5, 27–30; 17:3, 8, 18–25; 20:21). As will become even clearer after this section, this mission crucially includes fulfilling what God has already spoken of his will in Scripture (5:39; cf. 2:19–22). Such a notion also fits with the framework of the Prologue about the Word who becomes incarnate to bring to fruition what the Word has been doing since creation and in the rest of the history of Scripture. Jesus the Son does this not only in terms of bringing the eschaton to pass with the final judgment, but also by fulfilling specific promises like Dan 12 concerning how resurrection is necessary for the execution of judgment.
Now that we have briefly noted how the framework of this text fits with the framework of the Gospel, and thus of how judgment fits with it, we need to explore the rest of the teaching within this framework. Specifically, Jesus characterizes himself as the executor of God’s will in terms of participating in his resurrection action (5:20–21): “For the Father loves the Son and shows to him all things which he does, and he will show greater works than these to him, in order that you may marvel. For just as the Father raises [will raise] the dead and makes them live [will make them live], thus also the Son makes alive whom he wills.” The key word here for “make alive,” ζῳοποιέω, is an uncommon verb whose only active positive subjects in the NT are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are no uses of this verb for resurrection prior to the first century. Its association with such in the NT appears to be a function of the connection the NT writers make between God’s actions in creation and resurrection. While the verb for “raising” (ἐγείρω) may refer to the physical aspect of resurrection in terming of the body rising/being raised, and while it may also have the significance of suggesting an awakening from the sleep of death, this verb refers to the actual giving of life in resurrection, especially the everlasting life of the eschatological resurrection. Where it has such a referent, it also more clearly has a salvific connotation that is not necessarily present in the “raising” verb. Even in John 5:21, which occurs in the context of a statement of the universal resurrection, the term does not appear in the actual statement of universal resurrection, but only in terms of giving life to whomever the Father and Son wills. In other resurrection cases, it indicates more than restoration to life; it indicates receiving everlasting life by the salvific action of God, the one who makes alive (John 6:63; Rom 4:17; 8:11; 1 Cor 15:22, 45; 2 Cor 3:6; 1 Pet 3:18). Furthermore, in many of these texts, there is a direct or thematic connection to God’s creative power, whether in creation or new creation (see also 1 Cor 15:36). Indeed, by virtue of referring to everlasting resurrection life, there is an inherent link to new creation.
How does this resonate with Dan 12? One, Dan 12 makes the distinction Jesus does in John 5, as we will see even more clearly later, between resurrection to everlasting life and the other kind of resurrection. Since only one kind of resurrection is linked to life even though God raises others, God is only implied to “give life” to those who are raised to everlasting life, not those who are raised to shame and everlasting abhorrence. The latter consequence may be everlasting, but it is not described in terms of “life.” Two, Daniel also implicitly links the resurrection to everlasting life with God’s creative will. I went over this in more detail in the two aforementioned writings on Dan 12, but it suffices to note here that the righteous who wake to everlasting life (לחיי עולם) receive what Adam and Eve lost access to by their disobedience (וחי לעלם; Gen 3:22). The reference to “everlasting life” in Dan 12:2 is translated in Greek as ζωὴν αἰώνιον, the same phrase as in John 5:24. Three, in the connections I noted in those works to the promise of God’s everlasting kingdom elsewhere in Daniel, as well as references to God elsewhere in Dan 4:34 (לחי עלם) and 12:7 (בחי העולם) as the one who lives forever, the implication is that those who are resurrected to this everlasting life have received God’s life in a way that God’s initial life-breath did not provide. As we will see later, that is a more direct teaching of Jesus in John, as befits the Prologue in which the Word is the source of life.
Yet another resonance with Dan 12 is the fact that the resurrection is linked to final judgment. Strictly speaking, there is not a judgment scene in Dan 12 like we see in either Matt 25 or Rev 20. There is one earlier in Dan 7, but it is left implicit in Dan 12 by reference to the book containing the names of those who will be saved and by the fact that there are two different outcomes for life on the one hand and shame and abhorrence on the other. Daniel 12:1 is the second time in the text in which books have appeared in the context of judgment, the first case being the reference to multiple books in Dan 7:10, prior to the introduction of the one like a son of man. But unlike that more general reference, this book records people specifically designated for salvation. Such an image has a long history in the Tanakh with references from the Torah (Exod 32:32–33), the Psalter (Ps 69:28), Isaiah (Isa 4:3), and Malachi (Mal 3:16). The use of the language in Isaiah is especially resonant with Daniel, as they both point to the notion of a remnant for whom God ensures salvation (cf. Isa 10:20–22; 11:10–16; Jer 23:3–8; 31:7–40; Mic 2:12–13; 4:1–7; 5:7–9; 7:18–20; Zeph 3:11–13; Zech 8:11–23; 13:8–9). The existence of such a book is a sign of God’s faithful love to sustain relationships with those written in the book, as well as a surety that in the long hoped-for divine judgment, God will vindicate the faithful and condemn the wicked. This notion would continue to resonate in the NT as well, whether implicitly (Luke 10:20; Heb 12:23) or explicitly (Phil 4:3). In Revelation in particular, the combination of books and the book of life in an eschatological setting of judgment and salvation resonate with Daniel (Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27). And we see it here in how the Father has given every judgment to the Son, so that Jesus will execute the will of the Father by executing judgment. Those who honor or do not honor him honor/do not honor the one who sent him (5:22–23). Honoring him is tied with hearing his word and having faith in the one who sent him. The ones who do this have everlasting life, which is in line with what we read from Daniel. They will not face condemnation but will cross over from death into life (5:24).
All the resonances with Daniel come together in John 5:25–29:
Truly truly I say to you that an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and the ones who have heard will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in himself, thus also he gave to the Son to have life in himself; 27 and he gave authority to him to make judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not wonder about this, because an hour is coming in which all the ones who are in their tombs will hear his voice 29 and when they come out, the ones who did good will rise to life, but the ones who practiced evil will rise to condemnation.
As was said earlier in the text about the Father, the Son not only raises the dead, but he also gives them life everlasting. Specifically, those who will live will be those who have heard and responded in faith, as said in vv. 22–24. This everlasting life is the life the Son has in himself by virtue of being one with the Father; that is, it is the divine life. This fits with how the Prologue declares that the Word has life in himself, that this life was the light of the world, and that it was by this life that he made others live (1:4). By the same virtue, he could enable others to become the children of God (1:12–14). Thus, as elsewhere in John, everlasting life is tied with the union with Christ by faith (3:15–16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:39–40; 6:27, 33, 35, 40, 47–51, 53–54, 57–58, 63, 68; 8:12, 51; 10:10, 28; 11:25–26; 12:25, 50; 14:6, 19; 17:2–3; 20:31).
In the same way, faithful union with God has the outcome of God raising the faithful to everlasting life in Daniel. Daniel addresses an audience that has experienced conquest by foreign powers, displacement, and conflicts while striving to maintain a sense of religious identity (Dan 7:21, 24–25; 8:23–25; 9; 11:28–35). “Defectors” among the Jews further exacerbate this problem through the dissolution of communal bonds in their lack of adherence to the tradition of Torah they had received (Dan 11:30, 32, 34–35, 39). Daniel responds to this situation by giving its audience a view behind the curtain of empirical reality in order to show the full heavenly significance of earthly events, to comfort the audience with knowledge of what God will yet do for the faithful, and to encourage the audience to hold fast to what they have in the meantime. In reflection of this, the faithful righteous are constantly under threat in this book (1:4–20; 2:44–49; 3:12–30; 4:10–37; 5; 6; 7:9–10, 13–14, 18, 21–22, 25–27; 11:33–35; 12:1, 10). Jesus takes this story upon himself in his incarnation and brings it to fruition as the ultimate suffering faithful one who receives resurrection ahead of all others so that by his resurrection and reception of divine life after his death others may receive the resurrection to everlasting life.
Jesus’s own resurrection is not foreshadowed in this particular text, but it already has been foreshadowed as early as ch. 2. As that event and the foreshadowing of the same is part of the narrative framework for reading this particular text, it helps to present another underlying point: Jesus is the Son of Man who has come to fulfill God’s will by fulfilling God’s Scripture. The fact that he is pointing to the dual reality of resurrection, where some rise to life and some rise to condemnation (a more general negative description than the concepts of shame and abhorrence in Daniel), points also to his participation in bringing it about as part of his general work in fulfilling Scripture. This is another promise of God that he will bring to fulfillment.
He will do this because he identifies himself as the Son of Man. Across all four Gospels, this is Jesus’s most preferred self-identification, and though this is controversial in NT scholarship (as all Christology is), I am inclined to think that Dan 7 was influential for this form of Jesus’s self-identification. As I said about Dan 7 elsewhere:
On the one hand, this figure represents the ideal image-bearer in how he represents the saints of the Most High, in how he receives a kingdom that is superior to the previous kingdoms presented as “beasts” that are inherently lower than a “son of man,” and in how his dominion is everlasting in participation of God’s own everlasting dominion. On the other hand, his likeness to God is presented even more profoundly in his coming with the clouds, in the kind of dominion the Ancient of Days gives him(cf. Dan 2:44, 47; 4:3, 34), and in his resemblance with “the angel of the Lord” who often acts in God’s name, as Phillip Munoa observes, “The core characteristics of the ‘one like a human being’ in Dan. 7.13-14 are those of the angel of the Lord. The figure in Dan. 7.13-14 is nameless, human in appearance, solitary, heavenly in association, possesses divinely bestowed authority, and its climactic appearance in Daniel’s vision may imply that it is God’s agent of judgment and deliverance.”1 The Son of Man, as the ideal representative of the saints, is thus also the ideal representative of God, the ideal image- and likeness-bearer who fulfills God’s will like no other. And for this reason, he receives and implements God’s kingdom.
That Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man in this context of talking about the coming resurrection is both a way of pointing to the fulfillment of Dan 7 and Dan 12, as well as a way of being consistent with what we have seen elsewhere in John of Jesus referring to himself as the Son of Man (John 1:51; 3:13–14; 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28; 9:35; 12:23, 34; 13:31). As the Son of Man who will himself be killed for his faithfulness to God’s will and be resurrected, he will also bring about the resurrection. As such, he will also bring about the kingdom of God promised in the text of Dan 7 where the one like a son of man is prominently featured. In bringing his own story into connection with Daniel, we see that Jesus’s story as the Son of Man who is the Word Incarnate who came to execute God’s will in his death, resurrection, and exaltation (as well as all that led up to it), and thus we see that he will bring Dan 12:2–3 to fulfillment (as his exaltation will be the basis for the exaltation of others expected in v. 3), he will bring Daniel and its story of God’s kingdom to fulfillment, and he will bring the larger story of which Daniel is a part to fulfillment.
Jesus’s resurrection and the general resurrection that is linked to it (a link which I plan to explore more fully in John another time, as I have for Matthew and 1 Corinthians) are the means by which God will show, in line with his promises, that his faithful love goes so far as to deliver his people from death itself to fulfill promises to those who would die before seeing these revealed things come to pass. In Daniel’s text, the faithful are under regular threat of death and God often saves them by preventing them from dying, but the climax features an amplification in God delivering even those who have already suffered death. While one could previously read many of God’s promises as presumably being for whoever is alive at the time when God fulfills them, the resurrection shows the significance he invests—namely, by his love—in those who die before the time of fulfillment by giving them life to receive those promises and have them everlastingly. This is precisely what Jesus promises for those who hear the word and respond in faith. He himself can guarantee it because he himself will take part in bringing this story to fruition.
Resurrection is also the confirmatory happy ending for the faithful, ensuring that their actions and perseverance are meaningful because of the meaning God has assigned them. It vindicates the hopes of the faithful in the faithful love of God, and it vindicates the faithful themselves in the final judgment. The resurrection is the assurance that the faithful will be declared “in the right,” and resurrection to everlasting life in particular is a most direct “happily ever after,” as the faithful relationship with God that brought them to this ending is now confirmed to continue forever. In the two-sided reality of the final judgment, the resurrection publicly vindicates the faithful against the enemies who sought to eliminate them or otherwise tempt them to deviate from the will of God. For this latter group, resurrection entails their ultimate defeat in the declaration of being “in the wrong” and the subsequent fate characterized by shame and everlasting abhorrence. John 5 declares to us that it is Jesus who will enact this separation, confirmation, and vindication. The resurrected one will himself be the judge in the final judgment.
Enveloping this story of the vindicated is the larger story of the coming of the kingdom of God the Creator. As illustrated throughout Daniel, especially in chs. 2 and 7, there is a stark opposition between the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God. The kingdoms of the world represent the world in rebellion against its Creator and proper King. The vision of ch. 2 represents them as an image/statue, a story that is not coincidentally followed by a story in which people are forced to worship an image in ch. 3. Both stories show the kingdoms of the earth worshipping creation rather than the Creator. In a different fashion, ch. 7 represents the kingdoms of the earth as unnatural abominations who are enemies of God’s saints and who are rebels against the Creator. In contrast, it is the one like a son of man, the one who bears the image and likeness of God, who receives the everlasting kingdom from God in representation of the saints. Chapter 12 shows that resurrection of God’s image- and likeness-bearers is crucial to the establishment of the kingdom, the resolution of this conflict, and thus the restoration of creation to its proper relationship with its Creator. By these means, we see the intertwinement of the kingdom of God and new creation as expressions of cosmic eschatological hope. While the phrase “kingdom of God” is not as prominent in John as in other Gospels (though it is still present in 3:3 and 5; cf. 18:36), the association remains with the preference for “everlasting life” on display in the Gospel, which we have seen already is a further connection with Daniel. The one who gives everlasting life is the same as the one who brings the kingdom: the Son of Man, the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of God.
Phillip Munoa, “The Son of Man and the Angel of the Lord: Daniel 7.13-14 and Israel’s Angel Traditions,” JSP 28 (2018): 143–67, here 151.