The Old Testament contains a strong hope of resurrection, seen in texts like Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones coming to life, Daniel 12:2’s promise of awakening from death, and Isaiah 26:19’s declaration of the dead rising. These passages, alongside others from Psalms and Job, point to God’s power to bring life to the dead.

Resurrection Is Foretold

When Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, he insists that he must be raised on the third day. Then in Luke 24 after the resurrection, he’s talking with his disciples, and he says it was necessary that the Messiah enter into his sufferings and be raised on the third day.

So where does this concept that Jesus must be raised come from? Why is it necessary for him to be raised? It’s because it’s already predicted in the Old Testament. The resurrection is not a new idea on Jesus’s lips. Even Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. So where does this come from? It actually starts as early as the book of Genesis. If you think about Isaac, he’s almost sacrificed by his father Abraham. But Abraham tells the people he’s with, “The boy and I will worship over there, and we will come back to you.”

So Abraham has in his mind some kind of concept, maybe vague at the time, but some kind of seedling understanding of resurrection. Hebrews 11 says that that’s exactly what happened—that Abraham received him back as a type of resurrection. But even before Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac, even Isaac’s birth is said, in Romans 4, to come from the dead womb of Sarah—which is also a type of resurrection.

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