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 and validates that those in Christ are no longer imprisoned under sin, the payment for which is death. The New Testament is clear that the Scriptures foresaw “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead” and that, “by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light” both to the Jews and the Gentiles. These statements raise the question: Where does the Old Testament anticipate the third-day resurrection?

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.

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.⁶Significantly, 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.

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