Was Jesus the first to rise from the dead, when others had been raised before him?

The people raised before Jesus, such as the widow’s son whom Elijah raised (1 Kings 17:22), the Shunammite’s son raised by Elisha (2 Kings 4:32–35) and the dead man who revived when his body touched Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:21), were brought back to the life they had had before, and in time died again. Jesus rose to a new kind of life that death cannot touch: “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him” (Romans 6:9), and “I am alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:18). In Paul and in Acts, ‘resurrection’ means this rising to immortal life, the resurrection that God’s people await at the last day. Of that resurrection Christ is the first instance and the pledge: “Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15:23). The firstfruits were the first sheaf of the harvest, offered to God as the start and promise of the rest (Leviticus 23:10–11), and, as Ellicott notes, they had to be of the same kind as the harvest they stood for.

The writers knew of the earlier raisings perfectly well. Luke, who reports Paul’s words in Acts 26:23, himself tells of Jesus raising the widow’s son at Nain and Jairus’s daughter (Luke 7:11–15; 8:49–56), of Peter raising Dorcas (Acts 9:36–41) and of Paul raising Eutychus (Acts 20:9–12). He cannot have meant that no one had ever come back from death before. He meant that Christ was the first to rise from the dead never to die again. The letter to the Hebrews draws the same line, between those who “received their dead raised to life again” and the “better resurrection” for which the faithful hoped (Hebrews 11:35). Adam Clarke explains Acts 26:23 in just this way.

First in rank

Barnes takes ‘first’ (Greek prōtos) to mean first in rank rather than in time: Christ is “the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18), the head of all who will rise.

The other cases

The sceptics’ lists also cite Samuel at Endor (1 Samuel 28:11–15), Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration (Luke 9:30), and the saints raised at Jesus’ death (Matthew 27:52–53). Samuel and Moses appeared, but nothing is said of a bodily resurrection, and Elijah had never died (2 Kings 2:11). As for the saints, Matthew says that they “came out of the graves after his resurrection”, so he places their appearing after Jesus had risen.

What became of the saints raised at Jesus’ death (Matthew 27:52–53) is not told, and Christians differ over whether they rose to immortal life or, like Lazarus, died again.