Acts 26:8

Act_26:8

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?

Why is the resurrection incredible

I. Incredulity has many causes and justifies itself with many reasons. It has never seen a resurrection, and it thinks it believes only what it sees. There have been plenty of funerals, but nothing more, so far as its experience goes. Some appear to have merely the rudiments of a soul, and are scarcely conscious of superiority to the brute creation. One such said to a minister, Your preaching does me no good; I have no soul; I want no one to talk to me about an imaginary hereafter; I shall die like a dog. Others shrink from the righteous retributions of the future. They resist the evidences of judgment, and fight the thought of justice. The sophistries of self-sufficiency; the solicitations of curious and overweening ambition; the deceptions of pride; the superstitions of the ignorant and credulous; the whisperings that emanate from the father of lies; all marshal their forces to crucify hope. There are those who count the thought of resurrection too good to be true. Others dwell so narrowly upon the mechanical and material side of life, that they forget the spirit. Natural science and its literature are fettered with earthly limitations.

II. Natural religion balances the improbability with its own probability. Negative evidence is worthless. Fifty millions of people did not see Garfield shot, but they could not clear Guiteau. Love is not measured with a yard stick, or focused under a microscope, but that does not breed scepticism. The soul expects immortality, and hungers for it with a Divine and deathless famine. Analogies prefigure it. It seems within the boundary of the thinkable to say that the Creator has power to recreate. It taxes no ones faith to believe that the watchmaker is able to repair his handiwork. Probabilities prevail on a priori grounds. Pantheism with its impersonal mysticism, has its Nirvana. Hellenic verse has its Elysian fields. The Arctic Circle has its Walhalla. The antipodal aborigines have their happy hunting grounds; and Judaea had its Paradise.

III. Christ brings many infallible proofs to corroborate and confirm the hopes of benighted peoples. It is very common to demonstrate that certain things are impossible, but that amounts to nothing in the presence of facts. While science was showing that the Sirius could not carry coal enough to take her over the Atlantic, she crossed. While men were proving that lightning rods, railroads, gas, telegraphs, cables, and telephones were visionary, inventors were realising their dreams. No fair and honest man can discredit the witness of the best book on earth, nor can he invalidate the testimony of the only sinless man who ever lived. What does this history and this witness prove? Christ answered the hopes of the patriarchs. Job stood on the chasm between the quick and the dead, saying, I know that my Redeemer lives. Christ promised to rise again. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again. The empty tomb is evidence. The soldiers could not account for it. The Romans were baffled. The Jews were nonplussed. The disciples were most amazed of all. Witnesses testified to what they knew. Their testimony could not be silenced. There is absolutely nothing to discredit their story. Their testimony convinced the prosecution. Within fifty days three thousand men changed front. The Sabbath is evidence of the resurrection. The first day of every week is an Easter. Christendom is evidence. It is a nineteenth century miracle. (J. B. Donaldson.)

The resurrection of the dead

It would be difficult to explain how the identity of the body can be preserved while the matter composing it is changed; but our difficulty in explaining can present no reason for denying the fact.

I. It is neither against the power, the wisdom, nor the will of God. God wills nothing that is not wise and good, and whatever He wills He has the power to accomplish. He has performed greater things than raising the dead.

II. We see vital exemplifications of it daily. The matter of our bodies undergoes a change every seven years, yet our bodys identity is preserved. Look at trees and plants in winter time, and see them when the breath of spring has touched them into life. Study the insect, at first a crawling worm. The hour arrives when it bursts its cerements and becomes a pure-winged, beautiful creature, sailing in sunny skies. Paul saw our grave in the furrow of the plough; our burial in the corn dropped in the soil; and our resurrection in the grain bursting its sheath to wave its head in summer sunshine.

III. The resurrection of the body is less inexplicable than its creation. It is not the same thing to rekindle an extinguished lamp and to show fire that has never yet appeared.

IV. The Lord Jesus Christ purposely rose again in His human body as a pattern and first fruit of our resurrection. (Homiletic Monthly.)

The resurrection of the dead

The strength of Christian evidence consists in this--that its leading truths rest on facts, and that those facts rest chiefly on sonic form of sensible demonstration. The resurrection respects a fact of which the witnesses must have been competent to speak if they were but honest; and dishonesty in the first Christians is out of the question. If it were so, it was a dishonesty which sought everyones good but their own. And as far from all rational probability is the alternative supposition that the witnesses were incompetent to testify concerning this fact. In the mouth of two witnesses shall every word be established, it is declared. What, then, shall it he in the mouth of five hundred? Why should it he thought incredible?

I. It supposes no greater amount of miraculous power than is required for the ordinary operations of nature. It is no greater miracle that a body should have a second existence, than that it should have a first; that dry bones should, at Gods bidding, put on holy and bright forms, than that a dead seed should have power to fill the air with perfume, or a torpid chrysalis burst forth into new activity and life. The only difference is that the one is a familiar miracle, the other we have yet to see.

II. It puts honour on that human nature which the son of God condescended to assume. The work of redemption throughout may be called a work of substitution and interchange of relations between Christ and His people. He took the form of a servant that we might receive the adoption of sons; He is made sin for us that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him; He is humbled by assuming the fashion of our bodies; we are to be exalted by being fashioned into His. Noble therefore as our body is by the original designation of its Author, nobler still as it has become by association with incarnate Godhead, it is, until it has put on its resurrection form.

III. The deliverance of the body from death is necessary to the completeness of Christs victory. The redemption of man may be considered either as virtual or as actual. We are virtually redeemed when the covenanted price has been paid, but actual redemption takes place only on the complete liberation of the captive. The former of these describes our present condition. We are bought with a price; we are the freedmen of Christ; but actually liberated we are not, because we are waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body; when the spoils of death shall be given up, and the captive of the grave shall be set free, and, with the rising of saints that sleep, shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Indeed we cannot conceive of Christs taking away sin without taking away also the death that came by sin. The enemy must have nothing--not even mans dust.

IV. It is necessary to the confirmation of our hopes of a blessed immortality. I mean not to say that there could have been no immortality to the soul without the body rising, but that the body being raised is to be to us an assurance that the soul should live also. I much doubt whether ignorance on the part of the ancients of this doctrine did not lie at the foundation of all that troubledness, and obscurity, and myth which we see connected with all merely philosophical views of a life to come. Their conscious, intelligent life was connected with a visible substance, and that substance they saw went to decay, and had received no intimation that that decay could ever pass away? How, then, was this snapped thread of personal identity to be joined again? Can we, then, marvel to find in every page of the New Testament traces of the godly jealousy entertained by the apostles about this one doctrine? They felt it was the very keystone of the Christian arch--the life, and power, and strength of our revealed system--the one visible door opening into immortality. Matthias might be a great man and a good, but he must not be of the number of the apostles unless he had been a witness of the resurrection. The Corinthians might have strong faith and good preachers, but faith and preaching were alike vain if Christ were not risen. (Daniel Moore, M. A.)

The credibility of the resurrection

The resurrection is credible because--

I. Possible. It is exhibited in the Bible, not as a speculative truth which must be believed because taught, but as so intimately bound up with our salvation that to prove it false were to prove the human race unredeemed. If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. The question is, whether there lie such objections against its possibility as justify us in rejecting the testimony of Scripture. But, then, nothing short of distinct impossibility would bear us out in such rejection. It is not its stupendousness, nor that it countlessly outmatches all finite ability, which will warrant our questioning it. The alone point is, Can we demonstrate that the effecting of it would surpass the Omnipotent? If the Bible had ascribed it to a finite agent the disproportion between the thing done and the doer would furnish ground enough for rejecting it. But will anyone say that it exceeds the capabilities of Him who is to achieve it? We cannot see why the work should be reckoned too great for God, unless we are prepared to say the same of the other works confessedly His. I look out on the wonder workings of creative wisdom and might, and I gather from the magnificent spectacle witness in abundance that a resurrection is possible. It is possible that that august Being, who cannot be perplexed by the multiplicity of concerns, may, yea, and must, take cognisance of each atom of dust, as well as of every planet and of every star; and why should He be unable to distinguish what hath belonged to man, and to appropriate to each individual his own?

II. It rests on sufficient evidence. Christ rose, why should not we? It is impossible that the apostles wilfully propagated a lie. Who would undertake the advocacy of falsehood, if, instead of being a gainer, he was certain to be a loser? We have only then to decide whether their belief rested on sufficient proof. The length of their previous acquaintance, and the ample opportunity of after identification, concurred to secure them against taking a person for Christ who was not Christ. If, then, they were neither deceivers nor deceived, we prove, with a kind of mathematical precision, that they must have been both rightly intentioned and informed. And when you add to this, that the number of these witnesses is greater than is required for the establishment of a matter in a court of assize, we think that the vindication of the credibility of their testimony is to be set aside by nothing short of an obstinacy which will not, or an infatuation which cannot, be convinced.

III. In the details which are given as to the body in which the dead shall appear. The grand characteristic of the resurrection body is to be likeness to the glorified body of Christ, seeing that St. Paul declares of the Saviour that He shall change our vile body, etc., and there is every reason for concluding that Christ, when transfigured, appeared in that glorified humanity in which He now sits at the Fathers right hand. And if so, we learn that our bodies, though made wondrously radiant, shall be distinguished as now, the one from the other, by their characteristic features. We, then, shall be changed, but not so changed as to interfere with recognition. And if we would examine more minutely into the change which shall pass upon our bodies, enough is told us by St. Paul in 1Co_15:1-58, to satisfy all but a presumptuous curiosity. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption, etc. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The resurrection of the dead

I. The credibility of this doctrine.

1. The resurrection of the dead is not in any way incompatible with the power of God, by which, according to the representation of the Scriptures, it is to be accomplished. Where, we ask, a few years ago, were the particles which now exist, organised and animated in the person of any individual in this assembly? Were they not as scattered as ever death and the grave can make them?

2. However great and amazing as an event, the resurrection of the dead is not dissimilar to many of those renewals which we witness in nature. Doth God take care for flowers? and will He abandon man, His last, His fairest, His most loved workmanship, to an everlasting winter in the tomb?

3. The resurrection of the dead is indispensable in order to give rectitude and perfection to the retributive government of God.

4. Stupendous as this event must be, it has already in some instances taken place. How big with instruction, how confirmatory of our faith, are those examples recorded by the evangelists!

5. The resurrection of the dead forms one of the leading and peculiar doctrines of the new covenant dispensation, taught by many unequivocal, incontrovertible words, as well as by historical record.

II. The consolation which this doctrine is calculated to afford. This great truth, ever delightful and consolatory to reflect upon, is especially so on two very solemn and important occasions.

1. The first of these is the loss of our friends by death. Is there in this assembly a mother who, in the course of providence, has been called to part for a term of years with her little son, to be apprenticed or educated far from home, or perhaps to go on the long, long voyage. It was not without a struggle of feeling, not without many tears, that she could take the parting look at the lad, although she knew that his absence was both for his and for her advantage. During that absence many a thought, many a wish, is sent after him; the months and the weeks are counted; and their slow advance is cheered by the reflection he will return, and every day brings it nigher. At length the day arrives; the youth enters his parents dwelling, and stands fair and full in his mothers view. What that mother feels as her eye wanders in ecstasy over his figure--so much taller, so much stouter, so much improved! what that mother feels as in transports of tender delight she presses her offspring to her bosom! that or something like that! that or something more pure, more exquisite, more Divine, is what we shall feel when in the day of God we shall meet with those who are gone before, and meet to part no more!

2. The second occasion on which the strong and holy consolations of this doctrine will doubtless be required is the season of our own death. With a conscience washed in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, and a soul firmly believing His resurrection, and ours through Him, we shall be prepared to meet sickness, and death, and the grave, with sweet composure and holy triumph. Oh! grave! I have misconceived thy character! Since Jesus has descended into thy dreary regions, the passage to them is smoothed, they are illumined, they are sanctified. Oh! how is thy character changed! Thine is now the sweetest pillow on which the wearied head ever reclined! Thine the safest retreat till this storm be over-past! Soon wilt thou faithfully return the inestimable deposit, and return it to glory, and honour, and immortality. (James Bromley.)

The resurrection credible

Concerning the souls of our departed Christian friends we suffer no distress. Our main trouble is about their bodies. Even the perfect Man could not restrain His weeping at Lazarus tomb. The doctrine of the Resurrection teaches us that we need have no trouble about the body, it has not gone to annihilation. The Lords love to His people is a love towards their entire manhood. He took into union with His Deity both soul and body, and redeemed both, and both are sanctified by the Divine indwelling. So our complete manhood shall have it in its power to glorify Him forever. This being our hope, we nevertheless confess that sometimes the evil heart of unbelief cries, Is it possible? At such times the text is needful.

I. Let us look this difficulty in the face. We rejoice in the fact that there will be a great change in the body; that its materialism will have lost all its grossness and corruption, and that it will be adapted for higher purposes; but there shall be an identity between the body in which we die and the body in which we rise. Not, however, that identity is the same thing as absolute sameness of substance and continuance of atoms. We are living in the same bodies which we possessed twenty years ago; yet no single atom remains that was in it then. Admit the like identity in the resurrection, and it is all we ask. Now this hope is naturally surrounded with many difficulties, because:--

1. The large majority of dead bodies have been utterly dissolved.

2. Think how widely diffused are the atoms which once built up living forms.

3. The difficulty increases when we reflect that all men will rise again. Think of the myriads who have passed away in countries like China, of those who have perished by shipwreck, plague, and war.

4. The wonder increases when we remember in what strange places many of these bodies now are. In fact, where are not mans remains? Blows there a single wind down our streets without whirling along particles of what once was man?

5. And, moreover, to make the wonder extraordinary beyond conception, they will rise at once, or perhaps in two great divisions (Rev_20:5-6). Where shall they stand? What plains of earth shall hold them?

6. And then this resurrection will not be a mere restoration, but in the case of the saints will involve a remarkable advance. We put into the ground a bulb, and it rises as a golden lily; we drop into the mould a seed, and it comes forth an exquisite flower; even thus, the bodies, which are sown in burial, shall spring up by Divine power into outgrowths, surpassing all imagination in beauty.

7. One of the difficulties of believing it is, that there are positively no full analogies in nature by which to support it. Some have seen in sleep the analogy of death, and in our awakening the resurrection. But a continuance of life is manifest to the man in his dreams and to all onlookers. The development of insects is quoted as a striking analogy. But there is life in the chrysalis, organisation, in fact, the entire fly. Nor is the analogy of the seed much more conclusive, for a life germ always remains, and the crumbling organisation becomes its food from which it builds itself up again. The resurrection stands alone; and, concerning it, the Lord might well say, Behold, I do a new thing in the earth. Here, then, is the difficulty. Is it a credible thing that the dead should be raised?

II. Remove the difficulty. It might seem incredible that the dead should be raised, but why should it seem incredible that God should raise the dead? Grant that God is, that He is omnipotent, and that He has said the dead shall be raised, and belief is no longer hard but inevitable. Difficulty is not in the dictionary of the Godhead. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

1. When Paul uttered our text he was speaking to one to whom he could say, Believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest! It was, therefore, good reasoning to say, Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you? etc. For, as a Jew, Agrippa had the testimony of Job--For I know that my Redeemer liveth; and of David (Psa_16:1-11); of Isaiah (Isa_26:19); of Daniel (Dan_12:2-3); of Hosea (Hos_13:14).

2. To us as Christians there has been granted yet fuller evidence (Joh_5:28; Joh_6:30; Rom_8:11; Php_3:21; 1Co_15:1-58).

3. At the same time it may be well to look around us, and note what helps the Lord has appointed for our faith.

(1) There are many wonders which we should not have believed by mere report, if we had not come across them by experience. The electric telegraph, e.g. When our missionaries in tropical countries have told the natives of ice, the natives have refused to believe. After the resurrection we shall regard it as a Divine display of power as familiar to us as creation and Providence now are.

(2) Will resurrection be a greater wonder than creation? To create out of nothing is quite as marvellous as to call together scattered particles and refashion them.

(3) Christ rose again and He is the cause of your resurrection, the type of it, the foretaste of it, the guarantee of it.

(4) Remember also, that you who are Christians have already experienced as great a work as the resurrection, for you have risen from the dead as to your innermost nature.

III. Our relation to this truth

1. Comfort one another with these words. You have lost those dear to you. Sorrow ye must, but sorrow not as those that are without hope.

2. Let us cheer our hearts in prospect of our own departure.

3. Expecting a blessed resurrection, let us respect our bodies. Bodies that are to dwell forever in heaven, should not be subjected to pollution here below.

4. The ungodly are to rise again, but it will be to a resurrection of woe. Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 26:8-11. Why should it be thought a thing incredible — (It was thought so by Festus, Act 25:19, to whom Paul answers as if he had heard him discourse;) that God — A Being of infinite perfections, and the original author of the human frame; should raise the dead — And continue their existence in a future state? Will not his Almighty power enable him to do it? and will not the honour of his moral attributes be hereby illustrated and vindicated? And if it be credible, is it not important enough to deserve the most attentive regard? I verily thought, &c. — That is, when I was a Pharisee; that I ought to do many things (which he now enumerates) contrary to the name — Destructive of the cause and religion; of Jesus of Nazareth — Or, Jesus the Nazarene, whom under that title I once impiously derided, esteeming all his pretences to be the Messiah at once false and contemptible. He now proceeds to give an account of the extraordinary scenes through which he had passed, and which had occasioned a change in his views and conduct. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem — Where many, now living, were witnesses of my rage against the Christians; and many of the saints — Persons not only innocent, but just, good, and holy; I shut up in prison — Φυλακαις, in prisons; having received authority from the chief priests to do it; and when they were put to death — Were condemned to die; I gave my vote against them — I joined with those who condemned them. It does not appear that Paul had any vote in the sanhedrim: and we do not certainly know that, before Paul’s conversion, any more than Stephen were put to death for Christianity, in whose condemnation there was no voting at all. But the meaning plainly is, that he instigated the people against them as much as he could, in that instance, and in others which possibly might occur, whether at Jerusalem or elsewhere, though not recorded in the New Testament. Accordingly the Syriac renders it, I joined with those that condemned them; and Grotius observes, that the original phrase, κατηνεγκα ψηφον, has evidently sometimes this general signification. And I punished them oft in every synagogue — Wherever I met with them; and — When I could possibly effect it, I compelled them to blaspheme — The name of the Lord Jesus, and openly to renounce all faith in him, and subjection to him. This was the most dreadful of all the sinful acts which he committed; and, it seems, grieved him most: and no guilt can lie heavier upon persecutors, than that of forcing men’s consciences, and triumphing over them, by putting them to the torture, and thereby compelling them to abjure their religion. How light soever they may make of such guilt, and even rejoice in the proselytes they gain by their acts of violence and cruelty, awful, sooner or later, will be the condition of all such! For if Spira, who was compelled, suffered so terribly, what will become of those who compel like Saul, but do not repent like him? And being exceedingly mad against them — Περισσως εμμαινομενος, beyond measure furious; I persecuted them even unto strange cities — To which some of them had fled, to avoid or escape my outrageous cruelty, pursuing and hunting out the poor refugees, and endeavouring to drive them, not only out of their country, but out of the world.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 26:8. Ἄπιστον, incredible) The ancients called poetic fables incredible: See Chrysost. de Sacerd. § 226, 590: So Festus esteemed the resurrection an incredible thing: ch. Act 25:19.—ὑμῖν, to you) An Apostrophe [sudden turning of the address to others than those with whom he began], in respect of the Jews (for Agrippa was not a Jew: Act 26:3; Act 26:7 (“our twelve tribes”), where the ἡμῶν forms an antithesis to the proselytes, especially those of them who were such as Agrippa was, according to my note on ch. Act 25:19); and boldness of speech, towards the hearers then present. He so replies to Festus, as if he had heard his speech: ch. Act 25:19.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act_26:8. The circumstance that Paul made the resurrection of Jesus the foundation of his preaching of the Messianic kingdom, had specially provoked the hatred of the Jews. This resurrection they would not recognise (Act_25:19), and therefore he continuesin his impassioned address breaking away from what had gone before, and in the person of the Jewish king addressing the Jews themselves as if present (παρʼ ὑμῖν)with the bold inquiry: Why is it esteemed as incredible with you? etc. Beza and others (also de Wette and Lange) place after τί a note of interrogation: How? Is it incredible? etc. But it tells decisively against this view that the mere τί is not so used; τί γάρ, τί οὖν or τί δέ would be employed.

εἰ ὁ Θεὸς νεκρ. ἐγείρει] if God (as He has done in the instance of Jesus) raises the dead. Comp. Vulgate, Erasmus, and others, εἰ is neither equivalent to ὅτι (Luther, Beza, Grotius, and others), nor is it the problematic whether (de Wette and others); the more especially as the matter under discussion is not that of doubt or uncertainty on the part of the Jews, but that of their definite unbelief, which is absurd.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 26:8 . R.V. gives more clearly the significance of the original, “Why is it judged incredible with you, if God (as He does) raises the dead?” εἰ with indicative assumes that the hypothesis is true, Vulgate “si Deus mortuos suscitat?” cf. Luk 16:31 . It has sometimes been thought that St. Paul here makes a special appeal to the Sadducean part of his audience παρʼ ὑμῖν including among them Agrippa, with his indifference and practical Sadduceism (Alford), with his policy favouring the Sadducees in the appointment of the high priests (Felten): others have seen in the words a reference to the general resurrection with which the Apostle’s Messianic belief was connected, or to cases of resurrection in the history of Israel, as, e.g. , 2Ki 42Ki 4 , as if the speaker would ask: Why is it judged a thing incredible in your judgment when you have instances before you in the sacred books accepted by Agrippa and the Jews? But it is far better to consider the words in connection with the great truth to which the whole speech was meant to lead up, Act 26:23 , viz. , that Jesus, although crucified, had risen again, that He was at this moment a living Person, and by His resurrection had been proved to be the Messiah, the fulfiller of the hope of Israel. Zöckler regards the question as forming a kind of transition from the general hope of the Jews in a Messiah to the specific Christian hope in Jesus. ἄπιστον : only here in Acts, twice in Luke’s Gospel, but frequent in St. Paul’s Epistles of those who believed not. See further Nestle, Philologica Sacra , p. 54, 1896, and Wendt, p. 391 and note (1899). Nestle proposes to place the verse as ou of connection here between Act 26:22-23 , with a full stop at the end of the former; and Wendt commends this view.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He proveth the resurrection of the dead, first by the power of God, then by the resurrection of Christ: whereof he is a sufficient witness.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Why should it be thought a thing incredible . . . that God should raise the dead?--rather, "Why is it judged a thing incredible if God raises the dead?" the case being viewed as an accomplished fact. No one dared to call in question the overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, which proclaimed Him to be the Christ, the Son of God; the only way of getting rid of it, therefore, was to pronounce it incredible. But why, asks the apostle, is it so judged? Leaving this pregnant question to find its answer in the breasts of his audience, he now passes to his personal history.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. That God should raise the dead?] As Agrippa believed in the true God, and knew that one of his attributes was omnipotence, he could not believe that the resurrection of the dead was an impossible thing; and to this belief of his the apostle appeals; and the more especially, because the Sadducees denied the doctrine of the resurrection, though they professed to believe in the same God. Two attributes of God stood pledged to produce this resurrection: his truth, on which his promise was founded; and his power, by which the thing could be easily affected, as that power is unlimited.

Some of the best critics think this verse should be read thus: What! should it be thought a thing incredible with you, if God should raise the dead?

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Why should I do not doubt but that he proved that both by reason, and also by testimonies of Scripture, which he taught concerning the resurrection and the heavenly life. But for good causes doth he call back those unto whom he speaketh unto the power of God, lest they judge thereof according to their own weak capacity. For nothing can more hardly sink into men’s brains, than that men’s bodies shall be restored when as they be once consumed. Therefore, seeing it is a mystery far surpassing man’s wit, let the faithful remember how far the infinite power of God doth reach, and not what they themselves comprehend; as the same Paul teacheth in the third chapter to the Philippians (Philippians 3:21). For when he hath said that our vile bodies shall be made like to the glorious body of Christ, he addeth immediately, “according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.” But men are for the most part injurious to God, who will not have his arm to reach any farther than their understanding and reason can reach; so that so much as in them lieth they would desire to restrain the greatness of his works (which surpasseth heaven and earth) unto their straits. But, on the other side, Paul commandeth us to consider what God is able to do, that being lifted up above the world, we may learn to conceive the faith of the resurrection, not according to the weak capacity of our mind, but according to his omnipotency.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(8) Why should it be thought a thing incredible . . .?—Some MSS. give a punctuation which alters the structure of the sentence: What! is it thought a thing incredible . . . ? The appeal is made to Agrippa as accepting the sacred books of Israel, in which instances of a resurrection were recorded (1Ki_17:17-23; 2Ki_4:18-37), and which ought to have hindered him from postulating the incredibility of the truth which St. Paul preached, and which included (1) the doctrine of a general resurrection, and (2) the fact that Christ had risen. The Greek use of the present tense, that God raiseth the dead, gives prominence to the first thought rather than the second. Agrippa, as probably allied, as the rest of his kindred had been, with the Sadducean high priests, not a few of whom he had himself nominated, was likely to reject both.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible … that God, &c.] More literally (with Rev. Ver.) “Why is it judged incredible with you if God doth raise the dead.” The last clause is not to be understood hypothetically, but “If God doth, as he hath done in the case of Jesus.” So that it is equivalent to “Why should you not believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead?”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you,.... You Heathens and Sadducees; for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was thought an incredible doctrine by the Heathens in general, and therefore was laughed at by the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers at Athens, when preached by the apostle there; and by a particular sect among the Jews, the Sadducees; and the apostle may be thought either to address himself to Festus, the Roman governor, and to the chief captains, who were present, and, being Heathens, disbelieved this doctrine; or else to King Agrippa, who might be a Sadducee, and to such of the Sadducees as were in court, and expostulate with them, why it should be looked upon as a thing by no means to be credited,

that God should raise the dead; which may be understood both of the particular resurrection of Christ from the dead, which was not believed, neither by the Romans nor by the Jews, and neither by Pharisees nor Sadducees; or of the general resurrection of the dead, which was judged from the nature of things to be impracticable, and impossible by the latter, as well as by the Heathens: but since God is omniscient and omnipotent, and just and true, knows where every particle of a dead body lies, and can gather all together, and inspire with life; which he can as easily do, as to form all things out of nothing, as he did; and his justice and veracity seem to require, that the same bodies which have been partners with their souls in sinning, or in sufferings should share with them in woe or in happiness; it can neither be absurd, unreasonable, nor incredible, to suppose that God will raise them from the dead.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

8 Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

Ver. 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible?] Philosophy indeed is against it. A privatione ad habitum, &c. Et redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil, as the epicure in Ecclesiastes concludeth. But first, many heathens believed a resurrection; as Zoroaster, Theopolupus, and Plato. And the Stoic’s opinion was, that the world should be dissolved by fire or water; and all things brought to a better state, or to the first golden age again. {a} Secondly, no article of the faith was more generally believed among the Jews than this, Joh 12:24; Act 23:8. Hence they called their burying places Domus viventium, the houses of the living, בית חיום the Greeks called them dormitories, or sleeping houses, κοιμητηρια, as holding that their dead should once awake again, and be filled with God’s image, Psa 17:15. The Germans call the churchyard God’s Acre; because the bodies are sown there to be raised again. What if those profane popes (sons of perdition), Leo X and Julius II, jeer at the resurrection, as if anything were impossible with God? cannot he that made man at first of nothing make him up again of that substance of the body that is preserved after death, though never so dispersed? God knows where every part and parcal of it is, and can easily bring it together again. In the transfiguration, that body of Moses which was hidden in the valley of Moab, appeared glorious in the hill of Tabor; that we may know that these bodies of ours are not lost, but laid up, and shall as sure be raised in glory as they are laid down in corruption. Do we not see a resurrection of the creatures every spring? and the grain we sow, doth it not first rot and then revive? See we not men of ashes to make glass? and cannot a skilful gardener discern his different seeds when mixed together, and gather every one of them to their own kind? Have we not observed how those little balls of quicksilver dispersed, will not mix with any of another kind; but if any man gather them, they run together of their own accord into one mass? why then should it be thought a thing incredible with any, that God should raise the dead? Consentaneum est Phoenicem, saith Nyssen. It is probable enough, that that Phoenix that was found in the reign of Nero (and perhaps at this very time when St Paul was thus pleading for the resurrection) might signify the resurrection of Christ, and of all believers by him; according to that of the prophet, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead," Isa 26:19.

{a} Sen. Nat. Quaest. iii. 26, 27.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Why should it be thought ... - The force of this question will be better seen by an exclamation point after why τί ti. “What! is it to be thought a thing incredible?” etc. It intimates surprise that it should be thought incredible, or implies that no reason could be given why such a doctrine should be unworthy of belief.

A thing incredible - A doctrine which cannot be credited or believed. Why should it be regarded as absurd?

With you - This is in the plural number, and it is evident that Paul here addressed, not Agrippa alone, but those who sat with him. There is no evidence that Agrippa doubled that the dead could be raised, but Festus, and those who were with him, probably did, and Paul, in the ardor of his speech, turned and addressed the entire assembly. It is very evident that we have only an outline of this argument, and there is every reason to suppose that Paul would dwell on each part of the subject at greater length than is here recorded.

That God should raise the dead - Why should it be regarded as absurd that God - who has all power, who is the creator of all, who is the author of the human frame should again restore man to life and continue his future existence? The resurrection is no more incredible than the original creation of the body, and it is attended with no greater difficulties. And as the perfections of God will be illustrated by his raising up the dead; as the future state is necessary to the purposes of justice in vindicating the just and punishing the unjust, and as God is a righteous moral governor, it should not be regarded as an absurdity that he will raise up those who have died, and bring them to judgment.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He speaks now to the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. Can you say it is impossible for Him, whom you all allow to be omnipotent, to raise any of the dead to life? Is it not easier to reanimate a body, whose parts are dissolved by death, than create what had no existence? "And why should He, who daily from the corrupted seed brings forth plants, leaves, wood, not be able to call back into their primitive state the flesh and bones from the dust into which they have been dissolved." (St. Gregory, hom. xxvi. in Evang.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This St. Paul seems to have spoken in regard of Festus, and many others there present, who were heathens; or to any of the Sadducees, if any such were amongst them: as for Agrippa, He believed the prophets, Act 26:27, and had out of them learned and observed this promise, Act 26:7. However, God did not leave himself without a witness to testify so much unto all, as should make the doctrine of the resurrection credible, whensoever it should be revealed unto them. The works of creation evidence it; for he that can give life unto that which had it not, can restore it unto that which had it: and the works of providence attest it; in every spring there is a resurrection of such plants or trees as seemed dead; nay, the bread which we daily feed on, was made of that grain, which was not quickened except it died, 1Co 15:36.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Why is it judged incredible with you, if for why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that, A.V.; doth for should, A.V.. Why is it judged, etc. The use of d is somewhat peculiar. It cannot stand for oti, but it is nearly equivalent to "whether," as in ver. 23. The question proposed to the mind is here whether God has raised the dead; and in ver. 23 whether Christ has suffered, whether he is the first to rise. In the latter case St. Paul gives the answer by his witness to the truth, affirming that it is so. In the former case he chides his hearers for giving the answer of unbelief, and saying that it is not so.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON. Ver. 8. The credibility of the resurrection.

If it be an incredible doctrine, it must be so because to raise men from the dead is physically impossible or morally unlikely in a very high degree. But

I IT IS NOT PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

1. The continuance of the spirit in existence after death is certainly not impossible; indeed, it is the discontinuance which has seemed so impossible that to many thinkers its permanency appears to be a necessity. The difficulty, to many minds, is to understand how a spirit can be dissolved and destroyed.

2. Its reassociation with a human body of some kind is also possible, and to almighty power and wisdom easy of execution. The same Divine strength and skill which created and fashioned man as he is can surely continue his existence and his powers under similar conditions to the present ones. He who has made us what we are can make us again, more or less closely associated with the bodily frame which is our present home and organ.

II To RAISE HIS OWN SON FROM THE DEAD IN ORDER TO ASSURE THE WORLD OF HIS DIVINITY, and of the heavenly origin of the faith he taught, is credible enough. Granted that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and Savior of the world, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so far from being incredible or even improbable, is positively demanded.

III To RAISE FROM THE DEAD THE FOLLOWERS OF A RISEN AND ASCENDED SAVIOR is perfectly credible. Granted what we have assumed, and that, therefore, Jesus Christ is Savior, Lord, and Friend of believing, loving, and faithful disciples, it follows that he would exert his Divine power and raise them to his heavenly kingdom, that they might share his honor and his blessedness. The real difficulty is not in the resurrection of Jesus Christ or in that of his disciples; it is in the assumption which lies behind the assumption that Jesus Christ was one who came down from heaven to redeem a fallen race. That granted, everything else follows necessarily. We maintain that

IV A DIVINE REDEMPTION IS A CREDIBLE AND NOT AN INCREDIBLE IDEA. There is much within us and around us that points to the presence of a holy and living Father of spirits. If we make our appeal to our own hearts and there is nothing higher than a living human heart from which to argue to the Divine we shall conclude that to restore his fallen children by the sacrifice of himself was just that very thing which the infinite Father would do. There is nothing more probable, more credible than that.

1. Redeeming love is a well-attested fact.

2. The resurrection of Christ is involved in that fact.

3. The resurrection of man is an inference from that.

(1) Regard it as a certainty.

(2) Prepare for it as an event in which we have all the deepest personal interest. C.

Resurrection in the light of revelation.

should it be thought," etc.? Grounds of the incredible. Contradiction of reason. Contradiction of experience. Absolute isolation of a fact. A statement is credible because it is rational, because it has been predicted, because it is analogous to and harmonious with experience, because it is morally and practically serviceable to humanity.

I THE APPEAL TO FAITH. You believe so much; why not this? The Jewish Scriptures contained the doctrine of resurrection. Enoch. Abraham"s anticipation of Isaac"s resurrection. Moses. Elijah. The teaching of the Psalms and prophets. The growth of the doctrine through the post-Exilian times. Even the heathen not without much that prepared the way for the truth. Doctrine of the dead and of the future life. Longing for the perfection of humanity. Moral helplessness.

II THE CHALLENGE OF CHRISTIANITY TO PERSONAL ACCEPTANCE.

1. The credible ought to be accepted, if it comes with the evidence of fact.

2. The real root of unbelief is personal and moral. Paul refers to himself, "I was once as you are; but the facts were too much for me.

3. The resurrection is not a mere speculative doctrine or unpractical mystery, but it is the root of the whole system of Christianity; it stands at the entrance of the new way, into which we are all invited, both as sealing the testimony of Christ, and as opening the new world to our faith and setting our affection on things above. R.

The incredibility of the resurrection.

This sudden appeal appears to be made for two reasons.

1. Because Agrippa professed to believe in the Scriptures, which certainly contained records of resurrections. (see 1Ki_17:17-23; 2Ki_4:18-37)

2. Because the Sadducee party was the one which was most active against the apostle, and they were chiefly offended by his preaching the doctrine of the resurrection, based upon the resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. Possibly St. Paul may have known that the doctrine of resurrection was a stumbling-block and hindrance to Agrippa. Men in all ages have stumbled at the difficulty of resurrection. It appears to be so contrary to the order of nature; and, so far as human power and skill are concerned, death is so manifestly an irremediable woe. But is resurrection incredible? Three answers may be given.

I THAT DEPENDS UPON THE EVIDENCES OF THE FACT. It is credible enough if it can be adequately proved. And the test case must be the resurrection of our Lord. It is not enough to dismiss this case as miraculous; we must fairly consider the proofs of the fact. Review them as given by St. Paul in 1Co 15, and set them alongside the historical details given in the Gospels, showing the credibility of the witnesses, etc. The position taken by Hume is a very presumptuous one, that it is more likely the evidence is false than that the miraculous event is true. No fact of history can be received unless its testimony is accepted without prejudice.

II THE RESURRECTION IS NOT THE GREATEST OF MIRACLES. If we can accept greater, it cannot be unreasonable to accept it. St. Augustine well expresses this point. He says, "It is a greater miracle to make that which is not than to repair that which is. Why cannot God raise us after we are turned into dust, who, if we ever were reduced to nothing, could give us a being?" To create man is a greater miracle than to re-create him; and we are not unreasonable in asserting that he who can accomplish the one can certainly accomplish the other.

III THE WORLD IS FULL OF ANALOGIES WHICH HELP TO MAKE REASONABLE THE BELIEF IN RESURRECTION. These are fully given in works on the resurrection, and are familiarly used in sermons on this topic. Especially may analogies be found in springtime resurrections and insect changes. Science, too, finds analogies, for it discovers that nothing really is destroyed, but all things reappear in other and varied forms. It is but a beginning of argument on behalf of the sure and sublime truth of the resurrection, but it is an important beginning to be able to say It is not a thing incredible that God should raise the dead. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Is it judged by you an incredible thing - It was by Festus, chap. xxv, 19, to whom Paul answers as if he had heard him discourse.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

As if the apostle had said, "The great point in controversy between me and you is this, Whether the dead in general shall arise? and, Whether Christ in particular be risen from the dead? Now why should either seem incredible to you? Is it too hard for God, who made the world, and upholds the world, and gives life to all living; is it too hard or difficult for him to raise the dead? If not, why should it be thought incredible or impossible?"

Learn hence, That the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust, is neither incredible, nor impossible, neither against right reason nor true faith.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See notes on verse 4

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. τί ἄπιστον κρίνεται παρ’ ὑμῖν εἰ ὁ θεὸς νεκροὺς ἐγείρει; why is it judged incredible with you if God doth raise the dead? The last clause is not to be understood hypothetically, but ‘If God doth, as He hath done in the case of Jesus.’ So that it is equivalent to ‘Why should you not believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead?’

Chrysostom points out that the strange thing was that the doctrine was not believed: εἰ γὰρ μὴ τοιαύτη δόξα ἦν, εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἀνατεθραμμένοι ἧσαν ἐν τούτοις τοῖς δόγμασι, νῦν δὲ εἰσεφέρετο, ἴσως οὐκ ἂν ἐδέξατό τις τὸν λόγον.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8.] Having impressed on his hearers the injustice of this charge from the Jews, with reference to his holding that hope which they themselves held, he now leaves much to be filled up, not giving a confession of his own faith, but proceeding as if it were well understood. ‘You assume rightly, that I mean by this hope, in my own case, my believing it accomplished in the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth.’ Then, this being acknowledged, he goes on to shew how his own view became so changed with regard to Jesus; drawing, by the μὲν οὖν (ver. 9), a contrast in some respects between himself, who was supernaturally brought to the faith, and them, who yet could not refuse to believe that God could and might raise the dead. All this he mainly addresses to Agrippa (ver. 26), as being the best acquainted with the circumstances, and, from his position, best qualified to judge of them. It may be, as Stier suggests, that if not open, yet practical Sadduceism had tainted the Herodian family. Paul knew, at all events, how generally the highly cultivated, and those in power and wealth, despised and thought ἄπιστον the doctrine of the resurrection.

εἰ … ἐγείρει] not, as commonly rendered, ‘that God should raise the dead’ (E. V.): but the question is far stronger than this, if the conjunction be taken in its literal meaning: why is it judged by you a thing past belief, if God raises the dead? i.e. ‘if God, in His exercise of power, sees fit to raise the dead (the word implying that such a fact has veritably taken place), is it for you to refuse to believe it?’ Compare the declaration of our Lord, Luk 16:31: οὐδʼ ἐάν τις ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῇ πεισθήσονται. We have many instances of this use of εἰ:—Xen. Mem. i. 1. 13, ἐθαύμαζε δὲ εἰ μὴ φανερὸν αὐτοῖς ἐστίν: ib. 18, ὅσα δὲ πάντες ᾔδεσαν, θαυμαστὸν εἰ μὴ τούτων ἐνεθυμήθησαν: ib. i. 2. 13, ἐγὼ δʼ εἰ μέν τι κακὸν ἐκείνῳ τὴν πόλιν ἐποιησάτην οὐκ ἀπολογήσομαι: on which examples Hermann remarks, ad Viger. p. 504, “in his locis omnibus rem non dubiam et incertam indicat εἰ, sed plane certam et perspicuam.”

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That God should raise the dead [ει ο θεος νεκρους εγειρει] . Much better, as Rev., if God raises the dead. He does not put it as a supposition, but as a fact : if God raises the dead, as you admit that he has the power to do, and as your own writings tell you that he has done.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.