Like an oak tree develops from an acorn, and like a vine comes from a grape seed, the hope of resurrection grows in the Old Testament. The culminating expression of such hope appears in Daniel 12:2–3: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
By the time careful readers of the Old Testament arrive at Daniel 12, they are not surprised by such language. The biblical authors have been leading toward this expression over much of God’s special revelation. In fact, Daniel himself has been guiding the reader toward such a climactic pronouncement.
The Immediate Context of Daniel 12:2–3
The book of Daniel is full of deliverances, and deliverances are pictures of resurrection. Figurative resurrections build expectation for bodily resurrection. Before Daniel 12, the wise men of Babylon are saved from death (Dan. 2), three faithful Hebrews are rescued from the fiery furnace (Dan. 3), and Daniel escapes a den of hungry lions (Dan. 6).
God knows how to rescue his people. Even when we die, his rescuing arm is not too short to save. According to Daniel 12:2–3, God will reach into death and deliver those who sleep in the dust.
The promise of future bodily resurrection is among the final words of the book’s final vision. This final vision (Dan. 10:1–12:3) foretells hard days for God’s covenant community. There would be much conflict, and in particular, a wicked and blasphemous king would cause great turmoil for God’s people (Dan. 11:2–35). Unfortunately, some Israelites would forsake the Lord and join the cause of this man (Dan. 11:32). Others would remain faithful to the Lord, though at the cost of persecution and martyrdom (Dan. 11:33–35).
But deliverance, not defeat, is the last word. God will raise the dead for his purposes of salvation and judgment. This promise in Daniel 12:2–3 will help the faithful to persevere, and it warns that the rebels are not on the right side of history. The Lord of history is the Lord of the grave, and he is propelling all of history toward the general resurrection of the dead.
Allusions in Daniel 12:2–3
The wording of Daniel 12:2–3 borrows earlier biblical expressions. Two examples will establish this point. First, describing the dead as “those who sleep in the dust” is to evoke Genesis 3:17–19. And second, to say that “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake” is to recall Isaiah 26:19.
Genesis 3 reports God’s words to the serpent and to the two rebellious image-bearers. In Genesis 3:17–19, God speaks to Adam, and he tells the first man, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The Lord said, “to dust you shall return.” Their future death would be a return to the dust, recalling that God had made Adam from the ground (Gen. 2:7). Human death would mean that the ground receives the bodies. But according to Daniel 12:2, those who sleep in the dust shall awake. The state of death is bodily sleep. The biblical authors do not teach that the soul is asleep—or unconscious, or nonexistent—after death. But bodily death is depicted as sleep, and thus resurrection is the body waking up.
Isaiah 26 is a prophecy of bodily resurrection, and the prophet lived earlier than Daniel. Isaiah said to the Lord, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead” (Isa. 26:19). With overlapping concepts and terms, Daniel 12:2 prophesies that “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” In Isaiah 26:19, the dead are dust-dwellers. Their bodies are asleep and shall awake. The earth possesses the dead, and the dead shall come forth by resurrection.
Two Groups
Long before readers get to Daniel 12, they have seen enough biblical revelation elsewhere to see that the future for believers is life (Ps. 71:20), and the future for unbelievers is judgment (Ps. 63:9–10). According to Isaiah 26:19, this future life for believers involves deliverance from death. But nothing has been explicitly said about the future bodily existence of the wicked.
The prophecy in Daniel 12:2 is the most explicit place in the Old Testament that foretells the resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. These two groups will both be raised, but their final states differ immensely. The righteous will awake “to everlasting life,” and the wicked will awake “to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).
If the bodily resurrection of the wicked is unto shame and humiliation, then the opposite is true for the righteous. The righteous will be raised unto honor and vindication. This future reversal is good news for readers of the book of Daniel, for the wicked sought to cause shame and acted with vicious contempt. They persecuted the righteous, blasphemed the Lord, and exulted in their worldly power. But they will reap destruction. Their future resurrection will reverse their worldly status.
In the context of Daniel’s prophecy and vision, the righteous have faced the humiliation of suffering and hostility and martyrdom. But their future resurrection will reverse this state as well. The righteous will awake unto “everlasting life” (Dan. 12:2). Their sufferings are temporary, and the wicked will not prevail. The trials of the righteous cannot compare with the glory that awaits them (2 Cor. 4:16–18).
After the promise that two groups will awake in the resurrection, the heavenly figure tells Daniel more about the righteous.
The Glory of the Risen Righteous
Daniel hears the heavenly figure say, “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).
The risen state of God’s people is glorious. The simile—“like the brightness of the sky above”—conveys the brilliance and splendor of the saints’ resurrected bodies. The saints’ future embodied existence is immortal and imperishable (1 Cor. 15:52–53). Believers will not experience pain or death (Rev. 21:4).
Christ’s resurrected body is the paradigm for what the saints expect for their own future embodied life. According to Philippians 3, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20–21).
Theologians refer to our risen state as the glorification of our bodies. We will be raised but also transformed. Resurrection is not merely a return to the way things were. Bodily deliverance ushers in a kind of embodied existence that is far better than our present earthly frame. Comparatively speaking, Paul says our present earthly body is like a “tent,” an “earthly home” that will be destroyed by death (2 Cor. 5:1). Our resurrection body is our “heavenly dwelling” (2 Cor. 5:2), and rising in this state will mean that “what is mortal” has been “swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4).
According to Daniel 12:3, our embodied glory is not temporary. We will shine “like the stars forever and ever.” Because of our union with Christ, our future bodily resurrection will be like his: glorious and everlasting.
Daniel 12:2–3 in the New Testament
Daniel 12:2–3 is the most important expression of resurrection hope in the Old Testament, because it is the clearest, fullest, and climactic articulation of it. We would not be surprised, then, if New Testament passages allude to it. Let’s look at two places where such allusions occur: John 5:28–29 and Philippians 2:15.
In John 5, Jesus is teaching about his supreme authority. He does what his Father does, and this includes the giving of life and judgment (John 5:19–27). Referring to himself in the third person as the Son of Man, Jesus told his listeners, “Do not marvel at this, for 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).
The Son of Man will raise the dead—all the dead. Notice the two groups—“those who have done good” and “those who have done evil.” And notice the two outcomes—“to the resurrection of life” and “to the resurrection of judgment.” Jesus is teaching about the future resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous, and these groups and outcomes allude to Daniel 12:2.
The saint’s everlasting life is not wholly future. It begins even now, through union with the living Christ. We are spiritually raised now, and we shall be physically raised at Christ’s return. One way we can see the inauguration of this life is through Paul’s words in Philippians 2:14–15: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” Paul is alluding to Daniel 12:3, and he is telling us that the promise of Daniel 12:3 is not entirely reserved for the distant future.
Saints are already shining. Though our bodies do not yet possess the imperishability and glory of resurrection life, our spiritual life is the beginning of God’s good work in and through us. Against the darkness of a fallen world and a crooked generation, believers are shining lights. We are jars of clay containing gospel treasure (2 Cor. 4:6–7). We are inwardly being renewed as we await the transformation and glorification of our frail and corruptible bodies (2 Cor. 4:16). Because our eternal life has begun in Christ, so also has our shining begun in him (Dan. 12:3; John 5:24; Phil. 2:15).
Conclusion
The biblical authors say, with one voice, that death will die and the dead will be raised. The Old Testament stirs this hope of Death’s death. The clearest, fullest expression of this hope is Daniel 12:2–3, which teaches that both the righteous and unrighteous will be raised to respective states of life and judgment.
No matter the earthly trials of the saints, and no matter the earthly triumphs of the wicked, the resurrection of the dead will set all things right. By faith, we taste victory in Christ even now. His life and light are already ours, with greater glory to come. The Lord Jesus, who is the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20), will wake those who sleep in the dust. Though we return to the dust at death, this return is temporary. Death is the “last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26), and all the enemies of Christ must fall. Death’s fall is when we rise.
