The expression in Acts 27:23, presents apparently the greatest difficulty of any. The verse reads: “That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.” As it stands in our common version it is difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that a number were raised from the dead previous to the resurrection of Christ as already noticed, and we are led to wonder why Paul, knowing of all these cases, should make such a statement. But, if we mistake not, the original presents a different idea. In Greenfield’s Testament, the text stands thus:-- Εἰ παθητὸς ὁ Χριστὸς, εἰ πρῶτος ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν φῶς μέλλει καταγγέλλειν τω λαῷ καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσι. We call the attention of those familiar with the Greek to this passage, and submit that it can be properly rendered as follows: “That Christ was to suffer, [and] that first from the resurrection of the dead he was to show light to the people and to the Gentiles.” Bloomfield, in his note on this verse, says that the words “may be rendered, either ‘after the resurrection from the dead,’ or ‘by the resurrection;’ but the latter is preferable.” And Wakefield translates it thus: “That the Christ would suffer death, and would be the first to proclaim salvation to this people and to the Gentiles by a resurrection from the dead.” This is in accordance with what the same apostle declared to Timothy (1 Tim. 1:10), that Christ brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And viewed in this light, the text is freed from all difficulty. It simply teaches that Christ would be the first to demonstrate before the people, by a resurrection from the dead, future life and immortality for the redeemed. The resurrection of Lazarus, and other similar cases, though they might show that the power of death could be so far broken as to give us a new lease of mortal life, shed no light on our existence beyond this mortal state. And the resurrection of Moses, supposing him to have been raised, was not a public demonstration designed to show the people the path to a future life. So far as we have any account, no one knew that he had been raised till he appeared upon the mount of transfiguration. Christ was the first one to show to the world, by his rising from the dead, the great light of life and immortality beyond the grave. Thus the last seeming objection against the idea that Moses had a resurrection is taken away; while in its favor we have his appearance on the mount, and the language of Jude, which can be explained on no other ground. Let us then take that view which a consistent regard for scriptural harmony demands, though another supposed strong column on which rests the dogma of the immortality of the soul, goes down before it with a crash to the very dust. CHAPTER XVIII. DID CHRIST TEACH THAT THE DEAD ARE ALIVE?