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ek, meaning "out of". We urge upon the reader to notice what a difference to the
meaning of the passage the true appreciation of this little preposition has.
"And as they came down from the mountain, He charged them that they should tell no
man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead; and they
kept that saying within themselves, questioning one another what the rising from the dead
should mean".
It appears from this passage that either:--
(1). The apostles Peter, James, and John did not even believe that which was an
article of faith among the Pharisees, or
(2). That the Lord had said something that introduced a new factor into the teaching
of the resurrection.
Something evidently puzzled them, for they did not question the fact of resurrection,
but "what the rising from the dead should mean". Their perplexity finally framed itself in
the question, "Why say the Scribes that Elias must first come?" The Lord had not used
the ordinary expression, anastasis nekrġn, but had added the word ek, saying, literally,
"till the Son of man were risen out from the dead", and they questioned what the meaning
of the rising "out from the dead" should be. It is evident that they perceived that the
presence of the preposition ek indicated a resurrection prior to that of "the last day"
(John 11: 24), yet seeing that the Scribes taught that Elias must first come, how could that
be possible? We are not immediately concerned with the explanation that follows, our
only object being to establish the scripture fact that the Lord here introduces as something
new a resurrection that takes place earlier than was originally expected, and that the only
word that indicates this tremendous change is the little word ek. This new expression, if
recognized, gives point to the reply of Abraham to the rich man:--
"If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one
rose out from the dead" (Luke 16: 31; see verses 27-30).
It is this new expression that Paul uses in Rom. 1: 4 when he says concerning Christ,
that He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of
holiness, by the resurrection out from the dead". Luke 20: 35 introduces us to a passage
somewhat parallel, though not quite, with Phil. 2: 11:--
"But they which shall be accounted worthy to attain the age, and the resurrection the
one out from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage".
Here, the presence of the word "the" is important. It is the resurrection, that special
one that is out from among the dead, which they that are worthy obtain. There is yet
another form of expression, and this occurs in Acts 26: 23:--
"That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead".
Here, the word ek instead of coming before dead comes before the word
resurrection, and so we read is ex anastasis nekrġn, "an out resurrection of dead ones".
The special emphasis given here seems to be that Christ was the FIRST to so rise.