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"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus" (Eph. 2: 6).
But the word used in each of the above occurrences is sunegeiro. Now egeiro is not
anistemi, and a doctrine that is obliged to quote the one as though it were the other is
immediately open to serious question. The distinct meaning of the two expressions
happily is found in Ephesians itself:--
"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light"
(Eph. 5: 14).
Here "awake" is egiero, and "arise" is anasta. Both words are used to describe the
resurrection of Christ, but only one is chosen when Scripture teaches our union with that
rising: that one is egeiro, leaving the "resurrection" in its full sense yet literal and
future:--
"He was asleep, and His disciples came to Him, and awoke Him" (Matt. 8: 25).
"It is high time to awake out of sleep" (Rom. 13: 11).
The words "awoke" and "to awake" are translations of egeiro. The more emphatic
diegeiro, "to thoroughly awaken", is used as follows:--
"The Joseph being raised from sleep" (Matt. 1: 24).
"He was asleep on a pillow, and they awake Him . . . . . . . and He arose . . . . ."
(Mark 4: 38, 39).
"He fell asleep . . . . . they came to Him and awoke Him . . . . . then He arose . . . . ."
(Luke 8: 23, 24).
Peter uses the word twice, viz., in II Pet. 1: 13 and 3: 1, where it is translated "stir
up". The stirring up of the mind means its being awakened or aroused to alertness. It is
evident that where we persist in using only one English word to translate two Greek
words we shall be the prey of false inference and imbibe serious error. We cannot of
course provide our own version of the Scriptures, but we should never blunt the edge of
inspiration by this slip-shod exegesis. Egeiro means "to rouse", leaving anistemi to be
translated "to raise". We have been "roused" with Christ, and are awaiting the blessed
resurrection when we shall be "raised".
There is the same simple testimony to the meaning of anistemi and anastasis as we
have found for egeiro.
"And there stood up one of them named Agabus" (Acts 11: 28).
Anastas . . . . . ex, parallel to ex anastasis, is used here for "stood up out from them".
"Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things" (Acts 20: 30).
Ex . . . . . anistemi. Here again we have a "rising up out of".
"Stand upright upon thy feet" (Acts 4: 10).