So “Christ was the chosen of God, the elect precious, and the Son consecrated forevermore.”  He was “the chief among ten thousand” and proved to be the Son of God with power by a resurrection from the dead without seeing corruption.  In this condition he was presented to the people as an evidence of the resurrection and consecration of all mankind.  In this he was first and last—­that is, the principal, the chief, the head, and in this he never has had, and never will have a second in the order of time.  This is no evidence therefore that he was the first one who ever rose to an immortal existence.  We have positive proof that Moses and Elias were raised from the dead, an in a state of conscious existence for they conversed with our Lord in the presence of three of his disciples.  They appeared in glory, and were two as real personages on the one part, as was our Saviour on the other.

Acts xxvi. 23. "That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light to the people and to the Gentiles." This passage contains, perhaps, as plausible an objection against my views as any that can be produced.  But this passage means, that Christ should be the first who should show light to the Jews and Gentiles through a resurrection from the dead.  The Greek word, here rendered “should rise,” is anastaseos from anastasis.  It is a substantive, not a verb.  Professor Leusden, in his Latin Testament, renders it “ex resurrectione mortuorum”—­by a resurrection from the dead.  The verb, to raise, is egeiro, and is six times applied to the raising of Christ from the dead in 1 Cor xv. Anistemi also means to rise and is applied to raising the dead to life.  But neither—­anistemi nor egeiro_ are used in the verse, but anastaseos—­Consequently it cannot literally be rendered “should rise,” but resurrection.  Wakefield translates it thus—­“That Christ would suffer death and would be the first to proclaim salvation to this people and the Gentiles by a resurrection from the dead.”  This is evidently the real sense of the passage, and I shall offer upon it no further comment.