Prophecy Fifteen: Your Holy One Will Not Rot in the Grave

Prophecy #15

For You will not leave My soul in Sheol; You will not give Your Holy One to see corruption. LITV

Psalm 16:10

What a curious statement yet one that needs to be unpacked. The statement makes it clear that what is at the heart of this verse is not dying and entering the place of the dead, but decaying or decomposing there. Let’s investigate the idea from the perspective of how many this could be applied to.

How many people have been resurrected from the dead in the pages of Scripture?

1. The widow of Zarephath’s son (1 Kings 17:17-24)
2. The Shunammite woman’s son (2 Kings 4:18–37)
3. The man raised out of Elisha’s grave (2 Kings 13:20–21)
4. The widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11–17)
5. Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:40–56)
6. Lazarus of Bethany (John 11)
7. Various saints in Jerusalem (Matthew 27:50–53)
8. Tabitha / Dorcas (Acts 9:36–43)
9. Eutychus (Acts 20:7–12)
10. Jesus of Nazareth (Mark 16:1–8)

In the case of # 7 there were many who were raised from the dead. How many are ‘many’? To hazard a guess, I would say 100 rather than ten. You might choose 1,000 rather than 100, but let’s keep the numbers down to 100. In all the other cases we are dealing with one person on 10 different occasions. Thus in all the instances in Scripture we have a total of 110.

But hang on a moment. Being raised from the dead is not necessarily what is at issue here. In fact there are many reports from life at large and world media of people who have come back from the dead. I have met at least three and can name Ian McCormack¹ (NZ), Dominggus Kenjam (Indonesia) and Yohanes Mantahari (Indonesia). But there are many more who claim to have had an after death experience. I have only included the names of three people I have met and for whom there is substantiating proof that they came back from the dead, two of which whose stories appear on the internet links I have provided.

However that is not what the verse above tells us. The statement is that the person would not experience decaying, rotting or decomposing after death. That condition does not apply to all people in the list from the Bible with the exception of Number 10 – Jesus Christ. All the others subsequently died a natural death some time later. There is a chance that Lazarus (#6 above) died twice (See Gem 1080). The idea being that the Lazarus of Luke 16 is none other other than Lazarus of Bethany in John 11. However, let’s ponder that one in the context of what I am doing here. We are not just talking about come back coming back from the dead once or even twice. We are talking about not experiencing the decay and decomposition associated with death at all. That is a whole other category. Even if Lazarus of Bethany was the Lazarus associated with Luke 16, he still died and then decomposed. Everyone else who had been raised to life died again. Lazarus died twice.

Jesus Christ rose, nevermore to die.

Jesus told her (Martha), “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.

John 11:25

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.

1 Cor 15:20-22

Perhaps you think like I do and two other names came to mind in the context of what I am trying to work out. I believe I have given you a definitive list from Scripture of those who were raised from the dead, but suffered another death afterward which led to their bodies decomposing in the grave . But there are two recorded as having been taken in a different way. Of course I am talking about Enoch and Elijah.

After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.

Genesis 5:22-24

It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God.

Hebrews 11:5

When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were traveling from Gilgal.

2 Kings 2:1

As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven.

2 Kings 2:11

Read the intervening story about Elijah’s ‘departure’ in the verses 2 Kings 2:1-11

So there appear to be three holy men in all of Scripture whose bodies did not decay or decompose in the grave: Jesus, Enoch and Elijah. I am sure you will agree with me when I say I could assign each of these men to a category of 1:1,000,000 – i.e. a one in a million chance. So I could statistically say that there was a 1:333.333.3 chance for each man. But I am going to say for all three, Jesus and Enoch and Elijah, the chance was a true one in a million chance. Of course I haven’t investigated the nature of Jesus’ uniqueness, which is incontrovertible.

But for the sake of argument I will stick with the estimate of a chance of one in million. 1:1,000,000. Only one in all history has ever risen from the dead like the Messiah / the Christ. There have been others who have come back from the dead and two others whose bodies did not decompose in death. But Jesus Christ is the only one called The Resurrection and the Life because His death and resurrection lead to Him living on and becoming the door to the Life of the Age to Come for us. There is only one in all history whose death, resurrection and subsequent ascension (cf Enoch and Elijah) led to life from the dead for us all.

Let’s allow a probability of 1:1,000,000.

¹ Ian’s Note – There are a number of videos of Ian McCormack’s story available on the internet. However I have chosen the first original, unembellished recording of the story, the way he first told it in a lounge in rural New Zealand to a small group of people. I saw that video first before meeting him in person at a Conference in NZ at a later time.