9. How Jesus was elected to be the Christ.

Perhaps we can now better understand how Christ was "the chosen one of God." If Columbus was chosen and sent to discover a world, if Dante was sent to be a great poet, if Mozart, Rafaelle, had each his mission, can we doubt that Jesus also was specially selected and endowed for the work which he has actually done, to be the leader of the human race in religion and goodness—to lead it up to God? Yet those who will admit the mission in all other cases, question it in his case. But what was true in them was much more so in him. He was conscious from the first that he was selected. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" "To this end I was born, that I might bear witness to the truth." "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved." "For this cause came I to this hour." "I have finished the work given me to do."

Jesus, by his nature and organization, by his education, by the very time of his birth, by the inspiration and influence of the Holy Spirit, was elected and called. And he fulfilled his part perfectly; and so, the two conditions being met, he became Saviour of the world, and perpetual Ruler of the moral and spiritual nature of man.



10. Other Illustrations of Individual Calling and Election.

But it is not merely great men, and men of genius, who are thus providentially chosen and sent. Every man is chosen for something, and that something not vague and general, but special and distinct.

You go into some country village of New England. You find there some plain farmer, of no great education, perhaps, but endowed with admirable insight and sagacity, and of a kind and benevolent nature. He has come to be the counsellor and adviser of the whole community. He has no title; he is not even a "squire." He has no office; he is not even a justice of the peace. But he fulfils the mission of peace-maker and of sagacious counsellor. He is judge without a seat on the bench; he is spiritual guide without being called "reverend;" he is the stay, the centre, the most essential person in the place. He has had an evident calling from God, not from man, and he has made it sure by his diligence and fidelity in his work.

And perhaps in the same village is a woman, poor, old, and uneducated. But she, too, has a calling from God. She is always sent for in the hour of trial. If any accident happens, she is there. Her sagacity and experience help her to do what is needed. She has no medical diploma, but she is the good physician of the place. God gave to her native sagacity, gave to her benevolence, gave her acute observation and a good memory, and she has made her election sure by her own fidelity.

Some persons are called to love and teach little children: that is their work. They are happy with children, and children are happy with them. Some are called to sympathize; their natures overflow with sympathy; they enter readily into all trials and into the troubles of every soul, and they pour oil and wine into the wounds of the heart. God called them to be his good Samaritans, and they hear the call and obey.

"A place for everything, and everything in its place," says the prudent housekeeper. "A place for every man, and every man in his place," says the divine Housekeeper, who has so many mansions in his house, and whose Son said he went to prepare a place for us there in the other world—a working place, probably, and a sphere of labor there as here. But in this world, too, what a delight it is to see any one in his right place!

There are different ways in which God calls us, and different kinds of callings. But every calling of God is good and noble. He calls us to work; he calls us to Christian goodness; he calls us to heavenly joy, to glory, honor, and immortality. These are the three great callings of man—Christian work first, Christian goodness next, Christian glory last. Since God made every one of us, he made every one of us for something; he has appointed a destiny for each one, and he calls us to it. If we do not hear the gentle call, the whisper of his grace, he calls us by trial, by disaster, by disappointment. He chastens us for our profit. He prunes our too luxuriant branches that we may bring forth more fruit.

So this doctrine of election, in its other form, as usually taught by Orthodoxy, so harsh and terrible,—"horrible decretum,"—so dishonorable to God, so destructive to morality, so palsying to effort, grows lovely and encouraging when looked at aright.

As one grows old, and looks back over his past life, he sees the working of this divine decree—working where he concurred with it, working where he resisted it. He sees more and more clearly what his election was, and how he has fulfilled it, how far failed. He sees himself as a youth, fiery and ardent, striving for one thing, educated by God for another. He sees how he was partly led and partly driven into his true work; how he has been made an instrument by God for good he never dreamed of to God's other children. He says, "It is no doing of mine. It is the Lord's doing. He chose me for it before the foundation of the world. I builded better than I knew. I have failed in a thousand plans of my own, but I have ignorantly fulfilled God's plans. I am like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom. I am like Schiller's explorer, who went to sea with a thousand vessels, and came to shore saved in a single boat, yet having in that boat the best result of the whole voyage."



CHAPTER XII. IMMORTALITY AND THE RESURRECTION.



1. Orthodox Doctrine.

The Orthodox doctrine of the future life is thus stated in the Assembly's Catechism, chapter 32:—

"I. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledged none.

"II. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again with their souls forever.

"III. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonor; the bodies of the just by his Spirit unto honor, and be made conformable to his own glorious body."

The views here given may be considered, on the whole, the Orthodox notions on this subject, although Orthodoxy is by no means rigorous on these points. Considerable diversity of opinion is here allowed. The nature of the life between death and the resurrection, and the nature of the resurrection body, are differently apprehended, without any discredit to the Orthodoxy of the belief. But, on the whole, we may say that the Orthodox views on these topics include the following heads:—

1. Man consists of soul and body.

2. The soul of man is naturally immortal.

3. The only satisfactory proof of this immortality is the resurrection of Christ.

4. Christ's resurrection consisted in his return to earth in the same body as that with which he died, though glorified.

5. Our resurrection will consist in our taking again the same bodies which we have now, glorified if we are Christians, but degraded if we are not.

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On the other hand, those views which incline towards rationalism and spiritualism agree in part with these statements, and in part differ; thus:—

1. They usually agree with Orthodoxy in believing man to consist of soul and body.

2. They also agree in believing the soul of man naturally immortal.

3. They differ from Orthodoxy in thinking the proof of immortality to be found in human consciousness, not at all in the resurrection of Jesus.

We will therefore examine these two points of immortality and the resurrection, to see what the true doctrine of Scripture is concerning them.



2. The Doctrine of Immortality as taught by Reason, the Instinctive Consciousness, and Scripture.

The first class of proofs usually adduced for immortality are the rational proofs, which are such as these:—

THE METAPHYSICAL PROOF.—This is based on the distinction of soul and body. The existence of the soul is proved exactly as we prove the existence of the body. If we can prove the one, we can equally prove the other. If any one asks, How do we know there is such a thing as body? we reply that we know it by the senses; we can touch, taste, smell, and see it. But to this the answer is, that the senses only give us sensations, and that these sensations are in the mind, not out of it. We have a sensation of resistance, of color, of perfume, and the like; but how do we know that there is anything outside of the mind corresponding to them? The answer to this is, that by a necessary law of the reason, when we have a sensation, we infer some external substance from which it proceeds. We look at a book, for example. We have a sensation of shape and color; we infer something outside of our mind from which it proceeds. In other words, we perceive qualities and infer substance. This inference is a spontaneous and inevitable act of the mind. Now, we are conscious of another group of feelings which are not sensations, which do not come from without, but from within. These are mental and moral. But they, too, are qualities; and, as in the other case, perceiving qualities, we infer a substance in which they inhere. This latter substance we name soul, and we know it exactly as we know body. It is known by us as a simple substance, having personal unity. The personality, the "I," is a fundamental idea. Now, as soon as we perceive the existence of soul, it becomes evident that soul cannot die. It may be annihilated, but it cannot die. For what is death when applied to the body? Dissolution or separation of the parts, but not destruction of the simple elements. Death is decomposition of these elements, and their resolution into new combinations. Now, the soul, being known by us as a simple substance, is incapable of dissolution.

This is the metaphysical proof of immortality. Then comes the TELEOLOGIC proof, or that from final causes. Man's end is not reached in this life. We see everything in this world made for an end. The body is made for an end, and attains it, and then decays and is dissolved. The soul, with all its great powers, goes on and on, but the body dies before the soul is ever perfected. Every human life is like an unfinished tale in a magazine, with "to be continued" written at its close, to show that it is not yet ended.

And besides these proofs of immortality, there is the THEOLOGICAL proof, founded on the attributes of God; and the MORAL proof, based on the conflict between conscience and self-love; and the ANALOGICAL proof, based on the law of progress in nature; and the COSMIC proof, founded on the relation of the soul to the universe; and the HISTORIC proof, resting on the universal belief in immortality; and lastly, the PSYCHOLOGIC proof, or the instinct of life in man, which carries with it its own evidence of continuity.

But after all these proofs have been considered, the final result is probability. Only the last gives more, and this acts not as an argument, but as conviction. And the strength of this conviction depends on the strength in any individual of this instinct. Some have more of the instinct of life, others less.(29) Those who have much are easily convinced by these various arguments. But those who have less, feel as Cicero did after reading the Phaedo of Plato.(30)

This instinct of life appears not only to be different from the fear of death, but its exact opposite. When we have most of the one, we have the least of the other. Any great excitement lifts us temporarily above the fear of death by giving us more life. So a man will plunge into the sea, and risk his own life to save that of another. So whole armies go to die cheerfully in the great rage of battle. But this instinct receives a permanent strength by all that elevates the soul. All greatness of aim, all devotion to duty, all generous love, take away the fear of death by adding to the quantum of life in the soul.(31)

If it be asked what the Scriptures teach concerning immortality, it must be admitted that they have not much to say. They speak of life and of eternal life; but this, as we shall discover, is quite another thing from continued existence. It refers to the quality and quantity of being, and not merely to its duration.



3. The Three Principal Views of Death—the Pagan, Jewish, and Christian.

There are three principal views of death—the Pagan view, the Jewish view, and the Christian view.

PAGANISM, in all its various forms, is chiefly distinguished by its transferring to the other life the tastes, feelings, habits of this life. The other world is this one, shaded off and toned down. It is gray in its hue, wanting the color of this world; and is really inferior to it, and only its pale reflection. To the gods of Olympus the doings of men are matters of chief interest. Tartarus and the Elysian Fields are occupied by lymphatic ghosts, misty spectres, unsubstantial and unoccupied. When a living man enters, like Ulysses, AEneas, or Dante, they throng around him, delighted to have something in which they can take a real interest. "Better be a plough-boy on earth than a king among the ghosts." This expresses the Pagan idea of the other world. This world is more real than the other, to the Pagan.

JUDAISM, in its view of hereafter, is much more positive. It began with no idea of a hereafter. Nothing is taught concerning a future life by Moses, and little is to be found concerning it even in the prophets. The explanation is simple. Men hard at work in the present do not think much of the future; and the work of the Jews was to be servants of Jehovah and doers of his law here. However, all men must think a little of the region beyond death. When the Jews thought of it, they projected their LAW upon its blank spaces. It was a place where Jehovah would vindicate his law—where the just should be happy, the unjust miserable. The perplexity which tormented Job, David, and Elijah—namely, that bad men should succeed in this world and good men fail—was to find its solution there. Judgment was the Jewish idea of hereafter—a judgment to come. "I have a hope toward God, as they themselves also allow," said Paul, speaking of the Pharisees, "that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, of the just, and also of the unjust."

The CHRISTIAN view of death is, that it is abolished—it has ceased to be anything. The New Testament distinctly says, "who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light."(32) Death, to a Christian, is but a point on the line of advancing being; a door through which we pass; a momentary sleep between two days. In the same sense the Saviour says, "He that liveth and believeth on me shall never die."

So also he spoke of Lazarus as being only asleep, and said of the daughter of Jairus, "She is not dead, but sleepeth."

Certainly Jesus could not have spoken of death in this way if he regarded it as the awful and solemn thing which most believers consider it. If it is the moment that decides our eternal destiny, which shuts the gate of probation, which terminates for the sinner all opportunity of repentance and conversion, for the saint all danger of relapse and fall,—then death is surely something, and something of the most immense importance.

But Christ has really destroyed death both in the Pagan and in the Jewish feeling concerning it. He destroys the Pagan idea of death as a plunge downward from something into nothing, a descent into non-entity or half-entity, a diminution of our being, a passage from the substantial to the shadowy and unreal.

For, according to Christianity, we do not descend in death; we ascend into more of reality, into higher life. Death is a passage onward and upward.

The proof of this we find in the Christian doctrine of the RESURRECTION.

The meaning of the resurrection of Christ is not, as has been often supposed, that after death he came to life again, but that at death he rose; that his death was rising up, ascent. This we shall show in a future section of this chapter.

One power of Christ's resurrection was to abolish the fear of death. It brought life and immortality to light. It showed men their immortality.

The fear of death is natural to all men, but it is easily removed. The smallest and lowest power of the resurrection is shown in removing it.

The fear of death is natural. It consists in this—that we are, in a great part of our nature, immersed in the finite and perishing. "When we look at the things which are seen," which "are temporal," we have an inward feeling of instability—nothing substantial. Therefore it is said, "In Adam all die," for the Adam, the first man in all of us, is the animal soul. "The first man is of the earth, earthy." The law of our life is, that it comes from our love. When we love the finite, our life is finite. But besides the finite element in man, the animal soul, or Adam, is the spiritual element, or Christ, the life flowing from things unseen, but eternal.

Christ has abolished death. There is now to the Christian no such thing as death, in the common sense of the term. The only death is the sense of death, the fear of death, which insnares and enslaves. Jesus delivers us from this by inspiring us with faith. We rise with him when we look with him at the things unseen. Faith in eternal things brings into the soul a sense of eternity. Death is only a sleep: outward death is the sleep of the bodily life; inward death is the sleep of the higher life. We awake and rise from the dead when Christ gives us life; and when he, who is our life, shall appear, we shall also appear with him.

The philosopher Lessing says, "Thus was Christ the first practical teacher of the immortality of the soul. For it is one thing to conjecture, to wish, to hope for, to believe in immortality as a philosophical speculation—another thing to arrange all our plans and purposes, all our inward and our outward life, in accordance to it."

Jesus also destroys the Jewish idea of death, as a passage from a world where the good suffer and the bad triumph, to a world where this state of things is reversed. The kingdom of heaven, with him, begins here, in this world. Judgment is here as well as hereafter. The Jew lived, and all Judaizing Christians live, under a fearful looking for of judgment after death. The Christian sees that judgment is always taking place; that Christ is always judging the world; that God's moral laws and their retributions are not kept in a state of suspense till we die—that they operate now daily. The Christian knows that heaven and hell are both here, and he expects to find them hereafter, because he finds them here. He believes in law, but not in law only. He believes in something higher than law, namely, love—the love of a present, helpful Father, of a friend near at hand, of an inspiration from on high, of a God who forgives all sins when they are repented of, and saves all who trust in him. He is not under law, but under grace.

When he looks forward to the other world, it is not as to a place where he goes to be sentenced by a stern and absolute judge, but where judgment and mercy go hand in hand, where law remains, but is fulfilled by love.

This is what Paul means when he says, "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The only real death is the fear of death—the Pagan fear of death, which is a dread of loss, change, degradation of being, to follow the dissolution of the body; and the Jewish fear of death, which is a fearful looking for of judgment, and the sting of which is sin. Christ abolishes both of these fears in every believing heart. He abolishes them in two ways—by the life and the resurrection. He is both resurrection and life: by inspiring us with spiritual or eternal life, he abolishes all fear of dissolution; and by showing us that he has ascended into a higher state by his resurrection, he gives us the belief that death is not going down, but going up. For, though "it doth not yet appear what we shall be, yet we know this, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him."

But, unfortunately, Christians are still subject to the fear of death. This fear has been aggravated by the current teaching in pulpits professedly Christian. The fear of that "something after death" has been made use of to palsy the will; and conscience, as instructed by Christian teachers, has made cowards of us all; so that few persons can really say, "Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

It is very certain that the Pagan view of death and the Jewish view of death still linger in the Church, and are encouraged by Christian teachers. Death is made terrible by false doctrine and false teaching in the Church. Christ has not abolished death to the majority of Christians. Christians are almost as much afraid of death as the heathen—sometimes more so.

Actual Christianity is a very different thing from ideal Christianity. Ideal Christianity is Christianity as seen and lived by Jesus; the gospel which he saw and spoke; the word of God made flesh in him. But actual Christianity is an amalgam; a portion of real Christianity mixed with a portion of the belief and habits of feeling existing in men's minds before they became Christians. The Jews took a large quantity of Judaism into Christianity; the Pagans a large quantity of Paganism. The Christian Church from the very beginning Judaized and Paganized. Paul contended against its Judaism on the one hand and its Paganism on the other. But Judaism and Paganism have always stuck to the Christian Church. She has never risen above them wholly to this day. They mingle with all her doctrines, ceremonies, and habits of life. The Romish Church has more of the Pagan element, the Protestant more of the Jewish. The mediatorial system of Rome is essentially Pagan. Its ascending series of deacons, sub-deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals, and pope in the Church below; and beatified and sanctified spirits, angels, and archangels in the Church above; its processions, pilgrimages, dresses, its monastic institutions, its rosaries, relics, daily sacrifice, votive offerings—everything peculiar to the Roman Church, existed before, somewhere, in Paganism. So Protestantism has taken from the Jews its Sabbath, its idea of God as King and Judge, its exclusion from God's favor of all but the elect, its view of the divine sovereignty, its doctrine of predestination, day of judgment, resurrection of the body, material heaven and material hell.

I do not mean to say that there is no truth in these things. There is, because there is some truth in Paganism and in Judaism. We are all Pagans and Jews before we become Christians. The Jewish and Pagan element is in every human soul, and in all constants in man there is truth. But the Pagan and Jewish truths are but stepping-stones to the higher Christian truth. The law and Paganism are school-masters to bring us to Christ. The evil is, that Christianity has not been kept supreme; it has often been sunk and lost in the earlier elements. As the foolish Galatians were bewitched, and relapsed from the gospel to the law,—turning again to weak and beggarly elements, desiring to be in bondage to them again, going back to their minority under tutors and governors,—so the Church has been relapsing, going back to weak and beggarly elements, not keeping Christianity supreme in thought, heart, and life, but letting Paganism or Judaism get the upper hand.

So it has been in regard to this subject. We Paganize and Judaize in our view of death. We reestablish again what Christ has abolished. We make death something where Christ made it nothing. It is made the great duty of life to "prepare for death." No such duty is pointed out in the New Testament. Our duty is to prepare every day to live; then, when we die, we shall be taken care of by God. We can safely leave the other world and its interests to Him who has shown himself so capable of taking care of us here.

The gloom of death has been heightened by artificial means. Mourning dresses, solemn faces, funeral addresses, the grave,—all have had an unnatural depth of awe added to the natural sense of bereavement. The Orthodox Church has deliberately and systematically Paganized and Judaized in what it has said and done about death. Its object has been always to make use of the great lever of fear of a hereafter in order to enforce Christian belief and action. Hence Death has been made the king of terrors, the close of probation, the beginning of judgment, the awful entrance to the final decision of an endless doom. All this is wholly unchristian, unknown to apostolic times, a relapse towards Paganism. It is utterly opposed to the great declaration that "CHRIST HAS ABOLISHED DEATH, AND BROUGHT LIFE AND IMMORTALITY TO LIGHT THROUGH THE GOSPEL."

What is called faith in immortality, therefore, is of two kinds: it is an instinct, and it is a belief. In the New Testament these are plainly distinguished. In the passage just quoted, it is said that Jesus "brought life AND immortality to light." Jesus himself says, "I am the resurrection AND the life." "He that believeth in me hath eternal life abiding in him, AND I will raise him up at the last day."

Life is a matter of consciousness. It is a present possession, something abiding in us now.

Immortality, or the resurrection, is an object of intellectual belief. It is something future. We feel life; we believe in the resurrection.

We will pass on, in the next sections, to consider each of these.



4. Eternal Life, as taught in the New Testament, not endless Future Existence, but present Spiritual Life.

It is only necessary carefully to examine the passages in the New Testament where the phrase "eternal life" (ζωή αἰώνιος) occurs, to see that it does not refer to the duration, but to the quality, of existence. Temporal life is that life of the soul which through the body is subject to the vicissitudes of time. Eternal (or everlasting) life is that life of the spirit which is independent of change, and is apart from duration. God's being was regarded by the Semitic races as outside of time and space, as a perpetual Now, without before or after. ("I am the I Am." Exod. 3:14.) Man, made in the image of God, becomes a "partaker of the divine nature" (2 Peter 2:4) by the gift of eternal life.

That "eternal life" is not an endless temporal existence appears,—

(a.) From the passages in which it is spoken of as something to be obtained by one's own efforts, as (Matt. 19:16) when the young man asks of Jesus what good thing he shall do that he may have eternal life, and Jesus replies that he must keep the commandments, give his possessions to the poor, and come and follow him. Certainly that was not the method to obtain an endless existence, but it was the true preparation for receiving spiritual good. So Jesus tells Peter (Mark 10:30) that those who make sacrifices for the sake of truth shall receive temporal rewards "in this time;" and "in the coming age eternal life" ("ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῷ ἐρχομένῳ ζωὴν αἰώνιον"). The coming age is the age of the Messiah, when the gift of the Holy Ghost should be bestowed.

(b.) Passages in which eternal life is spoken of as a present possession, not a future expectation. (John 3:36.) "He that believeth on the Son hath (ἔχει) eternal life." So John 6:47, 54, &c.

(c.) Passages in which eternal life is defined expressly as a state of the soul. (John 17:3.) "This is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," &c.

So (Gal. 6:8) it is represented as the natural result of "sowing to the Spirit;" (Rom. 2:7) of "patient continuance in well-doing;" as "the gift of God" (Rom. 6:23); as something which we "lay hold of" (1 Tim. 6:12, 19).

This view of "eternal life" is taken by all the best critics. Professor Hovey thus sums up their testimony:—(33)

"On a certain occasion, Christ pronounced it necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up, 'that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life' (John 3:15)—ἔχῃ ζωήν αἰώνιον. Ζωὴν αἰώνιον, says Meyer, who is, perhaps, the best commentator on the New Testament, of modern times, 'signifies the eternal Messianic life, which, however, the believer already possesses—ἔχῃ—in this αἰὼν, that is, in the temporal development of that moral and blessed life which is independent of death, and which will culminate in perfection and glory at the coming of Christ.' And Luecke, whose commentary on the Gospel of John is one of the most thorough and attractive in the German language, says that the ζωὴ αἰώνιος, which is the exact opposite of ἀπώλεια (destruction), or θάνατος (death), is the sum of Messianic blessedness. It is plain, we think, that the life here spoken of as the present possession of every believer in Christ is more than endless existence; it is life in the fullest and highest sense of the word, the free, holy, and blessed action of the whole man, that is to say, the proper, normal living of a rational and moral being. The germ, the principle of this life, exists in the heart of every believer; it is a present possession. 'Whosoever,' says Christ, 'drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a fountain—πηγὴ—of water, springing up into everlasting life.' (John 4:14.) In another place our Saviour utters these words: 'He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death into life' (John 5:24)—μεταβέβηκεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν. Here, again, the believer is said to have eternal life, even now; for he has passed from death into life. Ingens saltus, remarks Bengel, with his customary brevity and graphic power. We translate a part of Luecke's ample and instructive note on this important verse.

" 'The words, "Has passed from death into life" determine that ἔχει (hath) must be taken as a strict present. For the verb μεταβέβηκεν (has passed) affirms that the transition from death into life took place with the hearing and believing. Only if an impossible thought were thus expressed, could we consent, as in a case of extreme necessity, to understand the present ἔχει and the present perfect μεταβέβηκεν as futures. And then we should be compelled to say that John had expressed himself very strangely. But if a higher kind of life, a resurrection process prior to bodily death, is represented by "hath," and "hath passed," then ζωὴ and ζωὴ αἰώνιος are not to be understood of a life commencing after bodily death, but of the true and eternal Messianic life or salvation, beginning even here. This life does not, to be sure, exclude natural death, but neither does it first begin after this death. (Cf. 5:40.) Even so θάνατος cannot be understood of bodily, but only of spiritual death, of lying in the darkness of the world. This interpretation would be justified here, even if θάνατος elsewhere in the New Testament denoted uniformly nothing but bodily death. But the metaphorical idea of death stands out clearly in 1 John 3:14; 5:16, 17; John 8:51, 52; 2 Cor. 2:16; 7:10. Similar, also, is the use of the words θανατοῦν (Rom. 7:4; 8:13), and νεκρός, νεκροῦν, ἀποθνήσκειν (Matt. 8:22; Eph. 5:14; Heb. 6:1; Col. 3:5; Gal. 2:19).'

"With the passage now examined may be compared a statement of the apostle John to the same effect, namely: 'We know that we have passed from death into life, because we love the brethren; he that loveth not abideth in death.' (1 John 3:14.) This language, explained with a due regard to the preceding context, speaks, evidently, of spiritual death and life, of a passing from one moral condition into another and opposite one. To say that this new moral condition and blessed state is to endure and improve forever, may doubtless be to utter an important truth, but one which does not conflict in the slightest degree with its present existence. It begins in this life; it continues forever and ever.

"Again: we find our Saviour saying, 'He that believeth on me hath everlasting life;' 'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you;' and, 'The words that I speak unto you are spirit, and are life.' (John 6:47, 53, 63.) By these verses we are taught once more, that the Greek terms which denote life and death, living and dying, were applied by Christ to opposite moral states of the soul. For, observe, (1.) he more than intimates that his words, his doctrines, are the source of present life to those who receive them, and that, by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he signifies a reception of his words, and so of himself as the Lamb of God. And, (2.) he declares that one who believes has eternal life; that one who eats of the true bread shall not die, but shall live forever; and that one who does not eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man hath not life in himself.

"Is it not plain that the words life and death, as well as the words bread, flesh, and blood, eating and drinking, are here used in a spiritual sense? Is it not plain that Jesus here speaks of something in the believer's soul which is nourished by Christian truth, and which is at the same time called life? But it is the function of truth to quicken thought and feeling, to determine the modes of conscious life, the character or moral condition of the human soul; and hence the rejection of it may involve the utter want of certain spiritual qualities and blessed emotions, but not the want of personal existence. In still another place we read, 'Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' (John 11:25, 26.) Christ here affirms that every believer is exempted from death. And it matters not for our present purpose whether the word ζῶν, translated in our version 'liveth,' refers in this passage to physical or to moral life. If it refers to physical life, then our Saviour pronounces the Christian to be already, in time, delivered from the power of death, and in possession of a true and immortal life. But if it refers to moral life, Christ declares that whoever possesses this life, whether in the body or out of the body, is delivered from the power of death; that is, his union with God and delight in him, which alone constitute the normal living of the soul, shall never be interrupted: οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνῃ εἰς τὸν αἰώνα—he shall never die....

" 'And this is life eternal,' says the Great Teacher, 'that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' (John 17:3.) The best ancient and modern interpreters hold this verse to be a definition by Christ himself of the expression 'life eternal,' so often used by him, according to the record of John. De Wette says, 'And this is (therein consists) the life eternal; not, this is the means of the eternal life; for the vital knowledge of God and Christ is itself the eternal life, which begins even here, and penetrates the whole life of the human spirit.' Meyer translates thus: 'Therein consists the eternal life,' and says, 'This knowledge, willed of God, is the "eternal life," inasmuch as it is the essential subjective principle of the latter, its enduring, eternally unfolding germ and fountain, both now, in the temporal development of the eternal life, and hereafter, when the kingdom is set up, in which faith, hope, and charity abide, whose essence is that knowledge.'(34) The same view, substantially, is presented by Olshausen, Luecke, Bengel, Alford, and many others."

Eternal life is the gift of God to the soul through Jesus Christ. It is God's life communicated to man—the life of God in the soul of man. This is distinctly stated in the First Epistle of John (chap. 1:1), as the life which was from the beginning, the eternal life which was with the Father, but is manifested to us, giving us fellowship with the Father and with his Son.

The root of this eternal life is in every human being. It is what we call "the spirit" in man, as distinguished from the soul and body. It is the side of each person which touches the infinite and eternal.

Fichte, the most spiritual of German philosophers, says, "Love is life. Where I love, I live. What I love, I live from that."(35) When we love earthly things, our life is earthly, that is, temporal; when we love the true, the right, the good, our life is spiritual and eternal. Then we have eternal life abiding in us. Then all fear of death departs. The great gift of God through Christ was to make the right and true also lovely, so that loving them, we could draw our life from them. When God becomes lovely to us, by being shown to us as Jesus shows him, then by loving God we live from God, and so have eternal life abiding in us.

The natural instinct of immortality is the spirit, or sense of the infinite and eternal. But it needs to be reenforced by the influence of Christian conviction, hope, and experience, in order completely to conquer the sense of death. It is not by logical arguments in proof of a future existence that immortality becomes clear to us, but by living an immortal life. Dr. Channing says truly, "Immortality must begin here." And so Hase (Dogmatic, 92) says, "Any proof which should demonstrate, with mathematical certainty, to the understanding, or to the senses, the blessings or terrors of our future immortality, would destroy morality in its very roots. The belief in immortality is therefore at first only a wish, and a belief on the authority of others; but the more that any one assures to himself his spiritual life by his own free efforts and a pure love for goodness, the more certain also does eternity become, not merely as something future, but as something already begun."(36)

Whenever Jesus is said to give eternal life, or to be the life of the world; whenever the apostles declare Christ to be their life, or say that as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive; when Paul says, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death;" "to be spiritually minded is life and peace;" "the life of Jesus is manifested in our dying (mortal) flesh;" when John says, "He that hath the Son hath life;" when in Revelation we read of the book of life, and water of life, and tree of life,—the meaning is always the same. It refers to the spiritual vitality added to the soul by the influence of Jesus, who communicates God's love, and so enables us to LOVE God, instead of merely fearing him or obeying him. Love casts out all fear, the fear of death included. He who looks at the things unseen and eternal, partakes of their eternal nature, and though his outward human nature perishes, his inward spiritual nature is renewed day by day.



5. Resurrection, and its real Meaning, as a Rising up, and not a Rising again.

One part of the Christian doctrine of immortality is conveyed in the term "eternal life;" the other part in the other term, usually associated with it—"the resurrection." The common Orthodox doctrine of the resurrection, is that the dead shall rise with the same bodies as those laid in earth; and this identity is usually made to consist in identity of matter, though Paul expressly says, "Thou sowest not that body that shall be." On the other hand, many liberal thinkers of the Spiritual School deny any resurrection, and think the whole doctrine of the resurrection a Jewish error, believing in a purely spiritual existence hereafter. Others, like Swedenborg, teach that the soul hereafter dwells in a body, though of a more refined and sublimated character; and in this we think they approach more nearly the teaching of the New Testament.

It is a remarkable fact that the Greek words indicating the rising of men should have been translated, in our English Bible, by terms signifying something wholly different, and conveying another sense than that in the original. It is equally extraordinary that this change of meaning should seldom or never be alluded to by theological writers.

These words, translated "resurrection," "rise again," and the like, all have, in the Greek, the sense of rising UP, not of rising AGAIN. They signify not return, but ascent; not coming back to this life, but going forward to a higher. The difference in meaning is apparent and very important. It is one thing to say, that at death we go down into Hades, or into dissolution, and at the resurrection we come back to conscious existence, or to the same life we had before, and quite a different thing to say that what we call death is nothing; but that we rise up, and go forward when we seem to die. This last is the doctrine of the New Testament, though the former is the one usually believed to be taught in it.

The immense stress laid, in the New Testament, on the resurrection of Jesus is by no means explained by supposing that after his death he came to life again, and so proved that there is a life after death. What he showed his disciples was, that death was not going down, but going up; not descent into the grave, or Hades, but ascent to a higher world. This is the evident sense of such passages as these. We have not room to go over all the passages which should be noticed in a critical examination, but select a few of the most prominent.

1. Ἀνάστασις, commonly translated "resurrection," or "rising again," but which literally means "rising up." (So Bretschneider, "Lexicon Man. in lib. Nov. Test." defines it as "resurrectio, rectius surrectio.")(37)

This word occurs forty-two times in the New Testament. In none of them (unless there be a single exception, which we shall presently consider) does it necessarily mean a rising again, or coming back to the same level of life as before. In a large number of instances the word can only mean a rising up, or ascent to a higher state. Of these cases we will cite a few examples.

Ten of the passages in which the word ἀνάστασις occurs, are in the account by the Synoptics of the discussion between Jesus and the Sadducees concerning the case of the woman married to seven brothers. After stating the case, they say, "Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of them is she?" It is plain that the word "resurrection" here is equivalent to "the future state," and cannot be limited to a return to life. This becomes more apparent in the answer of Jesus, as given, somewhat varied, by the three Synoptics: "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." (Matt. 22:30.) Mark, instead of "the resurrection," has the corresponding verb, "when they shall rise from the dead." This certainly means, not rising again, but rising up, ascending to a higher state. And Luke adds another element, showing that the "resurrection" is a state to which all may not attain, but which is dependent on character; evidently therefore a higher state. "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (τοῦ αιῶνος ἐχείνου), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels" (or rather "are like the angels") "and are children of God, being children of the resurrection." (Luke 20:35, 36.) This last phrase, "children of the resurrection," is very significant, and intends a character corresponding to this higher state. There seems, indeed, to be a contradiction between this passage, which makes the resurrection conditional, and those which declare it universal. (See John 5:29, and 1 Cor. ch. 15.) But perhaps the reconciliation can be found in the apostolic statement (1 Cor. 15:23) "every one in his order." All shall ascend into the higher state, called "the resurrection," but only as they become prepared for it. All are not now prepared to hear the voice of the Son of man (or of divine truth), which shall causes them to rise to the resurrection of life and of judgment; but, in due season, all shall come forth from their graves, and hear it.

Another passage in which this word occurs is in Luke 2:34, where Simon says, "This child is set for the fall and rising again (ἀνάστασιν) of many in Israel." A moral fall and rising are here evident; and only if the reduplication be dropped, and we read "for the fall and the rising up," do we get the true idea. It is not meant that Jesus comes to degrade us morally, and then lift us up again morally. Rather it means that he comes to test the state of the hearts of men: some cannot bear the test, and fall before it; others, better prepared, rise higher. Here, also, ἀνάστασις means rising up, and not rising again.

The most remarkable use of this word, however, is in that famous passage where the common meaning is wholly unintelligible, in the story of Lazarus. (John 11:24, 25.) Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life." If resurrection means coming back to life after death, in what sense can Jesus be "the resurrection and the life"? Then Jesus said that he was "the coming back to life," which is unintelligible. But if the resurrection means the ascent to a higher state, then Jesus declares that he is the way of ascent to a higher state, just as he says elsewhere, "I am the way;" "I am the door." It is the power of Christ within the soul, the power of his spirit of faith, hope, and love, which enables us to go forward and upward. Christ is not the principle of resuscitation to an earthly existence, or a merely human immortality. He does not bring us to life again, but he lifts us up. So he adds, "He who believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Not, shall come to life again; no, but, shall rise out of death into life, ascend into a higher condition of being. Then he adds that to one who has faith in him, who has adopted his ideas, there is no longer any such thing as death. Death has disappeared—is abolished. "He who liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

But, it may be objected, if spiritual death and life are here spoken of,—if the passage means that he who believeth in Christ shall have inward religious spiritual life, a heavenly and celestial life,—then how could that comfort Martha, or apply to her case, who was mourning, not the spiritual, but the natural, death of her brother?

Christ is essentially a manifestation of the truth and love of God. To believe in him is therefore to believe in God's truth and love. But belief in this fills the soul with life. And the soul full of life cannot die. What seems death is only change, and a change from a lower to a higher state, therefore rising up, or resurrection. Christ, then, the love and truth of God in the soul, is the life and the resurrection. He fills the soul with that life which causes it to rise with every change, to go up and on evermore to a higher state. That which seems death is nothing; the only real death is the immersion of the soul in sense and evil, the turning away from truth and God.

Now, Martha believed, as most of us believe, in a future resurrection. She believed that, after lying a long time in the grave, one would come out of it at last, on a great day of judgment, and somehow the soul and body be reunited. She believed this, for it was the general belief of the Jews in her day. It is the general belief of Christians now. The majority of Christians have not got very far beyond that. They talk of the resurrection, as though it were merely the return of the soul into the old body; and when you comfort them over their dead by saying, "Your dead will rise," reply, "I know it—at the resurrection, at the last day." But Jesus tells Martha, and all the Martha Christians of the present time, that he is the resurrection and the life. Your brother is not to sleep in the dust till the last day, and then rise. He does not die at all. He rises with Christ here, and in whatever other world. His nature is to go up, not down, when he is Christianized. Now or then, to-day or at the last day, if he has the living faith of a son of God, he will be raised by that Christ within him, who is his life.

This, it seems to us, is the only adequate explanation of this passage, and shows conclusively that resurrection must mean, in this place, a rising up to a higher existence, and not a mere return to this life.

It appears, from 1 Cor. ch. 15, that there were some in the Christian church who said there was no resurrection of the dead (ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν,) or that it was past already. (2 Tim. 2:18.) These Christians did not deny the doctrine of immortality, or a future life. It is difficult to imagine the motive which could induce any one, in those days, to join the Christian church, if he denied a future life. Probably, therefore, they assumed that the only real resurrection takes place in the soul when we rise with Christ. They said, "If we are to rise into a higher life after this, how shall we rise, and with what bodies?" (1 Cor. 15:35.) They professed to believe in a simple immortality of the soul, but not an ascent of the personal being, soul and body together, to the presence of God. They did not question a future life, but a higher life to which soul and body should go up together.

To these doubting Christians, who could not gather strength to believe in such a great progress as this, Paul says that if man does not rise, if it is contrary to his nature to rise, then Jesus, being a man, has not risen, but gone down to Hades with other souls. Then he is not above us, with God, sending down strength and inspiration from our work. This faith of ours, which has been our great support, is an illusion. We have all been deceived—deceived in preaching forgiveness of sins through Christ from God; deceived in preaching a higher life above us, into which Christ has gone, and where he is waiting to receive us. But we have not been deceived—Christ has risen, and risen as the first fruits of humanity. He leads the way up, and in proportion as we share his life, we also have in ourselves the principle of ascent, and shall go up too. He goes first; then all who are like him follow and finally, in due order, all mankind. Death and Hades have been conquered by this new influx of life in Christ. Instead of remaining pale ghosts, naked souls, we shall rise into a fuller, richer, larger life, of soul and body.

There is one passage, however, where there seems a difficulty in considering ἀνάστασις, or resurrection, as implying an ascent of condition. It is in John 5:28, 29. Our common translation reads thus: "The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice (that is, the voice of the Son of man), and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." At first sight it certainly seems that the "resurrection of damnation" (ἀνάστασιν χρίσεως) could hardly be considered a higher state. All depends, however, on the meaning of the word, here translated "damnation." The word, in the Greek, is the genitive of χρίσις. Now, by turning to the Concordance, we find that this word χρίσις occurs some forty-eight times in the New Testament. In these places,—

It is translated 3 times by "damnation." It is translated 2 times by "condemnation." It is translated 2 times by "accusation." It is translated 41 times by "judgment."

It is evident, therefore, that our translators considered judgment to be the primary and usual meaning of the word. Why, then, did they not translate it here, "rising to judgment," or "resurrection of judgment"? It must have been because they believed either that (1.) "judgment" would make no sense here; (2.) that "damnation" would make better sense; or, (3.) that "damnation" was more in accordance with the analogy of faith. But we can decide these points for ourselves. "Judgment" is the better word here, for it accords with the doctrine of the New Testament, that in proportion as man goes wrong, he dulls his moral sense, and needs a revelation of truth to show him what he is. A true man, who has lived according to the truth here, has judged himself, and will not need to be judged hereafter. (1 Cor. 11:31.) He rises into the resurrection of life. But those who follow falsehood here, need to see the truth; and they rise into the resurrection of judgment. The truth judges and condemns them. But this is really an ascent to them also. It is going up higher, to see the truth, even when it condemns them. This passage, then, is no exception to the principle that wherever "resurrection" (ἀνάστασις) occurs in the New Testament, it implies going up into a higher state.

All the other places where the word occurs either evidently have this meaning, or can bear it as easily as the other. Thus (Luke 14:14), "Thou shalt be recompensed in the higher state of the just." (20:27), the Sadducees "deny a higher state." (Acts 1:21), "he is to be a witness with us of the ascended state of Jesus." (Acts 4:2), "preached, through Jesus, the higher state of the dead." (17:18), "preached to them Jesus and the higher state." (20:23), that Christ "should be the first to rise into the higher state." (Lazarus and others had returned to life again before Jesus, so that in this sense he was not the first fruits.) (Rom. 6:5), "planted in the likeness of his resurrection." This can only mean as Christ passed through the grave into a higher state, so we pass through baptism into a higher state.

The only text which presents any real difficulty is Heb. 11:35, translated, "women received their dead raised to life again," literally, "women received from the resurrection their dead" (ἐξ ἀναστάσεως), which may refer to a return to this life, as in the case of the child of the widow of Sarepta (1 Kings 17:17), and of the Shunamite (2 Kings 4:17).(38) But in the same verse, the other and "better" resurrection is spoken of, for the sake of which these martyrs refused to return to this life. The case referred to is probably that of the record of the seven brothers put to death by Antiochus (2 Macc. 7:9), who refused life offered on condition of eating swine's flesh, and said, when dying, "The King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life" (εἰς αἰώνιον ἀναβίωσιν ζωῆς ἀνατήσει ἡμας), literally, "to an eternal renewal of our life."(39) This verse shows, therefore, that though ἀνάστασις may mean a return to this life, yet that the other sense of a higher life is expressly contrasted with it, even here.

Our conclusion, therefore, with regard to this term ἀνάστασις, is, that its meaning, in New Testament usage, is not "rising again," but "rising up," or "ascent."

2. Ἀνίστημι. This word is the root of the former. It is used one hundred and twelve times in the New Testament. It is translated with again (as, "he must rise again from the dead") fifteen times. It is translated thirty-six times "rise up" or "raise up" (as, "I will raise him up at the last day"), and ninety-six times without the "again." It is rendered "he arose," "shall rise," "stood up," "raise up," "arise," and in similar ways.

3. Ἐγείρω. This word is also frequently used in relation to the resurrection, and is translated "to awaken," "arouse," "animate," "revive." The natural and usual meaning is ascent to a higher state, and not merely a "rising again."

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From these considerations we see that the primitive and central meaning of the terms used to express the resurrection is that of ASCENT. It is GOING UP. This is the essential Christian idea. But it soon became implicated with the Pagan idea of immortality, or continued existence of the soul, and the Jewish idea of a bodily resurrection at the last day. But though there is a truth in each of these beliefs, the Christian doctrine is neither one nor the other. The gospel assumes, but does not teach, a continued existence of the soul. Since the greater includes the less, in teaching that the MAN rises at death into a higher life, it necessarily implies that he continues to live. And in teaching that he is to exist as man, with soul and body, in a higher condition of development, it teaches necessarily the bodily resurrection of the Jews. Christ, who came "not to destroy, but to fulfil," FULFILS both Pagan and Jewish ideas of the future state in this doctrine of an ASCENSION at death.

The principal points of the teaching of Jesus concerning the life which follows the dissolution of the body are these: First. As against the Sadducees, he argues that the dead are living (Matt. 22:31, and the parallel passages), from the simple fact that God calls them his. If God thinks of them as his, that is enough. His thinking of them makes them alive. No one can perish while God is thinking of him with love. Such an argument, carrying no weight to the mere understanding, is convincing in proportion as one is filled with a spiritual conception of God. Secondly. Jesus abolishes death by teaching that there is no such thing to the soul which shares his ideas concerning God and the universe. This is implied in the phrases, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." (John 11:26.) "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." (John 6:47.) "I am the living bread, whereof if a man eat, he shall live forever." (John 6:51.) "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life." (John 6:54.) "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." Here, "eating Christ's flesh, and drinking his blood," is plainly equivalent to "keeping his saying," and "believing on him." As "food which we eat and drink changes itself so as to become a part of our own body by assimilation," so Christ intends that his truth shall not be merely taken into the memory, and reproduced in words, but shall be taken into the life, and reproduced in character. Thirdly. He teaches that as feeding on his truth changes our natural life into spiritual life, and lifts temporal existence into eternal being, so it will also place us outwardly in a higher state and higher relations, to which state he applies the familiar term the "resurrection" or "ascent," the "going up." "I will raise him up at the last day." The "last day," in Jewish and New Testament usage, means the Messianic times, as appears from such passages as Acts 2:17, where the term is used of the day of Pentecost; Heb. 1:2, "hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son;" 1 John 2:18, "Little children, it is the last time." Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to the Father (John 14:15), in whose house are many mansions, where he is to prepare a place for his disciples. (John 14:2.)

That "resurrection" was understood to mean a present higher state, and not a future return to life, appears also from its use by the apostles. Christians are spoken of as having already "risen with Christ" (Col. 3:1); "risen with him in baptism" (Col. 3:1); walking "in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6:5). And, no doubt, it was by making this idea of a present resurrection too exclusive, that some Christians maintained that it was wholly a present resurrection, and not at all future—that "it was past already."

This Christian faith in "resurrection" as ascent to a higher condition of being at death is practically borne witness to by such common expressions concerning departed friends as these: "He has gone to a better world;" "He is in a higher world than this;" "We ought not to grieve for him—he is better off than he was." The practical sense of Christendom has taken this faith from the Gospels, though the Creeds do not authorize it. The Creeds teach that the souls of the good either sleep till a future resurrection, or are absorbed into God until then, while the souls of the impenitent descend to a lower sphere. Christ teaches that at death all rise to a higher state—of life and love to the loving, or judgment by the sight of truth to the selfish; but higher to all. Paul declares that "as in Adam ALL die, even so in Christ shall ALL be made alive," making the rise equivalent in extent to the fall.

The great change in the faith of the apostles, in consequence of the resurrection or ascent of Christ, was this: They before believed that at death all went to Hades, to the gloomy underworld of shadows, there to remain till the final resurrection. But the belief that Christ, instead of going down, had gone up, and had assured them that all who had faith in him had the principle of ascent in their souls, and were already spiritually risen,—this took the victory from Hades and the sting from death.

To Christians, at least, Hades is no more anything; all who have a living faith rise with Christ; and sooner or later, each in his order, all shall rise. This was the "power of the resurrection" of Jesus to destroy the fear of death, to enable them "to attain" now "to the resurrection of the dead" (Phil. 3:10), teaching that "if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you." "For it is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." It was, therefore, the duty of all Christians, since they were risen in Christ, "to seek the things which are above."



6. Resurrection of the Body, as taught in the New Testament, not a Rising again of the same Body, but the Ascent into a higher Body.

It is remarkable that those who profess to believe in the literal inspiration of the New Testament should nevertheless very generally teach that the future body is materially the same as this. We often hear labored arguments to show how the identical chemical particles which compose the body at death may be re-collected from all quarters at the resurrection. Yet the only place where any account is given of the future body, declares explicitly that it is different from the present, just as the stalk which comes out of the ground differs from the seed planted. "We sow not the body which shall be, but bare grain, and God giveth it a body as pleaseth him."

Many persons, however, take an opposite view, and have no belief in any future bodily existence. They speak much more frequently of the immortality of the soul. But the resurrection of the body is unquestionably a doctrine of the New Testament, while the immortality of the soul is not. The New Testament knows nothing of a purely spiritual existence hereafter, nothing of an abstract disembodied immortality. The reaction from materialism to idealism has caused us now to undervalue bodily existence. So it did among the Corinthians to whom Paul wrote, "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" These Corinthians were not Sadducees, nor Epicureans. There is no evidence that these sects had any influence on the Christian Church. They did not deny a future existence, but they denied a rising up and a future bodily existence. They believed, like us, in an immortality of the soul, denying the possibility (probably on philosophical grounds) of the resurrection of the body. So Paul proceeds, in the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians, first to prove the fact, and then to explain the nature of a bodily resurrection.

Let us consider, first, what is meant by a resurrection of the body.

This word resurrection tends to mislead us by suggesting the rising from the grave of the material body there deposited; and accordingly we have the theory which makes the future body the mere revival of the same particles of matter composing the present body. But the Greek word, as we have fully shown, means not merely rising out of the grave, but rising to a higher state of existence. The anastasis of the body is its elevation and spiritualizalion. By the resurrection of the body, we mean that in the future life of man, he shall not exist in the same material and fleshly envelope as now, nor yet as a purely disembodied spirit. The true doctrine avoids both extremes—the extreme of pure idealism on the one hand, and of pure materialism on the other. It asserts three things: first, that we have a real body hereafter; second, that this will be identical with our true body now; third, that it will be this true body in a higher state of development than at present, a spiritual instead of a natural body.

First, it will be a real body. A real body is an organization with which the soul is connected, and by means of which it comes into connection with the material universe, and under the laws of space and time. This organization may be more or less refined and subtle; it may not come under the cognizance of our present senses; but if it is an organization by means of which we may commune with the physical universe, it is essentially a body.

Again, the future body is identical with the present true body of man. For what is our true body? Not the particles of flesh and blood, but the principle of its organization. The identity of our body does not consist in the identity of its material particles, for these come and go, are in constant flux, and are wholly changed, it is said, every seven years. But, notwithstanding this change, the body of the man is the same with that of the child. The same features, figure, temperament, morbid and passional tendencies, are reproduced year after year. These flying particles, gathered from earth and air, are manufactured into brain, bone, blood, according to an unvarying law, and then given back again to air and earth. There is, therefore, a hidden mysterious principle of organization working on during the whole seventy years of our earthly existence, which makes the body of the infant and the child identical with that of the man and the old man. This is the true body; and this, extricated at death from its present envelope, and clothed upon with a higher spiritual and immortal form, will constitute the future body.

But again, it will be a higher development of the body. Paul plainly teaches this. He uses the analogy of the seed, showing that the future body is related to this; and differenced from this, as the plant is related to the seed, and yet different from it. "Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain." You do not sow the stalk, but the kernel; you do not sow the oak, but the acorn. Yet the oak is contained potentially in the acorn, and so the future body is contained potentially in the present. The condition of the germination of the acorn is its dissolution; then the germ is able to separate itself from the rest of the seed, and start forward in a new career of development. In like manner the spiritual body cannot be developed until the present organization is dissolved.

Paul goes on to say that "there is a natural body and there is a spiritual." This body is the natural body; the future will be the spiritual. Two things may be implied in this distinction. As by the natural body we come into communion with the natural world, the world of phenomena, so by the spiritual we commune with the spiritual world, the world of essential being and cause. Here and now we see things through a glass, darkly, then face to face. Here we look at things on the outside only; but how often a longing seizes us to know the essences, to penetrate to their interior life! That longing is an instinctive prophecy of its own fulfilment hereafter. The spiritual body must also manifest the spirit hereafter, as the natural or soul body now manifests the soul. For while the present body expresses adequately enough present wishes and emotions, it fails of expressing the spiritual emotions, and fails of being a true servant of the higher life.

This, then, constitutes the future body. First, it is an organization connecting us with the outward universe of space and time. Second, it is identical with the present true body. Third, it is a development and advance of this into a higher organization. Let us now inquire what are the evidences and proofs of this future body. How do we know, or why do we think, that we shall have any such body?

The first proof of a future bodily existence is its reasonableness. There is a law of gradation in the universe by which the seed unfolds gradually into the stalk, the bud into the flower, the flower into the fruit. We see a gradual progress of vegetable life into animal, and a gradual transition from the lower forms of animal existence to the higher. The transition is so gradual that it is very difficult to say where vegetables end and where animals begin. Radiated animals ascend towards the mollusks, the mollusks towards the articulata, the articulata towards the vertebrata. And through this last class we see a steady ascent from one form of organization to another; from fishes to reptiles, from reptiles to birds, from birds to mammalia, until by steady rise we reach the human body, in delicacy, beauty, and faculty the crown of all. Why should we suppose this the end of bodily existence? Why not rather that this is to pass into a still more noble and beautiful type of organization? After this gradual development, why suppose the enormous change to a purely spiritual existence? Is it not more reasonable to suppose, instead, a higher order of bodily life?

If we may look at the question for a moment from a metaphysical point of view, we shall find it hard to comprehend the possibility of personal existence hereafter apart from bodily organization. Everything which is, must be either somewhere, or everywhere, or nowhere; that is, it must be present in some particular point of space, or omnipresent through all space, or wholly out of space. But to be wholly out of space is to lose that which distinguishes one thing from another, for all distinctions which we can conceive of are distinctions in space and time. To be everywhere is to be omnipresent, which is an attribute belonging to God and not to finite being, and would imply absorption into the divine nature. Therefore personal existence is existence somewhere in space, but locality in space is an attribute of body, not of spirit, and implies bodily existence.

Moreover, shall we suppose that after death we are to have no more communion with the material universe, no more knowledge of this vast order and beauty, which is a perpetual manifestation of God, the garment which he wears, one of his grand methods of revelation? These myriads of suns and worlds, these constellations of stars peopling space, this city of God full of wonder and infinite variety, are they to be nothing to us after the few years of mortal life are over? We cannot believe it. If, then, we are still to perceive the material universe, the faculties by which we perceive it will be more intense bodily faculties. If spiritual things are spiritually discerned, bodily things are discerned in a bodily manner.

Such considerations as these show that a future bodily existence is reasonable; but the proof of it must come, if at all, either from revelation or experience. Let us see, then, what bearing the resurrection of Jesus has upon this question.

According to the Gospels, Jesus rose from the dead in bodily form. This body resembled his former one, so as to be recognized by his disciples; it had the marks of the spear and nails; it could be touched, and was capable of eating food. In all these respects it seems exactly the same body he had before. This, too, is confirmed by the fact that he came from the tomb where his body had been placed, and that this had disappeared. But, on the other hand, many peculiarities indicate a difference; such as his not being recognized at once by Mary in the garden, nor by the disciples during the whole walk to Emmaus; his appearing and disappearing suddenly; his coming through the closed doors. Again, if the body of Jesus was exactly like that which he had before death, it is evident that he would have to lay it aside again before ascending into the spiritual world, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But if he was to lay it aside again, this would be equivalent to dying a second time, which would destroy the whole meaning and value of his resurrection, making it nothing but a mere revival, or coming to life again, like that of a person who has been apparently drowned. Such a revival would have produced no results, and the faith of the Church which has come from the resurrection of Jesus would never have taken place.

Accordingly, we must conclude that Jesus rose with a higher spiritual body. And this gives to the ascension its meaning. For otherwise, the ascension would be only a disappearance; whereas, in this view, the disciples saw him pass away in the shape and form he was to continue to wear in the other world. Then the gulf was bridged over, in their minds, and they had looked into heaven.

This was what the resurrection of Jesus did for the apostles. It changed doubt and despair into faith and hope; changed theoretical belief into practical assurance; imparted that commanding energy of conviction and utterance which only comes from life. Animated thus themselves, they were enabled to animate others. And so the resurrection of Christ was the resurrection of Christianity, the resurrection of a Christian faith and hope infinitely deeper and stronger than had before existed in the minds of the disciples.

We do not like the usual method of regarding the resurrection of Jesus as a great exceptional event, and an astounding violation of the laws of nature. Its power seems rather to have consisted in this, that it was a glorious confirmation of those everlasting laws announced by Jesus—laws boundless as the universe. The very essence of the gospel is the declaration that good is not only better than evil, which we all knew before, but stronger than evil, which we weakly doubt.

The gospel assures us that love is stronger than hatred, peace than war, holiness than evil, truth than error. It is the marriage of the goodness of motive and the goodness of attainment; goodness in the soul and goodness in outward life; heaven hereafter and heaven here. It asserts that the good man is always in reality successful; that he who humbles himself is exalted, he who forgives is forgiven, he who gives to others receives again himself, he who hungers after righteousness is filled. This was the faith which Christ expressed, in which and out of which he lived and acted; it was this faith which made him Christ the King, King of human minds and hearts. Was it then all false? Did his death prove it so? Was that the end, the earthly end, of his efforts for man? Were truth and love struck down then by the power of darkness? That was the question which his resurrection answered; it showed him passing through death to higher life, through an apparent overthrow to a real triumph; it gave one visible illustration to laws usually invisible in their operation, and set God's seal to their truth. Through that death which seemed the destruction of all hope, Jesus went up to be the Christ, the King.

In this point of view we see the value and importance of the resurrection of Jesus, and why Easter Sunday should be the chief festival of Christianity. It was the great triumph of life over death, of good over evil. It was the apt symbol and illustration of the whole gospel.

If, then, the resurrection of Christ means that Christ ascended through death to a higher state; if our resurrection means that we pass up through death, and not down; not into the grave, but into a condition of higher life; if the resurrection of the body does not mean the raising again out of the earth the material particles deposited there, but the soul clothing itself with a higher and more perfect organization; if it is, then, the raising of the body to a more perfect condition of development,—then is there not good reason why such stress should be laid upon this great fact?

All the proof rests on the historic fact of the resurrection. Was Christ seen in this higher spiritual and bodily state, or was he not? If he was, then we have a fact of history and experience to rely upon to show us that the future life involves an ascent both spiritual and bodily. And this is the reason why such stress has been laid on the resurrection.

This raising of man, through the power of Christ's life, to a higher state, is not a mere matter of speculation, then, not an opinion, not something pleasant to think of and hope for, but it is a fundamental fact of Christian faith. Because Christ has arisen and passed up, we must all arise and pass up, too, with him. He is the first fruits of those who sleep. In proportion as the Spirit of Christ is in us, in that proportion is the power in us which shall carry us upward towards him. He wishes that those who believe in him shall be where he is. We shall belong to him and to his higher world, not arbitrarily, but naturally; not by any positive decree of God, but by the nature of things.

The essential fact in the resurrection is, that Christ rose, through death, to a higher state. The essential doctrine of the resurrection is, that death is the transition from a lower to a higher condition in all who have the life which makes them capable of it.



CHAPTER XIII. CHRIST'S COMING, USUALLY CALLED THE "SECOND COMING," AND CHRIST THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD.



1. The Coming of Christ is not wholly future, not wholly outward, not local, nor material.

It is a curious fact that, in direct contradiction to Christ's own explanations concerning his coming, this should frequently be considered by the Orthodox, (1.) as wholly future; (2.) as wholly outward; (3.) as local; (4.) as bodily and material.

It cannot be wholly future, for if it were, Jesus was mistaken in saying of the signs of his coming, "This generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled." (Mark 13:30.)

Nor can it be wholly outward, for if it were, Jesus was mistaken when he declared of the signs of his coming, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation" (Luke 17:20); "The kingdom of God is within you " (Luke 17:21); "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). See also Mark 4:26,27, and Matt. 13:33, where his kingdom is compared with seed sprouting and leaven working secretly.

Nor is Christ's coming local, that is, in a certain place, for if it were, Jesus was mistaken in telling his disciples not to believe those who said, "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!" not to go into the desert when men say, "Behold, he is there," and not to believe those who declare that he is hidden somewhere in the city, for that the coming of the Son of man should be like that of the lightning, which shines all round the sky, and seems to be everywhere at once. (Matt. 24:26.)

And if not local, neither can it be a bodily coming; for all bodily coming must be in some one place. Since, therefore, Jesus distinctly denies that his coming is to be "here" or "there,"—that is, local,—it must be a spiritual coming, a coming in spirit and in power. All the material images connected with it—the clouds, the trumpet, &c.—are to be considered symbolical. The "clouds of heaven" may symbolize spiritual movements and influences; the "trumpet," the awakening power of new truth.(40)



2. No Second Coming of Christ is mentioned in Scripture.

It is also a remarkable fact that only one coming of Christ is mentioned in the New Testament. Orthodoxy speaks continually of Christ's second coming, but without any warrant. It assumes that the manifestation of Jesus in the flesh was his first coming as the Christ, and that consequently the predictions (in Matt. ch. 24, and the parallels) must refer to a second coming. Hence the phrase "second coming" has been introduced, and naturalized in theology. But, in truth, the life of Jesus on earth was not regarded as his coming as the Messiah.(41) What the disciples expected was his manifestation or investiture as the Messiah, which evidently had not taken place at the time of their conversation. And this was to be, not "at the end of the world," but at the end of the age. They, like other Jews, divided time into two periods, "the present age," or times previous to the Messiah, and "the coming age," or times of the Messiah's reign. When, therefore, Jesus was with them, only teaching and healing, they did not at all consider him to have come as the Messiah. But when he spoke of the destruction of the Temple, as that indicated the end of the existing economy, they understood it to be synchronous with his coming as the Christ. So they said, "What shall be the sign of thy COMING, and of the END OF THE AGE?" And so through the Epistles, when the "coming of Christ" is spoken of, is meant his manifestation in the world as the Messiah. This was a single event, to take place once, not to be repeated. Such a thing as "Christ's second coming" is unknown to the Scriptures.(42)



3. Were the Apostles mistaken in expecting a speedy Coming of Christ?

It is often said that the apostles themselves were mistaken in expecting a speedy coming of Christ. No doubt they did expect his speedy coming, and with reason; for he himself had told them that the existing generation should not pass away till all those things were fulfilled. Therefore they were justified in looking for a near coming of Jesus as the Christ. We admit that they expected his speedy coming; but we think they were not mistaken, for he did come. He came, though not perhaps in the manner they anticipated. Possibly they interpreted too literally what he said concerning his coming.