I Believe … in the Resurrection of the Body

Tue Apostle tells us that the Body of the Believer is a purchased possession of God, which waits to be redeemed from the power of corruption (Eph. i. 14). The work of our Lord, therefore, includes the entire nature. It is not enough for Him to save the soul, illuminate the mind, purify the affections, and indwell the spirit. He has set himself to fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of - His Glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself (Phil. iii. 21).

The question has unceasingly been asked from the earliest days, ‘‘ How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?” And the only answer is the analogy which the Apostle draws between the bare grain, which the farmer casts into the furrows of the earth, and its reappearance in the glorious body with which God endows it, when the harvest covers the fields with

waving gold. ‘So also is the Resurrection of the 219

Dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. ... The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is of heaven. ... And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (I Cor. xv. 35-50).

If we press this analogy, we must admit that the germ of the Risen Body is already within us. Before the cone of wheat falls into the ground to die, it still bears in its heart the germ of the golden-headed stalk: we may, therefore, confidently assert that now and here, whilst our body, which is as the seed to the essential germ, is still vigorous and active, the principle, which is to break into such glorious fruition is most certainly present.

The analogy has been pressed home a point or two further by one profound thinker of a former generation who suggests that the decay of the outer man, like the dissolution of the albuminous matter in the seed, is really the nourishment of the spiritual germ, through all the experiences of physical weakening and decay. ‘“‘ The germ lies hidden in the flesh of our mortality through what we call life: what we call death completes the process; the mere husk or shell within which the spiritual body was forming, is put off with painful struggle and buried away with the dead leaves of autumn, and in Resurrection the Lord gives a body as it hath pleased Him, wherewith it may stand up and maintain its relations with the beings and objects of the celestial sphere.”

It is clear that the sacred writers can offer but a partial revelation of the properties and powers of that Resurrection Body. These are among the things which it is not lawful, nor possible, for man to utter. We know but in part, and can but prophesy in part; we can see some of the great

outstanding shafts and pillars of truth, though we 3 may not be able to descry the connecting arches which bind them into a symmetrical and beautiful structure. The images of the things in the heavens are revealed to us, but the heavenly things themselves, who can know? Of this at least we are sure that ‘‘ if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have in the heavens a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal. For in this we groan, longing to put on over this our dwelling-place from heaven, because we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon”’ (2 Cor. v. 1-4).

Gleams of that Resurrection Body have been given to human eyes. By the Risen Lord it was clearly apparent to those who had loved Him. Perhaps we get glimpses of it in those hours when the fires of Holy Love and Purity transfigure the very bodies of our dear ones, and shine through them, as through porcelain. In any case, we cannot doubt that we shall recognise again the features, the gestures, the very voice of our beloved.

Daughter of Heaven! our grieving hearts repose On the dear thought that we once more shall see Thy beauty — like Himself our Master rose —

So shall that beauty its old rights maintain, And thy sweet spirit own those eyes again.

There shall be a Resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just. What can their bodies be but the embodiments of the evil passions which have wrought within them! But of the just the body shall surely be the perfect vehicle of the holy soul. Not tiring in service, however prolonged; not failing to give expression to the loftiest and most ardent volitions of the spirit; not needing sleep or rest, or food; but ever lending itself to the impulse of the indwelling spirit (Ezek. i. 12). “When He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”