The Ineffable Glory: Thoughts on the Resurrection

VJ hear the thunder of eternity in my ears night and day: “Behold He cometh with clouds and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail on account of Him; even so, amen!’

Christ is near at hand for His prayer in the 17th chapter of St. John is evidently on the eve of being answered: “Father I will that they whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory!*

—Rev. Homer W. Hodge.

Besides the principles of which we consist and the actions which flow from us, the consideration of the things without us and the natural course of variations in the creature will render the resurrection yet more highly probable. Every space of twenty-four hours teacheth thus much in which there is always a revolution amounting to a resurrection. The day dies into night and is buried in silence and darkness; on the next morning it appeareth again and reviveth, opening the grave of darkness, rising from the dead of night. This

15 is a diurnal resurrection. As the day dies into the night, so does the summer into winter; the sap is said to descend into the root, and there it lies buried in the ground; the earth is covered with snow or crusted with frost, and becomes a general sepulcher. When the spring appeareth, all begin to rise; the plants and flowers peep out of their graves, revive, and grow and flourish. This is the annual resurrection. The corn by which we live and for want of which we perish with famine is, notwithstanding, cast upon the earth and buried in the ground with a design that it may be corrupted and, being corrupted, may revive and multiply; our bodies are fed by this constant experiment, and we continue this life by a constant succession of resurrections. Thus all things are repaired by corrupting, are preserved by perishing, and revived by dying; and can we think that man, the lord of all these things which thus die and revive for him, should be detained in death, never to live again? Is it imaginable that God should thus restore all things to man, and not restore man to himself? If there were no other consideration but the principles of human nature, of the liberty and remunerability of human actions and of the natural revolutions and resurrections of other creatures, it were abundantly sufficient to render the resurrection of our bodies highly probable. — Pearson on the Creed.

Even the most illustrious skeptic has no better end than that of displaying his powers in confounding and darkening truth, and the happiest efforts of whose skepticism cannot be more leniently described than as brilliant feats of mental debauchery,

—Sir James Mackintosh.

The whole system of Jesus Christ is based on the immortality of the man. It is not the philosophical idea or guesses of the immortality of the soul, but the immortality of the man. The whole man, in his dual or triune nature, is to live forever. The spirit or higher department defies death; the body is to come out of the ruins and prison house of death and be raised to life. Man immortal; the whole man, soul, body, spirit, immortal — this is the keystone and keynote of the redemption by Christ. The deathless nature of the soul has been taught in the philosophies of earth, pagan and Christian, but the resurrection of the body is distinctively a Christian doctrine. It belongs to the revelation of God’s Word. It is found in the Bible, and nowhere else. Nature may have echoes, analogies, figures ;, but nowhere is the doctrine fully asserted, fully assured, but in the Scriptures which contain the revealed will of God.

This doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not a mere inference from Bible statement. It is the statement itself, the key of its arch, the corner stone of its foundation. It is not a rich afterthought of the gospel, but coordinate “Jesus and the resurrection” are the gospel.

Faith can make no appeal to reason or the fitness of things; its appeal is to the Word of God, and whatever is therein revealed faith accepts as true. Faith accepts the Bible as the word and will of God and rests upon its truth without question and without other evidence.

Faith accepts the Word of God as indubitable evidence of any fact, and rejoices in the fact as true because God asserts it in his Word. Many of the facts revealed to us in the Bible receive the credence of our reason as fit and proper things. Others extend beyond the range of reason, and it has neither vision nor analogy to measure them.

The resurrection of the human body, its coming back into life from the ravages, decay, and oblivion of the grave, is one of these supernatural facts. It has been the anxious and tearful question of the ages: “Can the dead live? Is there strength anywhere to vanquish death? Is there any hope of victory over the grave?” Reason has neither answer to the question nor hope for the questioner. Analogy starts some faint light, but this goes out amid the increasing night of the tomb.

There are but two questions to quicken and satisfy faith in the resurrection of the body. These questions are of promise and ability: Has God promised to raise the body from the dead? Is he able to perform his promise in this respect? The body is a distinct, a very important part of the man. It is the part seen, known, handled, described as the man, the organ, the outlet, through which the man comes into contact, sympathy, and action with the world around. A part, an all-important, indispensable part, of the man, the body belongs to the man, is an original, organic part of the man, evident and conspicuous — will this body rise from the dead where it has been laid amid tears and heart-breaking farewells? Its death is a fact distinct and clearly outlined. “Will it live again?” is the passionate question of love and longing.

The heathen world sighed out their upbraidings, emptiness, and despair. The flowers, said they, died by the chill of winter, but spring’s warm breath brings them to life again. The day declines into darkness and night, but rises again into the full day; suns set, but come again full-orbed out of the eclipse of their setting; moons wane, but wax into fullness and brightness again; but their loved ones leave them, eclipsed and lost in the darkness of death, but no spring, no morn, no rising ever brings them again.

Christianity hushes these sighs, fills this emptiness, lifts this despair. She lights the darkness of the grave with the morning star of hope, and sheds the luster of the resurrection day upon the night of the tomb. Faith asks of unbelief, of doubt and despair: uWhy should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? Is anything too hard for God?” She declares: “All that sleep in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth.”

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