Chapter IX
Skepticism must ever be a misfortune or defect: a misforttcne if there be no tneans of arriving at truth; a defect if while there exists such means, tve are unable or unwilling to use them.
—Arnold, Roman History.
The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was emphasized by Paul and made most conspicuous as being the essence and sum of the gospel. In Athens — cultured, skeptical, proud Athens — he declares the great fact. It brought a new life and a new and unknown hope to the paganized world: “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.”
Mars Hill heard the same before its august tribunal: ‘’And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and other said, We will hear thee again of this matter.”
Before the Jewish council he declared: *’0f the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.”
Paul’s address before the Roman governor, Felix, was a personal defense, yet made strong by the doctrine of the resurrection which he declared to be his main offense. ‘’But this I confess unto thee,” he declares, “that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.”
In the same address he returns to and dwells on this fact of raising the dead: “Let these same here say, if they have found any evil doing in me, while I stood before the council, except it be for this one voice, that I cried standing among them. Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day.”
He asserted before Agrippa that the doctrine of the resurrection was the great promise of God to the fathers, the promise which gave hope to them and hope and fortitude to him; and then startles the Romanized Jewish judge by the question: ‘*Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?”
The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was everywhere preached and believed as one of the primary, fundamental, all-inclusive facts of the gospel. It comes in also incidentally as well as doctrinally. It comes to give largeness and power to experience; to give point and force to an exhortation or injunction. “Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” Again: “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed,* and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak; knowing that he wiich raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.”
Some members of the Corinthian Church had fallen into error about the resurrection of the dead. The fifteenth chapter of
First Corinthians is devoted to the refutation of their errors and the statement of the doctrine. Therein the apostle views it from almost every standpoint and with all colors. The fact of death so universal and deplorable is centered in Adam; the fact of the resurrection, its truth, authority, and glory, centers in Christ: ‘’For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, until he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”
He declares: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
The following majestic, luminous, and comforting declarations were made to the Thessalonians: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which ar alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall in no wise precede them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
What a place the resurrection of the dead had in apostolic preaching! What comfort and solaces it had! How oft repeated to edify, refresh, strengthen! What a rich message it was for the early Church to bear and receive! What a volume full of inspiration and embellished to them! How oft repeated! how well assured were they of its truth! It belonged to the heart of their faith; it burnished with a double radiance their hopes; it made them to endure martyr fires and persecutions fiercer than martyr flames! We need to have these first fundamental facts put into our spiritual being anew like iron put into the blood to make it red and strong and life-giving. These mighty fact-forces have to us lost their energy and their divine magic. Our
The Resurrection.
faith demands to be fed anew by them. They must be to us what they were to the apostles — the summary, subject, and power of our preaching. They must be to us the pabuhim of our faith, the food of our souls, the nurser of a giant faith, the inspirer of giant praying.
These facts must be to us what they were to the primitive Christians — creed, experience, service. They must weave our songs, fill our testimony. We must know that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, for we have been raised from the death of sin wath him. We must know that our bodies shall be raised from the dead by his Spirit which is in us, which gives an assurance and foretaste of the resurrection day.
O what a blessed hope is ours!
While here on earth we stay, We more than taste the heavenly powers,
And antedate that day:
We feel the resurrection near,
Our life in Christ concealed,
And with his glorious presence here
Our earthen vessels filled.
/ am laboring though most imperfectly to lead them ( jny scholars) to Christ in true and devoted faith. I hold all the scholarship that ever man had to be infinitely worthless tji comparison with even a very humble degree of spiritual advancement.
—Arnold of Rugby.
The resurrection of the body will be universal and personal, general and particular, of every one good and bad, or, in the language of the Bible, ‘’a resurrection of the just and unjust.” It will take place generally and at the last day. Jesus Christ is very clear in his statement as to the time.
He declares his supreme loyalty to the Father, and avers, ‘T came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me,” and then declares the will of his Father in regard to the resurrection: “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”
With great solemnity he again declares the will of the Father and his own power and purpose in raising all believers from the dead “at the last day:” “And this is the will of him that sent me, and every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
He combines it with the statement of the Father’s drawing, and the drawn ones are to be raised “at the last day:” “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” And again he iterates and reasserts that the crowning glory is to be the resurrection at the last day: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
This was the accepted truth of the resurrection stated by Martha in her great sorrow at Lazarus’s death: *T know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Again Jesus uses the statement which locates the resurrection and combines it with the judgment: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”
These two tremendous facts — the judgment and the resurrection — are united in God’s Word. They certainly have a close unity in importance, in event, and in bearing. Peter declared of Christ: “He which is charged of God to be judge of the quick and dead.” Paul in his solemn charge to Timothy declares of Jesus that he shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and kingdom. Peter, in his Epistle, says: “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”
There can be no doubt that in the plain teaching of Jesus and his apostles these two facts, resurrection and judgment, are united. “Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one mav receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” The saints are specially charged and reminded that they must appear before the judgment seat of Christ for the things done in the body. In the interest of compassion and love, in our judgment, Paul in Romans interrogates and reminds Christians: “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. But he that judgeth me is the Lord. Wherefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall each man have his praise from God.”
To heal broken hearts, to confirm faith, to arrest excessive mourning for our dead, Paul gives utterance to the Thessalonians: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which ^leep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
In the fact of a general judgment as well as in the coming of our Lord, the resurrection of the dead is held as a fact precedent and to be taken for granted. This is declared in the parable of the talents, the lord coming to reckon with his servants. This purpose had been declared and established from the first: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Biehold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints.”
We have Christ’s inimitable description of his coming the object in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”
His dual purpose is set forth to the disquieted Thessalonians in strong terms, and they are urged to repose under the cheering fact that their Saviour would come again, and his coming would be to them the end of sorrow, of pain, and fear: “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.”
“xA.nd I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
“And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
All these passages of the judgment are promises and pledges of the resurrection of the dead. The Bible is explicit on the point; no vague analogies, no poetic dreams. but plain statement declaring the fact.
The resurrection will be general, all will be raised at the same time, as Paul declares — a resurrection “both of the just and unjust.”
The resurrection is one of God’s unconditional facts; it will take place all the same though never a man, woman, or child believe in it. In regard to this alarming and comforting fact, our unbelief, neglect, cannot make the truth of God a lie. It is inevitable and irresistible. God, who cannot lie, has promised, and Jesus has sealed the promise by his resurrection.
We should familiarize ourselves with the
fact. It will nerve us for the conflict of
faith, bring comfort to the grave bereft of
all other comfort, give a sweet and bright hope in death which destroys every other hope.
We are assured that these soul-cheering, faith-invigorating facts of the Bible are not fed upon as a sweet sacrament, cherished as our talisman against sorrow and sin. They do not enter like iron into our blood. Or else we would not be children tossed about by every wind, the prey of every temptation. This doctrine should be the joy and rejoicing of our hearts. Inspired and charmed by its hopes, we should be lifted above all weakness and defy all assaults.
We subscribe to the creed, *T believe in the resurrection of the body,” which was taught by God to Moses in the burning bush, confirmed to us by prophet and apostle, symbolized and assured in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We accept it not because we understand its method but because God has declared it in his holy Word.
To raise the dead is one of the thrilling and momentous objects of the coming of Jesus. The dead are to be raised, and Jesns Christ is coming to do that work; it is too important and glorious to be delegated to the most honored and lofty among angels or men. The Lord in person coming from heaven, with a shout of triumph and a call of authority to the heavens and to the earth. The archangel’s trump and the dead raised first — that is, before our Lord attends to any other business. The living are neither noticed nor crowned till the dead are awakened to share in their joys and honors. Locked in the embraces of love and reunion, we will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord! Amen, so let it be! 72