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,” [pg 305] 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.
[pg 306]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 [pg 307] 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.”
[pg 308]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 [pg 309] 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 [pg 310] 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 [pg 311] 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” [pg 312] 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.”
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 [pg 313] 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 [pg 314] 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 [pg 315] 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.”
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 [pg 316] 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, [pg 317] 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 [pg 318] 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 [pg 319] 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 [pg 320] 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 [pg 321] 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 [pg 322] 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 [pg 323] 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.