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HEAD OF ST. PAUL 
 
 From painting- by Raphael 
 
 By Permission of George P. Brown & Co. 
 
THE KESUERECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
Pbintbd by Tobnbuli, and Speaes 
 
 FOK 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
 LoNDOX: SiHPKiN, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., Ltd 
 
 New Yobk: Cbajkles Scbibneb's Sons. 
 
 Tobonto : The Willabd Tract Depositobt. 
 
THE RESURRECTION 
 OF THE DEAD 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS XV, 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 WILLIAM MILLIGAN, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 
 
 1894 
 
f rdatorg #ote. 
 
 The following chapters appeared originally in 
 The Monthly Inteoyreter and The Expositor. 
 They are now republished in accordance 
 with what is known to have been the 
 writer's intention. 
 
 G. M. 
 
 March 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. 1 Cor 
 
 XV. 
 
 1-11 
 
 II. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 12-19 
 
 III. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 20-22 
 
 IV. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 23-28 
 
 V. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 29-32A 
 
 VI. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 32B-34 
 
 VII. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 35-41 
 
 VIII. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 42-44 
 
 IX. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 45,46 
 
 X. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 47-49 
 
 XL 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 50-52 
 
 XII. 
 
 1 Cor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 53-58 
 
 21 
 
 41 
 
 61 
 
 79 
 
 97 
 
 117 
 
 139 
 
 161 
 
 181 
 
 199 
 
 225 
 
' ' Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached 
 unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which 
 also ye are saved ; I make knoum, I say, in what words I preached 
 it unto you, if ye hold it fast, except ye believed in vain. For I 
 delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that 
 Christ died for our sin^ according to the scriptures ; and that he 
 was buried ; and that he hath been raised on the third day accord- 
 ing to the scriptures ; and that he appeared to Cephas ; then to the 
 twelve ; then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of 
 whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep; 
 then he appeared to James ; then to all the apostles ; and last of 
 all, as unto one born out of due time, he appeared to me also. For 
 I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an 
 apostle^ because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of 
 God lam what I am : and his grace which was bestowed upon me 
 was not found vain ; but I laboured more abundantly than they 
 all : yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Whether 
 then it be I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." — 1 Cor. xv. 
 1-11. [R.V.] 
 
THE 
 
 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 dThapUr t 
 
 "TN entering upon the effort to explain and illustrate 
 the course of St. Paul's argument in the fifteenth 
 chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, it may 
 be well, in the meantime, to postpone any inquiry into 
 the peculiar views of those with whom the Apostle 
 has to contend. We shall be able to form more 
 correct ideas upon this point either in the course 
 of our exposition of the chapter, or when we have 
 brought it to a close. It is enough to observe now, 
 that the whole character of the Apostle's reasoning 
 shows how deeply moved he himself was by the thought 
 of the momentous subject with which he is to deal. 
 His very first word — " I make known " is one of power 
 — Antea fuerat doctrina, says Bengel, nunc fit elenchus. 
 It is the word which he had used in chap. xii. 3, when 
 the awful thought of calling ^q^w.^ Anathema was present 
 to his mind. More than that, it is the word used by 
 our Lord Himself when, in the last sentence of His 
 high-priestly prayer. He thought of the Divine authority 
 with which, as the revelation of the Father, He had 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 impressed the knowledge of the Father upon the hearts 
 of the disciples, so that in them the end of His coming 
 had been answered, "that the love wherewith Thou 
 lovedst Me may be in them, and I in them " (John 
 xvii. 26). " I make known " is more than I announce, 
 or declare, or preach, or call to mind. It carries with 
 it the whole weight of St. Paul's apostolical authority, 
 as well as the remembrance of that submission which 
 the Corinthian Christians had formerly yielded to his 
 words. As, too, with the first word of the chapter, so 
 also with the tone of the chapter throughout. There is 
 an animation, a fervour, a swing in it almost unex- 
 ampled even in the writings of one whose letters were 
 " weighty and strong." Seldom does even he rise to 
 such impassioned thought, such ardent feeling, or such 
 lofty eloquence. He is evidently contending for 
 what he knows to be one of the most central truths of 
 that Gospel which he had received by direct communi- 
 cation from heaven. With it were connected all 
 perseverance and enthusiasm in the work of the Lord 
 (ver. 58). Without it the whole substance of his 
 message disappeared (ver. 14), and its fruits perished 
 (ver. 17). 
 
 The subject of the chapter is the Eesurrection of 
 the Dead. In the days when that great truth was 
 first proclaimed, men questioned and denied it as they 
 questioned and denied hardly any other doctrine 
 which Jesus or His Apostles preached. No belief of 
 the early Church roused to such an extent the in- 
 dignation of the Sadducees, the most powerful party 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 in Jerusalem at the time (Acts iv. 2). It was 
 received with mockery at Athens and throughout the 
 Gentile world (Acts xvii. 32). One of the earliest 
 heresies that sprang up in the bosom of the Christian 
 Church itself, was that of Hymenseus and Philetus, 
 who maintained that the resurrection was past already, 
 and overthrew the faith of some (2 Tim. ii. 18). At 
 Corinth, as we learn from this chapter, there were 
 those in the midst of the Christian community who 
 denied the doctrine, and asked either in perplexity or 
 scorn, " How are the dead raised, and with what 
 manner of body do they come ?" (ver. 35). 
 
 But if there was difficulty in believing in the re- 
 surrection of the dead then, the difficulty is one which 
 has only increased with time. The lapse of centuries 
 has placed many another doctrine of our faith in a 
 clearer and brighter light, and has made it easier of 
 acceptance than it was at the beginning. It is not so 
 here. As ever enlarging multitudes return to the 
 dust, and the particles of their bodies enter in other 
 forms into the frames of generations that follow them, 
 the mind becomes bewildered in its effort to imagine 
 what the resurrection of the dead can mean. How 
 often do we torture ourselves with the thought of it ! 
 How often would we fain pause and dismiss the whole 
 subject as one of those impenetrable mysteries which 
 it is useless at present to endeavour to comprehend ! 
 But there is no pausing on the part of the Apostle in 
 the chapter before us. On the contrary, the whole tenor 
 of the chapter shows that he is animated in a higher 
 
6 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, i 
 
 than ordinary degree by the confidence, the assurance, 
 the joy, of faith. He feels that he is entering into the 
 very heart of the Christian system. He seems almost 
 to experience a sensation of relief as he turns from 
 many of the points with which, in the earlier part of 
 his Epistle, he had been engaged. The factions, the 
 lawsuits, the disputes about meats, articles of dress, 
 and gifts had wearied him. Now he is in his element, 
 and he rushes like a war-horse to the battle. 
 
 In the first paragraph of the chapter, extending 
 from ver. 1 to ver. 11, the foundation of the Apostle's 
 argument is laid, and it may be summed up in the 
 single sentence, " The Christ who died is risen." The 
 Corinthian Christians indeed did not doubt that fact. 
 Even those among them who hesitated to admit that 
 there was any prospect of a resurrection for themselves, 
 did not deny that, on the third morning after His 
 crucifixion, their Lord had come forth in triumph from 
 the grave. The proclamation of that great truth had, 
 most of all, made them Christians. It had confirmed 
 in the most wonderful and striking way the highest 
 claims put forth by One who to the outward eye had 
 no form, nor comeliness, and no beauty that men 
 should desire Him. It had authenticated in a manner 
 which no human reasoning could overthrow. His as- 
 sertion that He was the Son of God, and the Sent of 
 God to be the Saviour of the world. It had illus- 
 trated the nature of that imperishable life which He 
 Himself possessed, and which He communicated to all 
 who identified themselves with Him. It had shown 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 with what approbation and honour the Almighty re- 
 garded One who had been persecuted to a shameful 
 death. It had surrounded the very cross of Calvary 
 with glory. The early Christians in general, and no 
 doubt the Corinthian Christians along with them, 
 knew well that the Church of Christ had not been 
 founded only upon a Saviour who died, but upon One 
 who, though crucified in weakness, had been raised by 
 the power of God ; and the life which they lived was 
 life in a risen Lord. Therefore it is that, whatever 
 the doubts they might entertain with regard to their 
 own resurrection, the chapter before us affords not the 
 slightest intimation that they entertained any with 
 regard to the Eesurrection of Jesus. 
 
 Yet, although this was the case, St. Paul feels that 
 it was of the utmost importance to restate the truths 
 already in their minds, and to impress these truths 
 upon them with renewed power. The difference is 
 vast between acknowledging that a thing is true, and 
 seeing that truth stand out before our eyes in the 
 clearness of deep and deliberate conviction. In the 
 former case the truth may have no possession of us. 
 It may be in our minds like seed laid up in a store- 
 house, retaining indeed the principle of life, and ready 
 for use at some future day, but as yet without vigour or 
 result. In the latter case it is like seed cast into a soil 
 which contains all the appropriate conditions for its 
 growth, and to which it is no sooner committed than it 
 begins to sprout, and to send up first the blade, and then 
 the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. Would we 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 know the power of any truth that we have believed, 
 we need to be constantly returning to it, constantly 
 renewing our acquaintance with it, constantly satis- 
 fying ourselves, amidst all the fresh experiences that 
 we make, of its reality and value. 
 
 Hence it is that, before entering upon the special 
 argument of this chapter, St. Paul states again the 
 substance of his Gospel, and that in such a way as 
 ought to have awakened the most tender and powerful 
 impressions in connexion with it. 
 
 1. First, he reminds the Corinthian Christians of 
 the contents of that Gospel which he had preached at 
 Corinth. These contents are contained in the verses 
 extending from ver. 3 to ver. 8, and the double intro- 
 duction of the words " according to the Scriptures " 
 gives the key to the arrangement of the particulars 
 mentioned. In the first place, these are four in 
 number, divided into two groups, the first group em- 
 bracing the facts that the Lord Jesus Christ died for 
 our sins and was buried ; the second, that He rose 
 from the grave on the third day and that He appeared 
 after His Eesurrection to the persons named. In 
 the second place, the words " according to the Scrip- 
 tures " show us, from the manner in which they are in- 
 troduced, not only that we are dealing with two groups 
 of facts, but that the chief stress of the statement is 
 laid upon the first of the two particulars mentioned 
 in each group, — *' Christ died for our sins according 
 to the Scriptures, and," etc. ; " He hath been raised 
 on the third day according to the Scriptures, and," 
 
CHAP. I THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 etc. In other words, the Gospel preached by St. 
 Paul consisted mainly of the two great truths that 
 Christ died for our sins and that He rose again. 
 The other two are subordinate and subsidiary. That 
 Christ was " buried " is no doubt even in itself full of 
 consolation to the Christian mind, not simply because, 
 as commentators so often think, it attests His death or 
 prepares the way for His Eesurrection, but because 
 it illustrates His complete identification of Himself 
 with all the different stages of our human history. 
 Not only did He pass through life and death before us, 
 He passed also through that grave in which we must 
 one day be laid in a solitude upon which no friend of 
 earth can break. That after His Eesurrection Christ 
 appeared to Cephas and the others who are here 
 mentioned, is likewise of the utmost importance ; for 
 it assures us that, in accepting the crowning doctrine 
 of our faith, we are following no cunningly-devised fable 
 or fond delusion, but are dealing with a fact established 
 by most abundant and varied evidence. Yet, import- 
 ant as these two points may be, they are not them- 
 selves the substance of the Gospel. That substance 
 is to be found in the two immediately preceding them 
 — Christ died for our sins, and rose again on the third 
 day. 
 
 Even this, however, is not all. The words " rose 
 again " of the Authorized Version do not bring out the 
 meaning of the original. We ought to read, with the 
 Eevised Version, " hath been raised ; " and the differ- 
 ence between the two renderings, though the latter 
 
10 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, i 
 
 may be unmarked, or, when it is marked, may be 
 blamed by many, is one of those differences that carry 
 with them a whole world of theology. The reading 
 " rose again " tells us only that on the third morning 
 Jesus burst the bonds of death, and came forth victo- 
 rious from the grave, a conqueror over it in His own 
 Divine and triumphant might. The reading " hath 
 been raised " tells us that He not only rose, but that 
 in the state in which He rose He continued when the 
 Apostle wrote, and by parity of reasoning continues 
 still. It conveys to us the assurance that He did not 
 die again, but that having died once He dieth no more : 
 death hath no more dominion over Him. He lives, 
 unchangeably the same, for ever. 
 
 And now we see what the two leading points of St. 
 Paul's Gospel were. In conformity with the whole 
 teaching of Scripture, they were these, — first, Christ 
 died for our sins ; secondly, He hath been raised and 
 He lives for ever. These truths may not be separated 
 from each other. God hath joined them together : no 
 man may put them asunder. They include the whole 
 history of Christ from His Incarnation onward ; and 
 because they include His history, they include also 
 that of His people. Without the first the second 
 would bring little comfort to us in our sinfulness. 
 Even supposing for a moment (what, however, the 
 Apostle afterwards declares to be impossible) that 
 Christ had passed through the grave to a glorious 
 Resurrection without our being concerned in His work, 
 it is conceivable that we might have no part with Him 
 
CHAP. I THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 11 
 
 in that Eesurrection. Looked at in itself, it might 
 convey to us no earnest or foretaste of our own. 
 Because He rose who was the Only-begotten of the 
 Father, who did always and perfectly the Father's will, 
 and in whom the Father was always well pleased, it 
 would not follow that we who had violated the Divine 
 commandments, and in whose case death was not 
 a mere transition stage to life, should also rise. It is 
 Christ's dying for our sins as our Representative, 
 which gives us hope that, partakers of His death, we 
 shall also be partakers of His Resurrection. Without 
 the second truth, again, the first would be of as little 
 avail. " If Christ hath not been raised," says St. Paul 
 in the seventeenth verse of the chapter, " your faith is 
 vain ; ye are yet in your sins," — words which do not 
 mean simply that our sins are not forgiven us, but 
 that we must still be living in sin as the element of 
 our whole moral being. It is in Christ the risen 
 Saviour that we are introduced into that new and 
 higher and heavenly life in which we are to walk ; 
 and except when brought into that life, the life which 
 can alone satisfy the desires and complete the glory 
 of our nature, we cannot be at peace. Thus the death 
 and Eesurrection of Christ must always go together as 
 two sides of one compound truth. The separation too 
 often made between them in theology is not found in 
 the writings of St. Paul. 
 
 Upon the details of the manifestations of Himself 
 by the Risen Lord, contained in the verses extending 
 from ver. 5 to ver. 8, it does not seem necessary to 
 
12 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, i 
 
 dwell. One or two points, however, may be briefly 
 noticed. (1) The word " appeared " must denote 
 ^actual and bodily appearances of the Eisen Saviour, 
 and not visions of the mental eye. We know from 
 the Gospels that it was thus that Christ appeared in 
 several of the instances here recorded, and the sense 
 of the word applicable to some must be applied to 
 all. The use of the word too in 1 Tim. iii. 16, 
 " appeared to angels " (not " seen of angels," as in the 
 Authorized and Revised Versions), is conclusive upon 
 the point. Angels surely do not see visions. (2) All 
 the appearances recorded belong to a date anterior to 
 the conversion of the Apostle. No hesitation can be 
 felt upon this point except in the case of that men- 
 tioned in ver. 8, the appearance to St. Paul himself. 
 Yet the words in which the Apostle designates himself 
 as the TO 'Urpufxa ("the one born out of due time") of the 
 apostolic band, hardly admit of any other interpretation. 
 St. Paul felt, as he tells us in the next following verse, 
 connected with that preceding by the word " for," that 
 he was the least of the Apostles, and that he was not 
 meet to be called an Apostle, because he persecuted the 
 Church of God. Therefore it was that he deserves to be 
 called the 'Urpui/^a " the abortion," among the rest, and 
 the time which suggested such a humiliating name was 
 that when he was yet a persecutor. (3) The words 
 " last of all " in ver. 8, when viewed in their relation 
 to the several times repeated ? jre/ra (" then ") of the 
 previous verses, seem distinctly to imply that the 
 manifestation spoken of was not only the last of the 
 
CHAP. I THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 13 
 
 particular series to which allusion had been made, and 
 which might therefore have been afterwards renewed, 
 but that it was the final appearance of the Risen Lord 
 in the form and way then in question. (4) There is 
 difficulty in determining the principle upon which the 
 different appearances of the Risen Christ, here gathered 
 together by St. Paul, are grouped. The mention of 
 " the twelve " in ver. 5, compared with that of " all 
 the Apostles " in ver. 7, is sufficient to show that 
 the arrangement is not chronological. It would seem 
 rather that the whole number is divided into two 
 groups, each consisting of three members. The first 
 group will then have special relation to Christ's 
 disciples in their home Jife, and that in three rising 
 gradations — Peter, the twelve, the five hundred, all of 
 these being viewed in their personal relation to Jesus ; 
 the second to the disciples looked at in their action 
 on the world, again in three rising gradations — James 
 the head of the Church at Jerusalem, all the Apostles 
 (sent out upon their mission), the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 Once more, before passing from that aspect of the 
 two great truths of these verses, Christ's death and 
 His endless life after death, which we are now con- 
 sidering, it may be well to notice that these truths 
 embody not facts alone, but facts accomplished through 
 the eternal purpose of God. Such is the meaning of 
 the words "according to the Scriptures" associated 
 with each. For, when he thus speaks, it is no mere 
 fulfilment of prophecy that is in the Apostle's mind. 
 
14 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, i 
 
 He does not wish merely to tell us that, hundreds of 
 years before the events took place, the death and 
 Eesurrection of Jesus had been foretold by prophets, 
 and that in the fulfilment of their predictions, in the 
 correspondence of event with prophecy, we have an 
 assurance that we are dealing not with mistaken 
 traditions but with actual fact. He refers to the 
 Scriptures, and the mention made in them of these 
 things, for a different purpose. These Scriptures were 
 the expression of the Divine will. They were the 
 record of the Divine doings. They were the revela- 
 tion of the Divine purposes. What they contained 
 was either a statement or an illustration of the un- 
 changeable principles of the Divine economy. 
 
 When, accordingly, we find the death and the life 
 after death of the coming Eedeemer spoken of in the 
 Scriptures with gradually increasing clearness as the 
 time for their accomplishment drew nigh, we are 
 invited to think of them as far more than a simple 
 fulfilment of prophecy. They are a part of the 
 execution of God's great plan. They have their place 
 in the Divine administration of the universe. They 
 are not a scheme devised by man, or angel, or even by 
 the Son Himself, to procure redemption for us. In 
 them God accomplishes His own ends. He sent the 
 Son. He so " loved the world as to give His only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
 not perish, but have eternal life." 
 
 2. Secondly, the object of the Apostle in these 
 introductory verses of the chapter is not merely to tell 
 
CHAP. I THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 15 
 
 the Corinthian Christians the contents of that Gospel 
 which he preached, as he had often told it them 
 before. His aim is so to tell it that they shall be 
 reminded of its power, and be thus the better prepared 
 for the important consequences to be connected with 
 it in the subsequent portion of the chapter. Hence, 
 accordingly, he reminds them — 
 
 (1) That it was this Gospel which had first 
 awakened them to spiritual life. " Now I make 
 known unto you," he says in verse 1 , not only " the 
 Gospel which I preached unto you," but " which also 
 ye received." He takes them back to the moment 
 when he had first come among them as the Apostle 
 of a Risen Lord, and when by the tidings which he 
 preached they had been first led to faith. What a 
 moment never to be forgotten had that been ! In 
 their fair and beautiful city they had been cultivating 
 their philosophy, and it had failed to satisfy either 
 the questionings of the intellect or the longings 
 of the heart. The wisest teachers of the day had 
 been at their command, but they "through wisdom- 
 knew not God" (chap. i. 21). Idolatry in its most 
 debasing forms, heathenism with its most impure 
 and degrading rites, prevailed on every side. Then 
 the Apostle came. He had been persecuted in 
 Thessalonica. He had been driven from Beroea. He 
 had been compelled to leave Athens, and it was with 
 the marks of suffering upon him that he had arrived 
 at Corinth. But the opposition that he had met with 
 had only roused his spirit. The Lord had appeared 
 
16 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, i 
 
 to him in the night by a vision, and had said, " Be 
 not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace : for 
 I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt 
 thee ; for I have much people in this city " (Acts 
 xviii. 9, 10); he had obeyed the vision, and had 
 continued there a year and six months teaching the 
 word of God among them, with what success they 
 could themselves best testify. 
 
 These were affecting memories, — affecting to St, 
 Paul, not less affecting to the Corinthian Christians ; 
 and they were all brought up by the words " which 
 also ye received." Well, then, is the Apostle's 
 argument, ye remember that spring-time of your 
 spiritual life, and that the truth which then produced 
 the change was that regarding a Eedeemer who had 
 passed through death to everlasting and glorious life, 
 and whom I could then proclaim to you as the Eisen 
 and Living Lord. Surely you will think of that 
 truth now as one to be held fast in faith. Not only 
 so — 
 
 (2) The Apostle reminds them that this was the 
 truth which from that moment until now had main- 
 tained their spiritual life in vigour. " Wherein also," 
 he says, ver. 2, "ye stand." He had not only the past 
 to appeal to, but the present, the multiplied evidences 
 of Divine grace that could be seen, the manifold fruits 
 of the Christian life that were exhibited, among them. 
 In no early Christian church were these results so 
 conspicuous as in Corinth. Nowhere did they find so 
 rich a soil from which to spring. The life of the 
 
CHAP. I THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 17 
 
 ■Corinthian Christians was fuller and more striking than 
 in any other city of the time. 
 
 Again, therefore, the appeal is to the same purpose 
 as before. I do not send you, says the Apostle, only 
 to the past. I bid you look at what you have con- 
 tinued to be down to this very hour. Notwith- 
 standing all your shortcomings and sins, you know 
 that you have a Divine life among you, a life 
 that connects you with God and a higher world than 
 the present. By what is it maintained ? Is it not 
 by that very Gospel which I preached at first, that 
 we have a Lord who has passed through death to 
 His exaltation at the right hand of God ? He 
 it is who supplies from His own living presence 
 what keeps you alive. Because He is with you 
 alway, you are what you are. Surely you will think 
 of that truth now as one to be held fast in faith. 
 •Once more — 
 
 (3) St. Paul connects this faith with the attainment 
 of a full salvation. " By which also," he says in ver. 
 2, " ye are saved," or rather, however unpleasant the 
 English may be, " ye are being saved : " that is, by 
 which also ye are receiving larger measures of salva- 
 tion, and shall at last obtain the full salvation for 
 which ye wait and long. The salvation spoken of is 
 not to be understood in the sense of mere deliverance 
 from the penalty of sin, in the theological sense of justifi- 
 cation. We shall fail to comprehend the root of the 
 Apostle's reasoning if we identify these two, as if the 
 man who is justified were also saved, or the man who 
 
 B 
 
18 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, i 
 
 is saved were no more than justified. Salvation is a 
 far wider word than justification. It includes not 
 pardon only but spiritual life, deliverance of the soul 
 from the power not less than the punishment of sin, 
 restoration to the Divine image, conformity of char- 
 acter to the inheritance of the saints in light. And 
 whence is the hope of this salvation obtained ? Not 
 simply from the death of Christ. There we may 
 obtain pardon for past offences. There we may feel 
 that our sins are covered in the blood of Him who, as 
 our Eepresentative, took upon Him death for us. But 
 there we have not, nor in the nature of the case can 
 we have, life. Life flows from life. It may spring up 
 in the midst of death, but not from death. It is a 
 Living Lord who quickens us to be partakers of His 
 own life. Christian hope is more than the hope of 
 deliverance from sorrow or crying or pain. It is first 
 and most of all the hope of deliverance from sin, to be 
 no more tempted to evil either from within or from 
 without, to be like the Lord when we see Him as He 
 is. Surely we ought to think of this truth also as 
 one to be held fast in faith. 
 
 Such is the statement with which the Apostle opens 
 the argument of this chapter. It is a statement of 
 fact and an appeal to experience. There is un- 
 doubtedly proof presented of the fact that Christ rose 
 from the grave. But there could be no proof by 
 witnesses who could be seen and questioned, that 
 Christ was living still at the right hand of the Father 
 an endless life of glory. For that the Corinthian 
 
CHAP. I THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 19 
 
 Christians must depend upon positive assertion con- 
 firmed by undeniable experience of the result. Even 
 the witnesses of the Eesurrection of Christ are cited 
 less as witnesses to prove a point, than as wit- 
 nesses who tell an old story over again in order 
 to revivify the convictions of their hearers. St. 
 Paul is not dealing with sceptics as to the Eesur- 
 rection of the Lord to whom it is necessary to present 
 a proof, but with persons whose eyes were only 
 becoming dim to it, and their hearts insensible to its 
 influence. All, both Apostle and converts, are agreed 
 upon one point, and have one point to start from. 
 The Christ who had died and risen again, who had 
 passed through death to life, was the substance of 
 their common faith. Whether it was St. Paul himself 
 or his fellow- Apostles, so they preached, and so the 
 Corinthians believed. Let the latter think over it 
 again ; and, as they were even now persuaded of the 
 truth itself, let them be prepared to follow it out, as 
 they would follow out all truth, to the consequences 
 which were legitimately involved in it. 
 
*' Now if Christ is preached that lie hath been raised from the dead, 
 how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead P 
 But if there is no resurrection of tlie dead, neither hath Christ been 
 raised : and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching 
 vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, and we are found false 
 witnesses of God ; because we witnessed of God that he raised up 
 Christ : whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead are not 
 raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been 
 raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain ; ye 
 are yet in your sins. Then they also tchich are fallen asleep in 
 Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, 
 we are of all men most intiable.^* — 1 Cor. xv. 12-19. [R.V.] 
 
ffllntptcr ti 
 
 TN the first eleven verses of the chapter the Apostle 
 had laid the foundation of his argument, and he 
 is now ready to proceed to the argument itself. He 
 is to conduct it by an appeal to what the Corinthian 
 Christians knew and acknowledged with regard to 
 the Eesurrection and the Eesurrection-life of Christ. 
 Neither of these great facts is he again to establish. 
 Even the witnesses, cited in the long list contained 
 in vers. 5-8 of the chapter, had been cited by him 
 not so much to prove what hardly stood in need of 
 proof, as to illustrate and enforce the fact on which 
 his mind was fixed, and to bring it home to his 
 readers with fresh liveliness and power. To this last 
 result all that he had said had tended ; and now the 
 result is gained. The risen and glorified Eedeemer 
 is before both himself and the Corinthian Church as 
 One who, after having died for their sins, has been 
 raised from the grave, and has ascended to His 
 rather and tlieir Father, to His God and their God. 
 Having gained this point St. Paul is ready to proceed 
 with his argument for the resurrection of the dead. 
 It is drawn from the absurd and incredible con- 
 
22 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 sequences involved in a denial of the fact, and it is 
 summed up in one particular, everything that follows 
 being merely subsidiary to this : " Now, if Christ is 
 preached that He hath been raised from the dead, 
 how say some among you that there is no resurrection 
 of the dead ? But if there is no resurrection of the 
 dead, neither hath Christ been raised." 
 I The conclusion was obvious and direct. It was 
 'urged at Corinth that the resurrection of the dead was 
 impossible. Once committed to the grave, was the 
 plea, all experience shows that the body returns to 
 the dust from which it was originally taken ; its 
 particles mingle with the particles of the soil in which 
 it finds its final resting-place ; nay, they even pass from 
 that soil into other forms of vegetable and animal 
 existence ; they cannot be gathered together again, 
 ( and be built up in their old earthly frame ; if we are 
 to use the word resurrection at all, we must apply it 
 to the spiritual resurrection which takes place when 
 we believe in Christ, and are made new creatures in 
 ^Him. You yourself, the objectors would further urge, 
 have taught us to look at the matter in this light. 
 You have said that when a sinner embraces the offer 
 of the gospel he dies, and that his life is thence- 
 forward hid with Christ in God. More than that, 
 you have said that, in the first great open crisis of his 
 spiritual history, he is buried with Christ through 
 baptism into death, that, like as Christ was raised 
 from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also 
 he might walk in newness of life. That is the only 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 23 
 
 resurrection. There is no resurrection from tlie 
 grave. Our proposition to that effect is universal, i 
 and it cannot be disputed. -^ 
 
 But, if so, it followed as a necessary consequence I 
 that Christ had not been raised. Christ did not 
 come into the world as an exception to the laws that 
 regulate the ordinary history of man, or to occupy a 
 position entirely separate and distinct from that of 
 the other members of the human family. He did 
 not come to show us in His life and death and Ee- 
 surrection and Ascension what an order of beings wholly 
 distinct from man might be, might do, or might become. 
 It is true that He was the Son of God, but He was 
 also the Son of man, possessed of a genuine and com- 
 plete humanity, so that whatever befell Him may 
 befall us, that whatever is inconsistent with the 
 essential, although it may be the undeveloped, powers 
 of humanity was not less to Him impossible. ^__— ; 
 
 If, therefore, it be a law pertaining to the essence ( 
 of human nature that one who has once died shall 
 never rise from the dead, we must be deceived in our 
 belief of Christ's Eesurrection ; He hath not. He 
 cannot have, been raised. It is unnecessary to argue 
 the point further. There were only two ways in 
 which the conclusion could be escaped. Either Christ 
 was not truly man, or He had not been raised. The 
 doubters at Corinth would accept neither alternative. 
 They believed that Christ was truly man. They 
 believed not less that He at least had been raised. 
 Their universal proposition was shown in a particular 
 
24 THE RP:SURRECTI0N OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 instance to be false, and they were bound therefore,. 
 
 / if they reasoned correctly, to abandon it. 
 
 r^^TliQ Apostle, however, had been accustomed to 
 argue, not only with hesitating or heretical Christians, 
 but with stubborn Jews and Greek philosophers who 
 had all the sophistry of the day at their command. 
 He knew therefore that a mere victory in argument 
 was not enough. Even if convinced that he was 
 right, and unable to reply, his hearers might so cling 
 to their original position that, rather than abandon 
 it, they might be tempted to modify the conditions 
 under which they held it, and to doubt whether,, 
 after all, Christ tvas risen. If, they might say, the 
 Kesurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the 
 dead are so inseparably bound up with one another,, 
 may we not have made some mistake in the mode 
 in which we have clung to our belief in the latter 
 fact ? We see no way of forsaking our first propo- 
 sition, that a resurrection of the dead there cannot 
 be. What if we should be compelled by the 
 necessities of logical defence to admit that Christ 
 Himself did not rise ? 
 
 Such is the danger that the Apostle has now 
 before him ; and accordingly he meets it by pointing 
 out several c onse cj iienc es that will flow from an 
 acceptance of the possibility that the Eesurrection 
 of Christ had not really taken place. 
 
 I ^ 1. "If Christ hath not been raised, then is our 
 l^reaching " (not the act of preaching, but the 
 substance of what was preached) " vain, your faith 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 25 
 
 also is vain" (ver. 14); and again (ver. 17), "your 
 faith is vain." In these two verses the "vanity" 
 spoken of is expressed by two different words, the one 
 (xsvog) denoting what has no reality, what is empty or 
 void, the other Qxdraiog) denoting what produces no 
 effect, what issues in no good ; while, in the latter 
 verse of the two, the Apostle brings his meaning still 
 more fully out by adding to the words " your faith is 
 vain," " ye are yet in your sins." His meaning there- 
 fore is obvious. If Christ has not been raised, and is 
 not now a living Lord, the gospel which we preach is 
 a meaningless proclamation to men ; it has no reality, 
 no power to bring them deliverance ; they are yet 
 in their sins. 
 
 But what is the connexion between these two 
 facts ? Does St. Paul mean simply to tell us this, that 
 if Christ has not been raised it is a proof that the 
 burden of our sins has been too much for Him ; that 
 even by His life and labours and sufferings and death 
 He has failed to expiate sin ; that our sins are still 
 around Him and upon Him in that grave to which He 
 had been committed ; that He has not accomplished 
 the atonement for which we hoped ; and that we are 
 still under the curse of the law, with nothing before 
 us but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and 
 fiery indignation, from which there is no prospect of 
 escape ? This may be in part his meaning ; but when 
 it is presented to us as the whole, it is unsatisfactory 
 and incomplete. It is at variance with that teaching! 
 of Scripture which tells us that not death, but life 
 
26 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 through death, was the end for which Jesus came ; it 
 makes the pardon of sin the main purpose of the 
 Divine economy of grace ; and it resolves the Re- 
 surrection of Christ into a mere proof that His death 
 has been accepted by the Almighty as an all-sufficient 
 offering upon our behalf. Besides which, it is hardly 
 possible, under this point of view, to understand the 
 force of the Apostle's argument. If Christ came into 
 the world simply to die for us, and thereby to 
 procure us acceptance with God ; if He did die a 
 spotless and acceptable victim to that righteous 
 Lawgiver whose holiness we had oifended, and 
 whose law we had outraged ; if, according to His 
 own language, recorded by St. John, the love of 
 the Father was most of all drawn out to Him by 
 the fact that He laid down His life (John x. 17), 
 it is not easy to see why His death should have 
 been in vain, even although He did not rise. Why 
 should His sacrifice not have been complete when 
 upon the cross of Calvary He came to the termina- 
 tion of His woe ? Without His Eesurrection we 
 might want the visible testimony of God's accept- 
 ance of His offering, the visible assurance that, as 
 we had died in Him, the penalty of transgression 
 was removed, and the power of death for ever broken. 
 But surely, even without this visible testimony and 
 assurance, we might have rested in the conclusion 
 that a sacrifice so precious as that of Christ could 
 not have been in vain. It might have delivered 
 us, though it did not deliver Him, and we might 
 
CHAP. 11 THE RESURRECTIOX OF THE DEAD 27 
 
 have been called to everlasting gratitude towards 
 One who gave Himself for us, and who died that 
 we might live. Christ's Eesur recti on need not have 
 been necessary to set us free from the punishment 
 of those sins which He bore in His own body on 
 the cross ; and to tell us, therefore, that if Christ 
 be not raised we are yet in our sins, because He is 
 yet in our sins, is to use language which is either 
 difficult to understand, or which, if we do understand 
 it, is at variance with the reason of the case. 
 
 The truth is, that the whole question has been 
 perplexed by the tendency alike of theologians and 
 religious men to resolve Christ's work almost wholly, 
 if not wholly, into a plan of procuring pardon for the 
 sinner, to view it too exclusively in its relation to the 
 penalties of law, and to make holiness a consequence 
 rather than an integral part of salvation. Such is not 
 the Scripture method of looking at the matter. It is 
 true that pardon has to be secured, that a violated law 
 has to be satisfied, and that love, in return for the great 
 love wherewith we have first been loved, has to be 
 awakened in the Christian's breast, leading him into 
 all cheerful obedience and all devout submission to his 
 heavenly Father's will. Yet in the minds of the 
 sacred writers there is something higher than any 
 verdict of forgiveness that may be pronounced upon 
 us, more important than our acquittal at the bar of 
 God, more essentially, more intimately a part of our 
 redeemed condition than gratitude, however lively, or 
 love, however w^arm. There is that aspect of salvation 
 
28 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ir 
 
 which consists in life, life with Him and in Him who 
 made us for Himself, the life of God in our souls, so 
 that we shall be created again in the likeness of One 
 in whose image we were originally made, and in con- 
 formity to whom the idea of our nature lies. 
 
 It was for this that the Lord Jesus Christ came. 
 He came not to die, but to live ; to submit indeed, in 
 the first place, to death, because, as our Eepresentative, 
 He had to conform Himself to the great law every- 
 where prevailing in a sinful world, that death freely 
 accepted is the only path to life ; but then, having 
 submitted to this. He came to rise to that life of 
 perfect freedom which belongs to unreserved sub- 
 mission to the Father, and to yield Himself joyfully 
 and for ever to the Father's service, as One who had 
 fulfilled the commandment of the Father's love. To 
 this life, too. He brings His people. They were with 
 (Him in His death ; they are with Him in His life. 
 ■ And now we see the connexion between the 
 premiss and the conclusion of the Apostle's statement, 
 that if Christ be not raised we are yet in our sins. 
 We are yet in our natural condition, under the 
 penalty, but especially under the power, of sin. Only 
 in a Saviour who threw our sins off, and who rose to 
 a life separated from all connexion with sin, can we 
 throw our sins off, and rise to the higher, the 
 heavenly, life. Only if Christ now lives the life 
 of God can we live the life of God, for it is in 
 Christ we live. If, therefore, Christ has not been 
 raised, and is not now livincj with the Father, the 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 29 
 
 very end of salvation must be left unanswered in 
 us ; our faith is vain ; we are yet in our sins. _, 
 
 2. A second consequence that should make the7 
 Corinthian Christians careful how they accepted, as 
 an escape from difficulties the idea that Christ had 
 not been raised, is contained in the 15 th verse, 
 ■" Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ; 
 because we witnessed of God that He raised up 
 Christ ; whom He raised not up if so be that the 
 dead are not raised up." The point is simple, and 
 it needs little illustration. But it must have gone 
 home with peculiar power to those to whom it was 
 first presented. They knew in a manner of which 
 we can probably form only a faint idea what the 
 *' witness " of St. Paul and of his fellow-Apostles 
 meant. They had seen them in their labours and 
 their sufferings, as they went from country to 
 country and from city to city upon the great 
 mission which they had undertaken. They had 
 seen them abandon all the comforts of kindred 
 and of home in order to devote themselves to a 
 work in which they were exposed to contempt and 
 scorn and persecution. What a life was that which 
 the messengers of Christ then led ! In this very 
 Epistle St. Paul describes not only his own ex- 
 perience, but that of every other preacher of the 
 cross in these days, when he says, " For I think 
 that God hath set forth us the Apostles last of all, 
 as it were doomed to death ; for we are made a 
 spectacle unto the world, both to angels and to men. 
 
30 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and 
 thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no 
 certain dwelling-place : we toil, we are reviled we 
 are persecuted, we are defamed, we are made as the 
 filth of the world, the offscouring of all things even 
 until now" (1 Cor. iv. 9-13) ; and in many another 
 passage of his writings he lets us see how truly the 
 words of his Divine Master had been fulfilled in His 
 servants, " If they have persecuted me they will also 
 persecute you." 
 
 What then was all this for ? The answer was at 
 hand. It was that they might witness to the death 
 and Resurrection of Christ, that they might testify to 
 what they had seen with their eyes, and heard with 
 their ears, and their hands had handled of the word 
 of life. Nor did they do this only of their own 
 accord, urged on by natural impulses, or feeling them- 
 selves responsible to man alone. In this respect the 
 words of ver. 15, "And we are found false witnesses 
 of God," are peculiarly instructive, for they prove two 
 things. First, St. Paul and those associated with him 
 acted under the conviction that they witnessed not at 
 the bar of man, but at the bar of the great Searcher 
 of hearts and the great Judge of all. It was in 
 the presence of God Himself that they spoke. The 
 Divine eye was upon them ; the Divine judgment 
 was before them. They stood in the Divine presence, 
 and not in the presence of any human tribunal, how- 
 ever great. Secondly, the very thought of falsehood in 
 (riving testimony in such circumstances could not be 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 31 
 
 for a moment entertained. Such is the force of the 
 words " we are found," wliich, according to New 
 Testament usage, are by no means equivalent to " we 
 are." They express what, in a real result, is its 
 entire unexpectedness, its strange and inexplicable 
 character; and they therefore lead us to think of 
 that result as one, the existence of which it is 
 hardly possible to conceive. Could then, is the 
 argument, St. Paul and all those who witnessed 
 with him have deliberately fabricated the story 
 which they had proclaimed, or could they have 
 had any intention to deceive ? The thing was 
 incredible. There are laws of human nature as 
 true, and as certain in their operation, as the laws 
 of the physical universe around us. You cannot 
 believe, St. Paul would say, in the infraction of the 
 one ; can you believe in the infraction of the other ? 
 you will not believe that the dead shall be raised ; 
 can you believe that we, the living, are insensible 
 to human motives, human aims, human fears, and 
 human hopes ? You know what we, who have borne 
 witness, are ; and to bring us in as false witnesses 
 of God, when we say that Jesus was raised and is 
 now alive in glory, is to involve yourselves in a 
 contradiction from which a moment's reflection will 
 show you that you have no escape. 
 
 (^ A third consequence, intended to press home 
 upon the Corinthian Christians the disastrous results 
 that would flow from the fact, if it were true, that 
 Christ had not been raised from the dead, is contained 
 
32 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 in the 18tli verse: " Then they also which are fallen 
 asleep in Christ perished." The Authorized Version 
 translates " are perished," the Eevised Version " have 
 perished." Neither translation conveys the force of 
 the original. The Apostle does not merely say that 
 the persons of whom he speaks are now in a state to 
 which the word " perished " may be applied, but that 
 at the moment when they died they perished. He 
 takes his readers back to the solemn hour when they 
 had been called upon to part with the Christian 
 friends whom they had loved. Had these died the 
 martyr's death, as he himself had seen Stephen die, 
 then what was the meaning of that stedfast looking 
 up into heaven, of tnat sight of the glory of God and 
 Jesus standing on the right hand of God, or of the 
 words, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," " Lord, lay 
 not this sin to their charge," after which the martyr 
 " fell asleep " ? Was it all a delusion ? Was there 
 no victory there ? no rest at last found in Him 
 for whom the martyr suffered ? Or, had they died 
 in their own beds, he then asks his readers to enter 
 with him again into that chamber of death which 
 had left such indelible traces on their memories. 
 He recalls the circumstances of a scene which 
 they remembered with a tenderness of feeling un- 
 equalled by that of any other through which they 
 had passed. He bids them look again into the coun- 
 tenance worn with sickness yet full of hope, into the 
 eyes closing on this world but already lighting up with 
 the beams that came from another and a better, — and 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 3S 
 
 he says, as it were, to them. You remember these 
 things, these hours in the history of honoured and 
 beloved friends who had lived in Christ, and were now 
 dying as they had lived. You then resigned them 
 into the hands of a Eedeemer who had lain in the 
 grave before them, who had been raised from the grave, 
 and who was waiting for them on the other side of 
 the dark waters of death. You said to them, as the 
 last sigh was about to escape from their lips, We shall 
 meet again ; and from that hour to this you have 
 consoled yourselves with the reflection that they 
 sleep in "Christ, their souls with Him, their bodies 
 resting in the grave till the resurrection. Has all 
 this been a delusion ? Instead of this did they 
 " perish," forsaken of God, and separated from Him 
 whom they had loved and served ? It cannot be. 
 Yet so it must be if Christ has not been raised. 
 There is no other hope. 
 
 The appeal is made to the deepest instincts of our 
 nature. It is not a proof, and it is not intended to be 
 a proof, either that Christ has risen or that we shall 
 rise. It is an appeal to feeling, a statement of the 
 disastrous consequences that will follow from our 
 denying that Eesurrection of Christ with which the 
 resurrection of His people is inseparably connected. 
 We cannot believe that the good of all past genera- 
 tions, that those who, even amidst the frailties of the 
 flesh, were yet distinguished by so much that was 
 pure and noble and beautiful, that those who had 
 wound themselves about our hearts, not only by the 
 
 c 
 
34 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 ties of natural affection, but by secret charms of 
 character, hidden it may be from the world, but 
 known in the privacy of the family and the home, have 
 perished without the hope of ever being united either 
 to Him or to us who know that we, with them, have 
 been made partakers of His eternal life. Was God 
 their Father ? Was there such a thing as a fatherly 
 relation between Him and them ? Can we ex- 
 plain their existence as they were without supposing 
 them to be His children ? And did He so train them 
 by His providence and grace that, long before the 
 instant of their falling asleep, they were " in Christ," 
 in the Holy One and the Just, who was day by day 
 fashioning them into a greater likeness with Himself ? 
 How then, if they have perished, shall we resist the 
 darkest views of Pessimism ? 
 
 Count o'er the joys thine eyes have seen, 
 Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
 
 And know, whatever thou hast been, 
 'Tis something better not to be. 
 
 ' 4. A fourth and last consideration, intended to 
 bring home to his readers, not the fact, but the vast 
 importance of the fact, that Christ is living still, is 
 contained in the 1 9th verse : " If in this life only we 
 have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most piti- 
 able." The marginal rendering of the Eevised Version 
 is to be preferred : " If we have only hoped in Christ 
 in this life, we are of all men most pitiable ; " and 
 the meaning is, that if our hope in Christ comes to 
 an end with this present life, if it does not carry us 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 35 
 
 on to another and a better world, where we shall be 
 reunited to Him and shall live with Him for ever, then 
 are we far more deserving of pity than other men. 
 
 The words are difficult, and have often given rise 
 to misapprehension. Let us observe (1) that St. Paul 
 is not dealing with the supposition that, apart from 
 the resurrection, the soul may live on after death 
 separated from the body. It may be said that 
 the resurrection is not necessary to our future wel- 
 fare ; that if the soul be saved it is enough ; and 
 that, if at death the spirit of man returns to the 
 Father of spirits, it may then continue to exist in the 
 possession of such a purely spiritual joy that it shall 
 not miss a human frame, but shall rather be like an 
 imprisoned bird let loose to rise and float in its native 
 element. Such thoughts, it would seem, are strange 
 to the Apostle and to Scripture generally. At all 
 events they are not here. St. Paul thinks of man as 
 he knew him, in his compound personality of both 
 body and spirit ; and it is enough for him, therefore, 
 to contemplate the possibility of man's not reaching 
 as a whole eternal happiness. (2) The Apostle does 
 not discuss the question whether virtue and goodness 
 are not in themselves a great reward. Let us suppose 
 a case put to him — the case of a man who, without 
 thought of God, the sanctions of religion, or the 
 expectation of a future life, devotes himself to the 
 love and practice of whatever is most estimable and good. 
 Let such an one do his utmost to expel sin from his 
 heart, to train his own character, to benefit his fellow- 
 
36 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 creatures, to encourage every benevolent enterprise, to 
 exhibit generosity and tenderness of heart ; and then 
 let us ask the Apostle whether that man has no reward 
 in his goodness alone ? He would surely not have 
 answered in the negative. He who proclaimed to his 
 heathen hearers at Athens a God in whom all men live 
 and move and have their being ; who recognised the 
 craving of the human heart, apart from direct Christian 
 instruction, after an invisible and supreme Euler of 
 the universe ; who exhorted the Philippians to the 
 practice of whatever things were true and honourable, 
 and just and pure, and lovely and of good report, and 
 who even spoke . of creation itself as groaning and 
 travailing in pain along with man ; he, in short, 
 who shows in all his writings how much he values 
 the principles of natural as well as revealed religion, 
 could never have said that a virtuous life in 
 the commonest acceptation of the term would 
 in itself, and apart from the hope of immortality, 
 have made men " pitiable." No one would have 
 allowed more fully that virtue must bring with it 
 its own reward, and that even for its own sake it 
 jwas worthy to be pursued. 
 
 What then does St. Paul really mean by the 
 language of this 19th verse? We shall understand 
 him better if we attend to the following considera- 
 tions : — 
 
 ((i.) The word he uses is not "miserable," but 
 "pitiable" QXisivog), He does not say that in 
 this life Christians are " miserable " because in 
 
CHAP. II THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 37 
 
 fighting the good fight of faith and running the 
 Christian race they have to take up their cross and 
 suffer, as if virtue would not be worth suffering for 
 even although there should be no happy future in 
 store. What he says is, that they of whom he speaks 
 are of all men " most pitiable," that there are none 
 whose life is so built upon sand that will be at once 
 swept away beneath them when the great trial comes, 
 none the very essence and aim and animating prin- 
 ciple of whose being will be one day proved to have 
 been so utterly deceptive. 
 
 (2.) For, observe the difference between the 
 naturally righteous man and the man righteous in 
 the power of Christian faith, the difference which 
 marks the principle and regulates the extent of 
 their respective righteousnesses. Both, the Apostle 
 would have said, are what they are in Christ in 
 whom " were all things created " (Col. i. 16); but 
 the latter alone knows and sees this, and is alone 
 alive to the fact that he lives, not by One who 
 framed the fabric of the universe and of man at 
 the beginning, but in One who is even now a living 
 Lord at the right hand of the Father, sending down 
 His quickening, living, eternal Spirit into all the 
 members of His Body to make them like Himself 
 the Head. 
 
 (3^) If, therefore, there be no risen glorified Christ, 
 which of the two has been living most in dreams of 
 the night, in fantastic imaginations of the brain ? Not 
 the former. He thought of this world alone, and he had 
 
38 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ii 
 
 his reward. But surely the latter, all the most power- 
 ful motives of whose life are shown to have rested on a 
 delusion, and who has never grasped anything but a 
 shadow. We " pity " him not because it is not worth 
 while to live or even die for what is good, or as if the 
 joy of goodness cannot repay suffering for its sake, but 
 because it is always sad to see men spending time and 
 strength upon what must prove at last to have had no 
 reality, and because the sadness deepens in proportion 
 to the loftiness of the expectation that is dashed to 
 the ground. 
 
 (Ti) All this is confirmed when we remember that 
 the deepest element of the Christian life is suffering, 
 is in one sense or another cross-bearing. The cross of 
 Christ was not simply a temporary incident in the life 
 of Jesus. It is an eternal principle in His kingdom. 
 All His disciples must take up their cross and follow 
 Him if they would really be partakers of His Spirit ; 
 and why should they do so, when they might, at least 
 to a large extent, avoid it, unless they believe that, 
 like their Master, both they themselves and those for 
 whom they suffer have the rewards of another and a 
 higher life in view ? Self-denial and self-sacrifice are 
 virtues that spring from a higher order of things than 
 that of time, and if Christ be not raised up and 
 glorified we shall seek in vain for such an order to be 
 either our guide or strength. 
 
 Thus then does the Apostle enforce the arguments 
 which he had used against those Christians at Corinth 
 who denied the resurrection of the dead. His appeal 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 has been to fact and to fact alone. His reasoning on 
 the subject, the light that he is to cast upon the fact 
 when it has its place assigned to it in God's eternal 
 and universal plan, is still to come. In the meantime 
 his one cry has been, Behold the fact, Christ is risenf 
 He could not have risen if dead men rise not ; and if 
 He be not risen, the oracles of God's grace which 
 satisfy the aspirations of man as he presses on to the 
 perfection for which he longs may be for ever 
 dumb ; the deepest principles of human nature are 
 overthrown ; the tenderest and most sacred affections of 
 our hearts are crushed ; and life itself, with all that 
 most ennobles and beautifies it, becomes a burden 
 and a sorrow. 
 
*' But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them 
 that are asleep. Fo-r since by man came death, by man came also 
 the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in 
 Christ shall all be made alive." — 1 Cor. xv. 20-22. [R.V.] 
 
'T^HE words " But now " with which the Apostle be- 
 gins ver. 20 are not the mere expression of time. 
 In a sense in which we frequently meet them in his 
 writings, they are used to denote the whole circum- 
 stances of the case, the change that had passed upon 
 the old order of things, and the new order that had 
 been introduced : " But now, apart from the law, a 
 righteousness of God hath been manifested." " But 
 now hath God set the members each one of them in 
 the body, even - as it pleased Him." " But now 
 abideth faith, hope, love, these three " (Eom. iii. 2 1 ; 
 1 Cor. xii. 18, xiii. 13). At the point, therefore, 
 of the Apostle's argument that we have reached, he 
 evidently throws off, as with a shout of joy and 
 triumph, the miserable consequences which he had 
 shown in the immediately preceding verses must 
 inevitably flow from an admission of the idea that 
 Christ had not been raised from the dead. Christian 
 preaching was not, as it would then have been, the 
 proclamation of a meaningless and empty message. 
 Christian faith was not a principle incapable of 
 producing any good results. The Apostles and 
 
42 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, in 
 
 messengers of the Lord were not false witnesses 
 daring, under the very eye of God and in the light 
 of His coming judgment, to announce as a fact what 
 they knew was not a fact. The Christian dead had 
 not perished, but were still under the guardianship 
 of a risen and living Lord ; and Christians still alive, 
 instead of being of all men most pitiable because 
 resting their whole life on a delusion, and continually 
 sacrificing what the voice of nature bade them keep, 
 were rather of all men most blessed. Their hope was 
 sure, an anchor of the soul ; and the light afflictions 
 of this life, which were only for a moment, were not 
 worthy to be compared with the glory that should be 
 revealed to them. All was safe then : all was bright 
 and full of glad expectation. Christ was risen, and 
 His people shall also rise. 
 
 But the great thought which filled the Apostle's 
 mind was one that needed further expansion and 
 illustration. Christ actually raised from the dead ! 
 Dead men actually to rise ! There was something 
 in the contemplation of such an idea that could not 
 fail to startle, and to rouse incredulity to the very 
 uttermost. It may seem to us easy to accept the 
 statement. It is only easy when we occupy ourselves 
 with words instead of things. The moment we 
 realize what it means, difficulties spring up on every 
 side ; and we are compelled to ask, not for external 
 proof only of what appears to be so singular and 
 isolated a fact, but for internal demonstration of 
 its reasonableness, of its adaptation to the nature 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 43 
 
 of man, and of its harmony with all the other 
 dealings of the Almighty in a universe which, 
 if it has a supreme Creator and Governor, must 
 be one consistent whole. To answer such questions, 
 and to throw light upon such a mystery, is what 
 St. Paul has now before him. 
 
 1. First, he re-states the facts in another form 
 with which his Christian readers were familiar : 
 " But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, 
 the first-fruits (the words " and become " of the 
 Authorized Version are to be omitted) of them that 
 are asleep." 
 
 The figure is taken from the beautiful ceremony 
 of the Law described in Lev. xxiii. 10-12: "When 
 ye be come into the land which I give unto you, 
 and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall 
 bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest; 
 and ye shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be 
 accepted for you : on the morrow after the Sabbath 
 the priest shall wave it. And in the day when 
 ye wave the sheaf, ye shall offer a he-lamb without 
 blemish of the first year for a burnt-offering unto 
 the Lord." That is, at the season of the Passover, 
 when the barley harvest, the earliest harvest of the 
 year, was beginning to ripen, a sheaf of ripe ears 
 (for so the injunction was understood) was to be 
 gathered from the fields near Jerusalem, and was 
 to be waved in solemn dedication to the Lord. The 
 day chosen for the ceremonial was that following 
 the Sabbath, or, in other words, our Sunday, the 
 
44 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 first day of the week, which came after the celebra- 
 tion of the Paschal Feast. That sheaf was not 
 dedicated to God merely because it was the earliest 
 ripened. It had a symbolic meaning. It was the 
 first-fruits of the harvest of the whole congregation, 
 and it signified that the entire harvest of the year 
 was God's. It was a pledge and earnest that every 
 sheaf of the season would be regarded in the same 
 sacred light alike by God and Israel. All the 
 sheaves of the year were lifted up in thought out 
 of their natural condition ; and though all, with 
 the one single exception, were given to the people 
 for food, they followed the first in the essential 
 notion of their elevated and consecrated character. 
 The binding nature of the tie between the first- 
 fruits and the remainder of the harvest, and the 
 dedication of all to God, still further symbolized 
 by the burnt-offering of the lamb, is thus the leading 
 feature of the ceremonial here referred to. 
 
 This figure then is now used by the Apostle, 
 and we cannot fail to see that it is used with 
 peculiar appropriateness when we remember that 
 it was on the first day of the week, on the Sunday 
 after our Passover was sacrificed for us, that the 
 Lord Jesus rose. On that morning He, the first 
 sheaf of the ripening corn, was presented to His 
 Father in His risen and glorified condition, that 
 not as a single individual only, but as including in 
 Himself the harvest to follow, He might thence- 
 forward, through obedience and submission to the 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 45 
 
 Father's will, be a continual burnt-offering, sending 
 up the savour of a sweet smell in the heavenly 
 sanctuary. 
 
 Such is the figure ; and, looked at with eyes 
 well acquainted with the rites of Israel, it helped, 
 even alone, to prepare the way for what was to 
 follow. If Christ rose as the first-fruits of them 
 that are asleep, they can no more be separated 
 from Him than the body of the harvest from the 
 first sheaf of it that was waved before the Lord, 
 ( 2.! Secondly, still deeper thoughts, however, are in 
 the Apostle's mind, and to them he proceeds in the 
 two next following verses : " For since by man came 
 death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 
 For as in the Adam all die, so in the Christ shall all 
 be made alive" (vers. 21, 22). 
 
 Before speaking of the principle involved in these 
 verses, it may be well to examine the extent of that 
 effect which is ascribed to it, or, in other words, the 
 meaning of the clause, " all shall be made alive." At 
 first sight it may seem as if we ought to adopt what 
 is generally a safe rule of interpretation, and to 
 understand this clause in the sense which it most 
 easily and naturally bears. But such a rule obviously 
 implies that the words under consideration shall not 
 be wrested from their context, or be considered apart 
 from the whole thought that is at the moment in the 
 writer's mind. To ascertain that thought is the aim 
 of the interpreter ; and if he is successful in doing so, 
 he is in possession of a test by which he is not only 
 
46 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 entitled, but bound to try any meaning, however easy 
 and natural, which belongs to a portion of the 
 argument, and if necessary to reject it. In the 
 present instance the application of this rule is at 
 once fatal to the literal acceptation of the words 
 before us. The verb ^uo'7roir}6r}ffovTai (" shall be made 
 alive") cannot mean simply "shall be raised from 
 the grave." It will admit of but one interpretation, 
 " shall be made alive with spiritual and eternal life." 
 Not only its connexion with ^co^, but the fact that 
 it bears this signification in every passage in which, 
 when applied to persons, it occurs in the New 
 Testament (John v. 21, vi. 63 ; Eom. iv. 17, viii. 
 11 ; 1 Cor. XV. 45 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6 ; Gal. iii. 21), 
 is conclusive upon the point. If, therefore, we 
 interpret the word " all " literally, in its sense of 
 universality, the Apostle must be understood to say 
 that all men, without exception, having died in " the 
 Adam" shall be saved with the full Messianic 
 salvation in " the Christ." The statement made will 
 and can only be, a statement of redemption in its 
 most unlimited and most unrestricted form — in a 
 form so unrestricted that universalists themselves 
 cannot accept it. Even they do not urge that 
 persons who have died or, it may be, lived on to the 
 very hour of the Eedeemer's coming, in determined 
 rebellion against God, shall at once pass into the full 
 enjoyment of a heavenly life. Such a conception 
 they would acknowledge to be impossible ; and they 
 would plead for no more than this, that at some 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 47 
 
 point in a distant eternity, and after whatever 
 discipline may be thought necessary by the Ahnighty, 
 every wanderer shall be reclaimed, and every trace 
 of sin extinguished in the reign of unmingled and 
 triumphant good. We know too that, in other 
 passages of his writings, St. Paul has given the 
 clearest expression possible to the truth, that the 
 judgment which brings eternal life to some, brings 
 wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, to 
 others (Eom. ii. 6-11; 2 Thess. i. 6-10). The 
 plainest rules, therefore, of grammatical and historical 
 interpretation forbid us to understand the words 
 before us in that meaning which may at first sight 
 strike us as simplest and most natural. _ , 
 
 A second interpretation is proposed. The state^ 
 ment of the Apostle, it is said, may mean that while 
 all die in Adam, the possibility of salvation is in 
 Christ within the reach of every man. Salvation 
 may not be universal in its application, but, it is so 
 in its offer. If any one is not saved, the fault lies 
 with himself, and neither with Christ nor with the 
 Gospel. The Eedeemer of the world, with all His 
 benefits, is brought within the reach, and is urged 
 upon the acceptance, of every fallen child of Adam. 
 This interpretation may satisfy for a moment, but 
 not long. The contrast, the antithesis, between the 
 two clauses before us is too marked to permit our 
 resting in it as a full explanation of the words. In 
 the Adam all died ; in the Christ all shall be made 
 alive. Nothing can be more direct or more explicit 
 
48 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 than the language. In the one case death is not 
 merely threatened, but inflicted. To say that in the 
 other life is simply offered, can be regarded as little 
 less than an evasion of the difficulty. 
 
 A third interpretation has been recently offered to 
 which it seems desirable to allude. The statement 
 of St. Paul is supposed to rest upon the fact that 
 we are not only redeemed, but created, in Christ ; 
 that through Him there is in every man a principle 
 of good as well as evil ; or, as it might be expressed 
 in the language of St. John, that there is a "true 
 light which lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world " (chap. i. 9). This light is then thought 
 to be kindled in us through the redemptive work 
 of Christ, which so stretches back in its efficacy 
 that in the original conception of our nature we 
 are made partakers of its benefits. By virtue of 
 it we were not only redeemed, we were made as we 
 are, and from the very beginning, side by side with 
 the human and imperfect nature which we inherit 
 in Adam, lie the elements of the divine and perfect 
 nature which we inherit in Christ. "Even before 
 we believe we have two natures, two men, in us ; 
 or, as we phrase it, we have a better and a worse 
 self contending in us for the mastery." Thus the 
 redeeming work of Christ, going back to the instant 
 when our first parents were created is not less 
 extensive, while it is at the same time richer, deeper, 
 and fuller in its effects than was the Fall.^ " As 
 
 1 Cox, The Resurrectiony chap. iii. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 49 
 
 in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made 
 alive." 
 
 It may be at once allowed that this explanation 
 has both an interest of its own in relation to the 
 present passage, and that it connects itself with an 
 important lesson of the Word of God, — that the 
 redemption given us in our Lord is not an after- 
 thought of the Divine mind, but something lying 
 in the original conception of man and of man's 
 destiny. Yet it does not resolve the difficulties 
 with which we have at present to contend. For, 
 in the first place, the death which men are here 
 said to die in Adam is not a mere principle of 
 evil to be contended with and overcome. It includes 
 physical death, that lying down in the grave from 
 which those with whom St. Paul is arguing declared 
 there was no resurrection. It includes therefore 
 what cannot be escaped, what comes upon all men 
 whether they will or no. In the second place, the 
 *' life " here spoken of is no victory gained in this 
 present world, which, too, unless kept steadfast hold 
 of, may again be lost. It is the life of the future 
 world, begun in the resurrection from the grave ; and 
 which, when it has been once obtained, can never be 
 lost. In the third place, the words " shall be made 
 alive " take our thoughts distinctly to the future as the 
 time when the gift shall be bestowed, and not to the 
 past as a time when it was bestowed long ago. What- 
 ever interest, therefore, may attach to this view, the 
 laws of legitimate interpretation are against it. 
 
60 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iir 
 
 In these circumstances there is really no alternative 
 but to ask whether that is not a well-grounded 
 interpretation which sees in the Apostle's words a 
 contrast between two different lines of descent, the 
 one from Adam, the other from Christ ; and whether 
 the " all " spoken of in the second clause may not 
 refer to those alone who have embraced Christ in 
 faith and are now in Him. Not a little in the 
 passage seems to justify such a conclusion. 
 
 For (1) it is impossible to separate the use of the 
 words " them that are asleep " {ruv xixoifiriiiivuv) in ver. 
 20 from the words " that are fallen asleep " (xoifiridsvTsg) 
 in ver. 1 8 ; and, connected as the word is in the 
 latter verse with the additional words " in Christ," 
 no one can imagine that thercj at least^ others than 
 true believers are referred to. (2) The word ' first- 
 fruits " of ver. 20 leads to the same conclusion. 
 What the first-fruits are, the harvest is, the same in 
 consecration, the same in glory ; and the connexion 
 between ver. 20 and ver. 21 leaves no doubt that in 
 the clause " shall all be made alive " we have simply 
 the harvest presented to us in another form. (3) 
 The words " they that are Christ's " in ver. 23 
 express not less clearly the same class of persons as 
 that embodied in the conception of the harvest, and 
 equally show that St. Paul is thinking only of such 
 as shall hereafter share the glory of their Lord at His 
 coming. (4) The special force of the word " in " 
 before the words " the Adam " and " the Christ " 
 ought to be attended to. It seems to imply more 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 51 
 
 than the mere fact that there is a connexion between 
 two different sections of the liuman family and their 
 respective heads, bringing with it in the one case death, 
 in the other life. The expression " in Christ " is too 
 common in the writings of St. Paul to permit us to 
 rest in such a superficial view in the case of the 
 second of the two clauses of which we speak ; and if 
 it possess a deeper meaning there, it is probable that 
 the same meaning may also be found in the first clause. 
 In both, therefore, it would seem that the word " in " 
 points to a connexion freely accepted and partaken of, 
 a bond of will, a bond of consent on the part of a 
 posterity which, in spirit, disposition, and character, 
 adopts and approves of its likeness to its first 
 progenitor. 
 
 There still remains, indeed, a certain difficulty 
 arising from the fact that we thus appear to take the 
 first "all" of ver. 22 in an unrestricted, the second 
 in a restricted sense ; and, to escape this difficulty, it 
 has been proposed to confine that word to believers in 
 the first as w^ell as in the second case. Something 
 may be said for this, especially when we observe that 
 in ver. 24 there is a similar restriction in the use of 
 the word. " All rule and all authority and power " 
 cannot mean these things universally, but only such 
 of them as are opposed to Christ. We may have a 
 similar restriction here ; and if we restrict to believers, 
 as the only persons spoken of, the " all " who in Adam 
 have death as well as the " all " who in Christ have 
 life, we shall preserve the complete parallelism of the 
 
52 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 two. Whatever may be urged on behalf of this ex- 
 pedient, it is unnecessary to resort to it ; nor does 
 there appear to be any good reason why, with perfect 
 fairness of interpretation, we should not understand 
 the word *' all " when it occurs the second time in 
 an apparently more limited sense than that in which 
 it is used the first time. It is really not more 
 limited from the particular point of vievj from which 
 the Apostle treats his suhject. Whether in the second 
 instance " all " be universal or not is not the main 
 consideration in his argument. That it shall be 
 equally extensive in both clauses is not his point. 
 What he concerns himself about is, that there is such 
 a bond of connexion between two different heads and 
 their descendants that the latter partake of everything 
 contained in the former. He beholds two great com- 
 panies marshalled before his eye, possessed of entirely 
 different characteristics, and involved in entirely 
 different fates. On the one hand there is the whole 
 human family, on the other are all who are raised in 
 glory. Of those raised not in glory, but in shame, he 
 does not for an instant think. There is not the slight- 
 est trace of them, as we shall afterwards have occasion 
 to notice more fully, in the passage. He does not see 
 them. They are as much out of his field of vision as 
 if they were non-existent. He sees the two com- 
 panies above mentioned, and them alone ; and, looking 
 at them, he describes the condition of " all " of the one 
 as death in the Adam, that of " all " of the other as 
 life in the Christ. We have only to work ourselves 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 53 
 
 into the Apostle's method of isolating the thought 
 with which he deals at any particular moment 
 from every other, however related to it, in order to 
 see that the two " alls " need not be absolutely co- 
 extensive. They are equally co-extensive in the 
 only light in which it concerns him at present to 
 regard them. 
 
 By these considerations also we are at least guided 
 towards the reply to be made to those who complain 
 that, take the words before us in any sense whatever, 
 the parallel is still incomplete. Our death, it is said, 
 does not depend on our faith in Adam ; and, as our 
 life depends upon our faith in Christ, there is a want 
 of perfect correspondence between the clauses thus 
 brought together. The answer to this difficulty lies 
 in the consideration of who " the Christ" is of whom 
 the Apostle speaks. Let it be particularly noticed 
 that he does not say " Christ," but " the Christ," a 
 rendering which ought certainly to have stood in the 
 text, not the margin, of the Revised Version. In ver. 
 20 he had used the expression " Christ " without the 
 article, because there he is dealing with the personal 
 Eedeemer, of whom he says that He " hath been raised 
 from the dead." In ver. 22 he changes the expression 
 and speaks of " the Christ," because it is now necessary 
 not to think only of the person, but of the work of 
 the Eedeemer, of His whole work, of all that is in- 
 volved in Him. One of the most essential parts of 
 this, however, is Christ's Resurrection from the grave, 
 and the thought of that Resurrection is therefore part 
 
54 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 of the thought wrapped up in the words " the Christ." 
 "The Christ," in short, of ver. 22 is the risen Christ. 
 But Christ risen is, even while risen in the body, 
 essentially " spirit." In this very chapter the raised 
 up body is " a spiritual body " (ver. 44). How then 
 can one be connected with '* the Christ " except by a 
 spiritual principle ? Want of completeness can be 
 assigned to the parallel only when we fail to notice 
 this true meaning of " the Christ." Were Christ only 
 man the parallel would fail, and the Apostle might 
 be charged with false reasoning. But the moment 
 we keep in view that " the Christ " is the risen, 
 the spiritual Christ — that moment we see that the 
 physical bond of connexion in the one case must be 
 responded to by the spiritual bond of faith in the 
 other. 
 
 The Adam and the Christ then, the Adam who fell 
 in Eden, the Christ who now reigns in glory, are the 
 representatives of all who are found in them. It is 
 the great principle of heredity, the principle by which, 
 because they view it in an aspect too exclusively phy- 
 sical, while they neglect to balance it by its comple- 
 mentary principle of moral freedom, men in our day 
 too often extinguish at one stroke the dignity of our 
 nature, and reduce us to the level of plants or animals, 
 each bearing seed in the likeness of its own kind. 
 But the principle of heredity, viewed as it ought to 
 be, is attended with no such consequences. It is 
 rather a principle of the Almighty's well ordered 
 government, not an arbitrary principle, not a principle 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 55 
 
 brought in in the case of the believer, to put right 
 what had gone wrong, but a fundamental principle, 
 one necessary to the consolidation, the union, and the 
 welfare of the race. We see it operating in every 
 nation, class, and family of man. Troubled though it 
 may be by the intrusion of many of our own motives 
 of action, it is still there. Once, or rather twice, we 
 see it clear at its starting-points in the Adam and the 
 Christ, in the one conveying sin and death because of 
 sin, in the other righteousness and life because of 
 righteousness, to " all " who are in the Adam or in the 
 Christ. 
 
 3. Thirdly, one other point in these verses remains 
 to be examined, where St. Paul speaks of the root- 
 principle out of which this arrangement springs : " For, 
 since by man came death, by man came also the 
 resurrection of the dead" (ver. 21). There is more 
 here than the statement of a fcwt which the Apostle 
 had observed. He is dealing with a fundamental and 
 ■eternal principle, and he shows that he is doing so by 
 his use of the word " since." As acknowledged by 
 the best and most recent commentators (e. g. Edwards 
 in loc), that word is not the simple introduction to a 
 parallelism. *' It means," says Edwards, '' much more 
 than resemblance, and more than fitness or congruity. 
 It expresses the necessity that there should be a new 
 head of the race, and an organic centre of life. The 
 necessity arises from our need of redemption. Because 
 through one man sin came into the world, through 
 union with a new source came redemption, and through 
 
56 THE RP]SURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 redemption life." This is undoubtedly the thought, 
 but it needs to be unfolded. Why this necessity ? 
 Whence this because ? The argument appears to be as 
 follows. No man is a mere unit in creation. No 
 man stands alone in the world, called into existence 
 by a separate Jiat of the Creator, unconnected with 
 either the men who have gone before, or the men who 
 are to come after him. He is part of an organism in 
 which his being is transmitted to him, and in whicli 
 he again transmits being to others. That is a part of 
 his nature. Without it he would not be man. The 
 descendant, too, corresponds to the progenitor. The 
 latter does not transmit to the former something 
 different from what he is. He may be said rather to 
 transmit himself. Whatever the progenitor is, the 
 descendant will in his turn be. Whatever the 
 descendant is, the progenitor must have been. Was 
 the progenitor flesh, the descendant will be flesh. 
 Was the progenitor spirit, the descendant will be spirit;, 
 and the bond connecting the two must necessarily 
 partake of the same characteristics. It must be fleshly 
 in the one case, spiritual in the other. If, therefore^ 
 sinful men were to be brought to redemption and life, 
 it was not simply necessary that there should be a 
 new head, a new source, from which they were to 
 spring. It was further necessary that, in effecting 
 this, the line of continuity should be preserved, so 
 that man might be treated as man, and might reach 
 his destiny, not by an arbitrary bound, but along those 
 lines which lie in the very constitution of his being. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 57 
 
 and lead to its full development. Had it been other- 
 wise, his nature would not have been dealt with as it 
 is. In the process of perfecting it, its most essential 
 characteristics would have been changed. No longer 
 as man, but as some other being altogether, would he 
 have reached his goal. 
 
 Again, the attainment of this perfection implies 
 victory over death. Inseparably connected with the 
 thought of both sin and the weakness of the flesh, ex- 
 hibiting in its ravages the fatal consequences of the 
 one and the helplessness of the other, death is that 
 in which all that now prevents man's perfection cul- 
 minates ; and it is overcome only by resurrection. 
 Nothing less than resurrection is true victory over 
 death. Even although man dies in peace ; although 
 he obeys without a murmur the call that summons 
 him from a present world ; although, before the last 
 struggle begins, he has prevailed over that fear of 
 death to which he has all along been subject, it 
 cannot be said that by these things death is overcome. 
 It is not " abolished," or brought to nought (ver. 26), 
 by any mere triumph of faith. If nothing more can 
 be said, there will still be one great sense in which 
 death remains the conqueror in the final war, and the 
 helplessness of the body from which life is fled will 
 be the token of its spoils. Eesurrection alone affords 
 a complete victory over death. 
 
 Hence it is that the Apostle looks upon the 
 " resurrection of the dead " as the necessary destiny 
 of redeemed man ; and, as " the Adam " cannot lead 
 
68 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, hi 
 
 US to tliat destiny, for through hhn we inherit death, 
 the Almighty has another and final mode by which it 
 may be accomplished. As, too, it can only be accom- 
 plished in a manner corresponding to the nature of 
 those who are to be redeemed, he who executes it 
 must be truly human. In other words, " As by man 
 came death, by man must come also the resurrection 
 of the dead." One thing only has to be kept 
 steadily in view. Throughout these verses the 
 Apostle never takes his eye off the risen Christ. As 
 " the first-fruits " of them that sleep Christ is risen. 
 As the man by whom came the resurrection of the 
 dead He is risen. As " the Christ " in contrast with 
 " the Adam " He is risen. It is not from a Christ 
 simply incarnate that the new humanity springs : it 
 is from an incarnate Christ exalted and glorified. 
 The latter alone transmits to us His spiritual, un- 
 changing, everlasting life ; and because, though still 
 essentially man, He is spirit, it is only by a spiritual 
 bond that we can be connected with, and united to. 
 Him. 
 
 That union then has taken place. We believe, — 
 and, as Christ has risen from the dead, as that is a part 
 of His history not less certain than it is a part of 
 the first Adam's history that he fell and died, the 
 fruits of His victory shall certainly be made ours, 
 because we are His. Sprung from the risen Saviour, 
 who is spirit, in that line of spiritual descent which is 
 the only possible one where spirit not flesh is con- 
 cerned, Christians can have no doubt that the 
 
€HAP. Ill THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 59 
 
 experience of the Head will, in due time, be that of 
 the members. The Eesurrection of their Lord brings 
 theirs along with it. They are in the same bundle of 
 life with Him ; and, when He comes again, it will 
 only be to receive them unto Himself, that where He 
 is there they may be also. 
 
But each in his ovni order : Christ the first-fruits; tJien they that are 
 Christ's, at his coming. Then cometli the end, when he shall 
 deliver up tJie kingdom to God, even the Father ; ivhen he shall 
 have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must 
 reign t till lie Jmth put all his enemies under his feet. The last 
 enemy that shall he abolisJied is death. For, He put all things in 
 subjection under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put in 
 subjection, it is evident that he is excepted who did subject all things 
 unto him. And when all things have been subjected unto him, then 
 shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all 
 things unto him, that God may be all in all." — 1 Cor. xv. 23-28. 
 
 [R.V.] 
 
Chapttr ib. 
 
 TT7ITH the close of 1 Cor. xv. 22 the Apostle had 
 really accomplished the end which he had in 
 view in this chapter, for he had shown that, as Christ 
 was raised up from the dead, His people shall also in 
 ■due time be raised up. The scepticism at Corinth, 
 which found expression in the words, " There is no re- 
 surrection of the dead," had been met and answered. 
 In God's great plan there was not only an original head 
 •of the whole human race; a second head of a new 
 •development in that race had appeared. All the 
 members, both of the race and of the new develop- 
 ment, were the direct descendants of their respective 
 heads, were connected with them by an appropriate 
 bond, and inherited what each head, according to 
 an unchangeable principle of the Divine government, 
 transmitted to its posterity. These two heads were 
 Adam and the risen and glorified Eedeemer. Both 
 had the nature of man, so that their descendants 
 were human. Both, as the law of heredity required, 
 transmitted their life, their blood, themselves, so that 
 in each child of Adam there was a true sense in 
 which we see Adam, in each child of Christ, a sense 
 
62 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 not less true in which we see Christ. At each point 
 of the one line, therefore, we behold a human being 
 under that law of sin and death to which Adam by 
 his fall was made subject ; at each point of the other 
 line we behold a human being under that law of 
 perfect righteousness and everlasting life which marks 
 Him who, having died once, dieth no more, but dwells 
 for ever in the Father's presence and in the enjoy- 
 ment of His glory. Finally, the bond connecting 
 each member of the two lines of descent was 
 appropriate to the nature alike of the head and of the 
 members. As the one head was flesh, the bond was in 
 that case fleshly ; as the other head was spirit, the bond 
 was in that case spiritual. These bonds were perfectly 
 distinct. Each led only to its own natural result, — 
 flesh to sin and that death which is the wages of sin,, 
 spirit to righteousness and that life beyond the grave 
 which is the victory over death. No one simply 
 under the influence of either bond alone could have 
 an interest in what was associated exclusively with 
 the other. He who had no position except that 
 belonging to the first line could not share in what 
 was transmitted through the second head. Could 
 any instance be produced of one standing only in 
 the second line, he would have no share in w^hat 
 is transmitted through the first head. All these 
 thoughts, though they may not be fully worked out 
 in vers. 20-22, are clearly in the mind of the 
 Apostle ; and, if we do not admit that they are so, 
 it will not only be impossible to see the force of 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 63 
 
 his reasoning, it will even be difficult to see that his 
 
 reasoning is logically correct. 
 
 One remark further may be made in passing. 
 What has been said at once convicts of incorrectness 
 that method of theological statement which represents 
 our Lord as the Head of a new humanity in which 
 all men, whether they are or are not in possession 
 of the spiritual bond with Him that has been spoken 
 of, mystically share. Christ is the head of a new 
 humanity to those alone who are brought by " spirit " 
 into that line of descent which springs from Him. 
 He is not the Head of a new humanity to those who, 
 disowning and rejecting the influence of " spirit," 
 refuse the only bond by which that new humanity 
 can be made theirs. The language to which we 
 object is therefore, to say the least, ambiguous. But 
 it appears to be, at the same time, on the part of 
 those who most frequently employ it, a mistake, for 
 it flows from the idea that Christ, as incarnate, is 
 the Head of the new humanity, whereas the whole 
 teaching of St. Paul rests on the conception that 
 that Head is to be found in the Christ who is not 
 only incarnate, but is risen, exalted, and glorified. 
 It is not easy to say how much this latter truth, 
 restored to its proper place, would affect our systems 
 of theology. 
 
 But to return. Although the Apostle has gained 
 the point which he had chiefly in view, he cannot 
 dismiss the subject. It rises before him far too great 
 in its interest, far too grave in the particulars 
 
64 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 belonging to it, to be thus hastily set aside. We 
 long to hear more, and he has more to tell. He 
 accordingly proceeds to describe more fully the 
 manner in which the plan of the resurrection is 
 carried out, including in one brief summary the 
 whole chain of events connected with it from its 
 beginning to its close. This also he seems to do in 
 such a way as to show that the whole is a well- 
 ordered plan, suitable to Him who is the ultimate 
 centre of all existence, who has established the 
 harmony of the universe, and the promotion of 
 whose glory must be the issue to which all things 
 tend. 
 
 At ver. 23 he goes on, "But each in his own 
 order: Christ the first-fruits; then they that are 
 Christ's at His presence. Then cometh the end, when 
 He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the 
 Father; when He shall have brought to nought all 
 rule and all authority and power. For He must reign 
 till He hath put all His enemies under His feet. 
 The last enemy that shall be abolished is death. For, 
 He put all things in subjection under His feet." 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell upon the word " order," 
 upon the ranks or sections which, in the process 
 spoken of, pass before our view. Of these there 
 appear to be only two : first, Christ Himself ; 
 secondly, the army of the redeemed. Thus it was 
 in the barley-harvest. Of its parts also we may 
 say, " Each in its own order : " first, the sheaf of 
 the first-fruits; secondly, the remaining harvest of 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 65 
 
 the year. Many indeed urge that we have here a 
 distinct intimation of three ranks of the resurrection 
 army: first, Christ Himself; secondly, the righteous 
 who have fallen asleep in Him ; thirdly, after an 
 interval of the length of which no mention is made, 
 the wicked, whose raising up is to be immediately 
 followed by the general judgment. Of those who 
 take this view of the passage, Pf^eiderer may be 
 quoted as the most recent and able representative. 
 " In ver. 23," he says, " the order {rayiia) of the 
 resurrection is discussed : first of all is Christ * the 
 first-fruits ; ' tlien at His 'xapovGia follow those who are 
 Christ's ; — iJra rh TgXos, i.e., then is the end of the 
 resurrection, namely, the resurrection of all, which 
 moment will be at the same time the end of all 
 things, the end of this present world-period, because 
 it coincides in time with the giving over of the 
 
 sovereignty to God {orav 'jrapudidCj rrjv SaffiAslav rCi dsSjy 
 
 sc. 6 xpiffrog — note the present tense rrapabtbui, which 
 indicates that this giving over is simultaneous with 
 the end of the resurrection). We therefore have 
 here a series of moments of the resurrection, in which 
 each is separated in time from the preceding one; 
 this is expressed by aitap-zj] — gVs/ra — Jra. This 
 distinct idea of a ray/xa, which consists of different 
 parts, and comprises different periods of time, would 
 be altogether destroyed by supposing that g'ra rh 
 TsXog is simultaneous with the preceding sVs/ra . . . 
 ^apovdiu. avrov ; for in that case there would be, at the 
 coming of Christ, only one thing, namely, the resur- 
 
 E 
 
66 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 rection of the Christians, to be expected besides that 
 of Christ, which had preceded it, which evidently 
 would give no ground for speaking of a ' series ; ' 
 and, moreover, the fate of the entire non-Christian 
 world would have been passed over in silence in an 
 inconceivable manner."^ Pfleiderer thus interposes 
 a long period between the rrctpouaia and the rlXog, 
 that period being occupied with Christ's visible 
 exercise of the sovereignty which He had until that 
 time exercised invisibly through the Spirit, and 
 being terminated by the resurrection of the wicked 
 and the general judgment. At the 'Trapovaia Christ enters 
 upon this visible authority, this visible contending 
 with and conquering of all hostile powers : at the 
 TsXog Christ gives up this His (3ccaiXs/a to the Father, 
 and God is all in all : the interval is the millennium 
 of the Apocalypse, though St. Paul says nothing of 
 its duration being limited to a thousand years. At 
 the same time, Pfleiderer frankly admits not only 
 that the internal character of this Pauline millenniuiii 
 differs from that of the Johannine, but that the 
 whole conception of it is inconsistent with St. Paul's 
 teaching elsewhere, and is a proof that the Apostle 
 had not yet been able to shake off the remnants of 
 his Jewish theology, although he had failed to 
 harmonize it with his advanced Christian yvuGig. 
 The point is thus of much greater importance than 
 may at first be supposed, and it deserves careful 
 consideration. 
 
 ^ Paulinism, translated by Peters, vol. i. p. 268. 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 67 
 
 ( l^.'The idea of St. Paul's inconsistency with 
 himself may be speedily dismissed. Were such 
 inconsistency established, the true inference would 
 be that one or other of the documents, the statements 
 of which could not be brought to tally with each 
 other, was not the genuine production of the Apostle. 
 In the present case it is impossible to urge this, 
 for the other document mainly referred to is the 
 Epistle to the Eomans, and no one doubts that both 
 it and 1 Corinthians proceeded from St. Paul's pen. 
 That there should be inconsistency between these 
 two great Epistles, written with but a short interval 
 of time between them, upon a question of such deep in- 
 terest and importance as the winding up of the world's 
 history, is a thought which no reasonable interpreter 
 can for a moment entertain. Apparent inconsistency 
 would simply prove that, in one or other of the 
 places where the subject is referred to, we misunder- 
 stand the words. 
 
 •^.^ The allegation that the mere existence of two 
 terms is not sufficient to justify the Apostle in 
 speaking of a " series " may be dismissed with equal 
 ease. The word ra/^a involves in it no idea of a 
 lengthened series. It probably denotes one's place 
 in a series ; and there may in this respect be such a 
 difference between the position of two parties, not 
 less than of three or four, as fully to justify its use. 
 In the case of the first sheaf of the barley-harvest 
 and of the harvest following it we have already had 
 in ver. 20 a series of two. Each of these had its 
 
68 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 own TayiMot.. A similar illustration, when the word 
 is employed in a military sense, is afforded by the 
 thought of a captain and his company. 
 
 ( 3. Almost as quickly we may dispose of the 
 assertion that the Apostle's silence as to the fate 
 of the non-Christian world is " inconceivable." If 
 . so, all the statements of the chapter are equally in- 
 conceivable, for it is throughout silent upon this 
 point. From its first verse to its last it speaks of 
 Christians and of Christians alone. Not only so. 
 In 1 Thess. iv. 13-18, at a time when St. Paul is 
 treating of the very subject that he has here before 
 him, the resurrection of the dead, we have a precisely 
 similar omission of all reference to non-Christians. 
 In vers. 16 and 17 of that chapter, it seems at first 
 sight to be the Apostle's intention to set forth all 
 the events of the great day ; and, if he does set 
 them all forth, it would be a just inference that 
 there is no resurrection for the wicked. But the 
 explanation there is the same as here. The Apostle 
 concerns himself only about the one thought with 
 whiph he is dealing at the time. 
 
 ^ 4. As to the comparison with St. John in the 
 Apocalypse, it is in the first place needless to say 
 much, since Pfleiderer takes little interest in the 
 measure of agreement which he himself allows, the 
 measure of difference noted by him being much 
 greater. And in the second place it is impossible 
 in this paper to say much, for the real agreement 
 between the two Apostles can only be brought out 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 69 
 
 by an argument far too long and intricate for the 
 present discussion.^ 
 
 •,5. The argument of Pfleiderer and those who 
 agree with him breaks down on the fact, that they 
 give a wholly false interpretation to the iiaGiXua. and 
 the jSaaiXs-jnv of Christ spoken of in vers. 24 and 25. 
 They understand these words in the sense of the 
 glory, honour, and happiness which belong to a royal 
 reign, whereas the thought most prominent in them 
 is that of royal poiver, and especially power for the 
 destruction of enemies. The Apostle thinks of the 
 reign of Ps. xlv. : " I speak of the things which I 
 have made touching the King. . . . Thine arrows 
 are sharp in the hearts of the King's enemies, 
 whereby the people fall under Thee" (vers. 1, 5), 
 or of Ps. ex. : " Rule Thou in the midst of Thine 
 enemies. The Lord at Thy right hand shall strike 
 through kings in the day of His wrath. He shall 
 judge among the nations, He shall fill the places 
 with dead bodies ; He shall strike through the head 
 in many countries " (vers. 2, 5, 6). That this is the 
 light in which St. Paul looks at the " reign " of Christ 
 is clear from his own language in vers. 24 and 25. 
 In the first of these he says that Christ shall deliver 
 up the kingdom " when He shall have abolished all 
 rule and all authority and power;" in the second, 
 that he must reign " till He hath put all His enemies 
 under His feet ; " and the first statement implies 
 
 1 The writer may be permitted to refer for remarks bearing upon 
 this point to his work, Discussions on the Apocalypse, v. 
 
70 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 that the " kingdom " consists in " abolishing " what 
 is spoken of, the second that the " reign " is occupied 
 with " putting down " all the enemies of the King. 
 There is not the slightest foundation, therefore, for the 
 supposition that St. Paul teaches that there shall be a 
 long reign of glory between the raising of believers and 
 the " end/' and that there is thus a third rdy/Ma intro- 
 duced by slra in ver. 24. The raising of believers is 
 contemporaneous with the " end," and the Apostle 
 has only two " orders " in his eye — Christ Himself 
 at His Eesurrection, and His people at theirs. 
 
 One other remark may be made. 
 
 6. Strangely enough, the idea of a threefold 
 ray/xa in another form appears to be introduced by 
 Edwards in his exposition of ver. 26, after his 
 exposition of the previous verses leaves no room 
 for it. He supposes that death has not been de- 
 stroyed at the Second Coming, and at the resurrection 
 of those that are Christ's. There are " two resurrec- 
 tions, the former of believers only, the latter of all 
 others," and the teaching is regarded as similar to 
 that of St. John in Eev. xx. with regard to the 
 resurrections apparently separated from each other 
 by a thousand years. But if, as allowed by this 
 commentator, the resurrection of believers be coin- 
 cident with the TsXoc, and with the giving up of the 
 mediatorial kingdom to God, the interval of time thus 
 thought of becomes wholly unintelligible. We can 
 attach no idea to what is meant by a resurrection 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 71 
 
 of the wicked a thousand years (or whatever the 
 number may be) after the rsXog. Again, when it is 
 said in ver. 25, "He hath put all His enemies under 
 His feet," surely death must be inchided in the " all," 
 especially when we have been already told at ver. 
 24 that the delivering up of the kingdom was then 
 come. Had ver. 25 been designed to introduce a 
 correction of that statement, it would have been 
 necessary to do it in a much more definite manner. 
 Again, it may be asked how the resurrection of the 
 wicked can be the incident which of all others shows 
 that the moment for the abolishing of death has 
 arrived. It is, on the contrary, inconsistent with 
 St. Paul's general treatment of the subject to think 
 that he could have looked upon the former of these 
 events as either a proof or an illustration of the 
 latter. The truth is that there is no ground for 
 interposing any period of time between vers. 24, 25, 
 and ver. 26. "Death" in the latter verse is simply 
 a part of the "all rule," etc., and of the "all His 
 enemies " of the former verses ; and it is selected out 
 of the " all," having a distinct place assigned to it, 
 either because it is man's most formidable foe, or 
 because it is the last with which he has to contend 
 on this side the grave, or because there is a peculiar 
 fitness in mentioning it when the Apostle is treating 
 of the resurrection. Perhaps all three motives may 
 have contributed to make St. Paul's statement what 
 it is. But there is certainly no allusion to any 
 
72 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 interval between the resurrection of the righteous 
 and that of the wicked. 
 
 The considerations now adduced help us to answer 
 another question which, though so far as we have 
 observed not raised by the commentators, is one of 
 great interest. Why does the Apostle, when He 
 speaks in ver. 23 of the resurrection of "them that 
 are Christ's," add the words " at His presence " 
 {'Trapovsia) — that is, at the glorious manifestation of 
 His presence, commonly, though erroneously, called 
 His " Second Coming " ? Why is the raising up of 
 the saints so long delayed ? Christ rose from the 
 dead on the third day. Why do years and centuries 
 and tens of centuries pass before His people rise ? 
 The answer to this question connects itself with some 
 of the most striking views presented to us in Scrip- 
 ture of the plan of the Almighty's dealings with His 
 people, while it also explains to us that giving up of 
 the kingdom by our Lord at " the end " which so 
 greatly perplexes many a Christian reader. 
 
 For why is it that Christians do not rise until 
 their Lord comes again ? It is because the " reign " 
 of their Head here spoken of is His reign for the 
 overthrow of everything that opposes itself to the 
 truth and righteousness which are in Him. It is a 
 reign in which He puts down and brings to nought 
 all rule and authority and power, and even death, 
 the last enemy which man has to encounter in his 
 present pilgrimage. Christ must reign until all 
 these are beneath His feet. This is the reign noii; 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 73 
 
 of the once crucified Eedeemer. On eartli He laid / 
 
 the foundation of His victory, and forged the weapons 
 
 with which it is to be won. In heaven He uses 
 
 the weapons, and rides forth to the war from which 
 
 He is to return in triumph. But He does not ride 
 
 forth alone. He does not work by His Spirit directly 
 
 and immediately upon a sinful world. He does it 
 
 by means of that Body which He has left behind 
 
 Him upon eartli. He summons that Body into the 
 
 field, clothes it with His strength, endows it with His 
 
 Spirit, takes His place, although invisible, at its head, 
 
 and sends it forth to a perpetual conflict with every ^ 
 
 form of sin and misery with which earth is filled. / 
 
 Let us open our eyes and look at the present ''7 
 
 position of Christ and of His people in the world. 
 
 This is not His rest ; and it is not theirs. There is 
 
 a warfare to be waged, and they must wage it. There 
 
 is ignorance to be enlightened, and they must enlighten 
 
 it ; error to be corrected, and they nmst correct it ; 
 
 sorrow to be healed, and they must heal it; all 
 
 that is holy and full of blessedness for man to be 
 
 introduced, and they must introduce it. The very 
 
 power of death has to be destroyed, and they must 
 
 destroy it, till the world is penetrated by the 
 
 heavenly life which they proclaim, and death shall 
 
 be no more. We speak of the infinite rest and 
 
 peace which the Man of conflict and of sorrows now 
 
 enjoys at the right hand of God, of the rest and 
 
 peace which His people, still continuing their 
 
 pilgrimage, have in Him. It is a one-sided view of 
 
74 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 their position ; for the struggle with evil in the 
 world is not yet ended, and the victory over it is 
 not yet won. 
 
 But now, let us observe, all this warfare is to be 
 carried on by Christ through and in that Body of 
 His which lives on from age to age in the world. 
 Departed saints are to have no share in the conflict. 
 They may watch it, but they are not upon the field. 
 Like a great cloud of witnesses they may surround 
 us, but their own race is run, their own warfare is 
 over, their burden of toil is thrown aside; they 
 rest. Eest, however, they could not, were they 
 already raised, for then they would accompany the 
 Saviour, and the plan of the campaign would be 
 destroyed. Therefore not now, but only at His 
 Coming, are they raised ; when, having rested after 
 the toils of their own day, they shall join the 
 whole army which like them has fought and 
 conquered. 
 
 What has been said goes also far to explain the 
 statement of the Apostle as to the delivering up of 
 Christ's kingdom to God, even the Father. For this 
 delivering up of the kingdom is the immediate con- 
 sequence of the ending of the reign ; and the reign, 
 as we have seen, consisted in putting down all the 
 enemies of God and man. When these enemies are 
 put down, there is no more need for this particular 
 " reign ; " there is nothing upon which its power is 
 to be exercised. It therefore closes, and the kingdom 
 connected with it is delivered up. In one sense 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 75 
 
 Christ never ceases to be a king. He is a King 
 upon His throne. He is set down with His Father 
 •upon His throne. Of His kingdom there shall be 
 no end. Throughout eternity the whole army of the 
 redeemed shall follow Him, and shall read upon His 
 vesture and upon His thigh this name written — 
 " King of kings and Lord of lords." But then He 
 shall be their King only to bless them with His 
 presence, and to bestow upon them, with the large 
 liberality that becomes Him, His royal favours. In 
 the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness He has no enemies to subdue, and in 
 that sense no " reign," no " kingdom," to continue. 
 
 Hence, accordingly, the words of vers. 27 and 28 : 
 " But when He saith, All things are put in subjection, 
 it is evident that He is excepted who did subject 
 all things unto Him. And when all things have 
 been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also 
 Himself be subjected to Him that did subject all 
 things unto Him, that God may be all in all." It 
 is obvious that He who is here spoken of as God 
 is the same as He who is described in ver. 24 as 
 " God, even the Father," so that the meaning is, 
 not simply that the Almighty in His infinite power 
 and absolute sovereignty, but as Father, shall be 
 all in all. In other words, when the Son shall 
 have executed His commission of revealing the 
 Father, and shall have carried home that revelation 
 to the hearts of all, there will be nothing to interfere 
 with the universal song of praise that shall ascend 
 
76 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, iv 
 
 alike from Him and them to His Father and their 
 Father, to His God and their God. It is as if a 
 sovereign were to send forth some illustrious 
 commander to subdue a distant and rebellious 
 portion of his kingdom. That commander would 
 never cease to be subject to his sovereign's will, 
 or to receive and carry out the instructions that 
 had been put into his hands. Yet the eyes of the 
 loyal subjects of the kingdom would be fastened on 
 him, even as a servant. They would watch eagerly 
 for tidings as to his plans or his successes. Their 
 thoughts would be with him in the council chamber 
 and in the field. Even the gracious rule of their 
 sovereign at home would for the time be less than 
 usual the subject of their thoughts or the theme 
 of their acclamations. At length, however, the 
 rebellion is put down, the disloyal forces are scattered, 
 peace and order are restored, and the commander, 
 who has accomplished all, returns to give an account 
 of his stewardship, and to lay down his sheathed sword 
 at his sovereign's feet. Then the peaceful and orderly 
 administration of the empire goes forward undis- 
 turbed ; and as law is administered with justice, as 
 order is maintained with firmness, as the arts of 
 peace prosper and every feeling of insecurity is 
 dispelled, the minds of men return without distraction 
 to their sovereign, and they acknowledge him to be 
 the one centre around which gather all the interests 
 of their political and national life. Something of 
 this kind is the course of the Apostle's thought in the 
 
CHAP. IV THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 77 
 
 words before us. The Son returns victorious from 
 the field, and God, even the Father, is all in all. 
 Everywhere there is a Father's love, everywhere the 
 outpouring of the blessings of a Father's hand, there 
 is nothing to hurt nor to destroy in all the holy 
 mountain of the Lord. 
 
 Thus, then, has St. Paul unfolded the whole plan of 
 Ood's dealings with His people, until eternity itself is 
 reached. N'or need it be objected that the descrip- 
 tion is incomplete, inasmuch as there is no mention 
 of the lost, of the devil and his angels and wicked 
 men. It is characteristic of the Apostle to say 
 nothing of them. He leaves them in the hands of 
 •God — to stand or fall to their own Master. What 
 have I to do, he would exclaim, to judge them that 
 :are without ? T deal only with them that are with- 
 in ; and it is enough for me to look forward to a 
 time when the Lord shall reign among His people 
 gloriously, when creation itself shall be delivered from 
 the bondage of corruption, and when the Father and 
 the Father's love shall, so far as my eye reaches, be 
 all in all. 
 
Else ivlmt shall they do tvhich are baptized for the dead ? If the 
 dead are not raised at all, u-hy then are they baptized for thcni ? 
 why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour ? I protest by that 
 glorying in you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, 
 I die daily. If after tlie manner of men I fought with beasts at 
 Ephesus, what doth it profit me? " — 1 Cor. xv. 29-32a. [R.V.] 
 
Chapter b, 
 
 "TT is often imagined either that the paragraph of this 
 chapter preceding that upon which we now enter, 
 and extending from ver. 20 to ver. 28, is a digression on 
 the part of St. Paul from the main line of his argu- 
 ment ; or that, at the point reached, by us, some fresh 
 thought suddenly occurs to the Apostle which connects 
 itself, not with what he had just said, but with his 
 former description — vers. 12-19 — of the miserable 
 consequences of denying the great truth with which 
 he was engaged. Thus regarded, the verses beginning 
 with the 29 th are separated from those immediately 
 preceding them ; and the interpretation of a passage, 
 difficult enough in itself and under any circumstances, 
 is rendered still more difficult. But the word " Else," 
 of ver. 29, is conclusive against any such view of 
 the connexion. That word shows that there is no 
 break in the thought of the Apostle at the point 
 where it occurs, and that there is no return to a 
 line of reflection with which he had been engaged 
 some verses before. All that it introduces in vers. 
 29-34 is directly and immediately related to what 
 had just been said of the nature of Christ's reign, and 
 
 79 
 
80 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 of the time and manner of its termination. The 
 word, opening as it does the next following sentence, 
 would lose its meaning were it not so. That particle 
 is one of those important links of thought to which 
 the interpreter is bound to render justice. 
 
 The importance of this remark will appear by and 
 by. In the meanwhile, simply keeping it in mind, 
 we may proceed to consider the obscure words of ver. 
 29 — " Else what shall they do which are baptized for 
 the dead ? If the dead are not raised at all, why then 
 are they baptized for them ? " 
 
 Few words of the ^ew Testament have occasioned 
 greater perplexity than these, and few have received 
 more numerous or more discordant interpretations. 
 To discuss all the latter is impossible, nor would any 
 good end be served by the attempt. They are in 
 general too artificial and far-fetched, as when it is 
 suggested that the words refer to baptism over the 
 graves of the dead (Luther), or to the washing of the 
 dead body (Beza), or to the removal of ceremonial 
 defilement contracted by touching the dead (Ewald). 
 Or they suppose an amount of ellipsis and abbreviation 
 which it is impossible to accept, as when the clause 
 "for the dead" is understood to mean a confession 
 of faith in the resurrection of the dead supposed to 
 have been made at baptism, and by which therefore 
 those who had not renounced their baptism, though 
 they were denying the resurrection, were self-convicted 
 (Hammond). Or they put a meaning into the word 
 " dead " out of keeping with the whole tone of St. 
 
CHAP. V THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 81 
 
 Paul's argument in this chapter, understanding by it 
 not the actually dead, but the dead in sin (Hofmann). 
 Upon interpretations such as these it is unnecessary 
 to dwell. 
 
 . It would seem also that we may be justified in 
 saying little of the ancient patristic interpretation 
 recently revived and defended with his usual vigour 
 and spirit by Canon Evans in the Speakers Commen- 
 tary. According to it, the words before us mean 
 " with a view to the resurrection of the dead," the 
 preposition I'Xip being absolutely neutral in sense, 
 conveying no thought of benefit or advantage to the 
 dead, and expressing only the fact that the ulterior 
 view of a neophyte's mind as he bent over the long 
 roll or class of the dead was their resurrection. With 
 respect to, with an eye upon, a similar resurrection he 
 was then himself baptized, and to deny the resurrection 
 was thus a denial of his baptism. But this neutral 
 sense of l^rrip is altogether unproved. It may border 
 upon crs^/, just as it borders also upon avri, but it will, 
 we believe, be invariably found that the true force of 
 the preposition, " for the advantage of," " for the good 
 of," enters more or less into its meaning. Besides 
 which, the principle of abbreviation used in common 
 speech does not apply in cases where the abbreviated 
 sentence has a definite meaning of its own, distinct 
 from that of the sentence which for our own con- 
 venience we have shortened. We may certainly 
 abbreviate where there is no danger of mistake, as 
 was the case with the sentence of his lady friend in 
 
 p 
 
82 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 which Canon Evans finds an instance of breviloquence 
 somewhat similar to that which he here discovers in 
 the Apostle. No one could misunderstand her. But 
 when an abbreviated sentence, taken by itself, has a 
 clear and definite sense, though it may be one not at 
 first fully comprehended by us, a speaker or writer is 
 not entitled to substitute it for the full utterance 
 of his thought, lest in doing so he lead us astray. Now 
 nothing can be clearer than that this is the case here. 
 " Such an one has been baptized for the dead " is a 
 sentence complete as it stands. We may not fully 
 comprehend it, but to substitute for it another sentence, 
 " Such an one has been baptized with a view to the 
 resurrection of the dead," is to claim a freedom of 
 interpretation which the laws of language refuse to 
 grant. The refusal, too, is enforced in the present 
 instance by the immediate repetition of the thought — 
 " Why are they then baptized for them ? " This 
 interpretation must follow in the wake of those that 
 have preceded it. 
 
 There are, however, two interpretations of an 
 entirely different kind, which deserve longer notice, 
 for the sake either of their own intrinsic beauty, or of 
 the great names by which they are supported. 
 
 1. The first of these is due to Olshausen. That 
 critic starts with the supposition that u'Xip cannot here 
 mean "instead of," but must be understood in the 
 sense of " to the advantage of ; " and then, connecting 
 the words before us closely with ver. 23, where we 
 are told that Christ is the first-fruits of them that 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 sleep, and that after Him they shall rise who shall be 
 His at His Coming, he supposes that the Apostle 
 refers to the filling up of an appointed number of the 
 m'embers of Christ's Body, which must be completed 
 before the end. " Inasmuch as a certain number, a 
 'T>.;7^w/xa, of believers is required, which must be 
 complete before the Parousia (and with it the resur- 
 rection) can take place, every one who receives 
 baptism benefits thereby the body of believers, those 
 already dead in the Lord " {in loc). Olshausen, how- 
 ever, is afterwards constrained to allow that this idea 
 bears so remotely on the subject that St. Paul could 
 not justly assume that it would be correctly under- 
 stood by all his readers, and he suggests the following 
 modification of it. He would now receive uts^ as 
 equivalent to uvti in the signification " instead of," 
 " in place of," which he says " presents no difficulty : " 
 and then, applying as before the words " the dead " 
 to departed believers, he obtains the meaning that 
 those who " are baptized for the dead " are new 
 members of the Christian community coming in to 
 supply the place of its deceased members, and who, it 
 might w^ell be said, would gain nothing thereby were 
 there no resurrection of the dead. By this suggestion 
 of Olshausen's we are to conceive of Christians, as of 
 an army in the field of battle where, as the front rank 
 falls, the second rank steps in and takes its place. 
 Why should they do this ? the Apostle asks ; Why 
 should new soldiers of the cross thus fill up the ranks 
 that have been thinned by the foe, if the fallen do 
 
84 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 not rise again ? It must be allowed that the interpre- 
 tation is one of interest and beauty ; and later 
 inquirers have sought to strengthen it by quoting at 
 least one instance from a classical author, in which 
 the preposition i'Trsp appears to be used with reference 
 to the enlisting of soldiers in the room of such as had 
 perished in war, and thus in the very sense thought 
 so suitable here. Notwithstanding this, we must 
 urge that the two prepositions of which we have been 
 speaking are never simply interchangeable with one 
 another, and that with J-rs^, which meets us in the 
 present passage, the idea of conferring benefit on the 
 persons alluded to is always associated. In this 
 respect Olshausen's second suggestion, and that in 
 which he finally took refuge, fails. His first, though 
 doubted by himself, is by much the more important 
 of the two, and we shall immediately avail ourselves 
 of the help afforded by it in endeavouring to discover 
 the Apostle's meaning. 
 
 2. The second interpretation of which we have to 
 speak supposes that in the words before us we have 
 an allusion to vicarious baptism. There is reason to 
 believe that towards the end of the second century 
 such baptism existed. Passing over what we have 
 been told by Chrysostom of the foolish custom of the 
 followers of Marcion, it would seem that some of the 
 heretical sects of the second century recognised the 
 propriety of vicarious baptism in the case of cate- 
 chumens who had died before they could be brought 
 to the baptismal font. A person came forward in 
 
CHAP. V THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 85 
 
 the place of the departed catechumen, and, making 
 confession of sin and receiving the water of baptism 
 in his stead, transferred the benefit of the sacramental 
 rite from himself to the individual whom he repre- 
 sented. The argument of St. Paul upon this 
 supposition is that, if the dead do not rise to eternal 
 life, such vicarious baptism would be meaningless. 
 The fact of its administration was therefore a proof 
 to those among whom the practice existed that, 
 whether they thought of it or not, they did allow that 
 the dead would be raised up. 
 
 The contention therefore is that, startling as at 
 first sight such an argument may be, it is not 
 impossible that St. Paul might have had recourse to 
 it. It might have been a kind of argumentum ad 
 hominem, an argument not wholly valid in itself, but 
 the force of which would be felt by his opponents, 
 because they could not deny that the practice in 
 question must rest upon a principle, and because there 
 could be no doubt as to what the principle in this 
 case involved. Such arguments are often legitimately 
 employed in common life, and what is consistent with 
 true reasoning there is not less consistent with true 
 reasoning in religious life. Further, it is pleaded 
 that, gross as was the superstition involved in this 
 vicarious baptism, there was yet something in it 
 so very natural that it might perhaps have disarmed 
 the indignation ^vith which we should have expected 
 the Apostle to regard it. And, finally, it is urged 
 that after all St. Paul shows by his language that he 
 
86 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 does separate himself from those who practised such 
 a rite. Throughout the whole of the rest of the 
 passage he uses the pronouns " we " and " I " and 
 " you." " Why do we also stand in jeopardy every 
 hour ? " " If / fought with beasts at Ephesus ; " " / 
 die daily ; " "I protest by that glorying in you which 
 I have in Christ Jesus." But here there is a change, 
 " What shall they do which are baptized for the 
 dead ? " " Why then are they baptized for them ? " 
 And the change would almost seem to indicate that 
 with these persons the Apostle refuses to connect 
 himself. He says not what shall we do ? what shall 
 you do ? but what shall they do ? They have a 
 certain practice. We have nothing to do with it ; 
 but it is at all events sufficient to condemn them- 
 selves. 
 
 Notwithstanding what may thus be said, and in 
 spite of the fact that this interpretation has found 
 more favour than any other in recent times, it seems 
 impossible to adopt it. 
 
 (1.) There is not the slightest evidence that the 
 practice of vicarious baptism existed in the days of 
 St. Paul. The first traces of it are discovered nearly 
 150 years later than his time, and even then they are 
 found only among the adherents of a small heretical 
 sect which was marked by other grievous errors, and 
 which never rose to any position of authority. It is 
 true that the great orthodox Fathers of the Church 
 describe the practice ; but they do so only that they 
 may ridicule and condemn it, while at the same time 
 
CHAP. V THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 87 
 
 they indicate their own opinion that it was this 
 passage misinterpreted which gave rise to the practice, 
 not the practice which gave rise to the passage. 
 
 (2.) The words before us, so interpreted, have no 
 real bearing upon the Apostle's reasoning. He is 
 arguing with members of the Church, not with a here- 
 tical sect which, by adopting the practice supposed to 
 be spoken of, would rather make both it and arguments 
 founded upon it distasteful to true believers. Even 
 although they who practised vicarious baptism might 
 have their doubts as to the resurrection silenced, no 
 effect would be produced on those who did not 
 acknowledge the propriety of the rite referred to, or, 
 in other words, upon the great bulk of the Christian 
 community. Had the deniers of the resurrection at 
 Corinth been the same as those who are thought to 
 have practised vicarious baptism, the circumstances 
 of the case would have been different, and against 
 them the argument might have been good. But these 
 latter persons, instead of denying, must have acknow- 
 ledged the resurrection, or something like it, some- 
 thing, at all events, which inferred that the dead were 
 not beyond the reach of benefit. Only on this supposi- 
 tion can we explain the ceremonial ascribed to them. 
 An appeal to them, therefore, could have no effect in 
 silencing those " among " (ver. 1 2) the Corinthian 
 Christians who were in difficulty, and St. Paul was far 
 too good a reasoner to use arguments which in their 
 own nature could not fail to fall harmless upon his 
 adversaries. 
 
88 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 (3.) Whatever may be or has been said in favour of 
 the possibility that St. Paul might allude to such a 
 custom without condemning it, it still remains so 
 grotesque, so superstitious, and so absurd, as to entitle 
 us to expect that the Apostle, when he had occasion to 
 speak of it, would not fail to indicate the light in which 
 he must certainly have regarded it. His mere use 
 of the word " they " by no means sufficiently separates 
 him from those who tolerated the idea of having dead 
 men baptized by proxy. By referring to them as he 
 does, he rather so far marks with his approbation the 
 course which they pursued, and it is unnecessary to 
 say that that course was both irreconcilable with his 
 whole system of teaching and subversive of some of 
 the most fundamental principles of Christianity. 
 
 Nor does it at all help the matter to introduce, as 
 Beet does, the supposition that either already baptized 
 members of the Church or catechumens may have 
 received the rite " in some cases at the request of the 
 dying man, as a testimony to the Church of his faith," 
 and simply to " supply an omission " on his part. 
 Few things are more inconceivable than that a dying 
 man, desirous to rectify a mistake, and to give assur- 
 ance of his faith, should, instead of requesting baptism 
 for himself, ask that another might be baptized in his 
 place after he was dead. The whole conception of 
 vicarious baptism must be unhesitatingly set aside. 
 We have to try some other solution of the difficulty, 
 and for that purpose we submit the following con- 
 siderations : — 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 1. "The dead" spoken of in ver. 29 are un- 
 questionably the already haptized, the Christian dead. 
 This is apparent from the fact that throughout the 
 whole chapter St. Paul does not once allude to a 
 resurrection of unbelievers. He deals, as we have 
 already seen distinctly at ver. 22, with believers 
 only. The being " raised " to which he refers is 
 always a being raised in glory. The Apostle associates 
 no other thought with those whom he speaks of as 
 " the dead," than that they are folloivers of Christ noio 
 resting in their graves in the hope of the resurrection. 
 
 2. Vers. 30 and 31 are not to be separated from 
 ver. 29, as if they were the introduction of a new 
 line of argument, as if there were a transition from 
 the thought of one of the sacraments of the Church, 
 which rightly viewed suggested a particular conclusion, 
 to the thought of the ordinary struggles and trials of 
 the Christian life, and to the bearing of the latter on 
 those only hy whom they were endured. In the 
 verses of which we speak, St. Paul is still thinking of 
 something done for others, as is proved, not only by 
 the whole strain of the argument, but by his use of 
 the word "also" in ver. 30. His thoughts are still 
 running in the same line, and he might have spoken 
 of his own hourly jeopardy, of his own daily deaths, 
 as being, not less than the baptisms of ver. 29, ^' for 
 the dead." Edwards, therefore, in his Commentary 
 appears to misapprehend the sense when he gives as 
 the meaning of ver. 30, " Not only those that get 
 themselves baptized for the dead, but we also, who do 
 
90 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 not, are equally with them inconsistent, if there is no 
 resurrection of the dead." The insertion of the " we 
 also, who do not,'' has not only no foundation in the 
 text, but completely perverts the meaning of the xa/. 
 
 3. The baptism mentioned in ver. 29 is to be taken 
 in its most pregnant sense. There is more under it 
 than the thought of the mere initiatory sacrament of 
 the Christian life. It includes the thought of all to 
 which the Christian pledged himself, the thought of 
 the trials and sufferings which were then inseparable 
 from the Christian profession, the thought of the self- 
 denial and the self-sacrifice for the good of others to 
 which, in accepting that sacrament, the Christian 
 became bound. Not that these things are all expressly 
 included in the word " baptize ; " but as they were 
 the necessary results of baptism, the mention of 
 baptism brings them up before the mind. 
 
 4. The connexion of the verses under consideration 
 with those immediately preceding is to be maintained 
 with the utmost possible closeness. St. Paul had 
 been speaking of the " reign " of Christ, that is, as 
 we have already seen, not of His reign in glorious 
 triumph, but of His reign for the destruction of His 
 enemies, for the abolishing of " all rule and all author- 
 ity and power," and even " the last enemy," death. 
 He had been speaking, moreover, of that " reign " as 
 of one in which Christ's saints still on earth, but not 
 His departed saints, had a share. The departed rest, 
 waiting till the whole harvest is gathered in. Their 
 toils are over ; their struggle is ended ; they wait for 
 
CHAP. V THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 91 
 
 the finishing of the reign, for the completing of the 
 victory. Only living saints are summoned to contend 
 with the powers of evil, to toil, to be in jeopardy, and 
 to die in the cause of truth and goodness. To these 
 and such thoughts the first word of ver. 29, the word 
 " Else," directly leads us. -^ 
 
 Keeping then these things in mind, it seems possible 
 to see the precise point which St. Paul has in view 
 when he asks the questions of verse 29. The 
 Christian dead are not yet perfected. They have not 
 yet attained to the full rest and refreshing which has 
 been prepared for them ; nor can they attain to it 
 until the " reign " of Christ, carried on by means of 
 His struggling and warring Church on earth, is finished. 
 Every one, therefore, who enters by baptism into that 
 Church, who takes upon him the name of Christ, and 
 who pledges himself to a share in the contest of 
 Christianity with the world, does so not to his own 
 benefit only, but to the benefit of the Christian dead. 
 He helps to bring that contest to its termination, 
 which must be finished before the members of the 
 Body of Christ can be clothed with perfect glory. In 
 a strict sense of the words he is baptized, he is in 
 jeopardy, every hour, he dies daily, for their behoof 
 not less than for his own. But he could not do so 
 were there no resurrection for believers, because the 
 thought of such resurrection at the end of the contest, 
 and introducing the joy of the new heavens and the 
 new earth wherein dwells only righteousness, is a 
 |undainental_mgredien^ in_J^ The 
 
92 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 expectation is essentially and absolutely necessary to 
 the sacrifice. The latter rests upon and is sustained 
 by the former. Upon the former as upon a chief 
 foundation the building stands ; and, while it stands, 
 we know that the foundation is secure. 
 
 Such then appears to be the thought of St. Paul in 
 these difficult words ; and it is substantially the same 
 thought as that which he expresses when, writing to 
 the Colossians, he says, " Now I rejoice in my suffer- 
 ings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which 
 is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for 
 His body's sake which is the Church " (Col. i. 24). 
 In both cases Christians really benefit the Church, 
 and the same preposition, v-7rip, is used in both. But 
 in the Colossian Epistle, St. Paul has his thoughts 
 fixed upon the Church as a whole ; in that to the 
 Corinthians he is naturally led to think mainly of that 
 portion of the Church 'on the prospects of which the 
 sceptical spirit then prevalent was casting doubt. 
 The point to be particularly noticed is that, in speaking 
 of baptism, the Apostle does not here think of it as 
 simply a sacrament of the Christian Church, and a 
 seal of the Covenant of grace. He rather thinks of it 
 as the entrance upon a struggle, a warfare, a battle 
 with evil in all its forms, or as an enlistment in that 
 army which our exalted Head in heaven is ever 
 sending forth against the strongholds of sin, that by 
 means of it He may complete His " reign ; " and, so 
 thinking of it, he asks, if all this be involved in 
 baptism, why should fresh levies be constantly bap- 
 
CHAP. V THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD . 93 
 
 tizecl ? We can understand it if they are hastening 
 on the glory of the end, and so coming to the help of' 
 " the dead," who cannot apart from them be made 
 perfect. But on any other supposition their warfare 
 would be without an aim, and could have no other 
 issue than disappointment and defeat. 
 
 The very same thought continues to occupy the 
 mind of the Apostle in the 30th and 31st verses: 
 " Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour ? I 
 protest by your glorying, brethren, which I have in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the 
 manner of men I fought with beasts at Ephesus, 
 what shall it profit me ? " Two considerations may be 
 worth noting as tending to prove that in these words we 
 have no introduction of an entirely new line of thought, 
 but that St. Paul is still dwelling upon privileges and 
 blessings to be realized not now, but at the Second 
 Coming of the Lord. First, there is in ver. 30 the 
 copulative " also " of which we have already spoken ; 
 and secondly, there is the mention of that " glorying " 
 in the progress of the gospel among the Corinthians 
 which St. Paul " has in Christ Jesus our Lord." The 
 thought is almost exactly the same as that of 1 Thess. 
 ii. 19, 20, " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of 
 glorying ? Are not even ye before our Lord Jesus at 
 His coming ? For ye are our glory and our joy." In 
 other words, then, the Apostle " has," possesses even 
 now, laid up in Christ, and waiting for manifestation, 
 that glorying in the Corinthian Christians which would 
 eventually be his great reward in return for the deaths 
 
94 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, v 
 
 on their behalf which he was dying daily. His line 
 of thought is precisely similar to that in ver. 29. 
 The battle is still before his eyes ; he only turns from 
 the general army to himself and his fellow-labourers 
 in the ministry of Christ. They were every hour in 
 danger. At Ephesus more particularly, where he had 
 lived for nearly three years, he had himself experienced 
 constant toil, and ,had been beset by the most un- 
 scrupulous and bloodthirsty foes. The tumult raised 
 by Demetrius and his craftsmen had been but a 
 sample of his trials there. Again and again had his 
 enemies attacked him as if they had been wild beasts, 
 the city the arena of an amphitheatre, and he the 
 doomed victim of antichristian rage. His had been 
 no peaceful ministry, no leading of his little flock to 
 green pastures and still waters. He had been com- 
 pelled to feel that God had set forth the apostles last 
 of all as men doomed to death, for they were made " a 
 spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men " (1 
 Cor. iv. 9). Yet it is the thought of these afflictions 
 as endured for the good of others, and not in their 
 bearing only upon himself and his fellow-labourers, 
 that is still in the Apostle's mind. It is the " glory- 
 ing " of the Church of Christ, or of that portion of it 
 which he has served, that shines before him as his 
 reward. It is their resurrection, not his ow7i, though 
 he too must rise to share it, that appears to him as 
 his reward. Their loss of the eternal crown rather 
 than his loss of it will deprive him of his " profit." 
 In other words, the thought of " the dead," of the 
 
CHAP. V THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 95 
 
 Christian dead, is still before him. He is fighting 
 the Church's battle. He is winning the Church's 
 victory. But all this implied the resurrection of the 
 dead. Why should he and others endure all these 
 struggles were there no resurrection and no hereafter ? 
 If their hope of sharing the glory prepared for the 
 risen Lord after His struggle was a delusion, their life 
 and labours were a mistake, and the Apostle immedi- 
 ately proceeds to unfold this thought. 
 
If the dead are not raised , let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. 
 Be not deceived : Evil company doth corrupt good manners. Awake 
 up righteously, and sin not ; for some have no knowledge of God : 
 I speak this to move you to shame," — 1 Cor. xv. 32b-34. [R.V.] 
 
Chapter bi 
 
 "TT was a noble life lived for a noble aim which the 
 Apostle had connected with the hope of the re- 
 surrection — a life of toil, of struggle, of self-denial, and 
 self-sacrifice, in order to put down evil and to make 
 good triumphant, in order to hasten on a time when 
 Christ's victory should be fully gained, and when, all 
 opposing forces having been subjected to the Son, the 
 Son also should be subjected to Him that did subject 
 all things unto Him, that God might be all in all. 
 But what if there were no resurrection, if Christ 
 were not raised, and if His people had no well- 
 grounded hope of being in due season raised up with 
 Him ? Where would their life be then ? Its aims, 
 its motives, its encouragements lost, what effect would 
 inevitably follow ? The answer is given in the last 
 half of ver. 32 : "If the dead are not raised, let us 
 €at and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
 
 The words startle us much in the same way as 
 did the words of ver. 19, "If in this life only we 
 have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most piti- 
 able." Does St. Paul really mean that, if there be no 
 resurrection of the dead, we may as well abandon 
 
 G 97 
 
98 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 ourselves to the unrestrained enjoyment of all that 
 this world can afford ? Does he mean that, in that 
 case, it will be the course of wisdom to give scope to 
 every appetite, and the rein to every passion ; and 
 that, if we have no hope of the future, we may be 
 justified in yielding to every animal inclination, until 
 we sink to the level, and even far lower than the 
 level, of the beasts that perish ? It is not in the 
 least degree necessary to think so. His words are 
 a quotation from the Old Testament, from Isa. xxii. 
 13. They are the despairing cry of the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem at a time when they were besieged by 
 the Assyrians, and when the city was on the verge 
 of ruin. " In that day," according to the representa- 
 tion of the prophet in ver. 12, "did the Lord, the 
 Lord of Hosts, call to weeping, and to mourning, and 
 to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth." But, 
 instead of listening to the divine voice, the city 
 rushed to the opposite extreme : " Behold joy and 
 gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh 
 and drinking wine : let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we shall die" (ver. 13). The w^ords were 
 those of men who were steeling themselves against 
 the divine warnings ; who were untouched by the 
 seriousness of their position, or the thought of their 
 impending fate ; amd who, at a moment when their 
 circumstances demanded a more than ordinary degree 
 of serious reflection, were abandoning themselves to 
 lightness and folly, to the song and to the dance. 
 There is no need therefore to think that the words. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 
 
 include the love of coarse pleasures or vicious in- 
 dulgence. We put into them all the meaning that 
 is demanded either by their original position, or as 
 quoted by St. Paul, if we suppose them to imply no 
 more than this, that, without the hope of continued 
 existence beyond the grave, life is in danger of losing 
 all its earnestness both of thought and purpose. A 
 life without hope of the resurrection is contrasted 
 with a life that has such hope; and we are told 
 that the one leads us simply to enjoy ourselves, that 
 by the other alone are we reminded that we have a 
 higher nature and nobler duties. 
 
 We may well ask. Is the contrast true ? Is it 
 really the case that, without the hope of another and 
 a higher world, our life here would soon sink into 
 a mere life of sensuous enjoyment, of making the 
 most of the pleasures that fleet past us with such 
 rapidity, and of avoiding the struggle, the pain, and 
 the disappointments that must be experienced by the 
 man who lives for others than himself ? The fact 
 cannot be denied, that at this moment there is hardly 
 any rehgious truth in regard to which a greater 
 amount of uncertainty prevaOs than in regard to 
 the doctrine of a personal immortality, and the im- 
 portance of that doctrine to a high estimate of man's 
 present life. There are many whom the thought 
 of annihilation at death does not affect with the 
 shrinking or the horror with which at one time it 
 filled the mind. There are many who, perplexed 
 by the vicissitudes of fortune, and wearied with the 
 
100 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 struggle of the world, simply long for rest in the 
 grave. And there are certainly not a few who 
 urge, that belief in a corporate immortality has a 
 far more animating and elevating power than belief 
 in an immortality that is personal. " In the thought 
 of an endless progress of the race," they say, " there 
 is something far nobler, far less selfish, and it may be 
 found of stronger stimulus to exertion, than either 
 the hope of individual immortality or the thirst for 
 posthumous fame." ^ To fix our hope upon another 
 world rather tends, they would add, to draw us away 
 from the duties of the world in which we live. Nay, 
 without the hope of immortality we may feel more 
 keenly for the poor and wretched than we shall be 
 able to do when we dwell upon a future which is 
 to see all wrong redressed and all virtuous sorrow 
 healed. 
 
 Is it really so ? The question is so important 
 that it may be well to devote to it a little more 
 attention than the ordinary course of exposition 
 would demand. We are not then called upon, in 
 doing so, to deny that there may often be much 
 truth in statements such as those that have been 
 referred to. It is undoubtedly the fact that indivi- 
 dual instances may be produced in which the con- 
 templation of the world beyond the grave has been 
 so intense as to absorb every longing and effort of 
 the soul; although even then it would still hold 
 good that, if the thought of a blessed existence in 
 
 1 Professor Hodgson in his Life and Letters by Meiklejohn. 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 101 
 
 the future elevates at all, that thought carried to 
 excess may at least stir up to imitate it persons 
 whom nothing but excess can move. In like manner, 
 it may be urged that the expectation of future 
 judgment on the oppressor may be so cherished as 
 to make us less anxious than we might otherwise 
 be that judgment shall overtake him now. Or it 
 may be even pleaded that one who is insensible to 
 the grandeur of humanity at large can have no just 
 impression of those divine considerations relating to 
 the individual by which he professes to be guided. 
 Yet, apart from all this, we have every reason to 
 acknowledge the force of the strong language of the 
 Apostle when he gives it as his alternative to the 
 hope of individual and personal immortality : " Let us 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die." For — 
 
 1. It is well to notice the precise nature of that 
 hope of which he speaks. Were the immortality 
 anticipated in this chapter simply sensuous enjoy- 
 ment continued through everlasting ages ; were the 
 rest to which it refers a mere rest from toil, or 
 mere deliverance from hunger and thirst and cold 
 and pain ; were that Jerusalem above which is the 
 goal of all our hopes no more than a city with 
 streets of gold and gates of pearl, where the sun 
 never goes down, and there is no night, — it might 
 indeed be impossible to say that the withdrawal of 
 our hope must be attended with the fatal effect 
 that is here ascribed to it. But such ideas have 
 no place whatever in the Apostle's mind. Even 
 
102 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 the resurrection of the body is not to him an 
 isolated fact, which may be viewed apart either 
 from its cause upon the one hand or its consequences 
 upon the other. It is a resurrection in Christ, with 
 Christ, and to Christ — the Lord of glory. It is the 
 necessary condition of eternal life, and St Paul's 
 thoughts are mainly occupied, not with the condition, 
 but with the life which presupposes it. That life 
 is led in a risen Saviour. Through Him it is with 
 God and in God, a holy, blessed, active life in 
 communion and fellowship with Him who is the 
 foundation of all existence and the dispenser of all 
 happiness ; and who, in the perfect sum of His 
 glorious attributes and energies, is " all in all " (ver. 
 28). Nor is this life confined to the time when 
 believers shall be raised from the grave. Their 
 resurrection-life is the continuation and perfecting 
 of the life now begun. Already they belong to the 
 new line of Christ's descendants. Already they are, 
 in a certain sense, risen with Him, and seated with 
 Him in the heavenly places. In the world they 
 are above the world, and the powers of the world 
 to come are the ruling influences which they obey. 
 
 2. The effect of such a hope, therefore, is to 
 increase, not to diminish, the value of our present 
 life. Men may urge that the hope of a corporate 
 as distinguished from an individual immortality has 
 its own quickening effect. They may direct our 
 attention to the stones which, lying around us, are 
 insignificant when considered individually, but which 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 103 
 
 gain immeasurably in importance when their indi- 
 viduality is lost in some splendid building they have 
 been used to rear. Or they may speak of the several 
 members of the body which only reach completeness 
 because they are not individual existences, but parts 
 of a great whole, through which a richer, fuller life 
 than belongs to any single member pulsates, a life 
 which each, in its own place, helps to enlarge and to 
 adorn. Christianity does not deny these facts. If 
 there is one truth more distinctly brought out by it 
 than another, it is its rejection of mere individualism, 
 and the prominence which it assigns to the arrange- 
 ment that we are every one members one of another. 
 By nothing more than her failure to recognise this 
 with the emphasis that is due to it is the Church of 
 Christ at this moment weakened. But surely before 
 we can speak of " every one " joined to every other 
 in a complete and beautiful totality, we must have 
 established the separate existence and value of the 
 " one." It has been always and justly regarded as 
 not the least inestimable service which the Christian 
 faith has rendered to humanity, that it brought out, 
 as it did, the worth of the individual. To man as 
 man it first addressed itself ; and in that circumstance 
 alone lay the germ of the greatest and most beneficial 
 revolution which the world has seen. Men had felt 
 before the value of empires, of single peoples, of 
 armies, of crowds, of vassals. They had never felt 
 the value of man, apart from the mass of which each 
 was but one small item, or separated from all those 
 
104 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 adventitious circumstances that might distinguish 
 him amidst his fellows. Christianity taught the 
 worth of the human soul. " For what shall a man 
 be profited," it said, " if he shall gain the whole 
 world and forfeit his soul ? Or what shall a man 
 give in exchange for his soul ? " That single soul 
 is more valuable than all outward things, and it is 
 so, because it is a soul ; not because it is rich or 
 mighty or learned, but because it is a soul ; because 
 in the lowest depths of poverty, utterly unknown 
 to fame, bound even with the fetters of the slave, 
 it has within it a spark of the Divine, can hold 
 communion with the Infinite, and is destined for 
 immortality. By this single lesson the Eedeemer 
 of the world burst the icy crust in which our fertile 
 mother-earth was bound, and the little blades of grass 
 and flowers of spring could everywhere look up and 
 smile. In this a new starting-point for the regeneration 
 of humanity was given, and he who received the lesson 
 lifted his head, and felt what it was to be a man. 
 
 Analogies, therefore, from the stones of the field 
 or the members of the body are falsely used when 
 they are used to make us undervalue the importance 
 of individual life. Individual life comes first ; and, 
 if it be no doubt true that the complete life of the 
 whole adds a value to the life of the individual which 
 it would not otherwise possess, it is not less true that 
 the value of an organized whole is dependent upon 
 the organized perfection of each of its individual parts. 
 
 But this perfection is greatly marred if the life of 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 105 
 
 the individual does not stretch into another and a 
 better world. Is it for nothing that the vanity of 
 this life has been the constant theme of the moralist 
 and the poet ? Or have those who, without hope 
 of immortality, have tried most to solve the riddle 
 of human existence, done injustice to the world when 
 they have not only proclaimed it to be vain, but 
 have denounced it as constituted as much for the 
 misery as for the happiness of the race ? Is the 
 alternative wholly wrong that has been presented to 
 us from this point of view — that either God is not 
 all-powerful, not able to accomplish whatever He 
 desires, or that He is not benevolent, not One who 
 would promote above everything else the welfare and 
 happiness of His creatures ? These are the thoughts 
 of that modern philosophy which denies individuality 
 of existence beyond the grave ; and, left to work out 
 their legitimate results, they will certainly make the 
 present life not so much like the future a blank, as a 
 dark and terrible reality from which every tender 
 spirit must become eager to escape. If what is now 
 often urged upon us be true, we shall need to utter 
 a sterner and more piercing cry than that of the 
 Psalmist, " Surely every man walketh in a vain show ; 
 surely he disquieteth himself in vain," and life will 
 soon weigh us down like an incubus that we shall 
 be unable to throw off. Strange irony of thought ! 
 Those who refuse the hope of individual immortality 
 tell us that that hope deadens us to the value of the 
 present ; and, lo ! their own system leads us past 
 
106 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 that point to the still more terrible conclusion, that 
 human life is not only a dream in which we are 
 betrayed and cheated by a thousand phantasies, but 
 that it is a nightmare which oppresses us with an 
 intolerable load of anguish. 
 
 By taking away the hope of the resurrection, 
 therefore, we do not merely deprive n»en of the 
 prospect of a glorious recompense hereaiter, we 
 change the whole character of their p resen t life. 
 We alter the very conception of what living means. 
 Life is no longer a high gift of God to be filled with 
 His presence. It is something wholly separated from 
 Him, confused, perplexed, troubled, darkened, not 
 only cut short at death when we must bid farewell 
 to all the interests of earth but so bounded by these 
 interests now that it shall be hardly possible for us 
 to rise to higher thoughts than the supply of our own 
 immediate earthly wants. 
 
 3. Not only, however, is our individual life lowered 
 when we abandon hope of the resurrection, we are 
 deprived also of the most powerful motives to 
 exertion on behalf of others. For what is it that 
 at once arouses our deepest interest in men, and 
 awakens within us the most earnest desire to bring 
 them to a life of holiness and conformity to the 
 Divine will ? Is it not the thought of the here- 
 after, and of what may there be either gained or 
 lost ? We need not deny that the consideration of 
 what may be done for men's present life, even 
 allowing that their present life were all, may lead 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 107 
 
 to many an earnest effort to correct their errors, to 
 heal their sorrows, and to elevate them in the scale 
 of humanity. But it is when we call to mind the 
 infinite possibilities that are wrapped up in every 
 human soul; when we think that in each son and 
 daughter of our race there are powers and capacities 
 which neither earth nor time can limit ; when we 
 regard our fellow-creatures as destined for everlasting 
 happiness, if they will only cultivate their true 
 nature, and enter into communion with Him who 
 made them for Himself, — it is then that we rise to 
 a just sense of their immeasurable importance, and 
 can comprehend the fact that even among the angels 
 of God there should be joy over one sinner that 
 repenteth. Animated by that thought, we can go 
 down into the lowest depths of sin and misery, 
 and meet every difficulty or discouragement if thus 
 only we may bring them to a higher life. 
 
 On the other hand, let us look upon them as 
 sometimes but little raised above the beasts that 
 perish, or as in many a case sunk far beneath them ; 
 let us regard them as mere leaves of a tree, green 
 for a little time, and then destined to sink into 
 corruption that they may make way for others, and 
 how much shall we be tempted to leave them to 
 themselves, and to the operation of the inexorable 
 laws of nature amidst which their lot is cast ! 
 Nature has her own methods of disposing of the 
 profligate, of clearing out old races and opening up 
 paths for new ones. She has sickness and disease, 
 
108 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 fire and the sword, the earthquake and the whirl- 
 wind. She has death, the great scavenger, at her 
 command. Why not be content with these instru- 
 ments ? Why not help rather than hinder them ? 
 Why not rejoice in the conflagration, in the ravages 
 of war, in any agency that is destructive to human 
 life, and that promises to sweep away the weak and 
 miserable ? Why also not condemn the opposite 
 course as a false and foolish sentimentalism ? It 
 may seem hard to say it, but it is difficult to resist 
 the conviction that not a few of those who would 
 lead the thought of our day without the lessons of 
 religion must regard the work of our Christian and 
 benevolent societies, our plans for the preservation 
 of native races, and our schemes for the conversion 
 of the heathen, as little better than an interruption 
 to the work of Nature, who is seeking in her own 
 way to extinguish the old and to bring in the new. 
 How can it be otherwise ? for Nature seems most 
 of all to say, and according to such persons she 
 only says, that in the struggle of life the strongest 
 ought to prevail, and that with the accomplishment 
 of that end true progress is identified. If this be 
 her constant lesson, and if she be all, how shall we 
 escape the conclusion that we ought to be upon her 
 side ? We can expect nothing, therefore, from a 
 religion of Nature, or, in other words, from a religion 
 without the hope of immortality, than that she shall 
 lay her cold . hand upon every generous emotion, and 
 upon every self-sacrificing effort for the good of others. 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 109 
 
 4. Experience confirms what has been said. We 
 have no right to appeal, in a question of this kind, 
 to the lofty sentiments and even the unsparing efforts 
 for the good of others that have marked one or two 
 of those around us who have cast aside Christian, 
 hope. These persons may not have really done so 
 to the extent imagined by themselves. If an old 
 Father of the Church describes some of those who 
 lived before the Christian era as Christians before 
 Christ, may we not say that there have been 
 Christians after Christ who refused to know Him ; 
 who refused, that is, to know Him in the light, 
 most probably false, in which He had been presented 
 to them ? It may not have been Christ Himself 
 that they cast aside, but rather a distorted image of 
 Him reflected in the lessons of their teachers ; while 
 in the loftiness of their aims, in the unselfishness 
 of their emotions, in the purity and beauty of their 
 lives, they have been so much akin to Him that, 
 had He only been seen by them as He is, they 
 would have been attracted to Him like steel to 
 a magnet. There may have been an acting of 
 Christ and of His Spirit upon them which they 
 attributed to a wrong source. Even as to them, too, 
 and still more as to the greater number who do not 
 stand so high, we ought to remember that they 
 have been surrounded by Christian influences, brought 
 into contact with Christian examples, and made to 
 breathe a Christian atmosphere, to a far greater 
 extent than they were themselves aware of. To 
 
110 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 judge correctly here, we must go back to that 
 paganism to which we are so often invited to return ; 
 we must take heathenism as it was before Christ 
 came, or as it is now in lands where His name is 
 unknown. Shall we find there a tone higher than 
 that of the alternative presented by St. Paul ? A 
 patriot or philosopher occasionally appears to lighten 
 the darkness, but his rays do not penetrate the mass. 
 The centuries that followed Plato did not lead to a 
 Platonic, as the centuries that followed Christ led 
 to a Christian civilisation. 
 
 There is a tendency, too, on the part of those 
 who without the hope of immortality are labouring 
 for others, to despair. Plato despaired, and the finest 
 minds and hearts of modern times that have tried to 
 solve the problems of life without Christian principles 
 have despaired also. Nothing, it is well known, can 
 be sadder than their later as compared with their 
 earlier utterances. Pull of hope at first, clouds gathered 
 in their sky as they advanced ; and, before evening fell, 
 the darkness of night settled on the landscape. 
 
 It may be said that Christians also despond. 
 But their sadness is of another kind. Those who 
 are without Christianity despond because their old 
 principles fail, and they are powerless to discover 
 new ones. Not so believers full of Christian hope. 
 They may mourn over the obstacles that stand in the 
 way of the full application of their principles. In the 
 principles themselves they have unbounded confidence. 
 Practical experience certainly declares that with the 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 111 
 
 hope of the future is bound up all generous effort after 
 a lofty life, that with the want of it there is the greatest 
 danger of sinking into mere sensuous enjoyment. 
 
 The Apostle means no more. It is not in the 
 least degree necessary to suppose that he places 
 licentious indulgence as the only alternative pre- 
 sented to the man who denies a personal immortality. 
 Nor does he enter upon the question whether virtuous 
 exertion might not be pursued under the influence 
 of motives drawn from time alone. Probably he 
 never asked himself whether he could struggle for 
 himself or others without the thought of a risen 
 Saviour, of a judgment, and of a life to come. His 
 whole life may show us that he would have done 
 this. But if, while doing it, he had begun to 
 analyse his own feelings, he would have said, " It 
 is not I, it is something else, though I know not 
 what, that dwelleth in me ; " and he would have 
 ended in returning to the thought that what was 
 moving him must proceed from some other quarter 
 than himself, that it must come from a higher 
 world, and that could he be convinced that there 
 was no such world, he would have doubted himself, 
 his brethren, everything — and in the doubt would 
 have found it hard to resist the maxim that was 
 always ringing in his ears, " Let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we shall die." 
 
 We have lingered long upon these words, but 
 one other remark may be made before we pass on, 
 The unselfishness of a corporate, as distinguished 
 
112 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD cha^. vi 
 
 from a personal, immortality is often proclaimed to 
 us. In the light of the interpretation, which in our 
 last paper we found it necessary to give to vers. 
 29-31, it is really, in one great sense, a corporate 
 immortality of which St. Paul is speaking. He is 
 not thinking of himself only, or of saving his own 
 soul : he is not setting before those to whom he 
 writes the duty of saving their own souls, or of 
 securing their own portion in the heavenly inherit- 
 ance. His argument is precisely the reverse. He 
 is thinking of the souls of others, of the Christian 
 dead who cannot be perfected until Christ's " reign " 
 for the destruction of all hostile powers is closed, 
 until the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom 
 of our Lord and of His Christ. His whole mind 
 is occupied with the multitude of his fellow-believers, 
 and he longs for the hour when they, now resting 
 in their graves, shall be men again in the full 
 enjoyment of the heavenly reward. He sees, not so 
 much himself rescued from destruction and safe in 
 isolated enjoyment, as the " Mount Zion, the city of 
 the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumer- 
 able hosts of angels, the general assembly and Church 
 of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, God 
 the Judge of all, the spirits of just men made 
 perfect, Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, 
 and the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better 
 than that of Abel." That is St. Paul's corporate 
 immortality, an immortality in which each, as he 
 dies, is not lost in a formless ndst, but one in which 
 
€HAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 113 
 
 all together constitute one great company, knowing 
 and being known, loving and beina loved, heart 
 answering to heart and eye to eye for ever. 
 
 With the 32nd verse of the chapter the Apostle 
 closes all he has to say upon the fad of the resur- 
 rection of the dead. But, as his mind is filled with 
 the thought of the disastrous consequences flowing 
 from the denial of the fact, he cannot pass on to 
 the manner of the resurrection, without a solemn 
 practical warning to the Corinthian Church. This 
 warning is contained in the 33rd and 34th verses 
 of the chapter. It is unnecessary to dwell at any 
 length upon them ; and it may be enough to remark 
 that the word " manners " is to be understood of 
 the inward disposition, not the outward demeanour, 
 and that the warning is intended to apply to the 
 whole Church, and not to those alone by whom the 
 resurrection was denied. 
 
 But it is not enough to avoid evil company, and 
 hence the precept is added — " Awake up in a 
 righteous way, and sin not." The words of the 
 original can hardly be so translated as to convey 
 a full idea of their meaning. "Awake" suggests 
 only the thought of having been asleep, while St. 
 Paul has in his mind the sleep of drunkenness ; and 
 again, the next word of the original does not mean, 
 with the Authorised Version, " to righteousness," 
 while the "awake up righteously" of the Eevised 
 Version is not easily understood. The true meaning 
 seems to be, Eouse yourselves out of your dull, heavy 
 
 H 
 
114 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vi 
 
 sleep in a righteous way, in a way that will lead ta 
 righteousness, and not to your besotting yourselves 
 again with draughts of sinful pleasure. Let this be 
 done once for all by a decided and determined effort 
 (compare the tense of the verb) ; and then, after that, 
 do not continue to sin (compare again the tense 
 of the verb) ; but let your progress be worthy of 
 your beginning, your later steps of your first. Thus, 
 instead of being blinded by evil company to the 
 light of the gospel, your eyes will be purged to behold 
 it in all its purity. In company with the righteous, 
 you will follow after righteousness, and God will 
 prosper you. " Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and 
 worketh righteousness ; those that remember Thee in 
 Thy ways ; " " The meek will He guide in judgment, 
 and the meek will He teach His way ; " " The pure in 
 heart shall see God ; " " If any man willeth to do His 
 will, he shall know of the teaching whether it be of God " 
 (Isa. Ixiv. 5 ; Ps. xxv. 9 ; Matt. v. 8 ; John vii. 17). 
 There is all the more reason to do this that there 
 are " some " who " have no knowledge of God." 
 How full of charity are the words ! Some have no 
 knowledge of God. Was not Corinth rather crowded 
 with persons of this description ? Was it not a city 
 than which hardly any city could at that time be 
 found more idolatrous or more debased in its idolatry ? 
 And were not the members of its Christian com- 
 munity among the foolish, the weak, the base, the 
 despised, the things that were not, in comparison 
 with the wise, the strong, the noble, the honoured. 
 
CHAP. VI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 115 
 
 the things that were (chap. i. 26-28) ? Yet, says 
 St. Paul, " Some have no knowledge of God." One 
 would think that almost the whole city must have 
 been Christian. It is only the charity of the 
 Apostle that leads him to speak thus, — a charity 
 that grows as the heart becomes more full of Christ, 
 leading its possessor to believe all and to hope all, to 
 trust that even where there may be nothing but dark- 
 ness to us there may be light to Him who seeth not as 
 man seeth, and that things may turn out to be less bad 
 than they seem. This charity, this looking at things 
 in the best light, neither made St Paul less fervent in 
 prayer nor less earnest in effort for man's good. 
 
 Finally, the Apostle adds, " I speak this to your 
 shame," i.e. not that I may reproach or scorn you, 
 but that you may be ashamed of yourselves, that you 
 may see how foolish you have been, and may in 
 future act a wiser part. 
 
 Thus, with practical exhortation, the Apostle ends 
 the first great half of his argument. We shall find 
 that he does the same with the second half. He 
 may well do so. The grand idea of practical 
 righteousness is not an idea foisted into the writings 
 of St. Paul by those who in our day desire to honour 
 and uphold him, but cannot stand his doctrinal 
 teaching. The idea is there, — there with a depth 
 and intensity which it is utterly impossible to over- 
 state. But it is not there to the exclusion of the 
 doctrine. It is rather there to establish, to magnify, 
 and to crown the doctrine. 
 
^^ Bitt some one loill say, How arc tlve, dead raised? and with what 
 manner of body do they come ? Thou foolish one, that %ohich thou 
 thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die : and that which thou 
 sowestf thou sowest not the body that shall he, hut a hare grain, it 
 may chance of wheai, or of some other kind ; hut God giveth it a hody 
 even as it pleased him, and to each seed a hody of its own. All flesh 
 is not the same flesh : hut there is one flesh of men, and another flesh 
 ofheasts, and another fl^sh of hirds, and another of fl^hes. There 
 are also celestial bodies^ and bodies terrestrial : hut the glory of the 
 celestial is oney and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is 
 one glory of the sun, and anotJier glory of the moon, and another 
 glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from another star in 
 glory."— 1 CoR. xv. 35-41. [R.V.] 
 
npHE Apostle has established in the earlier portion 
 of this chapter the resurrection of believers, by 
 the Eesurrection of Christ. That Christ was risen was 
 admitted without hesitation by those to whom he 
 wrote. Their whole faith rested upon the conviction, 
 not only that the Lord in whom they believed had 
 died, but on the further truth, that He had been 
 raised again, " according to the Scriptures " (ver. 4). 
 In so far therefore as St. Paul had dwelt upon the 
 fact, and even upon the remarkable chain of evidence 
 by which it was established, he had done this, not so 
 much for the purpose of proving it, as for the purpose 
 of reinvigorating his readers' faith, and of bringing 
 the Eesurrection of Jesus home to them with liveliness 
 and power. Hence also the degree to which he had 
 enlarged upon the disastrous consequences that would 
 flow to Christian faith and life in general, if Christ 
 had not been raised. 
 
 The Corinthian Christians are now supposed to be 
 thoroughly alive to this. No further argument upon 
 that particular point was necessary. It followed that 
 the universal proposition maintained at Corinth, that 
 
118 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 no one who had died would rise again, was false. 
 One made in all points like unto His brethren had 
 died and risen from the dead, and His brethren inight 
 in like manner rise. It followed not less certainly 
 that they would rise. The bond of union between 
 Christ and His people was such, that whatever befell 
 Him must also befall them. By the arrangements of 
 that Almighty Being who giveth no account of any of 
 His matters, but whose dealings with His creatures 
 are always infinitely wise and good, they had been 
 so connected with their first parent Adam that they 
 had inherited from him a sinful and mortal nature. 
 It was incontestable that it was so. By a similar 
 Divine arrangement they had inherited from " the 
 Christ " the principle of spiritual and everlasting life ; 
 and again it was incontestable that this, not less than 
 the former, was the case. As then they had become 
 what the one was, so they had been made partakers 
 of what the Other was. In the coming forth of 
 Jesus from the grave they beheld only the Eesurrec- 
 tion of the First-born, to be followed in due time by 
 that of the other members of His family ; the dedica- 
 tion of the first sheaf of harvest in the unending and 
 joyful service of the Father, to be followed by a 
 similar dedication of the other sheaves of the harvest- 
 field. 
 
 The argument was closed, but difficulties still 
 remained which might weaken its force. Questions 
 might still be asked to which inquiring spirits might 
 fairly expect answers. The Apostle felt that he 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 119 
 
 could not neglect this aspect of the case. He must 
 meet the difficulties, he must answer the questions ; 
 and he is to do this by an appeal to the analogy of 
 nature. Analogy cannot indeed demonstrate, and in 
 the passage before us it is not intended to demon- 
 strate, that the thing reasoned about is true. Analogy 
 can only meet a difficulty, although it may do this in 
 an impressive and powerful way. When it is shown 
 that the laws of the spiritual world have laws closely 
 corresponding to them in the natural world, a strong 
 presumption in their favour is instantly created. The 
 God of grace must be the same as the God of provi- 
 dence, for God is one ; and, although we may not 
 understand the processes by which He works, we are 
 prepared to believe that whatever law is met with 
 in the latter may be expected in the former sphere. 
 The principle lies at the bottom of our Lord's method 
 of instruction by parable. There is unity in the 
 whole system of the universe, and everything that 
 illustrates and brings out that unity is probably true. 
 Thus it is then that St. Paul proceeds to answer the 
 difficulties suggested to him. 
 
 At ver. 35 an objector is introduced to us: "But 
 some one will say, How are the dead raised? and 
 with what manner of body do they come ? " Have 
 we here two questions, or one expressed in two 
 different forms ? When we turn to the answer con- 
 tained in the following verses, the probability is that 
 we have two : the first referring to the process of the 
 resurrection ; the second, to its result : the first con- 
 
120 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 cerned with the difficulty of imagining that a 
 resurrection should take place at all ; the second, with 
 the difficulty of thinking how, if it is to take place ^ 
 it can do so in a manner adapted to a heavenly world 
 and existence there. That the latter thought is 
 involved in the second question appears not only from 
 the general strain of the reply, but from the singular 
 use of the word " come." St. Paul does not say 
 " come out of their graves " or " come into the world 
 again." He says simply " come." " With what 
 manner of body do they come ? " The Coming of 
 Christ, with whom His saints come, is in his mind ;. 
 and it was not inappropriate to transfer that thought 
 to the mind of an objector who, notwithstanding his 
 present difficulties, believed in the second Coming of 
 his Lord. 
 
 The two objections taken together are most 
 natural ; nor are they less natural now than they 
 were then. We stand by the bedside of a Christian 
 friend who has just uttered his last word or breathed 
 his last sigh. Still more, we stand by the open grave 
 and see the body deposited in its last resting-place, 
 till it is for ever hidden from our sight by the earth 
 that has been filled in to cover it. We think of its 
 helplessness, and of its insensibility to the sorrow of 
 the surrounding mourners. Nay, we remember even 
 that already the process of corruption has begun, and 
 that but a short time will pass before dust will have 
 returned to dust, and no member of the cherished form,. 
 no feature of the loved face, be discernible ; and, when 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 121 
 
 we think of all this, it is in no spirit of scepticism or 
 scorn, but in one of deep perplexity and anxiety, that 
 we ask, " How are the dead raised up ? and with 
 what manner of body do they come ? " Satisfy us 
 only upon that point, we exclaim, and many of our 
 doubts will vanish. Let us see that it may be so, let 
 us obtain some intelligent conception of the manner 
 in which it will take place, and we shall ask no more. 
 The chamber of death has awakened many to a purer 
 and a nobler life. But is it not equally true, that 
 the sight of the dead has instilled, and even now 
 instils, into many a mind the suspicion that a re- 
 surrection is an impossibility, and that the Christi- 
 anity of which it is a central part is no more than a 
 beautiful but sad delusion ? Therefore may we well 
 try to understand what the Apostle says upon the 
 point. 
 
 To the first question before us the answer is given 
 in ver. 36 : " Foolish one " (certainly not " thou fool" 
 of the A. Y., hardly even " thou foolish one '' of the 
 E. v.), " that which thou thyself so west is not quick- 
 ened, except it die." Every one allows that there is 
 such a thing in nature as a quickening. We see it in 
 the seeds which, when sown under proper conditions^ 
 spring up in new forms of life. But something 
 precedes this change, and what is that ? The Apostle 
 answers. Death. But what again is death ? We can 
 be at no loss for a reply ; for modern science has 
 established with a certainty upon which it is impos- 
 sible to cast a doubt, that in no case is the death of a 
 
122 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 body the destruction of the particles of which it had 
 been previously composed. Nature knows nothing of 
 annihilation. Whatever has been continues to be. 
 It may be changed into other shapes, it may pass 
 into other things ; but it is never wholly blotted out 
 from that state of being into which it has once been 
 introduced. Death therefore is not destruction : it 
 is simply disorganization, the dissolution of the bond 
 which held the old particles together in their old 
 sphere of existence, that they may enter upon a new 
 one. Not oidy so. An entirely new form of life 
 cannot be obtained, except through the disorganiza- 
 tion of the old. As our Lord Himself said, " Except 
 a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it 
 abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much 
 fruit" (John xii. 24). We take a corn of wheat into 
 our hands. It is dry and hard, a small body which 
 will keep for many years without the slightest 
 apparent change ; and which, so long as it is thus 
 kept, will produce nothing, although it may waste by 
 a process of decay so slow as to be imperceptible. 
 On the other hand, we drop it into the soil, and thus 
 supply it with the conditions taught us by experience 
 to be necessary for the result we are desirous to 
 secure. Disorganization immediately begins ; and, 
 lo ! instead of remaining any longer what it was, a 
 change sets in. The husk of the seed is broken by 
 some internal power. A little shoot issues forth in 
 the dark bosom of the earth. That shoot parts into 
 two directions, in one of which it goes downward, a 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 123 
 
 thin, white, pulpy fibre, wliile in the other it pushes 
 upward, seeks the free air of lieaven, and appears as 
 a green stalk, sending forth leaves, lengthening the 
 stalk, and crowning it with the ear of corn. We call 
 this a passing through death, says the Apostle. But 
 call it by any name you please. What you really 
 have is disorganization, decay, corruption, such a 
 mingling of the particles of the seed with those of the 
 surrounding soil that you cannot separate them. Yet 
 out of that disorganization, decay, corruption, and 
 mingling of particles, there comes a new form of life 
 and loveliness. 
 
 It is no doubt true that the seed was never what 
 we call dead. There was always a principle of life in 
 it. But who shall say that there is not a principle 
 of life in the believer which the cold hand of death 
 cannot chill, which the power of death can only set 
 free and not destroy ? In the infant of an hour old 
 are there not undeveloped powers of nature ? May 
 there not be also in it undeveloped powers of grace 
 which no physical analysis can discover, and no 
 principles of physiology explain ? And why may not 
 he who has been united to a living Lord have in him 
 some principle of life which is only emancipated when 
 the last look is taken and the last sigh breathed ? 
 
 One remark may be made in passing. Have we 
 not here an answer to a difficulty felt by many minds 
 upon this point ? It is said that, whatever may be 
 the case in the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom 
 supplies us with no instance of death producing life. 
 
124 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 " The animal creation dies ; but where, in all the 
 mouldering ruins of that empire which life once 
 animated, is there any sign or token of its restora- 
 tion ? " ^ The question is a sad one ; and, when we 
 hear it, what a world of wreckage and of ruin spreads 
 out on every side before the eye ! But the answer is. 
 In the lower animal creation there is no principle of 
 union with the living Lord, there is no principle of 
 life which death cannot touch. In the case of the 
 believer it is otherwise. Christ is risen, and is at the 
 right hand of the Father. That is the proposition 
 from which we start. But, if He is risen and at the 
 right hand of the Father, then just as in the seed 
 there is a principle of life at the moment when we 
 commit it to the soil, so in the believer, at the moment 
 of death, there is that principle of union with an 
 exalted Lord which is ready to spring up into 
 quickened life when the poor frame in which it has 
 been sheltered for a time returns to corruption. 
 
 Nor does it make any essential difference that in 
 the one case the plant begins immediately to spring 
 up, that in the other, centuries after centuries may 
 pass before the quickened frame is bestowed. The 
 seed does not immediately sprout unless it is sown ; 
 in other words, unless the conditions of God's 
 plan are complied with. In the case of the be- 
 liever the apostle has taught us in this very chapter 
 that one of these conditions is " at His Coming." 
 " Each in his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; then 
 
 ^ Hanua, The Resurrection oftlie Lcad^ p. 114. 
 
€HAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 125 
 
 they that are Christ's, at His Coming " (ver. 2 3). 
 The time fixed in the Almighty's counsels for the 
 rising of His saints has not yet arrived. They are 
 not to take part in the contest which their Lord 
 carries on by means of the saints still living in the 
 flesh. They rest, they wait ; and He can keep them 
 safe till those conditions are supplied in the midst of 
 which their principle of life shall be clothed with its 
 appropriate frame. 
 
 The first question of ver. 35 has been answered ; 
 and at ver. 3 7 St. Paul proceeds to answer the second, 
 *' With what manner of body do they come ? " It 
 would appear from his reply that there are especially 
 three difficulties in connexion with the matter which 
 he feels it necessary to meet. 
 
 1. Is the body to be bestowed at the resurrection to 
 be the same body that we possess now ? It neither 
 need nor will be so, is the Apostle's answer. It need 
 not be so ; for, if we look around us upon the works of 
 God, we behold everywhere tokens of the inexhaustible 
 resources of His Almighty hand. There is no limita- 
 tion to His power, no end to the variety in which all 
 things, whether in heaven or earth, are made. Look 
 for a moment at the vegetable world. How diversified 
 are the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, the vegetables, 
 the grasses, the mosses of the field ! There might 
 have been a few forms only, yet there are forms 
 without number and without end. Trace the ascend- 
 ing scale from the lowest to the highest ; pause at 
 any round of the ladder, and diverge into the side 
 
126 THE RESURRECTION" OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 groups which bear the marks of belonging to the 
 common type — everywhere something new, something 
 different from what we have seen. Let us take even 
 two specimens of the same species into our hand, and 
 we shall find that they are not the same. Submit the 
 smallest corresponding parts of these specimens to a 
 close examination, and we shall find that a similar 
 law holds. No two leaves of the same tree, no two 
 blades of grass, are in every respect the same. 
 
 In the animal world the same thing is again per- 
 ceptible. The various animals of the earth, of the 
 air, and of the sea are all different from one another ; 
 and how infinite is the variety of their forms ! From 
 the huge elephant to the tiniest insect that lights upon 
 a leaf, from the great eagle that soars far beyond the 
 ken of human eye to the smallest bird that chirps 
 upon the spray, from leviathan, the mightiest monster 
 that plays in the great deep, down to the little min- 
 now of the brook, every conceivable variety of figure 
 and habit and life ! 
 
 Nay, further. From the creatures of earth let us 
 pass to the orbs of heaven, to sun and moon and 
 stars ; and, once more, they differ. Even to the im- 
 perfect vision of man they are distinguished from one 
 another. The constituent elements of each group, the 
 basis of the substance of each, may be the same ; yet 
 upon that one basis is built up the infinite variety 
 that meets the eye upon every side. Each group 
 differs from other groups, and within each group the 
 individual objects also differ. The Apostle indeed 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 127 
 
 applies this thought only to the second group when 
 he says that all are "flesh," yet " not the same flesh." 
 Perhaps he did not know that the same remark 
 might have been made as to the first ; and certainly 
 he did not know, what is one of the latest discoveries 
 of the spectroscope, that it might have been made as 
 to the third. But we know that, in the fundamental 
 molecules of their nature, each group is the same. 
 Few and simple are the materials with which the Creator 
 works ; and yet with them, above, below, around us, 
 we see forms so utterly inexhaustible in number that 
 the mind is bewildered in the attempt to grasj) them. 
 
 What then is the conclusion ? There is no need 
 that the body to be given us at the great day should 
 be the same as it is now. He who has made all 
 things has an infinite store of forms at His command. 
 
 If however our resurrection bodies need not he the 
 same, neither ivill they he the same as our present 
 bodies. Had this not been the case St. Paul would 
 at once have said so. His argument proceeds upon 
 the supposition that they will be different, and is only 
 intelligible if we accept that supposition as correct. 
 Besides this, it is plainly implied in the contrast 
 drawn by him between the " bare grain " and the 
 future plant. He does not bring the former into 
 comparison with the grains of the same kind with 
 which the ear of corn is filled, but with the whole 
 plant which springs from it ; and to the most careless 
 glance these are entirely unlike each other. Another 
 comparison leading to the same conclusion is made by 
 
128 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 him in 2 Corinthians v. 1-3, when he contrasts " the 
 earthly house of our tabernacle, to be dissolved," with 
 the " building from God, the house not made with 
 hands, eternal, in the heavens ; " when he speaks of 
 our " habitation which is from heaven," and anticipates 
 the hour at which, being clothed, we shall not be 
 found yviMvoi, the yufLvov of the present passage. The 
 resurrection body will not then be the body we possess 
 now. What degree of resemblance it may have to 
 this last, how far it may be identified with it, in 
 what respects it may in both stages still be ours, 
 may receive further elucidation as St. Paul proceeds. 
 In the meantime we have only to do with the fact 
 that it will not be the same. Again therefore we 
 may stand by the bed of death or the open grave, and 
 St. Paul will say to us, Do not perplex yourselves 
 with the idea that the particles of that frame already 
 returning to corruption will on the morning of the 
 resurrection be reunited as you see them. What you 
 see is only the outward husk of the principle of life con- 
 tained in the seed. When the seed germinates it will 
 spring up something wholly different to the outward eye. 
 2. The second difficulty which tlie Apostle has to 
 meet is this, Will the bodies to be bestowed at the 
 resurrection be adapted to the new condition of things 
 then introduced ? When men heard of a body to be 
 inhabited by the spirit in the heavenly world, they 
 naturally thought of the body possessed by them in 
 this world. They had neither heard of nor seen any 
 other, and no thought of any other could occur to 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 129 
 
 them. But, if so, was not this at variance with all 
 that they otherwise knew of that better land, which 
 was the goal of their hopes and expectations ? What- 
 ever else that land might be, it was surely a land of 
 light and glory, of freedom from pain and sorrow and 
 death. What harmony could there be between such 
 a land and the present bodies of believers, wearied 
 with toil, subject to disease, tormented with pains, 
 liable at any moment to become the spoil of the 
 last enemy of man ? Yet what else was there to look 
 for ? Or, if we are after all persuaded that there will 
 be a new body, what assurance have we that it will 
 be suitable to the light and glory that we anticipate 
 in the heavenly world ? We see the answer to this 
 difficulty in the fact that there runs through St. Paul's 
 argument more than the thought of many forms 
 already dwelt on. Not only is there an infinite 
 variety of forms, but these are everywhere adapted to 
 the scene in which they play their part. The plants 
 and beasts of the earth, the birds of the air, and the 
 fishes of the sea, are not only different from each other, 
 they are also,whatever the seed or germ from which they 
 spring, in perfect harmony with their surroundings. 
 
 It is interesting to notice the manner in which this 
 thought comes out, incidentally rather than directly, 
 the unpremeditated expression of a state of habitual 
 conviction, rather than of argument, deliberately 
 sought for and used at the moment. The word 
 " glory " is the key to it. Why say, " There is one 
 glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and 
 
130 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from 
 another star in glory.'' Why not rather say, There 
 is one nature of the sun, and another nature of the 
 moon, and another nature of the stars ; for one star 
 differeth from another ? Because it is the firmament 
 of heaven in its splendour by day, it is the star- 
 bespangled sky by night, of which St. Paul is thinking. 
 That firmament, that sky, is a glorious spectacle, 
 and each orb of light that shines in it is fitted to 
 hang from such a glowing roof ; each is a glory. 
 True, St. Paul extends the thought to things of earth, 
 to terrestrial as well as celestial bodies, but he may 
 do so with propriety ; for " the glory of the celestial 
 is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." 
 Everywhere glory ; yet not alone in the idea of the 
 object itself, but in the idea of its adaptation to its 
 surroundings, does the " glory " lie ; and, once the 
 mind takes hold of this idea, it sees glory everywhere. 
 The correspondences of nature, in short, are so uni- 
 versal and so marked, as to assure us, that whatever 
 body the Almighty gives His children at the coming 
 of the Lord will be perfectly conformable to " the 
 new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." 
 
 The second difficulty, like the first, has been met 
 by a consideration of the analogies supplied by nature. 
 These analogies show us that there is no need to fear 
 that there cannot be a resurrection body adapted 
 to a resurrection life. He who gives to each beast 
 and bird and fish and orb of heaven its suitableness 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 131 
 
 to the sphere in which it is to move will not fail 
 to provide that the frame destined to be the eternal 
 home of the redeemed spirit shall be suitable to its 
 future heavenly abode. 
 
 3. A third difficulty has still to be met. If, 
 ■at the resurrection, the body is to be so different 
 from what it is at present, will it be our body ? 
 Shall we when clothed with it be the same persons 
 that we are now ? Shall our personal identity be 
 preserved ? This question is perhaps not met so 
 fully as the two already considered, because the 
 .answer is implied in the whole course of the argu- 
 ment. Yet it would seem to be distinctly in the 
 Apostle's mind, and his view upon the point comes 
 out more particularly in ver. 38. Speaking there 
 of the springing seed, he says, " But God giveth it 
 a body even as it pleased Him, and to each seed 
 a, body of its own." According to the later reading, 
 there is no article before 7dm ffufj^a ; and its absence 
 makes a difference in the sense. Tb '/djov ^rw/xa would 
 mean a body distinct from other bodies, just as the 
 plant which springs from a grain of wheat is distinct 
 from that which springs from a grain of barley. The 
 emphasis would thus be laid on the fact already 
 •considered, that God has such an infinite variety of 
 bodies at His command, that He can have no 
 difficulty in providing His people at the resurrection 
 with the bodies which they may require, and which 
 shall be suitable to their new sphere of life, "i^iov 
 tsuiLa, without the article, means that God does not 
 
132 THE REJSURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 merely make, as it were, a draft upon universal 
 matter in order to find a body for the risen believer, 
 but that He gives him a body of which it can be 
 said, " That is his own body : it corresponds to what 
 he is ; " and inasmuch as he rises the same man 
 as he died (otherwise we need not speak of a 
 resurrection), it corresponds to what he was when he 
 lived on earth. Emphasis is thus laid upon a new 
 fact. The plant which springs from a grain of wheat 
 is not only distinct from that which springs from 
 a grain of barley, it corresponds to what the grain 
 of wheat in itself was. How, in what particulars, 
 the correspondence is to be traced, the Apostle does 
 not say. He could not. Put a plant of wheat and 
 one of barley along with a grain of wheat and one 
 of barley into the hands of one wholly devoid of 
 experience in these matters, and he certainly could 
 not tell us which of the plants belonged to either 
 grain. Even with experience he can only say, " The 
 one plant belongs to the one grain, the other to the 
 other." There is a correspondence between each pair, 
 so that the grain of wheat could have given rise 
 to no plant but the one, the grain of barley to no 
 plant but the other. The grain of wheat has passed 
 into the plant of wheat, the grain of barley into 
 the plant of barley. Identity is preserved through 
 all the changes which the grains have severally 
 undergone. 
 
 What has now been said is still further brought 
 out by the contrast of tenses used by the Apostle 
 
CHAP. VII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 133 
 
 in ver. 38, " God giveth " {dlduatv), the present, " even 
 as it pleased Him " (xa^wg ridsXYiGsv), the definite 
 historic past. Why not " God giveth even as it 
 pleaseth Him ? " Because then we should see no 
 law regulating His procedure. He might still indeed 
 bestow a body in such a way as to preserve the 
 identity which is so important; but we might not 
 see that, in doing so. He acted upon a fixed principle. 
 We should be unable to resist the fear that He 
 might choose at one moment one form of body for 
 the plant rising from one kind of seed, and then 
 again another form of body for the same plant. He 
 does not however act thus. He acts upon a law 
 which He has laid down for Himself. It is His 
 eternal will that, through whatever changes the seed 
 or the germ of life passes, there shall be something 
 that connects its latest with its earliest stage.^ 
 
 Nor does the doctrine of the transmutation of 
 species affect the argument. It has been said that 
 it weakens the analogy. " It does not destroy it 
 altogether, because the transmutation, if it occurs 
 at all, is brought about too slowly to be perceptible 
 to the eye. We see only wheat springing from a 
 grain of wheat ; and this is enough for the Apostle's 
 
 ^ '• The Kaduis 7]de\r]<T€v, pointing back to the time when at His 
 "bidding the earth brought forth the ' herb yielding seed after his 
 kind ' (Gen. i. 12), and when each seed and the body into which it 
 was to develop were bound by creative wisdom in enduring organic 
 unity" (EUicott m loe.). Comp. also Edwards m loc. : "The aorist 
 denotes the first act of God's will determining the constitution of 
 nature. The present expresses the necessary activity of God in the 
 2)roduction of every single growth." 
 
134 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vn 
 
 purpose. The analogy is not the proof." ^ The 
 remark appears to be only so far, not wholly, just. 
 Whatever measure of apparent transmutation of 
 species there may be, it is always within certain 
 lines which fix down the final form of the transmuta- 
 tion to one particular beginning, and not another. 
 The slowness of transmutation too, although in insect 
 life it is often exceedingly rapid, is nothing to the 
 purpose. It is the keeping of the same lines, sa 
 that there shall always in the last be something of 
 the first, that is the Apostle's point ; and the principle 
 of the Creator s government laid down in the words, 
 " to each seed a body of its own," at once disposes,, 
 by analogy, of the difficulty with which he deals. 
 
 Changes indeed as great as those here referred to 
 go on continually in the case of man, while w^e yet 
 remain conscious that we are the same persons that 
 w^e were. The observation need hardly be repeated, 
 that the particles of our bodies undergo a complete 
 change in the course of a comparatively small number 
 of years. It is of more consequence to notice that 
 the particles lost by us have already entered, or 
 will certainly soon enter, into the bodies of other 
 men whose individuality is as distinct as ours. Yet 
 neither our identity nor that of these others is 
 thereby affected. The very thing which we are apt 
 to think cannot happen has already happened. Trans- 
 ferences not less marvellous than those which are to 
 take place at our death have already taken place 
 
 ^ Edwards in loc. 
 
CHAP. VII THE KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 135 
 
 with all of us, and are at this moment continually 
 going on in that seething state of existence in which 
 we are all giving and receiving with every breath 
 of air we draw. Disorganization, in a certain sense 
 death, has been long ere now at work in each of us. 
 Others are living by means of what we were. We 
 are living by means of what others were ; and yet 
 we live and they live our own independent lives. 
 The memories and experiences of the past were not 
 attached to the particles of our bodies that have 
 disappeared or, in other words, died. They are ours 
 and ours alone, and by no possibility can they become 
 the property of others. If they — that is, if we — 
 do not survive disorganization, death ; if we do 
 not survive identical in our personality with what 
 we were, then something as real as the particles 
 of matter has been annihilated ; and such a con- 
 clusion science contradicts. 
 
 Thus then, up to this point, has St. Paul met 
 by analogy the difficulties with which he deals. 
 He has not indeed exhausted his subject. He has 
 much that is positive as well as negative to say. 
 But he has shown " the foolish one," the unobservant 
 student of nature who, consciously or unconsciously, 
 draws his conclusions from what he believes of nature, 
 that he has not studied nature with sufficient care. 
 It may be perfectly true that nature affords no 
 example of individual resurrection in the sense in 
 which we speak of the resurrection of the believer. 
 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 So careless of the single life. 
 
136 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vii 
 
 But St. Paul will not go to nature for his proof 
 of that momentous fact. He will only show that 
 there are processes and laws at work in her which 
 do not contradict it, which may even prepare us 
 for it if it rest upon other sufficient grounds. In 
 the meantime he only dispels the idea that our 
 resurrection bodies either need or will be the same 
 as our present bodies ; that they cannot be bodies 
 at all if they are adapted to a heavenly, not an 
 earthly, world ; and that the changes we are to 
 undergo must forbid our being hereafter essentially 
 the same personalities that we are now. 
 
 Having accomplished this, St. Paul is free — free 
 from having to deal with doubts or to answer 
 difficulties. He is free to spring exultant from the 
 earth, and to expatiate in that glorious realm of 
 hope which is associated with the thought of his 
 risen and exalted Lord. 
 
* So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in con'uption ; it 
 is raised in incoi^ruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in 
 glory : it is sown in weahiess ; it is raised in power : it is sown a 
 natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural 
 body, there is also a spiritual body."— 1 CoE. xv. 42-44. [R.V.] 
 
"13 Y the help of analogies from nature the Apostle 
 ■^-^^ has been able to meet three difficulties attending 
 the belief that there is a resurrection of the dead. 
 The dead rise, he had said ; and it followed that, so 
 rising, they must have bodies, for without a body 
 no man can be thought of as existing. The first 
 difficulty therefore had been. With what kind of 
 body do the dead come ? How can they be thought 
 of as having bodies at all, when the bodies which 
 they possessed during the life in which we knew 
 them have returned to corruption ? If they have 
 bodies, had been the second difficulty, will these 
 bodies be adapted to the condition of a heavenly 
 world ? If they will be so adapted, had been the 
 third difficulty, and thus be so different from what 
 they were, can personal identity have been preserved ? 
 These three questions have been answered, and the 
 application has now to be made in a more positive 
 treatment of the subject. 
 
 This application is made at ver. 42 : "So also is 
 the resurrection of the dead ; " that is, the resurrection 
 of the dead follows the same order and law as may 
 
140 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 be seen in the analogies of nature that have been 
 spoken of. We have here one of those instances of 
 breviloquence v^hich are common in all languages, a 
 thought implied though not fully expressed. In 
 speaking of the plant which sprang from the seed, 
 St. Paul evidently did not think of the mere fact of 
 the springing alluded to. He thought also of the 
 plant itself as a living plant, and of the new state 
 into which it was introduced. He thought of the 
 life that was in the new form, and of which the 
 new form was the expression. In like manner he 
 does not think now only of the act of rising from the 
 dead, but of the life which follows it. Something of 
 a similar kind, although there the tense of the verb 
 used makes the meaning clearer, is to be found in 
 ver. 4 of this chapter : " And that He (Christ) hath 
 been raised [not ' was raised ' of Authorised Version] 
 on the third day." Not merely did Christ rise, but 
 His Eesurrection was to ever-enduring, eternal life. 
 
 If what has been said be admitted, it may help us 
 over a difficulty connected with the next following 
 words, rendered in both the Authorized and Revised 
 Versions, " It is sown in corruption," etc. The sub- 
 ject spoken of, it is said, is the body, which indeed 
 is expressly named in ver. 44 : cTnipirai aSiiMa •v|/u;^/xoi/. 
 2w/Aa is therefore to be taken back to the beginning 
 of ver. 42, and the "it" of the English rendering is 
 to be understood as "the body." So most com- 
 mentators. But there are difficulties in the way of 
 accepting this view ; for (1) Although the Apostle has 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESUKRECTION" OF THE DEAD 141 
 
 been treating of the body, it is less the body alone 
 than the body regarded as the outward organ and 
 expression of the man that he has in his eye ; (2) 
 The (Su)iJ.a of ver. 44 is too far off, and we ought to 
 find it mentioned in ver. 42. Even when it first 
 meets us in verse 44, it is a predicate, rather 
 than directly the subject of the sentence ; (3) If 
 supplied as proposed, we shall hardly be able to avoid 
 thinking of death and burial as the moment at which 
 the sowing takes place, and not a few commentators 
 who advocate its introduction as suhject at the beginning 
 of ver. 42 allow that this cannot be done.^ Another 
 rendering accordingly has been suggested, in which 
 G'jiipzTai is treated as an impersonal verb.^ " It is sown;" 
 that is, " There is a sowing in corruption," etc. The 
 point need not be enlarged on ; for, on the one hand, 
 a reference to the body cannot be denied ; and, on the 
 other hand, there is a sufficiently general admission that 
 the Apostle must be understood to speak of the body, 
 not at the instant only when it is buried, but as the 
 habitation of man during his present earthly life. 
 When, in the first clause of ver. 42, he says, " So 
 also is the resurrection of the dead," he has in view, 
 not simply the act of rising, but the resurrection state 
 into which believers enter. In like manner, when he 
 speaks of the vi%poi, though the immediate reference 
 is to their death, he is really thinking of their whole 
 mortal in contrast with their whole immortal life. 
 
 ^ Comp. Ellicott, Edwards. 
 
 ^ Comp. Moulton's Winer, p. 656 ; Hofmann in loc. ; Godet m loc. 
 
142 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 All the earthly course of man, from its beginning to 
 its end, from the cradle to the grave, is the time of 
 his being sown ; and truth is that 
 
 Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
 In darkness lost, ihe darkness of the grave. 
 
 No other interpretation does justice to the context. 
 The terms " dishonour " and " weakness " are too wide 
 to find a suitable application to the body only when it 
 is committed to the dust ; while it would be extremely 
 unnatural to call it a trw/z-a -^u^ixov, a body with a 
 sensuous life, at the very time when that life has left it. 
 
 Thus then, contrasting the life of man in his 
 earthly body with his life in his resurrection body, 
 St. Paul proceeds to point out how infinitely more 
 olorious is the latter than the former. " 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." What 
 is the meaning of these appellations ? 
 
 Godet, adopting the right reference of the sowing, 
 not to the act of burial, but to all the earthly life of 
 man, supposes that, in the terms thus used, the 
 Apostle travels backwards in thought through the 
 different stages of a mortal pilgrimage from death 
 to birth. " Corruption " thus refers to death and 
 dissolution in the grave ; " dishonour " to all the 
 ills and miseries which precede and prepare the 
 way for death ; " weakness," to the helplessness of 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 143 
 
 infancy when the child is born ; while the word 
 *' natural " (-^vxiX'Ss) carries us still further back 
 to the instant at which the breath of life is com- 
 municated to the physical germ about to be 
 developed into the instrument and organism of 
 the future life on earth. The explanation can 
 hardly be looked at in any other light than as 
 fanciful and unnatural. Had the Apostle been 
 alluding to the different stages of man's earthly 
 life, he would surely have begun at the beginning, and 
 have passed onward to the end. But there is no need 
 to think of stages. Each term used is applicable 
 to human life as a whole, and the progress lying latent 
 in the words is one, not of time, but of thought. 
 
 Thus the glorified body which man is to possess 
 at his resurrection and in his resurrection state rises 
 before the mind of the Apostle " in incorruption " ; and 
 he exclaims, " It is sown in corruption ; it is raised 
 in incorruption." He has no thought of sin in 
 saying so, but only of liability to change and to 
 dissolution. Here all things pass away. Years, 
 as they sweep over us, and especially when they 
 bring us near the great step which transfers us to 
 the eternal world, bring with them only increasing 
 infirmities, more multiplied tokens that the taber- 
 nacle in which we dwell shall soon be altogether 
 taken down. There, "incorruption:" no insidious 
 approaches of sickness or disease, no colour fading 
 from the. cheek or light from the eye, no wearied 
 frame hardly able to bear the burden of itself, no 
 
144 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, vin 
 
 palsied limb, but the blessed glow of health and 
 strength diffused through the whole man, and to 
 be enhanced rather than diminished as the ages of 
 eternity run on. Next, " in glory : " " It is sown 
 in dishonour ; it is raised in glory." Again the 
 Apostle has no thought of any positive dishonour 
 inflicted by either God or man upon the body during 
 the present life ; and surely still less does he think 
 of any later contempt poured upon the thought of it, 
 as if it were supposed to lie in the grave unremembered 
 and unloved. " Dishonour " is simply in contrast 
 with " glory." Twice in other passages of his writings 
 does St. Paul use the word, when he would express 
 the nature of those meaner vessels of a great house, 
 which are either made of wood or stone, instead of 
 gold or silver, or which, if made of the same material 
 as others, are less elaborately finished and adorned.^ 
 The true parallel to the thought is to be found in 
 the contrast presented to us in the Epistle to the 
 Philippians between the body of our humiliation which 
 is to be fashioned anew, and the body of Christ's glory 
 to which it is to be conformed. Such is the lowliness 
 of man's body now. Fearfully and wonderfully as it 
 is made, it is yet a poor frame in comparison with 
 what it shall be when " the righteous shall shine forth 
 as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," and when 
 they shall be clothed with a glory corresponding to 
 that of the " new heavens and the new earth wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness." Once more, St. Paul sees 
 
 1 Rom. ix. 21 : 2 Tim. ii. 20. 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 145 
 
 the body of man in " power : " " It is sown in 
 weakness ; it is raised in power." Here it is frail, 
 helpless, exposed to infirmities and diseases of all 
 kinds. There it is possessed of power, and has 
 gained a complete mastery over every ill. 
 
 In all this, as especially appears from the words 
 that follow, and have still to be considered, the 
 Apostle is not thinking of the effect produced upon 
 man's earthly state by his fall from the condition in 
 which he was originally created. He has in view a 
 state of matters which existed previously to the fall. 
 No doubt there is a sense in which it may be said 
 that sin has brought into the world " death and all 
 our woe." But it seems to be the clear teaching of 
 St. Paul throughout the passage now under considera- 
 tion, that the " corruption," the " dishonour," and the 
 " weakness " of which he speaks are properties of our 
 present human frame in itself, properties that be- 
 longed even to the frame of our first parents in 
 their state in paradise. No ethical idea therefore is 
 to be attached to the words. Man, even in his best 
 estate, had been fitted for life in this earthly, material 
 scene, in which he was to work out and to pass 
 through his preparation for a higher. That higher 
 scene now shines brightly before the eye of the 
 Apostle, as he places himself on the other side oi 
 the river of time and death ; and it is one of " in- 
 corruption," of " glory," and of " power." 
 
 At ver. 44 of the chapter St. Paul continues his 
 description of the contrast between the present and 
 
146 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 the resurrection state of believers, yet with an im- 
 portant change in his line of thought. Hitherto he 
 had spoken of the contrast in its more outward 
 features, and the arrangement thus indicated might 
 have been nothing more than an arbitrary arrange- 
 ment on the part of God. Without regard to any 
 deeper principles of His government, God might have 
 simply willed that the change to take effect on the 
 bodies of His saints at the resurrection should be 
 from corruption to incorruption, from dishonour to 
 glory, from weakness to power. At the point of the 
 argument which we now reach new ground is occupied, 
 and the nature of the body to be bestowed upon believers 
 when they arise from the dead is brought into con- 
 nexion with everlasting principles of the divine ad- 
 ministration of the universe. 
 
 j 1. The fact meets us. " It is sown a natural 
 body ; it is raised a spiritual body." The words 
 here used, "natural" (accepting that translation in 
 the meantime), " spiritual," and " body," cannot be 
 examined in a paper such as this with that fulness 
 of statement which their importance might justify or 
 might even seem to demand, but a few remarks upon 
 them must be made. 
 
 (1) What is the conception to be attached to the 
 word " body " ? Certainly not that commonly enter- 
 tained, that it is the mere covering of the soul, 
 standing to the soul in a relation similar to that of 
 the shell to the kernel of a nut. The connexion 
 between the two is much more intimate. The body 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 147 
 
 is an organism, and its organized existence depends, 
 alike in its beginning and in its continuance, upon 
 the fact that a vital power not only dwells in it as in 
 a house, but permeates or interpenetrates it in such 
 a way that all its different parts or members constitute 
 one whole (1 Cor. xii. 12-26). From the head "all 
 the body fitly framed and knit together through every 
 joint of the supply, according to the working in due 
 measure of each several part, maketh the increase of 
 the body" (Eph. iv. 16). This vital power however 
 may be of entirely different kinds. It may be 
 spiritual or carnal, heavenly or earthly. There is no 
 closer connexion between the body as such and any 
 one of the forces by which it may be animated and 
 used, than between the body and any other of these 
 forces. The (rw/xa is not the adp^. The latter may 
 be the ruling principle in the former, and may 
 become so identified with it that when the (rw/xa is 
 spoken of, it may, as in Eomans viii. 10, include the 
 <rdp^. But the <rapg has no necessary relation to the 
 Gu/iia. Its power may be destroyed while the ffu/^a 
 still remains the coD/Aa, employed as their instruments 
 by good instead of evil principles. Hence, accord- 
 ingly, the (Tw/Aa may be " holy," which the tra^g can 
 never be ; it is " for the Lord, and the Lord is for it " 
 (1 Cor. vi. 13); "it is even the 'temple' — the I'ao?, 
 the innermost shrine — of the Holy Spirit in believers " 
 (1 Cor. vi. 19): it is to be presented to God "a living 
 sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, our reasonable or 
 spiritual (Eevised Version, margin) service " (Rom. 
 
148 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viir 
 
 xii. 1) : nay, it was the instrument fashioned by the 
 Almighty for the eternal Son, that by means of it 
 He might complete the work of man's redemption 
 (Heb. X. 5). 
 
 The idea therefore apt to be entertained by many, 
 that there is an incompatibility, or even a contrariety, 
 between what is spiritual and what is bodily, is 
 wholly false. In St. Paul's view there is no such 
 opposition. With him spiritual is opposed to what 
 is either carnal or belonging to the same category, 
 and the distinguishing feature of what is called the 
 " body " is, not that it is better fitted for what is evil 
 than for what is good, but that it is the form in which 
 either the one or the other is made manifest. 
 
 Again, we are nowhere taught that the particles of 
 which the body is composed are necessarily heavy 
 and sluggish, ill adapted to the activity and life of 
 the spirit. For aught we know they may be of an 
 entirely different description. Not their weight, but 
 their relation to one another, their dependence upon 
 one another, their interest in one another, and their 
 mutual helpfulness, constitute them a " body." The 
 use of that word throws no light upon the nature of 
 the particles of which the body is composed, either in 
 its earthly or its heavenly, its pre-resurrection or its 
 post-resurrection, state. These particles may be like 
 those of our present frames, or they may be in striking 
 contrast with them. The word " body " only says 
 that there shall be an investiture or framework within 
 which the vital force shall dwell, and by which each 
 
€HAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 149 
 
 possessor of a body shall be separated from his 
 fellows. 
 
 (2) " Natural " {-^vxi'yiog). The translation is that 
 of both the Authorised and Eevised Versions, but few 
 will be found to deny that it is not a happy one. 
 Tor, in the first place, the word " natural " is in a high 
 degree ambiguous ; and in the second place, it conveys 
 no conception of any internal force or power in man 
 which expresses itself in the particular kind of body 
 spoken of. Yet the term of the original is exceed- 
 ingly difficult to translate. It is not of frequent 
 occurrence in the New Testament. Except in the 
 verses immediately before us, it is found only three 
 times in the whole compass of that book : in 1 
 Corinthians ii. 14, James iii. 15, and Jude 19. In 
 the first of these passages it is again rendered, alike 
 in the Authorized Version and the Eevised Version, 
 " natural," and in the second and third " sensual ; " 
 although the revisers sufficiently indicate their per- 
 plexity by attaching to it on these last occasions a 
 double margin, " natural " or " animal." 
 
 There may be no complete remedy for this, as no 
 word of the English language properly represents the 
 Greek. Certainly the refuges of despair suggested 
 by recent inquirers, " soulish " and " soulual," are still 
 more objectionable. Yet, even allowing this, it is 
 hardly possible not to feel that each of the three 
 renderings found in the Eevised Version and its 
 margin leads us astray. The adjective, it will be 
 admitted, must be understood in the sense of the 
 
150 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 substantive from which it comes, and -4/0;^^ means 
 neither what is " natural," nor what is " sensual," nor 
 what is " animal " in human nature, -^^x^ is the 
 life-principle, the principle of personality, in man 
 regarded simply as a creature of this present world, 
 and in contradistinction to the religious principle 
 which connects him with another and a higher world. 
 It is not necessarily sinful, although it is capable of 
 admitting a sinful as well as, in other circumstances, 
 a Divine principle to rule in it. And it is not 
 necessarily a degraded thing, for it may include our 
 highest gifts of reason, intelligence, and emotion, so 
 long as these are unconnected with a spiritual world. 
 The essence, in short, of the biblical conception of 
 -^i^X^ appears to be that it is that in man which 
 adapts him to this world of sense in which he for the 
 present moves ; that which, along with the body, 
 constitutes him a part of the visible and tangible 
 creation. 
 
 These considerations at once suggest the true 
 meaning to be assigned to the word •v|/u;;^/x6;, neither 
 " natural," nor " sensual," nor " animal," but ruled by 
 the senses, or by the material things around us as 
 they are apprehended by the senses ; and the English 
 adjective which appears to come nearest to the 
 expression of this thought is " sensuous." It will be 
 found upon examination that this rendering is admir- 
 ably adapted to the three passages above referred to. 
 The last of the three indeed, Jude 19, demands it. 
 To read " sensual, having not the Spirit," is to intro- 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 151 
 
 duce a contrast of an unscriptural and most misleading 
 kind. In the meantime therefore, contenting our- 
 selves simply with translating the word, what we read 
 of man's present state, and especially of his bodily 
 organization during his present state is, " it is sown 
 a sensuous body." 
 
 (3) " Spiritual." There can be little or no doubt as 
 to the meaning of this word. It stands in a relation 
 to spirit similar to that in which " sensuous " stands 
 to sense ; and the word " spirit," when spoken of man, 
 points to that part of human nature which brings us 
 into contact with God. " God is spirit " (John iv. 
 24), and there must therefore be something in man, 
 come whence it may, and either at the first or later, 
 which enables us to hold communion with spirit, and 
 partakes of the nature of spirit. Such is the teaching 
 of the New Testament. There is another side of 
 human nature than that which is alone appealed to 
 by the things of sense. There is the spiritual side, 
 that by which thought and aspiration pass from the 
 material to the immaterial, from the visible to the 
 invisible, from the earthly to the super-earthly, from 
 man to God. And this spiritual principle, for the 
 complete appropriation of which man is originally 
 fitted, may become the dominating ^principle of the 
 man, and therefore of the body with which man 
 works. That is the spiritual in man. 
 
 Thus then we are prepared to follow the contrast 
 between man's present and future state, as, in the 
 first place, the facts of that contrast are set before 
 
152 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 US in the words, " It is sown a sensuous body ; it is 
 raised a spiritual body." The body now possessed 
 by man is, above all, distinguished by this, that it 
 is linked to the objects of sense and governed by 
 their influence. Not indeed that such a state is in 
 itself necessarily low and degraded, one of which we 
 can speak only with opprobrium or contempt. We 
 may justly use far other language ; for how striking 
 and illustrative of Divine wisdom is the correspond- 
 ence between each of our senses and the particular 
 department of external nature to which it is adapted. 
 How are our faculties called into exercise, strengthened, 
 and delighted by the appeals continually made to 
 them through the objects of earth and sky ! How 
 are our affections nourished by the various relation- 
 ships in which we stand to one another in the family, 
 in society, in the nation, in the world at large ! 
 
 What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how 
 infinite in faculties ! in form and moving how express and 
 admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how 
 like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! 
 
 And the body is scarcely less an instrument in all 
 this than the mind and heart. Let us not condemn 
 the " sensuous body." It is " fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made." 
 
 In one respect indeed such a body fails. It is 
 not completely adapted to that spiritual and eternal 
 world, relation to which is as truly a part of what 
 God has designed for us as is relation to the world 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 153 
 
 of sense. To the spiritual world it is not adapted, for 
 how limited is the body when it comes to deal with 
 the unseen ! To the eternal it is not adapted, for how 
 brief is the span of its existence before it returns to 
 the dust ! Nay, the loftier the flight of the spirit 
 in its religious life, the sooner does the body feel 
 itself unable to bear it longer ; and, though " the 
 hoary head is a crown of glory when it is found in 
 the way of righteousness," yet old age has already 
 one foot in the grave, and the other may have to 
 follow it at the very moment when the life seemed 
 to be most full of instruction and most rich in 
 promise. The " sensuous body " has at best its 
 elements of " corruption " and " dishonour " and 
 " weakness ; " and, unless there be another principle 
 stronger than they, they must prevail at last. 
 
 Such a principle, accordingly, the Apostle tells us 
 that there is, as he points us forward to the time 
 when what has been sown a sensuous body shall be 
 " raised a spiritual body." As the " sensuous body " 
 is the body ruled by sense, so the " spiritual body " 
 is the body ruled by spirit. We have already seen 
 that that time has not yet come : but it will come, 
 when the limits of the sensuous world shall no 
 longer hem us in ; when the restraints of our earthly, 
 material investiture shall be broken through ; and 
 when, under the all-pervading and dominating power 
 of spirit, the body, in its strength, rapidity of move- 
 ment, and ever-renewed youthfulness of vigour, shall 
 be , the meet companion of the soul in its loftiest 
 
154 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 ^ flights. In the spiritual body the restrictions of the 
 sensuous body shall wholly disappear. With it the 
 believer shall rise superior to languor and weariness 
 and death. Then shall be said of him literally what 
 now can be said of him only ideally, that he is fitted 
 for serving God day and night in His temple, and for 
 walking with Him in the land, the sun of which no 
 more goes down, and the moon of which no more 
 withdraws itself. 
 
 Of both the kinds of body thus referred to we 
 have undoubted examples in the life of our Lord. 
 While He tabernacled among men He had a 
 "sensuous" body, like the other members of that 
 family in which He was taking the place of elder 
 brother. He hungered ; He thirsted ; He sat weary 
 by Jacob's well ; He fell asleep, probably worn out 
 by fatigue, in the boat upon the Sea of Galilee ; during 
 His agony in the garden His sweat was like great 
 drops of blood falling down to the ground, " Since 
 then the children are sharers in blood and flesh. He 
 also himself in like manner partook of the same " 
 (Heb. ii. 14). After His Eesurrection there was a 
 great change. We read no longer of hunger, or 
 thirst, or weariness, or pores of the body opened by 
 pain and agony. We read of a body which was 
 obviously altogether different from what it had been, 
 but was in every respect obedient and subservient 
 to the spirit. In that body in its two different stages 
 we behold the type and model of our own, as it is 
 and as it is destined to be. The experience of the 
 
CHAP. VIII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 155 
 
 Head shall also be the experience of the members. " It 
 is sown a sensuous body ; it is raised a spiritual body." 
 
 We have looked at the facts as stated by the 
 Apostle, but the most remarkable part of this 44th 
 verse is — 
 
 2. The prin ciple to which St. Paul refers in illustra- 
 tion and confirmation of his statement. According to 
 the reading of the Textus Eeceptus indeed — the read- 
 ing followed in the Authorized Version — the Apostle 
 simply goes on to say, " There is a sensuous body, 
 and there is a spiritual body ; " but the reading 
 adopted by the most distinguished later editors of 
 the New Testament, and resting upon what seems 
 an overpowering weight of evidence, supplies the 
 translation adopted in the Eevised Version : " If 
 there is a sensuous (in Eevised Version ' natural ') 
 body, there is also a spiritual body." The fact that 
 the one exists leads to the conclusion that the other 
 also exists, or that it will in due time do so. Upon 
 what fundamental principle, or upon what process 
 of reasoning, does this conclusion rest ? Hardly 
 upon the conviction only that the spiritual body is 
 " the perfect development " of the sensuous body, and 
 that the existence of the latter, with its great 
 capabilities, " suggests and, to a mind that believes 
 in the living and good God, demonstrates the future 
 existence of the former. The resurrection of the 
 dead is an instance of the universal law of pro- 
 gress." ^ This may be in part the explanation. 
 ^ Edwards, in loc, : comp. Beet, in loc. 
 
156 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 St. Paul certainly seems, throughout this passage as 
 a whole, to imply, that there is a great law of 
 progress in the universe, and it may be that he 
 found an instance of it in the fact that the sensuous 
 body will at last pass into the spiritual body. But 
 that is not his thought at the present moment ; and, 
 in so far as it involves the idea of a gradual develop- 
 ment, it is rather opposed to his convictions than 
 expressive of them. His reasoning appears rather 
 to rest upon the principle that, when God gives the 
 inward. He gives also its appropriate outward garb 
 or frame ; that He gives that, in short, without 
 which we should only have an idea in the Divine 
 Mind. AVhatever be the human life-force, St. Paul 
 believes that it will have a suitable vehicle for its 
 energies. 
 
 Now two things he knew, and we may know. 
 First, he knew, as a matter of daily experience, that 
 the law upon the thought of which he was dwelling 
 was exemplified in our sensuous life. The life-force 
 ruling us in that life had a sensuous frame adapted 
 to it. Secondly, he knew that there was such a 
 thing as the spirit-life, both in Christ and in the 
 members of His body. He had already written, 
 and was to write more, to the Corinthian Church 
 about that spirit-life. He and they knew it in 
 Christ. They believed in the risen Lord as " Spirit " 
 (1 Cor. vi. 17). They were yet again to be taught 
 the same lesson, and, in addition, that they were to 
 be " transformed into the same image from glory to 
 
CHAP. Yiii THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 157 
 
 glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. 
 iii. 18). Unless therefore they denied the higher 
 spirit-life and the risen Lord, it followed that, as the 
 sensuous life has now its appropriate earthly frame, 
 so the spirit-life must some day receive its corre- 
 sponding spiritual frame. St. Paul's mind had been 
 already full of a similar thought at ver. 38, when 
 he spoke of the manner in which the vital force of 
 the seed, stirred into action by being committed to 
 the soil, received from God a new body, as it pleased 
 Him. The same thought, although in a more general 
 form, occupies him now ; and it is the sole thought 
 upon which he dwells. He says nothing of any 
 innate power possessed by the spirit to weave, as it 
 were, for itself a corresponding covering ; nor does 
 he enter into the question whether the embodiment 
 is produced by an instantaneous fiat of the Creator, 
 or by a long and gradual process, in the course of 
 which the nobler vital principle overcomes irregu- 
 larities, smooths away roughnesses, and by imper- 
 ceptible degrees establishes perfect harmony between 
 the inner life and the outward form. He deals as 
 yet simply with the fact that, as there is a spiritual 
 principle in believers which will one day assert in 
 them complete dominion, so we may be assured that 
 to that principle there will yet be given its corre- 
 sponding framework. It had been thus with Christ, 
 whose heavenly life, led even now at the right hand 
 of the Father, was acknowledged by all Christians 
 at Corinth to have found expression in His heavenly 
 
158 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, viii 
 
 body. Could it be otherwise with those who followed 
 in His footsteps and were partakers of His spirit ? 
 No ; for that heavenly or spiritual body had not been 
 a mere gift to the risen Lord, in return for all that 
 He had done and suffered. It had been bestowed 
 upon Him in fulfilment of a universal law; and, if 
 that law took effect upon the Head, it would in due 
 time, as the members shared the spirit of the Head, 
 take effect also upon them. 
 
*' So also it is written^ The first man Adam became a liviTig soul. The 
 last Adam became a life-giviiig spirit. Howheit that is not first 
 which is spiritual J hut that which is natural ; then that which is 
 spiritual." — 1 Cor. xv. 45, 46. (R.V.) 
 
Olltiiptcr ix 
 
 A T the close of the verse immediately preceding the 
 point now reached by us, St. Paul had laid it down 
 :as a settled and incontrovertible principle, that, " If 
 there is a natural (or, rather, sensuous) body, there is also 
 a spiritual body." The words present all the appearance 
 ■of having been regarded by the Apostle as an axiom. 
 They rest upon the conception which universal ex- 
 perience compels us to attach to men whenever we 
 think of them as living beings, that is, whenever we 
 think of them in the only light in which they are a 
 matter of concern to us. As living beings we know 
 them, care for them, and must reason about them. 
 But this living being of theirs, as known to us, con- 
 sists of two things, a life-force and a body in which 
 the life-force dwells. Extinguish the one, and you 
 have nothing but a dead framework hastening to 
 corruption. Extinguish the other, and you have but 
 ^ shadowy phantom, not a man. When therefore we 
 have the one, we may rest assured that God, who will 
 not leave His creatures hopelessly stunted and im- 
 perfect, will add the other. But there are two wholly 
 different life-forces or inner states of man, — one con- 
 
 L ^6^ 
 
162 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 necting him with the visible, tangible, material world ; 
 the other connecting him with God and the spiritual, 
 invisible, and heavenly world. That both exist is^ 
 indisputable. No one will deny that the lower life- 
 force is a reality. Evidence is borne to it at every 
 step taken, and through every act performed, by men 
 in the material sphere around them. Is the higher 
 life-force less a reality than the lower ? Let us re- 
 member that St. Paul is speaking to Christians, and 
 he knows the answer that they will and must give. 
 He would have given it himself. When he exclaims 
 in writing to the Galatians, " I have been crucified 
 with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer I, but 
 Christ liveth in me : and that life which I now live 
 in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the 
 Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me ; " 
 or when again, in writing to the Philippians, he says^ 
 " For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain " (GaL 
 ii. 20, Phil. i. 21), — upon what is he dwelling ? Not 
 on outward proof only, or evidence presented to the 
 senses. He had had outward proof of the facts which 
 lay at the bottom of his spiritual life, and in many 
 passages of his speeches and writings he shows his 
 dependence upon it, and his joy in the thought that it 
 was so satisfactory and complete. But no proof of 
 a similar kind could bear witness to the reality of his 
 inner life, that life of which he says, " It was the good 
 pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my 
 mother's womb, and called me through His grace, to 
 reveal His Son in me " (Gal. i. 15, 16). The evidence 
 
CHAP. IX THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 163 
 
 of such a life depended upon his own experience of it. 
 The Spirit of Christ living in him brought conviction 
 to the Apostle's mind ; and to any one who would have 
 denounced this as enthusiasm or self-delusion he would 
 simply have replied, " I know in whom I have believed." 
 The answer that he would himself have given he is well 
 assured will be given by Christian men everywhere. 
 
 But if all Christians would give that answer, howj 
 much more even those to whom he was now writing !/ 
 They were part of the Church of Christ in Corinth ;i 
 and there was no city of the time in which greater or 
 
 more undeniable evidence had been afforded to its 
 
 / 
 
 Christian inhabitants of the reality of the higher^ 
 life which animated them. They knew that, be- 
 yond the limits of earth, their Eedeemer ruled in 
 spiritual power and with a body glorified. All 
 Christians, wherever their lot was cast, possessed that 
 knowledge. In addition to that, it was known at 
 Corinth, to a degree to which it seems to have been 
 known nowhere else in that age, that the glorified 
 Lord communicated His Spirit to His people. In 
 what high terms does the Apostle, in the beginning ofi 
 this very epistle, describe the state of Christians! 
 there ! "I thank my God always concerning you, for 
 the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus ; 
 that in everything ye were enriched in Him, in all 
 utterance and all knowledge, ... so that ye come 
 behind in no gift " (chap. i. 4-7) ; and at a later point 
 in the same epistle what a splendid exuberance of 
 gifts does he describe them as possessing : " the word 
 
164 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 of wisdom," " the word of knowledge." " faith," " gifts 
 of healings," " workings of miracles," " prophecy," 
 " discernings of spirits," " divers kinds of tongues," 
 " the interpretation of tongues ; " and all these were 
 wrought in them by " the one and the same Spirit, 
 dividing to each one severally even as He will ! " 
 (chap. xii. 8-11). Who could doubt the reality 
 of the Spirit-life, of the Spirit-force, alike in 
 their Saviour and in themselves ? Therein lies one of 
 the points of deepest interest in St. Paul's argument. 
 He takes for granted that spiritual experience is a 
 fact, and he reasons upon it. He is not afraid of 
 being met with a charge on the part of some sceptic, 
 that he is begging the question, and that the reality of 
 the Spirit and of the Spirit-life must first be proved. 
 There is no further proof needed he, as it were, ex- 
 claims. Where the Spirit is He shows that He is, 
 and he who has received Him becomes as conscious of 
 His power as of breathing the air around him. The 
 Church of Christ has felt, and still feels, this too little. 
 She talks of proofs, of evidences, as if they were not 
 less convincing than the Multiplication Table. She 
 would often produce more effect were she to give the 
 Spirit first and the proof afterwards. At any rate it 
 was certain that there was a life of the Spirit as well 
 HS a life of sense. The argument is thus clear. God 
 lias clothed our lower life-force with a sensuous body 
 adapted to it, and we may be sure that He will also 
 clothe our higher life-force with the spiritual body 
 which will alone be its fitting habitation. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 165 
 
 The fact of man's existence in a sensuous body is 
 thus the 'primary thought in St. Paul's mind ; and 
 this may help to explain one of the difficulties often 
 felt in connexion with the quotation from the book of 
 Genesis contained in the next following words. That 
 quotation unquestionably ends with the word " soul " 
 in the clause, " The first man Adam became a living 
 soul ; " and it is meant to end there. No other idea 
 ought ever to have been entertained. Even on the 
 ground of St. Paul's knowledge of Scripture, it ought 
 never to have been supposed that he intended the last 
 clause of ver. 45 to be regarded as a part of his quota- 
 tion. But, apart from that, the words would not liave 
 proved his immediate point, the existence of the sen- 
 suous body as something included in the Divine plan. 
 That is the premiss from which he reasons to the 
 existence of a spiritual body ; and that therefore is 
 all that he would establish by Scripture. 
 
 Besides this, however, it may be observed, that the 
 latter half of ver. 4 5 not only was not, it could not be 
 in Scripture, or at least in any Scripture that might 
 be thought of here. As we have yet to see more fully, 
 the point of time to which it relates did not arrive till 
 centuries after the canon of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures had been closed. To imagine therefore, 
 that St. Paul thought of quoting the words, " The 
 last Adam became a life-giving spirit," as words of 
 Scripture, is to attribute to him both an ignorance 
 with which he could not possibly be chargeable, and a 
 credulity as to the ease with which his readers might 
 
166 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 be misled that is equally incredible. The direct line 
 of thought is simply this : the first man, a creature of 
 earthly sensations, had a sensuous body. The in- 
 ference is, the last man, being spirit, was also life- 
 giving ; and as there can be no life without a body 
 adapted to it, the purpose or plan of God must in- 
 clude a spiritual as well as a sensuous body. 
 
 The Apostle's appeal, then, is to Scripture. Why ? 
 Because Scripture is the expression of God's plan. 
 In vers. 3 and 4 of this chapter, a similar appeal 
 is made for a similar purpose. Christ is there said 
 to have died for our sins " according to the Scriptures," 
 and to have been raised again " according to the 
 Scriptures." Not that in either instance any mere 
 prophecy is fulfilled, or any mere fact of history 
 recorded upon the Divine authority. The meaning 
 is, that Scripture contains the mind and purpose of 
 the Almighty. Does it tell us that man at his 
 creation was a being possessed of a vital force 
 clothed in a sensuous body ? We may infer that 
 this was part of a scheme or plan, which, having 
 been fulfilled, as we see, in one part, will in due 
 season be fulfilled in all its parts. 
 
 On the slight changes made in the form of the 
 quotation it is not necessary to dwell ; yet they are 
 not without a bearing on St. Paul's line of thought, 
 and they thus help us to understand more clearly 
 what that is. As the words occur in Genesis iL 
 7 in the LXX., from which they are taken, they 
 contain no 'zpiro; and no 'aSoc/o,, running simply eyevero 
 
CHAP. IX THE RESURRECTIOX OF THE DEAD 167 
 
 i avdpU'TTo; s/g -^v^riv ^<a6av. But 8t. Paul was 
 
 justified in inserting Tpujrog, because there could be 
 no doubt that the person referred to was really the 
 first man, the words of Genesis immediately preceding 
 the quoted statement being, " And God formed man 
 of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
 nostrils the breath of life." He was also justified 
 in inserting ' Abafi^ because that man was Adam. As, 
 accordingly, the words, " The last Adam became a 
 life-giving spirit," are already at the beginning of 
 the verse in St. Paul's thoughts, the insertion of the 
 words " first " and " Adam " in the quotation need 
 not occasion the slightest difficulty. At the same 
 time, the fact that the words are inserted is highly 
 instructive. Keeping them in view, we see more 
 •clearly than we might otherwise have done what 
 is passing through the Apostle's mind, and we 
 ;are led by them to certain ideas of his which 
 must be taken into account if we would understand 
 him fully. The first of these ideas lurks in the word 
 *' Adam," the double use of which shows us, what need 
 only be hinted at now (it will meet us again), that 
 St. Paul is thinking of two heads of two lines of 
 descendants, who convey to those that spring from 
 them what they themselves are. The second idea 
 appears in the word " first " when combined with the 
 word " last " in the sense in which it is here 
 used. That sense is precisely similar to the sense in 
 which any one examining the passage will find it 
 necessary to understand the adverbial " last " (J(s-)(ixtov) 
 in ver. 8 of this chapter : " And last of all He 
 
168 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 appeared to me also." In neither case does " last " 
 mean simply the last of a series who has appeared 
 but may be followed by another. It means the last 
 absolutely, the last of the series to which the person 
 or the thing spoken of belongs, to be followed by no- 
 other. St. Paul does not merely say that there was 
 an Adam who had appeared as the first man, and 
 that then there was another Adam who had appeared 
 later, and who might still have a successor. He sees 
 that in God's plan there are two heads in the human 
 family, and no more. The one, it is true, is the head 
 of the whole family ; the other is the head of believers 
 only. But the point is, that the last come is also in 
 such a sense the last to come, and that our position in 
 God's plan must be regulated by oiir relation either 
 to Him or to the one who went before Him. Nor is 
 it any objection to this that in ver. 47 the Apostle 
 uses the word " second " instead of the word " last." 
 He does so because there will then be a change of 
 thought, because he will then be tracing the historical 
 unfolding of the Divine economy as it is evolved, first, 
 in a first Adam, and, secondly, in a second. At present 
 it is not so much a historical unfolding of the economy 
 that he has in view. He would grasp its principles ;. 
 and for this purpose all its parts must be embraced 
 in one whole, from its besjinninsj to its end, from its 
 first to its last. The words " first " and " Adam " 
 added to the quotation are thus by no means un- 
 important. They belong directly to the current of 
 thought, and are cast up by it. 
 
CHAP. IX THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 169' 
 
 A third word here before us calls also for a 
 moment's notice — " life-giving." Why not simply 
 " living " ? Would not " living spirit " have been 
 a closer parallel and contrast to " living soul " ? It 
 would be so could " spirit " simply live its own life, 
 and be therewith satisfied. But spirit cannot thus 
 live. The conception of something that merely lives,, 
 that exerts no quickening power on others, is not 
 enough for 'Trvsv/na. In its very nature spirit is 
 life-giving. It is the water of which Jesus spoke to 
 the woman of Samaria, " The water that I shall give 
 him shall become in him a fountain of springing water 
 (not a well of stagnant water, however deep and full), 
 unto eternal life" (John iv. 14). Therefore must the 
 last Adam, when he became " spirit," have been unable 
 to confine His spirit-existence to Himself. It was 
 necessary that He should be not simply " living," 
 but " life-givincr." 
 
 Such then are the Apostle's words, and now what 
 is his thought ? It is that two great Heads include 
 within them and sum up the history of man. The 
 one is the first, the other is the second Adam : the 
 first, a living soul, sensuous, and all his descendants 
 like him ; the second, a life-giving spirit, and all 
 His descendants like Him, spiritual, life-giving 
 spirit. There is no help for it. We must belong 
 either to the one or to the other. To which 
 of the two we ought to belong we shall be 
 told by-and-by. 
 
 From these minor particulars we have now to turn 
 
170 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 to two questions of the greatest interest connected 
 with the words of this verse. To what points of 
 time does St. Paul refer in its two clauses ? When 
 was it that the first Adam became a living soul ? 
 When was it that the last Adam became a life-giving 
 spirit ? 
 
 1. When did the first Adam become a living soul ? 
 The answer to this question seems undoubtedly to be, 
 Before the Fall. The passage quoted from Genesis 
 clearly indicates this by its position in that book. 
 It is connected with the first account of the creation 
 of man : " And the Lord God formed man of the dust 
 of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life ; and man became a living soul " (Gen. 
 ii. 7). The words thus relate to man's primal con- 
 dition, while yet in his state of innocence. Even 
 then our first parents were not all that the Almighty 
 intended them to be. They were, it is true, endowed 
 with more than a mere animal soul. They were 
 .certainly higher than the beasts that perish. They 
 were perfectly adapted to this present world. They 
 had not only their organs of sense, together with 
 appetites, affections, and passions ; they had also 
 intelligence, reason, imagination, memory, together 
 with all that might fit them for a thoughtful and, 
 •so far as this world goes, an elevated life. Yet, 
 even under his highest aspect, St. Paul would say, 
 man was not fitted for the state of existence to 
 which it was God's design to raise him at a future 
 time. He had a body that was naturally mortal, 
 
CHAP. IX THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 171 
 
 that was not domin ated by the spirit which is alone 
 above all connexion with the dust, which is alone 
 unchangeable and eternal. Some means, no doubt, 
 might and would have been found by his merciful 
 •Creator to save him from that decay and death 
 which belonged to all merely sensuous things. 
 Whether by eating of the tree of life, or in some 
 other way, he would have been raised in the scale 
 of being, and delivered from that penalty of death 
 which was threatened to transgression. But only 
 thus. Notwithstanding the opinion to the contrary 
 •entertained by distinguished theologians,^ nothing 
 seems clearer than that the Apostle is not here 
 thinking of our first parent after the Fall, but in 
 his estate of innocence. 
 
 2. When did the last Adam become a life-giving 
 spirit ? It has been said, At the Incarnation.^ But 
 the whole argument of the Apostle makes it necessary 
 to suppose that the Eesurrection, and not the Incar- 
 nation, of our Lord is in his view. At ver. 21 he 
 had said that " Since through man came death, through 
 man came also the resurrection of the dead ; " and 
 that the words do not simply mean through gift of man 
 is proved by the following verse, where we read that 
 *' in the Christ shall all be made alive." In other 
 words, the meaning is, that as we die in Adam, who 
 died, so in Christ, who was raised from the dead, are 
 we also raised. The thought of Christ risen is the 
 very foundation of the whole reasoning. Again, when, 
 
 ^ Comp. Ellioott in loc, ^ Comp. Edwards in loc. 
 
172 THE RESURRECTIOX OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 at ver. 23, the order of the resurrection is spoken of, 
 it is obviously the risen Christ who is described as- 
 " the first-fruits." And, once more, the words under 
 consideration are introduced as the expression of the- 
 fundamental fact upon which the prospect of the 
 resurrection of the dead has been rested in the 
 immediately preceding statement. Besides this, it is 
 to be remembered that the last Adam did not become 
 a life-giving Spirit at His Incarnation. He was then 
 made in all things like unto those brethren whom He 
 had come to save. He took upon him the very 
 nature, with all its frailties and limitations, possessed 
 by them, that He might enter into their condition, and 
 might lead them on in that way of toil and suffering 
 and death by which alone they can reach His Father's 
 kingdom. It is true that our Lord, even during His 
 earthly life, was in possession of the Spirit, and St. 
 Paul's conception of Spirit is, that it always acts 
 towards what is external to it, that it is always in 
 itself " life-giving.'' But herein lay the peculiarity in 
 the case of Christ, — He was Himself limited, confined, 
 restrained by the " flesh " which He had assumed ^ 
 and, inasmuch as in giving His Spirit He gives Him- 
 self, not merely something else which He has ta 
 bestow, it necessarily follows that the Spirit dwelling 
 in Him could not, during the days of His humiliation,, 
 exercise that quickening or life-giving power on others 
 which properly belonged to it. Only when the limits 
 occasioned by the " flesh " were broken through could 
 Christ communicate Himself and therefore only then 
 
OHAP. IX THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 173 
 
 •could He communicate His Spirit, with perfect freedom. 
 Thus, although Christ always possessed in Himself 
 a fulness of the life-giving Spirit, He could not hecomc 
 that life-giving Spirit to others until, rising from the 
 ■dead in a glorified body, He threw aside for ever the 
 wrappings of earth by which He had been previously 
 confined. 
 
 This teaching of St. Paul is not confined to the 
 passage with which we are now dealing. It lies also 
 ^t the bottom of such words as these, '' But if the 
 Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 •dwelleth in you. He that raised up Christ Jesus from the 
 ■dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies because of 
 His Spirit that dwelleth in you " (Eoni. viii. 11) ; and 
 it is still more clearly expressed when the same Apostle 
 says, '' Now the Lord is the Spirit : and where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, 
 with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of 
 the Lord, are transformed into the same image from 
 glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit " 
 {2 Cor. iii. 17, 18). In both these passages it is the 
 risen Lord who is before us, and that in His estate of 
 Spirit, in the freedom with which He works in that 
 state, and in the transference to us of a spirit which 
 •quickens our mortal bodies into a resurrection like His 
 own. 
 
 Only then at His Eesurrection, and not at His 
 Incarnation, did our Lord become a life-giving Spirit. 
 Only at His Eesurrection was He in the full sense of 
 the words the " last Adam." Then however He did 
 
174 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 become this Head of a new line of descendants ; and 
 the facts recorded in Scripture of the period of His 
 history which followed this point illustrate the truth. 
 It was only after His Eesurrection that " He breathed 
 on His disciples, and saith unto them, Receive ye Holy 
 Spirit" (John xx. 22). Only after the same event, 
 on the day of Pentecost, did He shed forth His Spirit 
 on the assembled disciples and inaugurate the entrance 
 of the Christian Church upon her mission (Acts ii.) ; 
 and only with His risen life is connected that bestowal 
 of His Spirit upon His people by which they are 
 enabled to bear true witness to Him, and to convict 
 the world of sin and righteousness and judgment (John 
 XV. 26, 27; xvi. 7, 8). All this then He has done and 
 does in the only body in which it is possible for Him 
 to do it, in the glorified body which He now possesses- 
 in His heavenly kingdom. The " last Adam " is not 
 simply the incarnate, but the risen and glorified 
 Redeemer. 
 
 There is, however, something more to be considered ; 
 for the thought might naturally enough occur to many,, 
 If there is not only a sensuous, but a spiritual body, 
 and if the spiritual body is, as it must be, so much 
 more glorious than the sensuous body, why might we 
 not have it now ? To give an answer to this question 
 seems to be the main object of the following verse,. 
 " Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that 
 which is sensuous ; then that which is spiritual " (ver. 
 46). 
 
 That the verse begins with aXXd is sufficient to 
 
CHAP. IX THE RESURRECTION" OF THE DEAD 175 
 
 show that we are not to have a mere repetition of what 
 has gone before, but that new matter is to be intro- 
 duced ; and this new matter seems intended to meet 
 the difficulty just mentioned. Not that we have now 
 such a general or abstract statement as that, in the 
 very nature of things, the " sensuous " must precede 
 the " spiritual." The Apostle appears rather to have 
 in view the historical manifestation of God's plan as 
 exhibited in Adam and in Christ. Let us look at 
 them, and in them we shall see what is really the 
 order of the universe, so far at least as it is connected 
 with the thought of time. We then have brought 
 before us in a concrete form the essential relations of 
 things to one another. And, had St. Paul pursued his 
 thought further, he might have added, No wonder 
 that it should be so, for all things must be moulded 
 upon the pattern which has existed from eternity in 
 the Divine Mind. Where then may that pattern be 
 best seen ? Surely nowhere so well as in the contrast 
 between the first and the last Adam. The first Adam 
 begins the history of humanity ; the last Adam 
 carries it to its consummation. Compare the two with 
 one another, and you will at once learn by the 
 comparison that the sensuous precedes the spiritual^ 
 that the limitations of the earthly come before the 
 freedom of the heavenly. What was the case in the 
 history of the first and last Adam must find its 
 reflection in us. We have no ground of complaint 
 that only in the future shall we possess the spiritual 
 and heavenly body. 
 
176 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, it 
 
 The principle indeed is stated in the most 
 general terms, for we are not to supply <rw/Aa to 
 TO 'TTvvjfj.arixov and to TO -^vxi^ov.^ We must take 
 the neuters in the universality which they are so 
 well fitted to express ; and, thus taking them, the 
 proposition is applicable, not to the human body alone, 
 but to all things. Nor when we think of the per- 
 fection of the Deity, can we believe in the existence 
 of any other principle. God could not be what we 
 must suppose Him to be, were the law of an opposite 
 kind, were the progression from a higher to a lower. 
 Absolute perfection must desire to draw all things nearer 
 to itself. Nay, may we not even go further, and say, 
 that it is difficult to imagine the Almighty placing 
 man upon the earth in his highest perfection at the 
 very first ? The most essential element of human 
 perfection, the free choice and appropriation of the 
 successive steps that lead to it, would then have been 
 wanting. There could have been no moral training of 
 the race. The precious fruits of discipline would 
 have been unknown. We need not therefore ask, 
 Why not perfection ? — why not the spirit-life ? — why 
 not the spiritual body — now ? 
 
 With what calmness does the thought of the 
 Apostle teach us to contemplate the otherwise strange 
 problem of human history ! 80 far from com- 
 plaining that we are not at once introduced to the 
 perfection of our being, we learn to feel that the 
 
 ^ Comp. Moulton's Winer, p. 741 ; Ellicott in loc. Hofmann 
 supplies au/xa in loc. 
 
€HAP. IX THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 177 
 
 first lowly estate of man was the prerequisite of 
 his moral growth. The fact that man was first 
 formed only a living soul, so far from being full 
 of nothing but perplexity, becomes, to one who 
 recognises infinite love as the spring of all creation, 
 the root out of which there grows the goodly tree 
 of hope. That moral growth, that hope which impels 
 to it, 
 
 is man's distinctive mark alone, 
 
 Not God's, and not the beast's. God is, tliey are, 
 Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be. 
 
 ■" By hope were we saved : but hope that is seen is 
 not hope : for who hopeth for that which he seeth ? 
 But if we hope for that which we see not, then do 
 we with patience wait for it " (Rom. viii. 24, 25). 
 
 One other remark ought to be made. We are 
 not to imagine that, while St. Paul has thus the 
 idea of progress in his mind, he means by that 
 progress continuous evolution, as if gradually, and 
 by an infinite succession of small changes, the material 
 passed into the sensuous, and the sensuous into the 
 spiritual. Evolution has tried to bridge the chasm 
 between matter and mind, but has failed to do so. 
 St. Paul does not attempt to bridge it. Perhaps it 
 never occurred to him that a bridge was necessary. 
 He deals with a state of things, the existing con- 
 ditions of which were acknowledged both by himself 
 and others. Although, therefore, that state of things 
 embodies a law of progress, it does not follow that 
 
 M 
 
178 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, ix 
 
 the steps of the progress are to rise out of and above 
 one another by a development which never ceases 
 to operate. The great stages of the progress are 
 rather marked by new creative acts. At the 
 transition from the body of dust to ^u^i^ God 
 interposes. At that from -^^vy^^ to Ti/gD/^a He inter- 
 poses again. 
 
 For the present we must pause. Let us, in doing 
 so, recall for a moment what has been established. 
 We have found the difficulties connected with the 
 thought of the resurrection of the dead frankly and 
 fully met. We have seen the course of human life 
 on earth as it terminates in the grave set over 
 against another course animated by a Divine spirit 
 with the thought of which death is incompatible, 
 and which is seen to be holding on in its eternal 
 course in the person of the risen and glorified Lord. 
 We have had set before us the principle from which 
 we infer that, given the spirit-life of which experience 
 tells, the spiritual body must be also given as its 
 framework. And, finally, we have been taught to 
 behold in all this, not something standing isolated 
 from ordinary human history, but something graven 
 in the deepest lines upon that history, in its first 
 and in its last Adam, in its whole progress therefore 
 from its earliest, and for our purpose at least lowest, 
 to its highest stage. What we desire still further 
 to know is, why we should be so closely connected 
 with that history that it should repeat itself in us. 
 If it can be shown us that it is reasonable that 
 
CHAP. IX THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 179 
 
 we should be, even if it be simply the fact that we 
 are, thus closely connected with it, we can ask no 
 more. We shall acquiesce in the Almighty's plan ; 
 and, believing that there will be a resurrection of 
 the dead in the Lord who has already risen, we 
 shall be ready to listen to the Apostle as he 
 describes the particulars of an event so glorious, 
 so far beyond all natural expectation or hope of 
 man. 
 
" The first man is of the earthy earthy : the secoml man is of heaven. 
 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the 
 heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have 
 home the image of the earthy, we shall also hear the image of the 
 heavenly."—! Cor. xv. 47-49 [R.V.] 
 
Chapter X 
 
 nnHE great law of progress, the great and glorious 
 Divine plan, has been laid down and exhibited 
 in the history of the first and last Adam, when 
 compared with one another. " Howbeit that is not 
 first which is spiritual, but that which is sensuous ; 
 then that which is spiritual." It remains only to 
 be shown that our relation to these two Adams is 
 such as to render it both reasonable and necessary 
 that in their history ours should be repeated. To 
 this the Apostle proceeds at ver. 47 of the chapter, 
 first introducing the two Adams to us in a slightly 
 different light from that in which he had presented 
 them before, but at the same time in a light still 
 more appropriate to his purpose. Then, having stated 
 afresh, with this modification, the particular prin- 
 ciple he has in view, he finally founds upon it a 
 practical application. 
 
 I. The two Adams. — " The first man is of the 
 earth, earthy : the Second Man is of heaven." It 
 will be observed that the reading here adopted is 
 different from that of the Authorized Version and 
 the Textus Eeceptus, that text inserting 6 Kvpiog 
 
 i8i 
 
182 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 before the last words of the verse, sg ovpavou. The 
 necessity for the change of reading which consists 
 in the omission of these words is so universally 
 admitted, that, nothing further need be said except 
 this, that demanded by external, the change is hardly 
 less imperatively demanded by internal evidence. 
 The aim of the two clauses is obviously to point 
 out the sources out of which springs each of the two 
 original " men " referred to ; and that, for the purpose 
 of leading to the inference, that according to the 
 nature of the source will be also the nature of the 
 head, and along with the head of the members of 
 the body. The insertion of the Textus Eeceptus 
 diverts our attention from this to a Divine personality 
 of the Second Head, and destroys the directness of 
 the contrast. 
 
 To what point of time then, we have again to 
 ask, does St. Paul refer in each of the two clauses 
 of this verse ? " The first man is of the earth, 
 earthy." The preposition " of " (ex) unquestionably 
 denotes origin, and we are thus taken to the time 
 when Adam was formed out of " the dust of the 
 ground " (Gen. ii. 7) ; that is, as before, to his original 
 constitution, to a date anterior to the fall. Upon 
 that point we need say no more. It is different 
 with the second clause, " The Second Man is of 
 heaven ; " for, although it is allowed that the pre- 
 position (ex) again denotes origin, no fewer than 
 four different answers are here given to the question. 
 
 First, the reference is supposed to be to our 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 183 
 
 Lord's pre-incarnate state. So Baur, Beyschlag, and 
 Pfleiderer. "Here however," says the last named 
 scholar, " we cannot avoid thinking of the origin 
 of the person of Christ from a heavenly pre-existence ; 
 for, as gg oupoLvou in this verse is given as the ground 
 of the Second Adam having become spirit, so it 
 cannot refer to that condition of the exalted One 
 of which the Eesurrection was the ground, but must 
 refer to a heavenly condition which preceded the 
 Eesurrection, and consequently His whole earthly 
 life, therefore to the condition of the heavenly pre- 
 existence. Christ was enabled by His Eesurrection 
 to become the Second Adam, and the originator of 
 a spiritual humanity, because He had always in 
 Himself been so, because He did not owe His origin 
 to merely natural humanity, but brought from heaven 
 and put into it the quickening spiritual principle 
 which had hitherto been wanting to it ; in short, 
 because He was essentially and originally (and not 
 only from the time of His Eesurrection) a heavenly 
 man." ^ The immediate consequence of this view 
 is to compel us to adopt the idea that " tliis human 
 Person who had His origin /ro??i heaven, had also 
 pre-existed in heaven as man, that is to say, as 
 spiritual man, as the same subject, and in the same 
 form of existence as that in which He continues to 
 live in heaven as the exalted One." ^ The whole 
 statement is founded upon the false notion that sj 
 
 ^ PauUnism, translated by Peters, vol. i. p. 132. 
 ^ Faitlinism, u.s. ^. 139. 
 
184 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 ovpuvou necessarily points to the ground upon which 
 our Lord was enabled to become " spirit." But the 
 thought of such a ground of change is foreign to the 
 text. St. Paul is occupied with the change which 
 took place as a fact, not with the ground of it ;. 
 besides which, when he says, in ver. 45, that " the 
 last Adam became a life-giving spirit," he is certainly 
 thinking of Him, not as spirit only, but as possessed 
 of that spiritual body in which His spirit was housed,, 
 and without which He could, no more than any of 
 His descendants, have been a living man, and so an 
 "Adam." If however the spiritual body is thus 
 to be transferred to our Lord's pre-incarnate state,. 
 the principle laid down in ver. 46 must be reversed, 
 and the spiritual must precede the sensuous. 
 
 Secondly, it has been thought that the reference 
 is to the Incarnation, because " Christ's heavenly 
 origin is introduced in order to show the supernatural 
 and Divine character of the renewed humanity which 
 begins in Him."^ But the Eesurrection, the Ascen- 
 sion, and the heavenly life which followed them were 
 themselves sufficient to show that our Lord was "of 
 heaven," not of earth. Besides which, it may be 
 asked. When did Christ's gift or power of renewing 
 humanity begin ? Was it at the Incarnation ? or 
 does it not rather appear from the whole course of 
 the argument that the Apostle traces it to the time 
 when Christ became " spirit " by His Eesurrection ? 
 No doubt, even during His life on earth, He possessed 
 
 ^ Edwards in loc. 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 185 
 
 in Himself a renewed humanity, having a super- 
 natural and Divine character. But did He then 
 possess that humanity in such a way that He could 
 be spoken of at that early stage as the spiritual 
 Head of the renewed line of human beings to become 
 what they were to be by descent from Him ? Had 
 He not then rather ' emptied Himself ' ? (Phil. ii. 
 7.) Had not He who was rich then for our sakes 
 become poor ? (2 Cor. viii. 9.) Was He not then 
 limited and restrained by the arrangements of the 
 Divine economy of salvation ? And was it not at 
 His Eesurrection only that He entered upon that 
 condition of existence in which He could be the head 
 of the great family that was to spring from Him, 
 and to be conformed to what He was ? Besides this, 
 it is to be observed that, in ver. 49, we are distinctly 
 told that the image which we are to bear, and to 
 which we are to press forward, is that of " the 
 heavenly ; " and the expression, which cannot be 
 separated from the words "of heaven" in ver. 47, 
 leads directly to the thought, not of the incarnate, 
 but of the risen and glorified Lord to whom we are 
 to be made like. It is not therefore with the thought 
 of the Incarnate Lord, or, in other words, with the 
 thought of the Incarnation, that the Apostle is 
 occupied. The view of Principal Edwards appears, 
 like that of Pfleiderer, to rest upon the impression 
 that, in the words eg oupavov, we have a ground 
 existing long previous to the specific point of time 
 in the Apostle's mind, by the remembrance of which 
 
186 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 he would account for the fact that, at a later period, 
 Christ became the first-born of God's spiritual children. 
 Such a supposition is not called for. The course of 
 argument hardly admits it. Man is all along re- 
 garded by St. Paul as one who when redeemed is 
 not to be redeemed in spirit only, but to be clothed 
 with a spiritual and heavenly body ; and man obtains 
 this because descended from One who, in His character 
 as the Second Man, possesses such a body. It is 
 not necessary therefore to go further back than the 
 moment when our Lord obtained this spiritual body. 
 Nay, if we do go further back, we must either think 
 of the years during which our Lord possessed a 
 limited body, and this will not suit the argument ; 
 or we must go further back still, to Christ's pre- 
 existent state. Edwards, who would object to the 
 former, justly declines to do the latter, urging that 
 it would be "fatal to the cogency of the argument, 
 which depends on Christ's being Head of the race." 
 Let it be observed however that, in whatever sense 
 it may be true that Christ is " the Head of the race/' 
 it is not as the Head of " the race " that He is here 
 spoken of. He is only the Head of His own line 
 of spiritual descendants, in contrast with the race. 
 Let it be further observed, that this line has the 
 pledge and promise of a spiritual body only through 
 the spirit-force bestowed upon it when Christ was 
 glorified (John vii. 39), and it will be impossible for 
 us to find the point ig ovpavoZ in the Incarnation. 
 
 Thirdly, it has been supposed that the reference 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 187 
 
 is to Christ's second Coming. So Beet ; ^ nor would 
 it seem that such an idea is wholly wrong, for there 
 can be little doubt that the second Coming of his 
 Lord, thought of by St. Paul as very near, was to 
 him the season at which all that was most glorious 
 for the believer culminated. But it is not in harmony 
 with his teaching to say that Christ becomes the 
 spiritual or heavenly man only at His second Coming, 
 or that only then does a spiritual or heavenly seed 
 spring from Him. That seed springs from Him now. 
 Throughout all the ages of the Church's history in 
 the world He sends His Spirit into the hearts of His 
 people, and in the possession of that Spirit they 
 are His. It is true that not until the second Coming 
 do they actually receive the spiritual body ; but 
 from the instant when they are made one with 
 Christ, they have the Spirit which includes that 
 gift. They have the earnest, though not the com- 
 pletion, of their future state. In the renewed 
 Spirit dwelling in their present body they have 
 their victory over the flesh begun ; and " if the 
 Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from 
 the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through 
 His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Eom. viii. 11). 
 
 Fourthly, there remains only the resurrection of 
 
 our Lord for the time of eg ovpavou, although with this 
 
 ought to be taken the thoughts of the Ascension and 
 
 Glorification, which can never be separated from it. 
 
 1 Comp. Hofmann, Schriftheweis, vol. i., p. 148 ; Godet in loc. 
 
188 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 Then our Lord broke the bonds of earth. Then He 
 assumed the unlimited for the limited, the spiritual 
 for the material, the eternal for the temporal. Then 
 He was fully eg ovpavou. Then, as the writer of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews says, " Christ having come 
 a high priest of the good things to come, through the 
 greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with 
 hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet 
 through the blood of goats and calves, but through 
 His own blood, entered in once for all into the holy 
 place, having obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. ix. 
 11, 12). The words "of heaven" therefore point 
 us to the super- earthly, the heavenly source out of 
 which at His Eesurrection, Ascension, and Glorification 
 came the super-earthly, the heavenly, life of Christ. 
 It is the life upon which He then entered that is 
 transmitted, both in sj)irit and in body, to such as 
 are descended from Him. 
 
 Another change in St. Paul's mode of expression 
 in this verse deserves notice. The two stages of 
 man's progress are no longer spoken of exactly as 
 in the previous verses. They are no longer the 
 " sensuous " and the " spiritual : " they are the 
 " earthy " and the " heavenly." The change is 
 easily accounted for. What perplexed the Corinthian 
 sceptics was the thought that it was impossible for 
 the dead to rise in the body in which they died ; 
 and that, even were they to do so, such a body 
 would be altogether unsuitable to the " heavenly " 
 abode of the risen Lord. They had discussed among 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 189 
 
 themselves, not the " sensuous " and the " spiritual," 
 but the " earthy " and the " heavenly." This leads 
 to the mention of the latter rather than the former 
 pair. The first man, it was at once to be admitted, 
 was not merely " sensuous," he was " earthy." He 
 was made of the dust or soil of earth ; for it is said 
 that " the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground " (Gen. ii. 7). To earth therefore he would 
 naturally return. But over against this had to be 
 set the fact that the Second Man was " of heaven," 
 the very heaven promised to the saints, out of that 
 heaven, in the particular origin which is thought of 
 here, just as the other was in his origin out " of 
 earth." If therefore the doubters allowed that the 
 first man connected them with earth, they must 
 equally allow that the Second Man, if they sprang 
 from Him, must connect them with heaven. Thus 
 the Apostle is led to a fuller statement of this 
 truth. 
 
 II. The principle making it appear both reasonable 
 and necessary/ that the history of the two Adams should 
 repeat itself in that of believers. — The principle is 
 stated in the words of ver. 48 : "As is the earthy, 
 such are they also that are earthy : and as is the 
 heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." 
 It rests upon that similarity between a progenitor 
 and his descendants, the thought of which has been 
 all along in the mind of the Apostle, and which only 
 needed the fuller statement that it now receives. 
 That there was, that there must be, such a similarity. 
 
190 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 no one to whom this epistle was written would 
 deny. It had been one of the commonplaces of 
 Jewish, it was one of the commonplaces of Christian, 
 thought. It is a principle, not only of man's 
 religious, but of his ordinary history. It is borne 
 witness to by all experience. Nor does it keep the 
 world stagnant. It throws no obstacle in the way 
 of that progress which we have seen to be one of 
 the great laws of God. It is rather a chief founda- 
 tion of improvement, a constant stimulus to us to 
 improve. By strict attention to God's requirements 
 we can make ourselves better, stronger, fairer, happier 
 than we are at any particular moment of our history. 
 Can there be a more animating thought than that, 
 according to the Divine plan, these blessings will 
 not be confined to us, but will also be transmitted 
 to our children ? There is of course always the 
 possibility that our children may despise and reject 
 them, for they are moral beings as well as we ; but, 
 under the operation of this law, they may enter 
 upon the struggle of life with possibilities of good 
 which might not otherwise have been theirs ; and, 
 as man is constituted, few considerations are fitted 
 to exercise over him a more beneficial influence than 
 this, that he benefits others dear to him when he 
 benefits himself. 
 
 The law then to which St. Paul alludes and its 
 beneficial influence are equally unquestionable. But 
 the chief point to be attended to at present in 
 connexion with it is, that the Apostle must be under- 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 191 
 
 stood to refer to it in its widest sense. He is 
 thinking of it as applicable, not merely to the body, 
 but to the spirit of man. " The headship of Adam 
 involves identity of nature and of character with 
 those who are his ; the headship of Christ involves 
 identity of nature and of character with those who 
 are in union with Him. Because Adam was -^v^ixog 
 and x^'''^^^> ^^^ ^^^ i^ their natural state are 
 terrestrial ; because Christ is s'Trov^dvtog and msv/jbarinog, 
 all believers are in their supernatural state spiritual 
 and heavenly. The indefinite word roiourog is ' pur- 
 posely chosen.' " ^ To give this full meaning to the 
 Apostle's words is necessary in order to do justice 
 to the argument. Yet we are not to suppose that 
 he is dealing with man as fallen under the dominion 
 of sin. We have seen already that this was not 
 the case at ver. 45, and, again, that it was not the 
 case at ver. 47. It is not more the case now than 
 it was on either of these occasions. The identity 
 or the similarity between the head and the descendants 
 extends no further than the thought of their sensuous 
 condition on the one hand, or their condition as 
 ruled by a spirit life-force on the other ; and, though 
 this latter force, being that of the Spirit of Christ, 
 is necessarily holy, the holiness is not prominently 
 in view. St. Paul, in short, has still his eye upon 
 men as descended from " sensuous " not fallen Adam, 
 and upon Christ as " spirit," without dwelling upon 
 the ethical characteristics of that word. 
 
 ^ Edwards, in loc. 
 
192 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 A difficulty may be started here which it may be 
 well to notice for a moment. There is a want of 
 similarity, it may be said, between the two descents 
 upon which St. Paul is reasoning. That from the 
 Second Adam is immediate ; that from the first is 
 mediated through many generations. We stand in 
 direct and personal connexion, with the Second Man, 
 from whom, as a living Lord, we each moment receive 
 the Spirit. We stand in connexion with the first 
 man as part of a race rather than as individuals. 
 The answer to the difficulty is twofold. (I) The 
 first Adam lives on in all his descendants ; and so 
 long therefore as we are in that line of descent we 
 may be said to be immediately connected with him. 
 The lengthened period between him and us disappears 
 from view. As much as Cain and Abel may we say 
 of ourselves, We are the children of Adam. His 
 earthy nature is as truly ours as it was theirs. (2) 
 If it is as part of a race that we are in the first man, 
 as part also of a community or race we are in the 
 Second Man. Through the Church as a Divine 
 institution in the world, through her life and 
 organization, through her sacraments and worship, 
 the blessings of Christ's kingdom flow to the in- 
 dividual member of the kingdom. Christ lives in 
 His Church ; and, when we are really in His Church, 
 we are in Him. By His living, personal presence the 
 Church is made at every moment what she is, — His 
 Body. The body is not less real in the one case than 
 in the other ; and each believer is not less truly a 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 193 
 
 member of the body, and grows up to what he is by 
 being so, than each man is a member of the race, with 
 all the consequences depending on that fact. No 
 essential difference therefore is produced by this, that 
 the head of the sensuous line of descendants returned 
 long since to the dust, while the Head of the spiritual 
 line of descendants is living now. 
 
 III. — The Apostle has closed his argument and it 
 remaiiis for him only to follow it iip with a practical 
 exhortation suited to the ciixumsta^ices. The ex- 
 hortation is contained in the words of ver. 49 : " And 
 as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also 
 bear the image of the heavenly." An important word 
 of the verse is no doubt the subject of dispute. Shall 
 we read (popicofnv or (popBgufnv, " we shall bear " or " let 
 us bear " ? The former is the reading of the Textus 
 Eeceptus, and is adopted alike in the Authorized and 
 Eevised Versions, although the Eevised informs us in 
 the margin that " many ancient authorities read, let 
 us bear." In point of fact the case might have been 
 put more strongly, no ancient MS. except B supporting 
 the indicative form, while versions. Fathers, and even 
 the bulk of modern MSS. follow the preponderating 
 mass of the ancients. To adopt in such circumstances 
 the reading " we shall bear " would be little else than 
 to construct the text of Scripture according to our 
 own fancy, and not according to the evidence. " Let 
 us bear " is accordingly read by all the best modern 
 editors ; and, even although the meaning were more 
 obscure than it is, it might be our duty to accept it, 
 
 N 
 
194 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 trusting, as has happened in so many other instances 
 of a similar kind, that we should yet see more clearly. 
 In reality however the meaning, so far from being 
 obscure, is in a high degree interesting and forcible. 
 It depends upon the signification to be attached to the 
 word g/xtov or " image." That word can hardly be 
 applied to the resemblance which the spiritual bodies 
 of the redeemed, viewed apart from their spirits, shall 
 hereafter possess to the spiritual body of the risen 
 Lord. It appears to express complete resemblance to, 
 and, combined with this, derivation from, that of which 
 it is the image. ^ Thus Christ is the g/xcii/ of God, in 
 whom the illuminating power of the Divine glory 
 shines so as to illuminate others (2 Cor. iv. 4) ; at 
 once the representation and the manifestation of Him 
 who is invisible (Col. i. 15; comp. Lightfoot in loc). 
 Thus in this very epistle Christians, beheld in Christ 
 their Head (chap. xi. 3), are also the s/xwc of God 
 (chap. xi. 7), for they have put off the old man and 
 put on the new man, which is being renewed unto a 
 perfect knowledge " after the image of Him that 
 created" them (Col. iii. 10); and they have at the 
 same time been " transformed into the image " of the 
 glorified Lord who is "Spirit" (2 Cor. iii. 18). Thus 
 also the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us 
 that the law proved its imperfection by the fact that 
 it was no more than " a shadow " of the good things 
 to come, not the very £/xo5i/ of the things ; it could not 
 set forth these future good things in all their reality 
 
 ^ Trench, Synonyvis of the New Testament, § xv., p. 58. 
 
CHAI*. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 195 
 
 and fulness (Heb. x. 1). And, once more, it is thus 
 that in the Apocalypse the second beast is spoken of 
 as inducing men to make an s/xwy of the first beast, so 
 that " the image of the beast should both speak, and 
 cause that as many as should not worship the image 
 of the beast should be killed" (Rev. xiii. 15). This 
 " image of the beast " is obviously his representative, 
 his manifestation among men, the embodiment of his 
 cruel worldly power. 
 
 In the light of such usage the meaning of the word 
 g/xwv in the verse before us ought to be sufficiently 
 clear. It cannot be confined to the thought of bodily 
 likeness alone to the glorified body of the risen Lord. 
 Even at an earlier point of the chapter we have found 
 that a limitation of this kind could not be justified, 
 and that tfw/xa is not to be supplied to the r6 
 Tvgy/Aar/xdv and the rb -^vx'^ov of ver. 46. Throughout 
 the whole argument, too, the thought of the resem- 
 blance of the believer both in spirit and in body to 
 his Lord has been, if not prominently brought forward, 
 yet in St. Paul's mind. The communication of the 
 spirit of Christ, leading to conformity with the body 
 of Christ, has been the implied foundation of all that 
 he has said ; and it can therefore occasion no surprise 
 that, before he closes, he should look at the relation 
 between the Head and the members in its widest 
 sense. 
 
 The moment this is admitted the force and beauty 
 of the reading <popi<s(a[Liv, " let us bear," instead of " we 
 shall bear," rises to view. Read the latter, and we 
 
i96 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, x 
 
 have a comparatively tame repetition of what has 
 been already said. Eead the former, and, with minds 
 filled and elevated by the ennobling prospect which 
 has been set before us, we pass into the wide field of 
 our own corresponding obligations. We are reminded 
 that the whole matter is one in which moral action 
 on our own part is implied. Not by mechanical force 
 are we made partakers of the spirit and life of Christ, 
 but by willing appropriation of what He bestows. 
 We must act our part. We must freely receive what 
 Christ freely gives. We must exhibit all diligence in 
 making our calling and election sure. Therefore may 
 St. Paul well say, " Let us bear the image of the 
 heavenly." We have been too much the children of 
 the first Adam alone. We have been bound by 
 earthly ties, carried away by earthly affections, limited 
 by earthly hopes. The sensuous side of our life is 
 always pressed upon by the things of sense, by 
 
 The beauty, and the wonder, and the power, 
 
 The shapes of things, their colours, lights, and shades, 
 
 Changes, surprises, — and God made it all ! 
 
 We need to be reminded that, however important 
 and valuable that side of our life may be, there is 
 another side, deeper, truer, and more enduring in its 
 character, heavenly not earthly, and with results for 
 eternity as well as time. We have had, and still 
 have, the one life ; we may have, and ought to have, 
 the other. The heavenly Lord lives to communicate 
 His Spirit to us, and He invites us to be one with 
 
CHAP. X THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 197 
 
 Him. " As " therefore " we have borne the image of 
 the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly." 
 Then we may travel onwards on our journey, and fight 
 our battle, whatever it may be, in the sure hope of a 
 blessed resurrection to a heavenly Lord in a heavenly 
 life. 
 
" Noto this I say^ brethren, that fiesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
 dom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, 
 I tell you a mystery : We shall not all sleep, but toe shall all be 
 changed, in a moment, in the tvyinkling of an eye, at the last tiump : 
 for the trutnpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incor- 
 ruptible, and we shall be changed." — 1 Cor. xv. 50-52. [R.V.] 
 
A T the moment when the Apostle reaches the 
 point before us, " the image of the heavenly," 
 spoken of at the close of ver. 49, fills his mind and 
 transports him with joy and triumph. " As we have 
 borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the 
 image of the heavenly," had been his cry. Let us 
 see that we be found among the number of those 
 who belong to the line of spiritual descendants of 
 which the Second Adam is the Head, so that we 
 may experience a resurrection from the dead similar 
 to His, and may receive the body of " incorruption," 
 of " glory," and of " power," the " spiritual " and 
 "" heavenly " body. Suddenly he seems now to turn 
 to the thought that the obtaining of this body had, 
 throughout all his previous argument, been associated 
 with, or even conditioned by, the preliminary ex- 
 perience of death. But all Christians were not 
 destined to die. In the great day of the Lord's 
 Second Coming there would be those living upon 
 the earth whom he elsewhere describes as the "we 
 that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the 
 Lord" (1 Thess. iv. 15). They would be living in 
 
m THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xr 
 
 their ordinary bodies, in their bodies of " corruption,"" 
 of " dishonour," and of " weakness," in their " sen- 
 suous " and " earthy " bodies, in bodies adapted to 
 this material and fleeting world, and unfitted for 
 that glorious kingdom of God which would then be 
 manifested. What therefore was to become of them ? 
 Were they not to share in the blessedness of those 
 who, being one with Christ, were " children of God ; 
 and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint- 
 heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him,, 
 that we may be also glorified with Him " (Eom. viii. 
 16, 17)? Curiously enough, the misapprehension is 
 exactly the converse of that with which the Apostle 
 had to deal in writing to the disciples at Thessalonica. 
 There the fear was that they who had died before the 
 Second Coming of the Lord would not partake of the 
 blessedness prepared for such as would be alive when 
 the Lord descends " with a shout, with the voice of 
 the archangel, and with the trump of God;" and 
 assurance had to be given that the dead in Christ 
 shall " rise first." Here the difficulty sprang up in 
 connexion with those who would be alive when Jesu& 
 came. The bright prospects hitherto spoken of in 
 this chapter had been connected with a passage 
 through the grave. What shall be the fate of 
 those for whom the providence of God prepares no 
 such passage ? 
 
 Such seem to be the thoughts occupying the mind 
 of St. Paul when he comes to the fiftieth verse of this- 
 chapter ; and, if it be so, not only the general strain 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 201 
 
 of the following verses is at once explained, but light 
 is thrown upon individual expressions, the full meaning 
 of which we might not otherwise perceive. 
 
 " But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God : neither doth 
 corruption inherit incorruption." ToDro ds (pruMt, " But 
 this I say," introducing an emphatic and positive 
 assertion, not intended to explain more fully what 
 has been said already, but to lead the way to a new 
 consideration connected with it (comp. chap. vii. 29). 
 That " flesh and blood " are here used to denote only 
 the physical nature of man, without taking into account, 
 under the word " flesh," the lusts and passions of our 
 lower nature,^ there can be no doubt ; but it is of 
 more consequence to observe that, if the view of the 
 connexion above spoken of be correct, it is concrete 
 men, men then alive, rather than the materials of 
 which their bodies are composed, that the Apostle 
 has in his eye. In that condition in which he is 
 now dealing with them, they are " flesh and blood ; '* 
 and, as such, they are also " corruption." The two 
 expressions refer to the same thing, and there is no 
 ground whatever for the supposition — a supposition 
 rather breaking the continuity of the Apostle's state- 
 ment — that " flesh and blood " denote those who shall 
 be alive at the Parousia, and that " corruption " denotes 
 those who shall have died before it.^ The word 
 " corruption " applies to the body, not only when 
 in the grave, but in its present state of existence 
 
 1 As Cox, p. 227. ^ As Godet in loc. 
 
202 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 upon earth (comp. ver. 42) ; and both clauses refer 
 to living men, although, according to the common 
 method of Scripture, the second is climactic to the 
 first. The word " inherit " is here interesting, and 
 has light shed on it when we fix our thoughts on 
 the general purport of the verse. The covenant with 
 Abraham hardly seems to be alluded to ; ^ it is of the 
 heirship of Eomans viii. 17 that St. Paul is thinking, 
 that heirship which is given us with Christ Himself, 
 "the Heir" (comp. Matt. xxi. 38, Heb. i. 2), when 
 we trace our spiritual descent from Him, when we 
 are in Him, and are one with Him. The law, then, 
 thus laid down by St. Paul is not only general and 
 absolute, but founded in the very nature of things. 
 In the same way as our Lord had said, " Except a 
 man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of 
 God " (John iii. 3), so the Apostle says, " Flesh and 
 blood" cannot inherit that kingdom when it is re- 
 vealed in glory. In the second clause, in which the 
 word "cannot" is not employed, there is probably 
 no less of a climax to the first clause than there 
 was when the mention of " corruption " followed the 
 mention of " flesh and blood." The present tense, 
 " doth inherit," seems to do more than negative the 
 thought of what might otherwise happen at any 
 particular instant. It gives expression to the Divine, 
 everlasting, and unchanging plan, and in this respect 
 it may be said to be of even greater force than the 
 " cannot " of the preceding clause. 
 
 ^ As Edwards. 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 203 
 
 " Flesh and blood " then, or " corruption," that is, 
 the men and women who would be alive upon the 
 earth when Christ was manifested, could not enter 
 as they were into the kingdom. What was to be 
 their fate ? They would not be in the position of 
 those who had passed through the seed-bed of the 
 grave. Dead believers would be raised, ready for 
 the kingdom. But these had not died. They were, 
 by the supposition, in their earthly bodies ; and 
 earthly bodies are, alike by the nature of the case 
 and the Divine plan, unfit for the kingdom. What 
 then was to happen to them ? Everything makes it 
 plain, and the point ought to be fixed with the 
 greatest possible distinctness in our minds, that St. 
 Paul is thinking only of those who shall be alive at 
 the Farousia, and that the mystery of which he is 
 about to tell us has reference to them alone. 
 
 This mystery is now stated, vers. 51, 52, in the 
 following words, taken from the Eevised Version, 
 which is here in the closest correspondence with 
 the Authorized : " Behold, I tell you a mystery : 
 We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 
 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." 
 
 Before endeavouring to ascertain the meaning of 
 these words, it is necessary to determine the best 
 attested reading of the Greek; and this the more, 
 that the various readings of ver. 51 open up prin- 
 
204 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 ciples of textual criticism as interesting and important 
 as those of any single text in the New Testament. 
 There are three such readings ; but one of them (that 
 which gives us amarrieoiMida instead of xoi/nridriaofis&u) is 
 of little consequence, and we may confine ourselves 
 to the two that remain. 
 
 The first (A) is substantially that of the Textus 
 Keceptus, Tdvrsg oO xoifir}6viG6fMsda ; the second (B) 
 assigns a different position to the negative particle, 
 placing it, not before, but after xoi/xyi&ri<^6fMda, and 
 
 before the second 'rdvrsg : 'xdvng -/.oiixri&ri^oiMi&ci ou rrdvng 
 
 Sk aXkayr^Gofiidcc. The most remarkable circumstance 
 connected with these two readings is, that while all 
 the most valuable diplomatic evidence, with the 
 exception of the Codex Vaticamts, is in favour of 
 the second (B), critics generally, including even 
 Westcott and Hort, whose adherence to this depart- 
 ment of evidence is so steadfast, and has been 
 attended with such momentous consequences to the 
 New Testament text, have been constrained to decide, 
 upon internal grounds, in favour of the first (A). ^ 
 In short, we have here a case, one of very few of the 
 kind, in which the ablest inquirers have felt them- 
 selves compelled to allow that external evidence must 
 yield to internal. And why ? Because, supposing 
 (A) to be the correct reading, the genesis of (B) can 
 be at once explained; because, supposing (B) to be 
 correct, the genesis of (A) would be inexplicable. 
 What we shall immediately see to be the true 
 
 1 Comp. also Tregelles, Tischendorf, etc. 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 205 
 
 meaning of (A) must have appeared either so unin- 
 telligible or so startling to the Church, that she 
 must have considered it out of the question to 
 acquiesce in it. The reading, she would reason, 
 must be false ; and the second reading (B) would 
 suggest itself as a simple method of meeting the 
 difficulty, and of making the words of the Apostle 
 worthy, as they must have been, of His Divine com- 
 mission. The meaning of the first reading, the only 
 meaning of which it is naturally susceptible, is, " All 
 of us shall not- fall-asleep," or, in other words, *' None 
 of us shall fall-asleep." In the course of a few years 
 therefore, to say nothing of generations, it could not 
 but be seen that that statement was disproved by 
 fact. The meaning of the second reading is, "All 
 of us shall fall asleep, but not all of us (i.e. some of 
 us) shall be changed ; " or, to put it in another way, 
 St. Paul says first, " All of us shall fall asleep," and 
 then suddenly correcting himself, he adds, " Yet not 
 sl\ of us : some of us shall be changed." A satis- 
 factory sense, or at least, a sense in conformity with 
 fact, appeared thus to be gained. The future would 
 be as the past until the end of the present dispensa- 
 tion. Falling asleep would continue as before ; but 
 the great day would come, and then some of those 
 living at the time would be changed. These con- 
 siderations suggest the probable history of the manner 
 in which the second reading (B) found its way into 
 so wide a circle of authorities. But the greater the 
 degree of probability with which we can account, 
 
206 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 on subjective grounds, for the introduction of a con- 
 tested reading into the text, the less is that reading 
 entitled to claim its place as the original utterance of 
 the writer. The weight of external evidence on 
 behalf of (B) is thus considerably diminished. 
 
 Nor is even the sense afforded by it so good as 
 to weigh much in its favour. If it relieves us from 
 the peculiar difficulty attaching to (A), it has diffi- 
 culties of its own to contend with not less serious. 
 One of two meanings must be attached to it. (1) 
 The " all " in the two clauses may be understood, in 
 its widest sense, as applicable to men without excep- 
 tion ; in which case the meaning is. All shall die, 
 but only believers shall be changed. Thus introduc- 
 ing a reference to non-believers, this meaning may be 
 set aside without any argument against it upon other 
 grounds. There is no more striking characteristic 
 of the whole chapter than the degree to which it 
 ignores the existence of unbelievers. (2) The " all " 
 may be understood in a more limited sense as 
 applying only to believers ; and, as already indicated, 
 the Apostle may be understood to say, "All of us 
 shall die ; yet not all of us : some of us shall be 
 changed." But, apart from the awkwardness of the 
 limitation "all, yet not all," what could lead the 
 Apostle to give prominence to the fact that those of 
 whom he is thinking shall fall asleep or die ? He 
 has passed away from that state of things. He has 
 nothing to do now with either death or resurrection 
 from the grave. He has turned to a different class 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 207 
 
 of persons, in whose case there was neither death 
 nor resurrection. He could hardly therefore have 
 spoken in the manner supposed. On every ground 
 the second reading must be rejected, and the first 
 reading, that of the Textus Eeceptus, must stand. 
 The Apostle says, 'rdvrsg oh xoifiridriffo/xida, 'jravrsg ds 
 uXXayyiGofxsda. What is his meaning ? And, if his 
 meaning be that naturally suggested by the words, 
 is there any legitimate method of escape from the 
 charge that it has been disproved by fact ? 
 
 It would be vain to attempt to enter into all the 
 speculations of grammarians and commentators as to 
 the correct mode of rendering negative sentences cast 
 in the mould of that before us, or to discuss at 
 length the different interpretations which have been 
 given to the Apostle's words : " All of us shall not 
 sleep," i.e. none of us shall sleep ; " All of us shall 
 not sleep," i.e. some of us shall sleep ; " All of us 
 shall not sleep," i.e. some of us shall be awake or 
 alive. It is enough to say that the general conten- 
 tion is, that in biblical Greek the position of the 
 negatives is not so rigorously observed as in the 
 classic style ; and that, although therefore the ov is, 
 strictly speaking, to be connected with the verb, its 
 sense may be trajected to the subject "• all." We 
 thus obtain the meaning which may be given in 
 the words of Godet (in loc) : " We shall not all die — 
 there will be living Christians when the Lord comes 
 again ; but we shall all require to be changed — 
 living believers by transformation, the dead by resur- 
 
208 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 rection." This view cannot be accepted. It is no 
 doubt urged that we may overcome the grammatical 
 difficulty of trajecting the ov from the verb to its 
 subject '^rdvTsg by a comparison of such a passage as 
 that always quoted in defence of this procedure, 
 Numbers xxiii. 13, in which Balak says to Balaam 
 /j^epog Ti avTOv o-^si, rruvrag ds ow firi 'lhj\g, and where, to 
 keep the negative in close connection with the verb, 
 would make Balak contradict himself : " a part shalt 
 thoa see, but all shalt thou not-see," i.e. " none shalt 
 thou see." Or we are referred to such words as those 
 of Eomans iii. 20, oh dr/,aiu&^<rirai TOiffa (fdp^, where the 
 tendency of the Hebrew mind to connect with the 
 verb the negative belonging to the subject is thought 
 to be illustrated. This solution of the difficulty, 
 however, is extremely doubtful. Its possibility is 
 indeed denied in the strongest terms by, amongst 
 others, Winer and Meyer. ^ But even though it 
 
 1 A moment's consideration indeed may show us that Num. xxiii. 13 
 is no proper parallel to the present passage. There can be there no 
 mistake as to the meaning, the first part of the sentence stating dis- 
 tinctly that Balaam shall see only a part of the host. With this the 
 second part of the sentence must agree. Nor does it make any 
 difference in the thought of that second part Avliether we connect the 
 negative with the ira.vTa$ or the I'St^s : "not all shalt thou see," or 
 "all (the emphasis lying on this word) shall thou not see." That the 
 second passage, Rom. iii. 20, is equally useless for the purpose for 
 which it is referred to appears from this, that if we traject the 
 negative, connecting it with the subject of the verb, instead of the 
 verb itself, we obtain a sense utterly at variance with the statement 
 which the Apostle is concerned to prove : * ' Wherefore by the works 
 of the law shall be justified not all flesh," or "not all flesh shall be 
 justified," i.e. "some flesh shall be justified." It would seem, there- 
 fore, as if both these passages were improperly appealed to for the 
 object they are supposed to serve. 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 209 
 
 were grammatically possible, it is rendered wholly 
 inadmissible on account of the double meaning which 
 it puts into aXkccyYidoiMida — ^that of a change in some 
 by transformation, in others by resurrection. Nothing 
 can well be more certain than that, throughout the 
 passage (comp. especially ver. 53, where the two 
 acts are clearly distinguished), that verb is used in 
 one sense alone, the sense of change by transformation. 
 In these circumstances there seems to be no alter- 
 native but to abide by the simple and natural 
 meaning of the words, and to understand the Apostle 
 as saying, " We all (i.e. all included in the ^dvng) 
 shall not fall asleep, but we all {i.e. all again in- 
 cluded in the -rai/rgg) shall be changed." 
 
 The propriety of so rendering is confirmed by one 
 or two different considerations that may be noticed 
 before speaking of the difficulty to which the rendering 
 gives rise, {a) It preserves the connexion between 
 the negative and the verb, as in 1 John ii. 19, " They 
 went out, that they might be made manifest how 
 that they all are not of us," where it is not so much 
 the object of the Apostle to say that there are false 
 members of the Christian community, as to say that 
 none of those who, by going out, prove themselves to 
 be so, ever really belonged to it. Although the order 
 of the words in St. John is slightly different (yet only 
 as regards emphasis) from that of the words before 
 us, the negative is thus to be closely connected with 
 its verb. So also 1 John ii. 21, "Every lie is-not 
 (oOx sW/) of the truth ; " i.e, it is the essence of every 
 
 o 
 
210 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 lie that it does not spring from the truth, {h) The 
 rendering now defended strictly preserves the same 
 meaning for rroivrsg in both clauses. The persons of 
 whom it is asserted that they shall not die are the 
 very same persons of whom it is said that they shall 
 be changed. We all, whoever we are, shall not die, 
 but we shall all be changed, (c) It preserves what 
 would appear to be almost the technical meaning of 
 aXXa/Tjtfo/Ag^a in vers. 51 and 52; for, as has been 
 already stated, that word is so used as to make it 
 impossible to include under it the " change " which is 
 to take efiPect upon those who have been asleep or 
 dead. Besides which, the idea of " change " will not 
 suit the condition of the dead. Change supposes 
 something to be changed, a person on whom the 
 change is to operate. But the dead are buried out of 
 sight. They have returned to corruption. They are 
 not there to be changed. What they need is to be 
 raised up in another form ; and that resurrection they 
 shall experience. This "change," whatever may be 
 said to the contrary, cannot include resurrection. 
 It refers only to transmutation, (d) Thus preserving 
 the special meaning of the word " changed," we 
 preserve also the distinction clearly drawn in ver. 52 
 between the vsxpot and the vifisTg, (e) We have a 
 meaning of precisely that kind which would be likely 
 to startle the Church, and to lead it insensibly to 
 modify the Greek. (/) On the other supposition the 
 whole difficulty, to be immediately referred to, is not 
 removed. From the rifJ^i7g of ver. 52 St. Paul cannot 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 211 
 
 exclude himself. The meaning of the words can 
 hardly be any other than this, that none of the " we 
 all" shall die, that all of the "we all" shall be 
 changed. 
 
 It is not to be denied that we are thus face to face 
 with a very serious difficulty. We seem to be forced 
 by the principles of fair exegesis to make St. Paul 
 say in a distinct and positive manner what has been 
 contradicted by fact ; and we make him say this too 
 at a time when to any observer his statement must 
 have appeared to be at variance with what was 
 actually passing around him. Can the Apostle really 
 intend to convey to us the assurance that the last 
 Christian of that generation who was to pass through 
 the gate of the grave had already died ? Was no 
 other to follow into the valley of the shadow of death ? 
 And can he say this at a moment when, in all 
 probability, many Christians at Corinth were " weak 
 and sickly, and not a few sleep " (xoi/j^uvrai, 1 
 Cor. xi. 30)? Is it so that, according to the state- 
 ment of the Apostle, there was to be no more death, 
 and that all believers had only to wait for a more 
 or less immediate " change " ? To say the least of 
 it, this is exceedingly unlike St. Paul ; and not only 
 so, it is out of keeping with that mind of Christ 
 which we know to have been his authority, and which 
 he so often shows us he had made his own. Let the 
 following observations be considered : 
 
 1. It does not seem difficult to account for the 
 peculiar form of the expression, for the negative 
 
212 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xr 
 
 instead of the positive form, " we shall not-sleep."" 
 Throughout his whole previous argument the Apostle 
 had dealt with sleeping or dying as the main point of 
 the great transition he had in view. The perplexity 
 in the minds of his readers did not present itself in 
 the form, " What if we shall not be alive ? " so much 
 as in the form, " What if we shall not have died ? '* 
 Hence he is led to designate those of whom he is 
 thinking, not as persons who shall be alive, but as 
 persons who shall not-have-died. 
 
 2. But what of the xivng ? What of a statement 
 so universal, and apparently applied without any 
 limitation to himself and the men around him ? The 
 explanation is to be found in St. Paul's habit of 
 thought and in the mode in which, under the influence 
 of that habit, he is led to express himself. When 
 a thought takes possession of his mind, it wholly fills 
 it. He can look at it only in one light, and apart 
 from the qualifications and limitations with which, in 
 cooler and less eager minds, it would naturally be 
 associated. What he dwells upon starts up before 
 him like a picture, the canvas of which is entirely 
 occupied with one conception. The picture is his 
 own. He is in the midst of it. He is one with the 
 figures filling it. For the time he is incapable of 
 admitting any thought by which the leading idea of 
 the picture would require to be balanced, if we are to 
 have all the truth. Illustrations of this habit in its 
 more general form are so numerous and so commonly 
 admitted, that it is unnecessary to speak of them. 
 
€HAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 213 
 
 It is more to our present purpose to refer to one in 
 this very chapter, in which the same word Wvrgg is 
 treated exactly as it is here. At ver. 22 we read, 
 *' For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be 
 made alive." No statement could be more general, and 
 both the use made of it and the conclusions deduced 
 from it in that form are well known. Yet nothing 
 can be more certain than that " all " here is not " all " 
 in its universal aspect. Those intended are only 
 " all " to the Apostle. Whence comes this 1 His 
 mind was filled in the verses coming immediately 
 before with the thought of those who wake from their 
 sleep to be presented along with Christ, the first-fruits, 
 to the Father, with the thought of those who share 
 with the risen Saviour the resurrection of the dead. 
 He had been gazing on them as they passed before 
 him, a glorious army, clothed in all the splendour 
 which he afterwards endeavours to describe by speak- 
 ing of " this corruptible putting on incorruption, and 
 this mortal putting on immortality" (ver. 53). The 
 canvas is full ; not another figure can find a place in 
 it ; these sons of the resurrection morning are all 
 upon whom he can fix his thoughts, and he cries out, 
 though having reference to them alone, " For as in 
 Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made 
 alive." 
 
 It is precisely the same thing here. At ver. 50, 
 as we have already seen, St. Paul had been speaking 
 of concrete living Christians as contrasted with 
 Christians who had died. The latter were a complete 
 
214 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 class ; so then also are the former. They come before 
 the Apostle in all their perplexity, as for the moment 
 they think, not only that they may not, but that they 
 will not die. Is there no hope for them ? St. Paul 
 identifies himself with them. He is in the midst of 
 a new company, and the company of such as had died 
 is forgotten. He is one with the new company, 
 and he makes the new company one with him. We 
 are to live, he exclaims ; by the supposition we 
 are not to die. " We all " belong to those who 
 are not to fall asleep. What then ? We belong 
 to those who in that case will be changed ; and 
 our hope is as sure and precious as that of 
 others. This power of identifying himself with others 
 is a true trait of the great Apostle. "Who," he 
 exclaims, writing on one occasion to the Corinthian 
 Church, " is weak, and I am not weak ? Who is 
 made to stumble, and I burn not ? " (2 Cor. xi. 29 ; ) 
 and in this very epistle, " To the Jews I became as 
 a Jew, that I might gain Jews ; to them that are 
 under the law, as under the law, that I might gain 
 them that are under the law ; to them that are 
 without law, as without law, that I might gain them 
 that are without law ; to the weak I became weak, 
 that I might gain the weak : I am become all things 
 to all men, that I may by all means save some " 
 (1 Cor. ix. 20-22). It is by no means necessary, 
 therefore, to think that the Apostle lays it down as 
 a fact, that none of the men of that generation would 
 die. It might have been so. It might be so with the 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 215 
 
 men of this generation. None of us knows the hour 
 when the Lord cometh, and no one knows that better 
 of his own day than St. Paul knew it of his day. 
 Enough that he is dealing with one half only of a 
 great truth. The first half had been disposed of. 
 Christians who die shall rise to a more glorious life. 
 The second half comes next. Christians who do not 
 die shall be fitted for the Divine glory by being 
 changed. 
 
 Let us paraphrase the Apostle's words : ''I have 
 been dealing with the thought of death as of that 
 crisis in the believer's history through which he 
 passes from the corruption, the dishonour, and the weak- 
 ness of earth to the incorruption, the glory, and the 
 power of the future and heavenly life; and I have 
 spoken as I have done because the difficulties pro- 
 posed to me had reference to the condition of the 
 departed. ' How are the dead raised up ? and with 
 what manner of body do they come ? ' Do not 
 imagine, however, that I am insensible to the fact 
 that the Second Coming of the Lord of which I have 
 so often spoken in my teaching will find many of His 
 people alive upon the earth. They, it is true, shall 
 not die. They shall not pass through that grave 
 which is the ultimate form of the seed-bed out of 
 which, like grains of wheat springing up into the 
 plant. Christians who have died shall spring up into 
 their future glorious estate. Those who have died 
 shall not on that account anticipate them. They 
 shall be changed." And then he passes on, with a 
 
216 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 full mind unburdening itself, to some of the particulars 
 of the change. 
 
 It will take place " in a moment, in the twinkling of 
 an eye." There is no need to dwell upon the figure 
 employed in the second of these clauses, which is ob- 
 viously intended to bring out, like the "moment" spoken 
 of, the suddenness of the change. There is no gradual 
 development, no process of refining or spiritualizing 
 of the body that may have been going on for years 
 or centuries. Whatever may have happened in that 
 way in no degree interferes with the instantaneousness 
 of the final issue. This instantaneousness may indeed 
 startle us, but there is also much that may help us to 
 appreciate, if not fully to comprehend it. The first step 
 taken in any new and great series of events must be 
 always sudden. It may have been long prepared for, 
 as the gathering forces of electricity in the atmosphere 
 prepare for the moment when the equilibrium shall be 
 restored; but, when that is restored, it is with the 
 suddenness of the lightning's flash. Creation, in 
 whatever form we think of it, whether as innumerable 
 atoms in ill-assorted whirl, or as a well-ordered and 
 harmonious system, must have been sudden. The 
 transition from not-being to being could be nothing 
 else. Astronomers too are familiar with great cata- 
 clysms in the history of the universe around them. 
 They behold stars suddenly broken up, lights with 
 which they have been long familiar disappear, and 
 new lights come into existence. With what tremen- 
 dous changes all this must have been accompanied. 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 217 
 
 they cannot tell ; but this they know that, whatever 
 their extent, they must have been sudden. So also 
 now. It may help us the better to comprehend the 
 teaching of this passage if we bear in mind that the 
 change referred to does not take place while the 
 ordinary processes of nature are going on with their 
 usual regularity and calmness. Nature prepares us 
 for convulsions. Scripture tells us that it is in the 
 midst of one of these that what is here spoken of will 
 take place. It is the day of the Lord, and " the day 
 of the Lord will come as a thief ; in the which the 
 heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the 
 earth and the works that are therein shall be burned 
 up " (2 Pet. iii. 10). Who shall estimate aright the 
 changes on every side, and on every object with which 
 earth is filled, that may and must accompany this 
 great change ? To imagine man passing through 
 it unchanged would be the difficulty, and whatever 
 change takes place will certainly be " in a moment, in 
 the twinkling of an eye." 
 
 Another mark of the great era in human history 
 spoken of is added by the Apostle — " at the last 
 trump." The trumpet is the same as that of which 
 we read in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 
 when it is there said that " the Lord Himself shall 
 descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice 
 pf the archangel, and with the trump of God " (chap. 
 iv. 16). Still more particularly, it is that of which 
 our Lord Himself spoke to His disciples in His dis- 
 
218 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 course upon the last things : " And He shall send 
 forth His angels with the great sound of a trumpet, 
 and they shall gather together His elect from the four 
 winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. 
 xxiv. 31). This gathering together of Christ's elect 
 is now before the Apostle's eye ; and the sounding of 
 the trumpet long and loud, — so long that the sound 
 travels to every region of the earth, so loud that it 
 penetrates the deepest chambers of the tomb — is to 
 him the symbol of the gathering. 
 
 The greatness of the occasion, too, is increased by 
 the circumstance that this trumpet shall then sound 
 for the " last " time. It had sounded at the giving of 
 the law, so that, even amidst the thunders that re- 
 echoed amongst the mountains of Horeb, it was heard 
 " exceeding loud" (Exod. xix. 16). From the thought 
 of it, as the suitable accompaniment of all great 
 occasions when the Almighty manifested Himself to 
 Israel, came no doubt its employment in connexion 
 with the fall of Jericho, with the peculiar solemnities 
 of the seventh month, the greatest month in Israel's 
 sacred year, and with those solemn assemblies of the 
 people of which it was said, " Blow the trumpet in 
 Zion, call a solemn assembly " (Joel ii. 1 5). All 
 along the history of Israel it had been associated with 
 the most momentous events which befell that people. 
 But this sounding shall be the " last." The trumpet 
 will be no more needed to accompany the giving 
 of a law, for the law has been written upon the 
 Christian heart ; no more needed to summon the 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 219 
 
 Israel of God to the overthrow of hostile powers, for 
 all Israel's enemies have been overcome ; no more 
 needed to introduce great festivals which are to last 
 for a few days, for the Feast of Tabernacles has begun 
 which is to endure for ever ; and no more needed 
 to call solemn assemblies soon to be broken up, for the 
 solemn assembly now convened is never to be dissolved. 
 Therefore this trumpet is the " last." 
 
 The heart of St Paul appears to swell with peculiar 
 emotion when he thinks of this feature of the great 
 day of which he speaks, for he comes back upon it, 
 without repeating anything that he had said of the 
 other characteristics of the day. " For," he adds, " the 
 trumpet shall sound." 
 
 Then follows the effect, " And the dead shall be 
 raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." The 
 two classes of which he had been speaking are still 
 before him, — the dead, and they who are alive at the 
 Lord's coming. Of the one he says that they shall 
 be raised, and that no longer in the state of corruption ; 
 i.e. of weakness and decay and liability to death in 
 which they had lived on earth, but incorruptible. Of 
 the other he says simply, without as yet specifying the 
 characteristics of the change, " and we shall be 
 changed." Many attempts, more or less plausible, 
 have been made to show that under the " we " thus 
 spoken of the Apostle does not necessarily include 
 himself, and that he thus leaves no imputation to be 
 made upon the accuracy of that view of the future 
 which it is thought his inspiration must have secured 
 
220 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 to him. These attempts can hardly be said to have 
 been successful ; and all that it seems possible to 
 contend for is, that there is no dogmatic assertion of 
 the fact that he and the men of that generation would 
 certainly be alive when the Lord came. As, at ver. 
 51, he can* hardly be understood to maintain that no 
 one of his own generation, including himself, will die 
 before that time, so he can hardly be understood to 
 maintain here that he and they will certainly be then 
 alive. He may have thought it highly probable that 
 such would be the case ; and the tone of his earlier 
 writings, as in the two epistles to the Thessalonians (for 
 the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians teaches upon 
 this point no other lesson than the first), confirms the 
 impression that he did entertain some expectation of 
 the kind. If so, we can the more easily comprehend 
 that he should throw himself into that position in the 
 manner we have already endeavoured to explain. 
 But it is not easy to see why an expectation of the kind, 
 though proved by the event to be false, should weaken 
 our confidence in the general inspiration under which 
 he wrote. That inspiration did not extend to the times 
 and the seasons when the events connected with the 
 Second Coming would occur. Our Lord Himself said 
 of His Coming : " But of that day or that hour knoweth 
 no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, 
 but the Father" (Mark xiii. 32). Even after His 
 Eesurrection, and when commissioning His Apostles to 
 their work, He said : " It is not for you to know 
 times or seasons, which the Father hath set within 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 221 
 
 His own authority " (Acts i. 7). To suppose that 
 inspiration ought to have included such knowledge is 
 to suppose that Christ Himself was not inspired. 
 On the other hand, if St. Paul and the Christians of 
 those days did not know when the Second Coming 
 would take place, what could they expect 'but that it 
 would be immediate ? Let us place ourselves in their 
 position. Let us be persecuted, afflicted, tormented, 
 with no prospect before us in this world but a daily 
 dying. Let us then remember the " blessed hope " of 
 the return of Him on whom the most ardent affections 
 of our souls are fixed ; and who, when He does return, 
 will bring us freedom from all our troubles, rest from 
 all our enemies, and eternal joy in His own immediate 
 presence. Let us dwell on these things till our hearts, 
 like those of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, 
 burn within us, till already the darkness of the present 
 vanishes and the glory of the future is around us, and 
 what other idea can we entertain but that in all pro- 
 bability Christ will come before we die ? We shall 
 not think of ourselves as doomed to die. The grave 
 will not be the termination of the vista down which 
 we look into the future. We shall see the Lord's 
 chariot of glory already appearing and rapidly 
 approaching: and the natural language of our lips 
 will be, " Come quickly. Lord Jesus." The dead are 
 dead, and shall soon awake. We shall be changed. 
 Let us admit that St. Paul expected not to die, and 
 we may still urge that his inspiration, in any just 
 sense of the word, is not weakened because the 
 expectation was not fulfilled. 
 
222 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xi 
 
 All this then the Apostle declares to be "a mystery" 
 (ver. 51). It would seem that the word is not 
 to be applied to the raising of the dead. It is applied 
 only to the changing of the living, and perhaps to 
 their being presented, along with Christians raised 
 from the dead, in one blessed company to their Lord. 
 This supposition is involved in the meaning of the 
 term upon which, as used in the New Testament, 
 there is general agreement. It is used to signify 
 a truth unknown before, but now made known by 
 positive revelation. In this sense it could scarcely 
 be applied to the raising of dead Christians. Christ 
 was risen : these must rise with Him. Their resur- 
 rection was a logical inference from accomplished and 
 acknowledged fact, rather than a revelation. But 
 the other half of the statement, that the living shall 
 be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 at the last trump, and that then both sections of the 
 great Christian army shall be " caught up in the 
 clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we 
 ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. iv. 17), — that was a 
 revelation, a statement of the future, of things which 
 " eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not 
 into the heart of man, but unto us God revealed them 
 through the Spirit" (1 Cor. ii. 9, 10). We complain 
 of the darkness of the future, and in many respects it 
 is dark. On one point we have light. Why do we 
 so often forget it ? " He that cometh shall come, and 
 shall not tarry" (Heb. x. 37). He will come " to be 
 glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in 
 
CHAP. XI THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 223 
 
 all them that believe " (2 Thess. i. 10) ; and every true 
 member of His body shall be with Him. However 
 long they may have slept in their graves, in whatever 
 uttermost parts of the earth or of the sea they dwell 
 when the trumpet sounds, not one of them shall be 
 lost. Provision has been made for all, and we may 
 " comfort one another with these words." 
 
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must 
 put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on 
 incorruption, atid this mortal shall have put on immortality^ 
 then shall come to pass the saying that is umiteuy Death is 
 swallowed up in victory. death, where is thy victory? 
 death, where is thy sting ? The sting of death is sin ; and the 
 power of sin is the law : but thanks be to God, which giveth us 
 the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, my 
 beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding 
 in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour 
 is not vain in tlie Lord.^' — 1 Cor. xv. 53-58. [R.V.] 
 
Chapter xxi 
 
 "TTTITH the preceding verse of the chapter the 
 great assembly marking the day of the 
 Lord's Coming had been convened. The last trumpet 
 had sounded, the dead had been raised incorruptible, 
 and the living had been changed. Everything was 
 thus ready for that song of triumph even now in 
 the mind of the Apostle, and soon to burst from 
 his lips. But, before he sings the song, he must 
 pause for a moment to behold, in this wonderful 
 gathering of redeemed souls in glorified bodies, the 
 contrast to the present state of things on earth, 
 and to show that that contrast, in all its brightness, 
 was nothing more than the accomplishment of the 
 Divine plan: "For this corruptible must put on 
 incorruption, and this mortal must put on im- 
 mortality." It is certainly a question whether these 
 words may not be intended only to give fresh 
 utterance to the principle enunciated in ver. 5 : 
 " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
 God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption;" 
 and this seems to be the view generally entertained.^ 
 
 1 Comp. Hofmann, Ruckert, Edwards, Ellicott. 
 
 p 225 
 
226 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 In that case, as ver. 50 referred to none but believers 
 alive at the Faroicsia, the same reference would need 
 to be given to the words before us, and both clauses 
 of ver. 53 will have to be understood of one and 
 the same class of persons. The probabilities of the 
 case seem to be against this view. 
 
 There is no need to repeat a principle already- 
 stated with sufficient clearness, and it is highly 
 natural that St. Paul, before uttering the language 
 which celebrates the completeness of the Christian 
 victory, should think once more of all who, in any 
 part of the argument of this chapter, have been 
 before his mind as conquerors in the strife, and not 
 of one class of them alone. If so, ver. 53 will 
 contain a reference not only to such believers as 
 shall be alive at the Parousia, but to such believers 
 also as have died before that event. The two 
 clauses will then be best understood as relating to 
 the two classes of believers in the order in which 
 they have been mentioned in the chapter: the 
 first, "this corruptible," applying to Christians who 
 have died, but shall at the great day of judgment 
 be introduced to new and more glorious forms of 
 life ; the second, " this mortal," applying to those 
 who, without passing through death, shall be in 
 that day changed. Nor does the verb "put on" 
 (hdvnaadai) appear to be less suitable to that recei\'ing 
 of a new body which is to be the portion of believers 
 who have passed through the grave than to that 
 transformation of their old bodies which shall be 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 227 
 
 ■experienced by Christians who are alive when the 
 Lord comes again. It can hardly be shown that 
 the words of 2 Corinthians v. 2-4 are inconsistent 
 with this idea. When St. Paul uses the same verb 
 in that passage, it is not clear that he speaks only 
 of the living. He seems to speak also of the dead, 
 for at the beginning of the chapter he mentions 
 " the earthly house of our tabernacle to be dissolved ; " 
 and Edwards, while making the word as employed 
 in the passage before us refer only to the living, 
 says of it as used in the quotation now given from 
 the second epistle to the same Church : " It is this 
 personal exultation at the prospect of living to the 
 day of Christ that the Apostle corrects in the 
 pathetic language of his second epistle, when he 
 sees the outward man perishing, and intimates the 
 probability of the earthly house being dissolved 
 (comp. 2 Cor. iv. 16 to v. 10)."^ On the whole, 
 therefore, it would appear as if the " corruptible " 
 of ver. 53 were to be understood of those who die 
 before the Parousia, and the " mortal " of those who 
 live on to that great event. 
 
 The purpose or plan of God is now regarded as 
 fulfilled, and the Apostle hastens on to take his 
 stand upon the field where all has been accomplished, 
 that there, in the very presence of the apparent 
 conquerors, he may lift up his shout of triumph. 
 " But when this corruptible shall have put on 
 incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
 1 On 1 Cor. XV. 53. 
 
228 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xit 
 
 immortality, then," etc. Of the various reading here, 
 which omits the words " this corruptible shall have 
 put on incorruption," it is hardly necessary to speak. 
 The sense is in no degree affected, and the con- 
 clusions of different critical editors appear to have 
 been mainly determined by the views taken by 
 them of the question whether the words " corruptible"" 
 and " mortal " in the previous verse refer to two 
 different classes or to the same class. Eefer them 
 to the same class, and there is no need for both 
 clauses ; refer them to different classes, and the 
 repetition is natural. External authority, too, is in 
 this case in favour of the longer, rather than the 
 shorter reading. 
 
 At the moment therefore, the Apostle now 
 exclaims, when the great result shall have been at 
 last attained, when those who have died shall have 
 risen from their graves clothed with their incor- 
 ruptible bodies, and when those who are alive shall 
 have been changed, " then shall come to pass the 
 saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in 
 victory." 
 
 The quotation is from Isaiah xxv. 8, but it cannot 
 have been taken from the LXX. as we have it, since 
 it reads now, with an entirely different and even 
 opposite sense, xarsTnsv 6 Sdvarog Ja^vdag, " death, having 
 prevailed, swallowed up." The probability is how- 
 ever that there is some corruption of the text ; for, 
 thus read, the clause has no connexion whatever 
 
 with its context. Aquila read xaraTOvrian rhv ddmTOV 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 229 
 
 i/g vrMi} and St. Paul obviously and correctly 
 understood the Hebrew in that sense. The prophet 
 is describing the glories of the Messianic age, — 
 the removal at that time of all the evils from which 
 man suffers in his present state, the introduction of 
 all the blessings for which he longs. Among the 
 former is death, and therefore it is said, " He shall 
 swallow up death for ever." The same figure is 
 met with in 2 Corinthians v. 4, and in a connexion 
 similar to that here supplied, " That what is mortal 
 may be swallowed up of life " (JVa xaraTo^?3 ro ^vriTh 
 xiitl rr,g ^wJjg) ; and again, in Hebrews xi. 29, the 
 Egyptians are said to have been swallowed up in 
 the Eed Sea {y.an'TTo&nGav). Complete destruction is 
 thus denoted by the word. Death shall be no 
 more. The words g/c vTxog of the quotation are also 
 interesting. The Hebrew represented by them is 
 usually rendered by ili vTmg in Greek, and by " for 
 ever " in English : " Shall the sword devour for 
 ever?" (2 Sam. ii. 26); " And he kept " (said of Edom) 
 ** his wrath for ever " (Amos i. 11); and it is possible 
 that in the instance before us St. Paul understood it 
 in this sense. No better meaning indeed could well 
 be afforded, "Death is swallowed up for ever." 
 Yet the recurrence of the word vlytdg in ver. 57, 
 with its undeniable sense of " victory " there, seems 
 to show that the Apostle understood it in a similar 
 sense here. That sense is also peculiarly appropriate 
 to the whole tone of the passage, and may even be 
 
 ^ Turpie, Old Testament in the Neic, p. 134. 
 
230 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 said to be the most suitable introduction to what 
 follows. There has been a victory ; but, O Death, 
 that victory is not thine ; it is ours : and in thy 
 destruction our victory is declared. 
 
 Then the Apostle bursts forth into his triumphant 
 song, *' death, where is thy victory ? death,, 
 where is thy sting ? " Again it will be observed 
 that the readings of the Textus Eeceptus have been 
 departed from, but, it may be added, with universal 
 consent. No later editor of the New Testament 
 doubts that, on what Bishop Ellicott calls " clearly 
 preponderating authority," ^ the order of the clauses 
 ought to be different from that in the Authorized 
 Version, and that " death " ought to be substituted for 
 " Hades " or " grave " in the second clause. " deaths 
 where is thy victory ? death, where is thy sting ? " 
 
 Death had seemed until now to have the victory. 
 It had exercised its sway not only from Adam to- 
 Moses, but from Moses to the days of the Apostle. 
 Through all the successive generations that had come 
 and gone since the beginning of the world the tokens 
 of its power had been seen. According to St. Paul's 
 expression elsewhere, it had " reigned " (Eom. v. 14) ^ 
 i.e. it had not only been master of the fate of man, 
 but it had also reigned like an unfeeling, tyrannical,, 
 and cruel king. It had spared neither age nor sex ; 
 it had cut down the nobly born not less than the 
 humble, the powerful not less than the weak, the 
 brightest ornaments of refined society not less than 
 
 ^ Commentanj on 1 Corinthians in loc. 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 231 
 
 those who spread around them misery and crime. 
 The richest, the fairest, the most highly gifted, the 
 most lovinsj, and the most loved had sunk into the 
 dust at its command. Its conquest too had been 
 complete. The eye gleaming the one moment with life 
 and with affection was the next moment insensible to 
 every impression that earth had been wont to make 
 upon it ; the voice that had adapted itself to every 
 variety of human passion was hushed into a silence 
 that no entreaty for one more utterance could break ; 
 the hand once so mobile and warm was motionless and 
 chill. Nay, not only had there been victory on the 
 part of death, and that victory complete, the victory 
 had been also cruel. Taking man from this world, 
 from all that he had valued and that had sweetened 
 his existence, it might have been thought that death 
 would at least be gentle, if at the same time irresistible, 
 in its sway, and that it would smooth as much as 
 possible a passage out of life that at the best could 
 only lead to desolation and darkness. The contrary 
 had been the case. In the very moment of triumph 
 death had seemed to gloat over the miseries of its 
 victims. It had employed every form of torture to 
 accomplish its purpose — the wounds of the battle-field, 
 exposure on the trackless ocean, fire and hunger and 
 thirst, excruciating pains that had so racked the body as 
 to deprive it of one moment's rest, and slow, lingering 
 agony, far worse for the sufferer to bear or for his 
 friends to witness than the one final blow that in an 
 instant might have ended all. It had listened also to 
 
232 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 no prayer, and had yielded to no effort, to delay its 
 coming. No money had ever bribed it, no tears softened 
 it, no despair moved it. Oh, what a victory had that of 
 death been ! The Apostle beheld it in the full com- 
 prehensiveness and mercilessness of its sweep. As he 
 travelled back in thought through the ages of the past, 
 there was no spot upon which he set his foot that did 
 not sound hollow beneath him ; there was no corner of 
 the earth's surface from which the voice of a weeping 
 that refused to be comforted did not rise. 
 
 But again he looked abroad, and all was changed. 
 Gathered together in one vast assembly were the 
 multitudes whom death could no more touch ; one 
 part of them risen from their graves in glorified 
 bodies, another part so changed that they needed not 
 to pass through the grave in order to be fit companions 
 for those who had been " raised incorruptible." He 
 beheld — for the unredeemed are not in his thoughts 
 — death for them destroyed and prostrate at their 
 feet ; and he exclaims, " death, where is thy 
 victory?" (ver. 55a.) 
 
 More, however, he must say ; for he remembered 
 what a powerful weapon death had used to accomplish 
 its end, and, lo ! that weapon too was for ever blunted 
 and made useless. Therefore he cries again, " 
 death, where is thy sting?" (ver. 556.) 
 
 We must not think of this " sting " here as a goad 
 or prick within the conscience of the sinner, troubling 
 him in the hour when he comes to die, and, even long 
 before that hour, whenever he does not succeed in 
 
€HAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 233 
 
 hardening himself against it, making him all his life 
 *' subject to bondage " (Heb. ii. 15). The word may 
 be used with this thought of a mere goad underlying 
 it in Acts xxvi. 14, when it was said to Saul, " It 
 is hard for thee to kick against the goads," although 
 even there it ought to be remembered that the goad 
 is iron. But here it would seem, both from the 
 context, and from the fact that St. Paul is moulding 
 his words upon the Septuagint translation of Hosea 
 xiii. 14, "Where, death, is thy judgment? where, 
 O Hades, is thy sting ? " that we must understand it 
 in its strongest sense. As such it expresses the sting 
 of a poisonous animal like the scorpion, whi(;h carries 
 torment that leads to death along with it (comp. Eev. 
 ix. 10). When, accordingly, the question is asked, 
 *' death, where is thy sting ? " our attention is not 
 directed to the human victim of death, or of the fear 
 of death, as he recalls his transgressions and trembles 
 in the thought of judgment, but to death itself, with 
 its dart in its hand, first raging over the field, and 
 then not only prostrate, but the dart fallen from its 
 grasp and lying useless by its side. 
 
 St. Paul has been speaking figuratively, but even 
 the figure of death with its poison-sting will hardly 
 express all that is in his mind, and hence he hastens 
 onward to the words of the following verse : " The 
 sting of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is the 
 law" (ver. 56). The truths contained in these two 
 clauses were among those upon which, in his teaching, 
 the Apostle was most accustomed to dwell. We may 
 
234 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 look at them for a moment, and then at the purpose 
 for which they are here referred to. 
 
 {a) " The sting of death is sin." It is the Apostle*s- 
 constant lesson. When in this very chapter we read,, 
 " By man came death," and " in Adam all die " (vers. 
 21, 22), he obviously refers to sinful man and sinful 
 Adam, although to have mentioned this would have 
 diverted attention from the point then immedi- 
 ately in view. Still more clearly is the thought 
 expressed in other passages : " For if by the trespass 
 of the one death reigned through the one ; " " What 
 fruit had ye at that time in the things whereof ye 
 are now ashamed ? for the end of these things is- 
 death ; " " The wages of sin is death " (Eom. v. 1 7 ; 
 vi. 21, 23). The Jew felt powerfully that there was 
 nothing more alien to the nature of God than death. 
 God was the living God, and life was what He had 
 appointed for man. Not indeed in the first instance 
 necessarily perfect life ; for in perfect life the spirit 
 must be the one supreme influence, all the behests, 
 of which the body must implicitly and unresistingly 
 obey. The condition of the body of man, even in his 
 best estate, prevented this. At the moment of his 
 creation, therefore, man could not stand at the highest 
 point of the development he was designed to reach. 
 But, if he continued obedient, there was nothing before 
 him inconsistent with the full manifestation of God's 
 loving will. There was thus no death before him. 
 There was training, discipline, education, of one kind 
 or another, by which he would have been brought 
 
CHAP. XII TlTE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 235 
 
 nearer to the perfection for which he was designed. 
 Only if he sinned would this training be interrupted — ■ 
 " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die " 
 — and death would then be due not to God, but to 
 sin. Can we not sympathise with this even now ? 
 Many say that death is rest from toil, relief from 
 trouble, freedom from pain of body and disappoint- 
 ment of spirit. True ; but toil and trouble and pain 
 and disappointment are as unnatural as death. They 
 are its followers. " All our woe " accompanies it. 
 How terrible, then, the sin of which it is the conse- 
 quence ! Not the moral evil of sin, but the dire 
 nature of the evil that it brings on man, is in the 
 Apostle's mind. The scorpion's sting distils no 
 poison, inflicts no curse on man, like the poison, the 
 curse of death. 
 
 (b) " The strength of sin is the law." Let u& 
 compare the words of the same Apostle in another 
 passage : " Sin is not imputed when there is no law " 
 (Eom. V. 13). It is not of the fact that the law 
 discovers or even provokes sin that St. Paul speaks 
 either there or here. What he dwells upon is the 
 thought that the law is the " strength," or rather 
 the power, of sin. If sin be the poisoned arrow 
 discharged from the bow of death, the force that 
 sends the arrow home and makes it penetrate the 
 life of man so as to bring him to the grave, is the 
 law. St. Paul is looking at the law in all the 
 breadth with which it embraces, in all the sharpness 
 with which it cuts into, the human heart. He sees 
 
236 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 in it the expression of the will of God, and no one 
 has successfully resisted His will. Like the thunder 
 of Sinai, he hears the twang of death's bow ; like the 
 lightning that flashed around the mountain he sees 
 the arrow shot by death go swift and straight to its 
 mark. " The sting of death is sin, and the strength 
 of sin is the law." 
 
 (c) And now what is the special purpose of these 
 clauses ? It is to bring out how great had been the 
 victory of death, and how much greater, in consequence, 
 the victory gained for the believer over death. We 
 shall go wholly astray if we imagine that St. Paul 
 is taking us into the inner chambers of the soul, 
 and showing us that law-work there by which the 
 law awakens the consciousness of sin, and the con- 
 sciousness of sin awakens the spirit of bondage and 
 fear. He is looking at things in a more outward 
 way, but at the same time on a larger scale. As he 
 does so, death is the first great fact by which he is 
 arrested. He acknowledges the terror with which, 
 in itself, as the simple dissolution of life, it 
 inspires man. But, terrible as it was, it did 
 not stand alone in the war it had never ceased to 
 wage, in the victories which, until met by One 
 stronger, it had never ceased to win. It was backed 
 by an earlier enemy, sin ; and sin again was backed 
 by that holy law of God, with its voice of condemna- 
 tion most fitly expressed by winds that rend the 
 mountains, by fire, and thunder, and earthquake. 
 Death, sin, the law ! The three go together, and 
 cannot be separated from one another. But for sin 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 237 
 
 there would have been no death : but for law there 
 would have been no power in sin to kill. Law brings 
 sin to its bar, and with all the force of a Divine 
 majesty compels it to condemn its own worshippers. 
 Sin commits the execution of the sentence to death, 
 and death is the penalty the sinner pays. What a 
 victory would have been the victory of death could 
 death have made it sure ! What a monument would 
 death have reared ! — the desolation caused by the 
 violation of the law of God the pedestal of the 
 pillar; out of it sin rising rampant and spreading 
 everywhere ; on the top death crowned with triumph. 
 But victory is not given to death. Even over so 
 great a foe victory is given to believers : " But thanks 
 be to God, which giveth us the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 57). If we ask, What is 
 meant by the description, " our Lord Jesus Christ ? " 
 it would seem as if the answer were at hand. The 
 humiliation and death of the Eedeemer are included. 
 They belong to the appellation, " Jesus Christ : " 
 " Jesus," the human name ; " Christ," the Anointed 
 One, the Saviour commissioned and qualified by the 
 Father for His work of suffering and death on behalf 
 of man. But the Eesurrection and eternal life at the 
 right hand of God are also included. They belong 
 to the appellation, " Lord." And this last comes 
 first, because St. Paul had been called to the Apostle- 
 ship in a manner different from that of the other 
 members of the Apostolic band. He had not, like 
 them, been first brought to faith by companionship 
 
238 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 with his Lord's earthly life. He had first believed 
 in the risen and glorified Lord. Let the following 
 words of Dr Matheson, in his eloquent and deeply 
 interesting work on The Spirihoal Development of St. 
 Fmd, illustrate this : 
 
 "But to my mind the passage on this subject which of all 
 others most trenchantly illustrates Paul's position is his remark- 
 able aspiration contained in his letter to the Church of Philippi : 
 ' That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and 
 the fellowship of His sufferings.' I have called it a remarkable 
 .aspiration, because it seems to invert the natural order. Why 
 did not Paul say, ' that I may know Him, and the fellowship of 
 His sufferings, and the power of His resurrection ? ' Is not this 
 the historical arrangement in which the events of the life of 
 Jesus actually presented themselves ? Undoubtedly it is. But 
 it is not the order in which the events of the life of Jesus 
 presented themselves to Paul's experience ; that which was last, 
 to him came first. The passage has a biographical ring in it. 
 It tells us that Christ had come to the man of Tarsus in the 
 inverted order of His own life. To the primitive disciples the 
 Christian revelation had presented itself in its natural and 
 historical order : first the Man ; then the fellowship with His 
 sufferings ; and, last of all, the power of His resurrection. To 
 Paul the Christian revelation presented itself in exactly the 
 opposite arrangement ; it began with the crown, and it went 
 back to the cross. Paul's vision rested first of all on that which 
 was supernatural and superhuman, and he had thence to retrace 
 His steps into that which was earthly and historical ; he began 
 with the ' power of the resurrection,' he passed next into ' fellow- 
 ship with the sufferings,' and he ended with the recognition of 
 that which identified Christ with humanity. His spiritual life 
 was in one sense a progress from Damascus to Galilee ; it had to 
 find its terminus where that of Peter and John had found its 
 beginning. Its goal was to be the discovery of that perfect bond 
 of humanity which bound the heart of the disciple to the heart 
 of the Master ; and in reaching that discovery it attained the 
 completion of its journey precisely where the first Apostles had 
 begun" (p. 41). 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 239 
 
 Once more : the word " our " brings out the 
 personal appropriation of Christ in the unity of 
 faith. In the background, therefore, of the Apostle's 
 thoughts it may be said that there lies the idea of 
 a complete redemption ; but only in the background. 
 The main thought is still, as it has all along been, 
 victory over death. To that victory it may be said 
 that every element of redemption in its widest sense 
 belongs. Death is the highest expression of man's 
 " corruption," " dishonour," and " weakness." We 
 behold in it the most striking token of his defeat 
 and fall. Victory over it thus includes victory 
 over everything that brings condemnation, or de- 
 gradation, or misery. Death is the " last " enemy. 
 When it has been bound, banished, destroyed, there 
 has been given us a victory over every other 
 spiritual foe, and not over it alone. 
 
 The Christian victory is won. Before we part 
 from it, let us fix our minds a little more fully 
 upon the thought that it is a " victory " of which 
 St. Paul has spoken. The Christian, if he must 
 die, enters the valley of the shadow of death, not 
 as one who is submitting to the inevitable, but as 
 a conqueror. Most men can submit in their last 
 hours to God, and can lie down to die without 
 trying to rebel against the strong hand which has 
 them in its grasp with a power that they would 
 vainly endeavour to shake off. " When a man," 
 it has been said, " feels that there is no help, and 
 he must go, he lays him down to die as quietly 
 
240 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 as a tired traveller wraps himself in his cloak to 
 sleep." ^ That is not victory; it is defeat. It is 
 the weaker yielding to the stronger. It is saying, 
 " death, thou hast conquered at last : do thy 
 worst, I contend no more." Such is not the 
 position of the Christian as here contemplated. 
 With him rather the victory remains. " All things " 
 are his, and among these " death " is his (1 Cor. iii. 22). 
 Now therefore we may adopt the practical con- 
 clusion added by St. Paul to everything he had said : 
 " Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, 
 unmovable, always abounding in the work of the 
 Lord, inasmuch as ye know that your labour is not 
 vain in the Lord" (ver. 58). It is unnecessary to 
 suppose, as has been sometimes done, that the first 
 two expressions met with in these words, " steadfast " 
 and " unmovable," refer to doctrine, the third, 
 "abounding," to active exertion, as if the words 
 "in the work of the Lord" were to be connected 
 only with the one mentioned last. Had the Apostle 
 intended this difference, he would undoubtedly have 
 brought it out more clearly. But there was no 
 need to direct our thoughts to any such distinction 
 between belief and practice. To St. Paul's mind 
 the two constituted one whole. There could be no 
 genuine belief which was not followed by corre- 
 sponding practice. There could be no Christian 
 practice which did not rest upon the facts of the 
 person and the life of Christ. Doctrine is as dis- 
 
 *■ Robertson, SerTnons^ vol. iii. 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 241 
 
 tinctly implied in the mention of " the work of the 
 Lord" as though it had been expressly named. To 
 be " steadfast " and " immovable " in good works 
 is as much required of the Christian as to display 
 these qualities in regard to doctrine ; while to be 
 " abounding " in our love and appreciation of doctrine 
 is as necessary as to be abounding in work. In 
 these circumstances it seems best to connect all the 
 three adjectives with the same subject, " the work of 
 the Lord." 
 
 All of them express ideas of their own. " Stead- 
 fast" connects itself with the thought of a building 
 reared upon a good foundation, a building settled 
 and firm (comp. Col. i. 23). " Unmovable " connects 
 itself with the thought of movement occasioned by 
 outward causes — storms or earthquakes in the case 
 of a building, heresies or temptations of any kind 
 in the case of Christian men (comp. Col. i. 23). 
 ^'Abounding," again, reminds us that our Christian 
 life is not to be a stunted growth ; that the Christian 
 does not ask himself how little, but how much he 
 can do for the Lord who has redeemed him by His 
 blood; and that, forgetting the things that are behind, 
 lie constantly presses onward to those that are before. 
 This last note of their high calling is that in which 
 the followers of Jesus are even more apt to fail than 
 in either steadfastness or unmovableness ; and therein 
 may lie the reason why the Apostle gives it peculiar 
 emphasis by placing the word " always " before it. 
 Certainly for no aspect of their life do Christians stand 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 more in need of the voice of exhortation. They fail 
 to think enough, not simply of " the blessing of the 
 gospel of Christ," but of " the fulness " of its blessing 
 (Eom. XV. 29). Into the depths of the love which 
 has been revealed to them they do not seek to 
 penetrate. To the heights of the glory to which 
 they may be brought they make no effort to ascend. 
 With the boundless treasures that are before them 
 they do not care to be enriched. They have passed, 
 it may be, the line which separates death from life 
 and hell from heaven. They are out of the wilder- 
 ness, delivered from its trials ; and there, therefore, 
 they will rest from their labours. The pleasant 
 land that is before them they will explore no further ; 
 and already, on this side of Jordan, they would pitch 
 their tents, and be at peace. 
 
 Nor is this spirit less apt to display itself in 
 relation to the duties than in relation to the privileges 
 of the Christian life. Too often in Christian living, even 
 when thoroughly sincere, there is a want of largeness 
 of heart, of freedom of spirit, of those ever loftier 
 flights with which they that wait upon the Lord 
 ought like eagles to mount into the air (Isa. xl. 31). 
 One would think that the spirit of the Old Testament 
 must in this respect have been not unfrequently 
 higher than ours. We too seldom speak of "running" 
 the way of God's commandments, when He shall 
 " enlarge " our hearts (Ps. cxix. 32). We too seldom 
 hear the song : " Lord, truly I am Thy servant : 
 I am Thy servant, the son of Thine handmaid; Thou. 
 
CHAP. XII THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 243 
 
 hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to Thee the sacrifice 
 of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the 
 Lord. . . . Praise ye the Lord" (Ps. cxvi. 16, 17, 
 19). Perhaps it is not difficult to explain why it 
 should be so. The Israelite of old dwelt in the 
 presence of God, although that God was less fully 
 revealed to him than to us in the more attractive 
 features of His character. God was in the midst 
 of Israel. The devout Jew could always lift his 
 eyes to the temple on Mount Moriah and sing, " In 
 Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling-place 
 in Zion" (Ps. Ixxvi. 2). He knew that his Friend, 
 his Protector, his Shield in the day of battle, his 
 Tower of defence against any besieging foe, was 
 always at hand, and ready to deliver him. His 
 spirits, therefore, could always rise in adversity, and 
 he could " abound in hope." Christian men often 
 fail to have this deep sense of the immediate presence 
 of their Father and Eedeemer. Their minds are 
 occupied with the process by which the work of 
 their redemption was carried through at the time 
 when Jesus was on earth. They accompany Him 
 who loved them and gave Himself for them to the 
 successive scenes of toil and suffering and agony and 
 death through which He passed when He tabernacled 
 in the flesh. They go in search of Him, and do 
 not sufficiently realize that He has come, and that 
 He is always coming, in search of them. Their 
 Christian graces and privileges are not nourished, 
 to the extent at least that they ought to be, by 
 
244 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xir 
 
 the light of the countenance of a present and a living 
 Lord. 
 
 It is quite otherwise with the New Testament itself, 
 and with the displays of feeling that are brought 
 under our notice there. In particular, that we may 
 keep close to the passage which we are now con- 
 sidering, it is so with St. Paul in the words before us. 
 The work " of the Lord " he says, and again he speaks 
 of labour not vain " in the Lord ; " and there cannot 
 be a moment's doubt that by " the Lord," thus twice 
 mentioned, he means Jesus Christ, not merely in His 
 earthly life, but in His exalted and heavenly life. 
 That glorified Lord was continually by His people's 
 side, knowing them, sympathising with them, making 
 His grace sufficient for them, and perfecting His 
 strength in their weakness. Therefore might they 
 always be steadfast, always be unmovable, always 
 abound. He that was with them was far more than 
 all that could be against them. 
 
 Finally, also, they might look beyond this present 
 scene, when everything they had toiled or suffered for 
 here would bring with it its own reward. It is not a 
 merely general reward of which St. Paul speaks, one 
 that may be valuable in itself, but may have no 
 correspondence to the labours previously undergone, 
 or no intimate bond of connexion with them. The 
 word used by him for "vain" is that used in ver. 14 
 of this chapter (jcsvoc), and distinct in meaning from 
 that translated by the same English term in ver. 17. 
 It expresses not only what is vain, in that it comes to 
 
CHAP. XII THE KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 245 
 
 naught and produces no result, but what is in itself 
 empty and void. That therefore which is not " vain " 
 or " void " is that which is full, rich in substance, 
 pregnant with results. And such is the Christian 
 " labour " to which St. Paul refers. To the eye of the 
 world it may seem vain. These labours for the good 
 of others who often neither think of them nor value 
 them when known ; these self - denials and self- 
 sacrifices to bring about, though it may be on a 
 narrow field, a better time for the poor, the criminal, 
 or the sorrowing ; these struggles in the distant 
 recesses of the soul and in the private chamber to rise 
 above the world, and to gain in larger measure the 
 spirit of that heavenly and Divine Master whom he 
 follows, but of whom he continually falls so far short ; 
 these renouncings of earthly pleasures which he might 
 enjoy, and of earthly riches and honours which he 
 might gain, — all these may seem to those around the 
 believer the outcome of a fantastic imagination or of 
 fevered dreams. Is it possible to say that they would 
 be more than this were there no hereafter, were there 
 nothing but the grave before us at the end of 
 thankless and not unfrequently disappointing toil, 
 were there no resurrection of the dead ? But they 
 assume a new character in the light of the eternal 
 world, and of the Eesurrection of Him who died for 
 us, and rose again that we, having partaken of His 
 spirit, may also share His glory. They are the 
 labours of the seedtime, to be followed by an 
 abundant harvest. They are the battle to be crowned 
 
246 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD chap, xii 
 
 with victory, the race to be ended at a glorious goal, 
 the voyage over stormy seas that the ship may reach 
 a smiling land, and may enter an eternal haven. 
 Even while they are endured they are full of promise 
 and of hope, and along with each is given a foretaste 
 of the coming blessedness. The heart rises above 
 everything that would otherwise weaken or discourage 
 it. We may be counted fools for Christ's sake ; but 
 in Him our weakness is strength, our tears are smiles, 
 our sorrow is joy. " It is God that justifieth ; who is 
 he that shall condemn ? It is Christ Jesus that died, 
 yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at 
 the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession 
 for us ; " " Let us not be weary in well-doing ; " " Our 
 labour is not void in the Lord." 
 
 TDRNBDLL AND SFEAR8, PRIKTERS, EDIKBUROB. 
 
WORKS BY THE LATE PROFESSOR WILLIAM MILLIGAN, P.P. 
 
 THE REVELATION OF ST JOHN. 
 
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 and instructive book has been issued for many a long day." 
 
 Just Published, in Crown Svo. Price is. 
 THE 
 
 SUPERNATURAL IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 With Special Reference to Statements in the recent 
 GIFFORD LECTURES. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY— THE ISSUES AT STAKE. 
 
 By Principal RAINY, D.D. 
 
 II. CAN PROFESSOR PFLEIDERER'S VIEW JUSTIFY 
 ITSELF P 
 
 By Professor QRR, D.D. 
 
 III. THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 By Professor MARCUS DODS, D.D. 
 
 With Prefatory Note by Prof. A. H. CHARTERIS, D.D. 
 
 Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street. 
 London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., Ltd. 
 
 R 
 
HOW TO READ THE PROPHETS: 
 
 Being the Prophecies arranged Chronologically in their Historical 
 Setting, with Explanations, Maps, and Glossary. 
 
 By Rev. BUCHANAN BLAKE, B.D. 
 
 {Four Volumes now ready, crown %vo), 
 
 Part I. THE PRE-EXILIAN MINOR PROPHETS (with JOEL). 
 
 Second Edition. Price 4s. 
 Part II. ISAIAH (Chapters i.-xxxix.) . Second Edition. Price 2s. 6d. 
 Part III. JEREMIAH. Price 4s. 
 Part lY. EZEKIEL. Price 4s. 
 
 "It has often been found a difficulty to profit fully from the reading, especially 
 of the smaller prophecies of the Old Testament To make these prophecies intel- 
 ligible to the plainest reader, it seems desirable that a chronological arrangement 
 of the prophetic books should be attempted. Alongside of the several prophecies 
 should be placed those portions of the Old Testament historical boohs which deal 
 with the same period. The aim of these manuals is consequently in this direction : 
 to bring within the reach of the many a clear and succinct presentation of these 
 Prophets in their historical environment."— Yrom the Author's Introduction. 
 
 "So far as Mr Blake's series has gone it is unrivalled." — The 
 Sunday School. 
 
 *' Those who already possess the earlier parts of the same work will 
 at^ once possess themselves of this new volume. Those who do not, 
 will be glad to have it recommended to their notice. The author's plan 
 has grown since he first announced it, and we are glad of it, as the 
 treatment is more full and thorough. It is enough now to say that 
 there is nothing like this little book on Jeremiah."— C/zz^r^/z Bells. 
 
 " Mr Blake has already taught us how to read Isaiah and the Minor 
 Prophets, and we have found the task much lightened in consequence, 
 scarcely any more a toilsome task at all. For the difficulty of the 
 Prophets is in their arrangement, together with the numerous allusions, 
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 it is possible we ever could stand, in the same position as the Prophets' 
 hearers. No ' Aids to the Study of the Bible ' can approach these in 
 real helpfulness for the ordinary Bible reader." — The Expository Times. 
 
 '* A pleasure to read, and profit for the reading. . . . The arrange- 
 ment of the historical sections, and the prophetical utterances connected 
 therewith, is admirable. All Bible students have reason to be grateful 
 to the author for this entertaining volume ; its form is inviting, its 
 interest absorbing." — Church Times. 
 
 *'A well-conceived and carefully executed attempt to make these 
 writings speak for themselves. . . . His book will give a new meaning 
 to these prophecies to many a reader." — The Critical Review. 
 
 Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street. 
 
 London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., Ltd. 
 
WORKS BY PATON J. QLOAG, P.P. 
 
 In Demy 8vo, price \os. 6d. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE 
 CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 
 
 " Dr Gloag, whilst courteous to men of erudition who differ 
 from him, is firm and fearless in his criticism, and meets the 
 erudition of others with an equal erudition of his own. He has 
 displayed all the attributes of a singularly accomplished divine 
 in this volume, which ought to be eagerly welcomed as a solid 
 contribution to theological literature ; it is a work of masterly 
 strength and uncommon merit." — Evajigelical Magazine. 
 
 In Crown 8vo, price ^s. 
 
 EXEGETICAL STUDIES. 
 
 " Careful and valuable pieces of work." — Spectator. 
 
 " A very interesting volume." — Literary Churchman. 
 
 " Dr Gloag handles his subjects very ably, displaying every- 
 where accurate and extensive scholarship, and a fine apprecia- 
 tion of the lines of thought in those passages with which he 
 deals."— i5«^/zj-/. 
 
 In Crown Svo, price ys. 6d, 
 
 THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, 
 
 " It has seldom fallen to our lot to read a book which we 
 think is entitled to such unqualified praise as the one now 
 before us. Dr Gloag has displayed consummate abiHty." — 
 Lo7tdo7i Quarterly Review. 
 
 In Demy Svo, price 12s. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE 
 PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
 "A work of uncommon merit. He must be a singularly 
 accomplished divine to whose library this book is not a 
 welcome and valuable addition." — Watchman. 
 
 Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street. 
 
 London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., Ltd. 
 
3n flDemoriam 
 The Rev. WILLIAM MILLIGAN, D.D. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. W. F. MOULTON, D.D. 
 
 cambridge. 
 
 In the expository times for March 1894. 
 Price 6d. (JPost JP*ree "jd-.^ 
 
 " We shall be allowed to make special mention of Dr Moulton's paper 
 on the late William Milligan. Our readers do not need to be told with 
 what sincerity and sympathy an ' In Memoriam ' article is written by the 
 Principal of the Leys School. His personal knowledge of Dr Milligan 
 began with the Revision work of 1870, and the brief sketch he gives of 
 his lamented friend's life, character, and writings will be greatly valued." — 
 Methodist Recorder. 
 
 "The outstanding feature of this month's Expository Times is un- 
 questionably the biography and estimate of the late Dr Milligan by his 
 friend and fellow- worker of many years' standing, the Rev. Dr Moulton, 
 Cambridge. It contains the fullest record we have yet seen of the lamented 
 scholar's contributions to theology, and will be much prized by all whose 
 privilege it was to know and love him." — Perthshire Advertiser. 
 
 Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street. 
 
 London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. Ltd. 
 
Theological Semmary-Speer Library 
 
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