The Resurrection Body, se rmo» by; ' Oliver Addleon Kingsbury New Hart ford, N.Y. An Easier Greeting The Resurrection Body An Eafter Sermon by Oliver Addison Kingsbury Minister of the Presbyterian Church New Hartford, N. Y. (VI p KM ^o But some one will say, How are the dead raised? And with what manner of body do they come? First Corinthians .rr./j^. S. Paul had no doubt of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He claimed to have seen the risen Lord on the Damascus road. In his letter to the Corinthians he assumes this resurrection as a fact, held to not only by himself, but also by many of those to whom he is writing. From this starting point he goes on to set forth his teaching concerning the resurrection of all believers. It is significant, if Harnack's dates are accepted, that all this comes so early in the Christian history. Thus : Our Lord's death occurred in A. D. 29 or 30. Paul's con version was in 30 ; his visit to Peter at Jerusalem in 33 ; his correspondence with the Corinthians in 53. If he had the details of this event from Peter he had known of it for twenty years, and within twenty-three years of its occurrence had put it on record in this writing to the Corinthians. The point is that the time was too short for the growth of a myth. A further inference from the tone of the letter is that the great outstanding fact of the Lord's resurrection was not much questioned. The question was as to the resurrection of the dead in general. Paul's argument is that this resurrection must be because Christ in whom they believe is risen. Then he goes on to explain as far as he can the nature of the resurrection of believers. Our text is a question which may be asked as an objection, or it may be a legitimate inquiry, the evidence of a natural curiosity to know what may be known about a matter so full of mystery. For our present purpose I prefer to take it in this latter form. We believe that when our Lord had overcome the sharpness of death, he opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. But we want to know as much as we can of that state that lies beyond this, that state into which we pass through the dark door of death — darkness on this side, but what gleams of living light .bursting through every crevice when even for a moment the door stands ajar! "How are the dead raised, and with what manner of body do they come?" We may as well make up our minds at the outset that ' no absolute and complete answser to the question can be given. When all that we know has been said very much mystery remains. Eye cannot see nor ear hear. At the same time we may reach some conclusions that are definite as far as they go. We may get some visions that are not baseless fabrics of a dream. We may find comfort and confidence and inspiration. "How are the dead raised, and with what manner of body do they come ?" Paul proceeds to use some analo gies. An analogy does not establish an actuality, but it does create a presumption. It is an illustration, not a demonstration. But an illustration may be more illumi nating than a demonstration. Through an illustration one can sec the reality, and that is more to the purpose oftentimes than the intellectual conception. How are the dead raised? With what body? Like the seed and its fruit. The fruit is very different from the seed — ¦ fruit in the strict sense, or grain or splendid flower. "Thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain ; it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind ; but God giveth it a body even as it pleaseth him, and to each seed a body of its own." Here is the grain of wheat, and from it the plump, full head. Here is the kernel of corn, and from it the tall, beautiful stalk of maize with its rustling leaves and its bending ears. Here is the bulb, a very commonplace thing, and from it the gorgeous flower. The body that shall be is as different as possible from the seed that was sown, but the one comes out of the other. The butterfly is used sometimes as an emblem of im mortality. What an immense difference between the grub wrapped in its chrysalis and the beautiful butterfly with velvety iridescent wings ! Yet no chrysalis, no butterfly flitting among the flowers in the soft summer air. All this means, you see, that there are cases open to our knowledge where death means birth into a higher and more beautiful life. The new body is not irrespective of that which has gone before it; the power of life was in the seed and it has worked out in the fruit. "So also is the resurrection of the dead." The point is not proved, of course, but we certainly have illustration of the fact that there is no inherent improbability or even impossibility of a resurrection body for humanity trans cending in every way the body of our mortality. That we cannot conceive the nature of such a body need not trouble us. A flower-lover put into a jar of earth a bit of a leaf of a species of cactus. It grew, became a plant, and in due time a bud appeared. The bud increased in size, and then one evening its enwrapping folds seemed to tremble as with a new pulsation of life. As the shadows fell and the dark drew on, the bud slowly opened — one could almost see the quiver of the petals as they unfolded. There it was, the weird, wonderful flower, the night-blooming cereus, with its exquisite white corolla enclosing stamens and pistils like filaments of virgin gold. How could such wondrous beauty come out of that piece of leaf ? No man, not knowing in advance the nature of the flower, would ever have thought that such a production were possible. I say that the point is not proved, ii^by proof you mean anything like a mathematical demonstration. But I say also that the analogy shows us that, while we cannot forecast the nature of the resurrection body, there is no reason for us to doubt that a more perfect body may be set free by the death of our human body. Who would forecast the purely beautiful night-blooming cereus from the dingy cactus leaf? How shall we form to our thought any idea of that body that shall be ? Neither S. Paul nor any other Scrip ture writer gives us a description of it. We get some light on the subject by what is told us in the Gospels concerning Jesus after his resurrection. Here there are two kinds of statement, not contradictory, but compli mentary of each other. There are those statements that make it plain that the body of the risen Lord appeared like his body before the Crucifixion, and performed functions as it did before, or at least certainly seemed to do so. This is set forth in Luke's Gospel, xxiv : 38-43, and its force is to establish the identity of the resurrection-body with the body that died. Remember Paul's words in this resurrection chap ter: "To every seed its own body." The head of wheat identical with the grain from which it grew — it is not barley or rye, nor even another plant of the same species. There is the identity of life. On the other hand, there are statements which show qualities possessed by the resurrection-body very different from those that inhered in the body before. Our Lord appears and disappears without any reference to ordi nary coming and going. He is suddenly present in a room the doors of which are shut. "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended," he says to Mary. Material bar riers and bounds of space form no obstacles to the free passage of the risen body. That body plainly is suited to the new and different conditions that confront it. This impresses upon us the fact that is of importance, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was quite different from a mere resuscitation, that is, a return to life under the same conditions that prevailed before. In the case of Lazarus there was a revivification — he that was dead came forth from the grave. But he came back to the same body, and after a while he died again. So long as he continued on earth he needed a body suited to earthly conditions. There is a clear distinction to be observed between revivification and resurrection. The resurrection body must be fitted to celestial conditions. The wonder of the Incarnation is that the Son of God became flesh, a man among men, living as men lived through a full human experience from the cradle to the grave. "He was crucified, dead and buried. The third day he rose again from the dead." That that resurrection might be made known — made known as evidential of his Messiahship, as certifying to the redemptive character of his death, as testifying to his divinity, as instrumental in effecting his exaltation and in bringing about the resurrection of be lievers — he appeared to certain persons at sundry times during forty days, that they might be witnesses to the great fact. So the Gospel they were to proclaim they knew to be that of the living Saviour, the kingdom they were to found was based upon the Person of the living Lord of Life. The risen Christ was the same yet different. The disciples who saw him after his resurrection recognized and identified their Lord. At the same time they per ceived a difference. Looking at that quadruplex picture which the Gospel gives us, we can see something of the difference between the mortal body and that of the life everlasting. At least we can see that there is a difference. We can see that that which is sown in corruption is raised in incorruption. We get some further light also by the way in which S. Paul characterizes the future bod)-. He does not describe it any more than the Evangelists describe the risen body of the Lord. But he does point out certain characteristics which distinguish it from the body one now wears. He says: "it is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption." Our present bodies are subject to decay; they need constant repair, their continual waste must be continually supplied. And yet no care or nourishment can keep the body living for a very long term. But this very waste and decay of the present body makes way for one in which there shall be no waste, no need of physical nourishment, and therefore no need of com pelling physical appetites. The body of incorruption shall be the spirit's instrument instead of its fetter. The con dition will be one of Emancipation — there will be no anxiety about a livelihood, no fear of death, no distrac tion of appetite. "It is sown in dishonor ; it is raised in glory." In these days we are rightly quite far from decrying the body as did the ascetics in early Christian history. At the same time we all know that the body is a fetter to the spirit. We all know that through the body come some of the strongest temptations which beset us. We are glad at the manly or womanly beauty of our friends. But when we dare face the fact we know that an accident may and that death certainly will reduce the greatest beauty to awful hideousness. It is sown in dishonor — ah yes, but it is raised in glory. What is that glory? What is the glory of a sunset — the color, the cloud shapes, the ineffable shining? That body, sown in dis honor, shall be raised in glory! "It is sown in weakness ; it is raised in power." Every one is conscious of that weakness to a greater or less extent. Our powers are limited — daily limitations, limi tations by the term of human life, by lassitude, sickness, pain. But no such limitations will inhere in the "body that shall be." It will be able to accomplish all the behests of the purified will, a fit instrument for the redeemed soul. Then comes the most complete characterization : "It is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body." What is a "natural body"? Why, one that a human life ani mates, one that is fitted for the conditions of this earth. This body is suited to our present uses. The animal life of man is higher than that of other animals, having richer capacities and endowments. The misfortune is that many men are quite content with this merely animal life, the work, pleasures, friendship for which the natural body is sufficient. Would that some shaft of light from the glory beyond would pierce the sodden stupor of their fleshly content, and by its illumination call their grovelling souls to higher things ! For then, in due time, would come the spiritual body for the spiritual man — the body in which the upholding life is spiritual. It will be the spirit that delights in God and in goodness, and it will animate that spiritual body that is incorruptible and glorious and full of deathless power. This splendid and alluring characterization may, after all, raise a question : Why not the spiritual body to begin with? Why should the spirit be hampered and troubled by the mortal body? Why this body of flesh, this mortal existence at all? Here is the answer : We are moral creatures ; we have the power of choice. If we enter into life, that is into the spiritual condition, it is by our own choice. The spiritual life is not compulsory ; it is not necessitated. If we have it at all it is by free choice. Now here in our mortal condition we have opportunity in abundance to test what appears to be good, and so to make our choice. It is the place for probation, for discipline. We can reach that which is highest, or we can sink into abysms of evil. In the true sense we can, if we choose, work out on* own salvation. That which results if the choice be wise is far better than compelled virtue, if indeed that be virtue which has not been a matter of free choice. Innocence is not as good as achieved and sustained virtue. The little inno cent child is a whole diameter short of the conquering saint. A brief digression : Concerning the future of the body of those who in this life have not chosen God and things spiritual as their portion, the. Scriptures say nothing. What is revealed applies to believers ; concerning others the silence is ominous. The pertinent question therefore presses, is it zvisc to risk the future on an uncertainty ? Let me say now that we have illustrations, open to the common knowledge, of the power of the spirit to move even upon or through this mortal body. You have seen persons with what is called an "expressive countenance." The expression revealed even more than the uttered words. In some cases there was no need for the word — the look told the story. I stood once by the bedside of a friend who was very near the end of his earthly career. We had been workers together for a number of years. He had known me from my boyhood, and in the latter years our relations had been intimate. He was a man of simple and beautiful Christian character, and while health permitted had been faithful and successful in Christian work. The end was near, his strength was waning, and I was. warned, that my visit must be brief. So after a few words I said good bye, but as I left him I "saw his face as it had been the face of an angel" — there was affection, sym pathy, joy, triumph in that look. It was the victory of the soul over bodily ill, over the giving up of loved work, over the parting with friends and kindred. With that look lingering with me as a sweet memory for now many years, I have no great difficulty in forming to my mind some image of that body that shall be when mortality is swallowed up of life. "As we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly." "How are the dead raised up, and with what manner of body do they come?" They are raised up into a con dition where, in the spiritual body, they will be free from the cramping fetters and the narrowing boundaries of this earthly life. Through the gates of death they enter into the life everlasting. It is natural to shrink from death. We fear it certainly until we get the resurrection light on it. No one of us has had experience of it. We see it in the persons of others of our fellow men, and what we see is gloomy and forbidding. We see the cessation of physical life — eyes closed, voice stilled, deafness to the call even of the most loving; the shroud, the coffin, the grave, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." There are tears, dirges, darkness, corruption. This is the end of all flesh. Rut it is not the end of the spirit. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. This corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." That which is truly spiritual in us — not a mere profession, not a merely intellectual assent to truth, but a whole-hearted and real reception of Jesus Christ as the Master of our lives — this can and this shall put us in possession of a spiritual body. What we see with our natural eyes is dark, but to the eye of faith the brightness of the coming state is made visible. The saints walk in white in unfettered bliss. They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. His servants shall serve him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat : for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life ; and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. It is true, oh surely it is true, that for him who believes in Jesus, the first-begotten from the dead, death is swallowed up in victory ! Thanks be to God, who 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 labor is not in vain in the Lord. CHILDREN OF THE RESURRECTIOX Not left in the tomb where the shadows are dim, No death unto those who rest there in Him, The Master of Life and the Mighty to Save The Lord of all worlds who rose from the grave. In splendor supernal they live and they reign, The bonds now all broken of sin and of pain ; Forever all joy and forever all love — O Master adored, bring us with them above ! Amen. o. A. K. YALE I.