66

as the boundless stretch of the heavens, looked down upon them, a countenance blessed and beautiful,— · Aspettata in ciel beata e bella Anima." Also for us, again, in these latest days, the ethical and cosmical resurrection process is become proof1 which is sufficient, clear, and unshakable of the historic uprise of Jesus Christ from the dead. Unless, indeed, there be a Resurrection, the world is a vulgar, paltry, squalid town of banishment, "where," says one," with the shifting dust we play and eat the bread of discontent." Straightway after the Resurrection, or rather after Pentecost, the apostles proceeded to develop the grand and inspiring doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

3

5

4

e. St. Paul began with asserting that Jesus is the power of God unto salvation,2 a salvation from death through the rectification of life, due to our Lord as a revealer of what righteousness is, and what is its operation unto deathlessness. The apostle goes on to declare that the inner force which Jesus has liberated in the world is not a theory or a doctrine, but a positive power, which makes men saved, safe, sound, healthy, holy, and causes the 1 Renan, Les Apôtres, 44. 3 Rom. v. 18-21.

4 δικαίωσις.

2 Rom. i. 16. 5 Rom. i. 17. 7 1 Cor. iv. 20, dúvaμs.

6 St. John vi. 39. 8 Rom. i. 16; 1 Thes. v. 9; 2 Thes. ii. 13; 2 Tim. ii. 10; Rom. iv. 25. Weiss, Bible Theol. I. 434, appears to have forgotten this when he remarked concerning Jesus, "His Resurrection has not, like His death, a significance as being the means of procuring salva

Resurrection of the dead. Hence St. Paul evidently doubts 1 a uniform Resurrection of the dead; he himself strains every power to attain unto the better Resurrection by living into the life of Jesus Christ. Consequently, while St. Paul cannot be said to deny 2 the Resurrection of the wicked, he certainly does contemplate a distinction between the Resurrection of the just and that of the unjust; for, to go no further, he said that every seed would have its own body, and that one star would differ from another star in glory, in the Resurrection of the dead. He also distinguishes former resuscitations; e.g. of the widow's sons in the Old Testament from the better Resurrection coming from Jesus, the First-fruits 4 of them that slept. The evangelist in recounting the miracles of Christ's raising from death Jairus' daughter, the widow's son of Nain and his friend

3

tion." Without the Resurrection, the death of Jesus could not atone. The death of Jesus upon which Paul laid stress was a death unto sin; this was the atoning death, of which the physical death was the last number of the series. 2 Cor. v. 19; Gal. iii. 13, iv. 4; Rom. viii. 3.

1 Phil. iii. 10.

2 It is not true for Weiss to say, II. 89, I. 57, that a Resurrection of the godless may not be assumed from the New Testament, for see St. John v. 25, or that St. Paul does not know of such a Resurrection, for see Acts xxiv. 15. The wicked, it is true, are already judged, Weiss, II. 4, 18, n. b, but, for that matter, so have the righteous passed from death unto life.

3 Heb. xi. 35.

4 1 Cor. xv. 20.

Lazarus, uses not the word meaning to resurrect, but that which signifies to awake or to arouse.1

f. This better Resurrection is a transformation of the corruptible and psychical into the incorruptible and pneumatical body.2 Lotze's observation,3 is therefore strictly in the Pauline spirit, when he says that a Resurrection of the same material body would mean only a continuance of this life during the existence of the body which it animates. St. Paul teaches a change and a transformation of the body, but no loss of substantial identity and continuity. The natural body is evolved in this life from the Psyche (or soul), the heavenly body is evolved from the Pneuma (or spirit). Thus much concerning the Pauline psychology: more would be beyond our purpose. St. Peter 4 likewise calls attention to the spiritual body of the Resurrection of our Lord, intimating that it belongs, like baptism, to the process of the justification, which we have seen to be the rectification of life. He also shows that the energy, or dynamic impulse, to Resurrection is essentially within man, and that it resides in his pneuma, or spirit.5 It is clear that this spiritual Resurrection of Jesus is only the starting-point

1 Not ȧváσraois, but eyepois, St. Mark v. 41; St. Luke viii. 54, vii. 14; St. John xii. 1. See St. Matt. xxvii. 53, for the eyepois, not at the crucifixion.

áváσraois, of the saints

21 Cor. xv. 43-52. 3 Microcosmos, 480.

4 1 Pet. iii. 21.

51 Pet. iii. 18. Cf. Weiss, Bibl. Theol. I. 229, n.

and the impulse of the general Resurrection of the body. It is, in fact, the first Resurrection, and mention is made of it in Rev. xx. 5. I understand that it was concerning this spiritual Resurrection, which is the ground and condition of the bodily Resurrection, that our Lord spoke when he said of some that [now] "they have eternal life; they have [already] passed from death unto life," and that they will not taste death because, at the last day, He essentially having permeated them, will raise them up.1 It was a misunderstanding of these words concerning the spiritual process of the Resurrection which anciently caused Hymenæus and Philetus "to err concerning the truth, saying that the Resurrection is passed already," 2 so that no other is to come; and this obsolete heresy has in our own day been revived by rationalism, theosophy, and Christian science.

g. St. Paul after thus evolving the Christian idea of the Resurrection of the dead, until it is presented as a rise to a higher plane, by the out-working and unveiling in Jesus of the hidden Love Who is deathless Life, finds that this wonderful reality has also a subjective application which is quite true; a death unto sin and a Resurrection unto righteousness.

"Yea, the Resurrection and Uprise
To the right hand of the Throne

what is it beside,

1 Weidener, Bibl. Theol. of the New Testament, I. 109; Milli

gan, Revelation of St. John, 226, note b, and Appendix II.

2 2 Tim. ii. 18.

When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my soul,
And as I saw sin and death, even so

See I the need and transiency of both,

The good and glory consummated thence."

h. There is in that golden letter attributed to James, the brother of the Lord, a striking expression, of which we could easily make too much, as probably Jacob Böhmen did. St. James alludes to the "wheel of nature," ‚”1 which, if we might be allowed to use Hegelian phrase, should be translated the Wheel of Becoming, i.e. of continually coming into existence. From a certain attitude, nature has seemed to man nothing other than such a vast, terrific whirl. To the man of sensibility there is something even more than saddening in this aspect; the conflict in nature is a bitter tragedy. The world of animal life is filled. with cruelty, ferocity, and crime. Violence could almost be termed the condition of lower animal existence. Everywhere the strong preys upon the weak, everywhere there are terror and flight, rapacity and pursuit. From the tiniest insect to the strongest kings of the carnivora, each animal destiny is a lifelong, incessant warfare. Everywhere nature, like the Hindu goddess Kali, is smeared with blood and cruelty. How much better is the aspect when we mount from wild beasts to the higher stage of civilised man, nay, even to the region and history of religion? Taking a generality familiar to all: At

1 iii. 6, τροχὸς τῆς γενέσεως