XIX. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. BY REV. G. W. BLAGDEN, D.D., PASTOR OF THE OLD SOUTH (CONGREGATIONAL) CHURCH, BOSTON. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation."-JOHN V. 28, 29. IN preaching from these words-the doctrine of "the resurrection of the body"-a difficulty may have to be met, arising from the probable general belief in it, by most, if not all of those who hear me, without having entered very minutely into its details,-or investigated closely the arguments which have been urged against it. And thus anything like an extended argument on such a generally admitted subject, may seem to many to be tedious and un necessary. Nevertheless, there are some points needing study and explanation, when we enter into these details ;-and some very plausible and ingenious arguments have been urged against it, not only in former times, but of late, and in our own community;-not only by some who strenuously oppose all miracles, and deny even the resurrection of Christ ;-but by other more serious and excellent men, who hold mainly to the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. These last forms of opposition to the generally received doctrine include two points:-First, the alleged unreasonableness of the resurrection of the body, and the asserted failure of its advocates to show its truth from the Scriptures;-and secondly, the affirmed want of evidence for a future fixed day of judgment, as being connected with the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, in the common belief of those who embrace it. They, who engage in this opposition, argue that the resurrection of the dead is continually going on-as individuals die, each one rising immediately from the grave in a spiritual body ;-and that the judgment also is continually progressing,-every one, with all the nations of the world, being virtually before Christ now, and tried by the manner in which all and each treat the gospel, and that all, and each, at death, go away into everlasting punishment, or into life eternal. In answer to such positions, it will be my endeavor to show in this discourse : First, That the bodies of the dead shall be raised. Secondly, That this resurrection of their bodies is consistent with reason. Thirdly, That it will occur at a future appointed time. Fourthly, That this time will be connected with a future appointed jndgment. To these topics,-the fact-the reasonableness-the time—and the connections of the resurrection of the body with the religious uses of the doctrine,-I affectionately ask your attention. I. In affirming that the bodies of the dead shall be raised, we assume, what we think is very evident from the Scriptures, that the soul exists in a spiritual state immediately after death,—a state adapted to its moral character, and not improbably, in a spiritual form. Therefore, Christ said to the dying thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise:" and narrated of the rich man, that he died, and was buried, and in hell (i. e. the place of departed souls.) "lifted up his eyes, being in torment." We hold, further, that this state will be final, but not consummated, the beginning of an endless life-the budding of a process growing and reaching at last its more developed state, at the time of the resurrection and the judgment. 1. In evidence of the fact that the bodies of the dead shall be raised, we have, first, the text, of which one of the most ingenious opposers of the resurrection of the body has been constrained to say, "This is undoubtedly the strongest passage in the New Testament in favor of the common view of the resurrection, and one in respect to which it becomes us seriously to guard against any undue bias, from theoretical promptings, to wrest it from its truemeant design." (Bush.) If we guard against undue bias, certainly it is difficult to conceive how any other meaning can be drawn from it, than that the bodies of the dead shall, in some sense and form, be summoned from their sepulchres by the voice of Christ. For it is not merely the dead, of whom it is declared, that they shall hear his voice; but "all who are in the graves." (návres oi ev võis urquois.) And, by the very terms of the theory of those who deny that in any reasonable sense our bodies rise, the spiritual bodies which they affirm do rise at the time of death, cannot with any propriety be affirmed to be "in the graves." But Christ declared, "the hour is coming, when all who are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth!" It seems impossible to invent a form of words more directly adapted to express the idea of bodies, once buried, raised from the grave. 2. Secondly-In all the cases of translation to heaven, or raising from the dead, recorded in the Bible, the body is affirmed to have been translated or raised. (Or, these facts are affirmed of the body.) In the Old Testament, when Enoch saw not death, but was taken of God;-when Elijah was taken from earth, in the chariot of fire; -when the dead man was brought to life on touching the bones of the prophet;—and in the New Testament, when Jairus' daughter was raised to life again by the power of the Redeemer;-when the widow of Nain had her son restored to her, from the bier on which they were carrying him to the grave;-when at the voice of Jesus, crying with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth," he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes ;-when, at the crucifixion (of Christ) "many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and appeared unto many;"-(Matt. xxvii. 52, 53;)—when of Jesus himself, it was said to the women, by the angels clothed in white, "He is not here; he is risen;"-and in that sublime description of the resurrection given by the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, when they "which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them (the dead in Christ') in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:" (1 Thess. iv. 17:)-in all and in each of these cases, the bodies of the dead are affirmed to have been raised, either in flesh and blood, still to continue, for a season, in this present world; or in a glorified, spiritual form, that they might at once inherit the kingdom of God, as flesh and blood cannot do. Reasoning, therefore, from what has been to what shall be; and using only the same form of words, to express the resurrection of the dead which shall arise, that the Scriptures use in asserting the resurrection of those who have been raised,-we can come to no other reasonable conclusion, than that the bodies of the dead shall come forth (from their graves,) at the voice of Christ. 3. There are, thirdly, a number of expressions used in Scripture, respecting the resurrection, which cannot be fairly explained except on the theory that the body shall be raised. a. Thus Christ, on one occasion, drew a motive from the inability of men to kill the soul, to urge his disciples not to fear their ability to kill the body only exhorting them rather to fear him, who after he had killed, had power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Does not this imply that the body exists after death, as truly as the soul; and therefore that it is raised in the resurrection? b. When he spoke of his own resurrection, he referred to that of his body, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." But the Evangelist adds:-" He spoke then of the temple of his body." (John ii. 19, 21.) c. The manner in which the terms "raise the dead," and other similar phrases, are used in the Scriptures, clearly implies the resurrection of the body. When Christ said to his disciples, "heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils," (Matt. x. 8,) certainly the idea is, that their bodies shall be raised. The same is true of those messages he sent to John the Baptist, as answers to his inquiry: "Art thou he that should come?""The deaf hear, the dead are raised." (Matt. xi. 5; Luke vii. 22.) And when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, in a passage already cited, that "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first;" and then adds, "we which are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet them in the air,"-can he mean anything other than that the bodies of all shall arise? Indeed, if all those texts applicable only to the resurrection, in which these words "raise," "raised," with their other derivatives, are used, be compared with the great number of cases in which the same verb is used in the gospel, with respect to other things, it will be very clear that the meaning must be, that in some sense and form, the bodies once buried shall arise. The very term "resurrection" itself, although it is affirmed to suggest only, as usual in Scripture, the idea of "reviviscence," or restoration to life, yet, taken in connection with such passages as have been already cited, cannot well mean anything less than the raising up again of that which was laid in the grave, and which must refer, if it has any appropriate meaning. to the resurrection of the body, that was recumbent in the tomb. What pensive mourner, or serious stranger, as he walks in the silent shades of that still resting-place for the dead, near our city, would not think, as he passed by that simple but well-conceived monument, of plain granite, and read upon its base that single, but expressive word, "Resurgemus," (we shall rise again,) would not spontaneously associate it with the thought of the resurrection, in some form, of the sleeping dust beneath? 4. But, leaving verbal criticism, we conclude our review of the direct scriptural evidence for the resurrection of the body, by remarking, that this doctrine best explains those very frequent declarations of Scripture, which attribute the resurrection of the dead to the special and almighty power of God. Thus Paul affirms of Christ, that "he shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." (Philipp. iii. 21.) It is recorded as one of the special prerogatives of God, that he "quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not, as though they were." (Rom. iv. 17.) And the apostle, in his epistle to the Ephesians, writes of "the exceeding greatness of God's power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead." (Eph. i. 19, 20.) There can be no doubt, that in the bare rising of a spiritual body, from the fleshly one, destroyed by death, without any special accompanying circumstances, silently and unobserved, there would be, as in the operation of many similar natural laws, a strong and interesting illustration of the power of God. But, such an event, great and glorious as it would intrinsically be, would fail to meet, and answer to, those remarkably strong expressions, and de. scriptions, used and given in the Bible, touching the resurrection of the dead. How inadequately would it correspond, for example, with those short but sublime words of the apostle Paul: "Behold, I show 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!" (1 Cor. xv. 51, 52.) Such expressions convey to every mind something more than the silent fulfilment of an ordinary law of nature. They imply a special act; an act so mysterious and so grand, that it is done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and is at once announced and accompanied by the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God. Such an act is not met by the theory of a silent, unobserved rising of the dead. It implies wonder as well as power; and a rapidity of execution, and a sublimity of accompanying events, only in keeping with such ideas as are awakened by Jesus, in the text: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth!" II. But to all this scriptural evidence for the final resurrection of the bodies of the dead, it is objected: first, that it is unreasonable and unphilosophical; secondly, that no one can presume to contend that the same particles once buried shall rise again; and thirdly, that it fails to meet the analogy of the dying grain of wheat used by Paul, as he treated of the resurrection, in his epistle to the Corinthians. 1. On the first point,-its unreasonableness, the utter absurdity is alleged, of our even imagining that parted limbs and empty frames shall be ever seen, literally, flying through the air, each to meet its proper body, and its former soul. And the imaginings of poetry are cited to enhance the grossness of the thought, in the words of one, who, in the description of the last day, has sung: "Now charnels rattle; scattered limbs, and all To distant regions journeying, there to claim 2. The second objection urges, that it is impossible to conceive that the same particles which once composed the buried body rise; since science teaches us, beyond all reasonable doubt, that they have mingled with their kindred dust, and entering into vegetation See Bush's work. |