Sunday Morning at the Christadelphian Synagogue, Birmingham, No. 11
RESURRECTION.
p. 341THE idea commonly entertained by religious people respecting the resurrection of the dead is, as you well know, that when that event takes place, the righteous will rise from their graves with glorified bodies. This doctrine is derived from the words of Paul in 1 Cor. xv, where he says that the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and that they will be changed in the twinkling of an eye; which would seem to countenance the popular view, and which we might accept without dispute, were it p. 342not that the judgment is here left out of view, and we know from portions of scripture that the judgment forms an important part of God's future programme. For we are told that believers must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to be there rewarded according to the deeds they have done.—(2 Cor. v, 10.) And as such a fact is inconsistent with the notion that they have received their reward before, Christadelphians have generally come to regard 1 Cor. xv, as dealing only with the broad results arising out of the resurrection, leaving out the details as entirely superfluous for the present purpose of the apostle, and inasmuch as he, as well as others, has given those details elsewhere.
The controversy between the upholders of the two views—between the mortal and the immortal resurrectionists—has been and is still very warm. It is not my intention, on this occasion, to travel over the ground which has been so well trodden by the various brethren who have defended what I consider the only rational and logical, as well as scriptural, view of this subject, nor indeed do I propose to enter upon the question so broadly as it would be necessary to do were I speaking to an audience divided in opinion concerning it. I purpose dwelling a little upon some portions of the chapter of Corinthians in question, with the object (1st) of shewing how beautiful is the comparison that Paul institutes between the resurrection of man and the rising from the ground of the deposited seed, and (2ndly) of endeavouring to extract the Christadelphian doctrine of the resurrection from the very passages so much relied upon as supporting the opposite one.
Turning to the chapter mentioned, we find that after demonstrating the necessity of resurrection in opposition to some (and those professing Christians), who evidently did not consider it necessary, Paul proceeds to the consideration of the nature of the body to which the righteous resurrected will ultimately attain; and in answer to the question “How are the dead raised up, and with what body,” or to what body—for that is said to be a rendering more consistent with the original—“to what body do they come?” he exclaims, “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die, and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.”
Now, as Paul here illustrates the resurrection of the dead, by a comparison with the mode of the growth of grain, it necessarily follows that if we would the better understand the details in connection with the rising of the one, we must examine the known facts of the other. A grain of wheat is composed of two parts—the outer, or the body, and the inner, or the germ, which is the vital principle of the grain; and without which it would be impossible for germination, and consequent reproduction, to take place. When placed in the ground, the body of the grain corrupts, but the germ remains, and from that germ springs up the future body. Now, what is there in man that corresponds to the germ of the seed? An orthodox believer would no doubt reply “the immortal soul,” which in his opinion, is the active and vitalising principle within us. But a most superficial examination will show that there is no correspondence between the so-called immortal soul and the germ of the wheat; for instead of remaining when the mortal body has corrupted and been reduced to dust, its departure from the body is said to be the very cause of that corruption; and at the resurrection, allowing the immortal soul theory to be true, instead of being the revivifying principle—that which forms the resurrected body, as in the case of the wheat germ, it would not return until the reconstruction of the body had wholly taken place—until, indeed the receptacle which it left, had been again prepared by other means for it. Adam, according to popular notions, was wholly organised before the immortal soul was placed within him. So we see the absurdity of saying that that principle corresponds to the germ of the wheat.
What, then, is it that possesses this correspondence? I answer, the truth, as it indwells in those who receive it. Of this I think we have abundant scripture proof; but I need only refer to a few passages. In John v, 24, Jesus says “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth MY WORD and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life.” Again, (John vi, 63,) “It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” (viii, 31.)—If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (xi, 25.)—“He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet p. 343shall he live; whosoever believeth and liveth in me, shall never die.” The truth, then, is the vital principle corresponding to the germ; and on examination, we find that this correspondence is a most complete and striking one. As with the grain, so with the body of the believer; placed in the ground, the body decays and is destroyed; but is the truth, however weakly possessed by that body, destroyed also? Apparently so, as in the case of the germ; but in reality it is not. The connection between the dead body and the truth that inhabited it, is written in the eternal memory of God, and in the eye of God remains, and hallows as it were, the very dust of the believers, which, when the proper time arrives, will by the power of God, revivify the dust, and bring back the life possessed before. And when will that time be? We are aware that in order to cause the seed to germinate, the heat of the sun and the fertilizing influence of the showers are absolutely necessary. And in this respect the analogy is maintained. Christ is the sun and the fertilizing shower, who will quicken the germinating power of the truth into action, and restore the dead and perished body once more to life. Even the prophets, as if they themselves, by the Spirit of God, apprehending the comparison that Paul subsequently institutes, speak of these beneficent characteristics of the Saviour. Malachi says, “Unto you that fear my name, shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings;” and the Psalmist, speaking of this sun of righteousness, exclaims, “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.”
If this be a true reading of the lesson Paul wishes to teach by his analogy, it is evident that there are persons who never will be raised at all; and is not this in harmony with the plain teaching of the divine word—that by nature we are hastening to death, having no hope whatever beyond the grave? “Man that is in honour and understandeth not,” says the Psalmist (xlix, 20,) “is like the beasts that perish.” “That which befalleth the sons of men,” says Solomon (Eccles. iii, 19) “befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other: yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for all is vanity.” “O Lord our God,” we read in Isaiah (xxvi, 13), “other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us; but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name. They are dead; they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast Thou visited and destroyed them, and made their memory to perish.” These passages confirm the truth of my analysis, and taken with it, we have a demonstration that, as in the natural, so in the spiritual—without a germ there can be no re-production.
Having now arrived at that aspect of Paul's comparison when the body revives from the perished state in which it lies in the ground, and has sprung up, let us bring to bear the case of the seed in the further elucidation of the subject. I think the natural lesson or doctrine to be deduced from this, can be no other than the Christadelphian doctrine of “mortal resurrection.” In the case of the wheat, at the proper time, the reaper appears, and cuts it down, gathers it together, and then separates the good ears from the chaff. He stores the wheat in his garner, but the chaff he burns or throws away. Now to my mind, this is a most faithful picture in figure of the circumstances attending the judgment, as we are taught to understand it by Christ and his apostles; indeed it is a picture of the judgment that the Saviour himself paints for us in one of his parables. Christ having effected his work as the fertilizer of the dormant seeds, now becomes the reaper, and proceeds, in exact analogy with the reaper of the grain, to separate the produce gathered before him: the good he admits into his garner—the kingdom of God; but the bad he rejects and destroys; and just as the grain of the farmer is not properly raised till it is placed in the storehouse, all clean and separated from the impurity which necessarily accompanied it in its growing state, so the believers in Jesus Christ do not arrive at the proper resurrected state—to that state spoken of by Christ as “in the resurrection”—until they have been winnowed by the winnowing fan of the judgment, and freed from all the imperfection that they necessarily possessed before that judgment process had been undergone.
In the chapter before us, Paul declares that God giveth to every seed its own body: that is, according to the nature of the germ, so will be the nature of the body springing from it. Now, the germ I have been speaking of, the truth germ, is of divine origin, and, therefore, its germination should result, ultimately, in the production of that which is divine; it is a spiritual germ, and should produce spiritual bodies. This indeed, I need hardly say, is the object that God intends it to accomplish, as exemplified in the case of p. 344Jesus, who is the first fruits of the deposition of that germ. But how is it that this germ results in raising above the ground many who will never attain to the full resurrection-state? Why, for the very same reason that a good many wheat germs do not succeed in forcing their produce to the full ripe ear, because in some cases it is weak. We must remember that this divine germ has to be deposited in our hearts before the body dies and is placed in the ground, and it depends entirely upon the vigour of that germ at the time of death, as to how far it will afterwards succeed in carrying on the body toward that state represented by the grain fully ripe. If it be weak, it will only just succeed in forcing up a sickly plant, that will die as soon as it appears; if it be strong, it will carry forward the body to full resurrected life. It depends wholly upon how we, who have the germ nature, foster it now; and, therefore, let us take care that we nurture it well.
After this analysis of Paul's comparison, how clearly we can understand and how keenly we can appreciate his further statement respecting the body: “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”—Paul, of course, is speaking of that body which possesses the germ in full vigour; and the meaning, raised, as I have endeavoured in this examination to show, being the attainment of the spiritual position that the sowing of the truth is intended to accomplish, and not the mere rising from the ground.
I will proceed now to the consideration of the text which is generally thought to inculcate the opposite view of the character of the resurrection which I have endeavoured to support from Paul's comparison. In the 51st verse, the apostle says, “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.”
Now, in considering this passage, I do not think sufficient attention is given to the statement that it is at the sounding of the last trump that the dead (and the living also) are to be instantaneously changed. I think this is the key to the meaning of the whole verse. The mention of the trumpet is evidently an allusion to, or a figure drawn from, the custom of the Jews to sound the trumpet on certain important occasions. The form of the Jewish trumpet, says Josephus, was invented by Moses, and in length the instrument was a little less than a cubit. Two of them were employed. When the first sounded, the heads of the tribes were to assemble for consultation, but when they both sounded, it was a call to the multitude to come together. The children of Israel whilst journeying in the wilderness also moved their tabernacle and their tents at the sound of the trumpet, all the people being in motion at the end of the fourth blast. In the book of Revelations, certain important epochs are represented as being marked by the sounding of this instrument; and, taking all these facts together, we must conclude that the mention of the last trump by Paul indicates the close of a series of events, each symbollically marked, as in Revelations, by the trumpet's blast. What the details of such events so marked are, Paul has not told us, but from the analysis I have made of Paul's comparison, and from the words of Jesus himself in Matt. xxiv, 30, 31, where he says that the Son of Man shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other—from these we gather that the blasts referred to must embrace the whole period from the rising of the dead from the ground to the conclusion of the judgment. The dead rise from the ground, the dead and the living are then summoned before the judgment-seat of Christ; judgment is pronounced; the words “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” are uttered; then the last trump resounds, and “instantaneously, in the twinkling of an eye,” the accepted are “raised” to the perfect state of spiritual life to which the good seed gradually leads. Then, to use the simile of the wheat once more, the divine germ has produced the results it was intended to accomplish—the fruit is ripe and pure, and it is placed in the storehouse of the Son of God.
This exposition of the passage, you will see, is quite in harmony with Paul's analogy and indeed with all the other statements that we find in scripture respecting this great and awful event; and in conclusion, in view of the glorious prospect opening out p. 345before the finally-accepted believer, I need only urge upon each and all of us, in the words of Paul, to be “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
J. BUTLER.