CHAPTER V.

The New Testament Doctrine of the Resurrection.

THE train of investigation thus far pursued has, if we mistake not, conducted us to one important conclusion, viz., that the teachings of the Old Testament, so far as they throw light at all on the theme of human destiny in the world to come, do not go beyond the announcement of the simple fact of a future life. This doctrine was undoubtedly conveyed, though in terms of comparative obscurity, in numerous passages of the law and the prophets. The sanctions of that economy were for the most part temporal, and in this respect it was designed that the Gospel should be immeasurably in advance of the law. The clouds that hung over the grave were to be, in great measure, dispelled by the Sun of Righteousness, and the retributions of eternity distinctly proclaimed. Still it must be admitted, as natural to suppose, that the doctrine declared by Christ on this subject would be in the main a fuller and clearer enunciation of the very doctrine so darkly intimated in the Jewish Scriptures; or, in other words, that the fundamental truth which entered into his disclosures on this head would be that of the immortality of man—that death was not a complete victory over life -that notwithstanding the triumph of the grave, that which constituted his real essential being survived the dissolution of the body, and subsisted forever in a state of happiness or misery in another world. This was the point on which the prior revelations were confessedly obscure, and this consequently would govern the character of his disclosures on this subject this would form the burden of his teachings. His great mission, so far as this object was concerned, was to "bring life and immortality to light;" and though we

are not to array any hypothetical assumptions against the clear evidence of facts, as to the subject-matter of his communications, yet we are at liberty to have recourse to à priori considerations in fixing the principles on which language that is intrinsically doubtful is to be interpreted.

The question then is a perfectly fair one, in what manner the Divine Teacher would be apt to promulgate to the Jews, and through them to the world, the grand doctrine of man's future existence. This question becomes doubly proper and urgent if we may venture to suppose ourselves to have attained, by scientific discovery apart from revelation, a view of the subject which commands assent, but which is at the same time apparently in conflict with the literal statements of the Scriptures; for the case then becomes similar to that of geology, where a reason is imperatively required for the seeming discrepancy between the letter of the sacred record and the ascertained facts of science.

In determining then the point before us, we must obviously transport ourselves back in idea to the period when the Divine Revealer appeared and opened his lips upon the sublime theme. We are to put our minds as far as possible into the posture of the minds of that generation, and judge from that stand-point in what manner the instructions of Christ in regard to the future life would be likely to be communicated. We must bear in mind that their own scriptures contained very little of a definite character on the subject, and that the speculations of the heathen philosophers respecting it were little better than mere random guesses. So far as they taught any thing relative to the future mode of existence, with the exception perhaps of Plato, it was the existence of the soul as mere disembodied intellect-as the abstract power of thought-apart from any kind of corporeity, whether material or spiritual. But now the time had come for the promulgation of new and clearer views on the subject and who can doubt that this would be done on the

part of infinite Wisdom with a fitting reference to the mental state and conditions-or, in one word, to the receptivity-of those that were to be taught? The great truth to be authoritatively announced was, that death was not the extinction of being—that there was that in man which survived the dissolution of his mortal frame. In making this announcement we can indeed easily conceive that our Lord might have laid open all the arcana of our mental and phys. ical structure, and have shown how the body and the soul were connected with each other, and how the future life was developed by a necessary law upon the cessation of the present; just as we can conceive that the true formation of the earth and the solar system might have been made known to Moses and faithfully and scientifically described in his pages. But this would have been obviously at variance with the analogy of the divine proceeding in the general course of Providence, which is so ordered as to throw the human mind on its own resources in eliciting the constitution of the universe. The revelations of his word have mainly a moral bearing, and the presumption would doubtless be, in the present case, that the doctrine would be conveyed not so much in the terms of scientific verity in the technical phrase of a strict and accurate physiology—as in a popular diction that would declare the main fact in an intelligible way, and clothe it with the highest practical efficiency, while at the same time it fell short of scientific exHe might use language more or less metaphorical -he might express himself in terms borrowed from familiar phenomena and yet the grand truth be enunciated with a distinctness far exceeding that of the Old Testament writers, and calculated to produce a very vivid impression upon the minds of his hearers. How far this was actually the case, remains to be seen,

actness.

CHAPTER VI

Origin and import of the word 'Resurrection' as used in the New Testament.

UPON recurring to the sacred page we find our Lord, in the utterance of this doctrine, making use for the most part of the term avάotaois, rendered resurrection, a term the true explication of which is obviously of the first importance in this discussion. The verbal root from which it comes is ἀνίστημι, compounded of ανά and ἵστημι, of which the former denotes, according to Schleusner, in composition, (1,) upwards; (2,) again; (3,) separation; (4,) emphasis; (5,) adds no meaning at all. The verb onu simply means to stand, or actively to cause to stand, i. e. to raise, to raise up, and the corresponding substantive is orάois, standing. It does not appear, however, from New Testament usage, that the idea of standing again, or rising again, is generally conveyed by the verb avionui, so that the true force of the preposition is not again, but up, upwards. The action of standing up, i. e. rising from a recumbent or sitting posture, is expressed by this word, without any reference to a previous position or a repetition of the act. Thus Mat. 9. 9, "And he arose (avaotas) and followed him." Ch. 22. 24, " And raise up (uvaongei) seed to his brother." Mark 3. 26, " And if Satan rise up (i'véσrn) against himself." Ch. 10. 1, "And he arose (avaotas) from thence." Acts 7. 18, "Till another king arose (άvεotη)." In these passages, and numerous others that might be mentioned, there is no implication of the sense of again. At the same time, as the living of the soul or spirit after death is in one sense a living again, though in a new form, the word may properly be understood as involving that idea. Yet, let it not be forgotten, it is the living again of the spiritual and not of the corporeal part of our

nature.

In relation to the subject before us, the term

is evidently metaphorical, and applied from the fact that living things, especially of the animal kingdom, generally stand more or less erect, while those that are dead fall down and lie prostrate. Hence, a very natural term to express living again, would be arάoraois, resurgence, resurrection, i. e. re-rising. The phrase, it is true, is drawn from corporeal objects, and suggests, at first blush, what we may term a corporeal idea; but it does not appear that any more is necessarily included in the term, in this connexion, than the simple sense of reviviscence, without any reference to the rising again of the defunct body. This will be seen to be a conclusion of great moment in relation to the genuine import of the word upon which the doctrine of the resurrection of the body mainly depends. It remains to confirm it by an appeal to actual usage, and to show that the position is impregnable, that the prevailing sense of resurrection in the New Testament is simply that of future existence, the future state or immortality. The person-the sentient intelligent being— who now yields to the universal sentence, and appears to become extinct, shall again be restored to life by entering immediately upon another sphere of existence. This existence will indeed be in a body, but it will be a spiritual body, i. e. some exceedingly refined and ethereal substance, with which the vital principle is connected, but of the nature of which we are ignorant, and which we denominate body, from the inadequacy of language to afford any more fitting term.

Another term employed in the enunciation of the doctrine of the resurrection is yɛiow, to raise, with its derivative eyegois, raising. The latter, however, occurs but once in the New Testament, Mat. 27. 53, where it is applied to the resurrection of Christ. The leading idea conveyed by this word is undoubtedly that of raising in a physical sense, and if we had no reason, from other sources, for supposing that the resurrection implied any thing but the resurrection of the body, this would unquestionably be the import which we should naturally assign to it when used in reference to that subject. But in this, as in all other cases, the sense of