It will doubtless be more profitable, however, to seek to lay our finger on the source of error in the statement of the doctrine, and to correct it, than to track out all its confusions. This error does not lie in the supposition that redemption is for the body as well as the soul, and that the saved man shall be renewed in the one as well as in the other. This is true. Nor does it lie in the supposition that provision is made in the atonement for the relief of men from disease and suffering, which are fruits of sin. This too is true.35 It lies in confusing redemption itself, which is objective and takes place outside of us, with its subjective effects, which take place in us; and in failing to recognize that these subjective effects of redemption are wrought in us gradually and in a definite order. Ideally all of Christ's children were saved before the foundation of the world, when they were set upon by God's love, and given by the Father to the Son to be saved by Him. Ob- jectively they were saved when Christ died for them on the tree, purchasing them to Himself by His own precious blood. This salvation was made their personal possession in principle when they were regenerated by the Holy Spirit, purchased for them by the death of Christ in their behalf. It was made over to them judicially on their believing in Christ, in the power of the Holy Ghost thus given to them. But it is completed in them in its full effects only when at the Judgment Day they stand, sanctified souls, clothed in glorified bodies, before the throne of God, meet for the in- heritance of the saints in light. Here, you perceive, is a process. Even after we have believed in Christ, and have a title as justified men to the benefits bought for us by His blood and righteousness, entrance into the actual enjoy- ment of these several benefits remains a process, and a long process, to be completed in a definite order. This is true of the spiritual blessings which come to us through the atonement of Christ. We are no longer under the curse of sin. But we remain sinners. The struggle against indwell-
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ing sin, and therefore indwelling sin to struggle against, continues through life. We have not yet obtained, and we are not yet made perfect. It is little that we continue also physically weak, liable to disease, and certain to die. For the removal of these physical evils, too, provision is made in the atonement. But the benefit here too is not received all at once. For us, as in the broader sphere of the world's salvation, death is the last enemy to be conquered. Though the redeemed of the Lord and no longer under the dominion of sin, the results of sin remain with us: inwardly we are corrupt, outwardly we are the prey of weakness and dis- ease and death. We shall not escape from either in this life. Who is there that sins not? And who is there that does not suffer and die? But ultimately we are relieved from both. Of indwelling corruption when our sanctifica- tion is completed and, having been made holy, we depart, which is far better, to be with the Lord, the Holy One. Of outward weaknesses, at that redemption of the body which, while here below, we only, groaning and travailing in pain, wait for in its due season — that is, at the resurrection, when death shall be swallowed up in victory. This is the teach- ing of the Bible; and this is what Christ illustrated when He healed the sick in His ministry on earth that men might see, as in an object-lesson, that provision was made in His substitutionary work for the relief of every human ill. There is included in this, however, no promise that this relief is to be realized in its completeness all at once, or in this earthly life. Our Lord never permitted it for a mo- ment to be imagined that the salvation He brought was fundamentally for this life. His was emphatically an other- - ^ world religion. He constantly pointed to the beyond, and $T* bade men find their true home, to set their hopes, and txj^--- ^ ^ place their aspirations, there.
But, we are asked, are there not to be prelibations here? Is there no "intermediate work of healing and re- covery for the body" here as there is "a vast intermediate
178 COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES