KESUKRECTION
RESURRECTION
231
blessings will at last be found to embrace all mankind. But it cannot be said that these pas- sages contribute any evidence for or against that view. See Weiss, Liblical Theology of XT, ii. 73. Such biblical passages were understood by Clement of Ale.xaudria, Origen, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, even by Chrysostom (see Homily on 1 Co 15**) and other lathers, by Erigena, most of the mystics and theosophists, as they have been in modern times by Schleiermacher, Erskine of Lin- lathen, Maurice, Farrar, etc., not as teaching absolutely the final salvation of all nun, but as pointing to the ultimate restoration of all as at least a possibility.
In the Pastoral Epistles there are three very interesting passages, 1 Ti 2* 4'», Tit 2'", in which God's saving will is described as universal. This, however, is the will of God concerning men who are themselves possessors of a will, which may resist and reject as well as accept what the gracious will of God has designed for them. The aame explanation must be given of Eph 1'- '", Col 1", which represent the gathering into one and rcconcilin" of all as the purpose and good pleasure of God. 1 his Divine plan is realized only in Christ, and applies therefore only to tliose who are in Christ. What is taken into account here is only God's purpose, and not what is actually realized in the world of human freedom. The whole scope of Scripture shows that the realization of the Divine will regarding man is conditioned by man's volun- tary acceptance of the terms proposed. The universal purpose of God is well described by Martensen as ' an avoKaTaaTaan a parte ante' whicli has its development as an dTroKarairTacns a parte post, under condition of man's free will, only when the possibility of eternal comlemnation has been confessed. He would regard the opposition of biblical passages, on the one hand seemingly universahst, on the other hand seemingly in favour of eternal retribution, a.s an antinomy like that of freedom and predestination.
It is now generally admitted by the best exegetes of all schools that the doctrine of tlie restoration of all cannot be supported by NT texts. The ablest and most candid advocates of this theory seek to ground their position on what they regard as necessary conclusions as to the nature and character of God, or on psychological and ethical doctrines of the constitution and destiny of man.
LlTHRATURS. — Jukes, The Second Death arid the Restitution 9f all Thingt, London (iscn), 18AS; MaitHnsen, Christian Dog- maticn, E<lin. 1866, pp. 47l-4b4; Farrar, Eternal Uoi>e, London, 1878. Mercji and Judjment, London, 1881 ; Pusey, What ill ojF Faith at to Everlasting Punishment > London, 1S80 ; Cox, Saleator ilundi : It Christ the Saviour of all Meni London, 1877 ; Row, Future Hetribulion, London, 1S87 ; Mniirire, TheoUmeal Essays, London, 18M ; File, The Uereafter, Kdin. 1880 ; Salmond, The Christian Doctrine o/ Immorldlity, Edin. 1896, 4th ed. 1001 ; Beet, The Last Thinr/s, London, 1897.
3. Macpiiku-son.
RESURRECTION. — In/rnductory. — The NT «nli>t. di'diTraffis from which, through Vulg., we obtain the term ' resurrection,' gives, so far as its Btrict sense j^oe-s, an incomplete account of the Biblical doctrine. The essential idea is restoration of life in its fulness to a penson whose existence has not been absolutely cut oil', but so mutilated and attenuated as to be unworthy to be described as life. The name 'resurrection' given to this act of Go<l is drawn from the fact whicli immediately struck the eye in cases where renewal of life took place. The rising up of the body (iviartt, 2 K 13-' L.XX) is taken as the symbol of the whole fact. But the essential matter is the renewal of life, hence in Uabbinic n;r;n (revival) is more frequent than ri-ipn (resurrection). See Buxtorf, s.v., who Bays that some distinguished the former as the proper word to be used of the resurrection of the righteous. Delitzsch in hia Hebrew NT frequently
renders ivd<rra(rit by njnn. Cf. the use of fwoiroifiii in Jn 5'^' and elsewhere. In LXX cf. fuo7ro(ij<r«i (only in Ezr 9*- •) used of revival of the nation.
The development of the Biblical doctrine of resurrection starts from a previous belief that death was not the end of existence but was the end of life, a distinction which it is difficult for modern thought to apprehend. This was itself the result of the fusion of two opposing beliefs, as has been ably shown by Charles (Escluitulugy, chs. i.-iii.). On the one side there were survivals of a primitive belief, common to the Hebrews with other nations, according to which the dead were not mere shades, but still active and powerful. On the other side was the teaching of Gn 2', that the soul was but the result of the indwelling of the Divine Spirit in the earthly body ; leading logically to the conclusion that the withdrawal of the spirit at death must involve the break up of the exist- ence of the individual. But this latter conclusion was not generally adopted, and with certain excep- tions (EcS-"-'-') the soul was believed to persist or subsist after the breath of life had been withdrawn. The question before us, therefore, is not that of the immortality of the soul, which in some form or other is the starting-point, not the subject, of the present inquiry. The advances made by the two peoples, Hebrew and Greek, in the doctrine of a future life show a strong contrast. The Greek advance, represented in Biblical literature by the Bk. of Wisdom only, was due mainly, though not entirely, in the limited circle all'ected \>y it, to the consciousness of intellectual vigour and the diffi- culty of conceiving intellectual activity arrested and annihilated, as in the belief of the Homeric age it undoubtedly was. In the Hebrew advance, it was the development of religious vigour and experience which made men feel that existence in .Slieol, as generally understood, could not be their linal lot. Again, to the Greek it appeared that the body was in some respects a hindrance to the intellectual life, and that the serenity needed for reflexion was disturbed by bodily passions ; hence the resumption of the body presented no attrac- tions. The Hebrew, from his less intellectual point of view, felt nothing of this, and was there- tore able to retain his instinctive perception that the body was essential to the life of man, and to require that, if life was to be restored, the body should be restored also. The history of the doc- trine of the resurrection in the OT is that of a slow hesitating development. In the NT there is undoubtedly development, but the doctrine is not merely developed within human thought, but re- vealed to it from without by a fact which assured it — the resurrection of .Jesus Christ. In the present article that event will not be dealt with in its historical aspect, nor with regard to its place in Cliristology and in Christian evidences (see art. JE.SUS ClIltlST), but only in its relation to the doctrine of the resurrection of mankind. The order of treatment will therefore be— (i.) the ex peetalion of resurrection as developed in the OT and Apocrj-pha ; (ii.) the ellect on this expectation of (A) the teaching, (B) the resurrection of Jesus; (iii. ) the place thenceforward assigned to the doctrine in apostolic teaching.