236
RESURRECTION
REU
is that he had "iven up belief in a resurrection of the wicked. On the whole, it appears that there must be some distinctive character in tlie resurrec- tion to life, both as to causation and nature, which lias not yet been brought out adequately in theolof;y. Thus we are led to return to the dilUcuity stated above (ii. A) aa arising from the teaching of the Lord in Jn 5 and 6. Christ's promise to raise His hearers in the last day is conditioned by belief on the Son (Jn 6*"), and their resurrection is represented as an act of grace extended to them by Christ (Jn 5-' 6""), although it is also said that ' all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice and shall come forth' (5^"). Now St. Paul's teaching distinctly follows the same line: 'lie that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through (or because of) his Spirit which dwelleth in you' (llo 8"), which limits this Divine operation to those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. 1 Co l.')-"-"" is a fuller statement of the same thought. The bod}' there spoken of is spiritual, i.e. a lit organ for the spirit, a description which cannot refer to any but the saved. 1 Co 15-- has been quoted on the other side as proving that all (both rigliteous and wicked) shall be made alive in Christ. But 'all' probably means all who are already in relation to Christ as believers. See Meyer, Kommentar^, ed. Heinrici, on the verse. It must be acknowledged that the line of teaching in the above passages makes strongly at first sight for a resurrection of the righteous only, and, in short, for the doctrine of conditional immortality. But inasmuch as this view can be carried through only by dint of very rough dealing with the te.xt of t\ie NT in several passages, e.g. Jn 5^, it may be concluded that while 'life' (Jn 6^°) and its equivalent, the indwelling Spirit (Ro 8"), are both the cause and the earnest of resurrection for believers, they are nevertheless not indispens.able to such a resurrection as is involved in the presentation of the rest of man- kind in an embodied state before their Jud<je.
(4) From the doctrine of two resurrections, in whatever form it be accepted, arises the ques- tion. Will there be an interval between them, and if so wliat occurs in it ? 1 Co 15-^"-*, arguing from Ps 110', seems to imply that there is an interval during which Christ subdues all His enemies. A much more definite statement occurs in Rev 20'''', where the interval is a thousand years — ' the rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years should be finished.' In this passage the first resurrection is placed at the beginning of the millennium, and at the end of it follows not a second resurrection but the ' second death.' It is beyond the scope of this article to show that in the first three centuries belief in a millennial reign of Clirist on earth was generally accepted in the Church. Seeesp. Justin, Dial. Ixxx. I ; Iren. v. 33 fl'. The interpretation given by Aujjustine * to Uev 20' is that the tirst resurrection is the spiritual awakening which began to work in mankind after the coming of (Christ, i.e. the resurrection in its mystical aspect ; and that the millennium of Rev 20 is the period from that awakening onwards. He supports this explanation of the reign of the saints by the con- stant u.se in NT of ' Icinijdom ' as equivalent to the Church militant. Tins is hardly satisfactory as an exposition of the passage in question. It is rather an exposition of passages in the Prophets and the sayings of Christ which underlie Rev 20 ; and as sucli it has real value. The history of the
• ' I>e hoc ergo repno militilB, In quo adhuo cum hoste con* fligitur, et aliquando repu^jnatur pupnantibue vitiis, aliquando et cedentiltus uiiperatur, donee veniatur ad ilium pacatissimum regnum, ubi sine hoste ret'iiiibirur ; et de hac pntna remirrec- tWTU qum ninic «*(, liber iste (w. Apoc.) sic loquitur.*— Aug. de Civ. Dei, xx. 9 ; And see also vl.-x., which are full of ioterest throughout.
Church has been a history of the subjugation of the world to Christ, slow but progressive. Such a view, however, if adopted in reference to Rev 20, would contradict the identification of ' the first resurrection ' with ' the resurrection of the just,' which must, so far as we can see, be taken in other passages to mean a literal resurrection. The interpretation of Rev 20 is beset with difficulties and contradictions, which are well stated by Milligan, Lectures on Apoc, Lect. vi. The sugges- tion of a considerable interval of time between the resurrection of the just and that of the unjust has therefore no secure basis. The significant contribution of the Apocalypse is the clearness with which the resurrection of the wicked for judgment appears in it, which can hardly be dis- missed on the ground that the book is ultra- Judaic. See, further, art. Millennium.
There remains to be dealt with in a few words what is probably the latest book in the Canon (1 Jn 3^). St. John first disclaims knowledge of the nature and conditions of our future state, and then in three words, S/iOiOi airi^ {abixeBa ('we shall be like him '), gives the substance of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Our resurrection will be on the pattern, so to speak, of His. Not only does His resurrection answer all doubts as to the possibility of resurrection for us, but it also an«:wers sufficiently the questions in which those doubts express themselves, namely, as to 'how' and 'wherewith.' In one respect the parallel between His resurrection and ours appears to faU. But a little reflexion will show that the difference involved in the reanimation of a body not yet decayed, as was the case in His resurrec- tion, and the clothing of the soul with a body which has to be reconstituted, is of no great weight, inasmuch as the change which passed on the Lord's human body at resurrection must have been of so fundamental a character, that although outward identity was preserved, yet the natural body had given place to something wholly ditlerent.