The Resurrection becomes the medium through which the glorified life of Jesus is infused into the personality of the believer. Apostolic Christianity, we are profoundly persuaded, does not limit itself to the former of these two conceptions, but embraces the latter. It is not Christ outside us, but Christ within us that completes the Apostolic view. It is not the recorded Christ appealing to us across the centuries, but the Living Christ imparting His glorified strength, that is the ultimate Christian principle. This is the meaning of St. John's teach- ing on eating Christ (Jn 6). This assimilation of Christ becomes possible only through His Resur- rection. And St. Paul can mean no less when he writes, ' raised again for our justification.' Thus, as B. Weiss says, the relation between the Death of Christ and His Resurrection is, that ' the former was the means of procuring salvation, the latter the means of appropriating it ' (Bibl. Theol. i. 437).
On this most important passage see, further, Meyer on Ro 425 ; Liddon's Analyan ; Newman's Sermon, ' Christ's Resurrec- tion the Source of Justification.'
(6) The Resurrection of Christ is also, according to Apostolic teaching, instmmental in effectinq the physical resurrection of all believers. As early as 1 Th 4" St. Paul appeals to Christ's Resurrection as the ground of consolation to the mourner. Simi- larly St. Peter is represented (Ac 4^) as ' preaching through Jesus the resurrection from the dead ' (cf. Ro 65 8", and above all 1 Co 15).
Specially noteworthy is St. Paul's argument in Ro 8'"'-. On the supposition that Christ is in us — if Christ has really entered into the individual believer — if His power has taken possession — then the result is [a.) that although the body — the human body — is dead because of sin — i.e. belongs to the category of dead things owing to the influ- ence of moral evil — not merely mortal but dead — yet the spirit — the human spirit — is life because of (Christ's) righteousness. That is to say, a resur- rection has taken place already on the spiritual side. We are already risen with Christ — in the region of personal renewal — because the righteous- ness of Christ is in us — imparted to us. (/;) But if so (v. 11) — if the resurrection has already t.aken place in the spiritual, — the new vitality shall in process of time extend itself into the physical : ' He that raised uj) Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.'
The Christian doctrine proclaims l)oth a moral and a physical resurrection. Attempts were made in the Apostolic asje, under the influence of non-Christian presuppositions, to lay exclusive emphasis on the former and reject the latter. Men declared that the resurrection was past already (2 Ti 2''*). Death was VOL. II. — 3^
to be understood in a moral sense, and resurrection was its moral antithesis, it was a restoration out of the death of ignor- ance, a giving of life to the morally dead. Attempts are also made in modern thought to maintain exclusively a moral resur- rection. But nothing can be more paradoxical than endca\ - ours to shelter this exclusiveness under the authority of St. Paul. To say that ' in St. Paul's ideas the expression [resur- rection from the dead) has no essential connexion with physical death ' (Matt. Arnold), is to say what is preposterous to anj' one who has the great words of 1 Co 15 ringing in his mind. It is, as has been accurately said, ' claiming the authority of St. Paul's spiritual teaching in order to discredit the historical faith without which he declared his preaching vain ' (Waggett, The Holy Eucharint, p. 200). All attempts to limit St. Paul's idea of resurrection to the moral sphere are worse than useless. The fact is that St. Paul did not gratuitously attach a relic of incongruous materialism to a spiritual theory complete and consistent with itself. ' He believed, indeed, in our Lord's bodily Resurrection, but not in spite of his spiritualism ; rather because of the triumphant character of his spiritualism ' (Wag- gett, p. 201). The severance of human life into two distinct departments, the one the spiritual and moral over which resurrection prevails, the other the physical over which resur- rection has no power, is not a true spirituality, but a false and timid spirituality. ' It is false precisely througli timidity, and by failing to invade in the name of Spirit the regions ot sensible experience' (Waggett, p. 200). The intimate con- nexion of the two spheres, the moral and the physical, is funda- mental throughout the Christian revelation. Death in Chris- tianity is physical, and death is also moral. And the two interpenetrate. Redemption involves an intimate association between the two. The Death of Christ is moral surrender and physical experience. Death physical is awfully real, as real in its province as is death in the moral sphere. It is therefore impossible, consistently with Christian principles of redemption, to separate sin and dissolution into two worlds having no con- nexion. The Christian conception is of a life-giving force which pervades the moral sphere already, and is to pervade the material hereafter. It has done both these already in the case of Christ. And the Spirit of Christ already pervades the Christian here in the present world. He is already morally risen with Christ. The force of the Resurrection of Christ is already at work in the sphere of mind and affection and will. But there is a redemption of the body jet to come. (On the relation of moral to physical resurrection, see also Du Bose, Gospel in the Gospels ; and Denney, Atonement and the Modern Mind).