2. The teaching of Jesus. — Our Lord found Him- self in an atmosphere of thought in which ideas representative of these various forms of doctrine were more or less current. The Rabbinic teaching on the whole held the field as a popular orthodoxy, identified in the common minil with devoutness and earnest religion : .and it asserted the resurrec- tion of the deail. This was generally conceived of as twofold — a re.surrection of the just, and a general resurrection preparatory to universal judg- ment (Muirhead, Eschatol. of Jesus, p. 91); the anticipation of resurrection was a commonplace of piety (Jn 11^). At the same time, the Sadducaic party adhered to an unmodified Sheol doctrine and contended aggressively for it. No allusion to the Alexandrian doctrine of an immortality without resurrection appears in the NT ; but the Palestinian schools cannot have been vinaware of its existence. Throughout His teaching Christ puts aside the second and third of these doctrines, and sets His seal to the first. He teaches a resurrection of the dead.
The teaching of Christ as to resurrection is widelj' scattered through the Gospels. The capital passages are |Mt 2223 33
516 EESUKRECTION OF THE DEAD
RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
(Mk 1218-27, Lk 2027-38) and Jn 519-3' 632-56. commonly «.va.a-Ta,<n; ; once (Mt 27-53) it is eyi
The term used is ly iivoca-Tcan; ; once (Mt 27-''3) it is iyipcri;. Verbal forms of a.iia-r(x.va.i and iyi.piiv seem used interchangeably, occurring consecutively in the same passages (as in Mk 1225. 2i), Lk lisi- ■'■■i), or in parallel' passages (cf. Mt IG^i 1723 with 17^), without apparent distinction of sense. avoi<rT«(rsa= riiv vixpav occurs in Mt 22-'l, but in the parallel Mk 1225 i,. ix vixpiiv, and in Lk 2035 r-,,'; «». ■rr,; ly. vixpCk (cf. Ac 231). ix yixpm is the phrase used of Christ's rssurrection predicted (Mt 179, Mk 97. lu) ; of the supposed resurrection of the Baptist (Mt 142), and of the case of one rising from the dead (Lk 103i). In the Epp. ix is used of Christ's resurrection, i». ™v vixpm of resurrection generally. A distinction of usage seems to exist, U implying an individual or a non-universal resurrection, taotoiiiv occurs in Jn 521 qm (cf. Ro 417 8'1, 1 Co 1522. 36. 45), but is more than a synonym for o^VitrTDcvott or kyiipuv.
'To Jesus the OT Scriptures as a Avhole con- veyed the pledge of the will and power of God to raise the dead wlio had lived unto Him ' (Muirhead). In His reply to the Sadducees He does not instance the more precise predictions of the prophets, but argues from the broad relation of God to His servants, not as a covenant but as a vital relation. Their resurrection is so involved in the nature of the case that it requires no other demonstration than that God lives and that God is their God. He appeals to the common usage which called God ' the God of their fathers,' ' of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' (men who were dead), and to its authority in the oracle of the Bush ; and needs no more than the admission that such language con- veyed a truth. As touching the dead that they rise, has not God confessed that He is theirs? recognized that in this life they had already entered into possession of Him ? Such possession, once established, cannot be lost. God is theirs — ■ how can their life (for surely they live to Him) remain permanently mutilated? Surely it shall again be for them life in fulness of their nature. They have fallen ; death is death : Christ does not minimize the penal and privative character of what was to Himself a great horror ; but they shall rise again— for God is theirs : they have a hold and right in God, who has life in Himself and is essen- tially the Giver of Life.
The argument appears excessive in simplicity, but involves more than it expresses. If man is capable of possessing God, then man is potentially akin to God ; if man has known and loved God (as man must, if God has in any sense become his), then God must have laid hold on him and must have given Hiniselt to man. God is their God : they have then even in this life attained an interior contact with the Divine, and have so far entered the sphere of the imperishable ; they have gained an inheritance which is essentially eternal. In possessing God they have secured a place in God's future, and in whatever God will reveal or accomplish. Our Lord thus moves the question to a higher ground than that of promise or covenant or even of ethical necessity, and grounds upon a concrete relation which is recognized as vital and dynamic. The argument involves whatever is involved in the nature of human person- ality ; its reflexion of the Divine unity, its indestructibilit.v and capacity to resist and survive the shock of physical dissolution, and its necessity of full self-realization in God. It is impossible to limit the destiny of that which possesses God. It is im- possible to deny to it completeness of development along the lines of initial character. Death interrupts but cannot ulti- mately bar that development. As touching the dead, that they rise again — that life shall be for them reconstituted and per- fected—have we not read that God calls Himself their God ?