The discussion in this case was with those who ' deny that there is any resurrection of the dead ' (Lk '20-''), and it was enough for its purpose to con- sider the case of those who in life have possessed God. On the face of it the argument might seem to apply to these only. On the other hand, it seems to identify (at least for man) immortality with resurrection. What it jiroves is that the dead are living {ovk 'ian debs veKpwv dWa ^ihvTuiv) ; wimt it assumes is that, if they live, they will rise again. Christ does not contemplate that they may be immortal apart from that des- tiny, or discuss the alternative conception (which cannot have been unfamiliar to his intei'locutors) that the patriarchs might live in God for a merely ghostly eternity. The alternatives which He seems to oppose are that either they no longer live
(in any effective sense) or that they shall live com- pletely— tliere shall be an dvaaTaais, a reconstitu- tion of that duplex life of spirit and organism which is characteristically Imman. The question whether the finitely spiritual can be conceived of as self-conscious, apprehensive or active apai't from organism, or whether the fact of its limita- tions local and temporal and of relations to other finite existence does not imply organism, is in- volved, but is not the whole question. The question is of man, who is distinctively the meeting-point of two worlds, the spiritual and the material, at which the Creator has ' breathed into the dust,' and at which the creation becomes conscious of God. The differentia of humanity is this incarnation, making possible the ultimate Incarnation in which the Word became flesh. In virtue of this duplex nature man is essentially the priest of the material creation, interpreting its testimony to God, and capable of furnishing the medium in which Creator and creature reach an absolute unity in Him who is Head over all things and in whom all things consist. By death this dual constitution is broken — resurrection is its recovery ; reconstitution in the totality of the elements of our nature which condition fulfilment of man's distinctive vocation in the cosmos. The redemption which is to redeem man must reach his being in its completeness — the organism of the spirit as well as the spirit itself. It must reach even the body which has been ' the entrench- ment of sin ' (Gore). Not as resuscitation, but as ' change ' ; so that on a new plane of life, un- explored by us and therefore meantime indescrib- able to us, it may be the adequate organism of a spirit perfectly correspondent with the Divine Spirit, and death be swallowed up ' not in life, but in victory.' The norm of Christ's personal re- surrection may seem to imply this : His work in redemption is not completed by a sacrificial death, but must go on in a triumphant rescue of the body from death. It is not left as an ' outworn tool,' but is brought again, quickened and transformed, to be the instrument of a universal mediation ; its reassumption is for Him entrance upon an eternal priesthood. Incarnation is not a passing phase of Deity ; it is the realization of the Divine purpose in humanity. Death is privative ; disembodiment is incompleteness. Our salvation implies our re- constitution, not only in the spiritual which places us in correspondence with God, but in the organic which places us in correspondence with God's creation. God will not leave us ' hopelessly stunted and imperfect ' (Milligan, Res. of the Dead, p. 161), but will ' give a body.' With regard to the scope of the resurrection, the question is not touched in the discussion with the Sadducees, unless in so far as the argument used may seem to identify immortality with resurrection. (St. Paul in 1 Co 15 has the same alternatives : ' if the dead are not raised . . . then they also which sleep in Christ have perished.' He recognizes no third possibility, of a merely spiritual immortality). Elsewhere, however, Christ teaches a general re- surrection ( Jn 5^^"^^) of ' all that are in the graves ' ; not only an elect of them, but they who have ' done evil ' as well as they who have ' wrought good ' — and distinguishes ' the resurrection of life ' from 'the resurrection of condemnation.' The rejection of these verses as an interpolation, on the ground that their teaching is not found elsewhere in the Synoptics or in Jn. itself, is not justified. A general resurrection of just and unjust forms at least the background of the thought in Mt 5^^- ^^ (M SKov TO (juifxa. aov ^Xrjdyj eis Yeeci'aj') 10"^ {Kai tpvyjqv Kai craj/xa diroKiaai ^v yeivvrj) 12'*'- ■*'-^, Lk IP^ (avbpes 'Nivev'irai dvaffTrjcrovTai k.t.\.), and in Mt 25^^"*". It is implied in the sequence to the statement that
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God is not the God of the dead but of the living, reported by Lk. (20^'*), 'for all live unto him' — the thought of which would seem to be tiiat not such only as the patriarchs were have a link to God, but that men as men ' live to Him,' and that this must have its inference for all. The absence of bias on St. Luke's part towards a doctrine of general resurrection, peculiar to himself among the Evangelists, is evident from the extended form in his account (v.^') of the saying more briefly re- I)orted in Mt 2'2^», Mk 12-5. ^^ reported by St. Luke ('they which sliall be accounted worthy,' etc.), the saying would seem to contemjilate a particular resurrection only. Nor can bias on St. Luke's part be argued from the fact that (Ac 24^^) he reports St. I'aul as preaching to Felix a re- surrection of the just and of the unjust, while St. Paul himself in his Epp. deals only with the believer's hope in Christ ; the one concerned Felix, the other did not. A doctrine of general resurrec- tion does appear in the reports of the Synoptists. And in Jn 6^"- ^"^ ■*■*■ ^■' tlie emphasis laid upon a resurrection which is by Christ Himself (iyw dvaa-TTjcrcj avTov) seems to imply that there is also resurrection of another character, and to be con- secutive with the teaching of 5-®--'*.