(■2) There is also the possibility that the author, who seems to distinguish the Church from the remnant of Israel and the slain martyrs of the tribulation, may have regarded the ra])lure and resurrection which St. Paul contemplates in 1 'I'll 4 as having already taken place. The difficulty of interpreting the symbolic representations comes in here, but it is possible that the elders already in heaven in ch. 5 represent the Church. In this case we have a scheme of three resurrections implied: (i. ) the resurrection and rapture of the Church before the pre-Messianic woes commence ; (ii. ) the pre-millennial resurrection at the close of the tribulations, conhned by Charles to the martyrs ; and (iii. ) the resurrection of the rest of the dead at the end of the millennium for the general Judg- ment. In support of this view there is the evidence of a somewhat ambiguously expressed belief that the Church would be saved from the final tribulation, possibly due to St. Paul's teach- ing. Even if this be not accepted — and there are serious objections to it — it is impossible to think that the author could have confined the enjoyment of the millennial kingdom to the martyrs and survivors, shutting out all the righteous of early times, and those believers who had died, but not as martyrs, before the establishment of the king- dom. "Those who have part in what the writer calls ' the first resurrection ' are ' blessed and holy.' It hardly seems likely that he contemplated the omission of any who possessed this character from the first resurrection. The phrase ' the first resur- rection ' certainly militates against the view of three resurrections. But, as we have seen from St. Paul's earlier scheme, possibly abandoned after- wards by him, the resurrection of Christ could be considered as the commencement of a resurrection which culminates with that of the dead believers — ' Christ the firstfruits ; then they that are Christ's, at his coming ' (I Co 15'^). Possibly the author of the Apocalypse may have understood the first resurrection in such a sense, namely, as a process commencing with the resurrection of Christ, con- tinuing with the rapture and resurrection of the Churclx before the tribulation, and closing with the resurrection of martyrs at the beginning of the Messianic kingdom on earth. But this is certainly a highly disputable point.*
(3) Lastly, we must note that the author's scheme is clearly a combination of non-congruent elements. It combines at least two views of the resurrection, and possibly three, if we accept the induence of the Pauline teaching as suggested above. He has combined the early Judaic and Pharisaic view of an earthly temporal Messianic kingdom, to which the righteous are raised, with the later view, partly due to Alexandrian influence and also to the failure of Messianic hopes after the destruction of Jerusalem, of a general resurrection of righteous and wicked for judgment before the establishment of an eternal kingdom in a new heaven and earth.
* Charles has offered a reconstruction of this passage in ExfT x,\vi. (1914-15) 64, 119.
It is obvious that the resurrection of all the righteous and holy before the Messianic kingdom, if we accept this as the writer's intention, reiiilers nugatory a discriminating judgment at the do.se of the kingdom, for none but the wicked are left to be raised. Yet the account of the final resurrec- tioii anil judgment clearly implies a discriminating judgment.
Of the nature of the resurrection-condition we can gather nothing from the writer of the Apoca- lypse.
(b) The Fourth Gospel. — The Gospels lie outside the iilan of this work. 'Vet the I'ourth Gospel by its date belongs to our period, and a few words as to its teaching on resurrection are necessary to complete our account of the whole view of the resurrection during the Apostolic Age. See also artt. Parousia and IMMORTALITY.
The principal point to be observed concerning the resurrection-doctrine of this Gospel is that it presents the conijiletion of that process which we observed at work in the I'auline eschatology. The conception of Christ's resurrection has completely transformed the traditional doctrine of resurrec- tion. The resurrection of Christ is the demonstra- tion of the nature of His spiritual life, the eternal life, pre-existent, and incapable of being touched by death. Hence Christ not only rises, but is in His own Person the Resurrection and the Life. The two ideas coalesce in Him. H ence the believer in Christ, possessing eternal life, ])oesesses the resurrection-life already, and after death merely enters into its fuller enjoyment. Hence, in con- sistencj', an eschatological scheme of resurrection has no place in this writer's view. But such a scheme certainly had a place in Christ's teaching, and the writer could not wholly remove it from his presentation and interpretation of that teach- ing ; and even if we allow with Charles and other scholars that 5-*- ^ is an interpolation, we still have the repetition of the phrase ' I will raise him up at the last day.'
Like all the NT writers, the author of the Fourth Gospel presents elements which are not entirely congruent, save by a forced and artificial process of exegesis. We have the furthest and highest spiritual development of the doctrine of life, transcending the current views of eschato- logical events, and we have also the survival, perhaps unconscious, perhaps a conscious accom- modation to the reader's point of view, of the older doctrine.