Among the speculations propounded as a solution of i lie problem of i be resurrection, the most ingenious, per- haps, as well as fascinating, is the ;/, rm theory, which assumes that the soul at death retains a certain ethereal investiture, and that this has, by virtue of the vital force, the power of accreting to itself a new body for the ce- lestial life. This is substantially the Swedenborgian view as advocated by the late Prof. Bush, and has re- cently received the powerful support of Mr. Joseph Cook in his popular lectures. It is thought to be counte- nanced especially by Paul's language I 1 Cm-, xvi con- cerning the ".spiritual body" of the future state , ver. I >. and hi- figure of the renewed -rain i ver. ".7 |. I hi- ex- planation, however, is beset with many insuperable diffi- culties.
(d.) The apostle's distinction between the psychical (^/vX"C('r-"":""r;l1 ") •'""' tne pneumatical (irvtvpariKov, "spiritual" | in that passage is not of ;//,//, , }„1 1 , vtriKov, physical) as opposed to immaterial or disembodied: for both are equally called body {aStpa, actual and tangible substance), such a- we know our Lord's resurrection body was composed of (Luke xxiv. 39). It is merely, as the whole context shows ("corruptible incorrupti- ble." "mortal immortal." etc i. the difference between the feeble, decaying body of this life in its present nor- mal state, and the glorious, fadeless frame of the future world in its transcendent condition hereafter; in short, its aspect as known to us here from natural phenomena, and its prospect as revealed to us iii Scripture. 'Ibis appears from the contrasted use of these term- in an- other part of the same epistle ( 1 Cor. ii. II. 15) to de- note the unregenerate as opposed to the regenerate heart, the former being its usual or depraved, and the latter its transformed or gracious, stale.
(6. | In like manner the apostle's figure of grain as sown, while it admirably illustrates, in a general way. the possibility of changes in the natural world as that which will take place iii the resurrect ion body, yet like all other metaphors was never intended to teach the precise modi of that transformation, and ac- cordingly it fails in several essential particular- to cor- n-pond to the revival of the body from the grave. 1. The seed never actually dies, not any part of it. It is
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the germ alone that possesses vitality, and this simply expands and develops, gathering to itself the material of the rest of the seed, which undergoes chemical and vital changes fitting it for nutriment until the young plant attains roots and leaves wherewith to imbibe nourishment from the outer world. This whole process is as truly a growth as that anywhere found in nature; it is, in fact, essentially the same as takes place in the hatching of an egg or the gestation of an animal. 2. The real identity of the original plant or seed and its successor or the crop is lost in this transmutation, as the apostle himself intimates (ver. 37). It is, in fact, the re- production of another but similar thing rather than the continuation or renewal of the same. The old plant, indeed, perishes, but it never revives. The seed is its offspring, and thus only represents its parent. Nor is the new plant anything more than a lineal descendant of the old one. We must not confound the resurrection with mere propagation. The young plant may, we ad- mit, in one sense be said to be identical with the germ sown, notwithstanding the great change which it takes on in the process of growth; and this is the precise point of the apostle's simile. But we must not press his figure into a literal strictness when comparing things so radically different as the burial of a corpse and the planting of grain. The principle of life is continuous in the latter; but this is not a distinct substance, like the soul; it is merely a property of matter, and in the case of the body must cease with physical dissolution.
(c.) We would ask those who maintain this theory a simple question: Is the so-called germ or "enswathe- ment" which is supposed to survive, escape, or be elim- inated from the body at death — is it matter or is it spirit? We presume all will admit that there are but these two essential kinds of substance. Which of these, then, is it? It must, of course, belong to the former category. Then the body does not actually and entirely die! But this contradicts all the known phenomena in the case. The whole theory under discussion is not only a pure begging of the question really at issue, but it is improbable and inconsistent. There is absolutely not the slightest particle of scientific or historical evi- dence that the body leaves a vital residuum in dissolu- tion, or evolves at death an ethereal frame that survives it in any physical sense whatever as a representation. We remand all such hypotheses to the realm of ghost- land and li spiritualism."
(</.) In the case of the resurrection of the body of Jesus, which is the type of the general resurrection, and the only definite instance on record, it is certain that this theory will not apply. Not only is no countenance given to it by the language of Holy Scripture concern- ing the agency which effected that resuscitation, viz. the direct and miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, but the circumstances obviously exclude such a process. There was the defunct person, entire except that the spark of life had fled. If it be said that there still lingered about it some vital germ that was the nucleus around which reanimation gathered, what is this but to deny that Jesus was truly and effectually dead? Then the whole doctrine of the atonement is endangered. In plain Eng- lish, he was merely in a swoon, as the Rationalists as- sert. It may be replied, indeed, that the revivification of our Lord's body, which had not yet decomposed, of course differed in some important respects from that of the bodies of the saints whose elements will have dis- solved to dust. But on the ordinary view the two agree in the essential point, viz. an actual and full return to life after total and absolute extinction of it; whereas under the theory in question one main element of this position is denied. It matters little how long the bo'dy has been dead, or to what extent disorganization has taken place — whether but a few hours, as in the case of the son of the widow of Nain ; or four days, as in that of Lazarus; or thousands of years, as in that of the saints — at the final judgment. It is equally a resurrection if life have utterly left the physiealorganism,andnot otherwise.