The Pulpit Commentary — Revelation — Section 459

Take the case of a man in two different periods of life-say, ten years of age and sixty. Tn the intervening periods his body has passed through several ,-adical changes ; yet at sixty he/eels that h11 has the same body which he had at ten. It is not until your science comes that he questions it; and where the science has been the most con- ".iricing, it has never destroyed this underlying consciousness of physical identity, How can you account for this consciousness of sameness P (1) Not because he knows the particle& to be the same. He cannot know that, for it is contrary to fact ; the particles of his body, when a child, having gone off long ago, and mixed themselves, perhaps, with a hundred different bodies. (2) Not because he knows the amount is the same. He may knoiv that there are ten times the quantity in the one body-state as in the other. (3).Not because he knows the capability is the same. In its childish stage it was weak, incapable of much labour or endurance; but in its man-state it is vigorous-its physical pow~rs have increased manifold. How, then, can you account for this con- sciousness? Consciousness must have some tmth as a foundation, (a) BecaU86 he know• the one ha& risen out <>f the other. It has bP.en an evolution. The casual con- nection'has been preserved. The one was the outcome of the other. (b) Because ht; know, the one ha& retained the same plan, or outline as the other. If the body; in the man-state, had taken a form different to-that of its child-state, the consciousness of identity might have been lost. If. it passed, for instance, from the human form to the lion, eagle, or any other form, though the particles might have been all retained, and bulk and capacity continued as ever, the sense of identity would have been lost. (c) BecaU86 he knows the one fulfils the same functions as the otl,er, The body, in the child- state, was the inlet and outlet of himself. '1.'hrough it, in all cases, he derived and imparted his feelings and ideas. It was the great medium between his spirit and the material universe. Now, for these three reasons, man may feel that his resurrection- body is the same as the one in which he spent his probationary life. It grows out <>jtlie buried. There is in the body that went down to the grave a something, I know not what, which the man, the spiritual self, takes into his immortal frame. The resurn;c- tion-body may retain its present form or outline; it may be moultlcd after the fame arcl.1e- type. lt may also fulfil many of the same functions. Ever will it be the medium between the material and the spiritual. I know, then, of no objection that you can urge against the fact of a man having a resurrection-body which he may feel to be identical with his probationary body, that could not antecedently be urged against a fact in the present experience of every adult-the fact of an individual having a man-body which he/eels to be the same a:; his child-body. 2. That the resurrection will b~ coextensive with the mortality of mankind. "The sea gave up its dead." What a vast cemetery is the sea I Here mighty navies slumber; millions of the industrious, the enterprising, and the brave, lie beneath its restless waves. But all must now come forth. All that have perished-whether in the barques of scientific exredition; or the ships of commerce, or the fleets of conquered nations, must come forth m this dread day. "Death and bell delivered up the dead which were in them" (ver. 13). This is the grave. "All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth." What a voice ill that I It would reverberate over sea and land, from island to island, from continent to continent; roll its thunders through the deepest vaults and cata- combs; aud soon the mouldering skeletons and the scattered dust would feel the stir of life, and spring to immortality. Martyrs, who had no grave to shelter them from the storm of ages, whose dust was consumed in the flames, and left at the mercy of the. wild elementt!, would appear again; as the field of battle, where mighty. armies struggled in demon fury, would start to life on the plains where, in hellish rage, they fell. "And hell gave up its dead." Hell here means, not the place of punishment, but the universe of d:sembodied spirits, both good and bad. This Hades of the Greeks, and Sheol of the Hebrews, sends forth all the myriads of human souls that it has ever received, from Abel to the last man that grappled with the" king of terrors." « 'l'he small and great." Not an infant too young, not a patriarch too old. Tyrants and their slaves, sages and their pupils, ministers and their people-all will appear. III. THIS BETIUBUTIVE PERIOD WILL BRING HUMANITY INTO OONBCIOUB CONTACT WITH GoD. rr And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God" (ver. 12). They 1fand before God; tliey confront him, as it were, eye to eye, being to being, Each feels God to be the All to him now, 'l'he idea of God fills every soul 88 a burning  CH. X¥. 1-27.J THE BEV~LA.TION OF $T. JOHN THE DIVINE. 009