THE RESURKECTION. § 1. The Scriptural Doctrine.
By the resurrection is not meant the continued existence of the soul after death. The fact that the Sadducees in the time of Christ, against whom most of the arguments found in the New Testament in favour of the doctrine of the resurrection were di- rected, denied not only that doctrine, but also that of the con- tinued existence of the soul after death, sufficiently accounts for the sacred writings combining the two subjects. Thus our Lord, in reasoning with the Sadducees, said : " As touching the dead, that they rise ; have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abra- ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living." (Mark xii. 26.) All that this passage directly proves is that the dead continue alive after the dissolution of the body. But as this is Christ's answer to a question concerning the resurrection, it has been in- ferred that the resurrection means nothing more than that the soul does not die with the body, but rises to a new and higher life. Thus also the Apostle in the elaborate argument contained in 1 Corinthians xv. evidently regards the denial of the resurrec- tion as tantamount with the denial of the future life of the soul. Hence many maintain that the only resurrection of which the Bible speaks is the resurrection of the soul when the body dies. The first position, therefore, to be defended, in stating the Scrip- tural doctrine on this subject is, that our bodies are the subjects of the resurrection spoken of in the Scriptures.
The Bodies of Men are to rise again.
This is denied, first, by those who take the word resurrection in a figurative sense, expressing the rising of the soul from spirit- ual death to spiritual life. At the grave of Lazarus Martha said to our Lord, " I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection ait the last day." To which our Lord, according to Mr. Alger,
772 PART IV. Ch. II. — THE RESURRECTION.
replies substantially, " You suppose that in the last day the Mes- siah will restore the dead to live again upon the earth. I am the Messiah, and the last days have therefore arrived. I am commis- sioned by the Father to bestow eternal life upon all who believe on me ; but not in the manner you have anticipated. The true resurrection is not calling the body from the tomb, but opening the fountains of eternal life in the soul. I am come to open the spiritual world to your faith. He that believeth in me and keep- eth my commandments, has passed from death unto life — become conscious that though seemingly he passes into the grave, yet really he shall live with God forever. The true resurrection is, to come into the experience of the truth that, * God is not the God of the dead but of the living ; for all live unto Him.' Over the soul that is filled with such an experience, death has no power. Verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead, the ignorant and guilty, buried in trespasses and sins, shall lay hold of the life thus offered, and be blessed." *
Secondly, the resurrection of the body is denied by those who, with the Swedenborgians, hold that man, in this life, has two bodies, an external and internal, a material and psychical.2 The former dies and is deposited in the grave, and there remains never to rise again. The other does not die, but in union with the soul passes into another state of existence. The only resurrection, therefore, which is ever to occur, takes place at the moment of death.
Thirdly, it is denied by those who assume that the soul as pure spirit, cannot be individualized or localized ; that it cannot have any relation to space, or act or be acted upon, without a corpo- reity of some kind ; and who, therefore, assume that it must be furnished with a new, more refined, ethereal body, as soon as its earthly tabernacle is laid aside. The resurrection body is ac- cording to this view also furnished at the moment of death.
That the Scriptures, however, teach a literal resurrection of the body is proved, (1.) From the meaning of the word. Resur- rection signifies a rising again ; a rising of that which was buried ; or a restoration of life to that which was dead. But the soul, according to the Scriptures, does not die when the body is dis- solved. It, therefore, cannot be the subject of a resurrection,
1 Alger, ut supra, p. 324.
2 Bonnet, Palingenesie Philosophique. Essai Analytique sur VAme, chap, xxiv., part xxii., Neufchatel, 1783, vol. xiv. p. 205 ff., especially p. 230 ff., and vol. xvi. p. 481 ff. Lange, Beitrage zu der Lehre von den letzten Dingen, Meurs, 1841. Lange's doctrine, however, as will appear in the sequel, is not that of Swedenborg.