except in the sense antithetical to spiritual death, which is not now in question. The same is true of the psychical body, if there be such a thing. It does not die, and, therefore, cannot rise again. The same may also be said of a new body furnished the soul when its earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved.
(2.) Those who are in the dust of the earth ; those " that are in the graves " are said to rise. But it is only of the body that it can be said, it is in the grave ; and, therefore, it is of the body the resurrection spoken of, must be understood.
(3.) It is " our mortal bodies " which are to rise again. This form of expression is decisive of the Apostle's meaning. " He that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Rom. viii. 11.) It is " our vile body " which is to be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. (Phil. iii. 21.)
(4.) This also is clearly the doctrine taught in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. There were certain errorists in Corinth who denied the fact and the desirableness of the resur- rection of believers. Paul's argument is directed to both those points. As to the fact that the dead can rise, he refers to what no Christian could deny, the rising of Christ from the dead. This, as a historical fact, he supports by historical evidence. He then shows that the denial of the resurrection of Christ, is the denial of the whole Gospel, which rests on that fact. " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." But if Christ rose from the dead, all his people must. Christ rose as the first fruits of them that sleep. There is in Paul's view, the same divinely appointed, and therefore necessary connection between the resurrection of Christ and that of his people, as between the death of Adam and that of his descend- ants. As surely as all in Adam die, so surely shall all in Christ be made alive. And finally, on this point, the Apostle conde- scends to argue from the faith and practice of the Church. "What is the use, he asks, of being baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not ? The whole daily life of the Christian is founded, he says, on the hope of the resurrection ; not of the continued exist- ence of the soul merely, but of the glorious existence of the whole man, soul and body, with Christ in heaven. As to the second point, the desirableness of the resurrection of the body, he shows that all objections on this score are founded on the assumption that the future is to be like 'the present body. He says that the man who makes that objection is a fool. The two are no
774 PART IV. Ch. XL — THE RESURRECTION.
more alike than a seed and a flower, a clod of earth and a star, the earthly and the heavenly. " It [the body of course] is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." This whole discourse, therefore, is about the body. To the objection that our present bodies are not adapted to our future state of ex- istence, he answers, Granted ; it is true that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. It would seem that the Apostle in this chapter must have had in his eye a host of writers in our day who make themselves merry with the doctrine of the resurrection, on much the same grounds as those relied upon by the errorists of Corinth, whose fragments he scattered to the winds eighteen centuries ago.
(5.) Another argument on this subject is drawn from the anal- ogy constantly presented, between the resurrection of Christ and that of his people. The sacred writers, as we have seen, argue the possibility and the certainty of the resurrection of our bodies, from the fact of Christ's resurrection ; and the nature of our future bodies from the nature of his body in heaven. There would be no force in this argument if the body were not the thing which is to rise again.
(6.) Finally, as Paul argued from the faith of the Church, we cannot err in following his example. The Bible is a plain book, and the whole Christian world, in all ages, has understood it to teach, not this or that, but the literal rising from the dead of the body deposited in the grave. All Christians of every denomina- tion are taught to say, I believe in " The forgiveness of sins ; The resurrection of the body ; And the life everlasting."
The Identity of the Future with our Present Body.
There are two distinct questions to be here considered. First, Do the Scriptures teach that the resurrection body is to be the same as that deposited in the grave? Second, Wherein does that sameness or identity consist ? The first of these questions we may be able to answer with confidence ; the second we may not be able to answer at all.
The arguments to prove that we are hereafter to have the same bodies that we have in the present life, are substantially the same as those already adduced. Indeed, identity is involved in the very idea of a resurrection ; for resurrection is a living again of that