The Resurrection | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 26, 1872

The Resurrection.

(Concluded.)

We showed last week that a future resurrection is an event of the most absolute necessity, inasmuch as without it there is no future existence for the human race: a fact which entirely destroys at one blow the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. We now propose to notice the prominence given to this event in the sacred writings, and some of the plain declarations that it will surely take place.

1. The resurrection is the great event to which the sacred writers look forward as the object of their hope. In the far distant ages a day rose to their view in which the dead came forth from their graves, and stood before God; and before the coming of that day they did not expect eternal life.

So Job testifies: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job 19: 25, 26.

David entertained the same satisfactory hope. “As for me,” he says, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.” Ps. 17: 15.

Isaiah struck some thrilling notes on the same theme: “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Isa. 26: 19.

It was the hope of Paul, that eminent apostle, through all his sufferings and toils. For this he could sacrifice any temporal good, and take up any cross. He assures us that he considered his afflictions, his troubles on every side, his perplexities, persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, and perils, but light afflictions; yea, he could utterly lose sight of them; and then he tells us why he could do it: it was in view of “the glory which shall be revealed in us,” “knowing,” says he, “that He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.” 2 Cor. 4: 14.

The assurance that he should be raised up at the last day, and be presented with the rest of the saints, when the Lord shall present to his Father a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, Eph. 5: 27, sustained him under all his burdens. The resurrection was the staff of his hope. Again he says that he could count all things loss, if by any means he might attain to a resurrection (exanastasis) out from among the dead. Phil. 3: 8–11.

We refer to one more passage which expresses as clearly as language can do it, the apostle’s hope. 2 Cor. 1: 8, 9: “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” Paul here gives us to understand that he could not trust in himself because he was mortal. He must therefore put his trust in God; and he tells us why he does this: not because God had promised him any happiness as a disembodied soul; but because he was able and willing to raise him from the dead. Paul “kept back nothing that was profitable,” and did not shun “to declare all the counsel of God,” yet he never once endeavored to console himself or his brethren by any allusion to a disembodied state of existence, but passed over this as if it were not at all to be taken into the account, and fixed all his hope on the resurrection. Why this, if going to Heaven or hell at death, be a gospel doctrine?

2. The resurrection is the time to which prophets and apostles looked forward as the day of their reward. Should any one carefully search the Bible to ascertain the time which it designates as the time of reward to the righteous and punishment to the wicked, he would find it to be not at death but at the resurrection. Our Saviour clearly sets forth this fact in Luke 14: 13, 14: “But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed,” not at death, but, “at the resurrection of the just.”

Mark also the language by which the Lord would restrain that voice of weeping which was heard in Ramah. When Herod sent forth and slew all the children in Bethlehem from two years old and under, in hopes thereby to put to death the infant Saviour, then was fulfilled, says Matthew, what was spoken by the prophet, “In Ramah there was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not.” But what said the Lord to Rachel? See the original prophecy, Jer. 31: 15–17: “Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.” Not thus would the mourning Rachels of the 19th century be comforted by the professed shepherds of the flock of Christ. They would tell them, Refrain thy voice from weeping; for thy sons are now in their cherubs chanting their joyful anthems in their Heavenly Father’s home. But the Lord points the mourners in Ramah forward to the resurrection for their hope; and though till that time their children “were not,” or were out of existence, in the land of death, the great enemy of our race, yet, says the Lord, they shall come again from the land of the enemy, they shall return again to their own border, and thy work shall be rewarded; and he bids them refrain their voices from weeping, their eyes from tears, and their hearts from sorrow, in view of that glorious event.

The apostles represent the day of Christ’s coming and the resurrection as the time when the saints will receive their crowns of glory. Says Peter, “And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” 1 Pet. 5: 4. And Paul says that there is laid up for him a crown of righteousness, and not for him only, but for all those also that love his appearing, and which shall be given him in that day [the day of Christ’s appearing]. These holy apostles were not expecting their crowns of reward sooner than this.

All this is utterly inconsistent with the idea of a conscious intermediate state, and rewards or punishments at death. But the word of God must stand, and the theories of men must bow to its authority.

In 1 Cor. 15: 32, Paul further tells us when he expected to reap advantage or reward for all the dangers he incurred here in behalf of the truth: “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.” If without a resurrection he would receive no reward, it is evident that he expected his reward at that time but not before. His language here is moreover a reiteration of verse 18, that if there is no resurrection, they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

Our Lord testified that of all which the Father had given him he should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. This language is also at once a positive declaration that the resurrection shall take place, and that without this event, all is lost. To the same effect is 1 Cor. 15: 52, 53, “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” Here is a plain announcement that the resurrection will take place; that the change mentioned will be wrought at that time; and that this change must take place, or we cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Verse 50. Therefore without a resurrection, none who have fallen in death will ever behold the kingdom of God.

3. The resurrection is made the basis of many of the comforting promises of Scripture. 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” We have already referred to this passage in this article on the Resurrection. We quote it again to show that God designed that from these promises we should comfort ourselves and one another in the keenest of all our afflictions, and the darkest of all our hours, the hour of bereavement. For the apostle immediately adds: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” Is it to such facts as these, the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, that the theology of our day appeals to alleviate the sorrow which the human heart will feel for the loss of departed loved ones? Here if anywhere, and on this subject if on any that the apostle has anywhere taken up, should come in the modern doctrine of uninterrupted consciousness in the intermediate state. But Paul was evidently against any such doctrine, and so denies it a place on the page of truth, but passes right over to the resurrection as the place where comfort is to be found for the mourners.

As the resurrection is inseparably connected with the second coming of Christ, the words of Christ in John 14: 1–3, are equally in point on this question. When he was about to leave his sorrowing disciples, he told them that he was going to prepare a place for them; he informed them moreover of his design that they should ultimately be with himself. But how was this to be accomplished? Was it through death, by which a deathless spirit would be released to soar away to meet its Saviour? No; but, says he, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Should any say that this coming of the Saviour is at death, we reply, that the disciples of our Lord did not so understand it. See John 21: 22, 23. Jesus incidentally remarked concerning one of his followers, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me;” and the saying went immediately abroad among the disciples, on the strength of these words, that that disciple should not die.

The eminent and pious Joseph Alleine also testifies:

“But we shall lift up our heads because the day of our redemption draweth nigh. This is the day I look for, and wait for, and have laid up all my hopes in. If the Lord return not, I profess myself undone; my preaching is vain, and my suffering is vain. The thing, you see, is established, and every circumstance is determined. How sweet are the words that dropped from the precious lips of our departing Lord! What generous cordials hath he left us in his parting sermon and his last prayer! And yet of all the rest these are the sweetest: ‘I will come again and receive you unto myself’ that where I am there ye may be also. What need you any further witness?”

Dr. Clarke, in his general remarks on 1 Cor. 15, says:—

“The doctrine of the resurrection appears to have been thought of much more consequence among the primitive Christians than it is now. How is this? The apostles were continually insisting on it, and exciting the followers of God to diligence, obedience, and cheerfulness through it. And their successors in the present day seldom mention it. . . . There is not a doctrine in the gospel on which more stress is laid; and there is not a doctrine in the present system of preaching, which is treated with more neglect.”