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The Resurrection

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 19, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 23.

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The Resurrection.

As CLEARLY as the human race have been taught by the experience of six thousand years that death is their common lot, so clearly are we taught by the word of God, and by some notable exhibitions of divine power, that all who have gone into their graves shall come forth again to life.
The words in the New Testament which express this fact are anastasis, egersis, and exanastasis. The two latter occur but once each, the first in reference to the resurrection of Christ, in Matt. 27:53, the last in Phil. 3:11, where Paul expresses a desire to attain to a resurrection out from among the dead. Anastasis occurs forty-two times, being the word which is invariably used in the N. T., with the exceptions just named, to express the resurrection. This word is defined by Robinson to mean, literally, a rising up, as of walls, of a suppliant, or from a seat. Specially in the New Testament, the resurrection of the body from death, the return of the dead body to life, as, first of individuals who have returned to life on earth, Heb. 11:35; secondly, of the future and general resurrection at the end of all things, John 11:24. It is often joined to the word, dead; as in the expression, the resurrection of the dead.
From these well-established meanings of the word it is evident that that which goes down will rise again. That which goes into the grave will come up again out of the grave. The rising again of the body is certainly assured by this word, and the manner in which it is used. This resurrection is a future event: “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.” John 5:28, 29. Paul said, when disputing with Tertullus before the governor, I “have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” Acts 24:15. And he tells us in chapter 26:7, that unto that promise the twelve tribes hope to come.
If, then, this is a firmly-established fact, that God is to make such a mighty manifestation of his power as to re-animate the scattered dust of these whom the grave has consumed from time’s earliest morn, there must be some cause for such an action. This great event has a tremendous bearing on the question of the intermediate state, and all views of that state must be adjusted to harmonize therewith. If any view is entertained which virtually renders such an event unnecessary, it must be shown that the resurrection as here defined is not taught in the word of God, or it must be admitted that the doctrine which nullifies it, is unscriptural.
The important inquiry now arises respecting the popular view, If the real being, the intelligent, responsible entity, ceases not its life and consciousness at death, but continues on in a more enlarged and perfect sphere of existence and activity, what need is there of the resurrection of the body? If the body is but a trammel, a clog, to the operations of the soul, what need that it should come back and gather up its scattered particles from the silent tomb, and re-feather itself with this material robe?
Wm. Tyndale, defending the doctrine of Martin Luther, that the dead sleep, addressed to his opponent the same pungent inquiry. He said:— “And ye in putting them [departed souls] in Heaven, hell, and purgatory, destroy the argument wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. . . . If the souls be in Heaven tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be? and then what cause is there of the resurrection?”
Andrew Carmichael (Theology of Scripture, Vol. ii, p. 315) says:— “It cannot be too often repeated: If there be an immortal soul there is no resurrection; and if there be any resurrection there is no immortal soul.”
Dr. Muller (Ch. Doc. of Sin, p. 318) says:— “The Christian faith in immortality is indissolubly connected with a promise of a future resurrection of the dead.”
We now propose to show that the resurrection is a prominent doctrine of the Bible; and if this can be established, it follows, upon the judgment of these eminent men, that the immortality of the soul cannot be true.
We need not stop to notice that palpably and groundless theory which makes the resurrection take place immediately at death, by supposing it to be the rising of the soul from the earthly house of this tabernacle, and its entering at once into its spiritual house, this to be inhabited, and the former abandoned, forever. For in this case there is no resurrection; since the soul lives right on, and does not die at all. The resurrection which the Bible brings to view is a resurrection of the dead. It cannot be applied to anything that continuously lives, however many changes it may pass through. A person must go down into a state of death before he can be raised from the dead. Hence this theory is no resurrection at all, and so is at war with all the Bible says about the resurrection of the dead. Moreover, it is utterly impossible to harmonize this with the many references to the general resurrection at the end of the world.
We return to the Bible doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, the literal resurrection and resuscitation of our natural bodies, and affirm that the Bible makes this resurrection necessary, by representing the dead to be in such a condition that without this event they can have no future existence.
1. Death is compared to sleep. There must then be some analogy between a state of sleep and a state of death; and this analogy must pertain to that which renders sleep a peculiar condition. Our condition in sleep differs from our condition when awake, simply in this, that when we are soundly asleep we are entirely unconscious. In this respect, then, death is like sleep; that is, the dead are unconscious. This figure is frequently used to represent the condition of the dead. Dan. 12:2: “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” Matt. 17:52: “Many bodies of the saints which slept arose.” Acts 7:60: After Stephen had beheld the vision of Christ and was stoned to death, the record says, he “fell asleep.” In 1 Cor. 15:20, Christ is called the first fruits of them that slept; and in verse 57 Paul says, “We shall not all sleep.” Again Paul writes to the Thessalonians, 1 Thess. 4:13, 14, that he would not have them ignorant concerning them which are asleep. In verse 14 he speaks of them as asleep in Jesus, and explains what he means, in verse 16, by calling them “dead in Christ.” And the advocates of the conscious state cannot dispose of these expressions by saying that they apply to the body merely; for they do not hold that the consciousness which we have in life (which is what we lose in death) pertains to the body merely. Job plainly declares that they will not awake till the resurrection at the last day. “Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” If, therefore, there is no resurrection, these dead are destined to sleep in unconsciousness forever.
2. The dead are in a condition as though they had not been. So Job testifies; for he affirms that if he could have died in earliest infancy, like a hidden untimely birth, he would not have been; and in this respect he declared he would have been like kings, counsellors, and princes of the earth who built costly tombs in which to enshrine their bodies when dead. To that condition he applies the expression which has since been so often quoted, “There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.” Job 3:11–18. If, then, a person when dead is as though he had not been, without a resurrection to release him from this state, he will never be, or exist, again.
3. The dead have no knowledge. Speaking of the dead man, Job says (14:21), “His sons come to honor and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, and he perceiveth it not of them.” Ps. 146:4. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” Solomon was inspired to speak to the same effect as his father David: Eccl. 9:5, 6: “For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything. . . . Also their love and their hatred, and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” Verse 10: “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest.” Evidence like this can neither be mistaken nor evaded. It is vain for the immaterialist to claim that it applies to the body in distinction from an immortal soul; for they do not hold that the thoughts, (διαλογισμός, thought, reasoning) which David says perish in death, belong to the body but to the soul. And according to Solomon, that which knows when the man is living, does not know when he is dead. Without a resurrection, therefore, the dead will forever remain without knowledge.
4. The dead are not in Heaven nor in hell, but in the dust of the earth. Job 17:13–16: “If I wait the grave is mine house.” In chap. 14:14 he said, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.” The change referred to, must therefore be the resurrection, and he describes his condition till that time, in the following language: “I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister, . . . when our rest together is in the dust.” Isa. 26:19: “Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they rise. 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.” Is it possible that the phraseology of this text can be misunderstood? It speaks of the living again of dead men, of the arising of dead bodies, and of the earth’s casting out the dead. And the command is addressed to them thus: “Awake and sing.” Who? Ye who are still conscious, basking in the bliss of Heaven and chanting the high praises of God? No; but, “Ye who dwell in dust;” ye who are in your graves. If the dead are conscious, Isaiah talked nonsense. If we believe his testimony we must look into the graves for the dead; and if there is no resurrection, there they will forever lie mingled with the clods of the valley.
5. The dead, even the most holy and righteous, have no remembrance of God, and cannot, while in that condition, render him any praise and thanksgiving. Ps. 6:5: “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” Ps. 115:17: “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.” Good King Hezekiah when praising the Lord for adding to his days fifteen years, gives this as the reason why he thus rejoiced: Isa. 38:18, 19: “For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” Modern doctors of divinity have Hezekiah in Heaven praising God. He declared that when he was dead he could not do this. Whose testimony is the more worthy of credit, that of the inspired king of Israel, or that of the theologians of subsequent ages of error and confusion? If we can believe Hezekiah, unless there is to be a resurrection, the righteous dead are nevermore to praise their Maker.
6. The dead, even the righteous, are not ascended to the Heavens. So Peter testifies respecting the patriarch David: Acts 2:29, 34, 35: “Men and brethren let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.” We call the especial attention of the reader to the whole argument presented by Peter, beginning with verse 24. Peter undertakes to prove from a prophecy recorded in the Psalms, the resurrection of Christ. He says, verse 31, “He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell [hades, the grave], neither did his flesh see corruption.” And how does he prove that David speaks of Christ and not of himself? He proves it from the fact that David’s soul was left in hades and his flesh did see corruption; and his sepulcher was with them to that day. For David, he says, has not ascended into the heavens. Now if David’s soul did live right on in consciousness; if it was not left in hades, no man can show that David, in that psalm, did not speak of himself instead of Christ; and then Peter’s argument for the resurrection of Christ would be entirely destroyed. But Peter, especially when speaking as he was on this occasion under the influence of the Holy Ghost, knew how to reason; and his argument entirely destroys the dogma of the immortality of the soul. But if David has not yet ascended into the heavens, how is he ever to get there? There is no other way but by a resurrection of the dead. So he himself says, Ps. 17:15, “I shall be satisfied when I awake [from the sleep of death], with thy likeness.”
7. And finally, Paul in his masterly argument in 1 Cor. 15, states explicitly the conclusion which is necessary from every one of the texts which we have quoted, that if there is no resurrection, then all the dead, even those who have fallen asleep in Christ, are perished. Verses 16–18. “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are PERISHED.”
As we read this testimony, we pause in utter amazement that any who profess to believe the Bible should cling with tenacity to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul which so directly contradicts it. If the souls of the dead live right on, are they perished? What! perished? and yet living in a larger sphere? Perished? and yet enjoying the attendant blessings of everlasting life in Heaven? Perished? and yet at God’s right hand where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore? Perish, amid the ruins of the heathen mythology from which it springs, that theory which thus lifts its dead men on high, contrary to the teachings of the word of God!
Paul speaks of the whole being. As in Adam we die, so in Christ shall we be made alive. Is it conceivable that Paul drops out of sight the real man, the soul which soars away to realms of light, and frames all this argument, and talks thus seriously about the cast off shell, the body merely? The idea is preposterous to the last degree.
After stating that if there is no resurrection we perish, he assures us that Christ is risen and that there is a resurrection for all; then he takes up the resurrection of those who sleep in Christ, and tells us when that resurrection shall be. It is to take place, not by the rising from this mortal coil of an ethereal, immaterial, essence when we die, but it is to be at the great day when the last trump shall shatter this decrepit earth from center to circumference.
The testimony on this point is well summed up by Bishop Law who speaks as follows:— “I proceed to consider what account the Scriptures give of that state to which death reduces us. And this we find represented by sleep; by a negation of all life, thought, or action; by rest, resting place, or home, silence, oblivion, darkness, destruction, or corruption.”
This representation is abundantly sustained by the Scriptures referred to; and by all these the great fact is inscribed in indelible characters over the portals of the dark valley, that our existence is not perpetuated by means of an immortal soul, but that without a resurrection from the dead, there is no future life.
(To be Continued.)