p. 44 | The Resurrection by Dr. H. M. Laney

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 1, 1877

The Resurrection.

By Dr. H. M. Laney

HOW SHALL THE DEAD BE RAISED?

BY DR. H. M. LANEY.

The resurrection of the dead is not a doctrine peculiar to the New Testament Scriptures. While the objections of the Sadducees to the doctrine of the resurrection may have brought this subject more fully before the mind, giving rise to a more full and free discussion of it in the New Testament than in the Old, yet the ancient patriarchs and prophets were cheered in life and animated in death by the bright hopes which their faith inspired in the unfolding beauties of the resurrection morning.

Indeed, so well was this article of faith established in the early history of the church, that the antiquity of the doctrine was not called in question.

This has been the one perplexing question: How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? The philosophers and metaphysicians of the Greek and Roman schools, whose fame had gone throughout the earth, represented that it was an incredible thing that God should raise the dead; and to-day, the astute atheist, the ingenious materialist, the vapory spiritualist, and thousands of professing Christians seem to be stumbling at the doctrine of the resurrection.

Now, with respect to the first part of this question, viz.: How are the dead raised up? the apostle answers by citing us to familiar examples of a similar character in nature, as for instance, the production of vegetable bodies, such as the blade of grass, the stalk of corn, and the fig-leaf, and then tells us that it is God who giveth them these new bodies as it pleaseth him. So will he give us bodies in the resurrection; we shall be raised up by the power and according to the pleasure of God. But the second part of the question involves the identity of the resurrected body, which lies at the foundation of all our skepticism respecting this great doctrine of the Scriptures: “And with what body do they come?” Let us then inquire what is meant by the identity of the body.

Identity may be defined as sameness, or that peculiar arrangement of the particles of matter of which all bodies are composed, by which we distinguish and recognize the form and features of each individual. All bodies, to whatever genus or species they may belong, when reduced to their ultimate elements, are found to consist of the same substance, viz.: matter—the dust of the earth—and their different textures and forms and features depend, not upon the different material from which they are made, but upon the different arrangement of the same material. We know that water is converted into ice, snow, or steam—each differing from the others in appearance, but they are all the same in essence. A simple line may be so changed as to make a circle or a square, in short, every conceivable figure, simply by disposing the same line in different directions. Matter arranged after a given manner will make a solid rock; disposed differently, it makes the fertile soil; and by another arrangement it makes vegetable fiber; and still more thoroughly elaborated, it makes muscle of animal flesh. This is verified by the well known fact that the vegetable kingdom subsists on the mineral, the animal upon the vegetable, and the higher order of animals upon the lower orders of the same kingdom. Then, since it is plain that all bodies are derived ultimately from the same elements, the conclusion is irresistible that the identity of the body does not depend upon the matter of which it is composed, but upon the arrangement of it. I do not identify or recognize ice, snow, or steam, by the atoms of which they are composed, but by the arrangement of those atoms. I do not identify a circle or a square by the line that bounds it, but by the disposition of that line. Neither do I identify a blade of grass, an insect, or a human body by the matter of which they are composed, but by the arrangement of it. The arrangement being the same, there must always be the same form, features, and figure. A like arrangement, in the very nature of the case, must produce a like body; and this is all that is or can be meant by identity.

Each order of creation, and each individual in that order, always takes on matter by an arrangement of its particles, in such way as to form a body exactly suited to its rank and condition in its scale of being; the vital principle which animates each order and individual of creation, always being the same at whatever time, and under whatever circumstances it takes on matter so as to form a body, the form and features of that body will always be the same; the individual being the same, the individuality will be preserved, and there will be no difficulty in distinguishing it from others, and there will be no more difficulty in distinguishing one from another in the morning of the resurrection than there is in this life.

But, will it be the very same body that has laid down in the grave? It will be the very same body in that accommodated sense in which the body you inhabit to-day is the very same body that you inhabited ten or twenty years ago. You have not the same hair or nails, and the particles of your body have been changed many times, but your identity remains the same.

Those who demand that the resurrected body shall be composed of the exact particles of dust that were laid in the grave in order to a recognition of the individual, know not what they demand.

It is the identity of condition, and not the identity of matter, that such expect to witness in the resurrection. To see the body come up just as it was laid down—the cripple leaning upon his crutch, the aged tottering, in each hand a cane, the blind man groping with his educated touch, the gouty merchant groaning with his pain, the hapless youth with idiotic stare, the wounded soldier with his shriveled limb, the maiden with false teeth and hair, and the toothless crone with meeting nose and chin—in short, with every possible defect and painful deformity which seems to distinguish the individual in this life, although they actually disguised and concealed the real man. It is plain, therefore, that if these would-be-philosophers, who insist upon identity of condition, for which there is no warrant in Scripture or reason, as necessary to recognition after the resurrection, could have their way, they would defeat the very object and purpose of the resurrection, which is to sweep away every defect and correct every deformity which sin and the casualties incident to mortality have inflicted upon us.

The body, marred, disabled, and deformed by sin, is unfitted for the high and noble purpose for which it was originally designed, and the decree has gone forth, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;” and then, in the resurrection morning, as in the morning of time, when death has been conquered and his scepter is gone, all obstructions to the harmonious and beautiful operations of God’s laws having been swept away, with the casualties incident to mortality, the same law by which we took on matter during the period of our mortality, will enable us to take on matter to form a body exactly suited to our immortal condition—perfect in every part, free from all defect and deformity; no idiot, no cripple, no madman, no deformed monstrosity will take shape in that day; but the body sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption; sown in weakness and decrepitude, shall be raised in power; sown in dishonor, shall be raised in glory; sown a natural body, it shall be raised a spiritual body, with matter so exactly arranged, as it was in composing the natural body, that the identity will be maintained, and mutual recognition will be enjoyed.