THE RESURRECTION by George I. Butler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 22, 1875

THE RESURRECTION.

By George I. Butler

(Continued.)

The prophet Isaiah also had a clear view of the resurrection. “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. The connection plainly shows that this will take place in connection with the coming of Christ to judge the world.

How it is that divines can tell us that the Old Testament has left the subject of man’s future state in darkness and uncertainty, in view of such scriptures as these, is a mystery. It can only be accounted for on the ground of their ignorance, or their inability to find anything in it concerning their kind of a future being—a ghostly, fleshless phantom, a nothing, dwelling nowhere. As the Old Testament is confessedly very silent concerning this kind of an existence, some of them have told us man’s future life was nowhere taught in it. But how clearly Isaiah gives the lie to this: “Thy dead men shall live.” Can anything be more emphatic? “Together with my dead body shall they arise.” Ah! those old, worn-out cages of the soul, are coming up, are they? So the prophet says, That body which goes down to the dust, and molders away there, till its original elements become a part of its substance, then, is coming forth. So he tells us, “Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in dust.” “The earth shall cast out the dead.”

We may suppose Isaiah was laid in the earth some twenty-six hundred years ago. It would be difficult for men even to find the place of his sepulture. It has not been known for ages. Not a bone, a sinew, nor the minutest particle of his dust, could be identified to-day by one of the unnumbered millions now living on the earth. But the Almighty God, who could create a universe from nothing, has not lost sight of the remains of his faithful servant. His angels watch his resting-place. He whose eye never sleeps, who notices the little sparrows which fall upon the earth, and numbers even the hairs of our heads, does not lose sight of his faithful children, who have borne the cross in this world of darkness and corruption. When the last trump shall sound, he will send forth his angels to the four winds, and not leave one of them to perish. Then the dust of Isaiah shall come forth. How clear his hope! How strong his conviction! “My dead body shall arise”—his own body which went down to the tomb. Amen and amen. What a cheering thought is this!

The prophet Ezekiel speaks plainly upon this subject in the thirty-seventh chapter of his prophecy. The Spirit of the Lord rested upon him, and he was set down in a valley full of bones which were very dry. He was told to prophesy concerning these bones that they should even live again. And as he prophesied, the bones came together, sinews and flesh came upon them, and skin covered them, but as yet there was no life in them, though all the machinery was in readiness for operation. The prophet is now told to summon the life principle, that it may cause these to live. He does it as follows: “Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, Son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” He did not say, Come down from Heaven, O immortal soul, and take possession of these tenements, and make them live. He here plainly shows that the life principle is in the breath, that it is the vitalizing air which causes the life currents to thrill through the body—such breath as we draw from the four winds of Heaven.

But, says one, this language of the prophet is a mere parable or representation concerning the houses of Israel, which had waxed weak through decay and persecution, and we should not take such things upon which to found a doctrine. Well, let us see what this representation does mean. We admit that it has reference to Israel, but how? “Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. . . . Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.” It represents, then, the literal resurrection. The bodies of all Israel went down into their graves, and here we have the plain prophecy, that they shall come up out of it alive, and shall inhabit their own land. It is thus that the whole body of spiritual Israel will receive their reward.

Daniel speaks also of a resurrection: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Dan. 12:2. Here is a resurrection in which both righteous and wicked participate. They come forth from the dust of the earth. They are asleep there. They are not, then, in Heaven or hell. They come forth in order to receive their reward. They could not receive it without thus coming forth from the dust of the earth.

Thus we see how plainly the Old Testament writers taught the resurrection. But the New Testament makes this matter still plainer. Hear the Lord of life and glory: “Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28, 29. It would be impossible to frame a plainer statement concerning it. It is not some mysterious departure of the immortal spirit out of its earthly habitation, as some try to make themselves believe, dignified by the term resurrection. It is a coming forth from the grave, where the dead bodies have been consigned. All who have ever gone there shall come forth, both the righteous and the wicked.

Christ, when about to call Lazarus forth from the tomb, where he had lain four days, till doubtless the process of decomposition had commenced, said, “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” He then raised Lazarus as an evidence of his truthfulness, and as an illustration of his power.

But time and space forbid that I should consider a tithe of the testimony on this grand subject. Almost every gospel writer refers to it. It was the grand hope that sustained Paul amid the persecutions he had to meet. He was called in question for this hope, as he states in Acts 24:15, 21. He makes the future life of God’s people turn wholly upon the question of the resurrection of Christ and of the dead. 1 Cor. 15:14–18. He makes the resurrection the very means by which we obtain immortality. “For 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. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” Then the triumphant shout shall go up from all the redeemed, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Thus we see that the fact of a literal resurrection is most clearly stated, a literal coming forth out of the dust of the earth of the bodies which have been consigned to the tomb. A few thoughts concerning their nature and condition after their resurrection will close this article.

GEO. I. BUTLER.

(To be Continued.)