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THE RESURRECTION

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 4, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 41.

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THE RESURRECTION.

THE following from the Christian at Work, for Oct. 14, concerning the resurrection, is right to the point:
"Very queer and widely divergent views have prevailed touching the resurrection. The great Augustine held that all matter which had ever entered into the composition of the body from babyhood to death would be incorporated in the new body. As many hairs as have been shaved off, or nails cut, or warts or tumors as have disappeared, as much flesh as the body has ever had, and every particle of such flesh,—all shall be recovered and reincorporated in the new body; not, however, to produce excess in any member, but to be converted into a harmonious and perfect whole."
Thomas Aquinas was more moderate, holding that only the particles at death would be incorporated. Others assume that it is not necessary to the identity that all the particles should be included in the resurrection body; while Tertullian thought God had rendered the teeth indestructible in order to furnish material for the future body! Still others have held and many now believe that there is an indestructible germ in our present body which is to be developed in the future. Dr. Lange, whose imagination sometimes walks away with him, assumes that the soul is endowed with the power of gathering to itself a body as the seed gathers the forces necessary to make it a tree, and so the soul will gather its own body under spiritual conditions.
"Touching all of which a few remarks: 1. There is a resurrection of the body. 2. It is not necessary to this that every particle of the present body shall be reincorporated. 3. That body will not be miraculously bestowed—that is, as an event astounding and exceptional—but will be bestowed in accordance with a higher LAW, of which we are now ignorant. 4. It will be a spiritual body, not a spirit body, the former being a body adapted to the wants, functions and offices of a perfect spirit, tangible and visible, the latter being a non-tangible, unsubstantial spirit-body, for which there is no warrant in Scripture. 5. Beyond the two facts of the resurrection and an identity, we know little or nothing, and all speculation is vain."