p. 100 | R. F. COTTERILL by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 23, 1864

R. F. COTTERILL

By R. F. Cottrell

Are the Dead Conscious? No. 8.

"For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not 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. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." 1 Cor. xv, 16–19.

This text teaches that a future life to the Christian is wholly dependent upon the resurrection from the dead. That if the resurrection should not take place, there is no hope for the Christian after he is fallen asleep, but he is perished. He is forever cut off from life and hope. If the dead rise not, he has hope in Christ "in this life only."

If the soul were immortal, this testimony could not be true. If the dead in Christ are in a state of conscious happiness, should there be no resurrection, they are not perished. If the soul, the real man, is independent of the body for its existence, and is destined to endure to eternity, it is a thing of very little importance whether the body is ever raised. But Paul makes the hope of the gospel as nothing and worse than nothing, provided the resurrection should fail to be realized.

It is of no avail to quibble around this text by saying that the resurrection of Christ was a leading fact in the gospel, and if that is not sustained, the gospel would prove a lie, and consequently those who had died in the faith of Christ are condemned to eternal misery without a resurrection. The apostle is arguing the future resurrection of the dead, because some among the Corinthians had said that "there is no resurrection of the dead." He refers them to the resurrection of Christ as an established fact, and assures them that the resurrection of the dead is rendered sure by this fact—that the resurrection of Christ is a pledge of the resurrection of the saints—consequently, to deny the future resurrection of the dead, was to deny the established fact, that Christ was raised from the dead. This, he argues, would be a legitimate conclusion from the premise assumed that the dead rise not. And another conclusion would be equally sure, namely, "Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished," and that the gospel hope is limited to this present life, and that a future life is altogether dependent, not on the immortality of the soul, but on the resurrection of the dead.

This is still further confirmed by verse 32. "If after the manner of men I have fought with the beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth me, if the dead rise not? let us

eat and drink; for to-morrow we die." The argument here is, "Why stand we in jeopardy," why do we expose our lives by preaching the gospel, if the dead rise not. Paul could see no advantage in it. If the doctrine we oppose were true, Paul was capable of seeing a vast advantage accruing to the faithful followers of Christ in the future, should the resurrection of the body never take place; for his soul could be eternally happy without it. But Paul did not know that the soul is immortal and not dependent on the body. He could see no reward, no advantage to be reaped, as the result of his labors and sufferings, unless the body should be raised. Convince him that that which goes down into the grave will never be raised, and he would speak "after the manner of men," namely, the Epicureans, and say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Death would be the final end of man's existence, if the dead rise not.