§ 5. Resurrection, and its real Meaning, as a Rising up, and not a Rising again.
One part of the Christian doctrine of immortality is conveyed in the term “eternal life;” the other part in the other term, usually associated with it—“the resurrection.” The common Orthodox doctrine of the resurrection, is that the dead shall rise with the same bodies as those laid in earth; and this identity is usually made to consist in identity of matter, though Paul expressly says, “Thou sowest not that body that shall be.” On the other hand, many liberal thinkers of the Spiritual School deny any resurrection, and think the whole doctrine of the resurrection a Jewish error, believing in a purely spiritual existence hereafter. Others, like Swedenborg, teach that the soul hereafter dwells in a body, though of a more refined and sublimated character; and in this we think they approach more nearly the teaching of the New Testament.
It is a remarkable fact that the Greek words indicating the rising of men should have been translated, in our English Bible, by terms signifying something wholly different, and conveying another sense than that in the original. It is equally extraordinary that this change of meaning should seldom or never be alluded to by theological writers.
These words, translated “resurrection,” “rise again,” [pg 305] and the like, all have, in the Greek, the sense of rising up, not of rising again. They signify not return, but ascent; not coming back to this life, but going forward to a higher. The difference in meaning is apparent and very important. It is one thing to say, that at death we go down into Hades, or into dissolution, and at the resurrection we come back to conscious existence, or to the same life we had before, and quite a different thing to say that what we call death is nothing; but that we rise up, and go forward when we seem to die. This last is the doctrine of the New Testament, though the former is the one usually believed to be taught in it.
The immense stress laid, in the New Testament, on the resurrection of Jesus is by no means explained by supposing that after his death he came to life again, and so proved that there is a life after death. What he showed his disciples was, that death was not going down, but going up; not descent into the grave, or Hades, but ascent to a higher world. This is the evident sense of such passages as these. We have not room to go over all the passages which should be noticed in a critical examination, but select a few of the most prominent.
1. Ἀνάστασις, commonly translated “resurrection,” or “rising again,” but which literally means “rising up.” (So Bretschneider, “Lexicon Man. in lib. Nov. Test.” defines it as “resurrectio, rectius surrectio.”)[37]
This word occurs forty-two times in the New Testament. In none of them (unless there be a single exception, which we shall presently consider) does it necessarily mean a rising again, or coming back to the same level of life as before. In a large number of instances the word can only mean a rising up, or ascent to a higher state. Of these cases we will cite a few examples.
Ten of the passages in which the word ἀνάστασις occurs, are in the account by the Synoptics of the discussion between Jesus and the Sadducees concerning the case of the woman married to seven brothers. After stating the case, they say, “Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of them is she?” It is plain that the word “resurrection” here is equivalent to “the future state,” and cannot be limited to a return to life. This becomes more apparent in the answer of Jesus, as given, somewhat varied, by the three Synoptics: “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” (Matt. 22:30.) Mark, instead of “the resurrection,” has the corresponding verb, “when they shall rise from the dead.” This certainly means, not rising again, but rising up, ascending to a higher state. And Luke adds another element, showing that the “resurrection” is a state to which all may not attain, but which is dependent on character; evidently therefore a higher state. “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (τοῦ αιῶνος ἐχείνου), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels” (or rather “are like the angels”) “and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:35, 36.) This last phrase, “children of the resurrection,” is very significant, and intends a character corresponding to this higher state. There seems, indeed, to be a contradiction between this passage, which makes the resurrection conditional, and those which declare it universal. (See John 5:29, and 1 Cor. ch. 15.) But perhaps the reconciliation can be found in the apostolic statement (1 Cor. 15:23) “every one in his order.” All shall ascend into the higher state, called “the resurrection,” but only as they become prepared for it. All are not now prepared to hear the voice of the Son of man (or of divine truth), which shall causes them to rise to the resurrection [pg 307] of life and of judgment; but, in due season, all shall come forth from their graves, and hear it.
Another passage in which this word occurs is in Luke 2:34, where Simon says, “This child is set for the fall and rising again (ἀνάστασιν) of many in Israel.” A moral fall and rising are here evident; and only if the reduplication be dropped, and we read “for the fall and the rising up,” do we get the true idea. It is not meant that Jesus comes to degrade us morally, and then lift us up again morally. Rather it means that he comes to test the state of the hearts of men: some cannot bear the test, and fall before it; others, better prepared, rise higher. Here, also, ἀνάστασις means rising up, and not rising again.
The most remarkable use of this word, however, is in that famous passage where the common meaning is wholly unintelligible, in the story of Lazarus. (John 11:24, 25.) Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” If resurrection means coming back to life after death, in what sense can Jesus be “the resurrection and the life”? Then Jesus said that he was “the coming back to life,” which is unintelligible. But if the resurrection means the ascent to a higher state, then Jesus declares that he is the way of ascent to a higher state, just as he says elsewhere, “I am the way;” “I am the door.” It is the power of Christ within the soul, the power of his spirit of faith, hope, and love, which enables us to go forward and upward. Christ is not the principle of resuscitation to an earthly existence, or a merely human immortality. He does not bring us to life again, but he lifts us up. So he adds, “He who believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Not, shall come to life again; no, but, shall rise out of death into life, ascend into a higher condition of being. Then he adds that to one who has faith in him, who has adopted his ideas, there is no longer any such thing as death. Death has disappeared—is abolished. “He who liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
But, it may be objected, if spiritual death and life are here spoken of,—if the passage means that he who believeth in Christ shall have inward religious spiritual life, a heavenly and celestial life,—then how could that comfort Martha, or apply to her case, who was mourning, not the spiritual, but the natural, death of her brother?
Christ is essentially a manifestation of the truth and love of God. To believe in him is therefore to believe in God's truth and love. But belief in this fills the soul with life. And the soul full of life cannot die. What seems death is only change, and a change from a lower to a higher state, therefore rising up, or resurrection. Christ, then, the love and truth of God in the soul, is the life and the resurrection. He fills the soul with that life which causes it to rise with every change, to go up and on evermore to a higher state. That which seems death is nothing; the only real death is the immersion of the soul in sense and evil, the turning away from truth and God.
Now, Martha believed, as most of us believe, in a future resurrection. She believed that, after lying a long time in the grave, one would come out of it at last, on a great day of judgment, and somehow the soul and body be reunited. She believed this, for it was the general belief of the Jews in her day. It is the general belief of Christians now. The majority of Christians have not got very far beyond that. They talk of the resurrection, as though it were merely the return of the soul into the old body; and when you comfort them over their dead by saying, “Your dead will rise,” reply, “I know it—at the resurrection, at the last day.” But Jesus tells Martha, and all the Martha Christians of the present time, that he is the resurrection and the life. Your brother is not to sleep in the dust till the last day, and then rise. He does not die at all. He rises with Christ here, and in whatever other world. His nature is to go up, not down, when he is Christianized. Now or then, to-day or at [pg 309] the last day, if he has the living faith of a son of God, he will be raised by that Christ within him, who is his life.
This, it seems to us, is the only adequate explanation of this passage, and shows conclusively that resurrection must mean, in this place, a rising up to a higher existence, and not a mere return to this life.
It appears, from 1 Cor. ch. 15, that there were some in the Christian church who said there was no resurrection of the dead (ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν,) or that it was past already. (2 Tim. 2:18.) These Christians did not deny the doctrine of immortality, or a future life. It is difficult to imagine the motive which could induce any one, in those days, to join the Christian church, if he denied a future life. Probably, therefore, they assumed that the only real resurrection takes place in the soul when we rise with Christ. They said, “If we are to rise into a higher life after this, how shall we rise, and with what bodies?” (1 Cor. 15:35.) They professed to believe in a simple immortality of the soul, but not an ascent of the personal being, soul and body together, to the presence of God. They did not question a future life, but a higher life to which soul and body should go up together.
To these doubting Christians, who could not gather strength to believe in such a great progress as this, Paul says that if man does not rise, if it is contrary to his nature to rise, then Jesus, being a man, has not risen, but gone down to Hades with other souls. Then he is not above us, with God, sending down strength and inspiration from our work. This faith of ours, which has been our great support, is an illusion. We have all been deceived—deceived in preaching forgiveness of sins through Christ from God; deceived in preaching a higher life above us, into which Christ has gone, and where he is waiting to receive us. But we have not been deceived—Christ has risen, and risen as the first fruits of humanity. He leads the way up, and in proportion as we share his life, we also have in ourselves the principle of ascent, and shall [pg 310] go up too. He goes first; then all who are like him follow and finally, in due order, all mankind. Death and Hades have been conquered by this new influx of life in Christ. Instead of remaining pale ghosts, naked souls, we shall rise into a fuller, richer, larger life, of soul and body.
There is one passage, however, where there seems a difficulty in considering ἀνάστασις, or resurrection, as implying an ascent of condition. It is in John 5:28, 29. Our common translation reads thus: “The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice (that is, the voice of the Son of man), 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.” At first sight it certainly seems that the “resurrection of damnation” (ἀνάστασιν χρίσεως) could hardly be considered a higher state. All depends, however, on the meaning of the word, here translated “damnation.” The word, in the Greek, is the genitive of χρίσις. Now, by turning to the Concordance, we find that this word χρίσις occurs some forty-eight times in the New Testament. In these places,—
It is translated 3 times by “damnation.”
It is translated 2 times by “condemnation.”
It is translated 2 times by “accusation.”
It is translated 41 times by “judgment.”
It is evident, therefore, that our translators considered judgment to be the primary and usual meaning of the word. Why, then, did they not translate it here, “rising to judgment,” or “resurrection of judgment”? It must have been because they believed either that (1.) “judgment” would make no sense here; (2.) that “damnation” would make better sense; or, (3.) that “damnation” was more in accordance with the analogy of faith. But we can decide these points for ourselves. “Judgment” is the better word here, for it accords with the doctrine of the New Testament, that in proportion as man goes wrong, he dulls his moral sense, and [pg 311] needs a revelation of truth to show him what he is. A true man, who has lived according to the truth here, has judged himself, and will not need to be judged hereafter. (1 Cor. 11:31.) He rises into the resurrection of life. But those who follow falsehood here, need to see the truth; and they rise into the resurrection of judgment. The truth judges and condemns them. But this is really an ascent to them also. It is going up higher, to see the truth, even when it condemns them. This passage, then, is no exception to the principle that wherever “resurrection” (ἀνάστασις) occurs in the New Testament, it implies going up into a higher state.
All the other places where the word occurs either evidently have this meaning, or can bear it as easily as the other. Thus (Luke 14:14), “Thou shalt be recompensed in the higher state of the just.” (20:27), the Sadducees “deny a higher state.” (Acts 1:21), “he is to be a witness with us of the ascended state of Jesus.” (Acts 4:2), “preached, through Jesus, the higher state of the dead.” (17:18), “preached to them Jesus and the higher state.” (20:23), that Christ “should be the first to rise into the higher state.” (Lazarus and others had returned to life again before Jesus, so that in this sense he was not the first fruits.) (Rom. 6:5), “planted in the likeness of his resurrection.” This can only mean as Christ passed through the grave into a higher state, so we pass through baptism into a higher state.
The only text which presents any real difficulty is Heb. 11:35, translated, “women received their dead raised to life again,” literally, “women received from the resurrection their dead” (ἐξ ἀναστάσεως), which may refer to a return to this life, as in the case of the child of the widow of Sarepta (1 Kings 17:17), and of the Shunamite (2 Kings 4:17).[38] But in the same verse, the other and “better” [pg 312] resurrection is spoken of, for the sake of which these martyrs refused to return to this life. The case referred to is probably that of the record of the seven brothers put to death by Antiochus (2 Macc. 7:9), who refused life offered on condition of eating swine's flesh, and said, when dying, “The King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life” (εἰς αἰώνιον ἀναβίωσιν ζωῆς ἀνατήσει ἡμας), literally, “to an eternal renewal of our life.”[39] This verse shows, therefore, that though ἀνάστασις may mean a return to this life, yet that the other sense of a higher life is expressly contrasted with it, even here.
Our conclusion, therefore, with regard to this term ἀνάστασις, is, that its meaning, in New Testament usage, is not “rising again,” but “rising up,” or “ascent.”
2. Ἀνίστημι. This word is the root of the former. It is used one hundred and twelve times in the New Testament. It is translated with again (as, “he must rise again from the dead”) fifteen times. It is translated thirty-six times “rise up” or “raise up” (as, “I will raise him up at the last day”), and ninety-six times without the “again.” It is rendered “he arose,” “shall rise,” “stood up,” “raise up,” “arise,” and in similar ways.
3. Ἐγείρω. This word is also frequently used in relation to the resurrection, and is translated “to awaken,” “arouse,” “animate,” “revive.” The natural and usual meaning is ascent to a higher state, and not merely a “rising again.”
From these considerations we see that the primitive and central meaning of the terms used to express the resurrection is that of ascent. It is going up. This is the essential Christian idea. But it soon became implicated with the Pagan idea of immortality, or continued existence of the soul, and the Jewish idea of a bodily resurrection at the last [pg 313] day. But though there is a truth in each of these beliefs, the Christian doctrine is neither one nor the other. The gospel assumes, but does not teach, a continued existence of the soul. Since the greater includes the less, in teaching that the man rises at death into a higher life, it necessarily implies that he continues to live. And in teaching that he is to exist as man, with soul and body, in a higher condition of development, it teaches necessarily the bodily resurrection of the Jews. Christ, who came “not to destroy, but to fulfil,” fulfils both Pagan and Jewish ideas of the future state in this doctrine of an ascension at death.
The principal points of the teaching of Jesus concerning the life which follows the dissolution of the body are these: First. As against the Sadducees, he argues that the dead are living (Matt. 22:31, and the parallel passages), from the simple fact that God calls them his. If God thinks of them as his, that is enough. His thinking of them makes them alive. No one can perish while God is thinking of him with love. Such an argument, carrying no weight to the mere understanding, is convincing in proportion as one is filled with a spiritual conception of God. Secondly. Jesus abolishes death by teaching that there is no such thing to the soul which shares his ideas concerning God and the universe. This is implied in the phrases, “He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” (John 11:26.) “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” (John 6:47.) “I am the living bread, whereof if a man eat, he shall live forever.” (John 6:51.) “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.” (John 6:54.) “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” Here, “eating Christ's flesh, and drinking his blood,” is plainly equivalent to “keeping his saying,” and “believing on him.” As “food which we eat and drink changes itself so as to become a part of our own body by assimilation,” so Christ intends that his truth shall not be merely taken into the [pg 314] memory, and reproduced in words, but shall be taken into the life, and reproduced in character. Thirdly. He teaches that as feeding on his truth changes our natural life into spiritual life, and lifts temporal existence into eternal being, so it will also place us outwardly in a higher state and higher relations, to which state he applies the familiar term the “resurrection” or “ascent,” the “going up.” “I will raise him up at the last day.” The “last day,” in Jewish and New Testament usage, means the Messianic times, as appears from such passages as Acts 2:17, where the term is used of the day of Pentecost; Heb. 1:2, “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son;” 1 John 2:18, “Little children, it is the last time.” Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to the Father (John 14:15), in whose house are many mansions, where he is to prepare a place for his disciples. (John 14:2.)
That “resurrection” was understood to mean a present higher state, and not a future return to life, appears also from its use by the apostles. Christians are spoken of as having already “risen with Christ” (Col. 3:1); “risen with him in baptism” (Col. 3:1); walking “in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:5). And, no doubt, it was by making this idea of a present resurrection too exclusive, that some Christians maintained that it was wholly a present resurrection, and not at all future—that “it was past already.”
This Christian faith in “resurrection” as ascent to a higher condition of being at death is practically borne witness to by such common expressions concerning departed friends as these: “He has gone to a better world;” “He is in a higher world than this;” “We ought not to grieve for him—he is better off than he was.” The practical sense of Christendom has taken this faith from the Gospels, though the Creeds do not authorize it. The Creeds teach that the souls of the good either sleep till a future resurrection, or [pg 315] are absorbed into God until then, while the souls of the impenitent descend to a lower sphere. Christ teaches that at death all rise to a higher state—of life and love to the loving, or judgment by the sight of truth to the selfish; but higher to all. Paul declares that “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” making the rise equivalent in extent to the fall.
The great change in the faith of the apostles, in consequence of the resurrection or ascent of Christ, was this: They before believed that at death all went to Hades, to the gloomy underworld of shadows, there to remain till the final resurrection. But the belief that Christ, instead of going down, had gone up, and had assured them that all who had faith in him had the principle of ascent in their souls, and were already spiritually risen,—this took the victory from Hades and the sting from death.
To Christians, at least, Hades is no more anything; all who have a living faith rise with Christ; and sooner or later, each in his order, all shall rise. This was the “power of the resurrection” of Jesus to destroy the fear of death, to enable them “to attain” now “to the resurrection of the dead” (Phil. 3:10), teaching that “if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you.” “For it is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” It was, therefore, the duty of all Christians, since they were risen in Christ, “to seek the things which are above.”