Catharine

by Nehemiah Adams

To rise from the dead seems to have been something more to Paul than going to heaven, or than being in heaven. He knew that he was to spend the interval between death and the resurrection in heaven; but beyond even this, he had a joy which he felt was essential to the completeness of the heavenly state.

See the proof of this in the following words: "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."

Since he was destined, like all of Adam's race, to come forth from his grave, he needed to make no effort whatever merely to rise from the dead; that was inevitable, and irrespective of character. Besides, he represents this object for which he strove as something which required effort, which cannot be said of merely rising from the grave.

Paul had been permitted to know, by personal observation, what the rising from the dead implies. Caught up into Paradise, we may suppose that he had seen the patriarch Enoch, and the prophet Elijah, with their glorified bodies; the presence of which in heaven, we may imagine, has ever served to enhance the happiness of that world, by holding forth, before the eyes of the redeemed, the sign and pledge of their future experience when they shall receive their bodies. For it is not presumptuous to suppose that the sight of Enoch and Elijah has been, and will be, till the last trumpet sounds, a source of joyful expectation to the inhabitants of heaven, leading them to anticipate the final day with intense interest, as the time when they will be invested, like those honored saints, with all the capacities of their completed nature, which nature, while the body lies buried, is in a dissevered state. If Paul, when in heaven, saw and felt the power of this expectation in the minds of glorified saints, no wonder that the resurrection of the body seemed to him, ever after, to be the crown of Christian expectation and hope.

More than all, he had seen the man Christ Jesus, in his glorified body; who on earth had said, "I am the resurrection and the life"—himself an illustration of it, whom alone the grave has yielded up to die no more. He is, therefore, to saints in heaven, a far more interesting object than Enoch and Elijah, who never died. "For now is Christ risen from the dead, and is become the first fruits of them that slept." This sight, of Christ in heaven, must have had unutterable interest for Paul, from the assurance that Christ will "change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body;" for "we know that when he shall appear," Paul himself tells us, "we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." This knowledge, obtained in the heavenly world, may have led the apostle to think of the resurrection as the crown of all his expectations and hopes.

It is noticeable that the writers of the New Testament, and Jesus himself, refer chiefly to the resurrection and the last day as sources of comfort, and also of warning. Now this is made a principal ground of belief, with many, that there is either no consciousness between death and the resurrection; or, that none have gone to heaven, nor to hell, but to intermediate places, seeing that final rewards and punishments are, in so many instances, wholly predicated of the last day.

But those who believe that the souls of the righteous are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, see proof, in all this prominence which is given to the last day, and to the resurrection, that the sacred writers regarded the resurrection and final judgment as the great consummation, towards which souls, in heaven and in hell, would be looking forward with intense expectation and interest; that neither will the joys of heaven nor the pains of hell be complete, till the account of our whole influence upon the world, extending to the end of time, is made up, and the body is added to the soul. When Paul comforts the mourners of Thessalonica, he bids them to "sorrow not as they that have no hope; for," (and now he does not speak of heaven, and of souls being already there, as the source of consolation, but) "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them, also, that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him;" and he proceeds to speak of the resurrection,—not of the speedy reunion of friends after death, but of the departed as coming with Christ at the last day. This, instead of being an argument against the immediate departure of souls to heaven, arises from the desire to employ the strongest possible proof that the pious dead are not only safe, but are greatly honored. "Resurrection" was an abounding subject of thought, argument, and illustration in those days; the state of the dead between death and the last day, is comparatively disregarded by the apostles, while their minds were full of the great question of the age—the Resurrection. This fullness of thought and constant occupation of mind about the resurrection, as the cardinal doctrine of Christian hope, explains the apparent belief of the apostles, in some passages, that the final day was near. This the apostle Paul expressly denies, in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. But a greater event, looked at in the same line of vision with an intermediate and smaller object, will, of course, have the prominent place in our thoughts. The less will be held subordinate to the greater; perhaps we shall seem to underrate the less, in our exalted conceptions of that which rises beyond and above. We shall see, as we proceed, why the expectation of the last day seemed to occupy the thoughts of apostles as the paramount object of expectation.

It is perfectly obvious that, at the resurrection, the bodies of the just will be endued with wonderful susceptibilities and powers. This is rendered certain by the great mystery of godliness,—God manifest in the flesh. The greatest honor which could be conferred upon our nature, and the greatest testimony to its intrinsic dignity, and to its being, in its unfallen state, in the image of God, is bestowed upon it by the incarnation of the Word. True, there was a necessity that the Redeemer should be made like unto us, however inferior human nature might be in the scale of creation; still, unless there had been such intrinsic dignity and excellence in our sinless nature, as to make it compatible for the second Person in the Godhead to be united with it, we cannot suppose that this union would have been permanent; it would have fulfilled a temporary purpose, and then have ceased.

Perhaps we slightly err if we think of Christ's assumption of human nature as, in any respect, an incongruous act of humiliation. For man was made in the image of God; so that when Christ was made flesh, without sin, he took upon himself that which, in some sense, was congruous with his divine nature. His humiliation consisted, in part, in his doing this; but more especially in his doing this for such a purpose—for sinners; "in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross, in being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time." Had there been no inherent congruity between our nature and the divine, the human nature of Christ, having accomplished its purpose of suffering and death, would have been left in the grave. "But now is Christ risen from the dead;" the body and the human soul, which were disunited when he hung upon the cross, now constitute the same man, Christ Jesus. "The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continues to be, God and man, in two distinct natures and one person, forever." The latter part of this answer of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism is thus substantiated by the New Testament: "When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." In other words, he will be, when he appears, that which he now is—will remain the same until his second coming. After that, he will remain as he was before: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." He is represented as holding an eternal relation to the redeemed in his glorified nature: "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." We might, indeed, suppose that the man Christ Jesus would have an eternal recompense for his sufferings and death in an everlasting union with the Godhead; nor can any one think, with satisfaction, of a severance between his two natures, and of a consequent humiliation, or deposition, of that human nature, which, at the great day, will, for so long a time, have sustained such a connection with the divine nature. For our present purpose, however, which is to show the intrinsic dignity of the human nature, it would be enough that it has been in such connection with the Godhead, and has passed through such scenes, and sustained such vast responsibilities. This is sufficient to prove that human nature is intrinsically capable and great; and, indeed, it reveals to us as nothing else does, the real dignity of our nature. Some, who have rejected the doctrine of Christ's two natures, have written much and eloquently with regard to man's greatness in creation. They, however, missed the very thing which chiefly proves it; for all who believe in the Deity of Christ have a proof and illustration of this great theme which trancend all others.

This idea, of future capability and exaltation for human nature, as proved by the Saviour's incarnation, is brought to view in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The second Psalm is there quoted as speaking of man: "Thou hast put all things under his feet." "But now," the apostle says, "we see not yet all things put under him;" man, as a race, has not reached his full destiny of glory and honor; but, in the person of Christ, human nature has taken possession of its future inheritance. We see not yet all things put under man, as a race; but "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor;"—a sign and pledge of our destiny.