6 Neander's Planting and Training, book vi. ch. 1.
would have ascended pleasantly, in a new body, to heaven; but sin compelled it to descend painfully, without any body, to Hades. We will cite a few of the principal texts from which this general outline has been inferred and constructed.
The substance of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans may be thus stated. As by the offence of one, sin entered into the world, and the judgment of the law came upon all men in a sentence of condemnation unto death, so by the righteousness of one, the free gift of God came upon all men in a sentence of justification unto life; that as sin, by Adam's offence, hath reigned unto death, so grace, by Christ's righteousness, might reign unto eternal life. Now, we maintain that the words "death" and "life" cannot in the present instance be entirely explained, in a spiritual sense, as signifying disturbance and woe in the breast, or peace and bliss there, because the whole connected discourse is not upon the internal contingent experience of individuals, but upon the common necessity of the race, an objective sentence passed upon humanity, followed by a public gift of reversal and annulment. So, too, we deny that the words can be justly taken, in their strictly literal sense, as meaning cessation or continuance of physical existence on the earth, because, in the first place, that would be inconsistent with the doctrine of a spiritual body within the fleshly one and of a glorious inheritance reserved in heaven, a doctrine by which Paul plainly shows that he recognised a natural organic provision, irrespective of sin, for a change in the form and locality of human existence. Secondly, we submit that death and life here cannot mean departure from the body or continuance in it, because that is a matter with which Christ's mission did in no way interfere, but left exactly as it was before; whereas, in the thing really meant by Paul, Christ is represented as standing, at least partially, in the same relation between life and men that Adam stands in between death and men. The reply to the question, What is that relation? will at once define the genuine signification of the terms "death" and "life" in the instance under review. And thus it is to be answered. The death brought on mankind by Adam was not only internal wretchedness, but also the condemnation of the disembodied soul to the under world; the life they were assured of by Christ was not only internal blessedness, but also the deliverance of the soul from its subterranean prison and its reception into heaven in a "body celestial," according to its original destiny had sin not befallen. This interpretation is explicitly put forth by Theodoret in his comments on this same passage, (Rom. v. 15-18.) He says, "There must be a correspondence between the disease and the remedy. Adam's sin subjected him to the power of death and the tyranny of the devil. In the same manner that Adam was compelled to descend into the under world, we all are associates in his fate. Thus, when Christ rose, the whole humankind partook in his vivification."7 Origen also and who, after the apostles themselves, knew their thoughts and their use of language better than he? emphatically declares in exposition of the expression of Paul, "the wages of sin is death" that "the
7 Impatib., dialogue iii. pp. 132, 133, ed. Sirmondi.
under world in which souls are detained is called death."8
"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." These words cannot be explained, "As in Adam the necessity of physical death came on all, so in Christ that necessity shall be removed," because Christ's mission did not touch physical death, which was still reigning as ever, before Paul's eyes. Neither can the passage signify, "As through Adam wretchedness is the portion of every heart of man, so through Christ blessedness shall be given to every heart," because, while the language itself does not hint that thought, the context demonstrates that the real reference is not to an inward experience, but to an outward event, not to the personal regeneration of the soul, but to a general resurrection of the dead. The time referred to is the second coming of Christ; and the force of the text must be this: As by our bodily likeness to the first man and genetic connection with him through sin we all die like him, that is, leave the body and go into the under world, and remain there, so by our spiritual likeness to the second man and redeeming connection with him through the free grace of God we shall all rise thence like him, revived and restored. Adam was the head of a condemned race, doomed to Hades by the visible occurrence of death in lineal descent from him; Christ is the head of a pardoned race, destined for heaven in consonance with the plain token of his resurrection and ascension. Again, the apostle writes, "In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we (who are then living) shall be changed; for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory?" O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?'" The writer evidently exults in the thought that, at the second coming of Christ, death shall lose its retributive character and the under world be baffled of its expected prisoners, because the living shall instantly experience the change of bodies fitting them to ascend to heaven with the returning and triumphant Lord. Paul also announces that "Jesus Christ hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light." The word "death" here cannot mean physical dissolution, because Christ did not abolish that. It cannot denote personal sin and unhappiness, because that would not correspond with and sustain the obvious meaning of the contrasted member of the sentence. Its adequate and consistent sense is this. God intended that man should pass from a preliminary existence on earth to an eternal life in heaven; but sin thwarted this glorious design and altered our fate to a banishment into the cheerless under world. But now, by the teachings and resurrection of Christ, we are assured that God of his infinite goodness has determined freely to forgive us and restore our original destination. Our descent and abode below are abolished and our heavenly immortality made clear. "We earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, if so be that, being clothed, we shall not be found naked. Not that we desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life."
8 Comm. in Epist. ad Rom. lib. vi. cap. 6, sect. 6. Also see Jerome, Comm. in Ecc. iii. 21. Professor Mau, in his able treatise "Von dem Tode dem Solde der Sunden, and der Aufhebung desselben durch die Auferstehung Christi," cogently argues, against Krabbe, that death as the punishment of sin is not bodily dissolution, but wretchedness and condemnation to the under world, (amandatio Orcum.) In Pelt's Theologische Mitarbeiten, 1838, heft ii. ss. 107-108.
In these remarkable words the apostle expresses several particulars of what we have already presented as his general doctrine. He states his conviction that, when his "earthly house of this tabernacle" dissolves, there is a "divinely constructed, heavenly, and eternal house" prepared for him. He expresses his desire at the coming of the Lord not to be dead, but still living, and then to be divested of his earthly body and invested with the heavenly body, that thus, being fitted for translation to the incorruptible kingdom of God, he might not be found a naked shadow or ghost in the under world. Ruckert says, in his commentary, and the best critics agree with him, "Paul herein desires to become immortal without passing the gates of death." Language similar to the foregoing in its peculiar phrases is found in the Jewish Cabbala. The Zohar describes the ascent of the soul to heaven clothed with splendor, and afterwards illustrates its meaning in these terms: "As there is given to the soul a garment with which she is clothed in order to establish her in this world, so there is given her a garment of heavenly splendor in order to establish her in that world."9 So in the "Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet" an apocryphal book written by some Jewish Christian as early, without doubt, as the close of the second century the following passages occur. Speaking of what was revealed to him in heaven, the prophet says, "There I saw all the saints, from Adam, without the clothing of the flesh: I viewed them in their heavenly clothing like the angels who stood there in great splendor." Again he says, "All the saints from heaven in their heavenly clothing shall descend with the Lord and dwell in this world, while the saints who have not died shall be clothed like those who come from heaven. Then the general resurrection will take place and they will ascend together to heaven."10 Schoettgen, commenting on this text, (2 Cor. v. 2, ) likewise quotes a large number of examples of like phraseology from Rabbinical writers. The statements thus far made and proofs offered will be amply illustrated and confirmed as we go on to consider the chief component parts of the Pauline scheme of the last things. For, having presented the general outline, it will be useful, in treating so complex and difficult a theme, to analyze it by details.
We are met upon the threshold of our inquiry by the essential question, What, according to Paul, was the mission of Christ? What did he accomplish? A clear reply to this question comprises three distinct propositions. First, the apostle plainly represents the resurrection, and not the crucifixion, as the efficacious feature in Christ's work of redemption. When we recollect the almost universal prevalence of the opposite notion among existing sects, it is astonishing how clear it is that Paul generally dwells upon the dying of Christ solely as the necessary preliminary to his rising. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain: ye are yet in your sins." These words are irreconcilable with that doctrine which connects our "justification" with the atoning death, and not with the typical resurrection, of Christ. "That Christ died for our sins, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day." To place a vicarious stress upon the first clause of this text is as arbitrary as it would be to place it upon the second; but naturally emphasize the third clause,
9 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia Vatis, appendix, p. 168.