05. St Paul's Conception of the Resurrection
Chapter V ST PAUL’S CONCEPTION OF THE RESURRECTION No other conception of his Eschatology has received such elaborate treatment at the hands of St Paul as that of the Resurrection. Yet perhaps in no province is there more room left for the raising of perplexing questions. In one aspect of it, the full delineation of the event and process which he has given, is due to the pressure of circumstances.
In the course of his missionary labours, more especially in the province of Achaia, that subject of his teaching which proved the chief stumbling-block to his quick-witted and combative Greek audiences was the Resurrection of the dead. It was not that their minds were prejudiced against the idea of a life after death. Owing to Platonic and other influences, this conception had long been familiar in intellectual circles.
No doubt, by the middle of the first century a.d., it must have filtered down into popular belief as, at least, a speculation worthy of attention. Indeed, we have good evidence for its widespread diffusion in many interesting sepulchral inscriptions (see Lehrs, Vorstellungen d. Griechen über das Fortleben nach d. Tode). Its influence would be stimulated by that strong impulse of ethical aspiration which marked the opening centuries of our era.
In all probability, the formulation of the doctrine of immortality by Plato himself, owed as much to the intense moral interest which formed part of his conviction of future retribution, as to his metaphysical speculations on the nature of the soul (see Zeller, Platonism, p. 404). That element weighed powerfully with the Stoics, who held an unrivalled position as religious teachers in the era with which we are concerned. But a belief in immortality was a different thing from a belief in resurrection.
The latter would be usually regarded as a grotesque superstition, tenable only by barbarian peoples. Diogenes Laertius, in the preface to his great collection of the doctrines of the philosophers, seems to look at it from this standpoint when he refers to the notion
It was altogether contrary to their dualistic view of human nature (e.g. the Platonic).1 [Note: 1 “As long as we have this body, and an evil of that sort is mingled with our souls, we shall never fully gain what we desire; and that is the truth.… It (i.e. the body) fills us with passions and desires and fears, and all manner of phantoms, and much foolishness.… In truth, we have learned that if we are to have any pure knowledge, we must be free from the body; the soul in herself must behold things as they are” (Phædo, 66, B, C, D). At the same time, it should be noted that some eminent interpreters of Plato’s doctrine of immortality (e.g., Susemihl, Genetische Entwicklung d. Platonischen Philosophie, i. p. 461) explain it as implying that absolute incorporeality can never be reached, and that in the future life man will possess a higher kind of body, having a closer conformity to the soul which sways it.]
Those philosophers, also, who attempted to surmount this dualism by a higher synthesis were apt in the process to lose any true conception of personality as surviving death. Probably the majority of Greek thinkers would have assented to the definition of Chrysippus (Nemes.
de nat. hom. p. 81):
μὴ φοβηθῶμεν τὸν δοκοῦντα ἀποκτενεῖν. μέγας γὰρ ψυχῆς ἀγὼν καὶ κίνδυνος ἐν αἰωνίῳ βασάνῳ κείμενος τοῖς παραβᾶσιν τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ θεοῦ 2 [Note: See Grimm on 4 Maccabees, p. 289. Heinrici gives an interesting summary of related Pagan ideas as contrasted with the resurrection-doctrine of St Paul.
We condense it here. (1) Simple returning of the soul into its abandoned earthly shell. So Plato of the Pamphylian Er, Repub. x. 614 f.; cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 55, Similis … de adservandis corporibus hominum et reviviscendi promissa Democrito vanitas, qui non revixit ipse.
(2) Periodic wanderings of souls through the temporal life; so Pythagoras. (3) Secret doctrines of the Orphics, who promised the initiated immortality and a preeminent place in Elysium (cf. Welcker, Griech. Götterlehre, 2. pp. 514 f., 561 f.; Heinrici, 1 Cor. pp. 466, 467).] : “ ‘With our whole heart,’ they said, ‘we will consecrate ourselves to the God who gave our souls, and let us offer our bodies as a defence of the law.
Let us not fear him who supposes that he can slay us. For grievous is the soul-conflict and peril which is reserved in eternal torment for those who have transgressed the commandment of God.’ ”
There was no place for a resurrection in Greek habits of thought as to the Last Things. Hence, although, in accepting the Christian Gospel, they had also accepted the fact that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead, the Corinthian Christians, e.g., were inclined to regard His experience as abnormal, an event on a par with the miraculous process of the Incarnation, but by no means regulative for the Christian brotherhood as a whole. So the apostle is obliged to set forth in detail the position at which he has arrived, largely as an inference from his own experience of Christ risen.
It is impossible to say whether the content of his famous exposition in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 had for long been a possession of his thought, or whether the objections raised by his opponents at Athens, Corinth, and elsewhere, have for the first time compelled him to draw out into clearness conceptions which merely lay in germ within his mind. It is conceivable that the question asked by the perplexed Corinthians, in the letter to which we have St Paul’s reply, was the main reason which led him to formulate in its minutiæ his doctrine of the
We know what gave the impulse to such reflection. St Paul, indeed, as a Pharisee, was perfectly familiar with the idea of resurrection. In discussing the apocalyptic literature of Judaism, we have observed how the doctrine took shape and gained currency.
There is abundant evidence from the Gospels, Acts, Josephus,1 [Note: Antiq. xviii. 1. 3,
By many it was regarded as a privilege of the righteous Israelite, by a smaller number as universal, thus becoming a more or less unrelated item among the circumstances of the End, whose ethical significance could scarcely be estimated, inasmuch as there seemed to be no basis for it in the phenomena of the earthly, personal life. Indeed, if we may judge by the Talmudic literature, there seems to have been little that was spiritual about the conception. It was a restoration from Sheol, by the power of Messiah, to a temporal life.
And “the future body, as to material and organisation, was conceived as essentially of the same quality as the present” (so Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, p. 353). This view is corroborated by the Apocalypse of Baruch, e.g. chap. i. 2: “For assuredly the earth gives back at that time the dead which it now receives, in order to preserve them, without altering anything in their appearance; but as it has received them, so it gives them back, and as I have committed them to it, so it causes them to rise.”1 [Note: In Enoch cviii. 11, on the other hand, we find a parallel view to that of St Paul.] At no point in his conceptions of the Last Things has St Paul produced so remarkable a transformation as in his doctrine of the Resurrection. We need not even here, indeed, expect a complete, rounded-off system of ideas.
Gaps remain at various points. The apostle claims no completeness for his views. “At the present my knowledge is a fragment; at that time I shall know as completely as I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12.)
Some of the traditional conceptions lie, as it were, side by side in his mind with those which he has attained through the creative power of his Christ-possessed spirit. He is not concerned about their mutual adjustment. But the whole trend of his spiritual life, the whole genesis of his Christian experience, compels him to place the fact and the significance of the Resurrection in the foreground.
We have seen in a former chapter how this man yearned for fulness and certainty of life. Death, as he originally conceived it, was unrelieved horror. The Pharisaic idea of resurrection would probably do little to mitigate the gloom, for after all it was only an hypothesis.
One might reach, no doubt, a strong degree of probability that God must be true to those who trusted and obeyed Him, that He must in the end secure their deliverance and blessedness. But how was conviction on the question to be attained? Did not the facts of the spiritual life expressly militate against such certainty?
No man was ever more sensitive to a mental situation of this kind than St Paul. It was not that he doubted for a moment the righteousness of God. That was perfect, flawless. It overawed him; it presented itself to him as the highest attribute of the Divine nature.
It was his own standing before the Holy One for which he feared. This status was most precarious, as he was compelled to view it. He was eager to obey the Divine will. But he felt his fleshly nature rudely thwarting him.
Even if, on reviewing each day’s life, he could assure himself that, on the whole, he was striving to please God, a sudden temptation, or the memory of one, intruded to shake his confidence. Then, once more, he was plunged into anxiety as to the proportion of merit and demerit in his conduct, as it lay bare to the searching gaze of the Judges 1:1-36[Note: See Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, pp. 271-273.] Where was there a place for calm assurance regarding the final issues of his relation to God? Must he drift on to the end, tormented by anxiety as to the Divine verdict on his career, with no sure foundation for the hope of eternal blessedness?
These, doubtless, were the questions which surged within him when he met the risen Christ. This meeting brought him a wonderful solution of his various perplexities. To begin with, Jesus of Nazareth must be what He claimed to be, the promised Messiah of God, in whom all the hopes of Israel were to be realised.
The disgrace and scandal of the Cross were swallowed up in the glory of the Resurrection. Nay, rather, they enhanced its glory. For the shame and desolation of Calvary, in the light of all that followed, were no meaningless tragedy.
“God was in Christ,” even Christ the crucified, “reconciling the world unto Himself.” “He was delivered up for our transgressions, and was raised for our justifying” (Romans 4:25). As risen, He proved Himself to be in closest contact with God. For it was by virtue of the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit which is God’s, that He rose from the dead, and “was declared (or, determined, defined,
Necessarily, when viewed in its full range and significance, the Resurrection of Christ must usher in a new world of spiritual experiences. As risen, the exalted Lord did not remain in solitary isolation from humanity. Precisely the reverse was the case.
His rising inaugurated the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The marvellous, Divine gift was the response to faith in Him who had broken the bonds of death. The risen Christ became the source of a mighty diffusion of spiritual power, of spiritual life, among His believing followers. They came into actual touch with the Divine.
St Paul speaks of that which he has experienced. Since that day on the Damascus road, he has become a new man (
We are in danger of repeating ourselves, in thus laying fresh emphasis on St Paul’s conception of the new life; but we must follow this course even at the risk of such repetition, for we have here the unmistakable basis of his doctrine of the Resurrection.
We can now see how he reached the goal of his yearnings, absolute certainty as to eternal life, and the kind of certainty for which he craved, one which bore upon human existence as a unity, and did not involve its disintegration into soul and body. The new life which St Paul knows he has received from the risen Christ, is one which embraces the entire personality. Greek thinkers could picture with complete satisfaction an immortality of the soul, of the disembodied spirit.
In all probability the apostle was more or less acquainted with the Jewish-Alexandrian literature, particularly the Hellenistic Wisdom of Solomon, in which the Greek conception of immortality is adopted, and fused with an Eschatology which, in many respects, remains Judaistic. Teichmann adduces various parallels to prove a close kinship between this book and St Paul (pp. 69-71). There may be some affinities on such points as the conception of
And Teichmann has yielded to the temptation (see, e.g., p. 74, an extraordinary overstatement).1 [Note: Grafe’s estimate of the relationship between St Paul and Wisdom is much more careful (Abhandlungen … Weizsäcker gewidmet, pp. 253-286, esp. the closing pp.). But even his results have to be accepted with reservation; see, e.g., Gunkel, Wirkungen d. heiligen Geistes,2 pp. 79-81; Titius, p. 245.] The question before us provides a test. So far from being content with the Hellenistic idea of immortality, the apostle remains wholly loyal to the genuine Hebrew tradition.
The Old Testament never regards the bodily organism in itself as the principle of evil. The notion of the body as the prison of the soul (
Not the soul, but the soul equipped with a body, constitutes man as God created him, and as He desires to restore him” (Expos. I. iv. p. 352). We can see how direct a bearing this view must have on St Paul’s conception: how it opens to him a vista for all creation; how it enlarges his idea of the future life of man, and gives a profounder meaning to the thought of resurrection. It is the entire person, who is to rise to a new life;
And the condition of the exalted Christ, as he conceives it, confirms him in his position. The objective impression which St Paul has received of his Lord is manifestly that which he would describe as a
The organism is removed from earthly and fleshly limitations. It is wholly subordinate to and under control of the
But enough is said to indicate that one effect upon him at least was that of brightness, of light. Whether that description is employed merely as a symbol or picture, we cannot tell. Perhaps, too, it is difficult to say how far we can be helped in representing to ourselves St Paul’s conception by the narratives of the appearances of Jesus to the disciples after His resurrection.
Those appearances took place under mysterious conditions. Obviously they were altogether occasional and unexpected, yet they were given to companies as well as to individuals. This fact is noteworthy. Further, the disciples had some difficulty in recognising their Master.
Even after they had seen Him once or twice, their perplexity remained. He had undergone a certain transformation. In traditions so divergent as the Synoptic and the Johannine, attention is directed to His power of presenting or withdrawing Himself suddenly.1 [Note: Cf., e.g., M‘Connell (Evolution of Immortality, p. 162): “We seem … to be in the presence of something which is both material and immaterial, something which is cognisable by the senses, and which, at the same time, plays fast and loose with sense-perceptions.”] The descriptions given are remarkable for their sobriety and restraint.
One is never conscious of any bizarre element in perusing them. Yet we find nothing parallel to them in the rest of the New Testament. They are confined to our Lord’s post-resurrection existence. But they appear to us, in not a few points, to adjust themselves with remarkable accuracy to St Paul’s idea of the
But let us endeavour to come closer to the apostle’s doctrine, and attempt to realise how he conceived the process and the event of Resurrection. Whatever may have been his former view of the matter, it is plain that we must seek the basis of his final conception in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Himself and all its consequences. Not that this will carry us the whole way.
For we find little trace in the Epistles of any reflection upon the inner spiritual movements of the life of Jesus. We have no hints as to the silent history of the three days between the Cross and the Resurrection.1 [Note: “There is nothing in this paragraph (i.e.Romans 10:5-10) beyond the most general statement that Christ was in the world of the dead, and was raised from it by God” (Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 525).] Further, the process of super-physical activity in the existence of the exalted Christ must be on a different level from that which belongs to His followers, just because of His position as
Nor must we neglect the consideration that, as the apostle reflected on the momentous crisis which had occurred in his own life through the power of the risen Lord, he would necessarily interpret it in the light of the teaching of Jesus. We have already noted in chap. ii. the remarkable parallels between 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 and the narrative of our Lord’s discussion with the Sadducees in Mark 12:18 f., Luke 20:27 f. Jesus had spoken of the future life of the risen as being
The phenomenon of the journey to Damascus at least helps him to apprehend what
This conception he must have felt to be fully confirmed by the actual sayings of Jesus, several of which are full of suggestion in their bearing on the question before us. Thus, for example, in Matthew 19:28, He speaks of the future condition of glory as the
Hence, as Haupt points out (op. cit., p. 91),
He achieves the resurrection with six companions. “Saosyant and his auxiliaries are all servants of the Lord, so that we may quite well say that the resurrection is wrought by the power of the Lord, or by the Amesa Spentas (Yast 19, 22)” (Söderblom, op. cit., p. 261).] Hence, the Resurrection, of which His is the type and norm and pledge, initiates that glorious era which is decisive for the whole universe, in which God sees His aim attaining complete realisation.
It may be said that for St Paul, resurrection, final salvation (
For St Paul, Christianity is the condition of being in Christ (
The important consideration to keep before us here is that the
It is a metamorphosis into the same likeness as Christ, from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). The “glory” which he here speaks of can be no mere outward semblance, as some have held. The context, especially verses 15, 16, shows clearly that he is thinking of inward transformation and illumination in the first instance; nor can any other meaning be assigned to the clause which qualifies the verse referred to above, “we all with unveiled face reflecting the glory of the Lord,” for the unveiled face is really equivalent to the unveiled heart of verse 16.
But how, we may ask, does this process affect the bodily nature, or what relation does it bear to our present material constitution? Professors Tait and Balfour Stewart, in their ingenious treatise on the Unseen Universe, assuming the possession of “a frame or rudiments of a frame connecting us with the invisible universe, which we may call the spiritual body,” proceed to speculate in these terms: “Each thought … is accompanied by certain molecular motions … in the brain: and parts of these are stored up in that organ … to produce … physical memory. Other parts … are … communicated to the spiritual or invisible body, and are there stored up, forming a memory which may be made use of when that body is free to exercise its functions … We can … well imagine that, after death, when the spiritual body is free to exercise its functions, it may be replete with energy and have eminently the power of action in the present, retaining also, as we have shown above, a hold upon the past, … and thus preserving the two essential requisites of a continuous, intelligent existence” (p. 200).
It would be absurd to look for any similar attempt on the part of St Paul to investigate scientifically the process by which he conceives the regenerated spirit, or the spirit-possessed personality, to dominate the purely material elements in the nature. Yet from hints he lets fall we can catch some of the outlines of his thoughts. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” he asserts (1 Corinthians 15:50), “nor does corruption inherit incorruption.” Here is one of the apostle’s axioms.
Flesh is, of course, the material substance of the earthly life: the blood was regarded by the ancients as containing in itself the vital principle. Cf.Sir 14:18 :
And for St Paul
It is only a part of nature, in so far as nature is a direct expression of the Divine purpose. But it is wholly removed from the present, earthly order of existence. Cf. Paradise Lost, Bk. v. 469-484:- “O Adam, one Almighty is from whom All things proceed, and up to him return, If not depraved from good, created all, Such to perfection, one first matter all, Indued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and in things that live of life; But more refined, more spiritous, and pure, As nearer to him placed or nearer tending, Each in their several active spheres assigned, Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportioned to each kind.
So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More aëry, last the bright consummate flower, Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit Man’s nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed To vital spirits aspire.”] The precise question which the apostle sets himself to answer in detail in the famous resurrection-passage is that which asks, “With what kind of body do they come?”-i.e. at the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:35). It is quite possible, as Heinrici suggests (Comment. on 1 Cor., p. 469), that the difficulty may have been raised by the Apollos-party at Corinth. For Apollos, as trained in the schools of Alexandria, would naturally have become familiar with the idea of a purely spiritual immortality.
This the Corinthian Christians would be bound to admit. Indeed, from their own special circumstances, they must have been powerfully influenced in its favour. For their charismatic endowment was unique, and the doctrine of the
In any case, the question sprang from a very natural perplexity. It is interesting to find echoes of it in various directions. It appears to have been a frequent subject of discussion in the schools of the Synagogue. There, strongly realistic conceptions prevailed, in marked contrast to the view of the Christian teacher.
Thus, e.g., the school of Schammai concluded from the reviving of the bones (Ezekiel 37:1-28) that it would take place in the reverse order from the formation of the child in the mother’s womb; the school of Hillel taught that the new formation of the rising person corresponded entirely to the formation of the growing man, proving this from Job 14:10 f., where the verbs in the future really point to that which is future (Bacher, op. cit., i. p. 19). So also, in answer to a question of the Emperor Hadrian regarding the resurrection of the body, R. Josua b. Chananja replied that the new body would be constituted out of an almond-shaped bone in the vertebral column; for this, as he showed by experiments, was indestructible (Bacher, op. cit., i. pp. 178, 179). In the apocalyptic literature, also, the problem presents itself.
“In what form shall they go on living who are in life at Thy day? Or how can their subsequent glory at that time continue? Shall they in some way at that time put on their present form, and be clad with those limbs which are bound with bands, which are now in sin, and by which sins are committed?
Or dost Thou transform in some way those who have been in the world, just like the world itself?” (Apoc. Bar. xlix. 2, 3).
St Paul’s elaborate answer to the question is characteristic of his whole treatment of eschatological subjects. He dwells with insistence on points which we might pass over, while many aspects of the inquiry which would appeal to us for discussion, he barely touches.1 [Note: Cf. the silence of Jesus on similar matters of the End; and see Haupt, op. cit., p. 92 ff.] Yet his answer and the background of thought which it presupposes are very remarkable. His elucidation of the problem starts with the well-known analogy to the sowing of seed, an illustration which, as purely analogical, must not be unduly pressed.
Here, in all likelihood, he could count upon his readers’ sympathy. For the growth of the seed supplied one of the most powerful and impressive symbols in the popular religion. In the mystic rites of Eleusis, the conception of a life beyond death was dimly foreshadowed by scenes based upon the silent and wonderful processes of vegetation, as they unfolded themselves in the progress of the seasons.2 [Note: See Heinrici on1 Corinthians 15:36.
Rohde, Psyche,2 Bd. i. p. 288 ff., holds, however, that there was little connection between the Eleusinian mysteries and the events of harvest, etc. The relationship he considers to have been greatly exaggerated. “After Sôshyans comes, they prepare the raising of the dead, as it says that Zaratûst asked of Aûharmazd this: ‘Whence does a body form again which the wind has carried and the water conveyed? and how does the resurrection occur? Aûharmazd answered thus … When by me corn was created, so that, scattered about in the earth, it grew again and returned with increase; … when that which was not was thus produced, why is it not possible to produce again that which was’?” (West’s transl. of Bundehesh, chap. 30, qu. by Söderblom, 226, 227).] The Stoics, also, were accustomed to dilate upon the seed, with its mysterious hidden potency, which gradually developed into a perfected organism.
Their interest in its growth was heightened by their notion that its essence was spirit, which they conceived as breath or air (
“What thou sowest is not made alive except it die” (1 Corinthians 15:36).1 [Note: Cf.John 12:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”] The seed deposited in the earth will not put forth a living stalk or ear until its present phase of existence dissolves or disappears, to make room for existence of a fuller and more advantageous kind. The seed does not really die, because the germ of life is already there and only demands a favourable environment in which to develop, according to the law of its being. But it must die to its existing condition as bare, unsown grain, else its life can never burst the enclosing shell and come to maturity.
“And what thou sowest, not the body (
His answer is extraordinarily typical. It is the only one we can expect him to give, and it is given in the clause immediately following: “The sovereign power of God.” “He giveth it a body according as He willed” (
It does not imply any unique act of creation. It is wholly irrelevant to deduce from it, as Teichmann is inclined to do, that St Paul held the pre-existence of resurrection-bodies in heaven (p. 53, note 1). The conception is entirely true to the Hebrew standpoint.
For to them “God was all in all. Events were all His work, and all immediately His work. All the changes on the earth in history and life were but the effects of an unseen power operating within all things” (Davidson, Expos. v. i. p. 327).
The apostle’s outlook is excellently illustrated by Genesis 1:11 : “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so” (
This body will be the one best fitted to fulfil the functions of the life which informs it. Through it that life will find its most appropriate and effective expression. St Paul is well aware that the difficulty which perplexes his Corinthian friends turns upon the revivifying of the present material body, the
This, as we have seen, was the current popular idea among the Jews, and possibly those Jewish teachers, so inimical to St Paul, who found their way to Corinth, may have insisted on the doctrine in its grossest form. “You must not imagine,” he proceeds to argue in verse 39 f., “that there is no other kind of
His thoughts have already begun to turn in the direction of the
The term which expresses this impression, although there are, as we shall find, deeper elements lying within it, is almost invariably
He can point them to the heavenly bodies, as we still call them. They, in their beauty and brilliance, most strikingly picture the future semblance of redeemed believers. In various passages of the Old Testament the stars are spoken of as living, personal agents.
Some of these, indeed, are poetical, as, e.g., Judges 5:20 (“The stars in their courses fought against Sisera”), and Job 38:7 (“The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”). But others can scarcely be so described. Thus, in 1 Kings 22:19, the prophet Micaiah says: “I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by Him on His right hand and on His left.” In Deuteronomy 4:19, there seems to be the idea that the peoples of the earth are assigned to their rule or guardianship.
A similar conception is perhaps implied in Isaiah 6:1 (see Gunkel, Schöpfung u. Chaos, p. 9). And we may compare Isaiah 14:12-13 : “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning … for thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” In the vision of Daniel (8:9-11), the little horn “waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host.” There is the same personification in Enoch lxxxii. 9 f.: “This is the law of the stars … these are the names of their leaders.” Similarly, in Revelation 9:1, we read of “a star falling from heaven to earth, and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss.” The poet recalls the ancient idea, when he puts these words in the mouth of Beatrice:- “Cause too thou find’st for doubt In that it seems That spirits to the stars, as Plato deemed, return.”
Paradiso, iv. 23-25.1 [Note: Plato looks upon the stars as living beings, “whose souls must be higher and diviner than human souls, in proportion as their bodies are brighter and fairer than ours.” See, e.g., Timaüs, 40 D
Volz points out, as one of the elements in the Judaistic conception of the final Judgment, that the stars lose their power. Hitherto they were frequently regarded as spirits competing with God (op. cit., p. 263).]
It would be hazardous to say that St Paul attributed any personal life to the heavenly bodies. But, from the evidence adduced above, we can see how closely they were associated for the Hebrew mind with the conception of the Divine power. Hence, whether personified in the strict sense or not, they would naturally present themselves as witnesses for a purer and more glorious kind of existence than could be inferred from mere earthly phenomena.
The total impression they make, St Paul goes on to show, is quite distinct from that made by earthly bodies (verse 40). Yet even they are not monotonously uniform. “There is one kind of glory (
See Paradiso, ii. 139:- “And as the soul, that dwells within your dust, THROUGH MEMBERS DIFFERENT, YET TOGETHER FORM’D, IN DIFFERENT POWERS RESOLVES ITSELF; E’EN SO THE INTELLECTUAL EFFICACY UNFOLDS ITS GOODNESS MULTIPLIED THROUGHOUT THE STARS; ON ITS OWN UNITY REVOLVING STILL.
DIFFERENT VIRTUE COMPACT DIFFERENT MAKES WITH THE PRECIOUS BODY IT ENLIVENS, WITH WHICH IT KNITS, AS LIFE IN YOU IS KNIT.”]
These words are used with an important purpose in view. While the
As each
Is St Paul’s forecast of the
“That the apparitional human soul” says Mr Tylor, “bears the likeness of its fleshly body, is the principle implicitly accepted by all who believe it really and objectively present in dreams and visions. My own view is that nothing but dreams and visions could have ever put into men’s minds such an idea as that of souls being ethereal images of bodies” (i. p. 450). And again: “To the philosophy of the lower races it is by no means necessary that the surviving soul should be provided with a new body, for it seems itself to be of a filmy or vaporous corporeal nature, capable of carrying on an independent existence like other corporeal creatures” (ii. 19).
Mr Tylor quotes a saying of Swedenborg, that man’s spirit is his mind, which lives after death in complete human form (the italics are ours). Where can we find anything corresponding to these notions in the apostle’s words? Does he ever hint that his
The equipment of each regenerated life with a corresponding and distinctive organism (
How could the ungodly be described in the New Testament as rising
Certainly our first impulse is to refer the “sowing” here spoken of to the burial in the grave after death. The emphasis seems to be laid upon the contrast between
If it denote exclusively or primarily the definite experience of resurrection, then it appears to us that
No doubt in both cases St Paul has prominently before him the actual experiences which mark “the transition from the earthly to the heavenly life,” but he does not restrict his view to these. Thus
But it is quite possible that the apostle here thinks of
The point at which an obscure problem in the interpretation of St Paul’s thought presses upon us, is found in the affirmation, “It is sown a natural (
The terms can only be understood from the apostle’s own use of them. Do the words which have been quoted, it may be asked, in any sense elucidate St Paul’s idea of how or when the great transformation takes place? Do they mean that this process is accomplished between death and resurrection?
We do not believe that this precise question was before his mind at all in the present passage, nor indeed to any large extent at any time. We shall have to discuss a little further on some statements which have a bearing upon the problem, but here it would seem that he is concerned exclusively with the contrast between the two organisms, the “natural” and the “spiritual,” more especially on the side of their genesis. Accordingly, when he goes on to state, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual” (verse 44), he simply bring out definitely that which lies at the basis of his whole Christian psychology.
The
The
Cf. the strange parallel in the Persian religion, which teaches that the risen body is not identical with that of the world, but spiritualised (Söderblom, pp. 263, 264).] Here it is worth while to emphasise the difference between St Paul’s standpoint and our own. For us it would have been of profound interest had the apostle set himself to trace the nature of the process by which he conceived the
St Paul is scarcely at all concerned with intervening links or stages. The broad results suffice for him. If he can go back to the causes, and then point forward to their finished effects, he has accomplished all that is of moment for the purpose he has in view.
Now that is precisely what he does. He appeals first of all (verse 45) to an authoritative statement of Scripture:
It is easy for him to derive the
“IT IS BREATHED ONLY ‘INTO HIS NOSTRILS.’ THE IDEA IS THAT OF SUPERFICIALITY.” [NOT CERTAINLY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF GENESIS, BUT ONLY AS COMPARED WITH ST PAUL’S DEEPER CONCEPTION.] “… HUMAN NATURE, EVEN WERE IT UNFALLEN, IS NATURALLY FRAIL. THE DIVINE BREATH OR SPIRIT WHICH IS IN IT SIMPLY HOVERS OVER ITS SURFACE.… ACCORDING TO THIS (I.E. PAULINE) INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS … IT IS NOT MERELY FROM SIN THAT MAN WANTS DELIVERANCE; IT IS FROM THE INCOMPLETENESS OF HIS ORIGINAL NATURE.” [ST PAUL WOULD ATTRIBUTE THE INCOMPLETENESS WHOLLY TO SIN.]
“HE WANTS A PERFECT UNION OF BODY AND SOUL.… THE FIRST ADAM WAS SIMPLY A LIFE WHICH, IN ONE SOLITARY DIRECTION, BLOSSOMED INTO A SPIRIT. THE SECOND ADAM WAS FROM THE OUTSET A SPIRIT WHICH, BY ITS POWER OF INFINITE DIFFUSIVENESS, HAS CREATED FOR ITSELF A BODY OF NATURAL LIFE” (EXPOS. II. 5, PP. 193, 194).] We may compare and contrast Philo’s view of man’s creation:
Mundi, 146, C. W.; cf. Slav. Enoch xxx. 8, “I ordered my Wisdom to make man of seven substances … his spirit from My spirit, and from the wind”). It is highly suggestive by means of such a comparison to discover the divergent points which have been reached by two thinkers of Jewish birth and mental inheritance, who go back with equal reverence to the Creation-narratives of Genesis, and yet are led to base upon them superstructures of thought so foreign to each other, the one moulded by the speculations of Hellenic philosophy, the other transformed by the power of a living experience of Christ.
St Paul does not here discuss the moral significance of the constitution of human nature. He does not even go so far as to assert, with the Book of Wisdom, that “God created man for immortality.” He deals exclusively with what may be called the natural basis of human personality, no doubt regarding it from his normal standpoint, namely, that of one who knows what it has become. There is no trace of
He only finds
It is from first to last an orderly sequence, a rational expression of the will and aim of God. “Not in the first place the ‘spiritual’ but the ‘natural,’ thereafter (
But he has to go a step further in order to set forth the contrast in its full significance. It is not enough to show the origin of
He appeals to the same authorities as before: the Old Testament narrative of Creation on the one hand, and the facts of Christian history on the other. “The first man was out of the earth (
The generic man was created first (
“The second man is from heaven.” These further statements connect the inferiority of the mere
Meanwhile (perhaps all along), his thoughts have risen to the Second Man as being now in heaven. But the two contrasted types are not fixed. This is the wonder of his Gospel. “Even as we bore the likeness (cf.Genesis 5:3,
He has shown them from the analogy of the sowing of seed, that the same life-principle can clothe itself in altered bodily semblance; nay more, that the very meaning of what seems to be death in the natural world, may only be a transition to a fuller life, clad in a more perfect organism. The transformation does not mean loss of identity. For “body” is not restricted to a single type.
Even on earth there are different species of bodily organism. Still more remarkable is the contrast between earthly and heavenly bodies; and even those heavenly bodies, whose common characteristic is
Not the body of flesh, the self-expression of the
But that does not exhaust the possibilities of the race. There is a new humanity, which derives its life not from an earthly principle, but from a heavenly Spirit. Its Head is the exalted Lord, who took upon Him human nature, who never laid it aside, but has glorified it, and shown what it may become.
He is not a disembodied spirit. He possesses a
They shall exchange the body of their humiliation for the body of His glory.1 [Note: “So every spirit as it is most pure And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer bodie doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With chearefull grace and amiable sight; For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.”
Spenser: An Hymne in Honour of Beautie. In the Persian religion the soul of the pious is, on entering Paradise, clad with heavenly raiments. This idea is first clearly seen in the Pehlevi-literature, but there are traces of it in the Avesta (Yast xiii. 49 f.) Cf. Bundehesh xxx. 28: “This, too, it says, that whoever has performed no worship … and has bestowed no clothes as a righteous gift, is naked there” (Böklen, op. cit., p. 62).
So also in the Rig-Veda (x. 14, 8), the dead are bidden to “become united to a body, and clothed in a shining form” (see Fairbairn, Studies, p. 116). For evidence that in Jewish literature the resurrection-body is usually conceived in a materialistic fashion, see Volz, op. cit., pp. 250-253.] Yet the apostle will guard still further against misconceptions. “This, I say, brethren (in case any should continue to be troubled by the old objections), that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption” (verse 50).
It is easy to see how their perplexity was bound up with the notion of the resurrection of that body of flesh which they actually possessed in their human life. How much of the confusion associated with this doctrine has rested, and still rests, on the same misconception! The apostle’s view, on the contrary, is one of far-reaching significance.
We can scarcely formulate any idea of the future condition of the individual life, which seems so fully to satisfy the requirements of our thought. “As we progress,” says Mr Schiller, “the higher intellectual and moral qualities … tend to predominate in consciousness over the physical functions. For the physical processes tend to become unconscious.
Consciousness, therefore, is less engrossed by the mechanism of life. Hence the body itself becomes more and more fitted to be the body of a spiritual being, better and better adapted as the vehicle of a life which is more than physical.… The time may come when Matter will no longer offer any obstacles to our wishes, and when, in sober truth, Man will with a word precipitate a mountain into the sea.… It is enough for him (i.e. the philosopher) to assert … that a will completely congruous with the Divine would needs have a complete control of the material” (Riddles of the Sphinx, pp. 301, 305). From an entirely different standpoint, we have the statement of Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait: “If we are to accept scientific principles, one of the necessary conditions of immortality is a spiritual body, but we as resolutely maintain that of the nature of this … we are, and must probably remain, profoundly ignorant” (Unseen Universe, p. 8).1 [Note: See also Orr, Christian View, p. 136: “The whole tendency of modern inquiry is to draw the two sides of man’s nature-the material and the spiritual, the physical and the metaphysical, the physiological and the mental-more closely together”; and cf. some suggestive remarks by McTaggart, International Journal of Ethics, xiii. pp. 164, 165.] Is it too daring to hold the conviction that St Paul has a uniquely wonderful vision of the possibilities of a perfect spiritual development, such as that outlined above?
May not the
Dies iste, quem tanquam extremum reformidas, teterni natalis est.] But the apostle has to reckon with a problem which must inevitably present itself to his readers. He and they were prepared for a speedy occurrence of the Parousia. That was the event which should usher in the Resurrection.
They could now form some conception of the experience of their deceased friends. But what of themselves? How were the survivors, the living, to pass into the final Kingdom of God? This was, in some respects, the most pressing matter of all.
For there can be little doubt, from all that we know of St Paul’s teaching, that his thoughts dwelt more on the future condition of those living when Christ should appear, than on that of the dead.2 [Note: There is some force in Haller’s contention: “It (i.e. the Resurrection) was mainly (i.e. for St Paul) only a reviving of bodies not long dead, and thus not subjected to total dissolution” (Zeitschr. f. Th. u. K., 1892, p. 291).] There can, to his mind, be no distinction between the two groups. “We all (i.e. the survivors) shall be transformed” (
“The dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be “transformed” (verse 52). Naturally, he assumes that both cases the final experience is the culmination a preparatory process. It is not a sudden, unrelated exercise of Divine power, although Divine power throughout at the back of it.
It is the blossomings, so to speak, of the new life, the life of the
We have considered St Paul’s central conception at some length, but there remain varioius related points which call for investigation. It has been supposed by many scholars (e.g., Reuss, Holtzmann, Teichmann, Pfleiderer, Cone, Clemen, Schmidel, etc.) that, in the interval between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, St Paul advanced to a new and more spiritual view of resurrection. The passage chiefly cited in support of this theory is the important and somewhat complicated paragraph in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, notably ver. 8: “We choose rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” This statement is held to be corroborated by such affirmations as Php 1:23 : “Having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.” St Paul has drifted away, we are told, from that conception of the Resurrection which he has stated in the earlier Epistles, more especially in 1 Corinthians 15:1[Note: See Schmiedel on 2 Cor. (Holtzmann’s Hand-Commentar. pp. 238-241); Holtzmann, N.T.
Theol. ii. p. 193; Reuss, Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 220; Cone, New World, June 1895, p. 308; Teichmann, op. cit., pp. 59, 61-67; Clemen, Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p. 144; Charles, Eschatology, pp. 395-401. Curiously enough, in the Persian religion, which recognises a judgment at the end of the world, this judgment has been transferred at a later period to the moment which follows death.
“According to the Avesta, the separation after death is accomplished by God without a judgment or any particular tribunal” (Söderblom, op. cit., p. 95). Volz notes a parallel process in Jewish literature: “From Hades the path leads to Paradise and Heaven by way of the receptacles guarded by angels, and, instead of the Intermediate State before the Resurrection, there is ultimately found the immediate transference of the individual into the full blessedness of the future” (op. cit., p. 146).]
He now believes that immediately after death the soul of the Christian is clothed with its new and appropriate organism, and passes into the immediate presence of God. From this standpoint, the idea of a remarkable crisis at the end of the age becomes superfluous. The soul has already reached its fulness of glory.
There is no place for any higher mode of fellowship. The hypothesis is put forward that the apostle was led to this alteration of view, as he became better acquainted with the Hellenistic literature of Alexandria (see, e.g., Pfleiderer, Urchristentum, pp. 161, 293, 298). However attractive the conception may appear to our minds, we cannot find that the apostle reached it, at least in the clear-cut, definite shape in which it is described by the writers to whom we have referred.
The hypothesis really springs from a literalistic, pedantic interpretation of St Paul’s statements. It seems impossible for some exegetes to rid themselves of the notion that when this fervid, ardent missionary, glowing with intense spiritual life, sat down to write to a community of his Christian friends and converts, he could not avoid composing an outline of systematic theology. No account is taken of his varying states of feeling, no account is taken of the many-sidedness of his spiritual experience.
Men forget that, in the reachings-forth of his religious faith and imagination, he must often, like Christian thinkers in all ages, overleap wide distances of time and space, must ignore definite and prosaic details, must embrace in his mind vast stretches of the spiritual world.
Probably we shall most easily appreciate his standpoint in the passages cited above, if we attempt to review the famous paragraph in 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff. Let us first endeavour to trace the line of thought which was uppermost with St Paul when he wrote the verses under consideration. This is determined by the conclusion of chap. 4, which must never be separated from the opening of chap. 5.
In 4:16-18, he emphasises the contrast between the weariness and trouble of the earthly life even for the Christian, and the glory which awaits him in the unseen eternal future. This contrast, it must be noted, remains vivid to his mind throughout the discussion (Volz quotes some remarkable parallels from Jewish literature, p. 156). The present and the future, the seen and the unseen-these are the opposing magnitudes round which his thoughts centre.
“For we know that if our earthly house consisting in this tent1 [Note: Cf. Wisd. 9:15, where
The
Theol. ii. p. 270, that in using the term
He wants to keep a germ of the old somatic organism, which would form the bond of connection between the earthly and heavenly condition of existence, and secure the continuity and identity of the old and the glorified human being” (Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1862, p. 43). St Paul does not seem to have cared one whit for “traces” or “germs” of the old organism. He was impatient to be clothed with the new.
He longed for this to happen without delay. If the Parousia were to come soon, and so make his transformation possible, the process must necessarily be an “overclothing” of the old by the new, although he never speculates on the process or method.] We are inclined to believe that these words give a hint of St Paul’s earnest desire and hope of surviving to the Parousia, and so escaping the terrifying experience of death. For it is difficult to suppose that
Strangely enough, we have no information as to the apostle’s conception of the state after death of those who had died or should die before the Parousia. As has been already pointed out, such considerations did not appeal prominently to his mind, for he regarded the End as near. Apart from the ordinary verb,
Obviously it was a most appropriate word, not only as containing the consoling picture of rest, but also as lending itself to the central Christian idea of “awaking,” being raised or roused to blissful fellowship with the Lord. The metaphor occurs very frequently in the Old Testament, in passages where there is no thought of a resurrection: e.g., 2 Samuel 7:12, 1 Kings 2:10 (numerous instances in this book), etc., etc. The LXX. usually translates it by
It is also current among the Greeks. Herkenrath, in his valuable Studien zu d. griechischen Grabschriften (Feldkirch, 1896), gives interesting examples of sleep as a euphemism for death in epitaphs, although these are isolated as compared with gloomier conceptions of the under-world (see esp. pp. 21, 28). It is scarcely necessary to refer to its usage in classical poetry, such as Iliad, xi. 341; Sophoc., Electr. 509.
In Judaistic literature, the idea appears in a more elaborated form. This is natural, seeing that the doctrine of resurrection has now become prominent. Hence we find passages like 4 Ezra 4:37, “He disturbs them not and wakes them not, until the appointed measure is made up”; 7:32, “The earth shall give back those who sleep in it, and the dust those who dwell in that silence.” This writer does not apply the idea of rest to the ungodly: e.g., 7:80, “Such evil souls do not enter the chambers of rest, but must at once hover about wretchedly, with constant sighs and groans.” The same thought appears in the Apocalypse of Baruch: see, e.g., xi. 4-5, “Our fathers laid them to sleep without pain, and the righteous-behold they slumber in the earth in peace: for they have not experienced this tribulation, and have not even heard of that which has befallen us.” And in the Book of Wisdom, belonging to another branch of the literature altogether, we read (4:7),
Thus Irenæus, adv. Hæres, v. 31, 2, has the statement: Si ergo Dominus legem mortuorum servavit, ut fieret primogenitus a mortuis et commoratus usque ad tertiam diem in inferioribus terræ. But it would be altogether illegitimate to deduce from St Paul’s use of
We dare not attribute to the apostle any theory of a sleep of the soul, or of a meditative condition of calm waiting in preparation for a fuller bliss (so Matheson, Expos. ii. 5, pp. 197, 198; Martensen, Dogmatics, pp. 457-463). Nor may we infer any notion of semi-consciousness or the like. Schmiedel supposes, on the ground of the expressions
But their grief and apprehension do not refer to the Intermediate State, as is quite evident from verse 14, but to the uncertainty of resurrection at the Parousia. Simon, again, taking Php 1:23 as his basis, speaks of the Intermediate State as one in which we enter into closer union with Christ than was possible in this life, “a dreamy expectation of the life which will come with the day of Resurrection” (Psychol. d. Paulus, p. 11); but where is there any trace of this in the Epistles? Holsten imagines that the apostle regards dead believers as
Theolog., p. 130). For his theory, he refers to 2 Corinthians 5:3, and 1 Corinthians 15:37. If our interpretation of these passages has been correct, it is plain that this is an explanation which can only be forced upon the text.
All we are justified in concluding from the writings of St Paul is, that for him death could not bring the believer into any situation which meant separation from his Lord. The fellowship was still imperfect in his view, but it was removed by an infinite gulf from the condition of those who had spurned the gift of the Divine
This appears much later under the designation hamîstakân, reserved for those in whose case the difference between good and evil is slight (Söderblom, op. cit., p. 125). On “sleep” = Intermediate State in Jewish literature, see an excellent paragraph in Volz, p. 134.] At the same time, we need not be surprised that the sensitive mind of the apostle shrank from the severing of the bonds which knit the spirit and the body together. As we sought to show in a former chapter, the article of death possessed a peculiar horror for St Paul.
And in view of this fact, we believe there is some warrant for supposing that, in the passage from 2 Corinthians with which we have been dealing, he does express a yearning to escape the pang of dissolution and to experience that transformation to immortality, the immortality of the
But then, perhaps struck by the conception of the future life which is most familiar to his friends at Corinth, he goes on to affirm: “It is not merely to get rid of the carnal, material body we long; it is not for a condition of spiritual nakedness, a disembodied existence of the spirit: our hope, our glory, is in the new spiritual organism which we look forward to possessing.” Whichever of these alternatives be truest to St Paul’s thinking here, we are safe to say that it is the perfected development, expressed in the
ABR. XCV. 23:
The apostle simply reasserts his confidence (the
“The man who wrote the great Resurrection-chapter in 1 Corinthians,” he says, “did not possess the capacity for altering his opinions which belongs to the modern theologian. For him, his hope which he there expresses, is a truth for which he is willing to live and die. Even from his prison at Rome, he writes: ‘If I may attain the resurrection from the dead.’ Resurrection-Transformation-Judgment, are the absolutely fixed elements in Pauline Eschatology.… The yearning to die and to be with Christ is for him the same thing as the hope of resurrection.
His yearning overleaps all between death and resurrection, and hurries to its goal for reunion with Jesus. [Wernle compares the attitude of the martyr Ignatius.] For religious hope, death, resurrection, coming to God, are always the same, not for Paul alone.
In the same way, the passage about the dissolution of the bodily tabernacle and overclothing with the new garment refers to the transformation at the Resurrection and to nothing else.… At bottom, all that happens to his body before the Resurrection is quite indifferent. For he has found the consolation, ‘If we live, we live unto the Lord; if we die, we die unto the Lord: therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s’ ” (Anfänge, pp. 175, 176). This paragraph deals directly with the important parallel in Php 1:23.
There also St Paul contrasts his actual condition with that which awaits him. For the present, he is a prisoner in a Roman dungeon, soon to be placed upon his trial, hindered from that work which is his absorbing passion. In the future he has the inspiring prospect of a blissful fellowship with Christ which can never be broken.
His thought transcends all experience of an Intermediate State, an interval between death and the full consummation of blessedness. He only sees the earthly life, on the one hand, and Christ, in whom his life is hid, on the other. What may happen between cannot interfere with his glowing conviction that his salvation is independent of death.
His position is virtually in line with the pregnant words of Wis 6:19, “Immortality causes to be near to God.”1 [Note: See also an interesting paragraph in Titius, p. 62; and cf. Whittier’s lines:- “And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore.
“I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air, I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care.”
(Qu. by Prof. Orr.)]
Throughout our discussion of St Paul’s conception of the Resurrection, it must have been apparent that attention has been directed exclusively to that event as it affects believers. In this we have followed closely the attitude of the apostle himself. His utterances on the Resurrection are restricted to the Christian community.
Various reasons can be assigned for his procedure. To begin with, he is replying to a group of difficult questions, brought expressly before him by members of the Church at Corinth. These perplexities concern their own future.
They have nothing to do with any general theory of the future condition of mankind. Indeed, such general theories never appear to have had much interest for St Paul; and a large amount of the misconception which has prevailed in all ages of the Church as to his views on the more outlying sections of Christian truth, is due to the persistent attempt to attribute to him a complete and systematised Weltanschauung, built up on the lines on which we construct our own, a scheme of thought in which the various problems of existence are stated, in their mutual relationships, very much as they appeal to the modern mind. It would be going beyond our due limits to assert that the apostle never attempted to arrange the bearings of his thought in a rational and orderly fashion.
But in an historical inquiry like the present, we are restricted to our evidence. We may essay to fill up the lacunæ which present themselves, from our own presuppositions, or from a particular modern standpoint. But we have no right to assume that St Paul would have assented to our methods.
His absorbing interest is the experience of the Christian man. To his mind, that was, and continued to be, an unceasing discovery of surpassing grandeur and glory. It had not yet been toned down by the misunderstandings, the bitternesses, the worldly pressure of the centuries.
The apostle felt himself to be moving in the midst of the operations of awe-inspiring and transcendent Powers. The exalted Lord, the Holy Spirit, were, for his daily experience, living Persons. And the same experiences he knew to be possible for all who were willing to surrender themselves to the sway of Christ.
It was his business to press this wonderful opportunity upon Jew and Gentile alike, to win all whom he could reach to the satisfying obedience of his Lord. It need not, then, surprise us that he found little time or inclination for pushing his speculations into all the nooks and crannies of human life and destiny.1 [Note: Cf. 4Ezra 8:35-36: “For truly I shall not trouble myself about that which sinners have prepared for themselves, about death, judgment, and destruction; but rather will I rejoice in that which the righteous have won, home-coming, redemption, and recompense.” The more profound and sensitive feeling of St Paul would scarcely have permitted so blunt an utterance. Dr Denney’s words are suggestive for the line of thought we have been following: “It is necessary, if we are to reflect in our minds the true proportion and balance of scriptural teaching, to escape from this preoccupation with individuals and exceptions, and to get into the centre and foreground of our thoughts-God’s purpose to perfect His kingdom and glorify His people” (Studies in Theology, p. 246).] The question of a general resurrection lies outside St Paul’s horizon, at least so far as definite discussions of the event are concerned.
Indeed, from the very nature of his doctrine of resurrection, we can easily perceive how it must have been so. Its operating principle, its cause, we may go the length of saying, is the power of the new Divine life in the believer’s nature-that is, the saving power of God. “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised from the dead Christ Jesus, shall also make alive your mortal bodies by His Spirit dwelling in you” (Romans 8:11).
Plainly, therefore, the resurrection of unbelievers must proceed, in the apostle’s judgment, on different lines. It cannot follow the norm of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which determines that of Christians. It is useless to speculate as to how he conceived of it.
An instance of such speculation may be quoted from Schaeder’s article, “Auferstehung d. Todten,” in Herzog,3 ii. p. 223: “The opinion of the apostle must have been that non-believers would rise in the same body which they formerly possessed. And then those of them who are acquitted in the Judgment, experience a transformation of their body into the spiritual body of believers already risen; the rejected, with their bodies, fall a prey to death.… They experience in the Resurrection the deliverance from death won for them by the Resurrection of Christ. But owing to their rejection in the Judgment, they must go back into death.” This crude hypothesis seems amply to justify the caution expressed above.
At the same time it does appear to us probable, in view of his whole conception of the End, so far as it can be pieced together, that St Paul left room for some doctrine of a general resurrection. Unquestionably he possessed the conception, as we have already seen, of a universal judgment (see, e.g., 1 Corinthians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 11:32; Romans 2:5-12). But he never works out this conception in detail.
The pictorial elements which he introduces are vague and undefined. How the judgment of the ungodly, which for them is
Otherwise, he must be supposed to agree with the tradition of the Talmudic literature, in holding that “he who has no future reward will also have no part in the Resurrection. He remains in death, and has been already judged in death” (Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, p. 373).1 [Note: It is interesting to note that
He may quite conceivably hold, in the scheme of his beliefs, propositions that are inconsistent with each other” (Orr, Christian View, p. 43).] This is a supposition which even the soberest and most restrained Christian thought ought not to reject à priori. The very highest endowment of a human soul with the Divine Spirit can never turn the consciousness into an isolated automaton. Any assertions or positions resting on such an assumption, make it impossible for us to understand or appreciate the self-revelation of God, which is a process in history.
But in St Paul’s case, as in that of all the New Testament writers, we must be content to form our estimate of his conceptions solely from the evidence which we possess. Various problems may remain, for which we should desire to have his solution. It is safer to acquiesce in the situation with a wise suspense of judgment, than to supply plausible hypotheses of our own.2 [Note: Cf. the lack of adjustment between the conceptions of judgment and the future life of righteous and ungodly in Wisdom (e.g., 3:1 ff., 4:20 ff.).
“Jewish sources also show insecurity on this point. According to Josephus’ representation of the Pharisees’ doctrine, only the good have
This evidence is confirmed by2Ma 7:9; 2Ma 7:11; 2Ma 7:23; 2Ma 12:43-45.… Ps. Sol. 3:12, which only know a resurrection to life. Enoch lxi. 5 speaks only of a resurrection of the elect, yet in li. 1, 2 there is a general giving-forth of the dead, among whom the righteous are chosen. But the general resurrection is in xxii. 13 restricted to this extent that the ungodly, who are already sufficiently punished, are not raised (xc. 18); while renegades from Israel are cast into Gehenna (xc. 26; cf. xxvii. 23).
On the other hand, Apoc. Bar. l., and Test. xii. Patr. xii. 10, clearly teach a general resurrection. In consequence, in 4Ezra 7:28-28(cf. Apoc. Mosis xiii.), the event of resurrection is doubted.
Obviously, this latter is the latest and most secondary idea, which one must not forthwith presuppose in Paul” (Titius, p. 51, note 1). This note is most suggestive as to the fluidity of eschatological belief, a phenomenon which is highly natural in a province where standards of comparison and the language of human life must prove inadequate. Volz notes, with reference to Rabbinic theology, that it is impossible to determine clearly whether they taught a resurrection of all men, or only of all Israel (op. cit., p. 247).]
It is of comparatively little importance to attempt to determine the place of the Resurrection among the events of the End. In his earlier Epistles, at least, we can gain a general idea of the apostle’s conception. The signal of the End is the Parousia itself, the manifestation of the Lord for judgment, and the completion of salvation.
Contemporaneous with the Parousia are the Resurrection of believers and the transformation of the living (Christians), who are then revealed in glory along with their glorified Lord. Their judgment can only mean, as has been pointed out in a former chapter, the unfolding to themselves in the presence of Christ of the comparative worth of their life and service.
We have already referred to the frequent use of
In the later Epistles he uses precisely for this second conception the noun ‘manifestation’ (Romans 8:19), and the verb ‘to appear’ (Colossians 3:4)” (Revue de Théol. et des Questions Religieuses, Jan. 1902, p. 80). We have in this chapter attempted to show that St Paul does not set forth two contradictory conceptions of the Resurrection in these two groups of passages, but only lays the emphasis on a different moment of thought. Further, it is inconceivable that he should make use of the rarer and altogether abnormal sense of the crucial term
But while far from accepting Bruston’s theory, we cannot help fancying that the apostle’s employment of the terms
Possibly the very fact that he ignores all discussion or characterisation of an Intermediate State, points to the supreme importance which he assigns to the future manifestation of believers with Christ in their
Perhaps, as he sought to fathom the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which were hidden in Christ, he felt less confidence even in the prophetic forecasts which had been a stable element in his eschatological thought. Perhaps he grew more and more to distrust the use of earthly imagery and pictures drawn from human experience, to body forth the circumstances of a life belonging to another order. Will not the Christian Church act wisely in following the example of her great spiritual teacher?
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). And the Spirit reveals spiritual truth, not physical or external processes.
The Spirit is the Divine pledge of a future life hid with Christ in God, not the historian of a sequence of outward events framed in the setting of this temporal world. At the most, it is enough for the apostle to give his readers approximations to the great, saving, final experiences. It is enough so to present these as to inspire them with the splendid certainty of Christian hope.
It will suffice for St Paul, as their spiritual father, with unfaltering faith to affirm, “Of this I am confident, that He which hath begun the good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Php 1:6). Do Christian men require any further assurance for their future?