1 Corinthians 15

27. To the gift of tongues is immediately attached that of interpretation. It is the gift of translating the language of ecstasy or of the Spirit into the language of the ordinary consciousness, and bringing it down to the comprehension of the whole congregation. For this reason Paul requires this gift as the complement to that of tongues; as by it alone the latter is made edifying to the hearers and conducive to the general good. 31. To prevent disorder and abuse the apostle directs, as in the case of speaking with tongues, that the prophets should prophesy not all at once, but one after another, that all may receive instruction and exhortation. 34. Every public act of this kind implies for the time being a superiority of the speaker over the hearers, and is also contrary to true feminine delicacy. Christianity has, indeed, vastly improved the condition of woman. It has brought the highest blessings of heaven within her reach. But it has not, in so doing, abolished the divine order of nature which restricts her to the sphere of private life. Here, in the quiet circle of the family, woman has the freest scope for the display of the fairest virtues. P. S.

37. Now, as in those apostolic days, he which is spiritual can show that he is so only “by acknowledging that the things which” those appointed teachers “wrote to us are the commandments of the Lord”; for the gift of the Holy Ghost to others is not a gift whereby they originate the knowledge of new truths, but a gift whereby they recognize and apprehend the old unchanging mystery, still receiving afresh the one revelation of Christ, ever approaching, never surpassing the comprehensive but immovable boundaries of the faith once delivered to the saints. This is the gift, the only gift, which we desire for our Church and for ourselves; for it is one which makes the written word a living word, which fills a church with joy, and seals a soul for glory. T. D. B.

40. Under this dispensation, worship is to be presented in spirit and in truth, not with many outward visible signs as under the law, but with two simple ordinances; the whole subject to the law of Christ, with the general rules given afterward by his apostles, ordaining that all things should “be done decently and in order,” and “for the edifying of the church.” J. A.—Some power the Church has in rites of decency and expediency and order, by virtue of this general canon (though it carries the face of a restraint rather than an allowance, and does not so much enlarge as moderate church-power), but, in the main matters, the Church can only declare laws, not make them; and, though in matters indifferent she can direct to what is suitable to order and decency, yet these directions should be so managed that they do not take away the nature of the thing, for though Christian liberty be restrained it must not be infringed. It is the sin of antichrist to usurp an authority over the Church of God; and it is the very spirit of antichristianism to give laws to the conscience. T. M.

1. MOREOVER, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also 2 ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory 3 what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first 4 of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip- 5 tures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scrip- 6 tures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that, he was seen of above 7 five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some 8 are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of 9 all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the 10 apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 11 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was 12 not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God 13 which was with me. Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye be- 14 lived.

12. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that 13 there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then 14 is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is 15 also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God 16 that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if 17 the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; 18 ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If 19 in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in 22 Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order. 23 Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the

24 end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall 25 have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put 26 all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath 27 put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is mani- 28 fest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

29. Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why 30 are they then baptized for the dead? and why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest 31 by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner 32 of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? 33 let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die. Be not deceived: evil communications cor- 34 rupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowl- edge of God: I speak this to your shame.

DEATH separates us. The saints cease from their beneficent service. The prophets do not live for ever. Can we bear it? In imagination—thank God, not otherwise—we can put ourselves out into that bleak desert, a Christless world. We ask there, and then ask here, Will these graves ever open? Shall I see the face of my mother, my child, my friend, whose spirit was rich in the gifts and graces of God? See it in an eternity of blessed, unbroken, undivided life? I know I shall. Jesus Christ has come, has died, has risen from the dead. Because he lives, his followers, one with him, shall live also. The resurrection is not only his. It is the resurrection of every believer on earth. The life-power is common to both. It is within the Christian heart. When the undying Christ liveth in us, we can never die. Be his, and you are already immortal, mortality being swallowed up of life. The glorious expectation enlarges itself. In the day of his appearing you shall appear, and with him. We know not what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like him. F. D. H.

CHAPTER 15 is reserved for the treatment of a great foundation doctrine of Christianity, the Resurrection of the Body. Seeing that this doctrine was repudiated by some at Corinth, it became necessary that it should be thoroughly expounded, as to its grounds, its analogies, its necessity. And thus we obtain one of the grandest and most precious portions of the apostolic writings. For record of the appearances of the Lord after his resurrection, for cogent argument binding his resurrection to ours, for assertion and implication of the great doctrine of his inclusive humanity, for revelation of holy mysteries imparted by special inspiration, for triumphant application of the phenomena and analogies of nature, no extant writing can compare with this chapter in its value to the Church, its power of convincing the mind and awakening Christian hope, its far-seeing confutation of the cavils and scoffs of all after-ages against the doctrine of the resurrection. A.

The First Epistle to the Corinthians—written before the earliest gospel—exhibits the resurrection as already part of an apostolical creed. According to Paul, the resurrection then rested upon the testimony of more than two hundred and fifty still living eye-witnesses. According to Paul, the resurrection is the very corner-stone of the whole fabric of Christian teaching. According to Paul, if the resurrection could be disproved, the apostles had propagated a lie in the name of God, and the idea that God had pardoned sin was an empty delusion. This unchallenged Epistle, you will observe, as no other book in the New Testament, rests the doctrine of the resurrection upon its historical base, and pursues it to its extreme theological consequences. In the light of this great truth we behold the whole multitude of the glorified and risen dead gathered at length beneath the throne of their risen Redeemer; and in them, according to no merely idealistic representation, but as an objective and literal fact foretold by the apostle, death is swallowed up by the victory of Triumphant Life. H. P. L.

1. The gospel which I preached.** All along, the apostle refers to what the Corinthians knew; to what he had “preached” among them; what they had “received” and “believed,” and “in which they stood.” This personal, oral teaching of his, of which he reminds them, had commenced about five or six years before, and had continued for about two years; for three or four years he had been absent from Corinth. During the whole of that time the Corinthians, so far as we know, had not in their possession a single apostolic writing, except, it might be, copies of the Epistles to the Thessalonians, which Paul wrote from Corinth soon after his settlement there, and with which his course of sacred authorship began. Though the Corinthians, however, had no Christian books, they had the Christian truth. They had no New Testament, but they had the ideas it was one day to contain. They had no written evangel, but they had the gospel itself; they “knew” it and “believed” it. Paul appeals to that knowledge and belief. He refers to the fact of his vocal instructions and living ministry.

3,4. The substance of Paul’s testimony was that the Christ died for our sins—was buried and revived. To these two things, which the apostle asserted and testified of Christ, everything in theology, religion, and morals—everything belonging to spiritual truth, human duty, hopes and prospects—may be referred. God, law, sin, penalty, divine government, future retribution, merciful arrangement, with all kindred and correlative truths, gather round the first; spiritual life, sonship, salvation, access to God, worship, song, favorable help, religious virtue, light in darkness, hope in death, faith apprehending and laying hold of “the things not seen”—these and all similar beliefs, experiences, and affections grow out of the second. Well considered, it ceases to be wonderful that Paul should compress into these two things the sum and substance of all he taught; that through them he expected to meet and to help humanity, to infuse into it a spiritual and divine life—“the life of God in the soul of man.” T. B.

5. He was seen of Cephas.** What passed then is hidden from all eyes. The secrets of that hour of deep contrition and healing love Peter kept secretly curtained from sight in the innermost chamber of his memory. But we may be sure that then forgiveness was sought and granted, and the bond that fastened him to his Lord was welded together again where it had snapped, and was the stronger because it had been broken, and at the point of fracture. A. M.—The Lord appears to the fallen Simon, and shows himself thus also in his second life the Saviour of sinners. He appears to Simon, first of all the apostles. Thus he is then really the Chief Shepherd of the sheep, who hath brought back with him from the dead the faithful shepherd heart.

7. Most probably the James here meant is the same who wrote the general Epistle, the brother of the Lord, held in high honor in the apostolic Church. He was thus one of those brethren who at one time did not believe on Jesus. The Saviour repays the life-long misjudgment of his brethren after the flesh by a special revelation to the eldest of them! What then took place between Him and James is surrounded with the veil of secrecy; enough: he casts the honest doubter down at his feet, and forthwith causes him to arise as witness of his resurrection. Not only Peter the penitent sinner, but also James the honest doubter, he sought out in their solitude. He wins those who thus grope about in twilight, if only they have a sincere desire after higher light in the soul. He who deliberately will not believe, ends, alas, by not being able to believe; yet—as we see in the case of James—to the upright ariseth light in the darkness. Van O.

10. More abundantly than they all.** We are astonished at the amount accomplished by a man, a single man. The wonderful activity of our apostle imparts to him a kind of omnipresence in all the Roman Empire, over the vast extent of which the name of Paul projects everywhere its immense shadow. What would have been the changes in the history of the world if this single man had not been born? Without Paul, who can estimate the immense results of this change in the maxims, the morals, the literature, the history, the entire development of the race? Monod.—Work you, and God is working in you mightily. Labor more abundantly than they all, and God’s grace is laboring in you. You are not to wait for God, but to work; for God is beforehand with you all the while. You are to wait upon God, but you are not to wait for God before you obey his command to work, for God is already waiting for you, and always working. Work while the day lasts, work in reliance upon God, work in expectation of a glorious harvest, and the more you work, and the more earnestly you work, the easier it will be, and by and by your reward and your rejoicing shall be great in the Lord. G. B. C.—With what grand confidence, then, may the weakest of us go to his task. We have a right to feel that in all our labor God works with us; that in all our words for him it is not we that speak but the Spirit of our Father that speaks in us; that if humbly and prayerfully, with self-distrust and resolute effort to crucify our own intrusive individuality, we wait for him to enshrine himself within us, strength will come to us, drawn from the deep fountains of God, and we, too, shall be able to say, “Not I, but the grace of God in me.” How this sublime confidence should tell on our characters, destroying all self-confidence, repressing all pride, calming all impatience, brightening all despondency, and ever stirring us anew to deeds worthy of the exceeding greatness of the power which worketh in us! A. M.

Verse 11 concludes what is preliminary to the main discussion, namely, that the message respecting the death and resurrection of Christ was taught unanimously by all the apostles, and was by them received as the foundation of their faith. “So ye believed.” Thus ye put confidence in it; that is, in this message ye received Christianity. Ruckert.—In verses 12–19, Paul’s object is to oversee that unbelief in the resurrection of the dead by heaping one upon another the conclusions to which, if fully and legitimately carried out, that unbelief would lead. W. H.

12. How say some no resurrection.** It is an appeal to men on their own principles. They believed one thing, that Christ rose, they denied another thing, the resurrection of man from death; but the belief of the first carried with it the second, the denial of the second destroyed the first. An argument this which would not be felt by philosophers who denied both things, but which, in respect to the men in question, admitted of no reply, and was adapted to excite the most serious apprehensions. As an appeal to their understanding, it convicted them of inconsistency and absurdity; as an appeal to their faith, it revealed to them issues which they had not considered and did not foresee. Putting together the different topics which the apostle rapidly touches—looking at their combined force as linked together in his cumulative argument—the result would seem to be this: That the error combated, if logically carried out, would just destroy

Christianity altogether—destroy it in its facts, its doctrines, its hopes, and its evidence. T. B.

14. Our preaching.** This preaching related to Christ, the reconciler of man with God, the liberator from the guilt of sin, the author of the right to eternal life for those united to him, and the founder of the Church of God, which embraces all nations without distinction. Paul avers that this preaching would be useless if Christ were not risen. If the work of redemption had not been accomplished, then the merits of Christ would have been of no service whatever, and the proclamation of his grace, failing in objective truth, would have been a declaration of falsehood.

15. False witnesses.** False testimony is the crime which is forbidden in the decalogue; how much more if this testimony relate to what God has done? The expressions are finely chosen so as to place the crime in as clear a light as possible. “We are found false witnesses.” We are not only such, but we are discovered to be such; we stand in that position. “False witnesses,” not deluded but deceivers—those who testify that they have seen what they have not seen. “False witnesses of God.” Ruckert.—They affirm an impossibility. And they affirm that God did it! that he did what he did not do; “that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up.” This pretended “testimony” could not, under the circumstances, be a mistaken opinion, an innocent mental error. It was a falsehood. We told a lie. We were “false witnesses”—false witnesses for God! the God of our fathers, whom we had been taught to reverence as “the God of truth”; by whom “words” and “actions” are “weighed”; whose “eyes behold” and approve the “upright”; and who “hates every false way!” T. B.—Yea, and among these men branded thus as false witnesses, if Christ did not really rise, Paul himself must be reckoned. That he should ever have such a brand affixed to him, that he should ever once be thought of as an impostor or deceiver, is there not something in the very manner of Paul’s speech here that tells us how monstrous to himself, and surely as incredible to others, the very supposition seemed? W. H.

16. This argument is founded on the union between Christ and his members: they so share his life that because he lives for ever they must live also; and conversely, if we deny their immortality, we deny his. C.

Is not Christ raised. But who is Jesus, if his sepulchre remains closed and he lives in no other manner than all the God-fearing dead? In no case the only Son of God, in the scriptural sense of the word, but a man of like passions as we, incapable even as the least of his brethren to subdue the united power of sin and death. Even less the faithful and true witness; because, if his unequivocal predictions concerning his resurrection have remained absolutely unfulfilled, there is no reason why men should thenceforth give unconditional credence to his word. Least of all, the absolutely sinless one; because, having died and remained in death, he may indeed on the cross have borne the penalty of our sins, but can not possibly have atoned for them. But thus neither is he the Redeemer, the Saviour of those lost but for him; and those who, with the hymn upon their lips, “Jesus lives, and we with him,” bravely face eternity, are indeed the simplest of the simple. Van O.

17. Christianity is nothing else than the fact and the message that in the death of Christ the sin of the world is expiated and taken away, and in his resurrection a new life of the spirit and of glory is restored. Christ, the crucified and risen, is the foundation of the Christian Church. If Christ is not risen, it is not this or that point in Christianity, but Christianity itself, that goes. An.

18. The dying believer sleeps in Jesus. How incomparably refreshing this language of Paul, “they which are fallen asleep in Christ”! What a fragrance exhales from the sacred urn! How does it embalm the very bodies of those whom we have given in charge to Christ! They sleep in Jesus. It is in his arms they have fainted away, and he holds, sustains, and embraces them. This, which seemed a calamity, is foreseen and contemplated in the covenant. Their very dying has a connection with the blessed Saviour, for it is joined to his dying. J. W. A.

If there be no resurrection of the dead, then they “who have fallen asleep in Christ” have perished. In other words, the best, the purest, the noblest of the human race have lived only to die for ever. For even our adversaries will grant us this, that since the days of Christ there have been exhibited to the world a purity, a self-sacrifice, a humility such as the world never saw before. Earth in all its ages has nothing which can be compared with “the noble army of martyrs.” Now you are called upon to believe that all these have perished everlastingly; that they served God, loved him, did his will, and that he sent them down like the Son of God into annihilation! You are required to believe that the pure and wise of this world have all been wrong, and the selfish and sensual all right. F. W. R.

19,20. We not only sacrifice everything for nothing, but the sublime virtue which we suppose is promoted within us, why even that is a dream and a delusion! We are not made for it; we are not God-born, and can not be God-like, if we were only created to perish. And that is all, “if there be no resurrection of the dead.” In this way, in effect,

Paul appeals to his own conduct, and to that of others like him, as a proof of the depth and intensity of their convictions in respect to the certainty of a future life. His asserted experience gave a character and weight to his words that made them a “testimony”; his consciousness of his veracity as a witness, and his confidence in the hopes that animated and upheld him, justified to himself the grand burst of feeling with which—waving off the sophistries of science, and presenting the truth as the explanation of his conduct—he uttered what embodied, in one pregnant sentence, the two ideas which had all along been interwoven into the texture of his argument: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and BECOME THE FIRSTFRUITS OF THEM THAT SLEEP.” T. B.

20. If those portions of the evangelic history which reach to the moment of the death of Christ are, in a critical sense, of the same historic quality as those which run on to the moment of his ascension, and if the former absolutely command our assent, if they carry it as by force, then, by a most direct inference, “is Christ risen indeed,” and become the first-fruits of immortality to the human race. Then is it true that, “as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” No narrative is anywhere extant comparable to that of the days and hours immediately preceding the crucifixion; and the several accounts of the hurried events of those days present the minute discordances which are always found to belong to genuine memoirs compiled by eye-witnesses. The Last Supper and its sublime discourses, the agony in the garden, the behavior of the traitor, the scenes in the hall of the chief priest, and before the judgment-seat of the Roman procurator, and in the palace of Herod, and in the place called the Pavement, and on the way from the city, and the scene on Calvary, are true, if anything in the compass of history be true. I. T.

The Lord is risen indeed! Such, we are told, were the joy-inspiring words with which each Lord’s-day morning, as they met for worship, the early Christians were wont to salute one another. And when we count over, as brought out in this wonderful chapter, all the benefits and blessings which that rising of the Lord secured, could they, we ask ourselves, have fixed upon a fitter phrase to express at once how rich their heritage, how full their joy, how bright their hope, how firm the foundation of their trust? W. H.—If Jesus Christ risen is indeed the object of our faith, then our religion is not merely the critical study of an ancient sacred literature. It is a vitally distinct thing from that. It is the communion of our spirits with a divine and everlasting being. Jesus Christ risen from his grave, arrayed in his glorious manhood, is seated on the throne of heaven. He is the midpoint, the center of the great empire of living souls. He is in communication, constant and intimate, with myriads of beings to whom, by his death, and by his triumph over death, and by his enduring and exhaustless life, he is made wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Yes, to believe in the risen Jesus is to live beneath a sky which is indeed bright. This is to believe that he is alive for evermore, and that he has the keys of hell and of death. H. P. L.—Now Jesus lives, and the resurrection is at the same time the amen of God and the subject of hallelujah to redeemed humanity. And this hallelujah shall never cease; for here triumphs, last and most glorious of all, the victory of life over death. Sing then now, O my soul, the psalm of life in this valley of the shadow of death! Arise, with the Prince of Life to a new life, in which the old power of sin and death is overcome; and journey onward dauntless toward thine own grave, lighted on the way by the glory of Christ’s resurrection! Van O.

22. The cause of death is Adam, and we die in him; therefore Christ, whose office is to restore what we lost in Adam, is to us the cause of life, and his resurrection is the foundation and pledge of ours. As the one was the original of death, so the other is of life. The apostle pursues the same comparison in the fifth chapter to the Romans, with this difference, that there he treats of spiritual life and death, but here of the resurrection of the body, which is the fruit of spiritual life. Calv.—As in Adam all die (his natural descendants are involved in his condemnation) even so in Christ shall all be made alive; that is, all that are spiritually united to him shall partake of his glorious resurrection. This glorious life is not given to all, but only to those who are united to him. As Adam, the principle of the carnal, corrupt nature, derives guilt and death to all his progeny, so Jesus Christ (who is opposed to him), the head and prince of the renewed state, communicates life and glory to his people. Bales.—The substitution of the suffering Christ for the perishing sinner arose directly out of the terms of the incarnation. The human nature which our Lord assumed was none other than the very nature of the sinner, only without its sin. The Son of God took on him human nature, not a human personality. As human nature was present in Adam when by his representative sin he ruined his posterity, so was human nature present in Christ our Lord, when, by his voluntary offering of his sinless self, He “bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” Christ is thus the second Head of our race. Our nature is his own. He carried it with him through life to death. H. P. L.

As certainly as all men died in Adam, so certainly shall all saints be made alive in Christ. We are to believe the one as steadfastly as we believe the other. We have perfect evidence that all men die a natural death. On an equally solid foundation rests the proof of the restoration to life of all who believe in Jesus. The nature of the argument is such as not to admit the allusion to the wicked. The apostle is comparing Adam and Christ as the heads or representatives of two races or series. In consequence of the sin of Adam all men die a natural death. Through Christ the bodies of all, that is of all believers, shall be made alive. Adam is placed at the head of one series or race. All his descendants suffer by virtue of their connection with him. Christ is the leader of another series, not identical in number with the other, for it is expressly limited. In the very next verse we read, “Each in his own order, Christ the first-fruits, afterward they who are Christ’s at his coming.” The wicked are not Christ’s; they do not belong to him. Christ is the first-fruits of all who sleep in him. The wicked are never said to fall asleep in Jesus. B. B. E.

24. What strictly belongs to the discussion is ended, for there is nothing more said of the resurrection. But the spirit of the apostle having once mounted up to that time when the resurrection has passed, or is about to take place, and the great spectacle has presented itself to his vision, then he feels constrained to finish the picture fully to that point, where all thought ceases, where all our imaginations fade away in the shoreless sea of eternity. Then the end! Not the end of all existence, but the end of this world as at present organized, the moment of the completion of all those things which belong to the divine plan of redemption, the end of time and the beginning of eternity, of which the apostle can say nothing further than “thus we shall be ever with the Lord.” Ruckert.—At the end the work given him to do shall have been finished. Those given him by the Father shall have been found out, redeemed, sanctified, saved, and gathered all together into one; their enemies, even death itself, shall have been subdued; and the whole scheme of providence shall have been developed and wound up. The mediator shall then appear and give in to the Father a full account of his mediatorial undertaking, presenting to him the kingdom in that state of consummation to which he shall then have brought it, and receiving from him a clear testimony of his approbation. This is perfectly consonant with the idea that the Son shall retain and exercise his mediatorial authority over his own proper kingdom for ever. “This kingdom,” says Theophylact, “he delivers to his Father by achieving and accomplishing the purposes of it.” We may add the language of Calvin, who says, “He only intends that in that perfect glory the administration of the kingdom will not be the same as it is at present.” W. S.

26. Christ is the Master and Lord of Death; he commits to his custody the bodies of his saints. As a shepherd keepeth watch over his flock by night, so is the “last enemy” compelled to watch over the dust of the holy dead; so is he stationed and commanded to serve, that they may be safe and undisturbed during their season of rest, and be raised again when the morning dawns! When that morning cometh, Death, having delivered up his trust, shall himself die; or, rather, he shall be destroyed and perish. Life will be conferred in every sense in which it will be possible. The gospel reveals not merely the immortality of the spirit, but the immortality of humanity; our whole nature, “body, soul, and spirit,” shall be purified and perfected, and endowed with endless and incorruptible life! T. B.

27. The words, “he hath subjected all things under his feet,” are borrowed from Ps. 8 : 7, and thus God is to be understood in the otherwise very remarkable omission of the subject. The “subjection” is nothing else than the act of the divine will, by which the Son is clothed with the power and the right to rule over all, and to subdue all enemies, as Jesus says of himself, “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth.” Ruckert.

29. The punctuation should stand thus: “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for them?” A.—The following is the commentary of Ambrose: “Paul, in order to show that the doctrine of the resurrection was perfectly established, quoted the example of those persons who were so secure of a future resurrection that they were even baptized for the dead if one died before having received that rite, fearing either that the deceased would not rise at all or only to condemnation. Thus a living man was baptized in the name of the dead. Whence Paul subjoins, ‘Why are they baptized for them?’ By this example, he did not approve their custom, but by it he wished to show how firm was the faith in a resurrection.” Paul speaks of a usage which was perfectly well known to the Corinthians, while contemporary notices of it are wanting to us. In favor of the interpretation above maintained, we have the very important consideration that every word is taken in its natural sense, and thus the exposition originates from the words themselves. Most, if not all, the other modes of solution do violence, in a greater or less degree, to some one if not to all the words in the clause. B. B. E.

30,31. A second argument, which has no connection with verse 29, except what exists in the kindred nature of the object. The exertions of the Corinthians in their baptism for the benefit of others were futile if there were no resurrection; so likewise would the labors and sacrifices of the

31. By your rejoicing.** This should read, “by the glorying which I have of you.” A.—I die daily. Jesus Christ has not abolished our sufferings and our mortality, but he has made them what they never could have been without him, a bitter dew which develops and matures in our souls the blessed germ of faith. A. V.—Were this crucial test of discipleship the willing surrender of self in all its forms, its will, its pleasure, its righteousness, insisted on in the Church as it is in the gospel, we fear it would be found that the offense of the cross had not ceased. But, on the other hand, were all who are Christ’s to show the holy triumph there is in giving up all for him, the deep joy in being partakers of his sufferings, the blessed life that comes through daily death in him, how powerfully would the ancient glory of the cross be vindicated. A. J. G.

32. The punctuation should stand, “What doth it profit me? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink.” A.—We must take the expression figuratively, as referring to some collision with hostile and infuriated men, not less painful to him—in some instances scarce less perilous—than if he had been cast among those hungry monsters from the desert, beneath whose bloody fangs so many of the earliest martyrs died. W. H.—If the future life were no Christian doctrine, then the whole apostolic life, nay, the whole Christian life, were a monstrous and senseless folly. For Paul’s life was one great living death; he was ever on the brink of martyrdom. Figuratively, speaking popularly, “after the manner of men,” he had fought as with wild beasts at Ephesus. Grant an immortality, and all this has a meaning; deny it, and it was in him a gratuitous folly. And again, if the soul be not immortal, Christian life, not merely apostolic devotedness, is “a grand impertinence.” “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” was the motto and epitaph of Sardanapalus; and if this life be all we defy you to disdisprove the wisdom of such reasoning. How many of the myriads of the human race would do right for the sake of right, if they were only to live fifty years and then die for evermore? Besides, with our hopes of immortality gone, the value of humanity ceases, and people become not worth living for. We have not got a motive strong enough to keep us from sin. Christianity is to redeem from evil; it loses its power if the idea of immortal life be taken away. No! If there be in us only that which is born of the flesh, only the mortal Adam, and not the immortal Christ, if to-morrow we die, then the conclusion can not be put aside, “Let us eat and drink, for the present is our all.” F. W. R.

Let but the day come when it shall be fearlessly and commonly professed that “Death is annihilation,” and that therefore the pleasures of appetite, graced by intelligence, are the whole portion of man, and this horrible opinion shall quickly become parent to a giant cruelty, loftier in stature, and more malign than any the earth has hitherto beheld. Even the most sanguinary superstitions have had some profession of sanctity to maintain; a reserve, a saving hypocrisy, a balance of sentiments, which has set bounds to their demand of blood. But atheism is a simple element; it has no restraining motive, and must act like itself, with a dreadful ingenuousness. And with what vehemence of spite shall this monster, should he ever win the scepter of the world, turn and search on all sides for the residue of those who, by their testimony in favor of the future life, sicken his gust of pleasure, and make pallid his joyous and florid health. I. T.

33,34. Here we have the conclusion of the discussion whether the dead are raised, together with a delineation of the moral corruption to which skepticism, on this subject, would lead, coupled with a solemn warning. The discussion is conducted before the whole, in order to confirm the believers, to restore the wavering to confidence, to confute the opponents, and, if not to convert them, at least to render them harmless. Ruckert.

35. But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: and that which thou

37 sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or

38 of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

39. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of

40 beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

42. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorrup- 43 tion: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in 44 power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, 45 and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living 46 soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is 47 spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man 48 is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such 49 are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 50 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 51 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nei- 52 ther doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not 53 all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 54 trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall 55 be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on 56 immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall 57 have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is 58 swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 59 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which 60 giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be 61 ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know 62 that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

HERE, on a lowly bed, in an English village by the sea, fades out the earthly life of one of God’s hum- blest but noblest servants. Worn with the patient care of deserted prisoners and malefactors in the town jail for twenty-four years of unthanked service, earning her bread with her hands, and putting songs of worship on the lips of these penitent criminals—she is dying; and as the night falls some friend asks, “What shall I read?” The answer of the short breath is one firm syllable, “Praise!” To the ques- tion, “Are there no clouds?” “None; he never hides his face. It is our sins which form the cloud between us and him. He is all love, all light.” And when the hour of her departure was fully come, “Thank God, thank God!” And there, in his princely residence, surrounded with the insignia of power, but in equal weakness before God, expired a guileless statesman, nobleman by rank and character, calmly resigning back all his power into the Giver’s hands, saying, at the end, “I have been the happiest of men, yet I feel that death will be gain to me, through Christ who died for me.” Blessed be God for the mani- fold features of triumphant faith! that he suffers his children to walk toward him through ways so vari- ous in their outward look: Sarah Martin from her cottage bed, Earl Spencer from his gorgeous couch, little children in their innocence, unpretending women in the quiet ministrations of faithful love, strong and useful and honored men whom suffering households and institutions and churches mourn—all bend- ing their faces toward the Everlasting Light, in one faith, one cheering hope, called by one Lord, who has overcome the world, and dieth no more! The sun sets; the autumn fades; life hastens with us all. But we stand yet in our Master’s vineyard. All the days of our appointed time let us labor righteously, and pray and wait, till our change come, that we may change only from virtue to virtue, from faith to faith, and thus from glory to glory! F. D. H.

In following the train of argument contained in this chapter it must be clearly kept in remembrance that the error combated by Paul was not the denial of immortality but the denial of a resurrection. The ultra-spiritualizers in Corinth did not say, “Man perishes for ever in the grave,” but, “The form in which the spirit lives shall never be re- stored.” F. W. R.

35. Having now sufficiently considered the ques- tion respecting the fact of a resurrection, the apostle proceeds to the second inquiry respecting the man- ner of it, and the condition of the bodies which shall be raised. The transition to this point he effects by raising an objection, “but here some one may say.” We may conclude that the mode, the how, occasioned the principal difficulty to the spec- ulating Corinthians; that the inconceivableness, the impossibility of the resuscitation of a dead and wasted corpse was perhaps the great stone of stumbling. Two questions are suggested. In the first place, how are the dead raised, and secondly, with what bodies do they come forth from the tomb? In the following verses the apostle gives the answer. Ruckert.

36. The emphasis should be laid on “thou” before “sowest.” This would be effectually provided for if we rendered “that which thou thyself sowest.” A.

37-44. The apostle distinctly states—it is indeed the only piece of positive information that he conveys—that the body which is to be raised is not to be the same body as was buried. It is to be as different from it as the seed which corrupts beneath the sod is from the blade and stem and leaf and flower and fruit which spring out of it. And why should it be thought wonderful that out of death a new life should spring, when we have in nature before our eyes such wonderful transformations in the vegetable and the insect worlds? Why should it be thought a wonderful thing that the new body, with which the soul in its new estate is to be clothed, should be a very different kind of body from what it wore before, when we have before us thus in nature such an endless variety of bodies of all kinds, as if in the exuberance of his creative power the Almighty delighted to spread out innumerable specimens of diversity, in form and qualities and functions, in the bodies celestial and terrestrial which his hand hath formed. Has that abounding, overflowing energy of the Great Creator expended, exhausted itself in things as they now are? Are no further, no higher illustrations and exhibitions of itself to be made in that new stage and state of things toward which our present mundane economy is progressing? If so great a change is coming as that these heavens and this earth are to undergo some mighty revolution, and to be transformed into the new heavens and new earth, wherein righteousness is to reign with undivided empire, might we not expect that the redeemed, ennobled, purified spirits that are to dwell upon that new earth and beneath those new heavens shall be wedded to corporeal frames of a constitution very different from that of our earthly bodies? And so the apostle teaches us it is to be: the weakness, the dishonor, the corruptibility of the present body to be exchanged for the power, the glory, the incorruptibility of a body so very different from the present, that to express that difference the apostle has to make use of language bordering upon the self-contradictory, and to call it, as distinguished from the existing one, a spiritual body. W. H.

38. Though the kernel die, be buried, and meet with all this change in these things, yet none of them can cause the nature of the kernel to cease; it is wheat still. Wheat was sown, and wheat arises; only it was sown dead, dry, and barren wheat, and riseth living, beautiful, and fruitful wheat. “God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him; but to every seed his own body.” Bun.—The bodies of believers are lost only in the sense in which seed is lost which we cast into the ground. It returns to dust; but the day is coming when it shall be raised and glorified. It is the day when our Lord shall bring with him all those who sleep in Jesus. They are as safe as the very angels. Their bodies in the tomb, their souls in paradise. J. W. A.

43. The body is sown in dishonor. When laid in the grave it is disfigured. With the principle of life its comeliness has also departed. But it shall be raised in glory. It shall shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of its Father. The most lofty and unattainable ideal of beauty which ever floated before the vision of the great masters of poetry and painting will doubtless fall far short of that which shall be realized when this mortal shall put on immortality. B. B. E.—Glory is the sweetness, comeliness, purity, and perfection of a thing. The light is the glory of the sun, strength is the glory of youth, and gray hairs are the glory of old age. That is, it is the excellency of these things and that which makes them shine. Therefore, to arise in glory, it is to arise in all the beauty and utmost completeness that is possible for a human creature to possess, in all its features and members inconceivably beautiful. Bun.—To the Christian, death is the liberation of the life-principle for an untold career of power and glory. The utmost grandeur of existence is opened to him whose “life is hid with Christ in God.” Where science speaks of improvement, Christianity speaks of renovation; where science speaks of development, Christianity speaks of sanctification; where science speaks of progress, Christianity speaks of perfection. And where, in the whole vocabulary of science, are terms to match these three—incorruption, glory, power? J. P. T.

44. The natural body is such as is appropriate to the psyché, the animal soul, the life, anima, as it occurs in the three terms, 1 Thes. 5 : 23. The natural body is fitted to be an abode and an instrument for this animal life, being earthly and sensual like this life. Thus, also, the spiritual body is such as is fitted to the pneuma, the higher, the spiritual nature of man, being such in its material and its form as qualifies it to serve the spirit in its destined higher and nobler existence, which first begins in perfection when the spirit is released from the body of death (Rom. 7 : 24), and at the same time from the psyché, the animal life, which is probably regarded by the apostle as not destined to a continued existence. A clear description of such a body Paul was as little able to give as we ourselves. He naturally contemplated it as made of finer and more delicate materials than this earthly body. Besides this mere comparative indication of resemblance, he has asserted nothing in respect to its nature. Paul contents himself with a single thing, which he makes it necessary for man to believe, namely, that the new life is a purer, better life than this present one; it is a life of the spirit. Ruckert.—As the soul, with all those instincts, appetites, capacities, desires, which fit it for the present scene of things, has got in this body of flesh and blood an instrument admirably adapted to its uses and ends, so he affirms shall the regenerated spirit be yet supplied with an instrument of its own, still more fully and exquisitely adapted to its higher, future, eternal life. There is the soul-body now; there shall be that spirit-body hereafter.

45. Our soul-being, or our natural being, he traces up to our first parent, derived from him by inheritance; our spiritual being he traces up to Jesus Christ, derived from him in an altogether different way. The first man Adam was made a living soul, and such a living soul as he got from his Creator, and turned it into by transgression, he has transmitted to all our race. The last Adam—the second great head or center of our humanity—is a quickening Spirit. W. H.

45-47. All that the first Adam had brought upon us of ignominy, degradation, and death, the second Adam took upon himself, and by taking it he put it for ever away. Sin had made human nature corrupt and foul, and the sinless Man cleansed it from the awful taint. Death had made man his prey, and set up, as it seemed, a universal empire, and the human Lord of Life broke in pieces that dread dominion. He did not merely reverse the sentence of death by an arbitrary annulling of it, but he did so by the actual victory of life over death, in the same nature which had become subject to death. The Life of God in man vanquished death; it was impossible that that life could be holden of death. The first Adam was made “a living soul,” and therefore could only transmit to his posterity the natural life, tainted with sin, and containing in it the seed of death. The second Adam was “a quickening spirit,” having life in Himself, and of power to impart that life to others: because the first Adam was “of the earth, earthy”; the second Adam was “the Lord from heaven.” Perowne.

49. We shall bear the image of the heavenly. It is a part of the plan of redemption that the bodies of believers shall rise. The mission of the Son of God will not be complete till every one of his followers shall have a glorified body like that of the risen Redeemer. He can not witness the full travail of his soul till the sea has given up her dead, till every tomb, where were deposited the remains of the feeblest of his disciples, has restored its trust, till those little ones, millions of whom fell asleep in his dear arms, shall spring to new life in their Father’s house. There is no land of forgetfulness. The grave is vital now. It is a region of soft and pleasant slumbers. There is an almighty and an omniscient Watcher over all these sleepers. B. B. E.

If, even upon the rude materials which such hearts as ours present, that holy image of Jesus has begun to be formed, then let us be assured that, as fully and as perfectly as we ever bore the image of the earthy, the image of the heavenly shall yet be borne by us; for, though we know not what we shall be hereafter, we do know this, that when he shall appear we shall then be like him, for we shall see him as he is, body, soul, and spirit, all then transformed, transfigured, this very dull, opaque, corporeal frame wrought into the same image, radiant with the same glory, the whole man raised up to meet the Lord at his coming, and, by that seeing of him as he is, to be translated into his likeness. W. H.

50. It is nowhere asserted in the New Testament that we shall rise again with our bodies. Unless a man will say that the stalk, the blade, and the ear of corn are actually the same thing with the single grain which is put into the ground, he can not quote Paul as saying that we shall rise again with the same bodies. Nothing can be plainer than the expression which he uses, Thou sweet not that body that shall be. He says also, with equal plainness, of the body, It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. These words require to be examined closely, and involve remotely a deep metaphysical question. In common language, the terms body and spirit are accustomed to be opposed, and are used to represent two things which are totally distinct. But Paul here brings the two expressions together, and speaks of a spiritual body. Paul therefore did not oppose body to spirit; and though the looseness of modern language may allow us to do so, and yet to be correct in our ideas, it may save some confusion if we consider spirit as opposed to matter, and if we take body to be a generic term, which comprises both. A body, therefore, in the language of Paul, is something which has a distinct individual existence. Paul tells us that every individual, when he rises again, will have a spiritual body; but the remarks which I have made may show how different is the idea conveyed by these words from the notions which some persons entertain, that we shall rise again with the same identical body. Paul appears effectually to preclude this notion, when he says, Flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God. Burton.—In opposition to a gross identification of the present body with the resurrection body, which lies at the ground of the objection urged, Paul asserts a distinction between the two—a distinction, however, which does not exclude the identity of the fundamental substance or germ. Amid the constant change in our bodies, there is something fixed, which makes us recognizable as the same from the cradle to the grave—something which gives form, feature, and organization to this ever-moving current of matter which is momentarily condensed into what we call our bodies. And what is this but the plastic principle of life which is ever shaping the materials which nature gives it for its own uses, and in accordance with an inward law which molds us after our kind. Lange.

51. All be changed. The better life, which the dead in Christ are living now, leads on to a still

fuller life when they get back their glorified bodies. The perfection of man is body, soul, and spirit. That is man, as God made him. The spirit perfected, the soul perfected, without the bodily life, is but part of the whole. For the future world, in all its glory, we have the firm basis laid that it, too, is to be in a real sense a material world, where men once more are to possess bodies as they did before, only bodies through which the spirit shall work conscious of no disproportion, bodies which shall be fit servants and adequate organs of the immortal souls within, bodies which shall never break down, bodies which shall never hem in nor refuse to obey the spirits that dwell in them, but which shall add to their power, and deepen their blessedness, and draw them closer to the God whom they serve and the Christ after the likeness of whose glorious body they are fashioned and conformed. “Body, soul, and spirit”—the old combination which was on earth is to be the perfect humanity of heaven. A. M.

We learn that the intermediate state of the believer between death and the resurrection is not in all respects absolutely perfect. Doubtless it is a state of unminded enjoyment. The separated spirit is in that condition which Paul denominates “far better.” In one sense it may be perfectly happy. Its existing capacities for enjoyment may all be filled. But still, in another sense, it has not reached its goal. It is not clothed upon with its spiritual body. It has not received its last accession of delight. It must be reunited to its transfigured companion before the measure of its joys shall be perfectly full. It can not, indeed, be imagined, that the soul is unhappy, that through anxiety it suffers any degree of disquiet or pain. We may rather suppose that it is in a state of calm expectation and hope; that it looks forward with pleasing anticipations to the period when it shall enter its new home, fitted up with divine skill for its reception. Thus this anticipation itself, or as it might be called, in one sense, imperfection, becomes a source of delight, while still a richer experience awaits it when the corruptible body shall put on incorruption. B. B. E.

52. The last trump.** The word “last,” as Billroth has correctly remarked, does not mean that there are to be several blasts of a trumpet on the final day, and that this was the last which should be blown, but simply that it would be the trumpet of the last day, after which no more would be heard. Then follow the resurrection and the transformation of the living, the certainty of which is again declared by the remark, that it was necessary that the corruptible should put on incorruption, and the mortal, immortality. Ruckert.

53. It is HUMAN NATURE, in its essential elements, that is to inherit eternity; not an ethereal rudiment, just saved from the wreck of the former fabric, and just serving to connect, as by a film of identity, the earthly with the heavenly state. It is THIS MORTAL that must put on Immortality; the very nature now subject to dissolution is to escape from the power of death and to clothe itself in imperishable vigor. Do we want at once confirmation and exemplification of this doctrine? We have both in the resurrection of the Lord. I. T.—Let us therefore look upon this flesh, not so much with contempt of what it was and is, as with a joyful hope of what it shall be. And when our courage is assaulted, with the change of these bodies from healthful to weak, from living to dead, let us comfort ourselves with the assurance of this change from dust to incorruption. We are not so sure of death as of transfiguration. “All the days of our appointed time we will therefore wait, till our changing shall come.” Bp. H.

54. The man, in dying, begins to be what he fully is when he is dead, “dead unto sin,” dead unto the world, that he may “live unto God,” that he may live with God, that he may live really. And so we can look upon that ending of life and say: “It is a very small thing; it only cuts off the fringes of my life; it does not touch me at all.” It only strips off the circumferential mortality, but the soul rises up untouched by it, and shakes the bands of death from off its immortal arms, and flutters the stain of death from off its budding wings, and rises fuller of life because of death, and mightier in its vitality in the very act of submitting the body to the law, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Men speak about life as “a narrow neck of land betwixt two unbounded seas”: they had better speak about death as that. It is an isthmus, narrow and almost impalpable, on which, for one brief instant, the soul poises itself; while behind it there lies the inland lake of past being, and before it the shoreless ocean of future life, all lighted with the glory of God, and making music as it breaks even upon these dark, rough rocks. Death is but a passage. It is not a house, it is only a vestibule. The grave has a door on its inner side. We roll the stone to its mouth and come away, thinking that we have left them there till the resurrection. But, when the outer access to earth is fast closed, the inner portal that opens on heaven is set wide. Death is a superficial thing, and a transitory thing—a darkness that is caused by the light, and a darkness that ends in the light—a trifle, if you measure it by duration; a trifle, if you measure it by depth. The death of the mortal is the emancipation and the life of the immortal! A. M.

55-57. The discussion is concluded. The apostle has arrived at the point when his spirit, standing at the portals of eternity, can think of nothing more than that for it finiteness and mortality have ceased. His own soul is now full of the elevation and glory of the object, and as a fine conclusion there flows from his pen a brief but striking triumphal song. Ruckert.—The sight of these millions of the changed and the raised of that resurrection-day standing up clothed with incorruption and immortality, rescued fully and rescued for ever from the dominion of sin and death, the thought that he too and all those who already were one with him in Christ should be sharers in the triumph of that day, swell the apostle’s breast with the present sense of victory. With brightening eye, elastic tread, and tones that tell of triumph, he turns upon the tyrant death and exclaims, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” No idle challenge this; no empty vaunt; no making light of death by one who knows not what death truly is, what makes it not only a sad thing but a terrible thing to die. In the very height and rapture of his triumph over the last enemy, he is calm enough between the challenge and the thanksgiving to interject the statement, “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.” The deep consciousness of transgression, not simply the remembrance of individual, distinct acts of guilt, but the agonizing, overwhelming consciousness of an unclean heart, an ungodly life, the going into the divine presence with all that accumulated weight of a lifetime’s iniquity upon the soul—this it was that in Paul’s judgment gave its true sting to death, made it an appalling thing to die—not the pains of dissolution, not the tearing away from all the well-known and familiar things of life, not the darkness and the loneliness of dying. The barbed and venomed dart which death holds in his hand, and which he is ready, if the poison be not beforehand taken out of it, to thrust stingingly, witheringly, consumingly into the soul, is sin. W. H.

57. The penitent at first may mournfully say, “‘The sting of death is sin—the strength of sin is the law’; ‘Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me’ from this double destruction?"—but, becoming a believer as well as a penitent, and awakening up to the apprehension of the gospel and the hope it inspires, his tone changes from mourning to music, from despair to exultation, as he bursts forth: “‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God that giveth me the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ True, ’the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law,’ but Christ by his atonement takes away, for every penitent that believeth on him, the sting from death and the strength from sin, by procuring for him pardon, in harmony with the principles of that law which is itself the strength of the one, and which causes it to become the sting of the other.” T. B.—Therefore it is a victory not won by the believer himself, not achieved by the strength of his own will or the power of his own faith, for which Paul here gives thanks—it is a victory given, won by another, won by our great Lord and Master for us over death and the grave; when by becoming sin for us he drew its poison out of that sting of death, and stripped it of its power to inflict the second death upon the soul; when by putting himself under the law, magnifying it both in its precept and in its penalty, he made it to be a just thing in God to justify all who believe in him, and turned the very law that gave its strength to sin into a bulwark of defense securing the safety of the redeemed—won by him when he burst the barriers of the tomb, writing deliverance for our race upon his empty sepulchre, and in his own resurrection securing that of all his followers. And it is both a present and a future victory thus won for us by Christ; a present victory—Paul speaks of it as such when he thanks God for the gift of it even here and now—yet a victory to be only consummated when this mortal shall have put on immortality. W. H.—Such are the prerogatives and splendors in store for us: immediately beyond the grave a disembodied life of holiness and bliss in the presence of our Lord, and on the morning of the resurrection a reembodied life in the new Jerusalem. And may this crowning vision of glory never fail us under any burden of sorrow, in any weariness of labor, in any sharpness of conflict. Let us keep clean the feet which aspire to the golden streets, and keep clean the hands which would grasp the palm-branches of that final triumph. R. D. H.

58. An exhortation to steadfast confidence on the one side; on the other, to inflexible loyalty. “Therefore, my beloved brethren,” thus he concludes, “be ye steadfast, unmovable,” that is to say, in your most holy faith, in which ye are strengthened anew. Steadfast against yourselves, immovable against influence from without which might undermine and shake you. And not merely steadfast in the fiercely contested confidence of faith, but inflexibly loyal to our earthly and heavenly calling: “Always abounding in the work of the Lord.” The task may be difficult, the strength small, the resistance great, the temptation to stop in the middle of our course almost irresistible, yet it is only to him that endureth to the end that the crown of life is promised, and no fidelity shall fail wherever it is known, by well-assured belief, that labor in the Lord can not possibly be vain. Van O.