Beyond the shadow; or, The resurrection of life

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THE FREEDOM OF FAITH.
By Rev. THEO. T. MUNGEK,
Congregational Minister, Mass., U.S.
Contents.
Prefatory Essay: "The New ; Science. 10. Immortality and Na-
Theology." Sermons, l. On Re- tore. 11. Immortality asTaugnl
ception of New Truth. -J. God I by the Christ. 12. The Christ's
our shield. I.— 3. God our Re- ; Treatment of Death. 18. The
warrl. 11.— 1. Love to the Christ Resurrection from the Dead. 14.
as a Person. 5. The Christ's Pity. The Method of Penalty. 15. The
»;. The Christ as a Preacher. ! Judgment, lij. Life a Gain. 1".
7. Laud Tenure. 8. Moral En- Things to he Awaited.
vironment. 9. Immortality and .

•■ Earnest and helpful in a rare
degree." — Evaniielical Maga-
zine.

" One of the ablest attempts to
define ihat isomewnat nebulous
phase of present-day thought and
feeling which is popularly spoken

of as ' The New Theology," so
that it may he delivered from the
charge of vagueness."— Christian
Leader.

" A book of unusual strength,
freshness, and inspiration."—
Boston Li I era> n World.

London: James Clarke and Co., 13 and 14, Fleet-street, E.C.

IFwt&om of JfatiFj SSeros.

BEYOND THE SHADOW

BEYOND THE SHADOW

OR,

THE RESURRECTION OF LIFE.

\u*

BY

JAMES MORRIS WHITON, Ph.D.,

Pastor of the First Congregational Church, New Jersey, U.S.A.

THIRD THOUSAND.

0ffo IfOtk:

THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 & 3, BIBLE HOUSE.

^vvW\

747373

\ND

* 1917 L

TO THE

BROTHERHOOD OF THE BEREAVED,

WHO LONG TO KNOW ALL THAT MAT EE KNOWN
OF THE

STATE OF THE DEAD,

QHjcse Stitofcs upon tfje Eesurrectton

ARE DEDICATED
BY

ONE OF THEIK NUMBER.

PEEFACE.

The following pages are reprinted from the
last edition, revised by the Author for the
present publication, of a work which, since its
first appearance in America, three years ago,
lias received very favourable notice from
journals of the highest character, particularly
from such as insist upon the need of recasting
some ancient forms of thought.

Though a question may not be capable of
receiving a complete answer, it will not cease
to be asked, until it receives an answer, both
as complete and as correct as the conditions of
the case permit. Hence it is that the question
of Paul's time, How are the dead raised tip,
and with what body do they come ? — notwith-
standing our conviction that only experience
can completely answer it — is repeated to-day,
with an interest still unsatisfied. We are not
satisfied with the beliefs expressed in the
inscriptions to be read upon the ancient

X TREFACE.

monuments : " Here ive expect the Besurrec-
tion" " Here awaiting the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ."

Christian feeling, instructed by the spirit of
the Gospel, has silently swung away from
notions so drearily comporting with the repul-
sive emblems of decay and death that are fre-
quently associated with them by monkish art.
Especially has modern learning come to regard
with invincible repugnance the claim of resus-
citation for that which has seen corruption,
and returned to elemental forms.

The materials of a more Christian, reason-
able, and comforting view oi the subject have
been slowly accumulated, and it seems high
time to attempt some well-digested expression
of what is widely, though more or less co-
herently thought. This, partly for the sake
of removing a scandal to Christian intelli-
gence, and partly to reveal the cheering
reality of the Christian hope to those on
whom the shadows have fallen.

The notion of a grand and far-off miracle,
simultaneously reclothing the disembodied
spirits of the innumerable dead with the
revitalised dust, or any part of it, that once

PEE FACE. XI

"belonged to them, is fit company for the
notion, once equally respectable, of the dam-
nation of unbaptized infants, or the notion of
the universe created in a week out of nothing.

What Christ has taught us, if we can
receive it directly from Him, and not at
second-hand, with additions or subtractions,
is, that each of us, at death, comes to Resur-
rection in the orderly processes of nature,
not by miracle ; while they in whom the
Spirit of Christ is "the soul of the soul"
enter into that fulness of life which is the
Resurrection, the Christian Resurrection, the
perfected state to which the New Testament
points, as the goal of Christian endeavour.

Christian feeling has already groped its way
toward this conception, and, with more or
less vagueness of thought, habitually speaks of
the blessed dead as in heaven. It is em-
barrassed, however, by certain notions about
the Second Advent and the Last Judgment,
which have been borrowed substantially from
Jewish rabbis, and linger to-day as a pro-
digious anachronism in Christian thought.
Consequently, a Christian revision of current
ideas of the Advent and the Judgment is

Xll PREFACE.

inseparable from any satisfactory treatment of
the subject of the Resurrection. And, indeed,
in view of the wearisome fiction and absurdity
in which these themes of central importance
have been involved, there can hardly be any
better service to faith in the conflict with
scepticism than, if possible, to extricate Chris-
tian thought from modes of thinking upon
Christ's transcendent promises and warnings,
which are essentially pagan or Judaistic,
rather than Christian.

For the sake of keeping the main track of
thought unimpeded and clear, the discussion
of many inevitable questions of interpretation
has been thrown into Notes appended to the
several chapters. Thoughtful readers will find
some, at least, of these Notes as interesting
as any part of the book.

The occasional use of the pronoun I is due
to the fact that these studies upon the Resur-
rection were originally given, in the form of
lectures and sermons, to a congregation, in
response to whose request their first publica-
tion, in an expanded form, was made.

J. M. W.

Wylde Green, Birmingham,
August 26, 1884.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Present Difficulty — Christian Thought

OUTGROWING THE CREEDS 1

Note A.— The Testimony of the Principal Christian

Creeds 15

Note B. — The Opinions of the Jews concerning- the

Resurrection 25

II. The Resurrection a Continuous Reality . 29
Note A. — Christ's Argument with the Sadducees. —

Luke xx. 34—38 42

Note B.— Resurrection now and henceforth. — John

v. 24-29 44

III. The Resurrection Exemplified in the Risen

Christ 40

Note A. — Christ's Resurrection not completely

Manifested till His Ascension. — John xx. 14 — 17 . CC
Note B. — Resurrection Distinct from Reanimation.

—1 Cor. xv. 20 G8

Note C— The Resurrection of the Jewish Saints. —

Matt, xxvii. 51—53 60

Note D.— Where was Christ between His Death

and Resurrection ? — Lxike xxiii. 43 . . . .71
Note E.— Mortal Bodies Quickened.— Rom. viii.

10-14 73

Note F. — The Redemption of our Body. — Rom. viii.

23 75

IV. The Resurrection an Object of Christian

Endeavour, Attained at Death . . .79
Note A — Anastasis and Exanastasis. — Phil. iii. 11. 99
Note B.— Augustine's View of Future Punishment. 100

XIV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER TAGE

V. The Coming of Christ in His Kingdom a
Reality of the Past, the Present, and the
Future 101

Note A.—'" The Regeneration." — Matt. xix. 28 . 125

Note B.— The Judgment of the World by the
Saints.-l Cor. vi. 2 12S

Note C. — The Angels' Prophecy of Christ's Coming.
—Acts i. 10, 11 130

Note D. — The Resm-rection at Christ's Coming. —

1 Cor. xv. 22, 23 133

VI. Judgment a Present and Perpetual Reality

in both Worlds 139

Note A. — Physical Catastrophes and Wonders con-
sidered as "Judgments" 158

Note B. — Judgment as Represented in the Creeds . 159
VII. The Last Judgment not Delayed till the

Resurrection 1G3

VIII. Particulars Elucidated by Principles . . 193

Note A. — Resurrection a Reality prior to the His-
torical Appearance of Christ- — 1 Cor. xv. 20 . . 224

Note B. — The Doctrine of a Past Resurrection. —

2 Tim. ii. 18 226

Note C. — David's Resurrection. — Acts' ii. 34 . . 227
Note D— The End of the World at the Day of the

Lord.— 2 Pet. iii. 10— 13 228

IX. The Resurrection a Development, not a

Miracle 231

Note A.— The "Thousand Years," or "The Mil-
lennium." — Rev. xx. 4 258

Note B. — " The First Resurrection." — Eer. xx. 5 . 260

Note C. — The Binding and Loosing of Satan, con-
nected in Prophecy with the First Resurrection.
— Rev. xx. 1— 3, 7— 9 2G3

Note D.— " The End "— " God All in all. "—1 Cor.

xv. 24-28 . 267

X. Summary and Conclusion . . . • .271

AUTHORS NOTE TO THE SECOND
AMERICAN EDITION.

The notices which this work has received during the
few months since its first publication are characteristic
of our period of transition from old to new ways of think-
ing. Some have regarded it as fairly expressing the
unformulated convictions of many devout believers ;
others, as unsettling fundamental Christian verities.
Such divergences of the judgment of Christian readers
betoken the progressing change in the Christian way of
thinking. A Christian reviewer may still call it " un-
sound " to say that all of God's workings are according to
law, and eminent preachers may still hold that the Divine
redemption of man is essentially " abnormal." But the
time is nearing, when intelligent Christians will cease to
think that even the Resurrection is abnormal. It will
ultimately appear rather as a coherent part of an orderly
system operating in every part according to law, as shown
in Chapter ix. And the point of .vital interest in these
studies, as it is in the New Testament, — our relation to
the Resurrection-power of Christ, — will appear as that
of the subjects of a spiritual development, rather than of
a physical miracle.

Newark, New Jersey.

CHAPTEE I.

THE PEE SENT DIFFICULTY :

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT OUTGROWING
THE CREEDS.

CHAPTER I.

THE PEE SENT DIFFICULTY : CHRISTIAN THOUGHT
OUTGROWING THE CREEDS.

" Tliey all shall wax old as doth a garment." — Hebrews i. 11.

Whoever will take the trouble to glance at
the testimony of the principal creeds, as cited
in the following pages, will be made aware of
a wide difference between their testimony on
the subject of the Resurrection and the views
which are gaining predominance among edu-
cated people. It is a misfortune that such a
difference should exist even in appearance.
The time-honoured phrase of the most ancient
of all the creeds, " I believe in the resurrection
of the body," suggests the idea that the buried
body is to be raised out of its grave, an idea
which modern thought generally repudiates.
This idea is not necessarily connected with
that venerable phrase," but is so closely related
to it as to require to be disavowed and dis

# See Chapter iii

4 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

sociated from it. When, however, one finds
on examination that this was the very idea
which that phrase originally carried — " the
resurrection of the flesh " (according to the
exact translation of the original) — when one
finds, moreover, other and more modern creeds
affirming the resurrection of "the bodies," of
" the self-same bodies and none other," it
becomes apparent that the generality of
Christian believers down to recent times have
agreed in a belief which is now regarded as
impossible by multitudes of thinking people
both in the church and out of it. That this
belief affects one of the cardinal doctrines of
the Christian faith, renders it all the more im-
portant to know whether it is the substance or
only the form of the doctrine that is challenged.
For so closely connected with each other are
all the leading truths of the Christian system,
that the loosening of faith in any one of them
is speedily followed by a loosening hold on the
rest.

It is a common mistake, both of sceptics
and of believers, to identify the permanent
substance of truth with the transient form in
which, for the time, it is presented, and to
imagine that, if the form is untenable, the
substance is indefensible. Thus an outworn

I.] THE PRESENT DIFFICULTY. 5

and untenable form of Christian doctrine may
become a serious stumbling-block to intelligent
minds, and a mischievous hindrance to the
reception of the substance of Christian faith.

The interest of Christian thought has for
some time been flowing in a stronger current
toward the study of the Biblical testimony to
the things that shall be hereafter. Among
these things the Resurrection has always been
elassed. To those who now or at any time
are Jiving in this world, the Resurrection is, of
course, one of the future things. The belief
has reigned throughout the Christian world
from the time of Christ, and from before
Christ's time among the Jews, that the Resur-
rection is still future to those in the world of
the dead, just as it is to those in the present
•state of being, — that it is an event to occur
hereafter at the same moment to all mortals
who have ever passed through the gate of
death into the unseen. The general thought
of Christian believers to-day is, that, at that

" far off Divine event,
To which the whole creation moves,"

the countless multitudes of the dead, till then
waiting, disembodied, in some middle state,
shall in a moment be clothed with bodies,
which bodies are to be reconstituted out of

6 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

some, at least, of the elements of the long
since buried bodies which have returned to
dust. This being done, these re-embodied
spirits are to assemble before the judgment
throne of the Christ, whose coming in visible
glory has given the Resurrection-call, and, after
hearing their final sentence, to depart into
their final state, either heaven or hell.

That the Christian world has for eighteen
centuries been at rest in this belief, will be to
many a sufficient evidence of its truth. Those,
however, who know that Christian study has
hitherto been turned mainly upon other
doctrines, will deem it not unlikely that study
may make such improvements in the statement
of this doctrine as it has confessedly made in
the statement of others. Nor can any one
whose desire it is to secure such statements of
Christian doctrine as are most consonant with
the teachings of Christ, least vulnerable to
anti-Christian objections, least puzzling to
candid inquirers, and most strengthening to
Christian hope, fail to regard with a benevolent
fairness a sincere attempt, like this, in that
direction.

But, if the Christian world has rested for
eighteen centuries in the doctrine of the Resur-
rection above outlined, it is, as I think, not

I.] THE PEE SENT DIFFICULTY. 7

merely because study has been turned mainly
upon other doctrines. Why has study of this
doctrine, appealing as it does to our strongest
hopes and fears, been so postponed? Not
because there is any lack of material in the
Holy Scriptures, which contain the Gospel of
the Resurrection. But rather, as I am dis-
posed to think, because of certain prejudg-
ments which foreclose the case. Such are
these :

(1.) The Resurrection pertains not to the
present course of things, but to the far future.

But may it not, though future to us, be
present to those who have entered the un-
seen?

(2.) It is an event hereafter to be wrought
by a catastrophic Divine power, operating by
an external miracle, and simultaneously on all
alike.

But may it not be a process, continuously
going on by uniformly working laws of spiritual
growth, according to individual endeavours
and the resulting conditions ?

(3.) Chiefly, however, this : the Resurrection
is to be the mighty work of Christ at His
coming.

But what if Christ, in the true significance
of His promise, has already come, and is ever

8 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

coming, in the power of His Resurrection, with
a constantly increasing glory ?

Such, as I think, are the prejudgments,
borrowed from Jewish believers* in a Resurrec-
tion at the advent of the Messiah, which have
operated to " seal the booh " on this subject,
as a subject on which no more can be known
" till the time of the end."

Together with these prejudgments, false
principles of interpretation have operated as a
blind in the same direction.

One of these may be described as putting
Paul before Christ, or, rather, putting what
we understand Paul to say before what every
one may readily perceive that Christ has
implied.

For instance, in Christ's argument with the
Sadducees (see Note A, Chapter ii.), He con-
siders it enough to prove that the dead rise by
showing that the dead live. His argument
rests on the assumption that living after death
and rising after death are equivalent terms.
So, in His dialogue with Martha (see Chapter
ii.), He asserts this present agency as the Resur-
rection-Power in the same emphatic present
tense in which He declares His present and
perpetual activity for our salvation in other

* See Note B, appended to this chapter.

I.] THE PRESENT DIFFICULTY. 9

respects: "I am the Resurrection and the Life.'''
But Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians and
Thessalonians, speaks of the Eesurrection as
future (as indeed it must ever be to all on
earth). And so we have discarded the obvious
implication of the Master's teaching, that the
Eesurrection is not that far-off and catastrophic
event to all at once that Martha and her
countrymen supposed. If we think we find an
inconsistency between the present Eesurrection
that Christ plainly implies, and the future
Eesurrection that Paul prophesies, is it not the
wiser way — whatever we are able to make of
the Apostle's words — to put Christ before Paul,
by accepting the Master's teachings, in their
obvious and natural meaning, as the ground-
work of our belief ?* We shall do this, unless
we think we may rely on our understanding of
the Epistles better than on our understanding
of the Gospels.

Paul is generally regarded as teaching a far
future Eesurrection, and some of his expressions
seem hardly reconcilable with the idea that
he entertained any other view. And yet, as if
his thought was in that process of transition

* A clergyman, of high reputation as an exegete, remarked to
he writer that what Christ said to the Sadducees would be to
him conclusive of this point, ivere it not for certain things that
Paul has said.

10 BEYOND THE SHADOW, [CHAP.

from a Jewish to a Christian way of thinking,
of which the history of the Apostles furnishes
familiar instances, he repeatedly uses language
which obviously accords best with the thought
of the Eesurrection as a now existing reality.

" There is a spiritual body."

"So is the Besurrectio7i of the dead.''1

" It is raised in glory."

" We have a house eternal."

These, and much more than these, the teach-
ings of Christ, have been generally overlooked
under the influence of a Jewish bias toward
the Futurist view, which has assimilated to its
own way of thinking whatever it could. And
yet these testimonies are on the record, appeal-
ing to all whose study is to seek truth rather
than to buttress opinions preconceived or in-
herited. Happily, the doctrine of the Eesurrec-
tion is one where such latitude of opinion is
accorded within the limits of recognised ortho-
doxy, that the malign influence of religious
timidity and theological suspicions need not be
feared, as in some other directions, as likely to
restrict the freedom and lessen the candour
which are requisite to a fair hearing of both
sides, in order to find that true point of view
which includes all the facts, and does equal
justice to apparently conflicting testimonies.

I.] THE PEE SENT DIFFICULTY. H

Another principle, absurd as well as false,
which deserves notice, is the rejection, at sight,
of whatever view, or* interpretation of a text,
has been associated with names deemed un-
sound or heretical. I knew a Presbyterian
minister, a thorough-going believer in the
Nicene Creed, to be taken, in Mississippi, as
a Unitarian, because of a sermon which he
preached on the Humanity of Christ, a theme
which, though admitted by his creed, a certain
elder regarded with suspicion, because specially
emphasized by Unitarian preachers. And I am
quite sure that, in the minds of such as follow
this method of forming conclusions, the idea
advanced in this volume, that the Resurrection
is now going on in the future state, will be
scouted at once as " Swedenborgian." If it
would be of any benefit to say it, I would say
to such that I utterly dissent from the " Swe-
denborgian " view of Holy Scripture, and am
no more a "Swedenborgian" than I am a
Romanist, in however few or many particulars
I may agree with each of those religious deno-
minations. If one is conceited enough to
assume that his creed holds all the truth, and
any other creed holds none of it, then it will
be a sure method, as well as a swift one, to
dispose of this book by saying, " You're

12 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Swedenborgian." And I shall be quite content,
at this point, to leave all such readers where they
belong, in the company of that " orthodox "
church which the Eev. Mr. Murray described
in his notorious lecture on " Deacons," as
declaring that they would allow only beef sand-
wiches at their picnic, because the Unitarians
used ham sandwiches.

Lastly, I am aware that some exception will
be taken to any mode of studying this subject
which refuses to be bound by the obvious sense
in which the Apostles seem to have used the
language which they employed in delivering
their testimony to the fact. "It is time,"
says an able advocate of views which I criticise
throughout this volume, "that the language
of the Sacred Books should be used in its own
sense, the sense which it is manifestly intended
to convey." Yes, but by whom intended — by
the human seer, or by the Spirit from whom
the human seer derived his message? The
limitation of the teaching of the Spirit of pro-
phecy by the conceptions of the prophet is
■flatly against the declaration of Scripture,
that " no prophecy is of private interpretation
(2 Pet. i. 20), that is, limited by the mind of
the individual interpreter. It is as absurd as
to limit the ideas of a statesman by the ideas

I.] THE PRESENT DIFFICULTY. 13

of the schoolboy who declaims the statesman's
oration. The teaching power of the Divine
Oracles is cut down thereby to the measure
of the minds that have transmitted them to
us. The promise of our Lord that His Spirit,
when come, should "guide into all truth,"
cannot be regarded as limited to the first
generation of the Church. Greater insight
into " the things concerning the kingdom of
God" than even Apostles possessed, who be-
lieved the final catastrophe of the physical
heavens and earth to be imminent in their
own lifetime, must be accorded to those who
have the teaching of Christ's Spirit together
with the commentary upon Christ's words
which is furnished by the instructive expe-
rience of the Christian centuries.

The claim, however, that " the obvious
sense," which we deem that any writer in the
Scriptures must have attached to prophecies
which we deem inspired, determines the sense
which we must attach to them, may be tested
by a case in which Christ Himself has declared
a prophecy to have been fulfilled. Malachi had
prophesied the coming oi" Elijah the %)rophet"
before the coming of the Lord. Christ affirms
that this was fulfilled in the advent of John the
Baptist.

14 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

The Prophecy. The Fulfilment.
Behold I will send you Elijah For all the prophets and the
the prophet before the coming law prophesied until John.
of the great and dreadful day And if ye are willing to re-
ef the Lord. ceive it, this is Elijah, which is
Mai. iv. 5. to come.

Matt. xi. 13, 14.

It is far more likely that Malachi and his
contemporaries understood this prophecy as
we know it was generally understood by the
Scribes in Christ's time, in the sense of an
actual return of the ancient Elijah. It was
something that only experience could disclose,
that the fulfilment would not be literal, but
spiritual, by the coming not of Elijah, but of
an Elijah who would come not in the form of
Elijah but " in the spirit and power of Elijah"
(Luke i. 17.) The Scribes, when they pressed
against the claims of Jesus the prophecy that
V Elijah must first come " (Mark ix. 11), were
simply holding to the literal and obvious sense,
as contended for to-day. After such a refuta-
tion it will not do to press their principle in
the interpretation of prophecy, however we are
sometimes required by the nature of other
subjects, as in precepts and in arguments, to
insist upon it.

The object of these studies upon the Resur-
rection is to redeem a vital Christian doctrine
from obsolete and obsolescent crudities of

I.] TESTIMONY OF THE CREEDS. 15

statement which provoke scepticism, and to
promote clearness and consistency in Christian
thinking upon the great Christian Hope, as
based upon Christ's words of life. Thus it
is hoped to contribute somewhat toward a
thoroughly Biblical doctrine of the Eesurrection,
that shall be congruous with the best ten-
dencies of modern thought.

NOTE A.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE PRINCIPAL CHRISTIAN CREEDS
UPON THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION.

The Apostles' Creed.

This was developed during the second century. Its
testimony on this subject is comprised in the words:

He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand
cf God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall
come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in
. . . . the resurrection of the body and the life ever-
lasting."

Irenoeus (a.d. 180) uses the words : " His appearing
from heaven in the glory of the Father ... to raise
up all flesh of all mankind . . . and that He may
execute righteous judgment over all." Tertullian (a. d.
200) uses the words : " Coming to judge the quick and the
dead also through the resurrection of the flesh." Also
the following form : " He will come again with glory
to take the saints into the enjoyment of eternal life
and the celestial promises, and to judge the wicked with

1G BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

eternal fire, after the resuscitation of both, with the resti
tution of the flesh."

All the ancient fomis of the Apostles' Creed which
refer to the resurrection of mankind use the phrase
o-apnhs avdaraaiv, " carnis resurrectionem," the resur-
rection of the flesh. See Table in Schaffs " Creeds of
Christendom/' ii. pp. 52-55, covering the period from 200
to G50 A.D.

The Nicccno-Constantinopolitan Creed, a.d. 381.

[Consented to by all Trinitarian Churches — Greek, Eoman,

Protestant.]

— He shall come again with glory to judge both the
quick and the dead ; whose kingdom shall have no end.
. . . And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and
the life of the world to come.

The Athanasian Creed.

[Originating probably in the seventh century, and current
mostly in the Catholic churches of Western Europe.]

— He ascended into heaven, He sitteth on the right
hand of the Father God Almighty, from whence He shall
come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming
all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give
account for their own works. And they that have done
good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have
done evil into everlasting fire.

The Council of Trent, a.d. 15G3.

This is the authoritative exponent of Eoman Catholi-
cism, and bears testimony on this subject only in re-
affirming the words of the Nicamo-Constantinopolitan
Creed, quoted above.

I.] TESTIMONY OF THE CREEDS. 17

The Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church,
a.d. 1G43.

Setting- forth the faith of the Greek (and Eussian) Church.]

Q. CXX. What is the eleventh Article of the faith ?

A. I look for the resurrection of the dead.

Q. CXXI. What does this Article of the faith teach ?

A. It teaches positively and with perfect truth, that
there will be a resuscitation of human bodies, alike of the
righteous and the wicked, from the death that has passed
upon them. . . . Moreover they shall be altogether
the same bodies with which they have lived in this world..

The Confession of the Eastern Church, above quoted,
is in the form of a catechism upon the ancient Nicene
Creed, as the quotation shows. Somewhat more explicit
we find —

The Longer Catechism of the Eastern Church,
a.d. 1839.

Q. 3G7. How shall the body rise again, after it has
rotted and perished in the ground ?

A. Since God formed the body from the ground origin-
ally, He can equally restore it after it has perished in
the ground. The Apostle Paul illustrates this by the
analogy of a grain of seed, which rots in the earth,,
but from which there springs up afterwards a plant or
tree.

Q. 369. When shall the resurrection of the dead be ?

A. At the end of this visible world.

According to the statements of this Catechism, the
resurrection is to be ushered in by the coining of
Christ in visible glory, to execute judgment upon alL
mankind.

2

18 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP

Luther's Small Catechism, a.d. 1520.

[In use among the Liitheran Churches of America.]

This, besides teaching the Apostles' Creed, teaches upon

it the comment that Christ "will raise up me and all the

dead at the last day, and will grant everlasting life to me

and to all who believe in Christ."

The Scotch Confession, a.d. 15G0.

Art. XXV.

.... Secondly, in the general judgment there shall
"be given to every man and woman resurrection of the
flesh. For the sea shall give up her dead ; the earth, they
that be therein enclosed ; yea, the ternal our God shall
stretch out His hand on the dust, and the dead shall arise
incorruptible, and that in the substance of the self- same
flesh that every man now bears, to receive according to
their works, glory or punishment, etc.

The Bc'tgic Confession, a.d. 1561.
[Of the Eeformed (Dutch) Church in America.
Art. XXXVII. Of the Last Judgment.
Finally, we believe, according to the Word of God, when
the time appointed by the Lord (which is unknown to all
creatures) is come, and the number of the elect complete,
that our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven cor-
porally and visibly, as He ascended, with great glory and
majesty, to declare Himself Judge of the quick and dead,
burniug this old world with fire and flame to cleanse it.
And then all men will personally appear before this great
Judge, both men and women, and children, that have
been from the beginning of the world to the end thereof,
being summoned by the voice of the archangel, and by

I.] TESTIMONY OF TIIE CREEDS. 19

the sound of the trumpet of God. For all the dead shall he
raised out of the earth, and their souls joined and united with
their proper hodies in which they formerly lived. As for
those who shall then he living, they shall not die as the
others, hut he changed in the twinkling of an eye, and
from corruptible become incorruptible. Then the books
(that is to say, the consciences) shall be opened, and the
dead judged according to what they have done in this
■world, whether it be good or evil, etc.

The Thirty -nine Articles of Beligion of the Church of
England a.d. 15G2.

These, held likewise in a revised form by the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States of America, are
marked by greater reserve upon this subject than any
of the other creeds. The only reference to it is the
following : —

IV. Of the Resurrection op Christ.

Christ\lid truly rise again from death and took again
His body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to
the perfection of man's nature ; wherewith He ascended
into heaven, and there sitteth, until He return to judge all
men at the last day.

The Anglican Catechism, a.d. 1549,
teaches on this subject simply the Apostles' Creed.

The Heidelberg Catechism^ a.d. 1563.
[Of the German Reformed Church of the United States.]

Q. 52 [upon the Apostles' Creed] . What comfort is it

to thee that Christ shall come again to judge the quick
and the dead ?

A. That in all my sorrows and persecutions, wit

20 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

uplifted head, I look for the self-same One who has before
offered Himself for me to the judgment of God, and
removed from me all curse, to come again as Judge
from heaven ; who shall cast all His and my enemies
into everlasting condemnation, but shall take me, with
all His chosen ones, to Himself, into heavenly joy and
glory.

Q. 57. What comfort does the resurrection of the body
afford thee ?

A. That not only my soul, after this life, shall be imme-
diately taken up to Christ its Head, but also that this
my body, raised by the power of Christ, shall again be
united with my soul, and made like unto the glorious
body of Christ.

The Westminster Confession, a.d. 1G47.

[Of the Presbyterian Churches generally.]

Chapter XXXII. Of the State op Men after Deat

AND OF THE BeSHRRECTION OF THE DEAD.

I. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and
see corruption ; but their souls (which neither die nor
sleep), having an immortal subsistence, immediately re-
turn to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous
being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the
highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in
light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their
bodies; and the souls of the wicked are cast into hell,
where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved
to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places
for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknow-
ledgeth none.

II. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not
die, but be changed, and all the dead shall be raised up
■with the self-same bodies and none other, although with

I.] TESTIMONY OF THE CREEDS. 21

different qualities, which shall be united again to their
souls for ever.

III. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of
Christ, be raised to dishonour ; the bodies of the just, by
His Spirit, unto honour, and be made conformable to His
own glorious body.

Chapter XXXIII. Of the Last Judgment.

I. God hath appointed a day wherein He will judge the
world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power
and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not
only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all
persons that have lived upon earth, shall appear before
the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts,
words, and deeds ; and to receive according to what they
have done in the body, whether good or evil.

II Then shall the righteous go into everlasting

life, and receive that fulness of joy and refreshing which
shall come from the presence of the Lord ; but the wicked,
who know not God, and obey not the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord, and from the glory of His power.

The Savoy Declaration, a.d. 1G58.

[Adopted by the Congregational Churches of England.]

Affirms the same as the "Westminster, above quoted.

The Boston Confession, a.d. 1C80.
Adopted by the Congregational Churches of New England.j
Affirms the same as the Westminster, above quoted.

The Methodist Articles of Religion, a.d. 1784.
These agree on this subject with the Thirty-nine

22 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Articles of the Church of England, above quoted, of which
Dr. SchafT says that the Methodist Articles " are a liberal
and judicious abridgment " of them.

The Declaration of The Congregational Union of
England and Wales, a.d. 1S33.

XIX. They believe that Christ will finally come to
judge the whole human race according to their works ;
that the bodies of the dead will be raised again ; and that,
as the Supreme Judge, He will divide the righteous from
the wicked, will receive the righteous into " life ever-
lasting," but send away the wicked into "everlasting
punishment."

The New Hampshire Baptist Confession, a.d. 1833.

[Widely adopted by Baptists, especially in the Northern and
Western States.]

XVIII. Of the World to Come.

We believe that the end of the world is approaching •
that at the last day Christ will descend from heaven, and
raise the dead from the grave to final retribution; that
a solemn separation will then take place ; that the wicked
will be adjudged to endless punishment and the righteous
to endless joy; and that this judgment will fix for ever
the final state of men in heaven or hell, on principles of
righteousness.

Confession of the Free Will Baptists, a.d. 1834,
18G8.

Chapter XVIII. Death and the Intermediate State.

1. Death. — As a result of sin, all mankind are subject
to the death of the body.

'2. The Intermediate State. — The soul does not die
with the body ; but immediate^ after death, enters into

I.] TESTIMONY OF THE CEEEDS. 23

a conscious state of happiness or misery, according to the
moral character here possessed.

Chapter XIX. Second Coming of Christ.

The Lord Jesus, who ascended on high and sits at the
right hand of God, will come again to close the gospel
dispensation, glorify His saints, and judge the world.

Chapter XX. The Eesurrection.

The Scriptures teach the resurrection of the bodies of
all men at the last day, each in its own order ; they that
have clone good will come forth to the resurrection of
life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of
damnation.

Chapter XXI. The General Judgment and Future
Retributions.

1. The General Judgment. — There will he a general
judgment, when time and man's probation will close for
ever. Then all men will be judged according to their
works.

2. Future Eetributions. — Immediately after the
general judgment the righteous will enter into eternal
life, and the wicked will go into a state of endless
punishment.

The Declaration of Faith of the National Council of
Congregational Churches, Boston, a.d. 1S85.

This, after a declaration of adherence " substantially "
to the older confessions, i.e., to the Boston Confession and
its predecessors, above quoted, goes on to say : —

We believe also in the organised and visible Church, in
the ministry of the Word, in the Sacrament of Baptism
and the Lord's Supper, in the resurrection of the body

24 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

and in the final judgment, the issues of which are eternal
life and everlasting punishment.

Articles of Religion of the Reformed Episcojial Church
in America, a.d. 1875.

Art. III. Or the Resurrection of Christ and His
Second Coming.

Christ did truly rise from death, and took again His
body with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the
perfection of man's nature, wherewith He ascended into
heaven and there sitteth, our High Priest and Advocate,
at the right hand of the Father, whence He will return to
judge the world in righteousness. This Second Coming
is the blessed hope of the Church. The heavens have re-
ceived Him till the times of the restitution of all things.
To those who look for Him shall He appear a second time
without sin unto salvation. Then shall He change the
body of our humiliation that it may be fashioned like
unto His glorious body. He will take to Himself His
great power, and shall reign till He have put all enemies
under His feet.

Statement of Doctrine published ly the Commission
appointed under the direction of the National
Council of the Congregational Churches of the
United States, a.d. 1884.

XII. We believe in the ultimate prevalence of the
kingdom of Christ over all the earth ; in the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ ;
in the resurrection of the dead ; and in a final judgmen
the issues of which are everlasting punishment and
everlasting life.

I.] TTIE OPINIONS OF THE JEWS, 25

NOTE B.

ON THE OPINIONS OF THE JEWS CONCERNING THE
RESURRECTION.

The Eesurrection was a current doctrine of the Jews
in the time of Christ, but so presented as to provoke a
degree of scepticism, which, in the case of the Sadducees,
went to the length of denying the Eesurrection utterly.
Some of the Rabbis taught a purer doctrine, holding that
in the Eesurrection the just would neither eat, drink, nor
marry. But the majority, both of the Eabbis and of the
people, held a doctrine extremely gross. The dead were
to be raised not only in their former bodies, but even with
their bodily appetites and passions. They would eat and
drink and marry. The case cf the woman with seven
husbands, which the Sadducees proposed to Christ, might
have been suggested to these sceptics by a case in one of
the books, in which it was decided that a woman who had
had two husbands would be given to the first. If men
were buried in their usual clothes, in these clothes they
would rise, and even their bodily blemishes and defects
would be perpetuated in the Eesurrection.

While the extreme grossness of these notions was
abated in the thinking of the Christians, the Jews'
general conception of the Eesurrection passed over into
Church teaching, as the writings of many of the Fathers
show. Witness such a passage as this in the writings of
Augustine : —

" Every body, however dispersed here, shall be restored
perfect in the Eesurrection. Every body shall be com-
plete in quantity and quality. As many hairs as have
been shaved off, or nails cut, shall not return in such
enormous quantities to deform their original places, but
neither shall they perish : they shall return into the body
into that substance from which they grew."

26 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Ezekiel's vision of the Resurrection of the dry bones in
the valley, which he narrates in his 37th chapter, pro-
phesying the revival of the national life of Israel after tho
Captivity, furnished the original type of this doctrine,
around which the later accretions grew in the course of
speculation. It was believed that at the coming of the
Messiah all Israelites would be gathered from their
dispersion throughout the world to the Holy Land, and
that the Kesurrection of the dead would take place
thereupon.

Thereupon, also, it was believed that a final judgment
would take place in the valley of Jehoshaphat, as the
ravine which separates Jerusalem from the Mount of
Olives on the east was called. That valley became in
consequence a favourite burial place, as the place where
the Messiah, as was believed, would appear to raise the
dead preparatory to that final judgment. The last wish
of the venerable Eabbi was to be laid there with staff in
hand, in readiness for the coming of the Messiah.

Joel's prophecy (hi. 2, 12) of a judgment of " all
nations''' in the Valley of Jehoshaphat gave rise to
these expectations. It is doubtful, however, whether
that ravine to the east of Jerusalem bore the name of
the Valley of Jehoshaphat in Joel's time. Jehoshaphat
signifies " the judgment of Jehovah," and might apply to
any valley in which a signal overthrow in battle took
place. Some such event was probably the object of Joel's
reference.

To match the Jews' belief concerning the appearance of
the Messiah in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Christians
had their generally received belie , that the Mount of
Olives, from which Christ ascended, was to be the locality
of His second advent, to raise the dead and judge the
world.

Whoever will trace the doctrine of the Advent, the
Resurrection, and Final Judgment, that prevailed while

I.] THE OPINIONS OF THE JEWS. 27

as yet the Temple stood, will not fail to mark the like-
ness, at least in general outline, but especially in the
whole mechanical way of conceiving the subject, as
things externalised to the senses in show and catastrophe,
in which these doctrines passed over from the Temple to
the Church, to flourish in the Church to this day.

Whether this Jewish mode of thought upon the subject
has not been the grand mistake which the Church has
made in its doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ — whether
it is not to-day a prodigious anachronism in a period
which Christians speak of as " the Dispensation cf the
Spirit," can by no means be deemed a groundless
question.

Remark. — As soon as one who studies the doctrine of
the Resurrection historically, as every doctrine must be
studied that is studied intelligently, marks the similarity
in essentials between the conception presented in the
Christian creeds and that held among the countrymen of
Christ, this question rises : Did Christ teach or indorse
the Jewish doctrine, that the Messiah should come in
visible form to make an end of things terrestrial, and that
the dead, at His appearing, were to be re-embodied amid
the glories and terrors of a day of fire, wherein the earth
itself shall melt ? This was a rabbinical doctrine. But
is it Christ's ? If the Apostles seem to favour it, did
they get it from their Master, or from their earlier
teachers ?

CHAPTEE II.

THE BESUEBECTION A CONTINUOUS
REALITY.

CHAPTER II.

THE RESURRECTION A CONTINUOUS REALITY.
" I am the Resurrection and the Life." — John xi. 25.

The general subject of the Resurrection
divides into three main questions : When shall
it be ? What shall it be ? How shall it be ?
To each of these the words of Christ give clear
and sufficient answers. Only one of these
questions, however, can be answered at a time.
Which, then, shall we take first? If we
should first take up the question, How ? we
might find reason in the words of Christ to
think that the Resurrection is not a miraculous
operation from without, but a spiritual develop-
ment from within the man.* This of itself
would go far to show, when the Resurrection
shall be ; that it is no long-waiting and far-off
event, but a continuous reality now manifest in
the unseen world. Such, however, has been the
predominance of mistaken conceptions, that

* Eor this, see Chapter ix.

32 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

they will only give way gradually, if they give
way at all. For a gradual approach to a true
conception, it is better to take the other
question first, namely : When is the Resurrec-
tion? We may thus, perhaps, the better
extricate ourselves, point by point, from the
grasp of false ideas, and gradually prepare
the basis of conclusions in which we may
intelligently rest.

The answer to the question, When ? is given
in our Lord's answer to Martha in her mourn-
ing for Lazarus's death : " I am the Resurrec-
tion and the Life."

I. In order to understand an answer, we
must know the question to which the answer
came. So here. These words of our Lord
were spoken in answer to the implied denial of
a present Resurrection which Martha had just
made. As she wept for her dead brother,
Christ said, " Thy brother shall rise again."
We must not suppose these words to bear a
special sense, to refer to the miracle He was
about to perform in restoring the brother to
the sister. That, strictly speaking, was reani-
mation, not resurrection.* Christ's following
utterances show that He was speaking, in a
general way, of the Resurrection, as the truth

* See Note B, appended to the next chapter.

II.] A CONTINUOUS BEAUTY. 33

most comforting to any mourner. But to
Martha, with her ideas of it, it was poor com-
fort. She knew that her brother should rise
again. But, like the Jews of her time, ay, like
most Christians now, who inherit their Kesur-
rection-doctrine more from the Jews than from
Christ, Martha thought only of a grand and
general Kesurrection-day far distant. Long ere
that day she would be with her brother in the
supposed place of expectant souls, in waiting
till the buried body should be raised and given
back. " I know" she cried, " that he shall rise
again in the Resurrection at the last day."

This was equivalent to saying: "Yes, he
will rise again, but not till that far-off day shall
come. Tell me more and better than that ;
tell me something I do not know, if you would
comfort me now."

To meet this want, to give a consolation
stronger than that far-off hope because a
reality of the present hour, our Lord replied,
" I am the Resurrection and the Life." Poorly
did Martha comprehend it, as the sequel
showed, though she sincerely declared her
belief in it. Poorly do many other sincere
believers to-day comprehend the comforting
significance of this sublime "I am." Who-
ever would comprehend it must start from this.

34 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

fact, that by these words our Lord undertook
to comfort a mind, uncomforted by a far-off
hope, with the disclosure of a present reality.
If the reality was not a thing of the present,
then it was no better than the far-off hope.
But our Lord offers it as evidently better.

II. Two truths are presented in our Lord's
words to Martha, which demand distinct
recognition.

(1.) The first is that of a Power. "I am"
expresses personality, and personality is not
an event, but a power. The central thing in
the Resurrection is not an occurrence, an event,
an effect. It is a spiritual cause, a vital power.
Paul seems to have understood it thus, when
he described his own endeavour, " that I may
know Him, and the yoioer of His Resurrection."
Our Lord here declares Himself to be the
personal power which is the efficient cause
of what we call the Resurrection. It is in a
derived and secondary sense that we speak oi
the effect of this power as the Resurrection.
This personal power and the manner of its
working will be understood, when we come
to study the Resurrection as a development.
(Chap, ix.) Only let it be borne in mind from
the first, to avoid misunderstandings, that it is
power working by orderly growth from within

II.] A CONTINUOUS REALITY. 35

the man, not by miraculous operation from
without

(2.) The second truth involved in our Lord's
words is, that His Eesurrection-power is a
power in present activity. He did not say, " I
shall be," but " I am." We should never fail
to place emphasis on the word am, in our
reading of this passage.

The full significance of this short but preg-
nant word grows upon us, as soon as we place
it in the list, to which it belongs, of these
sublime self-assertions with which our Lord
declared the various relations of His saving
power to mankind. In every instance, at least
until we come to this, He expresses by the
words, " I am," the present activity of that
power.

" I am the Light of the world." We know
that His light-giving power is operative con-
stantly.

" I am the Good Shepherd." We know that
His pastoral care is in exercise to-day.

"I am the Living Bread." We know that
He is now the nourisher of believing souls.

" I am the Door." We know that He is
now and constantly our means of coming
into spiritual life to God.

How is it, then, that any one can doubt Him

36 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

to be the Resurrection-power, with the same
present efficiency, the same continuity of
action, which we ascribe to Him as the Light-
giver, the Shepherd, the Food, the Door t
How can we deem it any more doubtful that
His power raises the departed Christian to-day
into the fulness of spiritual life in the spiritual
body, than that He to-day enlightens and guides
and feeds the Christian in his pilgrimage to the
heavenly country ?

I have no doubt that here we have been mis-
led by a misunderstanding of some other parts
of Holy Scripture, — chiefly those which relate
to the coming of the Lord, — into a palpable
perversion of our Lord's direct testimony.
Dominated by prepossessions concerning the
advent of the Messiah, and His judgment of
the world, which we have inherited from the
Jews of Christ's time, our minds have been
blinded to the significance of some of His most
precious words. And this is the poor result
we have come to on the subject of the Resur-
rection : All the other powers which our Lord,
by his majestic " I am," asserts as His present
prerogatives, we regard as in present and
perpetual activity. Not so, however, His
Resurrection-power. This, though claimed for
the present, like ail the others, by the same

II.] A CONTINUOUS REALITY. 37

significant " I AM," we conceive of as somehow
reserved, suspended, inactive, latent, to be ex-
hibited all at once and explosively, at some
" last day" of time, precisely as Martha and
other Jews supposed,— precisely as our Lord
forbade her to suppose, when He corrected her
disconsolate confession of hope in a far-off
rising from the dead by the revelation of a
better thing : "I am the Besurrection" Evi-
dently He intended to correct her. But where
is the correction recognisable, if not in the con-
trast between her word, " He shall " and His
word "I am"? — "I am the Kesurrection."

We see the other powers claimed by our
Lord all in active operation to-day. His Kesur-
rection-power, claimed in the same terms as
all the rest, is the only one of all which we do
not see. Has the exceptional denial of its
present and perpetual activity any more valid
ground of support than the fact that the sphere
of its activity lies beyond our sight ?

III. Here, then, is the answer that we must
give to the question, When is the Kesurrection ?
If we do not regard our Lord's Kesurrection-
power as somehow outside the circle of the
powers which He likewise claims under His
peculiar and oft-repeated " I am," — though we
can assign no more valid reason for so regarding

33 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

it than that its activity is hidden from our
sight ; — if we do not feel competent to alter His
solemn words, and transform "I am "into I
shall be, then must we, in all consistency,
believe that He exercises that mysterious power
to-day ; that He has ever exercised it since He
first asserted it, — perhaps also before, as I
think we shall find reason to believe ; * that He
will continue to exercise it henceforth as here-
tofore ; that He exercises it, just as He exercises,
all His powers, according to the eternal laws of
spiritual action, that is, according to Christian
endeavour here to prepare the conditions of the
Christian Resurrection, and our resulting fitness
there to experience the Resurrection in Christian
power and in Christian joy.t In other words,
and more briefly, men are raised from the dead
through the power of Christ, according to their
Christly capacity to rise, through their having
received from Him the power to " attain unto
the Besurrection." This is a fact of to-day as
really as of any future day. And the manner
in which this comes to pass is capable, as we
shall see, of being so exhibited to the under-
standing as to redeem it from, at least, a part
of the mystery which has enveloped it.

Does this seem to be a great conclusion to

* See Chapter viii., Note A. f See Chapter iv.

II.] A CONTINUOUS EEALITY. 39

build on a little word? Some little words,
such as yes or no, are strong enough to sustain
the most extensive conclusions. Such a word
as I am is strong enough to claim for the pre-
sent whatever it is coupled with. Were this
all, it would be enough to rest on. But it is
not all. We shall find, as we go forward with
our inquiry, that other material comes in to
broaden the base of our conclusion. As we
view the subject in other lights, we shall find a
brightening assurance that we are on the track
of the truth.

IV. With reference to other points to come
up hereafter, thus much may be advanced here
by way of anticipation.

Whatever notions we may have imbibed to
the contrary, the fact will be clear to any care-
ful reader of the Bible that the simultaneous
resurrection of all the dead, which the creeds
teach, is not taught by the Bible. Nay, more
than this is true. In that Apostolic teaching
of " the first Besurrection" '* which has been
strangely dropped out of Christian recognition
■ — and also elsewhere — the Bible explicitly
affirms, so that I wonder how it can bethought
otherwise, that the Resurrection of the dead is
not simultaneous ; that they do not rise all

# See Chapter ix. and Note B.

40 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

together, but in a certain succession. More-
over, the Bible teaches that the Eesurrection, in
the Christian sense of the word, is not a power
that operates on all, as the spring sun operates
on the leaf-buds, irrespective of personal voli-
tion, but a power which, like the wind which
the sail is set to catch, must be appropriated
by voluntary action in Christian endeavour, like
that of Paul, to " attain unto the Eesurrection
of the dead."

Erom such teachings we shall find, as we
advance, that fresh light is shed upon that
declaration of our Lord which we have now
studied. In every generation of those that are
born, through death, into the unseen world, He
is not a remote and waiting, but the immediate
and active Eesurrection-power, to as many as
uhear the voice of the Son of God" to as many
as are led by His Spirit, and in fellowship with
Him. Through " Jesus Christ, the same yester-
day and to-day and for ever" the invisible world
now and evermore beholds " the spirits of just
men made perfect" rising from the dead in the
spiritual body, " clothed upon with our habita-
tion which is from heaven."

V. This truth, when we have grasped it, will
give us a more vivid sense of the relation which
Christ holds to us, as the Lord both of the

II.] A CONTINUOUS REALITY. 41

present and of that veiled future to which we
are advancing. It enforces His great saying
(Eev. i. 18), "I hold the keys of death and of
the unseen.'" (E.V. — Hades.) Near as may be
the dissolution of our house of clay, so near is
our Resurrection in the spiritual body. We
need not imagine any such thing as that,

" that still garden of the souls
In many a figured leaf enrolls
The total world since time began."

We need not think of the departed Christian
as in any house of detention, however com-
fortable, or in a middle state of disembodiment,
awaiting a distant day to obtain a body, and
with a body the full measure of such life as his
relation to Christ capacitates him for. Christ
not only is our Life, but He is also our 'Resur-
rection. This " is " is more than a shall be.
It assures us that immediately beyond the
valley of the shadow there rise the hills of
light ; that One is there to take at once the
hand of those who hear His voice, and lead
us quickly through the shadow into the light,
and up the mount of God in an undelayed
progress of power, purity, and peace, in a full
experience of " the power of His Besurrection."

42 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

NOTE A.

ON CHRIST'S ARGUMENT WITH THE SADDUCEES.

And Jesus said unto them, The sons of this world marry
and are given in marriage : but they that are accounted
worthy to attain to that world, and the Resurrection from
the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage : for
neither can they die any more : for they are equal unto
the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the Resur-
rection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses
shelved, in the place concerning the Bush, when hecalleth
the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob. Now He is not the God of the
dead, but of the living : for all live unto Jlim. (Luke xx.
34—38.)

There is a marvellous force in this argument, which
must he apparent to any one who is at all competent to
judgtf of arguments according to the recognised laws of
logic.

Christ is here arguing with Sadducees, who deny that
there is any Besurrection. (Acts xxiii. 8.) He aims to
prove to them " that the dead are raised, or, trans-
lating more literally, that the dead rise. He deems it
sufficient for this, simply to prove, by a quotation from
the Old Testament, that the dead live. But the living
of the dead could prove the rising of the dead only on
the assumption that living and rising arc equivalent
terms.

Moses, says Christ, shows that the dead rise, because
he calls God the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who
died long ago. But since God is not a God of the dead,
but the God of the living, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are
now living. Therefore the dead rise. But this would bo
no demonstration at all, but a complete ?wn-sequiiur9

II.] CHEIST AND THE SADDTTCEES. 43

except on the assumption that life after death is life in the
Resurrection state. On this assumption only can Christ's
reasoning be logically good. If this assumption be made,
then, indeed, all that will be necessary, in order to estab-
lish to any Sadducee the fact of a Resurrection, will be to
establish the fact of life after death, as Christ does by His
quotation from Moses.

In the language of logicians, Christ's argument is called
an "enthymeme"; a condensed form of reasoning, in
which a proposition is tacitly assumed as true, which, if
formally stated, would here constitute what is called " the
major premiss " of " a syllogism." Drawn out in the full
form of a syllogism, this enthymeme would stand as
follows, the major premiss being assumed as true, and the
minor premiss being proved by the quotation : —

Major. Those who live after death live in the Resur-
rection state.

Minor. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live after death.

Conclusion. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob [" the dead "]
live in the Resurrection state.

Supposing that this passage were the only text in the
New Testament on the subject of the Resurrection, should
we conclude the Resurrection to be a present reality, or a
thing still in the future ?

If our main difficulty in accepting this reasoning as
conclusive be the impressions we have derived from cer-
tain statements of the Apostles, is it not wise, first to let
the Master's reasoning make its due impression,— to let
Christ teach us how to use the sayings of Paul, rather
than let Paul teach us how to use the sayings of Christ ?
Here let us remember what our Lord Himself has said
to us : " One is your Master, even the Christ." (Matt.
xxiii. 8.)

But it would be quite unfair to the Apostles to suppose
that they utterly failed to get hold of this teaching of their
Master. Whoever will carefully look into what John says-

44 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP

of" the first Besurrection,'" can see that he follows Christ
in regarding living, and rising, after death, as equivalent
terms. " They lived . . . the rest of the dead lived not
. . . this is the first Besurrection."1 (Kev. xx. 4, 5.)

NOTE B.

ON RESURRECTION NOW AND HENCEFORTH.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hcarcth My word,
and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and
comeih not into judgment, but hath passed out of death
into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh,
and 7ioiv is, ivhen the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God ; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father
liath life in Himself, even so gave He to the 8o?i also to
have life in Himself : and He gave Him authority to exe-
cute judgment, because He is the Son of man. Marvel not
at this : for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the
tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and
they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment.
— (John v. 24— 29.)

The proper interpretation of this passage strongly corro-
borates the exposition above given of John xi. 25, which, in
turn, indisputable by itself, throws light on our Lord's true
meaning here.

Three great truths are here announced, namely, (1.)
Spiritual awakening to life now to all who receive Christ's
word in faith ; verse 24. (2.) Resurrection now and hence-
forth to the dead through obedience to His life-giving
word ; verse 25. (3.) Judgment under Christ extending
ultimately over the entire race of men in the world
of the Resurrection ; verses 28, 29. Upon this outline
observe, —

(1.) The emphatic " Verily, verily,'" which introduces

II.] NOW AND HENCEFORTH. 45

both the 24th and the 25th verses. According to a very
common interpretation, verse 25 refers to the spiritually
dead, to those who are now "dead in trespasses and sins"
(Eph. ii. 1), and now awakened by the hearing of the
Gospel. If so, then verse 25 is merely a repetition of
verse 24. But it is introduced by the " Verily, verily,'"
with which Jesus customarily prefaces a new as well as
striking thought.

(2.) The passage plainly emphasizes the present in verses
24 and 25, and emphasizes the future in verses 28 and 29.
But, in verse 25, there is a plain transition from the pre-
sent, as in verse 24, to the future, mention of an hour that
cometh, and now is, and inclusive emphasis both of the
present and the future, a result that is to be now and
henceforth. Instead of verse 25 being simply a repetition
of what is stated in verse 24 as a present fact, it is an em-
phatic advance to a new statement. This is marked not
only by the solemn asseveration, " Verily, verily," but
also by the express revelation of an " hour " which
includes both time that is and time that shall be. The
spiritual awakening that now is (verse 24) leads on, both
in thought and in fact, to the Besurrection that is now and
is to be henceforth.

(3.) This conception of our Lord's thought in verse 25,
as a marked advance from the doctrine in verse 24, of a
present spiritual awakening through faith in Him, to the
doctrine of a present and a coming, that is, a continuous
Besurrection through the hearing of His voice, is confirmed
by the reference of verse 27 to "judgment." Besurrection
and judgment are closely united in the New Testament
doctrine of the future. Judgment is here spoken of
because naturally suggested by the restrictive clause in
verse 25, " they that hear shall live." All do not hear,
therefore all do not live (though all exist ; " live," here
used in a pregnant sense, suggests the difference between
mere being and ivell-heing.) Besurrection and judgment

46 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

thug coupled in these two verses (25 and 27), are more
explicitly set forth together in verse 29.

(4.) The " marvelnot," in verse 28, is to be understood
thus : Do not wonder whether I have claimed the power
of such judgment as is connected with the Eesurrection.
I do claim it ; for the hour cometh in which all that arc in
the tombs shall hear His voice (for life, as in verse 25, or
tor the contrary), etc. The omission here of the words,
" and now is" which occur in the Resurrection -doctrine
of verse 25, marks a shifting of the thought so as to fore-
tell chiefly the ultimate extension of Eesurrection and
judgment over all mankind. Not, however, so as to deny
of the present what it affirms of the future.

(5.) Hearing the voice is stated in verse 25 as the means
to the Resurrection-life, hut in verse 28 as the means
not only to this, but also to judgment upon evil. Con-
sequently it bears a wider sense in the latter verse.
Obedient hearing tends to life. But there is also disobe-
dient hearing, tending to judgment. All shall ultimately
hear the voice of the Son of God. But while truth
accepted is a word of life, truth rejected is a word of
judgment. (John xii. 48.) Rejected truth shall ulti-
mately make its judgment-voice ring through the spirit
that heard and hearkened not. Entering into the future
with this judgment-voice resounding in conscience is
" the resurrection of judgment:' This, too, is through
the voice of the Son of God, as the truth of Christ asserts
its judgment-power.

(6.) No general, simultaneous event can be supposed
intended by u the hour" of verse 28, unless the same can
be understood of " the hour''' of verse 25, which no
interpreter has ever ventured to do.

(7.) With regard to the restrictive clause in verse 25,
" they that hear shall live,'" we observe that it is precisely
similar to the restriction that accompanies every offer
of salvation, " he that believcth shall be saved" The

II.] NOW AND HENCEFOKTH. 47

Resurrection of life, as distinct from the Resurrection of
judgment, is conditioned upon a certain hearing of ic the
voice of the Son of God.'' This is not a voice miraculously
resounding through space, hut a voice making itself
heard within the obedient spirit. It is on the obedient
relation of the soul to Christ, as the Author of spiritual life,
through the receiving of the truth, that the result of life, as
distinct from existence, depends. How this is, we shall
see from Paul's doctrine of the Resurrection as the object
of Christian endeavour. (Chapter iv.)

However the interpretation above given differs from
any that we may have adopted, it is certainly the one
most consonant with the testimony that is indisputably
borne by our Lord's great saying, "Jam the Resurrection
and the Life." This fact alone speaks with emphasis in
its favour. The harmony of the two speaks for the truth
of that view on which the light of both converges. The
Resurrection is a present and 'perpetual reality in the
world of the unseen, through the power of Christ, through
the obedient hearing of the voice of the Son of God.

CHAPTEK III.

THE BESUBBECTION EXEMPLIFIED
IN THE BISEN CHBIST.

CHAPTEK III.

THE RESURRECTION EXEMPLIFIED IN THE

RISEN CHRIST.

" It is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body." —
1 Cor. xv. 44.

I. What is raised ? How could the Apostle
have used the language above quoted, if the
body that is buried is not raised, — or, if, at
least, as in the case of the seed that is sown,
some element of the buried body is not the
germ of a body that is to rise from the very
grave ?

This question betrays two misconceptions.

(1.) The first of these is a confounding of two
things utterly different, the dead person and
the dead body. The dead person is raised ;
the dead body is not raised. This distinction
between the person and his body is clearly
recognised by the inquirer, whose question
about the kind of body to be expected in the
Resurrection the Apostle is here answering.

52 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAT.

" With lohat maimer of body do they come ? "
It is a distinction that lias been before the
world, at least ever since Socrates, in speaking
of his own funeral, said to his friends, " You
may bury me if you can catch me."

It is true, the analogy of the seed, which the
Apostle employs for illustration, directly sug-
gests the survival in the " spiritual body " of
some element that was present in the "natural
body" But it is begging the question to
assume that this surviving element is of the
body, as well as in it. If Paul was thinking at
all of an element in the seed that passes over
into the new body to which the germinating
seed gives place, we can hardly question that
he recognised the analagous element that
passes from our present body to our future
body, as the spirit, which is in the body but
not of it. Not to notice such a probability as
this were to exhibit an obtuseness like that
which Paul rebuked by addressing his ques-
tioner asa" simpleton."

But, besides this, the notion of a survival and
resuscitation of the buried body, or some
element of it, involves still another radical
misconception, namely : —

(2.) That personal identity inquires, at least
so far as some germinant element is concerned,

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RISEN CHRIST. 53

identity of material between the body buried
and the Resurrection-body. But what is it
that personal identity depends on? Surely
not on the material that is organised, but on
the power that organises it. I am the same
person that I was twenty years ago, simply
because my body, though it has changed in
every particle twenty times over, is organised
and animated by the same spirit. People who
have not seen me for twenty years do not
always know me at first sight as the same, but
after a while they recognise my personal
identity in its familiar expression. Identity
of person and identity of material are very
different things. The personal element is the
spirit. Recognition of identity depends on
the expression which the spirit gives to the
organism which it animates.

k. thought very precious to many sorrowing
hearts is touched by the fact just mentioned.
It is by no means unlikely that, in the Resur-
rection-state, recognition after long separation
may be even more immediate than in this
world, conformably to that more perfect power
of self-expression which we may attribute to
the spirit in the spiritual body. Parents, who
have seen infant children go before them
thither, may not expect that their little ones

51 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

will be always babes, or as babes will meet
them again. For life is inseparably connected
with growth. But that they will know them,
perhaps with a more immediate recognition
than that with which the mother in the story
beholds her long lost sailor-boy in the weather-
beaten wanderer, who knocks for a night's
shelter at her door, I cannot doubt, when I
reflect that the flesh and blood of the
"natural" body, so often a disguise, will be
exchanged for a more plastic and perfect organ
of self-expression in the " spiritual " body. (See
Chapter ix.)

As to the recognition of friends in the Ke«
surrection-state, it seems plainly taught in the
New Testament. Christ said that those who
had received charity on earth would welcome
their benefactors in heaven. (Luke xvi. 9.)
Paul expected to recognise his converts here-
after with rejoicing. (1 Thess. ii. 19.)

The misconception, that personal identity
requires the survival and carrying over into the
Eesurrection-body of some element of the
mortal body, rests partly on a mistaken notion
of the epithets "natural" and "spiritual?*
which the Apostle applies to the two bodies.
It is supposed that these epithets refer to the
material of which the two bodies are composed.

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RISEN CHRIST. 55

" Spiritual " is supposed to denote a refined
or etberealised condition of the material, or a
part of the material, which belonged to the
" natural" body, and passed over to the new
body in the Eesurrection. Whereas, on the
contrary, neither of these terms refers to the
stuff out of which either body is made, but both
refer to the relation to its animating principle
in which each body exists.) The " natural"
or, as Paul actually said, the "psychical"*
body is the body whose life-principle is in the
psyche, the ' living soul " (verse 45), which is
common to man and the lower animals — in all
essentially a similar assemblage of sentient,
appetitive, and intelligent faculties. On the
other hand, the " spiritual " body is the body
whose life-principle is in the pnewma, the
"spirit" which is peculiar toman. Instead,
therefore, of referring to some highly sub-
limated material, which, in ignorance of its
nature, may be called " spirit" the epithet
" spiritual " denotes the Kesurrection-body not
as a body formed out of spirit, but rather
formed for the spirit — perhaps we may find
cause to say, formed by the spirit, the plastic

* For other texts where this word occurs, compare 1 Cor. ii.
14, and Jude 19, in the latter of which it is translated " sensual,"
See also Genesis i. 24, and ii. 7, where " living creature " and
" living soul " stand for the same original.

56 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

organ of its self-expression, the obedient
instrument of its will. (See Chapter ix.)

What is raised then? Can we any longer
use with propriety the venerable phrase of the
Apostle's Creed, " I believe in the Resurrection
of the body," if the buried body has no part in
the Resurrection ?

We may on one condition still properly use
this time-hallowed phrase — remembering, how-
ever, that it comes to us from outside of the
New Testament, which speaks of "tJie Resurrec-
tion of the dead," not of the dead body. We
may intelligently class it with those numerous
phrases which are understood to speak the
language of appearance, not the language of
reality.

We visit the grave of a friend. We point to
the mound, and say, " He lies there." No, lie
does not ; it only appears as though he did.
The body in which he always appeared to us
lies below the ground, and a sign of it appears
in the hillock of turf above it. Common
speech is full of this language of appearance.
We sail out to sea, and say, " The land sinks
below the horizon." That is, it appears to
sink. In reality, the curvature of the earth in-
tervenes, and hides the land from our view.
So we say, " The sun rises." He appears to

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RISEN CUEIST. 57

rise, but really the earth rolls round and brings
him into view. The same law of language
justifies us in speaking of " the Eesurrection of
the body," provided we use it intelligently as
the language of appearance only. A body has
disappeared in the grave; " the earthly house
of our tabernacle is dissolved." Instead of it
another body appears, " a building from God"
" eternal, in the heavens." It belongs to the
same person, and is recognisable as his.
Though the change is the substitution of an
entirely different body, the appearance is as if
the body that was put into the grave had been
raised out of the grave. Yet it is significant,
that the Bible, elsewhere using so much of the
language of appearance, should strictly avoid it
here, and speak only of " the Resurrection of the
dead" as if to keep us out of the Jewish way
of thinking about the Eesurrection of the body.
The popular belief on this subject, in
Christ's time, was such as to provoke the
scepticism of the Sadducees. Even bodily
blemishes and defects were to reappear in
the Resurrection-body, so that personal iden-
tity might be recognised. The same way
of thinking continues. It is not long since
some improvement in the city of Mar-
seilles made it desirable to remove part of

58 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

the Jews' burying-ground. The authorities
promised the greatest care in the removal
of the bones to another spot. But the Jews
still feared that portions of different bodies
might be mixed or lost. They accordingly
refused consent on the ground that it would
" embarrass the Eesurrection ! "

The notion of the actual Eesurrection of the
buried body, or any particle of it, is indeed so
" embarrassed " by such difficulties in the way
of rational and Christian thought, that it is no
longer supported by any reason, except the
very vague and inappropriate one, that God
can do anything.

"When we consider the fugitive nature of the
elements which compose our bodies, it seems
unlikely that there is a particle of dust on the
planet to which any human being can lay an
exclusive claim. Knowing what scientific men
now tell us, that the particles of our bodies are
entirely dissipated and replaced by fresh ones
in the course of every year that we live, how
inconceivable it is to suppose that such par-
ticles as happen to compose our bodies at the
particular moment of death will, somehow — at
least, some of them — be fixed and secured to
the individual for resumption ages hence in the
Eesurrection ! Granting that God could, what

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RISEN CHRIST. 59

shadow of reason for supposing that God will ?
If my body to-day is an entirely different body,
so far as every component particle is con-
cerned, from what it was a year ago, how
much more may I expect the Resurrection-body
to be entirely different from that which is sur-
rendered to the grave ! I shall be raised. My
body will not be raised. Yet none the less
shall I be raised in a body ; — I shall rise in the
" spiritual body."

II. A solitary but glorious illustration of the
difference between the "natural" and the
" spiritual body " is given in the Resurrection
of Christ. The study of this may somewhat
further free the subject from misconception.
The Resurrection of Christ is presented in the
New Testament as both the pledge and the
pattern of our own. "If we believe that
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
that are fallen asleep," etc. (1 Thess. iv. 14.)
!From this the inference has been drawn that,
as Jesus rose in the same body that was
" crucified, dead, and buried," even so shall our
Resurrection be, as the creeds say, in " the self-
same bodies and no other." But the question
interposes : Would not our Resurrection be
essentially like that of Christ, if it did not go
to the length of material identity between the

GO BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP

body buried and the body raised? If Christ
rose in the spiritual body, if we rise in the
spiritual [body, the parallel is complete. The
parallel does not lie in the stuff of which the
Resurrection-body is organised, but in the
power that organises it, and the relation in
which that body exists to the organising power,
the spirit. The Apostle says " that our Lord
shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation,
that it may be conformed to the body of His
glory." (Phil. hi. 21.) The promise is fulfilled,
and the parallel sustained, though this change
involve the substitution of a new body, having,
in itself, nothing in common with the body of
flesh and blood.

Now, as to Christ's Resurrection, He had
coupled with His sublime claim to be the
Divine Saviour of the world, the declaration
that He would rise from the dead on the third
day. There was a moral necessity that this
should be so fulfilled that no unbeliever could
say to those who proclaimed the Resurrection
of the crucified One, " We have the crucified
body in our hands still, and you have been
deceived by a ghost." This would have been
said, if it could have been said, but it could
never be said. The crucified body had disap-
peared from the tomb.

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RISEN CHRIST. Gl

But the facts of the reappearance of the
Lord to His disciples which are on record, show
that His body after the Eesurrection manifested
new and surprising powers ; it was able to
appear and vanish in closed apartments ; it was
able to change its expression, so as to prevent
recognition by acquaintances : it was able to
rise into the clouds of heaven till it disappeared.
The record obliges us to conclude : —

(1.) It could not have been no body, since it
was handled, and ate food, to demonstrate that
it was a body.

(2.) It was, in some respects, the same body
that had been crucified, since it carried the
wounds of the cross, and permitted them to be
examined by the touch,while, at the same time,
the crucified body had disappeared from its
keepers.

(3.) It was, in some respects, a changed
body, for it manifested powers which it had
never before manifested. "It is palpable, not
only as a whole, but also in its different
parts : — raised above space, so that it can, in a
much shorter time than we, transport itself
from one locality to another; gifted with the
capability, in subjection to a mightier will, of
becoming sometimes visible, sometimes invis-
ible. It bears the unmistakable traces of its

62 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

former condition, but is, at the same time,
raised above the confining limitations of this,
It is, in a word, a spiritual body, no longer
subject to the flesh, but filled, guided, borne by
the spirit, and yet none the less a body. It
can eat, but it no longer needs to eat ; it can
reveal itself in one place, but is not bound to
this one place ; it can show itself within the
sphere of this world, but is not limited to this
sphere." *

Such was the change that passed upon our
Lord's body in the Kesurrection. By this we
are to measure the import of the Apostolic
doctrine of the "spiritual" body, and the
import of the teaching that His Eesurrection is
representative of ours. The great change we
anticipate nowise affects our mortal body ; that
has vanished utterly and for ever. It exhibits
the living spirit " clothed upon " with another
body, a body that is subjected to the power of
the spirit, as the body of flesh and blood is
not. The risen Christ undoubtedly manifested
Himself in a body that was raised above the
limitations of flesh and blood, raised above
subjection to the physical laws that assert
supremacy over our bodies; a "spiritual"
body, because thoroughly responsive to the

* Van Oosterzee.

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE EISEN CHRIST. 63

will of the spirit ; a "glorious " body, because
capable of emitting the glory of the inhabiting
spirit, even as John at Patmos saw its face
"as the sun shineth in his strength." (Rev. i.
.16.) In this, we are to see illustrated what the
Apostle says of our Resurrection : "It is raised
a spiritual body" capable, through its relation
to the organising and controlling spirit, of
manifesting, like a glass, what we are, in the
glory or the vileness of character ; capable also
of doing — I do not say what we will, but —
what we are able to will.

The view, thus succinctly presented, of the
Resurrection of Christ in the spiritual body,
may be confirmed by some closer scrutiny of
the details.

From the record in Luke, it appears that,
previous to the appearance of Jesus in the
evening meeting of the disciples, they had
accounts of His appearances to the women,
to Peter, and to the two who had walked to
Emmaus. They were, therefore, apparently
so prepared to behold Him reappearing in the
body, that they should not have been disturbed
thereby. But, nevertheless, when He mani-
fested His presence among them, they were
greatly disturbed.

64 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

" He Himself stood in the midst of them,
and saith unto them, Peace be unto yon. But
they ivere terrified and affrighted, and sup-
posed that they beheld a spirit.'" (Luke xxiv.
36, 37.)

This effect of His appearance cannot be ex-
plained, except by supposing that it was after
a manner that they were not prepared for.
Their supposing that they had seen a spirit is
inexplicable, except the manner of His appear-
ance had been spirit-like, unlike that of one
inhabiting a tangible body. Not having come
into the room in any visible manner, He all at
once became visible in the midst of them, as
though the air itself had suddenly taken on a
bodily form.

But what body was it, that was able to pass
thus suddenly from an invisible to a visible
state ? The record is very explicit : —

" A?id He said unto them, Why are ye
troubled ? and wherefore do reasonings arise in
your heart ? See My hands and My feet, that it
is I Myself : handle Me, and see; for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold Me
-having." (Luke xxiv. 33, 39.)

It was, then, a body of "flesh and bones,"
the very same body which had been crucified,
as we are compelled to think, which now

III.] EXEMPLIFIED IN THE EISEN CHEIST. 65

manifested such spirit-like power as to surprise
the disciples into terror, prepared as they had
been to expect its appearance after another
manner.

This history brings out very clearly what
we are to understand, essentially, by the
"spiritual body." Not a body made of a
certain substance, but a body filled with a
certain power. The crucifiedbody^, in its
new relation, to the spiritual power that filled
it at the Resurrection, became a spiritual
body.

But in this new relation the crucified body
of "flesh and bones" is not to continue un-
changed. From " corruptible "it is to become
"incorruptible" From " the image of the
earthy " it is to pass, such is the power that
fills it, into " the image of the heavenly" (1
Cor. xv. 49.)

All that can be said on this point will be
found stated, or suggested, in Note A following

Here we must pass to another point of view.
Some hints that have been dropped in this
chapter will be taken up and expanded in
another connection.

66 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

NOTE A.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST NOT COMPLETELY
MANIFESTED TILL HIS ASCENSION.

When she had tlms said, she turned herself bach, and
beholdeth Jesus standing, and hnew not that it was
Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, ivhy tveepest thou ?
whom seelcest thou ? She, supposing Him to be the
gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if Thou hast borne Him
hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take
Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth her-
self, and saith unto Him in Hebrew, Babboni ; which is to
say, Master. Jesus saith to her, Touch Me not ; for I
am not yet ascended unto the Father : but go uyito My
brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and
your Father, and My God and your God. (John xx.
14—17.)

"We are not to suppose, from verses 14 and 15, that
Jesus had so changed His former expression that Mary,
familiar as she was with His personal appearance, sup-
posed, on a direct look, that He was the gardener. Her
turning, in verse 14, was probably a partial turning, just
enough to observe the presence, not the appearance, of
the person behind her. Eyes dimmed with tears, and a
preoccupied mind, together with this half turning, are
quite enough to account for her impression that He was
" the gardener." But when she heard her name uttered
in the familiar tone, " Mary," " she turned herself"
fully round to see the speaker, and then the illusion
vanished in an immediate recognition : " Master ! "

But Jesus drew back from the touch with which she
seems to have sought to verify the reality of which her
eyes assured her. Here we come to the main point of
interest in this passage. Why Jesus should have refused

III.] EESUEEECTION AND ASCENSION. G7

to her the touch to which He invited others, is commonly
explained by saying that touch was necessary to convince
others that He was really in the body, but not necessary
to convince her. This is apparently intimated in what
Jesus says, but more than this is intimated. Jesus mani-
fests an unwonted reserve. His reserve seems to inti-
mate not only the needlessness of the verifying touch for
her, but also that there is to be more of a change in Him
than is yet apparent. "Touch Me not" He says, "for I
am not yet ascended. [The perfect tense is used in the
original. ' I have not yet ascended.'] I am still, as you
believe, in the familiar body of 'flesh and bones ' (Luke
xxiv. 39), which you do not need to touch. I am not yet
in the fully glorified Ascension-body, which, if you could,
you might need to test by touch. But this flesh and bone
does not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. xv. 50) ; it
does not pass into the heavens. Go, therefore, unto My
brethren, and say to them, ' I ascend [or, " I am ascend-
ing "] ; I change ; through the power of My spirit I am
passing into My Ascension-state, unto My Father and
your Father, and My God and your God.'' "

To such a body as our Lord manifested to His disciples
on His Resurrection-day, plastic to the quickening power
of His Spirit, a change, even of substance and of organisa-
tion, and an ascension to heaven, seems as natural as
anything could be. His Eesurrection and His Ascension
are rightly viewed as the beginning and the end of one
process of change, and this process we call His glorifi-
cation, as the Apostles call it. (John xii. 16.) These
two were separated from each other by that interval of
" forty days " for His disciples' sake. It was necessary
for them to meet Him at intervals to perfect their convic-
tion of His Resurrection, and to receive the indispensable
last instructions and commands. It is noticeable that, of
the ten meetings with one or more of the disciples,

68 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

clay ; but during the remaining time Jesus seems to
have remained for the most part invisible. The change
which transfigured the body that had been lifted up upon
the cross into the body that was taken up behind the cloud
began no later, certainly, than the Resurrection-day, and
was not completely manifest till the Ascension-day,
Between the two days it may have had, as Miiller thinks,
u a progressive development," This seems to be sug-
gested by our Lord's mysterious saying to Mary. Never-
theless, it seems impossible to doubt that He has given
us, in the interviews granted to the witnesses of His Resur-
rection, an illustration that goes as far as we are yet
capable of going toward the glorious truth which the
Apostle has expressed in saying, " It is sown a natural
body ; it is raised a spiritual body."

NOTE B.

ON RESURRECTION AS DISTINCT FROM RE ANIMATION.

But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the
first-fruits of them that are asleej). (1 Cor. xv. 20.)

Before the Resurrection of Christ there had been in-
stances of what is popularly termed " Resurrection/' as in
the case of Lazarus and others whom Christ raised from
he dead. In the Old Testament period, also, there had
been similar cases, as in the history of Elijah and Elisha.
Had the Resurrection of Christ been like these earlier
11 Resurrections," as we call them, simply the return of
the spirit to the waiting body, and a mere reviving and
continuance of the interrupted life, it is hard to see truth
in the terms frequently applied to Christ as " the first
born from the dead" (Col. i. 18), " the first born of the
dead " (Rev. i. 5), " the first-fruits " (1 Cor. xv. 20, 23).
"We recognise the appropriateness of such terms to Christ,
only when we perceive that His reappearance within the

III.] RESURRECTION OF THE JEWISH SAINTS. 69

circle of the friends who hail buried Hirn was not on a
level with that of Lazarus, but in a higher mode of life
than that which He had quitted. In Lazarus we behold
simply the reanimation of the natural body, and the re-
sumption of the fleshly life. In Christ we behold Besur-
rection in the spiritual body, and assumption of the life
of the world to come. This is fully demonstrated by the
facts given in the Gospel record, and this is required by
the exceptional pre-eminence which the New Testament
accords to Christ's rising from the dead. But one in-
stance of that which is indeed the Bcsurrection has been
vouchsafed to our knowledge, as a sure pledge of that
which is to come. This is manifest in the risen Christ,
who thereby " ivas declared to be the Son of God with
power." (Rom. i. 4.) All the partial resemblances to
this which are found on record are cases of mere resusci-
tation or reanimation.

NOTE C.

ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE JEWISH SAINTS

And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain
from the top to the bottom ; and the earth did quake ;
and the rocks were rent ; and the tombs 10 ere opened;
and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep
ivere raised ; and coming forth out of the tombs after
His resurrection tliey entered into the holy city and
appeared unto many. — (Matt, xxvii. 51 — 53.)

[As to the question about the genuineness of this
passage see below.]

I. This passage states a notable fact in the following
particulars, namely : —

(1.) An earthquake at the crucifixion rent the tombs
«ut in the rocky hill -sides.

(2.) Many bodies of holy persons who had died arose.

70 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

(3.) This was evidenced by their appearing to many
after they had gone forth from their tombs.

(4.) This quitting of the tombs and appearing to wit-
nesses took place after Christ had quitted His tomb.

II. Upon this we have to observe : —

(1.) The language is evidently that of a narrator who
believes in the Resurrection of the dead in the self-same
body that died and was buried. This was the uniform
belief of all Jews.

(2.) The fact conveyed by the language is the appear-
ance of the departed saints in the spiritual bod}7, the body
of the Resurrection-state.

(3.) The explanatory parallel to this fact is found in
the appearance of Moses and Elijah upon the Mount of
Transfiguration in the spiritual body. The two events are
of the same kind. A glorious event in the history of our
Saviour gave occasion for each. One was as appropriate
as the other to the event in Christ's history with which
it was associated.

For the question, Whether the Resurrection of these
Jewish saints (as distinct from the manifestation of it to
witnesses) took place first at Christ's Resurrection, or
before, whenever their death took place, refer to Chapter
viii., near the close.

Upon the necessity of discriminating, in this and many
other passages, between the fact testified to and the
narrator's opinions about the fact, as apparent in his
language, refer to Chapter viii.

The foregoing remarks assume the genuineness of the
statement as from Matthew. If genuine, it must be so
explained. It is not impossible, however, that the story
may have been interpolated into the Gospel from the so-
called "Acts of Pilate," a document existing as early as
a.d. 150, and professing to give a report of Jesus' trial
and execution. (See Huidekoper's " Indirect Testimony
to the Gospels.")

III.] CHRIST " IN PARADISE." 71

NOTE D.

WHERE WAS CHRIST BETWEEN HIS DEATH AND
RESURRECTION ?

And He [Jesus] said unto him, Verily I say unto thee,
To-day shalt thou be ivith Me in Paradise. (Luke xxiii.
43.)

The Apostles' Creed, as early as a.d. 390, admitted
the clause which in the English version reads, " He
descended into hell"; the original of which, Descendit
in Inferna, signifies, " He went down into the lower
world," that is, the world of the dead and buried. This
seems to have been based on the statement in 1 Pet.
hi. 18—20.

Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous
for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God;
being put to death in the flesh, but auickened in the
spirit ; in ivhich also He went and preached unto the
spirits in prison, ivhich aforetime were disobedient, when
the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah,
while the arh was a preparing, wherein few, that is,
eight souls, were saved through water.

Many orthodox Protestants have denied the plain and
obvious sense of these words, namely, that Christ
preached the Gospel to the sinners who perished in the
flood, contending that Peter here refers to the preaching
of Noah to those sinners, before the flood, through the
Spirit of Christ which was in him. Such an interpreta-
tion is evidently a dogmatic twist, intending to rescue
Peter's statement from the hands of any who might be
disxDosed to extract from it a hope that Gospel offers may
be made beyond the grave.

Some ei orthodox " theologians have taught that Christ
after His death went to hell and suffered the torments of
the damned. Others, shrinking from so revolting a

72 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

conception, made in deference to the supposed exigencies of
a special theory of the Atonement, have held that Christ
went from the Cross back to the heaven from which He
came, and there remained till the hour of His Kesurrec-
tion. Our Lord Himself speaks of Paradise as the abode
awaiting Him and the penitent thief together. " To-day
thou slialt he with Me in Paradise" Spoken, as this
was, to a man possessed of only the most rudimentary
notions of the future state, according to the popular
ideas of the time, and spoken, too, for the practical pur-
pose of consoling him in the agonies of the Cross, it must
be construed according to his capacity to understand it.
Paradise, as the Jews conceived it, was the part of the
underworld appropriated to the blessed, as Gehenna was
the part reserved for the tormented. From the Cross to
Paradise was a transition from pain to peace and from
distress to comfort. Nothing more definite than this is
conveyed by our Lord's promise to His fellow-sufferer.
All that the New Testament has to say more definitely of
Christ's place or occupation during those three days is
said in the passage quoted from Peter.

" The natural unforced interpretation of this text," says
the late Professor Hadley, of Yale College, "is this, that
Christ preached, that is, made the announcement and
offers of the Gospel, to departed spirits, who were in con-
finement as a consequence of their disbelief and abuse of
the Divine forbearance during the days of Noah. This
meaning I should not dare to discard."* That this
preaching of Christ took place after His death, is the
natural implication, but not the express assertion, of
Peter's language. However many and important ques-
tions this leaves waiting for answer, it is all that is told
us. Anything beyond this is mere inference and specu-
lation.

* See further in my essay, "Is Eternal Punishment End-
less?" pp. 8G-88.

III.] MORTAL BODIES QUICKENED. 73

But wherever Christ was, and whatever Christ did,
during that mysterious interval, we can hardly doubt that,
when He W( nt forth from the crucified body, He went
into no disembodied condition, but rather into a spiritual
body, appropriate to the world into which "He went and
preached to the spirits in prison" As on entering our
present world He took on Him our " natural body,'"
appropriate to this world, so on His entering the world
of " the spirits in prison " we must think of Him as
taking on a " spiritual body," appropriate to the world
of spirits. We think of Him as passing at will from one
"habitation" or "tabernacle" to another, and that in
each direction. This entrance into the spiritual body
of the invisible world was actual Kesurrection, but not
manifested Kesurrection. His Resurrection was not to
be made manifest to the chosen witnesses till " His
hour " had come, upon the Lord's Day.

NOTE E.

MORTAL BODIES QUICKENED.

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of
sin ; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But
if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the
dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His
Spirit that dwelleth in you.

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to
live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh, ye must
die ; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, these are sons of God. (Rom. viii. 10 — 14.)

The analogy, drawn in this passage from the Resurrec-
tion of Christ to the quickening of our mortal bodies,
is thought to give some colour to the notion of the raising
up of " the self- same bodies that were buried."

74 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Whether this " physical Eesurrection " was in Paul's
thought, we must determine : —

(1.) From the limitations which other sayings of tho
Apostle require us to assign to his meaning here. The
whole drift of his argument in 1 Cor. xv. is to the other-
ness of the future body. So, in 2 Cor. v., when tho
earthly is "dissolved" we straightway "have" tho
heavenly.

(2.) From the point of his conclusion, verse 12. " So
then," ye are now obligated to a spiritual life. Xomore
is to be demanded in the premises than this so then re-
quires. We are not to travel outside of the range of the
argument. All that is required as a ground on which to
base the obligation to a spiritual life now is the ability to
lead such a life, and this flows from a quickening ^owcr
residing within the mortal bod}*.

(8.) From the whole drift of his argument. In Chap. vi.
4 — 11, the Apostle has already drawn an analog}* between
the Resurrection-life of Christ and the new spiritual life
of the Christian in the present world. Returning to
this in the present chapter, he shows that the scat of
this life is in the spirit, not the body ; the source of it
the Divine Spirit, and the channel through which the
quickening power flows from God to man is the way of
righteousness. He reasons thus : —

-* The body is dead because of sin." Not that death, as
a physical experience, has been inflicted on the body by
sin in the way of penalty. Death, in Paul's view, is a
spiritual effect, due to sin as the corresponding spiritual
cause.* In the body, apart from the spirit, is merely
animal life, not spiritual. As devoid of spiritual life, tho
body is dead, and remains dead, because of sin, since sin
excludes the Spirit of righteousness, the quickening power.

* The decisive but not the only text for this view is Rom.
vi. 23, as the contrast between "death'' and "eternal life"

requires.

III.] THE REDEMPTION OP OTJR BODY. 75

"If Christ is in you, the body is (thus) dead" only in so
far as sin, the excluder of spiritual life, is tolerated. Also,
" if Christ is in you, the spirit is life because of right-
eousness" so far as you are intent on righteousness, which
allies it with the Supreme Life-Giver, and keeps an open
channel between the Divine Fountain and the human
vessel.

"And (not 'but,5 but And so) if the Spirit of Him
that raised up the human Jesus from the dead dwell in
you, He that raised up the Divine Christ* from the dead
shall also (or even) impart the life of the spirit to your
'mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwellcth in you.'" And
this, now; "so that %ue are debtors not to the flesh" not
constrained by our existence in these bodies to live in sin,
"after the flesh," The life of the spirit shall so control
and quicken our mortal bodies that they shall not be a
"deadweight upon our spiritual life, but "as instru-
ments of righteousness" (Chap. vi. 13), shall subserve
and further it.

So then (so runs the conclusion), this mortal body is
no excuse (see, especially, Chap.vii. 23 — 25) for supineness
as regards the struggles of spiritual life, for it shall be
quickened by that life, so far as we yield ourselves in
righteousness to the life-giving Spirit of God.

NOTE F.

THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODY.

Waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body. (Kom. viii. 23.)

Here, as in the passage examined in Note E, the question
is not what these words are capable of meaning as ivords,
but what they must mean in connection with the circle of

* Observe the significant transition from the term " Jesus,"
appropriate to the physical life, to the term "Christ," appro-
priate to the spiritual.

76 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

ideas in which they stand, and what significance is cast
upon them by other parts of the Apostle's teaching, as
1 Cor. xv., and 2 Cor. v.

We must weigh this expression, " the redemption of our
body," by the fact that the Pauline terms, " natural body "
and " spiritual body ," have their distinction, not in the
substance out of which each body is organised, but in the
organising, animating, and controlling power in each. This
is the animal soul {psyche) in the "natural" (psychic)
body that now is, but the spirit (pneuma) in the "spiritual"
(pneumatic) body that shall be. The distinction is not
material, but dynamical; not in the stuff, but in the
poiver.

Conformably to this distinction, the redemption of our
body is not the transference of the body from the grave to
the sky, or of the same body from the grosser organisation
of flesh and blood to the ethereal organisation oi" spirit."
The Apostle thinks of us as always having a body, of the
one sort or the other, never as" unclothed " or "naked"
(2 Cor. v. 3, 4), but always able to say, with the fullest sense
of possession, " our body." He accordingly regards its
" redemption " as the transfer of the p>ower which animates
and controls " our body " from the lower-life principle to
the higher, from the psyche ("soul") to the pneuma
("spirit "). This is as far as can be from implying any
"redemption" of the buried dust, or any portion of it,
from the realm of dead matter.

It is true, indeed, that the phraseology is precisely
such as any Jewish Rabbi of that time might have used,
with his notions of the Resurrection as the re- animation of
the buried body, with all its " natural " parts, passions,
blemishes, and even its clothes. But those notions and
Paul's thoughts are diametrically opposite. All Paul's
reasoning shows that, in the spiritual life of his thought,
that materialistic phrase itself has passed through a
Resurrection from the realm of flesh to that of spirit.

III. J THE EEDEMPTTON OF OUE BODY. 77

" The adoption " we wait for, as " the sons of God, led
by the Spirit of God" (verse 14), will be consummated,
when " our body " is manifested, in " the Resurrection of
life" as no more the " natural body," in the power of the
animal life, or " soul," but as the " spiritual body," in the
full power of the spirit, which builds it, controls it, glori-
fies it. This Resurrection is as if the " natural body "
had been raised and redeemed, but not because of any
such thing. " The earthly is dissolved ; we have the
heavenly," as exemplified in the Kisen Christ.

CHAPTEK IV.

THE RESURRECTION AN OBJECT OF
CHRISTIAN ENDEA VOUB, ATTAINED
AT DEATH.

CHAJPTEK IV.

THE RESURRECTION AN OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN
ENDEAVOUR, ATTAINED AT DEATH.

" They that are accounted worthy to attain to that world and
the resurrection from the dead." — Luke xx. 35.

What clear idea do the majority of Bible
readers get from these words of our Lord? Do
they not deserve an effort to understand them
better?

The Kesurrection, we have been taught to
believe, is an event, and an event which, like
the sunrise, the regular course of events will
bring at once to all. It is regarded as the
awakening of all together to judgment
together; the simultaneous morning call of
the Great and Last Day. Thus almost all
Christians hold the traditional belief. But
here our Lord speaks of some men, not all
men, as "accounted worthy to attain to the
Besurrection." The Kesurrection, then, is a
thing which depends on worthiness. Those

6

82 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

who are not " accounted worthy to attain to"
it do not attain it. No other inference can
possibly be drawn from these words.

And yet our Lord has taught, with no less
explicitness, that " all that are in the tombs
shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they
that have done good unto the resurrection of
life, and they that have done ill unto the resur-
rection of judgment. (John v. 29.)

Comparing these passages, it would seem
that the Eesurrection to be obtained by worthi-
ness is " the resurrection of life ."

The same thought is obtained by comparing
two utterances of the Apostle Paul. Writing
to the Philippians (iii. 11), he speaks of his
endeavour to be accounted worthy of the
Eesurrection : "if by any means I may attain
unto the resurrection from the dead." Now,
unless striving and not striving are the same
thing, the results of striving and not striving
cannot be the same thing. The Eesurrection
that Paul strives for cannot be attained by all
together with Paul, because there are many
who do not strive with Paul.

And yet Paul declares, with equal explicit-
ness, that all shall rise from the dead. He
speaks of himself to Felix, as "having hope
toward God . . . . that there shall be

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR. 83

resurrection both of the just and unjust." (Acts
xxiv. 15.)

I. The only conclusion from these identical
teachings of the Master and His disciple is
this : All rise ; not all alike. The Kesurrection,
in the full and ideal sense, " the resurrection of
life" is attained by Christian endeavour only.
A Eesnrrection, unlike, inferior, " of judgment "
awaits " the unjust," and all who do not put
forth Christian endeavour. It is the poor and
barren result which mere neglected nature
brings to pass, without endeavour.

(1.) Observe that this conclusion throws
clearer light upon our Lord's great saying : " I
am the Besurrection and the Life" He by
whose Spirit the endeavour is inspired and
guided, and the result attained, may fitly
claim to be the personal manifestation of the
Kesurrection-power.

(2.) Observe, also, that this shows the same
distinction in the New Testament use of the
word "Resurrection," that we make in our
common use of the word "Life." We know
and say that there is life, which is not life.
We simply carry into the future our common
distinction between life in the bare sense and
life in the full sense, between being and well-
being, when we think of the rising of Paul as

3£ BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

the Eesurrection, that of Judas as simply Eesur-
rection. We speak out of an intelligence both
profound and clear, when we say of multitudes
in this world, "not all who live live." What
is the life of " a tramp "? He is alive, but
does not his existence seem to us more like
death and hell than life ? Thus our common
speech recognises, in many words, a physical
or natural meaning and a spiritual one, a
skeleton-like meaning, hare as fleshless bones
of all that constitutes ideal life, and a vitalised
meaning, complete as a perfect body in all the
attributes that can pertain to perfection of life.
Eesurrection is one of these words of double
meaning. It may denote a life-condition of
fulness and power, or a life-condition of defect
and weakness. Thus only can we consistently
interpret the teachings both of Christ and of
Paul.

(3.) But in what direction do these teach-
ings plainly lead? Do they not plainly con-
template the Eesurrection not as an external
event, but as a spiritual development, resulting
from spiritual processes ?

Another thing is also plainly recognised.
After speaking of his endeavour to " attain unto
the resurrection of the dead," Paul goes right
on to say, "Not that I have already obtained, or

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHEISTIAN ENDEAVOUR, 85

am already made perfect : but I press on, if so
be that I may apprehend that for which also I
was apprehended by Christ Jesus." That is, in
Paul's view, the attainment of the Kesurrection
is a present concern. It must be worked out
here. It cannot be laid over till the future
state begins. The result which Paul deems it
necessary to attain before he dies is a certain
spiritual condition. This, potentially , is the
Resurrection. It involves it as the bud involves
the flower.

Certainly, this way of thinking is not in the
line of the traditional expectation of a world-
wide external event, to burst upon all mankind
simultaneously, ages hence.

II. We are now introduced to the question :
When did Paul expect the bud to unfold, and
the flower to appear ? When did he expect to
realise that he had attained the Resurrection
fully ?

The conclusion has been already drawn
(Chapter ii.) from our Lord's great saying : " I
am the Resurrection and the Life" and corrobo-
rated by other sayings of His (Notes A and B,
Chapter ii.), that His Eesurrection-power, like
every other power which He claims in that
frequent assertion, " I am," is a power in pre-
sent and perpetual exercise ; that through this

86 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [cnAP.

power the unseen world beholds "the spirits of
just men made perfect " perpetually rising from
the dead in the spiritual body, in the complete-
ness of " the resurrection of life."

Further evidence for this is now to come
before us from the Scriptures.

(1.) That this, at least, in some, or many,
cases, is not to be delayed till that universal
and simultaneous awakening which the popular
tradition anticipates, appears from what John
tells us of what he calls " the First 'Resurrec-
tion" (Rev. xx. 5, 6), in which "blessed and
holy " spirits participate, and enjoy a period of
glory for " a thousand years," during which,
he says, " the rest of the dead lived not." How-
ever we explain the particulars of this pro-
phecy, of which due account will be subse-
quently made,* the general fact on the face of
it is, that some of the dead will have their
Resurrection before others. But let the fact
here be noted, to be thought on, that except
among a limited number of Christians, who
hold what are called u peculiar views," the
doctrine of the First Resurrection has been
dropped out of mind as an insoluble enigma.
It need not, it ought not, to be dropped. We
can find its place in finding a more rational

* See Chapter ix. and Note B.

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHKISTIAN ENDEAVOUK. 87

and Scriptural view of the whole subject to
which it belongs.

(2.) Further testimony comes from Paul.
He tells the Corinthians (1, xv. 22), that as
death comes to all from Adam, so Eesurrection
comes to all from Christ : " For as in Adam
all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But" he immediately adds, " each in his
own order " (rdyfia, a division, like that of an
army). What clearer way of saying, " not all
at once " ? This is the natural sense given by
the connection of ideas in the parallel between
Adam and Christ. All are not born of Adam
at once, nor do all born of Adam die at once.
They are born and die in their generations,
each in his own " order." So of that birth
into the future body which we name the
Eesurrection, what more congruous with the
Apostle's way of speaking than that it is in
the successive generations, " each in his
own " ? *

(3.) Perhaps plainer still is what Paul says
in his second letter to the Corinthians (v. 1) :
" We know that, if the earthly house of our
tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from
God, a house not made ivith hands, eternal, in

* See, further, upon this passage. Note D, appended to the
next chapter.

88 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

the heavens." Paul is here speaking, not
merely of the present and the future state, but
of the present and the future body — of being
"unclothed" of the one and " clothed upon"
with the other. If, however, the traditional
notions of the subject are true, Paul does not
now have this anticipated " house " or body,
but only a prospect of having it by-and-by.
But he does not say we shall have it, but we
have it. He plainly thinks, that we have it
when we cease to have the earthly body. He
expects to move directly from the one " house"
into the other. " If the earthly be dissolved,
we have* the heavenly." Then he goes on to
develop his thought. He regards death as not
merely an unclothing, a disembodiment of the
spirit, but a clothing upon, a re-embodiment,
an accession of life more abundant. " For we
that are in this tabernacle do groan, being bur-
dened, not for that ive would be unclothed, but
that we would be clothed upon, that what is
mortal may be swallowed up of life." But
how could mortality be thus " swallowed up "
— every trace of it obliterated — if such a trace
of it remained as a naked, disembodied spirit

* Compare with this the similar emphatic assertion which
Paul makes that the spiritual body of the Eesurrection is a
present reality, "There is a spiritual body." (1 Cor. xv. 44.)

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHEISTIAN ENDEAVOUE. 89

in waiting for a new body, still carrying un-
satisfied the longings of mortality which Paul
expressed in his " longing to be clothed upon
with our habitation which is from heaven"*?
Paul expressly intimates his hope of the con-
trary, though not so clearly in the English
version as in the original. He uses a phrase
by which the Greek denotes a supposition as
taken for granted, and says: "since* (E. V.,
if so be that) being clothed [as I anticipate] we
shall not be found naked" or without a body.

(4.) In close connection with what Paul says
of the earthly and the heavenly house, or body,
may be put what Christ said to the covetous
(Luke xvi. 9), urging them to beneficence,
" that when it [riches] shall fail [at death]
they [your beneficiaries] may receive you into
the eternal tabernacles." The word for " taber-
nacle " is identical in meaning, and nearly so
in form, with the word by which Paul denotes
the earthly body (aicnvr), g-ktjvo^, tabernacle or
tent). And the welcoming into the heavenly
" tents " Christ puts at the time when the
earthly ones cease to be.

All these testimonies of Holy Scripture, with

* Eobinson's Lex., p. 139, translates elf 76 koL, etc.," if indeed
also [as we may take for granted, that is, since] being clothed we
shall not be found naTied."

90 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

others that might be put beside them, did not
these seem abundantly adequate, converge
upon the point of truth which our Lord's great
saying illuminates. We cannot reasonably
doubt that His Resurrection-power, like all His
other powers, is claimed as a present activity,
though behind the veil, by His word, " I am."
It operates, like all His other powers, to-day
and perpetually, though beyond our sight.
To as many as have by Christian endeavour
prepared the Christly conditions of being
" accounted worthy to attain to the Resur-
rection" He is to-day the Author of " the
resurrection of Life " in the spiritual body,
as really as He is to-day the Author of
the preparatory work of Divine grace within
our souls.

III. This conclusive testimony of Holy
Scripture to the present and continuous ac-
complishment of the Resurrection, " each in his
own order " is re-enforced by other considera-
tions.

(1.) Reflecting minds must draw an infer-
ence upon this subject from what they see of
the principle of continuity that is apparent in
all the works of God. We see no general
arrest of progress anywhere. The testimony
of the past ages is uniform. The earth, life,

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHEISTIAN ENDEAVOUE. 91

man, civilisation, religion, everything in which
physical, social, spiritual forces work, exhibit
continuous movement forward, without arrest
or halt. God is perpetually active in all His
works (John v. 17), pouring into them life
ever more abundantly. Directly opposed, in
principle, to all this, as well as wholly unsup-
ported by the teaching of our Lord, is the old
notion that has come down from the Jews into
our modern churches, of an " intermediate,"
and privative, state of existence, in which the
souls of the dead halt and wait, in a long inter-
ruption of embodied conditions, until a day
arrives that clothes them again with the bodies
they have waited for, and finally sets them
forward completely equipped for the heavenly
existence.

(2.) Since we must regard the prin-
ciple of continuity, elsewhere observable,
as operative likewise in the invisible world, we
cannot accept the notion that death introduces
in any respect a subsidence into lower, or
negative, privative or less perfect conditions,
like Paul terms " nakedness " or disembodi-
ment.* Here we must cut wholly loose from

* The " Larger Catechism '' of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.)
strives hard to look in the other direction. It affirms that the
souls of the righteous, "immediately after death," "are made
perfect in holiness, and received into the highest heavens, where

92 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Old Testament doctrine, and turn our backs on
all those quotations from the ancient Hebrew
writers, which may be adduced to sustain the
notion we must discard. " The dead praise
not the Lord, neither any that go down into
silence" (Psalm cxv. 17.) We must meet all
such statements with the fact that " life and
incorruption have been brought to light by the
Gospel "—by the Gospel of the Resurrection.*
Death cannot be a descent into a less

they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the
full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue
united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at
the last day they be again united to their souls." (§ 86.)

Nevertheless, these souls are conceived of as disembodied, or
in Paul's phrase " naked." And how can this be anything but
a privative condition, destitute of the necessary organ for the
manifestation of life in its normal completeness, in the union of
body and spirit ? Such an intermediate life is, so far, a muti-
lated one, in which death is not "swallowed up" but rather
maintains a perpetual trophy of victory, in the "naked " state
of the spirit.

But who can comprehend this bit of transcendentalism, which
contemplates the dissolved body as still " united to Christ " ?

* To construct a correct doctrine of the future state by any use
of such statements as the one above quoted from the Psalms is
like attempting to derive accurate information of the interior of
the United States as it is to-day from a map fifty years old. To
say this is by no means to discredit the inspiration of the Old
Testament (that is, in any right and clear thinking on that
subject), but simply to do justice to the patent fact which
Bible study evinces, that the Holy Scriptures are character-
ised by a progress of doctrine from first to last. Inspiration is
one thing, infallibility another; but the two are generally con-
founded in Christian thought. (See Chapter x., II.)

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR. 93

complete, less highly developed, state of being
than the present. It must be ascent, rather 7
into a state of greater completeness, higher
development, capacitated for more exalted
joys, capable, therefore, of keener pains also;
or God's principle of continuous advance is
contradicted.

Death merely disconnects the spirit from a
perishable body, which is dropped and left
behind for ever. For the decay and reconstitu-
tion of that body there is no such waiting as
the creeds fancy, nor for a far remote and
miraculous assumption of a body in the sup-
posed simultaneous and general re-embodiment
of all that are in the graves. The perishable
body no sooner drops away, than the spirit is
clothed upon — perhaps in Chapter ix. we may
see reason to think, clothes itself, through the
operation of fixed and uniform law — with a
body suited to an advanced stage of being. It
rises into such a condition of existence as it is
fitted to rise into. So it was said of Judas,
that he went "to his own place." But whether
it be " unto life" or " unto judgment" there is
no break, no halt, but onward movement ever.
So said the poet, —

" Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks."

94 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

This is the Anastasis* which is revealed in
the New Testament, the rising-up, the Resur-
rection.

IV. But unless we can see clearly how a mis-
take has originated, we cannot always admit that
the mistake exists. The bar to a true and Scrip-
tural doctrine of the Kesurrection, as exhibited
in the foregoing pages, is formed principally by
mistaken notions respecting the coming of
Christ and the judgment day. The New
Testament constantly associates these three
ideas : — The coming of the Lord, the rising of
the dead, the judgment of the world.

(1.) If the coming of the Lord is still distant,
then, as most Christians reason,theKesurrection-
day and the judgment-day are likewise distant.
So far or so near as the coming is placed, so
far or so near everything associated with it in
the Scripture prophecies is deemed to be. "With
the exception of a comparatively small number
of Christians, who deem the coming of the
Lord to be now impending, the general view
relegates it to an indefinite future, and with it
the Resurrection and the Judgment also.

(2.) Again, if the Judgment to come is con-
ceived— as I think is commonly the case — after
the manner of an earthly tribunal, which at an

* See Note at the end of this chapter.

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHKISTIAN ENDEAVOUR. 95

appointed day opens, goes through its docket,
and then adjourns ; if our thought sets the
opening of some great and general court of God
at a far-off point or end of time, till which the
due sentencing of all the deeds and misdeeds of
the human race is to be waited for, then we
shall tend to think of the " resurrection of
judgment" as deferred till that court is ready
to open, together with " the resurrection of life."
It will seem to us the general and simultaneous
opening of the court doors to the waiting
multitudes.

To suggest that these ideas may be replaced
by others more reasonable, and by ,way of
introducing the subjects of the three following
chapters, let us glance here at John's vision of
Resurrection and Judgment. (Rev. xx. 12, 13.)
This vision was the last which John had in the
series which he saw concerning the progress
of the kingdom of Christ through conflict up to
final triumph. But from'this finality in narrative
is it right to infer finality in fact ? — that no such
processes are now going on in the unseen ? —
that they will not begin until the present
struggles of the advancing kingdom have reached
their consummation in glory? This is the
inference usually drawn. But let us test it by
an illustration.

96 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Suppose that we visit a factory, in which
many processes are simultaneously going on.
In the basement we see the raw material
sorted and cut up. In the next story we see
some of the coarser processes. Up and up
we go, finer and finer the processes we see,
and at last in the upper story we find
finishing, inspecting, sorting and boxing.
Now, if we should tell a child what wre had
seen in that factory, in the order in which we
had seen it, he might imagine that the work ot
those upper rooms was not touched till all the
lower work-rooms had stopped work, and every
wheel in the preparatory processes was still.
Yet that childish inference, as to the time when
Eesurrection and Judgment begin, is actually
drawn from John's vision of them, simply be-
cause he narrates it last in the order of things
which he saw. Is it not far more reasonable to
regard it as a single glimpse of things which
are perpetually going on in the unseen world ?
While this world's events are taking place, the
unseen world {"Hades") beholds the grave,
the sea, perpetually giving up their dead, and
judgment is perpetually passing on the spirits
new-born into the future state, as their actual
character is revealed to them in conscience, as
in the sight of God, and as they enter into

IV.] AN OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR. 97

the appropriate consequences of being what
their course here has made them to be -
worthy or unworthy of the " Besurrection of
life."

The sum of our conclusions thus far is this :
The Besurrection is ever going on in the invisi-
ble world. The continuity of embodied condi-
tions suffers no interruption. All rise at death
into a higher stage of being, with higher
capacities for every kind of spiritual experi-
ence, whether joyful or painful. " The un-
just" as well as " the just" are destined to
resurrection. And yet it cannot be the same
for both. If Paul has to labour " to attain
unto the Resurrection ," it is clear that those who
do not labour do not attain. Their resurrec-
tion is simply destitute of whatever they have
not laboured for. They rise from the dead into
being, but not well-heing — into a life that is
not life in fulness of power and of joy. Their
Besurrection-life cannot be well-heing, for all
well-being comes through struggle, and they
have not struggled for spiritual well-being.
They have sowed no seed of Christly en-
deavour ; but " whatsoever a man soioeth that
[only] shall he also reap." (Gal. vi. 7.) Their
future life cannot possibly be better than a
state of privation, corresponding to whatever

7

98 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

neglect produced the privation. If this is all
we can be sure of, this is enough for any
thoughtful mind. Gross exaggerations and wild
fancies have invested the mysterious future
with many imaginations, both bright and dark,
that thinking men may leave to the poets, and
the painters, and to the ranters also. But we
may be absolutely certain of so much as this.
"Where no moral and spiritual effort has been
invested in the future, whether that future be
in this life or in any other, there can be no
gain, no future income of moral and spiritual
power and joy and peace in perfectness of
life.

How then, 0 Paul, shall we strive with you,
that we may attain with you unto the Eesur-
rection of the dead?

Listen to his answer : — " What things were
gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.
Yea verily, and I count all things to he loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord : for whom I suffered the loss of all
things, and do count them but dung, that I may
gain Christ"

Is there any other way in which we may
obtain a place among those whom Christ calls
" worthy to attain to that world and the Besurrec-
tion from the dead" except the Christly life of

IV.] ANASTASIS AND EXANASTASIS. 99

humble endeavour after holiness in fellowship
with the Father revealed through Christ ? This
only brings the spirit to the ripeness of its bud
here. This only will unfold out of that bud the
flower of the Christian Kesurrection.
If we see the way, let us walk therein.

NOTE A.

ANASTASIS AND EXANASTASIS.

The word which Paul uses in avowing his effort to
" attain unto the Resurrection " is a noteworthy word, ex-
anastasis, the solitary instance in which this word ap-
pears in the New Testament for the usual word, anas-
tasis. It is a pregnant word. It signifies not merely
resurrection, but resurrection from or out of, implying
an emergence from a condition in which others may re-
main. It thus sets forth in a single emphatic term the
idea which, to intensify the whole expression, is conveyed
also by the added words, "from the dead."

The New Testament regularly uses the phrase " resur-
rection of the dead " as a general expression of the fact
that the dead rise. But it is noteworthy that Christ, in
speaking of those i(who shall be accounted ivorthy to
attain to the Resurrection" phrases it as " Resurrection
(anastasis) from the dead," thus expressing the same
idea which Paul sets forth in his more intense " exanas-
tasis from the dead," the same idea which is involved
in the word " worthy"— & precedence of some over
others. How this use of words agrees with the idea of
the Kesurrection as the prize of Christian endeavour, is
readily seen.

747373

ic

100 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP. IV.

NOTE B.

AUGUSTINE'S VIEWS OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

It is worth while to compare with the ideas of future
punishment which have prevailed alike among Koman
Catholics and Protestants, the views entertained on that
subject by the Church teacher of the primitive period,
whom both Catholics and Protestants agree in honour-
ing, and whom Protestants hold in special regard as the
spiritual ancestor of the Eeformers.

In Augustine's view " eternal death is a subsidence
into a lower form of life, a lapse into an inferior mode of
existence, a privation of the highest vital influx from God
in order to everlasting life, or supreme beatitude, but not
of all vital influx, in order to an endless existence, which

is a partial and incomplete participation in good

There is no trace [in A.'s writings] of the idea that God
hates a portion of His creatures with an absolute, infinite,
and eternal hatred, and is hated with a perfect and
eternally enduring hatred by them in return, to the

utmost extent of their capacity There is no trace

of the idea that God has withdrawn Himself from a por-
tion of His creatures, except so far as to retain them in
existence, .... that those who die in sin lose all that is
good in their nature and all good of existence become
completely evil, and continue to grow everlastingly in the
direction of an infinite wickedness, which merits a corre-
sponding degree of pain. On the contrary, St. Augustine
teaches that God preserves in endless existence those
creatures who have forfeited their capacity of attaining to
the supreme good, because of the good of which they are

still capable However great then* suffering from

the pain of loss or the pain of sense may be, according to
the doctrine of St. Augustine it cannot be such throughout
eternity as to destroy the good of existence, and make it
a pure, unmitigated, penal evil to live for ever." (From

rownson's Quarterly Iievieiv, July, 1863.)

CHAPTEK V.

THE COMING OF CHBIST IN HIS
KINGDOM A BEALITY OF THE
PAST, THE PEE SENT, AND THE
FUTURE.

\

CHAPTEB V.

THE COMING OF CHRIST IN HIS KINGDOM A
REALITY OF THE PAST, THE PRESENT,
AND THE FUTURE.

" Verily I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here,
which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man
coming in His kingdom." — Matt. xvi. 28.

I. Eighteen hundred years have passed
since the last of a long series of herald voices
died upon the air, and transferred its burden
to the written page. For a thousand years a
succession of such heralds had announced the
coming of a kingdom of righteousness and a
King of glory. For a thousand years previous,
and still further back, further than we can
exactly date, a succession of other heralds,
only with vision less clear, and voices less
distinct, had been heard bidding men look for
blessing to One who was to come in a chosen
family line. Such is the strain of hope which
fills the Bible from beginning to end with an
expectation growing more intense as the ages

104 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP,

roll by, till, in the closing portions of the New
Testament, men's eyes seem straining to catch
the first ray of a rising sun, and the last
sentence of the sacred volume seems to con-
centrate in one breath the hope of all the gene-
rations : — "Amen: come, Lord Jesus."

That last cry of the heralds was uttered
eighteen hundred years ago. Then the era of
prophecy closed its record of thousands of
years. Why ? Was it not because the era of
its fulfilment had begun? The sudden dis-
appearance of this long stream of prophecy
was either because the river had found the sea
toward which it had bent its way, or else,
because, deprived of an outlet by impenetrable
barriers, it had stagnated in some Sahara
waste, to disappear amid the sand.

"When, however, we say that the era of fulfil-
ment began when the era of prophecy ended,
we must be content to assign no larger a
meaning to that word began than history shall
justify. The Kingdom is represented by the
parable of the growing seed, in which there is
a flourishing reality before there is ripeness.
(Mark iv. 26—29.)

II. Beside that long-gone ending of the flow
of prophecy that we have noticed, we must
now put one other significant fact, namely :

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 105

just before the stream disappeared, the herald
voices were most clear and frequent in declar-
ing the fulfilment to be close at hand.

Christ, who certainly did not in any way
manifest Himself as a king before His death (if
we except the procession on Palm Sunday,
and His conversation with Pilate), uttered this
unmistakable prophecy of the nearness of a
decisive manifestation : — " Verily, I say unto
you, There be some of them that stand here,
which shall in no wise taste of death, till they
see the Son of man coming in His kingdom."
(Matt. xvi. 28.)

With equal explicitness and still greater
particularity of detail, He reiterates it in His
elaborate prophecy of the impending distresses
of Judea and the fall of Jerusalem. After
dwelling upon the miseries of that period He
goes right on to say : — " But immediately, after
the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be
darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, ■
and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken : and
then shall appear the sign of the Son of man
in heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the
earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of
man coming on the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory. And He shall send forth His

10G BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

angels ivith a great sound of a trumpet, and
they shall gather together His elect from the
four toinds, from one end of heaven to the
other." (Matt. xxiv. 29—31.)

Observe here the decisive word, " imme-
diately after the tribulation of these days.'"
This " immediately " has been strangely
ignored, and merely for the reason that the
wonders in sun, moon, and stars, clouds of
glory, and hosts of trumpeting angels, have not
yet been seen in the sky. But what if the sky
be not the place to look for the signs which
the Lord gave ? What if His words were not
intended to direct us to search the heavens of
astronomy and meteorology for the signs of a
spiritual epoch ? May it not be wiser to think
thus, than to ignore such a word as this " im-
mediately " ? Especially when our Lord goes
right on to add this other note of the nearness
of the time: — " Verily, I say unto you, This
generation shall not pass atvay, till all these
things be accomplished."

What Christ meant by this high-wrought
description of the signs of His coming, we
shall see by-and-by. For the present, let us
notice that He coupled with what He said of
His coming such terms as " immediately " and
"this generation."

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 107

With such words as these to kindle their ex-
pectations, the Apostles and the whole Church
of the first generation lived in a constant ex-
pectation of the speedy coming of their Lord
in His kingdom and glory. No one has
failed to note the fact that, in the Apostolic
Epistles, the Day of Christy the Day of the
Lord's Appearing, seems very near. The
great hope of the first disciples was, that
they might live to see the day and share its
glory.

But the herald Apostles, though, like Moses,
they saw the land of promise from afar, and
described its glory, like Moses were not suf-
fered to pass over across the dividing stream.
One by one they perished under the stroke of
martyrdom — all save that one who lived far
into the succeeding period in fulfilment of the
word, " If I will that he tarry till I come.''''
They died, and left no successors to their hope
of the Lord's immediate coming. The Church
of the next generation, with a lower spiritual
temperature, both misconceiving the nature of
the Lord's kingdom, and misinterpreting the
Lord's signs of His coming, with the spiritual
eye shut to much that it might have seen, and
the sensuous eye tired of gazing into a vacant
sky, gradually remitted this glorious Apostolic

108 BEYOND TIIE SHADOW. [CHAP.

hope to the limbo of uncertain expectations.
And these things followed : —

(1.) The Church began to look away to the
indefinite future, and to expect now one and
now another catastrophe as the day of the
Lord's appearing to make an " end of all
things,'" as, for instance, at the fall of the
Konian Empire, or at the completion of a
thousand years of the Christian era.

(2.) Many pious and learned men have held
that the Apostles were mistaken. Many
sceptics have held that Jesus was mistaken.
It would seem almost certain that there was a
mistake somewhere. We may find reason to
judge that the Apostles were right in their
hope of the Lord's coming, as a near fact, but
wrong in their opinion of the manner in which
the fact was to be accomplished. We may
find reason to think that the Church has been
mistaken in thinking of the Lord's coming
after the sensuous manner of the Jews, rather
than after the spiritual manner of the kingdom
of God.

(3.) Ignorant and unspiritual people have
taken to predicting a time when the Lord shall
come with outward show, until that most
glorious hope of the New Testament, the

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 109

Kingly Advent of our Lord, has furnished, in
the name of " Adventist," a term which to
most persons suggests a somewhat visionary
way of thinking.*

III. To the facts already stated, the long
flow of prophecy, the sudden cessation of its
stream, the declarations of our Lord that His
coming and His kingdom were at hand, let us
add now this other fact, namely : —

The chief power in the living world to-day
is visibly exercised by our Lord Jesus Christ,
visibly, that is, if not to our senses, at least to
an open-eyed intelligence. Not without con-
tradiction and antagonism, indeed, but yet
gradually overruling contradiction and an-
tagonism. What is called Fenianism in Ireland
is subject to the throne it hates. Despite of
barbarism in Mississippi and in Africa,
Mormonism in Utah, and Islamism in the
Orient, Nihilism in Kussia, and various forms
of Atheism elsewhere, the actual supremacy of
the Lord Jesus Christ in this present world is

# The Adventist delusion will live, as error always lives, on
the half-truth that is mixed with it, until the truth which gives
currency and vitality to the error has full justice done to it by
more discerning minds. It is the mangling which some truths
have received inside the pale of orthodoxy, to which is due the
sincere, however misguided and one-sided, protest of many a
creed which is called heresy and delusion.

110 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

attested to one who reflects on the following
facts, namely : —

(1.) Though the nominally Christian part of
the world's population is far the smallest part,
yet the ruling powers of the world are the
nominally Christian nations. Thus a handful
of Englishmen rule Hindostan.

(2.) Though the really Christian part of
Christendom is far the smaller part of nominal
Christendom, yet the moral supremacy of
Chistendom is in really Christian hands. By
this is meant, not that most of the acknow-
ledged rulers of Christendom are real Christians,
but this, rather : That no law or institution is
either unchallenged or permanently tolerated
in Christendom, after those among whom it
exists perceive it to be in conflict with the
commandments of Christ. Whenever such a
conflict is perceived, directly the moral senti-
ment of Christianity begins to train against
the evil an artillery which at length levels it
to the ground. The attack may be, and often
is, begun by a solitary Eeformer, but his
derided solo grows to a resistless chorus-cry,
amid which the citadel of the evil falls. And
so Christ has long been giving law to the
nations, as the Hebrew prophets foretold.
(Isa. ii. 2, 3 ; Mic iv. 1, 2.)

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. Ill

(3.) Whatever abuses remain, whatever de-
fects appear, the obvious tendency, among the
ruling nations of the world, is to realise with
increasing completeness the supremacy of the
Christian ideas, as expressed in the precepts
and example of Christ. How evidently, for in-
stance, the conviction is gaining ground that
the supreme moral force is not fear but love !
And thus the world is by degrees being made
new.*

(4.) Among the inferior nations, which,
though not Christian, are subordinated to the
Christian powers, there is a constant diffusion
of Christian ideas. Whatever missionaries
have not yet accomplished, they have certainly

* It used to be supposed that when the world was first made,
it was all made at once to assume its present form ; that the
living world came into existence as it now appears, with an in-
stantaneous completeness, as though the plants and animals, in
their several "days," had been struck out each with a die. Now
we know that the world and everything in it came into its
present appearance by a very gradual process of formation and
change. It has also been supposed that the world would be
made new all at once. But the new making, " the regeneration"
(Matt. xix. 28, — see Note A, at the end of this chapter), is, like
the first making, a very gradual process of change under the
persistent action of the forces of spiritual development. When
we read, " The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they
shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling"
(Matt. xiii. 41), we must reckon among these "angels" all
powers and influences that work for His kingdom in the sup-
pression of anti-Christian principles and practices. And history
shows that these are going down and out, surely j but how
slowly, our impatience often testifies.

112 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

planted Christian schools and colleges in great
numbers through the non-Christian world.
What future ascendency of Christian influence
in that portion of the world this points to, one
may easily conjecture.

This is no rose-coloured view. The unsub-
dued evils press heavily on our hearts. Many
" tilings that cause stumbling " remain to be
cast out. But facts that cannot be questioned
declare Christ to be note King in the existing
world. The most potent personal name to-
day is His name. The ascendant influence to-
day is His influence. No law or institution is
unchallenged that is deemed inconsistent with
His law. A process of judgment and overthrow
is seen working in His interest around the world
for the suppression of evils. The whole move-
ment of the world tends toward a better subjec-
tion to the moral supremacy of Christ. There
is no more reason for doubting that Christ has
already begun to reign in His kingdom, because
some things remain to be cast out, and other
things to be set in order, than there is for
doubting that God is the Maker and Sovereign
of the world, because of the abundant evil that
still appears in it.

It would seem, therefore, that a fair survey of
facts must recognise as now in progress the

V.] THE COMING OF THE KINO. 113

expansion of that kingdom which our Lord,
in beginning His earthly ministry, announced
as near. (Matt. iv. 17.) The picture is before
our eyes. The outlines are not yet all filled
up. There are gaps in the foreground, and
gaps in the background, which the pencil of
history has yet to fill. But the outlines, at
least, are there, corresponding to the shadow
which prophecy cast upon the blank canvas
more than two thousand years ago. Thus
wrote Isaiah (xlii. 1 — 4) : — " Behold My ser~
va?it, whom, I uphold ; Mine elect, in whom
My soul delighteth ; I have put My Spirit
upon Him : He shall bring forth judgment to
the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up,
nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed shall He not break, and the
smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall
bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall
not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set
judgment in the earth : and the isles shall
wait for His law."

Thus the facts of the present moral dominion
of Christ correspond to the prophecies of Isaiah
and Micah, that to the nations " the law shall
go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem "; for manifestly that was the
point whence " the royal law " of Christ issued

8

114 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

forth upon its great career. (Isa. ii. 2 ; Mic.
iv. 1, 2.)

Evidently, the world reveals to our intelli-
gence, as a now existing fact, a spiritual king-
dom and Christ its King. This has had a pro-
gressive growth, according to that Divine law
of development, "from the least to the greatest,"
which everywhere operates. It has also, of
course, had its beginning. In this beginning
we cannot expect that it will be as plainly re-
cognisable as in its more advanced stages. We
must not be disappointed, if we do not find it
beginning in full strength and completeness.
But when, nevertheless, did it begin ? This is
not in itself a very important question. It is
made important only by the fact that the begin-
ning is denied. Many shut their eyes to the
fact that the kingdom is nowhere, because they
find no record of any such beginning as they
conceive there should have been, when the Son
of man came in His kingdom to " sit on the
throne of His glory.''' (Matt. xxv. 31.) Having
searched the past in vain for falling stars,
darkened sun and moon, and angelic hosts,
they say, the Son of man has not come, the
Apostles were mistaken, and even Jesus was
in error.

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 115

IV. We are therefore compelled to inquire
about the beginning of the Kingdom.

Specially, we must ask what our Lord meant
by the signs of His coming, as described in
Matt. xxiv. 29 — 31. Here we must rigidly
apply the principle, that the signs must be of
the same nature as the Kingdom. If the King-
dom belongs to the sphere of the senses, the
signs will ; otherwise not. If the Kingdom
is spiritual, the signs will be such as appeal
to intelligence rather than to sense. It is not
reasonable to look for disturbances in the solar
system and the starry universe to attest the
inauguration of a new spiritual epoch. It is
not reasonable to think that Christ meant
that eclipses and clouds of vapour and visible
angels, blowing audible trumpets, were to be
signs of His assuming a spiritual throne.

(1.) Why, then, did He speak in such
terms ?

To answer, we must remember that the one
book of the Jewish people was the Old Testa-
ment. The disciples knew that book well.
Our Lord borrows His vivid language about
the signs of His coming from the familiar
imagery of the ancient prophets. In these, the
extinction of the civil and religious luminaries

116 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

of society, in the destruction of institutions
and the overthrow of priests and kings,
is pictured as the darkening or extinction of
sun, moon, and stars. Witness a specimen of
such language in Isaiah's prophecy of the fall
of Babylon : — " Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh, to lay the land desolate. . . . For
the stars of heaven and the constellations
thereof shall not give their light : the sun
shall be darkened in his going forth, and the
moon shall not cause her light to shine.'*
(xiii. 9, 10.)

Now it was perfectly appropriate thus to
speak, as our Lord spoke, to hearers whose
sacred Scriptures had used such a mode of
speaking about any great change in the social
or religious order.* For an event was at hand,
to which such a mode of speaking was even
more appropriate than to the quenching of the
luminaries of old Babylon and Egypt. Before
the "generation" passed away which heard
our Lord speak, that event took place, as He
had explicitly foretold (Matt. xxiv. 34), which

* Whether our Lord's hearers understood His references to
signs in the heavens literally (as I think pro cable), or not, tho
fact remains, that their Holy Scriptures were in their hands,
with those records of fulfilled prophecy that had been uttered in
the same terms, and];therefore ought noc to have been taken
literally by the intelligent hearer or reader.

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 117

was necessary to the establishment of His
Kingdom, and to the manifestation of Himself
as the moral King of men.

(2.) What, now, was that event ?

To answer, we must remember that Chris-
tianity first appeared to the world as a new
variety of Judaism, a Jewish sect. Jesus
was a Jew. His Apostles were Jews. Their
first converts were Jews, who continued to
adhere to the laws of Moses, and endea-
voured to make all converts from other
nations conform, and expected that the whole
religious world would continue to look to Jeru-
salem and the Temple as its centre. The
Epistles of Paul resound with the conflict
between the conservative party, who strove to
put the " new wine " of Christianity into the
"old bottles " of Judaism, and the radical party,
headed by Paul, who insisted on " new bottles,"
and went so far as to abolish the Mosaic sab-
bath, and the Abrahamic sacrament of circum-
cision. But so long as the Levitical priesthood
offered sacrifice on the spot consecrated for a
thousand years by the ritual of Moses, so long
was the claim of Paul to be subject only to the
law of Christ, disputed by an appeal to the
Divine authority of the institutions which held
their vantage-ground on the Temple mountain.

118 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

From that vantage-ground they must be dis-
lodged. The logic of some such event as the
demolition of the visible centre and symbol of
the outworn dispensation was needed to re-
inforce the arguments of Paul, that circum-
cision was " nothing" and the seventh day
sabbath but " a shadow of the things to come."
Only when that ancient altar was overthrown,
and "Moses' seat" displaced, could Christianity
be fully extricated from the Jewish matrix in
which it had been formed, and manifest itself
to the world unencumbered with obsolete
claims, and owning only Christ as supreme.
Thus essential to establish the sole spiritual
supremacy of Christ was the great event, in
which our Lord foretold that His kingly coining
should be made manifest within the lifetime of
some of His hearers. It took place in the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem (a.d. 70), the demolition of the
Temple, the extinction of the luminaries — sun,
moon, and stars — of the Jewish firmament, the
sweeping away of the nation. Then, as foretold,
appeared " the sign of the Son of man in heaven"
for the Cross rose as the Temple fell. Then
began " all the tribes of the earth " to "mourn"
for then began to be manifested the Lord's
judgment work, that goes on still in the sweeping
away of obstructions to the progress of His

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 119

Kingdom, with all who cling to them and insist
on maintaining them. Then men might have
seen — whether or no they understood what they
saw — " the Son of man coming on the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory ," over-
shadowingly, irresistibly, triumphantly coming
amid the cloudy troubles of that stormy and
tempestuous time. Then began the "angels"
of the Son of man, " with a great sound of a
trumpet,'" to gather "His elect from the four
winds of heaven "ion the heralds of " the Gospel
of the Kingdom " were heard, trumpet-tongued,
with augmenting power, in all quarters of the
world. Then began His saying to be fulfilled :
" Then if any man shall say unto you, ho, here
is the Christ, or, Here ; believe it not For as
the lightning cometh forth from the east, and
is seen even unto the west; so shall be the
coining of the Son of man." No local, but a
world-wide coming was His to be, as the
whole hemisphere is illuminated by the elec-
tric flash.

The principle on which we must hold this to
be the only reasonable explanation of the terms
in which our Lord gave the signs of His coming
in His kingdom is this : That when an event is
taking place in the spiritual realm of ideas, the
indications and signs must be such as appeal

120 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CIIAI?-

to the perception of thought, rather than to the
perception of sense.

One may say, indeed : Was not the fall of the
Jewish temple an event in the physical world,
just as much as the fall of stars ? Yes ; and
so also was the appearance of the Man Christ
Jesus among men an event in the physical
world. But such events, though they must be
in the physical world in order to be recognised
at all, belong rather to the ideal world. Their
value and significance lie not so much in the
things which eyes can see, as in the things
vhich eyes cannot see. Their appeal is more
to our intellectual and moral intelligence than
to our senses. The Jewish institutions repre-
sented certain religious ideas. Their fall was
the fall of those ideas, betokening a change and
an era in the spiritual realm of thought and
feeling, of which the fall of stars could have
betokened nothing. All of Christ's teaching
went in this direction, — to turn men's minds
from the outward to the inward view of things,
from the "flesh" to the " spirit" " It is the
spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh proflteth
nothing ; the words that I have spoken unto you
are spirit, and are life." (John vi. 63.)

Unless we think it fit to estimate events by
their outward show and noise more than by

V.] THE COMING OF THE KING. 121

their weight as causes in the ideal world of
thought and spirit, we cannot fai] to recognise
the overthrow of that city and temple, which
stood as the centre and the symbol of an obso-
lete order of things opposing the establishment
of Christ's supremacy, as the date, so far as ice
need a date, of the manifestation of Christ's
enthronement as the spiritual King of the
living world. Thus, we reckon the years of
the American Union from the Declaration of
Independence, although that Declaration had
to be made good by years of war, and the
national life had to linger on through years of
suspense till the subsequent formation of the
Constitution of the "more perfect Union."
Thus the newly-inaugurated Kingdom had its
era of struggle through persecution, and its
period of suspense, when it seemed a question
whether it might not come to nought. So the
morning sun often mounts through battling
clouds which are not burnt away till noon.
But we consider that the day begins with
sunrise.

Our Lord then, as I consider, has come, be-
cause He is here. Not here in a spiritual pre-
sence of which there is no sign, but here in a
plainly recognisable presence, His name the
reigning name, His influence the ascendant

122 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

influence His thought the dominant thought in
the world we live in. The word our Lord applies
to His coming — Paeousia — (irapovcrLa) signifies,
in strictness, Peesence. His coming was a
coming in order to be present, a coming to
stay. The Christian period, now nearly 1,900
years in progress, is the period of our Lord's
recognised presence in the world, with increas-
ing manifestation of His spiritual power as
King and Judge of men.

Christ's presence-period in this world is
parallel (as will be explained in Chapter viii.)
with the Resurrection-period in the next world.
Conformably to this view, we find the New
Testament constantly associating the two ideas
of the coming of the Lord and the Resurrection.
The idea of Judgment is also linked closely with
these two. So far or so near as is the Judg-
ment, so far or so near is also the Resurrection.
Here, then, we must inquire next into this also,
whether the Judgment, which the popular mind
relegates to the end of time, and with it the
Resurrection, is not rather a thing of the pre-
sent, like the coming and presence of the Lord
as our King.

V. Before entering, however, on this next
chapter of our inquiry, one may ask at this
point : Must we, then, give up the traditional

V.J THE COMING OF THE KING. 123

idea of a Christ to come with clouds, in
dazzling light, begirt with hosts of angels,
amid the attendant terrors of earth's final
catastrophe? It seems to me that we must.
The sayings of our Lord, which have been
thought to foretell such an event, being found
to carry quite another meaning, there is no
further ground on which to hold to the tradi-
tional notion of the second advent.* That
notion is a thoroughly Jewish one, and has no
place in a thoroughly Christian way of thinking
upon the Kingdom of heaven. More, however,
will require to be said of this subsequently, as
other passages of the New Testament shall
come up for examination. For the present,
what has now been said clears the doctrine of
the Resurrection from any supposed necessity
of delay, in order to take place at the coming
of the Lord, as at an hour that is not yet
struck. For the future, we may rely only on
the progressive character of the Kingdom of
our Lord.

To think of Christ as coming by-and-by in
outward displays to the senses to set up His
Kingdom upon earth, is not intelligent, because
it ignores the testimony of intelligent observa-
tion in the present and the past, which affirms

* See Note C, at the end of this chapter.

124 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

that Kingdom to be a now existing fact, and
a now expanding power. To expect that
Christ will by-and-by manifest Himself as
King in this world, in a bodily form, and in
& special locality as the centre of His Kingdom,
is not intelligent, because it ignores the spiri-
tual method of His rule, and expects the move-
ment of His Kingdom to change from that of
an inwardly developing life to that of an out-
ward mechanism. Quite otherwise we learn
from the parable of the leaven, illustrating the
continuity with which the renovating power
works within the world, " till the tohole is
leavened." As Paul wrote to the Galatians
(iii. 3), " having begun in the spirit " it is
foolish to expect to be "perfected in the flesh."
The manner of our Lord's Kingdom hitherto
will doubtless be its manner henceforward. I
say, its manner, not its measure. Its measure
is no less than the unknown possibilities of an
unbounded progress.

Believing this, while believing with the
fullest confidence that the Son of man has
come in His kingly glory, and longing for
larger disclosures of His glory as " Lord of
all" we still join in the prayer of the first
disciples: " Thy kingdom come."

V.] " THE EEGENEKATION." 12';

NOTE A.

ON "THE REGENERATION. *

And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto yow,
That yeivhich have followed Me, in the regeneration ivhen-
the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes,
of Israel. (Matt. xix. 28.)

This puzzling passage becomes full of light when set in
the view now taken, namely, that the Son of man has
come in His kingdom, and is ruling the world as King
with a constantly extending sway, and is making the world
new (that is, renovating or " regenerating " it), not all at
once, but by a continuously advancing process of change
for the better.

Premising here, simply, that the word which our version
renders "regeneration" {palingenesia) is generally ac-
cepted as denoting a restored and renovated condition of
the world, in a moral point of view, attention needs to be
called here mainly to this point, namely, that, according
to our Lord's prophecy, this renovation, or regeneration,
whenever it is displayed to view, will be signalised by
a certain enthronement of the disciples and their
Master.

If now we should find the disciples already enthroned
in any such way as to exhibit to us an adequate fulfilment
of the portion of this prophecy which relates to them, such
a fact would go to demonstrate that the enthronement of
their Master had also taken place. For the two are declared
to be coincident. "When the Son of man shall sit on the
throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones'*
etc. Now such an enthronement of the disciples has, be-
yond a doubt, actually come to pass, as we shall see. Sj
far as we recognise this, we must recognise, as a fact

12G BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

inseparable from it, that the Son of man also now "sits
en the throne of His glory."

How the disciples understood the prophecy is not of
much consequence. In all probability they at first mis-
understood it. They grasped it mechanically, no doubt,
anticipating that they were to occupy visible judgment -
seats, as being, so to speak, associate justices with their
Master in a grand court presided over by Him in bodily
presence, as Judge-in-chief. The same misunderstanding
probably dominates the minds of most who read this
passage to-day.

And yet our Lord's words have received a spiritual fulfil-
ment far surpassing in its grandeur all such mechanical
anticipations.

The twelve tribes of the Christian Israel, the whole
Church, all its schisms notwithstanding,has for ages looked
up to the Apostles as occupants of such judgment-thrones
as our Lord's promise assigned them. The Apostles have
been, through their writings, the judges of the Christian
world, the expounders of Christ's law. Every heresy has
been cited before them for trial. Every controversy re-
specting Church order or Christian doctrine has been
carried up to them for decision. The sentences which
they have been regarded as pronouncing have been reve-
rently claimed to be decisive, and have been accepted
as the judgment of the Lord Himself, delivered through
them.

"What accomplishment of that prophecy could be grander
than an historical fact like this — the spectacle of those
Apostles, despised and rejected by the world in their day,
but for ages enjoying this spiritual enthronement with
their Lord, century after century regulating Christian life,
reforming Christian thought, directing spiritual progress
as the immortal arbiters of truth ?

If our Lord did not mean just this, one thing is certain.
We cannot conceive a grander fulfilment of His words.

V.] " THE EEGENEEATION." 127

We can think of one with more show and noise, but not
of one possessing essentially greater majesty.

But whatever fulfilment we recognise here in the case
of the Apostles we have to recognise also in the case of
Christ. The same glance by which we recognise their
present undoubted spiritual enthronement includes also,
above them, the throne of the glory of the Son of man, in
this " regeneration " or renovated world. If it cannot be
denied that the Apostles now sit on these spiritual thrones
of judgment, no more can it be doubted that He also now
sits with them and above them; that His voice is heard
giving judgment, as well as theirs. The fulfilment of this
prophecy has therefore taken place; that is, it has begun
its fulfilment. The event — " wlien the Son of man shall
sit on the throne of His glory " — spoken of, let it be ob-
served, in the same words, both in this text and in that
other text which is commonly understood to refer to a
Judgment at the end of time (Matt. xxv. 31), has come to
pass. For this last, see Chapter vii.

It is not necessary to the correctness of this view of the
enthronement of the Apostles as already fulfilled, that
the " thrones " of Philip, Andrew, Thomas, and all of
" the tivelve," should be as recognisably filled as those of
Peter, John, and other Apostles whose presence is still
before the world. A similar case of a numerical discrep-
ancy between the terms of a prophecy and its fulfilment
appears in Christ's saying that the Son of man should be
" three days and three nights in the heart of the earth "
(Matt. xii. 40), whereas the body of Jesus lay in the
grave but two nights and one day. The Scriptures refer
to the apostolic body by numerical terms that are used
without exactness; e.g., "the eleven" (Luke xxiv. 33),
when only ten were present ; " the tivelve " (1 Cor. xv. 5),
when there were but eleven in all. So also Paul speaks
(Acts xxvi. 7) of " our twelve tribes " in a sense which
could be true only of a spiritual quorum-. Such a quorum

128 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

of the twelve is all that is necessary to see enthroned, in
order to recognise the substantial fulfilment of that pro-
phecy concerning them.

More will be said on this subject of Judgment in the next
chapter. Only let it here be noticed, that when we speak
of this prophecy as fulfilled, we mean that it has hegun to
be fulfilled. More strictly, it is fulfilling. " The regene-
ration," with its parallel processes of judgment, is now
going on, not yet complete. Doubtless, there is far more
to come. But it is to come after the same manner. It is
not intelligent to expect that the manner will change
from that of spiritual poiver to that of outward form.

NOTE B.

ON THE JUDGMENT OF THE WORLD BY THE SAINTS.

Know ye not that the saints shall judge the ivorld ?

(1 Cor. vi. 2.)

The principle of interpretation developed in the fore-
going Note elucidates this somewhat enigmatical saying
of Paul, as well as that which follows it about the judg-
ment of [ungodly] angels. The saints have thus far
judged the world. The historical spread and present
prevalence of Christianity declare, with a steadily grow-
ing consensus, the verdict of time upon the age-long trial
ofthe spirit of the world by the spirit of Christ as mani-
fested in His true saints.

We see this judgment of the world still going on. On
missionary ground, Christianity and Mohammedanism,
Christianity and Heathenism are still engaged in this trial
by comparison of the spirit and the life characteristic of
each. It is by the spirit and life of its confessors, more
than by the eloquence or logic of its preachers, whether
in the first century or the nineteenth, whether in nominal
Christendom or in actual Heathendom, that Christianity

V.] JUDGMENT BY THE SAINTS. 129

gradually gains the verdict, and pronounces condemna-
tion on its rivals and opposers. Only the saints can judge
the world.

It is of small consequence to debate what idea Paul
may have attached to the words in which he states the
fact. It is of great consequence to contemplate the fact
as one of the eternal and necessary verities. As real and
significant as any judgment to come is the present judg-
ment that we are all either exercising or suffering,
according to the spirit we are of. One of the constant
and inevitable realities of life is this judgment of the
world by the saints.

It is judgment in the spirit and by the spirit, not in
external show and form, however its consequences may
appear externally. It is the age-long fulfilment of our
Lord's saying, that the Holy Spirit, when come, " will
convict the ivorld" (John xvi. 8.) The holy and loving
spirit of Christ, as manifested in holy and loving lives, is
ever silently but convincingly judging the impure and
selfish spirit of Anti-Christ, as manifested in unclean and
covetous lives. The results of this Judgment are manifest
in the passing of one evil after another under the ban of
the society which is progressively leavened by the Chris-
tian spirit.

The saints not only do, but must judge the world.
The life ruled by the Holy Spirit inevitably at length
carries with it the conscience of mankind, and, in the
court of conscience, condemns by sharp though silent
contrast the life ruled by the worldly spirit. The damning
contrast into which the fraud, and greed, and lust of the
world are necessarily thrown by the truth, and charity,
and purity of the saintly life is thus ever illustrating the
present fulfilment of the word of our Lord : "Now is the
judgment of this world; noiu shall the prince of this
ivorld be cast out." (John xii. 31.)

Thus all unsought, and often unconsciously exercised

9

130 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

but ever glorious is the prerogative of the saintly life over
all lower lives in the judgment of the spirit,

•'For such is the mysterious might

God grants the upright soul,
A deed, a word, our careless rest,

A simple thought, a common feeling,
If He he present in the breast,

Has from Him powers of healing."

In contrast with this view of the subject, see in
Note B, appended to Chapter vi., the traditional Juda-
istic view, as presented in the Presbyterian Catechism,
Q. and A. 90.

NOTE C.

ON THE ANGELS' PROPHECY OF CHRIST'S COMING.

And while they were looking steadfastly into heaven
as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel ; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand
ye looking into heaven ? this Jesus, which was received
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner
as ye beheld Him going into heaven. (Acts i. 10, 11.)

The augels' saying has been generally regarded as a
plain prophecy of a coming within the sphere of the
senses. It would very naturally be so miderstood by
those who heard the angels speak. Especially would
it be so understood by minds imbued, as the minds of
the Apostles were, with the ideas, current among their
countrymen, of a coming of the Messiah in gloiy out-
wardly displayed. And as their eyes had seen Him go,
naturally they would think their eyes should see Him
come. And yet, mark, it is not said, " Ye shall sec Him
come '' ; only, " He shall (or will) come.'" The seeing,
or the recognisableness, of His coming, is at most only

V.] THE ANGELS' PROPHECY. 131

an inference from what the angels said, however clear
and legitimate the inference be.

It is written, however, " Shall so come in like
manner." There are several other passages in which
the words (by rp6irov — lion trojpom) nere translated "in
like manner as " occur, but only here are they so
rendered. In Matt, xxiii. 37, Luke xiii. 34, they are
rendered " even as." In Acts vii. 28, they are rendered
" as." In 2 Tim. hi. 8, " like as." In all these passages
every one will see that the idea presented is that of a real
resemblance, but not a formal resemblance. Jannes
and Jambres opposing Moses with magical enchantments,
and heretical teachers opposing the Apostles with false
doctrines, present a real resemblance under very dis-
similar forms ; but the real likeness of the two cases is
expressed in the original by the words which compare
Christ's coming to His going, here redundantly translated,
11 in like manner as." This idea of a real resemblance
is intensified, in the angels'* prophecy, by one added word,
"so" — "shall so come," etc. This word, however, does
not change the idea, does not import that the resemblance
is formal as well as real ; it only emphasises the fact that
it is real.

Thus, indeed, it has been generally understood. What-
ever conceptions of the second advent have been held,
nothing is plainer than the fact, that the words "so, in
like manner" have been generally construed freely, not
strictly, to signify a like reality, not a like manner. The
going was secluded, private, noiseless, without outward
sign of change, save in the ascending motion, the mere
rising and vanishing of a familiar human form in the air.
Nothing could be more unlike this going, in manner, than
such a coming as is pictured :'n the traditional expecta-
tions of the second advent, with clouds, angels, fire, judg-
ment terrors, and Divine glories.

Evidently the Church has consistently regarded the

132 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

prophetic "so in like manner" as a declaration, not of
the strict manner of the coming, but of its reality, and its
recognisableness.

The Lord had really gone. He would so come (as
really) as they had seen Him go. Thus the angels pro-
phesied, and thus the Church has understood, besides
finding here an implication, additionally, that this real
coming would also be a recognisable coming.

The mistake has been in thinking and affirming that
the recognisableness of the coming would be within the
sphere of the senses. In this expectation the Church, as
a whole, still cleaves to the old Jewish notion of a
Messianic display of glory and power in the visible sky
and in the world of external forms. Christians still
deserve the angels' expostulation, " Why stand ye looking
into heaven ? " Look upon the world with a more
thoughtful insight into spiritual facts, and see that the
Lord has come.

Here the reader must be content with a simple refer-
ence to fuller discussions than present limits permit, such
as " The Parousia," by Dr. Warren, or my short " Essay
upon the Gospel of Matthew.'*

The reality of our Lord's coming is recognisable by a
clear-eyed spiritual intelligence, intent upon the facts and
methods of His growing kingdom of the Spirit in the
world. A Christian, as distinct from a Jewish, method of
interpreting prophecy, discerns that He has come, that
He is coming still, in clearer, stronger, grander manifesta-
tions of His spiritual sovereignty over men ; and that
He is still to come, — not by catastrophe but by develop-
ment,— in His consummate and universally recognised
glory as the Spiritual Head of our race. Thus His
presence (parousia) in a growing influence is a perpetual
fact through all the Christian centuries, an age-long reign
in a continually ascending supremacy, " till He hath put
all His enemies under His feet."

v.] "at " Christ's coming. 133

NOTE D.

ON THE RESURRECTION AT CHRIST'S COMING.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive. But each in his own order : Christ the
first-fruits ; then they that are Christ's, at His coming.
(1 Cor. xv. 22, 23.)

This is a specimen passage of a number in which the
Resurrection is closely associated with the coming of Christ.
One word in it, however, demands special attention before
its full scope is examined.

The word here translated "at" (eV) means either at or
in. It depends wholly on the translator's notion of the
word it stands with, whether to say at or in. If the
coming of Christ is a single event, like sunrise, we may
say " at His coming.''' But if it be a coming that ad-
vances and matures through a period until a consumma-
tion, we may say in, or during, His coming. In the same
way, as will be shown subsequently (Chapter viii.), where
our translators (as in John vi. 40) say "at the last day,"
because of their notion of that " day " as a day in the same
sense that Easter day is a day, we, thinking of that day
as a period, like the days of creation, say " in the last
day."

It has been shown in the foregoing chapter that Christ's
coming is more than a simple and instantaneous advent ;
it is a progressively manifested coming to be continually
present in the world as its spiritual King, a coming and
presence, &s the original word " parousia" means. We
regard it, therefore, not as a simple event, at which
another event may occur, but as the period of an age-long
development of the growing power and glory of Him who
has come to be " with us alway, even unto the end "
(Matt, xxviii. 20), the period in which His Resurrection-
power is made manifest. Instead, therefore, of thinking

134 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

of those who are Christ's being raised to life at a time
■when an instantaneous advent gives the signal, we are to
think of them as rising into life in and throughout the
ivhole period, during which the Gospel-power makes His
presence known. More of this is said in Chapters viii.
and ix.

The question has been raised, whether this prophecy of
the Eesurrection of Life is limited or unlimited — whether
all who " die in Adam " are to be " made alive in Christ"
The language of verse 22 is absolutely unlimited in terms,
— "in Adam all, in Christ all" The whole argument, it
is true, runs from verse 12 onward, wholly in the line of
the Christian hope, which had been shaken by denials of
the Eesurrection. This is held to limit the " all." But
the Christian hope is not a selfish one; "not for us
only, but for the whole world" says John (1, ii. 2).
" God," says Paul, " is the Saviour of all men, specially
of them that believe " (1 Tim. iv. 10), and " willeth that
all men should be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4). In this "all"
therefore, the Christian hope, toward which the whole
argument runs, must include the greatest number pos-
sible. It may be said, however, that the Apostle's subse-
quent expression, " they that are Christ's, at His coming,"
shows that he was thinking only of Christians when he
said, just before, that " in Christ shall all be made alive."
This is not to the point. For, of course, in his view no
one could be made alive in Christ without becoming a
Christian.

But, limiting the " all" as the scope of the argument
for the Christian hope requires, and granting that verse
22 means that "as in Adam all who are Adamic die, so
in Christ shall all who are Christ's be made alive ;" the
very nature of the Christian hope, as a hope for mankind,
raises this question : "Whether the Christians made alive
in Christ are only the Christians of this ivorld, — how
many of the vast multitude who go into the future world

V.] " AT " CHRIST'S COMING. 135

utterly ignorant of Christ and of His Gospel may bo em-
braced in this ultimate hope of life in Christ.

" The assumption that the doom of each and all, in the
moment of physical death, is irrevocably fixed, is the
assumption of the extremest fatalism. From the finite
conceptions of men it derives its moulds and measures
for the Divine love, and in the courses of human thought
it is formed on pessimism in alliance with dualism/' —
Mulford: ''The Eepublic of God."

It would be hard to say what was in Paul's mind upon
this subject, were this the only passage in which he has
come near this deeply interesting question. There are,
however, three other passages, in which he speaks more
positively, namely : —

(1.) " That in the name of Jesus every Tcnee should bow,
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and tilings under
the earth [that is, in the regions of the dead] , and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, tc
the glory of God the Father." (Phil. ii. 10, 11.)

(2.) " For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in
Him should all the fulness dwell ; and through Him to
reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace
through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say,
whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.'*
(Col. i. 19, 20.)

(3.) " Unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times,
to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens,
and the things upon the earth." (Eph. i. 10.)

These three great prophecies speak unqualifiedly of an
ultimate reconciliation to God of whatever shall ulti-
mately exist. " All existences " is the close equivalent of
the term " all things" for which the Greek employs no
substantive, as " things," but uses only a plural adjective,
signifying being in general. "Whatever additional light the
passage before us in 1 Cor. can receive, must be sought
from these three.

136 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

To estimate fairly the force of these four separate
prophecies, all unqualified as the Apostle utters thern, I
ask : Would many an orthodox preacher, discoursing now
upon the ultimate extent of Christ's salvation, think he
had sufficiently guarded the doctrine, if he should simply
paraphrase Paul's words in these four texts, — if he should
abstain from adding at least a cautionary word or two to
intimate to his hearers that the redemption would never-
theless not ultimately include all then in existence, — if
he should fail, at least, to hint that even then the dark
prison-house of endless despair would include vast multi-
tudes of impenitent souls ? Judged by certain standards
of the modern, if not of the Biblical, sort, Paul's omission
to " cover " that point is remarkable. And it is also re-
markable that nowhere else, in all that he has written,
does he cover it. Was it then, in his view, a real point
to cover ?

The impression which the three texts last quoted
naturally make upon the ordinary reader is fairly reflected
in the remarks made upon the second of the three by two
commentators of orthodox sentiments and of the highest
learning.

Dr. H. A. W. Meyer: "The only right sense is, thus,
that through Christ the whole universe shall be reconciled
with God."

Bishop Ellicott : " It does say that the eternal and
incarnate Son is the causa medians by which the
absolute totality of created things shall be restored into
its primal harmony with its Creator — more than this it
does not say, and where God is silent it is not for man
to speak."

Nevertheless, the most universal terms, the most
sweeping statements, are always tacitly understood to
be subject to such necessary limitations as the nature of
the case imposes. Thus, in saying that God can do any-
thing, we do not mean to say that He can do what is

v.] "at" cheist's COMING. 137

wrong or inconsistent. So in the present instance, the
comprehensive " all" must be taken to mean all who are
capable, through their free choice, of life through Christ.
Such, and only such, will come into the number of " those
who are Christ's " in the period of His coming and
presence.

Such a limitation in the nature of things Christ seems
to hint of in the sin which is forgiven " neither in this
world nor in that which is to come." (Matt. xii. 32.) In-
timations of impossibilities arising from the condition of
the spirit itself are found in Christ's strong expressions,
Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, etc. (Matt, xxiii. 33.)
Free will has play hereafter, but the laws of habit and
character have force also. " All shall be made alive "
who can be, is the utmost that can be concluded. That
all can be is the hope held by many, but a hope without
any positive guarantee.

Yet the Apostle Paul has left on record those plain pro-
phecies that there shall be an ultimate and final recon-
ciliation to God of all who ultimately exist. This, then,
in connection with the statement to the Corinthians*
leads to the inference that all who are incapable of being
" made alive in Christ" will have ceased to exist before
the end.

Here we have touched, but cannot pursue, the sub-
ject of " conditional immortality ," a doctrine at present
strongly supported, and a relief, as many deem it, from
the contradiction which the notion of an endless misery
presents, in many minds, to the Christian conception of
God.

CIIAPTEK VI.

JUDGMENT A PBESENT AND FEB-

PETUAL BEALITY IN BOTH

WOBLDS.

CHAPTEE VI.

JUDGEMENT A PRESENT AND PERPETUAL REALITY
IN BOTH WORLDS.

" TJiis is He which is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick
and dead." — Acts x. 42.

The connection in which the ideas of Besur-
rection and Judgment stand in the New
Testament requires us to study the general
subject of the Divine Judgment for the sake of
relieving the subject of the Kesurrection of
some misconceptions attached to it by miscon-
ceptions on the subject of Judgment. It is
popularly supposed that there must be a delay
of Kesurrection until the time has arrived for
the yet distant Judgment to take place. But
what if the Judgment is not distant ? What if
it is now going on ? What if it is to go on
only as it now goes ?

The thoughtful reader of the Bible cannot
fail to be impressed by the frequent recurrence
of that solemn word of righteousness — Judg-
ment. The New Testament unfolds a view of

142 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

future Judgment which is not apparent in the
Old. But that revelation of the present Judg-
ment which is so prominent in the Old is
obscured in the New through a traditional mis-
understanding, which has settled on many
passages, instances of which were exhibited in
Notes A and B, at the end of the preceding
chapter.

The certainty of Judgment beyond the grave
is testified by reiterated declarations of Christ
and His Apostles. What the Master said of
the " Resurrection of Judgment" the disciples
repeat in saying, " after death, Judgment"
" The dead, the great and the small," are seen
in vision standing before the Judgment throne.
There "we must all be made manifest before
the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may
receive the things done in the body, according to
what he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
(2 Cor. v. 10.)

Such testimonies, distorted by misunder-
standings which we are soon to notice, have
created a way of thinking on this subject,
which relegates Judgment to the other side of
the grave, and fails to recognise it duly as it is
proceeding here, according to our Lord's em-
phatic declaration, " now is the Judgment of
this world" (John xii. 31.) Judgment goes

VI.] JUDGMENT A PRESENT EEALITY. 143

before death as well as after. " After death,
Judgment.'" (Heb. ix. 27.) No man by dying
gets away from Judgment. Nor does any man
have to wait for it till after death.

I. But w hat is Judgment ? It is : —

(1.) Experience of the good or evil results ot
the course we take, in obeying or disobeying
the Divine law.

It is also : —

(2.) A revelation in each man's conscious-
ness of those results as the fruit of his obedience
or disobedience to the Divine law.

It is plain that the first of these may exist
without the second. The results of action
cannot fail to follow, or begin to follow, im-
mediately after action. The man who per-
petrates a crime, however successfully, suffers
an immediate result in the hardening and de-
praving of his moral nature, and this result
is, essentially, his Judgment, whether it be
immediately revealed to him as such, or not.

It is also plain that the second element in
Judgment may be delayed till long after the
first has begun. The transgressor may suc-
cessfully blind himself to his condition, as
hardened, depraved, and worsening. In other
words, he is simply unconscious of the work of
Judgment that is actually going on within him,

144 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

in the degradation and growing ruin of his
nature. When the time comes for this to flash
upon him, and consume him with shame and
agony, the Judgment of which he then becomes
conscious is simply a revelation,* or discovery,
of the Judgment that has been working in him
since his evil course began. The time of that
discovery is what Paul speaks of as " the day
of wrath and revelation of the righteous judg-
ment of God." (Kom. ii. 5.) The discovery
did not make the Judgment. It only brought
it to light in the man's consciousness.

II. But where is Judgment ? Wherever law
is, there is Judgment. Judgment, as distinct
from the consciousness of judgment, is simply
the experience of the consequences of acting
according to or against the Divine law. As
soon as a transgressor begins to break the thorn
hedge with which the law has marked and
secured the right way, so soon the retributive
thorns begin to tear. The great catastrophe
which shakes a continent when human slavery
comes to a bloody end, is only the conspicuous
climax of a long series of Judgment-evils,
which had been slowly blighting a land and
barbarising a people. The unconsciousness of
those who were hugging the curse to their

* See Chapter ix. toward the close.

VI.] JUDGMENT A PRESENT REALITY. 145

bosoms, and blindly glorying in its stupefying
illusions, was deemed by those who watched
the growth of the cancer as one of the very
grimmest in all the train of Judgment-con-
sequences.

Judgment, then, is as eternal and as con-
stantly operative as is law. It is, in fact, the
operation of law, in blessing the obedient, and
bringing wrath upon the disobedient. From
the beginning to the end of action under law,
Judgment follows every being through the
universe of God, wherever law extends.

Thinking in this way upon the subject of
Judgment, we shall avoid the mistakes that
ensue upon our likening the Divine Judgment to
a human court, which opens at a certain place
and time, hears, tries, sentences, and, having
gone through the docket, adjourns. The Divine
judgment never waits to open and never stands
adjourned, or, asa" last judgment," comes to
an end, so long as there lives a created being
in obedience or in disobedience to the law of
God. Its efficiency is as conspicuous in the
blessing of the righteous as in the curse of the
wicked ; though this last is chiefly thought of
among sinners. We are to think of it not as
an event, limited to a specific " day,'' but as a
process, which runs its course throughout the*

10

146 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

whole existence of the responsible subjects of
law.

. What, then, must we understand in Paul's
saying, that God " hath appointed a day in
the which He will judge the world in right-
eousness" ? (Acts xvii. 31.) What must we
understand in John's saying, that he saw
" the dead, the great and the small, standing
before the throne " t (Rev. xx. 12.) We must
understand that "day " to be a period not the
same as that from sunrise to sunset. We must
understand that "standing before the throne" to
be something different from what could bo
formally delineated in a picture. John's vision
was not representative, but suggestive, not a
mechanical copy, but a shadow of a spiritual
reality. There is no such throne, but there is
a real Judgment, of which the throne and the
standing before it are purely imaginative sym-
bols and shadows. And John's vision was
simply his momentary glimpse of an eternal
process. He had it at the end of a series of
visions relating to the course of earthly history.
He came to it as a visitor comes to the last
room in a picture gallery. He narrates it last
in the order of the things he saw. But the
room is there with its pictures before the
visitor comes, and after he goes. And thus

VI.] JUDGMENT A PEE SENT REALITY. 147

the Divine Judgment is eternally going on, as
unintermitted as is the operation of the law,
that "whatsoever a man soiveth that shall hc
also reap." It is, in fact, nothing but the
operation of that law in bringing consequences
to pass.

Unless we bring this mode of thinking to
the interpretation of the Scripture doctrine
of Judgment, we shall reduce the spiritual and
eternal processes of the moral universe to the
mechanical forms of such a Judgment as has
been painted by Michael Angelo.

III. To what has now been said as to the
true mode of thinking on this subject, we
must add careful notice of some special points,
namely : —

(1.) The Scriptures have absolutely nothing
to say of any general Judgment of mankind,
collectively to occur after the earthly course of
things is run. If this seems to any reader a
startling assertion, he will do well to look
carefully at the evidence, for it is unquestion-
ably true.

The idea of a Divine Judgment to be deferred
to " the end of the world" in the modern
sense of that phrase, is in King James's ver-
sion of such texts as Matt. xiii. 40 — 42, 49, 50.
But the marginal reading in the Kevised

148 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Version puts a new meaning on this phraser
especially when we turn to the text and margin
at Heb. ix. 26, and find it used to denote
the time of a past event, like the death of
Christ. As to the death of Christ, we can
only understand " the end of the ages," in
which it took place, to be the final period of
Divine Revelation, regarded as the end, or con-
summation, of the preparatory ages. Unless
some sufficient reason can be found for assign-
ing to the phrase in Matthew an entirely dif-
ferent sense from the same phrase in Hebrews,
that Judgment " at the end of the world "
turns out to be Judgment in a period of
earthly history that is still in progress*

The passage in Matt. xxv. 31 — 46, supposed
to describe "the last Judgment," requires more
extended discussion, which will occupy the
next chapter.

(2.) The Scriptures represent the Kingdom of
Christ as a period of Judgment.

The ancient idea of sovereignty combined in
one person those functions of governing and of
judging which modern ideas have separated.
The ancient kings sat on judgment seats to ad-
minster justice. The Old Testament prophecies

* See my " Essay on the Gospel according to Matthew.'*
W. A. Wilde and Co., Boston.

VI.] JUDGMENT A PEE SENT EEALITY. 149

of the Kingdom of Christ describe Him as
coming to "judge the nations" (Isa. ii. 4), and
to " set judgment in the earth." (Isa. xlii. 4.)
As shown in the preceding chapter, a spiritual
kingdom, with Christ as its King, is an existing
fact in the present world. So far as He is
King, He is also Judge of men, in the Biblical
conception, not waiting the coming of the end
of time to ascend a throne of Judgment, but
now occupying that throne, and administering
throughout the centuries a work of judgment.
(See Note A, at the end of the preceding
chapter.)

The New Testament exhibits this fact in
great prominence. While it extends Christ's
Judgment work beyond the grave, in telling us
that we must be made manifest before Him
to receive the things done in the body, it
extends this Judgment work over the present
also, over the " quick/' or living, as well as the
dead. (Acts x. 42.) This is Christ's own testi-
mony to Himself: — "For neither doth the Father
judge any man, but He hath given all judgment
unto the Son;* that all may honour the Son,

* A very profound truth is here touched by the Evangelist,
namely, that, in the nature of things, if we are to feel ourselves
judged by God at all, it cannot be by an unknown God, but only
by God as revealed; that is, of course, by God as revealed in
His Son Jesus Christ.

150 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

even as they honour the Father." (John v. 22, 23.)
The reference of this Judgment to present
time is unquestionable, since it is a present
honour that all are to yield, as to a present
Judge. This judgeship of Christ is closely
connected with His coming in His Kingdom.
" For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of
His Father with His angels ; and then shall
He render unto every man according to his
deeds. Verily I say unto you, There be some of
them that stand here, ivhich shall in no wise
taste of death, till they see the Son of man
coming in His kingdom" (Matt. xvi. 27, 28.)

Whatever cause we have thus far found to
think that the Son of Man has come in His
Kingdom,will incline us to think that His Judg-
ment-seat has already been erected in the world.

(3.) A survey of the period of Christianity,
thus far, reveals a work of Judgment as
running on in growing power through the
centuries. There was Judgment in constant
execution before Christ, in the retributive
operation of the Divine law, both with blessing
and in wrath. Of this the Old Testament is
full. Judgment by no means began when the
Son of Man came in His Kingdom, but the
agency of Christ in Judgment began to be mani-
fested in the casting out of evil, in the purging

VI.] JUDGMENT A PEESENT EEALITY. 151

of the Church and the world from the obstruc-
tions to the progress of His Kingdom. So fat
as the agency of Christ is a more perfect
agency for the work of revealing and con-
demning and casting out all obstacles to His
reigning over men in truth and righteousness
and love, so far the work of Judgment must
proceed, during the Christian period, more
thoroughly, manifestly, effectively, than ever
before. Now just this, which we must admit
to be true, characterises the period of Christ's
presence in His Kingdom, as, in a special
sense, a period of Judgment — a Judgment
'' day," we may term it, a day of ages, like the
days of creation.

Comparing the Christian period, thus far
with a period of equal duration before Christ,
we notice a marvellous difference in moral
progress. Inveterate evils, that had held their
ground from the time of primeval man, have
been gradually disappearing under the ban of
Christ, condemned and cast out by that " spirit
of power and love and discipline " which is
slowly, but steadily, diffusing itself through
the world from Christ. Infanticide, slavery,
cruelty to criminals, neglect of the helpless,
wars of conquest, religious persecution, tyran-
nical government, barbarous laws, have all

152 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

shrunk under the ban of that spirit of moral
purity and intelligence which Christ communi-
cates to man. The Son of Man has evidently
been sending forth His " angels" the varied
powers, personal and impersonal, that follow
in His train — the influences not only of reli-
gion, but of commerce, learning, art, etc., and
they have been gathering out of His kingdom
" the things that cause stumbling." (Matt,
xiii. 41.) Incomplete as the work may be, no
one can doubt that it is going on. Christ's
own words describe it as a present fact tending
toward a future consummation. " Now is the
judgment of this world, now shall the prince of
this world be cast out" It is precisely such a
work that fitly characterises the Christian
period as a period of Judgment on all that
opposes the sway of Christ as King. It is the
relation of Christ to such a work, as the centre
and soul of the agencies that are effectively
discovering and banning and purging away the
•evils of the world, which justifies us in re-
garding Him as to-day the occupant of His
Judgment throne in a growing sovereignty of
moral glory and power.

(4.) Christ's Judgment extends into the
future. The sentences of righteousness which
He has pronounced in His G ospel will be fully

VI.] JUDGMENT A PRESENT REALITY. 153

written out, not only in the experience of the
world, but in the experiences of individual
men, " that each one may receive the things done
in the body." Every conscience will, sooner or
later, experience this revelation, or discovery,
of the] Divine Judgment as accomplished in
itself ; will recognise in its personal experience
the fulfilment of the righteous sentence which
Christ, as both King and Judge, has uttered in
His Gospel . " Th is revela Hon of judgment ' ' will
be, in the strictest sense, before Christ, not in
external form, but in inward consciousness,
contemplating, on one hand, the law of Christ,
and, on the other, one's own personal character,
and the consequences of having that character
as the net result of the deeds done in the body.

Such a day of Judgment awaits every man in
that solemn chamber of conscience, in which
the spirit, facing the realities of its present
condition as the result of its past action, pro-
nounces on itself, with joy or grief, the sentence
of the Divine law, as in the presence of its
Judge and of its future. For such a Judgment
no public theatre, no universal concourse, is
requisite, and none has been announced.*

* We freely admit that a spectacular element in Judgment is
sometimes clearly recognisable. It is the exaggeration of it
which appears in the traditional notions of " the great assize."
As in the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the downfall of

154 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Unless we expect God to introduce a radical
change in His methods of executing and re-
vealing His Judgments, it is utterly unreasonable
to expect that He will undertake any grand
scenic representation, and gather together all
men and angels, in order to reveal to eyes, or
proclaim to ears, what has been sufficiently
demonstrated to consciences.

(5.) It may be granted to any one who urges
it, that the Scriptures undoubtedly convey the
impression that there is to be a grand and
general clearing up of the ways of God by
something that may be called a " revelation of
Judgment." We must beware, however, of re-
ducing such a fact to the mechanical proportions
of a fresco painting. Such a result might issue
as certainly and as clearly from a process, re-
quiring ages for its accomplishment in the
gradual operation of law, as from a catastrophe f
taking place in an hour. And observation

American slavery, as well as in the exodus of the emancipated
Hebrews from Egypt, something- that may he called spectacular
will very naturally he connected with Judgment revealed, as
distinguished from Judgment experienced. But this legitimate
recognition of the spectacular element in Judgment falls far
short of that exaggerated Jewish representation, which depicts
the Son of Man as coming to pull down the pillars of heaven
and earth, like a Divine Samson, and to work the last and
greatest of physical miracles in the simultaneous re-embodi-
ment of all the dead, to be gathered in concourse about a
great white Judgment-throne.

VI.] JUDGMENT A PEESENT REALITY. 155

assures us that God's revelations follow the
method of development rather than that of catas-
trophe. Abraham's assurance, that " the Judge
of all the earth shall do right " (Gen. xviii. 25),
will be sufficiently vindicated to all by the
grand result to which the long Judgment process
comes, when " all things that cause stumbling "
shall have sunk under condemnation, and " the
new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness " shall be revealed in their final
" beauty of holiness" *

As to the unbroken continuity of Judgment,
it was long ago affirmed in the philosophic
maxim, nihil per saltum. We must, however,
conceive of Judgment as having its appropriate
development from a beginning to a consum-
mation, just as we conceive of that moral
education which God is continuously carrying
forward as having its development. The two,
in fact, are parallel, and the one cannot
advance without the other. The mistake has
been in thinking of the Judgment-fire as only
in the one burning point, where all the lines
of consequence converge in their focus. But
it is in the focus only because it is in every
line that runs thereto.

Unless there is Judgment in the present,

# See Note A, appended to this chapter.

156 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

there can be none in the future. If, then,
the living present derives awe from the con-
templation of a Divine Judgment process con-
tinuously unfolding from century to century,
the momentousness of the future is increased
as much as the significance of the present is
enhanced.

From the slight but perceptible curvature of
the small arc of the circle within our sight, we
imagine the sweep of the vast circumference.
Though our study should dispel the notion
that the Divine award to the deeds done in
the body is to be waited for, till the arrival
of a catastrophe that wrecks the globe shall
summon the entire race of man to a Judgment-
concourse before God's throne, none the less
certain must we be of " Judgment to come"
In fact, Judgment is alioays coming, always
growing, always unfolding its revelations of
consequences.

By discovering the continuity of Judgment,
we reach the clearest evidence of its movement
on towards perfectness. Seeing that a Judg-
ment-process is now going on with a growing
throughness under the spiritual kingship of
Christ, we conclude that it must go on to a
consummate efficiency in the spiritual life of
the future. Brighter and brighter will grow

VI.] JUDGMENT A PEE SENT EEALITY. 157

the trying light, finer and finer the meshes
that sift good from evil. Ultimately no evil,
however trivial in semblance, shall escape.
And here it is that reason finds the full
verification of the warning word of Christ :
"J say unto you, That every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give account thereof
in the day of Judgment" (Matt. xii. 36.)

So far as the present chapter has given
reason to think that there is no grand and
general and catastrophic Judgment-day to be
waited for, the associated idea that there must
be a waiting for a grand and general Kesurrec-
tion-day, in order to such a Judgment, has
failed to find ground for its support.

The traditional conceptions of this subject
are, however, closely bound up with a tra-
ditional misunderstanding of a section of the
Gospel according to Matthew, in, or rather
into, which there has been read the doctrine
of a final Judgment-day, universal, scenic, and
catastrophic, according to the famous picture
of Michael Angelo. This requires study
and restatement, and must next be taken in
hand.

BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

NOTE A.

ON PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES AND WONDERS CONSIDERED
AS "JUDGMENTS."

The exposition given in the foregoing chapter to the
fact of Judgment as a present and perpetual reality is
thoroughly consistent with the recognition to be given
to the effective agency which physical catastrophes and
wonders undoubtedly have in carrying on God's continu-
ous work of Judgment. Testimony both cogent and
abundant is borne both by the Scriptures and by ex-
perience to the significance of natural phenomena in con-
nection with epochs in the unfolding of the spiritual de-
velopment, as, for example, the Flood. Our belief in One
who is both Creator and Moral Euler postulates a co-ordi
nation of His physical and moral methods. The wheels
of the physical and moral worlds are thus, so to speak,
geared together, so that natural catastrophes are some-
times seen in conjunction with crises in the spiritual
movement. Yet, similar catastrophes are seen all the
wThile occurring, and at insignificant as well as significant
moments. Their value as punctuation marks, to point
off spiritual periods, is derived from a subjective rather
than an objective source. An analogy is found in the
common view of what are called " special providences,"
which rather are specially noticed providences, since all
providence is special, and could not otherwise be general.
To the sinner there is an aspect of vengeance in physical
catastrophes, because he is a sinner, not because they are
violent and destructive. The Flood, therefore, is called
" a judgment," not because it was actually caused by
man's wickedness, but because, men being sinners, the
peculiar moral impressions of it were caused by their
wickedness, and were, by God's design, the same as Hit
had been so caused.

VI.] JUDGMENT IN THE CREEDS. 159

We must accordingly think of natural catastrophes or
wonders, such as the darkened sun and the quaking
earth at the time of the Crucifixion, as brought about by
natural causes, independently of any moral cause in the
action of men. The Flood in Noah's time, the earth-
quake at the death of Jesus, would have occurred, though
men had not sinned as they did. Human action has no
causal relation whatever to such phenomena. But that
co-ordination of physical and moral events, whereby such
phenomena have been so timed as to occur at such crises,
producing influential moral impressions, is a revelation of
the Supreme Intelligence who makes all things work
together for righteousness.

NOTE B.

ON JUDGMENT AS REPRESENTED IN THE CREEDS IN
CONNECTION WITH THE RESURRECTION.

The following extract from " The Larger Catechism " of
the Presbyterian Church, as adopted and ratified by the
Synod of New York and Philadelphia in 1788, may stand
here as a fair expression of the prevailing mode of Chris-
tian thought.

Q. 87. What are we to believe concerning the Resur-
rection ?

A. We are to believe that at the last day there shall be
a general Eesurrection of the dead, both of the just and
unjust. When they that are then found alive shall in a
moment be changed, and the self-same bodies of the dead
which were laid in the grave, being then again united to
their souls for ever, shall be raised up by the power of
Christ. The bodies of the just, by the Spirit of Christ,
and by virtue of His Eesurrection as their Head, shall
be raised in power, spiritual and incorruptible, and made
like to His glorious body ; and the bodies of the wicked

160 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

shall be raised up in dishonour by Him as an offended
Judge.

Q. 88. What shall immediately folloiv after the Bcsur-
rection ?

A. Immediately after the Resurrection shall follow
the general and final Judgment of angels and men, the
day and hour whereof no man knoweth, that all may
watch and pray, and be ever ready for the coming of the
Lord.

Q. 89. What shall be done to the wicked at the day of
Judgment ?

A. At the day of Judgment, the wicked shall be set on
Christ's left hand, and, upon clear evidence and full con-
viction of their own consciences, shall have the fearful but
just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them ;
and thereupon shall be cast out from the favourable pre-
sence of God and the glorious fellowship with Christ, His
saints, and all His holy angels, into hell, to be punished
with unspeakable torments both of body and soul, with
the devil and all his angels forever.

Q. 90. What shall be done to the righteous at the day of
Judgment ?

A. At the day of Judgment, the righteous, being caught
up to Christ in the clouds, shall be set on His right hand,
and there, openly acknowledged and acquitted, shall join
with Him in the judging of reprobate angels and men, and
shall be received into heaven, where they shall be fully
and for ever freed from all sin and misery, filled with in-
conceivable joys, made perfectly holy and happy both in
body and soul in the company of innumerable saints and
angels, but especially in the immediate vision and fruition
of God the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the
Holy Spirit, to all eternity. And this is the perfect and
lull communion which the members of the invisible Church
shall enjoy with Christ in glory, at the Resurrection and
day of Judgment.

VI.] JUDGMENT IN THE CREEDS. 1G1

[As to the teaching, in the last paragraph, that the
righteous shall join in the judgment of the reprobate, see
the view presented in Note B, Chapter v.]

Remark. — The fallacy of imagining that the phrase
*i the day of judgment" wherever met in the Scriptures,
carries the sense attached to it in the creeds, appears from
the following passage in the first epistle of John (iv. 17) :
"Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have
boldness in the day of judgment." This means simply
that day of Judgment which persecution was beginning to
bring upon the Church (compare 1 Pet. iv. 17), attesting
the genuine faith of the steadfast, and exposing the empti-
ness of the apostate. This explanation is required by the
remainder of the sentence — " because as He is, so are we
in this world." That is : As our Master is, denied, op-
posed, abused, so are we. (John xv. 20.) And in order
that we may follow in His way of suffering with a faithful
boldness in our day of Judgment, love is made perfect
■E-ith us by the abiding of God in us. (See verse 16.)

11

CHAPTEE VII.

THE LAST JUDGMENT" NOT
DELAYED TILL THE BESUBBECTION.

CHAPTEK VII.

"THE LAST JUDGMENT" NOT DELAYED TILL,
THE BESUKKECTION.

"Noio is the judgment of this world."— John xii. 31.

But when the Son of Man shall come in His
glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall
He sit on the throne of His glory : and before
Him shall be gathered all the nations : and He
shall separate them one from another, as the
shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats :
and He shall set the sheep on His right handr
but the goats on the left. Then shall the King
say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye
blessed of My Father, inherit the King dom pre-
pared for you from the foundation of the tvorld :
for I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat : I
teas thirsty, and ye gave Me drink : I was a
stranger, and ye took Me in; naked, and ye
clothed Me : I ivas sick, and ye visited Me : I
was in prison, and ye came unto Me. Then,
shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord,,

1GG BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

when saw ive Thee an hungred, and fed Thee ?
or athirst, and gave Thee drink ? And ichen
saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in ? or
naked, and clothed Thee ? And when saiv ive
Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee ?
And the King shall answer and say unto them,
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it
unto one of these My brethren, even these least,
ye did it unto Me. Then shall He say also
unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared
for the devil and his angels : for I ivas an
hungred, and *e gave Me no meat : I ivas
thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink : I ivas a
stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and
ye clothed Me not ; sick, and in pirison, and ye
visited Me not. Then shall they also answer,
saying, Lord, whensaio we Thee an hungred, or
athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in
prison, and did not minister unto Thee ? Then
shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto
you, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of
these least, ye did it not unto Me. And these
shall go away into eternal punishment : but
the righteous into eternal life. (Matt. xxv.
31—46.)

This last third of the twenty-fifth chapter of
Matthew has generally been understood to be

vii.] "the last -judgment." 167

a prophetic picture of the Judgment of the
entire race of mankind, to take place at the
end of time. It is commonly taken to be a
description of " The Last Judgment," a great
and general court of God, in which all the
deeds of earthly time are to be reviewed, and
sentenced for all eternity. Whether it is
really that, and what it is if not really that, is
the present object of inquiry.

If our study should lead us to conclusions
widely different from the traditional opinion,
it will not be the first time that Biblical study
has given a changed view of an important
subject. All that part of the Bible which
refers to the beginnings of things upon the
globe is differently understood, since we have
studied it by the light which we have gained
from modern science. Likewise, that part
which refers to the last things, such as Kesur-
rection, Judgment, and Ketribution, may be
deemed capable of more correct understanding,
as study continues, and the helps of study are
improved.

I. Now, the traditional opinion that Matt,
xxv. 31 — 46 is a prophetic picture of " The
Last Judgment," in the sense above described,
is challenged by the discovery, and that not a
very recent one, that the words rendered in

168 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

our Bibles, " all the nations " will not fairly
bear the sense of " all mankind. "

The Gospel according to Matthew is ad-
mitted to have been written expressly for
readers of Jewish birth. It was written
originally in Hebrew, and this, done over into
Greek with some variations, is what we call
"Matthew." Now, in the mind of a Jew, or
in the pages of a book written for Jews, the
term ta ethne (ra e6vn — " the nations ") regu-
larly signified the nations outside of the
Jewish world, or, " the Gentiles." The Kevised
Version sometimes renders this term as " the
Gentiles " (Eom. iii. 29), and sometimes as
"the nations" (Eom. xvi. 26). The interpre-
tation to be popularly put upon the passage
before us in Matthew depended on the trans-
lators' choice whether to say, " the Gentiles" or
" the nations." If they had said, " all the
Gentiles" they would have been accused of
teaching a new doctrine under the guise of
a new translation, changing the traditional
opinion by the change of a word. So they
translated literally, " all the nations," more
correctly than the old version, which omits the
article, but still ambiguously, except to one
who bears in mind the Jewish sense of that
phrase. To a Jew, however, that phrase

VII.] "THE LAST JUDGMENT." 169

carried but one meaning, namely, the Gentile
ivorld. If a Jew wished to say, " all man-
kind," he said, " Jews and Gentiles." If he
wished to say, " all mankind except the
Jews," he said, " all the Gentiles," that is,
" all the nations" Now, this is precisely
what Jesus, speaking to Jews, and Himself a
Jew, says here.*

The words panta ta ethne (iravra ra edvn)?
taken simply as Greek words, undoubtedly
signify in English " all the nations" By that
we understand " all mankind." But the Jew
did not so understand it. When a Jew used
that phrase to Jews, as Christ did to the
Apostles in this passage, he meant the non-
Jewish nations, just as regularly as we, when
we speak of " the heathen," mean, in general,
the non-Christian nations.

The different sense which two different
languages may put into the same combination
of words, which, separately, word by word,
have the same sense in both languages, is illus-
trated by the experience of the American,
who, in addressing a Sunday-school in France,
wras unaware that eau devie (literally, " water
of life ") is the French phrase for brandy, and
astonished his hearers by gravely assuring

* See also the Remark at the close of this chapter.

170 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

them that in Heaven there was " a pure river

of eait cle vie."*

In this Judgment of " all the nations,"
therefore, unless we think fit to ignore the
idiomatic sense which these words always
carried from Jewish lips to Jewish ears, we
cannot recognise anything hut a description of
the Judgment of the Gentile part of mankind,
all except the Jews. It is as certain as any-
thing which depends on the intelligent inter-
pretation of language can ever he, that this
is not the final and universal Judgment of
the human race that it has been supposed
to be.

(1.) This immediately starts the question:
What then of the Jewish portion of mankind ?
"What of their Judgment ? This is apparent
from a glance at the preceding chapters of
Matthew, from the twenty-first onward,
recording discourses which were all delivered
by Christ on the same day as this — the last
day of His public teaching. These contain no
less than six Parables, of Judgment, three of
them addressed to the unbelieving part of
the nation, and three to the few believers,
namely : —

First Triplet, addressed to the unbelievers,

* He should have said eau vive, "living water."'

VII.] " THE LAST JUDGMENT." 171

that is, either to the nation generally or to
their representatives, as the Pharisees.

(a.) The Two Sons, xxi. 28—32.

(b.) The Wicked Husbandmen, xxi. 33 — 41.

(c.) The Marriage of the King's Son, xxii.
2—14.

This last, connected as it is with the sub-
ject of the Gospel invitation to the Gentile
world, sounds a prelude to that subject of the
Judgment of the Gentiles which concludes the
whole series of these parables. For, obviously,
the man without " the wedding garment" was
one of the outside multitude, to whom the
invitation rejected by those that scorned the
King was given.

Second Triplet, addressed to the believers, the
Jewish-Christian Church.

(a.) The Faithful and the Evil Servant, xxiv.
45—51.

(b.) The Wise and the Foolish Virgins, xxv.
1—13.

(c.) The Talents : or, the Use and the Abuse of
Trusts, xxv. 14—30.

The topic of each of these parables is Judg-
ment in varied aspects. The twenty-third
chapter and most of the twenty-fourth,
intervening between the two triplets, is a
continuous thunder-roll of the Judgment

172 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

impending over the people and the city to whom
the first triplet was addressed. These six now
described, and the one in the passage now
before us, which is a prophetic picture rather
than a parable, must be taken together to
make up in combination a Judgment-discourse
applicable to Jews and Gentiles both, that is,
to all mankind. Each of these seven will be
found to refract one or more of those prismatic
rays of truth which are combined in a perfect
idea of the judgment of God.

(2.) A second question touches next the time
of the fulfilment of these Judgment warnings.
Some of them, at any rate (such as Matt. xxi.
43 ; xxii. 7), were fulfilled in the lifetime of
some who heard them. Judgment fell upon
the Jewish people as predicted, their city was
destroyed, and a million of them perished in
the ruin. This immediate beginning of the
fulfilment, so far as the Jews were concerned,
leads us to anticipate the like so far as the
Gentiles were concerned. If there was no
putting off on one side, why should we expect
putting off on the other side ? We presume
that the cases will probably be parallel, no
more delay of Judgment in the one than in the
other. We must so regard it, unless we find
plain evidence to the contrary.

VII.] *' THE LAST JUDGMENT." 173

Now, is there any such? Here we shall
touch the only difficulty of any account, a diffi-
culty mainly for this reason, that it is harder
to get a wrong notion out of our minds than
to get a right notion in. The wrong notion,
in this case, is due to a wrong way of thinking,
to a mechanical, unspiritual way of looking at
our Lord's prophecies of great spiritual facts in
the unfolding of His kingdom.

The time when the Judgment of the Gentile
part of the world begins is said to be " when the
Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all
the angels with Him." This has been gener-
ally taken to mean a visible appearance of the
Lord Jesus Christ, in the radiance of a glori-
fied body, accompanied with hosts of celestial
spirits. This seemed sufficiently consistent
with the theory of an assemblage before Him
of the whole human race in all its countless
millions — a grand and final court, to review
and adjudicate upon every life that has been
lived. No one, indeed, has been able to give
a satisfying answer to some questions which
such a theory starts, namely : Why should all
these be brought together, some from bliss
and some from woe, to hear what they knew
already, and to go back into the bliss or woe
they came from ? Or, Why should Judgment

174 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP*

upon the mortal career of each individual be

put off thus to an indefinite future, and then
be delivered in a lump, as it were ? The
usual rejjlf to this, that it is for God's sake,
not man's, that this is to be, to the end that
His righteousness as the Judge may be fully-
manifested and acknowledged, does not satisfy.
For if men do not need this concourse before
God, if the sinner in utter solitariness may be
as thoroughly convinced of God's righteousness
and his own sin as in a crowd that includes all
mankind, then we may be sure that God needs
no such Judgment-throng any more than we
need it. Paul has set forth the principle of
the Divine economy which determines our
conclusion about this : " all things are for your
sakes." (2 Cor. iv. 15.) But the moment it is
seen that, according to the very terms of the
record, the Jewish portior of mankind are not
counted in this Judgment-concourse before the
King, the theory, that here we have a prophecy
of the visible appearance of Christ to pass
Judgment on the collective race, leaks very
badly. On the face of the discourse, this is
a coming of Christ to only a part of man-
kind ; the larger part, no doubt, but still a
part only.

Minds that are not committed to defend any

vii.] "the last judgment." 175

dogma in the teeth of plain facts will make due
account of this. This cannot possibly be what
it has been supposed to be, a visible coming of
Christ to judge all mankind at the end of this
world's history. The difficulty presented by
such a theory visibly melts. So far as that is
concerned, there is nothing adverse to our pre-
sumption before stated, that the Judgment of
the Gentile part of the world will run parallel
with the Judgment of the Jewish part; in fact,
that it began to be fulfilled immediately, just
as that began.

A striking confirmation of this view comes
from the picture here drawn of the " brethren "
of Christ, that is, Christians, as hungry, athirst,
naked, sick, and in prison. We cannot mis-
understand this allusion to the now well-known
circumstances of the Church of Christ during
her period of conflict, then about to begin. We
see, indeed, in " these, My brethren" the repre-
sentatives of needy humanity in all times, in
all its piteous appeals for benevolent regard,
including the appeals even of those deemed ill-
deserving and justly punished, as the brethren
of Christ were, in early days, so generally
deemed by most men. Christians are familiar
with the wide application, in many a sermon
to-day, of this designation, " My brethren" to

176 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CIIA.P.

all who need Christian charity. Only let it
be remembered, both to quicken Christian
charity, and to sharpen Christian insight into
the spiritual understanding of this whole
prophecy, that Christians themselves were
the " destitute, afflicted, evil entreated " ones,
according to their treatment of whom the
Gentiles are here described as judged.

We are now able to answer the question:
When did the Judgment of the Gentiles begin ?

Premising what many forget, that nothing
in God's Kingdom comes all at once, but rather
by stages of continuous advance — the Son of
Man came in His glory, that is, began to come,
when He began to be preached and believed on
among the Gentiles as " the Lord of glory,"
the spiritual King of men ; when His name
began to be recognised as " above every other
name " ; when His Apostles began to proclaim,
" Neither is there any other name under heaven,
that is given among men, wherein we must be
saved." (Acts iv. 12.) With Him were " all
the angels " — all the miraculous powers and
spiritual influences* which so marvellously
aided the introduction of faith in the Lord of
glory among the Gentiles. The Apostles and

* The word "angel," in the Old Testament, is applied both
to personal and impersonal agents of God.

VII.] " THE LAST JUDGMENT." 177

all missionaries of the Gospel are doubtless
included among these " angels" or messengers,
as the word originally meant.* Then did He
indeed begin to "sit on the throne of His
glory," a throne immediately erected in every
believing heart, and destined to be recognised
as established in the world, in proportion as
the Christian element grew strong enough to
make social usages and civil laws conform
more and more to the rule of Christ.

Thus we are bound to understand our Lord's
prophecy of His coming by the spiritual aim of
all His teachings, which constantly point to
things above the region of outward show and
mechanical forms. We must here bear in
mind the cautionary remark of a spiritual mind
like that of Paul, about the " veil on the heart"
that veil of obstinate, sensuous prepossessions,
which blinded Jewish readers to the spiritual
import of the prophecies of the Kingdom of
heaven. Those who insist on a coming of
Christ with such accessories of light and sound
and form as lie upon the low level of sensuous
perception, are simply furnishing powder and
shot to sceptics, who say that Jesus promised
to come in that way before that generation had

* The " angels " of the seven churches in John's Eevelation
are generally supposed to hare been men, not celestial spirits.

12

178 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

passed, and has not come ; so that He must be
accounted a false prophet.

The idea of a coming of Christ in such form
and glory as are apparent to the senses is
borrowed from the Jews, who anticipated the
coming of the Messiah in that manner. The
genuinely Christian idea of His coming views
Him as coming to the hearts and consciences
of men with spiritual power, converting in-
dividuals, purifying society, shaping institu-
tions and laws, communicating ideas that
expand with power, principles that grow
toward sovereignty, a spirit that by degrees
" leavens ,? the world, and at length controls
the world, recognisably, that is, visibly to our
minds. Such spiritual ascendency is true
glory, the highest glory. In such glory the
Son of Man began to come, as He said, within
the lifetime of some of His hearers. (Matt,
xvi. 28.)

II. To exhibit the harmony of the remainder
of the chapter with the view that has now been
presented, a running commentary will suffice.

" Before Him shall be gathered all the nations "
(verse 32). This began to be fulfilled, as all
nations began to be brought before Him in the
world-wide preaching of His Gospel.

" And He shall separate them,'" etc. This

VII.] " THE LAST JUDGMENT." 179

also began to take place, as they began to
separate themselves to right and left as
believers or opposers, " sheep " or " goats."
Wherever Christ is preached, men take sides.
This division took place, notably, among those
who heard Jesus speak. (John vii. 43.) That
this, as stated in our Lord's prophecy, is the
first result wherever He comes among men,
our Lord's explicit words testify : " Not psace,
but division" (Luke xii. 51.)

" Then shall the King say unto them"
etc. (verses 34 — 45). In this twofold address
of the King, I find foreshadowed that authori-
tative preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom,
which sets forth the law of the Kingdom, and
pronounces who have part and tvho have no part
therein. Let us not forget that the Gospel of
Christ is essentially a law of life, announcing
the conditions of life. Such a Gospel applies a
test to its hearers, enabling each to judge on
which side of the law of life he stands. The
preaching of this Gospel is, primarily, a
declaration of Judgment upon the position
which its hearers take ; a Judgment which
each hearer, whose conscience is awake, must
needs apply to himself. The two different
courses, here described as ministering or not
ministering to the neediness of the afflicted

180 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Christians, may be simply generalised as obedi-
ence or disobedience to the Gospel law of love.
(1 John iv. 21.)

The general view here taken may be stated
thus : This Judgment-prophecy is designed to
include the whole period of the Kingdom of
Christ, from the beginning of the spread of " the
Gospel of the Kingdom" It announces prin-
ciples of Judgment which apply to all duration,
in all worlds, as taking effect now, in a Divine
Judgment beginning, though not ending, in this
world.

Conformably to what has just been said, in
the "Come, ye blessed," and "Depart, ye
cursed," we shall miss the sense, if we think
we hear an irreversible allotment to those who
have made an unalterable choice, and taken a
final and fixed position for ever. I am aware
how almost invincible is the pre-possession
which will deny this, but I am content in
stating a fact, which candid inquiry, freeing
itself from the shackles of ignorance and of
blind dogmatism, will ere long freely admit.
The language is intense, and the description is
picturesque, but this well befits the fact, that
our Lord, as the nations are brought before
Him, in the preaching of His Gospel, declares
the ultimatum of human destiny as settled by the

VII.] "THE LAST JUDGMENT." 181

law of love. The "Come," and "Depart,"
instead of expressing the unalterable conditions
of the hearers, express rather the unalterable
issues of the courses which the hearers choose ;
unalterable in nature, but conditioned upon the
hearers' choice: " Gome,'" or " Depart" accord-
ing as you fulfil or resist the bidding of the law
of love. It is fixed in the nature of things, as
an eternal law, that the loving, the merciful,
the unselfish, and only they, can come into
fellowship with the Lord of glory, while the
hard, the unpitying, the selfish, can only be
parted from Him into fellowship with the
enemies of mankind, " the devil and his
angels" This is in substance equivalent to
"He that believeth shall be saved, but he that
disbelieveth shall be condemned." (Mark xvi.
16.) As a statement of " the terms of salva-
tion," the passage before us runs in the same
line of thought as earlier sayings that Matthew
has recorded, such as these : " Blessed, are the
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy " (v. 7) ;
1 Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of
these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the
name of a disciple, verily, I say unto you, he
shall in no wise lose his reward." (x. 42,)

Let us reflect on this, that wherever this
Gospel of the Lord is faithfully preached

182 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

to-day, He is continually sitting in judgment
upon the choices that the hearers make, and
continually repeating these Judgment words,
"Come" "Depart" in the varied forms in
which the Gospel pronounces the Divine ulti-
matum, in all the varied phrases by which it
declares that spiritual life or death is the issue
of the opposite choices which men make.
These words express a finality, because they
express what is in the nature of things un-
changeable. But ifc is a finality which is offered
to the election of the hearer still.

Here we must observe two things. It is,
indeed, to those who are ranged on opposite
sides that the King says " Come" *' Depart"
But this is the very aspect which the world, so
far as evangelised, presents to-day, a world in
two divisions, on opposite sides of " the law of
Christ." And all preaching of the Gospel pre-
supposes the power of voluntary transition
from side to side. The " Come" and " De-
part," therefore, however expressive of the
solemn finality of that law of consequences,
which demands that "whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap," are very far from
fixing " a great gulf" between the saved and
the lost. He who in the depths of conscience
to-day hears the word " Depart," in a feeling

VII.] " THE LAST JUDGMENT." 183

of his utter unfitness for the Father's blessing,
may yield to the conviction, may honour the
law of Christ by a consecration of his life,
may cross from the left to the right, and
" Come" among those that are coming to the
Lord.

Or, on the other hand, he may persistently
refuse to come. What, then, but a going on
in the evil way to the uttermost of evil conse-
quence ? " These shall go away into the eternal
punishment." They have been going away,
departing from the Lord and His Kingdom,
ever since they cast off His law of love. They
simply go on in their chosen way of departure.
It is a way of punishment, in the nature of
things, that is, eternally, as long as they
go on, the more departure the more sin and
punishment, though they should go on
sinning without end.

Now this is matter of experience in the
present world. Men who have been brought
before Christ, either in the preaching of the
Gospel, or as they have seen " the Word made
flesh" in some saintly life, hear the "Come"
or the " Depart" in their inmost souls to-day,
as Judgment is pronounced in conscience upon
the issues of their life in coming to or depart-
ing from the Lord. Not only this, but the

184 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

experience of these issues, in the peace and
blessedness which the loving and self-denying
life "inherits" or in the unrest and cankered
spirit of the selfish worldling, begins to be
realised here.

When we read, therefore, " these shall go
away into eternal 'punishment, but the righteous
into eternal life" we are not to see in picture
any final opening and shutting of heaven
gates or of hell gates at the end of a last and
universal Judgment of mankind. Nor are we
to think that this saying marks probation as
closed, and having given place to retribution.
"We are to see, rather, the Gospel ultimatum
beginning to take effect in the present experience
of every hearer, according as his choice in the
present moment places him on the right or the
wrong side of the law of the King.

I am aware that it will take time and
thought, aye, and a more spiritual ivay of
thinking, to efface the inveterate impression of
the Christian world on this subject, so as to
dispel the traditional illusion that Christ
terms punishment and life "eternal," because
measured by a sort of infinite almanac or
clock. Rather is it the nature of things, inde-
pendently of any measure of time or quantity,
which makes the punishment and the life

vii.] "the last judgment." 185

" eternal" Just as hardness of heart eter-
nally, that is, in the timeless and unchange-
able nature of things, results from acts of
selfishness, without regard to clock or almanac,
with equal inevitableness after one moment or
a million years, so is " the eternal punishment"
that which the spiritual nature, not duration,
brings upon the violators of the eternal law in
this world and in all the worlds of God. It
may begin in any time or any place ; it
may end in any time or place; but it is
nothing connected with beginning or ending,
nor is it any relation to time or place, that
constitutes it " eternal" but simply its nature^
as the invariable result of law. Repentance
and conversion may cut it short in a day;*
but it is " eternal" all the same. It may
cease to exist, but it can cease only when the
cause ceases to exist, from whose existence it
must necessarily follow.

So, also," the eternal life" is not a certain
measure of existence, but a certain kind of
existence ; that kind which results in the
timeless and unchangeable nature of things,
that is, eternally, from the specific causes
mentioned by our Lord in John xvii. 3. This

* " A man may be in one place in eternal life, and a rod be-
yond in eternal death ; or in one hour in eternal life, and in
another hour in eternal death."— Erskine.

186 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

also oegms, as Christ and His Apostles ex-
plicitly declare, in the present world. (John
iii. 3G ; 1 John v. 11, etc.)

III. The grand lesson of this Judgment
prophecy is now before us. Judgment begins
here, though it does not end here. Nay, " after
death, Judgment" as well as before death, but
so much more completely developed, that we
may speak with a deep spiritual significance
of ''the world of Judgment," not forgetting,
however, that this world, and any world, is a
world of Judgment so far as it is a world of
law. Judgment is simply the experience and
manifestation of the consequences of keeping
or breaking law. It takes time to manifest all
the consequences, time that outreaches the
present world. But the manifestation of these
consequences exists in one stage of develop-
ment or another, wherever law exists. This
world is a world where Judgment goes on to-
day, according to the law of Christ the King.
The system of things is not double, all proba-
tion here, and all Judgment there, but single,
probation and Judgment combined in one
system of things, from the time that man
begins to be capable until he ceases to be
capable (if he ever ceases) of choosing whether
he will obey or disobey the law of God.

vii.] "the last judgment." 187

What then becomes of the doctrine of " the
last Judgment " in the light of this exposition?
It is not abolished. It is transformed. A lot
of useless stage machinery is put away. A
spiritual reality is made manifest. Like other
Christian doctrines, the doctrine of the last
Judgment must lose its grosser form, to live in
purer and truer form. In a very true and
solemn sense, we see in this passage the last
Judgment. It is recorded at the close of the
narrative of our Lord's public teaching, as His
ultimatum to the world, His final and conclusive
Judgment upon the two courses that the hearers
of His Gospel may elect — His last and great
word of destiny. But it is not pronounced
after probation has ended ; while probation is
in progress, rather; while the Gospel invita-
tion is open, while a Saul may change to a
Paul. In its presentation of the two un-
changeable alternatives for our choice, it falls
upon our ears with solemnity as the final word
of the King, the last Judgment that can ever
express our relation to His eternal laic.

To ire, and I hope to others, thinking in
this way, an increased solemnity is imparted to
the present life, the present hour, as the begin-
ning of that spiritual Judgment before the
Lord, through whose uttermost processes each

188 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

one must pass, until all that is sown in the
present shall be reaped in the present and the
future. That welcome " Come" that dread
41 Depart," are not to be heard as from a vast
remoteness, but as if spoken in our ears : the
present decision must be made in mindfulness
of the immeasurable potency of the good or
the evil germ to develop itself blissfully or
woefully. The mediaeval notion of a fiery hell-
dungeon, peopled with devilish tormentors,
and the twin chimera of a heavenly colosseum,
peopled with the singers of an endless concert
of praise, have both given place to conceptions
of the future more rational and true. But
though the imaginative forms, in which the
truth was rudely clothed for a while, have been
discarded, the substance of the truth is with us
still. Judgment and Ketribution, both through
the present and through the future, abide as
living truths, which experience and reflection
imbed ever more deeply in the convictions of
thoughtful minds.

As men study the actual phenomena of
human life, the more convinced are they, that
the Divine Judgment is not something that
stands deferred to eternity. It begins here, if
it ever begins, at least in inward fact, if not in
outward demonstration. And as men study

vii.] "the last judgment." 189

the phenomena of character, the formation of
habits and tempers, of principles and disposi-
tions, the more convinced are they, that the
Judgment most to be dreaded and hardest to
escape in any world where the law holds, that
" whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap," is a character set wrong by sceptical
habits and selfish principles, settling into
wrong by indifference to truth, by contempt of
duty, in a reckless and selfish use of the
present hour. Such a character is seen to
carry in itself evidently developing germs of
evil, whose development has all the future
to mature in, and whose very nature ' is to
demoralise and destroy. The full unfolding of
these in a spiritual world, where every screen
of flesh and blood is dropped, where each goes
" to his own place " and to his own sort, accord-
ing to what he is, in spirit and tendency, may
fully justify the impression which the general
tone of the New Testament makes upon us,
that this brief life of ours may be abused
to consequences which are past remedy. Sin
may prove — there is great reason to think so — •
a spreading cancer in our spiritual nature,
whose burning is inextinguishable, everlasting,
till the ruin is complete in the extinction
of personal existence itself, fulfilling thus the

190 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

sternest warning our Saviour ever uttered, in
actually destroying " both soul and body in
hell" (Matt. x. 28.)

From the view which has been taken in this
and in the foregoing chapter, the conclusion
is unavoidable, that the popular doctrine of
the day of Judgment has been read into the
Scripture, and not read out of it. In the
Scripture we find no warrant for looking
forward to a Judgment to be delivered to
mankind in a mass, and to be displayed
after the manner of the Dies Ira,

" When, shrivelling like a parched scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll,
And louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead."

There are special days of Judgment, days of
the Lord, in the Old Testament sense (Isa.
xiii. 6), like the day when Babylon was
judged. The fall of the Koman Empire, the
French Revolution of 1792, the American
Civil War, were such days. Beside such par-
ticular days, and inclusive of them, there is a
general day of Judgment. In such a day, or
period, we now are living. The law delivered
by Christ is being manifestly executed in the
experience both of society and of individuals.

VII.] "the last judgment." 191

Beyond the grave there is a further day, or
period, of Judgment, when the evil that has
escaped fall disclosure and condemnation in a
world of fleshly forms will no more escape,
where we are to see as we are seen and to know
as we are known, where everything that has
been veiled in the body must be manifested in
the spirit. So searching, so complete, may
such Judgment be anticipated to be, that we
may speak of it, in that sense, as the Judgment.
But to this we go, each of us alone, at death.
Not in a mass, but one by one, are wre to be
confronted with it in the still court of con-
science, ablaze at last with the unobstructed
light of the Most Holy. For this there is no
waiting of long ages. As soon as we enter the
unseen world, our Judgment is immediate, at
least in its beginning.

So far, then, as Eesurrection is to be re-
garded as antecedent to Judgment, there is no
more postponement of the one than of the
other. The immediateness of Judgment after
death implies the immediateness of what
Christ calls " the Resurrection of Judgment'''
(John v. 29.)

Eemark. — With reference to the Jewish sense which in
the above exposition is attached to the phrase " all the

192 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP. VII.

nations" as importing only the non- Jewish portion of
mankind, it has been said, that the line between Jew and
Gentile disappears in the Evangelical narrative ; that this
assumes such a prevalence of Christianity before the
coming of the Lord, that that phrase loses its Jewish and
takes on the Christian sense. This, however, imports into
the historical document an idea of which it contains no
trace. In Paul's doctrine of the spiritual unity of the race
in Christ, " there is neither Greek nor Jew." But that
was a revelation which, in their Master's life-time, the
Apostles were " not able to bear" (John xvi. 12.) In
the sayings of our Lord which Matthew has gathered up, a
broad line is drawn between "the circumcision" and " the
uncircumcision." The Jewish physiognomy and accent
of Matthew are unmistakable. It is pre-eminently
" the gospel of the circumcision." Unless one ignores a
fundamental law of interpretation, its reference to " the
nations " must be taken in the historical, idiomatic,
Jewish sense. Whatever else may be questioned, this
certainly is beyond question, that the burden of proof
rests on any claim that the phrase, as used in a parti-
cular instance, does not refer to the Gentiles as it usuaily
does.

CHAPTEE VIII.

PABTICULABS ELUCIDATED BY
PRINCIPLES.

13

CHAPTEK VIII.

PARTICULARS ELUCIDATED BY PRINCIPLES.

" Tfie Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the
dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we that are alive, that are
left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet
the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with he Lord." —
1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.

I. So far as we have studied the subject of
the Resurrection in the teachings of Christ and
of Paul, we have seen reason to think : —

(1.) That it is not reserved till the end of
time, but is now taking place in the unseen
world, through the continuously acting opera-
tion of the spiritual power which was manifest
in Him who said, " I AM the Resurrection and
the Life"

(2.) That there is a wide difference between
the Resurrection which ensues, in the spiritual
order of things, upon a life that has neglected
to cultivate a Christly condition, and the
Resurrection which ensues upon the Christian
endeavour which Paul described, when he said

196 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [dlAP.

that he made all sacrifices, " if by any means
I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
This is what Christ calls " the resurrection of
life" in the full harvest of spiritual endea-
vours; the other is what He calls " the resur-
rection of judgment," in life that is not life, an
existence in privation and loss, destitute of
all the spiritual fruits for which no seed was
sown.*

(3.) The Kesurrection, whether " of life " or
<( of judgment," is not a single and simul-
taneous event, affecting all the dead at the
same moment, but the continuous process of
the rising of spirits " each in his own order"
into that condition of existence in spiritual
bodies which they are fitted to rise into.

(4.) This condition, whatever it be, involves
such a conscious experience of the spiritual
results of the present life as will perfectly
declare the Divine jud<.mmt upon " the deeds
done in the body."

(5.) There is no middle state of waiting to
be refurnished, at some great distant day, with
a body, all men at once, nor is there any sub-
sequent standing all together in the bodies
so given before the throne of God to receive
Judgment in a mass, but onward movement

# Sec Note B, appended to Chapter iv.

VIII.] particulars and principles. 197

ever without arrest or halt, both in embodied
life, and under law, and in the Judgment-con-
sequences of continuously operating law ; as
what we already know of the works and ways
of God requires us to believe.

These ideas appear to be expressed in a
few great sayings of Christ, and, for the
most part, to be repeated in substance by
Paul.

II. But difficulties start up, when we attempt
to harmonise with these leading ideas some
particular statements which we find chiefly in
the writings of Paul. Such a statement occurs
in his first letter to the Corinthians (xv. 51, 52.)*
" We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.'''
Another such statement is made in that
extract from Paul's first letter to the Thessa-
lonians which is prefixed to this chapter.

On such passages, and on others that have

* The true reading in the original is doubtful. The "we"
refers to those who shall be living on the earth at the end. Of
these the Apostle says, " None of us (who are then living on the
earth) will die, but all of us will be changed." So verse 52 says,
" The trumpet shall sound, and the dead (all hut those then on the
earth) shall be raised, and we (all then on earth) shall be changed."
This admits the possibility of an interval of time between the
" trumpet " and the change.

198 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

already been examined, the traditional concep-
tion of the Kesurrection rests, which even now
is closely patterned after the belief of the Jews
before Christ. The Jews believed that the
Christ was to come in visible glory, and that
the dead were then to rise for Judgment amid
the terrors of a day of fire. The Apostles
inherited this belief. As one of their earliest
and most deeply rooted ideas, it had an influ-
ence upon their way of thinking and speaking,
which, even under the spiritual teaching of
Christ, they never quite outgrew. There is
profound truth in it underlying the pictur-
esque description we are familiar with.
But an error has overlaid the truth. What
should be regarded as purely symbolic and
suggestive has been taken as literal and repre-
sentative. Thoroughly Jewish, mechanical
and unspiritual is the current representation,
stereotyped in the creeds and in the hymns, of
a momentary event, a supernatural display, a
Divine form of glory, a world -awakening
reveille, followed instantly by the simul-
taneous rising of the dead out of the dust and
out of the sea; the re-clothing, in the twinkling
of an eye, of every disembodied spirit with a
new body, the transformation of the world of
living men at once into spiritual conditions, the

VIII.] PARTICULARS AND PRINCIPLES. 199

massing of all the risen and all the changed
multitudes about the Judgment throne, while
the heavens and the earth melt in a fiery
catastrophe, —

" Dies iras, dies ilia,
Solvens sseclum in favilla."

Not only mediaeval and rude, but thoroughly
Jewish and fictitious as this conception is, it is
time that Christian people discarded it, time
that our hymn-books were purged of it, time
that what is true in it were separated from
what is not true.

One of the most instructive phenomena that
have recently occurred in the Christian world
was the convention that assembled in the city
of New York, toward the close of the year
1878, in the interest of one of these super-
annuated and obsolescent Jewish fictions, — the
advent of Christ in visible form and in display
to the senses. Including, as it did, some of the
ablest preachers in the several Protestant com-
munions, the result which this convention
achieved, through the wide currency which
the metropolitan journals gave to its elaborate
discussions, was the most significant thing
about it. That result was the incredulity and
apathy with which the Christian public gener-
ally received the theories of the convention.

200 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [dlAP.

This seemed to demonstrate that the Church
is emerging from the mediaeval and Jewish
way of thinking about the coming of the Lord,
and about the Kesurrection and Judgment
associated in the Scriptures with it. Few
educated Christians care for the millenarian
theories, because few are content with the
materialistic way of thinking that is common
to them all. Christian thought, however un-
defined, demands a more spiritual presentation
of the doctrine of the Lord's coming. In these
misconceived prophecies the profoundest truths
lie, still waiting their time to be reformulated.
To contribute somewhat toward such a result,
as a labour in which many must co-operate, is
our present endeavour.

III. Now how shall we get at such a result ?
There are two methods.

One may first tell people what to think, what
interpretation to attach to the Scripture texts.
Or,

One may first show people how to think,
what principles to apply in order to bring out
the truth which is wrapped in the imaginative
language of the Scriptures.

(1.) This latter seems the better method.
It not only works toward the true result, but
gives reasonable confidence that the result is

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PKINCIPLES. 201

the true one, because one sees that the true
way has been followed.

In following this method, which shows us
Jwiv to think upon this subject, we have to
apply these two principles to the interpretation
of the Scripture-teaching about future things.

(a.) The facts which a prophet (like Paul)
reports to us are one thing; his views of them,
or opinions about them, are another. We
accept the former, we do not always accept
the latter.

Through the glass of revelation the prophet
sees the salient facts of the future, as one sees
far off the summits of a mountain chain. They
lie in apparent connection with each other,
projected against the blank sky like the teeth
of a gigantic saw. But the traveller, on
coming to the mountain chain, finds the peaks
draw apart. Between those which from afar
appeared close together he finds wide valleys
and broad plateaus intervening, of which the
distant view gave no suggestion. Thus we
may find the testimony of prophecy supple-
mented and qualified by that of experience.
Paul describes great facts of the future as he
sees them standing forth, one next to another.
Facts, which experience will show separated
by a wide interval of progress, as the coming

202 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

of the Lord in His Kingdom, and the change
of those on earth "to meet the Lord in the air,"
he states in the same breath, just as his pro-
phetic vision discerned them in the same
glance. Very likely he may have thought
them close together in one point of time.
But nothing depends on what he thought.
Paul's personal opinions about the facts of
which he testified bind no man's judgment.
Peter, himself also a prophet of the future,
tells us that the Divine realities are larger than
any man's thought about them. " No prophecy
of Scripture is of private interpretation." The
contents of prophecy are not measured by the
minds of the prophets. The prophet's private
opinion, however manifest it be, is not to be
confounded with his official testimony. This
is the New Testament doctrine, as in 1 Pet. i.
10 — 12, where it is said that the prophets
did not always comprehend the significance of
their own testimony. Our conclusions, there-
fore, while controlled by Paul's prophetic
report of certain facts, will not be controlled
by Paul's opinions respecting those facts. We
shall exercise our liberty to think upon those
facts in the light of our times as well as in the
light of His.

Few persons who study this subject care-

VIII.] PARTICULABS AND PKINCIPLES. 203

fully will judge that the Apostles correctly
understood the relation and connection of the
facts in the future which they prophesied.
Certain as those facts were, the opinions of
the Apostles concerning them were not always
correct. This is demonstrable to a certainty.
It is a law of the human mind, that our under-
standing of any new fact is regulated and
shaped by the ideas already in our minds.
This was illustrated by the German peasant,
who saw for the first time a locomotive speed-
ing along. After an earnest gaze, endeavour-
ing to comprehend the secret of its motion, he
at last ejaculated, " Es mnssen Pferde darin
seyn (there must be horses inside)." The new
phenomenon he explained by one of his estab-
lished beliefs, namely, that a wheeled vehicle
in motion must be connected with horses. If
not outside they must be inside.

Now, it is demonstrable to any one who
traces the history of Jewish thought upon the
doctrine of the Messiah's coming, that the
Apostles' minds were dominated by an estab-
lished belief, which unfitted them for truly
interpreting , as distinct from reporting, our
Lord's prophecies of His coming. This belief
was, that, in the nearness of the Messiah's
advent, the career of human institutions and

204 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

governments was near its end. The world
was " growing old." The empires of the
Gentiles had had their day. " The end of all
things," said Peter (1, iv. 7), "is at hand." A
grand catastrophe, not a grand development,
was impending. No new empires, no new
civilisation, no new continent beyond the
sea, no age-long progress of a spiritual king-
dom " growing from within outward " (as the
philosophic Church-historian Neander so fre-
quently describes it), — but a " descent" of the
Lord "from heaven in flaming fire" wherein
" these things are all to be dissolved" * was an.
event to be daily expected. Such a mode of
thought, developed by the apocalyptic litera-
ture t which had saturated the Jewish Church
for two hundred years, does not give way at
once. It can be transformed only by ex-
perience. Yet such was the prevailing mode
of thought in the minds through which our
Lord's prophecies of the future have been
transmitted to us. We should naturally expect
such a mode of thought to give its peculiar
colour, as it has, to the Apostles' testimony
of the things to come. Those things were,
indeed, as the Apostles testified, " at the

* See Note D, appended to this chapter.
f As in the " Book of Enoch," quoted hy Jude (14, 15).

VIII.] PARTICULARS AND PRINCIPLES. 205

doors," only not in such manner as they ex-
pected.

"The end of the world" was at hand, but
it was the end of the Jeivish " world," or
" age, "—the end, not of the physical but of
the spiritual course of things then current, the
end of the period preparatory to the manifesta-
tion of the Christ as the spiritual King of the
world. The Son of Man was about to come in
His Kingdom (" before this generation shall
pass," said He), but not in any display of
wonders to the senses. The Kesurrection-
period, as we shall presently explain, was near,
but no such general and simultaneous Kesurrec-
tion as some of the Apostolic sayings seem to
intimate.* A Judgment-period, too, was near,
but no such general and final Judgment as was
probably fancied. Instead of a final catas-
trophe, a final stage of progress was about to
open. The facts were about to take place, not
as brief convulsive events, but in the gradual
unfolding of a vast and age-long development.

(b.) The other principle to be always applied

* Some advance in thought is discernible in the later as
compared with the earlier writings of Paul. We are not to
suppose that he gained at once all the light he ever had. What
he says to the Thessalonians about the Resurrection must be
supplemented, perhaps qualified, by what he says later to the
Corinthians.

206 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

to the interpretation of the Scripture teachings
is this : —

Spiritual truths must be discriminated from
the material forms and fleshly drapery in which
they are pictured. We are familiar with this
principle, but we need to be more consistent
in its application. We have learned to apply
it to the Old Testament descriptions of God.
We read of God's hands and feet, His eyes and
ears, His arms and wings, His nostrils and
mouth, and even of His fury, jealousy and war-
likeness. We speak in the same fashion. We
distinguish between the spiritual reality and
the fleshly form of representation. By God's
" ha?id" we refer to His power, by His " eyes "
to His cognisance, by His " mouth " to His
revelations. It makes no difference to us
what ideas the Hebrews may have attached to
these fleshly words ; we attach our own ideas
to them. We think it possible that even the
inspired prophet of twenty-five hundred years
ago may have attached to such words an
idea of the Infinite Sovereign less true than
ours.

Now consistency requires that this discrim-
ination between the spiritual reality and the
material form should be carried into the New
Testament, and into such subjects as the

VIII.] PARTICULARS AND PRINCIPLES. 207

Kesurrection and the Judgment and the
coming of the Lord to judge and to reign.
We make some such discrimination already,
as in reading John's Kevelation, where few
thoughtful people understand that God has a
city in cubical form, with real walls of precious
stones and gates of pearls and a street of gold.
But we must carry this discrimination con-
sistently through the whole range of thought
in which spiritual conceptions have heen trans-
lated, for the help of infantile or immature
thought, into material terms. We must, in
our thinking, translate these terms bach again,
so far as we have the spiritual discernment to
do it, and power to grasp an idea apart from
its conventional symbol.

It must certainly be admitted, that the
traditional notion of a great catastrophic day
at the end of Time's calendar, on which the
Christ descends in fiery clouds, archangels fly
to and fro blowing trumpets, and a police of
celestial marshals gathers the million million
suddenly-roused occupants of graves around a
great white throne, to hear Divine lips utter
words which doom them to the prison of the
damned, or welcome them to the city of God,
is as unlike the spiritual reality, as is the
Hebrew picture of a Deity with arms and

208 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

wings enthroned on the vertex of the blue
arch of sky, or careering along in a chariot
of clouds.

And yet, let us not forget, while it is only
a picture, a fleshly and thoroughly material
symbol of a spiritual reality, yet it is a grand
and awful picture, the grandest ever drawn
by man. The reality behind the symbol is
certainly no less grand and awful.

The two principles now laid down show us
how to think toward a true understanding of
the Scripture teachings about the future. We
are to discriminate the facts of the prophetic
testimony from the opinions of the prophetic
witnesses ; also, the spiritual realities from
the material symbols and forms in which they
are conveyed.

(2.) When we thus see how to think, the
remainder of our inquiry is what to think ;
what results shall we come to in the appli-
cation of these principles ?

Taking the statements of Paul in combi-
nation, we find positive testimony to certain
facts. These facts, however, depend not on
Paul's testimony only. Christ is the princi-
pal witness for most of them. By comparing
what Paul says with what Christ says we
are able to distinguish between the fact

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PEINCIPLES. 209

which Paul affirms and the opinion about
it which appears in Paul's language.

(a.) The first fact is the coming of the Lord
— " the Lord shall descend''' The Lord did
come, as He foretold, before the generation
which heard Him speak had passed away.
His prophecy was fulfilled when Moses's seat
as law-giver and judge in the religious
world, was removed by the destruction of
the Temple, and was replaced by the throne
of Christ, as the manifest Head of the King-
dom of God upon earth. This has been
explained at length in a preceding chapter.
As to the manner in which Paul expected
the Lord to come, his substituting "descend"
for "come" looks as though he thought of
a coming down upon the world, rather than
of a spiritual development within the world.
An external coming, a descent within the
sphere of the senses, was certainly what his
Jewish training predisposed him to think of.*

* We can hardly avoid noticing how an Apostle, who at
times seems to see profoundly into the spiritual teachings
of our Master about the future things, at other times shows
the persistent force of an early and deeply rooted way of
thinking on them, by sliding into expressions derived from
the superficial beliefs in which he had been educated. Here
we seem to see something of what Paul himself felt as to
his situation as a disciple, or "learner," when he said, " Not
that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect "
(Phil. iii. 12.)

14

210 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

(b.) Closely combined with the coming of
the Lord is the attendant ministry of ancjds
— "with a shout, with the voice of the arch-
angel, and with the trump of God." The
core of this statement is furnished by the
sayings of Christ (Matt- xxiv. 31 ; xxv. 31),
but in Paul's writings this core of fact is
overlaid with Paul's opinions as to who these
angels of the Son of Man should be. I
think that Christ used the term "angels"
in the comprehensive sense in which the Old
Testament makes it include impersonal as
well as personal agents of God. Thus we
find it in the 104th Psalm : " He maketh
the ivinds His messengers, the lightnings His
minister s'' Used in this comprehensive way,
the term would include all agents whatso-
ever in the service of the Kingdom, besides
apostles, missionaries, and the " ministering
spirits" (Heb. i. 14) who are beyond our
sight. But Paul seems to have thought ex-
clusively of celestial beings, for he substitutes
"archangel" for the simple and comprehen-
sive term "angels," which Christ had used.
Here, then, while accepting the fact of an
attendant ministry of angels at the coming
of the Lord, we must revise Paul's opinion
about it. There are angels, no doubt, intel-

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PEINCIPLES. 211

ligent beings of higher rank than ours,
but these are not the only angels in the
service of the Kingdom. The angelic trum-
pet-call which our Lord foretold took place
in that apostolic preaching of the Gospel
of the Eesurrection, of which an echo still
reverberates in Paul's quotation to the Ephe-
sians : "Aivake, thou that steepest, and arise
from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon
thee" (v. 14.) Whatever evidence has been
displayed to show that our Lord's prophecies
of His coming have already entered upon
their course of fulfilment, so much reason
we have to bind us to this understanding
of the part that " angels " bear.

(c.) The third fact is the Eesurrection — "the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be
raised incorruptible:" — "the dead in Christ
shall rise first." This is not all, but this is
"first" The sounding of the Gospel trumpet
through this world, as explained in the pre-
ceding paragraph, is followed by Eesurrection
in the next world, that is, the Eesurrection,
" the Eesurrection of Life," as explained in
Chapter iv. In other words, the period of
the Gospel here has corresponding to it the
period of Eesurrection there. Manifestly; since
the Gospel brings men under the spiritual

212 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

power of Him who is the Resurrection and
the Life, so that they strive, as Paul strove,
to "attain unto the Resurrection" this will be
followed by the appropriate spiritual results
in their rising from the dead. Corresponding
to this period of Gospel influence and Chris-
tian endeavour in the visible world, there
must be in the invisible world a period of
attainment and realisation of the fruits
thereof. This is the Resurrection "at" the
coming of the Lord,* not a single, explosive,
simultaneous event, but a continuous process
throughout the whole period of His coming
and presence (" parousia") — the rising of
those who are prepared into that for which
they are prepared.

(d.) The last fact mentioned by Paul is a
final change to pass upon all such as are living,
at the last, upon the earth. He writes to the
Corinthians, " We [all of us then on earth]
shall all be changed." Some years previously
he had written to the Thessalonians, " We that
are alive, that are left, shall be caught up in
the clouds." Paul's earlier idea of the Resur-
rection was apparently that of a single and
simultaneous event, with a change of the
living immediately after. We must revise his

* See Note D, appended to Chapter v.

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PRINCIPLES. 213

opinion, and regard the Kesurrection as con-
tinuing through a period. But, after this
period, what? Paul speaks of a "last trump"
a final summons of some sort, which, accord-
ing to this epithet " last" may not be the
same as the previous Kesurrection-call, and
then of a change of those still living on the
earth.

As to this, whether we regard the opinions
of some of the Greek philosophers,* which
Paul may not have been ignorant of, or the
opinion of modern scientists, or whether we
regard Paul as speaking by revelation, as he
says he does ("by the ivord of the Lord"), the
conclusion is the same. The Gospel-period
on earth, the Kesurrection-period in the un-
seen world, will sometime terminate. The
existing course and order of things are not
permanent. Though we may still be far dis-
tant from the end of human development on
earth, yet the end will come. Some of the
prophets of science tell us that the globe
will sometime become what the moon is, a
planet without water, without an atmosphere,

* Heraclitus in the 6th century B.C., and Zeno in the 3rd (the
latter the founder of the Stoics whom Paul encountered at
Athens), taught a doctrine of the periodic formation and anni-
hilation of the material universe. All things, as Heraclitus
held, originate out of " fire," and ultimately return to it.

214 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

incapable of sustaining the life it now sustains.
This condition, indeed, they set at an im-
mense distance from the present. Whether
the change of the living that Paul speaks of
be long anterior to this ; whether it is to be
both instantaneous and simultaneous, or in
some gradual and progressive manner ; whether
the suddenness and brevity expressed by the
phrase, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye" be true only of its beginning, as a pro-
cess, or of its beginning and ending, as a
momentary event, are questions which only
the future can answer. The naked fact, how-
ever, stands. A change of some sort, in
some manner, awaits the present condition,
both of the earth, and of the life that has
been adapted to it as at present. At this
" end," we are told that the Gospel period is
to reach its earthly end.*

Of this end of the Gospel-period on earth
Paul seems to have prophesied in the grandest,
but in some respects most mysterious, of all

* Here we by no means rule out, but, on the contrary, grant
room for any " miraculous manifestations" that may be sup-
posed destined to attend the close of the earthly career of
mankind, that is, such phenomena as would have produced
in the apostolic age, however resulting from physical causes,
the impression of miraculous "signs and wonders."

VIII.] PARTICULARS AND PRINCIPLES. 215

bis predictions ; for remarks on which see
Chapter ix. Note D.

" Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver
up the Kingdom to God, even the Father;
ivhen He shall have abolished all rule and all
authority and power. For He must reign, till
He hath put all His enemies under His feet.
The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.
For, He put all things in subjection under
His feet. But when He saith, All things are
put in subjection, it is evident that He is ex-
cepted who did subject all things unto Him.
And when all things have been subjected unto
Him, then shall the Son also Himself be sub-
jected to Him that did subject all things untc
Him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv,
24—28.)

Our endeavour in the present chapter has
been to discover, if we may, under an apparent
dissonance, a real harmony between the pre-
vious results of our study, as stated at the
beginning of this chapter, and certain pro-
phecies of Paul upon the Resurrection at the
coming of the Lord. Our recognition of any
such harmony depends upon the influence
upon our way of thinking, which we allow to

216 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

the two cardinal principles already laid down,
namely, the discrimination of the prophet's
testimony to facts from the prophet's personal
opinions about them, which we discover
blending with his testimony ; — then, the dis-
crimination of the spiritual fact itself from the
fleshly drapery under which it is represented.

IV. It now remains to ask, What is the
substantial truth conveyed to us by those
specific prophecies of the Resurrection which
we have been examining ? It seems to be
this : —

The coming of our Lord in His Kingdom on
earth, when Judaism was supplanted by Chris-
tianity, ushered in the Resurrection-period in
the world to come. I do not say, began the
Besurrection, as if there had been no Resurrec-
tion before. Of this more will be said pre-
sently. I say rather, began the period, whose
distinguishing characteristic is the manifested
power of the Besurrection, " the Besurrection of
Life" In a broader statement, the Christian
period is characteristically the period of
spiritual life, exalted and diffused, and this
in both woblds. Our Lord seems to have
intimated this when He said: "I came that
they may have life, and that they may have
it abundantly." (John x. 10.)

VIII.] PARTICULAES AND PRINCIPLES. 217

(1.) To comprehend this, let us reflect that as
the Gospel spreads, and Christian principles
acquire ascendancy, the glory of our Lord is
manifested more and more as Spiritual King
on earth, and as the power inwardly working
here toward the Kesurrection hereafter. As
faith and love and righteousness and fidelity
to Christ here inspire greater numbers with
the spirit of the life eternal, so must greater
numbers pass into the unseen world fitted to
rise through Christ into the fulness of life, into
what Paul calls " the revealing of the sons
of God," " unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ." That is to say, the
greater the spiritual development before death,
the greater the spiritual development after
death. The period of the one must coincide
with the period of the other, for continuity of
progress marks all the working of God that we
can see. This is what is meant by saying,
that the beginning of the Gospel-period, when
the Son of Man came in His Kingdom, marked
the begining of the Resurrection-period corre-
sponding thereto.

(2.) We may rest confidently in this conclu-
sion, not on the score of any skill in interpret-
ing the original language in which the facts
were uttered, but through confidence in the

218 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [dlAP.

principles which guide our thinking. The
critical question is not, What does this or that
Greek word mean ? but this rather : Hoio shall
ice think upon the great facts of the Kingdom
of the Spirit ? Shall we cling to the Jewish
notion of an advent, within the sphere of the
senses, which the Apostles inherited and never
outgrew? Shall we limit ourselves by all the
opinions of the Apostles, as if Christian ex-
perience had given us no new light in new
developments of the Kingdom of Christ ?
Shall we materialise the New Testament pro-
phecies of [Resurrection and Judgment, as the
Jews materialised the Old Testament pro-
phecies of the Kingdom of God upon earth ?
Shall we ignore all that men have discovered
of the universality of law and the continuity of
progress in the works of God ? If so, let us
be consistent. Let us continue to believe,
with the ancient creeds, in " the Eesurrection
of the flesh," and the reanimation of the
buried and scattered dust into " the self-same
bodies." But if this is beyond our present
power of belief, let us be consistent, and make
thorough work, till all the rubbish of Jewish
and materialistic and mechanical notions has
been cleared away, and this great doctrine,
after waiting nineteen centuries for intelligent

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PEINCIPLES. 219

elaboration, is unfolded in the lucid order of
Christian and spiritual conceptions.

Whoever endeavours to strike a just balance
between the traditional view of the Resurrec-
tion, and that which has been presented in
these pages as a substitute for it, has one
crucial question to settle. Is the Resurrec-
tion represented in Scripture as a single and
simultaneous event, affecting all mankind at
once, such as a universal earthquake would
be ? It cannot be, if we admit the testimony
of John to u the fiest resurrection" (of which
more will be said in the next chapter), or if
we admit the testimony of Paul, "each in his
own order" Is it then a process, running
through a period, and operated by a continu-
ously acting spiritual power ? It must be, if
Christ's Resurrection-power be not exception-
ally different from all the other powers which
He claimed as present activities by His signifi-
cant " I am." Now as soon as one substitutes
for the idea of an event the idea, of a continuous
process operated by a continuous power, it will
be found that various perplexing passages of
Scripture are readily harmonised with this
idea by applying the principles of thought
that have been followed in the foregoing
pages.

220 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

V. Brief answers may now be given to a few
remaining questions.

(1.) Did not our Lord repeatedly say that
He wou]d raise up the believer " at the last
day " / (John vi. 39, 40, 44, 54) and does not
"at" refer to an event, rather than to the
period of a process ?

The word our Lord used, en (eV), may mean
either at or in. The idea we have of " the
last clay " decides which of these two mean-
ings we will adopt. If we think of "the last
day " as an event, like the day of Pentecost,
we shall say " at.,y If we think of it as a
period, through which a process is continuing,
we shall say " in." The original word allows
an even choice, which depends wholly on our
idea of the "day." Our translators probably
had the idea of an event, and preferred to
say " at." I have the idea of a period, and
prefer to say " in." By " the last day " it
is altogether probable that our Lord meant
no end of the earth's calendar, like a 31st of
December, but a day of centuries or ages,
like one of the six days of creation. It
denotes the last period of human progress
under Divine revelation, the day or period
of our Lord's manifested kingly power on
earth, and of the coincident manifestation of

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PEINCIPLES. 221

His Resurrection-power in the unseen world.
If this be so, as I see no reason to doubt,
we may believe that His promise is now
receiving its fulfilment in the immediate
Resurrection of those who " depart to be with
Christ."*

(2.) But is not the Resurrection still a
thing of the future rather than of the pre-
sent ? Is it not written that " the dead shall
be raised " ?

The Resurrection certainly is future to all
to whom death is future. "The living" (as
we call ourselves, in a merely phenomenal
distinction from "the dead") must ever speak
of it as a thing that shall be. But what a
thing is to us does not define what it is to
those who have gone before us, and are no
more among us. Speaking of them, we find
that Christ in talking with the Sadduceesf
does not say ((the dead shall be raised," but
" are raised" or " rise." In the world of
those whom we call "the dead" the Resur-
rection is no more future, as to us, but a
present reality.

(3.) Must we think of all the dead during
the ages before Christ as waiting for the

* See Note D, appended to Chapter v.
f See Note A, Chapter ii.

222 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Eesurrection, until Christ came among the
living to say, "I am the Eesurrection" ?

Not so. The Gospel-period has been shown
to have in the nature of things a Eesurrec-
tion-period coincident with it ; but this does
not imply that there was no Eesurrection be-
fore the Gospel. When Christ affirms that
"the dead are raised," he instances Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.*

A parallel case may serve for illustration.
John, speaking of Jesus 's lifetime, says that
"the Spirit was not yet given" (vii. 39). He
does not mean to deny that the Spirit had
been given to the ancient prophets ; he
means not given, as afterward at Pentecost,
in general diffusion among the "people pre-
pared for the Lord." The Old Testament
reveals the Spirit of God as operating with
increasing power from first to last. But in
the earlier times the Spirit appeared limited
to here and there "a man of God," an Enoch,
an Abraham, a Moses. The period of the
Spirit's diffusion began with the diffusion of
the Gospel of the Eesurrection.

Thus we must think of the Christian Eesur-
rection, " the Eesurrection of Life," not as
beginning when the Gospel of the Eesurrec-

* See Note A, appended to this chapter.

VIII.] PAETICULAES AND PEINCIPLES. 223

tion began, but as manifested and spreading
when the Gospel was spread. An experience
of the earliest ages for as many as were
spiritually fitted for it, it must have become
more frequent as spiritual men became more
numerous. And when at length the Gospel
of the Eesurrection began to be proclaimed
and obeyed in this world, the period of its
manifestation and spread, as the fruit of
obedience to the Gospel, must have set in
in the world to come. Moses and Elijah,
whose glorified forms appeared in society
with Jesus on the Transfiguration Mount,
attest that it is not time, before Christ or
after Him, which determines men's realisa-
tion of " the power of His Eesurrection, ," but
spiritual fitness to rise into the inheritance
of the children of God, personal capacity for
the power and blessedness and glory of the
life eternaL

Here we may utter to one another a word
of comfort and hope. The life that follows
Christ on earth, the life that rises from the
dead in " the poioer of His Eesurrection" is
one continuous and unbroken life. The sleep
of the grave is but a figure of speech. The
crowded waiting-room of an intermediate

224 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

state, anticipating a grand and general open-
ing of heavenly gates, is a mere illusion.
The dreaded "shadow of death" is attenuated
to a thread, where only a gated archway
spans the road, to mark the boundary be-
tween two worlds. That road is light, on
this side the archway and on that. The
passage of the shadow is only the passage of
the gate from light to light. No pause, no
break is there in the spirit's experience of
the power of Christ to guide, to nourish, to
deliver, to raise through grace to glory. On
earth and in heaven the Christly life is one,
indissoluble, eternal. If our feet are on the
King's highway, if the Spirit of the Lord is
"the soul of the soul," then, though a cloud
may rest on the horizon of our mortal pros-
pect, it is a cloud in whose bosom glory
dwells, for we may say with Paul, " He
abolished death, and brought life and incor-
ruption to light through the Gospel" (2 Tim.
i. 10.)

NOTE A.
ON RESURRECTION PRIOR TO CHRIST.

But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the
first-fruits of them that are asleep. (1 Cor xv. 20.)
The statement above made, that there must have been

VIII.] EESUEEECTION PEIOE TO CHEIST. 225

Eesurrection prior to Christ for as many as were capaci-
tated for it (Abraham and Moses for instance), may seem
to some to need reconciliation with the statement, so
frequently made in the New Testament, that Christ is
" the first-fruits of them that are asleep." (1 Cor. xv. 20,
23), " the first born from, or of, the dead" (Col. i. 18;
Kev. i. 5.) To see how this is perfectly consistent with
the fact of Eesurrection prior to Christ, we have only to
apply the distinction already pointed out (Chapter iii.)
between the language of appearance and the language of
reality. Christ first manifested the Eesurrection, first
walked among men in the spiritual body (which distin-
guishes the Resurrection of Christ from the reanimation*
of Lazarus and others.) He thus made Himself, relatively
to our knowledge, the beginning, or "first-fruits " of the
Eesurrection, that is, of the rising after death into blessed
life in the spiritual body.

This does not conflict with the fact that it was in the
spiritual body of the Eesurrection-state, that Moses and
Elijah, previous to Christ's Eesurrection, were seen with
Jesus upon the Transfiguration Mountain. From such a
manifestation nothing certain could have been known;
questions whether they were phantoms, or something
more substantial, could never have been answered; the
mystery of the future life remained as inscrutable as ever,
until Christ should clear it up. This He did by the
experiences which He granted to the " witnesses chosen of
God, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from
the dead.,} (Acts x. 41.) The beginning of our positive
knowledge of the Resurrection-life in the spiritual body is
therefore found in Christ. So far as we know anything
of it, Christ is " the first-fruits." This, however, by no
means makes it improbable that the reality existed, before
it was demonstrated.

# See Chapter iii., Note B.

15

226 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

NOTE B
ON THE DOCTRINE OF A PAST RESURRECTION.

Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the
Ecsurrection is past* already ; and overthrow the faith
of some. (2 Tim. ii. 18.)

As distinct from the heresy here condemned, the view
presented in these pages is, that the Resurrection is as to
its beginning past, as to its continuance present, and
as to its consummation future.

The doctrine which Paul here censures was probably
one of the earlier developments of the Gnostic heresy,
which in the next century became so widely spread.
Paul had described the present state of believers in Christ
as a new and higher life, and had compared it to Christ's
Besurrection-life (Bom. vi. 4) ; nay, had spoken of it as a
kind of Resurrection (Eph. ii. 6 ; especially, v. 14). Pro-
bably this gave the starting-point for the conception
of Hymen&us and Philetus,t that this was the only
Resurrection to be thought of. Despite of Paul's doctrine
of the spiritual body— a doctrine even now but very poorly
appreciated in the Church—the Jewish notion of a resus-
citation of the buried body from the grave very thoroughly
penetrated the primitive Church, as the writings of the
Fathers abundantly show, embracing in its anticipations
even the teeth, the nails and the hair. This doctrine,
always the scandal of philosophy, as well as a perversion
of Scripture, drove men into that one-sided view which
Paul here condemns, which gives no place to the Christian
conception of the spiritual body of the future, and fixes
attention exclusively on a present rising (already accom-
plished) to higher views of truth, and higher ideals of life.

* More literally, " is already come to pass."
+ We must locate these two at or near Ephesus, which tra-
dition makes the place of Timothy's ministry.

vni. J david's resurrection. 227

This Paul regards as an " overthrow of faith," because by
refusing to look at the crown in the future it enfeebles the
energy of the race to be run in the present.

NOTE C.

ON DAVID'S RESURRECTION.

For David ascended not into the heavens : hut he saith
himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My
right hand. (Acts ii. 34.)

In what Peter here says, a contradiction may appear to
the statements advanced above respecting the Kesurrection
of pious men before Christ, as well as since. I think it is
unquestionable that Peter supposed David to be still in
Sheol, waiting for the Kesurrection.

He draws a sharp distinction here, in applying the
words of Psa. xvi. 10, between Christ, who is risen, and
David, who is not. Christ, in his view, was not left in
the grave, but David was. This being evidently Peter's
opinion, the only question is, What account must be
made of it ?

It may help us to answer, if we ask, What account must
we make of the statement in Psa. cxv. 17, " The dead
praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into
silence"! No Christian is willing to adopt that as a
statement of the truth, or of his own belief. There has
been a progress of doctrine since that time. Later utter-
ances of the Bible correct the earlier.

There is reason to class Peter's assertion about David
with the assertion of the 115th Psalm about the dead.
Peter's case may be described in Pastor John Robinson's
remark about the Protestant Churches" in his times : "It
is not possible the Christian world should come so lately
out of such thick anti- Christian darkness, and that full
perfection of knowledge should break forth at once."

228 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Peter stood at Pentecost on the threshold of his apostolic
career. He did not then know all that he was ever to
know. He had not gotten clear of all his Jewish notions
in a flash. \He was inspired, but not omniscient, not in-
fallible, anymore than the writer of the 115th Psalm. \
We must apply to his statement about David the same '
principle that we apply to the statement of that Psalm
about the dead, namely, The Bible isaself-correcting
booh. This remark of Peter is not our only source of
knowledge about David's Kesurrection.

In view of the abundant superseding testimony which
we have found in the Gospels and Epistles, it cannot
stand, any more than the statement in Ecclesiastes (ix. 5),
that " the dead Jcnow not anything," or any more than
Dr. Watts's hymn based on that passage can stand,
though it used to be sung in the churches not long ago.

" The living know that they must die,
But all the dead forgotten lie ;
Their memory and their sense is gone,
Alike unknowing and unknown."

There is a deal of false doctrine still sung out of our
popular hymn-books about the Advent, the Kesurrection,
and the Judgment, which is destined to be put quietly
away, some time, to keep company on the shelf with the
above stanza.

NOTE D.

ON THE END OF THE WORLD AT THE DAY OF THE
LORD.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the
which the heavens shall x>ass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat,
and the earth and the ivorhs that a, e therein shall be
burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be

VIII.] THE END OF THE WOELD. 229

dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all
holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly
desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of
which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat ? But, accord-
ing to His promise, we looJc for new heavens and a
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (2 Pet. iii.
10—13).

It is noteworthy that Christ never referred to an end
of the physical world. The Greek has two words of dif-
ferent signification, each of which is rendered in English
as " world." One of these is ceon (aUv), signifying a
period, or a connected system of causes and effects
with peculiar characteristics, continuing through such a
period. We use "world" in the same sense, when we
speak of the Gentile world, the Jewish world, the heathen
world, the literary, or religious, or political world, the
world of our forefathers, etc. This word ceon is the one
which Christ iemploys in all His references to " the end
of the world," signifying thereby, nothing more than
the end of the period preparatory to His enthronement
through the spread of the Gospel.

The other Greek word for world is Tcosmos {k6<thos), the
specific meaning of which is, first, the heavens and earth,
or the universe in its established order ; then the earth,
or world, and terrestrial things in general, especially as
dominated by an anti- Christian spirit. It is the end
of the physical Tcosmos which Peter is prophesying, an
idea which is utterly wanting in the teachings of Christ.
This idea of the destruction of the Tcosmos by fire appears
in the speculations of the Greek philosophers, as well as
in the apocalyptic literature of the Jews prior to Christ.
lb is very plain from the course of thought in this
chapter, that Peter — if we may assume the disputed
point of Peter's authorship of the Second Epistle-
regards the grand catastrophe of the physical universe

230 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP. VIII.

at the coming of the Lord as close at hand, since he
addresses his argument to those who might be troubled
by its delay.

No clearer proof than this can be looked for, that the
Apostles occasionally misinterpreted their Master. It is
clear that in such a passage as this the Apostle does not
speak infallibly. That he speaks as an inspired man, is
also clear from the elevated spiritual tone of his ex-
hortation to Christian earnestness, faith and diligence.
It is in the moral characteristics of the Apostles' writings
that the evidences of their inspiration are found. The
intellectual judgments even of inspired men were neces-
sarily conditioned by the stage of intellectual attainment
at which they stood, within the narrower, or the wider
horizon of their times.

CHAPTEE IX.

THE BESURRECTION A DEVELOP-
MENT, NOT A MIRACLE.

CHAPTER IX.

THE RESURRECTION A DEVELOPMENT, NOT A
MIRACLE.

" He that eateth My flesh and drinheth My blood hath eternal
life; and I will raise him up in* the last day." — John vi. 54.

In bringing to a close our present study of
the Resurrection, the main conclusions thus far
reached must be carried in mind. The Resur-
rection is not a far-off event of the future, but
a continuous process now going on in the in-
visible world. But resurrection, equally with
life, is a word which has a higher meaning
and a lower, a full sense and a bare sense. In
any case, it denotes entrance into embodied
existence in a future state. But that entrance
may be either into what is bare existence 9
described in terms expressing its poverty and
destitution, or into what is full existence, de-
scribed in terms expressing its richness and
completeness, and emphatically termed "Life."

# For the substitution here of "in" for "at," see the
preceding chapter.

234 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

Which of these is the future portion of the
spirit, depends on Christian endeavour, in a
normal and necessary relation to Christ, as
the Eesurrection-power, the source, morally
speaking, of spiritual well-being, or " life."
The New Testament urges us to such endea-
vour to " attain unto the Resurrection" by
living as Christ lived, so as to rise as Christ
rose. For this depends on fitness to rise, on
a personal possessing of the Christly capacity
and power for what Paul calls " life indeed"
(1 Tim. vi. 19.)

The. chief remaining question on the gen-
eral subject concerns the manner in which
Christ's Eesurrection-power works its effect.
" Hoto are the dead raised?" This is even
a more central question than that which we
have already considered at such length, When
are the dead raised? We are now better
prepared to appreciate the answer which our
Lord's words, quoted at the beginning of this
chapter, unfold to thought. This answer will
not only give us confidence in the conclusions
already reached: what is of still further
importance, it will manifest the Eesurrection
as a consistent part of the orderly system of
God's ivorks. And from the nature of Christ's
agency as the Eesurrection-power it will show

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIEACLE. 235

Christ's indispensableness to us for the condi-
tions of the Resurrection-hope.

Premising now that Resurrection means, in
any view of it, entrance into a newly embodied
existence of some kind, let the sharp discrimi-
nation already drawn be well kept in mind,
between Resurrection in the full Christian
sense, its usual sense in the New Testament,
as entrance into well-conditioned and blessed
life, the fruit of spiritual endeavour, and
Resurrection in the bare and privative sense,
as entrance into an existence which is devoid
of the fruit of such endeavour. All exist here-
after, not all live ; all are in being, not all iD
well-heing, save so far as endeavour has pre-
pared the conditions of well-being, as in the
present world. We are now prepared to see,
that the Resurrection which is the object
of Christian hope is not a miraculous new
creation, but the normal development, of the
fruits of Christian endeavour, in that life in the
spiritual body, which is endued with power
and glory by the Spirit of Christ.

The manner in which the Christian Resur-
rection comes to pass, will appear as soon as
Christ's words, already quoted, are put under
the lens of discriminating thought : " He that
eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath

236 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

eternal life; and I will raise liim up in the
last day"

I. Look first at the main outlines of this
statement. Food is mentioned first, to which
the flesh and blood of Christ are compared in
a sense that will soon be considered. From
food comes life, and we are told that from
that peculiar food comes a peculiar life ; he
that eats it " hath eternal life" Life tends to
advancement of some kind, and this peculiar
life tends to a peculiar advancement, or
exaltation : " I will raise him up." Thus,
in the main outlines of this great saying,
these three ideas — food, life, advancement
— appear in the same orderly succession
in which we find them in the world.
They follow each other in a connection of
natural development, like the parts of a plant
— root, stem and leaves, flower. The Resur-
rection is stated as resulting from what has
gone before, as the outcome and flower of
vital processes. It is the consequent, which,
under the laws of spiritual life, grows from
such antecedents.

With the idea thus outlined of a Resurrec-
tion which comes through an orderly devel-
opment of a spiritual effect from a spiritual
cause, compare the traditional notion as

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 237

reflected in the hymn-books. There is to be
a penetrating, world-resounding call, a sum-
mons irresistible, compelling the assembling of
all spirits in a mass, angelic trumpeters, mar-
shalling mankind in ranks before a throne,
Paradise for the time emptied of its holy
population, and Gehenna of its wretched
multitudes, to stand for a brief time in a
Judgment concourse, and all these newly and
simultaneously provided with bodies, which
since the moment of death they had lacked
till then, bodies innumerable, all built " in a
moment , in the twinkling of an eye," from
the mortal dust, or some fraction of it, that
had once belonged to the form of flesh and
blood. This is the traditional idea, but we
may be absolutely certain it was not our
Lord's idea. His idea, as outlined in His
own words, is that of a growth from within ;
the traditional idea is that of an operation
from without. Our Lord's thought is of a
development ; the thought of the creeds is
of a miracle.

Amid the contradictions with which modern
thought assails the creeds, it has become of
great importance to form, if we can, a true
idea of our relation to Christ as the Kesur-
rection-power, and to understand what sort

238 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

of agency He asserts when He declares, " I am
the Besurrection and the Life." Unless we can
have a rational idea of this, how can we have
any but an irrational faith, — a saving faith,
perhaps, but a puerile faith ?

It is a fact beyond question, that the common
notion of Christ's agency in the Resurrection
directly tends to create scepticism, and rejection
of the Gospel of life through Christ. That
notion is patterned after the scene at the grave
of Lazarus, where Jesus stood, and " cried with
a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he
that ivas dead came forth." This instance of
simple resuscitation is taken as a type of Resur-
rection* This act of supernatural power in
recalling the spirit into a body four days dead
is " enlarged," as the photographers say, into
a vast picture of Omnipotence suddenly recon-
structing bodies, and reuniting them to spirits,
in a simultaneous operation upon every indivi-
dual of the million millions whom death has
unclothed of flesh and blood. This notion is
patterned after ideas of God's mode of working
which modern thought has for ever discarded,
and which, whenever Christian men present
them, only furnish fuel to scepticism. Those
who still persist in presenting such notions as

* See Note B, Chapter iii.

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 239

the teaching of Christ are simply hindering the
Gospel which they would gladly promote. It
is a duty, which we owe our Lord, to show that
His Gospel is not responsible for fictions that
are absurdly ascribed to it.

With the general idea now in mind, which
our Lord's words have enabled us to outline,
that the Resurrection is a development from
within us, we have to observe, next, that : —

II. This agrees with facts which our present
form of existence discloses. It is said, very
truly, that a body is given to every spirit in the
Resurrection. But the same is true of our life
in this world. Of every kind of organised life in
this world it is true, as Paul says of the seed
which germinates, " God giveth it a body even
as it pleased Him" (1 Cor. xv. 38.) But how
does God give that body ? Simply through the
methods, or laws, of organic growth, which
He has ordained, and through which He
works. A vital power, derived originally from
the Divine source of all life, is in the germ, and
this builds up its own body by assimilating the
matter which it finds appropriate. We need
not here affirm whether the vital power, which
builds the present body, is in one or another
element of our being. Whether it be in
" matter," or in "soul," or in "spirit," it is

210 BEYOND TILE SHADOW. [CHAP.

enough that it is present, for the energy of life
is the body-building power. Simply because
the tiny germ is alive, it involves " the promise
and the potency " of the fully developed
organism. The body thus formed is none the
less "given" by God, none the less a work of
God, for being given through the mediation of
a body-building power operating according to
natural laws of growth. Its constitution is as
Divinely effected as if it had sprung into mature
completeness at a fiat of Omnipotence.

Now our conviction of the invariableness with
which God works through law impels us to re-
gard God's way of giving us bodies through the
operation of organic laws in this world, as indi-
cating the way in which He will give us bodies
in the next world. We see that God gives
bodies by giving to existing life the power to
form bodies. Within the mother's body }:%
forms a new body in the babe, whose body is,
during the formative processes, a part of the
mother's body, while unfolding toward a dis-
tinct and separable individual existence. Is it
a gratuitous fancy, that here may be somewhat
analogous to the formation of the spiritual
body, beginning possibly even here under the
physical ? We need hazard nothing beyond the
question. The general fact that life, zvherevcr

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 241

it appears, appears to be a body -builder, deter-
mines us toward some general conclusion. We
cannot entertain any such notion as that living
spirits will remain for ages disembodied, and
then all at once will be clothed with bodies by
an Almighty fiat. The only reasonable and
consistent view is this : The spirit which goes
through the death-gate into the future is a
living thing. Whatever the origin of its life,
the essential fact is that it has life. Now we
must attribute to life everywhere the power
which we see it manifesting here. If life exist-
ing in a human germ here is found building its
own body, life existing in a human spirit here
or there will be found no less able to build itself
a body. Very probably, for aught we know,
it may begin to build the spiritual body here
behind the screen of flesh and blood, just as
plant life, while forming the seed under the
husk, begins to form within the seed the leaflets
that are to unfold into the future plant.

Of what substance the spiritual body is, we
know not. In what manner formed, we know
not. But that the body-building power is
an inalienable prerogative of life, cannot be
doubted. What sort of a body the living spirit
shall build, or is building, is a question we
may well be content to postpone for the far

16

242 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

more important question, which each of us is
required to settle by his own action, namely :
What sort of a spirit is it which builds that
mysterious house of the future? In this
question it begins at length to dawn on us
what is our necessary relation to Christ as the
Kesurrection-power, when we perceive that
He, by His truth and love and righteousness,
develops and perfects the spirit that is to form
and adapt to itself the spiritual body.

III. What this relation to Christ is, is
vividly set forth in His saying already quoted :
•'He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My
blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him
up in the last day." The figure is intense,
because an intense thought has to be carried.
Christ must be in us, inwrought into us, the
very " soul of the soul." How else could this
have been so luminously expressed as by the
striking figure of eating His flesh and drinking
His blood? As the food we eat and drink
carries nourishment into every part of the
body, so that there is not one tiny cell where
it is not built into the very substance of our
frame, so must Christ, that is to say, Christ's
Divine Spirit of truth and love and righteous-
ness, mingle with the current of our own
spiritual life, carrying the power of His Divine

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 243

life into all our affections and thoughts and
determinations. This is, of course, a process,
a growth. He syrnbolised it as such, and
reiterated the very idea now before us, when
He said, " I am the vine, ye are the branches.''*
(John xv. 5.) To have this growth constantly
advancing, never arrested, complete, not
partial, is the object of that endeavour,
already insisted on, which distinguishes a real
Christian from a nominal one.

(1.) What now is the development which
this growth unfolds from the beginning
onward ? Such a man, says our Lord, " hath
eternal life" This does not mean, has a pros-
pect of existing for ever,* but has, has now,
that hind of life which is, in the nature of
things, capacitated for well-conditioned exist-
ence in any and all worlds and times. Evi-
dently he has it, for he has the Christly spirit,
whose truth and love and righteousness are
the eternal powers, which involve the highest
development of life both in the present and
the future. And what follows from the fact
that he who has the Christly spirit has the

* In the popular notion, eternal life is assumed to mean the
same as endless existence. Granting that it extends to endless
existence, its primary meaning is not a certain extent, but a
certain hind of existence, quality, not quantity of existence.
(See John xvii. 3 ; 1 John v. 11, 12.)

244 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

eternal life? This: "I will raise him tip in
the last day." This must follow, for he has
that in him which must rise, even the Christ.
While he lives in flesh and blood, such a man
may say with Paul : "I live, yet no longer I,
but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20.) And
when the earthly tabernacle dissolves, he may
still speak in the same spirit of fellowship with
the Lord of his life : " I rise, yet no longer I,
but Christ riseth in me." How manifest, that
our Lord's idea of His Resurrection-power is
that of an agency operating not from without
us, but from within ! The cause of the eternal
life which the man has, the cause of his being
raised up in the last day, is the Christ, not
as descending from heaven in clouds, with
dazzling light and miraculous energies, but as
" eaten " and " drunk " by the man who keeps
the word, and cherishes the love, and lives in
the spirit, of Christ, and thus builds Christ into
his own spirit, as the energising and develop-
ing principle of his life. He must rise, there-
fore, because Christ is in him. His Resurrec-
tion is, therefore, not a physical but a spiritual
fact, the development and flower of spiritual
growth. The risen spirit carries, as every
spirit carries, the life, whose essential property
it is to build and organise a body to itself

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 245

But, what is of vastly greater consequence,
this life, building the spiritual body, is the
Christian life, capacitated eternally, that is, in
the nature of things, independently of all space
and time relations, for vigour, health, blessed-
ness, and moral glory.

This is the spiritual and Christian, as
distinct from the mechanical and Jewish, idea
of the Besurrection, as the entrance into

THAT PERFECTED STATE OF EMBODIED BEING
WHICH IS THE SPIRITUAL RESULT OF A
CHRISTLY LIFE IN THE PRESENT WORLD. In a

superficial point of view, it is the manifestation
of the spirit in a new body. In the central
and vital point of view, it is the manifestation
of the iv ell-conditioned spirit, the Christly
spirit, that builds itself a body appropriate to
its Christly condition of moral glory. This is
not only Kesurrection, it is Besurrection and
Life. And here at length we have reached
the full significance of that great saying of our
Lord, at which we began our study of this
subject : "I am the Kesurrection and
the Life."

(2.) What " the first Besurrection " pro-
bably is (Eev. xx. 5, 6), begins to appear at
this point. When we conceive of that
Resurrection and Life, just spoken of, as

246 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

realised immediately after death, when we
think of holy men, like Moses and Elijah,
like Paul and John, rising up, through the
Christ-life in them, into the fulness of
spiritual well-heing in the spiritual body, we
have found a place for that doctrine of " the
first Resurrection " which has dropped out of
Christian thought, through that mechanical
misinterpretation which attributes it, as a
special privilege, to the martyrs. " The first
Resurrection" is not the getting of new bodies
before others, but rising into life, or well-being,
before others. New bodies are insured to all,
as soon as the mortal bodies drop off, but the
strong and glorious Christly life in the new
or spiritual body is assigned only to the holy :
"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the
first Resurrection : over these the second death
hath no power, but they shall be priests of God
and of Christ [engaged in ministrations of
Divine grace to others], and shall reign [as the
loving always reign] with Him a thousand
years." The period of a thousand years
assigned to this "reign" Christian thought
will not measure by a fixed number of the
earth's revolutions about the sun, but will
regard as simply a period of vast and indefinite

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIKACLE. 247

duration. It is the Resurrection-period that
has been already described (Chap, viii.) as
corresponding to the Gospel-period* "While
"the Gospel of life " is here (" in the last day,"
or Christian period of history) preparing us
for " the Resurrection of Life" those who are
made fit, through Christ, are continually rising
into the Christly life beyond the grave. But
Christian thought cannot regard the blessed-
ness of this first Resurrection as limited to
the martyrs, for whose encouragement John
originally prophesied it — " the souls of them
that had been beheaded for the testimony of
Jesus" etc. Whether or no the prophet's
thought, in his light, were as full as our
thought, in our light, is a question quite
unimportant to raise here. Such a Resurrec-
tion as is possible for us to believe in cannot
be dependent on any such external and acci-
dental circumstance, as whether a man were
beheaded for being a Christian. It must be
equally the inheritance of all who have the

* This will "be found stated with more precision in Note C,
appended to this chapter. I deem the thousand years to be
commensurate, not with the whole of the Gospel period, but
with that part of it which includes the whole development of
Christianity, the period of the growth of the kingdom of Christ,
from its initial to its final conflict and victory. For a fuller
explanation see the Note referred to.

248 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

spirit of Him whom the prophet calls " the
faithful Witness ,"* the Christly spirit of self-
sacrifice and faith.

IV. Our study has now brought us to a
point where but little, if any, doubt can
remain, which of two answers we must give
to the question, What is the Besurrection ?

(1.) The common answer is : It is the
giving of a new body to a spirit which death
stripped of its former body, and left waiting
in a disembodied state.

According to this answer, the essential thing
in the Besurrection is the bodij, for which the
spirit waits, in a state of privation, and which
is finally furnished to it by a power from
without itself through a Divine fiat and
miracle. Moreover, this re-embodiment is
spoken of as " the general Besurrection,'' one
and the same event to all at the same moment,
simply the simultaneous refurnishing of all
waiting spirits with bodies. In this view it is
hard to know what Christ meant, when He
spoke of those " that are accounted worthy to
attain to the Resurrection" or what Paul
meant, in speaking of his struggle to "attain
unto the Besurrection." For worthiness, or
struggle to attain, is out of the question

* Literally, the faithful martyr, i.e., Christ." (Rev. i. 5.)

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 249

in anything that is to be a general event
to all.

(2.) The answer toward which our study
tends is this : Kesurrection is the entrance
into embodied existence, after death, of the
spirit to which God has given the power of
building for itself the spiritual body. The
Kesurrection, in the Christian and ideal sense
of the word, is the entrance of the Christly
spirit, with that power, into that embodied
life which is " life indeed." So far as present
endeavour can bring it to pass that " Christ
is formed in " us as " the hope of glory "
(Gal. iv. 19; Col. i. 27), so far the Kesur-
rection is a thing of present determination,
and, potentially, of present attainment. This
seems to be the thought which underlies
Paul's expressions in his letter to the Philip-
pians.

According to this answer, the essential
thing in the Kesurrection is the spirit, with
its character and its corresponding capacity
and power. The body is not left out, but is
the product of the spirit's life. The spirit is
not left without a body in a middle state of
arrested development, but unfolds the con-
structive power of its life, without arrest, in
forming its own body. No universal miracle

250 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CIIAP.

is demanded to form new bodies on the instant
by the million million. Instead of a physical
operation from without, a spiritual growth
from within builds the habitation and organ
of each spirit, according to the endeavour of
each in obedience to the laws of vital develop-
ment in spiritual health. Does not the fact,
that the Resurrection is made so prominent
in what the Fathers called "the spiritual
Gospel " of John, speak something for this
view of the Resurrection?

In this view of the Resurrection, it is, as
Christ and Paul and John have taught, not
the same general event to every individual.
It depends on what the spirit is, and on what
it has become by its life in this world. And
so, as we are expressly instructed, the Resur-
rection is the grand object of Christian en~
deavour. The need of striving to "attain
unto the Resurrection of the dead" now
becomes intelligible. We see that we must
live as Christ lived here, in truth and love
and righteousness, so as to establish the vital
conditions for rising there into a true, strong,
and healthful existence, according to the
Christly pattern of the life eternal.

Let the reader judge which is most likely
to be the true answer to the question, What

IX. J DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 251

is the 'Resurrection ? — the one which is mainly
concerned about the providing of a new body,
or the one which looks rather to the condition
of the spirit that carries the body-building
power. Which best accords with the positively
known and fundamental fact, that God works
in a method of development, and with con-
tinuity of progress ? Which best accords with
the fact, that Christ's idea of the Kesurrection
seems to be that of a spiritual development
rather than a physical operation, an inward
process rather than an outward event, a powTer
manifested rather in an orderly growth than in
a miraculous explosion ? Which best discloses
our necessary relation to Christ as the Kesur-
rection-power amid the preparatory processes
of the present life ?

V. The subject of the present chapter, The
Christian Resurrection as a Spiritual Develop-
ment from within, has thus far been studied on
the positive side. To bring out the truth with
the emphasis due to the subject, the negative
or privative side should now come up for
contrast.

What if this spiritual development be
neglected, interfered with, distorted? What
of those in whom the Christly power of
well-conditioned life is deficient or absent?

252 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP-

They live hereafter ; but how ? The spirit
forms its own body ; but ichat spirit? On the
spirit all depends. We are sufficiently familiar
with the phrases of Holy Scripture: "wrath and
indignation, tribulation, and anguish" " cast-
away" "reprobates" "the worm that dieth
not, and the fire that is not quenched." What
else can we know, or forecast, that can invest
these general terms with greater defmiteness
in our thought ?

If one principle is applied in our studies
more frequently than any other, it is this : to
divine God's unknown procedures by observing
the known. Apply it in this present question
as to the influence of antecedent life upon
subsequent life. Death is our birth into subse-
quent life. Our life before that birth has what
effect on our life after ?

Must we not reflect here on what we know
of lives in this world, that are weak or dis-
torted, miserable or depraved, because of what
we call "ante-natal conditions"? The body-
building life-power was interfered with, or was
deficient, before birth, and lo ! that interfer-
ence or defect, brief as it was, manifests its
effects in years of ill-conditioned life. One is
deaf and dumb, or blind, or a cripple, or insane,
or idiotic. He lives, but his living is life only

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 253

in part. The ill condition is grievous enough,
though he himself is not to blame for it. But
what if he were to blame? What if self-
reproach were added to the life-long burden
under which he groans ? How little of life
would there be in such living !

The suggestion reveals a cluster of con-
jectures that we must deem more than mere
possibilities. What are the precise limits of
the analogy, we cannot affirm. But that
here is an analogy, and a most instructive
one, can hardly be denied. Seeing how our
present life has been permanently conditioned
by causes transiently operating under the laws
of preparatory growth, we can hardly resist
the persuasion, that the laws of spiritual
growth now operating in our life are to
develop enduring conditions out of the
transient antecedents that we now have the
power to determine.

No one, therefore, who perceives and in-
telligently reflects on the ante-natal causes,
which determined the defective, distorted,
crippled, impotent sort of life, that we see
so much of in this world, can avoid putting
to himself _ such questions as these: What
if I allow a sceptical habit to quench the
faith-faculty, the eye of the soul ? What if

254 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

the ear of obedience to the Divine law be
unformed in a will disloyal to right ? What
if conscience, the moral reason, become
beclouded or subverted ? "What if the under-
standing be not informed and regulated by-
truth ? What if selfishness spread its scrofula
through the vital currents of feeling and
thought ? Must not such sins against the
laws of spiritual life leave their enduring mark
in ill conditions of the future life ? If the
interference of only a few days or hours with
the normal processes of life before our mortal
birth can perpetuate its evil in defects of body
and mind to the full term of old age, what
perpetuation of evil may not the present
transmit to the future, from violations of the
Divine law that we may commit in forming
the spirit, which is to be born at death into
the hereafter? The gross fancy of some of
the Jews, that the buried body itself should
be raised again, with all its defects and
blemishes reproduced, may really have a side
of truth to it, as a picture of the entrance
of spirits into the future life deficient and
distorted, impotent through moral weaknesses,
blind through unbelief, deaf through dis-
obedience and wilfulness, insane because in-
capable of recognising truth, leprous with

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIEACLE. 255

selfishness. Beside this, remorse for self-
inflicted mischief. Beside this, shame.

For what must we infer, when we see,
further, that even the form of flesh and
blood is gradually penetrated by the expres-
sion of the spirit which it screens ? How
even plain faces become transfigured with
the beauty of loving souls ? How even classic
features become overcast with the gross look
of the sensual, or the hard look of the selfish,
spirit ! Much more must the spiritual body
be as a transparent medium to reveal the
character of the indwelling spirit that has
formed it. Then must the word of the Lord
be fulfilled to the uttermost : " There is
nothing covered up that shall not be revealed."
(Luke xii. 2.) Screens of flesh and blood
are withdrawn. "The books" are "opened"
The self-registry is apparent. The work of
the spirit is made manifest. And what is
this but misery and shame to the ill-con-
ditioned, ivhose sin expresses itself in what
they are ? What is this but a " revelation of
judgment " upon " the deeds done in the body"
which are apparent, not as past actions, but
as a present net result in an existing spiritual
condition ? And what can we call such ill-
conditioned births into the world of the

256 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP

Kesurrection — with the formative processes of
truth and love and righteousness so ill- wrought,
or unwrought, but entrance into an existence
that is not life ? What is it but " the Besur-
rection of Judgment " ?

Our wisdom on this subject is found less
in utterance than in silence, as soon as we
attempt to pass from general principles to
particular phenomena. We see, of course,
that either godliness or ungodliness must be
the general character of every spirit ; that is
to say, that the prevailing inclination and
tendency of every one must be either toward
God, or away from Him ; that there can be
no such thing as moral indifference toward
God, inclining neither way. But whether, in
these two main divisions of character, there
can be, as most pulpits teach, and as most
Christians believe, only two sorts of exper-
ience, complete blessedness and utter wretch-
edness : whether there can be only two
conditions, complete well-being and utter
ill-being ; whether, even among " saints,''
there will not be imperfect ones; whether
crooked, stunted, weak, and faulty growths,
transplanted from earth's nursery to Paradise,
will not find defects of blessedness and draw-
backs of advancement, corresponding to a

IX.] DEVELOPMENT, NOT MIRACLE. 257

merely partial fitness for the " resurrection of
life " — are questions that are destined to
receive more thoughtful consideration than
the indiscriminate positiveness of the creeds
has thus far encouraged.* But amid all such
questions, to which the experience of the
future realities will bring, there is reason to
think, some unanticipated replies, one principle
may be held with absolute certainty, as the
fundamental law of consequences under which
all life is lived : " Whatsoever a man

SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP." Any

view of the future that harmonises with this
may be true ; any that conflicts with it must
be false.

Enough for the negative aspect. The con-
trast adds fresh emphasis to the positive side
of the truth, so conspicuous in Holy Scrip-
ture. There the laws of spiritual life are re-
vealed, that we may obey them, and through
obedience rise into the fulness of life. There
the Divine pattern of humanity is set before
us in Christ Jesus our Lord. He Himself,

* The Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism teaches
(§37) that "the souls of believers are at their death made
perfect in holiness " ; that is, all believers, one as much as
another, to whatever greater or less degree sanctification has
spread through their character in this life, find themselves, so
far as the sanctification of character is concerned, equalised by
dying. All " are at their death made perfect in holiness."

17

258 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

in His truth and love and righteousness, is
commended to us as the inwardly working
Resurrection-power. His sympathy with our
struggle in our weakness stands before us in
the symbol of His cross, to draw us to the
beginning of an eternal fellowship in life with
Him. " Glory, and honour, and incorruption,"
in a perfected spiritual nature, after the pat-
tern of Christ, are held out to us as the future
flower of a present fellowship and following
with Him. The preparation time, how brief !
The fruition time, how boundless ! how
blessed ! Let Faith hear : let Reason judge.
0 Divine Hope ! 0 Divine Helper ! 0 happy
they who hear His voice, and walk with Him !

NOTE A.

ON THE THOUSAND YEARS, OR " MILLENNIUM."

And I saw thrones, and tliey sat upon them, and
Judgment ivas given unto them : and I saw the souls of
them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,
and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not
the beast, neither his image, and received not the marJc
upon their forehead and upon their hand ; and they
lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
(Kev. xx. 4.)

The idea of a millennial period of glory to come on
earth was cherished by the Jews prior to the time of

IX.] THE ,: MILLENNIUM." 259

Christ. " The Jews supposed that the Messiah at His
coming would reign as king upon the earth, and would
reside at Jerusalem, the ancient royal city. The period
of His reign they supposed would be very long, and
therefore put it down at a thousand years, which was at

first understood only as a round number

This period was conceived of by the Jews as the return
of the golden age to the earth, and each one formed to
himself such a picture of it as agreed best with his own
disposition, and that degree of moral and intellectual
culture to which he had attained. Many anticipated
nothing more than merely sensual delights ; others
entertained better and purer conceptions."

This millennial hope passed over from the Jews into
the Christian Church. It does not carry Christ's express
indorsement in any of His recorded sayings. Yet,
doubtless, some of His expressions might bear such a
construction, and probably seemed to the Apostles an
adequate sanction for holding on to their traditional
millennial views in connection with the kingdom of which
their Master spoke. " And I appoint unto you a king-
dom, even as My Father appointed unto Me, that ye may
eat and drink at My table in My kingdom; and ye shall
sit on thrones judging the tivelve tribes of Israel."
(Luke xxii. 29, 30.)

The kingdom our Lord here speaks of John (Eev. i. 6)
explains as a kingdom of priests. It is the loving who
gain sovereign ascendency and influence ; and it is in
the sacrifices of Christian love for others that the royal
priesthood, which Peter also speaks of (1. ii. 9), consists.
In these sacrifices, and in the ascendency gained thereby,
the Christian is in that close and joyous fellowship with
his Lord which is denoted by the figure of sharing His
table. What we are to understand by the Apostles' en-
thronement and judgeship has been discussed in Note A,
Chapter v.

260 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

In John's Revelation the utterance of the ancient
millennial hope sounds like the old Jewish anticipations
reviving in a more spiritualised form. " John does not
there speak of Christ reigning visibly and bodily on the
earth, but of His spiritual dominion, resulting from the
influence of Christianity when it shall at length be univer-
sally diffused through the earth— a kingdom which will
last a thousand years, used as a round number to denote
many centuries, or a long period."

The admitted Jewish origin of the millennial hope, and
the evident Jewish colouring which it carries even in
John's mind, may disparage it in the view of some. But
the fact that the Jewish nation wTas pervaded through its
whole career till Christ appeared with a spirit of pro-
phecy, of which abundant demonstration is furnished by
Christ Himself, may seem to others, as it certainly does
to me, good ground for expecting to find some substantial
Divine truth in the millennial prophecy of John under
the shell of the local and temporary form.

Remark. — The quotations in the preceding paragraphs
are from Knapp's " Christian Theology," page 538, Am.
Ed. It will be noticed that Dr. Knapp regards the
thousand years as denoting the whole period of Christ's
kingdom on earth. That it refers rather to the period of
the kingdom's growth and struggle, up to its final
victory, but not to the whole period of the kingdom's
existence, I have aimed to show in Note C, page 263.

NOTE B.

ON " THE FIRST RESURRECTION."

The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years
should be finished. This is the first resurrection. (Rev.
xx. 5.)

[For the coincidence between John's teaching andthat

IX.] " THE FIEST KESUKKECTION." 261

of Christ, in regarding living and rising, after death, as
equivalent terms, see Chapter ii., Note A, at the close.]

Upon this we have to observe : —

(1.) They " lived not." Failure to prepare in the pre-
sent life the conditions of this first Kesurrection (as
described in our foregoing chapter), subjected them, for
the period, to privation of that blessed condition which
is, emphatically, life, or " life indeed." Their existence
is, for the period, here viewed as an experience of retri-
bution for their unfitness for the Kesurrection of Life, just
as the whole period of a long earthly life is often bur-
dened with retribution for violation of the laws of life
during a few months or days before birth. This period,
indefinite but vast, a much more reasonable as well as
Scriptural conception than that of an endless hell, pre-
sents a motive of sufficient urgency to deter from present
faithlessness all those whom foresight influences at all.

(2.) They " lived not until the thousand years should be
finished.'" This does not deny that they might live after,
at least some of them. This suggests the possible
recovery, at least of some, to Life in Christ. This tallies
with that hint of recovering processes which is found in
the preaching of Christ to the " spirits in prison."*
(1 Pet. iii. 19.) This also comports with that doctrine
which Augustine derived from Matt. xii. 32, namely,
" For it would not be truly said of some, that they are
forgiven neither in this age nor in the future, were there
not some who, though not in this, are forgiven in the
future/' Heathen may hear the Gospel there, and there
may prepare the conditions of ultimate Kesurrection to
life. That all will do this, is a conclusion that cannot be
drawn with assurance from anything within the range of
our experience, or from any testimony of the Scriptures.

(3.) Those who " lived not " are spoken of as a class
" the rest." Into this class some are continually passing
* See Chapter iii.. Note D.

262 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

out of the present world. Whether others are meanwhile
emerging out of this class in a way of recovery, or what
possibilities and opportunities there may be of any indi-
viduals of this class rising out of it into Christly life
under the discipline of the future state, does not come
into the view of the seer. His language is general.
During that whole period there is such a class, whose
description is, " they lived not." Changes of condition,
if such be possible, affecting individuals who at any time
are found in this class, are matter not of prophecy but of
speculation.

(4.) It is not said that all of this class (" the rest of the
dead ") attained to life at or after the end of this Resur-
rection-period, Only that they, as a class, continued till
then in a state of privation consequent upon their pre-
vious life. Of individuals nothing is suggested in any
way. Nor is there any clear intimation here of ar
ultimate Resurrection of Life for all. We may believe
that the recoverable will be recovered. But what of the
irrecoverable ? Will there be none such ?

Here we reach the open door of a great question, pre-
sented by the doctrine of " conditional immortality." The
Scriptures do not teach, and philosophy has, at the best,
but uncertain ground on which to maintain, that all who
have at any time existed will always continue to exist.
The Apostle Paul, in four remarkable passages,* declares
that unity, not dualism, is the ultimate state of the
spiritual creation, — that all who exist will be ultimately
in fellowship and spiritual unity with God. But there
are strong reasons for believing that all who exist in that
ultimate unity are not so many as all who have existed ;
that some will ultimately have ceased to exist, who have
made themselves incapable of the eternal life.

* See Noto D., Chaptei v.

IX.] BINDING AND LOOSING OF SATAN. 263

NOTE C.

)N THE BINDING AND LOOSING OF SATAN, CONNECTED BY
PROPHECY WITH THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having
the hey of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And
he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, tvhich is the
Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it
over him, that he should deceive the nations no more,
until the thousand years should be finished : after this
he must be loosed for a little time.

And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall
be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to
deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the
war: the member of whom is as thesandofthe sea. And
they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed
the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city : and
fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them. (Rev.
xx. 1—3, 7—9.)

This vision, like the Apocalypse in general, is intensely
realistic. Its introduction, describing the restraint of
the world-deceiving spirit, connects plainly enough with
certain sayings of Christ, namely, " I beheld Satan fallen
as lightning from heaven " (Luke x. 18) ; " Now shall
the prince of this world be cast out." (John xii. 31.)
Paganism being the grand obstacle which the Gospel of
the kingdom had to remove, the binding and casting out
of Satan into " the abyss "* undoubtedly represents the

* The word "abyss" (ixfivo-cros) corresponds to the Hebrew
Vhom, uniformly applied in the Old Testament to raging or roar-
ing watery depths, whether of the ocean or of streams and floods.
It here appropriately designates, in a shadowy way, the proper
home of rebellious and turbulent spirits.

264 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

restraint and suppression of the deluding spirit of Pagan-

m during the Gospel period.

The term " the nations,'" regularly denotes, in the New
Testament, heathen nations. If, instead of " nations,"
we translate the original word in this place by " heathen, *
the reasonableness of taking the vision to signify tho
suppression of Paganism will be more apparent. The
reference of the vision is, of course, at least primarily,
to the non-Jewish nations known to the writer, the
Mediterranean nations, at that time all of them Pagans.

This suppression we must, of course, think of as having
its development from a small beginning onward to its
completeness, just as we conceive of the Gospel and
the kingdom of Christ, in its opposition to Paganism,
developing from its germ to its complete supremac}'.

If this be the correct view, then the loosing of Satan
can signify nothing but the revival of Paganism, in some
form or other, at the end of " the thousand years" — a
period not of that precise number of the earth's annual
revolutions round the sun, but of vast and indefinite
duration, the period of Christianity in its triumphs over
the old Paganism, triumphs that are still in progress.
The idea of this revival of Paganism is here externalised
in vision as a gathering of the hordes of barbarians
from the then unknown north (" Gog and Magog " — as
in Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix), for a devastating invasion
of the Holy Land.

Of course it is impossible to regard this as strictly
representative of the actual reality that is to be. An
irruption of northern heathen is not to be reckoned now,
as in the time of John's writing, among the possible
apprehensions of the civilised and Christianised world.
The revival of Paganism, and Pagan assaults, must be
anticipated in a form that is modified correspondingly
with the changed condition of the world.

The essence of Paganism is in the deification of nature

IX.] BINDING AND LOOSING OF SATAN. 265

and its various powers, including man. To the Pagan,
matter and its manifestations are everything, and spirit
nothing but a phantom or a superstition. Is nothing like
this beginning to be apparent in the midst of Christian
civilisation ? The modern Paganism is what we call
Materialism. The Paganism of the past will not rise
again, to rebuild its crumbling temples. The revived
Paganism will redden no altars with the blood of victims.
Its only shrine will be the laboratory ; its supreme being,
matter ; its demigods, the forces in matter ; but in hostile
scorn for what it deems the fables of Christianity it will
rival the ancient worshippers of Jupiter and of the
divinised Caesars.

The gathering of " the nations " (or heathen) in the four
corners of the earth is wholly symbolical. This mode of
picturing the revival of Paganism is due to the fact that
the old Paganism retired before the expanding power of
Christianity toward those " corners " in all directions, like
an ebbing tide. Hence a revival of Paganism is repre-
sented as a return of the tide from thence. MakiDg this
allowance for the form in which the vision is cast, we
shall deem ourselves released from the difficult supposition
of an irruption of Pagans from Pagan lands, and shall
follow the indications, already apparent, that the reality
will be a development of a modern Paganism within the
bounds of nominal Christendom itself. The last and
subtlest assault of the enemy of Christ will not be made
from without but from within the domain from which he
has been banished in form only to return in spirit. In
the new form of the reviving Paganism will lie its hopes
and its strength. Its "last card" will be confidently
played. Its weapons will no longer be such as mangle
the flesh of martyrs, but all the improved modern artillery
of science will be appropriated by the spirit of Atheism.

Once more, we are not to literalise the vision so as to>
think of this as coming on suddenly. Nothing is sudden

2G6 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

in the development, through conflict, of the Kingdom of
God. The ebb of the Pagan tide was gradual, and
gradual will be its return, its phenomena slowly spread-
ing before coming to a head in ripeness for conclusive
Judgment.

But, especially, we must not think of this last conflict
of Christianity as a turning back of the onward career of
the Kingdom, as if Christianity had failed through any
waning of its power, or as if a gigantic apostasy had left
only a faithful few exposed to a host " like the sand of
the sea." There can be no retrograde movement in the
development of the Kingdom of God. This last conflict
with Paganism is to be thought of rather as the last stage
of the long development of Christianity into its ideal
character, and as the means to its consummate manifes-
tation as the religion of the spirit. Furthermore, we are
not to think of the final victory as wrought by a Divine
interference from without ("fire out of heaven"), but as
secured by a Divine development from within.

To put the issue in plain thought before us, let us re-
flect how, even now, as ever since the beginning, religion,
with comparatively few exceptions, is externalised in
forms of church organisation, and forms of ritual, and
forms of doctrine. No fault is to be found with this
externalisation of religion, so long as it is needed as an
education to what is higher, but only when it contends
for perpetuity, after having served its temporary need as
scaffolding. But when we reflect on the stress that is
laid even now on religious forms, of order, ritual and
dogma, as compared with the stress that is laid on
religion as a Divine life, we are convinced that a long
advance has yet to be made before Christianity manifests
its essential life-power. The intellectual Paganism of
to-day is not convinced by theological argument, or
affected by ecclesiastical ritual. It is thoroughly im-
pregnable to a religion that marches in the mediaeval

ix.] "the end." — "god all in all." 267

armour of forms. It easily makes head against a religion
that is weakened by the sectarian divisions which insis-
tance on forms creates. It can be vanquished only by
the spiritual religion, whose unanswerable argument is
its own baptism with the Holy Spirit, its transformation
of character, its reproduction of the life of Christ among
men.

The reviving Paganism must therefore be expected to
spread, as things now are, its false prophets tracking the
missionary among the heathen, and gathering proselytes
among dogmatists and ritualists at home, its denials be-
coming more scornful and more rampant, until, in the
crisis, perhaps in some unprecedented " revival period,"
Christianity learns to suppress it for evermore, not with
furm and dogma and organisation, but with a Divine
life, the life which is " baptized ivith the Holy Ghost and
with fire." (Matt. iii. 11.) Then will the vision be ful-
filled which showed that "fire came down out of heaven
and devoured them." In this final victory Christianity
will pass into its final stage, finding its unity, not in form,
but in a holy character inspired with Divine love, and
manifesting both its maturity and its power through its
spiritual life.

NOTE D.
"the end." — "god all in all.*'

Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the
kingdom to God, even the Father ; when He shall have
abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He
must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His
feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.
For, He put all things in subjection under His feet.
But ivhen He saith, All things are put in subjection, it
is evident that He is excepted who did subject all things

268 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

unto Him. And when all things have been subjected
unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected
to Him that did subject all things unto Him, that God
may be all in all. (1 Cor. xv. 24 — 28.)

The view developed in this volume presents a Besurrec-
tion that is now proceeding in the unseen world, and that
shall be consummated when the mediatorial work of
Christ is complete in the redemption of the race.

Of such a consummation the Apostle speaks in the
passage now before us. Observe that " the end " signi-
fies, not a finality, but a consummation, not merely a
limit which ends what has gone before, but a threshold
bej-ond which opens a new stage of existence.* Where
the work of the Mediator ends, there the reign of God
without a Mediator begins. That God may reign without
a Mediator, the Mediator, having finished His work of
redemption, is represented as delivering His temporary
sovereignty back to God.

To enlarge upon this somewhat mysterious prophecj',
and to develop, so far as may be, all its suggestive hints,
is not to the present purpose.

It does not seem to be the Apostle's object here to
make any discrimination between different destinies, or
to pronounce concerning the ultimate state of such as
reject the Gospel. For a discussion of this point see Note
D, Chapter v.

So far as light is sought from this passage upon the
doctrine of the Trinity, as to which it was a favourite
with the Arians, nothing can be gathered beyond in-
ferences that are more or less dubious. But so far as it
is interrogated concerning the ultimate state of the moral
universe, it seems to describe that state as moral unit)/
wholly centred in God. According to the character of

* This is the recognised sense of the Greek word, Tthos>
"end."

IX.] " THE END." — " GOD ALL IN ALL." 269

each individual, God will cause Himself to be directly
realised by each as the all-pervading and controlling
power. But, in this connection, the language used of
the subjection and destruction of refractory elements,
''enemies," seems to be less in harmony with the idea
of universal restoration than with that of the ultimate
perishing of the incorrigible and irrecoverable out of
existence.

But, — specially, this prophecy of the end not only
points to the ultimate consummation of the Kesurrection-
Ijeriocl, when the last of all who are to die shall have
risen in the Christly life of the future, but it quite as
certainly points to the consummation of each individual
Christian's hope, as each attains " the end of faith in
the salvation of the soul." (1 Pet. i. 9.) The consumma-
tion, or " end," when God shall be "All in all " to each
of the godly, is not to be waited for by the men of every
age till a definite point in the far-off future, any more
than the Ptesurrection is to be waited for. It is not
chronology but spiritual capacity, not time but personal
fitness, which determines that experience in the case of
each godly spirit.

Paul, for instance, rising from the dead as soon as
" the earthly house is dissolved," finds the moral conflict
of this life (so intensely described in his sixth chapter to
the Ephesians as involving even invisible powers) ended,
for him, in the putting down of " all rule and authority
and power" (verse 24) that hindered his struggle. For
him " the last enemy is abolished " (verse 26) when he
has triumphed over death. And then, the process of
Redemption being complete in him, the mediatorial work
and reign of Christ ends for him, as it will ultimately
end for all. Through Christ he has come to God, and
needs no longer a Great High Priest by whom to come.
He has reached the end of seeing " in a mirror, darkly,"

270 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP. IX.

and the beginning of seeing "face to face." He has
crossed the threshold of that career whose eternal course
will be in perpetually learning of God and serving God,—
in which the Son gives the first place, both in our know-
ledge and our service, to the Father, and " in all " of the
redeemed God is "All" that each one needs.

CHAPTER X.
SUMMARY- AND CONCLUSION.

CHAPTEE X.

SUMMAKY AND CONCLUSION.

" Rave ye understood all these things ? They say unto Rimr
Yea. And He said unto them, Therefore every scribe who hath
been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure
things new and old." — Matt. xiii. 51, 52.

The course of thought followed in these
studies upon the Kesurrection has been
adapted to what seems the most hopeful way
of obviating the difficulties to be encountered
in a transition from the Jewish to the Chris-
tian way of thinking upon the Kingdom of
Christ, and on the method of its progress to
its consummation. The main points that have
been made, with here and there some unavoid-
able diffuseness and repetition, as we have
gone on, must now be more compactly put
together in a brief review, and this may as
well be in an order varying somewhat from
that which we have followed.

I. The Jews in Christ's time possessed a.

IS

274 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

well-defined doctrine of a Resurrection of the
buried body, a coming of the Messiah, or
Christ, in externalised glory, to raise the
dead, and a Divine Judgment to be executed
by Him, at the Resurrection, in bestowing
favour and glory on His people, and inflict-
ing retribution on the heathen and the un-
godly. The Apostles, as Jews, had been im-
bued with this doctrine, and were naturally
disposed to understand what our Lord said
of the Resurrection, His advent, and the
Judgment, in the externalising sense in which
these terms were then generally employed.

II. Our conclusions from the apostolic pro-
phecies of the Advent, the Resurrection, and
the Judgment, must be determined by our
conception of the influence of inspiration, as
wholly lifting or not wholly lifting the writers
out of their inherited opinions and preposses-
sions, as to the manner and the relation of
those great facts in the development of the
Kingdom of Christ. And this, in turn, is to
be determined not by deduction from airy
principles laid down by dogmatic theology,
but by induction from the facts manifest in
the apostolic writings. The Second Epistle of
Peter, for instance, anticipates, as an event
so near that its delay demands and receives

X.] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 275

an explanation, an advent of the Lord, which
is to be attended by the dissolution of the
physical heavens and earth. The origin of
such an anticipation cannot be found in any
teachings of Christ, but it is on record as one
of the opinions current among the countrymen
of the Apostles before Christ was born. The
only reasonable induction from such facts, as
determining our conception of the influence
of inspiration upon the Apostles, is, that the
inspiration of the Apostles, which was essen-
tially a moral illumination, was conditioned,
as to its intellectual effect, by the stage of
intellectual development at which they stood.
Limited by the intellectual horizon of their
time, they could not but be subject to some
misunderstanding of the onward course of
things, which only an expanding experience
could clear away.

III. It cannot be denied by any one who
is familiar with the ideas then entertained by
the Jews upon these closely related doctrines
of the Resurrection, the Advent, and the Judg-
ment, that the Apostles' language in reference
to them is occasionally coloured, and their
opinions sometimes evidently biassed by
their traditional way of thinking ; as when
Paul speaks of the Lord Jesus as descending

276 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

from heaven, and revealed in flaming fire ; or
as when Peter speaks of an impending con-
flagration of the heavens and the earth at the
coming of the Lord, — precisely as the Jews
held that a conflagration of the world would
take place at the time of the Kesurrection and
the Judgment.

" The Apostles," says Professor A. A. Hodge,*
" understood these predictions to relate to a
literal advent of Christ in person. . . . They
teach that His coming will he visible and
glorious, accompanied with the abrogation of
the present Gospel dispensation, the destruc-
tion of His enemies, the glorification of His
friends, the conflagration of the world, and
the appearance of the ' new heaven and new
earth.' " This satisfies the majority of Chris-
tians, as long as they do not inquire into the
source whence the Apostles derived these ideas,
as long as it is taken for granted that the
Apostles derived them, in that form, from
Christ. But as soon as it is perceived that
this whole way of conceiving the subject of
Christ's kingly Advent and Judgment ori-
ginated before the time of Christ among
Jewish writers, one has to ask whether Christ
really set His seal to that way of thinking,

# " Outlines of Theology," p. 4±S.

X.] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 277

whether He does not, indeed, require some
of it to be corrected.

Nothing can be more plain to a candid mind
than that the Apostles' inspiration did not
wholly emancipate them from this bias of in-
herited opinion, or lift them above all influence
from their early prepossessions and ruling
ideas, or make their language, reflecting such
opinions, free from error, and an infallible
guide. They believed they were living "in
the end of the world," in "the last time" and
spoke as men who thought that " the end of
all things " was near. Peter evidently shared
the universal belief of his countrymen, that
the pious dead were still, in a disembodied
state, awaiting the advent of the Messiah's
miraculous power to restore them to the
normal condition of life in the union of body
and spirit. Paul alone seems to have glimpsed
a, more spiritual conception of the Resurrection
as a present reality, while his mode of speaking
of the Advent and the Judgment reflects the
Jewish idea of them, as events displayed in
form and show to the senses.

IV. The way of thinking current among
the Apostles' countrymen, and essentially the
same resulting conceptions in terms of physical
rather than spiritual significance, have been

278 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

preserved in the creeds down to the present
time, and are now current with the majority of
Christian believers, as any number of recent
publications might be cited to testify.

So far, therefore, as the doctrine of the
Resurrection is concerned, Christ's saying that
the instructed " scribe," or teacher, brings forth
things new as well as old, has hardly been
verified thus far. The same may be said of
the closely-associated doctrines of the Advent
and of the Judgment. The Christian Church,
as represented in its principal creeds and in
the prevailing popular notions, has inherited
from the ancient Jewish Church, as repre-
sented, at least, by its more spiritual teachers,
both its way of thinking and its conclusions
upon these subjects with no essential modi-
fication.

V. The following difficulties in the way of
maintaining the traditional notions ought to
be specially noted.

(1.) It is impossible to hold that our Lord's
prophecies of His coming still wait for
entrance upon a recognisable fulfilment, with-
out provoking sceptical denials of His credi-
bility that cannot be met, at least without
arbitrary exegetical twists of language, and
cannot be met at all on the fair ground of

X.] SUMMAEY AND CONCLUSION. 279

His plain assertion, that He would come as a
King during the lifetime of some who heard
Him speak.

(2.) It is impossible to hold that Kesurrec-
tion — the re-entrance of the departing spirit
into embodied life in the spiritual world —
is deferred to a day which is still future to all
the dead, without suppressing the plainest
testimony of our Lord to its present reality,
through deference to the supposed infalli-
bility of the Jewish opinions which colour
some of the language of the Apostles.

(3.) It is impossible to hold that the
adequate Judgment and retribution of the
dead are deferred to some great and general
court of God to be opened at a day still
future, except (not to mention other grave
objections) by an interpretation of our Lord's
Judgment-picture in the twenty-fifth chapter
of Matthew, that contradicts even the letter
of His words under the bias of a way of
thinking upon the subject of the Judgment,
which likens the Divine method to that of
the ordinary judge upon the bench.

VI. It now remains only to point out the
chief requisites in order to a true conception,
at once Biblical and rational, of the doctrine of
the .Resurrection in its necessary connection

280 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

with the doctrines of the Advent and the
Judgment.

(1.) To admit the fact that we can under-
stand the Gospels as well as the Epistles, our
Lord's sayings as well as those of the Apostles,
and to ground our doctrine less on the com-
ments supplied by Paul and Peter than on
the teachings of Christ Himself, as capable of
being adequately understood to-day without
the intervention of any human mediator to
interpret them, even though that mediator
be an inspired Apostle.

(2.) To make allowance, in our study of
the Epistles, for the element of inherited
Jewish opinions occasionally so apparent in
the language which the Apostles used con-
cerning the grand facts of the Kingdom of
Christ.

(3.) To apply the discrimination between
symbols and realities, which we have already
learned to make in the Old Testament lan-
guage concerning God — His " eyes" His
"hand" His " nostrils"— to the New Testa-
ment language concerning the spiritual facts
of the Kingdom of God. We must carry this
dissrimination through the whole range of
terms in which, for the sake of those who
were to be taught, we find spiritual concep-

X.] SUMMAKY AND CONCLUSION. 281

tions translated into material forms. We must
learn to translate them bach again.

(4.) To avail ourselves of whatever insight
the experience and the learning of the Chris-
tian centuries can give us into the method in
which God works, under the universal reign of
law, through processes of development, and
with continuity of progress, — according to
which Life is God's great body-builder, all
physical, social and spiritual agencies are in-
cluded among God's Judgment " angels " for
the elimination of evil, and Christ, as the
earthly representative of God's moral perfec-
tions, presides, as the moral King over the
world's struggling development of a purified,
saved and glorified humanity.

(5.) The fundamental requisite to the con-
struction of a correct doctrine of the Resurrec-
tion, the Advent, and the Judgment, is to con-
ceive of the Kingdom of God as growing by
gradual development rather than as set up at
once by the stroke of power. Attention has
been continually called to this key-truth in
the course of these studies. It is this which
requires us, guided by the conception of a
movement, rather than of any detached event,
to discriminate between what is inchoate, and
what is consummate, in different applications

19

282 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP.

of the same words. "When Christ says (Matt.
x. 23), " Ye shall not have gone through the
cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come,"
He refers to His corning as inchoate, in the
beginning of His manifestation as the King.
"When Paul, speaking of the Lord's Supper,
says (1 Cor. xi. 26), " Ye proclaim the Lord's
death till He come" we are to understand the
Lord's coming as consummate, in the com-
pleteness of His redeeming work, " when all
things have been subjected unto Him."

It requires but moderate acquaintance with
recent influential publications, to discover that
the principle of development, or Evolution,
which has now become an accepted working
hypothesis of science, is being applied to many
theological, biblical, and ecclesiastical ques-
tions. In proportion as this new method
shall be applied with thoroughness and con-
sistency, we may expect a wider horizon and a
higher level of Christian thought to open, in-
volving, indeed, a change in modes of concep-
tion and forms of expression, but both clearing
and confirming the substance of the Christian
Revelation. The result, as in the parallel
movement of scientific discussions, can only
be a grander disclosure of the wisdom of Him
whose thoughts are not as our thoughts.

X.] SUMMAEY AND CONCLUSION. 283

If we are disposed to harbour these conside-
rations long enough to weigh them fairly, we
shall begin to discover in such a line of
thought what I believe is destined to become
a growing conviction among reflecting men,
that adherence to the old Jewish mode of
thought concerning the Kesurrection, the
Lord's Advent, and the Judgment has been
the grand mistake which the Church has
made in its doctrine of the Kingdom of
Christ. In the ideal point of view, it
is a monstrous anachronism in the period
which Christians regard as "the Dispensa-
tion of the Spirit." In the practical point
of view, it provokes, as did the gross Resur-
rection-fancies of the Pharisees, a develop-
ment of Sadduceeism, disbelief in the Gospel
of the Resurrection, and sceptical denials of
Christ as the Resurrection-power. Therefore,
there must some time come a reform of the
Church-doctrine of the Resurrection as taught
in the creeds and the hymn-books. It is only
a question of time.

Confident, therefore, as to the real point
of our Lord's teaching as given in the Gospels,
I earnestly commend it to the reconsideration
of all those to whom the doctrine, so funda-
mental in the New Testament, of Besurrection

284 BEYOND THE SHADOW. [CHAP. X.

through Christ, possesses interest. The con-
ception of this which is presented in these
pages, criticised as it will be at present, is the
one that will stand, at least in its essentials,
when the fancies that are now widely enter-
tained have been gathered into the museum
of theological relics.

TV. SpcaigM and Sons, Printers, Fetter Lane, London.

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