Hope of the Gospel

Did the disciples understand that Christ meant death when he spake to them of his second coming? We have a most forcible illustration of the fact that they did not so understand it in Christ's words concerning the beloved disciple: "Then, Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved, following (which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?). Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." Did they decide that John the beloved disciple was going to die soon? Let us see: "Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die; yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" Here is the most positive evidence that the disciples of Christ understood his coming to refer to something besides death.

Calling death the coming of Christ would make an absurdity of the testimony of Paul to the Philippians, quoted above; for it would make him assert that our bodies were fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body when they go into the grave. Paul was not expecting to go to Heaven at death, but he was waiting for Christ to come from Heaven. Not when his body should go into the grave, but when the time should arrive for it to be changed and fashioned like Christ's body. His language in the same chapter plainly shows us what encouraged him to labor and suffer. "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Verse 11. The Greek term employed in this text, and rendered resurrection, is ex anastasis, which signifies a rising from the dead, or, as Greek scholars say it might be rendered, "out from among the dead." Paul did not merely wish to rise, but he wished to have a "part in the first resurrection."

The testimony of Christ to his disciples as he was about to leave them, is important, when considered in its bearings upon this subject: "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me; and, as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you." John 13:33. By looking at chap 7:33,34, we shall see what Christ had said unto the Jews: "Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, thither ye cannot come." The testimony of Christ to the apostles, that they could not go with him, called forth earnest Peter who said, "Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice." John 13:36-38.

This testimony of Christ troubled the mind of the disciples. Their hearts had been endeared to him by his many acts of benevolence, but now he tells them he is going back to Heaven-- going to return to his Father, and that they cannot go. But he gives a word of consolation to cheer their troubled hearts. "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.

This text is often quoted: "I go to prepare a place for you," "that where I am, there ye may be also," thus designing to convey the idea that the saints go to be with Christ at death. But the text presents no being with Christ until he comes. "I will come again, and receive you unto myself."

James says: "Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." James 5:7,8. This text shows that, as the husbandman reaps his harvest, so the people of God, the wheat of the earth (Matt. 3:12) are to be gathered when Christ comes.

Peter bears an interesting testimony on the subject of the hope as follows: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope [hope of life] by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season (if need be) ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Christ." 1 Peter 1:3-7. From the testimony of Peter, we learn that the saints' inheritance is reserved, to be revealed in the last time. Peter himself shows that the last time is the coming of Christ. It is at the coming of Christ that the lively hope, or hope of life, is to be realized.

In giving his charge to the elders, Peter uses words that have an important bearing on this question also: "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ: and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lord's over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 1 Pet. 5:1-4.

Christ is the Chief Shepherd; ministers of the truth are under shepherds, called upon to labor, endure, deny self, and suffer for the good of the flock. To encourage them in the self-denying way, Peter points them to the great fact that Christ, the "Chief Shepherd," is to return; that, when he returns, they shall "receive a crown of glory." Then the crown is not promised at death, but "at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

We have now shown that the unanimous testimony of the New Testament, as well as the Old, is, that at the coming of Christ is the time when the saints are to receive their reward.

THE RESURRECTION.

The manner in which the resurrection is treated in the Bible, is such as to show that the dead are not rewarded, or receiving the accomplishment of their hope, between death and the resurrection. We, of course, take the position of a literal resurrection of the body. We will examine still further upon this subject. We shall see that this resurrection is not being brought up from their reward, but brought up in order to receive their reward.

There are some who talk about the resurrection as the rising of the soul from the body, at death, to Heaven; or of the resurrection as a resurrection of the person from a state of sin to a life of holiness. But the resurrection of which we speak, and what we understand the Bible to present, is a resurrection of those who are asleep in death. In claiming that the resurrection is literal, we wish to be understood. We claim that the resurrection brings up the man, possessing the same identity as the man that goes down into the grave.

We shall not follow at length the finely spun philosophical argument in regard to the passage of the matter of one body into the formation of other bodies, after decomposition. We consider it no objection to the Bible doctrine of the resurrection, 1. For the reason that not a thousandth part of such a decomposed body ever becomes an actual component part of an other human body, even on their own hypothesis. 2. Because a substance lost to our sight, may, under the action of God's chemistry, be made again to appear, as well as for man, by his chemistry, to bring to light material that has disappeared from human sight. Notice the case of silver dissolved in aquafortis. Nothing is visible to human sight except what appears like milky colored water. A little common salt separates the silver from the solution, and causes it to fall on the bottom of the dish, from whence it can be gathered again, and melted, with but a very slight loss of its former weight. So God may have materials in his laboratory that may be brought to bear to cause the dead to live again. 3. We do not consider it absolutely necessary to have every identical particle of matter to produce the identical individual in the resurrection.

If the particles of matter of which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were composed, have entered into the formation of other bodies, God has promised that they shall live again. If in the resurrection three men are brought up preserving the identity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and no one else in the universe; for they will think the same thoughts which they thought, remember that they had performed the same acts which they had performed in their lives, and realize that they are the same beings that (as it seems to them) short time before, were struggling in the agonies of death. The same class of reasoners who claim that the matter of our bodies enters into the formation of other bodies when decomposed, contend that there is a constant change going on while we are still living. Some claim that our bodies are all renewed about once in the space of seven years. According to their reasoning, my body has been changed about five times since the period of my remembrance. But still I am conscious that I am the same being that I was before. What produces this consciousness? I answer, The memory of those events connected with my past life.

The objector may claim that the identity is preserved by the soul, and, although the body changes, the mind does not lose its identity, and that it never ceases to think. This is not the fact. There are scores of cases on record, where persons have lost their identity, and in fact all consciousness, for days, weeks, and even months, through disease of the body or injury of the brain, and when the healthy action of the brain was restored, their identity was also restored. I have room to insert but one case here, which was related to me by William Humphrey, of East Townsend, Huron Co., Ohio, in August, 1858. He said to me, one evening, at the close of a lecture on this subject, "Elder, you have explained tonight eighteen days of my life that I never knew what to do with before." Why, said I, how is that? He said, "When I was about eighteen years of age, I was working in a turning shop in the town of Goshen, Litchfield Co., Conn. I was engaged one day in turning a large wooden drum wheel for a shingle machine. I had nearly finished the job, when a young lady came in who worked in the house of my employer, and asked, 'What are you doing, Bill?' I answered, Wait a minute, and I will show you. I was going to start the lathe and sand-paper off the drum, which completed the job. I carelessly hoisted the gate and let the water on to the water wheel; but perceived I had too much motion on the lathe. I thought, I will go and shut the gate; but, at that instant, the drum burst into four pieces, and a piece weighing about sixty pounds struck me on the breast, shoulder, and head, dislocating my shoulder, breaking the collar bone twice, and crushing my right temple so that the skull bones were badly depressed upon the brain. I was taken into the house for dead. Physicians said it was useless to undertake to trepan me, as I could not live. My skull was so badly fractured they could not raise it from the brain. I lay unconscious of all around me, yet taking some nourishment in the shape of gruel, which I swallowed when placed into my mouth. By the eighteenth day, the edges of the skull had knit together, the inflammation had subsided, and consciousness returned, of which I had been deprived during this whole period. I called out, Shut that gate; for the last I remembered was starting to shut the gate. Since that time when I have heard it preached that the mind of man exists independent of the body, and never loses its consciousness, I would think of these eighteen days, and I could not harmonize the two. But," said he, "It's all straight now."

The body preserves its identity. Although changes are taking place in the body, it is a gradual process. A minute cell-structure is broken down and destroyed, but immediately a new one takes its place, and so gradual is the process, that scars and marks on the body still remain. I have scars on my hands that were wounds thirty years ago. I do not urge this to prove that my body contains the identical particles of matter it did then, but it does prove that although the particles of which my body is composed may have been changed several times, there is an identity in the arrangement of the particles of the body. We meet a friend whom we have not seen in years, and yet we instantly recognize each other's countenances, though unexpectedly meeting. How is this, if in the change of particles the body does not preserve its identity?

So in the resurrection, an identity of arrangement in man's organism, with what it was at his death, will constitute the identical man. He will look as he looked, think as he thought, remember having performed the same acts which he performed before his death. In God's book, all our members are written. Ps. 139:16.

But, as we have said before, with God's chemistry brought to bear, for aught we know, the essential particles may be produced. If it was left to us to raise the dead, of course we might say, "It can't be done." God has not left that for us to do, but proposes to raise them himself; and we do not conceive it to be any greater act of his power to raise man again than to create him at first.

Cavilers on this subject are well represented by Paul, who says, "Some man will say, How are the dead raised up?" To such we reply, They are raised by the power of God. Says Christ, "God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." And to the Sadducees, who are objecting to the resurrection, he said, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." It is a lamentable fact, that even a great portion of the professed church of Christ, at the present day, deny the doctrine of the literal resurrection of the body; a doctrine so plainly taught by the Bible.

But we will notice a few more scriptures on the subject of the resurrection—scriptures of such character as to show us that there is no reward at death, and that without the resurrection there would be a failure of receiving the reward.

John gives an account of the sickness, death, and resurrection, of Lazarus. "After that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth: but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well." John 11:11. They supposed there was a favorable turn of the disease if he could rest. "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe." Verses 14, 15. He was going to raise Lazarus, which would strengthen their faith, that they might believe. As they came near Bethany, Martha, the sister of Lazarus, met Jesus, and said, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this?" Verses 21-26.

The idea we get from the above, by comparing it with the statements of other scriptures, is this: Martha had carried the attention of Christ over to the last day. Jesus gives her to understand that he is the power of the resurrection, and that, at the last day, those who were dead, believers in him, should rise, and those who were alive, and believed in him, should not die. As Paul states, They will be "changed in a moment," from mortal to immortal.

Jesus with the two sisters of Lazarus, came weeping to the grave. After praying to his Father, he turns his attention to the grave, and cries, "Lazarus, come forth"! To suit theories of the present time, he should have cried, O immortal spirit of Lazarus, come down from Heaven, and animate this lifeless clay! But we get no intimation from his language that Lazarus came from any place but the grave.