"God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up 1 Cor. vi. 14. us." "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." 1 Cor. xv. 49. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 1 Cor. xv. 22. "There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Acts xxiv. 15. In an address to a Christian assembly, might not the language of the texts just cited, and of any other texts belonging to either of the classes mentioned, be as appropriately adopted by a speaker holding that the resurrection is now in progress, as it could be by one who holds that, leaving out the case of Christ and perhaps a few others, all of the resurrection is yet in the future? Could not the former as properly as the latter announce his convictions thus ?: Jesus was raised, and we shall be; yea, all will be made alive, even as all die.” III. It has been contended that in those texts where the present tense occurs in speaking of the resurrection, the meaning must be future; for that in one such place it is expressly declared that God "calleth those things which are not as though they were." Specious as this appears when thus stated, I have to observe that the text does by no means affirm what the objection virtually claims - that God does thus in reference to the resurrection. A quickening of the dead, which implies their resurrection, is indeed mentioned,- it being affirmed that God "quickeneth the dead, and calleth”— as stated. Yet it is easy to see that the quickening and the calling have no declared dependence one on the other, the two propositions being simply joined, end to end, as it were, by the all-connecting copulative, "and." As has been observed, it is not in reference to the resurrection that, according to this text, God calls non-entities as if entities. But, in the same sentence, as we have seen, a very important statement is made which does refer to the future life in all probability. God "quickeneth the dead." It is even glaringly apparent that this expression much more naturally conveys the idea that the quickening process was being enacted all along, than it does that it was all to be enacted an unknown number of centuries thereafter. The occasion of the apostle's saying that God calls non-existing things as if existing, was this: He, the apostle,- had just adverted to the historical fact that God said to Abraham, "I have made thee a father of many nations," when not only was it true that those nations were "not," but it was in like manner true that even his son Isaac had no actual existence, in whose line exclusively the posterity of the patriarch was to be reckoned. 1 1 Rom. iv. 17; Gen. xvii. 5, 21; xxi. 12. CHAPTER XXVII. A PRESENT OR PASSING RESURRECTION.-CONTINUED. IV. IT has been mentioned as an objection against a present resurrection, that, according to both Matthew and Mark, the Sadducees, in the well-known question which they put to our Lord, made use of the future tense, and asked, "whose wife shall she be ?" And, according to Mark, they also used the future tense of the verb "rise," saying, "In the resurrection, therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife," &c. It is hence argued that the Sadducees had not understood the Saviour as teaching a resurrection happening at death, but, on the contrary, one to happen at some future time; therefore that the Christian resurrection is exclusively future. I reply, if the Sadducees had any such understanding as to the time of the resurrection, they likely got it from the Pharisees. These are known to have held that, at least in some instances, the rising of the dead from among the dead was de'layed for a considerable length of time. But allowing that Christ's questioners had really understood Him thus, are we quite sure that, with their stubborn prejudices, (not to mention their stupidity,) they had understood the great Teacher aright? Note. That the Sadducees, in their question, really used the future tense of the verb "rise," is by no means indisputable. V. Another, and a prominent objection, is, that, in the course of His reply to the Sadducees, Jesus himself made use of the future tense. It is admitted that He did thus, in a couple of phrases, according to the Common Version; yet it is to be observed, First, that the correctness of some of its renderings, in this place, is at least questionable; and Second, that, so far as the first part of His reply is concerned, there would seem to be no impropriety in his using the future tense, seeing that, in one phrase at least, that distinction of time had certainly been employed by his opposers. Our Saviour's reply to the Sadducees consists of two parts: First, he shows them that their antiresurrection argument, involved in the case presented by them, is altogether irrelevant; Second, in continuation of the subject then in hand, he argues from the Scriptures against their doctrinal views, and in favor of his own. - In the Common Version, Mark and Luke though not Matthew, each represents our Lord as using a future tense once, in the first part of His reply; but not one of the three is made to represent Him as using such a tense in the second part, where He argues from the Scriptures. And, as has been before intimated, seeing that His captious opposers had made use of the future tense in putting their question, the use of a like tense in exposing the irrelevancy of the case upon which their question was founded, might reasonably be supposed to arise from a laudable desire to avoid even the appearance of caviling. It is, however, a fact, that throughout both parts of our Lord's reply to the Sadducees, He did not in a single instance, employ a tense unequivocally future. Where the Common Version makes Him say, "For when they shall rise," &c., the verbal inflection given by Mark will hardly be claimed as a proper future ;and in Luke, where the Saviour is represented as saying, "But those who shall be accounted worthy," &c., the tense given by the evangelist is certainly an indefinite past; a literal understanding, as to tense, being, "But those having been," &c. It is not here affirmed that the aorist participle, kataxiothentes, "having been accounted worthy," may not have a present signification; but it is affirmed that, aside from creeds, no reason exists for supposing its sense, in that text, to be future. And various considerations lead directly to the conclusion that it was meant to be taken in its natural, grammatical import, denoting the present possession of a former reception of a past action. Some of these considerations follow: 1. That the expression in mention is to be taken in a future sense, is both grammatically and rhetorically very improbable, from the fact that it is only in the poetic prophetic portions of the Scriptures, that the past tense is at all likely to be put for the future. In the didactic and narrative parts, that Hebraistic figure of speech is seldom or never met with at least in the New Testament. 2. If we knew nothing of the original, it would be proper to suspect an erroneous translation here; as it seems entirely inconsistent for Jesus to have employed the language ascribed to Him by the Common Version. The expression, "those who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world," &c., is exactly calculated to convey the idea that some shall not be thus accounted; and the necessary inference from this would be that, for such persons, there is no existence in any other |