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present properly indicates present time, yet not unfrequently bears a future sense, its time being usually somewhat extended in that direction; the passive present denotes present time begun back in the past, and so is very rarely, if ever, used for a future. And since the passive perfect indicates past time extending forward to present. time, the character of this tense and that of the passive present differ little except in their manner of time, the latter being, as it were, a past present, while the former is so to speak. a present past. Yet it is far from being a fact that either one can in all cases be properly substituted for the other.

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In the light of this analysis, let us transcribe a portion of the apostle's argument. I follow the Common Version, for the most part, except in the tenses :

"Now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised: and if Christ has not been raised, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, we are even found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised Christ; whom he did not raise, if so be that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised," &c.

But

Now to say, in the language of the Common Version, "If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised," is truly to argue a present rising of the dead; yet, from preconceived opinions, the verb "rise" may be (mis) taken in a future sense. to say, as the apostles actually did say, and, in substance, as many as three or four times," If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised," is to argue unequivocally that the dead are in a raised state. They are raised, and have been, and

were; even as Christ was raised, and has been, and is.

It may be asserted here, concerning egeiromai, the passive form of egeiro, that, in all its variations, it is passive only in form, its sense not being "to be raised," but simply "to rise," or "to be risen." But to prove it true in Scripture usage, (I do not say, by the dicta of translators,) it must at least be shown that, in the Scriptures, egeiro has scarcely ever the transitive signification of "to raise", but nearly always the intransitive signification of "to rise". But the entire opposite of this is entirely true, so far at least as regards the use of the word by Paul and Peter in their writings, and we may add-by Paul, and Peter, and others, as given by Luke in Acts. Thus the proposition that GOD "raised" Christ, (egeiro being used,) is stated six times in Acts, ten times in Paul's Epistles, and once in 1st Peter; and in all these instances egeiro is in the active voice, and used transitively, as is perfectly obvious. When, therefore, as in 1 Cor. 15th, the apostle puts this verb in the passive voice, and thus seems to say that Christ" has been raised", we may know that what he seems to say he really says; for that if God really raised Christ, Christ really was raised by HIM. So, also, if by His power God actually " raises "the dead, which, as we have seen, was actually taught, and in express terms, not only by Paul, but by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, then, through the Divine power, the dead are actually raised; and when not only Paul, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, each seems to say that "the dead are raised", they say not that the dead "rise", 66 or are risen but actually that "the dead are raised."

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To conclude this chapter, If it was not the

doctrine of Paul that the raising of the dead occurs in present time, why did he make an objector say, "How are the dead raised up"? Especially, why did he also put this question into his mouth, "With what body Do they come? It is manifest that the time of the resurrection was not the point in debate between Paul and his antagonist; and that his charging him with the non-use of his intellectual powers, was not from any perceived error in him as regards the when of the process. If, therefore, it had been the apostle's doctrine that the resurrection of the dead is exclusively future, he would most certainly have worded the supposed questions thus: "How will the dead be raised? and with what body will they come?" (See 1 Cor. xv. 35.)

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CHAPTER XXIX.

A PRESENT OR PASSING RESURRECTION

CONCLUDED.

VIII. It has been presented as an objection against the Scripturality of a present or passing resurrection, that Paul, in one place, speaks of certain men's having erred concerning the truth,

saying, that the resurrection is past already." On this I remark that their error consisted not in holding that the resurrection was some of it past, but in holding that it all was. The apostle had himself said, in that same chapter, "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead." 1

IX. An other objection is based upon the circumstance that Jesus Christ is declared, in the Scriptures, to be "the first-born from the dead". 2 The objection proceeds on the ground (, which will be left undisturbed for the present,) that the sense of the text is to the effect that Christ was the first who was raised into the immortal state; and it is hence naturally enough argued that seeing the doctrine of a present resurrection was not true before His time, it is not true now. I reply as follows:

The text contains the phrase "from the dead." But the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection of some one from the dead, are quite two 12 Tim. ii. 8, 18.

2 Col. i. 18.

things: Rising from the dead supposes being as it were set apart from the dead in general, by the peculiarity of having such an organization as that the riser can be seen, heard, handled, &c., by persons in the flesh. (See Chaps. ii., iii.)

Various individuals were raised from the dead before Christ was; yet they, as also others who were raised afterward, were raised to mere mortal life. It is therefore a fact that Christ is not only the first, but is also the last, ever raised from the dead to an immortal life. And this fact is perfectly in harmony with the doctrine that the resurrection of each human being to immortal life takes place at or soon after the decease of such human being; also, that this has constantly been the course of events in that line ever since death entered the world. For the dead in general are not raised from the dead-indeed how could they be? The Scripture instructs us simply that the dead are raised, giving no intimation that they are raised from themselves, or that they ever will be.

The dead are raised in spiritual bodies, and so, to the mere physical sense, are imperceptible. In order, therefore, that the great fact of human immortality might be rendered in a manner sensible, so that persons religiously "spiritual "1 in but a moderate degree could perceive and appreciate it, "the man Christ Jesus ", who, as to the constitution of His nature, had "in all things" been "made like His brethren", was, in the Divine economy, singled out, so to speak, from the rest of the dead, by being caused to take on, for a time, his earthly body, in addition to being spiritually embodied in common with the dead in general. Viewed thus, He is clearly the Alpha and the Omega, the First and also the Last. 2

11 Cor. ii. 15.

21 Tim. ii. 5; Heb. ii. 17; Rev. i. 11, 17; xxii. 13.

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