John Thomas

“ But some, while they confess that there will be resurrection, in the same breath in which they pray you to "have patience with them, because they are thick-headed," boisterously and positively assert that on the dust of dead ones awakening to life, they spring forth from their graves incorruptible and immortal; so that, manifestly, according to them, Paul was not treating of body, but simply of incorporeal dust, when he says, "this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality!" ”

“ The life of the lower nature is an inferior life, which depends upon the natural laws for its precarious continuance. It partakes of the quality of the nature or body through which it is manifested. This being corruptible, the life is only temporal, or for a time. This is our present life, intermitted at death, and restored when we awake from our sleep in the dust of sheol. We are then as Adam was when he came from the Creator's hand. The life is organic and terminable ”

“ At that time I strenuously affirmed the resurrection of the body as the only way to eternal life, in opposition to the dogma of immortality independent of resurrection, by which both resurrection and judgment, two of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, are abolished; and without which no system of belief is worth a rush. ”

“ Hence, to quiet their disturbed consciences, they adopt the theory more congenial to the thinking of the flesh, that "the righteous are not brought to judgment." Their argument is this: "We have," say they, "no righteousness of our own. Jesus Christ is our righteousness. He covers us. And the Deity beholding his righteousness, does not see our filthy rags. If we confess our sins, He is not only just to forgive us, but to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." ”

“ In the wisdom of Deity, no body coming out of the dust can be anything but earthy; and, therefore, neither incorruptible nor immortal. Incorruptibility and life, which is the incorruption of spirit, must come down out of heaven; so that a body issuing from the dust, when invested with this incorruption, is reckoned as a body from heaven, or heavenly—"a house from heaven."
Now the thing to be accomplished in resurrection is the development of a spirit-body, with the consciousness that the character flashed upon the new earthy body was evolved through an old earthy body in a previous state. ”

“ Nothing but the wisdom and power of Omnipotence definitively applied, can accomplish so extraordinary a result. The Sadducees utterly denied that such a thing was either probable or possible; but, as Jesus said, "they erred, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of the Deity." If they had understood Moses and the Prophets, and had had any appreciation of the power by which all things had been created, and were sustained, they would have been preserved from the fatal error of denying a resurrection. ”

“ The influences which cause to perish will be too strong for them; for the account they will give of themselves will be truthful then, if they eschewed the truth before; and this will overwhelm them in shame and condemnation. They will be "wheat turned to cheat," to which is never given the wheat-body bearing seed. The divine sentence will be against them; so that an incorruptible and living house from heaven will be withheld; and they will perish in the corruption of the sprout-body in returning to the dust from whence it came. ”

“ Now, Christ Jesus says in John iii. 19, "this is the κρισις or ground of judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. "The light shining into the darkness and divinely attested, makes sinners accountable and saints responsible; but into that region of the shadow of death where the light has not shone with divine attestation, the inhabitants of that region, who do not attain to the comprehension of the light, are not accountable to the resurrection and judgment it reveals. ”

“ The electrical, and electrically recorded, thoughts and actions to be manifested, are "the hidden things of darkness, and the counsels of the hearts" of the just, who have accepted, and of the unjust, who have rejected or extinguished, the light. These two classes, evolved from the dust of sheol, in the first stage of their raising, are "earthward and speechless." They may be said to be like a man newly aroused from deep and heavy sleep, who fails to realise his exact condition ”

“ But some will say, "Has the Deity then made all men in vain?" Nay, verily, His purpose is to evolve a righteous and immortal world out of the world of mortal sinners, and to lay the foundation of this great work in their scriptural intelligence and the obedience of faith. ”

“ Why are they so frantically opposed to the idea that all, both just and unjust, must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to give account of themselves, previously to being quickened with a life that shall never end? ”

“ If a saint has no righteousness of his own, Jesus Christ will refuse to be righteousness for him at the judgment. He covers naked sinners, that, as saints, they may develop works; that by these works which perfect faith, they may be justified, as Abraham was (James ii. 21–26) . Zealots in their frenzy do not perceive the difference between the justification of sinners and the justification of saints. Sinners are "justified by faith" in the obedience of faith,which is baptism; while saints are "justified by works" in the presence of the Righteous Judge "at his appearing and his kingdom." ”

“ Saints who have thus sowed to the flesh must come forth corruptible and mortal, or they could not reap corruption of the body. But, it is objected, that these are not the righteous. True; but the righteous appear at the same time and place; and for the same purpose: and the good rendered to them through the body is subsequent to the account given. It is understood, that the good to be rendered through the body is incorruptibility and life—a reaping of the spirit, life everlasting. ”

“ If one show them the truth, the Deity does not now endorse the teaching by a manifestation of power. Hence, every thing is resolved into opinion; and as one man's opinion is said to be as good as another's, the idea of certainty is ignored. The case of our modern world is helpless, hopeless, and incurable, by anything short of the presence of Christ. ”

“ Paul's saying, "This corruptible must put on incorruption," though it may, and does, apply to living bodies existing at the resurrection, which will be changed, or quickened, without tasting death, cannot apply to bodies living contemporary with him; for those bodies, instead of putting on incorruption, put off everything, ran rapidly into corruption, and ceased to be bodies at all. His argument clearly assumes the existence of a body waiting to "put on incorruption and immortality," when the fiat of its Creator shall be declared. ”

“ When spirit became flesh in the evolution of Jesus from the substance of Mary, he is said to have been "made a little lower than the angels," whose nature He did not assume (Heb. ii. 9, 16) . It is the inferior nature of which resurrection, in its broadest sense, is affirmed. If Adam had continued faithful and obedient, his "body of life" would have been raised to equality with the Elohistic body by the transforming energy of spirit forth sent from Deity. His body of life, just evolved from the dust, would have been clothed upon by a house from heaven ”

“ Without an awakening and coming forth from the dust of sheol, there are neither life, blessedness, nor punishment, for those who are sleeping and dwelling there. Resurrection of body is indispensable to either reward or punishment, for without resurrection, the metaphorical sleepers and dwellers in the dust are nonentities, being without bodies or parts—mere historical characters, whose "remains" are simple elementary gases and particles of earth. ”

“ What an astonishing evolution of living substantial intelligences out of a few invisible elemental principles of nature! It cannot be said that they are created out of nothing, any more than such a creation could be affirmed of the dew. The crude materials abound in sheol, where they would continue eternally in a formless condition, irrespective of their natural affinities. These would never evolve them into previously existing men and women ”

“ This idea is probably correct; and certainly exact enough to illustrate the phenomena of the moral and corporeal generation of "the new man which, after Deity, is created in righteousness and holiness of the truth" (Eph. iv. 24) . The matrix of this new being is "the heart" of the sinner. "The word of the kingdom" is the incorruptible seed sown into his heart. For some time, he has no direct consciousness that a new creature is forming within him. ”

“ The Doctor comes like the wily serpent, whispers, in the ears of his brethren with specious arguments until he poisons their minds, and thinking that what he has written will not be taken notice of, boldly pushes the matter, until those whose minds cannot be corrupted, turn away in sorrow and grief that a great man has fallen in Israel! ”

“ I cannot dismiss this passage in Isaiah without inviting attention to the beautiful figure by which he illustrates the development of these singers from dust. He styles them "dew," and their evolution as its manifestations upon plants. Thus, addressing the Eternal Spirit, he is caused to say, "For Thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead" (Isaiah xxvi. 19) ; and in Psalm cx. 3, "in the brilliancies of holiness from the womb of the dawn, there shall be to thee the dew of thy birth." ”

“ The analogy is found in nature, from which its divine Creator selects many processes and principles, which He employs as figures to illustrate His teaching in the word. Thus, in regard to corporeal regeneration, in the process of developing an immortal being from the dust of sheol, the terms expressive of the stages of what may be styled the spiritual gestation are conformed to the phenomena pertaining to the natural. The same fact obtains in relation to moral regeneration, which must precede in probation, the corporeal in the resurrection state. ”

“ Surely, they who are keeping the faith, and earnestly desiring" the appearing of the glory of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ," may view the judgment of that day, now so close at hand, as cheerfully. It is only evil doers that have reason to be afraid.
The consummation of the judgment of Christ's house indicates the epoch of the third and last stage of the raising process. This crisis is the quickening, by which resurrection is perfected. ”

“ The analogy of nature is often referred to in the Scripture in illustration of the deep things of the Spirit. It is reasonable that the one should be laid under contribution in expounding the other; because the beings to be taught are natural beings; and the exponent is the Creator of them all. The explanation I have given of the manner in which consciousness of identity is impressed upon newly-created beings, was suggested by the remarkable effect of lightning recently observed upon the bodies of a man and his son, killed by a flash while sheltering under a tree. ”

“ Such is the fate of all who die without an understanding of the truth revealed for the faith of their generation. He that understands the truth, but declines the obedience it commands, will be held accountable for its rejection; for "he that believeth not shall be condemned" "in a day of judgment," "when the Deity shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus .Christ, according to the gospel Paul preached" (Rom. ii. 16; Mark xvi. 16) .
But, sinners understanding and believing the truth, and rendering the obedience it commands, in that enlightened and faithful obedience, become saints. ”