Resurrection of life

“ The Resurrection is to life, not to death. Shall I not see those who have risen again walk here among men perfect in body and spirit, whole and glad in the flesh, living in the flesh, loving in the flesh, begetting children in the flesh, arrived at last to wholeness, perfect without scar or blemish, healthy without fear of ill-health? ”

“ Therefore I would urge you to preach the Resurrection as the one fact above all others which vitally concerns, not only the life of the individual Christian, but the entire human scene and the destiny of the race. It is the break-through of the eternal order into this world of suffering and confusion and sin and death. It is much more than the dramatic reanimation of One who had died: it is the vindication of eternal righteousness, the declaration that the heart of the universe is spiritual. It is the Kingdom of God made visible. ”

“ And you will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven's blessing on the world.
Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is One with Him. ”

“ Suppose you were now in ignorance respecting the doctrine of life and immortality through a resurrection. You know you must die, and sincerely think that death will terminate your existence forever. You see your children one after another laid upon their dying bed, and with distraction shake the farewell hand of eternal separation, and with the most solemn melancholy and wo, look forward to the period when you must follow them down to the chambers of eternal silence, and cease to be. ”

“ Day unto day uttereth speech, soul to soul, life to life, resurrection to resurrection. And night unto night uttereth knowledge, that is, flesh to flesh, the flesh whose sufferings have declared to all the true knowledge of faith. Bright and fair nights, full of stars: 1 Cor. xv. 41. For one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead.
9. But many not improperly call this the resurrection of the martyrs; whether they have risen for themselves is another question, for us beyond a doubt they are risen. ”

“ That faith which teaches of the God-in-Man, done to death by the Man WITHOUT God in him!—and who, nevertheless, by the spiritual strength of a resurrection from the grave, proves that there is no death but only continuous renewal of life! ”

“ Oh God of Love, whose tenderness and care for Thy creation is everywhere disclosed to us, from the smallest atom of dust, to the stupendous majesty of Thy million worlds in the air,—give we beseech Thee, to this perished clay which once was man, the beauty which transforms vile things to virtuous, and endows our seeming death with life! Let Thy eternal Law of Resurrection so work upon this senseless body that it may pass through Earth to Heaven, and there find finer grades of being, higher forms of development, greater opportunities of perfection. ”

“ It is the resurrection from a natural to a spiritual state of life;—from a state of sin or moral death, to a state of holiness; from the old, carnal, selfish life, to the new life of disinterested neighborly love which is the Lord's own life and the very essence of heaven. As the old man with his affections and lusts dies or is put off, and our inner man is renewed after the image of Jesus Christ, we rise to a new and higher life—to that which is meant by "the life eternal." This is the kind of resurrection to which the Lord referred when He said: "I am the resurrection and the life;" ”

“ As we take down their ponderous tomes from their neglected shelves, and turn over the dusty, faded old leaves, we find chapter after chapter in many a formidable folio occupied with grave discussions, carried on in acute logical terminology, of questions like these: "Will the resurrection be natural or miraculous?" "Will each one's hairs and nails all be restored to him in the resurrection?" "When bodies are raised, will each soul spontaneously know its own and enter it? ”

“ There is set before us life and death. May we choose life, that it may be well with us; that we may wake from the bed of death and find ourselves with the Lord; that we may pass in joyful hope through the waiting and disembodied state, and wake at the morning of the resurrection to that fulness of completed bliss of which we have this day been speaking. ”

“ When the Spirit cometh into the soul, he quickeneth it, and this is the first resurrection. O blessed are they who have part in this, whose souls are drawn out of the dungeon of darkness and ignorance, and brought forth to behold this glorious light that shineth in the gospel, and raised out of the grave of the lusts of ignorance, to live unto God henceforth, for such have their part in the second resurrection to life. ”

“ As we have an art, to cast from one glass to another, and so to carry the species a great way off, so hast thou, that way, much more; we shall have a resurrection in heaven; the knowledge of that thou castest by another glass upon us here; we feel that we have a resurrection from sin, and that by another glass too; we see we have a resurrection of the body from the miseries and calamities of this life. This resurrection of my body shows me the resurrection of my soul ”

“ These speculators no doubt saw that too much importance is attached in the Scriptures to the resurrection to allow of its application to the body as a mere tabernacle for the soul which was only a burden during natural life, and which to be rid of is the unhampered and unburdened liberty of the soul to bask in bliss. ”

“ So that resurrection is the vital question--that which the sacrificial death leads to and makes possible. What then is implied by the slaying of victims to provide coats of skins for Adam and Eve? Is it not resurrection from the dead, a release from the sentence and its effects that sin had brought upon man? In the very beginning, therefore, when we have death as a fact, we have resurrection from the dead as a promise; and the vital element of the gospel as first preached is resurrection. ”

“ Now although this happiness be then only consummated, when souls at the general resurrection shall be re-united to their bodies, and both be clothed with immortality; yet because a religious life is but a continued meditation upon, and as it were a transcript of the joys of heaven, therefore to such persons there is allowed some relish and foretaste of that pleasure here, which is to be their reward hereafter. ”

“ The above extracts most fully declare the certainty of our Blessed Lord's resurrection and ascension in the same body in which He lived and suffered, and the assurance which this fact affords of our own resurrection to eternal life in endless glory, if we truly trust in Him who tasted death for every man, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. ”

“ From the above observation we infer that, the resurrection is the only gospel faith and hope of a future, happy conscious state of being. When our minds are enlightened to see the mighty changes, that we mortals are represented, in the scriptures of truth, as destined to experience by being raised in a holy and deathless constitution, we are then led to consider the resurrection of embracing all those realities that we are called upon by Jesus Christ and his apostles to embrace by faith and enjoy in this life. ”

“ And life springs forth from death; the carnal form is changed to form divine.
41. The will of man makes possible the action of the Holy Breath. When will of man and will of God are one, the resurrection is a fact. ”

“ Resurrection, immortality of the body, union with angels, a place in the joyful company of archangels, and as a citizen in His kingdom, immaculate life, the good things “which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man, things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” ”

“ He offers immortality, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” The deadening power of sin loses its hold, and one tastes the unspeakable joy of living a life that is life indeed.
Then be not confounded by the feeling of restlessness that ever creeps upon the healthy soul. What a tragedy our lives would be had we been satisfied with our first achievements! ”

“ We can experience resurrection before death, if we will. When our spiritual nature is awakened, and we are set free from thraldom to material gods, we have been raised from the dead. We can take hold on eternal life now, for it, too, [Pg 370] is a state of the soul. It is to know and live and be the good. ”

“ But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.——We can now look through all the wastes and glooms of death and the grave to a resurrection of the body—to a judgment-seat—to an endless existence after death—to eternal rewards for the pious—and everlasting woe to the despisers of God and Virtue. ”

“ And it was in that aspect mainly that the earliest preachers dealt with it. Then, as reflection and the guidance of God's good Spirit led them to understand more and more of the treasure which lay in the fact, it came to be to them, next, a pattern, and a pledge, and a prophecy of their own resurrection. The doctrine of man's immortality and the future life was evolved from it, and was felt to be implied in it. And then it came to be, thirdly and lastly, a symbol or figure of the spiritual resurrection and newness of life into which all they were born who participated in His death. ”

“ He regards as one fact the resurrection of the Lord Christ, who brought his body again from the grave and entered into life eternal, and the resurrection of ourselves, who, by virtue of his rising, shall likewise be raised: first, the soul, from a trivial and guilty life shall rise into a true, divine and happy existence ”

“ Now concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection—Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life. ”

“ As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, "I am the resurrection and the life." ”

“ “The world, my friends, is full of resurrections, and it is not always of the same resurrection that St. Paul speaks. Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it—the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life. ”

“ These are good well-meaning people with a limited idea which they read into the Bible, and so limit its promises by making physical death an essential preliminary to Resurrection. They grasp, of course, the great central idea that Perfected Man possesses a joyous immortal Life permeating spirit, soul and body ”

“ When death breaks the dark lantern, yet it does not extinguish the candle that was pent up in it. (2.) The reuniting of the soul and body at the resurrection. The soul is often put for the life; that indeed falls under the power of the grave for a time, but it shall, at length, be redeemed from it, when mortality shall be swallowed up of life. ”

“ For if there is no resurrection, let us eat and drink [3] : let us pursue a life of pleasure and enjoyment. If there is no resurrection, wherein do we differ from the irrational brutes? If there is no resurrection, let us hold the wild beasts of the field happy who have a life free from sorrow. ”

“ A species of proof which has been much used by the advocates of the dogma of a bodily resurrection is the argument from analogy. The intimate connection of human feeling and fancy with the changing phenomena of Nature's seasons would naturally suggest to a pensive mind the idea, Why, since she has her annual resurrection, may not humanity some time have one? ”

“ According to Revelation, death is a state of rest and insensibility, and our only though sure hope of a future life is founded on the doctrine of the resurrection of the whole man at some distant period ”

“ Secondly, that we might know that he in whom we have plac'd the Safety of our Resurrection is immortal, and shall never die. Lastly, that we being dead in Sins by Repentance, and buried together with him by Baptism, should by his Grace be raised up again to Newness of Life. ”

“ Paul always couples with the resurrection and ascension of our bodies in the next life the resurrection and ascension of our souls in this life, for without that, the resurrection of our bodies would be but a resurrection to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery and ruin. ”