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The General Resurrection (1)

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The General Resurrection (1)

10 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44a).

Augustus Toplady (1740-1778)

Great, inconceivably great will be the dignity of the just in the morning of the resurrection. Here God’s elect, for wise and gracious reasons, are liable to affliction, pain, and temptation, like other men, but at the dawn of that triumphant day, every enemy to their peace will be totally and forever abolished. The design of the apostle in this chapter is to illustrate and establish this momentous truth, which he confirms by many arguments no less comfortable in their inference, than solid in endeavoring to build up the doctrine of our resurrection upon a basis able to support its weight, even the resurrection of Christ; and argues from the reality of His, to the certainty of ours; for surely, if the Head be raised, the members shall not always sleep.

“Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept;” meaning, not only that Christ was the first and only person who rose from the dead by virtue of His own power; not only that He was the most glorious person who ever did, or shall rise from the dead; just as the firstfruits that were dedicated to God, under the law, were the most excellent of the crop; but the expression likewise intimates that the rising Saviour was the type of a rising world, and a proof of our revival from the dust of death, in like manner as the firstfruits are the earnest and specimen of an ensuing harvest. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead.” Adam, as the representative of all his offspring, entailed in sin, and thereby death, upon mankind. Christ by assuming our nature and bearing our punishment in His own guiltless person, will eventually restore His seed to righteousness and life eternal: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits: afterwards, they that are Christ’s at His coming.” In the dispensation of the blessings merited by Christ, and in this of the resurrection, among the rest, there is a certain order, or method, established. Some few persons were miraculously raised from the dead, previous to the resurrection of Christ; and God did this on purpose, no doubt, to anticipate any objections which infidels might afterwards make to the possibility of Christ’s resurrection; and also, that as Christ was a type of ours, there might be some who should be types of His. But with regard to all mankind beside, “every man in his own order; Christ as the firstfruits,” in consequence of His dignity as Son of God, and by virtue of His atoning sacrifice as man, He led the van, as it were, and like a triumphant general, at the head of His army, He broke through and broke down the gates of death; and by His glorious resurrection, opened the passage to eternal life. “Afterwards, they that are Christ’s at His coming.” His conquest over the grave is the prelude to theirs, who belong to Him. All indeed, both good and bad, without excepting one, shall rise again at His second coming; but only those who are by His redemption, faith, and sanctification, will come forth to the resurrection of blessedness.

What tongue can express, nay, what imagination can conceive, the unknown glories with which the reviving bodies of the saints will then be invested? Great, indeed, is the present glory, which, even here is put on those who are justified by the merits of Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit of God; somewhat like the law, which was a shadow of good things to come. These privileges are the earnest, and therefore a real, though but a small part of the inheritance reserved in heaven, and of which the believers will receive the completion by Christ. But when the time of that completion arrives, and grace, which is no more than a partial glorification, is heightened into a perfect one; the people of God will as much exceed their present selves, as the glorified body of Christ transcends that body of humiliation wherein He suffered upon the cross. This unutterable change for the better, the apostle intimates at the 41st verse of this chapter; “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another in glory.”

As spiritual things cannot be illustrated, nor indeed conceived, but by an incomplete comparison of them with sensible ones; the apostle was obliged either to leave us totally in the dark, or to express himself in metaphorical language. He is not here speaking as some have thought, of the inequality of future rewards; but is drawing a parallel between what a Christian is, before he dies, and what he shall be, in the resurrection.


“O sin, what hast thou done!” “What ravages hast thou spread among the human race!” “How hast thou spoiled and degraded the master-piece of heaven!” Gloomy indeed would be this view of things were not life and immortality brought to light by the gospel.


As some time intervenes between the offering up of the firstfruits to God, and the gathering in of the remainder; so there is a certain period, or space, known only to God, between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of them that are His. But one is as sure as the other.

He shows the glorious change our bodies then will undergo, and how much more excellent they will be when raised again then they are when we lay them aside by death. When the voice of the archangel and the trump of God summon us from the chambers of the grave, our bodies will be possessed of qualities which shall render them as greatly superior to what they were in this life, as the moon transcends a star. But when the general judgment is concluded; after Christ has pronounced the sentence of approbation and bids us enter into the joy of our Lord; our bodies will be exalted higher still and receive their consummation of glory; which shall as much transcend even the glory put on them at the resurrection a little before, as the sun, in beauty, size, and brightness, appears to exceed the moon and stars together. Vile and imperfect as we are in this life, yet, as I observed before, with regard to the souls of the regenerate, so I would observe now, with regard even to our bodies, that they, as the workmanship of God, and the temple of the Holy Spirit, may, in some sense, be justly styled glorious; though their glory and excellence may be compared to that of faint glimmering stars. In the resurrection this glory, which their bodies now bear, shall be increased, and (to carry on the metaphor) resemble the majestic radiance of the moon; but on their admission in to heaven, their glory shall be like that of the sun in his full height of meridian lustre. This is our Lord’s own comparison: “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” When, therefore, the final alarm rouses our bodies from their long sleep; their glory then will as much exceed that of their present state, as one star differs in brightness from another; for, as the apostle observes, a verse or two before, the glory of our bodies when celestial, will greatly exceed their present celestial glory.

This is the evident meaning of those words just recited: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So is also the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption; it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

My office, as has sometimes been the case, calls me to see persons struggling in the agonies of death; or when I hear but a passing bell, giving notice of a person’s departure, or tolling for a funeral; above all, when I see the earth take actual possession of a man’s mortal part, which, before the fall, was no less immortal than the soul still is; when I am witness to such scenes as these, I cannot help saying, in the language of one of the homilies, “O sin, what hast thou done!” “What ravages hast thou spread among the human race!” “How hast thou spoiled and degraded the master-piece of heaven!” Gloomy indeed would be this view of things were not life and immortality brought to light by the gospel. Had not Truth incarnate declared, that “whosoever believes in Him shall never die;” shall never die into punishment with regard to their bodies. Was it not left on record, in the pages of inspiration, that the same Almighty Being, who, for a while turneth man, that is, the bodies of mankind to destruction, would one day say, “Come again, ye children of men;” did we not read, as it is in the text, that the selfsame body which is sown in corruption, in dishonor, and in weakness, shall be raised in incorruption, in glory, and in power; I say, did not this cheering ray strike through the gloom, the creation of man would be, at best, a dark, forbidding mystery; not to say a blot on the fairest attributes of God.

To be possessed of no more than momentary existence, and to have even that momentary existence filled with more evil than good; to move for a point in time, like bubbles on the surface of the world, and then to vanish, or be thrown into a mere blank, and swallowed up in the gulf of nonexistence for ever; cannot be consistent with the nature of that God who makes nothing in vain, and whose Name is love. Reason, therefore, as well as Scripture, gives her suffrage for the present immortality of the soul, and for the future immortality of the body. Abstracted from these, what an unmeaning thing is man! the cruel sport of creating power; though reason, even when wrought up to the highest pitch, as it was in some ancient heathens, could not steadfastly establish the soul’s immortality, nor even so much make the least discovery of a resurrection; yet to both these important truths, discovered by revelation, impartial attentive reason cannot help subscribing. The All-wise, the Almighty, the All-gracious God, could not consistently with Himself, make mankind for nought; and yet for nought He made them, if this life is all. To deny a future state, therefore, wherein soul and body shall live together, is blasphemy, is atheism. It subverts every idea of God and is treason to the dignity of man.

(To be continued)

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