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| The Session of Jesus in His Incarnate Nature at the Right Hand of God a Guarantee of the Resurrection of Our Flesh.
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Chapter LI.—The Session
of Jesus in His Incarnate Nature at the Right Hand of God a Guarantee
of the Resurrection of Our Flesh.
That, however, which we have reserved for a
concluding argument, will now stand as a plea for all, and for the
apostle himself, who in very deed would have to be charged with extreme
indiscretion, if he had so abruptly, as some will have it, and as they
say, blindfold, and so indiscriminately, and so unconditionally,
excluded from the kingdom of God, and indeed from the court of heaven
itself, all flesh and blood whatsoever; since Jesus is still sitting
there at the right hand of the Father,7660
man, yet God—the last Adam,7661
yet the
primary Word—flesh and blood, yet purer than ours—who
“shall descend in like manner as He ascended into
heaven”7662
the same both in
substance and form, as the angels affirmed,7663
so
as even to be recognised by those who pierced Him.7664
| 7664 Zech. xii. 10; John xix. 37; Rev. i.
7. | Designated, as He is, “the
Mediator7665
between God and
man,” He keeps in His own self the deposit of the flesh which has
been committed to Him by both parties—the pledge and security of
its entire perfection. For as “He has given to us the earnest of
the Spirit,”7666
so has He received
from us the earnest of the flesh, and has carried it with Him into
heaven as a pledge of that complete entirety which is one day to be
restored to it. Be not disquieted, O flesh and blood, with any care; in
Christ you have acquired both heaven and the kingdom of God. Otherwise,
if they say that you are not in Christ, let them also say that Christ
is not in heaven, since they have denied you heaven. Likewise
“neither shall corruption,” says he, “inherit
incorruption.”7667
This he
says, not that you may take flesh and blood to be corruption, for
they are themselves rather the subjects of corruption,—I mean
through death, since death does not so much corrupt, as actually
consume, our flesh and blood. But inasmuch as he had plainly said that
the works of the flesh and blood could not obtain the kingdom of God,
with the view of stating this with accumulated stress, he deprived
corruption itself—that is, death, which profits so largely by the
works of the flesh and blood—from all inheritance of
incorruption. For a little afterwards, he has described what is, as it
were, the death of death itself: “Death,” says he,
“is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O
grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is
sin”—here is the corruption; “and the strength
of sin is the law”7668
—that other
law, no doubt, which he has described “in his members as warring
against the law of his mind,”7669
—meaning,
of course, the actual power of sinning against his will. Now he says in
a previous passage (of our Epistle to the Corinthians), that “the
last enemy to be destroyed is death.”7670
In
this way, then, it is that corruption shall not inherit incorruption;
in other words, death shall not continue. When and how shall it cease?
In that “moment, that twinkling of an eye, at the last trump,
when the dead shall rise incorruptible.”7671
But what are these, if not they who were corruptible before—that
is, our bodies; in other words, our flesh and blood? And we undergo the
change. But in what condition, if not in that wherein we shall be
found? “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality.”7672
What mortal is this but the flesh? what corruptible but the blood.
Moreover, that you may not suppose the apostle to have any other
meaning, in his care to teach you, and that you may understand him
seriously to apply his statement to the flesh, when he says
“this corruptible” and “this
mortal,” he utters the words while touching the surface of his own
body.7673
| 7673 Cutem ipsam.
Rufinus says that in the church of Aquileia they touched their bodies
when they recited the clause of the creed which they rendered
“the resurrection of this body.” | He certainly could not have pronounced these
phrases except in reference to an object which was palpable and
apparent. The expression indicates a bodily exhibition. Moreover, a
corruptible body is one thing, and corruption is another; so a mortal
body is one thing, and mortality is another. For that which suffers is
one thing, and that which causes it to suffer is another. Consequently,
those things which are subject to corruption and mortality, even the
flesh and blood, must needs also be susceptible of incorruption and
immortality.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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