Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XLVII.—St. Paul,
All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body.
For that must be living after the world, which, as the old man, he declares to be
“crucified with Christ,”7602
not as a
bodily structure, but as moral behaviour. Besides, if we do not
understand it in this sense, it is not our bodily frame which has been
transfixed (at all events), nor has our flesh endured the cross of
Christ; but the sense is that which he has subjoined, “that the
body of sin might be made void,”7603
by
an amendment of life, not by a destruction of the substance, as he goes
on to say, “that henceforth we should not serve
sin;”7604
and that we should
believe ourselves to be “dead with Christ,” in such a
manner as that “we shall also live with Him.”7605
On the same principle he says:
“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
indeed.”7606
To what? To
the flesh? No, but “unto sin.”7607
Accordingly as to the flesh they will be saved—“alive unto
God in Christ Jesus,”7608
through the flesh
of course, to which they will not be dead; since it is “unto
sin,” and not to the flesh, that they are dead. For he
pursues the point still further: “Let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it, and that ye should
yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but
yield ye yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the
dead”—not simply alive, but as alive from the
dead—“and your members as instruments of
righteousness.”7609
And again:
“As ye have yielded your members servants of uncleanness, and of
iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants of
righteousness unto holiness; for whilst ye were the servants of sin, ye
were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things of
which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But
now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your
fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin
is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.”7610
Thus throughout
this series of passages, whilst withdrawing our members from
unrighteousness and sin, and applying them to righteousness and
holiness, and transferring the same from the wages of death to the
donative of eternal life, he undoubtedly promises to the flesh the
recompense of salvation. Now it would not at all have been consistent
that any rule of holiness and righteousness should be especially
enjoined for the flesh, if the reward of such a discipline were not
also within its reach; nor could even baptism be properly ordered for
the flesh, if by its regeneration a course were not inaugurated tending
to its restitution; the apostle himself suggesting this idea:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus
Christ, are baptized into His death? We are therefore buried with Him
by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.”7611
And that you may not suppose that this is
said merely of that life which we have to walk in the newness of,
through baptism, by faith, the apostle with superlative forethought
adds: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of
Christ’s death, we shall be also in the likeness of His
resurrection.”7612
By a figure we die
in our baptism, but in a reality we rise again in the flesh, even as
Christ did, “that, as sin has reigned in death, so also grace
might reign through righteousness unto life eternal, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.”7613
But how so, unless
equally in the flesh? For where the death is, there too must be the
life after the death, because also the life was first there, where the
death subsequently was. Now, if the dominion of death operates only in
the dissolution of the flesh, in like manner death’s contrary,
life, ought to produce the contrary effect, even the restoration of the
flesh; so that, just as death had swallowed it up in its strength, it
also, after this mortal was swallowed up of immortality, may hear the
challenge pronounced against it: “O death, where is thy sting? O
grave, where is thy victory?”7614
For in this
way “grace shall there much more abound, where sin once
abounded.”7615
In this way also
“shall strength be made perfect in weakness,”7616
—saving what is lost, reviving what is
dead, healing what is stricken, curing what is faint, redeeming what is
lost, freeing what is enslaved, recalling what has strayed, raising
what is fallen; and this from earth to heaven, where, as the apostle
teaches the Philippians, “we have our citizenship,7617
from whence also we look for our Saviour
Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be
fashioned like unto His glorious body”7618
—of course after the resurrection,
because Christ Himself was not glorified before He suffered. These must
be “the bodies” which he “beseeches” the
Romans to
“present” as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God.”7619
But how a
living sacrifice, if these bodies are to perish? How a
holy one, if they are profanely soiled? How acceptable to
God, if they are condemned? Come, now, tell me how that passage (in
the Epistle) to the Thessalonians—which, because of its
clearness, I should suppose to have been written with a
sunbeam—is understood by our heretics, who shun the light of
Scripture: “And the very God of peace sanctify you
wholly.” And as if this were not plain enough, it goes on to say:
“And may your whole body, and soul, and spirit be preserved
blameless unto the coming of the Lord.”7620
Here you have the entire substance of man destined to salvation, and
that at no other time than at the coming of the Lord, which is
the key of the resurrection.7621
| 7621 [Note
Tertullian’s summary of the text, in harmony with the
Tripartite philosophy of humanity.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
