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| Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine.
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Chapter
XLVIII.—Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection
of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine.
But “flesh and blood,” you say,
“cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”7622
We are quite aware that this too is written;
but although our opponents place it in the front of the battle, we have
intentionally reserved the objection until now, in order that we may in
our last assault overthrow it, after we have removed out of the way all
the questions which are auxiliary to it. However, they must
contrive to recall to their mind even now our preceding
arguments, in order that the occasion which originally suggested
this passage may assist our judgment in arriving at its meaning. The
apostle, as I take it, having set forth for the Corinthians the details
of their church discipline, had summed up the substance of his own
gospel, and of their belief in an exposition of the Lord’s death
and resurrection, for the purpose of deducing therefrom the rule of our
hope, and the groundwork thereof. Accordingly he subjoins this
statement: “Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead,
how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? If
there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen:
and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith
is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we
have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He raised not up,
if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then
is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain,
because ye are yet in your sins, and they which have fallen asleep in
Christ are perished.”7623
Now, what is the
point which he evidently labours hard to make us believe throughout
this passage? The resurrection of the dead, you say, which was denied:
he certainly wished it to be believed on the strength of the example
which he adduced—the Lord’s resurrection. Certainly, you
say. Well now, is an example borrowed from different circumstances, or
from like ones? From like ones, by all means, is your answer. How
then did Christ rise again? In the flesh, or not? No doubt, since you
are told that He “died according to the
Scriptures,”7624
and “that He
was buried according to the Scriptures,”7625
no otherwise than in the flesh, you will
also allow that it was in the flesh that He was raised from the dead.
For the very same body which fell in death, and which lay in the
sepulchre, did also rise again; (and it was) not so much Christ in the
flesh, as the flesh in Christ. If, therefore, we are to rise again
after the example of Christ, who rose in the flesh, we shall certainly
not rise according to that example, unless we also shall ourselves rise
again in the flesh. “For,” he says, “since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead.”7626
(This he says) in
order, on the one hand, to distinguish the two authors—Adam of
death, Christ of resurrection; and, on the other hand, to make the
resurrection operate on the same substance as the death, by comparing
the authors themselves under the designation man. For if
“as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive,”7627
their vivification
in Christ must be in the flesh, since it is in the flesh that arises
their death in Adam. “But every man in his own
order,”7628
because of course
it will be also every man in his own body. For the
order will be arranged severally, on account of the individual
merits. Now, as the merits must be ascribed to the body, it must needs
follow that the order also should be arranged in respect of the bodies,
that it may be in relation to their merits. But inasmuch as “some
are also baptized for the dead,”7629
we
will see whether there be a good reason for this. Now it is certain
that they adopted this (practice) with such a presumption as made them
suppose that the vicarious baptism (in question) would be beneficial to
the flesh of another in anticipation of the resurrection; for unless it
were a bodily resurrection, there would be no pledge
secured by this process of a corporeal baptism. “Why are they
then baptized for the dead,”7630
he asks,
unless the bodies rise again which are thus baptized? For it is not the
soul which is sanctified by the baptismal bath:7631
its sanctification comes from the “answer.”7632
“And why,” he inquires,
“stand we in jeopardy every hour?”7633
—meaning, of course, through the flesh.
“I die daily,”7634
(says he); that is,
undoubtedly, in the perils of the body, in which “he even fought
with beasts at Ephesus,”7635
—even with
those beasts which caused him such peril and trouble in Asia, to which
he alludes in his second epistle to the same church of Corinth:
“For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble
which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed above measure, above
strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.”7636
Now, if I mistake not, he enumerates all
these particulars in order that in his unwillingness to have his
conflicts in the flesh supposed to be useless, he may induce an
unfaltering belief in the resurrection of the flesh. For useless must
that conflict be deemed (which is sustained in a body) for which no
resurrection is in prospect. “But some man will say, How are the
dead to be raised? And with what body will they
come?”7637
Now here he
discusses the qualities of bodies, whether it be the very same, or
different ones, which men are to resume. Since, however, such a
question as this must be regarded as a subsequent one, it will in
passing be enough for us that the resurrection is determined to be a
bodily one even from this, that it is about the quality of
bodies that the inquiry arises.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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