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| The Scriptures Forbid Our Supposing Either that the Resurrection is Already Past, or that It Takes Place Immediately at Death. Our Hopes and Prayers Point to the Last Great Day as the Period of Its Accomplishment.
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Chapter
XXII.—The Scriptures Forbid Our Supposing Either that the
Resurrection is Already Past, or that It Takes Place Immediately at
Death. Our Hopes and Prayers Point to the Last Great Day as the Period
of Its Accomplishment.
We must after all this turn our attention to those
scriptures also which forbid our belief in such a resurrection as is
held by your Animalists (for I will not call them
Spiritualists),7412
| 7412 For the opinions of
those Valentinians who held that Christ’s flesh was composed of
soul or of spirit—a refined, ethereal substance—see
Tertullian’s De Carne Christi, cc. x.–xv. | that it is either
to be assumed as taking place now, as soon as men come to the
knowledge of the truth, or else that it is accomplished immediately
after their departure from this life. Now, forasmuch as the seasons of
our entire hope have been fixed in the Holy Scripture, and since we are
not permitted to place the accomplishment thereof, as I apprehend,
previous to Christ’s coming, our prayers are directed
towards7413
the end of this
world, to the passing away thereof at the great day of the
Lord—of His wrath and vengeance—the last day, which is
hidden (from all), and known to none but the Father, although announced
beforehand by signs and wonders, and the dissolution of the elements,
and the conflicts of nations. I would turn out the words of the
prophets, if the Lord Himself had said nothing (except that prophecies
were the Lord’s own word); but it is more to my purpose that He
by His own mouth confirms their statement. Being questioned by
His disciples when those things were to come to pass which He had just
been uttering about the destruction of the temple, He discourses to
them first of the order of Jewish events until the overthrow of
Jerusalem, and then of such as concerned all nations up to the very end
of the world. For after He had declared that “Jerusalem was
to be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles
should be fulfilled,”7414
—meaning, of
course, those which were to be chosen of God, and gathered in with the
remnant of Israel—He then goes on to proclaim, against this world
and dispensation (even as Joel had done, and Daniel, and all the
prophets with one consent7415
), that “there
should be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, distress
of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men’s
hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which
are coming on the earth.”7416
“For,” says He, “the powers of heaven shall be
shaken; and then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds,
with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to
pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth
nigh.”7417
He spake of its
“drawing nigh,” not of its being present already; and of
“those things beginning to come to pass,” not of their
having happened: because when they have come to pass, then our
redemption shall be at hand, which is said to be approaching up to that
time, raising and exciting our minds to what is then the proximate
harvest of our hope. He immediately annexes a parable of this in
“the trees which are tenderly sprouting into a flower-stalk, and
then developing the flower, which is the precursor of the
fruit.”7418
“So likewise
ye,” (He adds), “when ye shall see all these things come to
pass, know ye that the kingdom of heaven is nigh at
hand.”7419
“Watch ye,
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to
escape all those things, and to stand before the Son of
man;”7420
that is, no doubt,
at the resurrection, after all these things have been previously
transacted. Therefore, although there is a sprouting in the
acknowledgment of all this mystery, yet it is only in the actual
presence of the Lord that the flower is developed and the fruit borne.
Who is it then, that has aroused the Lord, now at God’s right
hand, so unseasonably and with such severity “shake
terribly” (as Isaiah7421
expresses it)
“that earth,” which, I suppose, is as yet unshattered? Who
has thus early put “Christ’s enemies beneath His
feet” (to use the language of David7422
),
making Him more hurried than the Father, whilst every crowd in our
popular assemblies is still with shouts consigning “the
Christians to the lions?”7423
| 7423 Compare The
Apology, xl.; De Spect. xxvii.; De Exhort.
Cast. xii. | Who has yet
beheld Jesus descending from heaven in like manner as the apostles saw
Him ascend, according to the appointment of the two
angels?7424
Up to the present
moment they have not, tribe by tribe, smitten their breasts, looking on
Him whom they pierced.7425
No one has as yet
fallen in with Elias;7426
no one has as yet
escaped from Antichrist;7427
no one has as yet
had to bewail the downfall of Babylon.7428
And is there now anybody who has risen again, except the heretic?
He, of course, has already quitted the grave of his own
corpse—although he is even now liable to fevers and ulcers; he,
too, has already trodden down his enemies—although he has even
now to struggle with the powers of the world. And as a matter of
course, he is already a king—although he even now owes to
Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.7429
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