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| Certain Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
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Chapter XXVII.—Certain
Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the
Flesh.
We have also in the Scriptures robes
mentioned as allegorizing the hope of the flesh. Thus in the Revelation
of John it is said: “These are they which have not defiled
their clothes with women,”7473
| 7473 Rev. iii. 4
and xiv. 4. | —indicating, of course, virgins, and
such as have become “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s
sake.”7474
Therefore they
shall be “clothed in white raiment,”7475
that is, in the bright beauty of the unwedded flesh. In the gospel
even, “the wedding garment” may be regarded as the sanctity
of the flesh.7476
And so, when Isaiah
tells us what sort of “fast the Lord hath chosen,” and
subjoins a statement about the reward of good works, he says:
“Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy
garments,7477
| 7477 There is a curious
change of the word here made by Tertullian, who reads ἱμάτια instead of ἰάματα, “thy health,” or
“healings,” which is the word in the Sept. | shall speedily
arise;”7478
where he has no
thought of cloaks or stuff gowns, but means the rising of the flesh,
which he declared the resurrection of, after its fall in death. Thus we
are furnished even with an allegorical defence of the resurrection of
the body. When, then, we read, “Go, my people, enter into your
closets for a little season, until my anger pass away,”7479
we have in the closets graves, in which they
will have to rest for a little while, who shall have at the end of the
world departed this life in the last furious onset of the power of
Antichrist. Why else did He use the expression closets, in
preference to some other receptacle, if it were not that the flesh is
kept in these closets or cellars salted and reserved for use, to be
drawn out thence on a suitable occasion? It is on a like principle that
embalmed corpses are set aside for burial in mausoleums and sepulchres,
in order that they may be removed therefrom when the Master shall order
it. Since, therefore, there is consistency in thus understanding the
passage (for what refuge of little closets could possibly shelter us
from the wrath of God?), it appears that by the very phrase
which he uses, “Until His anger pass away,”7480
which shall extinguish Antichrist, he in
fact shows that after that indignation the flesh will come forth from
the sepulchre, in which it had been deposited previous to the
bursting out of the anger. Now out of the closets nothing else
is brought than that which had been put into them, and after the
extirpation of Antichrist shall be busily transacted the great
process of the resurrection.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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