Part 1.6 - Mode (50-53)
50. But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot obtain part in the kingdom of heaven; nor does corruption have part in incorruption. The first word of this verse should be rendered ’ but.’ It is a limitation of the exhortation which has gone before. However far we proceed along the line of the exhortation presented to us, there is one clear limit. Our spirit may grow indefinitely more and more into the likeness of Christ, and so resemble the heavenly type of man, whose hopes and heritage, whose city and Father are in heaven. But this advance of the spirit of the believer does not affect his body. The body of the believer of the very highest spiritual attainments is as weak and as liable to ac- cident and death as the bodies of the ungodly. Paul has shown that resurrection is possible ; now he proves it necessary. Here comes in a consideration of the necessary change of the bodies of the redeemed in order to fit them for their new sphere in the eternal state of glory. That is, the apostle is now dealing with resurrection. The bodies of the believers, whether in the state of life or death, are unfitted for the life and the employments which are to be theirs at Christ’s coming.
He treats first of the most favourable case - that of the living believer.* *Some seem to take the expression "flesh and blood" as meaning fallen human nature, or nature spiritually considered. And it is true that that will not enjoy the kingdom of glory. But the apostle is not treating of the spiritual question now. The present body may be described as "flesh and blood" (Matthew 16:17). It is the body made out of the dust, the animal body which we possess in common with the inferior animals. This body Christ Himself took at first, in order to lift us out of it into the heavenly and spiritual one. "
Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner took part of the same" (Hebrews 2:14). The blood is its peculiar characteristic. Out of the blood the parts of the body, which are in a continual change and flux, are from hour to hour built up. But this continual change tells of its conclusion in death. The balance between accession of substance and removal of it is lost. Our body, then, as possessed of its present life, which is in the blood, the living fluid of the animal world, is not fitted for the life of the coming millennial day, and still less for eternity. It is built to last, at the best, but seventy or eighty years. Hence a new condition must come in. The blood is to be removed, as we see by the example of our Lord. By the scourging, the nailing, and the wound of the spear after His death, our Lord’s blood was drained away. To be without blood, to have it taken away, is certain death to us now. But Christ gave up His blood.
It was to be divided between His people and His God. Even so we read concerning the blood of the mediating sacrifices in the covenant made at Sinai. " And Moses took half the blood, and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. " The second half, mixed with water, he sprinkled on the people. So Christ has presented His blood once for all on high as the ransom of His people. But His blood is also the blood of sprinkling on us.
We have seen that He partook of ’flesh and blood’ at first. But after the resurrection He describes Himself by another phrase. When the astonished disciples, beholding Him risen, imagined Him to be but a ghost or disembodied spirit, He said, " Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). Hence, now, it is said of believers - not ’ we are of His flesh and blood ; ’ but " we are members of His body, out of His flesh and bones " (Ephesians 5:30). While concerning His blood we read of its being poured out at the foot of the cross, we read of His bones - "Not one of them shall be broken." To this removal of the blood was doubtless owing the peculiar and new powers which our Lord’s body possessed. It was no longer confined by walls ; it had power to disappear at will, and to soar on high. The incorruptible body which He took in resurrection was afterwards, on His ascension to heaven, glorified; or made to pour forth light on all sides like the sun. Thus He was seen by Paul and by John. Then fully did He reach the type of the heavenly man, to which believers are one day to be conformed. Believers, then, though living, are, in respect of their present bodies, unfit to enter on the kingdom of God.
What is ’the kingdom of God’ here spoken of?
Clearly not this present time ; it is not the Church, or the Gospel. Our present bodies are suited to the Church state, but they are not fitted for the heavenly department of the kingdom of glory. This phrase refers to that kingdom to which believers are now invited, and towards which they are gradually, while obedient, moving on (1 Thessalonians 2:12, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 2 Thessalonians 1:5, Galatians 5:25). The manifested kingdom of God has two aspects - its first (or imperfect), and its final state. Its first phase is the kingdom when given into the hands of Christ, who is to subdue all to His Father. Of this mention has been made in some previous verses of this chapter. During that thousand years it is called " the kingdom of the Christ and God" (Ephesians 5:5, 2 Timothy 4:1). It is then the kingdom of God, in opposition to the previous four empires of men. But that is imperfect. It is not meant to last for ever. Its design is to glorify and reward Christ, and His working and suffering people. Satan, set at liberty, discovers anew his wickedness and the wickedness of man; and then earth with all it has, is burnt up.
Then is the eternal state and kirtgdom of God introduced.
Now, to that eternal state, its atmosphere, its enjoyments and employments, our animal bodies are not suited.
Paul is speaking of believers under the Gospel.
There will be Jews and Gentiles dwelling in bodies of flesh and blood, who will have part in the millennial promises on earth. But that is not true of believers under the Gospel. These last either are lost, or they enter on eternal life in bodies suited to that state. The English word ’ inherit ’ gives a false idea of the sense of the Greek. It means ’ to have part in a thing;’ it does not mean ’to receive an estate by virtue of birth.’1 Though new birth be necessary for the millennial kingdom, that alone is not enough. These bodies, then, of flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom, because they would be unfit for the presence and glory of God. They could not sustain its atmosphere; their possessors would fall down as dead. The whole man, then, must be fitted to enjoy the kingdom. Our spirits are preparing for it now. But we retain to the end of our present course the present outward man. Grace, even in Paul,* *He here uses the word "brethren" to intimate his entire oneness with them in this. His body and theirs were quite on a level. No words of Scripture are useless or mere form. left his body one of flesh and blood. The outward man was tending to decay at the same time that the inward man was being built up and renewed from day to day (2 Corinthians 4:16). The two parts of us, then, are at discord ’ but God means to remove that discord, and to set the whole man fully to enjoy his eternal kingdom of glory.
A body, animal and mortal, is not suited to the new stimulants and sphere of the life to come. How could it bear service day and night? Much more, how could it bear the presence of God? And even if it could support these, it would soon be worn out. But as eternal life is won for us, so is an eternal body also. "
Neither doth corruption enjoy incorruption."
Paul in these words disposes of the other case, the body of the dead believer. If the body of the living believer be not fit for the kingdom of glory, much less the body of the departed. If the body of the living be unfit, because of its being but flesh and blood ; much less is the body which is turned to corruption. That is not fitted even for this world - is obliged to be hidden away. The kingdom of glory is a kingdom into which death cannot enter, and that cannot be enjoyed in bodies over which death and the curse of the Garden have dominion. The city of God is one of the living : it is never to be defiled by the bodies of the dead; never to be entered by disease or pain. Death defiled the persons and habitations even of the living in Jerusalem. But God’s city is the seat of incorruption. Decay and its products, animal or vegetable, are to have no place there.
Corruption, then, or the opposite state, is diametrically unfit for the place, employments, and life of the sons of God. This must be got rid of, therefore, before they can enter on that kingdom and its triumph over death. This twofold condition of the believer, as alive or asleep, is one of which Scripture takes note always. So Paul in 1 Thess. iv. deals with the sleepers and the waking. So throughout the rest of this discussion he uses two words, in order to take in the two different aspects hereby introduced.
Observe here the opposition of Scripture to Sweden- borgianism and Spiritism. Death is to them necessary, in order to enter man’s final and blissful state. Not so with God. The happy, they think, are to enter on their bliss, only by what Scripture calls an w«clothing. To the Scripture, the dead and the living are alike unfit for the kingdom of God (however right as respects their souls), because of the unfitness of their bodies. This fitness for glory must be given by a new and eternal establishing given to the bodies, both of the one and of the other. The departed believer cannot enjoy the kingdom, because it is a kingdom of in- corruption, and his body is in a state of corruption.
Till, then, that difficulty is wholly removed by the body which has been laid in the tomb becoming changed into an incorruptible one, he cannot enter.
According to these errorists, a part of the man is laid aside for ever, and was always meant to be abandoned. Death and corruption (to them) are not the penalty of sin, and the body may rot, for it never more is to be used. The reply of the Swedenborgian to the question of the text must have been in entire opposition to that of the apostle. " How are the dead raised up ? " The errorist would have said - ’
Every day you behold it. Death is resurrection. The soul extricating itself from the corpse is the only resurrection. It has been going on thus from the first : it ever will be so. It is a natural and inevitable process, taking effect at once alike on the righteous and the wicked.’ " With what body are they coming?" He would have said - ’ There is no " coming " at all. It is rather a going away. Your question supposes some great change as about to be introduced. I tell you, nay.
It is throughout a natural process, and from the foundation of the world to eternity there will be no change in the matter. You ask about the kind of body. It is a body ordinarily invisible, and incapable of being touched by the living ; though capable, through mediums, of being seen and sometimes handled.’ And, if so, it must be wholly unlike the body of our Lord, who yet is set forth to us by Scripture as the pattern of our redemption in resurrection.
51, 52. Behold I tell you a secret; we shall not all sleep, but all shall be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. In the ancient manuscripts there are considerable diversities of reading in this verse, some contradicting the text we have, by transferring the ’ not.’ " We shall all sleep, but not all shall be changed." These changes have arisen out of dislike of the sentiment, and inability to reconcile what is said here with that other word - " It is appointed unto men once to die." ’
How, then, if all men are to die [the word " all " is very frequently added to the text of Hebrews 9:27], can it be true that some are not to sleep (or die)?’ The difficulty is solved by seeing, that Paul is there speaking of what is appointed to man fallen, unredeemed, and under judgment. For he goes on to say - " After death comes judgment." Nor is Paul there speaking of what he is treating of here - a mystery or secret not before revealed - but of what was testified to Adam and his sons ever since the fall.
What is meant by " mystery ? " In English we usually mean ’ something not cleared up or unintelligible.’ ’ Who the man in the Iron Mask was, must ever remain a mystery} But that is not the Scripture sense. In the New Testament it signifies what was once a secret of God’s bosom, but is now revealed.
It does not mean ’what cannot be understood ;’ on the contrary, the revelation given of it makes it perfectly capable of being understood and clear, as clear as any other ordinary portion of the Word of God.
Now the apostle proceeds to deal with the second of the questions suggested in verse 35. He has been treating first, and up till this moment, of the question - ’ With what kind of body are the dead to come?’
Now he returns to that which was first suggested - ’ In what manner are the dead to be raised V He has prepared the way for this by stating the difficulty, or rather moral and physical impossibility, which lies in the way of the believer’s entering, in his present bodily state, on the glory which is prepared for him.
However holy he may be, even if it were the apostle Paul himself, his body is but the ’animal body’ of flesh and blood, which is unsuited for the heavenly places and for an eternity of life. And if the bodies of the living believers are unfitted for it, how much more the bodies of the departed, whose remains are ’ corruption?’ Till this point was by Paul cleared up, great difficulties beset the way ; of which the Epicurean adversaries of resurrection who were found at Corinth doubtless took advantage. It has been put thus : ’ Either all will die, and then who will bury the last? Or, not all will die; how, then, shall they arise again?’ This we answer by observing- (1) That Paul is now treating of believers only, and of all believers. They are caught away out of the world, both Jews and Gentiles. Whoever are accounted unworthy are left still on earth. Some believers, then, will be found alive on earth when Christ comes. ’
We shall not all sleep.’ This also was Paul’s testimony in 1 Thess. iv., where the saints of that region supposed that only the living would be able to have part in the millennial kingdom. But Paul omits there to treat of the question which is here mooted. There he had spoken of the rapture both of the living and the dead. But he had not spoken of their bodies, or of the obstacle to their glorification which is found to attach to the bodies of believers, whether found in life or under death. The Thessalonian believers were in trouble only concerning the dead saints. Paul therefore calls them ’the sleepers in Christ,’ whom He will easily awaken. But here he treats of the difficulty which attaches equally to the living believer. This physical hindrance in both cases will be shaken off in a moment by the miraculous action of Christ (Phil. iii.). While, then, some will be found still alive at the moment of Christ’s coming, a change must take place upon their bodies, as well as on the bodies of the dead, in order to fit them for the atmosphere, the companionships, the employments, the eternity of the glory. "We must all be changed." The ’all’ here does not mean ’all mankind.’ Paul is speaking of believers, and among them he ranges himself. ’ We must all be changed.’ For Scripture distinguishes resurrection where ordinary theology confounds it. Till within the last fifty years prophecy was not studied, nor had the distinction between the first and the second resurrections been observed and accepted. For till then Romish ideas on prophecy held their ground. The Reformers were content to consider the primary question - How sinners were to be saved ? Until that was settled to the satisfaction of the soul, there was no room for the doctrine of the resurrection of the righteous apart from that of the wicked. Rome, by its doctrine of infused righteousness, had made a man’s salvation turn on his perfection of inward holiness ; instead of on the perfect work of Christ outside him. Hence none felt really justified or accepted before God, or able to go to Him with the confidence of sonship. The privileges of believers were therefore unseen. None durst regard himself as a saint and in favour with God. That was ’ presumption and fanaticism, for had he not evil within him?’ Hence the blessed distinctness
143 of resurrection, as it affects the saved and the lost respectively, was naturally overlooked. The doctrine of the resurrection of the righteous a thousand years before others was set aside, and the book of the Apocalypse dismissed as a mystery that none could penetrate. Resurrection, consequently, was one great act at the same moment for all alike, the saved and the lost. Hence the eyes of most fastened on the parable of the Sheep and Goats, as alone answering to their views. All were to rise, and there, in the presence of Christ, were for the first time really, perceptibly, and eternally to be distinguished. Not till the angels had severed the Sheep from the Goats would the saved know that they were saved. But that parable really says nothing about resurrection. It treats of the judgment of the Gentile nations, who will be alive on the earth. The case of the saved of the Church, whether living or dead, has been already disposed of by our Lord in the previous parables - of ’ the Days of Noah,’ ’the Robbed Householder,’ ’the Faithless Steward,’ ’ the Ten Virgins,’ and ’ the Talents ’
(Matt, xxiv., xxv.). These were all decided on principles utterly unlike those of the Sheep and Goats. The above named parables treat of those who are of the Church of Christ, who are to be caught up to the Lord’s presence before He appears in glory, and to come with Him. The Gentiles (or Sheep and Goats) are judged only after Christ has appeared as the Son of Man attended with His angels, and has descended to earth to judge the nations according as they have dealt by a third party - ’His least brethren’ - that is, the nation of Israel.
Observe, too, another point touching the same views of Rome, for what end was the one great resurrection which they taught, to take place? F ’or judgment. For the decision of the question - ’Are you to be saved or lost ? ’ And so it is still said (where God’s truth about this matter has not penetrated), that the archangel will sound his trump and cry - ’Arise ye dead, and come to judgment.’ But Paul is not treating of the judgment for life or death. That he had summarily touched on above, after he had spoken of the previous resurrection of the saints at the Lord’s descent, and during the time of His Presence (verse 23). Then comes the Saviour’s kingdom (verse 24), and in that thousand years His favoured ones are to have part. That kingdom is to put down all opposing force, and specially and finally to end the force of death. This ending of death, the last of our foes, will take place after the thousand years of bliss and of the kingdom are over. The true position of the Christian, then, as already saved and owned of God, puts to flight all these ideas.
Those who are already Christ’s are caught up to His presence before the Jews or Gentiles alive on earth are dealt with, as is proved by verse 23, and by the testimony of both Epistles to the Thessalonians. There we see that as soon as the Lord descends, His people, alive or asleep, mount up to meet Him, as stated in 1 Thess. iv. After that comes the day of wrath upon the world, and a destruction which overtakes them quite unprepared, after they have lulled themselves into the sleep of unbelief. The same appears also from 2 Thess. ii. There the saints are assembled to Christ’s presence in secret, and so escape the trial and wrath which fall upon the world after their removal, because of the abandonment of the Christian faith, the rise of the Antichrist, and his reign of blasphemy and power for three and a half years. When that is complete, the Saviour and the saints, already on high in their pavilion of cloud, suddenly appear to earth by the rending of the cloudy curtain, and the power of the Great Usurper is gone, Satan’s kingdom is ended, and the thousand years of Christ’s empire are begun.
Again, it is supposed that " the trump of God" sounds in order to the general judgment of all mankind. But not so the Word of God. We may say that the
K trump of God is only used in reference to God’s people, either that of Israel, or of the Church. And to this the shadows of the law bear witness (Num. x.).
There were to be two trumpets. God has two people ; one of the earth and the flesh, one of the spirit and of heaven. The design of the trumpets was to gather the assembly of God’s people to Moses and to God.
Five special times the trumpet is named in the New Testament. Hebrews 12:19 notices the assembly of Sinai, when the congregation of Israel, on the third day, was summoned by God, and was led by Moses to meet Him at the Mount of God. It was not all the world that gathered at that sound, but only God’s ransomed ones. Probably that trump was not heard save by Amalek and the Edomites, or those near to Sinai. At any rate, none but the redeemed from Egypt collected themselves at that signal. And answerably hereto, Jesus tells us, that after He has appeared in the sky, and Israel have repented, He will send His angels with a trump of loud sound, and gather His Israelite elect from the four quarters of the earth (Matthew 24:31). But His heavenly elect are already on high with Him in the glory, and Christ has been with them for years in the heaven. There are, then, three other New Testament passages in which the trumpet is referred to. These are, 1 Thessalonians 4:16.
There Paul is comforting the saints of God possessed of the resurrection-hope, and distinguished from " the Gentiles, who know not God." At that, the signal of Christ’s descent, as at Sinai, the saints are to mount up to God. In this chapter Paul is speaking of the trump in connexion with the Lord’s people only. At that, as God’s signal, the saints are to be changed. In Thessalonians, then, the apostle speaks only of ’the trump of God,’ for he is telling of our great assembly and our gathering together unto Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:1).
Here he speaks of " the last trump," because he is telling us of something to take place upon all the saints after the rapture ; that is, he is speaking of the great and final change of glory. The last passages are found in Rev. x. and xi., which give us intimations of the last of the seven trumps. In Revelation 10:6, the angel-witness who comes from heaven testifies on oath, that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished. Accordingly, in Revelation 11:15, when the seventh angel sounds, not ’ earth is burnt up,’ but its kingdoms become those of God and of Christ, and His reign for evermore begins. Then the elders recognize that as the time of God’s resuming to Himself the power which for awhile He lent to the Gentiles. The Gentiles are wroth, and God’s wrath cuts them off, His living foes. Then comes the season of the thousand years, in which the dead are judged, and reward is given to God’s servants, both of the Old Testament and the New. Moreover, as we advance further into the book we find, that the thousand years of the kingdom and its reward precede the judgment of the dead, who are to be tried for salvation or damnation. The trump, then, refers not only to the assembling of the people of God to Christ, but to the kingdom of Christ’s glory. By sound of the last trump, a thousand years before the judgment of the rest of the dead, the kingdom of the Christ is proclaimed, and the reward of God’s saints and servants is entered upon. That is "the last trump." There, is then, no other last trump of God, nor are the wicked summoned to judgment by any signal trump.
Moreover, the trumps of God’s ordaining were not only to proclaim assemblies, but also to introduce to feasts. We believe, then, that the trump of God, the last trump, introduces some into the feast of Tabernacles, the heavenly rest of a thousand years which remaineth for the people of God. Romanistic views, then, put the last trump out of its true and proper
149 place, and give it an intent not accepted in the Word of God.
But, again, a difficulty rises, which has been pressed a good deal by unbelievers. ’Is it not clear that Paul and his fellow-apostles were under a mistake in regard of the coming of Christ? Do they not take it for granted, Paul especially, that himself and the men then living would behold Christ’s return in person ? Does he not speak of " we who are alive and remain to the coming (Personal Presence) of the Lord?" But the day has gone by for ages, and no Christ has appeared. We scout the idea of the destruction of Jerusalem being the Personal coming of the Son of Man. Is it not, then, evident that Paul, and Paul speaking by inspiration, was under a delusion? And, if so, what becomes of inspiration itself? How can that be trusted fully which has already deceived us ? ’ To this we reply : Paul speaks not as one deceived, but as one ignorant, as was our Lord Himself, of the time of Christ’s return. Our Lord commands all to be awaiting Him from day to day while we live.
Paul does so, and bids the Christians of his day and of every day till Christ descends, to be expectant of His coming. The expression he uses - "we who are alive and remain," applies to, and is used by, us of this day, as it was by him. In our mouths it means not, that Christ will come while we are alive. Neither, then, did it have that signification in his. Besides, Paul was inspired to know that he would be cut off by a violent death before the Saviour’s coming (2 Tim. iv.). The great moral features of the Church in relation to the Lord’s advent, and in relation to the world and its currents, are the same now as then ; and the Lord’s command - ’ Watch ’ - applies to every disciple till the Lord is seen by us. It is still the day of God’s patience, of Israel’s and the world’s unbelief, and of membership by faith in the Son of God as then. And whether Christ tarry till we fall asleep, or whether He come while we tread the earth, we are reconciled to either alternative. We accept the reasons for God’s tarrying ; we accept also the time when that patience shall cease, and the great and terrible day of the Lord begin. To return to the text. "We shall all be changed in a moment;" that refers to the instantaneousness of the change in the case of the dead. " In the twinkling of an eye," describes the instant as it affects the mortal believer, or those still alive in the flesh. The motion of the eye is one of the last signs of life, and the involuntary motion of the eyelid, which does not really interrupt our sight, is an example of the extremes! rapidity of bodily movement. The spiritual renewal of the believer is slow, and oft hindered, but the bodily renewal of the believer, whether dead or alive, shall be effected by God’s unchecked agency in an instant. So in previous resurrections wrought by the Saviour ; the rising up followed instantly on the command. But while I am able to solve the difficulties named above, there is one remaining, the greatest of all. It may be thus stated : - ’ This passage tells us, that the resurrection of the righteous and the change of both the living and the dead believers, occurs at a single instant - the same for all. Moreover, that instant is fixed at the last trump. Now, from Revelation we know that seven trumps in all are to sound. The last trump of Paul, then, is the seventh trump of Revelation. The Apocalypse itself confirms this, as we have seen ; by declaring that at the seventh trump mystery shall end. By the Apocalypse, then, an orderly series of events in time is given to us. When the first trump of the angel in heaven shall sound, all may know that there must be six more before Christ shall appear, and the kingdom shall come in its glory. But, if so, how do you reconcile these truths, with what you are accustomed to teach - that Christians are always to be ready, because Christ may come any day. It appears, on the contrary, that the seven seals must be opened, and the seven trumpets blown, before the visible advent of Christ.’ The difficulty is great. Darby and some others seek to get rid of it by saying - ’ You are not to introduce into the question the seven trumpets of Revelation. The last trumpet is not to be taken as literally the last of a series of seven. The word "last" is to be taken in a military sense, as indicating the time of the army’s motion, which was usually after one or more preparatory trumpet-notices.’ This does not satisfy me. I cannot but connect ’ the last’ trump of Paul with the seventh of the Apocalypse. Beside, for Scripture meanings give us Scripture texts and customs, not customs of the world of Gentiles outside. My solution, then, is this. I establish, first, the truth that there are more raptures of saints than one. The omission of this leads into many difficulties. In the Apocalypse I find seven different raptures.
Let me briefly present them.
1. The first is that which occurs as soon as the Churches are no longer reckoned God’s witnesses.
Christ spues them out of His mouth (Revelation 3:16).
But, then, there are some Christians on earth whom
He can thoroughly approve. They are sufferers for the truth, and are at once caught up to heaven. This I read in the opening verse of chap. iv. A door in heaven is opened - the cry follows-’ Come up hither ; ’ then the waiting one is in spirit in heaven (1, 2). This is the type of a rapture to come.
2. Then comes the Great Multitude, gathered, not out of Israel on earth, but " out of all nations." They a& set, in resurrection-bodies, before God and His throne, and serve Him there day and night in His temple. They have come out of the Great Tribulation : for this long period of the Church’s trouble will then have ended.
3. The third example is that of the two Witness- Prophets, who, after being slain and lying unburied in the streets of Jerusalem three days and a half, at length awake from the dead, and ascend before the eyes of their persecutors into the heaven. Then follows earthquake, and men by millions are cut off (Rev. xi.).
4. The fourth example of ascent is seen in the Woman’s Son, the Man-Child, who, before the Dragon’s eyes, is caught up to God and to His throne. Satan fights to keep him out of the heavenly places, and to prevent His wresting the dominion over the nations of earth out of his grasp. But he loses the battle, and is cast down. And while heaven rejoices over his de- feat, and the kingdom has come to the heavenly regions, earth’s darkest, bitterest, most sinful day has arrived. Satan’s king is then set up, and reigns (
Rev. xii.).
5. In the fourteenth chapter, however, there is a band on the heavenly Mount Zion in company with Christ : the redeemed out of the earth, the 144,000, the First- fruits to God.
6. Towards the close of the chapter the Harvest follows in due course, as we should expect from the types of the Law. The Son of Man, who was in the days of His flesh the Sower, now reaps. His angels are sent, and His wheat is gathered into the heavens.
7. The last rapture occurs when the day of the world’s tribulation before the appearing of Christ, is almost at an end. The bowls (vials) of God’s wrath have been poured out upon the followers of the False Christ as far as the sixth. The demons that aid the False Christ and his False Prophet have gone out to assemble the kings and armies of the earth to battle with Christ. Then follows the announcement of the Saviour’s coming as a thief, and of the woe to any unwatchful one left to the time of the Lord’s appearing. ’
But,’ it may be said, ’ how does the proof of these seven raptures relieve the difficulty ? ’ My answer is,
155 We must distinguish, as I apprehend Scripture does, between the resurrection and the rapture of the believer, on the one hand; and his change, on the other. With this distinction between the rapture and the change, we can understand how seven raptures, or even more, may intervene before the Saviour’s appearing in His kingdom. There may be raptures before the first trump, and up to the seventh vial.
It has been shewn from the Apocalypse that so it will be. The first two raptures occur before one of the trumpets has sounded. But the final change of both the living and the dead believer, already rapt into heaven, may take place at one and the same instant, under the seventh trump. Thus we reconcile the two views.
There is only one objection that I see against this. It is that the dead, ’sown in dishonour, are to be raised in glory’ (verse 43). If it be affirmed that that must take place at the moment of resurrection exactly, and that the dead must at once, on coming forth from the tomb, assume their bodies of brightness, I cannot see any way of escape. But I do not so take it, as far as I can see at present, (1.) The Saviour’s body of resurrection, while immortal, and while He rose as the pattern of our resurrection,was not glorified. The glory did not shine out from it till after His ascent into heaven. (2.) Moreover, the dead are to rise first, before they and the living ascend into heaven (1 Thess. iv.). Now, if the dead rise glorious, they are glorified before the living. But this passage asserts, that the living and dead are both to be changed at the same instant, and that at the seventh trump. I suppose, then, that there are many raptures, each embracing some both of the living and of the dead, both of the Old Testament and of the New ; but that their final change of glory takes place at one point of time after their ascent, and that it is at the seventh trump. " The dead shall arise incorruptible." By ’the dead’ are meant those whose parts - body and soul - have been severed; those parts being lodged in different places. Until the time of their reconstruction they have not entered on their final state of bliss. Their ’ arising ’ is the knitting together of the sundered parts, and the man’s entering on his eternal sphere.
Part of the man is now under corruption, and no effort of ours can restore the fallen building, or recall the inhabitant to it. But the God that has thus severed will also, in a moment, rebuild : will undo the chains of custody and slavery from both body and soul. When the dead come forth out of their tombs, it will
157 be at the signal of the trump of God, and the bodies of His accepted ones will never more be assailed by corruption.
There must be a special previous change which shall affect the dead ; as 1 Thess. iv. shews. The dead must first arise, ere they and the living are together caught up to the Presence of Christ.
It is not said - ’ the dead must arise glorious.’ Our Lord’s body, as at first raised, was not glorious - and He is the pattern for our resurrection. If it should be pressed - ’ But it is said, " Sown in dishonour, raised in glory ; " and that, therefore, this change must take place at the instant of resurrection’ - I confess myself unable to disentangle the knot. "
We (the living) must be changed." As the dead are to rise before the living are dealt with, it would seem that there is to be an after-change, which is to affect both the living and the dead at the same instant, and apparently after the ascent to the presence of Christ. The change, then, is at once to fit the believer for his entry on the Presence of Christ, and on the kingdom which follows thereon : and the signal of this is the sounding trump. And now let us consider the opposition of this, God’s scheme, to the theories abroad in our day; specially to Swedenborgianism and Spiritism, which are in all essentials the same.
1. Spiritism, then, does not really allow of resurrection. The body which is laid down at death is with them never to be taken up again, never to rise, never to form part of the man. Resurrection in Scripture is the undoing of death, the coming forth of the body out of the tomb in which it was laid, or toward which it would have to be carried, or was carrying. Such is Jesus’ statement of the resurrection, as applying both to the saved and the lost (John 5:28-29). Such was His manifestation of the thing in act while He was on earth, in His raising Jairus’ daughter, the young man of Nain, and Lazarus. Such was His own perfect example : laid in the tomb soon after death, He came out thence embodied on the third day.
Again, this passage adds a new feature of opposition.
Death is an unclothing ; resurrection is a clothing with a body. And while it appears that the body which is laid down will in part be resumed, it appears also that there is an element from heaven to descend on it, and complete the change. Four times we have " put on," in relation to the resurrection (2 Cor. v.).
Thus the Scripture account stands fully opposed to that which makes the man’s unclothing at death his resurrection. With that scheme, the soul’s escape from the body at death is the only resurrection.
2. In regard of the time of resurrection, the same opposition obtains. Scripture speaks of resurrection as about to take place at a future day, and at an unknown time. It is to be a breaking in upon the ordinary course of things at an instant, and by miracle.
It is to be effected, not by the current and active powers of nature, but by the power of God super- naturally put forth for that purpose. For this end Christ is to descend from on high, and by His mighty call and miraculous power is to summon His own elect from their graves. This, then, stands opposed to every theory which asserts that there is nothing for man beyond the usual results at death, which takes place for each singly, which have been going on thus since the world was framed, and will go on thus for ever. For this system cannot admit of prophecy.
It does not own the Son of God’s return from on high. And thus it shews that its teachers are Antichrists.
Swedenborg admits but one Person in the Godhead. Jesus Christ is both Father and Son ; and the Son was put off entirely at the cross.
3. Again, as to the source of death, it and the Scripture are in opposition. According to them, death is not the result of sin, nor any expression of God’s displeasure at the breach of His command in Eden. There is, indeed, no wrath at all in God.
He never will inflict the torments of hell on His foes.
There is no real future judgment for the dead who are now assembled, according to Scripture, in Hadees.
Each one, as soon as he dies, goes to his company, and continues the employments and finds the enjoyments he found while alive. As they deny the fall, there is no atonement in Christ, and no imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
Each is to do his best, and that will suffice for God. His threatenings of wrath against transgressors are not to be believed. But what of His actual judgments? - the Flood, Sodom, the Red Sea? These things are spiritualized away. Adam and Noah were churches ! Death, which Scripture calls " the last enemy" is really no enemy at all : it is the kindly porter who opens to man his eternal destiny.
4. Again, we have observed the two-fold partition of mankind which this Scripture introduces. It distributes men into the two classes of the living and the dead on the one hand, and the saved and the lost on the other. Now, the scheme we are considering does not allow of this discrimination. All at death, whether good or evil, depart to their sphere. In Scripture, on the other hand, we see that the Son of God is to assemble to Himself the righteous a thousand years before He raises the wicked dead out of their sepulchres.
5. With the Spiritists’ scheme, death is the one portal of man’s entrance on his eternal state. Had this been the apostle’s doctrine, the trouble at Thessa- lonica, which his two epistles shew, could never have arisen; or he must have written very differently in reply. They were troubled, because, as they thought, departed believers would have no part in the kingdom of Christ at His appearing. Such an idea would never have arisen out of the teaching of Swedenborg, or of Spiritism. That affirms, that the dead are in a better position than the living. Those systems know of no return or appearing of Christ, or of any kingdom to come to heaven and earth at an unknown day.
Moreover, Paul’s reply was as opposed as possible to Spiritist views. He assures the Thessalonians that death was no obstacle to the entrance on this future glory. As death had been endured and shaken off by Christ, so its fetters will in a moment be cast off by the Lord’s people, who are asleep in death ; and both the living and the dead of His saints will together be caught up in clouds to meet Christ descending into air. Paul here assures us, that by reason of the state of their bodies, both living and dead believers are unfit for the coming kingdom of God’s glory. Spirit- ism would allow that bodies of flesh and blood are unfit for man’s final state. But that the dead, by reason of their bodies’ ’ corruption,’ cannot have part in God’s abode and glory, they would utterly deny.
According to them the dead are already in their eternal abodes. The body and its corruption are taken leave of for evermore. Of course, therefore, the doctrine of the thousand years, and of the reward to God’s faithful servants, can have no place with them.
Thus, then, we find a noted opposition between the Scripture plan of redemption, and that of Spiritism. May I beg my reader well to notice these points, as they will steady him in any conflict with Spiritists; and if he will cling to Scripture, he will soon be set beyond their entanglements.
53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption ; and this mortal must put on immortality. As the kingdom of God must be given into the hand of Christ and His fellows, for so hath God decreed; and as these bodies, whether on this side of death, or on the further side, are unfit for those new and eternal scenes, therefore the above change is necessary to both parties. The dead bodies must be changed into incorruptible ones ; the living must be furnished with bodies unassailable by death.
Observe the seeming inconsistency, as related to the resurrection-body, of the two expressions here used. ’ This - must put on.’ The resurrection-body, then, will be derived from two diverse sources : one of earth, and one of heaven. One portion will be taken from its present substance; one will be an addition from heaven, made thereto by Christ. It will not be wholly a new creation, entirely independent of anything now possessed. That is established by the previous assertions, that the new body stands related to the old one, as the plant that arises is related to the seed sown. The same truth is assumed in the word " this." The same is true also, in its own way, of the body of the living saint. Hence the apostle says not only, "this corruptible," as referring to the dead; but "this mortal," as embracing the case of the living. But it appears, too, that while the body is in part preparing for its final state, a heavenly element must be imparted, which is described as a " putting-wz."
Four times is this new feature noticed. It is something distinct from the present body, as a dress which is preparing for us is distinct from our body. The same truth is as definitely asserted by Paul in his Second Epistle. The Holy Ghost there teaches that the complete human being of eternity is made up of two parts - now separable, and oft actually separated. Paul speaks of them, therefore, as ’the outer man’ and ’the inner man.’ On these parts of man two different processes are now at work, in the case of the believer. The ’outward man ’ may be perishing, as exposed to the perpetual conflicts and employments of life, waxing old through the lapse of time, even if not (as in Paul’s case) also through the strokes of persecution, and the excess of labour. But ’the inner man’ - the jewel in this case - is being renewed or polished day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). Then follows a more expanded account of the matter. " For we know that if our earthly house of the tent be taken down." Here death is compared to the removing of a tent. The pole has been lifted, and the canvas stretched out, and fastened by pegs into the soil. But the owner would take it down. He strikes the tent-pole, and the canvas is a heap - a tent no longer ; unable to shelter the man.
Just so does death make of our body a heap. Its tension is gone; the muscles are relaxed; the inhabitant is turned out of it. "
We have a building out from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Here, then, is a view of the heavenly and unseen body which is to come upon our earthly one, and is to be for ever knit to it. " For in this we groan " - it is quite habitual -
"desiring to be clothed upon with our house that is out of heaven." That does not refer to the mansions in which the risen are to dwell. They are to go up to them; but this is to come down on and to be put on by them : something as near and as habitual to them in all places, as their clothing. " If at least, even when clothed, we shall not be found naked."
Here is one of Paul’s striking and startling sayings ; not understood at a glance, and yet containing matter of the utmost moment. There are, then, two clothings - as there are two parts of the man. When the outer man is clothed with the new body, the inner man may be ««clothed. ’ But how is that possible if the apostle be speaking, as he is, of believers ? ’ " How shall we be found naked ? "
Thus : not a few at Corinth, and since then, though clad in the righteousness of Christ imputed, are not clad in " the fine linen, which are the righteous acts of the saints." Hence Paul states this as a check on the desirableness of the change into the new body. Some believers are not ready for Christ’s coming and kingdom, and so do not and cannot echo Paul’s statement of the desirableness of the change. " For we that are in the tent groan, being burdened, not that we wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." The present body is to our future one only as a tent - so slight and moveable an affair - is to a house, with its firm and eternal foundations. Moreover, the troubles of life make us wish for a change - a new scene, that shall prove an escape from the perils and trials of the wilderness. Yet observe, Paul does not say, that he desires death as the final, or the superior scene. He expressly excepts this. ’ Not that we would be unclothed.’ As unclothed, we are not fit to be presented to God as His sons. We are to wait for His presence till we are clad. But we wish "to be clothed upon!’ Here, then, we find the heavenly and completing element of the resurrection-body. In this view it is to be a house coming down from God, a house in heaven and out of heaven ; yet not a house made with hands, as houses ordinarily are. Then shall mortality be swallowed up by life. Thus, then, the eternal body shall be a compound, a development from within and from below, a clothing-on with what is from above and from without; and these two shall remain firmly amalgamated and abide fastened together for ever. Thus the bodies of the dead saints and the living are to be transformed in a moment from their present conditions in relation to death and its effect, corruption. The corrupt is to take on incorruption. The mortal is to put on immortality. Thus Scripture does not assert the natural immortality of the soul - true though that be. That view of man’s eternal destiny was one which suggested itself to philosophers, away from Israel and the Church. They believed, generally, that the soul survived death, and disputed about its immortality. But the Scripture doctrine is that which to the wisest Greeks appeared unphilosophical and foolish ; the restoration of the whole man, the re- knitting the scattered parts, and the redeeming the body from the slavery of corruption for evermore. At this the wise Greeks mocked. They knew neither the need of redemption, nor the work of God’s Redeemer, whom Paul would make known to them.