and short: the kingdom is Christ's, it is administered by His saints, we are His saints, we will take it by force. To reign on earth during the absence of Christ and before the resurrection, has been the one point in which the Anabaptists and Roman Catholics, Greeks and Protestants, have for the most part agreed; the distinction has been as to the manner in which that reign is to be realized.

In our own time, two currents of opinion are distinctly visible: one, perhaps most noticeable in Protestant bodies, a return to the prophetic teaching respecting the Messianic Kingdom, a growing belief that at the coming of the Lord, the Jews, restored to their land and to God's favor, will fulfill the purpose of their election under the Messiah, and that God will be sanctified through them in the eyes of all nations; the other, departing ever more widely from the prophetic teaching, and giving up all expectation of Christ's return, and even denying His present existence, believes in no supernatural future, but identifies the Kingdom with the general spread of civilization, and gradual improvement of humanity.

CHAPTER V.

THE ETERNAL LIFE, AND THE DEAD IN CHRIST.

WE have already seen that the Jews expected in the Messianic Kingdom a higher form of existence, a blessed life free from the evils of the present. This life was defined by the term "eternal." This phrase, eternal life, is first met with in the prophet Daniel (xii. 2), and later in the Maccabees, and other Apocryphal books. It was one in common use in the Lord's day, and is often found in the Gospels. The young ruler, as also a lawyer, asked the Lord "what he should do that he might have eternal life" (Matt. xix. 16, Luke x. 25); and the Lord Himself often employs it. We must, therefore, ask what were the elements of this conception of eternal life in the Jewish mind?

A chief difficulty in our inquiry is the vagueness of the terms, “life" and "death." We have only the one term life, to denote several distinct conditions of human existence. It is applied first, to that condition in which man was created, when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became "a living soul." The life of man as thus created in God's image, and for communion with Him, was complete as to its elements, body and soul being united; and was capable of development. But by transgression man came under the law of sin and death. This was a lower and evil condition of humanity, in which, and before the actual separation of

soul and body, there could not be fullness of life, either bodily or spiritual. After this separation man is said to be dead, yet the separated soul continues in a state of conscious existence. Thus it has a life in the body, its normal state; and a life without the body, its abnormal state. Death is both the act of separation of soul and body, and the condition of separation that follows it; the dead are the disembodied.

We have thus three distinct states of human existence: first, that of man as he was created, and not under the law of death; second, that after the fall, when he had come under the law of sin and death; third, that of the disembodied soul. To all these the term life is applied. To these we may add a fourth, the state after the resurrection, soul and body having been re-united. And of the disembodied we may make two classes, according to moral position, the good and the evil; and of the risen, also, two like classes, each having its own special conditions of life.

To which of all these differing states of human life, embodied and disembodied, good and evil, is the term eternal to be applied, using it in the sense of "everlasting," or "without end"? With the first, that of Adam as created, we are not here concerned, since it no longer exists. Nor can it be applied to the second, that of Adam as fallen, for all the fallen are under the law of death, and eternal cannot be affirmed of life in mortal flesh. Can we apply it to the life of souls disembodied, whether righteous or unrighteous? This cannot be, since disembodied life ceases in this form at the resurrection. We can, then, only apply "eternal" to that form of life which begins at the resurrection, and which is, therefore, without end; and it may be applied to all who are raised from the dead, both just and unjust. Thus, regarding eternal life as a defined form of human

existence which continues without end, it must be the life that follows the resurrection,-soul and body being then re-united, and not any that precedes it.

But eternal life thus defined may be good or evil, blessed or miserable, since there is a resurrection both of the just and the unjust; and we must take therefore into account another element than simple duration, and this element is a moral one. It is said by our Lord, "the righteous shall go into life eternal." In its common acceptation in the New Testament, it is a blessed life without end; and the chief element in this blessedness is full communion with God. We have, then, to ask to which of the possible differing states of human existence the term eternal life in the sense of full communion with God without end, may be applied?

Upon this point the New-Testament Scriptures are very emphatic; the term "eternal life," in the sense just defined, cannot be applied to any condition but that of the righteous after the resurrection, when they are brought into their highest and permanent form of being. There is, indeed, a life in communion with God common to the faithful on the earth and to the righteous departed. Both live in the Divine favor, and are spiritually blessed. But both are in a relatively imperfect condition, and one that is not permanent; the first being under the law of sin and death, the second being among the dead, separated souls. There is in neither of them fullness of life, according to the measure even of their original constitution; and because of this their communion with God is necessarily limited and imperfect. He who is in his original goodness, like a vessel unbroken, can receive from God according to his full measure; he who has fallen from it, like a vessel broken, can receive only in part. Neither the soul in the mortal body, nor the soul without a body, can enter into the

most Holy Place, into the very presence of the living God. Fullness of life, and, therefore, fullness of communion with God, is given to him alone, who stands before Him in the perfect integrity of his nature, wholly set free from the law of sin and death, and exalted in the resurrection to the highest form of human existence.

Having now before us the two elements of the conception of eternal life as the perfected and final condition of humanity, attained through resurrection, and admitting into fullest communion with God; we see that it was one that the Jews could not have had till Christ died and rose again. Their teaching under the law had been negative rather than positive. A chief point to be taught them was that the dead, even the most faithful, were not in full communion with God. Disembodied existence was never the Jewish ideal of human blessedness; sheol is never set forth as a place where God is revealed. He dwells among the living; and the dead must arise, and return to the light of day, and stand before Him in His holy hill, if they would behold His glory. As the highest manifestation of Himself was to be made in the coming Messianic Kingdom, it was life in this Kingdom that was the object of spiritual hope.

So deeply had this teaching respecting the imperfection of disembodied existence taken root in the Jewish mind, that it was not till the Grecian period (333-167 B.C.), and through the influence of Greek philosophy, that other beliefs began to find adherents. It was said, that the soul is a part of the Divine essence; that any union with matter as in the body, hinders and defiles it; that such union is, therefore, temporary; and that, when released from the body, it enters in virtue of its ethereal nature into its true and higher condition of being. It was under the influence of this philosophy that the dis