INTRODUCTION:

SYNOPSIS.

Relation of this subject to what has gone before.

I. BIBLICAL THEOLOGY:

a. The Resurrection of Jesus.

b. The change in His body due to the victory of the

spirit.

c. Peculiarities of the risen body.

d. Relation between the Resurrection of Christ and
the Resurrection of the dead. The apostolic
reception of the idea of the Resurrection.

e. The Pauline development of the Resurrection.
f. Moral Resurrection.

g. Spiritual Resurrection.

h. Cosmical Passion and Resurrection.

The Resurrection an answer to Pessimism.

The development of this Revelation in Historic Christianity was from the first not fully received. The opinion of Clement, of Ignatius, of Justin Martyr, of Epiphanius, Arius and Eusebius, of St. Irenæus, of Clement of Alexandria, of Theophilus of Antioch, and of Hippolytus touching the Resurrection.

III. COMPARATIVE RELIGION:

a. Theories of folk-faith which became factors in the development of the Christian Theology of the Resurrection. Jewish literalism and materialistic speculation.

b. Early theories about the life of the ghost, in Semitic folk-faith, in Norse legend, and in mediæval and modern superstition.

c. The Egyptian theory of the Resurrection of the

body.

d. Its influence upon the popular Religion and the

Theology of the early Christians, and its sur

vival to the present day. Its influence in the development of the cultus of relics and of some burial customs. Irreconcilable with the Pauline doctrine.

e. Gross literalism in the early development of the Theology of the Resurrection and the influence of this literalism upon the religion of the Middle Ages. Aquinas's attempt to develop the doctrine of the Resurrection. The Resurrection in modern folk-faith.

f. Some revivals of ancient and primitive theories offered as substitutes for the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection.

IV. - PRACTICAL CONCLUSION:

The ethical force of the true teaching of the Resurrection, and its answer to the scientific and moral scepticism of the day. The Resurrection the necessary result of the Immanence of God in human consciousness and in the world.

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Because in God we live, and move, and are, because the kingdom of God is as Leaven hidden in the meal of humanity, because by forgiveness of sin that vitalising Power permeates the deeds and the consciousness of men, transforming them as leaven transforms, it results that there is a Resurrection of the dead,1 as the symbol of Constantinople correctly words it. It is congruous that we should come, after determinating what we mean by asserting the belief of a Triune God in the Church, and in remission of sins, to the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. For such is the logical development of human receptiveness, and such is the eternal order in Divine operation. To believers only, Jesus after His Resurrection appeared. The sceptics of Emmaus did not discern their Lord until after their understanding had been opened.

I. a. Just what was the nature of the Resurrection of Christ? Of this we ought to have some definite opinion before we go on to discuss the Resurrection of the dead in general, because our Lord was "the first1 ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν.

fruits of them that slept." His first proclamation of His own Resurrection was under the figure of the sign of the prophet Jonah, who was sacrificed in order to propitiate a hostile power and yet appeared alive again. After the first important peculiarity, — namely, that He is the first to rise from the dead, — the second point to be noticed is that this rise shall be 2 "after three days," or, on the "third day.” This is the next distinctive characteristic; but there is a much larger meaning which demands our attention.

b. In distinction from prevailing notions of the Resurrection, as I shall point out later, our Lord signifies that His uprise will be to a higher plane of existence, where there is neither birth nor death. This characteristic of the Resurrection has not received the attention which its importance demands. This transition through death and Resurrection to loftier or larger conditions of life Jesus calls a baptism, and the Resurrection life the new birth,5 because it is a transition from a lower to a higher environment as physical birth is conceived to be individualisation of impersonal life. The Resurrection appears from this teaching of the New Testament to be a transition, that is, an ascent into superior conditions of existence. Yet from our Lord's words, "Destroy this temple, and

1 St. Matt. xii. 40.

2 St. Mark. viii. 31; ix. 31; x. 34.

3 St. Mark xii. 25.

4 St. Luke xii. 50.

5 St. Matt. xix. 28, παλινγενεσία.