THE FIRST RESURRECTION. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.--Rev. xx:5,6. The first resurrection was when the morally dead of our Saviors time heard and obeyed his call: Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.--Eph. v:14. They lived and reigned with Christ. This spiritual living was the first resurrection. It was here in this world. Those who experienced it were not exposed to the second death; it had no power over them. Eusebius, the historian, says not a Christian was slain during those fearful times. They lived and reigned with Christ. The first resurrection and the second death were entirely confined to this world. If any one objects to the exclusive application of these terms to the times and circumstances to which they were applied by John, it may be said that they also are applicable to us. We are dead in trespasses and sins. If we awake to righteousness, we rise out of this moral death, and this is our first resurrection. But if we continue indifferent and sinful, we are experiencing the second death, a condition that will continue until he who led captivity captive shall destroy our destroyers, and the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed, and the final resurrection shall come, beyond which there shall be no more death, neither shall there be any more pain. LET HIM BE UNJUST STILL. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.--Rev. xxii:11. This language is often understood to teach that those who are unjust, or filthy, or righteous, or holy, at the death of the body, will remain unalterably fixed in that condition forever. If this were true, then millions of infants would be miserable to all eternity, for those who understand the text to relate to the future state of existence also teach that infants are born and die with depraved and corrupt natures. But a careful reading of the context shows that the revelator has no such reference. He declares that the time of its application was at hand; saying, Behold, I come quickly. The whole book was written, according to its author, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. The approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and overthrow of the Jewish state are the topics prophetically described throughout the book. The second overthrow of the Jewish nation was at hand. This event was to signalize the establishment of the Christian religion, and therefore it assumed immense importance. When the great event took place, those who had not previously become converted were fixed in their wicked ways, were filthy still; while those who had embraced Christianity were righteous still. The death of those spoken of is not referred to; the condition described is in this life. Tomsons Beza gives the correct view: This is not as were other prophecies, which were commanded to be hid till the time appointed, as in Daniel xii:4, because that these things should be quickly accomplished, and did even now begin. ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.--Phil. iii:11. All men are to attain unto the literal resurrection. It does not depend upon human effort. What resurrection can man accomplish by his efforts The context shows. Paul is exalting the Gospel when he says: And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death: if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Evidently he refers here to a rising into that moral condition that Jesus occupied. He frequently employs this idea. Knowing this, that the old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.--Rom. vi:6. The resurrection to be attained follows the crucifixion of the old man. Seeing he had not yet reached that condition, Paul says: Not as though I had already attained, neither were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. He inculcates the same idea when he says: How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Again he says that we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together, in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. The resurrection which Paul strove to attain unto, and for which we should all strive continually, is from sin to holiness, from the death in trespasses and sin to the life in Christ. The Greek word ana-stasis signifies resurrection. The element stasis may be traced back to the old Sanscrit root sta, to stand, or, to stand up. The element ana is intensive, and in this case has the sense of again. The word ana-stasis, then, signifies literally a standing up again, or the resurrection. It is standing up a second time, after having fallen down in death. The resurrection to be attained by human effort is the rising out of sin into Christian manhood or womanhood. SHALL NOT SEE LIFE. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.--John iii:36 This is a simple statement of the effects of belief and unbelief, regardless of the duration of the consequences. As long as one believes, life abides with him, the aionian life of the Gospel, while the unbeliever is deprived of this life. He that believeth hath everlasting life, though by unbelief he may forfeit it, and regain it again by believing again. Such passages as these illustrate the New Testament use of the term: You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.--Eph.ii:1. The believer hath passed from death unto life.--John v:24. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.--I. John iii:14. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.--Rom. viii:6. The question of the duration of the life or the wrath is not raised in this passage. It remains, in either case, as long as the condition remains that causes the life or the wrath. AS THE TREE FALLS SO IT LIES. And as death leaves us, so judgment finds us, is the home-brewed method of mis-quoting the language of Solomon. There is no such text or idea in the Bible, nor anything like it. The language referred to reads thus: If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.--Eccl. xi:3. It has no reference whatever to death, or the end of probation, though so often quoted both in and out of the pulpit. The book of Ecclesiastes is the wail of a misanthrope, who looks back at the end of a wasted life, spent in the gratification of ambition and sensuous appetite, and from its wreck draws a lesson for those who are setting out upon the voyage which he has ended. In the eleventh chapter, he counsels men to prepare for misfortunes before they come, and in this counsel is embodied the advice of the text, which may thus be paraphrased: It never rains but it pours; and when the wind has blown over the trees you have planted with such care, that is the end of them; there is no putting them up again. THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.--I. Thess. iv:15-176. We regard this as obscure and highly figurative language. Christs second coming was not a literal, visible, but a spiritual coming. All the other language is to be interpreted in harmony with his coming. There was no shout, no literal trump, nor did the literal dead literally rise at his coming, which occurred during the generation which was on earth when he lived. The dead in Christ were first; that is, those who had died Christians rose to the first position in the estimate of mankind. The imagery all points to that second coming which occurred while some of those lived to whom the words of the epistle were addressed. THE HARVEST PAST AND WE NOT SAVED. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.--Jer. viii:20. This is the text of many a revival sermon, the word saved being wrested from its true menaing, and forced to relate to deliverance from an endless hell. The prophet applies it to deliverance from those national calamities to which the Jewish nation were at the time subjected by Nebuchadnezzar. They were besieged, without preparation, on the verge of winter after harvest, and were not saved from their enemies. Dr. Clarke says: The harvest is past. The seige of Jerusalem lasted two years: for Nebuchadnezzar came against it in the ninth year of Zedekiah, and the city was taken in the eleventh. (See II KIngs xxv:1-3.) This seems to have been a proverb: We expected deliverance the first year--none came; we hoped for it the second year--we were disappointed; we are not saved--no deliverance is come. FIRE The word Fire is employed in the Bible; sometimes it is to be understood literally, and at other times it is emblematic of Gods judgments. It is made synonymous with punishment in Matt. xxv. The wicked nations are sent into a fire that is called everlasting punishment. This everlasting punishment we shall hereafter show to be reformatory. The fire prepared for the devil and his angels is equivalent to the punishment to which they were sent. OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE. This language (Heb. xii:29) is usually misread thus: God out of Christ is a consuming fire. but it must not be supposed that the unchangeable God, he who is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever, without variableness or the shadow of turning, is modified for better or for worse, in any mode of his manifestation to man. What God is in Christ he is, and ever must be, out of Christ. He is a consuming fire always and everywhere. But this fact does not render God forbidding, repulsive, when we understand it. There is no relation sustained by our heavenly Father, no figure by which he may properly be represented, that can be understood, without inspiring impulses of gratitude and joy in the mind that comprehends the truth presented. God is Love, therefore is the consuming, unquenchable fire of infinite and divine love. He cannot, therefore, be anything else than love to his children, and what the fire of human love is in the heart of a human parent, the fire of Gods love is in him, only multiplied by infinity. Trace this sacred element from its lowest manifestatin in the heart of reptile or brute, up through its holy of holies in the breast of the human mother, and onward up to God himself, and it has but one purpose, and that is to cherish its object, and to destroy all that would harm that object. God is a consuming fire towards his children--but it is the fire of love and not of hate. George MacDonald well says: Nothing is inexorable but love. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of loves kind, must be destroyed. Our God is a consuming fire. It is the nature of love, so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship God, but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus; yea, that will go on within us, after all that is foreign to us has yielded to its force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God. It is not because God hates us, but because he loves us, that he will burn towards us by all the disciplinary processes needful, until he has burned away that sin in us which is contrary to his nature and hurtful to us. HE IS A REFINERS FIRE He burns to purify. He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. Could the melting metal feel, how might it misunderstand the process through which it is passing. The unrelenting fire burns beneath the crucible, and the dirty, unsightly ore becomes like liquid light, and circulates as useful coin, and sparkles on the fingers of happy brides, and shines on the sceptres of kings, and in the coronets of queens. And all because the severe and purifying fire of the refiner has tried it. Inasmch as the consuming fire of God is refining, we learn that it only destroys the dross of sin, and leaves the spiritual gold, the immortal soul, unscathed and pure when its blessed work is finished. GODS JUDGMENTS LIKE FIRE. Many phenomena are feared because not understood. The savage thinks thunder the voice of an angry deity, when it is the rolling of Gods chariots as they carry health and life through the air. Because fire is sometimes the author of apparent calamity, its beneficent character is lost sight of. It is the right hand of civilization. Its chief office is not destruction, but service. In fact, it destroys nothing. It decomposes substances, releasing constituents from existing relations, but all the elements remain intact, undiminished. Every particle in a substance burned exists still, and is ready to be taken up again in new forms. If we burn a stick of wood, and carefully preserve the smoke and the ashes, we shall find that they weigh a little more than the wood weighed--just as much more as the oxygen weighed that combined with the flame in the process of combustion. The ultimate particles are all preserved, not one disturbed or changed from its original form and size, and they are released by fire that they may go out into the great laboratory of nature, to be again employed in new forms of utility and beauty. Science declares that the ultimate particles of which all substances are composed are like microscopical bricks; they never lose form or identity, but, let loose from any combination by fire, or otherwise, they are ready to be again taken up in other forms. Destruction is a mere incident in the biographuy of fire--a preliminary process; fire is the great emblem of purity. When, therefore, we read in the Scripture that Gods processes of dealing with his children resemble fire, or that he is a fire, we must remember these characteristics, and interpret the allusion in the light of scientific facts. If fire never destroys an atom of the material universe; if fire is only a process by which God is reconstructing his universe, why should men imagine that Gods moral fires are other than healthful and beneficial in the moral world? It need not be claimed that the authors of the Scriptures were familiar with these facts, but we shall find that they so far perceived the office of fire as to use it accurately. Thus: For thou, oh God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us as silver is tried; we went through fire and through water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.--Ps. lxvi:10-12. Silver is tried that its impurities may be purged away. The hotter the furnace, the more certain is the precious ore to be purified. Again: Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiners fire, and like fullers soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.--Mal. iii:2,3. **Gods consuming fire refines, purifies, and purges aways the dross of sin. Hence says the apostle: Every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is. If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any mans work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.--I Cor. iii:13-15. The exacting love of God, demanding purity, can do no less than destroy all that is opposed to the purity and happiness of its object. Thus everlasting fire, the furnace of fire, consuming fire, unquenchable fire, and all the forms in which fire figures in the Bible as an emblem of Gods dealings with men, denote the severe but kindly and disciplinary character of Gods judgments. There is always a beneficent purpose in all Gods dealings with men. Divine love is seeking and securing by severe processes, sometimes as though by fire, the welfare of those towards whom the flame burns. The holy flame forever burneth, From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. When Universalists say, God is Love, and others reply, Yes, but he is also a consuming fire, our reply should be, No, he is Love and a consuming fire, The two terms are not contradictory but synonymous. Nothing precious will perish or permanently suffer from the consuming fire of God. Sin, error, evil, will perish; but the soul will come forth from the conflagration purified as silver is purified, perfectly reflecting its Makers image as it never can until the impurities of time are consumed, and it returns to that purity it had when it came from the hand of that being in whose image every human soul is created.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 12:23:52 +0000