(Continued from page 214.)

Chapter VI.

A few Examples illustrative of the Hope that was in the Old Testament Saints

In verses 16-19 of Gen. 3 God speaks directly, first to the woman and then to Adam. These solemn words express the condition of what human earthly life must be, now that sin has come in. Until it passes away it will be a life of toil, trouble, and sorrow. Fallen man is on the way to death. Everywhere on his earthly path, is inscribed the divine sentence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

It is evident, however, that as Adam faced the new conditions which his transgression had brought him into, he was sustained and upheld by the wondrous revelations he had listened to when Satan's doom was pronounced. In the light of these revelations he could look beyond death. By faith he could see, in the grace of God declared, a scene of life upon which no sentence of death can come-in a resurrection to life, immortal, eternal. Not that he could yet realize all the blessedness of it, as further revelations surely were needed; yet faith, in the purposes of God thus far declared, could behold a future life in which the subjects of God's saving grace would be victors over death and corruption.

If challenged for proof of this, I cite verse 20:"And Adam called his wife's name Eve." We are not left to imagine his reason for so naming her. He did so, "because she was the mother of all living." Faith caused him to give her that name, "Eve." If it is said she was the mother of the human race, it is not denied; but if Adam had thought of natural descendants merely-doomed to death – he would have said, Mother of all dying. But if " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," was ringing in his ears to emphasize the warning threat, "Thou shalt surely die," he had also heard of a seed the woman was to have by grace, between whom and the tempter there would be perpetual enmity. Faith in the blessed announcement fixed his eyes and heart oh this new human race. To him it was not a dying race, but a living one. He called, therefore, his wife's name Eve.

This manifests a deposit of faith in Adam's soul. The living and abiding word of God had found entrance there, effecting a moral and spiritual change, making him thus a new creature. He believed in the life and incorruptibility which God had pledged to the woman; in the Deliverer whom He would raise up through her instrumentality-in a Man, whom Satan, sin and death would not conquer. Life and incorruptibility, though as yet not fully illuminated, shone upon his path. He lived in faith, in hope of a future life in the eternal favor of God, in which both soul and body would share.

Adam is a clear example of the faith which animated and cheered Old Testament saints; but we pass on to consider Abel, who both by his choice of occupation (a keeper of sheep) and his offering to the Lord (a firstling of the flock) set to his seal that the testimony of God is true. There is nothing to show that this testimony had come to him directly, but most probably from Adam and Eve. From them he could learn of the revelations God gave them; from them learn how God clad them in garments of skins, to procure which blood had to be shed; .that in clothing them thus God was testifying to their reinstatement in His favor.

The testimony of God taking lodgement in his soul, he could reason that acceptance before God must be on the ground of sacrifice for sin, not by culture of the soil, cursed for man's sake on account of sin. To have a sacrifice by which to declare his need before God he must be a keeper of sheep. His choice of occupation bears witness to the faith that was in him, and shows that he was a child of wisdom'; that he accepted the sentence of God against himself as a sinner, with no title in himself to divine favor.

In bringing his offering to the Lord he confessed that a substitute was necessary-a substitute able to suffer death, and remove the penalty to which he was exposed. That he believed the promised Seed of the woman was that Substitute is, I think, a just inference. His vision of Him may have been very dim, yet in faith he could associate life and incorruptibility with Him. Setting his firstlings before God as a type of the coming One he practically said, Though a subject of death, I shall live through Him who is typified by the offering I bring. God's acceptance of his sacrifice was witness to him of his acceptance on the ground of his faith in God's promise.

In this faith Abel died. He suffered for the faith he held, for the hope he embraced, for the testimony he received from God that he was righteous. God has witnessed to his faith, expressed in the sacrifice which he offered (Heb. 11:4).

Enoch is also a witness to the same truth, but in another way. Gen. 5 :21-24 describes him as one who "walked with God." Do we realize the import of this? We must remember he was not without divine testimony. He was in possession of the revelations God had given. As setting to his seal that the testimony of God is true, he believed men to be under the power of sin and subjects of death. He believed also that the same God who had appointed men to death and corruption had pledged Himself to give deliverance, to annul death, to bring into life and incorruptibility. In the light of divine revelation he looked beyond death. As seeking life and incorruptibility he not only witnessed to the judgment that is in store for the ungodly, but walked in daily intimacy with the One who had made known a way to life through One that would not be subjected to death. The realization of such blessed companionship was testimony to him that God found pleasure in his faith (Heb. 11:5). And Enoch did not die. God, the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, took him to Himself, transferred him from the visible and material world to the invisible and spiritual world. Divine power fashioned anew his body to be suited for existence in the spiritual world. His translation was a testimony therefore to life and incorruptibility.

At a much later day Elijah exemplified the same blessed truth. The evidence of his body being spiritualized is clear. The body that is of the earth and suited to man's earthly existence needs material covering; but when his body was spiritualized, his mantle was no longer required. The power of God wrought in his material body to refashion it; and by the same power the transformed body was taken up. In all this we see a testimony to life and incorruptibility. By exempting these two men from death, God gave proof of His ability to triumph over Satan. He had declared He would nullify Satan's work; and in changing the bodies of Enoch and Elijah, and transferring them to the spiritual world, He manifested His revealed purpose, and demonstrated His competence to defeat Satan, and accomplish for man the destiny for which He had created him.

The transformation and translation of Enoch and Elijah bore witness that the disembodied state is not man's final goal. The continued existence of the soul after death is plainly implied throughout the Old Testament, as well as in the New; but in the translation of Enoch and Elijah we have the witness, not only of the immortality of the soul, but of a final state of immortality in which the body will share, and dissolution be then no more possible.

Life and incorruptibility are also taught us in the record of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who bore witness that their earthly life was a pilgrimage.

Abraham, as he staked his tent, declared himself to be a sojourner on earth. His tent declares, I am a stranger here-a pilgrim, seeking a country -not an earthly, but a heavenly one (Heb. n:16).

Isaac walked in the steps of his father; he too was a stranger and pilgrim on earth. He died in the same faith as that of Abraham; he shared in Abraham's hope of a future life. He gave up his spirit to wait still for perfection-the reunion of the spirit with the body, thenceforth nevermore to see death and corruption. If the city of God was the ultimate goal before Abraham's faith, it was the same prospect that animated Isaac.

Jacob confesses himself before Pharaoh to be a pilgrim, and declares that his fathers before him had traversed the same pilgrim path, though his own had been shorter than theirs (Gen. 47:9).

But if these fathers of Israel were pilgrims through their life upon earth, the prospect of a future life was before them-a condition of existence which they did not enter upon when they died, but for which they are still waiting. In faith they looked beyond the death which ended their earthly career. They were believers in a future life – a life in resurrection and incorruptibility. Their hope was of abiding with God in eternal blessedness and communion.

In saying this, I am not attributing to them the light and knowledge of eternity which has been graciously vouchsafed to us. Life and incorruptibility had not then been illuminated as they now are; but God gave them hints of it which they embraced, and by means of which eternity was in their hearts. If they were strangers on earth they were not strangers to the eternal God. They knew the only true God. Though He had not as yet revealed His relation of Father to them, they knew Him and walked with and before Him. They could rejoice in the grace which opened God's paradise for those who had been shut out from the paradise of man. They builded on God's testimony, hence their minds and hearts were not on earthly things. Death to them was but a temporary thing. They looked
beyond it to life in resurrection. As believing in the testimony of God> they knew they were linked with a higher life than the earthly life forfeited through sin. I am constrained to say that perhaps, in some cases, there was a more profound sense of eternal life than there is in many of us who enjoy greater light. If so, it is but to our shame.

I turn now to job. It needs not to determine the age in which he lived, whether before or after the time of Abraham; it has no bearing on the subject with which we' are concerned. It is evident that the faith as to what God had revealed was in him. Whatever his perplexity as to the governmental ways of God towards him, however much in the dark he was as to their purpose, it is clear he did not believe that death ends all. He believed in the continued existence of the soul after death. Chap. 14 :13 is sufficient to establish this ("grave " in this verse should be Sheol- the place of the departed spirit), though other passages might be cited. God's hand was heavy upon him, and hard to endure, therefore he desired to be hidden in sheol until the turning of God's anger, when he knew he would be remembered.

But Job believed in the resurrection; of this chap. 19:25-27 is a strong expression. In verses 6-20 he admits that his sorrows are from the hand of God. It is a touching description of the pitiable condition to which God had reduced him. While it is all a mystery to him, unable as he is to explain the needs be for it, he is firm in the conviction that his friends completely fail to interpret God's ways with him. While his own soul is under terrible anguish as he drinks of the bitter cup pressed to his lips, he does not abandon himself to absolute despair. He has at least one ray of hope, one source of comfort. If he sees no relief from what he seems to be doomed for this life, his eye and heart are fixed on the life to come. He says, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." There is in his soul the consciousness of a link of life with One in whom is essential life, One on whom death has no power; and faith in divine testimony has taught him that this Living One will stand at the latter day upon the earth. Here, I think we may read Job's faith in the living Redeemer becoming a Man, and as such being the Judge of all.

But what is Job's confidence as to himself? Death is in prospect. He fully expects to die. He quite anticipates that his body shall return to the dust, yet he is assured of resurrection. He boldly declares that he will see the face of his divine-human Redeemer – and not as a disembodied spirit himself, but as recovered from death. He has no thought of his spirit remaining forever in sheol. He expects a new body. He believes he will live again as a complete man:" Yet in my flesh shall I see God " is his confident and triumphant language.

Not only this, but such is his conception of the blessedness that will be his, when as a risen man he shall be able to gaze on the face of his living Redeemer, that he declares his soul earnestly longs for it. He says, "My reins be consumed within me." (The marginal reading is:" My reins within me are consumed with earnest desire.")

It was the hope of life and incorruptibility that comforted Job. He is a brilliant example of the faith that was in Old Testament saints.

I need not cite other scriptures, though many more might be mentioned. Those referred to sufficiently illustrate the fact that there is in the Old Testament a teaching on life and incorruptibility- a doctrine of life beyond death; a condition of eternal life of which the body will partake as well as the soul. C. Crain

(To be continued.)