(Continued from page 50.)

CHAPTER XI.

The Resurrection and the Eternal State

That the Old Testament teaches a resurrection both of the just and unjust, has been abundantly made clear; also, that it implies that the condition of men after resurrection will be their final and permanent condition. As has been said, the resurrection will not be a bringing back to their present earthly life. Neither the righteous nor the unrighteous will be subject to physical death in the resurrection state. The spirit brought out of Sheol, and the body recovered from corruption, being reunited will never again be separated.

It is certain that, in Old Testament times, they knew that man's present condition was not a final one. Indeed they did not need revelation to tell them so. It is certain also that believers in revelation knew that Sheol was not the permanent and final home of the departed spirits. We are absolutely sure that those who received the divine testimony believed in a future life, not only beyond death, but also beyond resurrection, in which both just and unjust would be in a condition of life to abide for ever. It will be not so easy, of course, to determine what their conception was of man's final and eternal condition;, nor can we speak with precision as to their idea of the distinct portions of the just and the unjust in that eternal condition.

There are, however, a few things which we can confidently predicate. There can be no doubt that
such as believed in the promise of life and incorruptibility understood that they would then stand in the unchanging favor of God-however feeble may have been their grasp of the blessedness promised. I do not mean that they realized the full truth of either God's eternal favor or disfavor. Neither had been revealed then. God had not fully manifested either His love or His wrath. But believers in God's promise made to faith, knew that the condition of life promised them would be in God's eternal favor.

This appears evident in various ways. Not only is it implied in the promise of life and incorruptibility in Gen. 3 :15, but the ways of God with men of faith indicate it. Take, as an instance, God's clothing Adam and Eve with coats of skins. It was a token to them of His acceptance of them on the principle of faith-a pledge that He passed over their sins, with promise of life and incorruptibility. Those coats of skins must have meant to Adam, not merely a temporal release provided for them, but the promise of eternal salvation, with recovery of the body that had been doomed to return to the dust. These coats of skins gave them a divine warrant to say, I am carrying about the sign of life beyond death-of life in resurrection-of life depending, not on my obedience, but on the promised Seed, whose heel will crush the serpent's head; and life depending on Him must be eternal. The acceptance of Abel's sacrifice was testimony to him that God accounted him to be righteous, not in himself, of course, but in virtue of the One on whom his faith and hope were fixed. This testimony of God to him would mean an abiding acceptance before God, and apledgeof the life and incorruptibility which God had set before faith.

In the translation of Enoch, those who believed in the promise of life and incorruptibility must have seen a fulfilment of that promise. It was a testimony to the power of "the Seed of the woman " to deliver not only from sin and Satan's power, but to transform and transfer from the earthly condition into a heavenly one. Enoch taken up to be with God and abiding there, implies the spiritualization of the earthly body;, and however dim their apprehension may have been as to the condition of life upon which Enoch had entered when he was translated, it was a plain intimation of the condition to which God would ultimately bring the subjects of His grace. Though the full blessedness of the condition of life indicated was not yet revealed, there can be no doubt that it set forth a condition of life in which God and redeemed men would be together in perpetual harmony.

Passing on to Abraham, we see him represented as a pilgrim and stranger on earth, on his way to an abiding home. We have the authority of the New Testament for asserting that the explanation of his pilgrim life is in the fact that "he looked for a city which hath foundations" (Heb. ii :10). On earth he had no permanent dwelling. He looked for a city established by divine hands, which cities on earth are not. An eternal city he had in mind. The country he was journeying to was a heavenly one, in an abiding condition of life. Abraham went on in his pilgrim path undisturbed by fears of forfeiting the country which God had called him to, believing that God would carry him through into the eternal portion He had set before him. He knew that, whatever intervened, the final goal was secure. He knew death might intervene; that he might be a sojourner in Sheol, yet that prospect could not make insecure the final and everlasting abode God had prepared for him. He knew that, should he die, he would rise again, and that as a complete man he would inhabit the city of God.

I am aware there are some who say that all the illustrative cases we have considered are taken from times before the law was given. It is thought that the great change in God's ways, initiated by the giving of the law, must have operated to greatly obscure the vision of eternal things; that even men of faith could not face eternity in the same confidence that seems to have characterized believing men before the law. The case of Hezekiah is sometimes pointed to as showing this. But it is a mistake. If the account of Hezekiah's experiences and burdened mind be carefully considered, it will appear that they related to earthly things rather than heavenly and eternal ones. In Isa. 38 :9-20 his plea is that if he is cut off from among the living, as God has intimated, he will be cut off from the service and worship of God on earth. As a believer in the prophetic word, his faith had laid hold of certain promises, such as the visible manifestation of Jehovah in the land of the living-of Messiah on earth. If he must go to the land of the dead he would miss the realization of the hope of every godly Jew. Hence he pleads, "I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living :I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world."

It is not that Hezekiah did not believe in the resurrection. He knew there would be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust, and that it would not be a coming back to this present earthly life, but in another condition. Death seemed to him to involve the loss of a great blessing and privilege. And to be " cut off in the midst of his days " implied being under the displeasure of God. God's promise to annul death had not yet been accomplished ; death, therefore, was viewed as penalty for sin. Faith laid hold of the promise as to life and incorruptibility-giving courage to face death-yet many questions could not be answered until the full revelation came. Hence, until the resurrection of Christ, in whatever energy faith looked on to the eternal issues, death would be feared, with a consequent state of bondage (Heb.2:15).

If we have rightly explained the state of mind of Hezekiah, we can understand that his exercises were not as to the eternal issues. We apprehend that the men of faith before the law had similar questions and exercises. Job is a clear illustration of this. That he believed in life and incorruptibility beyond death is certain. He also was assured that he would have part in it (Job 19 :26). But he dreaded death. He shrank from Sheol. Many questions as to that untried condition he was not able to answer. Yet with all the exercises indicative of a perturbed state of mind as to Sheol, no doubts appear as to the final and eternal condition of life, but many indications that he conceived of it as a state of blessedness. As a risen man, in soul and body reunited, he would "see God." It would be a recovery to God, to an eternal abiding in Him.

But if Old Testament believers contemplated a future and final condition of existence in communion with God, what conception could they have of the eternal portion of the wicked ? "It shall bruise thy head" certainly implies, as we have seen, the complete overthrow of the kingdom of evil – the absolute undoing of the work of Satan. The condition of the wicked in resurrection, therefore, would be one of reprobation and of eternal subjection – one in which activities in sin would be impossible. In their case, dying would be, not in hope, but in their iniquity. Resurrection would bring no escape nor deliverance from the due of their sins. Raised, they would still be of the race of Satan, and for ever at enmity with the race raised up through the promised Seed; for clearly the enmity put between Satan's seed and the woman's Seed is perpetual. But once Satan's power is completely crushed, he can no longer rule his own seed. The all-conquering Seed of the woman shall rule over them. "It shall bruise thy head " was a divine pledge that the existing enmity would be forced into perpetual subjection.

The full realization of this eternal subjection to the power of the promised Seed – the Second Man – could not be until illuminated by the cross of Christ. There it is where the wrath of God is revealed (Rom. i :18). But if saints of O. T. times could but dimly see God's eternal wrath, they could say, it must be eternal. Believing in God's testimony of the resurrection of both just and unjust, they would believe in the existence of the wicked under an eternal reprobation. Sheol being, so far as the wicked are concerned, a prison-house where their departed spirits are confined (Isa. 24:22), they knew that was not the final condition of their existence. They knew, on the authority of divine testimony, that the wicked dead will rise as well as the just; that their final judgment will be eternal; and that in bodies raised from the grave they will be in their final and permanent condition. I think we may say that believers in the testimony of God could not suppose the eternal state of the unjust to be "life and incorruptibility." They would surely feel that if the righteous were living with God, the wicked would be living without Him. C. Crain

(To be continued.)