Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER XXIX
THE RESURRECTION OF JUDGMENT
THE Lord, in the 5th chapter of the gospel of John,
declares as distinct the "resurrection of life" and "the resurrection of
judgment." I have before noticed that the word "damnation" in this place (as in
ver. 24. the word "condemnation") is the ordinary word for "judgment."
Dr. Farrar, it is well known, has raised the question as to whether the former
word and its cognates really occur at all in the New Testament. I should agree
with him entirely in discarding them in favour of a consistent rendering of the
Scripture words all through.* But he means that this should go a good deal
further, and evidently to expunge, if possible, the thought of what we now mean
by "damnation" from Scripture along with the word. But "damnation" is only
eternal judgment, in the true (not his) sense of "eternal," and "eternal
judgment" is asserted in the fullest way. And when he tells us that the
"judgment of Gehenna" is "something utterly different from the "damnation of
hell," we must entirely differ from him: but this will come up anon. The fact
is that the unutterably solemn meaning now attaching to damnation has only
grown out of the impression which that eternal judgment has made upon those who
believed the Scripture statements.
*In such passages as 1 Cor. xi.
29, 1 Tim. v. 12, Rom. xiv. 28, the ordinary rendering is impossible and
misleading, as he rightly urges.
Mr. Cox objects, that if any "take
the judgment of God as equivalent to damnation, that
can only be because they conceive of the divine judgments as though they were
confined to the future life, whereas the Scriptures constantly affirm that God
judges all men, good and bad, every day and all day long; and because they
wholly misapprehend the character of the divine Judge and Father" (Salv. Mun.,
p. 51, Amer. edit.).
It is Mr. Cox who does not apprehend the
difference between the judgment of the Father, now for our profit, and the
judgment of the day in which "the Father judgeth no man." The two are
contrasted by the apostle: "The time if come that judgment must begin at the
house of God and, if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that
obey not the gospel of God? And, if the righteous scarcely be saved, where
shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?" (1 Pet. iv. 17, 18; compare ch. i.
17, 18; John v. 22-24; 1 Cor. xi. 31, 32).
But Gods judgment has
with Mr. Cox no such meaning as would bring terror to an ungodly soul. Of a
sensualist living prosperously in the world he asks, "Where is the judgment of
God? Where is it? Why, there in the man himself, and in his base content with a
lot so base" !
But in some places "damnation" is even inferior in force
to that word "judgment," apparently so much less strong. In that before us for
instance its use has obscured the solemn reality that none can come personally
into judgment before God, except to be condemned. This is everywhere what
Scripture asserts, and here with a force perhaps little less than that of any.
For it is only "they that have done evil" who come forth to a "resurrection of
judgment" at all. How plainly this should tell us that the saints cannot be
numbered among those spoken of as raised for judgment according to their works
before the "great white throne" (Rev. xx. 11-15).
Yet this very passage
in the gospel has been assumed to prove a general resurrection of saints and
sinners together, because it is said" the hour cometh in which all that are in
the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth," etc.; while a simple
comparison of three verses before this would demonstrate that the "hour" in
which the Son of God has been quickening dead souls has lasted now eighteen
hundred years from the time He spoke. The Lord merely asserts here the general
fact that all shall hear His voice, while He contrasts in the most absolute way
the character of the two resurrections to which He summons them.
People
imagine that but one obscure passage (which is not obscure however) in a book
of visions is the only one which can be brought forward for a "first
resurrection" of the righteous, whereas in fact almost every passage that
speaks of resurrection infers it in some shape. There is even a special phrase
for it, "the resurrection out from the dead" (ek nekros), as to which the
disciples (who knew well the general truth of resurrection) inquired "what the
rising from the dead should mean" (Mark ix. 10). It was of this special
resurrection the Lord spoke, when in answer to the Sadducees He said that "they
which shall be counted worthy to obtain that world" - the world to come - "and
the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage,
neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels: and are the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke xx. 34-36). How
could people be "counted worthy" to obtain a general resurrection which no one
can lose or be the children of God as being the children of a general
resurrection?
Then again, where the apostle is expressly speaking of
the order of the resurrection, he gives it as, "Christ the first fruits;
afterward, they that are Christs at His coming." What more misleading, if
all were to rise at the same time?
Once more, in 1 Thess. iv. 16, when
the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, we are told, "the dead
in Christ shall rise first," then the living saints be changed, and all caught
up together to meet the Lord in the air; and this before He appears to the
world at all: for "when Christ who is our Life, shall appear, then shall ye
also appear with Him in glory" (Col. iii. 4).
The passage in Revelation
moreover is not obscure. We have a vision; then the interpretation of the
vision. "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto
them; and I saw the souls* of them that had been beheaded for the witness of
Jesus and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither
his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, nor in their
hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of
the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished." This is the
vision: and so simple in character that the interpretation repeats much of it
over again. "This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection: upon such the second death hath no power, but
they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand
years."
*Dr. Carson, in a violent attack, more suo, on pre-millennialism
has urged against literal resurrection, that we cannot say, "the souls of"
people, without meaning literal souls. But it is an entire mistake, as we have
seen long ago. It is a very common Hebraism.
Thus the millennium is
literally such, and the resurrection is literal, for these are given in the
interpretation of the vision, not the vision itself. And, after the thousand
years are over accordingly, we see the rest of the dead rise, and here plainly
is the "resurrection of judgment," in which by that very fact the saints can
have no part. All is thus consistent, clear, and intelligible. For all is true.
There is little said as to the resurrection of the unjust in Scripture.
The fact is affirmed. The nature of it is nowhere spoken of. It would seem
therefore the only possible thing to say nothing about it. But as Mr. Constable
proclaims it a point "of prime consequence" to know the unrevealed, and has
written rather a long chapter upon it in his work so often cited,* we must
needs follow him into the darkness. His arguments apply so little really to the
view of things which we have taken, that we need dwell comparatively on very
few of them.
*Nature and Duration of Future Punishment, ch. viii.
He first of all professes his firm belief in the resurrection of the
wicked, but holds that they are raised to die again. Here he is opposed to
Scripture as we have seen. In Scripture resurrection is the final end of death,
for "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." He, on
the contrary, holds that the bodies of the wicked are raised, "still natural
bodies as they were sown, resuming with their old life their old mortality, as
such subject to pain, and as such sure to yield to that of which all pain is
the symptom and precursor, physical death and dissolution." He rests this
conclusion "mainly on the supposition that no change passes upon them at their
resurrection . . . if no change passes upon them they must needs yield to the
bitter pains which accompany the second death."
He urges that the
"Augustinian theorists" admit this, and so have to affirm immortality and
incorruption of the wicked as raised. They therefore have to apply the language
of 1 Cor. xv., where the corruptible puts on incorruption and the mortal
immortality, to the resurrection of the ungodly; and when asked upon what
grounds they do so, they answer that there cannot be a resurrection without a
change. This he disproves by referring to Lazarus and others, and as to 1 Cor.
xv. insists that it applies only to the resurrection of the just.
He
then turns aside for a short time to show that the resurrection of the just is
the only one which is a fruit of redemption; and if Christ says, "I am the
resurrection and the life," He thus proclaims Himself the source of the
"resurrection of life" alone. Mr. Constable identifies then (as we have done)
the resurrection from the dead with this, and further states that the
quickening of the mortal body is exclusively confined in Scripture to the just,
especially referring in proof to the "if" of Rom. viii. 11: "If the Spirit of
Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth
in you." Thus "the resurrection of the just is the fruit of redemption: the
resurrection of the unjust has nothing to say to it. . . Christ came to give
no, fatal gift which should force everlasting existence upon myriads who asked
not for it, and would shun it with all their hearts."
Thus the
resurrection of the wicked being no part of redemption, Paul could not, in 1
Cor. xv., include it at all. This he proceeds to prove at length, but, as we
fully believe it, there is no need to follow him in his proof. He concludes
that the change to incorruption in the case of the wicked is essential to the
theory of everlasting misery; and, since there are no grounds for holding this
change, the theory which requires it falls to the ground.
Thus an
immense argument is built up upon the two props of ignorance and supposition.
Mr. Constable occupies a number of pages with what we have reduced to perhaps
three times the number of lines, for reasons already stated, but we have given
the substance. There are two or three considerations which hinder our
acceptance of his argument.
We grant fully that the resurrection of the
just is distinct in character from the resurrection of the unjust; and that it
is the former alone which is the fruit of Christs redemptive work. We
shall have more to say of this when we examine, as we hope to do, Mr.
Birks view. We fully believe also that the resurrection described in 1
Cor. xv, does not include in any way that of the wicked. "It is raised in
power," "it is raised in glory," "it is raised a spiritual body," could not
apply to any but "the just." Mr. Constable is wrong, however, upon one point:
for the "change" the apostle speaks of is not said of the risen saints, but of
those who are alive and remaining when Christ comes. "The dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we" - the living - "shall be changed. For this corruptible
(applying to the dead) shall put on incorruption; and this mortal (referring to
the living) shall put on immortality." Mortality cannot be affirmed of the
dead, and here certainly, as in 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17, the two classes are
recognized. The "change" applies to the living alone.
We dissent from
Mr. Constables view of the matter, in the first place, because his
argument proves too much. If the wicked are to be raised in a condition of
mortality, it is course impossible that they could exist forever, that is, in
the body. But it is equally impossible that they could exist for "the ages of
ages," as to which certainly Scripture affirms their torment. He must reduce
these indeed to a minimum in order to harmonize them with his theory. Nay,
more, a resurrection which is a mere restoration to a present condition
involves certain things of which we must all be fully aware. It involves the
being sustained by food to repair the continual waste of a corruptible body:
and thus he might have forcibly urged that hell would be soon cleared by
starvation, except upon the supposition of such a supply as we are certainly in
no wise justified in making. In any way "ages of ages" must be a myth, a dream,
an impossibility in the nature of things, as great as that of eternity itself.
But again, Mr. Constables view ignores the true nature death, as
I have shown it, a necessarily temporary provision in view of sins
entrance into the world, and to be finally done away, when "death and hades are
cast into the lake of fire;" and also that "after death" is "the judgment." If
death be this exceptional temporary thing, it is plainly a false view that the
resurrection of the wicked even will be to a condition of mortality; or that,
if not, it must be the fruit of redemption, and a work of grace inconsistent
with eternal judgment. On the contrary, "a resurrection of judgment" it is
expressly stated to be, and not grace, but the pursuance of the original
creative plan, only suspended for a time and for a purpose.
This in no
wise hinders the "resurrection of life" being due to Him who is "the
resurrection and the life," for the "image of the heavenly," the likeness of
Christ in which the saints are raised, is something immeasurably beyond what
man naturally, if sinless, would have attained.
That there should be
difficulties in connection with a subject of which Scripture says so little as
it does about the resurrection of the unjust need not surprise us, and will not
those who consider but .the mysteries which surround our present life. It may
be true that "incorruption" is not the state of the resurrection of judgment,
and this not involve at all what annihilationists insist upon. We know too
little to say much; but to bring our ignorance to bear against what is clearly
revealed is at least wholly unjustifiable; and this is what Mr. Constable is
doing in this case.
Mr. Hudson has somewhat upon this subject which
while we are upon it we may briefly glance at. He says of the unjust -
"It
is hard to believe that they are raised up by a miracle which ends in their
destruction, or that accomplishes nothing but a judgment, which in this view
must appear simply vindictive. If they have no immortality, why are their
slumbers disturbed? But if their resurrection is connected with the redemption,
by a law that finds illustration in analogous facts, this difficulty may be
removed. Damaged seeds that are sown often exhaust themselves in germination.
And we have noted the fact, that of insects which pass through the chrysalis
state to that of the psyche or butterfly, many, from injuries suffered in their
original form, utterly perish in the transition. Now the Glad Tidings of the
Redemption, quickening and invigorating the soul with new life, may so far
repair the injury done it in the fall, that even the unbelieving, who derive
many benefits therefrom in this life, may not altogether perish in the bodily
death. . . May not such truths, as food to the souls even of those who do not
cleave to Him who is the Truth and the Life, cause death itself to be divided,
as the proper effect and token of the Redemption? And for judgment, it is as if
the unjust, hearing the voice of God in the last call to life, should be
putting on a glorious incorruption, and should perish in the act."*
*Debt
and Grace, pp. 368, 264.
This is a step beyond Mr. Constable, and it
seems hard to understand how in this way the wicked rise at all. Certainly
judgment upon these abortions would be scarcely possible. Nor is the
resurrection of the wicked either an effect of redemption or a blighted natural
process, but an act of divine power alone. It is "God who quickeneth the dead."
Nor again does it appear on this ground how the heathen could ever rise. But it
is useless taking up seriously what must be the idlest of speculations in the
absence of revelation. They that have done evil will come forth to the
resurrection of judgment. That is revealed; and that death will be over and
ended when judgment begins and this alone completely negatives the conclusion
of annihilationism.
Go To Chapter Thirty
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