Eschatology Of The New Testament (continued) – Eschatology Of The New Testament (continued)

Eschatology Of The New Testament (continued)

Various views have been proposed to explain the concrete features of the Pauline representation in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–17 and that of Revelation 13:1–18 and 17. According to Schneckenburger, JDT, 1859, and Weiss, SK, 1869, Paul has in mind the person whom the Jews will acclaim as their Messiah. The idea would then be the precipitate of Paul's experience of hostility and persecution from the part of the Jews. He expected that this Jewish Messianic pretender would, helped by Satanic influence, overthrow the Roman power. The continuance of the Roman power is "that which restraineth," or as embodied in the emperor, "one that restraineth now" (2 Thessalonians 2:6,2 Thessalonians 2:7). (For an interesting view in which the roles played by these two powers are reversed, compare Warfield in The Expositor, 3rd series, IV, 30-44.) The objection to this is that "the lawless one," not merely from Paul's or the Christian point of view, but in his own avowed intent, opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or worshipped. This no Jewish pretender to the Messiahship could possibly do: his very Messianic position would preclude it. And the conception of a counter-Christ does not necessarily point to a Jewish environment, for the idea of Messiahship had in Paul's mind been raised far above its original national plane and assumed a universalistic character (compare Zahn, Einleitung in das NT(1), I, 171). Nor does the feature that according to 2 Thessalonians 2:4, "the lawless one" will take his seat in the temple favor the view in question, for the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and later similar experiences may well have contributed to the figure of the great enemy the attribute of desecrator of the temple. It is not necessary to assume that by Paul this was understood literally; it need mean no more than that the Antichrist will usurp for himself Divine honor and worship. Patristic and later writers gave to this feature a chiliastic interpretation, referring it to the temple which was to be rebuilt in the future. Also the allegorical exegesis which understands "the temple" of the Christian church has found advocates. But the terms in which "the lawless one" is described exclude his voluntary identification with the Christian church. According to a second view the figure is not a Jewish but a pagan one. Kern, Baur, Hilgenfeld and many others, assuming that 2Th is post-Pauline, connect the prophecy with the at-one- time current expectation that Nero, the great persecutor, would return from the East or from the dead, and, with the help of Satan, set up an anti-Christian kingdom. The same expectation is assumed to underlie Revelation 13:3,Revelation 13:12,Revelation 13:14 (one of the heads of the beast smitten unto death and his death stroke healed); 17:8,10,11 (the beast that was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss; the eighth king, who is one of the seven preceding kings).

As to Paul's description, there is nothing in it to make us think of a Nero reappearing or redivivus. The parousia predicated of the lawless one does not imply it, for parousia as an eschatological term means not "return" but "advent." The Antichrist is not depicted as a persecutor, and Nero was the persecutor paragraph excellence. Nor does what is said about the "hindering" or the "hinderer" suit the case of Nero, for the later Roman emperors could not be said to hold back Nero's reappearance. As to Revelation, it must be admitted that the role here ascribed to the beast would be more in keeping with the character of Nero. But, as Zahn has well pointed out (Einleitung in das NT(1), II, 617-26), this interpretation is incompatible with the date of Revelation. This book must have been written at a date when the earlier form of the expectation that Nero would reappear still prevailed, namely, that he would return from the East to which he had fled. Only when too long an interval had elapsed to permit of further belief in Nero's still being alive, was this changed into the superstition that he would return from the dead. But this change in the form of the belief did not take place until after Revelation must have been written. Consequently, if the returning Nero did figure in Revelation, it would have to be in the form of one reappearing from the East. As a matter of fact, however, the beast or the king in which Nero is found is said by Revelation 13:1; Revelation 17:8 to have been smitten unto death and healed of the death stroke, to come up out of the sea or the abyss, which would only suit the later form of the expectation. It is therefore necessary to dissociate the description of the beast and its heads and horns entirely from the details of the succession of the Roman empire; the prophecy is more grandly staged; the description of the beast as partaking of several animal forms in Revelation 13:2 refers back to Daniel, and here as there must be understood of the one world-power in its successive national manifestations, which already excludes the possibility that a mere succession of kings in one and the same empire can be thought of. The one of the heads smitten unto death and the death stroke healed must refer to the world-power to be made powerless in one of its phases, but afterward to revive in a new phase. Hence, here already the healing of the death stroke is predicated, not merely of one of the heads, but also of the beast itself (compare Revelation 13:3 with 13:12).

And the same interpretation seems to be required by the mysterious statements of Revelation 17:1–18, where the woman sitting upon the beast is the metropolis of the world-power, changing its seat together with the latter, yet so as to retain, like the latter in all its transformations, the same character whence she bears the same name of Babylon (17:5). Here as in Revelation 13:1–18 the beast has seven heads, i.e. passes through seven phases, which idea is also expressed by the representation that these seven heads are seven kings (17:10), for, as in Daniel 7:1–28, the kings stand not for individual rulers, but for kingdoms, phases of the world-power. This explains why in Revelation 17:11 the beast is identified with one of the kings. When here the further explanation, going beyond Revelation 13:1–18, is added, that the beast was and is not and is about to come up out of the abyss (13:8), and in 13:10,11 that of the seven kings five are fallen, one is, the other is not yet come, and when he comes must continue a little while, to be followed by the eighth, who is identical with the beast that was and is not, and with one of the seven, the only way to reconcile these statements lies in assuming that "the beast," while in one sense a comprehensive figure for the world-power in all its phases, can also in another sense designate the supreme embodiment and most typical manifestation of the world-power in the past; in respect to this acute phase the beast was and is not and is to appear again, and this acute phase was one of seven successive forms of manifestation, and in its reappearance will add to this number the eighth. Although a certain double sense in the employment of the figures thus results, this is no greater than when on the other view Nero is depicted both as "the beast" and as one of the heads of "the beast." Which concrete monarchies are meant by these seven phases is a matter of minor importance. For a suggestion compare Zahn, op. cit., II, 624: (1) Egypt; (2) Assyria; (3) Babylon; (4) the Medo-Persian power; (5) the Greco-Alexandrian power; (6) the Roman power; (7) a short-lived empire to succeed Rome; (8) the eighth and last phase, which will reproduce in its acute character the fifth, and will bring on the scene the Antichrist, the counterpart and, as it were, reincarnation of Antiochus Epiphanes. The seer evidently has his present in the Roman phase of the power of the beast, and this renders it possible for him to give in Revelation 17:9 another turn to the figure of the seven heads, interpreting it of the seven mountains on which the woman sits, but this apocalyptic looseness of handling of the imagery can furnish no objection to the view just outlined, since on any view the two incongruous explanations of the seven heads as seven mountains and seven kings stand side by side in Revelation 17:9 and 10. Nor should the mysterious number of 666 in 13:18 be appealed to in favor of the reference of the beast to Nero, for on the one hand quite a number of other equally plausible or implausible solutions of this riddle have been proposed, and on the other hand the interpretation of Nero is open to the serious objection, that in order to make out the required number from the letters of Nero's name this name has to be written in Hebrew characters and that with scriptio defectiva of Qesar (Neron Qesar) instead of Qeisar, the former of which two peculiarities is out of keeping with the usage of the book elsewhere (compare Zahn, op. cit., II, 622, 624, 625, where the chief proposed explanations of the number 666 are recorded). Under the circumstances the interpretation of the figure of the beast and its heads must be allowed to pursue its course independently of the mystery of the number 666 in regard to which no certain conclusion appears attainable.

The following indicates the degree of definiteness to which, in the opinion of the writer, it is possible to go in the interpretation of the prophecy. The terms in which, Paul speaks remind of Daniel's description of the "little horn." Similarly Re attaches itself to the imagery of the beasts in Daniel. Both Paul and Re also seem to allude to the self- deification of rulers in the Hellenistic and Roman world (compare Zeitsehrift fur neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1904, 335 ff). Both, therefore, appear to have in mind a politically organized world-power under a supreme head. Still in both cases this power is not viewed as the climax of enmity against God on account of its political activity as such, but distinctly on account of its self-assertion in the religious sphere, so that the whole conception is lifted to a higher plane, purely spiritual standards being applied in the judgment expressed. Paul so thoroughly applies this principle that in his picture the seductive, deceptive aspect of the movement in the sphere of false teaching is directly connected with the person of "the lawless one" himself (2 Thessalonians 2:9–12), and not with a separate organ of false prophecy, as in Revelation 13:11–17 (the second beast). In Revelation, as shown above, the final and acute phase of anti-Christian hostility is clearly distinguished from its embodiment in the Roman empire and separated from the latter by an intermediate stage. In Paul, who stands at a somewhat earlier point in the development of New Testament prophecy, this is not so clearly apparent. Paul teaches that the "mystery of lawlessness" is already at work in his day, but this does not necessarily involve that the person of "the lawless one," subsequently to appear, must be connected with the same phase of the world-power, with which Paul associates this mystery already at work, since the succeeding phases being continuous, this will also insure the continuity between the general principle and its personal representative, even though the latter should appear at a later stage. It is impossible to determine how far Paul consciously looked beyond the power of the Roman empire to a later organIzation as the vehicle for the last anti-Christian effort. On the other hand, that Paul must have thought of "the lawless one" as already in existence at that time cannot be proven. It does not follow from the parallelism between his "revelation" and the parousia of Christ, for this "revelation" has for its correlate simply a previous hidden presence for some time somewhere, not an existence necessarily extending to Paul's time or the time of the Roman empire, far less a pre- existence, like unto Christ's, in the supernatural world. Nor is present existence implied in what Paul says of "the hindering power." This, to be sure, is represented as asserting itself at that very time, but the restraint is not exerted directly upon "the lawless one"; it relates to the power of which he will be the ultimate exponent; when this power, through the removal of the restraint, develops freely, his revelation follows. According to 13:9 his "parousia is according to the working of Satan," but whether this puts a supernatural aspect upon the initial act of his appearance or relates more to his subsequent presence and activity in the world, which will be attended with all powers and signs and lying wonders, cannot be determined with certainty. But the element of the supernatural is certainly there, although it is evidently erroneous to conceive of "the lawless one" as an incarnation of Satan, literally speaking. The phrase "according to the working of Satan" excludes this, and "the lawless one" is a true human figure, "the man of sin" (or "the man of lawlessness," according to another reading; compare the distinction between Satan and "the beast" in Revelation 20:10), Revelation 13:3. The "power" and "signs" and "wonders" are not merely "seeming"; the genitive pseudous is not intended to take them out of the category of the supernatural, but simply means that what they are intended to accredit is a lie, namely, the Divine dignity of "the lawless one." Most difficult of all is the determination of what Paul means by the hindering power or the hinderer in 13:7.

The most common view refers this to the Roman authority as the basis of civil order and protection, but there are serious objections to this. If Paul at all associated the Antichrist in any way with the Roman power, he cannot very well have sought the opposite principle in the same quarter. And not only the hindering power but also the hindering person seems to be a unit, which latter does not apply to the Roman empire, which had a succession of rulers. It is further difficult to dismiss the thought that the hindering principle or person must be more or less supernatural, since the supernatural factor in the work of "the lawless one" is so prominent. For this reason there is something attractive in the old view of von Hofmann, who assumed that Paul borrowed from Dnl, besides other features, also this feature that the historical conflict on earth has a supernatural background in the world of spirits (compare Daniel 10:1–21). A more precise definition, however, is impossible. Finally it should be noticed that, as in the eschatological discourse of Jesus "the abomination of desolation" appears connected with an apostasy within the church through false teaching (Mark 13:22,Mark 13:23), so Paul joins to the appearance of "the lawless one" the destructive effect of error among many that are lost (2 Thessalonians 2:9–12). The idea of the Antichrist in general and that of the apostasy in particular reminds us that we may not expect an uninterrupted progress of the Christianization of the world until the parousia. As the reign of the truth will be extended, so the forces of evil will gather strength, especially toward the end. The universal sway of the kingdom of God cannot be expected from missionary effort alone; it requires the eschatological inter-position of God.

4. The Manner of the Parousia:

In regard to the manner and attending circumstances of the parousia we learn that it will be widely visible, like the lightning (Matthew 24:27; Luke 17:24; the point of comparison does not lie in the suddenness); to the unbelieving it will come unexpectedly (Matthew 24:37–42; Luke 17:26–32; 1 Thessalonians 5:2,1 Thessalonians 5:3). A sign will precede, "the sign of the Son of Man," in regard to the nature of which nothing can be determined. Christ will come "on the clouds," "in clouds," "in a cloud," "with great power and glory" (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27); attended by angels (Matthew 24:31(compare Matthew 13:41; Matthew 16:27; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26); Mark 13:27; 2 Thessalonians 1:7).

VI. The Resurrection.

The resurrection coincides with the parousia and the arrival of the future neon (Luke 20:35; John 6:40; 1 Thessalonians 4:16). From 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:16 it has been inferred that the dead rise before the descent of Christ from heaven is completed; the sounds described in the later passage are then interpreted as sounds accompanying the descent (compare Exodus 19:16; Isaiah 27:13; Matthew 24:31; 1 Corinthians 15:52; Hebrews 12:19; Revelation 10:7; Revelation 11:15; "the trump of God" = the great eschatological trumpet). The two words for the resurrection are egeirein, "to wake," and anistanai, "to raise," the latter less common in the active than in the intransitive sense.

1. Its Universality:

The New Testament teaches in some passages with sufficient clearness that all the dead will be raised, but the emphasis rests to such an extent on the soteriological aspect of the event, especially in Paul, where it is closely connected with the doctrine of the Spirit, that its reference to non-believers receives little notice. This was already partly so in the Old Testament (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2). In the intervening Jewish literature the doctrine varies; sometimes a resurrection of the martyrs alone is taught (Enoch 90); sometimes of all the righteous dead of Israel (Psalms of Solomon 3:10 ff; Enoch 91-94.); sometimes of all the righteous and of some wicked Israelites (Enoch 1-36); sometimes of all the righteous and all the wicked (Ezra 4:1–24 Genesis 8:8;). Josephus ascribes to the Pharisees the doctrine that only the righteous will share in the resurrection. It ought to be noticed that these apocalyptic writings which affirm the universality of the resurrection present the same phenomena as the New Testament, namely, that they contain passages which so exclusively reflect upon the resurrection in its bearing upon the destiny of the righteous as to create the appearance that no other resurrection was believed in. Among the Pharisees probably a diversity of opinion prevailed on this question, which Josephus will have obliterated. our Lord in His argument with the Sadducees proves only the resurrection of the pious, but does not exclude the other (Mark 12:26,Mark 12:27); "the resurrection of the just" in Luke 14:14 may suggest a twofold resurrection. It has been held that the phrase, he anastasis he ek nekron Luke 20:35; Acts 4:2, always describes the resurrection of a limited number from among the dead, whereas he anastasisis ton nekron would be descriptive of a universal resurrection Plummer, Commentary on Luke 20:35, but such a distinction breaks down before an examination of the passages.

The inference to the universality of the resurrection sometimes drawn from the universality of the judgment is scarcely valid, since the idea of a judgment of disembodied spirits is not inconceivable and actually occurs. On the other hand the punishment of the judged is explicitly affirmed to include the body (Matthew 10:28). It cannot be proven that the term "resurrection" is ever in the New Testament eschatologically employed without reference to the body, of the quickening of the spirit simply (against, Fries, in ZNTW, 1900, 291 ff). The sense of our Lord's argument with the Sadducees does not require that the patriarchs were at the time of Moses in possession of the resurrection, but only that they were enjoying the covenant-life, which would in due time inevitably issue in the resurrection of their bodies. The resemblance (or "equality") to the angels (Mark 12:25) does not consist in the disembodied state, but in the absence of marriage and propagation. It has been suggested that Hebrews contains no direct evidence for a bodily resurrection (Charles, Eschatology, 361), but compare 11:22,35; 12:2; 13:20. The spiritualism of the epistle points, in connection with its Pauline type of teaching, to the conception of a pneumatic heavenly body, rather than to a disembodied state.

2. The Millennium:

The New Testament confines the event of the resurrection to a single epoch, and nowhere teaches, as chiliasm assumes, a resurrection in two stages, one, at the parousia, of saints or martyrs, and a second one at the close of the millennium. Although the doctrine of a temporary Messianic kingdom, preceding the consummation of the world, is of pre-Christian Jewish origin, it had not been developed in Judaism to the extent of assuming a repeated resurrection; the entire resurrection is always placed at the end. The passages to which this doctrine of a double resurrection appeals are chiefly Acts 3:19–21; 1 Corinthians 15:23–28; Philippians 3:9–11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; 2 Thessalonians 1:5–12; Revelation 20:1–6. In the first-named passage Peter promises "seasons of refreshing," when Israel shall have repented and turned to God. The arrival of these coincides with the sending of the Christ to the Jews, i.e. with the parousia. It is argued that Peter in Acts 3:21, "whom the heavens must (present tense) receive until the times of restoration of all things," places after this coming of Jesus to His people a renewed withdrawal of the Lord into heaven, to be followed in turn, after a certain interval, by the restoration of all things. The "seasons of refreshing" would then constitute the millennium with Christ present among His people. While this interpretation is not grammatically impossible, there is no room for it in the general scheme of the Petrine eschatology, for the parousia of Christ is elsewhere represented as bringing not a provisional presence, but as bringing in the day of the Lord, the day of judgment (Acts 2:17–21). The correct view is that "the seasons of refreshing" and "the times of restoration of all things" are identical; the latter phrase relates to the prospects of Israel as well as the former, and should not be understood in the later technical sense. The present tense in Acts 3:21 "must receive" does not indicate that the reception of Christ into heaven still lies in the future, but formulates a fixed eschatological principle, namely, that after His first appearance the Christ must be withdrawn into heaven till the hour for the parousia has come. In 1 Corinthians 15:23–28 two tagmata, "orders," of the resurrection are distinguished, and it is urged that these consist of "believers" and "non-believers." But there is no reflection here upon non-believers at all, the two "orders" are Christ, and they that are Christ's. "The end" in 15:24 is not the final stage in the resurrection, i.e. the resurrection of non- believers, but the end of the series of eschatological events. The kingdom of Christ which comes to a close with the end is not a kingdom beginning with the parousia, but dates from the exaltation of Christ; it is to Paul not future but already in operation.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 the presupposition is not that the readers had worried about a possible exclusion of their dead from the provisional reign of Christ and from a first resurrection, but that they had sorrowed even as the Gentiles who have no hope whatever, i.e. they had doubted the fact of the resurrection as such. Paul accordingly gives them in 4:14 the general assurance that in the resurrection of Jesus that of believers is guaranteed. The verb "precede" in 4:15 does not imply that there was thought of precedence in the enjoyment of glory, but is only an emphatic way of affirming that the dead will not be one moment behind in inheriting with the living the blessedness of the parousia. In 4:17, "so shall we ever be with the Lord," the word "ever" excludes the conception of a provisional kingdom. 2 Thessalonians 1:5–12 contains merely the general thought that sufferings and glory, persecution and the inheritance of the kingdom are linked together. There is nothing to show that this glory and kingdom are aught else but the final state, the kingdom of God (2 Thessalonians 1:5). In Philippians 3:9–11, it is claimed, Paul represents attainment to the resurrection as dependent on special effort on his part, therefore as something not in store for all believers. Since the general resurrection pertains to all, a special grace of resurrection must be meant, i.e. inclusion in the number of those to be raised at the parousia, at the opening of the millennial kingdom. The answer to this is, that it was quite possible to Paul to make the resurrection as such depend on the believer's progress in grace and conformity to Christ, seeing that it is not an event out of all relation to his spiritual development, but the climax of an organic process of transformation begun in this life. And in verse 20 the resurrection of all is joined to the parousia (compare for the Pauline passages Vos, "The Pauline Eschatology and Chiliasm," PTR, 1911, 26-60).

The passage Revelation 20:1–6 at first sight much favors the conception of a millennial reign of Christ, participated in by the martyrs, brought to life in a first resurrection, and marked by a suspension of the activity of Satan. And it is urged that the sequence of visions places this millennium after the parousia of Christ narrated in Revelation 19:1–21. The question of historic sequence, however, is in Revelation difficult to decide. In other parts of the book the principle of "recapitulation," i.e. of cotemporaneousness of things successively depicted, seems to underlie the visions, and numbers are elsewhere in the book meant symbolically. These facts leave open the possibility that the thousand years are synchronous with the earlier developments recorded, and symbolically describe the state of glorified life enjoyed with Christ in heaven by the martyrs during the intermediate period preceding the parousia. The terms employed do not suggest an anticipated bodily resurrection. The seer speaks of "souls" which "lived" and "reigned," and finds in this the first resurrection. The scene of this life and reign is in heaven, where also the "souls" of the martyrs are beheld (Revelation 6:9). The words "this is the first resurrection" may be a pointed disavowal of a more realistic (chiliastic) interpretation of the same phrase. The symbolism of the thousand years consists in this, that it contrasts the glorious state of the martyrs on the one hand with the brief season of tribulation passed here on earth, and on the other hand with the eternal life of the consummation. The binding of Satan for this period marks the first eschatological conquest of Christ over the powers of evil, as distinguished from the renewed activity to be displayed by Satan toward the end in bringing up against the church still other forces not hitherto introduced into the conflict. In regard to a book so enigmatical, it were presumptuous to speak with any degree of dogmatism, but the uniform absence of the idea of the millennium from the eschatological teaching of the New Testament elsewhere ought to render the exegete cautious before affirming its presence here (compare Warfield, "The Millennium and the Apocalypse," PTR, 1904, 599-617).

3. The Resurrection of Believers:

The resurrection of believers bears a twofold aspect. On the one hand it belongs to the forensic side of salvation. On the other hand it belongs to the pneumatic transforming side of the saving process. Of the former, traces appear only in the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 5:9; Matthew 22:29–32; Luke 20:35,Luke 20:36). Paul clearly ascribes to the believer's resurrection a somewhat similar forensic significance as to that of Christ (Romans 8:10,Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 15:30–32,1 Corinthians 15:55–58). Far more prominent with him is, however, the other, the pneumatic interpretation. Both the origin of the resurrection life and the continuance of the resurrection state are dependent on the Spirit (Romans 8:1–39,Romans 10:1–21,Romans 11:1–36; 1 Corinthians 15:45–49; Galatians 6:8). The resurrection is the climax of the believer's transformation (Romans 8:11; Galatians 6:8). This part ascribed to the Spirit in the resurrection is not to be explained from what the Old Testament teaches about the Spirit as the source of physical life, for to this the New Testament hardly ever refers; it is rather to be explained as the correlate of the general Pauline principle that the Spirit is the determining factor of the heavenly state in the coming eon. This pneumatic character of the resurrection also links together the resurrection of Christ and that of the believer. This idea is not yet found in the Synoptics; it finds expression in John 5:22–29; John 11:25; John 14:6,John 14:19. In early apostolic teaching a trace of it may be found in Acts 4:2. With Paul it appears from the beginning as a well-established principle. The continuity between the working of the Spirit here and His part in the resurrection does not, however, lie in the body. The resurrection is not the culmination of a pneumatic change which the body in this life undergoes. There is no preformation of the spiritual body on earth. Romans 8:10,Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15:49; 2 Corinthians 5:1,2 Corinthians 5:2; Philippians 3:12 positively exclude this, and 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 4:7–18 do not require it.

The glory into which believers are transformed through the beholding (or reflecting) of the glory of Christ as in a mirror is not a bodily but inward glory, produced by illumination of the gospel. And the manifestation of the life of Jesus in the body or in the mortal flesh refers to the preservation of bodily life in the midst of deadly perils. Equally without support is the view that at one time Paul placed the investiture with the new body immediately after death. It has been assumed that this, together with the view just criticized, marks the last stage in a protracted development of Paul's eschatological belief. The initial stage of this process is found in 1 Thessalonians: the resurrection is that of an earthly body. The next stage is represented by 1 Corinthians: the future body is pneumatic in character, although not to be received until the parousia. The third stage removes the inconsistency implied in the preceding position between the character of the body and the time of its reception, by placing the latter at the moment of death (2 Corinthians, Romans, Colossians), and by an extreme flight of faith the view is even approached that the resurrection body is in process of development now (Teichmann, Charles). This scheme has no real basis of fact. 1 Thessalonians does not teach an unpneumatic eschatology (compare 4:14,16). The second stage given is the only truly Pauline one, nor can it be shown that the apostle ever abandoned it. For the third position named finds no support in 2 Corinthians 5:1–10; Romans 8:19; Colossians 3:4. The exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 is difficult and cannot here be given in detail. Our understanding of the main drift of the passage, put into paraphrase, is as follows: we feel assured of the eternal weight of glory (4:17), because we know that we shall receive, after our earthly tent-body shall have been dissolved (aorist subjunctive), a new body, a supernatural house for our spirit, to be possessed eternally in the heavens. A sure proof of this lies in the heightened form which our desire for this future state assumes. For it is not mere desire to obtain a new body, but specifically to obtain it as soon as possible, without an intervening period of nakedness, i.e. of a disembodied state of the spirit. Such would be possible, if it were given us to survive till the parousia, in which case we would be clothed upon with our habitation from heaven (= supernatural body), the old body not having to be put off first before the new can be put on, but the new body being superimposed upon the old, so that no "unclothing" would have to take place first, what is mortal simply being swallowed up of life (5:2,4). And we are justified in cherishing this supreme aspiration, since the ultimate goal set for us in any case, even if we should have to die first and to unclothe and then to put on the new body over the naked spirit, since the ultimate goal, I say, excludes under all circumstances a state of nakedness at the moment of the parousia (5:3). Since, then, such a new embodied state is our destiny in any event, we justly long for that mode of reaching it which involves least delay and least distress and avoids intermediate nakedness. (This on the reading in 5:3 of ei ge kai endusamenoi ou gumnoi heurethesometha. If the reading ei ge kai ekdusamenoi be adopted the rendering of 5:3 will have to be: "If so be that also having put off (i.e. having died), we shall not at the end be found naked." If eiper kai ekdusamenoi be chosen it will be: "Although even having put off (i.e. having died) we shall not at the end be found naked." These other readings do not materially alter the sense.) The understanding of the passage will be seen to rest on the pointed distinction between being "clothed upon," change at the parousia without death (5:2,4), to be "unclothed," loss of the body in death with nakedness resulting (5:4), and "being clothed," putting on of the new body after a state of nakedness (5:3). Interpreted as above, the passage expresses indeed the hope of an instantaneous endowment with the spiritual body immediately after this life, but only on the supposition that the end of this life will be at the parousia, not for the case that death should intervene before, which latter possibility is distinctly left open. In Romans 8:19 what will happen at the end to believers is called a "revealing of the sons of God," not because their new body existed previously, but because their status as sons of God existed before, and this status will be revealed through the bestowal upon them of the glorious body. Colossians 3:3,Colossians 3:1 speaks of a "life .... hid with Christ in God," and of the "manifestation" of believers with Christ in glory at the parousia, but "life" does not imply bodily existence, and while the "manifestation" at the parousia presupposes the body, it does not imply that this body must have been acquired long before, as is the case with Christ's body. In conclusion it should be noted that there is ample evidence in the later epistles that Paul continued to expect the resurrection body at the parousia (2 Corinthians 5:10; Philippians 3:20,Philippians 3:21).

4. The Resurrection-Body:

The main passage informing us as to the nature of the resurrection body is 1 Corinthians 15:35–58. The difficulty Paul here seeks to relieve does not concern the substance of the future body, but its kind (compare 1 Corinthians 15:35 "With what manner of body do they come?"). Not until 1 Corinthians 15:50 is the deeper question of difference in substance touched upon. The point of the figure of "sowing" is not that of identity of substance, but rather this, that the impossibility of forming a concrete conception of the resurrection body is no proof of its impossibility, because in all vegetable growth there appears a body totally unlike that which is sown, a body the nature and appearance of which are determined by the will of God. We have no right to press the figure in other directions, to solicit from it answers to other questions. That there is to be a real connection between the present and the future body is implied rather than directly affirmed. 1 Corinthians 15:36 shows that the distinction between the earthly body and a germ of life in it, to be entrusted with it to the grave and then quickened at the last day, does not lie in the apostle's mind, for what is sown is the body; it dies and is quickened in its entirety. Especially the turn given to the figure in 15:37--that of a naked grain putting on the plant as a garment-- proves that it is neither intended nor adapted to give information on the degree of identity or link of continuity between the two bodies. The "bare grain" is the body, not the spirit, as some would have it (Teichmann), for it is said of the seed that it dies; which does not apply to the Pneuma (compare also 15:44). The fact is that in this entire discussion the subjective spirit of the believer remains entirely out of consideration; the matter is treated entirely from the standpoint of the body. So far as the Pneuma enters into it, it is the objective Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. As to the time of the sowing, some writers take the view that this corresponds to the entire earthly life, not to the moment of burial only (so already Calvin, recently Teichmann and Charles). In 15:42,43 there are points of contact for this, inasmuch as especially the three last predicates "in dishonor," "in weakness," "a natural body," seem more applicable to the living than to the dead body. At any rate, if the conception is thus widened, the act of burial is certainly included in the sowing. The objection arising from the difficulty of forming a conception of the resurrection body is further met in 15:39-41, where Paul argues from the multitude of bodily forms God has at His disposal. This thought is illustrated from the animal world (15:39); from the difference between the heavenly and the earthly bodies (15:40); from the difference existing among the heavenly bodies themselves (15:41). The structure of the argument is indicated by the interchange of two words for "other," allos and heteros, the former designating difference of species within the genus, the latter difference of genus, a distinction lost in the English version. In all this the reasoning revolves not around the substance of the bodies but around their kind, quality, appearance (sarx in 15:39 = soma, "body," not = "flesh").