the interest of any special theory of the resurrection. In like manner, it should be added, the references to a resurrection of the dead in the Old Testament speak of living again, standing up, and awaking out of sleep, but the words used determine nothing of themselves as to the new mode of life and the nature of the new body which is to die no more.

5. The Teaching of Jesus Christ. In our study of the New Testament doctrine of the resurrection we shall first of all inquire into the teaching of Jesus Christ, and examine in detail the fact and significance of his own resurrection and ascension, the mystery of his forty days' sojourn after the day of his resurrection, the fact of his raising others from the dead, and his teaching on the subject as recorded in the gospels. The fact of the resurrection of Jesus is primary and fundamental to the New Testament revelation of our Lord. No statements of his are better authenticated than his repeated assurances to his disciples that he must suffer death at Jerusalem, and rise again on the third day (Matt. xvi, 21; xx, 19; xxvii, 63; Mark viii, 31; ix, 31; x, 34; Luke ix, 22; xviii, 33). No fact of the New Testament is better attested than that Jesus fulfilled his own predictions, died on the cross, was buried, and rose again on the third day. And this fact, or series of facts, cannot be properly separated from a study of our Lord's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

(1) Significance of Christ's own Resurrection. The significance of this fact cannot be well overestimated in its bearing on the doctrine, nor should we fail to note the prominence it had in the first preaching of the apostles (comp. Acts ii, 24, 32, 33; iii, 15; iv, 10; x, 40; xiii, 30; xvii, 31; 1 Cor. xv, 12-17). This universal and uniform testimony of the disciples and the early Church is at once a proof and illustration of Jesus's saying in John x, 18: "I have power (éžovoíav, right, authority) to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again." Such sayings and the fact of his resurrection entitle him to be called the "Prince of life" (Acts iii, 15), and the "Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him" (Heb. v, 9). The Son of God has life in himself, and raises up and makes alive whom he will (John v, 21).

(2) Significance of the Ascension. Another fact that stands in very significant relation to the resurrection of Jesus, though less fully attested, is that forty days after his resurrection Jesus "was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mark xvi, 19). The record in Luke xxiv, 51, is that while Jesus was blessing his disciples "he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven." The last statement is wanting in a few ancient

manuscripts,' but in Acts i, 1-11, the ascension is made a matter of ample record and more minute detail. It is repeatedly assumed or referred to in the apostolic preaching and in the epistles (Acts ii, 33; vii, 55; Rom. viii, 34; Eph. i, 20; iv, 8-10; Col. iii, 1; 1 Pet. iii, 22; Heb. i, 3; iv, 14; vii, 26; viii, 1; x, 12; xii, 2; Rev. iii, 21. Comp. John vi, 62; xx, 17). The resurrection and ascension are looked upon as essential parts in the one great fact of the glorification of the Son of God, so that the resurrection apart from the ascension was not an end or complete consummation in itself, but required the exaltation to the right hand of God to perfect the glorification.

(3) Rationale of the Forty Days. The rationale of the forty days' sojourn of the Lord is given in Acts i, 3, as affording him opportunity to show himself to his disciples, and furnish them indubitable evidences (TEKμnoia) of his having truly risen from the dead. In Acts x, 40, 41, Peter says: "God raised him up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." His different appearances to individuals and to assembled groups of the disciples are recorded in the four gospels and briefly referred to in 1 Cor. xv, 5-8. The discrepancies apparent in the several accounts are not of the nature of any irreconcilable contradictions, but are rather incidental evidences of the reality of the great fact which they all witness. We may not be able to harmonize the accounts satisfactorily, or to explain the exact order of events, but the obvious independence of the different narratives, and their agreement in the main, afford a surer proof of their fidelity to fact than would a set of narratives so uniform as to suggest artifice and collusion.

(4) Forty Days in the Flesh. During the forty days Jesus retained the fleshly body which after his resurrection still showed the print of the nails in his hands and of the spear in his side (John xx, 27). When the disciples were terrified and affrighted at his presence in the midst of them, and imagined that they beheld a spirit, or an apparition, as when once they saw him walking on the sea (Matt. xiv, 26), he went to pains to convince them of their error, and to prove to them that he had flesh and bones (Luke

1 Hort calls it "a Western non-interpolation. The text was evidently inserted from an assumption that a separation from the disciples at the close of a gospel must be the Ascension. The Ascension apparently did not lie within the proper scope of the gospels, as seen in their genuine texts: its true place was at the head of the Acts of the apostles, as the preparation for the day of Pentecost, and thus the beginning of the history of the Church."-New Testament in Original Greek; Appendix, Notes on Selected Readings, p. 73.

xxiv, 39). He called upon them to handle him, and he called for food and ate it in their presence. Peter affirms in Acts x, 41, that the disciples "ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." In view of these unmistakable evidences that he arose with the same body of flesh and bones that was put in the tomb, we cannot accept the notion widely current that Jesus arose with a new and glorified body. There were reasons why Jesus should retain for the forty days before his ascension the identical body that was buried. Thus could he best furnish indisputable proofs of the reality of his resurrection, and the records show that such physical evidence was demanded by the unbelief of his own disciples. His sudden vanishing from sight at Emmaus (Luke xxiv, 31) is no proof that he possessed a different kind of body, for he had repeatedly done much the same thing before his crucifixion (Luke iv, 30; John viii, 59; x, 39; xii, 36).' His coming into the room among the disciples "when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews" (John xx, 19, 26) is no convincing evidence that his body was no longer fleshly. As well might we argue that his walking on the sea of Galilee is proof that he had not at that time his natural body. It is not said either that he entered the room or that he vanished miraculously. That is an unwarranted inference of expositors. But if he did enter the room miraculously, such fact would not prove that his body had undergone essential change of nature since the time he walked on the sea, for he was certainly as capable of the miraculous after his resurrection as before.

(5) Not Glorified During the Forty Days. According to the records, then, Jesus arose with the same fleshly body which was laid in Joseph's tomb. This resuscitated body he retained for forty days that he might convince his disciples of the reality of his resurrection, and might the more naturally fulfill his teaching "concerning the kingdom of God" (Acts i, 3). His own manifestation of himself to men in the flesh must needs be, after this resurrection as before, by means of actual incarnation. There is not the least intimation in any of the records that he showed himself during the forty days in a supernatural glory. Before his death he took three of his disciples up into a mountain, "and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became white as the light" (Matt. xvii, 2). "His

1 The language of Luke xxiv, 31,"he vanished out of their sight," favors the idea of an intangible and ghost-like appearance of Jesus, as if his entire showing himself to the two disciples up to that point had been only Docetic or apparitional. But How he άφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπ' αὐτῶν, became invisible from them, is not told any more definitely than How he iкouẞn, was hidden, or hid himself, and went out of the temple unseen by those who took up stones against him, according to John viii, 59. Imagination easily reads into such statements some things which the words do not clearly warrant.

garments became glistering, exceeding white; so as no fuller on earth can whiten them" (Mark ix, 3). "The fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling” (Luke ix, 29). But no such glory distinguished the form of the risen Jesus. If only the transfiguration and the strange walking on the sea had occurred during the forty days after the resurrection, how would they have been put forward as proofs of "his new glorified body"! The appearance of the angel that rolled away the stone and addressed the women at the tomb "was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow" (Matt. xxviii, 3). According to Mark (xvi, 5) the women "saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe; and they were amazed." Luke says that "two men stood by them in dazzling apparel" (xxiv, 4). But nothing of this supernatural character is said to have appeared in the countenance or apparel of the risen Christ. He avoided any display that would tend to terrify his disciples, and he assured them that his resuscitated body was the natural body of flesh and bones, and retained the marks of its recent wounds.

(6) Glorified at the Ascension. We conclude that the Lord Jesus was perfected in the glory of his resurrection when he was "received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God." Not until after the "cloud received him out of the sight" of his earthly followers (Acts i, 9), was he "received up into glory" (1 Tim. iii, 16). His subsequent appearance unto Saul (1 Cor. xv, 8) was after this glorification, and necessarily unlike his appearances on earth during the forty days. It was accompanied by “a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun" (Acts xxvi, 13), and Saul was blinded by "the glory of that light" (xxii, 11). Such a revelation of the ascended Lord was everyway befitting, and Ananias might well speak of it to Saul as a "seeing of the Righteous One, and hearing a voice from his mouth" (xxii, 14; comp. ix, 17). The resurrection, ascension, and heavenly glorification of Christ are thus to be taken together in order to apprehend his personal exhibition and example of resurrection, and an unspeakable significance must needs be recognized in these transcendent facts. For it is thus that "our Saviour Jesus Christ has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Tim. i, 10).

(7) Jesus's Raising Others from the Dead. The fact that Jesus, during his earthly ministry, raised a number of persons from the dead, has also its bearing on the doctrine of the resurrection. But such raising of the dead was only one among many signs of his heavenly mission: "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the

dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached unto them" (Matt. xi, 5). The wisdom and power that can restore sight to the blind are equally competent to raise the dead to life. The three notable examples of such resurrection are the daughter of Jaïrus (Mark v, 22-24, 35-43; Matt. ix, 18, 19, 23-25; Luke viii, 41, 42, 49-56), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke vii, 11-16), and Lazarus (John xi, 1-44). These examples verify the saying of Jesus recorded in John v, 21: "As the Father raises the dead and makes them alive, even so the Son makes alive whom he will." They also give force to such sayings as John vi, 40: "This is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son and believeth on him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." It is unspeakably significant that he, who raised others from the dead, and who himself laid down his own life and then took it again, affirms so positively: "The hour cometh in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth" (John v, 28). All this will appear the more clearly as we study the teaching of Jesus concerning the resurrection.

(8) Jesus's Teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. In Luke xiv, 14, Jesus speaks of a divine recompense to be made "in the resurrection of the just"; but aside from what this form of expression suggests, the only teaching of our Lord, found in the synoptic gospels, and bearing on the nature of the resurrection, is what he said in answer to the question of the Sadducees, and which appears with a few verbal differences in all these gospels (Mark xii, 18-27; Matt. xxii, 23-33; Luke xx, 27-38). It seems somewhat strange that he should have said so little on a subject of so much interest and importance; but we are told, in Mark ix, 10, that when Jesus spoke to some of the disciples about his own rising again from the dead, they "questioned among themselves what the rising again from the dead should mean." They were not in a condition of mind to understand how their Lord and Messiah was to die and afterwards to rise again, though on the current doctrine of the resurrection they all probably shared the more common belief of the Pharisees. In the reply which Jesus made to the Sadducees, who sought to puzzle him with the supposable case of seven brethren, who, according to the levirate law of Deut. xxv, 5-10, were all married to one and the same wife, but who could not all have her in the resurrection, we observe a number of statements which indicate a deeper and more spiritual apprehension of the resurrection than seems to have been held among the Pharisees in general. From the several synoptic records we may learn: (1) The position of Jesus is clearly one of opposition to the doc