to endure by the sure hope of "a better
resurrection." One of them thus confessed his faith: "Thou like a fury
takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall
raise us up, who have died for His laws, unto everlasting life." Another
of the brothers, about to have his tongue plucked out and his hands cut
off, "holding forth his hands manfully, said courageously, These I had
from heaven ... and from Him I hope to receive them again." Their
mother, who is thought to have been one of the saints that in the
Epistle to the Hebrews are said to have been tortured, not accepting
deliverance, encouraged her sons to be faithful unto death by telling
them that God who had given them life at the first would restore it. "I
am sure," she said, "that He will of His own mercy give you breath and
life again as ye now regard not your own selves for His laws'
sake."[216] The Pharisees in the days of our Lord held by the doctrine,
which the Sadducees, who rejected belief in angels and spirits, denied.
The belief expressed by Martha when she said of her brother Lazarus, "I
know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,"[217]
was in all likelihood current in her time. It may have been to impress
the truth of resurrection-life for the body that Enoch, before the
flood, and Elijah, in later Old Testament times, were translated; but it
is in the New Testament, in words spoken by the Lord Jesus, that
resurrection is fully revealed. "Marvel not at this," said He to the
Jews; "for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves
shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth; they that
have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done
evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."[218] In reply to the
Sadducees, who attempted to ridicule His statements regarding
resurrection, He said, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the
power of God";[219] and He put them to silence by showing that the truth
of resurrection was implied in the name by which God revealed Himself to
Israel, "I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob." He showed
His power over the dead body, and furnished assurance of resurrection,
by raising the dead. He thus restored the daughter of Jairus and the son
of the widow of Nain, and raised Lazarus from the tomb four days after
he had died. In His own resurrection we have the most signal pledge of
our bodily immortality. When He arose triumph