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to the living as the doctrine of God of which the world had been ignorant. So what the _judgment_ of the world by Moses taught in _figure, the judgment_ of the world by Christ teaches in _reality_. My limits will not allow me to argue this point at large. I have already remarked, that I believe _"the judgment of the world"_ expresses the whole reign of Christ including the resurrection. We now proceed to notice the Scriptures. Matt. xxii. 31, 32. "_But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living_." To this Luke adds, "_for all live unto him_." In order to make these words of Jesus refer to a general resurrection at the end of time, all writers have availed themselves of this last clause in Luke (on which Matthew and Mark are silent) and contend that it means--all live unto God who in his counsels views the future resurrection as present. But this exposition by no means satisfies my mind. If Abraham, Issac and Jacob are not raised--if they are yet wrapped in the insensibility of death, then God during that period is not their God. To illustrate this, we would remark, that Jehovah could not be Creator till something were created by him. He could not be Father till he had an offspring. He could not be Lord till he possessed property;-- neither could he be God till there were a worshipper. _Jehovah_ is the only abstract name he could possess, were he solitary and without a universe. All the other names ascribed to him are relative. The name God as much pre-supposes the actual existence of a _worshipper_ as that of father does the actual existence of a _child_. Remove the _child_, and the once doating parent is no longer to him a father. God is not, therefore, the God of the dead, for as such, they could not worship him. He is, however, Lord of both the dead and the living claiming them as his property. Abraham, Issac and Jacob were therefore alive, and worshipping him when those words were spoken to Moses, for in no other sense could he have been their God any more than he was before they were born. The phrase "_for all live unto him_," may, in this instance, embrace only the three patriarchs, as no others are involved in the quotation. The Sadducees believed in the writings of Moses only, and it is not at all probable, that Jesus referred to
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