f that solemn future is so
fragmentary that we cannot venture to draw dogmatic inferences from the
little that has been declared to us, but we cannot forget the distinct
words of Jesus in which He not only plainly declares a universal
resurrection, but as plainly proclaims that it falls into two parts, one
a 'resurrection of life,' and one a 'resurrection of judgment.' The
former may well be the final aim of a Christian life: the latter is a
fate which one would think no sane man would deliberately provoke. Each
carries in its name its dominant characteristic, the one full of
attractiveness, the other partially unveiling depths of shame and
punitive retributions which might appal the stoutest heart.

This resurrection of life is the last result of the power of Christ's
Resurrection received into and working on the human spirit. It is plain
enough that if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in us there is no term to its operations until our mortal bodies
also are quickened by His Spirit that dwelleth in us. The ethical and
spiritual resurrection in the present life finds its completion in the
bodily resurrection in the future. It cannot be that the transformation
wrought in a human life shall be complete until it has flowed outwards
into and permeated the whole of manhood, body, soul, and spirit. The
three measures of meal have each to be influenced before 'the whole is
leavened.' If we duly consider the elements necessary to a perfect
realisation of the divine ideal of humanity, we shall discern that
redemption must have a gospel to bring to the body as well as to the
spirit. Whatever has been devastated by sin must be healed by Jesus. It
is not necessary to suppose that the body which dies is the body which
rises again, rather the Apostle's far-reaching series of antitheses
between that which is sown and that which is raised leads us to think
that the natural body, which has passed through corruption, and the
particles of which have been gathered into many different combinations,
does not become the spiritual body. The person who dies is the person
who lives through death, and who assumes the body of the resurrection,
and it is the person, not the elements which make up the personality,
who is spoken of as risen from the dead. The vesture may be different,
but the wearer is the same.

So that resurrection from the dead is the end of a supernatural life
begun here and destined to culminate hereaf