Bicknell on Articles III, IV: Of the going down of Christ into Hell; Of the Resurrection of Christ

The need of a separate Article to deal with this portion of the Creed was due to the many and violent controversies that raged around it about the time of the Reformation. Our present Article dates from 1563. The previous Article of 1552 was more definite. It clearly in- terpreted the descent as meaning that ‘The body lay in the sepulchre

‘ until the resurrection: but His ghost departing from Him was with the ghosts that were in prison or hell, and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter doth testify.’ Thus the Article took sides in the controversy by laying down a fixed interpretation of the clause in dispute. Though this interpretation is undoubtedly right, it was thought wiser to leave the precise meaning of the descent undefined.

Of the Resurrection of Christ. De resurrectione Christt. Christ did truly arise again Christus vere a mortuis re-

from death, and took again surrexit, suumque corpus cum his body, with flesh, bones, carne, ossibus, omnibusque ad and all things appertaining to integritatem humanae naturae

the perfection of Man’s nature, pertinentibus, recepit: cum wherewith he ascended into quibus in coelum ascendit, Heaven, and there sitteth, ibique residet, quoad extremo until he return to judge all die ad judicandos homines men at the last day. reversurus sit.

One of the Articles of 1553. Practically unchanged since. It is worded so as to assert not only the fact of the Resurrection, but also the reality of our Lord’s risen and ascended Manhood in opposition to a form of Docetism, revived by the Anabaptists, which regarded our Lord’s Humanity as absorbed into His Divinity after the Resurrection.

§ 1. In the A.V., unfortunately, the same word ‘hell’ is em- ployed as the translation both of the Hebrew ‘Sheol’ or Greek ‘Hades, the place of departed spirits, and also of ‘Gehenna,’ the place of torment. In the R.V. this has been corrected. ‘Sheol’ or ‘ Hades’ is in itself a neutral term.* By the time of our Lord popular Jewish belief had indeed come to regard it as a place of moral distinctions and as divided into two parts, the one ‘Abraham’s Bosom’ or ‘ Paradise, the abode of the righteous, the other the abode of the wicked. But generally speaking this last was distinguished from Gehenna.{ In the book of Enoch, for instance, a composite work dating largely from the second century B.c., Gehenna is clearly a place of final punishment for the wicked, who are at present afflicted in a part of Hades until the day of judgment.

Accordingly, by the ‘descent into Hell’ we mean that our Lord’s human soul, after its separation from His body by death, passed into that state of existence into which all men pass at death. In speaking about life after death at all we are driven to resort to symbolical language. We know that the body remains, but that the real self is no longer active through it. We naturally speak of the separation of the soul and body. The men of our Lord’s day regarded Hades as a place situated underneath the earth, and the soul as literally going down to it. By us such language can only be used metaphorically. What- ever the mode of life be that is enjoyed by the self after death,

• The Latin translation ‘Inferi’ or ‘ Inferna’ is similarly neutral. So was ‘Hell’ in mediaeval English.

• Our Lord employs this imagery in the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Lk.162?). We must not, however, claim His authority for the literal truth of the details.

t See Salmond, Article ‘ Hell,’ Hastings’ D.B. vol. ii.

we cannot help speaking of it in such metaphors as are derived from our present life in space. We are compelled to imagine Hades as a ‘place.’ Since our Lord was truly Man, after death He shared man’s condition then no less than during His life on earth. That is the only point on which we can be definite. Thus in Lk. 23, using current Jewish language, He promised to the penitent robber ‘ Verily, I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.’ He pledged His word that He and the robber would be sharing a common life, a life in which personality would, not be obliterated, but ‘I’ would remain ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ remain ‘Thou,’ and in which recognition and fellowship would be possible. He spoke of Himself and the robber as both alike enjoying one and the same ‘ Park of God.’ Again, St. Peter applies to our Lord the words of Psalm 161° ‘Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, neither wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption ’ (Acts 227), After showing that they received no fulfilment in David himself, he finds their fulfilment in the Resurrection of Christ (v. 4). It is clear that he regards our Lord as having been in Hades between His death on Good Friday and His Resurrection on the third day. In St. Paul’s Epistles a probable allusion can be found in Eph. 4%, ‘Now that he ascended, what is it also but that he descended into the lower parts of the earth? (els Ta KaTétepa pépn THs yns). He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.’* Others, however, refer the words to the descent to earth at the Incarnation. But the most difficult passage still remains. In 1 Pet. 318 we read ‘ Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit’ (rvevmare z.e. our Lord’s human spirit ; there is no reference to the Holy - Spirit as the A.V. mistranslation suggests): ‘in which’ (2.e. in * In the xx of Psalm 631° ra karwrara Tis yijs is used of ‘the lower parts of the earth,’ z.e. Hades. Soin the Lxx of Psalm 139!° the same Greek is used to translate ‘the lowest parts of the earth’ used metaphorically of the womb. It is therefore at least possible that St. Paul is using a very similar phrase in the same sense and is referring to the descent into Hades as a proof of our Lord’s sovereignty over the underworld (cp. Phil. 2’°). See Armitage Robinson, ad loc. ‘The descent is to the lowest as the ascent to the highest, that nothing may remain unvisited.’ Probably in Rom. 10’ St. Paul is

adapting the language of Deuteronomy to express this same idea. ‘The abyss’ would include Hades. See Sanday and Headlam, ad loc.

His human spirit thus quickened at the moment of death) ‘also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.’ Again, in 4° ‘ For unto this end was the gospel preached even unto the dead, that they might be judged accord- ing to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.’ These two passages must be taken together, and so taken, they leave very little room for doubt as to St. Peter’s meaning. He teaches that at the moment of death our Lord’s human spirit went to Hades, and during His stay there preached salvation ‘to the spirits in prison,’ 7.e. the souls of dead men, in a like mode of existence to His own. In 3?° special mention is made of those who rejected the warnings of Noah and perished in the flood (Gen. 77**). But in 4° the ‘dead’ must be the same as the ‘dead ’ in the previous verse, and include all who are not living. Why then are the men before the flood specially men- tioned ? Probably because they were typical of stubborn sinners ; and there is some evidence that their salvation was a subject of discussion in the Jewish schools.*

The earliest Christian tradition, probably quite independent of this Epistle, supports the above interpretation.f This picture of Christ ministering to the departed made a great appeal to primitive Christian imagination. Allusions to it are found as early as Ignatius, Hermas and Justin Martyr. Till the time of St. Augustine no other interpretation was attempted. Tn his earlier writings he accepted the current teaching, though he wrongly identified Hades with Gehenna.t Later, in a letter to Evodius, Bishop of Uzala,§ he explained St. Peter as meaning that Christ was in spirit in Noah, when Noah preached repentance to the men of his day. His authority lent great weight to this view in the Western Church, and it was adopted by Thomas Aquinas and many of the Reformers. It was often

*See Bigg, ad loc. ‘In the Book of Enoeh… will be found obscure and mutilated passages which may be taken to mean that the antediluvian sinners, the giants and the men whom they deluded, have a time of repentance allowed them between the first judgment (the Deluge) and the final judgment at the end of the world.’ See also his note on 4%.

• The earliest allusion to 1 Pet 3!8 and 4° seems to be in a saying of ‘the , Elders’ quoted by Irenaeus (iv. 27, 2). See Swete, Apostles’ Creed, pp. 57-60.

tL.g. de Gen. ad litt. xii. 61. § Aug. Hp. 164.

combined, as even by Bishop Pearson, with the view that Christ having died ‘in the similitude of a sinner’ went to Gehenna. But it is unnatural and quite indefensible. The interpretation that Christ preached to the dead fits in admirably with contem- porary Jewish ideas and alone does full justice to the two passages taken together. The only other possible interpretation of the ‘spirits in prison’ would be to suppose that fallen angels are meant (cp. 2 Pet. 24, Jude °), but this introduces an idea quite alien to the context and breaks the connexion between 319 and 48, besides using the word ‘spirit’ in a different sense from the previous sentence (318). Still less can be said for Calvin’s idea the descent into hell meant that in Gethsemane and on the Cross our Lord suffered all the agonies of the lost. This confuses Hades and Gehenna, and supposes that the Incarnate Son of God was personally exposed to the wrath of the Father.*

The fact conveyed in the clause ‘He descended into hell ’ must be acknowledged by all who allow that our Lord was and is truly Man and that He really died. The further interpretation of His Descent as a mission to the unseen world rests on the evidence both of Scripture and independent primitive tradition. From the nature of the case too exact definition is impossible. We can only speak of life beyond the grave in picture language. The ministry to the departed cannot be attested by the evidence of eye-witnesses. The only historical evidence that can lie behind our records and the tradition of the Church, would be words of our Lord Himself. In the word from the Cross at least we get a revelation of the nature of the future life by one who claimed to know. But the words of St. Peter hint at possi- bilities that must appeal to the highest in us. The Descent into Hell stands for the truth that whatever condition awaits us after death, our Lord has been there before us and consecrated it by His presence. It suggests that bodily death may be the moment of quickening into a more vigorous life and opens up vistas of a ministry for His faithful servants in the world beyond the grave more fruitful even than any ministry here. Above all, it harmonizes with the instinctive belief of our hearts that Christ will in His own way reveal Himself to those who have had no

opportunity of knowing Him in this life. Though a formal statement of this Article of the faith was absent from the earliest. creed-forms, we may believe that the Western Church was rightly guided in including it in her developed statement of the faith. On the Descent into Hell. see: Burn, article ‘ Hell’ in D.C.G. vol. i.

Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison. Goudge, Cathedral Sermons, i.

§ 2. (a) The Christian Church owes her existence to the Resurrec- tion. The Risen Christ is the centre of her life and teaching. The Apostles were chosen above all to be witnesses of the Resur- rection (Acts 18, 232, 315, 42 and 83, 1041, 1381, etc.). For this task they were fitted by character and condition of life. Their very limitations, their slowness of mind and lack of imagination rendered them all the more reliable as witnesses. Their matter- of-fact outlook and practical turn of mind enabled them to give a straightforward and unanimous testimony to what they had seen. They had neither the inclination nor the ability to con- struct theories or to adapt facts to suit preconceived ideas. They impressed the world as having an intense belief in the truth of their message, based on their own observation.* So only an eye-witness could be selected to fill the place of Judas (Acts 1°). St. Paul, too, rested his apostleship in large part on the fact that he had seen the risen Christ (1 Cor. 91, 15%), It is abundantly clear that the earliest apostolic preaching centred in the Cross and Resurrection, as interpreted by the Christian Church.

In Scripture the chief lines of thought may be summed up thus :

(i) In the early speeches in the Acts the Resurrection is re- garded as the divine reversal of man’s judgment and as vindi- cating the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 982. and 36 « Cod hath made him both Lord («ipios) and Messiah (xpioTos), this Jesus whom ye crucified’). In the light of the prevalent inter- pretation of Deut. 2178 the Cross was regarded as a sign of God’s malediction. To the Jew, therefore, it was a clear disproof of His claims. It declared ‘ Jesus accursed ’ (ep 1 Cor. 128). The

thought of a crucified Messiah was self-contradictory. Hence the Resurrection was proclaimed as proving the Jewish idea false : it was God’s public attestation of the claims of the crucified (Acts 580-31) * To the apostles it was also the fulfilment of our Lord’s own predictions about Himself, thus proving His claims true (Mk. 8°1, 10°4, etc., cp. Jn. 272, 1018). So to St. Paul the Resurrection is the ground of assigning to our Lord full Messianic authority (Ro. 14, ep. Acts 13°3),

(ii) The Resurrection certified our Lord’s death as redemptive. The apostles were able, out of the Jewish Scriptures, to explain the meaning and necessity of the death of the Messiah as foretold by the prophets. They identified our Lord with the ‘suffering servant ’ of Is. 52-53 (Acts 326, 427 and 30 7afs ‘Servant’ R.V., not ‘child’ as A.V.). The rising from the dead marked the acceptance of the sacrifice of the Cross. It is, as has been well said, ‘the Amen of the Father to the “It is finished ”’ of the Son.’ The same thought of the Resurrection as the seal of our Lord’s atoning death is found in St. Paul (e.g. Ro. 4%, 510, 64, 1 Cor. 151”, 1 Thess. 17°, etc., ep. Heb. 137°).

(ii) The Resurrection is regarded as the pledge of man’s Resurrection (1 Cor. 15” ff., Ro. 81, 1 Thess. 414). Not only do Christians here and now receive new life (Eph. 2°, Col. 34) as sharing the life of the Risen Christ, but from the first (Acts 4) the Resurrection has been proclaimed as the assurance of a resurrection from the dead that will quicken the whole man and that is yet to come (cp. 2 Tim. 218).

See N. S. Talbot, The Mind of the Disciples, cc. 4-5.

(6) Our belief in the Resurrection of our Lord depends upon

three main lines of evidence :

(i) The appearances of the Risen Lord to many persons of different kinds, at different times and under different conditions,

(ii) The empty tomb.

(iii) The living experience of the Christian Church.

(i) The earliest witness in writing is that of St. Paul. In

1 Cor. 15*8 he gives what is perhaps an official list of appear- ances. Behind St. Paul is the witness of the whole Church. He

and all Christians were alike in their belief. In fact the very existence of the Church at all presupposes the existence of a belief that Christ was risen. The Resurrection had been put in the forefront of the apostolic preaching from the first. ~ It is implied in all St. Paul’s epistles. In all four Gospels we have an account of the finding of the tomb empty. St. Mark is un- fortunately mutilated, but there can be no doubt that it went on to describe appearances of the risen Lord similar to those in the other gospels. It is not easy to fit together all the accounts of the appearances on Easter morning. There are apparent differences of detail. This, however, increases rather than diminishes the value of the evidence. It shows that we have the faithful testimony of independent witnesses, not the blind repetition of an official tale. Witnesses of any event, especially when it was observed in a moment of intense excitement, tend to vary in detail. Any judge would view with suspicion a too exact correspondence. Equally important, too, is the evidence of the Acts. The early chapters bear traces of a very primitive Christology. We see the Church, as it were, feeling her way towards a fuller understanding of all that the Resurrection meant. In 1 Pet. 13 we seem to get a personal reminiscence of St. Peter’s own mind.

For a fuller account see Ragg, Hvidences of Christianity, or Milligan, Resurrection of our Lord, Lect. II.

(ii) All the Gospels record that the tomb was found empty. We attach special importance to the account in Jn. 20719, It bears all the marks of first-hand evidence. The clothes are represented as lying flat as if the Lord’s Body had passed through them without disturbing them. Above them was an empty space where the bare neck of our Lord’s Body had lain. There ‘in a place by itself’ on the ledge that had formed a pillow lay the napkin that had been coiled round the Head, still keeping its shape. That was the sight that the disciple ‘saw, and be- lieved.’ It spoke of a Body not removed by friend or foe, but withdrawn in a manner above nature.* We may well conjecture,

• There are only two possible explanations of this account in St. John. Hither it is what the disciple actually saw or it is a piece of vivid picture-writing in the manner of a realistic novel. Such could be paralleled from the novel writers of to-day, but can any parallel be found in the literature of the first century ?

too, that the enormous number of converts in Jerusalem was due to the sight of the empty Tomb.

See Latham, The Risen Master, c. i-iii.

(ii) From the first, Christians have manifested in their lives the power of the risen Christ. It is clear that something re- markable must have happened to change the timid and weak disciples of Good Friday into the dauntless and courageous leaders of the Church that we discover in the Acts. The apostles themselves ascribed their transformation to the power of the Resurrection. So, too, we find the Christian Church observing the first day of the week as a memorial of the rising from the dead. Sunday is a new institution. It was not, it has never been and never can be the Jewish Sabbath. In origin and meaning it is a purely Christian festival, a weekly remembrance of the Resur- rection. And the Christian service, the ‘breaking of bread,’ was not a sad commemoration of a dead and absent Master, but a thanksgiving for the blessings imparted by a living and triumphant Saviour. Christian Baptism again loses its distinctive meaning if Christ is not raised.* The continued ex- istence and vitality of the Church, her survival not only of attacks by enemies from outside, but of sloth and dissensions among her own members, prove that her life does not spring from a delusion. In every age the enemies of our religion have always declared that it was about to pass away, but their expectations have never been fulfilled. Once more Christians in all ages have claimed to hold communion with a living Lord and to receive from Him cleansing and strength. It may be argued that the inner religious experience of Christians carries con- viction only to those who share it, and they may be mistaken in their explanation of it. But apart from the widespread consensus of testimony from men and women of every rank and class and country, we may point to a definite and persistent type of character produced in the lives of those who claim to depend on Christ. The Christian character entered into the world as something new. It startled and attracted Jews and heathen alike by its humility and joyousness, its new standard of values, and its reinterpretation of all human existence. We

• Cp. Ro. 64, where the whole symbolism of baptism is worked out in connexion with the Resurrection, I

do not appreciate the moral results of the Christian faith, because we have always lived in the midst of them. But if we study pagan life as recorded in heathen literature or as found to-day in the Mission-field, the contrast between the Christian and the non-Christian outlook on life is undeniable. We may well ask whether those who are able to produce a new type of Jife and character, have not the right to say on what discovery it is based. Christians have always pointed to the Risen Christ as the source of all their strength. The world becomes an insoluble riddle, if the blessings of Christian faith are based on a fraud or a misconception. See: Robinson, Studies in the Resurrection, ce. iv. and x. Glover, The Christian Tradition and its Verification, Lectures ITI. and IV.

Paget, The Christian Character, Introduction. Church, The Gifts of Civilization.

(c) Taking then the narratives of Scripture as they stand, what conception can we form of our Lord’s Risen Body? It is obvious that our only evidence is the Gospels. St. Paul’s language in 1 Cor. 15 suggests that he possessed similar accounts. His teaching on the nature of our own spiritual bodies is based on the nature of the Lord’s Risen Body. Since the Resurrection is a unique event in human experience, there are no other instances with which to compare it.

(i) The Resurrection was not simply the resuscitation of the body laid in the grave. Our Lord did not return, like those whom He raised from the dead, to the old life. Nothing has done more to hinder a belief in the Church’s doctrine ofthe Resurrection, than the idea that it teaches a mere reanimation of the material body. For this erroneous idea Christians have been largely responsible. The doctrine has often been stated in such a way as to imply a mere return to the old physical life. In early and mediaeval times such a conception was natural and caused no difficulty. We reject it not only because it conflicts with modern ideas but because it is inconsistent with the facts of the Gospel narrative. These, when interrogated, make it clear that ‘the body with which our Lord rose from the grave though still a true body was not the same as that with which He died.’ * A spiritual

change had come over it. It was no longer subject to our wants and limitations : it could pass through doors and disappear at will. The door of the tomb was opened not to let the Lord out but to let the women in. There was no witness of the actual resurrection. If the explanation of St. John’s record of the tomb be accepted, there would have been nothing to witness. At the same time, though not subject to the limitations of our present life, the risen Lord could at will conform to them. He walked and spoke, and even ate and drank (Lk. 24, Mt. 28, Jn. 20” ff., ep. Acts 10*).

So in the appearances of the Risen Lord we have a revelation of another life, a manner of existence of a higher order than our own. By the Incarnation God no longer instructed men through prophets and teachers about the meaning and purpose of human life, but Himself entering into humanity wrought out the perfect human example and disclosed the possibilities of man’s life on earth : in the same manner our Lord did not simply teach the immortality of man, but during the forty days actually manifested something of the glory of man’s future life by living it before men so far as earthly and temporal conditions allowed. Thus the Resurrection is a new fact added to the sum-total of human experience. ‘The life which is revealed to us is not the con- tinuation of the present life, but a life which takes up into itself all the elements of our present life, and transfigures them by a glorious change, which we can only regard at present under signs and figures.”* A change had passed over the body, by which it had become wholly subject to the spirit, spirit-ruled and spirit-guided. We know how in our present life the body constrains and hampers our spirit. It grows weary and is not perfectly responsive to our will. It ties us down to the laws of space and of this material world. From all such limitations the Risen Christ is free. He can express Himself perfectly through His body, as and when and where He wills. He has not laid aside His manhood, but manifests within the circle of human experience a higher mode of human existence, hitherto undiscovered and unknown.t ‘The risen body of Christ was

• Cp. Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord. ‘Christ was changed… . As has been well said, ‘ What was natural to Him before is now miraculous ; what was before miraculous is now natural.’ Or to put the thought in another

spiritual … not because it was less than before material, but because in it matter was wholly and finally subjugated to spirit and not to the exigencies of physical life.’ *

The precise relation of the risen body to that which was placed in the tomb, we cannot know. The material particles that form our bodies are ceaselessly changing. The identity of our bodies lies not so much in physical continuity as in the abiding re- lationship to the personality as its organ in the physical world. What persists is not the matter of which the body is composed but the formula or law of which the body is the outward ex- pression. We believe that our Lord’s Resurrection is the pledge of our own. When we express our belief in the ‘ resurrection of the body’ we do not mean that the actual material particles of which our bodies are composed at death will come together again, but that no part of our personality will be lost. It is true that many of the fathers, as e.g. St. Augustine, taught that God’s almighty power would reassemble the actual particles of our dead body, but such an idea conflicts with all that we know of our present condition and was, at best, a pious opinion. In some forms of the Creed we even find ‘the resurrection of this flesh,’ a materialistic interpretation that happily was never adopted by the Church at Jarge. We cannot form any concep- tion of our future state except so far as it is shown in the person of the Risen Christ. As in His case, nothing that belongs to the perfection of our human nature will be lost. All that our present body stands for, will still be ours. We shall possess an organism adapted for life under future conditions as the body is adapted for life under earthly conditions. Our Lord’s body still bears the marks of the wounds (cp. Rev. 58). In Christ as in our- selves, the past still lives on in its permanent effect on what He is. So we believe that all that we have become through moral effort in this life will endure in the life that is to be ours hereafter.

(i) The question still remains, do not the words of our Article, ‘took again His body with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, imply a very materialistic form, in an earthly life the spirit is manifested through the body ; in the life of the Risen Christ the body is manifested (may we not say so ?) through the Spirit… . The continuity, the intimacy, the simple familiarity of former inter- course was gone. He is seen and recognized only as He wills and when He wills.

In the former sense of the phrase He is no longer with the disciples.’ p. 8. * Gore, Body of Christ, p. 127.

view of the Resurrection ? ‘Flesh and bones’ suggest a physical resuscitation. The answer is that the words are based on the words of the risen Lord in Lk. 24% ‘A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold me having.’ The Article, therefore, must be interpreted by Scripture and does not lay down any theory on the nature of the Risen Body. At the same time, if it had been written to-day, it would probably have avoided taking such an expression of Scripture in isolation from other statements of Scripture that qualify it. The purpose of the words is admirably summed up in the following phrase ‘all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature.’ The Risen Lord was not less perfect Man than before.*

See Stow, Christianity and Immortality, c. iii.

Before we leave the question of the Resurrection we must bear in mind two great considerations :

(a) The evidence for the Resurrection must be considered not in the abstract, but in the light of the character and claims of Christ. Men sometimes speak as if the Resurrection of Jesus Christ would be on a level with the resurrection, let us say, of Julius Caesar or Judas Iscariot. That is profoundly untrue. To put it on the lowest level, we are dealing with One who has lived in the fullest union with God, who had done nothing amiss and who had trusted to God to vindicate Him openly. If we accept the uniqueness of Christ, we shall be prepared to believe in His Resurrection, if there is good evidence for it.

(@) Everything depends upon the presuppositions with which we approach the evidence. Our final decision will rest on moral rather than on purely intellectual grounds. No amount of merely external evidence can ever compel belief. It is always possible in the last resort to evade or explain away the evidence for any historical event. Much more is this true in the case of such an event as the Resurrection. It is significant that all the appear- ances of the Risen Lord were made to disciples. Our Lord did

not reveal Himself to Caiaphas or Pilate. As always, He would never compel belief by a miracle. Such an appearance would have contradicted the whole principle of His earthly ministry. Again, if the Resurrection was a fresh revelation of new life, such could only be given to those who were spiritually capable of receiving it. Only believers had the power to apprehend its true meaning. So to-day belief in the Resurrection depends not only on intellectual appreciation of the evidence but on moral sympathy with the life and teaching of Him who rose.* For a general survey of the evidence see : Swete, The Appearances of our Lord after the Passion. Sparrow Simpson, Our Lord’s Resurrection, ce. i.-viii. For the meaning of the Resurrection : Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord. The Gospel of the Resurrection. C. H. Robinson, Studies in the Resurrection (2nd Edition). Latham, The Risen Master.

Chase, Preface to The Gospels in the Light of Historical Criticism, pp. xx. ff.

(d) We may now examine explanations of the facts that contradict the Christian tradition. Few to-day would support the ‘ thief theory ’ that the disciples stole the body (cp. Mt. 281%). The very existence of this theory among the Jews is an inter- esting piece of evidence in support of the empty tomb. But it is psychologically absurd. The whole conduct of the apostles forbids us to regard them as conscious impostors. Why should they persist in a deception that brought them nothing but loss and danger? Such a plot is always betrayed in the long run. Wilful fraud is utterly inconsistent with their holy lives.

Fewer still would accept the ‘Swoon theory,’ that Christ was not really dead, but swooned and recovered. This makes

• Cp. Mozley, On Miracles, Preface to Third Edition, p. xxiv: ‘ The truth is, no one is ever convinced by external evidence only ; there must be a certain probability in the fact itself, or a certain admissibility in it, which must join on to the external evidence for it, in order for that evidence to produce conviction. Nor is it any fault in external evidence that it should be so ; but it is an intrinsic and inherent defect in it, because in its very nature it is only one part of evidence which needs to be supplemented by another, or a priori premiss existing in our minds. Antecedent probability is the rational complement of external evidence ; a law of evidence unites the two; and they cannot practically be separated.’ The whole passage is worth reading. It was the fault of much eighteenth- century writing to assume that the mind could be compelled to believe in the Resurrection by a careful marshalling of external evidence.

not only the disciples but our Lord deceivers. It is hard to see how a fainting and wounded form could convey any suggestion of a resurrection to a new and glorious life. And what became of the recovered Christ ? When did He die ?

More plausible is the suggestion that the disciples were sincere, ‘but were the victims of hallucination. But this will not really stand close scrutiny. Such hallucinations, as far as we can discover, obey certain general laws. For instance, they imply expectation. All the evidence shows that our Lord’s friends, so far from expecting a resurrection, were preparing to embalm His corpse. The appearances were most unexpected and were received with incredulity. Such a lack of faith is hardly likely to be an invention. Further, five hundred men at once cannot be the victims of a common hallucination at the same moment. As a rule, when visions and illusions once begin to get a hold, they tend to spread. All the evidence goes to show that the appearances ceased abruptly at the end of forty days. In short, even apart from the empty tomb, the ‘illusion theory’ does not explain the facts.

For a fuller account of such explanations see: Bruce, Christianity, or Milligan, The Resurrection of our Lord.

The most popular alternative to-day to the traditional teach- ings of the Church is the view that regards the Resurrection as a ‘purely spiritual truth.’ The disciples saw visions. These visions were real—‘ telegrams from Heaven ’—sent by God to assure His disciples that the Lord was alive, and to implant in them faith in victory of life over death. The empty tomb and any idea of a bodily resurrection are unhistorical, the invention of pious fancy or materializing imagination. Our Lord’s body went to dust in the tomb, as our own will. His spirit survived as ours will survive. Thus the Resurrection was entirely spiri- tual, to be discerned by the eye of faith. There was no miraculous breach of the natural law, such as the ordinary view supposes. On this view it is claimed that all that is of value for faith is retained, and Christian truth is lifted above any objections from the side of science or criticism. Jesus Christ lives: that is all that we need to know.

For this view see: Kirsopp Lake, The Resurrection, or Thompson, Miracles in N.T.

Such a view may be stated so as to come very near the teaching of the Church. But it falls short of the fulness of the Gospel.

(i) We know of no preaching of the Resurrection in apostolic days that did not include the raising of our Lord’s Body. The Gospels attest the universal outline of Christian preaching. So, too, St. Paul quite clearly knew of the empty tomb. St. Luke can put into his mouth an express allusion to it (Acts 13” and 35-36) Jt is probable that this application of Ps. 161° ‘Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption ’ was a common- place of apostolic preaching (ep. Acts 22731). The same know- ledge of the empty tomb is implied in 1 Cor. 1574. St. Paul proclaimed ‘that Christ died …and that he was buried… and that he hath been raised on the third day.’ The mention of the burial here and elsewhere (e.g. Rom. 64, Col. 21?) is gra- tuitous unless the resurrection is regarded as the reversal of the burial no less than of the death. ‘The Death, the Burial and the Resurrection of Christ claim to be facts in exactly the same sense, to be supported by evidence essentially identical in kind, and to be bound together indissolubly as the groundwork of the Christian Faith.’ * Just as the death and burial were his- torical events happening in the world of sense, so was the Resurrection. The attempt has been made to invert St. Paul’s argument. He treats the risen Christ as ‘the first fruits of them that are asleep’ (v. 2°). In our own case our bodies perish, yet our risen bodies are regarded as in a real sense continuous with them (vv. *” ff.). If the corruption of our present bodies does not destroy the continuity in our-case, why is the risen Lord’s possession of a spiritual body inconsistent with a belief that His natural body went to dust in the grave ? This objection forgets that at the stage at which this Epistle was written, St. Paul still expected the Lord’s return during the lifetime

• Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection, § 3.

• It has been objected that the view of our Lord’s Risen Body taken in these pages is no less contradictory to the main stream of Christian teaching than the Vision theory. The later Fathers and medieval teachers unanimously taught the resuscitation of our Lord’s dead body. A sufficient answer is to point out that our view is at least consistent with the facts of the Gospel story. In the light of our modern knowledge we have been driven to reinterrogate Scripture, with the result that we have obtained from it a more spiritual view of the Resurrection. On the other hand, the Vision theory is compelled to reduce the Gospel evidence to mere legend. Our appeal is not simply to Christian tradition, but to Christian tradition as interpreting Scripture.

.of most of those to whom he wrote. In his view the majority of the Corinthian Church would not taste of death at all. At the Lord’s coming their present natural body would be trans- formed into a spiritual body. So in their case as in our Lord’s their natural body would not see corruption. The difficulty at Corinth had arisen about those who died. As a result of their death, their condition was so obviously different from our Lord’s. Men asked how, if the natural body perished, it could ever be transfigured into a spiritual body. The analogy with the Risen Lord seemed to be broken. The very existence of this perplexity points to a universal belief in the empty tomb.

(ii) Any view that denies the bodily Resurrection is faced with the difficulty of accounting for the complete disappearance of the crucified body. That this difficulty was felt early is shown by the Jewish story in Mt. 28” ff. If the body of Christ could have been produced by the Jews or Romans, the whole Christian movement would have collapsed. If the body was not in the tomb, it must have been removed either by friends or foes ; there is no alternative, Hither explanation involves us in a tangle of difficulties. We may be perfectly certain that the authorities made every possible effort to discover the body and discredit the apostles. The body would be recognizable for a considerable time and there would be the evidence of those who removed it. It has indeed been supposed that the women went to the wrong tomb and found it empty. The disciples apparently were sufficiently simple to neglect any further investigations, and the Roman and Jewish authorities too incompetent to make the slightest attempt to clear up the mystery. Apart from other objections, any such theory that allows the finding of an empty tomb but holds that the Lord’s body went to corruption elsewhere, lands us with a very serious moral problem.* We are asked to suppose that the empty tomb had in the workings of providence an important place in convincing the world of the truth that Christ was alive, yet the belief in its emptiness was the result of mistake or fraud. Our conscience revolts from the thought that God employs such means to impress upon the world a new and vital revelation. No doubt illusion has its place in

• Many who accept the ‘ objective vision’ theory confess that they cannot account for the disappearance of the body, and plead that so long as they accept the truth of the appearances, they are not called on to do so.

the divine economy. But this would be no mere illusion due to. the infirmity of the human mind or imagination, it would be, so to say, a deliberate deception on the part of the divine providence.

(ii) On this view there was no Resurrection, only a survival. Death conquered the body and death kept what it conquered. There was no real victory over death, but merely a persistence through death. Such would be a redemption not of the whole man, but only of His spirit. The resurrection of the body assures us that all our being is redeemed and redeemable. No element in our nature is lost. The early Church rightly appealed to the bodily resurrection of Christ as setting forth the worth and dignity of the human body.* It has a glorious future in store for it and therefore must not be defiled. We know of no human life apart from the body. The bare survival of the spirit is not the Christian doctrine of immortality. Further, if Christ’s body did not rise, the resurrection—such as it was—took place not on the third day, but on the afternoon of the death. In fact it was completed at the very moment of death.f Christians were wrong in supposing foolishly that they kept Sunday as the weekly memorial of the resurrection : they only kept it as the memorial of the first vision. The persistent tradition of the ‘third day ’ merely shows the inexactitude of the Christian mind. The true Easter-day is Good Friday.

(iv) We thankfully allow that it is quite possible for men to-day born and bred in a Christian atmosphere to reject the bodily resurrection of our Lord and yet retain a true faith in Him as a living Saviour. But it is very doubtful whether the first genera- tion of Christians could ever have attained to such a faith, if His body had remained in the grave. It is equally doubtful whether simple people to-day could do so. There cannot be two creeds, one for the educated and one for the uneducated. If we allow that the apostles and others saw visions and heard

• The New Testament also hints at the ‘ cosmic ’ significance of the Resurrec- tion of our Lord’s body. It stands for the first instalment of the redemption of the material creation, the pledge that the whole creation shall be brought back into harmony with God’s purpose. We see in the Risen Lord matter fulfilling its true purpose as the vehicle of spirit (cp. Rom. 8’°-8, Eph. 122, Col. 12°).

• Incidentally the whole of the descent into Hades must be dismissed as not only mythical but meaningless.

voices, how are we to test their validity ? We, indeed, after nearly two thousand years of Christianity can appeal to a wide Christian experience and to the moral fruits of a faith in the risen Christ. The apostles could not do so. The empty tomb supplied just that corroboration in the region of external historic fact, that was needed. And to-day the plain man attaches most importance to historic facts. That a thing happened gives it in his eyes a superior kind of truth. He is not much attracted by bare ideas. One great reason for the spread of Christianity among men and women of every class and condition, civilized and savage, edu- cated and ignorant, is that it claims to rest on historic fact. Destroy this foundation of historic fact and Christian faith might survive for a time, but it would not survive for long. Once again it is claimed on behalf of the vision-theory that it preserves the truth of the Resurrection and at the same time escapes the difficulty of supposing a break in the continuity of nature. Is this claim true? If the appearances were real and divinely caused, then they were miraculous. The miracle is removed from the physical to the psychological sphere, that is all. We are still left with a supernormal event, not the less so because it is in the region of mind and not of matter. We may even go so far as to doubt whether, since all mental activity is conditioned by processes of the brain, the perception of such visions would not necessitate a unique and direct action of God in the physical sphere.* In short, the idea of a purely spiritual resurrection solves difficulties of imagination rather than difficulties of reason. To the man who starts from an @ priort view that miracles do not happen, it is as impossible as the traditional view. It involves a very grave departure from the apostolic teaching.

For an excellent popular defence of the truth of the Resurrection see Ballard, The Miracles of Unbelief,’ c. v.-x.

§ 3. Christ… took again His body, with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into Heaven and there sitteth.

(a) There is no certain allusion to the Ascension in the Synoptic Gospels. It is interpreted in the language of theology in the later appendix to Mk. (16). The exact meaning of Lk. 24° is doubtful. The words ‘and was carried up into Heaven’ are omitted in ND and the earliest Latin versions, and therefore

probably formed no part of the original text. Ifthey are omitted the verse only describes a disappearance of our Lord similar to His disappearance from the disciples at Emmaus (241). St. Luke preferred to reserve his narrative of the Ascension itself for his second volume. He regarded it rather as the preliminary to the descent of the Spirit than as the final episode in the earthly life of Christ (cf. Acts 2°°*4), His Ascension is foretold by our Lord Himself in Jn. 6° and again after His Resurrection in Jn. 2017. Only in the Acts is the visible act of final withdrawal described (1°14). In the Epistles the Ascension is assumed. rather than directly asserted. For instance, in Eph. 451° the words of Psalm 6818 are paraphrased with reference to the gifts of the Spirit, ‘When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men… . He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.’ So, too, the quotation from an early Christian hymn given in 1 Tim. 318 concludes with ‘received up in glory.’ Again, in 1 Pet. 3? we find an unmistakeable allusion to the Ascension : ‘ Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven.’ Further, the Ascension is presupposed in every mention of our Lord’s priestly work and of His exaltation at God’s right hand (e.g. Phil. 219, Eph. 129 Rev. 374, etc.).

(b) In considering the Ascension we must distinguish between the outward and visible act of departure and its spiritual sig- nificance. The outward event is narrated in Acts 1°. ‘ As they were looking, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.” We need not imagine that the Lord’s body rose aloft visibly into the sky and disappeared slowly into its depths, as Christian art has depicted it. All that the narrative requires is a cloud hanging on the hillside a short way above where He and His disciples were standing, into which He rose.t| We may

*If the words be retained, the Gospel appears at first sight to place the Ascension on Easter Day. This, however, is not a necessary inference. St. Luke has little sense of time and there may have been a considerable interval between vv. * 4 44 or again vv. 49 4 50. The same difficulty occurs in the Epistle of Barnabas (15°) which asserts ‘We keep the eighth day as a day of joy, on which Jesus both arose from the dead and after being manifested, ascended into heaven.’ This is probably a mere piece of clumsiness in expres- sion. Even the Creed runs ‘the third day He rose again according to the , Scriptures, and ascended into Heaven.’

} Cp. Latham, The Risen Master, pp. 381-388.

contrast the story of the Transfiguration. Then our Lord entered into the cloud and the cloud passed away leaving Him on earth. Now He passed into the cloud and did not return.* The whole constituted a sign marking this departure as different from His previous departures and expressing its finality. Some visible sign was needed to assure the disciples that they were to look for no more manifestations of the Risen Lord. Such an expectation would have distracted them from their work. During the forty days they had been trained to live in the knowledge that at any moment He might appear among them. Now that stage of their education was finished. They had been made ready to go forth and wield authority. The work for which they had been trained was about to begin.t The sign was understood by the disciples. The expectation of any further visible mani- festations of the Risen Lord ended abruptly. They were content to await the descent of the Holy Spirit and to find in Him the pledge of the invisible presence of their ascended Lord.

But this outward event was but the setting-forth of a great spiritual truth, in the only manner intelligible to men of that day. ‘The physical elevation was a speaking parable, an eloquent symbol, but not the truth to which it pointed or the reality which it foreshadowed. The change which Christ revealed by the Ascension was not a change of place, but a change of state, not local but spiritual. Still from the necessities of our human condition the spiritual change was represented sacra- mentally so to speak, in an outward form. … The Ascension of Christ is, in a word, His going to the Father—to His Father and our Father—the visible pledge and symbol of the exaltation of the earthly into the heavenly. It is emphatically a revelation of heavenly life, the open fulfilment of man’s destiny made possible for all men.’ t Doubtless the Apostles regarded the earth as flat and heaven as a place above their heads. They supposed that our Lord travelled there through space. ‘Such a mental picture was consistent with itself and for many centuries presented no

• Cp. Latham, Pastor Pastorum, pp. 463-466. { Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord, p. 180.

difficulty to reason. To-day such a naive conception is impossible, nor is it in the least a vital part of the Christian faith. Our Lord’s entrance into the fulness of His heavenly life obviously transcends all possible human experience. It can only be depicted in metaphor and symbol. The visible sign of His departure can be adequately described in earthly language and does not need restatement. Its spiritual truth must be re- interpreted in the best language that we can find. Difficulties about the Ascension arise not when we employ the simple realism of the first Christians, nor yet when we are whole-heartedly philosophic, but when we attempt to piece together fragments of the two positions. We must not be ‘ philosophic in patches.’ Heaven is a state of being, not a locality. The inner meaning of the Ascension is not a removal to another part of the universe infinitely remote, but rather the final withdrawal into another mode of existence. Just as the Incarnation did not involve a physical descent, so the return to the Father did not involve an upward movement in space.*

(c) The language of Scripture suggests that the Ascension brought about no change in the condition of the Risen Lord. He was glorified not at the Ascension but at the Resurrection. The Ascension was a last farewell to the apostles, not a first entry into glory. In Scripture the Resurrection and Ascension are always viewed in the closest possible connexion (Acts 23733, 58ers Romy .6520_-Hiph.. 129 -:Coly31 -Hebamiey. lebetaaten: 371-22, etc.). ‘No sooner did He shake off the bonds of earth and take His place in the higher spiritual world to which He was ever afterward to belong, than He may be said to have ascended into heaven. When for a special purpose He again appeared to His disciples as they had known Him during His earthly ministry, He may be said to have descended out of heaven. Wherever He was in that glorified condition which began at His

*Swete, The Ascended Christ, p. 8. ‘A conception which limits His ascent to any region however remote from the earth, or locates His ascended life in any part of the material universe, falls vastly short of the primitive belief ; no third heaven, no seventh heaven of Jewish speculation, no central sun of later conjecture, meets the requirements of an exaltation to the throne of God.’ The language of Scripture is worth noting. In Eph. 4° He is said to have ascended ‘far above all the heavens,’ in Heb. 4” to have ‘ passed through the heavens ’ (cp. 728). So in Jn. 168 He declares that He is about to leave the world (xécpov, the world of created things).

“ah

‘ THE RESURRECTION 143 Resurrection, there Heaven in its Scripture sense also was.’* This helps to explain the absence of reference to the Ascension in the Gospels. It was not separated in thought from the Resur- rection.t When we have once grasped the nature of our Lord’s spiritual body, the thought of the Ascension as from one point of view the counterpart of the Resurrection involves no new difficulty.

(i) Obviously we can know nothing of the condition of our Lord’s manhood in His heavenly life. All that we are con- cerned to maintain is that He is still fully Man. As such He is the ‘ Mediator between God and man’ (1 Tim. 2°R.V.). ‘He has entered upon the completeness of spiritual being without lessening in any degree the completeness of His humanity. The thought is one with which we need to familiarize ourselves. We cannot, indeed, unite the two sides of it in one conception, but we can hold both firmly without allowing the one truth to infringe upon the other.’{ Nothing has been laid aside or lost which appertains to the perfection of man’s nature. At the time of the Reformation Luther and certain of his followers maintained that as a result of the Ascension our Lord’s humanity had become omnipresent. Against this doctrine known as ‘ Ubiquitarianism ’ the wording of our article was devised as a protest. A humanity that is of itself and unconditionally omnipresent would hardly be human any longer. As part of the created world it could scarcely attain to an attribute essentially divine. Rather we may picture to ourselves our Lord’s humanity as a faculty that He possesses and through which He can still act in our world of space and time, whenever and wherever He wills so to do. For us our body represents the organ through which we act upon our present environment. Our Lord’s spiritual body was em- ployed by Him during the forty days as the perfected instrument of His will through which He manifested Himself to the senses of His disciples and assured them of His personal identity. Now,

{For an attempt to distinguish between the Resurrection and Ascension, see Denney, Art. ‘ Ascension’ in Hastings’ D.B. vol. i. There is no evidence whatever for a view that has been put forward at times, that our Lord’s body was being progressively spiritualized during the forty days,

{ Westcott, Historic Faith, Lect. VI.

as ascended, He possesses all that the body stands for, inasmuch as He can still render His humanity active in our lower world at will. Through it He disclosed Himself to St. Stephen (Acts 7°) and apparently to St. Paul (Acts 95, cp. 1 Cor. 94) and to St. John (Rev. 13%). The Church has never had any difficulty in conceiving of Him as acting through His humanity in the Holy Eucharist in many places at the same time. But this is not ubiquitarianism. His manhood is not regarded as, so to speak, automatically omnipresent. Rather in each case His activity is a direct act of will in fulfilment of His own promise and in answer to the prayers of the Church.

(1) The ascended Christ is both priest and king.* As we saw T the culmination of the act of sacrifice was not the death of the victim, but the presentation of the blood ‘which is the life ’ before God. So our Lord’s atonement was completed by the Ascension. As on the great day of atonement the high-priest entered within the veil to offer the blood (cp. Lev. 161716) Christ at His Ascension ‘ entered not into a holy place made with hands, but into heaven itself, now (vuy, emphatic) to appear in the presence of God for us’ (Heb. 9%). He is still engaged in His priestly task and the Church awaits His return from within the veil (978). ‘The entrance was made, as the sacrifice was offered, once for all : the whole period of time from the Ascension to the Return is one age-long Day of Atonement.’ t So our Lord, by His presence within the veil, is now making atonement for us. As the high-priest uttered no spoken prayer but by his presenta- tion of the blood made reconciliation for Israel, our Lord as our representative, clothed in our nature, having become all that He now is through His Cross and Passion eternally presents Himself to the Father. He has, indeed, ‘somewhat to offer’ (Heb. 8°). He is Himself both priest and victim. In the language

• Our Lord’s priesthood is not after the manner of Aaron, but of Melchizedek (Heb. 6°-7). The difference does not lie in the function. Qua priesthood, the two are identical. Nor yet is the chief mark of difference that the king- ship and priesthood are combined in one Person. This is secondary. Rather it is to be found in the fact that the one ‘abides continually ’ (7%). His priest- hood is eternal and ideal. The Aaronic priests are men that die: their priest- hood is transitory. Christ is a priest ‘for ever.’ See Davidson, ad loc.

+Pp. 112-113.

t Swete, op. czt. p.42. For a careful exposition of the symbolism see Gayford, J.ThS. vol. xiv. p. 459 ff,

of Rev. 5° He is eternally ‘the Lamb as it had been slain.’ Our Lord is an abiding priest and an abiding sacrifice. He pleads for us, not by anything new or supplementary that He now does, but by what he has become through His death. The complete self-oblation of Himself once for all made on Calvary, lives on in His living unity of will with the Father.* He ever lives unto God (Rom. 61°, cp. 51°, ‘ We are saved by his life,’ ep. 1 Pet. 32). He is a priest for ever, not simply by commemorating a death that is past, but by the eternal presentation of the life that died. As such by His very presence in our human nature He intercedes for us (Heb. 7%, Rom. 8). ‘The intercession of the Ascended Christ is not a prayer but a life.’ + Through Him we have an abiding access to the throne of grace (Eph. 218, Heb. 414-16, 1019 ff.), His death and entry into Heaven took place once for all: as historical events they lie in the past and can never be repeated (Heb. 727, 928, 1012, etc.). But the great priestly appeal lasts on. The whole life and ministry of the Church proceed from the priestly life of the living and ascended Christ. We fix our gaze not on the past but on the future and on the present, on the “Christ that is to be.’

(iii) Our Lord in Heaven is described as ‘sitting at the right hand of the Father.’ Such language is clearly metaphorical. God’s right hand is the highest place of honour in Heaven. The symbolism was borrowed from Ps. 1101, ‘Jehovah saith unto my lord’ (z.e. an earthly king whether actual or ideal), ‘Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.’ The verse had been quoted by our Lord Himself to bring home the inadequacy of the current conception of the Messiah, as the ‘Son of David,’ 7.e. a merely earthly king (Mk. 12°). Before Caiaphas He claimed that He Himself would fulfil it (Mk. 14° where it is combined with imagery from Daniel). The Psalm in

• “Tt is not the death itself which is acceptable to the God of life: but the vital self-identification with the holiness of God… . It is the life as life, not the death as death ; it is the life which has been willing to die, the life which has passed through death and been consecrated in dying, the life in which the death is a moral element, perpetually and inalienably present, but still the life, which is acceptable to God.’ ‘In that eternal presentation Calvary is eternally implied. Of that life… the ‘as it had been slain’ is no mere past incident, but it has become, once for all, an inalienable moral element.’ Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, c. vii. pp. 245 and 246.

• Swete, op cit. p. 99.

K

its original context is addressed to a Jewish king (perhaps Judas Maccabaeus or more probably an ideal figure of the Messianic king) who is bidden to share the throne of Jehovah. Later on (v. 4) this king is declared to be by divine decree ‘a priest for ever after the manner of Melchizedek.’* The early Church from the first seized on this psalm and its phrases, sanctioned by the use of our Lord Himself, as being the least inadequate to describe the glory and functions of the Ascended Christ. It is quoted by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 24), and the symbolism takes its place henceforth as a part of primitive Christian theology (e.g. Rom. 8%, Col. 31, Heb. 102, [Mk.] 1619, etc.). Only in Acts 7° is the imagery modified. St. Stephen cries ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ Christ is regarded as having risen up to succour His servant. ‘ Sitting at the right hand of the Father ’ clearly denotes authority and triumph. God ‘made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and all authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come : and he put all things in subjection under his feet’ (Eph. 12022, cp. Mt. 2818, Heb. 122, Rev. 374, etc.). ‘Sitting’ has also been taken to denote ‘rest.’ To this we may demur as an undue pressing of physical imagery. The idea of rest is entirely absent from the psalm. If the Ascended Christ rests it is only in the sense In which God rested from His labours on the seventh day, when He ceased to create. Such rest was not incompatible with unceasing work (Jn. 51”). The toil and sorrows of Christ’s earthly life, the Cross and Passion were indeed ended. But the true antithesis to the pain and weariness of labour is not mere repose but a free and unfettered activity. The life of the Ascended Christ is certainly not one of inactivity. He ‘must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet ’ (1 Cor. 152’). He sits “expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet ’ (Heb. 101°). ‘Our Lord’s victory over the world in the days of His flesh was but an earnest of the longer warfare and the more complete conquest which are the work of His ascended life. When He sat down at the right hand of power, it was not for a brief cessation from warfare, but for an age-long conflict with the powers of evil. Sitting is not always the posture of rest. Some * See Kirkpatrick, ad loc.

of the hardest work of life is done by the monarch seated in his cabinet and the statesman at his desk ; and the seated Christ, like the four living creatures round about Him, rests not day nor night from the unintermitting energies of heaven.’* As King, He reaps the fruits of His victory over sin and death through the battle that is being waged on earth against the forces of evil by His body the Church.

§ 4. Until He return to judge all men at the last day. (i) The idea of a future judgment was perfectly familiar to our Lord’s contemporaries. The prophets from Amos onwards had taken up and purified the popular expectation of the ‘Day of the Lord,’ a day in which Jehovah would intervene to vindicate Israel and scatter their enemies and His. They had taught that such a coming must mean judgment. It would be a day of condemnation of all that was unrighteous both in Israel and outside. The same idea held a prominent place in the anony- mous apocalyptic literature that had so large an influence upon Jewish thought between the cessation of prophecy and our Lord’s day. The extent of this influence we are now only beginning to appreciate. All such literature was inspired by the hope of the restoration of Israel and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, through the direct and catastrophic inter- vention of God Himself. Though there is considerable variety in detail, all such pictures include a judgment as a necessary prelude to the new era of happiness. Usually the judge is God Himself. Sometimes more than one judgment is described and the Messiah has a part in their execution. In a portion of one of these apocalypses, the Book of Enoch the universal judgment is assigned to a supernatural pre-existent Person ‘ the Son of Man,’ who acts as God’s agent. The importance of these facts is that they help us to reconstruct the background of popular religion in our Lord’s day. We have to face the fact that the language of our Lord Himself and of the writers of the New Testament is largely the language of this apocalyptic litera- ture. When our Lord spoke of His return to judgment, He employed phrases and symbolism already familiar to many of His hearers. He made use of current ideas and metaphors to describe His mission far more than we used to suppose. Due allowance must be made for this when we attempt to understand

their meaning. We cannot suppose that popular expectations were embodied in a single consistent scheme. Doubtless they varied enormously in different circles and were often loose and fragmentary. But there did exist a definite circle of ideas in the popular mind, and prominent among these was that of a future judgment, ushering in the Kingdom of God.

This same idea appears in the teaching of St. John Baptist. In some sense he combined prophecy and apocalyptic in one. He revived the personal appeal of the prophet, but the form of his teaching was in large part that of the apocalyptic writings. He took the message that was stored up in the symbolic pictures of apocalyptic literature and by his preaching made it a living expectation in the hearts and minds of ordinary men. He proclaimed the immediate approach of the Kingdom of God (Mt. 3?) and the advent of one mightier than himself who would execute the preliminary judgment (Mi, 13°47) Lig 3% 4%),

For a fuller account see: Foundations, pp. 87-94 Charles, article ‘ Eschatology,’ Hastings’ D.B. p. 749, and Between the Old and the New Testaments, cc. ii. and iti.

(ii) The new feature in our Lord’s teaching is that He claims that He Himself will return in glory to be the judge. This claim permeates all His teaching. It cannot be denied or explained away. He proclaims that all men, Jew and Gentile alike, will give account to Him for their life here. They will be judged by His standard. Often this claim to judge is connected with the title Son of Man (e.g. Mk. 898, Mt. 25%}, 134, 2487). This title is probably used in an apocalyptic sense taken from the book of Daniel or the book of Enoch. But it also includes the thought that it is in virtue of His humanity, as one who knows human nature from within, as ‘ representative man,’ that He will judge mankind. The Father ‘gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is Son of Man’ (Jn. 527), This truth is represented under a great variety of symbolism. We have a whole series of parables, found chiefly in the first Gospel, emphasizing the certainty of His return and the need of preparedness. His return to judgment is likened to a flood (Mt. 2487-9, cp. Mt. 74) or a harvesting (Mt. 13302” 41-4), His

coming will be sudden and unforeseen yet visible to all (Mt 2427-28), enemies as well as friends (Rev. 17). He likens Himself to a thief (Mt. 24%8, Lk. 12%), a bridegroom (Mt. 251), a master of a household suddenly returning (Mt. 24 ff., 2514 ff., Mk. 1384, Lk. 1242), Elsewhere He employs symbolical language borrowed from the Old Testament and frequent in later apocalypses, to describe the upheaval of the present order preparatory to His return and to picture the scene of judgment (Mk. 13, Mt. 24, 25%! ff), The very wealth of illustration warns us against any too literal interpretation of details. Many of the scenes are incom- patible, if viewed as literal predictions, but each brings out some feature in the final catastrophe. Beneath them all the claim to be the supreme and final judge of the world stands out clear. Our Lord proclaims that He will return in the glory of the Father, in such a manner that none can escape or evade His coming and that all human life will be tested by His presence.*

(iii) In the earliest preaching the Lord’s return held a foremost place (Acts 10, 1 Thess. 11°, 41*17, 2 Thess. 2? ff. etc.). The news of judgment to come was an essential part of the Gospel that the Apostles proclaimed (cp. Acts 1791, 24%, Rom, 215-16 1 Cor. 45, 2 Cor. 51°, Heb. 67, 1 Pet. 417, etc.). The early Church believed that the Lord’s coming was to be expected very quickly, within the lifetime of many then living. We can see the value of such a belief, in the providence of God. Not only did it stimulate moral and spiritual earnestness. Ultimate values and eternal issues were not obscured by the claims of earth, since this earth was held to be about to pass away. But also it governed the development of Church organization. The apostles had no con- ception that they were laying down rules or planning a con- stitution for a Church that was to last for some two thousand years. All their administration was guided by the needs of some immediate demand or difficulty. Hence the elasticity and adaptiveness of Christianity was preserved. The Church was saved from a minute and rigid organization based on precise apostolic commands and therefore regarded as inviolable. Such an organization, however perfectly suited to the needs of the apostolic age, would have been an intolerable burden to any succeeding age. All through the New Testament we find broad

principles laid down rather than detailed and formal rules. ‘It may seem a paradox, but yet it is profoundly true, that the Church is adapted to the needs of every age, just because the original preachers of Christianity never attempted to adapt it to the needs of any period but their own.’ *

Within the teaching of St. Paul himself we can trace a change of tone on the subject of the Lord’s return. In his later epistles he dwells less upon the immediacy of His coming. He seems able to contemplate a considerable delay. He himself may expect to die first (cp. Phil. 124, and contrast 1 Cor. 7**1 and 1 Thess. 415 ‘we which are alive’). He dwells more upon the building up of the Church. So, too, in St. John’s Gospel we find a marked absence of definitely eschatological teaching. Its place is taken by the thought of the coming of the Spirit. Even so, however, both in St. Paul’s latest epistles and in St. John the thought of a final judgment by Christ is never let go (2 Tim. 4% and 118 Jn. 527291 Jn. 41%, etc.). This suggests that our Lord’s teaching contained from the first certain elements which were appreciated more fully after a time and which tended to modify the expectation of His immediate return.

(iv) If we ask how we are to conceive of the return of Christ and the final judgment, and what the ‘advent hope’ means to us to-day, we must admit that as soon as we go outside the main truth, nothing is clear-cut. The important fact for our present life is that we shall have each personally to render an account of our lives to Jesus Christ. The standard by which we shall. be judged is His and not the world’s. The language of Scripture certainly suggests that this final judgment takes place not on the death of the individual but at ‘ the last day,’ after the general resurrection, and that it is shared by all mankind. But though this may be the best way that we can express the truth for ourselves, we must remember that it may be hopelessly made- quate. The varied symbolism in which the judgment is depicted in Scripture is at best an attempt to suggest to the mind spiritual realities that lie beyond our present human experience. The whole question of time comesin. Words like ‘before’ and ‘after’ may have no meaning in the life after death. The apparent interval between death and the final judgment may have no real

existence. We cannot dogmatize on such points. It is well, however, to bear in mind certain facts.

(a) The imagery of Scripture is more consistent than we sometimes suppose. The impossibility of imagining a gathering of all mankind at one place is obvious. But though Scripture suggests this, it at the same time teaches that we shall all possess risen and spiritual bodies, raised above the limitations of space. The two thoughts must be taken together.

(8) The judgment will not be the arbitrary assignment of future destinies. Rather it will be the final and public declaration of what men have made themselves. In His earthly life, as St. John’s Gospel makes clear, our Lord by His very presence among men as a Saviour, judged them. He acted as a touchstone of character. By their attitude to Him men showed themselves to be what they really were. This same judgment or division is made at every great crisis or opportunity that befalls either nations or individuals. Then in a real sense Christ comes and men reveal themselves by their behaviour towards Him. Such

“an experience cannot leave man unchanged. By their response they make themselves either better or worse. Salvation rejected is condemnation. If, then, this process of judgment is, so to say, automatically going on day by day, it leads us to expect a final judgment. All men must by acts of choice be building up a character of some kind. The coming of Christ in glory is a last great opportunity, that none will be able to escape. It will divide men by revealing what they have become. In one sense Christ will judge. In another sense men will judge themselves, in so far as they are prepared or not prepared to meet Him. The justice and inevitableness of the sentence will be apparent. The judgment will not change men. It will show them to be what they are.

(y) By this judgment the individual is assigned his place in the new order of things in accordance with his character and capacity. From first to last Scripture speaks of men as divided into two classes, the saved and the lost.* It declares that at bottom all men ‘must decide either for God or against Him. At the same time our Lord seems to speak of gradations of reward and punishment (Lk. 124748, 191719; cp. Jn. 147 ‘many

mansions ’). Every man is given that position in the new age which he has made himself capable of filling by his life in this age.* Cp. Westcott, Historic Faith, c. 7. Quick, Hssays in Orthodoxy, c. iv.

(v) Any mention of our Lord’s second coming brings us to the fringe of one of the burning theological questions of the day. What place are we to assign to our Lord’s apocalyptic teaching ? Till comparatively lately this aspect of His teaching was ignored. ‘Liberal’ theologians tended to ascribe the eschatological sayings a very back place, regarding them as due perhaps to the stupidity of disciples. Almost exclusive stress was laid on His moral teaching. The centre of this was supposed to be the Fatherhood of God and the joy of union with Him. But the newly awakened interest in contemporary Jewish apocalyptic literature has brought into prominence our Lord’s apocalyptic teaching. It is quite clear that it can no longer be minimized or ignored. Indeed, the extreme apocalyptic school would attach almost exclusive importance to the eschatological side of our Lord’s discourses and parables. They would hold, for instance, that when He spoke of the Kingdom of God, He used the phrase purely in an eschatological sense, as denoting the ideal world that was to be imaugurated at His second coming. Again, they would hold that He did not claim to be the Messiah during His earthly life, but claimed that He would return in glory as Messiah to be the King of the Messianic Kingdom. He was, so to say, the Messiah-designate, who had come to herald the approach of His Kingdom. It is suggested that He Himself expected His immediate return, and viewed His death mainly

• Heaven and Hell are primarily states of character, not localities. No doubt an ideal life requires an ideal environment, and such Heaven will supply. But the secret of the bliss of Heaven is within the soul. An unholy man would find life in Heaven intolerable. He could have no sympathy with it. Hence the unavoidableness of Hell. The essential nature of Hell would seem to be the failure to attain Heaven. It is eternal loss, rather than eternal punishment. The fires of Hell are those that are to be found within the human heart, anger, bitterness, self-will and the like, and the lusts that survive after the power for finding pleasure in their satisfaction has for ever departed. Above all just as the joy of Heaven will consist above all in that full union with God for which we were made, so the loss of Hell is above all the loss of that union with God, for which sin and self-will incapacitate us (cp. 2 Thess. 1°, Heb. 12%),

as a means of hastening the coming of the Kingdom. Accord- ingly His moral teaching falls into a secondary place.

Such a view has found expression in many one-sided and extra- vagant forms. It has exhibited all the violence and unreason- ableness of reactions. But it does express a very real and valuable side of the truth. It has at least delivered us from the tyranny of ‘ Liberal’ theologians who reduced our Lord to the level of a great moral teacher.* It does bring out the supernatural and catastrophic elements in His teaching and the essential other- worldliness of the Christian faith. It represents Him as central for all life both here and hereafter, no mere human teacher or prophet, but a Divine Being making a divine claim. We have yet to adjust our Lord’s apocalyptic teaching to the remainder of His teaching, but no view of His life and ministry can claim to be adequate that does not attempt to do this.

The best introduction to the eschatological problem is perhaps : Emmet, The Hschatological Question in the Gospels, i. The eschatological point of view is set forth in: Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (the last two chapters should be read). Cp. also Foundations, pp. 111-127 and 155-160. Selwyn, The Teaching of Christ. For the view of ‘ Liberal Theology,’ see Harnack, What is Christianity ?

Notes

• Op. Pearson’s criticism : ‘ There is a worm that never dieth which could not lodge within His breast ; that is a remorse of conscience, seated in the soul, for what that soul hath done.’
• See Latham, Pastor Pastorum, pp. 241-252, for an admirable sketch of the character of the apostles.
• Op. Chase, Credibility of the Acts, pp. 147 ff. + Cp. Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection, c. i. § 56-59.
• Milligan, op. cit. p. 31.
• Westcott, op. cit. c. ii. § 21.
• Tt is worth noting that the words are * Flesh and bones’ not ‘ flesh and blood.’ Bp. Westcott could write ‘The significant variation from the common formula ‘ flesh and blood ’ must have been at once intelligible to Jews, accus- tomed to the provisions of the Mosaic ritual, and nothing would have impressed upon them more forcibly the transfiguration of Christ’s Body than the verbal omission of the element of blood which was for them the symbol and seat of cor- ruptible life’ (The Gospel of the Resurrection, c. ii. § 20 note). If this distinction holds, we may compare 1 Cor. 15°°. See also Milligan, op. cit. pp. 241-242.
• Cp. N. P. Williams, Miracles (in Modern Oxford Tracts), pp. 36-41.
• Rackham, Acts, p. 8: ‘In the Old Testament the incomprehensibleness of the divine nature was typified by a cloud which hid Jehovah from human view : so now the human body of Jesus is concealed by the same cloud which is the cloud of the Shekinah or divine glory. He is now ‘in glory’.’
• Milligan, The Ascension of our Lord, p. 26. Op. Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord, pp. 23-26.
• Swete, The Ascended Christ, p. 14.
• Cp. Swete, The Ascended Christ, pp. 146-147,
• Sanday and Headlam, p. 381. The whole note, p. 379-381, should be read.
• Mysterious as this is it seems to correspond with the facts of human life. See Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, vol ii. pp. 65-69.
• <The Christ that Harnack sees looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.’ Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads, p. 44.