Maclear and Williams on Article IV: Of the Resurrection of Christ

i. Connection. The fourth Article follows the third in the order suggested by the historical facts of which it treats, for, as the third Article of the Forty-two expressed it, ” the bodie laye in the sepulchre, untill the resurrection ; but his Ghoste departing from hym, was with the ghostes that were in prison or in Helle.”

ii. The Title, as found both in Latin and in English in the Forty-two Articles of 1553, corresponds with the Latin title of 1563. The Latin Edition of 1 571, printed by John Day, and published by Royal authority, has ” De Resurrectione Christi,” and so corresponds with the au- thoritative English Edition of the same year.

hi. The Source, from which the Article is derived, cannot be indicated with quite the same certainty as in the case of the previous Articles. When, however, we consider that the Treatise called Reformatio Reritvt Ecclesi- asticamtm was being compiled during much the same

period as the Articles, and that the compilers of the two formularies were in a large degree the same persons, it is possible that here and elsewhere the Articles may- have been influenced by the wording of the Reformatio. The latter formulary does not any more than the Article itself appear to borrow from any known Confession, and it is not improbable that we have in it the language of the compilers themselves.

iv. Object. The Article is complementary to the second and third, and affirms the proper Manhood1 of our Lord after His Resurrection in opposition to the fanatical, ha’lf-docetic school of the Anabaptists. Of these some impugned the record of the Resurrection as a literal fact, and contended that the flesh of Christ had never been the flesh of a created being, and is now so deified as to retain no semblance of humanity2. The intention, therefore, of the Article is to assert that having taken the Manhood into God, our Lord did not lay it aside when He con- quered death, but in that manhood arose from the grave, in that manhood ascended to heaven, in that manhood sitteth at the right hand of God, and in that manhood will return to judge all mankind.

a This was specially the teaching

of Caspar Schwenckfeld, a Silesian nobleman, born in 1490. He main- tamed that (1) our Lord’s flesh is now so deified as to be properly Divine; (2) His proper Humanity was not created of the substance of the Blessed Virgin, but came down from heaven. See Hardwick’s Hist. Ref., pp. 266, ■267. Compelled to leave Silesia in 1528 Schwenckfeld consorted with various sections of the Anabaptists, and Ranke thinks it highly probable that his influence contributed largely to the development of the more mys- tical forms of Anabaptism. Ranke, Reform, iii. 563.

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v. Analysis. The Article may be thus divided : —

(i) It asserts the reality of Christ’s Resurrection from death ;

(ii) It affirms that He ” took again His Body with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature ” ;

(iii) It identifies the Resurrection Body with that in which He ascended up on high ;

(iv) It states the fact of the heavenly Session ;

(v) It affirms the fact and purpose of the Second Advent.

(a) The Fact of the Resurrection.

vi. The First Propagators of the Faith placed the fact of the Resurrection in the very forefront of their preaching1. They distinctly asserted that Jesus of Nazareth, Who had been seen and known by many to whom they spoke, Whose crucifixion had been public and notorious, had actually risen from the dead in accordance with His own pledge beforehand that this event would take place2. The filling up of the Apostolic College3, the first sermon of S. Peter on the day of Pentecost4, the declaration of the Apostles Peter and John before the Sanhedrim5, the first address of S. Paul at Antioch6, his subsequent addresses at Thessalonica7 and especially at Athens8, the declarations contained in all his Epistles, and notably the first to the Corinthians9, all proceed upon the assumption of the

1 “The historical truth of the Resur- 2 Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23.

rection is a most serious matter, and 3 Acts i. 21, 22.

must be capable of standing the 4 Acts ii. 32.

severest historical criticism, for if 5 Acts iv. 10.

Christ did not rise again from death 6 Acts xiii. 30.

to life — ‘cadit qurestio’ — all Chris- 7 Acts xvii. 3.

tian dogma, all Christian faith, is at 8 Acts xvii. 31.

an end.” Lux Muiidi, p. 236. ’■> 1 Cor. xv. passim.

Resurrection as a literal, historical fact, all regard it as the very kernel of the Christian teaching.

vii. The Early Fathers naturally follow their ex- ample, and put forward the Resurrection as the keystone of the Christian Faith. Thus

(a) Ignatius writes ” I know and believe that even after His Resurrection He was in the flesh1”;

(d) Irenaeus in his Creed of the Church of Lyons and Vienne puts forward the Resurrection of our Lord as one of its most definite Articles2;

(c) Justin Martyr says, “At His Crucifixion even they that were acquainted with Him all denied and forsook Him ; but afterwards, when He rose from the dead, He taught them to read the prophecies, in which all these things were foretold to happen3”;

(d) Tertullian writes, ” Believing the Resurrection of Christ, we believe also in our own for whom He died and rose again4”;

(e) S. Chrysostom writes, ” If Christ did not rise again, the whole reason of the Dispensation is overthrown5.”

viii. Attestations of the Event. The fact of the Resurrection is attested by the witness of enemies and friends : —

(a) Of enemies : —

(1) The Roman guard, placed to watch the

sepulchre by Pilate at the request of the

1 Ignatius ad Smym. iii. ‘E71I) yap 2 Irenreus adv. Har. i. 10. 1, Ed.

[…]

elSa Kai iricTtvu ovra. . […] Justin Martyr, Apol. i. c. 50.

[…]

avvivuv us crapKiKds, Kalwep wvevp.a- 5 Horn, in Gen. lviii. 3. tikws rivwpivos t<^ irarpl.

Jewish Sanhedrim, went into the city and positively announced to the chief priests that He was risen from the tomb (Matt, xxviii.

»);

(2) The Rulers thereupon called a council and gave heavy bribes to the soldiers to induce them to affirm that the disciples had stolen away the Body during the night and while they slept1 ;

(3) This story was accordingly actually spread abroad and received credence, showing that the disappearance of the Body could not be disproved (Matt, xxviii. 15).

(£) Of friends :—

This testimony is of the most varied kind, and comes to us from

(1) Mary of Magdala (John xx. 11 — 18); the other ministering women (Matt, xxviii. 9); the two disciples journeying to Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 13 — 35); S. Peter (Luke xxiv. 34; I Cor. xv. 5); the Ten (Luke xxiv. 36—43);

(2) S. Thomas (John xx. 24 — 29) ; the Seven by the lake-side (John xxi. 1 — 14); the Five Hundred brethren on the appointed moun- tain (Matt, xxviii. 16 — 18; 1 Cor. xv. 6);

(3) James the Lord’s brother (1 Cor. xv. 7), and the whole Apostolic body just before the Ascension (Luke xxiv. 50).

They saw Him not once, but many times, not separately

[…]

but together, not by night only but by day. They not only saw Him, but conversed with Him, ate in His presence, and beheld His Hands and His Feet. They could not all have been deceived. They could not all have been false.

ix. Three well-known Non-Christian explanations of the event here require to be noticed : —

(i) Some deny the reality of our Lord’s death. They contend1 (a) That the rapidity, with which He is recorded to have died, was quite unusual in cases of crucifixion, and that the supposed death was a swoon ;

(/;) That consciousness was restored by the coolness of the rock-hewn tomb, and the pungency of the spices, and that as a fact such cases have been known to occur.

But to this it may be replied that,

(a) So far from the recovery, which is thus supposed, being probable, the fact is that it was extremely difficult, with the best medical aid, to save the life of a crucified person2, and this would have been impossible in the case of our Lord after all the severities He had endured ;

(b) The resuscitation of a person only just not dead could not have conveyed the immediate impression of a triumph over death3;

[…]

2 Josephus records that on the oc- casion of the expedition of Titus into Judaea three persons, known to the centurion to have been crucified, were

at his intercession taken down from the Cross, but of the three, only one, in spite of every care, survived. See Godet’s Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith, i. p. 24.

3 “A man half-dead, dragging him- self in languor out of his tomb, with

(c) The explanation is inconsistent with our Lord’s character in respect to His veracity. The fraud practised would have been as certain of detection as morally damaging;

(d) Scripture reveals an unmistakeable difference in our Lord’s Body before and after His Resurrection.

(ii) Others maintain that the Body was stolen away by the disciples.

(1) This was the explanation circulated at the time by the Sadducees, and still current when S. Matthew’s Gospel was written. It was also subsequently maintained by Celsus the Jew in his controversy with Origen1;

(2) But it gains little serious acceptance in the present day, and it is sufficient to say that the exalted morality taught and practised by the disciples is incompatible with the exis- tence of an act of deliberate deception as the very basis of their life and work2.

wounds requiring careful and con- tinuous medical treatment, — could he in such a state have produced upon the minds of his disciples the impres- sion that he was the victor over death and the grave, the Prince of Life ? — an impression which nevertheless was the source and spring of all their sub- sequent activity.” Strauss, Life of Jesus, p. 298, Ed. 1864. See Christ- lieb, p. 457. Moreover the active exertion of the journey to Emmaus would have been impossible for a man “half-dead, dragging himself in languor” from a tomb in which he had been placed as dead but three days before. See the Bp of Derry’s

Primary Convictions, p. 104.

[…]

• Others with Bauer abandon the position of valid criticism, and con- tend that what really happened at that which we call the Resurrection, remains outside the sphere of historical “investigation.” See Godet’s Defetue, >• 3<>, 37-

(iii) Others hold the appearances of our Lord to have been subjective and unreal.

This is what is commonly called “the Theory of Visions,” and is the explanation most commonly accepted by Rationalists at the present day. It supposes the disciples to have been either the victims of an hallucination or in a state of ecstasy. The theory is sought to be supported by the following considerations : (a) The excitement of the Apostles and es- pecially of the Holy Women and Mary of Magdala on their visit to the tomb ; The difficulty of believing that Jesus was really gone ;

(7) The familiarity of the Jews with the idea of a resurrection from the dead ;

(8) The traditions connected with some of the Old Testament Saints ;

(e) The language of prophecy respecting the Messiah, and the actual predictions of Jesus.

x. Refutation of the Theory of Visions. Now it is

important to notice at the outset that even were it possible to reconcile this theory with the actual circumstances, it would fail to satisfy the requirements of an historical re- ligion, for no degree of intensity in the subjective experience of the disciples can constitute the objective reality of the appearances themselves. Their objectivity is essential to their significance. ” A conviction that a particular person had risen again when he had not is simply false, however it may have been produced1.” But to take the considera-

tions separately, what is their worth, when tested by the facts ?

(a) The supposed excitement is inconsistent with

(1) The calm deliberate use of the critical faculty on the part of the disciples to which the Scriptures testify1;

(2) The settled depression of S. Peter and S. John2 in the early morning and of Cleopas and his companion3 on the afternoon of the first Easter Day ;

(3) The practical collected forethought displayed by the disciples during the great forty days, and the ten days that followed4 :

{b) The Holy Women expected to find a dead body in a closed sepulchre (Mark xvi. 3); and the solution of the empty sepulchre put forward by Mary of Magdala was that the dead body had been removed ;

(c) The language of Martha (John xi. 24) proves that the idea of a resurrection previous to the last day was quite unfamiliar to the Jewish mind ;

{d) The return to earth of a translated saint like Enoch, Moses, and Elijah is quite different from a resurrection. Such a person is not supposed to die, and death therefore is not conquered but avoided. Such a return is not a rising from the grave at all, but a mission from heaven5;

1 See Matt, xxviii. 7, 10 ; Mark xvi. 9 — 14 ; Luke xxiv. 37 sqq.; John xx. 25. The language of Matt, xxviii. 1 7, oi Si iUaTaaav, compared with that of Acts i. 14; iv. 33 implies the use and satisfaction of the critical faculty.

2 John xx. 1 —10.

3 Luke xxiv. 21.

4 See Matt, xxviii. 19 ; Acts i. 3, 4, 1 4 ; ii. iii. and iv. passim.

5 ” There was, it is true, a popular expectation that Elijah or some other

(e) Nothing in Scripture indicates that the disciples either appreciated any prophetic reference to the Resurrection of the Messiah, or understood our Lord’s predictions of it1. On the contrary, when the event had actually occurred, the report of it seemed foolish babble2, and the appearance of the Risen Lord, so far from being welcomed as the expected, was shunned as a phantasm, and nothing less than contact assured the Apostles of the reality.

xi. Further considerations. But there are certain other considerations which are irreconcileable with the Theory of Visions.

{a) The state of mind liable to the supposed vision has been explained as hallucination or ecstasy. Now the former is ” a symptom of some grave physical or moral derangement3,” and the latter has been defined as being “an affection of the brain in which the exaltation of certain ideas so absorbs the attention that sensation is suspended, voluntary movement arrested, and even the vital actions often retarded4.” Were Cleopas and his companion walking in- voluntarily to Emmaus when Jesus joined them by the way ? Was it of the result of suspended sensation that S. John could write, That which

of the old prophets should be sent understands the word in the sense of

from heaven, whither they had been delirium ; this is, however, a derived

specially withdrawn, to prepare the and rare sense, found only in medical

advent of the Messiah ; but this ex- writers. The original sense is non-

pectation centered in a direct mis- sense, empty babble.

sion from God, and not in a rising 3 Godet, Defence of the Christian

from the grave to a new life.” West- Faith, p. 30.

cott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 4 Nysten, Dictionnaire tie Medecine, Ed. Littre et Robinson, quoted by

2 \rjpos, Luke xxiv. 11. Renan

we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, that which our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life… declare we unto you (i John i. i, 3)? (/;) Again, comparing the disciples before and after the appearances, we observe that while they are the same individuals1, their moral nature has been entirely transformed and their con- ception of the Person and Work of their Lord has immeasurably advanced2. Is a merely subjective experience an adequate explanation of such a change3 ? (c) Moreover the circumstances of the appearances themselves are inconsistent with the Theory of Visions : — For (1) Their duration must have sometimes been protracted. A considerable space of time is presupposed4, when on the way to Emmaus He interpreted to the two disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke xxiv. 27), and when just before His Ascen- sion He conversed with the Eleven of the things concerning the kingdom of God (Acts i- 3).

1 “Those who saw our Lord in subject, is rooted in — is unaccount- Gethsemane and on the Cross, and able without — a real and glorious again upon the great Easter Sunday, Resurrection.” Bp of Derry’s Pri- cannot speak of the Resurrection with- mary Convictions, p. 105. out an enthusiasm which rises to al- 2 Comp. Luke xviii. 34, or John most lyrical rapture. Listen to S. xii. 16, with Acts ii. 38 and iv. n. John’s conception of the self-con- 3 ” As far as we can see, there was sciousness of the Resurrection-life of no possible spring of hope within the the Risen Lord. 1 am the first and disciples which could have had such the last, and the ever-living, and I an issue.” Weslcott’s Gospel of the became dead, and behold! I am living Resurrection, p. 121. to the ages of the ages. Now this joy 4 See Milligan, The Resurrection. of the disciples, attested by all the p. tofi. literature which remains upon the

(2) They were made to numbers of persons at once, and all such persons were at once simi- larly affected by them, and that on their first occurrence to them (Luke xxiv. 37 ; John xx. 20) ;

(3) They occurred first at Jerusalem, where the prevailing tone of feeling was critical and hostile, and in spite of the fact that the disciples had been led to believe that they would find our Lord in Galilee (Matt, xxviii. 7, 10).

(4) They suddenly ceased1 after forty days in spite alike of the promises of our Lord’s abiding presence with the disciples, and of the stirring events of the day of Pentecost (Matt, xxviii. 20).

(yS) The Resurrection Body.

xiL The Article next states that our Lord “toke agayne his body, with flesh, bones, and all thinges appar- teyning to the perfection2 of mans nature.” We gather from the Gospel narrative that

(i) Our Lord did not at His Resurrection either

1 If the visions were the result of the Church, would continue with in-

ecstasy, why did they not continue ? creasing intensity, producing a life

Exactly at the moment, when enthu- of enjoyment altogether ecstatic, than

siasm may have been regarded as at that it should have suddenly stopped,

its height, they suddenly cease, and and given place to a life of healthy

when we should have expected they practical moral activity.” Keim, The

would have increased in number and Historical Christ, p. 136; Milligan,

become continuous, they come to an The Resurrection, pp. no — 112. abrupt close, and give place to a 2 Latin, Integritatem. Integritas

life of healthy activity on the part from integer (in and tango) denotes

of the Apostolic body and the be- (1) freedom from disease; (2) sound-

lievers generally. ” Psychology would ness, rigour; (3) completeness, entire-

rather conclude that the action of ness. Comp. Cic. Fin. v. 14 ” quod

that vibration, once set in motion by cumulatur ex integritate corporis et

the Twelve in the whole body of ex mentis ratione perfecta.”

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(a) lay aside entirely His material body and assume an absolutely spiritual body1, or (b) re- sume His material body only at special times and for special purposes2;

(ii) He rose with a true human Body, even the par- ticular Body proper to Himself as the Incarnate Word. Sight and contact were needed to con- vince the disciples of the verity and identity of the Body. They were sensible of flesh and bones, even of the very wound-prints, and our Lord invited them to handle Him and see for themselves (Luke xxiv. 36 sqq. ; John xx. 27)*.

(iii) Our Lord’s human Body after His Resurrection had, without ceasing to be a true human Body, a certain independence of the conditions of time and space4. He comes we know not whence ;

1 See Luke xxiv. 39 — 43 ; John xx. 1 7, and Westcott in loc.

2 The Gospels describe the mani- festations in such terms as (a) e(pave- pwdrj, Mark xvi. 12, 14; John xxi. 14; (b) itpavipwaev iavrdv, John xxi. 1 ; (c) iraptoTTiatv eavrov fiit-Ta, Acts i. 3. But they afford no ground for believing in any recurrence, however momentary, to pre-Resurrection con- ditions, such as the occasional resump- tion of a material body would seem to imply.

3 While Docetism has from the first thought to find for itself sup- port in the circumstances of the Resur- rection-Life of our Lord, the Church has insisted that the Resurrection di- minished nothing of the verity of His Manhood. Thus Ignatius ad Trail. ix., Ss Kal d\r]0ws riytp0-q airb vtKpwv ; Origen, Contr. Cels. ii. 16, 6 yap aX-qSQs atroOavuiv, d Aviarr), a\r)0£>s avian).

4 It is not sufficiently remembered that to describe a conquest of death at all, to portray the Conqueror,

clothed in the mystery of the Resur- rection Body, and in doing so to preserve the harmony of His moral attributes with all that has gone be- fore, is a task transcending the art of the greatest master of poetry or fiction. ” Shakespeare has rarely re- presented great souls of the departed as uttering more than a few words. The impression produced by their apparition is floated in to us through the language of the spectators rather than of the visitant. The presence of the Ghost in ’ Hamlet ’ is felt in the statelier march and more solemn music of the lines which are spoken by those under the spell. But the language of the Ghost himself falls, on the whole, far short of the lofty and awful conception conveyed by the words of others, who impart to us the impression which the dra- matist wishes us to form But the

little company of disciples contained a writer whose invention was such as to raise him to the level of a perfect equality with the majestic conception

He goes we know not whither. Now He is with Mary of Magdala in the Garden. Now He is with the two on the road to Emmaus. Now He is by the Lake-side. Now He is on the appointed mountain. Such an indepen- dence of time and space had already in some degree been displayed previous to the Resur- rection (Matt. xiv. 25 ; Mark vi. 48). But what had been hitherto, though fully potential, only partially actual, became more fully actual after the victory over death had been achieved1, and our Lord speaks of Himself after His Resur- rection as possessing not ” flesh and blood,” but “flesh and bones” (Luke xxiv. 39)*.

If it be objected that the Humanity thereby ceases to be real, and that personal identity is destroyed, it may be replied that (a) an independence the same in kind, though less in degree, had been displayed already previous to the Resurrection, but this is not regarded as rendering the Humanity unreal; that (b) personal identity does not de- pend upon an identity of material particles existing in an

of a Risen God — so much at home with it that he fearlessly follows mi- nute actions of this exalted being, and endows Him with sentence after sentence not unworthy of those Divine lips ! Shakespeare himself could not have moved on these lofty ranges of imaginative fiction without an occa- sional breakdown, more especially as the joyous and triumphant freedom which is required for such high crea- tions would have been fettered at every turn by the benumbing con- viction that he was degrading his powers to the service of a lie.” The Bp of Derry’s Primary Convictions, pp. 98, 99. 1 See Luke xxiv. 31, 36; T°hn xx.

19, 26.

M.

identical mutual relation. We conclude, therefore, that our Lord’s Resurrection Body was not less truly human in its new condition of freedom from the limitations of time and space.

(7) The Ascension.

xiii. The Ascension Body. The Article next asserts that the Resurrection Body was the same as that “where- with our Lord ascended into heaven1.” In other words it maintains the permanence of His Humanity2. This is a point on which the testimony of Scripture is plain. There is nothing to indicate that the Body with which the Lord’s disciples belield Him going into heaven (Acts i. n)3 was other than that with which He rose from the tomb, and this view is confirmed by the language of the Epistles. Thus

(i) The writer of that to the Hebrews bases much of his teaching on the permanence of Christ’s Humanity. The very name, which he so cha- racteristically applies to our Lord, Jesus, “the

1 On the circumstances of the As- cension, see In/rod. to the Creeds, pp. 164—166. ” If the story of the Ascen- sion had been of human invention, all we know of literature tells us how it would have been. Over the cradle there would have been silence, and a sky as hushed as a frozen sea. At the Ascension the air would have quivered wilh the melody, and the mountains have been shaken by the storm of the triumph. But because the narrative is true, the liturgical instincts of the evangelist are kept in check. The Church is supplied with no song for the Ascension-tide to form a counterpart to the ’ Gloria in Ex- celsis.’…To the temple which the evangelist raises to the truth he will neither prefix a porch of romance, nor

append an exit of fiction. Because the narrative is true, all the songs are for the cradle, all the silence is for the return to the Throne.” Bp of Derry’s Primary Convict ions, p. 106.

a ‘Effeao-aaOe. The term quite natu- rally expresses sense-perception of an external object, but not equally natu- rally a subjective vision. Contrast the use of the term 64a.fia with that of the substantive 6 >a/j.a, and we see the point of the use of the verb here. It is used in the same sense in 1 John i. 1 . See Westcott in toe.

Christ in His Humanity1,” and its frequent emphasis by position, implies as much, (ii) For S. John it is one of the marks of the deceiver and the Antichrist that he does not confess that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh (2 John 7Y-

(S) The Heavenly Session.

xiv. Our Ascended Lord, the Article proceeds to declare, ” sitteth ” at the right hand of God. This follows from S. Mark’s account of the Ascension, where he tells us

that the Lord Jesus was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God (Mark xvi. 19). The same expression3 occurs frequently in the Epistle to the Hebrews4, and S. Paul, regarding the action of the Father, writes God raised Christ from the dead, and set Him at His own right Hand in the heavenly regions (Eph. i. 20). Here it is important to observe

(1) That as God is Spirit, “without body or parts,” we must not understand this session as deter- mining any posture of the Body of our Lord ;

[…]

3 Comp. the language of Ps. ex. 1. “medio rex ipse resedit Agmine.”

Comp. Heb.

(2) The phrase expresses the peculiar royalty of the Son in His glorified Humanity1, without any negation of His standing in the heavenly regions as the Archetypal High Priest;

(3) His session implies that the Father hath con- ferred upon the Son all preeminence of power, favour, and felicity2, and the place of greatest honour and most exalted dignity and most perfect bliss in the heaven of heavens8.

(e) The Second Advent.

xv. Until He return. The Article concludes with the statement that our Lord sitteth in heaven “until He return to judge all men at the last day.” The word “until” does not imply that thenceforward our Lord will be divested of His peculiar royalty. It marks rather the point of transition from the Kingdom of Grace to the Kingdom of Glory, of which, as we say in the Nicene Creed, ” there shall be no end4.” The purpose of the second Advent is

1 Comp. Rom. viii. 34 with Acts vii. 56. See also 1 Kings ii. 19, and Matt. xx. 21.

2 ” Beatus est, et a beatitudine, quae dextera Patris vocatur, ipsius beatitu- dinis nomen est dextera Patris.” S. Aug. Sertn. ad Catech. xi. ” Ad dex- teram ergo intelligendumest sic dictum esse, in summa beatitudine, ubi justitia et pax et gaudium est.” S. Aug. de Fide et Symb., xiv.

continual and heightened activity. He is there instated in the complete exercise of all the offices, and in the full enjoyment of all the privileges, belonging to Him as perfect Media- tor, Sovereign King, High Priest, and Arch-Prophet of God’s Church and people. “He did initially and in part exercise those functions upon earth ; and a ground of enjoying these preeminencies He laid here ; but the entire execution and possession of all, He did obtain by His Ascension into heaven, and by His Session there.” Barrow’s Sermon on the Ascension.

defined to be the Judgment of all men. That He will exercise this awful office is our Lord’s own express decla- ration. Neither doth the Father, He saith, judge atiy man, but He hath given all judgment unto the Son… and He gave1 Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man (John v. 22, 27)*. Judgment, Scripture teaches us, is the proper office of the Son in His Humanity. It belongs to Him as Mediator because He is both Son over His {Jehovah’s) Hoitse (Heb. iii. 6), and Son of Man taken from among men (Heb. v. 1). Our Lord’s express statement on this point is confirmed by the teaching of S. Paul, when he said to the Athenians on Mars’ hill, God hath appointed a day, in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He hath ordained (Acts xvii. 31), and in his Epistle to the Romans he speaks of the day, when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ (Rom. ii. 16).

xvi. The object of the Judgment is all mankind — We shall all stand, says S. Paul, before the judgment seat of God (Rom. xiv. io)3, both small and great (Apoc. xx. 12)4, the quick and dead5 (2 Tim. iv. 1), and shall give account of the deeds done in the body to Him, Who alone from actual experience of human life can possess ” that exact tempera-

1 Gave, Zdunei>. The tense carries us back to the Incarnation, and beyond it, beyond all time. ” Hominibus in judicio non apparebit nisi Filius. Pater occultus est, Filius manifestus. In quo est Filius manifestus? In Forma qua ascendit. Nam in Forma Dei cum Patre occultus est, in Forma servi hominibus manifestus.” S. Aug. Tract, xxi. in Joann.

3 We shall all stand. All the most antithetical types of character, as the context implies. The statement indi- cates the regulative value, in our rela-

tions one with another, of the thought of the one fjr)fia at which all alike will present themselves.

[…]

ment of affection towards men, which is requisite to the distribution of equal justice towards them, according to the due measures of mercy and severity1,” and whose perfect human nature qualifies Him to be on the one hand a merci- ful and faithful High priest (Heb. ii. 17) and on the other a faithful and merciful Judge. It is not an enemy who shall judge us, neither is it one indifferently affected to- wards us, it is He Who died for us upon the Cross, and Who is now our Mediator and Intercessor1’.

judgment to come, then there is no one definite moral purpose in human society. Progress would be a melan- choly word, a deceptive appearance, a stream that has no issue, a road that leads nowhere. No one who believes that there is a Personal God who guides the course of human affairs can come to the conclusion that the genera- tions of man are to go on for ever with- out a winding up, which shall decide upon the doings of all who take part in human life… A drama, however long drawn out, must have a last act. The last act of the drama of history is ’ The Day of the Judgment.”’ Bp of Derry’s Primary Convictions, p. 137.

Notes

• “Credatur item Dominus noster Jesus Christus, etiam post resurrec- tionem, duplici natura construe ; divina quidem, immensa, incircumscripta, et infinita, qua; ubique sit et omnia impleat ; humana vero, finita et de- scripta humani corporis terminis ac finibus, qua, postquam peccata nostra pcrpurgavisset, in ccelos ascendit, ibi- que ita sedet ad dexteram Patris, ut non ubique sit, quippe quem oportet in ccelo remanere, usque ad tempus restitutionis omnium, cum ad judican- dos vivos et morluos veniet, ut reddat cuique juxta opera sua.” Ref. Leg. de Sitmma Trin. c. 4.
• Bp Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 4.
• See Mark ix. 9 sqq. ; John ii. 11. Godet. pp. 74. 75.
• Comp. Eph. v. 30 where the read- ing in rijs (rapicds aisrou, xal in tuw dariiav airov is not without support. ” The significant variation from the common formula ‘flesh and blood’ must have been at once intelligible to Jews, accustomed 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 seal of corruptible life.” Westcott, Gospel of the Resur- rection, p. 162, «., and Revelation of the Risen Lord, p. 69.
• “The Manhood, which He as- sumed, was not annulled, when He ascended, neither was it dissolved into the majesty and glory of God.” See Pusey’s Parochial Sermons, Vol. ii., pp. 206 — ■230.
• ‘I-qaovv Xpiarbv i pxbptvov iv aapid. Ka6ioas iv Sttjiq. avrou, and Apoc. iii. “The thought centres upon the present 21, ‘0 vlkuiv, bwaoi atrip Kadiaai per perfection of the Lord’s Manhood ip-ov iv t£ Opbvtp pov. It is noticeable which is still, and is to be manifested, that the word in the Article is not and not upon the past fact of His sedet but “residet.” Residere = (1) coming.” Westcott in loc. ; see also to sit back, (2) to remain sitting. Gore’s Bampton Lectures, pp. 99, 259, Comp. Wrg.yEn. viii. 232, “terfessus 260. valle resedit” ; Ovid, Met am. vii. jo2,
• Observe the distinction between ol ovpavol the created heavens, and 0 ovpcwds, which is “coelum in quo Deus est etiam quando ccelum creatum nul- lum est, ipsa gloria divina.” Schmidt quoted by Delitzsch on Heb. ix. 24. For the object of the Heavenly Session, see Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 1 70 sqq. We are not to conceive of His Session as though it implied a state of inactive rest. Rather our Lord main- tains in heaven not a lessened, but a
• For the heresy of Marcellus of Ancyra, who taught that after the Judgment the Son would resign not only His royalty but His personality, see Westcott, Historic Faith, p. 199, and compare Introduction to the Creeds, p. 195.
• For our Lord’s prophetic utter- ances respecting the Judgment, see Introduction to the Creeds, pp. ]8i,
• Zuivras Kal veKpoii;. For the word ” quick,” see Introduction to the Creeds, p. 184, n. For the various explana- tionsof “vivos etmortuos,“see S.Aug. De Fide et Symbolo, “Vivos et mor- tuos : sive istis nominibus ‘justi’ et ‘peccatores’ significentur, sive quos tunc ante mortem in terris inventurus est, appellati sint ‘vivi,’ ’ mortui ’ vero qui in ejus adventu resurrecturi sunt.” Comp. ad Catech. § 12.
• See Pearson on the Creed, p. 542. For the fitness of the Judge and the reasonableness of the Judgment, see Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 183, sqq. ” Sedebit Judex qui stetit sub judice. Damnabit veros reos, qui factus est falsus reus.” S. Aug. de Verb. Dom., Serm. lxiv.
• On the witness which is borne, independently of Revelation, to a future Judgment (1) by our con- science; (2) by reflection on the cha- racter of God as a just God ; (3) by the consent of almost all mankind, see Introd. to the Creeds, pp. 189 — 193. “General history points to a general judgment. If there is no such