Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1912 — BROOKLYN TABERNACLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BROOKLYN TABERNACLE

JESUS’ SOUL RESURRECTED. I Cprinthians xv, 1-11—April 7. Tcati This Jexui hath Gotl railed up, irhmof toe are all witnesses." —Acts it, 32. CODAY. appropriate to the Enster so tson. we are to consider our Lord's resurreetiou. At the very outset we are confronted with certain errors which have gradually crystallized around tb§ central truths of God’s Word. One of these errors is the supposition that the resurrection of the dead, which the Scriptures hold forth ns-the hope of the Church and of the world, is to be a resurrection of the bodies which go down into death. ’

. This mistake has given ground for infidelity to sneer at this precious doc-

trine of the Bible. We are asked. How could the dust Which once •con.r.ituted the bodies of thousands of millions of humanity ever , be- re-codected and reaminged so that we could say that those I, iiUrn were resurrected? The infidel urges that

many of humanity have been eaten by fishes and animals, and many other corpses have been absorbed by vegetation, which in turn has been eaten time and again by man and beast, entering into the many organisms: The proposition is manifestly unanswerable, yet it does not refute the Bible teaching of the resurrection, but merely t our creed-i 1 misapprehensions of the Bible teaching. What the Bible does teach is that the real man is the soul, the beiiuj, and that he persists while gradually his body keeps changingsloughing off. Scientists estimate that the human body undergoes a complete change every seven years. According to the Bible the process of rejuvenation would have continued everlastingly had man continued by obedience in Divine favor and in enjoyment of the everlasting life promised. It was sin that brought the death penalty—the death of the soul. It was Adam’s soul that sinned, it was Adam’s soul that died—“lu the day that thou eateth thereof thou shalt surely die.” “The soul that sinneth it shall die.”

Christ’s Death and Resurrection Makes Future Life Possible. The resalt of this Divin° sentence upon man would have beeb extinction —he would have been on the same plane as the brute without any hope for eternal life, had not God in great mercy provided a redemption—that “Jesus Christ by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” The death which Jesus experienced was exactly the same kind as the one which destroyed Adam , the soul of Jesus died as the ransom-price for the soul of Adam (including Adam’s posterity). Thus we read of Jesus: “He poured out His sou! unto death; He made His soul an offering for sin.” It is by virtue of this corresponding price which Jesus paid that ultimately Adam and ail of his posterity, every soul bf man, will be.granted a release from the death penalty—a resurrection from the dead—not of the dead bodies, but of the dea l l .souls. Tmtbe resurrection God will give to each soul a body as it has pleased Him.—l Corinthians xv, 38. The few during this Age who have become the followers of Jesus, begotten of the Holy Spirit,-will be granted spirit bodies like to the Savior’s. The remainder of mankind, not having been begotten of the Holy Spirit, will in the resurrection be granted human bodies, the same as they previously had: and their raising up will bring them eventually to a-l the perfection of the first Adam, unless they refuse the grace of God, in which event they will die the Second Death, from which there is to be no resurrection.

Jesus’ Soul Resurrected. St. Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, laid stress upon the fact of Christ’s resurrection, and he reminds us that this wms foretold. The Prophet DaVid declared. “Thouwilt not leave My soul

in sheol. nor suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption” Acts ii. 2- ' ' ,\ , St. Peter’s quotation of this; in the Greek, substitutes the word hades for sheol. showing that the words were a

prophecy of the resurrection of Jesus l — His soul, poured oat in death as the redemption price for Adam's soul and for the race, was not left in death, ’in sheol, in hades, but was raised from the dead. St. Paul tells us that “He was put to death in flesh, but quickened in spirit.” He declared that JeSus, in His resurrection, was exalted to a higher than human nature—“far above angels and principalities and powers”—the divine nature. As angels could materialize and appear in the flesh and disappear, and had done so in the past, so did Jesus. In order that His disciples might not misunderstand He appeared in different forms—on two of the occasions, in forms representing the Crucified One. On the other six occasions, in various' forms, as the gardener, the sojourner, etc.

“He is risen.”

The walk to Emmaus.