By Very Rev. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G.,
I.
From our knowledge of God and ourselves reason demands a visible body, in which, with visible signs, the wonders of redemption shall be wrought.1. The race of man is a visible race, and must be treated as such in all the operations of God. We are not pure spirits, and can never be considered as purely spiritual. Our bodies, which are material and visible, are an integral part of our nature. They are concerned in our sin, and they must in like manner be concerned in our redemption. The operations of the soul are in and through the senses, which are the means of our communication with the external world.
The human race fell in Adam, its father, and visibly was exiled from Eden, and in its corporate life passed into the shadow of death away from God. "By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin, death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned." The action of life among those dead in the transgression of one father must be in accordance with the nature of their death. As a visible race they died; as a visible race they must be raised from that death. "By the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners ; so also by the obedience of one many shall be made just," The visibility of the redeemed corresponds to that of the fallen. The first Adam and his children are fallen in the unity of race. The second Adam, with His children, are the living race with the same unity, visibility, and corporate life.
2. If the redeemed were invisible to the eyes of men, there would be no redemption of the body, and therefore no redemption of man. Whatever may happen to the soul can never be made known to us except through the body. If the soul could be restored to God without any change passing upon the body, God alone would know it, and the man could not be saved. Such a redemption is impossible, and for manifest reasons.
On such a supposition the soul addressed by grace "will pass its trial and come to its reward. In the trial the body has its share. It can have none in the reward. Then the body must perish, as the soul redeemed cannot peacefully inform it in eternity. This contradicts the voice of reason, since it destroys in the future life the integrity of man. The soul is an immortal spirit. Man is essentially composed of a soul and a body. It contradicts also the plain words of revelation, which teaches us that the body shall rise in the latter day from the grave, and that " this mortal shall put on immortality."
In the body man has sinned, and in the body he ought to suffer. " Sin reigned in the mortal body of the sinner, who has yielded his members as instruments of iniquity unto sin." So "the hands and feet of the lost are to go into hell, into unquenchable fire." In like manner they are to have part in the resurrection by reason of their share in redemption. "If the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He shall quicken your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you." "Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own ? For you are bought with a price. Glorify and bear God in your body."
