The Resurrection (Soul & Spirit)

Out of: The Discourse on the Resurrection and the Translation

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1Cr. 15:22.)

Adam's life began when he was given the breath of life, raised from the dust and made dependent on the tree of life. Through disobedience, however, he severed the artery of hidden power which had linked him with God. Consequently, "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."

If it were true that Adam had received an immortal soul — an inner, living entity, which at the death of the body would be released from its imprisonment, made perfect and enter the kingdom of bliss "up above" — the offering of reconciliation, as well as the resurrection, would be superfluous. If we inherit an immortal soul from Adam, we have no need of a resurrection. The apostasy was an act of the body and as a result it dies. A liberated prisoner has no use for his prison after he has been given the freedom to move into a perfect home.

Through the resurrection, Jesus — the sacrifice of reconciliation—became the personification of eternal life and as a consequence the resurrection became the door to the kingdom of God. Resurrection to a realization of life's hope —admission to the kingdom of life — constitutes the foundation of the gospel of Christ and is to all children of faith what the natural birth is to the children of Adam: without the resurrection there can be no life. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul denies the resurrection since it ascribes to death the power to convey the soul directly to heaven or to hell. In contradiction to this doctrine Paul says that God has made all dependent on the resurrection of Christ:

"But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." (1Cr. 15:13 18.)

How does this compare with the talk of "going home through death"? If the dead rise not, the saints who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

Here, then, it is very plain that antichrist has been a teacher aiming to destroy faith in Christ and to hinder man from accepting the seed of the Word, which would unite him with the Eternal Life. Led by the evil spirits, the chief priests caused the death of Jesus, and when the watchmen at His grave reported His resurrection, the priests gave money to the soldiers to help the clergy preach lies by saying: "His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept ... and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day." (Mat. 28:11 15.)

The Millennial-Dawn people endeavor to spread the falsehood in a worse form, claiming that only the spirit of Jesus was resurrected and the body was disposed of. Was it the spirit that died? The Catholic church claims that Jesus is a bodiless spirit — a third part of a bodiless God. They base their salvation on the Catholic-inspired Mormon doctrine which teaches that when the spirit is released from the body it either returns to God, pure and saved, or it goes to hell. But Pastor Russell was even bolder in his degradation of the Resurrection and the Life. He taught that Jesus returned spiritually in 1874, that the first resurrection — a bodiless resurrection — occurred in 1878, and that those who now die will rise after three days as astral beings. According to this teaching the cemeteries by now should have empty graves. When they can fabricate such brazen falsehoods pertaining to such world-shaking events, one need not be astonished at their assurance of "salvation for all after death." This last-mentioned assertion means that everyone will receive a new opportunity to choose between eternal bliss and perdition, since they claim that death liberates each one from sins com­mitted here — surely a terrible doctrine. This doctrine knows of no better savior than death. It is to be expected that Satan would preach such things, since he said: "Ye shall not surely die."

The Mormons go so far as to teach that they have undertaken the salvation of demons by means of the bodies which they, by their immoral lives, have provided for the fallen angels to occupy. Thus the body becomes the means of reconciliation and death becomes the savior. Jesus worked for the salvation of the seed of Abraham — human beings only. (Heb. 2:16.) The Lamb of God, the Resurrection and the Life, is worthless to these people. The doctrine originated by the serpent has triumphed in the kingdom of falsehood because of the incidence of death. However, the resurrection will finally be triumphant over both the kingdom of falsehood and death.

The resurrection is for man, the whole being. In his everyday life a man lies down and he rises; if he sleeps, he expects to awaken and get up. No one is so foolish as to believe that something within departs from the body while he lies down and leaves his limbs remaining in bed. The same is true of death and the resurrection.

The subject should be divided into four separate, main points — the first and the second resurrection, a birth and an awakening.

Christ, the Lifegiver, has presented to us: (1) the resurrection of life; (2) the resurrection of judgment; (3) the regeneration — being born again — or the resurrection from the dead; and (4) the resurrection of the dead. He awakened the dead to demonstrate the meaning of the words as compared with the resurrection He refers to as "being born again."

"Why should the body rise"? The answer to this question is observed in the annual resurrection in nature. Why does the sower eagerly await an ear of grain similar to that which he had planted in the earth? Wouldn't a spirit or an astral form be more suitable and serve the same purpose? That would be out of question. What he wants is grain, dual grain, containing within itself a new, prophetic, germinating substance. These bodies were created by God, and Jesus — the Son of man — compares Himself with the kernel of wheat, which dies in the ground and rises with new powers of pro­lific regeneration. (John 12:24.) When the kernel dies, a new one is born from the old, through a resurrection, which brings forth a hundredfold.