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and revelations of the Lord1 were sometimes granted; such, at least, was S. Paul's experience at a particular time in his life, and he was probably not singular in this respect. Two other instances have been given already, and it is unnecessary to pursue the matter further here.

Perhaps the 'ecstasy' of the first age may carry us some way towards an understanding of what is meant by the faithful departed being 'with the Lord.' The Apostle, when in an ecstatic. condition, knew not whether he was still in the body; he was conscious of a detachment from external things such as we connect with the state of the disembodied. Moreover, he was caught up into Paradise, the counterpart of that garden of the Lord where primaeval man could hear the voice of God walking among the trees, when the long hot day was over, and the cool breeze of evening 5 brought refreshment and increase of vital power. It is remarkable that the same word is used by our Lord in reference to His own meeting after death with the spirit of the penitent robber: To-day, shalt thou be with me in Paradise; and, again,

12 Cor. xii. 1 ὀπτασίας καὶ ἀποκαλύψεις Κυρίου.

2 See p. 129 f.

5 Gen. iii. 8. Heb. Dr. Driver (Genesis, p. trasts Gen. xviii. I.

6

See pp. 117, 133 ff.
'in the wind of the day,'
46) compares Cant. ii. 17

6 Lc. xxiii. 43 ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ.

42 Cor. xii. 4. LXX Tò deiλivóv. (R.V.), and con

when in the Apocalyptic message He promises the conqueror that he shall eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the spiritual Eden.1 All this may seem to point to some analogy between the ecstatic state and the state of 'them that depart hence in the Lord'; the latter are in fact, as the former in effect, 'outside the body,' and the spirit, now wholly delivered from the burden of the flesh,' realizes, as here we cannot realize, the Presence of God and the glory of Christ in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and is refreshed and quickened by what it sees. The vision is purely spiritual, but it is real, and it is beatific. Blessed are the dead which die in

the Lord.

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The prolonged ecstacy of the disembodied spirit will, in the belief of the Apostolic age, be broken at length by the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead. What is meant by 'resurrection in this sense? Not resuscitation, as many of the teachers of the ancient Church supposed;2 but as S. Paul teaches, the clothing of the spirit with a spiritual body. The 'bare grain' and the green blade of corn are so dissimilar that no one who had seen the former only could conceive of the latter. Equally inconceivable is the body that shall be.' But among its faculties it will assuredly have one which will answer to our sense of sight, the power of

1 Rev. ii. 7.

2 See the writer's Apostles' Creed, p. 93 ff.

conveying to the spirit impressions more perfect than any which the spirit by itself can form of the glory of the spiritual body of the Lord.

The revelation of Christ through the risen body will be, at the moment of His Coming, world-wide. So the Lord Himself seems to teach, and so the Apostolic age believed. To the unholy it may come in the flash of a terrible conviction that they have rejected Infinite Love and Beauty. To the faithful it will be a transfiguring power, which will complete their assimilation to the Master: We shall be like him, for we shall see him; the risen body will be conformed to the body of his glory; there will be in some way as yet unintelligible a revealing of the sons of God, coinciding with the final manifestation of the Only Begotten Son: when Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.1

But the last revelation is not limited by the New Testament to the 'Day of the Lord,' whatever sense we may attach to that term. Beginning at a particular epoch, or, as it is sometimes represented, at a particular moment, brief as the twinkling of the eye,2 it is not to be measured by days or years. There will be no subsequent withdrawal of the Presence of Christ, no vanishing of the light, no interval of

11 Jo. iii. 2; Phil. iii. 21; Rom. viii. 29; Col. iii. 4.
21 Cor. xv. 52 ἐν ἀτόμῳ, ἐν ῥιπῇ ὀφθαλμοῦ.

occultation, short or long. We shall ever be with the Lord1 living with perfect powers of vision and fellowship in the sight of the Divine Man, who is the Image of the invisible God.

This was the hope which inspired the age of the Apostles. To our own age it may seem chimerical, because we have no powers by which it can be analysed, and no experience to which it can be compared. Yet experience shews that when this hope has been sincerely embraced it raises and controls human life with a strength which no other motive can exert. Tens of thousands in all generations since the first century have lived soberly and righteously and godly in this present world, looking for the blessed hope of our eternal life in the Presence of Christ. Every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.?

11 Th. iv. 17.

2 Tit. ii. 12 f., 1 Jo. iii. 3.

Absolution, 38.

Adam, the Last, 33.
All hail, 11 n.

INDEX

Apocalypse, the, 132; 'apoca-
lypse,' 129 f., 145 f.

'Apostles,' 31; their mission,

100 f.

Ascension, the day of, 92n.; place
of, 103; the event, 104 ff.;
vision of Christ after, 113 ff.;
'ascension,' 104.
'authority,' 70 f., 129.

baptism, Christian, 73 ff.
Barjonah, 59.
Bethany, 103.

'binding' and 'loosing,' 36.
blessed are the dead which die in
the Lord, 147.

blessed are they that have not
seen, 48 f.

bridegroom, Christ as, 138.

Christ, the risen: changes of
form, 22; disappearance, 23 f.;
body not docetic, 28 f.
Church, rapid growth of, after
Pentecost, 113.
Cleopas, 17.

Conqueror, vision of the, 137 f.
'consummation,' 81 f.
conversion of Saul, accounts of
the, 122 f.

Corinth, the first letter of St.
Paul to, xii, 83.
creed, the old Roman, 105.

Damascus, 121, 124 f.
disciple,' to, 73 n.
documents, xi ff., xv f.
doubt, honest, 48.

Easter Day, appearances on the
first, 40.
'ecstasy,
145 f.
Emmaus, 17, 26 f.

117, 129 f., 133 ff.,

ever with the Lord, 148 f.

faith as contrasted with sight,
49 f.

fish, the miracle of the, 56 f.
five hundred, the, 69, 82 ff., 85.

Galilee, return to, 51 ff., 67;
return from, 92.

'Hebrews,' 113 f.; Gospel ac-
cording to the, xv, 29, 89 f.
'Hellenists,' 113 f.
Hort, Dr., 43.

Ignatius, 29 n.

James, the Lord's brother, xii,
86 ff.

Jerusalem, the starting point of
Christian missions, 97, 100.
Joanna, I.

Johannine ideas, 31.

John, 5 f., 57, 64; Gospel of S.,
xiii, xvi, 51, 55; appendix to,
54 n.
Joppa, the road to, 17 n., 21

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