thus set in opposition to the spiritual or renewed part of our nature. By the body's being dead, therefore, in connexion with Christ's inhabitation of it, is implied an admission, that, viewed in itself, as actuated by its native propensities, it is indeed (ur) dead in trespasses and sins. As sin has its seat, in great measure, in the fleshly appetites, and as those reign supreme in the body by its inherent depravity, the body, considered in this light, may be regarded as dead— dead di ȧuagriar, because of sin. But in the regenerated, 'the spirit,' the immortal part, being renewed by the Holy Ghost, which Christ imparts, is endowed with a principle of true life, diá dizaioσívny, because of righteousness, by the working of that influence which is imparted in the new birth. This principle of divine life, thus infused into the soul which inhabits a body morally dead, will gradually work outward from its centre, and quicken that body also with a divine vitality. For as this principle of life flows from Him who "hath life in himself," and who such a degave monstration of its efficacy in raising up Christ from the dead, the supposition is perfectly easy, that the same power is competent to a complete spiritual quickening of the whole man in his saints, so that they shall stand before him as in the highest sense alive, soul, spirit, and body. The text is therefore entirely analogous with Col. 2. 12: “ Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." The idea of any allusion to a physical resurrection is opposed by the following considerations:

(1.) The quickening here spoken of is evidently one that is effected by the agency of the Holy Spirit. But a literal resurrection of the dead, even supposing it taught at all, is not elsewhere attributed to the Spirit. He is represented as the author of the present spiritual life of the saints, but not of their future physical life.

(2.) The phrase à σuara, mortal bodies, cannot fairly be interpreted to mean the same as vexoà σwμara, dead

bodies, which yet it must be, if the doctrine of the literal resurrection is here taught. By mortal' is signified, not dead, but tending to death, subject to death. On the theory assumed, the apostle is in reality made to say, 'God shall raise to life your living dead bodies,' which is of course an idea too extravagant to be for a moment admitted.

(3.) This interpretation destroys the continuity and coherence of the apostle's discourse. It supposes him abruptly to break off from a connected series of remarks relative to walking not after the flesh, but after the spirit, to leap onward to the resurrection of the dead, and having simply glanced at this, to return as suddenly and resume the thread of his argument. This is, to say the least, a very violent supposition.

As, therefore, all the exigencies of the context are answered by understanding the reference to be to the spiritual quickening of the body, by the vitalizing influence of the Holy Ghost, in the present life, we are constrained to reject any other construction of the passage. In this we are happy to perceive that Mr. Barnes (in loc.) concurs. After expressing his belief that it does not refer to the resurrection of the dead (i. e. of the body), he remarks: "I understand it as referring to the body, subject to carnal desires and propensities; by nature under the reign of death, and therefore mortal; i. e. subject to death. The sense is, that under the gospel, by the influence of the Spirit, the entire man will be made alive in the service of God. Even the corrupt, carnal, and mortal body, so long under the dominion of sin, shall be made alive and recovered to the service of God. This will be done by the Spirit that dwells in us, because that Spirit has restored life to our souls, abides with us with his purifying influence, and because the design and tendency of his in-dwelling is to purify the entire man, and restore all to God. Christians thus in their bodies and their spirits become sacred. For even their body, the seat of evil passions and desires, shall become alive in the service of God."

GR.

V. 22, 23.

Οἴδαμεν γάρ, ὅτι πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει καὶ συνωδί. νει ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν.

Οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὴν ἀπαρχῆν του πνεύμα τος ἔχοντες καὶ ἡμεῖς αὐτοὶ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς στενάζομεν υἱοθεσίαν ἀπεκδεχόμενοι, τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σωμάτος ἡμῶν.

ENG. VERS.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until now:

For not only they, but ourselves also, which have the

mrst fruits of the Spirit, even

we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

The 'adoption' here mentioned as the object of the intense expectancy of the saints who had the first-fruits of the Spirit, is undoubtedly their manifested sonship, or what is called before, v. 19, in express terms, the manifestation of the sons of God. The 'redemption of the body' evidently indicates a state identical with that of this acknowledged adoption which is in reserve for the heirs of the kingdom. This is to be the realized consummation of the Christian's hopes, that to which they are all to come as one redeemed, regenerated, sanctified body. It is their common inheritance; and as the church is often spoken of as a body, of which Christ is the presiding head and the pervading life, we perceive nothing incongruous in the idea that this collective body of the saints is here intended by Paul. Certain it is, that there is a difficulty, on every other explanation, of accounting for the use of the singular number in this connexion. Why, if the common view be well founded, does he not say 'redemption of our bodies' instead of redemption of our body? This may appear at first blush a criticism of little weight, but we are persuaded it is one of prime importance, and that we are entitled to demand some rational solution of the problem involved in the phraseology. Nothing certainly would be more natural than the use of the plural if he were speaking of the physical resurrection of believers. As it is, we cannot doubt that the term is to be

taken in a collective sense, for the spiritual or mystical body of Christ, the whole aggregate of believers; so that 'our body,' in this connexion, is merely another phrase for the body to which we belong. We believe, moreover, that the apostle in adopting the phraseology had his eye on the parallel expression in Is. 26. 19: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my (i. e. our) dead body shall they rise." But it does not follow that he intended by such a tacit reference to suggest the true exposition of that text. This we have endeavored to unfold on a previous page. We are unable, therefore, to regard the present passage as countenancing the theory of the resurrection of the body.

GR.

2 COR. V. 2-4.

Καὶ γάρ ἐν τούτῳ στενά ζομεν, τὸ οἰκητήριον ἡμῶν το ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἐπενδύσασθαι ἐπιποθοῦντες,

Εἴγε καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι οὐ γυμνοι εὑρεθησόμεθα.

Καὶ γὰρ οἱ ὄντες ἐν τῷ σκή νει στενάζομεν βαρούμενοι, ἐφ' ᾧ οὐ θέλομεν ἐκδύσασθαι, ἀλλ ̓ ἐπενδύσασθαι, ἵνα καταποθῇ τὸ θνητὸν ὑπὸ τῆς ζωῆς.

ENG. VERS.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked.

For we that are in this taber

nacle do groan being burdened: not for that we would be that mortality might be swal unclothed, but clothed upon, lowed up of life.

Several points having an important bearing on our theme ⚫ disclose themselves in this passage. In the first place, it cannot be doubted that the house from heaven,' for which the apostle longed, is the same with the 'spiritual body' of which he speaks 1 Cor. 15. 44. Mr. Barnes indeed remarks 、of the opinion maintained by some expositors, that it refers to a' celestial vehicle' with which God invests the soul after death, that "the Scripture is silent about any such celestial vehicle." But the Scripture is certainly not silent about a'spiritual body,' and if this is not a 'celestial vehicle,' what is it? It cannot be a body of flesh and blood, and

though the phrase may involve an idea of something, the interior nature of which we cannot at present understand, yet we see not but the phrase itself is entirely proper in this application. It is, at any rate, the very unanimous judgment of commentators that the 'house from heaven' is the resurrection-body, whatever that be; and that the change here alluded to by the apostle is the same with that by which 'the corruptible puts on incorruption.'* Nor is it undeserving o notice that the apostle here uses the present tense exquer, we have, and not the future, we shall have.

Secondly, it is clear, we think, that Paul expected to be clothed upon with this heavenly house as soon as he left the material body. This is evident from the whole strain of his discourse, but especially from v. 6, 8: "Knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord." What other inference can we draw from this, than that he expected at once to assume that celestial tenement which would capacitate him for being with Christ?' that is, having a body "fashioned like unto his glorious body," as Moses and Elijah certainly had when they appeared with him upon the holy mount. If he did not anticipate an immediate entrance at death into the beatific presence, where did he expect to be? Did he count upon a long interval of dormant and unconscious repose before he awoke to the felicities of heaven? Did he believe the soul would sink into a dreary lethargy of centuries or chiliads in duration, while the body. was mouldering away in the dust and passing into unnumbered new relations? This, surely, would not be to be

* No one can fail to be struck with the evangelical tone of Cicero's language on a similar subject, in his Tusculan Questions:-" posse animos, quum e corporibus excesserint, in cœlum, quasi in domicilium suum, pervenire," that souls may, when they have forsaken their bodies, come into heaven as into their own domicil.

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