Chap. XL. - Sundry Passages of St. Paul Which Attest Our Doctrine Rescued from the Perversions of Heresy.
Now it is no matter of surprise if arguments are captiously taken from the writings of (the apostle) himself, inasmuch as there “must needs be heresies;” (1Co_11:19) but these could not be, if the Scriptures were not capable of a false interpretation. Well, then, heresies finding that the apostle had mentioned two “men” - “the inner man,” that is, the soul, and “the outward man,” that is, the flesh - awarded salvation to the soul or inward man, and destruction to the flesh or outward man, because it is written (in the Epistle) to the Corinthians: “Though our outward man decayeth, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” (2Co_4:16) Now, neither the soul by itself alone is “man” (it was subsequently implanted in the clayey mould to which the name man had been already given), nor is the flesh without the soul “man”: for after the exile of the soul from it, it has the title of corpse. Thus the designation man is, in a certain sense, the bond between the two closely united substances, under which designation they cannot but be coherent natures. As for the inward man, indeed, the apostle prefers its being regarded as the mind and heart76 rather than the soul;77 in other words, not so much the substance itself as the savour of the substance. Thus when, writing to the Ephesians, he spoke of “Christ dwelling in their inner man,” he meant, no doubt, that the Lord ought to be admitted into their senses. (Eph_3:17) He then added, “in your hearts by faith, rooted and grounded in love,” - making “faith” and “love” not substantial parts, but only conceptions of the soul. But when he used the phrase “in your hearts,” seeing that these are substantial parts of the flesh, he at once assigned to the flesh the actual “inward man,” which he placed in the heart. Consider now in what sense he alleged that “the outward man decayeth, while the inward man is renewed day by day.” You certainly would not maintain that he could mean that corruption of the flesh which it undergoes from the moment of death, in its appointed state of perpetual decay; but the wear and tear which for the name of Christ it experiences during its course of life before and until death, in harassing cares and tribulations as well as in tortures and persecutions. Now the inward man will have, of course, to be renewed by the suggestion of the Spirit, advancing by faith and holiness day after day, here in this life, not there after the resurrection, were our renewal is not a gradual process from day to day, but a consummation once for all complete. You may learn this, too, from the following passage, where the apostle says: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for as a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen,” that is, our sufferings, “but at the things which are not seen,” that is, our rewards: “for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2Co_4:17-18) For the afflictions and injuries wherewith the outward man is worn away, he affirms to be only worthy of being despised by us, as being light and temporary; preferring those eternal recompenses which are also invisible, and that “weight of glory” which will be a counterpoise for the labours in the endurance of which the flesh here suffers decay. So that the subject in this passage is not that corruption which they ascribe to the outward man in the utter destruction of the flesh, with the view of nullifying the resurrection. So also he says elsewhere: “If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together; for I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” (Rom_8:17-18) Here again he shows us that our sufferings are less than their rewards. Now, since it is through the flesh that we suffer with Christ - for it is the property of the flesh to be worn by sufferings - to the same flesh belongs the recompense which is promised for suffering with Christ. Accordingly, when he is going to assign afflictions to the flesh as its especial liability - according to the statement he had already made - he says, “When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest;” (2Co_7:5) then, in order to make the soul a fellow-sufferer with the body, he adds, “We were troubled on every side; without were fightings,” which of course warred down the flesh, “within were fears,” which afflicted the soul. (2Co_7:5) Although, therefore, the outward man decays - not in the sense of missing the resurrection, but of enduring tribulation - it will be understood 575 from this scripture that it is not exposed to its suffering without the inward man. Both therefore, will be glorified together, even as they have suffered together. Parallel with their participation in troubles, must necessarily run their association also in rewards.
Chap. XLI. - The Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our Bodies.
It is still the same sentiment which he follows up in the passage in which he puts the recompense above the sufferings: “for we know;” he says, “that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;” (2Co_5:1) in other words, owing to the fact that our flesh is undergoing dissolution through its sufferings, we shall be provided with a home in heaven. He remembered the award (which the Lord assigns) in the Gospel: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat_5:10) Yet, when he thus contrasted the recompense of the reward, he did not deny the flesh’s restoration; since the recompense is due to the same substance to which the dissolution is attributed, - that is, of course, the flesh. Because, however, he had called the flesh a horse, he wished elegantly to use the same term in his comparison of the ultimate reward; promising to the very house, which undergoes dissolution through suffering, a better house through the resurrection. Just as the Lore also promises us many mansions as of a house in His Father’s home; (Joh_14:2) although this may possibly be understood of the domicile of this world, on the dissolution of whose fabric an eternal abode is promised in heaven, inasmuch as the following context, having a manifest reference to the flesh, seems to show that these preceding words have no such reference. For the apostle makes a distinction, when he goes on to say, “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;” (2Co_5:2-3) which means, before we put off the garment of the flesh, we wish to be clothed with the celestial glory of immortality. Now the privilege of this favour awaits those who shall at the coming of the Lord be found in the flesh, and who shall, owing to the oppressions of the time of Antichrist, deserve by an instantaneous death,78 which is accomplished by a sudden change, to become qualified to join the rising saints; as he writes to the Thessalonians: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we too shall ourselves be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1Th_4:15-17)
Chap. XLII. - Death Changes, Without Destroying, Our Mortal Bodies. Remains of the Giants.
It is the transformation these shall undergo which he explains to the Corinthians, when he writes: “We shall all indeed rise again (though we shall not all undergo the transformation) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump “ - for none shall experience this change but those only who shall be found in the flesh. “And the dead,” he says, “shall be raised, and we shall be changed.” Now, after a careful consideration of this appointed order, you will be able to adjust what follows to the preceding sense. For when he adds, “This corruptible must put on incorrruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,” (1Co_15:51-53) this will assuredly be that house from heaven, with which we so earnestly desire to be clothed upon, whilst groaning in this our present body, - meaning, of course, over this flesh in which we shall be surprised at last; because he says that we are burdened whilst in this tabernacle, which we do not wish indeed to be stripped of, but rather to be in it clothed over, in such a way that mortality may be swallowed up of life, that is, by putting on over us whilst we are transformed that vestiture which is from heaven. For who is there that will not desire, while he is in the flesh, to put on immortality, and to continue his life by a happy escape from death, through the transformation which must be experienced instead of it, without encountering too that Hades which will exact the very last farthing? (compare Mat_5:26 and see Tertullian’s De Anima, xxxv. [and see cap. xliii., infra, p. 576.]) Nothwithstanding, he who has already traversed Hades is destined also to obtain the change after the resurrection. For from this circumstance it is that we definitively declare that the flesh will by all means rise again, and, from the change that is to come over it, will assume the condition of angels. Now, if it were merely in the case of those who shall be found in the flesh that the 576 change must be undergone, in order that mortality may be swallowed up of life - in other words, that the flesh (be covered) with the heavenly and eternal raiment - it would either follow that those who shall be found in death would not obtain life, deprived as they would then be of the material and so to say the aliment of life, that is, the flesh; or else, these also must needs undergo the change, that in them too mortality may be swallowed up of life, since it is appointed that they too should obtain life. But, you say, in the case of the dead, mortality is already swallowed up of life. No, not in all cases, certainly. For how many will most probably be found of men who had just died - so recently put into their graves, that nothing in them would seem to be decayed? For you do not of course deem a thing to be decayed unless it be cut off, abolished, and withdrawn from our perception, as having in every possible way ceased to be apparent. There are the carcases of the giants of old time; it will be obvious enough that they are not absolutely decayed, for their bony frames are still extant. We have already spoken of this elsewhere. (De Anim. c. li.) For instance,79 even lately in this very city,80 when they were sacrilegiously laying the foundations of the Odeum on a good many ancient graves, people were horror-stricken to discover, after some five hundred years, bones, which still retained their moisture, and hair which had not lost its perfume. It is certain not only that bones remain indurated, but also that teeth continue undecayed for ages - both of them the lasting germs of that body which is to sprout into life again in the resurrection. Lastly, even if everything that is mortal in all the dead shall then be found decayed - at any rate consumed by death, by time, and through age, - is there nothing which will be “swallowed up of life,” (2Co_5:4 [and see his treatise, De Resurrect. Carnis, chap. xlii.]) nor by being covered over and arrayed in the vesture of immortality? Now, he who says that mortality is going to be swallowed up of life has already admitted that what is dead is not destroyed by those other before-mentioned devourers. And verily it will be extremely fit that all shall be consummated and brought about by the operations of God, and not by the laws of nature. Therefore, inasmuch as what is mortal has to be swallowed up of life, it must needs be brought out to view in order to be so swallowed up; (needful) also to be swallowed up, in order to undergo the ultimate transformation. If you were to say that a fire is to be lighted, you could not possibly allege that what is to kindle it is sometimes necessary and sometimes not. In like manner, when he inserts the words “If so be that being unclothed81 we be not found naked.” (2Co_5:3) - refering, of course, to those who shall not be found in the day of the Lord alive and in the flesh - he did not say that they whom he had just described as unclothed or stripped, were naked in any other sense than meaning that they should be understood to be reinvested with the very same substance they had been divested of. For although they shall be found naked when their flesh has been laid aside, or to some extent sundered or worn away (and this condition may well be called nakedness,) they shall afterwards recover it again, in order that, being reinvested with the flesh, they may be able also to have put over that the supervestment of immortality; for it will be impossible for the outside garment to fit except over one who is already dressed.
Chap. XLIII. - No Disparagement of Our Doctrine in St. Paul’s Phrase, Which Calls Our Residence in the Flesh Absence from the Lord.
In the same way, when he says, “Therefore we are always confident, and fully aware, that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not be sight,” (2Co_5:6-7) it is manifest that in this statement there is no design of disparaging the flesh, as if it separated us from the Lord. For there is here pointedly addressed to us an exhortation to disregard this present life, since we are absent from the Lord as long as we are passing through it - walking by faith, not by sight; in other words, in hope, not in reality. Accordingly he adds: “We are indeed confident and deem it good rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord;” (2Co_5:8) in order, that is, that we may walk by sight rather than by faith, in realization rather than in hope. Observe how he here also ascribes to the excellence of martyrdom a contempt for the body. For no one, on becoming absent from the body, is at once a dweller in the presence of the Lord, except by the prerogative of martyrdom, (compare his De Anima, c. lv. [Elucidation III.] he gains a lodging in Paradise, not in the lower regions. Now, had the apostle been at a loss for words to describe the departure from the body? Or does he purposely use a novel phraseology? For, wanting to express our temporary absence 577 from the body, he says that we are strangers, absent from it, because a man who goes abroad returns after a while to his home. Then he says even to all: “We therefore earnestly desire to be acceptable unto God, whether absent or present; for we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ Jesus.” (2Co_5:9-10) If all of us, then all of us wholly; if wholly, then our inward man and outward too - that is, our bodies no less than our souls. “That every one,” as he goes on to say, “may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” (2Co_5:10) Now I ask, how do you read this passage? Do you take it to be confusedly constructed, with a transposition82 of ideas? Is the question about what things will have to be received by the body, or the things which have been already done in the body? Well, if the things which are to be borne by the body are meant, then undoubtedly a resurrection of the body is implied; and if the things which have been already done in the body are referred to, (the same conclusion follows): for of course the retribution will have to be paid by the body, since it was by the body that the actions were performed. Thus the apostle’s whole argument from the beginning is unravelled in this concluding clause, wherein the resurrection of the flesh is set forth; and it ought to be understood in a sense which is strictly in accordance with this conclusion.
Chap. XLIV. - Sundry Other Passages of St. Paul Explained in a Sentence Confirmatory of Our Doctrine.
Now, if you will examine the words which precede the passage where mention is made of the outward and the inward man, will you not discover the whole truth, both of the dignity and the hope of the flesh? For, when he speaks of the “light which God hath commanded to shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord in the person of Jesus Christ,” (2Co_4:6) and says that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels,” (2Co_4:7) meaning of course the flesh, which is meant - that the flesh shall be destroyed, because it is “an earthen vessel,” deriving its origin from clay; or that it is to be glorified, as being the receptacle of a divine treasure? Now if that true light, which is in the person of Christ, contains in itself life, and that life with its light is committed to the flesh, is that destined to perish which has life entrusted to it? Then, of course, the treasure will perish also; for perishable things are entrusted to things which are themselves perishable, which is like putting new wine into old bottles. When also he adds, “Always bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2Co_4:10) what sort of substance is that which, after (being called) the temple of God, can now be also designated the tomb of Christ? But why do we bear about in the body the dying of the Lord? In order, as he says, “that His life also may be manifested.” (2Co_4:10) Where? “In the body.” In what body? “In our mortal body.” (2Co_4:10) Therefore in the flesh, which is mortal indeed through sin, but living through grace - how great a grace you may see when the purpose is, “that the life of Christ may be manifested in it.” Is it then in a thing which is a stranger to salvation, in a substance which is perpetually dissolved, that the life of Christ will be manifested, which is eternal, continuous, incorruptible, and already the life of God? Else to what epoch belongs that life of the Lord which is to be manifested in our body? It surely is the life which He lived up to His passion, which was not only openly shown among the Jews, but has now been displayed even to all nations. Therefore that life is meant which” has broken the adamantine gates of death and the brazen bars of the lower world,” (Psa_107:16) - a life which thenceforth has been and will be ours. Lastly, it is to be manifested in the body. When? After death. How? By rising in our body, as Christ also rose in His. But lest any one should here object, that the life of Jesus has even now to be manifested in our body by the discipline of holiness, and patience, and righteouness, and wisdom, in which the Lord’s life abounded, the most provident wisdom of the apostle inserts this purpose: “For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that His life may be manifested in our mortal body.” (2Co_4:11) In us, therefore, even when dead, does he say that this is to take place in us. And if so, how is this possible except in our body after its resurrection? Therefore he adds in the concluding sentence: “Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also with Him,” (2Co_4:14) risen as He is already from the dead. But perhaps “with Him” means “like Him:” well then, if it be like Him, it is not of course without the flesh.
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Chap. XLV. - The Old Man and the New Man of St. Paul Explained.
But in their blindness they again impale themselves on the point of the old and the new man. When the apostle enjoins us “to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and to be renewed in the spirit of our mind; and to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,” (Eph_4:22-24) (they maintain) that by here also making a distinction between the two substances, and applying the old one to the flesh and the new one to the spirit, he ascribes to the old man - that is to say, the flesh - a permanent corruption. Now, if you follow the order of the substances, the soul cannot be the new man because it comes the later of the two; nor can the flesh be the old man because it is the former. For what fraction of time was it that intervened between the creative hand of God and His afflatus? I will venture to say, that even if the soul was a good deal prior to the flesh, by the very circumstance that the soul had to wait to be itself completed, it made the other83 really the former. For everything which gives the finishing stroke and perfection to a work, although it is subsequent in its mere order, yet has the priority in its effect. Much more is that prior, without which preceding things could have no existence. If the flesh be the old man, when did it become so? From the beginning? But Adam was wholly a new man, and of that new man there could be no part an old man. And from that time, ever since the blessing which was pronounced upon man’s generation, (Gen_1:28) the flesh and the soul have had a simultaneous birth, without any calcuable difference in time; so that the two have been even generated together in the womb, as we have shown in our Treatise on the Soul. (see ch. xxvii.) Contemporaneous in the womb, they are also temporally identical in their birth. The two are no doubt produced by human parents84 of two substances, but not at two different periods; rather they are so entirely one, that neither is before the other in point of time. It is more correct (to say), that we are either entirely the old man or entirely the new, for we cannot tell how we can possibly be anything else. But the apostle mentions a very clear mark of the old man. For “put off,” says he, “concerning the former conversation, the old man;” (Eph_4:22) (he does) not say concerning the seniority of either substance. It is not indeed the flesh which he bids us to put off, but the works which he in another passage shows to be “works of the flesh.” (Gal_5:19) He brings no accusation against men’s bodies, of which he even writes as follows: “Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands (the thing which is good), that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for the edification of faith, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: but be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you.” (Eph_4:25-32) Why, therefore, do not those who suppose the flesh to be the old man, hasten their own death, in order that by laying aside the old man they may satisfy the apostle’s precepts? As for ourselves, we believe that the whole of faith is to be administered in the flesh, nay more, by the flesh, which has both a mouth for the utterance of all holy words, and a tongue to refrain from blasphemy, and a heart to avoid all irritation, and hands to labour and to give; while we also maintain that as well the old man as the new has relation to the difference of moral conduct, and not to any discrepancy of nature. And just as we acknowledge that that which according to its former conversation was “the old man” was also corrupt, and received its very name in accordance with “its deceitful lusts,” so also (do we hold) that it is “the old man in reference to its former conversation,” (Eph_4:22) and not in respect of the flesh through any permanent dissolution. Moreover, it is still unimpaired in the flesh, and identical in that nature, even when it has become “the new man;” since it is of its sinful course of life, and not of its corporeal substance, that it has been divested.
Chap. XLVI. - It Is the Works of the Flesh, Not the Substance of the Flesh, Which St. Paul Always Condemns.
You may notice that the apostle everywhere condemns the works of the flesh in such a 579 way as to appear to condemn the flesh; but no one can suppose him to have any such view as this, since he goes on to suggest another sense, even though somewhat resembling it. For when he actually declares that “they who are in the flesh cannot please God,” he immediately recalls the statement from an heretical sense to a sound one, by adding, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” (Rom_8:8-9) Now, by denying them to be in the flesh who yet obviously were in the flesh, he showed that they were not living amidst the works of the flesh, and therefore that they who could not please God were not those who were in the flesh, but only those who were living after the flesh; whereas they pleased God, who, although existing in the flesh, were yet walking after the Spirit. And, again, he says that “the body is dead;” but it is “because of sin,” even as “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Rom_8:10) When, however, he thus sets life in opposition to the death which is constituted in the flesh, he unquestionably promises the life of righteousness to the same state for which he determined the death of sin, But unmeaning is this opposition which he makes between the “life” and the “death,” if the life is not there where that very thing is to which he opposes it - even the death which is to be extirpated of course from the body. Now, if life thus extirpates death from the body, it can accomplish this only by penetrating thither where that is which it is excluding. But why am I resorting to knotty arguments,85 when the apostle treats the subject with perfect plainness? “For if,” says he, “the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you;” (Rom_8:11) so that even if a person were to assume that the soul is “the mortal body,” he would (since he cannot possibly deny that the flesh is this also) be constrained to acknowledge a restoration even of the flesh, in consequence of its participation in the selfsame state. From the following words, moreover, you may learn that it is the works of the flesh which are condemned, and not the flesh itself: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Rom_8:12-13) Now (that I may answer each point separately), since salvation is promised to those who are living in the flesh, but walking after the Spirit, it is no longer the flesh which is an adversary to salvation, but the working of the flesh. When, however, this operativeness of the flesh is done away with, which is the cause of death, the flesh is shown to be safe, since it is freed from the cause of death. “For the law,” says he, “of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death,” (Rom_8:2) - that, surely, which he previously mentioned as dwelling in our members. (Rom_8:17, Rom_8:20, Rom_8:23) Our members, therefore, will no longer be subject to the law of death, because they cease to serve that of sin, from both which they have been set free. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and through86 sin condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom_8:3) - not the flesh in sin, for the house is not to be condemned with its inhabitant. He said, indeed, that “sin dwelleth in our body.” (Rom_7:20) But the condemnation of sin is the acquittal of the flesh, just as its non-condemnation subjugates it to the law of sin and death. In like manner, he called “the carnal mind” first “death,” (Rom_8:6) and afterwards “enmity against God;” (Rom_8:7) but he never predicated this of the flesh itself. But to what then, you will say, must the carnal mind be ascribed, if it be not to the carnal substance itself? I will allow your objection, if you will prove to me that the flesh has any discernment of its own. If, however, it has no conception of anything without the soul, you must understand that the carnal mind must be referred to the soul, although ascribed sometimes to the flesh, on the ground that it is ministered to for the flesh and through the flesh. And therefore (the apostle) says that “sin dwelleth in the flesh,” because the soul by which sin is provoked has its temporary lodging in the flesh, which is doomed indeed to death, not however on its own account, but on account of sin. For he says in another passage also “How is it that you conduct yourselves as if you were even now living in the world?” (Col_2:20) where he is not writing to dead persons, but to those who ought to have ceased to live after the ways of the world.
Chap. XLVII. - St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body.
For that must be living after the world, 580 which, as the old man, he declares to be “crucified with Christ,” (Rom_6:6) not as a bodily structure, but as moral behaviour. Besides, if we do not understand it in this sense, it is not our bodily frame which has been transfixed (at all events), nor has our flesh endured the cross of Christ; but the sense is that which he has subjoined, “that the body of sin might be made void,87 by an amendment of life, not by a destruction of the substance, as he goes on to say, “that henceforth we should not serve sin;”88 and that we should believe ourselves to be “dead with Christ,” in such a manner as that “we shall also live with Him.” (Rom_6:8) On the same principle he says: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed.” (Rom_6:11) To what? To the flesh? No, but “unto sin.” (Rom_6:11) Accordingly as to the flesh they will be saved - “alive unto God in Christ Jesus,” (Rom_6:11) through the flesh of course, to which they will not be dead; since it is “unto sin,” and not to the flesh, that they are dead. For he pursues the point still further: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it, and that ye should yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield ye yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead “ - not simply alive, but as alive from the dead - “and your members as instruments of righteousness.” (Rom_6:12-13) And again: “As ye have yielded your members servants of uncleanness, and of iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants of righteousness unto holiness; for whilst ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things of which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom_6:19-23) Thus throughout this series of passages, whilst withdrawing our members from unrighteousness and sin, and applying them to righteousness and holiness, and transferring the same from the wages of death to the donative of eternal life, he undoubtedly promises to the flesh the recompense of salvation. Now it would not at all have been consistent that any rule of holiness and righteousness should be especially enjoined for the flesh, if the reward of such a discipline were not also within its reach; nor could even baptism be properly ordered for the flesh, if by its regeneration a course were not inaugurated tending to its restitution; the apostle himself suggesting this idea: “Know ye not, that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ, are baptized into His death? We are therefore buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Rom_6:3-4) And that you may not suppose that this is said merely of that life which we have to walk in the newness of, through baptism, by faith, the apostle with superlative forethought adds: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of Christ’s death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” (Rom_6:5) By a figure we die in our baptism, but in a reality we rise again in the flesh, even as Christ did, “that, as sin has reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto life eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom_5:21) But how so, unless equally in the flesh? For where the death is, there too must be the life after the death, because also the life was first there, where the death subsequently was. Now, if the dominion of death operates only in the dissolution of the flesh, in like manner death’s contrary, life, ought to produce the contrary effect, even the restoration of the flesh; so that, just as death had swallowed it up in its strength, it also, after this mortal was swallowed up of immortality, may hear the challenge pronounced against it: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1Co_15:55) For in this way “grace shall there much more abound, where sin once abounded.” ((Rom_5:20) In this way also “shall strength be made perfect in weakness,” (2Co_12:9) - saving what is lost, reviving what is dead, healing what is stricken, curing what is faint, redeeming what is lost, freeing what is enslaved, recalling what has strayed, raising what is fallen; and this from earth to heaven, where, as the apostle teaches the Philippians, “we have our citizenship,89 from whence also we look for our Saviour Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phi_3:20-21) - of course after the resurrection, because Christ Himself was not glorified before He suffered. These must be “the bodies” which he “beseeches” the Romans 581 to “present” as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.” (Rom_12:1) But how a living sacrifice, if these bodies are to perish? How a holy one, if they are profanely soiled? How acceptable to God, if they are condemned? Come, now, tell me how that passage (in the Epistle) to the Thessalonians - which, because of its clearness, I should suppose to have been written with a sunbeam - is understood by our heretics, who shun the light of Scripture: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” And as if this were not plain enough, it goes on to say: “And may your whole body, and soul, and spirit be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord.” (1Th_5:23) Here you have the entire substance of man destined to salvation, and that at no other time than at the coming of the Lord, which is the key of the resurrection.90
Chap. XLVIII. - Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine.
But “flesh and blood,” you say, “cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” (1Co_15:50) We are quite aware that this too is written; but although our opponents place it in the front of the battle, we have intentionally reserved the objection until now, in order that we may in our last assault overthrow it, after we have removed out of the way all the questions which are auxiliary to it. However, they must contrive to recall to their mind even now our preceding arguments, in order that the occasion which originally suggested this passage may assist our judgment in arriving at its meaning. The apostle, as I take it, having set forth for the Corinthians the details of their church discipline, had summed up the substance of his own gospel, and of their belief in an exposition of the Lord’s death and resurrection, for the purpose of deducing therefrom the rule of our hope, and the groundwork thereof. Accordingly he subjoins this statement: “Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is 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, because ye are yet in your sins, and they which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” (1Co_15:12-18) Now, what is the point which he evidently labours hard to make us believe throughout this passage? The resurrection of the dead, you say, which was denied: he certainly wished it to be believed on the strength of the example which he adduced - the Lord’s resurrection. Certainly, you say. Well now, is an example borrowed from different circumstances, or from like ones? From like ones, by all means, is your answer. How then did Christ rise again? In the flesh, or not? No doubt, since you are told that He “died according to the Scriptures,” (1Co_15:3) and “that He was buried according to the Scriptures,” (1Co_15:4) no otherwise than in the flesh, you will also allow that it was in the flesh that He was raised from the dead. For the very same body which fell in death, and which lay in the sepulchre, did also rise again; (and it was) not so much Christ in the flesh, as the flesh in Christ. If, therefore, we are to rise again after the example of Christ, who rose in the flesh, we shall certainly not rise according to that example, unless we also shall ourselves rise again in the flesh. “For,” he says, “since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” (1Co_15:21) (This he says) in order, on the one hand, to distinguish the two authors - Adam of death, Christ of resurrection; and, on the other hand, to make the resurrection operate on the same substance as the death, by comparing the authors themselves under the designation man. For if “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” (1Co_15:22) their vivification in Christ must be in the flesh, since it is in the flesh that arises their death in Adam. “But every man in his own order,” (1Co_15:23) because of course it will be also every man in his own body. For the order will be arranged severally, on account of the individual merits. Now, as the merits must be ascribed to the body, it must needs follow that the order also should be arranged in respect of the bodies, that it may be in relation to their merits. But inasmuch as “some are also baptized for the dead,” (1Co_15:29) we will see whether there be a good reason for this. Now it is certain that they adopted this (practice) with such a presumption as made them suppose that the vicarious baptism (in question) would be beneficial to the flesh of another in anticipation of the resurrection; for unless it were a bodily resurrection, 582 there would be no pledge secured by this process of a corporeal baptism. “Why are they then baptized for the dead,” (1Co_15:29) he asks, unless the bodies rise again which are thus baptized? For it is not the soul which is sanctified by the baptismal bath:91 its sanctification comes from the “answer.” (compare 1Pe_3:21) “And why,” he inquires, “stand we in jeopardy every hour?” (1Co_15:30) - meaning, of course, through the flesh. “I die daily,” (1Co_15:31) (says he); that is, undoubtedly, in the perils of the body, in which “he even fought with beasts at Ephesus,” (1Co_15:30) - even with those beasts which caused him such peril and trouble in Asia, to which he alludes in his second epistle to the same church of Corinth: “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed above measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.” (2Co_1:8) Now, if I mistake not, he enumerates all these particulars in order that in his unwillingness to have his conflicts in the flesh supposed to be useless, he may induce an unfaltering belief in the resurrection of the flesh. For useless must that conflict be deemed (which is sustained in a body) for which no resurrection is in prospect. “But some man will say, How are the dead to be raised? And with what body will they come?” (1Co_15:35) Now here he discusses the qualities of bodies, whether it be the very same, or different ones, which men are to resume. Since, however, such a question as this must be regarded as a subsequent one, it will in passing be enough for us that the resurrection is determined to be a bodily one even from this, that it is about the quality of bodies that the inquiry arises.
Chap. XLIX. - The Same Subject Continued. What Does the Apostle Exclude from the Dead? Certainly Not the Substance of the Flesh.
We come now to the very gist92 of the whole question: What are the substances, and of what nature are they, which the apostle has disinherited of the kingdom of God? The t preceding statements give us a clue to this t point also. He says: “The first man is of the earth, earthy” - that is, made of dust, that is, Adam; “the second man is from heaven” (1Co_15:47) - that is, the Word of God, which is Christ, in no other way, however, man (although “from heaven”), than as being Himself flesh and soul, just as a human being is, just as Adam was. Indeed, in a previous passage He is called “the second Adam,” (1Co_15:45) deriving the identity of His name from His participation in the substance, because not even Adam was flesh of human seed, in which Christ is also like Him. (see De Carne Christi, ch. xvi.) “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” (1Co_15:48) Such (does he mean), in substance; or first of all in training, and afterwards in the dignity and worth which that training aimed at acquiring? Not in substance, however, by any means will the earthy and the heavenly be separated, designated as they have been by the apostle once for all, as men. For even if Christ were the only true “heavenly,” nay, super-celestial Being, He is still man, as composed of body and soul; and in no respect is He separated from the quality of “earthiness,” owing to that condition of His which makes Him a partaker of both substances. In like manner, those also who after Him are heavenly, are understood to have this celestial quality predicated of them not from their present nature, but from their future glory; because in a preceding sentence, which originated this distinction respecting difference of dignity, there was shown to be “one glory in celestial bodies, and another in terrestrial ones,” (1Co_15:40) - “one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for even one star differeth from another star in glory,” (1Co_15:41) although not in substance. Then, after having thus premised the difference in that worth or dignity which is even now to be aimed at, and then at last to be enjoyed, the apostle adds an exhortation, that we should both here in our training follow the example of Christ, and there attain His eminence in glory: “As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” (1Co_15:49) We have indeed borne the image of the earthy, by our sharing in his trangression, by our participation in his death, by our banishment from Paradise. Now, although the image of Adam is here borne by s in the flesh, yet we are not exhorted to put off the flesh; but if not the flesh, it is the conversation, in order that we may then bear the image of the heavenly in ourselves, - no longer indeed the image of God, and no longer the image of a Being whose state is in heaven; but after the lineaments of Christ, by our walking here in holiness, righteousness, and 583 truth. And so wholly intent on the inculcation of moral conduct is he throughout this passage, that he tells us we ought to bear the image of Christ in this flesh of ours, and in this period of instruction and discipline. For when he says “let us bear” in the imperative mood, he suits his words to the present life, in which man exists in no other substance than as flesh and soul; or if it is another, even the heavenly, substance to which this faith (of ours) looks forward, yet the promise is made to that substance to which the injunction is given to labour earnestly to merit its reward. Since, therefore, he makes the image both of the earthy and the heavenly consist of moral conduct - the one to be abjured, and the other to be pursued - and then consistently adds, “For this I say” (on account, that is, of what I have already said, because the conjunction “for” connects what follows with the preceding words) “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” (1Co_15:50) - he means the flesh and blood to be understood in no other sense than the before-mentioned “image of the earthy;” and since this is reckoned to consist in “the old conversation,” (see Eph_4:22) which old conversation receives not the kingdom of God, therefore flesh and blood, by not receiving the kingdom of God, are reduced to the life of the old conversation. Of course, as the apostle has never put the substance for the works of man, he cannot use such a construction here. Since, however he has declared of men which are yet alive in the flesh, that they “are not in the flesh,” (Rom_8:9) meaning that they are not living in the works of the flesh, you ought not to subvert its form nor its substance, but only the works done in the substance (of the flesh), alienating us from the kingdom of God. It is after displaying to the Galatians these pernicious works that he professes to warn them beforehand, even as he had “told them in time past, that they which do such things should not inherit the kingdom of God,” (Gal_5:21) even because they bore not the image of the heavenly, as they had borne the image of the earthy; and so, in consequence of their old conversation, they were to be regarded as nothing else than flesh and blood. But even if the apostle had abruptly thrown out the sentence that flesh and blood must be excluded from the kingdom of God, without any previous intimation, of his meaning, would it not have been equally our duty to interpret these two substances as the old man abandoned to mere flesh and blood - in other words, to eating and drinking, one feature of which would be to speak against the faith of the resurrection: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” (1Co_15:32) Now, when the apostle parenthetically inserted this, he censured flesh and blood because of their enjoyment in eating and drinking.
FOOTNOTES
75 Sub tribuno.
76 Animum.
77 Animam.
78 Compendio mortis. Compare our Anti-Marcion for the same thoughts and words, v. 12. [p. 455, supra.]
79 Sed: for “scilicet.”
80 Carthage.
81 Exuti. He must have read ἐκδυσάμενοι, instead of the reading of nearly all the ms authorities, ἐνδυσάμενοι.
82 Per hyperbation.
83 The flesh.
84 We treat “homines” as a nominative, after Oehler.
85 Nodosius.
86 Per delinquentiam: see the De Carne Christi, xvi.
87 Evacuetur: καταργηθῃ. A.V. destroyed, i.e., deprived of all activity, Rom_6:6.
88 Rom_6:6. Tertullian’s reading literally is, “that thus far (and no farther) we should be servants of sin.”
89 Municipatum.
90 [Note Tertullian’s summary of the text, in harmony with the Tripartite philosophy of humanity.]
