Luke 24:39

Luke 24:39

The Resurrection of the Body.

I. We may learn from this text, first, that the Resurrection will be the restoration of the whole man, in spirit and soul and body; a restoration of all in which consists the integrity of our nature and the identity of our person. And this is emphatically the hope of the Gospel. The light of nature could not show this mystery. The heathen reached only to the immortality of the soul, and even that they saw but dimly, and often doubted. It was seen, too, that even the elder Church saw this mystery in broken and uncertain lights. Without doubt, they saw, as it were, the refracted light of the coming mystery; but in some sense their eyes were holden, while they ministered to us greater things than they themselves conceived, for St. Paul declares that life and immortality are brought to lightthrough the Gospel.

II. It is plain that, among those that are raised from the dead, there shall be a perfect recognition, and that not limited to the blessed, but, like the Resurrection itself, comprehending the wicked also. It follows, inseparably from the law of personal identity, and the law of individual responsibility, that it should be so.

III. This doctrine throws a great light upon the true doctrine of what the Church is. It is not a form, or piece of mechanism, moulded by the human will, or put together for the uses and expedients of men and nations; but a mystery, partaking of a sacramental character, framed and ordained by God Himself. In a word, the Church is the root of the new creation which shall be raised in its fulness at the last day; it is in part earthly, in part heavenly; there is one body and one spirit. And it is ever putting off its mortal shroud, casting its sere leaves upon the earth, and withdrawing its vitality into its hidden source. The earth is sowing with holy dust, and the world unseen replenishing with the souls of the righteous. Even now already, in the clear foresight of the Everlasting, to whom all things are present in their fulness, the Church is complete in Christ. But to us who see only in part and by broken aspects, and on the outer surface, it is imperfect and to come; yet flowing on, and continually unfolding itself from age to age.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. i., p. 364.

References: Luke 24:39. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 224; H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 225; Ibid., Easter Sermons,vol. i., p. 103; W. Page Roberts, Liberalism in Religion,pp. 51, 64.