Institutes of the Christian Religion (Vol. 2 of 2)
IV. The remark we have made, that in proving the resurrection,
our minds should be directed to the infinite power of God,
is briefly suggested in these words of Paul: “Who shall
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able
even to subdue all things unto himself.”[631]
It would therefore
be extremely unreasonable here, to consider what could
possibly happen in the ordinary course of nature, when the
object proposed to us is an inestimable miracle, the magnitude
of which absorbs all our faculties. Yet Paul adduces an example
from nature to reprove the folly of those who deny the
resurrection. “Thou fool,” says he, “that which thou sowest
is not quickened, except it die.”[632]
He tells us that seed
sown displays an image of the resurrection, because the corn is
reproduced from putrefaction. Nor would it be a thing so difficult
to believe, if we paid proper attention to the miracles
which present themselves to our view in all parts of the world.
But let us remember, that no man will be truly persuaded of
the future resurrection, but he who is filled with admiration,
and ascribes to the power of God the glory that is due to
it. Transported with this confidence, Isaiah exclaims, “Thy
dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they
arise; awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.”[633]
Surrounded
by desperate circumstances, he has recourse to God, the Author
of life, unto whom, as the Psalmist says, “belong the issues
from death.”[634]
Even reduced to a state resembling a dead
carcass more than a living man, yet relying on the power of
God, just as if he were in perfect health, Job looks forward
without any doubts to that day. “I know,” says he, “that
my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth,” there to display his power; “and though after
my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see
God; whom I shall see for myself, and not another.”[635]
For
though some persons employ great subtilty to pervert these
texts, as if they ought not to be understood of the resurrection,
they nevertheless confirm what they wish to destroy; since
holy men, in the midst of calamities, seek consolation from no
other quarter than from the similitude of the resurrection;
which more fully appears from a passage in Ezekiel.[636]
For
when the Jews rejected the promise of their restoration, and
objected, that there was no more probability of a way being
opened for their return, than of the dead coming forth from
their sepulchres, a vision is presented to the prophet, of a field
full of dry bones, and God commands them to receive flesh
and nerves. Though this figure is intended to inspire the
people with a hope of restoration, he borrows the argument for
it from the resurrection; as it is to us also the principal model
of all the deliverances which believers experience in this
world. So Christ, after having declared that the voice of the
gospel communicates life, in consequence of its rejection by
the Jews, immediately adds, “Marvel not at this; for the hour
is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear
his voice, and shall come forth.”[637]
After the example of
Paul, therefore, let us even now triumphantly exult in the
midst of our conflicts, that he who has promised us a life to
come “is able to keep that which we have committed to him;”
and thus let us glory that “there is laid up for us a crown of
righteousness, which the righteous Judge shall give us.”[638]
The consequence of this will be, that all the troubles we suffer
will point us to the life to come, “seeing it is a righteous thing
with God,” and agreeable to his nature, “to recompense tribulation
to them that trouble us, and to us who are” unjustly
“troubled, rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed, with his
mighty angels, in flaming fire.”[639]
But we must remember
what immediately follows, that “he shall come to be glorified
in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe,” because
they believe the gospel.
V. Now, though the minds of men ought to be continually
occupied with the study of this subject, yet as if they expressly
intended to abolish all remembrance of the resurrection, they
have called death the end of all things, and the destruction of
man. For Solomon certainly speaks according to a common
and received opinion, when he says, “A living dog is better
than a dead lion.”[640]
And again: “Who knows whether the
spirit of man goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast goeth
downward?”[641]
This brutish stupidity has infected all ages
of the world, and even forced its way into the Church; for the
Sadducees had the audacity publicly to profess, that there is
no resurrection, and that souls are mortal. But that none
might be excused by this gross ignorance, the very instinct of
nature has always set before the eyes of unbelievers an image
of the resurrection. For what is the sacred and inviolable custom
of interring the dead, but a pledge of another life? Nor
can it be objected that this originated in error; for the rites of
sepulture were always observed among the holy fathers; and
it pleased God that the same custom should be retained among
the Gentiles, that their torpor might be roused by the image of
the resurrection thereby set before them. Though this ceremony
produced no good effects upon them, yet it will be useful
to us, if we wisely consider its tendency; for it is no slight
refutation of unbelief, that all united in professing a thing that
none of them believed. But Satan has not only stupefied men’s
minds, to make them bury the memory of the resurrection
together with the bodies of the dead, but has endeavoured to
corrupt this point of doctrine by various fictions, with an ultimate
view to its total subversion. Not to mention that he
began to oppose it in the days of Paul, not long after arose the
Millenarians, who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand
years. Their fiction is too puerile to require or deserve refutation.
Nor does the Revelation, which they quote in favour
of their error, afford them any support; for the term of a thousand
years, there mentioned,[642]
refers not to the eternal blessedness
of the Church, but to the various agitations which
awaited the Church in its militant state upon earth. But the
whole Scripture proclaims that there will be no end of the
happiness of the elect, or the punishment of the reprobate.
Now, all those things which are invisible to our eyes, or far
above the comprehension of our minds, must either be believed
on the authority of the oracles of God, or entirely rejected.
Those who assign the children of God a thousand years to enjoy
the inheritance of the future life, little think what dishonour
they cast on Christ and his kingdom. For if they are
not invested with immortality, neither is Christ himself, into
the likeness of whose glory they will be transformed, received
up into immortal glory. If their happiness will have any end,
it follows that the kingdom of Christ, on the stability of which
it rests, is temporary. Lastly, either these persons are extremely
ignorant of all Divine things, or they are striving, with
malignant perverseness, to overturn all the grace of God and
power of Christ; and these can never be perfectly fulfilled till
sin is abolished, and death swallowed up, and eternal life
completely established. But the folly of being afraid that too
much cruelty is attributed to God, if the reprobate are doomed
to eternal punishment, is even evident to the blind. Will the
Lord do any injury by refusing the enjoyment of his kingdom
to persons whose ingratitude shall have rendered them unworthy
of it? But their sins are temporary. This I grant; but
the majesty of God, as well as his justice, which their sins
have violated, is eternal. Their iniquity, therefore, is justly
remembered. Then the punishment is alleged to be excessive,
being disproportioned to the crime. But this is intolerable
blasphemy, when the majesty of God is so little valued, when
the contempt of it is considered of no more consequence than
the destruction of one soul. But let us pass by these triflers;
lest, contrary to what we have before said, we should appear
to consider their reveries as worthy of refutation.
