TENTH LEAF.

Universality of Death—Results of the Transgression of Law—Dissolution of the Body not the End of Existence—What is Resurrection?—The Spiritual Body of Jesus—All to be Raised from the Dead—The Order of the Resurrection—Necessity of an Immortal Body—Ignorance of the Laws of Nature—Matter Indestructible—Possibilities of Creative Energy—Life and Immortality Brought to Light.

Death is the common heritage. It is a legacy to all the children, left by our first progenitor. It is the result of transgression, the penalty of violated law. The immortal pair who dwelt in Eden fell into mortality through sin. Immortality is the power of continued existence. But "all things are governed by law." Sin is law-breaking. To live for ever requires perpetual obedience to the laws of everlasting life. "That which is governed by law is preserved by law." By the same rule reversed, the reverse obtains. Therefore, that which is immortal and obeys not the laws of immortality, will become mortal. If obedience insures preservation, disobedience involves destruction. Law reigns in the highest as well as in the lower spheres of being. Eternal life involves eternal compliance with the laws of existence.

All seeds produce their own kind. Mortal beings beget mortality. When the parents of our race became mortal through breaking the law of their immortal condition, they brought death to their offspring as well as to themselves. "In Adam all die." The curse of death smites the whole family. "It is appointed unto man once to die." No ingenuity he can exercise or precautions he can adopt will avert the impending doom. The decree has been proclaimed, "Thou shalt surely die," and it is irrevocable. The taint that came from the tree of death whose fruit was forbidden, descends to all generations, and every variety of form and feature, and color and stature, and tendency and peculiarity, have the one common characteristic, the certainty of death.

But is the dissolution of the body the end of existence? Not at all. We have seen that the part of man that comes from heaven lives on when that which comes from the earth returns to the earth. Yet this is not sufficient. The query arises, Shall this body, made mortal through transgression, remain for ever under the penalty of the broken law, or are there some means of expiation for the sin, and restoration from the doom, its consequence? Are all the associations formed in the flesh and pertaining to this mortal state, to perish with the decayed body and be scattered like the dust to which it is resolved? Are the fond relations of husband and wife, and parent and child to be dissolved forever? Is this exquisitely, "fearfully and wonderfully" formed mechanism, with the experiences of its temporal existence, to be obliterated and lose its identity in the material universe?

The answer comes down from the remotest ages, like sweet and sacred music whose tones swell and increase as the chorus is joined by the voices of the prophets and saints of each succeeding dispensation, until the grand harmony thrills every respondent soul. The burden of the song is in the words of the poetic Isaiah: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." And the ringing tones of Job the ancient are heard as a solo whose melody reaches unto heaven: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!"

The faith of all people who have communed with God or have been inspired by the Holy Ghost, has been that they should be resurrected from the dead. They not only had the assurance of spirit life beyond the grave, but of the revivification of the material body. The signification of the word "resurrect" is "to stand up again." That which was laid down was to be raised up. The release of the immortal spirit from the mortal body would not answer to this. It was this mortal that was to put on immortality, this corruptible that was to put on incorruption.

To make this matter certain, Jesus, who expiated the primal sin, after being offered on the cross as the great sacrifice, gave up the ghost. His lifeless body was taken down, embalmed and buried in a new tomb hewed out of the rock. It was guarded by Roman soldiers. On the third day from the interment that body came forth alive from the grave. The same Jesus who was crucified appeared again among His disciples, and proved that the same body interred was brought forth again, by exhibiting the wounds made by the nails and the spear, by permitting them to touch Him, by eating and conversing with them, and by repeated visits.

This was not a mere manifestation of the immortality of the soul, but a demonstration of the resurrection of the body. Yet that body was transformed. The corruptible blood was purged from the veins, and incorruptible spiritual fluid occupied its place. It was buried a natural body, it was resurrected a spiritual body. Here then, was a pattern of that which is to come. This was the "first fruits of them that slept," a glorious sample of the great harvest of the summer of redemption.

Now the sacrifice of the Savior had as one of its chief objects the restoration of mankind to the condition lost by the fall. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Death came to the race through one man's sin; life comes to the race through one man's atonement for that sin. The remedy is as broad as the disease. The plan is perfect. This is why Christ is called "The resurrection and the life." By virtue of His triumph over sin and His voluntary submission to death, which had no valid claim upon Him, being sinless, He obtained the keys of redemption for all the sleeping dust of the Adamic family. So He made no idle boast or mystic figure of speech when he declared, "The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."

The raising of the dead, though universal, is not simultaneous. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, He will first redeem those that are in Him. Having put on Christ and received of His spirit, they will come forth at His call to meet Him. They who have part in the first resurrection are those who have died in the Lord and are blessed and holy. Their bodies will be fashioned like unto His glorious body. Having been planted in the likeness of His death they will be also in the likeness of His resurrection. That is, they will be quickened by the celestial glory and be placed in a condition to receive a fullness thereof, and inherit all things as joint heirs with Christ.

The wicked dead remain unquickened for a thousand years. They reap the fruits of their evil seeds sown in lives of transgression. They drink the dregs of a bitter cup. Some are beaten with many stripes, others with but a few. Justice metes out to them their dues. And when they come forth to stand up in their bodies, they will not be quickened by the celestial glory, but by that for which they are fitted by their respective conditions consequent upon their earthly acts, and they will occupy positions accordingly. But all will be redeemed in due season from the grave and stand the scrutiny of the All-Seeing Eye and the judgment of unswerving Justice, which will determine their eternal future.

In this age of general doubt, when human reason is exalted above divine testimony, and the voice of faith is drowned by the clamors of pretended science, the possibility and use of a resuscitation of the body are scouted and denied. But "all things are possible to them that believe," and the divinely illuminated mind can perceive not only the use, but the necessity of the resurrection.

The being that was placed in Eden and endowed with power to wield dominion over all created things, was a living soul, a sentient spirit in an immortal body, a man fashioned in the image of God. He fell from that condition and paid the penalty of death. Christ's atonement, as we have seen restores him to his original condition. But this he cannot have without his body again made immortal. By the workings of the grand scheme of human exaltation, he and his posterity, with the benefits of the lessons of experience, will be restored to the immortality and pleasures of the primeval paradise, and placed on the path of eternal progress.

And, mark this, a body framed out of the grosser elements is essential to the perfect happiness and power of the refined spiritual organism which possesses it as a tabernacle. The principle of affinities and of the attraction and communion of similars proclaim this truth. Spirit ministers to spirit. Things of a like nature cohere. The higher or spiritual element reaches upward to the loftiest things; the lower or fleshy element reaches downward, and the twain, inseparably combined and governed by the laws of right and truth, draw pleasure and delight from the heights and depth of the boundless universe and the ever-extending spheres of eternal intelligence. A disembodied spirit is imperfect, and requires clothing with its denser parts. Without them, its affinities would lie in but one direction, and its joy and progress would be limited.

The family condition too is formed in the embodied state. Death separates the husband and wife, the parents and children. The resurrection, in its highest conditions, reunites them and restores all that was lost in the grave. Who can picture the bliss, the glory, the power, the might, the dominion and majesty that shall grow out of the redemption from the dead of the righteous man and his household, dwelling in perfect harmony and peace with all the powers of their being, spiritual and physical, purified, quickened, intensified and enlarged to a fullness, with all eternity before them for the exercise thereof in accordance with the designs of the Great Greater? It is beyond the skill of man to depict it, and no mortal mind can comprehend it without special divine illumination.

And who shall define the impossible, or draw the bounds of the powers of the Creator? The secret of ordinary life is hidden from the scrutiny of the most profound scientist. He knows not the mystery of the vital principle that quickens even the lowest form of animated nature. His own powers of mind and motion are incomprehensible to him. Their origin and cause are beyond his ken, and he cannot solve the problem any better than the ignorant Hottentot or the untutored Indian. The reproduction of plants from their seeds, the evolving of life out of the midst of their death, is a wonder unexplained. And shall we say that it is impossible for the Power that regulates the universe to reanimate a defunct body?

It must be remembered that nothing in nature is annihilated. No particle of matter is destroyed by any process. What is called death is but a change of form. All matter is not visible to the human eye. A body may exist, but so transformed as to be imperceptible to the natural vision. The forces that regulate the universe are occult, and though some of the laws that govern them are known, there are others that have not been discovered, and it is the height of presumption for those who have obtained a smattering of information concerning these things—and who has obtained more?—to declare that impossible which they know nothing of, or to limit the power of that creative or quickening energy, whose nature, capabilities and qualities they cannot comprehend in the smallest degree.

If one dead body has been raised to life, unnumbered millions may also be revived. That one we have in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and He is the forerunner of all the race. Let the sons and daughters of men rejoice and give thanks to Him who has wrought out this great redemption. Death is conquered. The grave has no terrors. Life and immortality are brought to light. Eternity with all its prospects and capabilities is open to the view. And through the power of the resurrection vested in Christ Jesus, the whole globe shall deliver up its dead, and the great progenitor of our race, Adam, the "Ancient of Days," shall stand forth at the head of his posterity all quickened and animated by the spirit of life; and while Jesus the Son is hailed as the mighty Redeemer, God the Eternal Father shall be honored and worshiped for ever as the Author of our being, from whom springs all life, light, power and glory throughout the vast domains of universal space!