Why, it is asked, should the apostle be so anxious to attain to a general resurrection, alike certain to the righteous and the wicked? The simple answer is, It was not the general resurrection he was striving to attain to-it was not a resurrection common to both classes. It was a resurrection peculiar to believers,—a resurrection exclusively theirs, exclusive, however, not in the time of it, but in its nature, its accompaniments, and its issues. This is put beyond doubt in the two last verses of the chapter, where all its peculiarity-all that for which it is desired-is made to lie in the thing itself, and not in the time of it:

"From heaven we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 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." (V. 20, 21.)*

The expressive contrast (not so vivid in our version as in the original) between the body of our humbled and the body of his glorified condition,† points, as do the preceding passages, to the fontal character of Christ's resurrection, and stamps the resurrection looked for at Christ's appearing as one having its cause in the merit, and its character in that of "the First-begotten of the dead." It is this, and not the time of it, that limits it of necessity to believers.

But "the word," says Mr Birks, "is a compound which occurs here only, and might be rendered the peculiar resurrection.' The emphasis is even redoubled,—' the peculiar resurrection, even that from among the dead.""‡ That the

* Our version, "from whence" (we look, &c.), rightly expresses the adverbial sense of igo, here. Bengel and others connect it with roλírμa because it cannot refer to ovgavos. But, as Winer remarks, 'Ego, in the usage of the language, has become an adverb, and signifies unde, whence ―(Gramm, ? 21, 22.)

† Τὸ σῶμα τ. ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν—τῷ σῶματι τ. δόξης αὐτοῦ.

The received reading is not a reduplicated form (igavάoraσIS TÜV VEXQÜV being simply equivalent to ἀνάστ. ἐκ the article being omitted

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sentiment of the apostle, in this verse, is an emphatic one -the desire expressed an intense one-is manifest enough; although, as will be seen in the note below, I do not attach much importance to the mere formula which the apostle here employs to express the resurrection which he longed to reach. He who sees the glory of that resurrection which is held forth as the goal of the "race set before us," will think it "peculiar" enough; but if he be among those who are striving (aywvilεσ0ɛ, Luke xiii. 24) to enter in at the strait gate," he will probably think the glory of it lies in something else than a priority in time. Certain it is, that critics, quite as much alive to the nicest shades of the apostle's Greek as Mr Birks, have not detected "the first resurrection" here; and even BENGEL, though he held a sort of literal first resurrection, makes not the slightest allusion to it. Not content with this criticism, and aware, as would seem, that another interpretation of the verse might be thought quite as natural, Mr Birks tries to press the context into his favour.

"This might," says he, " of itself be referred to the momentous difference in the nature of the resurrection which he sought. But the context points strongly to the further meaning of a precedence in point of time."

Here one is apt to ask himself if he could have read so often that well-known chapter, and failed to perceive what is "strongly pointed to,”—one resurrection prior in time to

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in this latter form). But the preferable reading appears to be the reduplicated form, “ The resurrection, that from the dead” (iğαv. Tùv iz vexçãv).* Though this, however, was originally an emphatic form, it came gradually to be employed even where no emphasis was intended. Winer says it "almost uniformly" did so, and he makes this remark in connection with the passage before us.-(Gramm. ut supra, 2 19, with second note.)

* Bengel, though not clear about it when he published his Gnomon, and issued his critical edition of the text, seems to have subsequently admitted it into the second edition of his German version. Since his time this reading has been established.

another. We recur to the chapter, but miss it still. Mr Birks, however, sees

"The blessing metaphorically journeying towards the Church. Those who press forward with earnest desire to attain it, meet the heavenly gift on its way; while, as for others, it passes them by, and leaves them to the prospect of the widely different resurrection then to follow."-(Pp. 175, 176.)

This journey of the first resurrection towards the Church I have not been able to find a trace of in a single metaphor throughout the chapter, nor of any resurrection to follow it.* We see the resurrection Paul aimed at, represented as a "prize "-not advancing to us, but held up at the goal as an encouragement to "reach forth unto” it; and we hear Paul telling us that he pressed "towards the mark," in order that, when he reached it, he might win the prize. "Of others," we find him merely saying that "their end is destruction;" but how that determines its posteriority to the resurrection of believers, or the time of it all, we are at a loss to conceive.†

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(2.) Such as describe the resurrection of believers as a resurrection from amongst the dead" (Ex vexgv), which implies, it is alleged, that others the wicked-will be left in their graves after they rise: while the general resurrection is, by a marked distinction, termed the "resurrection of the dead" (νεκρῶν οι τῶν ν.).

Could this distinction be critically established, it would be of some weight. Mr Wood's elaborate investigation of this point issues in this, that the phrase "resurrection of the dead”

* In his "Outlines" (p. 223), Mr Birks candidly withdraws his criticism on xaravτow, as implying that the first resurrection was on its way to meet us.

† Mr Wood quotes a passage from Moses Stuart, to show that the resurrection here meant could not be the general one, because the apostle could have no possible doubt of his resurrection at the end of the world. But "the particle if by any means," says Calvin, "is not meant to express doubt but difficulty."

*

is used of the resurrection generally, while the phrase “resurrection FROM the dead" is used to denote a resurrection in which others are left behind, or the resurrection of the just prior to that of the wicked. If this were correct, we should expect the latter phrase" the resurrection from the dead," to be appropriated to the resurrection of the just, and the former phrase "the resurrection of the dead," to be used only when the resurrection of both classes, righteous and wicked indiscriminately, is intended. But how stands the fact? This latter phrase, "resurrection from the dead," is very little used at all in the New Testament-only four times in any of its forms; while of the eight times in which the former phrase, “resurrection of the dead," is used (exclusive of two passages in which it is applied to Christ †), perhaps in all of them the resurrection of believers is intended, ‡ but almost certainly in five or six; and what is most decisive is, that four of these examples occur in the only chapter (1 Cor. xv.) where the resurrection of believers is the subject of formal and elaborate treatment; in other words, when the apostle had two phrases in his option, he passed by the one which is alleged distinctively to express the thing he was treating of," the peculiar resurrection," and selected, and exclusively employs, the one which is alleged to denote a resurrection common to righteous and wicked, which he was not treating of. To me this is utterly inexplicable; and till this is cleared up, I shall regard the whole argument founded on these Greek formulas as baseless. I do not find Mr Elliott committing himself to it, nor have the best critics seen any indications of a double resurrection in them. I may add, that the

* Luke xx. 35; Acts iv. 2; Phil. iii. 11; 1 Pet. i. 3.

† Acts xxvi. 23; Rom. i. 4.

Matt. xxii. 31; Acts xvii. 32 (compare the immediately preceding words, v. 31, where the phrase is used of Christ); ch. xxiv. 21 (the reference here to ch. xxiii. 6, determines the sense); 1 Cor. xv. 12, 13, 21, 42; Heb. vi. 2.

AWAKE

Greek fathers, who surely understood their own language, seem to have been blind to the alleged distinction between the two phrases in question; and that Calvin, Beza, and other distinguished critics, use "OF" and "FROM the dead" (mortuorum and de mortuis) indiscriminately.

*

As to the expression "from the dead," as it is an exact rendering of the original words, the mere English reader is as competent to decide as the critic is, whether the supplement should be "from amongst the dead" or "from the place or state of the dead" [ons, Sis]. We have here no assistance from classical writers, to whom a resurrection was unknown; and though the phrase had been found, it would not at all have determined in which of the two senses it is used in Scripture. Although, therefore, we cannot affirm that the translation, "from amongst the dead,” is critically inadmissible, no more can it be shown to be critically demanded. In other words, this phrase determines nothing, for even its own sense must be determined by what we otherwise know to be the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection.

There is no confirmatory evidence, then, at all. We have gone through it, and found it wanting.

They are shut up, then, to the direct passage. If the literal resurrection of the righteous a thousand years before the wicked, be revealed in this celebrated passage, it is not only revealed here alone, but it is revealed here-as I shall now show-in direct opposition to the teaching of Scripture every where else.

The following passages speak for themselves :

Dan. xii. 2: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the

* "Hom. Elv, eis Aidao (SC. dóuos, dóμovs) in, into the nether world: hence also in Attic prose, iv and is "Aidou (SC. oîxw, oixov).”—(Liddell and Scott's Gr. and Engl. Lex.)

“Eis ädov, SC. dãμx. see Buttm. 2 132, n. 9.”—(Robinson's Gr. and Engl. Lex. of N. T.)