world comes to an end, but till the era and work of redemption is completed. The original (ovvtehɛía) signifies not merely the end, as of a period of time, but the completion, as of a specific work. Comp. Matt. 13: 39, 40, 49. The Redeemer will remain with his church (1 Cor. 3:9) till the work of redemption is finished; then, when it can say with its Lord, "It is finished" (John 19:30), it will rise with him to be forever with the

Lord (John 17: 24; 1 Thess. 4: 17). Then he will not be with us-we shall be with him.

It is not strange that some early copyist should have given fervent expression to the feeling with which the church received this command and promise of the Lord, in the added Amen, which is no part of the original text, but which should ever be the answer of church universal to the gracious words of her Master.

NOTE ON THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST.
1. Harmony of the Gospel Narratives.
The ac-
counts of the resurrection are contained in
Matt., ch. 28; Mark, ch. 16; Luke, ch. 24; and
John, chs. 20 and 21. For the authenticity of
Mark 16: 9-20 and John, ch. 41, see notes there.
The discrepancies in these accounts constitute

Matt., ch. 28.

Toward dawn of the first day of the week Mary Magdalene and another Mary come to the sepulchre. An earthquake has occurred, the stone has been rolled away, and the watchmen have swooned with terror. An angel announces to the women the resurrection of Jesus; and they depart to tell the other disciples, meet Jesus on the way, and worship him. He bids them tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where they shall see him. him. Subsequently the eleven meet him there, and receive their commission. Meanwhile the soldiers, bribed by the Jews, report that the tomb was rifled by the disciples.

Mark, ch. 16.

At the rising of the sun
on the first day of the
week, the two Marys and
Salome come to the sepul-
chre to anoint the body
of Jesus: they find the
stone rolled away, and a
young man (angel ?) in the
tomb. This young man
announces the resurreċ-
tion of Jesus, and bids
them tell the disciples to
go into Galilee, where
they shall see Jesus. They
depart and say nothing to
any man, because they
are afraid. The same day
Jesus himself appears to
Mary Magdalene, who
tells the mourning disci-
ples; but they believe
not. He afterward ap-
pears to two who are
walking into the country
(comp. Luke, ch. 24), and
who report the appear-
ance to the disciples, but
are not believed. After-
ward he appears to the
eleven as they sit at meat.
He gives them their com
mission and is received
up
into Heaven.

an argument of rationalistic writers for believing them to be mythical or legendary. The student will readily perceive the nature of these discrepancies in the Evangelical narratives by comparing the following summary of their accounts, arranged in parallel columns for that purpose:

Luke, ch. 24.

Early in the morning of the first day of the week the women, including the two Marys, come to the sepulchre and find the stone rolled away. They enter and are perplexed to find the tomb vacant. Two men appear to them and announce the resurrection. They return and report it to the rest, but are not believed. Peter, however, goes to the sepulchre, finds it vacant, and wonders at the fact. The same day Jesus appears to two disciples during their walk to Emmaus, who return and report the appearance to the eleven. While they are together Christ appears and takes meat with them. He leads them out to Bethany and thence ascends into Heaven.

John, chs. 20, 21. While it is yet dark Mary Magdalene comes to the sepulchre, finds the stone removed, returns, reports to Peter and John, who come together to the sepulchre. Peter enters first, then John; they find the sepulchre empty, and go away perplexed. Mary stands without the sepulchre weeping, looks in, sees two angels, who speak to her. She answers them, hears a voice without, supposes the speaker to be the gardener, until,at the pronunciation of her name, she discerns the Lord. She reports the facts to the disciples. The same evening Christ appears to them, Thomas being absent, and breathes on them, imparting the Holy Ghost. After eight days he appears again, and convinces Thomas of his resurrection, and subsequently appears to the disciples, in Galilec.

Comparing these four accounts, the following | ly narrated by the different Evangelists. (3.) facts are observable: (1.) No one Evangelist gives more than a partial account of the events which occurred between the resurrection and the ascension; the discrepancies, so-called, are largely due to the fact that each narrative is partial and incomplete, and none narrate facts narrated by the others. (2.) We cannot with any certainty construct a perfect harmony out of these accounts, i. e., we cannot be sure of the exact order of the events various

Though there are discrepancies, such as we might expect in the narrative of such events, penned by truthful and independent writers, each narrating only what he saw, or what he learned from trustworthy and independent witnesses, there are no contradictions, i. e., no fact is stated by one writer which is denied by another, or is irreconcilable with the statement made by another. (4.) In respect to the substantial facts, viz., the death, the burial, the resurrection, on

are later. The commission to the eleven is given perhaps still later, whether in Galilee or Judea is uncertain; I incline to think in Judea, and that it is followed almost immediately by the ascension. That this harmony is in all respects correct I do not assert; it is only hypothetical, but there is nothing in any of the four narratives inconsistent with it. It is at all events clear that there is a substantial accord in the four accounts. They are not irreconcilable, and the discrepancies are in matters of minor and comparatively

the morning of the third day, first discovered at or about daybreak, and followed by numerous appearances to different witnesses, and at different times, all the Evangelists agree. (5.) The principal discrepancies are the following: The time of the visit to the tomb by the women is described by Mark as sunrise, by John as "while it was yet dark"; two angels are described as at the tomb by Luke and John, one by Matthew and Mark; an appearance to all the women is described in Matthew, an appearance to Mary alone in Mark and John, and no answering ap- | unimportant details. pearance in Luke. In Mark the women say nothing to any man, in the other three Evangelists they tell the disciples. These are, I believe, all the discrepancies of any moment. They are none of them of a character to invalidate the truthfulness of the concurrent testimony to the essential facts. Most of them are easily explicable; for explanations see notes on the various passages; all, I believe, would be explicable if we knew all the facts. (6.) Finally, while a harmony of these accounts is possible, any harmony, constructed in our imperfect knowledge of the events, is necessarily hypothetical. With this explanation I embody what appears to me to be a probable order of the events, as recorded by the four Evangelists, supple-versally accepted by Christians at the time when mented by Luke in Acts 1:1, 2, and Paul in 1 Cor. 15: 3–7.

Several women-the exact number is not known-go together at early dawn, between daybreak and sunrise, to the tomb, to anoint the body. They find the grave opened and the body gone. Mary, supposing that the tomb has been rifled by the enemies of the Lord, hastens instantly back to the city for help, tells Peter and John, who forthwith hasten to the sepulchre. She accompanies, or more probably follows them, unable to keep up. That they hastened is eviThat they hastened is evident from John 20: 4. Meanwhile the angel in the tomb has announced the resurrection of the Lord to the other women, who have gone back into the city to tell the news to the disciples. Peter and John come, find the tomb empty, and depart perplexed. Mary, in greater grief than before, at the helplessness of their situation, their Lord's tomb robbed, and their Lord's body borne away to some dishonored grave, remains weeping, is accosted by some one whom she believes to be the gardener, discovers in him her risen Lord, and hastens to Jerusalem to inform the disciples. This I believe to be the first appearance of Jesus to any of the disciples, and probably the basis of the less full and accurate account of Matt. 28: 9, 10. The same day Christ appears to the disciples at Emmaus (Luke); and on the evening of that day to the ten at meat; and a week later again, when Thomas is present. The appearances in Galilee (John, ch. 21; Matt. 28: 16, 17)

2. Authentication of the Resurrection. Since the resurrection of Jesus Christ necessarily carries with it the supernatural origin and divine authority of Christianity, it is not strange that from the earliest ages it has been the chief evidence of Christianity in the hands of Christians, and the chief point of attack on the part of unbelievers. The following considerations have led the majority of impartial students of history to consider the resurrection of Jesus Christ as well authenticated as any fact in history. (1.) The early church universally believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ; it formed the basis of the first apostolic preaching (Acts 2: 24-32; 3:21; 4:2, 10; 10: 39-40; 13: 30-37; 17: 31, 32); and it was uni

Paul wrote the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
i. e., within about thirty years after its supposed
occurrence. It is incredible that a myth should
have grown up, without substantial foundation,
in a quarter of a century, in spite of hostility of
both Jew and Gentile, and during the lifetime of
those who were competent to contradict and dis-
pute the falsehood if it had been false.
(2.) This
belief is sustained by four narratives which (see
above) substantially agree, yet, which are all un-
mistakably original and independent accounts,
neither produced by collusion, nor drawn from a
common source. The accounts bear in many
places the evident indication of being prepared
by eye-witnesses; and of being the natural and
even child-like description of events which the
narrators themselves could not comprehend. The
very seeming contradictions afford incidental
evidence of the belief of the narrators. "Noth-
ing can exceed in artlessness and simplicity the
four accounts of the first appearance of Jesus
after his crucifixion. If these qualities are not
discernible here, then we must despair of ever
being able to discern their presence anywhere."
- (Furness.) (3.) This universality of belief
must, on any hypothesis, be accounted for. It
cannot be accounted for by the ancient Jewish
explanation,
explanation, viz., that the body was stolen and
the story of resurrection invented by the disci-
ples (Matt. 28: 13). This is not only negatived by
the precautions which the priests took against
fraud (Matt. 27: 62-66), by the facts that the disciples

were not anticipating a resurrection (see below), | Christ on their walk to Emmaus, had given up and that such a deception could not possibly and did not, in fact, enure in any way to their advantage, but also by the abundant evidence of their honesty in their labors and self-sacrifice, and by the incredibility of the supposition that a number of men could have banded together to promulgate such a system of religion as that of Jesus Christ, embodying such exalted precepts and principles of truth, purity, and love, by means of a deliberately-framed fraud. This hypothesis is now almost, if not quite, universally abandoned, even by infidel scholars. For example, "Only thus much need be acknowledged, that the disciples firmly believed that Jesus had arisen; this is perfectly sufficient to make their further progress and operations intelligible."-(Strauss.) “It is an indisputable fact that in the early morning of the first day of the week following the crucifixion, the grave of Jesus was found empty * * * It is a second fact that the disciples and other members of the Apostolic communion were convinced that Jesus was seen after his crucifixion." -(Schenkel.) The honesty of the Apostles is even admitted by the Jewish Rabbinical writings, which accounts for the disappearance of the body by saying that it was removed from the grave by the priests (see note on verses 11-15, above). Nor can this universal belief be explained by the hypothesis that Christ did not really die, but swooned, and was subsequently recovered from his swoon. For his death is as well authenticated as any fact in history. It was made sure of by the enmity of the priests (Matt. 27: 62, 63), by the spear-thrust of the soldiers (John 19: 34, 35), by the questioning of Pilate (Mark 15: 44), these concurrent facts being testified to by independent witnesses; and the recovery of Jesus from a swoon could not have formed the basis of any belief in a resurrection, without deliberate fraud on the part of his followers, which, as we see, is not regarded as tenable even by infidels. Nor can this belief be accounted for by regarding it with Renan as the production of an enthusiastic imagination and ardent hope in the disciples, in other words as a spiritual fantasy. For they had no such imagination and no such hope. The fact of the resurrection is attested, not by persons predisposed to believe in it, but by skeptical critics hard to be convinced. They were utterly disheartened by his death and had as little expectation of his resurrection as they had before entertained of his crucifixion. The women who came to anoint the body were surprised and grief-stricken to find it gone; they thought the tomb had been robbed. When they carried back the report of the resurrection to the other disciples "their words seemed to them as idle words, and they believed them not." The two disciples who conversed with the unrecognized

their faith in the Messiahship, and were thunder-
struck at the revelation of his presence. When
he appeared to the ten, Thomas refused to ac-
cept their testimony. So marked and stubborn
was their incredulity, that Christ more than once
upbraided them for their unbelief. The reader
who is interested to see how little historical basis
there is for the latest and perhaps most popular
rationalistic theory of the resurrection, namely,
that it was the honest figment of a diseased im-
agination, the unconscious creation of those who
amuse themselves with what is impossible,
and, rather than renounce all hope, do violence
to every reality," may find it in an examination
of the following among other passages, indicating
how stolid, prosaic, despairing, unhopeful, and
unimaginative were the witnesses who have tes-
tified to the resurrection (Mark 16 10-14; Luke
24: 11–20, 21, 25, 32, 37-39; John 20: 9, 11-13, 24, 25). The
facts, then, are indisputable, even admitted by
rationalistic writers,-Schenkel, Renan, Strauss,
and by Rabbinical writers (see Goldstien's Life
of Jesus), -that the grave of Jesus was found
Jesus),—that
empty early in the morning of the first day of the
week following the crucifixion, that it was not
opened by connivance of the disciples, that they
believed that they saw their risen Lord, con-
versed with him, touched him, ate with him,
that this belief was shared by above five hun-
dred persons who at different times had inter-
course with him (1 Cor. 15: 3-8), that on this belief
the whole structure of Christianity, as a divine
religion, was rested by the early preachers, at a
time when it would have been easy to expose
the error, if error there were, and was univer-
sally believed in the church, within thirty years.
after its occurrence. (4.) Only the fact of the
resurrection
resurrection can account for the marvelous
change in the spirit and character of the Apos-
tles. While he lived they had no accurate con-
ception of his mission, believed he was about to
inaugurate a political Jewish kingdom, were
eager for precedence in it, and this even up to the
time of his Passion, looked to the last moment.
for a miraculous deliverance from the Roman
soldiers, when this hope was crushed by Christ's
surrender, forsook him and fled, and after his
crucifixion abandoned all idea of his being the
Messiah and returned to their old avocation of
fishing (Matt. 16: 22; 20: 20–24; Luke 19: 11; 22: 24–30; John
21 : 3). But the resurrection completely trans-
formed them; inspired them with a new con-
ception of Christ's kingdom as for all people,
with a new courage to suffer for the sake of their
risen Lord and his kingdom, and with a new
purpose to preach Christ and him crucified
everywhere as a spiritual redemption for sin
(Acts 2: 39; 5: 41; 10:43). Neither fraud nor fiction
are competent to account for the moral contrast

ANCIENT PATHWAY FROM BETHANY TO JERUSALEM. (From a photograph.)

The view is taken from near the foot of the Mount of Olives; the garden of Gethsemane is in the foreground; in the background, on the left, is the north corner of the east wall of Jerusalem. The path crosses the Cedron near the garden of Gethsemane.