The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-11-09
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
Lesson for November 8
1s93-The Resurrection-Cor. 15:12-26.

GOLDEN TEXT Thanks be to God which
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christi Cor 15:6
LIGHT FROM OTHER SCRIPTURES. This
chapter should be read in connection with the
accounts of the resurrection In the four Cos
pels, and the Acts, and Thess. 4:lel7; Cor
5:2-4; Phil 3:20-21
INTRODUCTION. Paul learned from the
church at Cornth that there had arisen doubts
and perplexities concerning the great doctrine
of the resurrection, perhaps from the influence
of the prevailing Greek philosophy This chap
ter is an answer and solution.
LESSON NOTES
Objections to the resurrection among
the Corinthians.
First. The Epicureans among the
heather, and the Sadducees among the
Jews, believed that there was no soul
as distinct from the body, and no future
life. Therefore, according to their
philosophy the resurrection was an inn
possibility. The soul went as does the
flame of a candle when it is blown out.
Second. The Stoics taught, what
amounted to the same thing, the Pan
theistic doctrine of the ultimate reab-
sorption of the soul into the divinity
from which it had sprung, and there
fore the final extinction of the individ-
ual personality. So a drop of water is
absorbed into the ocean. 1t exists but
only as a part of the great whole
Third. The disciples of Plato, while
maintaining the eternal personality and
immortality of the soul, regarded mat
ter as the cause of all evil, the only
barrier between the soul and Absolute
Good, thing, in fact, essentially and
eternally alien to the Divine, and
therefore could not conceive of immor-
tality except through the entire free
dom of the soul from so malignant and
corrupting an influence.
Fourth. As in 2 Tim. 2:17, ls, he
speaks of Hymeneus and Philetus as
teaching that the resurrection was
passed already, it is probable that these
errorists in Corinth also refused to
acknowledge any other than spiritual
resurrection.
Fifth. There were others to whom
the resurrection seemed contrary to
common sense and the science of the
day (ver. So. 1t was impossible and
absurd.
The Resurrection Fact.-Paul be-
gins his famous chapter with mar
shaling of the proofs of the resurrec-
ton of Christ. He brings witness after
witness, even five hundred at one time,
during the forty days between the res
direction and the ascension, saw
Jesus, touched him, heard Him talk.
ate with Him, walked with Him at
different times in various places. And
many of these witnesses were familiar
acquaintances. Later on Paul him
self met Jesus, saw Him, and heard
Him. Jesus must be alive. No event
in all history has greater or more con-
vincing proofs than that Jesus rose
from the dead. Sight, hearing, touch,
all combined in the proof. Then the
Christian church, and indeed every
convert and every miracle, was proof
that living Saviour was working in
tie world.
Why is our faithvain if Christ has not
been raised? a. If Christ has not been
raised, then He has broken His prom
ises and failed in His prophecies, for
He repeatedly declared that He would
rise again. And if these promises fail,
what are any other promises of His
good for? He would be either false or
incompetent as a Saviour. (2.) If He
has not been raised, then there is no
proof that He was anything but very
good and great man, like Socrates, or
Plato, or Luther. He cannot be proved
to be the Son of God, the divine wit
ness of divine things. 1t is His power
over death, His continued existence,
His ever living, that completes the
proof that He is Divine Saviour. (3)
If Christ is not proved to be immortal,
by continuing to live, the strong proof
of our immortality is taken away. He
is the specimen that proves the exist
ence of the future life. (4) Then too
we worship dead Saviour, not a liv-
ing one. He does not exist for us to
trust and love, to be our ever-present
helper. (5) Then too there has been
made no atonement for our sins, for
only the Son of God could make atone
ment, and there is no Son of God. (6)
| There can be no second coming, no tri-
umph of the kingdom of heaven. (7)
| Then, as Robertson says, 1--WE must
infer also that as the true disciples of
| Christ in all ages have led purer hum
bier, more self-sacrificing lives than
other men, they have attained to this
higher excellence by believing what
was false and that therefore men be-
| come more pure and noble by believ-
| ing what is false than by believing
what is true"
The Resurrection of the Body.--There
are those who object to the term resur-
rectlon of the body, but it is because
that term has been regarded as
meaning the material body which we
! now have. Pauls illustration shows
exactly what is meant. Our present
bodies, he says, cannot inherit the
kingdom of God, but they shall be
changed into spiritual bodies. This
! change he illustrates by the seed and
plant which grows from it. Our flu
ture bodies may be no more like our
present ones than rose is like black
seed, or lily like bulb. How, then,
.