Cowley's Talks on DoctrineCowley, Matthias F. (Matthias Foss)
Religion
Cowley's Talks on Doctrine
Cowley, Matthias F. (Matthias Foss)
Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines
In Paul's address before Felix he refers to the resurrection in the
following language: "And have hope toward God, which they themselves
also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the
just and unjust." (Acts xxiv:15.) Again "Him God raised up the third
day and showed Him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses
chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after
He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach unto the people,
and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge
of quick and dead." This was the testimony of the chief apostle, Peter,
when the Gospel was first delivered to the Gentiles.
It is evident that the burden of the teachings and testimonies of the
apostles was to establish the divinity of the mission of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This necessarily included His atonement and resurrection.
The fall of our first parents brought not only a banishment from the
presence of the Lord, which may be termed a spiritual death, but it
caused the death of the physical body. When an atonement was wrought
out as a redemption from that fall, it would be incomplete unless it
brought to pass immortality and eternal life to the body.
"The spirit and the body is the soul of man." The body is resurrected
from the grave, independent of whether the individual in this life was
good or bad, as shown by the declarations of Scripture. "For as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I. Cor. xv:22.)
Paul describes in a very definite way the different degrees of glory
in the resurrection, which vindicates the justice of God in rewarding
every man according to his works, and establishing the free agency of
man by holding him personally accountable for every act of his life.
"There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory
of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and
another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in
glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead." (I. Cor. xv:40-42.)
Jesus said to the apostles: "In my Father's house are many mansions:
If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you * * * that where I am there ye may be also." (St. John xiv:2, 3.)
These assertions all agree that there has been a resurrection (so far
as they refer to the resurrection of Jesus and those who came forth
from their graves at the same time) and that there will yet be two more
resurrections, one of the just, one of the unjust. The only reasonable
conclusion to be reached by reading these testimonies is, that the
resurrection will be an actual reunion of the spirit and the body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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