Orthodoxy: Its Truths And ErrorsClarke, James Freeman
Religion
Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors
Clarke, James Freeman
Unitarianism
But perhaps, after all, the resurrection may have been an example of a
universal law. Like other miracles, which are sporadic instances, in this
world, of laws which may be the nature of other worlds, so the
resurrection may have been as natural an event as any other in the life of
Jesus. Perhaps it is a law of nature that all souls shall become
disengaged from the earthly body on the third day after death. Perhaps
they all rise in a spiritual body, substantial and real, but not usually
perceptible by the senses. Perhaps, in the case of Jesus, that same
superior command of miraculous force, which appeared during his life,
enabled him to show himself easily and freely whenever he would. What
became of the earthly body we do not know; it may have been removed by the
priests or soldiers to prevent the disciples from getting possession of
it. The body in which Christ appeared differed evidently from the earthly
body in various ways. It came and went mysteriously; it was sometimes
recognized, and sometimes not; and it ascended into the spiritual world
instead of passing again to death and the grave. Perhaps, therefore, it
may be a universal law that souls rise out of the material body into a
higher state, clothed in another body, substantial and real, but not
material. The essence of the resurrection is this: Resurrection is not
coming to life again with the same body, but ascent into a higher life
with a new body.
It may be said that all this is only a _perhaps_. Very well; it _is_ only
a _perhaps_, but that is all we want in order to refute the logic of the
article just quoted. The scientific sceptic says, “I will not believe that
Jesus was really seen after death, because that would be a violation of a
law of nature.” We reply, “No, not necessarily. It might _perhaps_ have
been thus and so.” That will do; for if we can show that it is not
_necessarily_ a violation of a law of nature, we wholly remove the
objection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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