It is curious that St. Paul’s parallel between the Resurrection of Christ and that of men should be so habitually overlooked. He assumes, as a matter of course, a similarity, almost an identity, between the Resurrection of men and the Resurrection of Christ: “If there is no resurrection of the dead neither hath Christ been raised,” and again: “Now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep.” This reasoning holds excellently, if the Resurrection is to be the same for us as it was for our Saviour, a spiritual Resurrection, and if the Resurrection of Christ visibly revealed the universal law which shall apply to all who are animated by the Spirit of God. But if Christ’s Resurrection was of a quite different kind, if it was a bodily stepping out of the tomb three days after burial, how can this be called the “first fruits” of the Resurrection of men whose bodies will all decay and for whom therefore no such stepping out from the tomb can ever be anticipated? The best, the truest, the most comforting belief in the end will be found to be that Jesus was “put to death in the flesh but _quickened_ (not in the flesh but) _in the spirit_.” And as it was with Him, so we believe it will be with us. But perhaps you will remind me that one of the Creeds mentions “the Resurrection of the _body_,” and that St. Paul anticipates the Resurrection, not of a “spirit,” but of “a spiritual _body_;” and you may ask me what I infer from this. I for my part infer that St. Paul desired to guard against the notion that the dead lose their identity and are merged in God or in some other essence; he wished to convey to his hearers that they would still retain their individuality, the power of loving and of being loved; possibly also he wished to suggest a life of continued activity in the service of God; and in order to express this he used such language (metaphorical of course) as would unmistakeably imply that identity would be preserved, and activity would be possible. But he took care to guard his language against materialistic misinterpretation by insisting that the body would be “spiritual” and therefore invisible to the earthly eye and cognizable only by the spirit. The new body, he says, is “a building from God,” “a house not made with hands, _eternal_;” and he prefaces this by saying “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things _which are not seen_ are _eternal_.” Hereby he clearly implies that the new body will be “not seen.” Elsewhere he tells us that “the things prepared by God” for them that love Him (and of course he includes in these the “building from God, the house not made with hands”) are such as eye “_hath not seen_ nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man; but God hath revealed them unto us _by the Spirit_;” and again, “the things of God none knoweth _save the Spirit of God_,” which has been imparted to the faithful.