Thus the resurrection of the Lord must also necessarily want analogy, in case it is an event which really marks a station of progress in the development of earthly creatures and their history, and in case also its nature and its importance tend not to bring mankind, or at least those who believe in him who has been raised, at once under the influence of its physical consequences, but only so far to prepare the way for these consequences in intellectual and moral life-forces. And precisely such an event is the resurrection of Jesus, according to the announcement of the Lord as to himself and his work, and according to the development of this personal testimony in the minds of his first disciples, and also according to what Jesus actually became for mankind, and especially for Christianity. According to this testimony of Jesus and his apostles, and to this actual experience, Jesus is the Redeemer, whose work is to make amends for the destruction caused by sin, and thus to originate and establish a new creation in mankind which, from inner, mental, and spiritual beginnings, {332} renews mankind, and becomes the leaven which, in long periods of labor, leads it to the goal of perfection; a perfection in which the whole creation shall participate--with which, indeed, mankind is inseparably connected on the whole natural side of its existence. But then it also lies in the nature of the resurrection of Jesus to be single in its kind, and without analogy, until that time shall have come in the development of mankind when the last enemy, death, shall be forever removed and overcome.