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and be with Christ, which he judged to be far better. The 
same figure of a tabernacle and its inhabitant is employed by 
the apostle Peter. To the dying thief Christ declared, To- 
day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The rich man and 
Lazarus die, but find themselves existing in another state of 
being.* On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses, whose 
body had been buried in the land of Moab, appeared in glory, 
as well as Elijah, who had ascended in his body to the Divine 
presence. The language of the Evangelist is remarkable : 
“ There appeared unto them [the disciples] Moses and Elias, 
talking with Him.” 
12. The last words of Stephen were, “Lord Jesus, receive 
my spirit.” Having said this, “ he fell asleep.” The body 
slept, the spirit ascended to the Lord. In no part of Scripture 
is the spirit said to sleep when the body dies. Wherever such 
men as the late highly-gifted Archbishop Whately found the 
idea, they could never, by fair interpretation, draw it from 
the oracles of God. The body of the believer sleeps, to be 
awaked in the first resurrection ; the spirit, from its nature, 
requires not to sleep. Literal sleep is “ tired nature^s sweet 
restorer” ; but we have no reason to think that the spirit is 
capable of fatigue. We have, therefore, no ground to conclude 
that it sleeps ; but rather that, when it has put off* the body, 
it becomes increasingly active. 
13. In proving to the Sadducees, from the Scriptures of 
the Old Testament, the doctrine of the resurrection, our Lord 
refers to the words spoken to Moses at the Bush : “lam the 
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ” 
His comment is, “ God is not the God of the dead, but of 
the living ; for all live unto Him.” At that hour the patriarchs 
were living unto God, that is, living with Him. 
1L Instead of the putting off of the body, in any sense 
injuriously affecting the spirit, the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews tells us that by faith we are come to the spirits of 
" just men made perfect” (Heb. xii. 23). The perfection of 
the spirit, which would seem to imply both purity and intelli- 
gence, is here connected with its release from the body. 
15. That the spirit of man survives the death of the body 
seems to be either a universal instinct of our race, or a uni- 
versal tradition from the patriarchs through all subsequent 
generations. We may not be wrong in regarding it as both 
the one and the other. As to its universality, we have abundant 
testimony. We have it in a disfigured form in the Eastern 
* Though this be regarded as a parable, it must, nevertheless, teach 
truth. 
