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soma, never of the sarx. In the Old Testament we have an 
allusion by Job to the resurrection of the basar, or flesh, by 
which we are evidently to understand “ the body,” a meaning 
which the word often bears. 
77. (t Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” 
for the reason that corruption cannot inherit incorruption. 
From the resurrection body the entire nutritive system shall 
disappear. “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; 
but God shall destroy both it and them.” The nutritive 
system implies the circulation of the blood, by which the body 
is nourished, and that which is nourished — flesh. All these 
shall be absent from the soma pneumatikon. There will be 
no repair, as there shall be no waste. 
78. Paul’s beautiful and striking image of resurrection is 
the corn of seed sown in the earth. “ Thou sowest not,” he 
says, “ the body that shall be, but a bare grain of wheat, it 
may be, or of some other grain.” The following words are 
noteworthy : — “ God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him.” 
The body then which we lay down in the grave is not the 
body that shall be. Out of it God will give, or raise up, a 
body as it pleases Him. “ It is sown in corruption; it is 
raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised 
in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised in power ; it is 
sown a psychical body; it is raised a pneumatical body.” 
79. “ The most sublime efforts of philosophy,” says Gibbon, 
“ can extend no further than feebly to point out the desire, 
the hope, or at most, the probability, of a future state.” As 
to the resurrection of the dead, the philosophers of Greece 
and Pome had no idea. When Paul preached it in Athens 
they turned the doctrine into ridicule. Their belief, or rather 
their unbelief, on this grand doctrine of Pevelation, is ex- 
pressed in the mournful utterance of Moschus on the death 
of Bion : — 
“ Our plants and trees revive, the breathing rose, 
"With annual youth, in pride of beauty glows ; 
But when the master-piece of Nature dies, 
Man, who alone is great, and brave, and wise, 
No more he rises to the realms of light, 
But sleeps unwaking in eternal night.” 
Compare this with the words of the Apostle, and how great 
is the contrast ! “ The trumpet shall sound, and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 
Taught by these infallible oracles, we know incomparably 
more than heathen philosophy could ever attain to : " We 
look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world 
to come.” 
