Our mortal bodies are yet to feel the regenerating power of the Son of God. This is emphatically called "the glory of his power." "The redemption of the body" from the bondage of corruption, is the consummation of the new-creating energy of him who has immortality. Life and incorruptibility were displayed in and by his resurrection from the dead. It was great to create man in the image of God, greater to redeem his soul from general corruption, but greatest of all to give to his mortal frame incorruptible and immortal vigor. The power displayed in the giving to the dead body of the Son of God incorruptible glory and endless life, is set forth by the Apostle Paul as incomparably surpassing every other divine work within the reach of human knowledge. He prays that the mind of Christians may be enlarged to apprehend this mighty power--that the Father of glory would open their minds, "that they might know the exceeding greatness of his power in relation to us who believe--according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." Faith in this wonderful operation of God--hope for the riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints in light, are the most powerful principles of action which God has ever planted in the human breast. This is the transcendent hope of the Christian calling, which imparted such heroic courage to all the saints of eternal renown. This better resurrection in prospect, has produced heroes which make cowards of all the boasted chiefs of worldly glory. As the magnetic needle ever points to the pole, so the mind influenced by this hope ever rises to the skies, and terminates on the fulness of joy and the pleasures forevermore, in the presence and at the right hand of God.

      To raise a dead body to life again, is not set forth as more glorious than by a touch to give new vigor to the palsied arm, to impart sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf; but to give that raised body the deathless vigor of incorruptibility, to renovate and transform it in all its parts, and to make every spirit feel that it reanimates its own body that is as insusceptible of decay, as immortal as the Father of eternity, is a thought overwhelming to every mind, a development which will glorify the power of God, as the sacrifice of his Son now displays his righteousness, faithfulness, and love to the heavens and to the earth.

      This new birth from the dark prison of the grave, is fitly styled "the redemption of the body" from bondage, "the glorious liberty of the sons of God." As in our watery grave the old man is figuratively buried to rise no more, so in the literal grave, the prison of the body, we leave all that is corrupt; for he that makes all things new will raise us up in his own likeness, and present us before his Father's [462] face in all the glory of immortality. Then will regeneration be complete. Then will be the full revelation of the sons of God. Immortality, in the sacred writings, is never applied to the spirit of man. It is not the doctrine of Plato which the resurrection of Jesus proposes. It is the immortality of the body of which his resurrection is a proof and pledge. This was never developed till he became the first born from the dead, and in a human body entered the heavens. Jesus was not a spirit when he returned to God. He is not made the Head of the New Creation as a Spirit, but as the Son of Man. Our nature in his person is glorified; and when he appears to our salvation, we shall be made like him: we shall then see him as he is. This is the Christian hope.

      Thus matters stand in the economy of redemption. Thus the divine scheme of regeneration is consummated: the moral part, by the operation of moral means; the physical part, by the mighty power of God operating through physical means. By the word of his power he created the heavens and the earth; by the word of his grace he reanimates the soul of man; and by the word of his power he will again form our bodies anew, and reunite the spirit and the body in the bonds of an incorruptible and everlasting union. Then shall death "be swallowed up forever."

But for this we must patiently wait. "We know not what we shall be." We only know, that when he appears we shall be like him; that we shall see him as he is.

[A. C.]      

Source:

Alexander Campbell. "Physical Regeneration." The Millennial Harbinger Extra 4 (August 1833): 358-359.

[MHA1 462-463]