(_a_) Christ's Resurrection is the pledge of ours.
The belief in a future life, as entertained by Paul's hearers on Mars
Hill, was shadowy and dashed with much unbelief. Disembodied spirits
wandered ghostlike and spectral in a shadowy underworld.
The belief in the Resurrection of Jesus converts the Greek peradventure
into a fact. It gives that belief solidity and makes it easier to grasp
firmly. Unless the thought of a future life is completed by the belief
that it is a corporeal life, it will never have definiteness and
reality enough to sustain itself as a counterpoise to the weight of
things seen.
(_b_) Resurrection implies judgment.
A future bodily life affirms individual identity as persisting beyond
the accident of death, and can only be conceived of as a state in which
the earthly life is fully developed in its individual results. The
dead, who are raised, are raised that they may 'receive the things done
in the body, according to that they have done, whether it be good or
bad.' Historically, the two thoughts have always gone together; and as
has been the clearness with which a resurrection has been held as
certain, so has been the force with which the anticipation of judgment
to come has impinged on conscience.
Jesus is, even in this respect, our Example, for the glory to which He
was raised and in which He reigns now is the issue of His earthly life;
and in His Resurrection and Ascension we have the historical fact which
certifies to all men that a life of self-sacrifice here will assuredly
flower into a life of glory there, 'Ours the Cross, the grave, the
skies.'