We sometimes speak of the 'Three R's' when thinking of fundamental

features of any system, and we have already considered in other pages

Reconciliation and Redemption.  We are by no means limited to three, but

we must at least add one more to our list, namely Resurrection, for without

the hope of resurrection ichabod is written across all life and effort, and

without resurrection, redemption remains ineffective and the Gospel is

preached in vain; we who believe are of all men most miserable, and even they

who have fallen asleep in Christ are perished.  The doctrine of resurrection

covers a vast amount of ground, and necessitates an examination of such

allied themes as the immortality of the soul; life only in Christ; the

doctrine of demons and spiritism; the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,

considered historically and doctrinally; the resurrection and the

hope of believers and the peculiar character of those resurrections named

'the out-resurrection', 'the better resurrection', 'the first resurrection'.

Men of God of all ages have expressed their conviction that the

resurrection is emptied of meaning, if the dead are existing in a state of

conscious bliss, as for example did Justin Martyr (a.d. 150) who wrote:

'If you fall in with those who are called Christians who confess not

this truth (namely resurrection) but dare to blaspheme the God of

Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in that they say there is no resurrection

of the dead, but that immediately when they die their souls are

received up into heaven, avoid them and esteem them not Christians'.

We may not feel called upon to question the Christianity of those believers

who thus believe, but Justin Martyr puts his finger upon the danger incipient

in the doctrine 'sudden death, sudden glory'.  So ingrained is the Platonic

idea of the natural immortality of the soul, it may be a useful introduction

to this study if we give a few more extracts.  We are indebted to the organ

of the Conditional Immortality Mission Words of Life for the following

quotation given by the Rev. H. A. Barnes in his article entitled The Platonic

'At an early period in the Christian Church it became fashionable to

believe that there was much similarity between the teaching of Plato

and that of Christianity, until it actually came to pass that the

authority of the heathen philosopher was recognized almost as if he had

been a teacher of the true religion' (Kalamos p. 625).

Dr. E. Petavel testifies to the same effect:

'The rising tide of Platonic theory was made to triumph in the

Christian Church by the false Clementines, Tertullian, Minusclus Felix,

Cyprian, Jerome, and especially by St.  Augustine, but the primitive

teaching was maintained here and there' (The Problem of Immortality p.

To quote a French theologian, Professor Ernest Naville:

'In the formation of Church Science there were introduced elements of

ancient thought which were incompatible with the direct and true

meaning of the Gospel ... while gathering up with pious care all that

is pure in the intellectual heritage of past centuries, we need to

break away more than has yet been done from the false and unsatisfying

doctrines of Greek tradition' (Chretien: Evang.: p. 470).