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Resurrection. One pathetic attempt to attain some form of immortality is here before us,
an immortality by proxy, a frantic desire to have an heir "to perpetuate the name".
No.3.
The Witness of the Old Testament.
pp. 64 - 67
What is the answer of God to this cold and impersonal conception of immortality?
"This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah."
(Psalm 49: 13).
"As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I
awake, with Thy likeness" (Psa. 17: 15).
The word translated "behold" is the Hebrew chazah and is used by Job when he says:
"Yet in my flesh shall I see God
Whom I shall see for myself" (Job 19: 26, 27),
in connection with the Lord as the Kinsman-Redeemer. To awake in the likeness of the
Saviour, sums up the hope of all callings. Those thus raised may find their inheritance in
the earth, the New Jerusalem, or "far above all", but He will be "The Firstborn among
many brethren", and they are predestinated to be conformed to His image (Rom. 8: 29).
The great resurrection chapter, I Cor. 15: says:
"And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly" (I Cor. 15: 49).
This will take place when this mortal shall put on immortality and death will be
swallowed up of life.
The Prophets.
We have entered, by faith, into the joy of the Psalmist, who said "I shall be satisfied,
when I awake with Thy likeness". Let us now turn to Isa. 53: 10, 11, and by the
self same faith, enter the joy of our Lord.
"When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be SATISFIED" (Isa. 53: 10, 11).
Isa. 53: leaves us in no doubt but that the wounds, the bruises and the stripes whereby
we are healed, were sufferings that ended in death.
"He was cut off of the land of the living.
He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death" (verses 8, 9).