The Resurrection and the Coming Again

Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. ACTS 1:11

Torrey preached his sermon on the resurrection on an Easter Sunday at the Church of the Open Door, and it is printed in The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith. Its subject is not only the resurrection of Christ but the resurrection of our bodies, and it leads straight to the hope that shaped much of his preaching: the personal return of the Lord Jesus. He wrote a separate book on that return, which is not in the Ochorus library, but the theme runs through the sermons that are.

A risen body

Torrey began by noting a strange fact. Many people who called themselves orthodox Christians, he said, did not believe in the resurrection of the body at all. They believed in the immortality of the soul. That, he insisted, is not the Christian hope.

His argument was simple and careful. What was raised on the third day? Not the soul of Jesus, which did not die. Paul says that He died, that He was buried, and that He was raised — and what was buried was His body.

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:3–4

And when the risen Christ appeared to His disciples, He insisted that they handle Him.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. LUKE 24:39

What our bodies will be

Torrey took great care over the character of the resurrection body, and this part of the sermon is full of wonder. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 15 and other passages, he taught that it will not be exactly the body that was buried, any more than the plant is the seed, yet it will be continuous with it. It will be like Christ’s glorious body. It will be incorruptible, glorious, powerful and heavenly.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. 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. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:42–43

He dwelt especially on the word power. All our weariness and weakness, he said, will then be at an end. For a man who worked as hard as Torrey did, one can hear what that meant to him. And he saw the resurrection of the body as the completion of our adoption — the moment when the sons of God are fully revealed.

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. ROMANS 8:23

Between death and resurrection

Torrey asked what happens to believers who die before the Lord returns. His answer from 2 Corinthians 5 and Philippians 1 was that their spirits are unclothed — without their earthly body and not yet clothed with the resurrection body — but at home with the Lord in conscious blessedness. That state is far better than this life, though not so perfect as what will follow.

For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better. PHILIPPIANS 1:23

It will be at the return of the Lord, he said, that we receive our full redemption.

Waiting for Him

That brought Torrey to the hope of Christ’s coming. The believer looks for the Saviour from heaven, who will change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of His own glorious body.

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. PHILIPPIANS 3:20–21

He gave several reasons for longing for that day. One was personal: the present body, useful as it is, is often a hindrance, subject to pain and frailty and temptation. Another was public. Torrey believed that the great problems of national and international life, of society and politics, would be solved when Christ came, and would never be solved until He came. The sermons in that volume were preached during the First World War, and one can feel the weight of the times on them.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 THESSALONIANS 4:16–17

Where care is needed

On the resurrection of Christ and of our bodies, Torrey stood squarely with the creeds, and he is a good guide. His warning that many Christians have quietly exchanged the resurrection for a vague immortality of the soul is still needed.

On the return of Christ, he held the premillennial view common among the evangelists and Bible teachers of his circle: that Christ will come before a literal thousand-year reign. Many faithful Christians have held other views, and the details of the order of events are matters on which Scripture has left room for disagreement. What all Christians confess is that He will come again, personally and visibly, to judge the living and the dead.

It is also worth guarding against one misuse of his hope. To say that the world’s problems will never be solved until Christ comes can make Christians indifferent to present injustice. Torrey did not mean that, and his own life, spent working among the poor in Minneapolis and training workers for the slums of Chicago, shows it. The hope of Christ’s return is meant to purify us and to spur us, not to excuse us.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. 1 JOHN 3:2–3

And no one knows the day or the hour. The right posture is not calculation but readiness.

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. MATTHEW 24:36

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask whether your hope for the future is the resurrection of the body or merely the survival of the soul. Read 1 Corinthians 15 this week.

2. If you are weary or in pain, meditate on the promise that the body sown in weakness will be raised in power.

3. If you have lost a believing friend, give thanks that they are at home with the Lord, and that there is a better day still to come.

4. Ask how the hope of Christ’s return is purifying you. Name one thing you would put right if you knew He was coming this week.

5. Resist the temptation to despair of the world or to ignore its needs. Pray for Christ’s coming, and do good while you wait.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You died, You were buried, and You rose again the third day. You are the firstfruits of them that sleep, and I believe that I too shall be raised.

Thank You that my weakness will be raised in power and my dishonour in glory, and that I shall be like You, for I shall see You as You are.

Keep me ready for Your coming. Let this hope purify me, and let it make me faithful and fruitful while I wait.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.