George Cross · 34 of 40

II. The Other Side of the Antithesis: Unfolding of the Consciousness of Grace (§§ 86-169) · SECOND PROPHETICAL ARTICLE: THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

The consciousness of the union of the body and soul in our personality renders it impossible for us to represent to ourselves the immortality of the soul apart from a bodily existence, without giving up the identity of our personal life before death and after. The continuity of self-consciousness seems impossible apart from memory, which, like other mental functions, appears dependent on bodily relations, so that the existence of the soul under entirely different physical relations would be inconsistent with its continuous self-identity. But the conception of the similarity of the present and the future life is, on the other hand, inconsistent with the perfection of the church. So that on this ground we are under the opposite necessity of conceiving the nature of the future world as different from the present, the body being conceived as immortal and sexual distinctions as lost; other wise the conflict between flesh and spirit, and there fore sin fulness, would remain.

The incompatibility of the representation of future personal continuance with the representation of the perfected church further appears in the abortive at tempts to offer a representation of the intermediate state and to adjust its relation to the resurrection state and to the general judgment. We conclude that it is impossible to present a definite and consistent representation of the connection between the present and the future life.

There remains as the essential content of this article: (1) the ascension of the risen Redeemer is only possible if there lies before all human individuals in the future life a renewal of organic life connected with our present state; (2) the unfolding of a future state is conditioned on the divine power of Christ and on cosmical changes effected through the universal divine world-government, though the representation of these changes is a problem never perfectly to be solved by men (§ 161).