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the highest faculties of man, the action of which our bodies, as they are at present constituted, hinder and impede; or, to adopt the language of the Apostle, our present bodies are animal bodies (vxià σwμатα), and connect us with the lower orders of creation; our resurrection bodies will be spiritual bodies (Vevμáτika), and will connect us with the higher. The respective meanings of ψυχή, ψυχικός, and πνευμα, πνευμάTIKOS, we will consider in the next chapter. I shall, therefore, conclude this part of our investigation with quoting the Apostle's final description of the resurrection state

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory! O death, where is thy sting!"

Respecting the employments of the saints in the resurrection state Scripture is silent. All, therefore, that we can learn respecting them is by inference from the description given by St. Paul of the nature of the resurrection body and its adaptation to be the instrument of the being which inhabits it. On this point, therefore, we must rest content with the assurance of our Lord, his Apostle, and the Psalmist―

"I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also."

"Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall be made manifest, we shall be like him; for we shall see him, even as he is."

"In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

CHAPTER IX.

THE TERMINOLOGY, OR THE MEANING OF THE LANGUAGE, EMPLOYED BY THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT RESPECTING FUTURE RETRIBUTION.

BEFORE we can enter on an investigation as to what is the teaching of the New Testament respecting a future state of retribution, it will be necessary to consider the general character of the language which is employed by its writers, and the meaning of the terminology which they use respecting it. The English reader is in constant danger, in studying the Authorised Version of the New Testament, of attaching to its terminology the meaning which the English words into which the corresponding Greek ones have been translated bear in popular theology, and thus of reading his own preconceived conceptions into the sacred writings. One remarkable instance, out of numerous others, will suffice as an illustration. The Greek word pious is not unfrequently translated in the Authorised Version by the English word "damnation." Respecting the precise meaning of this word at the time of the translators there may be some doubt, but it is now popularly understood to mean an existence in neverending misery. Of such a meaning the Greek word kpiois contains no hint, and the Revisers have done well in having removed the word "damnation" out of the Revised Version, and in rendering this and other kindred terms by the word "judgment," or some similar expression. Our object, therefore, must be to ascertain the meaning which the sacred

writers intended to convey by their terminology, and also that which they knew would be attached to it by those whom they were addressing. This, and not the technical senses which popular theology has attached to their English counterparts is, I contend, their only true meaning. It should be observed, inasmuch as the Epistles of the New Testament are addressed to particular Churches, and obviously with the intention that they should be read to their respective members, that in endeavouring to ascertain the meaning of the terms employed, we must not only consider the peculiar usus loquendi of the author, but also the sense which those to whom they were addressed were certain to attach to the terms employed. It is always to be presumed that the writer of a letter uses words in a sense which he knows will be attached to them by his correspondents, i.e. in the ordinary meaning of the words, and not in a sense which is peculiar to himself. I make this observation because in expounding St. Paul's epistles importance is often attached to certain expressions in them as having a sense which was peculiar to the Apostle; whereas if he had used words in senses peculiar to himself, he would have meant one thing by them, and those whom he was addressing would have understood another. Writers of letters, unless they wish to be obscure, write in language such as they feel assured will be intelligible to those to whom they write.

The Greek of the New Testament is the vernacular Greek which was spoken in those places which had been Hellenised by the conquests of Alexander the Great, and was in extensive use in no small portion of the Oriental world. This form of Greek was that used by the Jews of the dispersion, and into it the Scriptures of the Old Testament had been translated at least a hundred and fifty years prior to the Advent. It is commonly called Hellenistic Greek, which, in contradistinction to the Greek in ordinary use, may be briefly des

cribed as Hebrew thought expressed in Greek words. The meaning of the words, however, is the same as that which they bear in ordinary vernacular Greek, unless the context shows that the author intended to use them in a special sense, which was also understood in this special sense by those whom he was addressing. Otherwise the writings would have failed to have conveyed to the latter the meaning intended by the writer. The chief characteristic of this form of Greek is its simplicity of construction, which has rendered the New Testament capable of being nearly literally, yet intelligibly, translated into that multitude of languages in which it now exists; whereas a literal translation of the great classical Greek writers would be almost unintelligible to the ordinary English reader.*

Its language, with the exception of what are called its Hebraisms, is essentially popular. It contains no scientific or technical terms. The members of the Apostolic Churches were composed for the most part of the trading classes and of slaves, and consisted of Greek-speaking Jews and Gentiles, whose numbers in some churches were evenly balanced, while in others one or other of these elements formed a considerable majority. The Apostolic writings were intended beyond all question to be intelligible to those to whom they were addressed. Thus St. Paul takes it for granted that his epistles would be read publicly in the churches, and in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, he gives special directions that it should be read "to all the holy brethren." He must, therefore, have assumed that the terminology which he employed would have been thoroughly intelligible to the mem

* If the reader is curious on this subject, he will find a striking example of what I say in Hobbes's translation of Thucydides. The translation is nearly literal, but the speeches, which are very numerous, are not only very painful reading, but scarcely intelligible to the ordinary reader. The difference in point of intelligibility between them and the most abstract writing in the New Testament is striking.

bers of this Church, the majority of whom consisted of Gentiles who had been converted from heathenism a little over a year prior to the date of the Apostle's letter, and who must have understood his Greek in the sense which it bore in the vernacular.* A similar observation is true of the other epistles of the Apostle. They were intended to be read publicly in the different Churches. This being so, the Greek in which he wrote them could not have contained a number of technicalities intelligible only to himself and a small body of the members of these churches, but was Greek as it was spoken and understood by the trading and lower classes—for of such the Apostolic Churches were almost exclusively composed-in such places as Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, Galatia, Philippi, Ephesus, and Colosse. If the Apostle attached a meaning to a word which those whom he addressed did not understand by it, it would have been absolutely necessary for him to have given some intimation of the peculiar sense in which he used it, if he meant his communications to be intelligible.

It is necessary that the nature of the Apostle's terminology should be clearly understood, because it has been assumed that several of the words used respecting future retribution bear a technical sense in the New Testament. Thus, for example, it has been maintained by one side of this controversy that "destruction," and words of similar import must necessarily mean annihilation, and by the other, a neverending life in torment. All the Greek words thus translated are wide in their signification, like our corresponding English ones; and among their many meanings, the precise one

* I have made this observation, because the short time which had elapsed between the foundation of this Church and the composition of the Epistle renders it impossible that its terminology could have acquired a special technical sense during so brief an interval. The Epistle itself makes it evident that although this Church was composed partially of Jews, the majority of its members consisted of recently converted Gentiles, whose acquaintance with the Septuagint version of the Old Testament must have been indefinitely small.

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