re, which
nature, while the body lies buried, is in a dissevered state. If Paul,
when in heaven, saw and felt the power of this expectation in the minds
of glorified saints, no wonder that the resurrection of the body seemed
to him, ever after, to be the crown of Christian expectation and hope.

More than all, he had seen the man Christ Jesus, in his glorified body;
who on earth had said, "I am the resurrection and the life"--himself an
illustration of it, whom alone the grave has yielded up to die no more.
He is, therefore, to saints in heaven, a far more interesting object
than Enoch and Elijah, who never died. "For now is Christ risen from the
dead, and is become the first fruits of them that slept." This sight, of
Christ in heaven, must have had unutterable interest for Paul, from the
assurance that Christ will "change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body;" for "we know that when he shall
appear," Paul himself tells us, "we shall be like him; for we shall see
him as he is." This knowledge, obtained in the heavenly world, may have
led the apostle to think of the resurrection as the crown of all his
expectations and hopes.

It is noticeable that the writers of the New Testament, and Jesus
himself, refer chiefly to the resurrection and the last day as sources
of comfort, and also of warning. Now this is made a principal ground of
belief, with many, that there is either no consciousness between death
and the resurrection; or, that none have gone to heaven, nor to hell,
but to intermediate places, seeing that final rewards and punishments
are, in so many instances, wholly predicated of the last day.

But those who believe that the souls of the righteous are, at their
death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, see
proof, in all this prominence which is given to the last day, and to the
resurrection, that the sacred writers regarded the resurrection and
final judgment as the great consummation, towards which souls, in heaven
and in hell, would be looking forward with intense expectation and
interest; that neither will the joys of heaven nor the pains of hell be
complete, till the account of our whole influence upon the world,
extending to the end of time, is made up, and the body is added to the
soul. When Paul comforts the mourners of Thessalonica, he bids them to
"sorrow not as they that have no hope; for," (and now he does not speak
of heaven, and of souls being