Page 62 - Jesus is coming - Class version

DEAN ALFORD'S COMMENT. 59

to see expositors who are among the first in reverence of
antiquity, complacently casting aside the most cogent in-
stance of unanimity which primitive antiquity presents.
As regards the text itself, no legitimate treatment of it
will extort what is known as the spiritual interpretation
now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections
are mentioned, where certain souls lived at the first, and
the rest of the dead lived only at the end of a specified
period after that first, if in such a passage, the first resur-
rection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with
Christ, while the second means literal 'rising from the
grave; then there is an end of all significance in language,
and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to any-
thing. If the first resurrection is spiritual, then so is the
second, which I suppose no one will be hardy enough to
maintain. But if the second is literal, then so is the first,
which in common with the whole primitive church and
many of the best modern expositors, I do maintain and
receive as an article of faith and hope."*
Resurrection From the Bead.
Now if Christ is coming to raise the righteous a thou-
sand years before the ungodly, it would be natural and im-
perative that the former should be called a resurrection
from, or out of the dead, the rest of the dead being left
until after the thousand years. We rejoice therefore that
this is just what is most carefully done in the Word, and in
this we believe we have another most comprehensive and
definite proof of the pre-millennial coming of Christ. It
consists in the use made, in the Greek text of the words
fKVKpS>v (ek nekron).
These words signify "from the dead" or, out of the
dead, implying that the other dead are left.
The resurrection vocpw or ru>v vocpw (nekron, or ton
nekron-of the dead) is applied to both classes because all
*See also the quotations .from distinguished authorities,
both English and German given as critical testimonies in
the appendix to Pre-millennial Essays, published by F. H.
Revell. Chicago, 111.