The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1918, Page 50

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50 The Lutheran Pioneer.

the ignorance of foolish men and the malice of those
who desire to see our ruin.

Surely, this war has done one thing —it has
given us Lutherans an opportunity to prove our
loyalty to America. Every Lutheran, white or
colored, Danish, English, German, Norwegian,
Swedish, Finnish, Lapp, Slovakian, Icelandic,
Lithuanian, Esthonian, Slavonian, Italian, Dutch,
or French, has had an opportunity to prove that he
is 100 per cent. American. And we are proud to
say that they have taken advantage of the oppor-
tunity and by their loyal efforts have met the test
of American citizenship, and showed beyond ques-
tion that, however dear the foreign-born among
them may have held the land of their birth, they
in the present crisis have but one country, and that
is our country, the sweet land of liberty.

F. J. 1.

Of the Resurrection of the Body.

Among all nations of the earth the belief is
spread that the human soul will live forever. The
old pagan pocis, for instance, Homer, adhere to it.
The ancient heathen philosopher Plato undertakes
to prove the immortality of the soul in his dialog
Phaedo. Cicero, in his treatise onsold age, writes:
“© glorious day when I shall depart to that divine
company and assemblage of spirits, and quit this
troubled and polluted scene! For I shall go not
only to those great men of whom I have spoken
before, but also to my son Cato [who had died]... .
But his soul, not deserting me, but oft looking back,
no doubt departed to those regions whither it saw
that I myself was destined to come; which, though
a distress to me, I seemed patiently to endure: not
that I bore it with indifference, but I comforted
myself with the recollection that the separation
and distance between us would not continue long.
For these reasons, O Scipio (since you said that
you with Laeclius were accustomed to wonder at
this), old age is tolerable to me, and not only not
irksome, but even delightful. And if I am wrong
in this; that I believe the souls of men to be im-
mortal, I willingly delude myself; nor do I desire
that this mistake, in which I take pleasure, should
be wrested from me as long as I live; but if TI,
when dead, shall have no consciousness, as some
narrow-minded philosophers imagine, I do not fear

lest dead philosophers should ridicule this my de-

Tusion.” - : :
‘The Mohammedan Koran and the Jewish Tal-

mud go a step farther, by teaching also the resup. 4

rection of the body. ‘This idea these otherwise falge
and pernicious books have drawn from the Bible,
our only guide in doctrine and life, the infallible,
inspired Word of our God. Holy Writ plainly
teaches that the dead will arise. Hence we believe
concerning this point “that at the last day God will
raise up me and all the dead, so that our bodies,
the same bodies that have died, shall again be made
alive.” That the flesh that has become dust should
arise again seems foolishness to human reason, which
asks with Nicodemus, “How can these things be?”
But consider: Even men work miracles, as it were,
by transforming one substance into another by
chemical processes. And does not the beautiful
butterfly spring from the pupa? Does not the
apple-tree grow forth from the little kernel planted
in the soil? How much more is the Almighty, the
Creator, who calleth those things into being which
are not, able to quicken our corruptible bodies
that have been sown into His Great Acre.

But now Iect us consider the proof-texts. Our
Savior says: “The hour is coming in the which all
that are in the graves shall hear His [Christ's]
voice, and shall come forth: they that have done
good unto the resurrection of life, and they that
have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.”
It is easily seen that He does not here refer to the
departed souls, but to the bodies that are in the
graves. Daniel’s words are very similar (Dan.
12, 2). Job’s wonderfully plain prophecy con-
cerning Christ’s and the Christians’ resurrection
reads: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that
He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and
though after my skin worms destroy my body, yet
in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
another.” Indeed, it is the glorious resurrection
of Christ, who thus brought life and immortality
to light, which most convincingly proves our own
resurrection on the Jast day. This Paul shows in

that grand fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to”

the Corinthians. ;
The believers will rise with glorified bodies

(Phil. 3,21) to*eternal life. But the unbelievers ©
will come forth from the graves “unto the resur-

rection of damnation,” awaking “to shame and
everlasting contempt,” the state of being “tormented
in the flame.” They will be banished from God,
their Savior, the Source of life and bliss, who will
say to them on that day, “Depart from Me, ye
cursed.” 4Thus He “destroys both body and soul

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