ELDER W. D. GRIFFIN THE RESURRECTION

Is there something about you that God has put into your mortal body that is to live forever? Is that indefinable something the same that fell into sin and condemnation in the morning of time when our mother Eve was deceived and led Adam to take of the forbidden fruit? We know such cannot be. If nothing of me (the poor lost sinner) is to enter heaven, except something that was put into me, what is benefited? Does language mean anything? If brethren cannot accept plainly written words to mean what authorities say they mean, then why take one set of scriptures to mean emphatically what they say and another to have a meaning that suits their fantastic theories? Brethren say that salvation is by grace. True. But why argue that the dead in sin hear the voice of the Son of God and live, then say that the bodies or those sleeping in the graves will not come forth? Each of them is to hear the same voice of the same omnipotent Son. One group is to live. If this does not mean the dead sinner, the man, who is to hear His voice, then what does it mean? This wonderful work is going on now.

It is coming in the future, and it is taking place right at this time. But those who are in the graves are not hearing His voice now. They are going to hear His voice sometime after these words were spoken by Jesus Christ. If brethren want to speculate, they can do so for my part, but through all the fiery trials and afflictions of time, and tho this vile body shall again molder away to dust, yet do I believe that when He calls, it will come forth. The Father raises up the dead and quickeneth them. Not just whom He wills as tho He willed to leave some of them dead, but the plain statement is that the Father raises up the dead and quickens them. Now the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment into the hands of His Son. He has all power that the Father has, and, in the same omnipotent way that the Father raises the dead, the Son quickeneth whom He wills. Now, brethren, sometimes, in a way beyond my comprehension, say that when a child of God dies, all of that child goes into heaven that will ever get there, and the body is never to be raised or molested in any way. But let us not forget that the Father raises and quickens the dead, but the Son quickeneth whosoever He wills. Does the God of heaven quicken the same thing twice? We hear the same objections raised today against the resurrection that we did in the day of Paul. Some say, How are the dead raised up? With what body do they come? We hear so much these days about us quitting the fight. Let us quit contending for the fundamental points of God’s Church. We need each other, and we ought not to make any defense against those who stand out for other things than those we know and identify the true Church through the ages, what the Bible teaches, and what our little experience has taught us. But just as soon as those that are needing us get everything that is labeled Primitive Baptist into one group can show me that Christ and His apostles were unstable enough to receive and compromise everything that came before the Church dealing gently and using all kinds of subtle means to keep together all those professing to believe in salvation by grace, then will I say to those going out from us to come on, dearly beloved brethren and let us have a get-together meeting so that we can take down all the bars and love in peace (?) ever afterwards. Now, if you feel that way about it, then notice Paul. Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. (1. Cor. 15:36)

We are dead to sin and our life is hid with Christ in God. But why misconstrue this to mean that nothing of us (the poor hell deserving sinners, if you please) goes to glory? It is your life that is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Now this appearing is not the coming of Christ into the being of the poor sinner because the apostle was writing to those already born again. Hence, this appearance is to make manifest. To make manifest is to be seen. When He shall appear, then shall we appear in Glory. What a wonder to behold! If the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11). In every theory or in every idea, whether that truth deals in religion, science or society, it is recognized that where the head goes the body is sure to follow. If our Head and Husband suffered tribulations and trials while in the world, can we as the body escape them? Can we? No, no! Although I hear it said on every hand that we could have blessings galore, if only we obeyed, I know that what the Head of His body suffered, the body is likewise to suffer. So if the Head of the Church was buried and arose, will His body not be buried and arise? If these mortal bodies die and never come forth, then they molder back to dust and go the way of all creatures that die, although Paul said that in the same manner that Christ was raised from the dead, our mortal bodies should be quickened. Now if Christ arose from the dead, how can we say there is no resurrection of the dead? (1 Cor. 15:12) If we say that the dead do not rise, then in as positive a language as we can command, we say that Christ did not arise. If he did not arise, then is our preaching vain? Not only is our preaching vain, but our faith is vain, and the whole thing that we base our hope of salvation on becomes a flimsy fabric! It just looks to me that Paul makes the thing as plain as can be. If Christ (notice carefully) was raised, then as a man, He being dead, the dead are certainly raised. If we say the dead rise not, then Christ was not raised, and every word we have ever said in a preaching way has been in vain and really was only a lecture instead of preaching. Not only was our call to the ministry a call of nature, but our faith is natural, and we are still in our sins. “And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain (bare, naked), it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it has pleased him, and to every seed his own (not another’s) body. (1 Cor. 15:37, 38). We put our loved ones beneath the sod expecting some day that, by His grace, we shall see them again. Not as we plant them. Oh no, never! Not as the bare grain that is planted, but we do hope to see it clothed upon and in the likeness of the Savior. We do not yet know anything about the body that shall come forth. It is speculation for us to say that we will know each other there as we know them here. But as the bare seed is planted in the spring to come forth in a more glorious body, so the Lord will give it a more glorious body as it is pleasing to Him, yet every seed his own body. Can language be made plainer? This is not some mystical illusion nor any speculative theory. It is plain enough for those who are satisfied with the plain, inspired word of God. It shows that they are satisfied to go to what God’s word has revealed, that it is the dead bodies that naturally come forth. It (this bare grain) is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, and raised in glory; it is sown in weakness and is raised in power; it is sown a natural body and made or changed into a spiritual, but it is raised a spiritual body. Now no longer does it bear the marks of a perishing body; no longer is the stamp of death and decay seen; no longer is it a bare, naked, unclothed body, but it is clothed in the garment of righteousness that Jesus’ skillful hand has wrought for them and tinged in His own precious blood!

Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. It would seem that those non-resurrectionists would go on to the Catholics if they say this sleeping applies only to something that has been put into a house of clay as long as the clay lives. But we shall not all sleep. If this does not mean the people of God who are dead, what does it mean? But, although we shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed. Wonderful language this! We shall (unless living at His return) sleep but not forever. From a sleeping state, we shall arise changed into a living state. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal (who must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal (who?) shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor. 15:51, 55). But if the writer and my readers as men and women die and lie forever in a moldering grave, who gets the victory? The grave forever is triumphant over something, and the victory never is won. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory (over what?) through our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 57).

Stop for a moment, dear reader. Look around you. Don’t you see your fellow pilgrims falling asleep one by one? Shall we see them again? Shall we again mingle our voices together in hymns of praise? Shall we triumph in grace over death, hell, and the grave, that we might spend our undivided time in the ceaseless ages of eternity singing redeeming love? Listen to this testimony. “For the Lord Himself (He trod the wine press alone and of the people there was none to help, hence He is coming Himself for His people), shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall arise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together, with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.” In the hope of the resurrection, 

W. D. GRIFFIN Fayette, Alabama (Article appeared in Old Faith Contender, September 1, 1936)