260
June 1929
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
Philippian passage. The ancient Gnostic philosophers taught that the body was something vile, and the apostle is opposing the teaching of these very men by showing that the believer’s body is to be redeemed and at last made perfect. True, just now it is “the body o f our humiliation”; often weak, infirm, broken, diseased, full of aches and pains, bearing the marks of sin. But it is not a vile worth less thing, fit only to be cast aside when we shall enter upon that higher life with Christ. Some indeed affirm that the body is only a hindrance to the soul, and that at death we shall get rid of it forever. Others say that we shall have bodies in the eternal state, but that these bodies are to be wholly new creations, bearing no relation whatever to the first body. But the Scripture teaches otherwise. The believer will take the “body of his humiliation” up into heaven, only it is to be “changed” and “fashioned anew,” There is no contradiction in First Corinthians 15 :37 where the apostle says, “Thou sowest not the body that shall be.” Certainly, the body which goes down into the grave is not the body that shall come forth, in all respects. It is to be changed and fashioned anew. As to appearance and character, it will not be the same body. But as to identity, it will be the same body of our humiliation. The Lord at His coming will “change” our body, but He will not ^change it. He will “fashion anew” our body, but He will not give us a new body. The writer, for one, thanks God that this is so. Most of us have loved ones on the other side. We believe God utterly when He tells us in the Word that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” We know that this is so, and yet, when the hallowed memories come surging in our hearts we find it impossible to think of these loved ones apart from the “body o f their humilia tion.” How blessed, then, it is to know that the Lord Jesus, when He comes fromi heavtn,: will claim these dear bodies, and raise them up, and fashion them anew that they might be conformed to the body of His glory. How can these things be ? the skeptic may ask. Accord ing to what law or principle can a body gone down to the dust be raised up and fashioned anew into a glorious tem ple which is deathless? The answer is—it will not be according to any law or principle that we know. It will be “according . to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” This is the method of the Bible. It brings us into the presence of a Christ who is over all, God blessed forever, and asks us to be lieve/ that He is able to raise the dead. It does not offer to explain how the astounding thing shall be done. On this point we are quite as ignorant as were the Christians of eighteen hundred years ago. When the Lord says He will raise our bodies from the dead and conform them to his own glorious Body, we must confess humbly that we do not know how He will do it. But we know Him. And that is sufficient. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able. . . . ” Knowing More Than Einstein P ROFESSOR EINSTEIN , noted physicist, is hailed as the “MoSes of Science” in recognition of his latest theory. This theory, recently published, is expressed in a series of mathematical formulas covering only six pages, and yet it is said by a famous German professor that “there are only a dozen men in the world who will be able to understand it, and it will take from two to five years for them.to work it out and verify it.”
One of the great aims of science has been to discover a synthesis of things which are apparently unrelated, to find one law that will explain all the other laws of the universe. For a long time the scientists have been trying to bring under one formula the two great basic forces of the world, gravitation and electricity, but they could find no “key” to thé problem. Professor Einstein’s new theory, it is said by those who claim to understand it, solves the problem.. In his mathematical formulae he has set forth a single law from which all other physical laws may be derived. It will require many years, doubtless, to test fully the Einstein theory; but if it should finally be verified, the achievement will constitute a most remarkable one in the field of physics. There is great interest in all this to the thoughtful Christian. The Scriptures teach clearly that behind all the apparently divergent forces of the world there stands one ultimate force, and behind all the laws of science there is one supreme law. It begins to look as if science were on the road to discover this much. Scientists have always assumed this, but had never been able to demonstrate it. But beyond this point science cannot go. Science may find there is one great ultimate law; it might even con ceivably be able to express that law in a mathematical formula, but science can never by its own methods find the Lawgiver—the God of whose will the law of the uni verse is an expression. God cannot be found out by theoretical science, neither can He be expressed by any mathematical formula. And yet He is “not far from every one o f us; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:27-28). Sci ence should be able to find that there is a God. The very “heavens declare His glory.” But science cannot find God. To-find God and know Him we must come to Jesus Christ. The average Christian probably could not read any part of the Einstein theory with understanding. Yet such a Christian, in the matter of ultimate solutions of the problem of the universe, knows more than Einstein ever knew. In Jesus Christ the Son, we have come to know that God out from whose eternal bosom all the powers and laws of the universe issue and are sustained. “In the beginning‘ God created the heaven and the earth.” But “no man hath seen God at any time,” —tele scope, microscope, test-tubes and mathematical formulae have never found Him. “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom o f the Father, He hath declared Him” (Gen. 1:1; John 1:18). Smoking for Adolescents R UTH F. WADSWORTH, M.D., writing in Collier's on the subject of the “Adolescent Age,” discusses the “advisability of smoking for the young.” Her views are rather startling. There was a time, this doctor writes, when it was thought that smoking “stunted growth, injured the lungs, and deteriorated the moral character.” But nowadays, the doctor informs the reader, both mother and the children are smoking, and yet “the race continues to maintain its average height, with a gradual reduction in lung trouble and no provable deterioration of the moral tone.” These sweeping conclusions of the doctor are what the logicians would call a case of “hasty generalization.” As every one knows, the wide use of tobacco among mothers and extremely young people, began only a few years ago. And already serious results are seen by some reputable physicians. But what the ultimate results will be.
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