THE KING’S BUSINESS
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actually said as what Weymouth thinks they ought to have said. Furthermore, the book has a decided theological bias. One some times wonders when he compares Wey mouth’s “New Testament in Modern Speech” with W. T. Stead’s ridiculous at tempt at translation of the New Testament into Modern Speech in the so-called “T wentieth C entury Ntew T estament ,” whether the work on Stead’s book was not largely done by Weymouth. Now as to the passage itself. The trans lation “that we have in the Revised Version as given above, is a very accurate transla tion. It gives us practicaHy exactly what the Holy Spirit said through Paul. The rendering given in the Authorized Version is also a substantially accurate rendering of the best Greek text, although not as lit erally exact as the Revised Version. The teaching is. that God has a plan, and has had a plan from the beginning, which He is working out through Jesus Christ, and that in the final consummation of this plan He will head up “all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth.” That is, Jesus Christ will be the recognized head of heavenly things and earthly things. It is to be noted carefully that it is not also said, things under the earth. Not only will Jesus Christ be, as we are taught elsewhere, head over all things to the church, but in the restored condition of the heavens and the earth, when we have the new heaven and the new earth, Jesus Christ will be the head of heavenly things and earthly things. It is a glorious doctrine, but there is no doctrine here of the restora tion to holiness and to blessing, of the lost of the underworld, and there is no such teaching anywhere in the Bible., Did the Jews believe in reincarnation? Is it unreasonable to believe that a Christian, in the after life of service, renders it in hu man form?
There is not a hint of anything approach ing the Theosophical teaching of reincarna tion found in the Jewish Scriptures. As to whether it is unreasonable to think that a Christian jnay, in the after life of service, render it in some other human form here on earth, it is not a question of what is reasonable or unreasonable, it is simply a question of what the Scriptures teach, and the Christian Scriptures certainly do not teach reincarnation. On the other hand, they teach plainly that when that event occurs which men call death, the spirit, which is the real personality, departs from the body which is its habitation on earth, to be with Christ in conscious blessedness, absent from the body, and not entering an other ¡body, but at home with the Lord (Phil. 1 :23; 2 Cor. 5 :l-8, see especially Re vised Version), and they furthermore teach that this spirit, instead of coming back to inhabit some other body, remains with the Lord, and at His return to this earth, is clothed upon with a resurrection body which is developed from the very body that crumbled into dust at death (2 Cor. S:l-4; 1 Cor. 15:20-54). This plain doctrine of the New Testament Scripture, so far from bear ing any resemblance to the Theosophical or Buddhistic doctrine of reincarnation, abso lutely excludes that fanciful and morally injurious teaching. Is oun brief life on this planet sufficient to determine character through eternity? It certainly is. What a man does in this present life with Jesus Christ, who was the incarnation of God, God manifest in the flesh, shows what a man is in his inmost character, and determines his eternity (John 3:18-21, 36; 8:21-24; Heb. 9:27). The last passage referred to, Hebrews 9 :27, neces sarily excludes also thè thought of reincar nation.
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