The transition from the first period to the second was an epoch in the victorious progress of the new creation. The transition from the second period to the third was the epoch of final triumph over the world, and of transformation in body and soul into the ideal order of consummated humanity.

2. The experiences and achievements of Christ become the experiences and achievements of His members. We may therefore also distinguish three periods in the life of a Christian.

The first period of the 'eternal life' of the Christian begins with the birth of the Holy Spirit into the kingdom, the period which embraces his entire history of repentance and faith, of self-denial, of warfare with moral and phys ical evil, and of spiritual growth onward to the hour of his departure. Though waging warfare with sin springing up from within and assailing him from without, though faith may seemingly be weak, and his character may betray many flaws, yet the fundamental and distinguishing factor in his history is the life-communion of faith with the incarnate Son glorified.

The second period of the Christian's life corresponds to and fulfils the second period of the victorious history of Jesus Christ, beginning with the hour of his departure and extending to the resurrection of the just at the second advent. Though not the final plane of perfected glorification, this intermediate age is a period of blissful fellowship with Christ, interrupted by no conflict with the powers of evil, a period of heavenly growth in the possession of ineffable good.

The third period of Christian life corresponds to the exaltation and glorification of Jesus Christ. It begins

with the resurrection at the last day, when the members of the kingdom will accede to the glory of the life eternal which the Son had with the Father before the world was.

The beginning of each of these periods is an epoch which, as set forth by the New Testament, is of the nature of birth. The first beginning is a birth into the kingdom of God. The third is birth into the ultimate glory of the same kingdom. Neither of these beginnings now requires discussion. It is the second epoch which we have here further to consider, the point of transition from the first period into the second period of life in Christ, commonly called death.

This epoch of transition we cannot study, guided either by physics or metaphysics. The event so universal, yet so inscrutable to natural intuition and the common understanding, we can approximately judge only by the criterion given by the Son of Man, who is the only true type as of humanity so also of every epoch in the development of lifecommunion with Himself.

3. There is a sense in which the believer departs this life under sin. Though a member of Christ, he is also during this earthly history a member of the first Adam.' The dominion of sin is broken, but the law of sin is not utterly abolished. Moral evil is a force in the spontaneous motions of personality and in forms of outward conduct, disturbing peace of mind and marring the symmetry of righteous character. What the prophet predicts of the 'righteous servant' of God describes the attitude of many Christians he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Following the teaching of the 7th chapter of Romans, we may predicate of him a history shaped by organic connec

tion with the first man,' and a history quickened and gov erned by connection in the Spirit with 'the Second Man.' This two-fold connection continues in force from year to year, producing contradictory phenomena, as through his earthly history so also at its close. Sickness and pain, old age and decrepitude, may mark his advancing years. He experiences the decline of natural vitality, he suffers the dissolution of his earthly body. As Christ's death was a death 'under sin,' so in one respect is the death of the Christian. The latter resembles the former. The resemblance is, however, internal and mystical rather than external; and it obtains under the positive aspect of his departure rather than under its negative aspect.

Having become a curse for us, Christ resolved the curse into blessing. For Him evil was converted into good. So for the Christian. Crucified with Christ and sharing the virtue of His propitiation, the Christian by union to Him in the Spirit experiences the evil of the curse transmuted into blessing. Put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit, Christ resolved death into the epoch of victorious life. So we believe respecting the Christian. In his last hour he realizes the sin-destroying and death-conquering vitality of the victory achieved by Christ. Of a member of Christ, therefore, we have to teach that in the hour of departure he surmounts his personal connection with the sinfulness of the Adamic race. Says Delitzsch:

"It must be assumed that the spiritual life, begotten and nourished in us by word and sacrament, is in itself actually sufficiently powerful to break forth in the view of the manifest reality of that which has been believed here below with such intensity, that it drives out the sin which is still dwelling in human nature, even to the last trace of its consequences."

'System of Biblical Psychology, p. 488.

4. Accordingly the doctrine respecting Christian death has to proceed a step further and maintain that, like the death of Christ, the departure of the Christian is a death unto sin. When Christ offered Himself on the cross, His organic connection with the world of moral evil was dissolved. So His members in the crisis of departure, like a child in the crisis of natural birth, undergo a thorough transformation. What the dissolution of His internal connection with the world of moral evil was for Him, that their dissolution in Him is for them. For both the law of triumph is the same. In dying He destroyed death in its relation to Himself. So by the transforming virtue of His victorious life they in the act of dying destroy Ideath in its relation to themselves. "Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for He that hath died is justified from sin." This law of emancipation from bondage to sin is triumphant in the hour of transition. Being members of the sin-destroying Mediator, their birth-like transformation wrought by His life in their departure is the fruit of the triumph over sin and death which He achieved.

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This conception respecting the victorious departure of the members of Christ is the equivalent of the doctrine of the Reformed Church as taught by the Heidelberg Catechism.

The doctrine is warranted by the teaching of the New Testament, especially by the words of our Lord as recorded in the Gospel by St. John.

I. To the Question: Since then Christ died for us, why 'Romans vi. 6, 7.

must we also die? the Answer says: "Our death is not a satisfaction for our sin, but only a dying to sins and entering into eternal life.''1

'Our death,' according to this teaching, is an epoch characterized by the operation of the law of the Spirit of life' in construction and destruction.

In its relation to the transcendent plane of fellowship with Christ, the law of the Spirit is constructive. Departure from the earth is an event in the progress of 'eternal life,' a decisive epoch in the history of 'the new man.' A child is born because the development of individual life has come to the point of embryonic maturity, when the relative perfection of individual life supersedes and abolishes all pre-natal conditions. What Paul says of the resurrection of the righteous is in principle true of the righteous when at their departure the new life in Christ breaks the shell of the earthly tabernacle, namely, 'death is swallowed up in victory." This positive truth is called an 'entering into eternal life,' an expression which must be construed consistently with the fact of the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment.' 'Entering into eternal life' means access to the stage of spiritual maturity attainable before the second advent, not 'the heavenly joy and glory' following the final consummation.

'Our death is a dying to sins' because it is an 'entering into eternal life.' In its opposite relation to sin the law of the Spirit is destructive. It sets the members of Christ 'free from the law of sin and death.' Destructive the law of the Spirit is because in its relation to the post-earthly fellowship with Christ it is constructive. The inherited bond of connection with moral evil and with the kingdom

Heid. Cat., 42. 2 Is. xxv. 8; 1 Cor. xv. 54.

Heid. Cat., 52.