Great Gospel Sermons : Various Authors

Heathen philosophers guessed at the immortality of the soul, but never dreamed that the body would get up and join it. This idea is exclusively Scriptural, and beyond reasoning. Indeed, all analogies fail. You say, as the wheat is put in the ground and comes up, so will our bodies. I reply, if the wheat entirely dies, as in the case of long protracted wet weather, there is no resurrection of it. So the analogy fails. You say that the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, and so our dead bodies may take on a splendid exaltation. I reply that there is no interregnum of life between the caterpillar and the butterfly, and therefore the analogy fails. You say that there is a perfect type of the resurrection in the trees in springtime. I reply that the tree does not die in the winter, it is simply dormant; and therefore the analogy fails. The body, though cut up by dissecting knives and burned in the furnace, shall come together.