Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; [though] my reins be consumed within me.
Ver. 27. Whom I shall see for myself] He speaketh confidently, as one fully assured of a resurrection; which, if it should not be, how should there be a remuneration of the body? Say not, we cannot see how it is possible. See we not a yearly resurrection of grass, grain, herbs, flowers, fruits, every spring time? Know we not that men can of ashes make glasses? that a chemist can of several metals, mixed together, extract the one from the other, and reduce every metal to its own species or kind? Etiam animalculae quaedam typi Resurrectionis sunt, saith Lavater: Some little living creatures are types of the resurrection. He instanceth in dormancey, which sleep all winter, and revive in the spring; in silkworms, which, dying, leave nothing behind them but a certain excrement, which, being borne about in the bosoms of women, takes heat and reviveth. Wherefore, if nature do such things, shall it be held hard for the God of nature to raise the dead? The keeping green of Noah's olive tree in the time of the flood; the blossoming of Aaron's dry rod; the flesh and sinews coming to Ezekiel's dry bones; what were these but living emblems of the resurrection?
And mine eyes shall behold, and not another] Here he maintaineth the identity of his flesh and body in the resurrection; an identity, I say, not specific only, but numeric or individual. The self-same particular body which fell shall rise. This was denied of old by the Marcionists, Basilidians, and Valentinians (those semi-Sadducees, as Tertullian termeth them); and after them Eutychius, bishop of Constantinople, who, as Gregory saith, taught that men, rising again, should have airy bodies, and not fleshly, yea, more subtile than the air, abusing that place of the apostle, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised again a spiritual body," &c.: but his book was burnt as heretical. A spiritual body it is called, for its great strength and activity wherewith it shall be endowed, and whereby it is enabled to bear a weight of glory; as also, for that it shall have no need of food, sleep, or other natural helps, but we shall be as the angels of God, Matthew 22:30, yet still the same men that now we are. Let no man say, with Nicodemus, How can this be? There is no difficulty to Omnipotence, Philippians 3:21. Besides, there is a substance still preserved, even when the body is turned to dust, and this shall be raised, clarified, and reunited to the soul. He that made man at first of nothing, can easily remake him of something. And what though his dust be scattered hither and thither, and mixed with that of others? The skilful gardener, having various sorts of seeds mixed together, can soon separate them; and shall not he, who hath the whole earth in his fist, discern the dust of his saints one from another? Little balls or pickles of quicksilver, being scattered on the ground, mix not themselves with any of another kind; but if any man gather them, they run together into one of their own accord; so it is here, saith Greg. Nyssen.
Though my reins be consumed within me] Though, from my skin outward to my reins inward, all be wasted, yet all shall be raised and restored. The Vulgate rendereth these words thus, This hope is laid up in my bosom; and is by Burgensis expounded thus, This is the only thing that I do most earnestly wish and wait for; viz. to see Christ in the flesh at the last day: the reins are the seat of strong desires.