of everlasting life for body and soul emerged in the Psalms and in the prophetical writings, but sometimes side by side with such gloomy views regarding death and its consequences as to leave the impression that belief in it was weak and fitful.  In the long period that passed between the time when Old Testament prophecy ceased and the advent of Christ, the fierce persecutions to which the Jews were subjected appear to have strengthened their faith in a future life of blessedness, in which the body, delivered from the grave and again united to the soul, shall participate.

The author of the Apocryphal Book termed The Wisdom of Solomon thus records his belief:—­

    The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
    And no torment shall touch them. 
    In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died;
    And their departure was accounted to be their hurt,
    And their journeying away from us to be their ruin,
    But they are in peace. 
    For even if in the sight of men they be punished,
    Their hope is full of immortality: 
    And having borne a little chastening they shall receive great good;
    Because God made trial of them, and found them worthy of Himself. 
    As gold in the furnace He proved them,
    And as a whole burnt offering He accepted them. 
    And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth,
    And as sparks among stubble they shall run to and fro. 
    They shall judge nations, and have dominion over peoples;
    And the Lord shall reign over them for evermore. 
    They that trust in Him shall understand truth,
    And the faithful shall abide with Him in love;
    Because grace and mercy are to His chosen.[234]

Again he writes:—­

    The righteous live for ever,
    And in the Lord is their reward,
    And the care for them with the Most High. 
    Therefore shall they receive the crown of royal dignity
    And the diadem of beauty from the Lord’s hand.[235]

The happiness of the kingdom of heaven is in Scripture termed “life,” because it constitutes the life for which man was created.  Being made in the likeness of God, his nature can obtain full satisfaction, and his powers will expand into fruition, only when he enters upon a life which resembles, in proportion to its measure and capacity, the life of God.  Jesus spoke of regeneration as entering into life.  Those who receive the Gospel message and walk in the footsteps of Christ are said to be born again—­to receive in their conversion the beginning of a new existence, of which the entrance of the infant into the world is a fitting emblem.  They possess now not only a natural life, but a life hid with Christ in God, which is a pledge to them that “when he who is their life shall appear, they also shall appear with him in glory."[236] Knowledge of God the Father and of Jesus Christ, imparted by the Holy Spirit, is said by our Lord to be Life Eternal.  “This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."[237]