Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus: God’s Seal upon His Work

“The literal resurrection of Jesus was the cardinal fact upon which the earliest preachers of the gospel based their appeal to the Jewish people. Paul, writing to a Gentile church, expressly makes Christianity answer with its life for the literal truth of the resurrection. “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain also.” Some modern writers would possibly have reproached Paul with offering a harsh alternative instead of an argument. But Paul would have replied, first, that our Lord’s honour and credit were entirely staked upon the issue, since He foretold His resurrection as the sign that would justify His claims: and, secondly, that the fact of the resurrection was attested by evidence which must outweigh everything except an a priori conviction of the impossibility of miracle, since it was attested by the word of more than five hundred persons who had actually seen the risen Jesus.” — Liddon.

Never had brighter hopes been buried in any grave than in the grave of Jesus, and never had hearts been more bereft than the hearts of the disciples and of those women that loved and followed Him. How they must have shuddered in their sorrow as the great stone was rolled to its place at the door of the sepulchre, and shut from their tear-dimmed vision the body of their Lord. The night that followed that last Passover feast was a woeful night for them, and for all who loved the Hope of Israel; it was a night unrelieved by any solace from without or faith from within, for having, as they supposed, lost their Lord, they had lost their all and could do nothing but mourn and weep. Yet there was one thing that kept the broken hearts of those women from refusing to perform their office: they would go on the first day of the week and anoint His body. His Kingship had been rejected by the Jews: His claim to it was the charge upon which Pilate had condemned Him to the cross; the multitude had gone to their homes saying, He was no king at all or He would have come down from the cross and saved Himself; but to those women He was King, and more; and though He had lost the kingdom, yet He should lie in His tomb as like a King as they could make it possible. By some means or other they would force their way into that sealed and guarded grave and fill it with the fragrance of the spices that they had prepared, and with the sweeter fragrance of their love; this should be their last tribute to Him, and then they would return — yes, but how, and where, and to what?

Mark tells us that they reached the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. Were they blind to the golden glow of that wondrous morning? It is more than likely, for a grave was their goal, and to pour their best upon the dead their purpose; this was the only balm they knew for their death-stricken and hopeless hearts; and what charm could a sunrise have for such as they?

But what a sunrise that must have been, though their eyes did not appreciate it! Let no man tell me that the day dawned as other days, or that all nature did not exult in that great hour. There must have been a triumph and a fragrance in it that never rising of the sun had known before. If when He died — He, the Creator become flesh — the sun drew a veil across its face, and all nature wrapped itself in sable garments, and the earth trembled to its very heart in horror at the deed that men had wrought, there must have been a corresponding joy when the conquering heel of life was placed upon the neck of death, and the shame of the cross was answered by an empty tomb. “HE IS RISEN.” The glad news had sung its triumphant music to the ends of creation, and “the sun, moon and stars,” “the mountains and hills, the fruit trees and cedars,” the heavens and the earth were the glorious orchestra that accompanied the angel’s proclamation.

What wonders greeted those women when they reached the sacred spot. The stone was gone, and instead of Roman soldiers, brutal men who would have found a wretched joy in casting insults at them, they found a heavenly guard in possession, a messenger from God in white apparel. Heaven was not in mourning; its messenger wore the garments of victory and joy, and only waited for human ears to listen to his story. And these women were the first to hear it, and as they heard, the silent chords in their hearts awoke to song, and they turned their backs upon the empty grave, and forgot their useless spices and themselves also, and with fear and great joy did run to tell the tidings. Blessed women, they were the first of ransomed sinners to be swept by the rapture of the resurrection triumph, the first of that countless host whose singing shall be sweeter and more joyous and more prolonged than any raised by sun, moon and stars, or even angels.

The proofs of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are so many and infallible that nothing but blind unbelief would deny it; but the modernists deny it, they think, like their fathers, the first century Sadducees, that it is an incredible thing that God should raise the dead. The fact is it does not fit in with their evolution doctrines, which doctrines reveal their wish to be free from all responsibility to God. “The wish is father to the thought.” The solemn fact of death, not as the debt of nature, but as the wages of sin, the judgment of God upon man because of sin (Gen. 3:17), and resurrection from the dead, which is God’s intervention in a scene of death, put an impassable gulf between man and the beasts, and show clearly, in spite of all the efforts of these men to prove the opposite, that their pedigree cannot be traced to a common ancestry. These great facts prove that man was created entirely apart from the beasts, a being accountable to God, and that he has fallen from the high estate in which God set him, and that God only can deliver him from the death that has passed upon him by and through resurrection. But these men rather than bow to the truth of God as to their hopeless sinful state, and receive from Him the life, through Christ, which He as the God of resurrection gives, reject the truth and love the lie. As to resurrection, say some of them, the idea sprang up in the mind of Zoroaster, the Persian philosopher, and that the Jews brought it back from their exile in Babylon, and that the Lord and His disciples incorporated it into their teaching, and that He never rose from the dead.

But the resurrection of the Lord was “according to the Scriptures,” Scriptures that existed centuries before Zoroaster breathed. Take the words of David in Psalm 16 “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (sheol): neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.” We might well ask, Of whom spake David this, of himself or some other man? Not of himself surely, for he was not God’s Holy One. Simon Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, answers our question. “Men and brethren,” said he to the assembled Jews, “let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us to this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God has sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell (hades), neither His flesh did see corruption. This Jesus has God raised up whereof we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:29-32).

The resurrection of Christ from the dead which we have most surely believed was predicted by the prophets in the Scriptures and proclaimed by the Apostles who were chosen of the Lord to be the witnesses of it. How interesting and convincing are these witnesses cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. The women are not called, for their evidence in those days would not have greatly counted, but says Paul, “I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: and that He was seen of Cephas.” It was like the Lord to appear first to Cephas; by that act He not only proved that He had risen up from the dead but He showed that He was unchanged in His unwearied grace towards the most failing of His beloved disciples. He was the same Jesus. And this fact had impressed itself upon all the disciples, for we remember how they said when gathered together on the evening of the Resurrection day, “The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.” “The Lord is risen,” that was the revelation of His glory, “And has appeared to Simon,” that was the revelation of His grace. His grace is as great as His glory.

“Then of the twelve.” Could they be deceived, who knew Him so well? They evidently did not expect to see Him, for when he appeared in their midst they were troubled and affrighted and thought that they had seen a spirit, but His well-known voice dispelled their fear, and when He showed them His hands and feet and side they were glad, for they knew and recognised their Lord. And would they ever forget the peace that filled their hearts in that upper room, when He had said, “Peace to you”?

“After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once.” This appearance is probably that recorded as having taken place in the appointed mountain of Galilee, where they bowed in worship before Him, though some doubted. But worshippers and doubters alike had become witnesses, and the greater part of them remained witnesses to the day when Paul wrote of them, at least twenty-five years after.

“After that He was seen of James,” who was one of the Lord’s brethren, who did not believe in Him in pre-Calvary days, but that sinful unbelief was atoned for by the Lord’s death, and dispelled by His appearance in resurrection, so that James delighted to speak of himself as the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Then of all the Apostles.” This may not have been that occasion when phlegmatic, unbelieving Thomas fell down at His feet and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” but it was an outstanding appearance to which all the apostles bore witness and of which all the Christians talked.

“Then last of all He was seen of me also,” not on earth but in the glory of God, exalted to the Father’s right hand, but the same Jesus of Nazareth whom men despised and slew, and whom Saul of Tarsus persecuted. What a change that sight of Him made in the persecutor! For him from henceforward the world’s prizes were but dross, and his risen living Lord became the sole object of life and love and service for him.
 “Christ was his end, for Christ was his beginning
  Christ his beginning, for his end was Christ.”

Need we go beyond the witness that Paul added to that of those who were in Christ before Him? except to confirm and seal it all by the Lord’s own words to John in the Isle of Patmos. “When I saw Him,” said John, “I fell at His feet as dead, and He laid His right hand upon me, saying to me, ‘Fear not: I am the first and the last: I am He that lives, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen: and have the keys of hell and death’” (Rev. 1:17-18).

Now consider the alternative that Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit sets before us. He says, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain also. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not … And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15).

“If Christ be not raised,” the Bible has deceived us, the Gospel is a myth and salvation a dream.

“If Christ be not raised,” all faith is vain, there is no forgiveness, we are yet in our sins.

“If Christ be not raised,” we who live have no hope, and those who have died have perished.

“If Christ be not raised,” sin has prevailed; death has triumphed, and we mourn a defeated Christ.

“If Christ be not raised,” the waves of death will flow on without challenge, until the whole race of sinful men has been swept into endless woe.

“If Christ be not raised,” God has lost His Son, and men have no Saviour.

“If Christ be not raised,” the devil has triumphed, the throne of God is shattered, all light, joy and blessing are blotted out, there will be no peace on earth and no song in heaven.

“If Christ be not raised,” those who have prayed, “Thy kingdom come,” have prayed in vain; that kingdom will not come, for the kingdom of darkness has won in the great fight, and prayer is a delusion, and faith is folly and there is no true God, and no living Christ, and we who have believed are of all miserable men the most miserable.

“But now is Christ risen,” “who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.”

“But now is Christ risen,” who had power to lay down His life and had power to take it again, for this commandment He had received of His Father.

“But now is Christ risen,” and now the forgiveness of sins is preached to all men, and in Him all that believe are justified from all things.

“But now is Christ risen,” and has proved that He was worthy of the trust that God reposed in Him, and has finished the great work which God gave Him to do, and has become the Author of eternal salvation to all who believe.

“But now is Christ risen,” and death is defeated; the devil’s power is annulled.

“But now is Christ risen.” He has made a way through death for His ransomed people, and they no longer fear it; they can cry, “O death, where is thy sting? grave, where is thy victory?”

“But now is Christ risen, and become the First-fruits of them that slept.” Every man in his own order: Christ the First-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.”

“But now is Christ risen,” and “Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY (1 Cor. 15).

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the great witness to His greatness and glory, and to the Father’s approval of His life and work on earth. He came forth from the Father to declare to men the great love wherewith He loved them; but they gave Him hatred for love; they despised and rejected Him; they could not endure His presence in the world, and though He was the Lord of glory the princes of this world crucified Him. He was numbered with the transgressors; the cross of a malefactor was the sentence passed upon Him and duly executed by the world. What was God’s answer to that? Again and again the Apostles declared God’s answer to man’s crime. “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just,” said Peter to the Jews, “and you desired a murderer to be granted to you; and killed the Prince of Life, whom God has raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.”

We do not wonder that “God has made this same Jesus both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), having exalted Him to His own right hand. The marvel of redeeming love is that thus exalted He should be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31), not to Israel only, but to every sinner that bows at His feet.

We rejoice and are glad that the Prince of life could not be holden by the power of death. We look within that empty tomb and behold with the wondering disciples the perfect order of it and learn thereby how complete is Satan’s defeat, and how signal is God’s victory over all the power of death; and we bow in adoration before Him as we believe “the gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ … declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”