Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

“And when I saw Him, 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 of death” (Revelation 1:17-18).

 —

“For He must reign, till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).

 —
“He is not here! the power of death is broken:
   The Son of Jesse has Goliath slain.
See in this riven rocky keep the token
   That death no longer shall despotic reign.
This casket holds the Prince of Life no longer;
   The powers of hell have felt the might of God;
The strong man has been vanquished by the stronger;
   The Red Sea smitten by the Saviour’s rod” (J. Boyd.)

“Fear not ye.”

Stone and seal and soldiers held the lonely sepulchre in the garden where the body of Jesus lay. The subtlety of Jewish priests and the authority of Rome combined to make the place secure. “Make it,” said Pilate, “as sure as ye can.” They did their utmost, and may have gone to their beds assured that they would meet the hated Nazarene no more. What orders were issued to the Roman guard as they went to their unwonted watch? Were they told, I wonder, how to treat the expected raid upon that tomb by a mob of Galilean fishermen? It is more than likely that they were, but they certainly were not instructed how to deal with an earthquake, and an angel of the Lord, whose countenance was like lightning and whose raiment was white as snow. And the Galilean fishermen came not, but the earthquake and the angel did.

What a moment was that when the earth trembled and rocked, and the imperial seal was torn asunder, and the stone was rolled away from the mouth of that tomb by angelic hands! Glittering spears and shining armour were useless to withstand this display of heavenly power: the courage of the coarse defenders of that tomb failed utterly and they fell down flat as dead men.

There was every reason why that guard should shake and fall with fear, for it represented a world determined to be rid of Jesus, and that thought had realized its determination. Now He was risen from the dead, and His resurrection was His triumph and their defeat. It was the declaration on the part of God that He had seen and disapproved their awful act at Calvary: and that Christ was the righteous One before whose throne all men must stand.

But close at hand in that memorable hour were two weak women, and to them the angel turned with words of cheer. There was nothing in the power of God to make them afraid: there was every reason why they should rejoice. They represented, not the world that hated Jesus, but those whom He had chosen out of it, and who loved Him because He first loved them. So the angel said to them,

“FEAR NOT YE.”
It seemed strange that such words should be said to these weak women, when Roman veterans fell as dead for fear: but the reason is at once declared. “I know,” said the angel, “that

YE SEEK JESUS.”
That was the reason. He was the object of their hearts’ truest affection. The world was a dreary desert without Him: they could not keep away from that sepulchre where they supposed that He was lying. All their hopes were centred in Him: and though their faith, through ignorance, had been sorely shaken, their love for Him remained. He was their Beloved and their Friend, and in this, though they knew it not, their hearts were in fellowship with the heart of God. And we come together as those who cannot do without Him. As those women sought Him because they loved Him, so do we seek His presence, for He has won our hearts’ affections, and in His company we find our fullest joy. He has become our gathering centre, our great attraction, our bond of fellowship: that which bound these women as one in their search for Him unites us also: we are one if we love our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not of the world that hates Him, but of God and of one another, because of our common devotion to Him.
“It is Himself that binds heart to heart,
  In one eternal love.”

But why did they seek Him? And why do we seek Him? The angel supplied the answer, “Ye seek Jesus,” he said,

“WHICH WAS CRUCIFIED.”
That is why. We should never have sought Him if He had not been crucified. His crucifixion was the expression and the measure of His love to us. When He was despised and rejected by men,
“Stripped and scourged by hands ungentle,
  Mocked by tongues untamed,”
then He suffered, the Just for us the unjust, to bring us to God. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53). He “loved the church and gave Himself for it.” It is love that passes knowledge, and yet we know it, for He bore our sins, and has put them all away, having borne the righteous judgment that was due to us for them. He died for us.
“We know the way, the glorious way He made
   Through death’s dark sea.
 O Lamb of God, we bless the love that laid
   Our sins on Thee.”

But if the angel could have said no more of Him, it would have been useless for any of us to have sought Him, or still to seek Him. He would have been of no use to us, nor could be. If He is a dead Christ we are hopeless, for “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). But a glad triumph swells through the angel’s words, as he proclaims, “He is not here, for

HE IS RISEN.”
His work upon the cross has been accepted: the price He paid there for us is enough. Death has met his conqueror: the grave has been robbed of its terrors, and the devil’s power has been broken for ever. The Father’s approval of His life and death has been made manifest, His own personal greatness and glory has been declared, and eternal redemption secured for us beyond recall. We can understand how every fear and dark foreboding in these women’s hearts would be changed to confidence and joy. His resurrection proved that He had not deceived them; that every hope that He had raised within their breasts would be fulfilled. And it was this that the angel urged upon them when he said, “He is risen

AS HE SAID.”
He had told them that He would rise again: that He had done so was the confirmation of all His words, and proved that He was fully worthy of their fullest confidence. We, too, may give to the winds our fears, and renew our confidence in Him, as we read His words, which tell us that not one jot or tittle of His word shall fail. He is risen, that is the pledge. Death mocks at men’s assertions and brings to naught their words and works, but our Saviour lives as Victor over death to give complete effect to all that the prophets have spoken concerning Him and all that He has spoken concerning us.

“COME, SEE THE PLACE WHERE THE LORD LAY.”
They were to be witnesses to the disciples of this great event, and so must view the empty tomb with their own eyes, and this they did at the invitation of the angel of the Lord. It was presumptuously stated by one whose blasphemies have been closed by death that the Lord did not actually rise from the dead: that His remains are still lying somewhere near to Calvary. If this is so the Christian faith is a delusion and a snare, and all those who have fallen asleep in the joy of it have perished. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20).

See how the glorious worth of our Lord comes out in the angel’s words.
1. YE SEEK JESUS — His personal preciousness.
2. WHICH WAS CRUCIFIED — His matchless love.
3. HE IS RISEN — His glorious power.
4. AS HE SAID — His absolute trustworthiness.

But there is more in this wonderful story: the risen Lord had not forgotten His disciples; they were His first thought. So that the angel continued,

“GO QUICKLY, AND TELL HIS DISCIPLES
that He is risen from the dead, and goes before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him; lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly with fear and great joy, and did run to bring His disciples word.” Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,

“INTO A MOUNTAIN WHERE JESUS HAD APPOINTED THEM.”
He appointed a place where He could meet with them, and, blessed fact, He has appointed a place for us, where He can meet with us. It is in this same gospel that His precious words are recorded for us; “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). It is not the place that we choose: we may not please ourselves in this matter: the place is His appointment: it is our responsibility as well as our joy to obey His word and keep this appointment with Him.

The place that He appointed them was outside the temple and away from Jerusalem. We must remember that in Matthew’s Gospel He had been presented to Israel as their Messiah, and they had rejected Him, so that the temple, their house, and their city were to be desolated, and the faithful remnant was to be led out of both and gathered to Himself. His name instead of the temple and the city was to be their rallying centre. And so to-day not a sensuous religion, an ornate service, or a massive temple is that which satisfies His heart or the hearts of those who love Him. To meet His own is His wish, and to be in His presence without distraction, or the intrusion of that which pleases nature, is the wish of those who keep His word and do not deny His Name.

“AND WHEN THEY SAW HIM THEY WORSHIPPED HIM.”

Could they do other, when He stood before them who had died for them, bearing in His risen body the marks of His suffering and death? A sight of Him was all that was needed to prostrate them in holy adoration at His feet. And so it will be with us if without distraction we seek His presence in the place that He has appointed us.
“Jesus, Thou alone art worthy
   Ceaseless praises to receive,
 For Thy love and grace and goodness
   Rise o’er all our hearts conceive.

“Praise Him, praise Him, praise the Saviour,
   Saints aloud your voices raise.
 Praise Him, praise Him, till in heaven
   Perfected we’ll sing His praise.”

“Woman, why weepest thou?”

Mary of Magdala stands in the garden where the mournful cypress casts its shadows, and sighs in the freshening breezes o’er the tombs of the dead. The morning sun breaking over the eastern Olivet has not reached the deep grove where she weeps, and if it had, its rays hold no power that can dispel the gloom of her soul, for she has lost the One in whom her life was centred, and she knows not where to find Him. The disciples, her friends, have homes and duties and distractions, but earth has no comfort for her as she stands beside that sepulchre where all that she loved had lain. Neither can heaven yield her consolation, she feels, for though “angels in white” appear and speak to her, she turns from them as though they were intruders, unable to understand or ease her grief. Behold her as she weeps, darkness above, darkness around, darkness within, and listen to her broken cry, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.”

Hopeless and overwhelming her sorrow seemed, for, believing that she had lost her Lord, both time and eternity were desolated for her.

Among the shadows He waits for her — her risen Lord, and when she turns herself back and stands face to face with Him, He speaks to her, asking the cause of her grief. But she supposes Him to be the gardener, and of what use can a gardener be to her? The gardener labours upon beautiful things that have neither sorrows nor souls — she has both: he tends things that grow and shed their sweetness for a day, then die and are forgotten — she is full of bitterness and cannot forget she seeks not flowers, but “Him” — who can heal the broken-hearted, who Himself is called the “Man of Sorrows.” Marvellous designation for Jehovah’s Fellow! The gardener may work with sympathy among the graves and endeavour to cover with the beauty of nature the stark nakedness of death, but a flower-strewed grave remains a grave, and the flowers fade in spite of all his labour, while the sorrow lives to drain the red heart white, unless a hand other than a gardener’s intervenes. Mary does not want a gardener to garnish a grave, she wants her Lord to heal and satisfy her soul; she wants Him who breaks the power of death, and casts the light of resurrection upon the gloomy grave.

But if Mary knows not Jesus, He knows her, and calls her by her name in accents that throb with infinite love. He commands the morning for her, and turns the shadow of death into joy. The darkness flies away from her soul, and the dirge gives place to the triumph song within her heart, as she sees Him, recognizes Him, and responds to His voice to her in that one word, “Rabboni.” Here is a glorious deliverance from the bondage of a hopeless sorrow. THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED. He calls her by her name, and His presence and His voice change her outlook at once and for ever.

In this there is everlasting consolation and good hope for all who weep. Death has met his conqueror: his stronghold has been stormed and taken, and the dark King of Terrors dethroned. Christ is risen, He is victor.

In no other way could the gates of death be opened for us than by His resurrection from the dead. He has opened them, and holds the keys of them, as He that lives for evermore. To all who put their faith in Him He says, “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 hades and of death” (Rev. 1:17-18). He is Master of death and the grave. Who? The risen Lord who loves you, and who tenderly lays upon you the hand of His power, and calls you by your name. He who tasted death for you in its unspeakable bitterness because He loved you, and who now would sweeten the cup that you drink with His deepest sympathy and undying love. He has flooded the darkness of death with the light of hope, and you may look forward with confidence to the day when “shall be brought to pass that saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? … Thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The tenderness of His grace is as great as the triumph of His might: as it was for Mary in that distant day, so it is for us in this.

Power and Grace

On the evening of the resurrection day the disciples were gathered together, the last of them drawn to that blessed tryst from distant Emmaus by the Lord’s personal service to them: and being thus gathered, two things commanded their thoughts and filled them with wonder; (1) THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED, (2) AND HATH APPEARED TO SIMON. Nothing could be of greater moment to them than the first, for it was the manifestation of their Lord’s victorious power, and was the confirmation of all things which He had spoken to them. And though they did not understand at the time what the results of this glorious resurrection were, yet it must have opened a new world to their souls, and shown them that what, in their eyes, had been weakness and defeat, had become the veritable triumph of God.

But how could they meet the risen Lord? Had they not forsaken Him in the midst of His exceeding sorrow, and might He not in consequence discard them for others more faithful and worthy? They might have thought so, and gone to hide themselves from Him for very shame, but — He had “appeared to Simon.”

They do not say He has appeared to Mary Magdalene: they knew that her eyes had been the first to look upon Him, but there was nothing remarkable about His appearing to her, for she — devoted heart — had stood bereaved without the empty tomb, weeping out her sorrow, because she knew not where her beloved Lord lay. The world was a wilderness night where no comfort shone because the Lord was gone. It was no surprise to them, or to us, that since He was risen, He should appear to Mary.

But to Simon! who had abandoned his Master, and had proved the veriest coward in the presence of the scorning of a servant maid: who had denied his Lord with oaths and curses — that He should appear to Simon filled them with wonder.

So the two marvels are linked together by them, and in the Holy Spirit’s record for us.
His Mighty Power HAD BROUGHT HIM FROM THE GRAVE.
His Tender Gracious Love HAD CARRIED HIM EVEN TO SIMON.

It was this Lord who stood in the midst of them: the powers of darkness had been smitten before Him, and the failure of His followers had not changed Him. He was all-sufficient for every foe without, and for every failure within. No wonder then that it is recorded that the joy of seeing Him was so overwhelming, that they could scarcely believe. But their doubts were speedily removed; they saw the Lord, and it is also our privilege to see Him — their Lord and ours — who had risen indeed, and appeared to Simon.

We need Him as much as they did, for the malignity of the devil is not one whit less now than then, and we have to mourn failure and sin as terrible as Simon’s, for the Church has not kept His Word, and has often denied His Name. But Christ remains unchanged, and every purpose of God, with every hope of His people, hangs alone upon Him.

How blessed then to know that this same Lord is in the midst of His saints to-day!

Days of stress and trial they are, in which the devil is seeking to stamp out all testimony for God, both as to the true word of the Gospel, and in the lives and unity of His own.

But He abides. If His pilgrim people are treading a wilderness journey in the which they are conscious of fierce opposition, of their individual needs, and much failure, He says to them, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” so that they may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man shall do to me” (Hebrews 13:5-6).

Jesus showing Himself to His Disciples

“On this wise showed He Himself” (John 21:1).

Simon Peter was a man of action: his was that nature that cannot bear to be still and wait: if his Master gave him no command he would act upon his own initiative, and being such a man he exercised an influence upon others. So that when he proposed to go a-fishing his companions fell in with his plans: “and that night they caught nothing.”

As the red dawn chased the night-mists across the sea their Lord stood on the shore. Who shall tell with what tenderness He looked upon them, hungry, weary, and dispirited as they were! He had looked upon them all through that night of toil, had watched over them with an unspeakable love, for they were “His own,” and the love He bore them could not change, and now had come the moment when He would show Himself to them.

Not at first did they recognize Him, not until He proved who He was by commanding the fish of the sea to come to their net. Then spake out that disciple whom Jesus loved, saying, “IT IS THE LORD.”

And so they came to land and found “a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.” What a showing of Himself to them was this! How it revealed His care for them! THEY WERE COLD, and He knew it, and His own hand had provided the fire to warm them: THEY WERE HUNGRY, and He thought of it, and provided fish and bread to satisfy them: THEY WERE TIRED with their toil, and He sympathized with them in their weariness. Their faithlessness had made them FEARFUL AND ASHAMED; He knew it, and so invited them to sit down before Him, and made them quite at home by His grace, while He gave to them the food that those precious pierced hands had prepared for them. Matchless revelation of Himself! He, their Lord and Master, rejoiced to minister to them: He, death’s conqueror, and creation’s Lord as He had proved Himself to be, was not indifferent to their bodily necessities, He cared for their smallest need.

Time spent in meditation upon the wonderful manner in which He showed Himself to them will not be wasted, for here is a revelation of His tender interest in His own, and He is just the same to-day as then, the same to us as He was to those Galilean fishermen.

Entering His Glory

(Luke 24).

“HE IS RISEN.”

The fact of the actual bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is of the greatest possible importance. The salvation of the souls of men, the vindication of His own glorious person, and the supremacy of the everlasting God are all involved in it. If Christ be not raised, actually and bodily raised, your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins. If Christ be not raised, actually and bodily raised, He is not what He said He was, and His life and words on earth are a cruel deception. If Christ be not raised, actually and bodily raised, God has met with defeat, His throne has been sapped at the very base of it, the devil has triumphed, and evil is almighty in the universe.

If Christ be not raised, God’s gracious intentions with regard to the blessing of men have been frustrated: heaven shall never celebrate the greatness of God’s salvation: no song shall ever roll over the fields of glory: the Father’s house shall be sad and silent for ever; the earth shall remain a desert where no fragrant rose can blossom, and a deluge of darkness, more direful and disastrous than that flood which smote the world in Noah’s day, shall roll over the whole race of men in an everlasting mastery.

If, then, everything depends upon the resurrection of our Lord — and it does, for so we are taught in the Scriptures of Truth — it is good for us to be able to travel in thought and faith with those who, on the first day of the week, sought the sepulchre where they had laid Him: it is good for us to look into that empty rock-hewn tomb and to hear angelic voices exclaim, “Why seek ye the living amongst the dead? He is not here, HE IS RISEN.” Thank God! And the fact is placed outside the region of question: the Scriptures: the more than five hundred brethren: and Saul of Tarsus who saw Him alive after He was risen: and the happy millions of ransomed men and women who have staked their all for time and eternity upon Christ, and who have sung their song of triumph in the very presence of death, all unite to bear witness to His victory over death: and His own words are to us the crowning of the testimony, “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 of death” (Revelation 1:18).

Let those who deny the fact produce their witnesses, and bring their proofs to the test.

HE MUST BE SUPREME.

The Lord appears in Luke’s Gospel on a great mission. He called it in His first recorded words “My Father’s business” (Luke 2:49). It was “to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins … to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:77-79). So His first utterance in public service was: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor” (Luke 4:18). And throughout the Gospel the opposition to Him was always because He would unswervingly pursue His Father’s business. So they murmured because He did eat and drink with publicans and sinners (Luke 5:30): they said with scorn that He was “a friend of publicans and sinners” (Luke 7:34): they murmured again, saying, “This Man receives sinners, and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). And yet again, “That He was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner” (Luke 19:7). But the Son of Man had come to seek and to save that which was lost, and their murmurings did not hinder Him in this, though death and resurrection lay in the path of its accomplishment.

It was necessary, according to the divine plan of campaign, that others, not only those eleven disciples whom He met on this resurrection day, but all His disciples throughout the succeeding centuries down even to this day, should bear a part in this wonderful mission of making known this grace to the ends of the earth: and in this resurrection chapter the Lord is seen instructing His disciples as to this, and adjusting their thoughts to the new conditions.

These disciples, however, were faithless, dispirited, and sad. Strange that it should have been so, for that first Lord’s day was the most glorious of all the days that God had made. But the Lord drew near and went with them, and the more we scrutinize His ways with them as He quietly and irresistibly takes the place of supremacy in their lives, the more glorious does He appear to us.

Their confidence in Him had received a rude shock, and yet they loved Him, and were sadly reciting the doings of the past week when “He drew near and went with them.” He drew near in more senses than one; there was no sudden display of power and splendour to fill them with awe, but the exercise of that compassion that fills His heart for the ignorant. He came close to them in their sorrow and woe in all that gentleness that had always marked His dealings with them. They were the bruised reed and the smoking flax, which He would not break nor quench. They were broken of heart and sore of spirit, and needed the balm of the great Physician, and He was there to tenderly point out the sickness and to apply the remedy. Such is He who is the Master of all His servants, and thus does He prepare them to take up His service with boldness and joy.

Their fundamental mistake had been, that, in their innermost thought, they had made Him secondary to Israel. This is disclosed in their woeful complaint, “We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed ISRAEL.” They had hoped that He would have broken the foreign yoke and made their nation free and glorious in the earth, and if He had done this how great He would have been in their eyes: but, instead, they had seen Him nailed to a malefactor’s gibbet. “He was led as a lamb to the slaughter: and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.”

He had died, and His death was the grave of all their hopes. They reasoned as men, that since He had died all must be lost, for death is the end of all the glory of man: his thoughts and purposes lie shattered and broken beside his mortal clay. But Jesus was risen again, and resurrection is the power of God; it is God’s new beginning and His glory; His thoughts and purposes are all established by it, established in Christ, where disaster can never overtake them, for “He dies no more.”

Happy are they who, by the grace of God, can transfer their hopes from that race of man which lies under the dread sentence of death, and centre them in Christ, the Second Man, the last Adam, who has risen above the power of death, the life-giving Head of a new race.

These disciples had not believed all that the prophets had spoken. They had had their favourite texts, and those texts spoke of the great power of the Messiah — power that would crush their foes and make them the head of the nations: these they read and cherished and loved, and as surely as God spoke them He will fulfil them: but those Scriptures that spoke of His sorrows, His acquaintance with grief, humiliation, rejection, and death they had neither understood nor believed. With great patience He expounded these to them, showing them these things written therein concerning HIMSELF, and how that He ought to suffer and enter into His glory. He showed them these things until their eyes began to perceive hitherto unthought-of glories in Him, and their hearts glowed within them at the sight of them.

In the council chamber of eternity it was planned that He should have His glory as the Head and Centre of a universe of blessing founded upon redemption, a universe to which men from all nations were necessary, and by the path of suffering He was tested, and in it His fitness for that place was proved. Every test brought out this fitness in clearer light until the final test — THE CROSS.

Every human perfection disclosed its fragrance in His suffering; His absolute and unquestioning obedience to the will of God throughout all the way that that will led Him, His meekness, dependence, self-abnegation — everything, in fact, that man ought to be according to the thought of God, He was, and that right onward and into death.

In Him also, the lonely and forsaken Man upon the cross, there appeared in full revelation every attribute of God. No ray of light from without pierced the awful gloom that enshrouded Him as the sin-bearer, but from out of that darkness there shone a glory that shall fill eternity. “All divine attributes were harmonized there — wisdom, holiness, mercy, justice, power, and truth” — and above all and through all the very nature of God, which is love, was declared triumphantly in the very place and hour where His justice demanded that sin should be judged to the uttermost.

Wonderful Saviour! It is along that path of unspeakable suffering that He has entered His glory. But the glory He has entered has added no glory to Him, for He was all glorious as He trod that downward pathway of sorrow and shame; He is not, nor can He be, more glorious than He was when He bowed His thorn-crowned head in death.

 If He is now exalted to the Father’s right hand it is because that place alone in the wide universe is worthy to receive Him. The diamond has been put in the golden setting, He has gone to His own place. Crowns of immortal lustre shall shine resplendent upon His sacred brow, but that brow is worthy of them, nor would they fit another.

As He expounded these things to them, thoughts of Israel must have faded from their minds, and He must have arisen to the supreme place in their thoughts, so that when at last their eyes are opened to know Him they no longer do their own will, nor think of their own interests or comfort, but that same hour of the night they arise and return to Jerusalem. They did His will, though no command had been expressed: instinctively they knew what He would have them do. HIS LORDSHIP WAS COMPLETE. But His lordship was exercised in perfect grace, and they did His will under the compulsion of love: no other service is acceptable to Him.

HE IS THE LEADER OF HIS SERVANTS.

The disciples were gathered together in Jerusalem on that day talking of His resurrection. He greeted them with that blessed salutation, PEACE! for theirs was to be a mission of peace, and if they were to prosecute it aright they must be filled with and kept in peace.

With a quiet and matchless dignity He convinces them as to the reality of His resurrection, assures them that it is Himself and none other who stands before them, and opens their understanding as to the teaching of all Scripture concerning Himself. It was this teaching as to Himself that was to prepare them for the mission and to maintain them in peace in it. Out of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms He showed them God’s plan and His glory. He showed them that He was the fulfilment of every word that God had uttered whether in promise or prophecy. Their fears, then, that all they had hoped for was lost, were altogether groundless, for in Him, their risen Lord, everything that God had purposed was secured.

And further, though it was not then declared to them, they afterwards learnt that in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and that they were complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power. All the resources of God were in Him for them, and there was not a power in the universe that could intercept those resources.

Brethren in Christ, are we conscious that our Lord is such a glorious Lord, Centre, Leader, and Head for His servants? Those who are in the knowledge of this will fear no foe, for all the foes are defeated, as His resurrection is witness; they will dread no lack, for all the mighty fulness of God is at their disposal in Him.

His presence in the midst of those disciples made them one, one in heart, object, and purpose: for what place could divergent views and selfish aspirations find in the presence of their glorious risen Lord? As they looked upon Him, bearing in His body the wounds of the cross, wounds received in His devotion to them, a tide of love to Him must have surged through every heart, and each would instinctively drop into his divinely appointed place with regard to Himself and each other.

IN THE GREAT OUTER CIRCLE. Having assumed His rightful place amongst them, and opened their understanding that they might have a right knowledge as to Himself and the new circumstances in which they saw Him, He turned their eyes to the great outer circle of “all nations” and said to them, “Thus it is written.” Let that sentence impress us as it must have impressed them, and mark the place that THE SCRIPTURES hold in this chapter; first as to His own personal glory, it was “All that the prophets had spoken”: then in the sacred circle of His beloved servants it was, “All things must be fulfilled, which were spoken in Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me.” And now in connection with the whole world it is “Thus it is written.” There can be no right understanding of any relationship which we may have with the Lord apart from the Scriptures, nor can we rightly act in any sphere with Him apart from the guidance of the Scriptures.

And further, mark the place that THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST occupy in this chapter. First, as to His own personal glory, “Ought not Christ to have suffered?” Then, in the sacred circle of His servants, “He showed them His hands and His feet.” Lastly, in this wide circle of all the world, “Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day.”

There is no sphere in which we may move with Him on this side of the glory in which we may forget His sufferings and death; and on the other side, when at home in the glory of God, He will still be the Lamb that was slain. The value of the Scriptures is that they keep Him constantly before us, for they unfold to us “the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.”

How wonderfully interwoven are these great things; the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures, the sufferings of Christ, His resurrection and glory, and the grace of God to all nations. Let no rude hand attempt to tear them asunder, or destroy any one of these divine verities, for if one could be spoiled the whole fabric would be marred.

But what place have the Scriptures and the sufferings of Christ with those who profess to be carrying out this blessed mission in these days? The question needs to be asked, for neither can be popular in the world that knows not God, and the popular taste, alas! is often consulted rather than the will of God.

The preaching of Christ crucified strikes at the root of all the pride of man: it means that he, in spite of all his boasted progress, must abase himself at the feet of the One who hung upon a gibbet, that only by this means can he be in right relations with God.

It means that in spite of all his culture, religion, learning, and power, he is a sinner under the power of death, the judgment of God, for “death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). It means that Christ, the holy and the true, upon whom alone death had no claim, went down into it as the judgment of God, and that only thus could it be removed.

This preaching is to the Jew (the religionist) a stumbling-block, and to the Greek (the philosopher) foolishness: nevertheless it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And how wonderful it is to us who believe, and how great our joy when we see Him, who went into death for us, raised again from the dead. He has sustained the judgment, has passed through the deep waters, “He divided the sea whose waves roared” and has made the depths a way for His ransomed to pass over — the Lord of Hosts is His name. How great indeed is His glory in God’s salvation.

“Christ died for our sins … was buried and rose again from the dead.” These are the great facts that have to be heralded in every habitation of man, and these facts are according to the Scriptures. And these facts are to be heralded, that men may know that in consequence of them a way has been opened by which they may return to God, and returning have all their sins remitted. And these priceless blessings have to be offered in His name: that is, His servants are to do it on His behalf, as His representatives, His ambassadors, backed by His authority, and, as He told them, endued with the power which He would send them from above. Then “He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and CARRIED UP INTO HEAVEN.”

His work was finished, and the glory of God claimed Him, and their raptured eyes followed Him into that shekinah cloud. He is in that glory still: Stephen saw Him, Saul of Tarsus saw Him, and we by faith may also see Him “JESUS, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, CROWNED WITH GLORY AND HONOUR” (Hebrews 2:9).

The Great High Priest

Here is a theme that might well occupy volumes printed in gold, but how little it is understood. Victory in the homeward way depends entirely upon the grace and mercy ministered from the throne on which He sits.

The great High Priest is Jesus, the Son of God. Does not the heart swell with holy exultation at the thought of His greatness? The service to which He devotes Himself in this character is that of bearing up His pilgrim saints in intercession before God, and He does this with truest compassion and deepest sympathy. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities — marvellous thought! It means that every pang in every heart that loves Him is felt by Him. We may not be able to understand it: we are not asked to do so — it is too great for our small minds, but He asks us to believe it, and if we don’t we grieve that heart that loves above all things to be trusted. He would have us to believe that He is serving us every hour because He loves us: yes, loves us with the same love that led Him to Calvary for us. The birth pangs do not exhaust the mother’s love for her babe: she would be willing to lay down her life for it at any time.
“Yet she may forgetful prove,
  He will never cease to love.”

How could He cease to love? He is JESUS. And what does that name mean to us? It tells us of the love that brought Him from the eternal throne to Bethlehem’s manger: it tells us of a life of suffering-service that led through sorrow and shame and loss to the cross of Calvary: it tells us how His love declared itself there. The waves of death uplifted their awful crests and rolled upon Him to engulf Him: the billows of Satan’s power roared about Him to destroy Him, and He went down beneath the deep waters of God’s judgment against sin on our behalf. But though He stood for us where all the seas met upon Him, yet was His love not quenched. It burned with a fervent flame amidst the fierce waters, and shed its wondrous light in the darkness of that awful hour, and there it triumphed — and now the Lord is risen: He lives upon the throne of God for us; and
“We stand beyond the doom
  Of all our sins through Jesu’s empty tomb.”
His love has not changed one whit: it is as deeply interested in our welfare to-day as it was when it bore our sins on the tree. Were it otherwise, Jesus would no longer bear that precious name for us, and we should have neither Saviour, Priest, nor home.

But Jesus is the Son of God, for so our text presents Him, and while “Jesus” carries us in thought down to the very depths of the humiliation into which His love carried Him, “THE SON OF GOD” presents His glory, His magnificent greatness, the unmeasured splendour of His Person and inheritance. But there are other thoughts than these in the bringing together of these names and titles that should talk eloquently to our hearts. “Jesus” tells us of His preciousness to us. “The Son of God” tells us of His preciousness to God. “JESUS” TELLS US THAT, SINCE HE LOVES US SO WELL, THERE IS NOTHING THAT WOULD BE GOOD FOR US THAT HE WILL NOT ASK FOR US WHEN HE INTERCEDES BEFORE GOD FOR US: AND “SON OF GOD” TELLS US THAT GOD WILL NOT DENY HIM ANY REQUEST THAT HE MAKES. So that the fact of Jesus the Son of God being our great High Priest means that we are put into contact with the eternal and infinite resources of God, and that eternal and infinite love sets these resources in motion for us, for God loves His Son and Jesus loves us, and Jesus is the Son of God.

He has passed through the heavens from the very lowest point of suffering and shame: He has gone to the highest point in glory, and no watchful sentry rang out the challenge, “Halt!” for every gate was thrown open wide for Him to pass triumphantly through, and He is our Forerunner as well as our Priest. He has passed into the glory which is our HOME before us, and for us, and the welcome that He received is the welcome that awaits us. There is not a difficulty or hostile power that He has not met in the way that we travel as we follow Him. He was tempted in all points as we are, apart from sin. And now He lives in the glory to succour us with gracious help from thence.

THE THRONE OF GRACE is available for us. We may come boldly to it, and when we do we shall discover that our best Friend sits upon it, and there we shall obtain mercy and find grace for seasonable help.

Here are some of our resources, and as we draw upon them we shall hold the full assurance of hope to the end, and THE END IS HOME.

Hallelujah!

“Let every thing that has breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.” (Psalm 150.)

So ends the last psalm, and therein is presented to us the result, as far as the earth is concerned, of the coming of the Lord into it. He is the blessed Man of the first psalm who walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, but delighted in the law of the Lord, and meditated in it both day and night. Every breath that He drew was a “hallelujah!” — a “Praise ye the Lord:” every pulse of His devoted heart was for God: in His every word and act the Father was glorified. Every moral excellence shone in unmeasured perfection in Him. Men said, “When shall He die and His name perish?” (Psalm 41:5): but His fruit shall appear in its season, His leaf shall never wither, and whatsoever He does shall prosper. Men thought that His light was quenched for ever when unresistingly He was led to the Cross, but He is coming again, He shall arise — the Sun of Righteousness: and then shall break that morning for which the saints of God have ever sighed, even a morning without clouds: as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain (2 Samuel 23:4).

He will stamp His blessed character upon His kingdom: it will reflect the glory which is effulgent in Him: every groan, and murmur, and cry of anguish will be hushed, the darkness will fly before the shining of His presence, and the whole earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord: and as His every breath was a hallelujah when He was here, so everything that has breath will say “Hallelujah!” then.

The rise and fall of kingdoms: the accumulation of grave questions: the clashing of conflicting interests, which is growing fiercer as the years roll on, and which prove the instability of things in this world, and fill the hearts of men with misgiving, do not disturb the one who with the eye of faith sees “Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour: that He by the grace of God should taste death for everything” (Hebrews 2:9, N.T.).

The Morning Star, bright harbinger of day, shines in the heavens and fills his heart with hope, so that he can cry, Hallelujah! now. THE LORD IS COMING.
“. … We lift the head
 In joyful expectation,
 For He will bring salvation.”

 —

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-2, 3).

 —

“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like to His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:20-21).

 —

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, 18).

 —

He which testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen” (Revelation 22:20-21).