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The Risen Lord’s Charge and Gift by Alexander MacLaren

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, Whose soever sins ye remit, there are remitted unto them; and whose soever sine ye retain, they are retained.’ —  John 20:21-23

The day of the Resurrection had been full of strange rumors and of growing excitement.  As evening fell, some of the disciples, at any rate, gathered together, probably in the upper room.  They were brave, for in spite of the Jews they dared to assemble; they were timid, for they barred themselves in ‘for fear of the Jews.’  No doubt in little groups they were eagerly discussing what had happened that day.  Fuel was added to the fire by the return of the two from Emmaus.  And then, at once, the buzz of conversation ceased, for ‘He Himself, with His human air,’ stood there in the midst, with the quiet greeting on His lips, which might have come from any casual stranger and minimized the separation that was now ending: ‘Peace be unto you!’ which remarkably supplement each other.  They deal with two different parts of it.

John begins where Luke ends.  The latter Evangelist dwells mainly on the disciples’ fears that it was some ghostly appearance that they saw and on the removal of these by the sight and perhaps the touch of the hands and the feet.  John says nothing of the terror, but Luke’s account explains John’s statement that ‘He showed them His hands and His side,’ and that, ‘Then were the disciples glad,’ the joy expelling the fear.  Luke’s account also, by dwelling on the first part of the interview, explains what else is unexplained in John’s narrative, viz. the repetition of the salutation, ‘Peace be unto you!’  Our Lord thereby marked off the previous portion of the conversation as being separate and a whole in itself.  Their doubts were dissipated and now something else was to begin.  They who were sure of the risen Lord and had had communion with Him were capable of receiving a deeper peace, and so ‘Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you!’ and thereby inaugurated the second part of the interview.

Luke’s account also helps us in another and very important way.  John simply says that ‘the disciples were gathered together,’ and that might mean the Eleven only.  Luke is more specific, and tells us what is of prime importance for understanding the whole incident, that ‘the Eleven… and they that were with them’ were assembled.  This interview, the crown of the appearances on Easter Day, is marked as being an interview with the assembled body of disciples whom the Lord, having scattered their doubts and laid the deep benediction of His peace upon their hearts, then goes on to invest with a sacred mission, ‘As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you;’ to equip them with the needed power, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost;’ and to unfold to them the solemn issues of their work, ‘Whose sins ye remit they are remitted; and whose sins ye retain they are retained.’  The message of that Easter evening is for us all; and so I ask you to look at these three points.

I. The Christian Mission.

I have already said that the clear understanding of the persons to whom the words were spoken goes far to interpret the significance of the words.  Here we have at the very beginning, the great thought that every Christian man and woman is sent by Jesus.  The possession of what preceded this charge is the thing, and the only thing, that fits a man to receive it, and whoever possesses these is thereby dispatched into the world as being Christ’s envoy and representative.  And what are these preceding experiences?  The vision of the risen Christ, the touch of His hands, the peace that He breathed over believing souls, the gladness that sprang like a sunny fountain in the hearts that had been so dry and dark.  Those things constituted the disciples’ qualification for being sent and these things were themselves — even apart from the Master’s words — their sending out on their future life’s-work.  Thus, whoever — and thank God I am addressing many who come under the category! — whoever has seen the Lord has been in touch with Him, and has felt his heart filled with gladness is the recipient of this great commission.  There is no question here of the prerogative of a class, nor of the functions of an order; it is a question of the universal aspect of the Christian life in its relation to the Master who sends and the world into which it is sent.

We Nonconformists pride ourselves upon our freedom from what we call ‘sacerdotalism.’  Ay! and we Nonconformists are quite willing to assert our priesthood in opposition to the claims of a class and are as willing to forget it, should the question of the duties of the priest come into view. You do not believe in priests, but a great many of you believe that it is ministers that are ‘sent,’ and that you have no charge.  Officialism is the dry-rot of all the Churches and is found as rampant amongst democratic.  Nonconformists as amongst the more hierarchical communities.  Brethren! you are included in Christ’s words of sending on this errand, if you are included in this greeting of ‘Peace be unto you!’ ‘I send,’ not the clerical order, not the priest, but ‘you,’ because you have seen the Lord and been glad and heard the low whisper of His benediction creeping into your hearts.

Mark, too, how our Lord reveals much of Himself, as well as of our position when He thus speaks.  For He assumes here the royal tone and claims to possess as absolute authority over the lives and work of all Christian people as the Father exercised when He sent the Son.  But we must further ask ourselves the question, what is the parallel that our Lord here draws, not only between His action in sending us and the Father’s action in sending Him, but also between the attitude of the Son who was sent and of the disciples whom He sends?  And the answer is this — the work of Jesus Christ is continued by, prolonged in, and carried on henceforward through, the work that He lays upon His servants.  Mark the exact expression that our Lord here uses. ‘As My Father hath sent,’ that is a past action, continuing its consequences in the present.  It is not ‘as My Father did send once,’ but as ‘My Father hath sent,’ which means ‘is also at present sending,’ and continues to send.  Which being translated into less technical phraseology is just this, that we here have our Lord presenting to us the thought that, though in a new form, His work continues during the ages and is now being wrought through His servants.  What He does by another, He does by Himself.  We Christian men and women do not understand our function in the world unless we have realized this: ‘Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ,’ and His interests and His work are entrusted to our hands.

How shall the servants continue and carry on the work of the Master?  The chief way to do it is by proclaiming everywhere that finished work on which the world’s hopes depend.  But note, — ‘as My Father hath sent Me, so send I you,’ — then we are not only to carry on His work in the world, but if one might venture to say so, we are to reproduce His attitude towards God and the world.  He was sent to be ‘the Light of the world;’ and so are we.  He was sent to ‘seek and to save that which was lost;’ so are we.  He was sent not to do His own will, but the will of the Father that sent Him; so are we.  He took upon Himself with all cheerfulness the office to which He was appointed, and said, ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work’; and that must be our voice too.  He was sent to pity, to look upon the multitudes with compassion, to carry to them the healing of His touch, and the sympathy of His heart; so must we.

We are the representatives of Jesus Christ, and if I might dare to use such a phrase, He is to be incarnated again in the hearts, and manifested again in the lives of His servants.  Many weak eyes that would be dazzled and hurt if they were to gaze on the sun, may look at the clouds cradled by its side and dyed with its luster and learn something of the radiance and the glory of the illuminating light from the illuminated vapor.  And thus, ‘as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.’  Now let us turn to

II. The Christian Equipment.

‘He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost!’  The symbolical action reminds us of the Creation story, when into the nostrils was breathed ‘the breath of life, and man became a living soul.’  The symbol is but a symbol, but what it teaches us is that every Christian man who has passed through the experiences which make him Christ’s envoy receives the equipment of a new life and that that life is the gift of the risen Lord.  This Prometheus came from the dead with the spark of life guarded in His pierced hands, and He bestowed it upon us; for the Spirit of life, which is the Spirit of Christ, is granted to all Christian men.  Dear brethren! we have not lived up to the realities of our Christian confession, unless into our death has come, and there abides, this life derived from Jesus Himself, the communication of which goes along with all faith in Him.

But the gift which Jesus brought to that group of timid disciples in the upper room did not make superfluous the further gift on the day of Pentecost.  The communication of the divine Spirit to men runs parallel with, depends on, and follows, the revelation of divine truth, so the ascended Lord gave more of that life to the disciples, who had been made capable of more of it by the fact of beholding His ascension, than the risen Lord could give on that Easter Day.  But whilst thus there are measures and degrees, the life is given to every believer in correspondence with the clearness and the contents of his faith.

It is the power that will fit any of us for the work for which we are sent into the world.  If we are here to represent Jesus Christ, and if it is true of us that ‘as He is, so are we, in this world,’ that likeness can only come about by our receiving into our spirits a kindred life which will effloresce and manifest itself to men in kindred beauty of foliage and of fruit.  If we are to be ‘the lights of the world,’ our lamps must be fed with oil.  If we are to be Christ’s representatives, we must have Christ’s life in us.  Here, too, is the only source of strength and life to us Christian people, when we look at the difficulties of our task and measure our own feebleness against the work that lies before us.  I suppose no man has ever tried honestly to be what Christ wished him to be amidst his fellows, whether as preacher or teacher or guide in any fashion, who has not hundreds of times clasped his hands in all but despair, and said, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’  That is the temper into which the power will come.  The rivers run in the valleys and it is the lowly sense of our own unfitness for the task which yet presses upon us and imperatively demands to be done, that makes us capable of receiving that divine gift.

It is for lack of it that so much of so-called ‘Christian effort’ comes to nothing.  The priests may pile the wood upon the altar and compass it all day long with vain cries and nothing happens.  It is not till the fire comes down from heaven that sacrifice and altar and wood and water in the trench, are licked up and converted into fiery light.  So, dear brethren! it is because the Christian Church as a whole, and we as individual members of it, so imperfectly realize the ABC of our faith, our absolute dependence on the inbreathed life of Jesus Christ, to fit us for any of our work, that so much of our work is ploughing the sands, and so often we labor for vanity and spend our strength for nought.  What is the use of a mill full of spindles and looms until the fire-born impulse comes rushing through the pipes? Then they begin to move.

Let me remind you, too, that the words which our Lord here employs about these great gifts, when accurately examined, do lead us to the thought that we, even we, are not altogether passive in the reception of that gift.  For the expression, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’ might, with more completeness of signification, be rendered, ‘take ye the Holy Ghost.’  True, the outstretched hand is nothing, unless the giving hand is stretched out too.  True, the open palm and the clutching fingers remain empty, unless the open palm above drops the gift.  But also true, things in the spiritual realm that are given have to be asked for, because asking opens the heart for their entrance.  True, that gift was given once for all, and continuously, but the appropriation and the continual possession of it largely depend upon ourselves.  There must be desire before there can be possession.  If a man does not take his pitcher to the fountain the pitcher remains empty, though the fountain never ceases to spring. There must be taking by patient waiting.  The old Friends had a lovely phrase when they spoke about ‘waiting for the springing of the life.’  If we hold out a tremulous hand and our cup is not kept steady, the falling water will not enter it and much will be spilt upon the ground.  Wait on the Lord and the life will rise like a tide in the heart.  There must be a taking by the faithful use of what we possess.  ‘To him that hath shall be given.’  There must be a taking by careful avoidance of what would hinder.  In the winter weather, the water supply sometimes fails in a house.  Why? Because there is a plug of ice in the service-pipe.  Some of us have a plug of ice and so the water has not come. ‘Take the Holy Spirit!’  Now, lastly, we have here

III. The Christian power over sin.

I am not going to enter upon controversy.  The words which close our Lord’s great charge here have been much misunderstood by being restricted.  It is eminently necessary to remember here that they were spoken to the whole community of Christian souls.  The harm that has been done by their restriction to the so-called priestly function of absolution has been, not only the monstrous claims which have been thereon founded, but quite as much the obscuration of the large effects that follow from the Christian discharge by all believers of the office of representing Jesus Christ.

We must interpret these words in harmony with the two preceding points, the Christian mission and the Christian equipment.  So interpreted, they lead us to a very plain thought which I may put thus.  This same Apostle tells us in his letter that ‘Jesus Christ was manifested to take away sin.’  His work in this world, which we are to continue, was ‘to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.’  We continue that work when, as we have all, if Christians, the right to do — we lift up our voices with triumphant confidence and call upon our brethren to ‘behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!’  The proclamation has a twofold effect, according as it is received or rejected; to him who receives it his sins melt away, and the preacher of forgiveness through Christ has the right to say to his brother, ‘Thy sins are forgiven because thou believest on Him.’  The rejecter or the neglecter binds his sin upon himself by his rejection or neglect.  The same message is, as the Apostle puts it, ‘a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death.’  These words are the best commentary on this part of my text.  The same heat, as the old Fathers used to say, ‘softens wax’ and hardens clay.’ The message of the word will either couch a blind eye and let in the light, or draw another film of obscuration over the visual orb.

And so, Christian men and women have to feel that to them is entrusted a solemn message, that they walk in the world charged with a mighty power, that by the preaching of the Word, and by their own utterance of the forgiving mercy of the Lord Jesus, they may ‘remit’ or ‘retain’ not only the punishment of sin, but sin itself.  How tender, how diligent, how reverent, how — not bowed down, but — erect under the weight of our obligations, we should be, if we realized that solemn thought!

Posted in Alexander MacLaren |

The Nature of Christ’s Resurrection by Samuel Willard

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Question 28.  Wherein consists Christ’s Exaltation?

Answer. Christ’s Exaltation consists in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up to heaven, and in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day.

[This is the second of a five sermon series on this question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism.]

Leaving the general consideration of Christ’s Exaltation, we will continue with a more detailed account.  There are several steps to his Exaltation which may be summarised under two heads: either those degrees of triumph to which he is exalted already, or the manifestation of it which is reserved for the Day of Judgement.  God has already highly lifted him up, but he will yet make his glory known more conspicuously at the end of the world.  The saints in heaven see his face in glory and are happy in that sight.  Believers on earth see him with an eye of faith and rejoice in it, “Whom having not seen you love.  Though now you do not see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).  At that time, his enemies also will see him.  They had seen him dead and buried.  That was the last sight they had of him: but they must see him glorified to their eternal confusion, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him.  And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.  Even so, Amen” (Rev. 1:7).

Let us consider the glorification which Christ has received already.  It consists in two things: his resurrection from death and his taking possession of the kingdom of glory.  We will begin with his resurrection because it was the first step of his glorification, after he had humbled himself in death.  This article is a main pillar of the Christian faith and we need to be well established on it.  As the apostles were appointed to be witnesses of the resurrection of Christ (Acts 1:22), so they preached it clearly in everyplace they came.  We may take a brief account of it under several heads.

I. The precise nature of Christ’s resurrection consists of two things: there is something internal, the reunion of his soul and body, and external, his coming out of the grave after that reunion.  Both of these are implied by the words used in the New Testament to express resurrection. The word used in Matt. 28:6, egeirw, signifies both to wake out of sleep and to rise out of bed.  When Christ’s soul came into his body, he awakened, and when he left his sepulchre, then he left his bed.  Resurrection is also expressed by anastasiV, which signifies rising from a fall and standing up again.  Christ fell down into the dust when he died, and stood up again when he arose.  The first of these was properly his resurrection, and the second the manifestation of it.

II. The subject of this resurrection may be considered in two categories.

1. The precise subject of the resurrection was the whole human nature of Christ. Christ is said to die and to rise again, 1 Cor. 15:14- 15. It is attributed to his person in respect to his human nature because his divine nature is not in itself capable of either Humiliation or Exaltation.  The resurrection may be attributed to his whole human nature in as much as both his soul and body were sharers in it.  His entire humanity fell by death in some sense, and his soul therefore arose by a deliverance from the state of separation and its reunion, and his body arose by a restoration to life and being brought out of the grave.

2. The resurrection is ascribed to his body, his soul, and his person in various regards, as:

It was his body that was most strictly raised.  That only fell down; while his soul went upward to paradise, Luke 23:43, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  Only his body lay in the grave, his soul ascended to heaven.  Only his body was completely deprived of its working for his soul as it departed was actively happy in the presence of God.

1. Now, regarding his body:

a. It was the same body that fell which was raised again.  Matt. 28:5-6 “But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, as he said.  Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”  He did not take upon himself another body to be exalted in, but the same in which he was humbled.

b. His rational soul came from heaven into the sepulchre, where his body lay, and was there reunited with it. Psa. 16:10 “For you will not leave my soul in Sheol.”  This must be understood as the state of separation.

c. His vital spirits, which had been dissipated by death, were again restored and helped to knit his soul and body together. For this reason he is said to be alive again, Rom. 14:9 “For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

d. His senses were also restored to his body. His organs of sensation had been deprived of their power by his death and had been useless, but now his eyes and ears and other organs of sensation received their power of operation.  Thus they were prepared to serve his rational soul according to their natural use, and were evident proof of his being alive again, Acts 1:3.

e. The prison doors were opened and he came out of his grave. His body was raised a glorious body, Phil. 3:21, 1 Cor. 15:43.  However, the glorious splendour of his body was veiled for a time as he thought it appropriate.  This was for a few days while he abode with his disciples before his ascension so that they might be able to have communion with him.

2. Regarding his soul, while it may not be quite correct to say that it arose, nevertheless a resurrection is connected with it.

a. It was reunited with his body after separation. Otherwise his body would not have arisen.  Its death was affected by that separation and therefore its resurrection required such a reunion.

b. In this way, it was delivered from that separation which was contrary to its natural inclination and was made again to enjoy the desired company of the body.  A separated soul, being only a part of the man, is not at rest until it is restored to the other part for which it was made, and so undergoes a sort of death while separate.

c. It came out of the sepulchre with and in his body, and so it joined with it in the second part of his resurrection. It was for this cause that his body was enabled to come forth which before was lifeless

d. It now enjoyed its previous freedom of exercising its operations upon and in his glorious body. It had again the use of all his senses and members which had been for a while suspended.

e. Both together took possession of the glory which he had merited with both in his humiliation, Psa. 16:9-11.  His mediatorial glory was not completed until he was thus raised.

3. Regarding his person, it is certain that he who arose was Christ, the second Person of the Trinity.  As it was mentioned before, the divine nature of Christ, being unchangeable, could neither die nor rise.  Nevertheless the declarative glory of his divine nature which was obscured in the days of his flesh began to radiate out and shine forth clearly in his resurrection.  Therefore, Christ is “…declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,” Rom. 1:4.  In this regard, it was a declarative begetting of Christ, Acts 13:33, “God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten You.’”  Christ as mediator was now glorified to fulfil the promise made to him in the Covenant of Redemption.

III. Christ really did rise again. The Scripture gives abundant testimony to this.  Because it is a matter of historical fact, the historical witness alone should be a sufficient reason for faith to accept it; although there are also persuasive arguments to accept it, such as:

1. There is the testimony of the two glorious angels for the resurrection, Matt. 28:5-6 and Luke 24:45-46.

2. The testimony of the women that went to the sepulchre where they saw him and spoke with him, Matt. 28:9.

3. The various appearances which he made to his disciples.  Before his ascension, he was seen by at least five hundred persons who had his resurrection confirmed by many tangible and convincing proofs, 1 Cor. 15:5-8.

4. In particular, there is the testimony of the Apostles, who because they were to be bearers of this truth, and witnesses to the world, had frequent communion with him at times, for forty days after he had risen, Acts 1:3, during which time they “looked upon and handled” the “Word of life,” 1 John 1:1-2.  Therefore, Luke 24:39-40, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.  Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.  When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.”  “Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side.  Do not be unbelieving, but believing,’” John 20:27.

5. Indeed the very nature of the thing declares that he must be risen. If he was the Son of God and by his death satisfied for sin, and answered all the demands of justice in the place of his redeemed, it was impossible that the grave could hold him. Therefore when he had lain in it long enough to confirm the reality of his being dead, there was no reason for his lying there any longer. Thus the Scripture argues, “God raised [him] up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it,” Acts 2:24.

IV. If it should be demanded, by what power did he arise, or who was the causative agent of his resurrection? It may be replied, that it was not any other outside power, but he himself was the author of his own rising from the dead.  This he clearly prophesied beforehand, John 2:19 and 10:17-18.  It is true that this work is ascribed to the Father, Acts 2:24.  The Creditor now fully satisfied in the discharge of the debt which his Son determined to pay, sent his angel as an officer to discharge him with glorious pomp and majesty.  This work is also attributed to the Spirit, Rom. 8:11, because he was raised by a glorious and almighty power.  This power did not manifest itself so much in the raising of his body from the grave (though nothing but omnipotent power could do that), as in releasing the chains of the second death which were upon him in his state of humiliation, and in discharging him from the sentence of the Law, by which he was condemned to die as our surety and representative.

Indeed this work, being a divine work, belongs to the Deity and consequently to the Trinity.  Yet Christ attributes this work to himself because his divine nature exerted itself mightily in his resurrection.  As it was by a voluntary act that he laid down his life, and no one else could have taken it from him, so by an act of his mighty power he took it up again.  Death himself could not stand against him, and he became a conqueror over it.  In his own person, Christ fulfilled the prophecy, Hosea 13:14 “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.  O Death, I will be your plagues!  O Grave, I will be your destruction!  Pity is hidden from my eyes.”  The angels who were present at the resurrection were not the instruments of it, but only waited on their Lord and honoured him in this phase of his Exaltation.

V. Christ’s resurrection was on the third day after his death and burial, Luke 24:7.  This was foretold by Christ himself, John 2:19.  “And be raised the third day,” Matt. 16:21. In this regard he claimed that Jonah was a type of himself, Matt. 12:39-40.  He continued three days in a state of death, in order that there would be no question about his being truly dead.  It was no longer in order that his disciples would not faint in their spirits and be discouraged by the corruption of his body, because it was foretold that it would not see corruption, Psa. 16:10.  It is true, that he did not lay in the grave three whole days, but it was for some part of three successive days.  He was buried on the sixth day (Friday) before sunset, and he lay in the grave the entire seventh day (Saturday) and the night of the first day (Sunday), considering the day to begin with the sunset.

VI. It was required that Christ should rise from the dead. Just as he had to die, he had to rise and live.  This was necessary for several reasons:

1. He rose again to prove and declare that he was the Son of God, Rom. 1:4.  During his Humiliation and particularly in his death, Christ’s divinity was obscured under a veil of the many infirmities of his humanity, but in his resurrection he proved his eternal power and Godhead.  Indeed it is true that others were raised, and indeed shortly all shall rise; therefore merely to be raised from the dead is not proof of the divinity of the one raised.  Yet, for someone to raise himself by his own power, that is sufficient proof of divinity. He gave evidence of divinity by raising others in his name, but he was required to raise himself by his own power to prove himself God.

There was a further proof of his divinity in the resurrection in that he died according to the Law and justice of God, sentenced as our Surety to suffer the whole weight of the wrath of God.  For him to be released from this sentence, after he had been born for that very purpose, and to live again having fulfilled all the demands of justice upon him, proves him to be God.  The weight of wrath that he bore would have broken the whole of creation and they would never have been released.

2. In this way he attested to his perfect victory over death and our spiritual enemies. It was not enough that Christ should die for us.  In dying, he must be a conqueror; otherwise his death would not profit us.  Indeed, he suffered in order that he might overcome, Heb. 2:14, “That through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”  This was shown and proven by his resurrection.  This is the reason why Paul after he had demonstrated by many arguments that Christ was risen and then shown what was the glorious cause of it, concluded the passage with a note of triumph, 1 Cor. 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is true that Christ conquered all on his cross: there the battle was fought and there the victory was gained.  But that victory was made into a triumph in his resurrection.  Now his enemies fled, quitting the field. Psa. 68:1, “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered; let those also who hate him flee before him.”  He made a conquest of death itself and it lay dead at his feet.  Christ would never be known as a conqueror except for this.  If death had held him as her captive, where would his victory be?

3. He rose for our justification. “Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised because of our justification,” Rom. 4:25.  As he died to pay our debt, so he rose again to acquit or absolve us from it.  Christ’s resurrection was both his and our discharge: his, when he stood as our surety bond for us, and ours, as those for whom he was Surety.  As Christ by dying was made virtually, so by rising he becomes actually the object of our justifying faith.

He became a sufficient object of faith not merely by undertaking to appear in our place, but by actually making an end of the transgressions on our account and paying our whole debt.  If he had not made satisfaction for us, we could not in justice have been pardoned.  If he had not fully reconciled us to God and completely answered the Law’s demands, we could not have been saved.  Therefore if he had continued on in death, it would have shown the continuing need for payment; which would have revealed its imperfection and consequently its invalidity.  Christ could not rise until justice acquitted him.  His bond was submitted for our cause and it must be accepted by the Judge and that only by a full payment of the bond.  When he arose, this bond was returned to him, and cancelled.  Our debt is paid; our bond is returned.  Therefore his resurrection stands in opposition to all that could be laid to our charge, Rom. 8:34.  Therefore this is one of the arguments that the Apostle uses to prove that Christ must be risen, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” 1 Cor. 15:17.

4. It was to put Christ into a proper condition for the completing of the work remaining in the execution of his offices. We observed in a [another] sermon that Christ executes his offices in both states of Humiliation and Exaltation.  As our Priest, here he was to satisfy justice for us and afterwards to intercede for us, Heb. 7:25.  As our Prophet, here he taught with his mouth, but there he sent forth his Spirit and therefore he had to go to the Father, John 16:17.  As our King, here he commanded his disciples and gave them laws, but he must also govern them by his power and wield the sceptre over the world.  This was accomplished by his resurrection, Psa. 2:6 and following, cf. Acts 13:33.  Indeed, there was the glory of a mediator promised to him as a reward for his obedience, and it was necessary for him to rise in order to take possession of it, Luke 24:26, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”

5. It was necessary for him to rise, so he would be the first fruits of our resurrection, both spiritually and bodily. See 1 Cor. 15:20-23.  By first fruits, we are not to understand first in order of time, but in order of causation.  Those who rose at Christ’s death, as described in the Gospel, Matt. 27:52-53, rose by the power and influence of his resurrection.  Furthermore it is a sure pledge of the resurrection of his members.  When the first fruits were offered to God under the Law, he accepted them and gave his people an assurance of the harvest.  The Apostle makes the same point in 1 Cor. 15 using the order of the covenants.  Just as Adam in the first covenant, standing for us, procured death for us, so Christ in the new covenant, being our Surety, has purchased a resurrection for us.  His resurrection is the earnest of ours, 1 Cor. 15:20.

To summarise, Christ as God is the efficient cause: Christ as our substitute satisfying for our sins is the meritorious cause: Christ rising from the dead is the continuing cause of our resurrection. “A little while longer and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also,” John 14:19.

APPLICATION 1. Learn from this, that it is the concern of all those who desire a joyful, triumphant resurrection at last to get and secure a claim to Christ’s resurrection.  There will be a general rising again of all who die, both just and unjust, but no one will rise in glory except those who are under the saving power of the resurrection of Christ.

Others shall rise only to receive an everlasting second fall into the bottomless pit of never-ending miseries.  As long as men are out of Christ, thoughts of the resurrection may well be full of dread, for it is that which truly makes death to be a reason for terror.  If death were to put an end to the being of men, it would not have such fearfulness in it, as it does when one considers that after death comes a dreadful judgement and then a resurrection to condemnation.

To think that I must be restored to an incorruptible state for the purpose of being prepared to suffer eternal torments and lie in everlasting burning is a most confounding thought.  Is it enough to cause us to seriously enquire how may we escape this doom and be happy at the last day?  The solution is, let us get the power of Christ’s resurrection applied to us, first to raise us up from sin, which is done in this life, and then to raise us up to glory, which will be at the last day.  The second depends upon the first.  Let us make sure, then, that he rose for our justification by being in him by faith, and so we shall be both justified and glorified by him at that day.

APPLICATION 2. Let us labor to get our faith strengthened and established by rightly meditating on the resurrection of Christ. Let this satisfy us, that Christ has made a complete redemption, as the Apostle argues, Heb. 7:25. Justice had him in its hands, it put him to death, but it has released him. A risen Surety must be a sufficient Saviour: there can no longer be any reason to question whether the justice of God is satisfied. Let this encourage us to go to Christ to finish all that is lacking in our being prepared for eternal life. Remember, he is exalted for this very purpose, to complete what he began in his earthly life and death.

APPLICATION 3. Let the consideration of our interest in his resurrection help us to triumph over death and the grave. Christ is risen and gone to heaven: he is our forerunner to take possession in our name and make ready our accommodations.  Let us cheerfully follow him, rejoicing in the hope of a happy rising, and being with him forever.

[Preached June 8, 1697]

Posted in Samuel Willard |

Christ Exalted Above Evil by Jonathan Edwards

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death –1 Corinthians 15:25-26

The apostle in this chapter particularly opposes some among the Christian Corinthians who denied the resurrection of the dead and infested the church with their doctrine.  There were two sorts of persons in that age who were especially great opposers of the doctrine of the resurrection: one among the Jews, and the other among the heathen. Among the Jews there the Sadducees of whom we read in Acts 23:8.  Among the heathen, that were the chief opposers of this doctrine were the philosophers.  The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was not consistent with their philosophy which taught that it was impossible that one who was deprived of life should ever receive it again.  And therefore they ridiculed the doctrine when the apostle preached it among them at Athens.  Probably the church at Corinth received this corruption from the philosophers and not the Sadducees.  For Corinth was near to Athens, the place of the chief resort of the philosophers of Greece.

In opposing this error, the apostle first insists on Christ’s resurrection from the dead and next on the resurrection of all the saints at the end of the world.  And in the verses next before the text he shows how both are connected or how one arises or follows from the other.  And then he adds, “then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power.  For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” — Observe,

1. That Christ will be exalted over all his enemies. This is one aspect of the glory of his exaltation and dominion that Christ as our redeemer has – that it issues in the subjection of all enemies under his feet.  Their being under his feet denotes their being perfectly subdued and his being gloriously exalted over them.  It shall be thus with respect to God’s and his people’s enemies universally, not one excepted.  This universality is signified here two ways, all enemies — and the very lost enemy: when there shall be but one enemy left (death) that shall also be put under his feet.

2. That all kinds of enemies are defeated in his resurrection. We may learn what is here meant by enemies by the particular instance here given as the last that shall be destroyed, viz. death.  This shows that enemies does not mean persons only, but all that set themselves in opposition to God and his people, including all evils, whatever is against God and his people and opposes Christ or his saints, whether they be persons or things.

SECTION 1

How evil of all kinds has prevailed and highly exalted itself in the world.

Evil of all kinds has risen to an exceeding height in the world and highly exalted itself against God, and Christ, and the church. — This will appear by the following particulars.

1. Satan has highly exalted himself and greatly prevailed. He is vastly superior in his natural capacity and abilities to mankind.  He was originally one of the highest rank of creatures; but he proudly exalted himself in rebellion against God in heaven.  We are told that pride was the condemnation of the devil.  He became proud of his own superior dignity and mighty abilities and the glory which his Creator had put upon him and probably thought it too much to submit to the Son of God and attempted to exalt his throne above him.  And he prevailed to draw away vast multitudes of the heavenly hosts into an open rebellion against God.  And after he was cast down from heaven, he proudly exalted himself in this world and prevailed to do great things.  By his subtle temptations he procured the fall of our first parents and so brought about the ruin of their whole race.  He procured their ruin in body and soul and in the death of both; and that they should be exposed to all manner of calamity in this world and to eternal ruin hereafter.  He so far prevailed, that he drew men off from the service of their Maker and set up himself to be the god of this world.  And in a little time, he drew the world into that almost universal corruption which brought on the flood by which the world was destroyed.  And after that, he drew off all nations, except the posterity of Jacob, from the worship of the true God and darkened all the world with heathenism and held them under this darkness for a great many ages.  Being as worshipful as God almost all over the world, the nations of the earth offered sacrifices to him and multitudes even offered up their children.

And during that time, he often so far prevailed against the people of God that he had almost swallowed them up.  The church was often brought to the very brink of ruin.  And when Christ himself appeared in the world, how did he exalt himself against him and prevailed so far as to influence men to hate and despise him all the days of his life.  And at last, he persuaded one of his own disciples to betray him.  Accordingly, he was delivered into the hands of men to be mocked, buffeted, spit upon, and treated with the greatest ignominy that unrestrained malice could devise; and at last procured that he should be put to the most cruel and ignominious kind of death.  And since then, he has greatly exalted himself against the gospel and kingdom of Christ.  He has procured that the church, for the most part, has been the subject of great persecution; has often brought it to the brink of utter destruction; has accomplished great works in setting up those great kingdoms of antichrist and Mohamed and darkened great part of the world that was once enlightened with the gospel of Christ with worse than heathen darkness.  And he has infected the Christian world with multitudes of heresies and false ways of worship and greatly promoted atheism and infidelity.  Thus highly has the devil exalted himself against God and Christ, and the elect; and so far he prevailed.

2. Guilt is another evil which has come to a great height in the world.  All guilt is an evil of a dreadful nature: the least degree of it is enough utterly to undo any creature.  It is a thing that reaches unto heaven and cries to God and brings down his wrath.  The guilt of any one sin is so terrible an evil that it prevails to bind over the guilty person to suffer everlasting burnings.  So is in some respect infinite, in that it obliges us to that punishment which has no end and so is infinitely terrible.  But this kind of evil has risen to a most amazing height in this world where not only some persons are guilty, but all, in all nations and ages.  And they who live to act any time in the world are not only guilty of one sin, but of thousands and thousands of thousands.  What multiplied and what aggravated sins are some men guilty of!  What guilt lies on some particular persons!  How much more on some particular populous cities!  How much more still on this wicked world!  How much does the guilt of the world transcend all account, all expression, all powers of numbers or measures!  And above all, how vast is the guilt of the world in all ages, from the beginning to the end of it!  To what a pitch has guilt risen!  The world being, as it were, on every side, loaded with it, as with mountains heaped on mountains, above the clouds and stars of heaven.

And guilt, when it was imputed to Christ, greatly prevailed against him — though in himself innocent and the eternal Son of God — even so as to hold him prisoner of justice for a while, and to open the flood-gates of God’s wrath upon him.

3. Corruption and wickedness of heart is another thing that has risen to an exceeding height in the world. Sin has so far prevailed that it has become universal: all men are become sinful and corrupt creatures.  Let us attend to St Paul’s description of the worlds “Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.  “As is written, There is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one.”  And not only is every one corrupt, but they are all over corrupt, in every power, faculty, and principle, every part is depraved.  This is here (in Romans 3:10-18) represented by the several parts of the body being corrupt, as the throat, the tongue, the lips, the mouth, the feet: “Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood.”  And not only is every part corrupt, but exceeding corrupt, being possessed with dreadful principles of corruption, horribly evil dispositions and principles of sin, that may be represented by the poison of asps: which makes men like vipers and devils: principles of all uncleanness, pride, deceit, injustice, enmity, malice, blasphemy, murder.  Here their throats are compared to an open sepulcher and their mouth is said to be full of cursing and bitterness and destruction and misery are said to be in their ways.

And there are those principles of sin not only that are very bad, but every kind, here is no sort of wickedness but there is a seed of it in men.  And these seeds and Principles have not only a being in men’s hearts, but they are there in great strength: they have the absolute possession and dominion over men so that they are sold under sin.  Yea, wicked principles, and those only, are in the heart.  The imagination of the thoughts of their heart is evil only.  There are bad principles only, and no good ones.  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”  Thus the hearts of all men are deceitful and desperately wicked.  And if we look, not only at the natural corruption of the heart, but at the contracted habits of sin, by wicked education and customs, how full shall we find the world of wickedness, in this respect!  How have men, by bad customs in sinning, broken down all restraints upon natural corruption and as it were abandoned themselves to wickedness!  So far has corruption and wickedness prevailed in the world, and so high has it risen, that it is become a great and universal deluge that overtops all things and prevails with that strength, that it is like the raging waves of the tempestuous ocean; which are ready to bear down all before them.

4. Many of the devil’s instruments have greatly prevailed and have been exalted to an exceeding height in the in the world.  It has been so in almost all ages of the world.  Many of the devil’s instruments have prospered and prevailed till they have got to the head of great kingdoms and empires, with vast riches and mighty power.  Those four great heathen monarchies that rose in the world before Christ are spoken of in Scripture as kingdoms set up in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.  So they are represented in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.  These monarchies were exceeding powerful.  The two last ruled over the greater part of the then known world.  And the last especially, viz. the Roman Empire, was exceeding mighty: so that it is said to be diverse from all kingdoms, and that it should devour the whole earth, and tread it down, and break it in pieces.  It is represented by the fourth beast which was dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly and had great iron teeth that devoured and broke in pieces and stamped the residue with his feet.  These four kingdoms all persecuted the church of God in their turns, especially the last.  One of the governors of this monarchy put Christ to death.  And afterwards one emperor after another made dreadful havoc of the church making a business of it with the force of all the empire to torment and destroy the Christians, endeavoring, if possible, to root out the Christian name from under heaven.

And in these latter ages, how those two great instruments of the devil, viz. antichrist and Mahomet have prevailed and to what a pitch of advancement have they arrived; ruling over vast empires, with mighty wealth, pride and power: so that the earth has been, as it were, subdued by them.  Antichrist has set up himself as the vicar of Christ and has for many ages usurped the power of God, “sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself that he is God; and exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.”  And how dreadfully has he ravaged the church of God, being drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus.  And has often, as it were, deluged the world in Christian blood, shed with the utmost cruelty that human wit and malice could invent. — And at this day, many other instruments of the devil, many heretics, atheists, and other infidels, are exerting themselves against Christ and his church with great pride and contempt.

5. Affliction and misery have also prevailed and risen to an unspeakable height in the world. The spiritual misery which the elect are naturally in is great.  They are miserable captives of sin and Satan and under obligations to suffer eternal burnings.  This misery all mankind are naturally in.  And spiritual troubles and sorrows have often risen to a great height in the elect.  The troubles of a wounded spirit and guilty conscience have been felt with intolerable end insupportable weight.  And the darkness that has risen to God’s people after conversion, through the temptations and buffetings of the devil and the hidings of God’s face and manifestations of his anger, has been very terrible.   And temporal afflictions have often risen exceeding high.  The church of God has, for the most part, all along, been a seat of great affliction and tribulation.

But the height to which the evil of affliction has risen nowhere appears so much as in the afflictions that Christ suffered.  The evil of affliction and sorrow exalted itself so high as to seize the Son of God himself and to cause him to be all in a bloody sweat and to make his soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.  It caused him to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”  Affliction never prevailed to such a degree in this world, as in Christ, whose soul was, as it were, overwhelmed in an ocean of it.

6. Death is an evil which has greatly prevailed and made dreadful havoc in this world. How does it waste and devour mankind, one age after another, sparing none, high or low, rich or poor, good or bad!  Wild beasts have destroyed many; many cruel princes have taken away the lives of thousands and laid waste whole countries: but death devours all.  None are suffered to escape.  And the bodies of the saints, as well as others, fall prey to this great devourer.  Yea, so high did this enemy rise that he took hold on Christ himself and swallowed him among the rest.  He became the prey of this great, insatiable monster.  By this means, his bodily frame was destroyed and laid dead in the dark and silent grave.  And death still goes on destroying thousands every day.  And therefore the grave is one of those things which Agur says, never has enough. — So have evils of every kind prevailed and to such a degree have they exalted themselves in the world.

SECTION 2

How Jesus Christ, in the work of redemption, appears gloriously above all these evil.

It was not the will of the infinitely wise and holy Governor of the world that things should remain in this confusion.  But he had a design for subduing it and delivering an elect part of the world from it and exalting them to the possession of the greatest good to reign in the highest glory, out of a state of subjection to all these evils.  And he chose his Son as the person most fit for an undertaking that was infinitely too great for any mere creature: and he has undertaken the work of our redemption.

And though these evils are so many and so great and have prevailed to such a degree and risen to such a height and have been, as it were, all combined together; yet wherein they have exalted themselves, Christ, in the work of redemption, appears above them.  He hath gloriously prevailed against them all and brings them under his feet and rides forth in the chariots of salvation over their heads or leading them in triumph at his chariot wheels.  He appears in this work infinitely higher and mightier than they and sufficient to carry his people above them and utterly to destroy them all.

1. Christ appears gloriously above all evil in what he did to procure redemption for us in his state of humiliation, by the righteousness he wrought out and the atonement he made for sin.  The evils mentioned never seemed so much to prevail against him as in his sufferings: but in them, the foundation was laid for their overthrow.  In them, he appeared above Satan.  Though Satan never exalted himself so high as he did in procuring these sufferings of Christ; yet, then, Christ laid the foundation for the utter overthrow of his kingdom.  He slew Satan, as it were, with his own weapon, the spiritual David cut off this Goliath’s head with his own sword; and he triumphed over him in his cross.  “Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”  There the wisdom of Christ appeared gloriously above the subtlety of Satan.

Satan, that old serpent, used a great deal of subtlety to procure Christ’s death, and doubtless, when he had accomplished it, thought he had obtained a complete victory, being then ignorant of the contrivance of our redemption.  But the wisdom of Christ did so order things that Satan’s subtlety and malice should be made the very means of undermining the foundations of his kingdom.  And so he wisely led him into the pit that he had digged.

In this also, Christ appeared gloriously above the guilt of men.  For he offered a sacrifice, that was sufficient to do away all the guilt of the whole world.  Though the guilt of man was like the great mountains, whose heads are lifted up to the heavens, yet his dying love and his merits, appeared as a mighty deluge that overflowed the highest mountains, or like a boundless ocean that swallows them up; or like an immense fountain of light, that with the fullness and redundancy of its brightness swallows up men’s greatest sins, as little motes are swallowed up and hidden in the disk of the sun.

In this, Christ appeared above all the corruption of man because he purchased holiness for the chief of sinners.  And in undergoing such extreme afflicting, Christ got the victory over all misery and laid a foundation for its being utterly abolished with respect to his elect.  In dying, he became the plague and destruction of death.  When death slew him, it slew itself: for Christ, through death, destroyed him that had the power of death, even the devil.  By this, he laid the foundation of the glorious resurrection of all his people to an immortal life.

2. Christ appears gloriously exalted above all evil in his resurrection and ascension into heaven. When Christ rose from the dead, then it appeared that he was above death, which, though it had taken him captive, could not hold him.  Then he appeared above the devil.  Then this Leviathan that had swallowed him was forced to vomit him up again; as the Philistines that had taken captive the ark were forced to return it, Dagon being fallen before it, with his head and hands broken off, and only the stumps left. — Then he appeared above our guilt: for he was justified in his resurrection.  In his resurrection, he appeared above all affliction.  For though he had been subject to much affliction and overwhelmed in it, he then emerged out of it as having gotten the victory, never to conflict with any more sorrow.   When he ascended up into heaven, he rose far above the reach of the devil and all his instruments, who had before had him in their hands.  And now he has sat down at the right hand of God as being made head over all things to the church, in order to a complete and perfect victory over sin, Satan, death, and all his enemies.  It was then said to him, “Sit thou on my right hand, until I make shine enemies thy footstool.”  He entered into a state of glory wherein he is exalted far above all these evils, as the forerunner of his people; and to make intercession for them, till they also are brought to be with him, in like manner exalted above all evil.

3. Christ appears gloriously above all evil in his work in the hearts of the elect in their conversion and sanctification. This is what the application of redemption consists of in this world.  In this work of Christ in the hearts of his elect, he appears glorious above Satan.  For the strong man armed is overcome, and all his armor wherein he trusted is taken from him, and his spoil divided.  In this work, the lamb is, by the spiritual David, taken out of the mouth of the lion and bear: the poor captive is delivered from his mighty and cruel enemies.

In this, Christ appears gloriously above the corruption and wickedness of the heart, above its natural darkness in dispelling it, and letting in light, and above its enmity and opposition, by prevailing over it, drawing it powerfully and irresistibly to himself, and turning a heart of stone into a heart of flesh: above the obstinacy and perverseness of the will, by making them willing in the day of his power.  In this, he appears above all their lusts.  For all sin is put to death in this work and the soul is delivered from the power and dominion of it. — In this work, the grace of Christ gloriously triumphs over men’s guilt.  He comes over the mountains of their sins and visits them with his salvation.

And God often desires in this work, either in the beginning or progress of it, to give his people those spiritual comforts, in which he gloriously appears to be above all affliction and sorrow: and often gives them to triumph over the devil and his powerful and cruel instruments.  Many saints, by the influences of Christ’s Spirit on their hearts, have rejoiced and triumphed when suffering the greatest torments and cruelties of their persecutors.  And in this work Christ sometimes gloriously appears above death in carrying his people far above the fears of it and making them to say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory,”

4. Christ gloriously appears above all these aforementioned evils in his glorifying the souls of departed saints in heaven. In this, he gives a glorious victory over death.  Death by it is turned from an enemy into a servant; and their death, by the glorious change that passes in the state of their souls, is become a resurrection, rather than a death.  Now Christ exalts the soul to a state of glory where it is perfectly delivered from Satan and all his temptation’s and all his instruments; and from all remains of sin and corruption and from all affliction: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat — and

God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

5. Christ appears gloriously above these evils in what he does in his providence in the world as head and redeemer of his church.  If he appears gloriously above Satan and all his instruments in upholding his church, even from its first establishment, through all the powerful attempts that have been made against it by earth and hell: hereby fulfilling his promise, “That the gates of hell should never prevail against it.”   Christ gloriously triumphed over these his enemies in a remarkable success of his gospel soon after his ascension when many thousands in Jerusalem and all parts of the world were so soon turned from darkness unto light and from the power of Satan unto God: and in causing his word to go on and prosper and his church to increase and prevail against all the opposition of the heathen world when they united all their power to put a stop to it and root it out.  So that, in spite of all that the philosophers and wise men, and emperors and princes could do, the gospel in a little time overthrew Satan’s old heathenish kingdom in the whole Roman Empire which was then the main part of the world; and so brought about the greatest and most glorious revolution.  Instead of one single nation, now the greater part of the nations of the known world were become God’s people.  And Christ’s exaltation above all evil in his government of the world, in his providence, as the Redeemer of his people, has since gloriously appeared in reviving his church by the reformation from popery, after it had for many ages lain in a great measure hid and dwelt in a wilderness under anti-Christian persecution.

And he will yet far more gloriously triumph over Satan and all his Instruments in all the mighty kingdoms that have been set up in opposition to the kingdom of Christ, at the time of the fall of antichrist and the beginning of those glorious times.  “And then the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15.  Though great and mighty empires have been set up one after another in the world, in opposition to the kingdom of Christ, during the succession of so many ages, yet, Christ’s kingdom shall be the last and the universal kingdom, which he has given him, as the heir of the world.

Whatever great works Satan has wrought, the final issue and event of all in the winding up of things in the last ages of the world shall be the glorious kingdom of Christ through the world; a kingdom of righteousness and holiness, of love and peace, established everywhere.  This is in agreement with the ancient prediction, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man, came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.  And there was given him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is a everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).  “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Daniel 7:27).

Then shall Christ appear gloriously exalted indeed above all evil: and then shall all the saints in earth and heaven gloriously triumph in him, and sing, “Hallelujah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. Hallelujah: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Rev. 19:2, 6.

6. Christ will appear gloriously above all evil in the consummation of the redemption of his elect church at the end of the world. Then the whole work of redemption will be completed with respect to all that Christ died for, both in its application, and not till then.  And then Christ’s exaltation above all evil will be most perfectly and fully manifest.  Then shall the conquest and triumph be completed with respect to all of them.  Then shall all the devils and all their instruments be brought before Christ to be judged and condemned.  And then their destruction shall be completed in their consummate and everlasting misery; when they shall be all cast into the lake of fire, no more to roam and usurp dominion in the world nor have liberty to make opposition against God and Christ.  They shall forever be shut up, thenceforward only to suffer.  Then shall death be totally destroyed.  All the saints shall be delivered everlastingly from it.  Even their bodies shall be taken from the power of death by a glorious resurrection.

Then shall all guilt and all sin and corruption, and all affliction, all sighs and tears, be utterly and eternally abolished, concerning every one of the elect since they will all be brought to their consummate and immutable glory.  And all this as the fruit of Christ’s blood and as an accomplishment of his redemption.

Then all that evil which has so prevailed and so exalted itself and usurped and raged and reigned, shall be perfectly and forever thrust down and destroyed, with respect to all the elect, and all will be exalted to a state where they will be forever immensely above all these things.  “And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

SECTION 3

The subject improved and applied.

1. In this, we may see how the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ appears in the work of redemption.  It was because the Father had from eternity a design of exceedingly glorifying his Son that he appointed him to be the person that should thus triumph over the evil in the world.  The work of redemption is the most glorious of all God’s works that are made known to us.  The glory of God most remarkably shines forth in it.  And this is one thing whereby its glory eminently appears, that Christ appears so gloriously above Satan and all his instruments, above all guilt, all corruption, all affliction, above death, at above all evil.  And more especially, because evil hath so exalted itself in the world, as we have heard, and exalted itself against Christ in particular.

Satan has ever had a peculiar enmity against the Son of God.  Probably his first rebellion, which was his condemnation, was his proudly taking it in disdain when God declared the decree in heaven that his Son in man’s nature should be the King of heaven; and that all the angels should worship him.  However that was, yet it is certain that his strife has ever been especially against the Son of God.  The enmity has always been between the seed of the woman and the serpent.  And therefore that war which the devil maintains against God is represented by the devil and his angels fighting against Michael and his angels.  God had appointed his Son to be the heir of the world, but the devil has contested this matter with him and has strove to set himself up as God of the world.  And how exceedingly has the devil exalted himself against Christ!  How did he oppose him as he dwelt among the Jews in his tabernacle and temple!  And how did he oppose him when on earth!  And how has he opposed him since his ascension!  What great and mighty works has Satan brought to pass in the world!  How many Babels has he built up to heaven in his opposition to the Son of God!  How exceeding proud and haughty has he appeared in his opposition!  How have he and his instruments, and sin, affliction, and death, of which he is the father, raged against Christ?  But yet Christ, in the work of redemption, appears infinitely above them all.  In this work, he triumphs over them, however they have dealt proudly; and they all appear under his feet.  In this the glory of the Son of God in the work of redemption remarkably appears.

The beauty of good appears with the greatest advantage when compared with its contrary evil.  And the glory of that which is excellent, then especially shows itself, when it triumphs over in contrary and appears vastly above it in its greatest height.  The glory of Christ, in this glorious exaltation over so great evil, which so exalted itself against him, appears more remarkably in that he is exalted out of so low a state.  Though he appeared in the world as a little child; yet how does he triumph over the most gigantic enemies of God and men!  He who was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” is a man of war who triumphed over his enemies in all their power.  He who was meek and lowly of heart has triumphed over those proud foes.  And he is exalted over them all in that which appears most despicable even his cross.

2. Here is matter of exceeding great encouragement for all sinful creatures in the world of mankind to come to Christ.  For let them be as sinful as they will and ever so miserable, Christ, in the work of redemption, is gloriously exalted above all their sin and misery.  How ever high their guilt has risen, though mountains have been heaping on mountains all the days of their lives, till the pile appears towering up to heaven and even above the stars; yet Christ in the work of redemption appears gloriously exalted above all this height. — Though they are overwhelmed in a mighty deluge of woe and misery; a deluge that is not only above their heads, but above the heads of the highest mountains; and they do not see how it is possible that they should escape; yet they have no reason to be discouraged from looking to Christ for help, who in the work of redemption, appears gloriously above the deluge of evil.  Though they see dreadful corruption in their hearts; though their lusts appear like giants or like the raging waves of the sea; yet they need not despair help; but may look to Christ, who appears in the work of redemption, gloriously above all this corruption.

If they apprehend themselves to be miser the captives of Satan and find him too strong an adversary for esteem; and the devil is often tempting and buffeting them and triumphing over them with great cruelty.  If it seems to them that the devil has swallowed them up, and has got full possession of them, as the whale had of Jonah; yet there is encouragement for them to look again, as Jonah did, towards God’s holy temple, and to trust in Christ for deliverance from Satan, who appears so gloriously exalted above him in the work of redemption.

If they are ready to sink with darkness and sorrows, distress of conscience, or those frowns of God upon them; so that God’s waves and billows seem to pass over them; yet they have encouragement enough to look to Christ for deliverance.  These waves and billows have before exalted themselves against Christ; and he appeared to be infinitely above them. — And if they are afraid of death; if it looks exceeding, terrible, as an enemy that would swallow them up, yet let them look to Christ who has appeared so gloriously above death; and their fears will turn into joy and triumph.

3. What a glorious cause have those who have an interest in Christ to glory in their Redeemer! They are often beset with many evils and many mighty enemies surround them on every side with open mouths ready to devour them, but they need not fear any of them.  They may glory in Christ, the rock of their salvation, who appears so gloriously above them all.  They may triumph over Satan, over this evil world, over guilt, and over death.  For as their redeemer is mighty and is so exalted above all evil, so shall they also be exalted in him.  They are now, in a sense, so exalted, for nothing can hurt them.  Christ carries them, as on eaglets’ wings, high out of the reach of all evils, so that they cannot come near them to do them any real harm.  And, in a little time, they shall be so out of their reach that they shall not be able even to molest them any more forever.

Posted in Jonathan Edwards |

I Know That My Redeemer Liveth by C. H. Spurgeon

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though any reins be consumed within me.” — Job 19:25-27

The hand of God has been upon us heavily this week.  An aged deacon, who has been for more than fifty years a member of this Church, has been removed from our midst; and a sister, the beloved wife of another of our Church-officers, a member for nearly the same term of years, has fallen asleep.  It is not often that a Church is called to sorrow over the departure of two such venerable members — let not our ears be deaf to such a double admonition to prepare to meet our God.  That they were preserved so long and upheld so mercifully for so many years was not only a reason of gratitude to them, but to us also.  I am, however, so averse to the preaching of what are called funeral sermons that I forbear, lest I appear to eulogize the creature when my only aim should be to magnify the grace of God.

Our text deserves our profound attention.  Its preface would hardly have been written had not the matter been of the utmost importance in the judgment of the patriarch who uttered it.  Listen to Job’s remarkable desire: “Oh that my words were now written!  Oh that they were printed in a book!  That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!”  Perhaps, hardly aware of the full meaning of the words he was uttering, yet his holy soul was impressed with a sense of some weighty revelation concealed within his words; he therefore desired that it might be recorded in a book.  He has had his desire: the Book of books embalms the words of Job.  He wished to have them graven on a rock, cut deep into it with an iron pen and then the lines inlaid with lead; or he would have them engraved, according to the custom of the ancients, upon a sheet of metal, so that time might not be able to eat out the inscription.  He has not had his desire in that respect, save only that upon many and many a sepulcher those words of Job stand recorded, “I know that my redeemer liveth.”

It is the opinion of some commentators that Job, in speaking of the rock here, intended his own rock-hewn sepulcher and desired that this might be his epitaph; that it might be cut deep, so that ages should not wear it out; that when any asked, “Where does Job sleep?” as soon as they saw the sepulcher of the patriarch of Uz they might learn that he died in hope of resurrection, resting upon a living Redeemer.  Whether such a sentence adorned the portals of Job’s last sleeping-place we know not.  But certainly no words could have been more fitly chosen.  Should not the man of patience, the mirror of endurance, the pattern of trust, bear as his memorial this golden line which is as full of all the patience of hope, and hope of patience, as mortal language can be?  Who among us could select a more glorious motto for his last escutcheon?  I am sorry to say that a few of those who have written upon this passage cannot see Christ or the resurrection in it at all.  If it had been Job’s desire to foretell the advent of Christ and his own sure resurrection, I cannot see what better words he could have used.  And if those truths are not here taught, then language must have lost its original object and must have been employed to mystify and not to explain, to conceal and not to reveal.  What, I ask, does the patriarch mean, if not that he shall rise again when the Redeemer stands upon the earth?

Brethren, no unsophisticated mind can fail to find here what almost all believers have here discovered.  I feel safe in keeping to the old sense and we shall this morning seek no new interpretation, but adhere to the common one, with or without the consent of our critics.

In discoursing upon them, I shall speak upon three things. First, let us, with the patriarch, descend into the grave and behold the ravages of death.  Then, with him, let us look up on high for present consolation.  And, still in his admirable company, let us, in the third place, anticipate future delights.

I. First, LET US DESCEND INTO THE SEPULCHLER.

The body has just been divorced from the soul.  Friends who loved most tenderly have said — “Bury my dead out of my sight.”  The body is borne upon the bier and consigned to the silent earth; it is surrounded by the earthworks of death.  Death has a host of troops.  If the locusts and the caterpillars be God’s army, the worms are the army of death.  These hungry warriors begin to attack the city of man.  They commence with the outworks; they storm the munitions and overturn the walls.  The skin, the city wall of manhood, is utterly broken down and the towers of its glory covered with confusion.  How speedily the cruel invaders deface all beauty.

Regard it as a necessity; nay more, view it as the platform of a miracle, the lofty stage of resurrection, since Jesus shall surely raise again from the dead the particles of this body, however divided from one another.  We have heard of miracles, but what a miracle is the resurrection!  All the miracles of Scripture, yea even those wrought by Christ, are small compared with this.  The philosopher says, “How is it possible that God shall hunt out every particle of the human frame?”  He can do it: he has but to speak the word, and every single atom, though it may have traveled thousands of leagues, though it may have been blown as dust across the desert, and anon have fallen upon the bosom of the sea, and then have descended into the depths thereof to be cast up on a desolate shore, sucked up by plants, fed on again by beasts, or passed into the fabric of another man — I say that individual atom shall find its fellows and the whole company of particles at the trump of the archangel shall travel to their appointed place, and the body, the very body which was laid in the ground, shall rise again.

I am afraid I have been somewhat uninteresting while tarrying upon the exposition of the words of Job, but I think very much of the pith of Job’s faith lay in this: that he had a clear view that the worms would after his skin destroy his body and yet that in his flesh he should see God.  You know we might regard it as a small miracle if we could preserve the bodies of the departed.  If, by some process with spices and gums, we could preserve the particles for the Lord to make those dry bones live and to quicken that skin and flesh were a miracle certainly, but certainly not so great a marvel as when the worms have destroyed the body.

When the fabric has been absolutely broken up, the tenement all pulled down, ground to pieces, and flung in handfuls to the wind, so that no relic of it is left, and yet when Christ stands in the latter days upon the earth, all the structure shall be brought together, bone to his bone — then shall the might of Omnipotence be seen.  This is the doctrine of the resurrection and happy is he who finds no difficulty here, who looks at it as being an impossibility with man but a possibility with God, and lays hold upon the omnipotence of the Most High and says, “Thou sayest it, and it shall be done!”  I comprehend thee not, great God; I marvel at thy purpose to raise my moldering bones, but I know that thou doest great wonders!  And I am not surprised that thou shouldst conclude the great drama of thy creating works here on earth by re-creating the human frame by the same power by which thou didst bring from the dead the body of thy Son Jesus Christ and by that same divine energy which has regenerated human souls in thine own image.

II. LET US LOOK UP WITH THE PATRIARCH AND BEHOLD A SUN SHINING WITH PRESENT COMFORT.

“I know,” said he, “that my Redeemer liveth.”  The word “Redeemer” here used is, in the original, “goel” — kinsman.  The duty of the goel was this: suppose an Israelite had alienated his estate, as in the case of Naomi and Ruth; suppose a patrimony which had belonged to a family had passed away through poverty, it was the goel’s business, the redeemer’s business to pay the price as the next of kin and to buy back the heritage.  Boaz stood in that relation to Ruth.

Now, the body may be looked upon as the heritage of the soul — the soul’s small farm, that little plot of earth in which the soul has been wont to walk and delight, as a man walketh in his garden or dwelleth in his house.  Now, that becomes alienated.  Death, like Ahab, takes away the vineyard from us who are as Naboth.  We lose our patrimonial estate; Death sends his troops to take our vineyard and to spoil the vines thereof and ruin it.  But we turn round to Death and say, “I know that my Goel liveth and he will redeem this heritage.  I have lost it; thou takest it from me lawfully, O Death, because my sin hath forfeited my right.  I have lost my heritage through my own offense and through that of my first parent Adam, but there lives one who will buy this back.”  Brethren, Job could say this of Christ long before he had descended upon earth, “I know that he liveth.”  And now that he has ascended up on high and led captivity captive, surely we may with double emphasis say, “I know that my Goel, my Kinsman, liveth and that he hath paid the price, that I should have back my patrimony, so that in my flesh I shall see God.”  Yes, my hands, ye are redeemed with blood, bought not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.  Yes, heaving lungs and palpitating heart, ye have been redeemed!  He that redeemed the soul to be his altar has also redeemed the body that it may be a temple for the Holy Ghost.  Not even the bones of Joseph can remain in the house of bondage.  No smell of the fire of death may pass upon the garments which his holy children have worn in the furnace.

Remember, too, that it was always considered to be the duty of the goel, not merely to redeem by price, but where that failed, to redeem by power.  Hence, when Lot was carried away captive by the four kings, Abraham summoned his own hired servants and the servants of all his friends and went out against the kings of the East and brought back Lot and the captives of Sodom.  Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, who once has played the kinsman’s part by paying the price for us, liveth, and he will redeem us by power.  O Death, thou tremblest at this name!  Thou knowest the might of our Kinsman!  Against his arm thou canst not stand!  Thou didst once meet him foot to foot in stern battle, and, O Death, thou didst indeed tread upon his heel.  He voluntarily submitted to this, or else, O Death, thou hadst no power against him.  But he slew thee, Death, he slew thee!  He rifled all thy caskets, took from thee the key of thy castle, burst open the door of thy dungeon.  And now thou knowest, Death, thou hast no power to hold my body; thou mayst set thy slaves to devour it, but thou shalt give it up and all their spoil must be restored.  Insatiable Death, from thy greedy mouth yet shall return the multitudes whom thou hast devoured.  Thou shalt be compelled by the Savior to restore thy captives to the light of day.  I think I see Jesus coming with his Father’s servants.  The chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels.  Blow ye the trumpet!  Blow ye the trumpet!  Immanuel rides to battle!  The Most Mighty in majesty girds on his sword.  He comes!  He comes to snatch by power his people’s lands from those who have invaded their portion.  Oh, how glorious the victory!  No battle shall there be.  He comes, he sees, he conquers.  The sound of the trumpet shall be enough: Death shall fly affrighted and at once from beds of dust and silent clay to realms of everlasting day the righteous shall arise.

To linger here a moment, there was yet, very conspicuously in the Old Testament, we are informed, a third duty of the goel, which was to avenge the death of his friend.  If a person had been slain, the Goel was the avenger of blood.  Snatching up his sword, he at once pursued the person who had been guilty of bloodshed.  So now, let us picture ourselves as being smitten by Death.  His arrow has just pierced us to the heart, but in the act of expiring, our lips are able to boast of vengeance and in the face of the monster we cry, “I know that my Goel liveth.”   Thou mayst fly, O Death, as rapidly as thou wilt, but no city of refuge can hide thee from him.  He will overtake thee; he will lay hold upon thee, O thou skeleton monarch and he will avenge my blood on thee.  I would that I had powers of eloquence to work out this magnificent thought.  Both Chrysostom or Christmas Evans could picture the flight of the King of Terrors, the pursuit by the Redeemer, the overtaking of the foe, and the slaying of the destroyer.  Christ shall certainly avenge himself on Death for all the injury which Death hath done to his beloved kinsmen.  Comfort thyself then, O Christian; thou hast ever living, even when thou diest, one who avenges thee, one who has paid the price for thee, and one whose strong arms shall yet set thee free.

Passing on in our text to notice the next word, it seems that Job found consolation not only in the fact that he had a Goel, a Redeemer, but that this Redeemer liveth.  He does not say, “I know that my Goel shall live,” but that “he lives,” — having a clear view of the self-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.  And you and I looking back do not say, “I know that he did live,” but “he lives today.”  This very day you that mourn and sorrow for venerated friends, you may go to Christ with confidence, because he not only lives, but he is the source of life.  And you therefore believe that he can give forth out of himself life to those whom you have committed to the tomb.  He is the Lord and giver of life originally and he shall be specially declared to be the resurrection and the life when the legions of his redeemed shall be glorified with him.  If I saw no fountain from which life could stream to the dead, I would yet believe the promise when God said that the dead shall live; but when I see the fountain provided, and know that it is full to the brim and that it runneth over, I can rejoice without trembling.  Since there is one who can say, “I am the resurrection and the life,” it is a blessed thing to see the means already before us in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Let us look up to our Goel then who liveth at this very time.

Still the marrow of Job’s comfort, it seems to me, lay in that little word “My.” “I know that MY Redeemer liveth.”  Oh, to get hold of Christ!  I know that in his offices he is precious.  But, dear friends, we must get a property in him before we can really enjoy him.  What is honey in the wood to me, if like the fainting Israelites, I dare not eat?  It is honey in my hand, honey on my lip, which enlightens mine eyes like those of Jonathan.  What is gold in the mine to me?  Men are beggars in Peru and beg their bread in California.  It is gold in my purse which will satisfy my necessities, purchasing the bread I need.  So, what is a kinsman if he be not a kinsman to me?  A Redeemer that does not redeem me, an avenger who will never stand up for my blood, of what avail were such?  But Job’s faith was strong and firm in the conviction that the Redeemer was his.  Dear friends, can all of you say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”?  The question is simple and simply put, but oh, what solemn things hang upon your answer, “Is it MY Redeemer?”  I charge you rest not, be not content until by faith you can say, “Yes, I cast myself upon him; I am his, and therefore he is mine.”

I know that full many of you, while you look upon all else that you have as not being yours, yet can say, “My Redeemer is mine.”  He is the only piece of property which is really ours.  We borrow all else: the house, the children, nay, our very body we must return to the Great Lender.  But Jesus we can never leave, for even when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord.  And I know that even death cannot separate us from him, so that body and soul are with Jesus truly even in the dark hours of death, in the long night of the sepulcher, and in the separate state of spiritual existence.  Beloved, have you Christ?  It may be you hold him with a feeble hand, you half think it is presumption to say, “He is my Redeemer;” yet remember, if you have but faith as a grain of mustard seed, that little faith entitles you to say, and say now, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

There is another word in this consoling sentence which no doubt served to give a zest to the comfort of Job.  It was that he could say, “I KNOW” — “I KNOW that my Redeemer liveth.”  To say, “I hope so, I trust so,” is comfortable; and there are thousands in the fold of Jesus who hardly ever get much further.  But to reach the marrow of consolation you must say, “I KNOW.”  Ifs, buts, and “perhapses” are sure murderers of peace and comfort.  Doubts are dreary things in times of sorrow.  Like wasps they sting the soul!  If I have any suspicion that Christ is not mine, then there is vinegar mingled with the gall of death.  But if I know that Jesus is mine, then darkness is not dark; even the night is light about me.  Out of the lion cometh honey; out of the eater cometh forth sweetness.  “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”  This is a brightly-burning lamp cheering the damps of the sepulchral vault, but a feeble hope is like a flickering, smoking flax just making darkness visible, but nothing more.  I would not like to die with a mere hope mingled with suspicion.  I might be safe with this, but hardly happy.  But oh, to go down into the river knowing that all is well, confident that as a guilty, weak and helpless worm, I have fallen into the arms of Jesus, believing that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him.  I would have you, dear Christian friends, never look upon the full assurance of faith as a thing impossible to you.

Assurance is a jewel for worth but not for rarity.  It is the common privilege of all the saints if they have but the grace to attain unto it, and this grace the Holy Spirit gives freely.  Surely if Job in Arabia, in those dark, misty ages when there was only the morning star and not the sun, when they saw but little, when life and immortality had not been brought to light — if Job before the coming and advent still could say, “I know,” you and I should not speak less positively.  God forbid that our positiveness should be presumption.  Let us try ourselves and see that our marks and evidences are right, lest we form an ungrounded hope; for nothing can be more destructive than to say, “Peace, peace, where there is no peace.”  But oh, let us build for eternity and build solidly.  Let us not be satisfied with the mere foundation for it is from the upper rooms that we get the widest prospect.  Let us pray the Lord to help us to pile stone on stone until we are able to say as we look at it, “Yes, I know, I KNOW that my Redeemer liveth.”  This, then, provides present comfort today in the prospect of departure.

III. And now, in the third and last place, as THE ANTICIPATION OF FUTURE DELIGHT, let me call to your remembrance the other part of the text.

Job not only knew that the Redeemer lived, but he anticipated the time when he should stand in the latter day upon the earth.  No doubt Job referred here to our Savior’s first advent, to the time when Jesus Christ, “the goel,” the kinsman, should stand upon the earth to pay in the blood of his veins the ransom price, which had, indeed, in bond and stipulation been paid before the foundation of the world in promise.  But I cannot think that Job’s vision stayed there; he was looking forward to the second advent of Christ as being the period of the resurrection.  We cannot endorse the theory that Job arose from the dead when our Lord died, although certain Jewish believers held this idea very firmly at one time.  We are persuaded that “the latter day” refers to the advent of glory rather than to that of shame.  Our hope is that the Lord shall come to reign in glory where he once died in agony.  The bright and hallowed doctrine of the second advent has been greatly revived in our churches in these latter days and I look for the best results in consequence.  There is always a danger lest it be perverted and turned by fanatical minds, by prophetic speculations, into an abuse; but the doctrine in itself is one of the most consoling and, at the same time, one of the most practical, tending to keep the Christian awake, because the bridegroom cometh at such an hour as we think not.  Beloved, we believe that the same Jesus who ascended from Olivet shall so come in like manner as he ascended up into heaven.  We believe in his personal advent and reign.  We believe and expect that when both wise and foolish virgins shall slumber in the night when sleep is heavy upon the saints; when men shall be eating and drinking as in the days of Noah, that suddenly as the lightning flasheth from heaven, so Christ shall descend with a shout and the dead in Christ shall rise and reign with him.  We are looking forward to the literal, personal, and actual standing of Christ upon earth as the time when creation’s groans shall be silenced forever and the earnest expectation of the creature shall be fulfilled.

Mark, that Job describes Christ as standing.  Some interpreters have read the passage, “he shall stand in the latter days against the earth;” that as the earth has covered up the slain, as the earth has become the charnel-house of the dead, Jesus shall arise to the contest and say, “Earth, I am against thee; give up thy dead!  Ye clods of the valley cease to be custodians of my people’s bodies!  Silent deeps, and you, ye caverns of the earth, deliver, once for all, those whom ye have imprisoned!”  Macphelah shall give up its precious treasure, cemeteries and graveyards shall release their captives and all the deep places of the earth shall resign the bodies of the faithful.

Well, whether that be so or not, the posture of Christ, in standing upon the earth, is significant.  It shows his triumph.  He has triumphed over sin which once like a serpent in its coils had bound the earth.  He has defeated Satan.  On the very spot where Satan gained his power Christ has gained the victory.  Earth, which was a scene of defeated goodness, whence mercy once was all but driven, where virtue died, where everything heavenly and pure, like flowers blasted by pestilential winds, hung down their heads, withered and blighted — on this very earth everything that is glorious shall blow and blossom in perfection; and Christ himself, once despised and rejected of men, fairest of all the sons of men, shall come in the midst of a crowd of courtiers, while kings and princes shall do him homage and all the nations shall call him blessed.  “He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth.”

Then, at that auspicious hour, says Job, “In my flesh, I shall see God.” Oh, blessed anticipation — “I shall see God.”  He does not say, “I shall see the saints” — doubtless we shall see them all in heaven — but, “I shall see God.”  Note he does not say, “I shall see the pearly gates, I shall see the walls of jasper, I shall see the crowns of gold and the harps of harmony,” but “I shall see God;” as if that were the sum and substance of heaven.  “In my flesh shall I see God.”  The pure in heart shall see God.  It was their delight to see Him in the ordinances by faith.  They delighted to behold him in communion and in prayer.  There in heaven they shall have a vision of another sort.  We shall see God in heaven, and be made completely like him; the divine character shall be stamped upon us and being made like to him we shall be perfectly satisfied and content.  Likeness to God, what can we wish for more?  And a sight of God, what can we desire better?  We shall see God and so there shall be perfect contentment to the soul and a satisfaction of all the faculties.

Some read the passage, “Yet, I shall see God in my flesh,” and hence think that there is here an allusion to Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the word made flesh.  Well, be it so, or be it not so, it is certain that we shall see Christ, and He, as the divine Redeemer, shall be the subject of our eternal vision.  Nor shall we ever want any joy beyond simply that of seeing him.  Think not, dear friend, that this will be a narrow sphere for your mind to dwell in.  It is but one source of delight, “I shall see God,” but that source is infinite.  His wisdom, his love, his power, all his attributes shall be subjects for your eternal contemplation and, as he is infinite under each aspect, there is no fear of exhaustion.  His works, his purposes, his gifts, his love to you, and his glory in all his purposes and in all his deeds of love — why, these shall make a theme that never can be exhausted.  You may with divine delight anticipate the time when in your flesh you shall see God.

But I must have you observe how Job has expressly made us note that it is in the same body.  “Yet, in my flesh shall I see God;” and then he says again, “Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eye shall behold and not another.”  Yes, it is true that I, the very man standing here, though I must go down to die, yet I shall as the same man most certainly arise and shall behold my God.  Not just part of myself, though the soul alone shall have some view of God, but the whole of myself; my flesh, my soul, my body, my spirit shall gaze on God.  We shall not enter heaven, dear friends, as a dismasted vessel is tugged into harbor.  We shall not get to glory some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship, but the whole ship shall be floated safely into the haven, body and soul both being safe.  Christ shall be able to say, “All that the father giveth to me shall come to me” – not only all the persons, but all of the person — each man in his perfection.  There shall not be found in heaven one imperfect saint.  There shall not be a saint without an eye, much less a saint without a body.  No member of the body shall have perished;,nor shall the body have lost any of its natural beauty.  All the saints shall be all there, and all of all; the same persons precisely, only that they shall have risen from a state of grace to a state of glory.  They shall be ripened; they shall be no more the green blades, but the full corn in the ear; no more buds but flowers; not babes but men.

Please notice, and then I shall conclude, how the patriarch puts it as being a real, personal enjoyment. “Whom mine eye shall behold, and not another.”  They shall not bring me a report as they did the Queen of Sheba, but I shall see Solomon the King for myself.  I shall be able to say, as they did who spoke to the woman of Samaria, “Now I believe, not because of thy word who did bring me a report, but I have seen him for myself.”  There shall be personal intercourse with God; not through the Book, which is but as a glass; not through the ordinances; but directly, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be able to commune with the Deity as a man talketh with his friend.  “Not another.”  If I could be a changeling and could be altered, that would mar my comfort.  Or if my heaven must be enjoyed by proxy, if draughts of bliss must be drunk for me, where were the hope?  Oh, no – for myself, and not through another – shall I see God.

Have we not told you a hundred times that nothing but personal religion will do and is not this another argument for it, because resurrection and glory are personal things?  “Not another.” If you could have sponsors to repent for you, then, depend upon it, you would have sponsors to be glorified for you.  But as there is not another to see God for you, so you must yourself see and yourself find an interest in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In closing, let me observe how foolish have you and I been when we have looked forward to death with shudders, with doubts, with loathings.  After all, what is it?  Worms!  Do ye tremble at those base crawling things?  Scattered particles!  Shall we be alarmed at these?  To meet the worms we have the angels; and to gather the scattered particles we have the voice of God.  I am sure the gloom of death is altogether gone now that the lamp of resurrection burns.  Disrobing is nothing now that better garments await us.  We may long for evening to undress that we may rise with God.  I am sure my venerable friends now present, in coming so near as they do now to the time of the departure, must have some visions of the glory on the other side the stream.  Bunyan was not wrong, my dear brethren, when he put the land Beulah at the close of the pilgrimage.  Is not my text a telescope which will enable you to see across the Jordan?  May it be as hands of angels to bring you bundles of myrrh and frankincense!  You can say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

You cannot want more; you were not satisfied with less in your youth, you will not be content with less now.  Those of us who are young are comforted by the thought that we may soon depart.  I say comforted, not alarmed by it; and we almost envy those whose race is nearly run, because we fear — and yet we must not speak thus, for the Lord’s will be done — I was about to say, we fear that our battle may last long and that mayhap our feet may slip; only he that keepeth Israel does not slumber nor sleep.  So since we know that our Redeemer liveth, this shall be our comfort in life, that though we fall we shall not be utterly cast down.  And since our Redeemer liveth, this shall be our comfort in death, that though worms destroy this body, yet in our flesh we shall see God.

May the Lord add his blessing on the feeble words of this morning and to him be glory forever.  Amen.

“Grave, the guardian of our dust!

Grave, the treasury of the skies!

Every atom of thy trust

Rests in hope again to rise.

Hark! the judgment trumpet calls;

Soul, rebuild thy house of clay,

Immortality thy walls,

And Eternity thy day.”

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon |

The Influence of His Resurrection by John Flavel

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

He is not here; for he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord lay — Matthew 28:6

At this time (the Lord being newly risen) the keepers were trembling and became as dead men.  So great was the terrible majesty and awful solemnity attending Christ’s resurrection.  But, to encourage these good souls, the angel presents them with these good tidings; “He is not here; for he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord lay:” i.e., Be not troubled, though you have not the end you came for – one sight more of your dear though dead Jesus; yet you have not lost your labor.  For to your eternal comfort, I tell you, “he is risen, as he said.”  And to put it out of doubt, come hither and satisfy yourselves, “See the place where the Lord lay.”

In these words, we have both a declaration and confirmation of the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

First—Here is a declaration of it by the angels, both negatively and affirmatively.

Negatively, He is not here.  Here, indeed you laid him, here you left him, and here you thought to find him as you left him; but you are happily mistaken—He is not here.  However, this giving them no satisfaction because he might continue to be dead still, though moved to another place, as indeed they suspected he was (John 20:13), therefore his resurrection is declared positively and affirmatively: He is risen.  The word egerte suggests the active power or self-quickening principle by which Christ raised himself from the state of the dead.  Luke takes notice of this also (Acts 1:3) when he says, “He showed, or presented,” himself alive after his passion.  It was the divine nature, or Godhead of Christ, which revived and raised the manhood.

Secondly—Here is also a plain confirmation of Christ’s resurrection. First, from Christ’s own prediction, He is risen, “as he said.”  He foretold that which I declare to be now fulfilled.  Let it not therefore seem incredible to you.  Secondly, by their own sight, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”  The grave has lost its guest; it is now empty; death has lost its prey.  It received, but could not retain him, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”  Thus the resurrection of Christ is declared and confirmed.  Hence our observation is,

DOCTRINE —that our Lord Jesus Christ, by the almighty power of his own godhead, revived and rose from the dead to the terror and consternation of his enemies and the unspeakable consolation of believers.

That our Lord Jesus Christ was not lost in the grave, but the third day revived and rose again is a truth confirmed to us by many infallible proofs, as Luke witnesseth, Acts 1:3.  We have testimonies of it, both from heaven and earth, and both infallible.  From heaven, we have the testimony of angels and to the testimony of an angel all credit is due; for angels are holy creatures and cannot deceive us.  The angel tells the two Marys, in the text, “He is risen.”  We have testimonies of it from men, holy men, who were eye-witnesses of this truth, to whom he showed himself alive by the space of forty days after his resurrection, by no less than nine solemn apparitions to them.  Sometimes five hundred brethren saw him at once, 1 Corinthians 15:6.  These were holy persons who would not deceive and who confirmed their testimony with their blood.  No point of religion is of more confessed truth and infallible certainty than this before us.

And blessed be God it is so.  For if it were not, then were the “gospel in vain,” 1 Corinthians 15:14.  Seeing it hangs the whole weight of our faith, hope, and salvation upon Christ as risen from the dead.  If this were not so, then could the holy and divinely inspired apostles be found false witnesses, 1 Corinthians 15:15.  For they all, with one mouth, constantly and to the death affirmed it.  If Christ be not risen, then are believers yet in their sins, 1 Corinthians 15:17.  For our justification is truly ascribed to the resurrection of Christ, Romans 4:25.  Whilst Christ was dying and continued in the state of the dead, the price of our redemption was all that while still being paid.  The payment was completed when he revived and rose again.  Therefore for Christ to have continued always in the state of the dead, [the payment] would have never been to completely satisfied; hence the whole force and weight of our justifications depends upon his resurrection.  Nay, had not Christ risen, “the dead had perished,” 1 Corinthians 15:18.   Even the dead who died in the faith of Christ and of whose salvation there now remains no ground to doubt.

Moreover, had he not revived and risen from the dead, how could all the types that prefigured it have been satisfied?  Surely they must have stood as insignificant things in the scriptures; and so must all the predictions of his resurrection, by which it was so plainly foretold.  See Matthew 12:40; Luke 24:46; Psalm 16:10; 1 Corinthians 15:4.

To conclude.  Had he not risen from the dead, how could he have been installed in that glory whereof he is now possessed in heaven which was promised him before the world was upon the account of his death and sufferings?  “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living,” Romans 14:9.   And that, in this state of dominion and glorious advancement, he might powerfully apply the virtues and benefits of his blood to us.

So then, there remains no doubt at all of the certainty of Christ’s resurrection; it was so, and upon all accounts it must needs be so; for you see how great a weight the scriptures hang upon this nail.  And blessed be God, it is a nail fastened in a sure place.  I need spend no more words to confirm it, but rather choose to explain and open the nature and manner of his resurrection, which I shall do by showing you five properties of it.  And the first is this,

First, Christ rose from the dead with awful majesty.  So you find it in Matthew 28:2-4, “And behold there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.  His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.  And for fear of him the keepers did shake and became as dead men.”

Human infirmity was not able to bear such heavenly majesty as attended the business of that morning.  Nature sank under it.  This earthquake was a sign of triumph, or token of victory, given by Christ, not only to the keepers and the neighboring city, but to the whole world, that he had overcome death in its own dominions and, like a conqueror, lifted up his head above all his enemies.

Secondly, his resurrection was attended with the resurrection of many of the saints; who had slept in their graves till then and then were awakened and raised to attend the Lord at his rising.  So you read, Matthew 27:52-53, “And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints, which slept, arose, and came out of the graves, after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many.”  This wonder was designed both to adorn the resurrection of Christ and to give a specimen or pledge of our resurrection.  This indeed was the resurrection of saints and none but saints, the resurrection of many saints, yet it was but a special resurrection, intended only to show what God will one day do for all his saints.  And for the present, to give testimony of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  They were seen and known of many in the city, who doubtless never thought to have seen them any more in this world.  To enquire curiously, as some do, who they were, what discourse they had with those to whom they appeared, and what became of them afterwards, is a vain thing.  God has cast a veil of silence and secrecy upon these things that we might content ourselves with the written word, and they that “will not believe Moses and the prophets, neither will he believe though one rise from the dead,” as these saints did.

Thirdly, it was by the power of his own Godhead that he quickened and raised himself and by the virtue of his resurrection were they raised also, who accompanied him.  It was not the angel who rolled back the stone that revived him in the sepulcher, but he resumed his own life; so he tells us, John 10:18, “I lay down my life that I may take it again.”  Hence 1 Peter 3:18. He is said to be put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, i.e. by the power of his Godhead, or divine nature, which is opposed there to flesh or his human nature.  By the eternal Spirit, he offered himself up to God when he died, Hebrews 9:14, i.e. by his own Godhead, not the third person in the Trinity, for then it could not have been ascribed to him as his own act, that he offered up himself.  And by the same Spirit he was quickened again.  And, therefore, the apostle well observes, Romans 1:4, “That he was declared to be the Son of God with power, by his resurrection from the dead.”

Now if he had been raised by the power of the Father or Spirit only, and not by his own, how could he be declared by his resurrection to be the Son of God?  What more had appeared in him than in others?  For others are raised by the power of God, if that were all.  So that in this respect also it was a marvelous resurrection.  Never any did or shall rise as Christ rose by a self-quickening principle.  For though many dead saints rose at that time also, yet it was by the virtue of Christ’s resurrection that their graves were opened and their bodies quickened.  In which respect he saith in John 11:25 when he raised dead Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life,” i.e. the principle of life and quickening, by which the dead saints are raised.

Fourthly, Christ is the first-born from the dead. And therefore it may be truly affirmed, that though some dead saints are raised to life before the resurrection of Christ, yet that Christ is “the first-born from the dead,” as he is called, Colossians 1:18.   For though Lazarus and others were raised, yet not by themselves, but by Christ.  It was by his virtue and power, not their own.  And though they were raised to life, yet they died again.  Death recovered them again, but Christ dies no more.  “Death has no dominion over him.”  He was the first that opened the womb of the earth, the first-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.

Fifthly, but lastly, Christ rose as a public or common person.  “As the first fruits of them that slept,” 1 Corinthians 15:20.  I desire this may be well understood, for upon this account it is that our resurrection is secured to us by the resurrection of Christ; and not a resurrection only, but a blessed and happy one, for the first-fruits both assured and sanctified the whole crop or harvest.

Now that Christ did rise, as a public person, representing and comprehending all the elect, who were called the children of the resurrection, is plain from Ephesians 2:6 where we are said to be risen with, or in him.  So that, as we are said to die in Adam, (who also was a common person) as the branches die in the death of the root: so we are said to be raised from death in Christ, who is the head, root, and representative of all his elect seed.  And why is he called the firstborn and first begotten from the dead, except with respect to the whole number of the elect that are to be born from the dead in their time and order also and as sure as the whole harvest follows the first fruits.  So shall the general resurrection of the saints to life eternal follow this birth of the first-born from the dead.

Now there is a three-fold causality, or influence that Christ’s resurrection has upon the saints’ resurrection, of which it is at once the meritorious, efficient, and exemplary cause.

First, The resurrection of Christ is a meritorious cause of the saints’ resurrection, as it completed his satisfaction and finished his payment, and so our justification is properly assigned to it, as before was noted from Romans 4:25.  Thus his resurrection was the receiving of the acquittance or the canceling of the debt.  And had not this been done, we had still been in our sins, as he speaks, 1 Corinthians 15:7, and so our guilt had been still a bar to our happy resurrection.  But now, the price paid for us in his death was discharged to us in his resurrection.  Now nothing lies in bar against our resurrection to eternal life.

Secondly, It is also the efficient cause of our resurrection.  For when the time shall come that the saints shall rise out of the dust, they shall be raised by Christ, as their head, in whom the effective principle of their life is: “Your life is hid with Christ in God,” as it is Colossians 3:3.  Which is also the sense of that scripture, Romans 8:10-11, “And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” i.e. Though you are really united to Christ by the Spirit, yet your bodies must die as well as other men’s; but your souls shall be presently, upon your dissolution, swallowed up in life.  And then it follows, verse 11, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you,” i.e. though your bodies must die, yet they shall live again in the resurrection; and that by virtue of the Spirit of Christ which dwelleth in you, and is the bond of your mystical union with him your head.  You shall not be raised as others are, by a mere word of power, but by the Spirit of life dwelling in Christ your head, which is a choice prerogative indeed.

Thirdly, Christ’s resurrection is also the exemplary cause or pattern of our resurrection.  “He being the first and best, is therefore the pattern and measure of all the rest.”  So you read, Philippians 3:21, “Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.”  Now the conformity of our resurrection to Christ’s stands in the following particulars.  Christ’s body was raised substantially the same; so will ours.  His body was raised first; so will ours be raised before the rest of the dead.  His body was wonderfully improved by the resurrection; so will ours.  His body was raised to be glorified; and so will ours.

First, Christ’s body was raised substantially the same that it was before, and so will ours.  Not another, but the same body.  Upon this very reason the apostle uses that identical expression, 1 Corinthians 15:53, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal, immortality.”  Pointing, as it were, to his own body when he spoke it; the same body, I say, and that not only specifically the same, (for indeed no other species of flesh is so privileged) but the same numerically, that very body, not a new or another body in its stead.  So that it shall be both the what it was and the who it was.  And indeed to deny this is to deny the resurrection itself.  For should God prepare another body to be raised instead of this, it would not be a resurrection, but a creation.  That cannot be called a resurrection, where one thing falls and another rises, as Gregory long since pertinently observed.

Secondly, His body was raised, not by a word of power from the Father, but by his own Spirit; so will ours. Indeed the power of God shall go forth to unburrough [unbury] sinners and fetch them forcibly out of their graves; but the resurrection of the saints is to be effected another way, even by his Spirit which now dwelleth in them.  That very Spirit of Christ which effected their spiritual resurrection from sin shall effect their corporal resurrection also from the grave.

Thirdly, Christ’s body was marvelously improved by the resurrection and so will ours.  It fell in weakness, but was raised in power: no more capable of sorrows, pains and dishonors.  In like manner, our bodies are “sown in weakness, but raised in strength, sown in dishonor, raised in glory.  Sown natural bodies, raised spiritual bodies,” as the apostle speaks, 1 Corinthians 15:43-44.  Spiritual bodies, not properly, but analogically.

No distemper hangs about glorified bodies, nor are they henceforth subject to any of those natural necessities to which they are now tied.  There are no flaws, defects, or deformities in the children of the resurrection.  What members are now defective or deformed will then be restored to their perfect being and beauty. Thus shall they be improved by their resurrection.

Fourthly, Christ’s body was raised from the dead to be glorified and crowned with honor. Oh it was a joyful day to him; and so will the resurrection of the saints be to them, the day of the gladness of their hearts.  It will be said to them in that morning, “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust,” as Isaiah 26:19.  O how comfortable will be the meeting betwixt the glorified soul, and its new raised body.  Much more comfortable than that of Jacob’s and Joseph’s, after twenty years absence, Genesis 46:29.  Or that of David’s with Jonathan when he came out of the cave to him, 1 Samuel 20:41.  Or that of the father of the prodigal with his son who “was dead, and is alive, was lost, and is found,” Luke 15.

And there are three things will make it so.

First, The gratifications of the soul by the satisfaction of its natural appetite of union with its own body.  For even glorified souls in heaven have such a desire of reunion.  Indeed, the angels, who are pure spirits, as they never had union with, so they have no inclination to matter; but souls are otherwise tempered and disposed.  We are all sensible of its affection to the body now, in its compounded state, we feel the tender care it has for the body, the sympathy with it, and lothness to be separated from it.

It is said, 2 Corinthians 5:6, “to be at home in the body.”  And had not God implanted such an inclination to this its tabernacle in it, it would not have paid that due respect it owes the body while it inhabited in it, nor have regarded what became of it when it left it.  This inclination remains still with it in heaven; it reckons not itself completely happy till its old dear companion and partner be with it, and in that sense some understand those words, Job 14:14, “All the days of my appointed time,” i.e. of the time appointed for my body to remain in the grave, will I wait till my change (viz. that which will be made by the resurrection) come; for it is manifest enough he speaks there of the resurrection.  Now, when this its inclination to its own body, its longings and hankerings after it are gratified with a sight and enjoyment of it again, oh what a comfortable meeting will this make it!

Second, The excellent temper and state in which they shall meet each other.  For, as the body shall be raised with all the improvements and endowments imaginable, which may render it amiable and every way desirable, so the soul comes down immediately from God out of heaven, shining in its holiness and glory.  It comes perfumed out of those ivory palaces with a strong scent of heaven upon it.  And thus it re-enters its body and animates it again.

Third, The chief joy of this meeting consists in the meeting of the Lord which is the end for which the glorified soul and body are necessary, and so ever to be with the Lord.  To receive a full reward for all the labors and services it performed to God in this world.  This must needs make that day a day of triumph and exaltation.  It comes out of the grave, as Joseph out of his prison, to be advanced to the highest honor.  O do but imagine what an ecstasy of joy and ravishing pleasure it will be, for a soul thus to resume its own body, and say as it were, unto it, come away, my dear, my ancient friend, who served and suffered with me in the world; come along with me to meet the Lord, in whose presence I have been ever since I parted with thee.   Now thy bountiful Lord has remembered thee also and the day of thy glorification is come.  Surely it will be a joyful awaking.  For, do but imagine, what a joy it is for dear friends to meet after long separation, how they give demonstrations of their love and delight in each other by embraces, kisses, tears, etc.  Or frame but to yourselves a notion of perfect health, when a sprightly vivacity runs through every part, and the spirits do, as it were, dance before us, when we go about any business as especially to such a business as the business of that day will be, to receive a crown and a kingdom.  Do but imagine then what a sunshine morning this will be and how the pains and agonies, cold sweats and bitter groans at parting will be recompensed by the joy of such a meeting!

And thus I have showed you the certainty of Christ’s resurrection, the nature and properties of it, the threefold influence it has on the saints’ resurrection and the conformity of ours unto his.  From the consideration of all which,

Inference 1. — We infer, that if Christ was thus raised from the dead, then death is fairly overcome and swallowed up in victory.  If it were not so, it would never have let Christ escape out of the grave.  The prey of the terrible would never have been thus rescued out of its paws.  Death is a dreadful enemy; it defies all the sons and daughters of Adam.  None can cope with this king of terrors but Christ, and he, by dying, went into the very den of this dragon, fought with it, and foiled it in the grave, its own territories and dominions, and came off a conqueror.  For, as the apostle speaks, Acts 2:24, “It was impossible it should hold or detain him.”  Never did death meet with its over match before it met with Christ, and he conquering it for us, and in our names, rising as our representative, now every single saint triumphs over it as a vanquished enemy, 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?  Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Thus, like Joshua, they set the foot of faith upon the neck of that king, and, with a holy scorn, deride its power.  “O death, where is thy sting?”  If it be objected that it is said, 1 Corinthians 15:26, “The last enemy that is to be destroyed is death.”  And if so, then it should seem the victory is not yet achieved, and so we do but boast before the victory.  It is at hand to reply that the victory over death, obtained by Christ’s resurrection, is twofold, either personal and incomplete, or general and complete.  He actually overcame it at his resurrection, in his own person, perfectly and virtually for us, as our head; but at the general resurrection of the saints (which his resurrection, as the first-fruits, assures them of) then it will be utterly vanquished and destroyed.  Till then, it will exercise some little power over the bodies of the saints, for this reason, it is called the last enemy.  For sin, the chief enemy that let it in, that was conquered utterly and eradicated when they died; but death holds their bodies in the grave till the coming of Christ, and then it is utterly to be vanquished.  For after that they can die no more, 1 Corinthians 15:54, “And then shall be brought to pass that saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”  Then, and not till then, will that conquest be fully completed in our persons, though it be already so in Christ’s; now incompletely in ours, and then completely and fully forever.

For the same word which signifies victory does also signify perpetuity and in this place a final or perpetual conquest.  And, indeed, now it smites only with its dart, not with its sting, and that but the believer’s body only, and the body but for a time remains under it neither.  So that there is no reason why a believer should stand in a slavish fear of it.

Inference 2. — Has Christ and has his resurrection such a potent and comfortable influence into the resurrection of the saints? Then it is the duty and will be the wisdom of the people of God to so govern, dispose and employ their bodies, as becomes men and women that understand what glory is prepared for them at the resurrection of the just.  Particularly,

First, Be not fondly tender of them, but employ and use them for God here. How many good duties are lost and spoiled by sinful indulgence to our bodies?  Alas! we are generally more solicitous to live long than to live usefully.  How many saints have active, vigorous bodies, yet God has little service from them?  If your bodies were animated by some other souls that love God more than you do and burned with holy zeal to his service, more work would be done for God by your bodies in a day than is now done in a month.  To have an able, healthy body, and not use it for God, for fear of hurting it is as if one should give you a strong and stately horse, upon condition you must not work or ride him.  Wherein is the mercy of having a body, except it be employed for God?  Will not its reward at the resurrection be sufficient for all the pains you now put it to in his service?

Second, See that you preserve the due honor of your bodies. “Possess them in sanctification and honor,” 1 Thessalonians 4:4.  O, let not these eyes be now defiled with sin, by which you shall see God.  Those ears which shall hear the Hallelujahs of the blessed be inlets to vanity.  God hath designed honor for your bodies.  O, make them not either the instruments or objects of sin.  There are sins against the body, 1 Corinthians 6:18.  Preserve your bodies from those defilements, for they are the temple of God: “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy,” 1 Corinthians 3:17.

Third, Let not the contentment and accommodation of your bodies draw your soul into snares, and bring them under the power of temptations to sin. This is a very common case.  O how many thousands of precious souls perish eternally for the satisfaction of a vile body for a moment?  Their souls must, because their bodies cannot suffer.  It is recorded to the immortal honor of these worthies, in Hebrews 11:35, “That they accepted not deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.”  They might have had a temporal resurrection from death to life, from reproach to honor, from poverty to riches, from pains to pleasure; but upon such terms they judged it not worth acceptance.  They would not expose their souls to secure their bodies.  They had the same natural affections that other men have.  They were made of as tender flesh as we are, but such was the care they had of their souls and the hope of a better resurrection, that they listened not to the complaints and whinings of their bodies.  O, that we were all in the same resolutions with them.

Fourth, Withhold not, upon the pretense of the wants your own bodies may be in, that which God and conscience bid you to share for the refreshment of the saints whose present necessities require your assistance. O, be not too indulgent to your own flesh and cruel to others.  Certainly, the consideration of that reward which shall be given you at the resurrection for every act of Christian charity is the greatest spur and incentive in the world to it.  And to that end, it is urged as a motive to charity, Luke 14:13-14, “When thou makes a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the justly.”  It was the opinion of an eminent moderns divines, that no man living, fully understands and believes that scripture, Matthew 25:40, “In as much as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”  How few saints would be exposed to daily wants and necessities if that scripture were but fully understood and believed!

Inference 3. — Is Christ risen from the dead and that as a public person and representative of believers?  How are we all concerned then to secure to ourselves an interest in Christ and consequently in this blessed resurrection?  What consolation would be left in this world if the hope of the resurrection were taken away?  It is this blessed hope that must support you under all the troubles of life and in the agonies of death.  The securing of a blessed resurrection to yourselves is therefore the deepest concern you have in this world.  And it may be secured to yourselves if, upon serious heart-examination, you can discover the following evidences.

EVIDENCE 1.  First, if you are regenerated creatures, brought forth in a new nature to God, for we are “begotten again to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  Christ’s resurrection is the ground work of our hope.  And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it.  So that until our souls are partakers of the spiritual resurrection from the death of sin, we can have no assurance our bodies shall be partakers of that blessed resurrection to life.  “Blessed and holy (saith the Spirit), is he that has part in the first resurrection, on such the second death has no power,” Revelation 20:6.

Never let unregenerate souls expect a comfortable meeting with their bodies again.  Rise they shall by God’s terrible citation, at the sound of the last trump, but not to the same end that the saints arise nor by the same principle.  They to whom the spirit is now a principle of sanctification, to them he will be the principle of a joyful resurrection.  See then that you get gracious souls now or never expect glorious bodies then.

EVIDENCE 2. “If you be dead with Christ, you shall live again by the life of Christ.  If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection,” Romans 6:5.   “Sumfutoi” means “planted together.”  Some refer it to believers themselves; Jews and Gentiles are planted together in Christ.  So Erasmus notes, “Believers grow together like branches upon the same root,” which should powerfully enforce the great gospel duty of unity among themselves.

But I would rather understand it with reference to Christ and believers, with whom believers are in other scriptures said to suffer together and be glorified together; to die together and live together; to be crucified together and buried together; all noting the communion they have with Christ, both in his death and in his life.  Now, if the power of Christ’s death, i.e. the mortifying influence of it, has been upon our hearts, killing their lusts, deadening their affections, and flattening their appetites to the creature, then the power of his life, or resurrection shall come (like the animating dew) upon our dead, withered bodies, to revive and raise them up to live with him in glory.

EVIDENCE 3. If your hearts and affections be now with Christ in heaven, your bodies in due time shall be there also, and conformed to his glorious body.  So you find it, Philippians 3:20-21, “For our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body.”  “The body is here called vile, or the body of our vileness.”  Not as God made it, but as sin has marred it.  Not absolutely, and in itself, but relatively, and in comparison of what it will be in its second edition, at the resurrection.  Then those scattered bones and dispersed dust, like pieces of old broken, battered silver, will be new-cast and wrought in the best and newest fashion, even like to Christ’s glorious body.  Whereof we have this evidence, that our conversation is already heavenly.  The temper, frame, and disposition of our souls is already so; therefore the frame and temper of our bodies in due time shall be so.

EVIDENCE 4. If you strive now by any means to attain the resurrection of the dead, no doubt but you shall then attain what you now strive for.  This was Paul’s great ambition, “that by any means he might attain the resurrection of the dead,” Philippians 3:11.  He means not simply a resurrection from the dead, for that all men shall attain, whether they strive for it or not.  But he intends that complete holiness and perfection which shall attend the state of the resurrection, so it is expounded, verse 12.  So then, if God has raised in your hearts a vehement desire and assiduous endeavor after a perfect freedom from sin and full conformity to God, in the beauties of holiness: that very love of holiness, your present partings, and tendencies after perfection, show you to be a person designed for it.

EVIDENCE 5. If you are such as do good in your generation.  If you be fruitful and useful men and women in the world, you shall have part in this blessed resurrection, John 5:28-29, “All that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life.”  Now it is not every act materially good that entitles a man to this privilege; but the same requisites that the schoolmen assign to make a good prayer are also necessary to every good work.  The person, matter, manner and end must be good.  Nor is it any single good act, but a series and course of holy actions that are here meant.  What a spur should this be to us all, as (indeed the apostle makes it, closing up the doctrine of the resurrection, with this solemn exhortation, 1 Corinthians 15:58, with which I also close mine) “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” THANKS BE TO GOD FOR HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT.

The complete title of this message by Flavel is, “Wherein the Resurrection of Christ, With Its Influences upon the Saints Resurrection, Is Clearly Opened, and Comfortably Applied, Being the First Step of His Exaltation.”

Posted in John Flavel |

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