King's Business - 1945-04

TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I NE S S

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single fact In history, and it is significant because it authenticates every other thing that Jesus did or said. What Jesus said about the hereafter must be so, since He who said it rose from the dead by the power of God, who thus acknowledges His person and His message. Jesus claimed to be the unique Son of God, one with the Father, but that claim is subject to controversy unless the fact of the resurrection be taken into account. We may say then that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what Paul said it was, the hallmark of authenticity for every­ thing that Jesus said and did. Paul put it in this way: “If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins,” and, “of all men most miserable.” The whole point of the Gospel is authenticated by the resurrection. Paul gives us much light on the kind of body with which Jesus rose. It was a glorious body such as we shall attain at our own resurrection, but it was a body, never­ theless, and it was a body transformed from the clay of the material body into whatever glorious Substance God uses for our celestial bodies. It was a body with hands •and feet—a body that ate, and drank. It wâs a body which still carried the scars of the nails and the spear. 'However, it was a body not shut out by doors, and not limited by the law of gravity. The Significance to the-; Non-Christian What then is the significance of the resurrection of Jesus? Is it that all shall rise, that all shall be furnished with glorious bodies, and that all shall partake of the merits of the glory of that Easter morn? To the non- Christian it means nothing of the kind. The resurrection at the last day, when the unjust shall stand before the great white throne of God, is no promise of glory, but of wrath. When at the final assize, guilty souls stand before God, one of the chief counts against them may be not the fact that they could not intellectually believe in the resurrection of our Lord, but that they had not even taken the trouble to investigate to see whether or not they might believe it. The fact of the resurrection of Jesus is not only glorious, but it is desperate. It is either true or not true. If true, its significance is limitless; if not Hue, mankind is back on the same basis of the old pagan speculation, and modern speculation, without hope and without God. If the record of the Gospels and Epistles is a fabrication, it is the most colossal and ingenious lie ever invented by the mind of man. If it is true, and if the fact of the resurrection is true, every other mirac­ ulous fact mentioned in Scripture is, at least by im­ plication, true. The resurrection is the outstanding proof that God really loves men, and that we live in a universe not only friendly, but eager and anxious that .its Creator be understood and loved. The Significance to the Christian To the Christian, how great is the significance of the resurrection of Jesus? Some say He has established the resurrection by analogy: because Jesus rose, there­ fore the dead rise, and hence the individual will rise. But we have the promise of Jesus, who never broke His Word, and would have no reason for doing so, that He has gone to prepare a place for us, “that where I am, there ye may be also.” It is not a resurrection determined by analogy, but a resurrection by the power !of Him to whom all power is committed. To the Christian who has placed in the hands of the Lord Jesus his future, his heart, and his.-soul, the resurrection is one glorious fact which will help him to endure disappointment, tribula­ tion, and persécution. He will be able to say with Paul, "For I am persuaded, that neither death,- nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

RESURRECTION ASSURANCES ( Continued from Page 148)

Life and Immortality for Us The Apostle Paul deals with this subject in detail in 1 Corinthians 15. Therein the Holy Ghost declares that Christ’s resurrection certifies and assures the resurrec­ tion of every human body in the world. He was the firstfruits; and we, at His coming, are the subsequent fruit; then, a thousand years later, all the wicked dead will be raised (1 Cor. 15:23-24; Rev. 20:4-5). I speak reverently when I say that God would not, and the devil cannot, keep my body and yours from being raised up again. When the Bridegroom comes, and at the call of His voice, the dead in Christ, and I, with them, shall rise. There is no power to prevent Christ from bringing that body back, a glorified body. Likewise, my body may combine with the elements, but at the resurrection It shall be raised, immortal, and the Spirit will again enter it. In glorified bodies, we who are Christ’s will live with Him for evermore. This is the hope we have through the resurrection of the Son of God. Peter alludes to this hope in 1 Peter 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively Hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Have you this resurrection hope? Colonel Robert Ingersoll, the most brilliant of all modem agnostics, went up and down the country pro­ claiming: “Christianity casts a shadow over the cradle and a gloom over the grave.” When he himself came to die, his poor distracted wife and daughter could not bear to have that loved form taken away from the home to be buried or cremated; for they had no hope of seeing him again. Hope, for them, ended with death. Here is a different story: When D. L. Moody died (that is to say, when his body died, and his spirit departed to be with Christ), the scene was a triumphant one. The services were held at Northfield in the pres­ ence of a large crowd. The casket lay open between the platform and the assembled people. Right in front sat Mrs. Moody, and then came the sons, and only daughter. Suddenly, the sun against the window made a shadow of .a cross directly over the great evangelist’s body. Mrs. Moody told Dr. C. Í. Scofield: “This is my husband’s coronation day'.” They sang at her request Mr. Moody’s favorite hymn: “There’ll Be No Dark Valley When Jesus Comes.” In the light of the striking contrast between the funeral of the greatest agnostic of the age, and the funeral of the greatest evangelist of the century, let me ask: Is it Christianity, or is it unbelief that casts a gloom over the grave? Faith in Christ—the One who will raise us from the dead—floods even the grave with sunlight. Those who die trusting in the atoning work of Christ the Saviour are at once “Absent from the body . . . present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). We lay the bodies of our believing loved ones away for the night to sleep, but we shall meet these dear ones again in the morning, clad in new and unfaded glory, and in eternal beauty. As we part let us say, “Good-bye, we shall see you on the resurrection mom.” So, beloved, be of good comfort. By the resurrection, the Scriptures are guaranteed to you; Jesus Christ the Son of God, mighty to save, is guaranteed to you; the redemption wrought at Calvary is guaranteed to you; immortality for the body is guaranteed to you—all by this great fact: CHRIST IS RISEN!

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