Millennial Dawn 115 rection is denied, is utterly perverted in the face of the testi- mony of the Four Gospels, of all the Epistles, and of the Revelation, and of the glorified Son of God Himself. If Christ be not risen from the dead, then Christianity is wiped out as a supernatural system, and Christians are of all men the most pitiable, the most fearfully deceived. The heresiarchs of the early centuries, Cerinthus, Marcion, Valentinus were not more daring nor more destructive in their wild vagaries than is the author of these books. The lie invented by the chief priests and elders that His disciples stole His body away during the night while the soldiers slept is less shocking than the baseless and wicked speculation that it was dissolved into gas! To the devout, believing mind, nothing scarcely could be more blasphemous or dreadful than this slander. A thousand years before He appeared in human form the Spirit of God promised Him that His flesh should rest in hope, that it should not see corruption. (Psa. 16:9, 10; Acts 2:26-28.) We know from the record how careful, how anxious we may almost say, Divine Providence was that His body after His death should be protected; hence the Roman guard, the new tomb wherein man never had lain, the official seal, the watch of angels, God’s mighty guard, all combined to protect and safeguard the sacred remains until the resurrection. Then the disciples, Mary of Magdala, James the Lord’s brother (Gal. 1:19), Peter, John, all saw Him alive in His own veritable body-; talked with Him, walked with Him, even ate with Him. “Dissolved into gas” ! Shocking, most shocking! We learn from the narrative of the Gospels that the risen Saviour appeared to the disciples five times on that memorable first day of the week, that some six times besides He was seen by them; and how often besides during the forty days elapsing between His resurrection and His ascension we are not told. But we know full well that He gave His disciples proof on proof of the reality of His resurrection, that the very body in which He suffered and died on the cross was
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker