enemies. It must be understood by the simplest, that the men who wanted Him to die in the first place had infinitely more reason for wanting Him to stay dead than to be alive. It is one thing to kill a man who might be a prophet; it is exceedingly embarrassing to have the dead man come to life, and dispel forever all suspicion as to his sanctity or his relationship to God. The Sadducees and Caiaphas had many good reasons for wanting Jesus to stay dead. The first was based upon their theory about the life beyond. Dead men did not live again; there was no hereafter according to the Sad- ducean teaching. The second was personal. They had been included in Jesus’ fierce and accurate denunciation of the whole leadership of the Jewish people. Jesus had also quite completely made a fool of all those who had attempted to trip Him by the clever devices that would have worked on an ordinary man. There was the hu miliation of a personal defeat that made Caiaphas de sirous of keeping dead the Man whom he had killed. Thirdly, if the resurrection of Jesus were true, they stood convicted, not only of the murder of a prophet, but of the Son of God, since the resurrection authenticated what Jesus proclaimed Himself to be. No theft of a body, no hallucination on the part of Jesus’ disciples, no wandering of a sick and dying Jesus into any Judean household could have over-ridden the vengeance and malice of the high priest. If the body was available anywhere, he would have seen to it that it was restored to its original resting place, and again put un der guard. Those who deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus must clearly account for the failure of the enemies of Jesus to produce that body when the early Church be gan to preach His bodily resurrection. The Meaning of the Resurrection There are certain factors of Christian doctrine which by their very nature cannot be proven as facts in them selves, but must be accepted on the authority of other facts. The birth of Christ by its very nature cannot be proved. No man can prove his own paternity; it depends entirely upon the honesty of his mother, and perhaps circumstances that might prevent a paternity other than the one claimed. The significant fact of the resurrection is this: first, that it is a fact. We accept it on authority of the inspired Word of God. It has better attestation than any other 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 APRIL, 1962
what Paul said it was, the hallmark of authenticity for everything 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 misearble.” The whole point of the Gospel is authenticated by the resur rection. 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 Je sus is not only glorious, but it is vital. It is either true or not true. If true, its significance is limitless; if not true, mankind is back on the same basis of the old pagan speculation, and modem speculation, without hope and without God. If the record of the Gospels and Epis tles 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 implica tion, 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, therefore 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 persecution. He will be able to say with Paul, “ For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pres ent, 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.” 11
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