ical resurrection, the Holy Spirit leads John at verse 22 to make an inspired comment on this passage. We read, “When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.” In the second instance, our Lord tangles again with the scribes and Pharisees over the question of resurrection. In John 10 we read His discourse on the Good Shepherd. “ I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” He has pointed out how the hireling comes to lead the sheep away that he might kill them. But He reassures His disciples that He is not a hireling but the true Shepherd. He says, “ I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knows me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” Now we come to the statement which shocked the Jews beyond their sanity. “ Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that / may take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. 1 have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He has a devil, and is mad; why do you hear him? Others said, These are not the words of him that has a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?” (John 10:14-21). There is.no room here for allegorizing or explaining away the text. Our Lord here speaks of physical dying and physical rising. Three considerations of this text would show us defi nitely that the physical, bodily resurrection is demanded. First of all, the context: what He lays down He will pick up, and logic forbids us to change the terms in midstream. If He lays down a physical body, He must pick up a physical body. If He lays down a spiritual life, then He only can pick up a spiritual life. But there is no question whatsoever that He laid down His body. In fact, this is what He came to do For the second consideration turns our minds to the Book of Hebrews where, upon leaving Heaven for earth, the Lord Jesus announces this very fact. “When Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifice and offering you did not want; but a body have you prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy .will, O God” (Heb. 10:5-7). It was the prepared body He laid aside. It was the prepared body He took up again. For it was the prepared body of the living God that was the eternal sacrifice for our sins. And He did this because the Father had commanded it, and having done it, the Father loves Him. It is not too much to say that the eternal love of the Father for the Son is based upon the bodily resurrection of the risen Son of God. Otherwise, the work He came to do would be unfinished. The third consideration of this text demands a physical
resurre'ction. Let us remember that death is not natural; it is abnormal even for human beings to die. God has told us in His Word that “ the wages of sin is death.” This is why we die. Every graveyard is a memorial to our sinfulness. But Jesus Christ, in Whom there was no sin, did not have to die. Therefore, He could die at will, by laying aside Flis life. And because of this, Paul is not only able to say, “ The wages of sin is death,” but he can also say, “ the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). The third instance is the capstone in the testimony of Jesus Christ to His own resurrection. The occasion is the death of Lazarus. Often our Lord had visited the little home in Bethany. Mary, Martha and Lazarus formed His inner circle of friends. News comes to our Lord that Lazarus is sick, but before the Lord arrives in Bethany, Lazarus is dead. Martha hears that Jesus is approaching. She goes out to meet Him; and, typical of her nature she rebukes Him by saying, “ Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever you ask of God, God will give it to you. Jesus says to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha says to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She says unto him, Yes Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world” (John 11:21-27). Through the raising of Lazarus, the Lord Jesus Christ gives to the family and friends at Bethany and to His disciples a preview of His power over death, which was to culminate in His own rising from the dead. It is inter esting to note that though often we think of Martha as being officious, yet there is a certain sense in which her faith was very practical and as strong as Mary’s faith. For after the great statement of our Lord, “ I am the resur rection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?,” unhesitatingly Martha answers, “ Yes, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world.” Martha realized that she stood in the presence, not of a religious racketeer, not of an insane fanatic, but, indeed, in the very presence of God incarnate, God Who had come into the world. We, too, will never fully understand and believe the fact of the physical, bodily resurrection of our Lord unless we recognize Him as the God from Heaven and not merely the babe of Mary’s womb. God came from Heaven to die, that He might rise again. He ascended into Heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father, to make inter cession for us. And this very same Jesus is coming again — this risen Lord Jesus. Paul gives testimony to this fact: “ So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Because He has arisen from the dead and ascended into Heaven, the message of the angels to the disciples on the Mount of Ascension can be fulfilled: “Ye men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). We rejoice today because Jesus can come again. He went as He said He would. He went to the Cross; He went to the tomb; He rose again; He went to Heaven. And now we await His coming even as He promised. And with John we, too, say, “ Even so come Lord Jesus.” END THE KING'S BUSINESS
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Dr. Ralph Keiper is the Editorial Research Direc- tor of The Evangelical Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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