THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S tion. Let the weary sufferer sleep on and take his well-earned rest. The rage and hate of hell which have fol lowed Him through life, have done their worst and their waves now break in impotent fury against His peaceful tomb. WEDNESDAY, April 16. Matt. 28:1-10. Our Risen Lord. What a jubilee there must have been in hell when the Saviour came under the power of death upon the cross! Many times had Satan attempted to take His life before this but He was immor tal till His work was done. At length at Calvary the Adversary who has the power of death seemed to triumph. As the Saviour went down into the under world we can imagine the inhabitants thereof saying to Him “Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?” Upon the cross the seed of the woman scored His mightiest tri umph. It was there He crushed the serpent’s head as he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Heb. 2:14. Nevertheless it would have been a triumph for Satan to have kept the Redeemer in the underworld. It is possible that he sought by every means to do so. As Samson carried away the gates of Gaza upon his shoulders, so our Immanuel “entered the iron gates of death and tore the bars away.” , THURSDAY, April 17. Luke 24:13-31. After the Resurrection. The forty days following the resur rection form the transition period be tween the earthly life of the Son of God and His heavenly exaltation. He fre quently Appeared to His disciples though the world never saw him after He was put upon the cross. The purpose of thè forty days seems to have been to give the disciples a more vivid idea of the kingdom than could be given them by mere verbal instruction. The Saviour wished to impress upon His followers the character of the kingdom, that is, the reign of the glorified saints over the earth. His converse during this period was of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Acts 1:3. It was from the glorified state that the great commission was given under which we are now laboring. The early disciples therefore became quite familiar with the glorified state of humanity during these forty days and saw plainly that the glorified could mingle with those who are yet in the flesh upon the earth. The forty days fixed the foundation
368 MONDAY, April 14. Mark 15:25-38. Christ Crucified. There is a difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and other men in this respect. Everybody else comes into the world to live, He came into the world to die. There were but two pos sible ways for Him to leave the world, being what He was, either by transla tion or by violence. Death is the result of sin and sickness is the precursor'of death. He did no sin and was never sick. Therefore He could not have died a natural death if such a word can be used of an event which is itself unna tural. It would have been fitting had He gone to Heaven from the Mount of Transfiguration. Had He done so, how ever, He would have gone alone and remained alone throughout eternity. He chose to go a little later through the gates of death, in order that when He did go to heaven He might take with Him the hosts of the redeemed. He was not dragged an unwilling victim to a gory altar. “No man taketh my life from me. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.” John 10:18. He bore our sins, not in the manger at Bethlehem, nor in the carpenter shop at Nazareth, nor teach ing in the streets of Jerusalem, nor pray ing in the garden of Gethsemane, but in His body when He hung upon the tree. 1 Pet. 2:24. TUESDAY, April 15. Mark 15:39-47. Christ’s Body in the Tomb. It was neither a swoon nor a syn cope that Christ entered into upon the cross with subsequent resuscitation. The Roman soldiers were familiar enough with death to recognize it when they saw it and they forebore the use less mutilation of a lifeless body. The rupture of the pericardial sac by the Roman spear and the outflow of blood and water, proved that death had already taken place. It is blood that sustains the living body and it is blood which corrupts the dead body. The dead body of Christ was bloodless which accounts for its not seeing corrup tion. The capillary veins near the sur face had been evacuated by the bloody sweat of Gethsemane. The limbs had been drained by the piercing of the extremities and the torso had been emp tied by the thrust of the Roman spear. When the lifeless form had been taken down from the cross, tenderly bathed by loving hands, wrapped in clean linen cloth and fragrant spices, it was pure and free from all possibility of corrup-
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