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THE KING’S BUSINESS
tion morning; that sweet child whose eyes you may have closed in death;—all these precious and loved ones to whom you bade farewell, you will never see again if it be that Christ be not risen. Then those loved ones died as the beasts o f the field; they perished forever. Your hope o f meeting those whom you haye “loved long since and lost a while” is a delusion; you will never see them again if Christ be not risen. “ I f in this life only we have a hope in Christ,” the apostle continues, “ we are of all men most pitiable.” If our faith is but a hope, a mere bubble, something without substance or reality, then, above all men, we are to be pitied. The Christian has surrendered many pleasures o f the world; he has denied himself o f certain enjoy ments in this life because they conflict with his soul’s deepest interests in Christ; he has said “no” to the world, its pleasures, its sins, its emoluments, its advancements; he has practiced a life o f self-denial. And for what? In hope o f a glorious reward in that future, risetj life. But if there be no such blissful existence; if there be no home into which we are to be welcomed by the Father; if there be no King to say, “Well done, exchange mortality for life;” if there be no Christ to say, “ Enter into the kingdom prepafed for you,” then the Christian simply falls down dead; he is to be pitied;, he has made a tremendous mis take. The pleasures o f the world are more than a mere hope; they are not altogether a sham; they are worth something at least. But, without the reality o f the future, the Christian has not even that. He has given up something for nothing. Christianity without the resurrection o f Christ is the pity o f a tremendous disappointment. It is dead loss. The Christian is foolish; pitiable above all men. Give him your pity, poor soul, he has surrendered that which has some substantiality about it in this world for a bubble, for a mere hope, for some thing that has no materialization in the world to come. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are o f all men most pitiable.” ’
I f the resurrection o f Jesus Christ be not a fact, then the apostles are, on their own confession, found to be false* wit nesses. The word “ found” here means to be detected or discovered in the perpetra tion o f a fraud. The* word has a moral meaning. It is used in connection with detection o f forgery. If Christ had not risen from the dead, the apostles were guilty o f fostering fraud upon the people. It is remarkable to note that the apostle uses the word “ false,” not mistaken, de ceived, or deluded; nor does he say that the resurrection o f Christ is a vision or hallucination o f the apostles, whose imagi nation had probably been overwrought by reason o f their relation to Jesus Christ. If they had not been eye-witnesses o f the resurrection and the risen Christ, then they were guilty o f willingly and knowingly per petrating a fraud upon the Church. Even the remote possibility o f being deceived is ignored by the apostle. It is a case o f indubitable fact or deliberate falsehood. That the apostle was hurt and stung by such an inference is evident from his lan guage. He felt that he was not being believed. He and the other apostles claimed to have seen the Christ, to have spoken with Him, to have received their commission from Him. To the apostles Christianity did not rest merely upon a divine revelation, but also upon the basis o f historical fact—on the fact that its Founder really rose from the. dead accord ing to the Scriptures, and that they had actually seen him. To deny this fact, to which the apostles claimed to have been eye-witnesses, was virtually to make them out to be deceivers and liars. Not only are the apostles, but God Him self is involved in this charge o f false wit-' ness. From the language used, it might -legitimately be inferred that there had been, collusion between God and the apostles. They had testified o f God that He was righteous and that His righteousness had been shown in raising Jesus Christ from the dead, which, o f course, was not true if
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