Following the Risen Christ

Next Part Following the Risen Christ 2

"If you then are risen with Christ — seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above — not on thing. on the earth." Colossians 3:1, 2

The resurrection of our divine Lord from the dead is the corner-stone of Christian doctrine. Perhaps I might more accurately call it the key-stone of the arch of Christianity, for if that fact could be disproved the whole fabric of the gospel would fall to the ground. If Jesus Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain; you are yet in your sins. If Christ be not risen, then they which have fallen asleep in Christ have perished, and we ourselves, in missing so glorious a hope as that of resurrection, are of all men the most miserable. Because of the great importance of his resurrection, our Lord was pleased to give many infallible proofs of it, by appearing again and again in the midst of his followers. It would be interesting to search out how many times he appeared; I think we have mention of some sixteen manifestations. He showed himself openly before his disciples, and did eat and drink with them. They touched his hands and his side, and heard his voice, and knew that it was the same Jesus that was crucified. He was not content with giving evidence to the ears and to the eyes, but even to the sense of touch he proved the reality of his resurrection.

These appearances were very varied. Sometimes he gave an interview to one alone, either to a man, as to Cephas, or to a woman, as to Magdalen. He conversed with two of his followers as they went to Emmaus, and with the company of the apostles by the sea. We find him at one moment among the eleven when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, and at another time in the midst of an assembly of more than five hundred brethren, who years after were most of them living witnesses to the fact. They could not all have been deceived. It is not possible that any historical fact could have been placed upon a better basis of credibility than the resurrection of our Lord from the dead. This is put beyond all dispute and question, and of purpose is it so done, because it is essential to the whole Christian system. For this same cause the resurrection of Christ is commemorated frequently. There is no ordinance in Scripture of any one Lord's-day in the year being set apart to commemorate the rising of Christ from the dead, for this reason, that every Lord's-day is the memorial of our Lord's resurrection. Wake up any Lord's-day you please, whether in the depth of winter, or in the warmth of summer, and you may sing,
"Today he rose and left the dead,
And Satan's empire fell;
Today the saints his triumph spread,
And all his wonders tell."

To set apart an Easter Sunday for special memory of the resurrection is a human device, for which there is no Scriptural command, but to make every Lord's-day an Easter Sunday is due to him who rose early on the first day of the week. We gather together on the first rather than upon the seventh day of the week, because redemption is even a greater work than creation, and more worthy of commemoration, and because the rest which followed creation is far outdone by that which ensues upon the completion of redemption. Like the apostles, we meet on the first day of the week, and hope that Jesus may stand in our midst, and say, "Peace be unto you." Our Lord has lifted the Sabbath from the old and rusted hinges whereon the law had placed it long before, and set it on the new golden hinges which his love has fashioned. He has placed our rest-day, not at the end of a week of toil, but at the beginning of the rest which remains for the people of God. Every first day of the week we should meditate upon the rising of our Lord, and seek to enter into fellowship with him in his risen life. Never let us forget that all who are in him rose from the dead in his rising.

Next in importance to the fact of the resurrection is the doctrine of the federal headship of Christ, and the unity of all his people with him. It is because we are in Christ that we become partakers of everything that Christ did,-we are circumcised with him, dead with him, buried with him, risen with him, because we cannot be separated from him. We are members of his body, and not a bone of him can be broken. Because that union is most intimate, continuous, and indissoluble, therefore all that concerns him concerns us, and as he rose so all his people have arisen in him. They are risen in two ways. First, representatively. All the elect rose in Christ in the day when he left the tomb. He was justified, or declared to be clear of all liabilities on account of our sins, by being set free from the prison-house of the tomb. There was no reason for detaining him in the sepulcher, for he had discharged the debts of his people by dying ‘unto sin once.' He was our hostage and our representative, and when he came forth from his bonds we came forth in him. We have endured the sentence of the law in our Substitute, we have lain in its prison, and even died under its death-warrant, and now we are no longer under its curse.

"Now if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God." Next to this representative resurrection comes our spiritual resurrection, which is ours as soon as we are led by faith to believe in Jesus Christ. Then it my be said of us, "And you has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." The resurrection blessing is to be perfected by-and-by at the appearing of our Lord and Savior, for then our bodies shall rise again, if we fall asleep before his coming. He redeemed our manhood in its entirety, spirit, soul, and body, and he will not be content until the resurrection which has passed upon our spirit shall p donkey upon our body too. These dry bones shall live; together with his dead body they shall rise. "When he arose ascending high, He showed our feet the way; Up to the Lord our flesh shall fly At the great rising day." Then shall we know in the perfection of our resurrection beauty that we are indeed completely risen in Christ, and "as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." This morning we shall only speak of our fellowship with Christ in his resurrection as to our own spiritual resurrection. Do not misunderstand me as if I thought the resurrection to be only spiritual, for a literal rising from the dead is yet to come; but our text speaks of spiritual resurrection, and I shall therefore endeavor to set it before you.

I. First, then, LET US CONSIDER OUR SPIRITUAL RISING WITH CHRIST: "If you then be risen with Christ." Though the words look like a supposition they are not meant to be so. The apostle casts no doubt, and raises no question, but merely puts it thus for argument's sake. It might just as well be read, "Since you then are risen in Christ." The "if" is used logically, not theologically: by way of argument, and not by way of doubt. All who believe in Christ are risen with Christ. Let us meditate on this truth. For, first, we were "dead in trespasses and sins," but having believed in Christ we have been quickened by the Holy Spirit, and we are dead no longer. There we lay in the tomb, ready to become corrupt; yes, some of us were corrupt, the marks of the worm of sin were upon our character, and the foul stench of actual sin arose from us. More or less according to the length of time in which we abode in that death, and according to the circumstances with which we were surrounded, death wrought in us corruption.

We lay in our death quite unable to raise ourselves therefrom; ours were eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear; a heart that could not love; and a withered hand that could not be stretched out to give the touch of faith. We were even as they that go down into the pit, as those that have been long dead: only in this we were in a worse plight than those actually dead, for we were responsible for all our omissions and inabilities. We were as guilty as if we had power, for the loss of moral power is not the loss of moral responsibility: we were, therefore, in a state of spiritual death of the most fearful kind. The Holy Spirit visited us and made us live. We remember the first sensation of life, some of us-how it seemed to tingle in our soul's veins with pain sharp and bitter; just as drowning people when life is coming back to them suffer great pain; so did we. Conviction was wrought in us and confession of sin, a dread of judgment to come and a sense of present condemnation; but these were tokens of life, and that life gradually deepened and opened up until the eye was opened-we could see Christ, the hand ceased to be withered, and we stretched it out and touched his garment's hem; the feet began to move in the way of obedience, and the heart felt the sweet glow of love within. Then the eyes, not content with seeing, fell to weeping; and afterwards, when the tears were wiped away, they flashed and sparkled with delight.

Oh, my brethren, believers in Jesus, you are not spiritually dead any longer; on Christ you have believed, and that grand act proves that you are no more dead. You have been quickened by God according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies. Now, beloved, you are new creatures, the produce of a second birth, begotten again in Christ Jesus unto newness of life. Christ is your life; such a life as you never knew before, nor could have known apart from him. If you then be risen with Christ you walk in newness of life, while the world abides in death. Let us advance another step: we are risen with Christ, and therefore there has been wrought in us a wonderful change. When the dead shall rise they will not appear as they now are. The buried seed rises from the ground, but not as a seed, for it puts forth green leaf, and bud, and stem, and gradually develops expanding flower and fruit, and even so we wear a new form, for we are renewed after the image of him that created us in righteousness and holiness. I ask you to consider the change which the Spirit of God has wrought in the believer: a wonderful change indeed! Before regeneration our soul was as our body will be when it dies; and we read that "it is sown in corruption."

There was corruption in our mind and it was working irresistibly towards every evil and offensive thing. In many the corruption did not appear upon the surface, but it worked within; in others it was conspicuous and fearful to look upon. How great the change! For now the power of corruption within us is broken, the new life has overcome it, for it is a living and incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever. Corruption is upon the old nature, but it cannot touch the new, which is our true and real self. Is it not a great thing to be purged of the filthiness which would have ultimately brought us down to Tophet where the fire unquenchable burns, and the worm undying feeds upon the corrupt? Our old state was further like that which comes upon the body at death; because it was a state of dishonor. You know how the apostle says of the body," It is sown in dishonor;" and certainly no corpse wears such dishonor as that which rests upon a man who is dead in trespasses and sins. Why, of all things in the world that deserve shame and contempt, a sinful man is certainly the most so. He despises his Creator, he neglects his Savior, he chooses evil instead of good, and puts the light from him because his deeds are evil, and therefore he prefers the darkness. In the judgment of all pure spirits a sinful man is a dishonorable man.

But oh how changed is man when the grace of God works within him, for then he is honorable. "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." What an honor is this! Heaven itself contains not a more honorable being than a renewed man. Well may we cry with David, "What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him?" But when we see man, in the person of Jesus, made to have dominion over all the works of God's hands, and know that Jesus has made us kings and priests unto God, we are filled with amazement that God should so exalt us. The Lord himself has said, " Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you." "Unto you therefore which believe he is an honor," for so the original text may run. A precious Christ makes us precious: such honor have all the saints. When a body is buried, we are told by the apostle again that it is "sown in weakness." The poor dead frame cannot lay itself down in its last bed, friendly hands must place it there; even so we were utter weakness towards all good. When we were the captives of sin we could do nothing good, even as our Lord said, "Without me you can do nothing." We were incapable of even a good thought apart from him. But "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly"; and now we know him and the power of his resurrection. God has given us the spirit of power and of love; is it not written, "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name"?

What an amazing power is this! Now we "taste of the powers of the world to come," and we are "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness." Faith girds us with a divine power, for "all things are possible to him that believes," and each believer can exclaim, without boasting, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." Is not this a marvelous change which the spiritual resurrection has wrought upon us? Is it not a glorious thing, that God's strength should be perfect in our weakness? The great change mainly concerns another point. It is said of the body, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." Aforetime we were natural men and discerned not the things that be of the Spirit of God. We minded earthly things and were moved by carnal lustings after the things which are seen; but now through divine grace a spirit has been created in us which feeds on spiritual bread, lives for spiritual objects, is swayed by spiritual motives and rejoices in spiritual truth. This change from the natural to the spiritual is such as only God himself could have wrought, and yet we have experienced it. To God be the glory. So that by virtue of our rising in Christ we have received life and have become the subjects of a wondrous change,- "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

In consequence of our receiving this life and undergoing this change the things of the world and sin become a tomb to us. To a dead man a sepulcher is as good a dwelling as he can want. You may call it his bedchamber, if you will; for he lies within it as unconscious as if he were in slumber. But the moment the dead man lives, he will not endure such a bedchamber; he calls it a dreary vault, a loathsome dungeon, an unbearable charnel, and he must leave it at once. So when you and I were natural men, and had no spiritual life, the things of this life contented us; but it is far otherwise now. A merely outward religion was all that we desired; a dead form suited a dead soul. Judaism pleased those who were under its yoke, in the very beginning of the gospel; new moons and holy days and traditional ordinances, and fasting and feasting were great things with those who forgot their resurrection with Christ. All those things make pretty furniture for a dead man's chamber; but when the eternal life enters the soul these outward ordinances are flung off, the living man rends off his grave clothes, tears away his cerements, and demands such garments as are suitable for life.

So the apostle in the chapter before our text tells us to let no man spoil us by the traditions of men and the inventions of a dead ritualism, for these things are not the portion of renewed and spiritual men. So, too, all merely carnal objects become as a grave to us, whether they be sinful pleasures or selfish gains. For the dead man the shroud, the coffin, and the vault are suitable enough; but make the corpse alive again, and he cannot rest in the coffin; he makes desperate struggles to break it up. See how by main force he dashes up the lid, rends off his bandages, and leaps from the bier. So the man renewed by grace cannot abide sin, it is a coffin to him: he cannot bear evil pleasures, they are as a shroud; he cries for liberty. When resurrection comes the man uplifts the hillock above his grave, and scatters monument and head-stone, if these are raised above him. Some souls are buried under a mass of self-righteousness, like wealthy men on whom shrines of marble have been heaped; but all these the believer shakes off, he must have them away, he cannot bear these dead works. He cannot live otherwise than by faith; all other life is death to him. He must get out of his former state; for as a tomb is not a fit place for a living man, so when we are quickened by grace the things of sin, and self, and carnal sense become dreary catacombs to us, wherein our soul feels buried, and out of which we must arise. How can we that are raised out of the death of sin live any longer therein?

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