Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that
are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth;
they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they
that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.--_John
5, 28. 29._
"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in hope of the
resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ." These
solemn words, pronounced at the most solemn time, at the close of
man's earthly career, are familiar words, and each Lord's day do we
confess in words equally as familiar: "I believe in the resurrection
of the body." In that committal and confession we say much. We
voice a belief that is peculiarly, distinctively Christian. Natural
reason, assisted by some light lingering in tradition and borrowed
from the Jews, was able to spell out the immortality of the soul;
but that the body should rise again, that there should be another
life for this corporeal frame, was a hope which has been brought to
light by revelation only. When natural man hears the doctrine the
first time, the mere natural mind marvels. The next thing it does,
as the philosophers at Athens, when Paul preached it unto them,--it
mocks.
"Can these dry bones live?" is still the unbeliever's sneer. The
doctrine of the resurrection is a lamp kindled by a hand which once
was pierced. It is linked with the resurrection of our blessed
Lord, and is one of the brightest gems in His crown. Throughout
the writings of the holy apostles do we find them giving great
prominence to this truth. The Apostle Paul, as he describes the
Gospel by which true believers are saved, says: "I deliver unto
you first of all that which I received,--how that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and
that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures," and
argues that, "if Christ be not raised," both your faith and our
preaching are "in vain." In the early Church the doctrine of the
resurrection was the main battle-ax and weapon of war. Wherever
the first missionaries went, they made this prominent that the
dead would rise again to be judged by the Man Christ, according to
the Gospel. It is, indeed, the keystone of the Christian arch. Let
us, then, to the honor of Christ Jesus, the Risen One, regard this
article of our faith so prominent in the Easter thought of man,
observing _I. The certainty of the resurrection_, _II. its results_.
"The hour is coming," saith the Savior. Those words spoken by the
Mouth of Truth express certainty. There are some events which may or
may not be. Kingdoms and the great powers of the earth may stand or
they may fall, their throne broken into dust and their might wither
like autumn leaves. Events which we suppose inevitable may never
come to pass, another wheel in the machinery of Providence may make
things revolve in quite another fashion from what our puny wisdom
would foretell. There is nothing certain on this earth, in fact, but
uncertainty. But the resurrection is certain, whatever else may be
contingent or doubtful. "The hour cometh," it surely cometh. In the
divine decree it has been so unchangeably fixed. "The hour," saith
Christ. I suppose He calls it an hour to intimate how very near it
is in His esteem, since we do not begin to look at an exact hour
of an event when it is extremely remote. An event which will not
occur for hundreds of years is at first looked for and noted by the
year, and only when we are reasonably near it, do men talk of the
day of the month, and we are coming very near it when we look for
the precise hour. Christ intimates to us that, whether we think so
or not, in God's thoughts the day of resurrection is very near. He
would have us think _God's_ thought about it, not reckon any time
too distantly and the event far away.
This, too, is practical wisdom, to bring close up to us that which
is inevitable, and to act towards it after a manner as though
it were but to-morrow when the trumpet might sound. And most
significantly does our Lord speak of that "hour." He calls it "the
hour." We read of hours that have been big with the fate of nations;
hours in which the welfare of millions trembled in the balances;
hours in which the die was cast for peace or for war; hours that
have been called "crises" in history. But here is the culminating
crisis of all, the master, the royal, the august hour that is
coming. Every second, every swing of the pendulum, every beat of
the heart of time is bringing it nearer; silently, surely, we are
drifting along the river of time to the ocean of eternity, and there
is nothing to stop the constant flight.
We pass on. "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the
which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice." "All that
are in the graves,"--by this term is meant, not only all whose
bodies are actually in the grave at this time, but all who ever
were buried, though their bones may have mingled with the elements,
been scattered by the winds, dissolved in the waves, or merged into
vegetable forms, all who have lived and have died--all these. All!
What a numberless number! Think of the inhabitants of this world
at the time of the flood, more numerous then than now when men's
numbers are so terribly thinned out by death! Think from the time of
the flood onward, of Adam's vast offspring! Nineveh, Babylon, and
Chaldea, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome were enormous empires of
antiquity. The Parthians and Scythians, and Tartars, and Goths, and
Huns in the Middle Ages, what teeming hives of humanity; and our
present communities and nations, what a numberless band! Think of
Ethiopia and the whole continent of Africa; remember India and Japan
and the land of the setting sun; in all lands great tribes of men
have come and have gone to rest in their sepulchers. What millions
upon millions lie buried in China this day, a country of 400
millions. What innumerable hosts are slumbering in the land of the
pyramids, embalmed in Egypt of old. And every one, all who have ever
lived of woman born,--not one shall be left in the tomb. _All_,--all
the righteous and the wicked; all that were engulfed in the sea; all
that slumber in the lap of the earth; all the great and the humble,
all the children of luxury and the sons of toil; all the wise and
all the foolish; all the beloved and the despised. There shall not
be one single individual omitted, nor you, my dear hearer. As surely
as you sit here this morning, so surely shall you stand before
the Son of Man. You shall not be forgotten; your departed spirit
shall have its appointed place, and your body, which once contained
it, shall have its place, till, by the power of God, it shall be
restored to your spirit again at the sounding of the last trumpet.
It is a wondrous truth, and yet, as the Savior directs, "marvel not
at this," so as to doubt it, though you may marvel at it and adore
the Lord, who shall bring it to pass.
And so it continues: "All that are in the graves shall hear His
voice." Yes, that ear that was buried a thousand years ago, and of
which there was not the slightest relic left, that ear so long lost
in silence, it shall hear--hear the almighty voice of that God who
made man's ear at the beginning, who makes the ear of the newborn
babe now, and is able, according to the working whereby He is able
to do all things, to renew and refashion the ear, and hearing it
shall start up, as the next words say, "shall come forth." It is
not in the power of man's speech or imagination to conceive what a
spectacle it shall be when, as the heavens are passing with a great
noise, and the elements are burning with furnace heat, the angels
are sounding the arrival of the great day of Judgment, we shall see
the multitudes in the valleys of the dead rising up from land and
sea, from mountain top and deep ravines, swarming up a great and
countless number before the bar of their Judge. Ah, what a sight it
will be! What a wonder!
And how will they look? you may naturally inquire. In answer I would
say on the basis of God's Word: Like themselves. To each one will be
given "his own body." Our resurrected body, whatever it may exactly
be and however different and superior it will undoubtedly be to our
present body, will yet in some way be identical with our present
body, and it will so far retain the appearance and individuality
of our present body that in that future resurrected body we shall
easily be recognized by those who knew us, and will be known as the
same distinct personalities which we are now known to be in our
present body. "Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in
my flesh shall I see God."
We pass on to weigh the results. The text goes on to say: "And shall
come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life,
and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation."
From this we gather that the whole family will be divided as it is
even now, indeed, into two, and only two, classes of characters:
"They that have done good," and "they that have done evil." Who are
those who have done good? By nature no one is "good." We are all
sinners. There is none righteous, no, not one. The best of us are
unprofitable servants. We can only be "good" in our way, and that is
by having the goodness of another, the goodness of Christ set down
to our account. Then, when we are thus joined to Christ by faith in
Him, we shall, from principle, strive to do good. Good, my beloved,
is a word that may be measured according to those who use it. The
"evil man," the unpardoned sinner, may "do good" in his sense and
the sense of the world,--good to you, to his child, his wife, his
friend, but he has no care for God, no reverence, no esteem for the
great Lawgiver. Therefore, that which may be good to you may be ill
to God, because done for no right motive, even perhaps done with
a wrong motive. It depends upon what position I occupy towards my
God and Christ that determines on the Day of Resurrection, and that
position is either for or against Him; there is no middle, mixed, or
mingled character. I am either a pardoned sinner or an unpardoned
sinner, and my destiny will be accordingly. And what will that
destiny be? Either "life" or "damnation."
"Life" does not mean here mere existence; for both will exist,
and exist forever, the "evil" and the "good." But "life" means
happiness, joy, rapture, bliss; in fact, it is a term so
comprehensive that it needs no small time to express all that
it means. As for the other, theirs shall be a resurrection to
damnation; their bodies and souls will come under the condemnation
of God,--to use our Savior's word, "shall be damned." We are shocked
at the very sound of the word. We may well be so; we should be
ten thousand-fold more shocked, if we really knew what the word
fully means. It is vain for us to describe it, and we are loath to
describe it. It were better for such that they had never been born,
never awakened. From so terrible a portion, from Thy wrath and from
evil damnation, good Lord, deliver us! We have thus seen, first, the
certainty of resurrection, and secondly, the results. It remains, in
conclusion, to draw one or two lessons from the text.
The first is a lesson of consolation. We are frequently called
upon to stand beside opened graves; some of you have stood there
lately. What comfort for our wounded spirits is such meditation:
to never mourn with regard to the souls of the righteous because
they are forever with the Lord. The only mourning that we permit
among Christians concerns the body, and here God's Word offers us
the assurance: Weep not as though you had cast your treasure into
the sea, where you will never find it again. You have only laid it
by in a casket, whence you shall receive it again brighter and more
beautiful than before. Thou shalt look again with thine own eyes
into those eyes which have spoken love to thee so often. Thy child
shall see thee again. That departed friend and father and mother,
having loved his Lord as thou dost, shall once rejoice with thee
in the land where they die no more. It is but a short parting; it
will be an eternal meeting. Forever with the Lord, we shall also be
forever with each other. "Let us comfort one another," says the
apostle, "with these words."
The other lesson is that of self-examination. If we are to rise,
some to rewards and some to punishments, what--let each conscience
ask--what shall be my position? Where shall I stand? That depends
upon what your life and your life's principles have been. What has
it been? To amass wealth? To procure honor? To provide for your
family? If so, it has been deficient. Life's object and duty is to
prepare for life, for the resurrection unto life. And to prepare for
that, you must undergo a resurrection right now. There is as great
a difference between men now as there will be hereafter. At present
we have all living bodies, but in those living bodies, what is the
state of the soul? There are in some living bodies living souls.
There are in other living bodies souls that are dead. And that dead
soul must be resurrected to life, or salvation is out of question;
and that resurrection must take place _now_; it is too late
hereafter. It takes place when you now give heed to that same divine
voice that shall start the dead into life, the voice of Christ Jesus
in His Gospel and Church. "He that believeth on Him hath life, and
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life."
Easter calls for a rising up to spiritual life now, that it may be a
resurrection unto eternal life, when all the dead shall come forth
from the grave at the voice of Him who this day so gloriously arose
from the tomb. May we be partakers of both! Amen.