Redemption with an account of the Lord’s visit to Adam and Eve at the
cool of the day in Eden. All the wonderful works of God toward the
children of men, since the seed of the woman was promised to bruise the
serpent’s head, are to be considered as so many parts of the same great
machinery of providence, whose wheels, like those of Ezekiel’s vision,
all move in majestic harmony, though their thousand revolutions may seem
to us discordant and confused. The chief design of all the Divine
manifestations recorded in the Old Testament was to prepare the way for
the Redeemer’s appearance upon earth. Jehovah often suffered his people
to be in great distress and perplexity; he lengthened the chain of Satan
and his angels, allowed a partial success of their infernal schemes, and
permitted them to prevail for a season against his people, and pride
themselves in their power and their skill, in order to make their defeat
the more signal, and gather more glory to himself from their final
overthrow. During the engagement, the victory often seemed to be on the
side of the enemy; but when the smoke of battle cleared away, the pillar
of God was seen upon the camp of Israel. If his people are besieged
between Pi-hahiroth and Baal-zephon, he raises the siege by dividing the
sea, and making a highway through the deep, while the waters rise up in a
solid wall on the right and the left, and roll back in ruin on the
pursuing foe. If an army comes to arrest Elisha on Carmel, the mountain
is covered with celestial warriors, and the surrounding heavens teem with
horsemen and chariots of fire, and the enemy are smitten with blindness,
and taken captive by the prophet. If Goliath of Gath confronts the camp
of Israel with his challenge, roaring like a lion, till the valley
resounds with his voice, a little shepherd-boy goes forth with his sling,
and the vaunting blasphemer is smitten to the ground, and slain with his
own sword. If the worshippers of the true God are cast into the fiery
furnace, or the den of lions, to show the power and gratify the pride of
an infamous tyrant, there is one among them “like unto the Son of Man,”
and the violence of the fire is quenched, and the mouths of the lions are
stopped.
But when Messiah was slain and buried, the enemies of God boasted more
than ever in their crafty and malicious schemes. This was the great
decisive engagement between Heaven and hell. The enemy imagined “the
Captain of our salvation” vanquished and destroyed. But his fall was no
defeat. He yielded to the powers of darkness apparently, that he might
triumph over them openly. He suffered himself to be taken prisoner by
death, that he might seize the tyrant on his throne, demolish his empire,
and deliver his captives. And if none of his friends on earth had
courage to proclaim his resurrection, a preacher descended from heaven to
announce the joyful fact:—“He is not here; for he is risen, as he said.
Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Wonderful message, and wonderful messenger! On the morning of the third
day after his crucifixion, Jesus revived in his tomb, and the sound of
the earthquake reached the heaven of heavens, and a mighty angel, swifter
than the light, descended straight to the new grave in Joseph’s garden,
calling on no one for the key, instantly rolled away the stone from the
door, and sat upon it, and made it his pulpit, from which he preached to
the women the doctrine of our Lord’s resurrection.
Let us consider, _first_, the testimony by which this fact is sustained,
and _secondly_, the fact itself, as the sure basis of Christianity.
I. It appears from the record of the evangelist Luke, that the women
were much perplexed at finding the stone rolled away from the mouth of
the sepulchre, and the body of Jesus gone. Then they were saluted by two
angels in shining apparel, who said;—“Why seek ye the living among the
dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spake unto you
while he was yet in Galilee, saying—The Son of Man must be delivered into
the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
And they remembered his words.”
Here is the testimony of two credible witnesses, a sufficient number to
attest the truth of our Lord’s resurrection; who testified to nothing but
what they had personally witnessed, and knew to be fact; and delivered
their testimony in simple and unambiguous language, that could not well
be misunderstood.
While the women went to inform the disciples of what they had seen and
heard, “behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the
chief priests all the things that were done.” And what was done? What
can be the testimony of these enemies of Christ concerning his
resurrection? That “an angel, whose countenance was like lightning, and
his garments white as snow, descended from heaven, and rolled away the
stone from the door, and sat upon it;” which so terrified them that they
“became as dead men.”
To confirm these testimonies, our blessed Lord himself “appeared unto
many after his resurrection, who were witnesses of all things which he
did, both in the land of the Jews, and at Jerusalem; and how he was
slain, and hanged on a tree; and how God raised him up the third day, and
showed him openly; not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before
of God; even to the disciples, who did eat and drink with him after he
rose from the dead; whom he commanded to preach unto the people, and to
testify that it is he who is ordained of God to be the judge of quick and
dead”—“to whom he showed himself alive after his passion by many
infallible proofs; being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the
things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
Here we may observe, that he appeared to those who knew him best, and
gave them satisfactory and incontestible evidence of his resurrection.
And he appeared, not only to the apostles, but to more than five hundred
brethren at once. We have an account of his appearing at ten or eleven
different times. On these occasions, he conversed with his disciples,
reminded them of what he had said to them before his crucifixion, showed
them his hands and his feet, and besought them to touch arid examine his
person, and satisfy themselves as to his identity. So that they had
ample opportunity, and every facility that could be desired, for
ascertaining whether he was indeed Jesus of Nazareth, their master, who
was lately crucified before their eyes.
It was therefore with great power that the apostles bore witness of the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And the Holy Spirit corroborated their
testimony. Our faith in this distinctive doctrine of Christianity rests
on a Divine foundation. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness
of God is greater.” “And the apostles went forth, and preached
everywhere, the Lord also working with them, and confirming the word with
signs following.” In a few weeks after the resurrection of their Master,
their testimony concerning it was received and firmly believed by many
thousands, not in some distant and desert part of the world, but in
Jerusalem, where he had been crucified.
How nobly the apostle Peter reasoned on this subject when he said:—“Ye
men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of
God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him
in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; him, being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom God hath raised up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be
holden of it.”
Such was the evidence of our Lord’s resurrection, that among those who
were living at the time, and even those of them who so strenuously
opposed the gospel, it appears to have been scarcely doubted. Pilate, in
a letter to Tiberius, the Roman emperor, said, that Jesus, being raised
from the dead, was believed by many to be God; whereupon the Roman Senate
expressed no doubt of his resurrection, but debated the question of
receiving him as one of the gods of Rome; which, however, was overruled
by Divine Providence, for the honor of Christianity; for he who is higher
than heaven, and the heaven of heavens, was not to be ranked with dumb
idols upon earth.
II. Let us now consider the fact of our Lord’s resurrection, and its
bearing upon the great truths of our holy religion.
This most transcendent of miracles is sometimes attributed to the agency
of the Father; who, as the Lawgiver, had arrested and imprisoned in the
grave the sinner’s Surety, manifesting at once his benevolence and his
holiness; but by liberating the prisoner, proclaimed that the debt was
cancelled, and the claims of the law satisfied. It is sometimes
attributed to the Son himself; who had power both to lay down his life,
and to take it again; and the merit of whose sacrifice entitled him to
the honor of thus asserting his dominion over death, on behalf of his
people. And sometimes it is attributed to the Holy Spirit, as in the
following words of the apostle:—“He was declared to be the Son of God
with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from
the dead.”
_The resurrection of Christ is clear and incontestible proof of his
Divinity_.
He had declared himself equal with God the Father, and one with him in
nature and in glory. He had told the people that he would prove the
truth of this declaration, by rising from the grave three days after his
death. And when the morning of the third day began to dawn upon the
sepulchre, lo! there was an earthquake, and the dead body arose,
triumphant over the power of corruption.
This was the most stupendous miracle ever exhibited on earth, and its
language is:—“Behold, ye persecuting Jews and murdering Romans, the proof
of my Godhead! Behold, Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate, the power and glory of
your victim! I am he that liveth, and was dead; and lo! I am alive for
evermore! I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and
morning star! Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth;
for I am God, and besides me there is none else!”
_Our Lord’s resurrection affords incontrovertible evidence of the truth
of Christianity_.
Pilate wrote the title of Christ in three languages on the cross; and
many have written excellent and unanswerable things, on the truth of the
Christian Scriptures, and the reality of the Christian religion; but the
best argument that has ever been written on the subject, was written by
the invisible hand of the Eternal Power, in the rocks of our Saviour’s
sepulchre. This confounds the skeptic, settles the controversy, and
affords an ample and sure foundation for all them that believe.
If any one asks whether Christianity is from heaven or of men, we point
him to the “tomb hewn out of the rock,” and say—“There is your answer!
Jesus was crucified, and laid in that cave; but on the morning of the
third day, it was found empty; our Master had risen and gone forth from
the grave victorious.”
This is the pillar that supports the whole fabric of our religion; and he
who attempts to pull it down, like Samson, pulls down ruin upon himself.
“If Christ is not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is
also vain, ye are yet in your sins;” but if the fact is clearly proved,
then Christianity is unquestionably true, and its disciples are safe.
This is the ground on which the apostle stood, and asserted the divinity
of his faith:—“Moreover, I testify unto you the gospel, which I preached
unto you; which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which
also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless
ye have believed in vain; for I delivered unto you first of all that
which I also 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.”
_The resurrection of Jesus is the most stupendous manifestation of the
power of God_, _and the pledge of eternal life to his people_.
The apostle calls it “the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who
believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in
Christ when he raised him from the dead.” This is a river overflowing
its banks—an idea too large for language. Let us look at it a moment.
Where do we find “the exceeding greatness of his power?” In the creation
of the world? in the Seven Stars and Orion? in the strength of Behemoth
and Leviathan? No! In the deluge? in the fiery destruction of Sodom? in
the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host? in hurling Nebuchadnezzar like
Lucifer from the political firmament? No! It is the power which he
wrought in Christ. When? When he healed the sick? when he raised the
dead? when he cast out devils? when he blasted the fruitless fig-tree?
when he walked upon the waters of the Galilee? No! It was “when he
raised him from the dead.” Then the Father placed the sceptre in the
hand of the Son, “and set him above all principality, and power, and
might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this
world, but also in that which is to come; and put all things under his
feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church.”
This is the source of our spiritual life. The same power that raised the
dead body of our Lord from the grave, quickens the soul of the believer
from the death in trespasses and sins. His riven tomb is a fountain of
living waters; whereof if a man drink, he shall never die. His raised
and glorified body is the sun, whence streams eternal light upon our
spirits; the light of life, that never can be quenched.
Nor here does the influence of his resurrection end. He who raised up
Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies. His
resurrection is the pledge and the pattern of ours. “Because he liveth
we shall live also.” “He shall change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body.” We hear him speaking in the
prophet:—“Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they
arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the
dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead.”
How divinely does the apostle speak of the resurrection-body of the
saints! “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is
sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is
raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual
body. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
must put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that
is written—Death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is thy
sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, that giveth
us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Ever since the fall in Eden, man is born to die. He lives to die. He
eats and drinks, sleeps and wakes, to die. Death, like a dark steel-clad
warrior, stands ever before us; and his gigantic shadow comes continually
between us and happiness. But Christ hath “abolished death, and brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel.” He was born in
Bethlehem, that he might die on Calvary. He was made under the law, that
he might bear the direst penalty of the law. He lived thirty-three
years, sinless among sinners, that he might offer himself a sin-offering
for sinners upon the cross. Thus he “became obedient unto death,” that
he might destroy the power of death; and on the third morning, a mighty
angel, rolling away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre, makes the
very door of Death’s castle the throne whence he proclaims “the
resurrection and the life.”
The Hero of our salvation travelled into Death’s dominion, took
possession of the whole territory on our behalf, and returning laden with
spoils, ascended to the heaven of heavens. He went to the palace, seized
the tyrant, and wrested away his sceptre. He descended into the
prison-house, knocked off the fetters of the captives; and when he came
up again, left the door of every cell open, that they might follow him.
He has gone over into our promised inheritance, and his glory illuminates
the mountains of immortality; and through the telescope which he has
bequeathed us, we “see the land that is very far off.”
I recollect reading in the writings of Flavel this sentiment—that the
souls in paradise wait with intense desire for the reanimation of their
dead bodies, that they may be united to them in bliss for ever. O, what
rapture there shall be among the saints, when those frail vessels, from
which they escaped with such a struggle, as they foundered in the gulf of
death, shall come floating in, with the spring-tide of the resurrection,
to the harbor of immortality! How glorious the reunion, when the seeds
of affliction and death are left behind in the tomb! Jacob no longer
lame, nor Moses slow of speech, nor Lazarus covered with sores, nor Paul
troubled with a thorn in the flesh!
“It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall
appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” The glory
of the body of Christ is far above our present conception. When he was
transfigured on Tabor, his face shone like the sun, and his raiment was
white as the light. This is the pattern shown to his people in the
mount. This is the model after which the bodies of believers shall be
fashioned in the resurrection. “They that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as
the stars for ever and ever.”
In conclusion:—The angel said to the women—“Go quickly, and tell his
disciples that he is risen from the dead; and behold, he goeth before you
into Galilee; there shall ye see him; lo! I have told you. And they
departed quickly from the sepulchre, with fear and great joy; and did run
to bring his disciples word.”
Brethren! followers of Jesus! be ye also preachers of a risen Saviour!
Go quickly—there is no time for delay—and publish the glad tidings to
sinners! Tell them that Christ died for their sins, and rose again for
their justification, and ascended to the right hand of the Father to make
intercession for them, and is now able to save unto the uttermost all
that come unto God by him!
And you, impenitent and unbelieving men! hear this blessed message of
salvation! Do you intend ever to embrace the proffered mercy of the
gospel? Make haste! Procrastination is ruin! Now is the accepted time!
O, fly to the throne of grace! Time is hastening; you will soon be
swallowed up in eternity! May the Lord have mercy upon you, and rouse
you from your indifference and sloth! It is my delight to invite you to
Christ; but I feel more pleasure and more confidence in praying for you
to God. I have besought and entreated you, by every argument and every
motive in my power; but you are yet in your sins, and rushing on toward
hell. Yet I will not give you up in despair. If I cannot persuade you
to flee from the wrath to come, I will intercede with God to have mercy
upon you for the sake of his beloved Son. If I cannot prevail in the
pulpit, I will try to prevail at the throne!
SERMON XIV.
THE ASCENSION.
“_Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all
things_.”—Acts iii. 21.
THESE words are part of St. Peter’s sermon to the people of Jerusalem, on
occasion of the cure of the lame man, at the “Beautiful Gate” of the
temple, shortly after the day of Pentecost.
This, and the sermon recorded in the preceding chapter, were perhaps the
most effective ever delivered on earth. As the fruit of Peter’s ministry
in these two discourses, about five thousand souls were converted to
Christianity. {205}
It is recorded, that, on the day of Pentecost, the hearers “were pricked
in their hearts, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles—Men and
brethren, what shall we do?” An inquiry which indicates the utmost
solicitude and distress. A sense of sin overwhelmed them, especially of
their guilt in rejecting the Son of God; and they pressed around the
preacher and his colleagues with this earnest interrogative.
The answer was ready. True ministers of Christ are never at a loss in
answering the inquiries of awakened sinners. When the Philippian jailer
came trembling to Paul and Silas, and fell down before them,
exclaiming—“What must I do to be saved?” “Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” was the prompt and appropriate answer.
So Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand conscience-smitten
and heart-broken hearers cried out under the sermon—“What shall we do?”
immediately replied—“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the
name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God
shall call.”
And so in the sermon whence we have taken our text, when he saw that the
truth had found its way to the understanding, and the conscience, and the
heart—that many were awakened, and convinced of sin—he exhorted them to
repentance and faith in Christ, as the condition of salvation:—“Repent
ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when
the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he
shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you; whom the
heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things.”
The doctrine of this text is—the necessity of Christ’s return to heaven
till the consummation of his mediatorial work.
It is generally admitted, that the twenty-second psalm has particular
reference to Christ. This is evident from his own appropriation of the
first verse upon the cross:—“My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?”
The title of that psalm is—“Aijeleth Shahar;” which signifies—A hart,
or—the hind of the morning. The striking metaphors which it contains are
descriptive of Messiah’s peculiar sufferings. He is the hart, or hind of
the morning, hunted by the black prince, with his hell-hounds—by Satan,
and all his allies. The “dogs,” the “lions,” the “unicorns,” and the
“strong bulls of Bashan,” with their devouring teeth, and their terrible
horns, pursued him from Bethlehem to Calvary. They beset him in the
manger, gnashed upon him in the garden, and wellnigh tore him to pieces
upon the cross. And still they persecute him in his cause, and in the
persons and interests of his people.
The faith of the church anticipated the coming of Christ, “like a roe or
a young hart,” with the dawn of the day promised in Eden; and we hear her
exclaiming in the Canticles—“The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh,
leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills!” She heard him
announce his advent in the promise—“Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!”
and with prophetic eye, saw him leaping from the mountains of eternity to
the mountains of time, and skipping from hill to hill throughout the land
of Palestine, going about doing good. In the various types and shadows
of the law, she beheld him “standing by the wall, looking forth at the
windows, showing himself through the lattice;” and then she sung—“Until
the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou
like the roe or the young hart upon the mountains of Bether!” Bloody
sacrifices revealed him to her view, going down to the “vineyards of red
wine;” whence she traced him to the meadows of gospel ordinances, where
“he feedeth among the lilies”—to “the gardens of cucumbers,” and “the
beds of spices;” and then she sung to him again—“Make haste”—or, flee
away—“my beloved! be thou like the roe or the young hart upon the
mountains of spices!”
Thus she longed to see him, first “on the mountain of Bether,” and then
“on the mountain of spices.” On both mountains she saw him eighteen
hundred years ago, and on both she may still trace the footsteps of his
majesty and his mercy. The former he hath tracked with his own blood,
and his path upon the latter is redolent of frankincense and myrrh.
Bether signifies division. This is the craggy mountain of Calvary;
whither the “Hind of the morning” fled, followed by all the wild beasts
of the forest, and the hunting-dogs of hell; summoned to the pursuit, and
urged on, by the prince of perdition; till the victim, in his agony,
sweat great drops of blood—where he was terribly crushed between the
cliffs, and dreadfully mangled by sharp and ragged rocks—where he was
seized by Death, the great greyhound of the bottomless pit—whence he
leaped the precipice, without breaking a bone; and sunk in the dead sea,
sunk to its utmost depth, and saw no corruption.