But it is the life of Jesus, and the evidence of that life, in us that are
really all-important. _No extent of worldly wisdom or historical
testimony can finally establish for us the fact and power of Christ's
Resurrection, unless we have proof in ourselves of His presence there as a
Living Spirit_. With St. Paul, we must "know Him, and the power of His
resurrection." That is the grand knowledge. That is the crown of all
knowledge. That is the knowledge which places those who have received it
beyond the freaks and fancies of human wisdom or human folly. That is the
knowledge which cleanses the heart, destroys the strength of evil, and
brings in that true righteousness which is the power to do right. That is
the greatest proof of the Resurrection.
No books, not even the Bible itself; no testimony, not even the testimony
of those who were present on that first Easter Day, can be so good as
this, the experimental proof. It is the most fitting and grateful, and
adapts itself to every type of human experience. _And it is beyond
contradiction_! What avail is it to contradict those who can answer,
"Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given
us of His Spirit"? It is even beyond argument! For of what advantage can
it be to argue with a man that he is still blind, when he tells you that
his eyes have been opened, and when he declares, "Whereas I _was_
blind, NOW I SEE"?
To us Salvationists, the hope of the world, and the strength of our hard
and long struggle for the souls of men, centre in this glorious truth. He
is risen, and is alive for evermore; and because He lives we live also'
All around us are the valleys of death, filled with bones--very many and
very dry. Love lies there, dead. Hope is dead. Faith is dead. Honour is
dead. Truth is dead. Purity is dead. Liberty is dead. Humility is dead.
Fidelity is dead. Decency is dead. It is the blight of humanity.
Death--moral and spiritual death in all her hideous and ghastly
power--reigns around us. Men are indeed dead--"dead in trespasses and
sins." What do we need? What is the secret longing of our hearts? What
is the crying agony of our prayers? Is it for any human thing we seek?
No. God knows--a thousand times, no! We have but one hope or desire, and
that is "life from the dead." We want life, the risen life--life more
abundant--life Divine, amid these deep, dark noisome valleys of the dead.
Here, then, is our hope. He rose again, and ascended up on high, and
received gifts for men. This is the hope which keeps us going on; this is
the invisible spring from which our weary spirits draw the elixir of an
invincible courage--Christ, the risen Christ, who has come to raise the
dead! "You _hath_ He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."
Hallelujah!
"Dead in sins!" Jesus never made light of sin. He used no disguise when He
talked of it, no equivocal terms, no softening words. There is no single
suggestion in all His discourses or conversations that He thought it
merely a disease, or a derangement, or a misfortune, or anything of that
kind, or that He deemed it anything but a ruinous and deadly rebellion
against God--the great disaster of the world, and the most awful,
dangerous, and far-reaching precursor of suffering in the whole existence
of the universe. He said it was bad, bad all through--in form, in
expression, in purpose; above all, in spirit and desire. That there was no
remedy for it but His remedy. No rains in all the heavens to wash it, no
waters in all the seas to cleanse it away, no fires in Hell itself to
purge its defilement. The only hope was in the blood of His sacrifice. And
so He came to shed it, to save the people from their sins.
That is our hope. We are of those who see something of the fruits of sin,
and to whom it is no matter for the chastened lights of the literary
drawing-room. We know--some of us--how deep the roots of pollution can
strike into human character by our own scorched and blistered histories;
and we know by our observation into what deeps of black defilement men can
plunge. The charnel houses of iniquity must ever be the workshops of the
Salvationist. There we see of the havoc, the cruelty, the debauchment, the
paralysis, the leprosy, the infernal fascination of sin. And we know there
is only one hope--the Lamb that was slain, and rose again from the dead,
and ever liveth for our salvation.