Christ's death was both voluntary and violent. There was external
violence: and that was the accompaniment, or at most the occasion, of
his death. But there was internal willingness, the spiritual Will,
the Will of the Spirit, and this was the proper cause. By this Spirit
he was restored from death: neither indeed _was it possible for him to
be holden of it; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the
Spirit_, says St. Peter. But he is likewise declared elsewhere to have
died by that same Spirit, which here, in opposition to the violence,
is said to quicken him. Thus Hebrews ix. 14. _Through the eternal
Spirit he offered himself._ And even from Peter's words, and without
the epithet, eternal, to aid the interpretation, it is evident that
_the Spirit_, here opposed to the flesh, body or animal life, is of a
higher nature and power than the individual _soul_, which cannot of
itself return to re-inhabit or quicken the body.
If these points were niceties, and an over-refining in doctrine, is it
to be believed that the Apostles, John, Peter and Paul, with the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, would have laid so great stress
on them? But the true life of Christians is to eye Christ in every
step of his life--not only as their Rule but as their Strength:
looking to him as their Pattern both in doing and in suffering, and
drawing power from him for going through both: being _without him_
able for nothing. Take comfort then, thou that believest! _It is he
that lifts up the Soul from the Gates of Death_: and he hath said, _I
will raise thee up at the last day_. Thou that believest _in_ him,
believe him and take comfort. Yea, when thou art most sunk in thy sad
apprehensions, and he far off to thy thinking, then is he nearest to
raise and comfort thee: as sometimes it grows darkest immediately
before day.