"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet he shall live."--John. xi. 25.
The Resurrection and Life.
What a voice is this breaking over a world which for six thousand years
has been a dormitory of sin and death! For four thousand of these years,
heathendom could descry no light through the bars of the grave; her
oracles were dumb on the great doctrine of a future state, and more
especially regarding the body's resurrection. Even the Jewish Church,
under the Old Testament dispensation, seemed to enjoy little more than
fitful and uncertain glimmerings, like men groping in the dark. It
required death's great Abolisher to show, to a benighted world, the
luminous "path of life." With Him rested the "bringing in of a better
hope"--the unfolding of "the mystery which had been hid from ages and
generations." Marvellous disclosure! that this mortal frame, decomposed
and resolved into its original dust, shall yet start from its ashes,
remodelled and reconstructed--"a glorified body!" Not like "the earthly
tabernacle" (a mere shifting and moveable _tent_, as the word denotes),
but incorruptible--immortal! The beauteous transformation of the insect
from its chrysalis state--the buried seed springing up from its tiny
grave to the full-eared corn or gorgeous flower--these are nature's mute
utterances as to the possibility of this great truth, which required the
unfoldings of "a more sure word of prophecy." But the Gospel has fully
revealed what Reason, in her loftiest imaginings, could not have dreamt
of. Jesus "hath brought life and immortality to light." He, the Bright
and Morning Star, hath "turned the shadow of death into the morning." He
gives, in His own resurrection, the earnest of that of His people;--He
is the first-fruits of the immortal harvest yet to be gathered into the
garner of Heaven.
Precious truth! This "word of Jesus" spans like a celestial rainbow the
entrance to the dark valley. Death is robbed of its sting. In the case
of every child of God, the grave holds in custody precious, because
redeemed, dust. Talk of it not, as being committed to a dishonoured
tomb!--it is locked up, rather, in the casket, of God until the day
"when He maketh up His jewels," when it will be fashioned in deathless
beauty like unto the glorified body of the Redeemer. Angels, meanwhile,
are commissioned to keep watch over it, till the trump of the archangel
shall proclaim the great "Easter of creation." They are the "reapers,"
waiting for the world's great "Harvest Home," when Jesus Himself shall
come again--not as He once did, humiliated and in sorrow, but rejoicing
in the thought of bringing back all His sheaves with him.
Afflicted and bereaved Christian!--thou who mayest be mourning in
bitterness those who are not--rejoice through thy tears in these hopes
"full of immortality." The silver cord is only "loosed," not broken.
Perchance, as thou standest in the chamber of death, or by the brink of
the grave,--in the depths of that awful solitude and silence which
reigns around, this may be thy plaintive and mournful soliloquy--"Shall
the dust praise Thee?" Yes, it _shall_! This very dust that hears now
unheeded thy footsteps, and unmoved thy tears, shall through eternity
praise its redeeming God--it shall proclaim His truth!
"LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO BUT UNTO THEE, THOU HAST THE _WORDS_ OF
_ETERNAL LIFE_."