RESURRECTION: THE KEYSTONE OF THE ARCH
[p. 381] RESURRECTION: THE KEYSTONE OF THE ARCH
There is one great fact, beloved friends, that is of vital importance; it is the essential fact of christianity. If this fact of which I speak is not understood in its true bearing and significance, nothing is understood of the things of God. People talk about essentials and non-essentials. I do not care for the expression, but if you like it, that fact that I am now alluding to is one of the essentials. If it has not the right place in your mind, I believe the whole system of christian doctrine is a confused labyrinth to you. It has no solution. You cannot really know God or His Son Jesus Christ; you cannot enjoy christian blessings; you cannot have proper christian character formed in you; you cannot understand a single truth of the divine revelation that God has given at this present moment, if you do not understand this vital fact. Many of you know what it is, but I want you to think about it. It is what I may call the keystone of the arch of truth. Lift out the keystone and the arch tumbles to pieces. The whole truth of God becomes a ruin if that keystone has not its proper place. ‘Well’, you say, ‘Come, you have said a lot about it, what is it?’ It is resurrection. Resurrection is the central truth of christianity. I should like this evening, if the Lord will, just to bring before you a few fragmentary thoughts as to this important fact of resurrection; and I read this scripture in order to speak of resurrection in its relation to the Son of God; and I begin with this because the Person of the Son of God is the centre and key of christianity. If your clock is wrong at one o’clock, it is pretty sure to be wrong all round the dial. The Son of God is the one o’clock of Scripture. If you do not start with the true thought of the Son of God, you miss the proper force of everything in Scripture. We read in the verse we have been looking at that He was “marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead”. It was not that He was any more the Son of God in resurrection than He was in incarnation, but resurrection was the declaration of the fact of what He was. It was the manifest setting forth of the truth of His Person. You remember that the angel could say to Mary, “The holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God” (Luke 1: 35). And at the banks of Jordan the Father could salute Him as His beloved Son. You remember again that the truth of His Person was revealed to His disciples so that Peter could say on a memorable occasion, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16: 16). But you remember on that very occasion Peter’s words drew forth from the Lord, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens” (verse 17). The very fact of the Lord using these words is the proof that the condition of the Son of God upon earth did not declare the glory of His Person. It was invisible except to anointed eyes. None but those to whom the Lord revealed the truth of His Person could discern it. There was nothing, as to His condition upon earth, that could be seen. People said, “Is not this the son of the carpenter? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?” (Matthew 13: 55, 56). Now you see at once that no one who had seen Him in resurrection could ever have said that. It would have been an impossibility. As long as He was in flesh and blood, living as a Man upon this earth, the glory of His Person was veiled. There came a moment, so to speak, when the veil was taken from the glory of His Person, so that in resurrection He is declared to be the Son of God in power. The [p. 383] very condition in which He is in resurrection is the manifestation of the glory of His Person. This is of immense importance. You see One here superior to all the power of death. Now that is the grand test. One who is manifestly superior to everything that sin had brought upon man could be none other than the Son of God. This is the true argument with which to meet a unitarian. You can imagine a wonderful person upon this earth going about and doing a wonderful lot of good, and the unitarian would make us believe that Christ was such a person; but I say, find me the greatest and best man that ever trod this earth, and tell me, where is that man in the presence of the power of death? That is the way to meet a unitarian. A man superior to all the power of death must be the Son of God. And as we read here, He is marked out Son of God in power, by resurrection of the dead. Well, I do not dwell any more upon that, I am only setting it out for you, but you see how vital, how important is the truth of resurrection as to the very foundation of everything; for every bit of our blessing and every bit of the glory of the new creation rest upon the redemptive work of the Son of God, and every part of that work rests upon the glory of the One who did it. Resurrection is God’s attestation of the Person who is centre of all His thoughts and purposes for eternity. I think at the very start we may say resurrection is the one vital truth of Scripture and christianity. Now I will pass over to speak of it in relation to another subject.
“But now Christ is raised from among the dead, firstfruits of those fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also resurrection of those that are dead. For as in the Adam all die, thus also in the Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15: 20). The aspect of resurrection brought before us in this chapter is in its relation to the victory of God. The key word in 1 Corinthians 15 is the word “victory”. I do not know whether you are able to follow what I am seeking to bring before you, but it is very simple in itself. God has set His heart upon man; you cannot read the Scripture without [p. 384] coming to that conclusion. If it is a question of the first man, Adam, every thought that was in God’s heart as to man has broken down, as we have been reading, “By man came death”. What a terrible thing it is to think that man has given himself over to sin and death; he has involved himself and all his race in sin and death. What does it mean? It is a great victory for the devil. You fancy death reigning in this world for four thousand years; just think of it: the whole history of this world apparently a triumph of evil. That is a victory for the devil; and 1 Corinthians 15 is to show how the victory of Satan is to be transformed into a victory of God. The very place where Satan seems to have got the victory is the very place where the battle is to be turned, and God is victorious. Out of that black abyss of death there is a Man risen up in triumph, and God is at last victorious. There is a Man who has got a victory for God, a Man who has gone into all the power of death and has so overcome it all that He could come out in resurrection. The first man is of the earth, earthy, but here is the second Man, and by Him comes resurrection, and you will find, if you read this chapter, which is pretty familiar to people who go to funerals, that God has achieved a victory and He is going to share that victory with the believer, so that, “as in the Adam all die, thus also in the Christ all shall be made alive” (verse 22). Thus if you have got a vital link with the Victor, you will be made alive. “The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must needs put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the word written: Death has been swallowed up in victory” (verses 52 - 54). It is complete victory. What a triumph it will be! It is all based on resurrection. Take away the truth and fact of resurrection, and the whole fabric collapses. What is our future? It is to be with incorruptible bodies, glorified spiritual bodies, in the company of the Victor, to share all the glories of the new creation,
[p. 385] as the expression of the complete victory of God over death. What a triumph! You see what vast and magnificent results are going to flow from it, for we are told in verses 24 - 26, “When he shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that is annulled is death”. Now just think of that! You see a Man by whom resurrection has come, that is the Man to whom God could entrust the putting right of the whole universe, and God puts the sceptre that fell from the hands of Adam in the garden of Eden back into the hands of the last Adam. Everything that sin has brought into the created universe (I am not speaking of the abode of the lost: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”) is going to be cleared by the last Adam. He is going to reign till He has put all enemies under His feet, and the last enemy that shall be annulled is death. It is not our enemies, but God’s. What a marvellous thing it is! There is One who puts down every one of God’s foes, and we share His victory. I cannot travel any farther over that, but I turn to another branch of the subject, that perhaps we may be a little more interested in.
It says, “Now it was not written on his account alone that it was reckoned to him, but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification, it will be reckoned. Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 4: 23 - 25; Romans 5: 1). I want just to say a little about resurrection in its relation to peace with God. We have seen a little of what it is to God, and now we may learn a little what it is for us, and I am more willing to take up a subject like this, because there are many people who have not peace, and the worst of it is, they think they have. If they were downright uneasy, it would be better. The doctor has a difficult case when the patient does not think there is anything the matter with him. A good many [p. 386] people think it is peace, when they know their sins are put away. But it is not. I believe that there are lots of people who sit under the clearest and ablest exposition of the Scripture, who have not got peace with God, because in the faith of their souls they have never got beyond the cross. In the information of their heads, they have got far beyond it, but not in their souls. I do not think anyone can have peace with God until they come in faith to a risen Saviour. I do not think a person has peace until he consciously stands in divine righteousness; and there is many a person who has the negative, but who has not the positive. They know the bad has gone, but they do not know the good has come. The one is just as true as the other. Justification is that good has come. You say, ‘What do you mean?’ Well, when the Lord Jesus Christ was on the cross, delivered for our offences, all the bad was there. Your sins were there. Every question of guilt that could be raised between God and your conscience was raised and settled there. The whole thing was settled. There was a Man on that cross under guilt: my guilt, your guilt. Do you believe it? “Delivered for our offences”. Did He remove it? Certainly He did. If you think of who He was, you cannot have a question. But what is left, I would like to know? Is it simply that ‘settled’ is written at the bottom of the bill? There is something far more than that. What is left? There is a Man left in the presence of God, and nothing could equal the standing of that Man with God. Who is He? Why, the Saviour risen from the dead. You just think of it; think of resurrection taking up that blessed Victim. He had died upon the cross, He was delivered for your offences. Think of the mighty power of God raising Him from the dead. Do you think anything could be better, anything equal the standing of that risen Saviour with God? — an object of perfect satisfaction, and rest, and pleasure to God. So that not only has the bad been displaced at the cross, but there is all the good in the Person of the risen Christ. You say, ‘But what has that to do with me?’ It has a lot to do with you.
“Raised for our justification”, He is there in resurrection, He has glorified God in death. The fact that He is there has a distinct relation to me. The standing of the believer is identical with the standing of that risen Saviour. That is the gospel. I believe there are many who have heard it thousands of times, and yet have never reached it in the faith of their hearts. If I am in the standing and acceptance of that risen Saviour, my place of favour with God is beyond all expression. I am not merely in the sense of relief, but I am in the favour of God; I know that I am in God’s presence in divine acceptability. That is justification.
I should like to turn over to chapter 6: 4, 5, 9, 10: “We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”. “Knowing that Christ having been raised up from among the dead dies no more: death has dominion over him no more. For in that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God”. In this chapter, or rather in these verses, resurrection is brought before us in relation to the fact that there is a Man of a new order in the presence of God. I should dearly like to make the sense of this plain to the youngest believer here, but I do not know whether I shall be able to, for I do not think there is any truth that the majority of Christians are so slow to apprehend as the fact that there must be a Man of a new order, for God. I know how slow I am to learn it myself, and I can sympathise with anybody; but I do see this, that God has entirely done with man after the order of Adam, and must have a Man after a new order: that is the truth of Romans 6. I know that Christ came into the old order, and the worst of it is, that because Christ came into the old order in the days of His flesh, people think He came into it to restore it, and bring it back to God, and fit it for God’s presence. People think that [p. 388] God came down to man, in some way or other to lift man up to God. Nothing of the kind. I grant you that Christ came into the old order; He was made of a woman made under the law; He was after the flesh, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as to bodily condition in flesh and blood He was in the old order. He always was of the new order, but he was in the old order. He came here to make an end righteously before God of that old order, and that was accomplished in His death. There is nothing that is less understood than the death of Christ, though everyone thinks they know all about it. It is a wonderful thing to see the Son of God coming down into man’s condition. He came here to bring man’s condition to a close, to terminate the history of man after the order of Adam, to remove man of that order from the sight of God forever. Now why is this? There is a reason for everything in Scripture, and I believe we miss a great deal by not searching out the reason. This is the reason: from the moment of the fall, Adam, and every man who is of the order of Adam, has to do with sin; he has it in him, and he has it all around him, and God’s desire is to have a Man with whom sin has nothing to do whatever. That is the desire of God’s heart. That is why He must have a Man of an entirely new order. What you get in this chapter is that the Lord Jesus has died unto sin. “In that he has died, he has died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God” (verse 10). When the Lord Jesus was here in the days of His flesh, He had to say to sin. There was none in Him, but He had to say to the sin around Him. It was all around Him to grieve His blessed heart, from step to step filling Him with inconceivable sorrow. So long as He was here, He had to say to sin, and He had to bear the judgment of sin upon the cross. Now He has died to sin, not here for sin. He has passed out of that order of life, into another order of life in resurrection, and He lives to God. There is no thought of sin now, He lives to God. That is the sort of Man God wanted; God wanted a Man with whom sin had nothing to do, and He has got Him. As we have been reading, “Raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”
([p. 389] verse 4). Now He lives to God, and as God looks on the second Man, there is nothing about Him to remind God of the existence of sin. God can find His satisfaction in that Man, without any thought of sin. He lives to God, and He is in a condition where sin can never come; He is in a new order. Now, beloved brethren, I cannot go into the practical side of it, but it is brought before us in Romans 6 with a very practical object. You find we are of that order. Every Christian is of the order that Christ is of in resurrection. I wonder if you have got hold of that yourself, that you are of the order of resurrection. It is a marvellous thing. Our identification with Him begins in death; not in incarnation. You never can be identified with Christ as a man after the flesh. It cannot be. It is in death. We have been identified with Him in His death, and this identification is going to be consummated in resurrection; and in Romans 8, it is God’s purpose that we are to be “conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren” (verse 29) — a company completely outside sin, a company of the order of the risen Christ. That is the truth of God. In Romans 1: 4, He was declared to be the “Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness”. Remember that, “According to the Spirit of holiness”. The fact is that nothing would suit the holiness of God, but having a Man completely outside sin and death. He has achieved it in Christ, and He is going to achieve it in us. What a wonderful thing; God has taken us up to be clean outside sin and death. I do not think anything is more wonderful than that, and nothing is so little known.
I pass over to another part of the subject.
It says in 2 Corinthians 5: 14 - 18, “For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died; and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised. So that we henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things [p. 390] have passed away; behold all things have become new: and all things are of ... God”. I want very briefly to say a word or two about resurrection in its relation to new creation; and I think if what I have just been saying from Romans 6 were understood, it would not be very difficult for us to understand this part of the subject. We are to live to One who has risen again. It sounds very simple, but I wonder what sort of idea you have of it. It is a grand thing to try to put down on a piece of paper, in black and white, the idea you have of some very familiar scripture. I try sometimes and I am amazed at my ignorance. This is simple christianity; we do not know any man after the flesh. What, not Christ? No. If we had known Christ after the flesh, we do not know Him in that order any more. He says, ‘If I had been one of the disciples that went about with Him, yet I know Him thus no more’. “Now we know him thus no longer”. He has passed out of that order. It is impossible to know Him in the order of the flesh now; He has passed out of it, but you may remember what He was when He was there. He is not there now. The Holy Spirit says, we are to live to Him. That is in the new order. We are to live to Him that died for us, and rose again. How are we to do it? How can you have a link with a Person who is risen again? You will not live to Him unless you are linked to Him; there must be a link. I know I have got a lot of links with man in the flesh; and my links, as a responsible man living in this world, are with things here, with my family, my business, with men. Anybody can see that. Now how may I come to be linked with One that is in resurrection? It would not be possible if it were not for new creation in our souls. He says, “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”. What a wonderful thing! The important thing about you and me, and the only thing that can count with God, is something that no one can see. It is the mighty work wrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit, and every particle of that work is purely of God, as the new heavens and the new earth will be by and by. There is a bit of something in every believer in [p. 391] Christ that is purely and entirely of God; and remember this, all the links of that new creation are with a risen Christ. It has not a link with anything here — friends, family, business etc. — it has not a link with your wife unless she is a Christian, and then it has a link with the new creation in her. Every jot of my being that is not of the new creation is going. Now just ask yourself how big you would be if everything were taken away except what God has wrought in your soul. I should be very small. Well, that is all that counts. There is nothing else that is going into the glory, but what God has wrought in us by His Spirit. Do you not see, this is very important, because it behoves every one of us to be laying ourselves out to cultivate that new creation. If you have no links with the risen Christ, it shows you have very little there. It is a wonderful thing that God has begun this work of new creation in our souls, and it is being furthered day by day as the work of the Spirit progresses in our hearts. This work of new creation is growing and extending, and by and by in glory it will come out in its full fruition, and be displayed in its divine beauty for ever. Now that is connected with a risen Christ. I will only just refer to one more branch of my subject before I close, and that is in Colossians 3: 1 - 4, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God: have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth; for ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God. When the Christ is manifested, who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”.
Here we get resurrection in its relation to christian life. People say, ‘Oh, all that dreamy stuff about resurrection; if you would only talk about something practical, it would be better’. You may be quite sure when people talk like that, that they are as blind as bats in the things of God. I do not say they are not converted; but they are blind, they are like puppies that have not opened their eyes. The moment a man gets his eyes open, he sees there is no practical christianity [p. 392] apart from resurrection. If a person has not apprehended the significance of resurrection, he is simply leading a good and moral life as a man on the earth. I know that cuts down a good deal, but not a single bit too much. It may count with man, but nothing else counts with God but what is on the line of resurrection. “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God: have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth”. Now what is christian life? People say it is paying 100 pence in the pound, and doing to others as you would be done by, and carrying out all the practical precepts of christianity. I beg your pardon, that is not christian life: it is the practical outcome of christian life. All that comes out of me is not my life, it is the outcome of my life. My life is what is inward. No one knows what my true life is, but myself. You may judge what I am by my fruit, but it is not my life; it is the outcome of my life. Now where is the christian life? It is at the right hand of God. The Scripture says plainly, “When the Christ ... who is our life”. It is very simple. Practically, what you are seeking is your life. I could tell what your life is practically, if I knew what you were seeking. If you are seeking money, and to get on in this world, you are not living a christian life at all. Christian life is not here, it is at the right hand of God; and if you are risen with Christ, you are to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. You say, ‘We have our duties here, and we have to go through them’. Yes, but then we are only here as servants; we are to do the Lord’s will in the circumstances in which we are placed, but our life is not here. Supposing a man is working in a cutting in a mine seventeen inches high, lying on his back, is that the man’s life? No, not a bit of it. His life is on the top, with his wife and family. He does not delight in being down in the pit. He has to be there, but his life is not there; and while he is down there at the bottom, his heart and mind are at the top. That is just what a Christian is; his [p. 393] life is up there. He is risen with Christ, and the practical side is that he sets his mind on things that are above. “He that seeks finds” (Matthew 7: 8), and if we were to seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God, we should get them; and we should be enjoying things which will be our life through all eternity. God does not want us to put off the enjoyment of our life till we get into the brighter sphere, but we must seek them now, and the Christian only enjoys his life in proportion as he seeks the things that properly constitute it; and they are found at the right hand of God; and we can measure ourselves by asking our hearts how far we are familiar with the things that are there.