The Resurrection of Jesus # 2

The Resurrection of Jesus # 2

Here we may observe, that He appeared to those who knew Him best, and gave them satisfactory and incontestable 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 those occasions, He conversed with his disciples, reminded them of what He had said to them before His crucifixion, showed them His hands and feet, and besought them to touch and 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 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 me 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 canceled, and the claims of the law satisfied. It is sometimes attributed to the Son Himself; - who has 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 incontestable 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.

~Christmas Evans~

(continued with # 3)