02.02. THE WORD TO MARTHA

II.

Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

John 11:25-26 The Lord here identifies himself with an event, - "the resurrection;" and a state, - "the life." The event and the state are intimately connected - the one takes its character from the other; according to what the life is, so is the resurrection. If it is life in the sense in which all men on the earth live, - if it is the life that is here and now common to all the race, - then the resurrection is a mere resuscitation. It is simply a return to this present world, under the ordinary conditions of man’s present occupancy of it. Such a return to life as actually took place in the case of Lazarus, and of others whom our Lord and his apostles raised from the dead. But if it is life in a higher sense that is meant - life in the favour and fellowship of God - the resurrection must obviously be of a sort corresponding to the life. That this last is the life meant is evident, for it is associated with faith. It is the life which those have who believe in Jesus. Of this life it is said, on the one hand, that it overcomes, or, as it were, undoes and reverses death; and, on the other hand, that it abolishes death, or renders it impossible. In the one view, the believer in Jesus may die, or be dead, yet with the certainty that he shall live. In the other view, he is never to die at all. In either view, the life is in Jesus. He is the life. And in order to his being the life, he is the resurrection. For he was dead. But, in the first place, when he died, it might be said of him, " though he were dead, yet shall he live." There is to be for him a resurrection. And now, secondly, it may be said of him that he " liveth," and so liveth that " he shall never die." Hence he himself says, "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of hell (or hades) and of death ;" - of the unseen world and of the entrance thereto (Revelation 1:18). And hence also to those who, believing, are one with him, he is the resurrection and the life. He is their life, and in order to his being so, he is their resurrection. In a double sense he is their life ; inasmuch as, first, in him, though they die, they shall yet live ; and inasmuch as, secondly, living now in him, they shall never die.

Thus there are two ways of considering the Lord’s saying, " I am the resurrection and the life." On the one hand, it may be considered in connection with the admission that the believer has to face death; according to the promise in the twenty-fifth verse, - "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." On the other hand, it may be considered in the light of the assurance that to the believer there is properly no death ; according to the promise in the twenty-sixth verse, - "Whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die."

Part First

It would seem to be admitted, in the first instance, that one who believes in Jesus as the resurrection and the life, may die. Though he were dead," the Lord says ; though he die ; though he be dead. In a literal sense, this was an admission obviously demanded by the fact that Lazarus was dead. It would have been difficult to persuade Martha that a believer in Jesus was never to die when her brother Lazarus was dead. Yes, there is death. My brother is gone. The arm that used to embrace me so tenderly, the eye that so often met mine so lovingly, the manly frame I was so apt only too proudly to admire, -all is mouldering in the dark grave. But out of that death there is life. ’’I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." The life, therefore, which a believer has in Jesus, as the resurrection and the life, is not incompatible with death. Nay, it implies death. It is the antithesis or antagonism of death. The glory of it lies in this very concession ; - " though he were dead, yet shall he live." Nor is it merely to the death which Lazarus had just died, that this admission applies. Death, in a far deeper sense, is comprehended in it. The expression - " though he were dead " - will cover, not merely such a death as Lazarus had died, but such a death also as Christ himself died. Nay, it must comprehend and cover that death, if he is the resurrection and the life, and if it is as one with him in that character, that he who believeth in him, though he were dead, shall yet live.

Need I say what death that was? The death which Christ had to die! The death with reference to which it might be said of him, "Though he were dead, yet shall he live!" What death was that? A death of cruelty; a death of agony; a death of shame! More than that. A death of condemnation; a death of wrath; a penal death ; " the cursed death of the cross !" He was to die, bearing the guilt, and suffering the punishment of sin ; exhausting the sentence of the violated law. That was the bitterness of his death. Thus he was appointed to die. Thus he actually died.

’ But though he was thus to die, yet he was to live. Even before he gave up the ghost, he was to be in a position to say, "It is finished;" " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And on the third day thereafter he was to be " declared to be the Son of God, with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4).

Jesus then might truly say of himself, Though I were dead, yet shall I live. And it is because he can say this of himself, that he can say also of every one who believes in him, Though he were dead yet shall he live. He may have to die, not merely as Lazarus has died, but as I am to die. He may have to be a partaker, not in the first place at least, with Lazarus in his death, but before that, with me in mine. Nay, it must be so, if he believes in me.

For, if we believe, we must enter into Christ’s death, and make it our own. There must be realized in our experience an actual personal dying with Christ. There must be wrought in us by the Holy Spirit some real apprehension of a dealing with us for our sins on the part of God, the righteous Judge, exactly similar to his dealing with Christ, when he bore our sins in his own body on the cross.

It may be a dealing thoroughly fatal, for the time, to our peace; remorselessly destructive of any life we may once have thought we had, - any life we may once have hoped to make good, - before our God. There may be darkness above and all around, a rending of the rocky heart within, a sharp sword of wrath piercing us, a heavy sense of guilt oppressing us ; and the cry, as of one forsaken of God, may be wrung from each of us apart, - " Woe is me! for I am undone" Still let us not shrink from the hour ; let us accept the punishment of our sin ; let God smite us even to the dust, till all idea of our having any life of our own is gone, and we fall at his feet as dead. Only let us believe in Jesus ; embrace him as dying for us; consent to be dead in him. And let us lay hold of that assurance of his, concerning every one who believeth in him; - "Though he were dead, yet shall he live."

Yes! In spite of this death we live. Nay, more. Through this death we live. For now, believing, we are accounted one, because we are really one, with Christ in his death. His death is reckoned to be ours ; in the eye of the law, it is equivalent to ours. Because Christ is dead, the law regards us as dead. Christ, in his death, has endured and exhausted the penalty of the law ; and we who are one with him, have endured and exhausted it in him. Its condemning sentence has no more hold over him ; nor over us who are in him.

Such is the efficacy of his death; such its legal force and import. And such is the virtue of that real and vital union which the Spirit, by working faith in us, effects between Christ and us. We die with Christ ; we die in Christ. Now, "he that is dead is freed from sin" (Romans 6:7) ; from sin’s curse or condemnation by the law. The law has done its worst That penal death being over, - first as regards Christ, - and then as regards us who are in Christ, - he lives, and we live along with him. So our Lord here teaches. And so also, with greater fulness, his fully instructed Apostle Paul testifies ; " If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him : knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more ; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once : but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:8-11). Is there yet awaiting us another death? Believing in Jesus, and being partakers with him in the death which he died, have we still, even after that, to be partakers of the death which Lazarus died? Be it so. But is not the Lord’s assurance as applicable to this death in prospect, as to the death that is past?

Nay, it is so much more. For this death before us is less formidable by far than the death from which we are already delivered. It need not have in it, and should not have in it ; if we really believe, it cannot have in it ; - those elements of guilt and wrath that filled the cup which our Saviour had to drink, and which we drink with him when we are " crucified with him." The experience of our dying hour is not to be like that which smites us when, under a sense of sin’s guilt and the law’s curse, we die now. The Spirit, - causing us to enter into the death of Christ now by giving us an insight into his cross,- slays us once for all; empties us of all conceit of life; makes us own and feel ourselves to be dead. But that death we survive; from that death we are raised. Though thus dead, we live. What remains is not death - it is a falling asleep in Jesus. When that hour comes to thee, believer, the Spirit, bringing to thy remembrance what Christ hath said, will cause thee to hear these gracious words, " I am the resurrection and the life." Thou seest the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. It is as raised from the dead that he stands there; and thou too art raised from the dead in him. Dying thou art, "thy life is hid with Christ in God." Thy life is bound up in the life of thy risen Lord. He, as the resurrection and the life, has already brought thee through a worse death than thou hast to die now. He will bring thee through this death also. He will bring thee through it completely, - in respect of thy body as well as thy soul. Though thou hast to die, yet shalt thou live.

Ah, then, thy end may well be peace! Yes. Though it be even amid a shower of stones that thou art perishing, the tumult of angry passions raging all around; gazing still on thy risen Saviour thou shalt say, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !" And breathing the prayer of charity, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," quietly, in the arms of thy risen Lord, thou shalt "fall asleep." This first view of the Lord’s gracious assurance may suggest some practical thoughts.

1. In how emphatic a sense is that saying true, " He that loveth his life shall lose it " (John 12:25). The Lord says this with reference to his own dark death, viewed as the condition of his life and glory ; - " Except a com of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24). And yet the love of life is inherent in man. All men cleave to life. Nor is it merely to the natural life which finds its congenial home in this warm-breathing world that men cling. To life in a higher sense they cling ; to the idea of some spiritual life which they may have, as being at all events not utterly and hopelessly condemned in the judgment of God. It is of that life chiefly that the Lord speaks when he says, " He that loveth his life shall lose it." Are you in this sense "loving your life?" Are you clinging to the imagination of your not being, after all, so very guilty, so very destitute of all title to favour with God, as his whole word proclaims you to be ? Are you still going about to establish a righteousness of your own, - striving to satisfy or silence conscience by the common pleas of worldly self-justification? I beseech you to consider that, as certainly as there is a God of judgment, so certainly must that life of yours issue ere long in the discovery that all is lost !

Before the awful throne, the books of reckoning are opened. Your sins are set out before you ; yes, and your virtues too ; your pieties and charities. The heartlessness of your whole way of dealing with God is exposed. And the heavy sentence of his holy law of love crushes you, - unholy and unloving, - in ruin that admits of no retrieval

Love not a life like that. Rather now, in the day of grace, let that self-righteous life of yours be hated, disowned, renounced, finally and for ever. Let it go; you are well rid of it. For "he that," in this sense, "hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal " (John 12:25).

2. " The com of wheat falls into the ground and dies." And he carries you with him. You are in him as he lies in the grave; crucified with him ; buried with him. That old life of yours, with all its sins and all its righteousness’s, is buried with him ; never again to come up, either to tempt you again to trust in it, or to torment you with any feeling of its condemnation. There, in the grave of that crucified one, you lie buried, as to all your guilt, and all your liability to wrath and judgment. Surely it is a blessed thing thus to die.

3. It is so, because the life that issues out of this death is very blessed indeed. " The com of wheat," when it dies, " bringeth forth much fruit." You, believing, are among the " much fruit" - being raised from the death of guilt and condemnation to a life of acceptance and peace. You live now, in and with Christ. His life, - his risen life, - is yours ; as truly as your death, - your penal death, - was his. You are in the same position in which you would be, if you had yourselves personally died the very death which Christ died when he fully expiated guilt; and had thereafter risen again as he rose; -experiencing the very resurrection by which he was "declared to be the Son of God with power."

How complete, then, is your deliverance from the fear of death, and the bondage in which the fear of death keeps you. How strong also is the obligation under which you lie, as " dead with Christ," "to crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts;" and as "risen with Christ," to " seek the things which are above, where he sitteth at the right hand of God." For thus you realise your fellowship with him, first in his death, and then in his resurrection and life as consequent upon his death. He is thus, through his death and your participation in his death by faith, " the resurrection and the life " to you. Thus, " though you die, yet you live." And though you have another death still before you, it is not that " second death " which awaits the ungodly. Your second death is your quietly falling asleep in Jesus. That once over, you are alive in him for evermore. You are at home with him immediately in your emancipated spirits. And ere long, in your glorified bodies also, you are to be for ever at home with him, according to his own blessed parting promise to his disciples ; " In my Father’s house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also " (John 14:2-3).

Part Second

While in one view it is admitted that " he that believeth in Jesus as the resurrection and the life " may die, when it is said, "though he were dead, yet shall he live ;" in another view the opposite seems to be implied, when it is added, " Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." And that is emphatically true. The life which you have through believing in Jesus as " the resurrection and the life " is unbroken and continuous. It admits of stages of progress and advancement, but not of interruption. From its first commencement onward through eternal ages, it stretches its unsevered line, its uncut thread. And it is one and the same life throughout. It is life in Christ ; and in Christ considered as "The resurrection and the life."

It is a state, reached through an event ; a state of life, reached through the event of a resurrection. The event is identified with Christ, "I am the resurrection ;" and so also is the state, " I am the life." When you believe in him, the event and the state become yours as well as his; - yours in the very sense in which they are his. Being one with him as " the resurrection," you become one with him . " as the life." That is the law or condition of the life which knows no death. And it is so in reference to all its stages of development ; initial here ; and hereafter - first intermediate, and then final.

I. Take this new life in its initial stage of development, as it begins and makes progress in this world. It is a state reached through an event. It is life springing out of a resurrection from death. And the resurrection, as originating the life, Christ identifies with himself personally ; - " I am the resurrection and the life" The expression is figurative ; - but, viewed in the light of the occasion, it is not obscure.

Martha has been looking to the future, probably the remote future, thinking of some far distant day when she may embrace her brother in the flesh again. Jesus recalls her to the present. The resurrection to which you thought I was referring when I said, "Thy brother shall rise again," may, in one view of it, be far off. But in another view, it is near. It is here. It is here in me ; in my person. For it is a resurrection which must first be realized in me personally, in order that it may then be realized also in him who, through grace, believes in me.

How is this resurrection realized in the person of Christ himself ? As realized in his person, what is involved in it ?

Guided by the fuller teaching of the apostles on this subject, and especially of the Apostle Paul, we may partly trace the meaning of that great transaction.

Writing to the Ephesians 2:5-6, he represents believers as, in the first place, "quickened with Christ ;" in the second place, " raised up together with Christ ;" and in the third place, "made to sit together with Christ in the heavenly places." He thus identifies their position with that of Christ himself (Ephesians 1:19-20), when " God raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places."

Now the position of Christ, as thus raised, has in it the three elements of power, grace, and glory ; - power, reversing the sentence of death ; grace, conveying a sentence of life ; and glory, crowning the conqueror with meet reward. In the first place, in his resurrection, Christ is fully and finally delivered from death ; - from the death he consented to die when he " gave his life a ransom for many." Resurrection is to him the removal or reversal of the divine sentence under which he suffered ; the proof that, with reference to him, that sentence is exhausted. He ceases to lie under any of the penal consequences of that guilt of ours which was imputed to him when he died. In so far as these consequences affected his soul, he was rid of them when he cried, " It is finished." But that was not enough. So long as they continued to touch his body, so long as the penal death he died had hold of him by any part of his human nature, - he was still really bearing somewhat of the doom of sin, as one condemned. But there was no more condemnation when he rose from the dead. In the second place, in his resurrection, Christ not only ceases to be dead, or to lie under the sentence of death; he begins to live anew; he receives the sentence of life. Not only is he absolved from the condemnation that was upon him, as " made a curse " for us; he is judicially acquitted; accepted as righteous; in a word, justified. And the justification is complete. For he has brought in an everlasting righteousness; he has rendered a perfect obedience. He has not only endured and exhausted the penalty of the violated law; he has done more than that. Made under the law, he has honored it by his holy, spotless, sinless compliance with its demands, both positive and punitive or penal As the Father’s righteous servant he has done the Father’s will. And his resurrection is the Father’s significant approval of him, in that character, and on that account.

Thirdly, in his resurrection, Christ is set at the right hand of the Father. His seat now, as the risen Saviour, - his home, - is in "the heavenly places," beside the Father. That is his life, following from his resurrection. It is the life upon which, being man as well as God, he enters, - when he passes from the cross and the grave into " the heavenly places."

How he there dwells with the Father; how his human soul is filled with overflowing communications of the Father’s love; how, as to his human nature as well as his divine, he is with the Father, being "daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;" how his afflictions are ravished there; what are his activities there; tongue cannot tell nor heart conceive. Enough to know that our risen Lord is at home with the Father in " the heavenly places! "

Such is the resurrection, as realized in the person of Christ, and such the life which it originates.

Now it is this very resurrection that Christ becomes to us, and this very life, when we believe in him. Resurrection, as realized in us, is identical with what it is, as realized in him. First, we are " quickened together with Christ." Secondly, we are " raised up together" with him. And, thirdly, we are made to " sit with him in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 2:5-6). Thus his resurrection, and consequently his life, become ours.

All this implies a work of power. It is the exercise of "the exceeding greatness of the power of God, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:19-20). It is power, however, exercised in a peculiar manner. It is omnipotence; but it is omnipotence working in terms of law; and that law, the moral law; the law of love and duty, which can neither be forced nor evaded, but must be honored and obeyed.

Look again at the Lord Jesus in his death. See him as his body lies in the tomb. What obstacles stand in the way of his resurrection ?

Some obstacles there are, which a mere and simple exertion of divine power may remove. The stone can thus be rolled away from the mouth of the sepulcher ; and the breath of life can thus be made to reanimate the clay cold corpse. There might thus be a resurrection effected by the mere fiat of omnipotence. The Father speaks and it is done : - " Let that grave be opened ; - let the principle of vitality again possess that body ;- let the disembodied spirit return to it." There is a resurrection thus effected. The dead Christ no doubt is raised. But he is raised only to be what he was before. He is raised to resume his old life in the flesh, - under the old terms and conditions ; the old obligations, responsibilities, and liabilities. He is raised to be again " made under the law" - under its authority, and under its curse. A resurrection, in the case of Christ, effected by a mere act of power, might have done that; it could have done no more than that. It could not have brought him into a position in which he might be " the resurrection and the life " to us. It would have been merely and simply a return to the old life; not a resurrection to a new life. His resurrection, if it is to be available as a source of life to us, must be a judicial act, as well as a work of power. Omnipotence effects it; but I repeat, it is omnipotence acting according to law. It is the Almighty One speaking, and it is done. But it is at the same time the Righteous One saying - It is enough ; the judgment is over; the punishment has been borne. The surety, when he is raised and revived, rises and lives upon a new footing. And on that new footing he is in a position to be " the resurrection and the life" to us, when we believe in him as thus risen and thus living.

There is therefore a two-fold divine interposition in that event of our history, - that crisis in our experience, - that change in our spiritual state, - which is implied in Christ being " the resurrection and the life" to us; or, in other words, in our being " raised with him to newness of life" (Romans 6:4).

First, there is a work of power ; an operation of the Almighty Spirit. The sealed stone at the mouth of Christ’s sepulcher, the perfect deadness of his bodily frame, its utter incapacity for originating life or motion ; - these are but faint types of the obstacles, external and internal, which have to be dealt with and overcome, before one who is dead in sin can rise and live. The immediate and direct touch of omnipotence, and that alone, can meet the case. To roll away the stone, - the hard and heavy stone, - of careless unconcern and carnal security, with which the world, and the world’s prince, contrive to close the way of access into the heart and conscience ; and then, to impart vitality, so that the smitten conscience may mourn and the broken heart give forth its tears; -that is the Spirit’s work of power.

But, secondly, the Spirit works in harmony with that judicial resurrection-act apart from which even a real spiritual resurrection would be in vain. For of what avail would it be to have fresh vitality imparted to the soul; to have the conscience and the heart quickened into new sensibility, as regards the claims of God and the guilt of sin ; if it were to issue merely in our being put again where we were before, - and set again to the old task of working out a righteousness or resurrection and a life or justification, for ourselves? Quickened thus in conscience and in heart, - with conscience keenly sensitive and heart affectionate and warm,- we would only aim the higher in our attempt to satisfy God’s law of love, - and sink the deeper under a bitter sense of failure and defeat, - of condemnation and of wrath? To recall Christ again, by a resurrection of mere power, to the state in which he was before he died, - to place him again under law as he was then,- to impose upon him a second time the obligations and responsibilities which he had already so fully met, - this would have appeared, in the eyes of all intelligences, intolerable severity. And yet he could have stood the ordeal! He could have passed again unscathed through the furnace heated seven times! But for us to be spiritually quickened in heart and soul and conscience, - and at the same time left in the state in which we are by nature, as regards our relation to God and our standing in his sight, - to be put, as it were, again upon our probation, to have simply another opportunity given to us of trying how we may right ourselves with God, - and that, too, with an altogether new sense of holiness and of sin; - such procedure on the part of God towards us would be a sort of mockery. It would be as if God had given Adam a second chance in the garden of Eden; as if, reinstating him there, with the knowledge he had got of good and evil, - of unattainable good and inevitable evil, - God had simply proposed to him, as if in irony, a repetition of the experiment of the forbidden tree.

That, however, is not the manner of God. When Christ is raised, there is a work of power; rolling away the stone and causing the buried body again to breathe. But along with that, there is a judicial act ; removing the condemnation and passing a sentence of acquittal and acceptance; - admitting him who had died a criminal to a prince’s seat on the king’s throne, and a son’s place in the Father’s heart.

Even so, when Christ is "made of God to us" "the resurrection and the life," there is a work of power. The door of our heart, which is a very sepulcher, - whited, perhaps, but still a sepulcher, - is broken open; - often violently with much force of awakening and conviction, a sort of earthquake shaking us with great terror; - sometimes, however, more gently, as if an angel’s hand were touching the stone very tenderly. The dead bones within are stirred to life. The Spirit breathes on them. Stupid, carnal unconcern gives place to earnest, anxious, inquiring sensibility.

Thus far there is a work of power ; - issuing in the cry, " What must I do to be saved ?" But is that enough? Is that all?

No. Along with that there is and must be a judicial act. We hear the call, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." We hear; and hearing, through grace we believe. And now, first of all, we are delivered from death; for " there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)Nay, more ; in the second place, we are judicially acquitted and accounted righteous; we are raised to life as " accepted in the beloved."(Ephesians 1:6) Nay, more still ; in the third place, we are made to ’’ sit with him," (Revelation 3:21) as adopted children, partakers of his filial rank and filial nature, " in the heavenly places." We have a life, whose seat and centre and home is the bosom of the Everlasting Father, where the Son himself dwells for evermore.

Thus, with reference to our experience in this world, Christ is to us " the resurrection and the life." Through union and participation with him in his resurrection, we come to have union and participation with him in his life. Believing in him, we live; absolved, justified, adopted. And we so live in him that we shall never die. Such a life, thus reached by such a resurrection, has no liability to death in it or about it, - no possibility of death. It is not, and cannot be, subject to death, or the risk of death. From its very nature and origin, it is unbroken in its continuity. When once begun, it must go on uninterruptedly. The work of divine power, - and the judicial act, or sentence of divine law, - concurring in the resurrection which originates the life, secure its continuing for ever; and its continuing for ever, always the same. "Living and believing in Jesus, we never die."

II. But our life, realized through faith in Jesus as " the resurrection and the life " - our life in the risen Saviour,- has its eras. It has its eras even here in this world ; its dates or times of progress and advancement. And in reference to the world to come, it has at all events these two; - death and the resurrection.

Death, in this view, is not really death; it is a step in the march of that life which knows no death. It is, in fact, our second resurrection. When we fall asleep in Christ, he is even then to us " the resurrection and the life." He is so, in a new sense, and to a new effect. For he then severs completely the ties that bind us to the past and present here, and throws us wholly on the future elsewhere. In our conversion, - when we believe in Christ now and here, - he is to us "the resurrection and the life." Spiritually, as believers, we rise from the death of guilt and apostasy, and pass with him into "the heavenly places." And there we " sit with him at the right hand of God." This we realise by faith ; - often by an effort of faith by no means easy. Our aspirations after the resurrection-life now, - our endeavors to enter into it and carry it out, - are hindered by our present worldly condition and our present bodily frame. Both are unfavorable to its development. The world is adverse, and the world’s prince. And "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit." At death, these obstacles are taken out of the way. The world is left behind, and the prince of the world. The flesh is cast off. Emancipated from all earthly bonds, disencumbered of all fleshly desires, we depart to be with Christ. Absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. Is it not a step in advance? It is virtually our entering, through a new resurrection, into a new life. The new resurrection is the escape which the soul, perfected in holiness, makes from the world and the body; - from the world lying in wickedness, and from the "vile body" that is corrupting and corruptible. The new life is the rapturous communion with the risen Saviour which the soul, thus delivered, may enjoy. No outward object distracts; no burden of flesh depresses. Away from the world of sense, abstracted from things external, - all carnal tastes and tendencies cast off, - I am at home with Christ in God. And it is with Christ as risen, that I am at home in God - in his favour, his fellowship, and his love. Leaving this earth, and the body which is mouldering in its dust, - with no thought of either any more, - I pass into the august presence in which my risen Lord has his abode. And I am one with him there. My disenthralled and disencumbered spirit is one with him there ; - one with him in the life which in his human nature he reached when, on the very day of the crucifixion, he himself, - carrying the spirit of the dying penitent along with him, - passed into paradise. Is he not then to me - is he not then preeminently, "the resurrection and the life?" My death, thus viewed, is no interruption of my resurrection-life, but the lifting of it up, as by a new resurrection, to a higher stage and platform, on which it may be realized and unfolded more fully than it can be now. Surely, I might be inclined to say, this is the consummation of the blessedness to which I may aspire, as " living and believing in Christ."

Nay; it is not, it cannot be. For this unearthly and incorporeal life has its drawbacks. It is an advance on what goes before undoubtedly. But the very circumstances in respect of which it is so, constitute its imperfection. In the step taken at death, the external world and the material body are cast off; and the soul emerges bare and naked, to find its home with Christ in God. This, I repeat again, is a step in advance; it may be said to be a second resurrection. Here, on the earth, when Christ becomes to us " the resurrection and the life," the utmost we can look for, as regards the world and the flesh, is that we may be in a position, and may have power, to overcome the world and mortify the flesh At death we cease to have any connection with a world needing to be overcome, and with flesh needing to be mortified. It is a great and blessed emancipation. And yet there may be a more excellent way. Absence from the world and the flesh, - exemption from what is here the needful task of overcoming the world and mortifying the flesh, - is not the perfection of our being. It is not the perfection of Christ’s. If there can be a world that does not require to be overcome, and flesh that does not require to be mortified ; if we can resume our worldly condition and our bodily frame, not only without the necessity of constant war against them in the spirit, but with the certainty of their ministering to our holiness and joy; - if we can return to this earth, or such an earth as this, renewed and purified, and return to it with bodies incorruptible, spiritual, and immortal ; - is not this a higher hope than the other? And is not this our full and final hope in him who, as " the resurrection and the life," calls us, in and with himself, to " inherit all things"?

He has himself a glorified body; he is coming to possess a renovated earth. We are to "bear the image of the heavenly," - of "the second Adam, the Lord from heaven." We are to reign with him, sharing his throne and crown. Our life, begun now in him as made of God to us " the resurrection and the life," is to have its perfection of holiness and happiness then ; for " when he who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4).

Several important lessons of a practical nature may be drawn from the views now submitted.

I. As originally uttered, in his conversation with Martha, this statement of the Lord was fitted, and probably intended, to throw light on what, to believers under the Old Testament dispensation, seems to have been a dark object of contemplation - the intermediate state between death and the resurrection. Of the resurrection itself they had a firm persuasion and bright prospect. It was "the hope of Israel;" "the hope of the promise made of God unto the Fathers." Their views as to the nature of that world into which the resurrection was to usher them, may have been inadequate, and more or less carnal. But when it is testified of them that they "walked as strangers and pilgrims in the earth, declaring plainly that they sought a country," " a better country," " a heavenly country," - it is undeniable that they looked for an inheritance to be reached by a resurrection. A cloud, however, as it would appear, hung over the blank space in front of that event. It was felt to be a dreary void ; - that vast unseen region in space, that blank interval in time, wherein flesh and blood are not. A cloud, however, as it would appear, hung over the bland space in front of that event. It was felt to be a dreary void; that vast unseen region in space, that blank interval in time, wherein flesh and blood are not.

Hence, probably, the excessive shrinking, sometimes amounting almost to horror, which holy men of old manifested, when they were standing on the threshold of that unknown eternity. They express themselves almost as if it were annihilation that they feared. And hence the passionate, and, as we might be apt to think, even unbecoming eagerness, with which such men as David and Hezekiah cling to this earthly state, and deprecate removal from it, as if it were of all calamities and greatest. The gloom which appalled them rested mainly, I am persuaded, not on the territory beyond the resurrection - for that might admit of a well-defined embodiment in the imagination - but on the awful vacancy before it. This word of the Lord to Martha is perhaps the first distinct sound given by the trumpet to chase these dark doubts away. "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live," is a promise that might point to the resurrection. But What follows, "Whomsoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," - must embrace the intermediate state. And when connected with the intimation, - "I am the resurrection and the life, " - it conveyed unequivocally the bright hope, that "to be absent from the body" would be to be "present with the Lord." It is the same hope that the Lord gives, when he says to his fellow-sufferer on the cross, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." It is the hope which enables New Testament believers to look steadfastly as they depart, into the opened heavens, and seeing their Lord there, "the resurrection and the life," to say, as Stephen said, falling asleep in him, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"

II. Still the hope of Israel is the resurrection. the belief of the resurrection, - first, of Christ’s resurrection for us, and then of ours in him, - is the indispensable condition of our confidence, whether in time or for eternity.

Yes! Resurrection is the only way to life - Christ’s resurrection, and ours in him. No otherwise than by death and resurrection from death can the curse of sin and it’s accompanying corruption be shaken off. A resurrection-life alone can meet our case. It is as risen with Christ that, in the first place, we live; and, in the second place, that we so live as that we shall never die.

1. The beginning of this life, in our experience, is and must be a resurrection - a resurrection, in our case, corresponding to the resurrection that there was in the case of Christ. In order to this, as we have seen, two dealings of God must concur and conspire; a work of power, restoring the vital principle, and a judicial act, placing us, with our restored vitality, on a right footing with God, the righteous judge. Regeneration, in short, and justification, meet in this resurrection ; and the two together are essential to its completeness. There must be a new birth, a new creation, effected by divine omnipotence. And along with that, and coincident with it, there must be the canceling of the sentence of condemnation against us, and the passing in our favour of a sentence of acquittal and acceptance. It is thus that we are risen with Christ, quickened with him, justified in him.

2. As it is a resurrection-life in its commencement, so it is a resurrection-life throughout; - now in this present world ; after death in the world of spirits; and after the resurrection, through all eternity, in " the new heaven and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

How completely does this consideration identify the life that now is and the life that is to come! They are no more twain, but "one spirit." It is throughout one spirit that is the breath of this life ; - the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is the one Holy Spirit; - making us, in successive stages, more and more partakers of the resurrection-life of Christ

Ah! How calm and holy is this progressive life! It knows no violent breaks. Even death and the resurrection are not interruptions of it. Its changeless stream flows ever equably on. Through the portals of the tomb it enters a purer, but a narrower, channel. At the opening of the doors for the King of Glory at the last, it issues forth, - a broad river of joy and love, - rolling its ceaseless tide among the islands of the blessed for ever. From the first, throughout, its essential character is the same. It has the same taste, the same color, the same tendency. The life which we now live in the flesh, is the same as the life which we are to live when we depart to be with Christ. It is the same as to all that constitutes its real nature, with the life which we are to live after the Lord has come to " change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his own glorious body," and to say "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

III. For, finally, all throughout the life is Christ. He is " the resurrection and the life." He is so now; " to me to live is Christ." He is so at death ; " I depart to be with Christ," " absent from the body I am present with the Lord." He is so at the resurrection; I shall then "bear the image of the heavenly." So Christ teaches us here. I am now; I shall be when I take you hence; I shall be still more when I return hither, bringing you with me again ; - I am always, evermore, " the resurrection and the life." All is in me and of me; for I am all in all; the alpha and the omega; the first and the last; the living one; the same yesterday, today, and for ever ! Is not this your consolation, believers ? Is not this your hope? When your tears flow fresh for your loved and lost ones, you think of them as they are now, far away from you; - and for that you mourn. But you think of them as being with Christ, - and so you are comforted for them. When, again and again, the thought of their separation from you rushes back to afflict you, you think of them as coming with Christ to meet you ; - and so you are comforted for yourselves. It is their being with Christ that comforts you for them; - it is their coming with Christ that comforts you for yourselves. And when your own dissolution is present to your mind, and the eternal state is in solemn prospect before you; on what do you fasten as your hope? Is it not on the assurance that when you leave the body you go to Christ, - and that when you resume the body again it is to be with him where he is: - to " behold his glory, the glory which the Father hath given him," for " the love with which he loved him before the world was"?