March 23

Who hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. - 2 Timothy 1:10.

“CONJECTURE and opinion,” says Paley, “are not knowledge; and in religion nothing more is known than is proved.” Thus, while the heathen philosophers had these surmisings concerning a future state, and brought forward some strong probabilities in its favour, and some fine and worthy sentiments escaped them, they neither understood nor taught “life and immortality” as a doctrine; they never employed it as a principle and motive. But had not life and immortality been a matter known to and believed in by the Jews? We unhesitatingly reply in the affirmative. Jacob, when dying, said, “I have waited for thy salvation.” David says, “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.” “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” How explicit was Job’s profession!- “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”

How, then, it may be asked, could life and immortality be brought to light through the gospel? We answer, the gospel may be taken generally for divine revelation at large. It was thus Paul used the word. “The gospel,” he says, “was preached to the Jews, but the word preached did not profit them.” The word gospel may also signify the evangelical dispensation, including the personal ministry of our Lord and the inspired communications of the apostles. In the former sense, to the Jews, life and immortality was brought to light really; in the latter sense, we understand that the gospel brought life and immortality to light preeminently; and in this sense it is required to be taken in this place.

The dawn was visible before; now the day appeared. To the Jews the Sun of righteousness was below the horizon; on us he has risen with healing under his wings. Hence our Saviour said to his disciples, “Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things that ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.” Therefore, while it is to the Scriptures only we repair for a knowledge of life and immortality, we must look peculiarly and principally to the New Testament for clearer decisions and fuller representations concerning it, where we are furnished with illustrations and pledges thereof in a risen and glorified Saviour?

How transcendentally glorious, with what unrivalled excellence, does Christianity appear, compared with ancient and modern heathenism! How unsatisfying, how cold, how mean, how gross, how absurd, how disgusting, are the intimations of Deism, the Elysian fields of Pagan poetry, the rewards of Hinduism, the paradise of Mohammedanism, when placed by the side of the “life and immortality brought to light through the gospel”!