(Standing on Faith) 16. THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Col. 3:1. "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." Phil. 3:10. These passages describe our attitude toward the resurrection of Christ, and the power which His resurrection is fitted to exercise upon our life and work. "If ye then be risen" -- literally, "If ye then were resurrected with Christ." There is a difference between "risen" and "resurrected." One may rise from one level to another; but when one is resurrected, he is brought from nothing into existence, from death to life, and the transition is simply infinite. The great objection to all the teachings of mere natural religion and human ethics is, that we are taught to rise to higher planes. The glory of the Gospel is that it does not teach us to rise, but shows us our inability to do anything good of ourselves, and, laying us in the grave in utter helplessness and nothingness, raises us up into new life, born from above and sustained from heavenly sources. Christian life is not self-improvement, but is a supernatural and divine experience. Now, resurrection cannot come until there has been death, and just as real as the death has been, so will be the measure of resurrection life and power. Let us not fear, therefore, to die, and to die to all that we would detach ourselves from, yea, to die to ourselves. We lose nothing by letting go, and we cannot enter in till we come out. "If we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him." The passage in Colossians expresses the fact that we have already died and risen, and that we are now to take the attitude of those for whom this is an accomplished fact. The Apostle does not call upon us to die again with Christ and rise with Him anew, but he calls upon us to recognize the fact that we have done this, and now are expected to live on a corresponding plane. He tells them later in the passage, "For ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." In the sixth chapter of Romans this thought is much more fully worked out. "As many of us as were baptized into Christ," the Apostle says, "were baptized into His death. Therefore we have been buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Then, to emphasize more forcibly the finality of this fact, he says, "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." Therefore, and in like manner, the Apostle bids us to "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus," and to yield ourselves "unto God as those that are alive from the dead and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Now, much of the teaching of the present day would bid us yield ourselves unto God to be crucified by a constant process of dying, but the Apostle says nothing of the kind here. On the contrary, we are to yield ourselves unto God as those who have already died and are alive from the dead, recognizing the Cross as behind us; and for this very reason presenting ourselves to God, to be used for His service and glory. Have you never seen soaring in mid-heaven some bird, with mighty pinions spread upon the bosom of the air, and floating in the clear sky without a fluttering feather or apparently the movement of a muscle? It is poised in mid-air, floating yonder, far above the earth below; it does not need to rise, it has risen, and is resting in its high and glorious altitude. Very different is the movement of the little lark that springs from the ground, and, beating its wings in successive efforts, mounts up to the same aerial height to sing its morning song, and then returns again to earth. One is the attitude of rising, and the other is the attitude of "risen." Perhaps you say, "How can I reckon myself dead when I find so many evidences that I am still alive, and how can I reckon myself risen when I find so many things that pull me back again to my lower plane?" It is your failure to reckon and abide that drags you back. It is the recognizing of the old life as still alive that makes it to be real and keeps you from overcoming it. This is the principle which underlies the whole system of grace, that we receive according to the reckoning of our faith. The magic wand of faith will lay all the ghosts that can rise in the cemetery of your soul; and spirit of doubt will bring them up from the grave to haunt you as long as you continue to question. The only way you can truly die is by surrendering yourself to Christ and then reckoning yourself dead with Him. Should old traits of evil reappear; should old thoughts, evil tendencies, assert themselves, and say loudly and clamorously, "We are not dead," what then? If you recognize these things, fear them and obey them; you are sure to give them life, and they will control you and drag you back into your former state. But if you refuse to recognize them, and say, "These are Satan\