OL 2:15{" HE was crucified in weakness, but He arose by the power of God." There never was such an exhibition of weakness as the cross. All was set against the Lord. God was withdrawn; man had proved his full enmity; disciples were faithless; and hell had its hour of power. But it was succeeded by a time of the most glorious, magnificent strength that was ever displayed. As soon as the life was surrendered, heaven, earth, and hell, God even, and Satan, all bore their several witness that the strength of that moment was felt and understood by them. 1 he Neil of the temple was rent, the rocks of the earth were split asunder, and the graves were burst wide open. Glorious, victorious strength thus touched the most entire, and absolute, and unrelieved weakness, joining together, I may say, the point on which the divine and counseled history of eternity was to turn.
The death was the victory of the living Son of God; resurrection and ascension were His triumph, or the public celebration of the victory. But the victory could not altogether wait for the third day—it must publish itself at once. And so it did, as we see, by the rending of the wail, the rocks, and the graves; and whether it were by those earlier results of the victorious death, or by the more orderly and material fruit of that victory, in the resurrection and ascension, still, in each way, " a show " has been made of all the powers of darkness, and that " openly," or in the way of " triumph." The Church takes companionship with the Lord in His rejection, in the eye of the world; but finds companionship with Him in His victorious death and triumphant resurrection, as far as conscience and personal, hidden peace with God goes -a calling of wondrous moral beauty!