As to the accounts of the resurrection, let none believe that it is fruitless to compare them, any more than to accept the perfect accuracy of each one. Whether one attempt or despise a harmony, the result must be utterly wrong if he start with interpreting Matt. 28 of the dawn on Sunday morning instead of the dusk on sabbath evening, which last to the Jew (and Matthew above all has the Jews in view) was and is the true beginning of the first day, however Western prejudice may incline to the Gentile sense of the day. This error must vitiate all right understanding for the student as much as for the harmonist.
It has been said to be impossible that so astounding an event, coming upon various portions of the body of disciples from various quarters and in various forms, should not have been related, by four independent witnesses, in the scattered and fragmentary way in which we now find it. Certainly it would be impossible if there were no God securing perfect truth by all His chosen witnesses, and in each of their accounts. The remark is therefore mere unbelief, and quite unworthy of any intelligent Christian. “Scattered and fragmentary” is not the way of the Holy Ghost, who does not employ the four like men giving evidence in a court of justice, each of what he saw and heard. Not only is this inapplicable to Mark and Luke, but it does not fall in with the facts in John and Matthew. For He leads each of them to omit what both saw and heard, and to insert only such a selection as illustrates the scope and design of the, particular Gospel. Was not Matthew a riveted spectator of the Lord in the midst of the disciples in Jerusalem on the evening of the day He rose from the dead? Was not John with the rest at the appointed mountain in Galilee?
It is not merely true then that in the depth beneath their varied surface of narration the great central fact of the resurrection itself rests unmoved and immoveable (for this might be in merely human accounts of facts), but that every one of the four had a special object or aim in the mind of the inspiring Spirit, which is carried out unerringly in general plan and in minute detail. The objection admits the honesty of the Christian witnesses, but leaves God out of their writing, which is the essence of infidelity: the more painful, as the objector is really a believer, but with a wholly inadequate and dangerous theory of inspiration. The fact is that no man, who had the material, or knew what each evangelist had before him, would ever have written as any one of them did; and that nothing accounts for their peculiar form but God giving a testimony in perfect keeping with each Gospel, so as by them all to furnish a complete whole. Where men of God only are seen, with nothing more than such guidance of the Spirit as in ordinary preaching, or the like, what a blight such unbelief entails! Calling it inspiration only adds to the delusion. Are they God's word?
Confessedly the resurrection was that above all other things to which the apostles bore their testimony, but it is, as we have seen and might show yet more fully, neglect of the evidence to suppose that each elaborated faithfully into narrative those particular facts which came under his own eye or were reported to himself by those concerned. This is a poor and misleading a priori hypothesis. Their diversity springs not from human infirmity, but from divine wisdom.
But we turn for a few moments more to the effect of the empty tomb on those who first noticed it. And certainly one cannot speak of spiritual intelligence in Mary of Magdala; but she clung in deep affection to the Lord's person; and He was not unmindful of it. She was the first, as we shall see, to have joy in Him, and He puts honor on her. Yet, what could be less worthy of Christ than her hasty conclusion from the empty tomb! “They took away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they laid him.” She can think of Him only as under the power of death. She judges by the sight of her eyes; and to her mind as yet man has the upper hand. His assurance of resurrection had left no trace as if on the barren sand. Who can glory in man thus overwhelmed before the undiscerned yet glorious power of God which had already raised Him from among the dead? Nevertheless her heart was true to Him, and she shows it, if only now by her visit to such a scene while it was yet dark, and by her extreme agitation when she saw the stone taken away, and the body gone, from the tomb. What can she do but run with the news to break it to congenial hearts?
“Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and were coming unto the tomb. And the two were running together, and the other disciple ran forward more quickly than Peter, and came first unto the tomb, and stooping down seeth as they lay the linen clothes; nevertheless he went not in. Simon Peter therefore cometh following him, and entered into the tomb, and beholdeth the linen clothes lying, and the napkin which was upon his head, not lying with the linen clothes but folded up in a place apart. Then entered therefore also the other disciple that came first unto the tomb, and he saw and believed; for as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise from [the] dead. The disciples therefore went away again unto their own [home].” (Vers. 3-10.)
It was not John only who went forth at the tidings of Mary. Love, roused by words which sounded strange to their ears, led Peter to run along with John, with no less desire if not so fast. He had slumbered, when he ought to have watched and prayed; and, when the crisis came, he had denied his Master with no small aggravation after His solemn warning. But he was not a Judas. He loved the Lord who Himself knew that he loved Him; and therefore, notwithstanding his deep and shameful sin, his heart was moved by the news so unaccountable to him of the disappearance of the body from the tomb. So the two disciples (who were for other reasons often seen together) strove which should reach the spot soonest. Not the most distant hope of what the fact was had as yet crossed their minds; yet were they as far as possible from indifference to any circumstance which concerned even His body. That it was no longer where it had been laid, especially with such a safeguard against conceivable hazards, is enough to stir both deeply; and they are on the scene forthwith, John outrunning Peter. And as he came first to the tomb, so did he stoop down and see as they lay the linen clothes; yet went he not in. Peter, though less agile, went farther when he reached the place, for he went into the tomb, and inspected the linen clothes as they lay, and the napkin which was on his head, not lying with them but wrapped up in one place by itself. So reports Luke (24:12.), though not in such detail as John does, who describes not only the twofold examination on his own part, but an added feature in Peter's intent gaze, observing the peculiarity of the napkin wrapt up by itself: the clear presumptive proof that the body had not been taken away by enemies any more than by friends; for why should either leave the linen swathes behind? Who but one arising from sleep would dispose of the habiliments in this calm and orderly fashion? It must be His own doing as He rose from among the dead, and laid aside what was unsuited to as well as needless for His new estate. For here we may contrast the very different way in which Lazarus appeared when raised by the Lord, indicative of the different character of the resurrection. Still there was no depth in the conviction Peter could not but form; for he returned home [the true rendering] wondering at what had come to pass. Wonder is in no way the expression of the intelligence which faith gives; it implies rather the distinct lack of it. It does seem surprising that such men as Bengel and Stier should follow Erasmus and Grotius in the idea that John merely went as far as Mary's idea in verse 2.
“Then entered therefore also the other disciple that came first unto the tomb, and he saw and believed.” It was faith, but founded on evidence, not on the written word. Mary's inference was upset by the indications John as well as Peter observed. His was a sound conclusion, based on a reasonable judgment of the facts observed; but this in itself is only a human deduction, however right in itself, instead of being the subjection of the heart to the testimony of God. And it is John himself who, here as elsewhere, teaches us to draw this most momentous distinction. But Peter seems, though amazed, to have taken in the import of what he observed as well as John. They both went beyond Mary of Magdala and inferred that He must have risen; not that either Joseph and Nicodemus on the one hand, nor that the Jews or Romans on the other, had taken away the Lord's body. On ground of the apparent facts, they rightly accounted for the disappearance of His body. But in neither was there that character of faith in His resurrection which springs from laying hold of God's word. The former was human, the latter divine, because in this alone is God believed which gives Him His true place and puts us in ours. Thus is the soul purged by virtue of the word, which is no less needful than cleansing by blood; and hence repentance ever accompanies faith. We could not be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, did we not know experimentally the washing of water by the word, as well as cleansing from our sins by Christ's blood.
Now it is not too much to say that, as far as the truth of resurrection, soon to be the characteristic, testimony of the apostles, John or Peter was not yet taught it of God. They did not as yet with the fact connect God's testimony in the law, the Psalms, or the prophets, nor even the plain and recent words of our Lord Jesus. So little is there of truth in Lampe's judgment that from this moment in the very darkness of the tomb the mind of John was enlightened with the saving faith of the resurrection of Jesus as with a certain new ray of the risen “Sun of Righteousness.” There is nothing in divine things beautiful which is not true; and this is not only not true, but the reversal of the truth inculcated by John himself in his inspired comment on the fact. They both believed in Christ, on the ground not of facts only, but of God's word; they neither of them believed in His resurrection beyond the seen facts that so it must be. “For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise from [the] dead.”
We have had a fair sample of Protestant (I do not say Reformation) theology which shows their loose and human idea of faith. Romanist, and perhaps I might add Catholic, views are no better. Hence the Tridentine depreciation of faith; hence the effort to bring in love and obedience and holiness in order to justification. They feel that there must be a moral element, and their reducing faith to an intellectual reception of propositions excludes it; so that they are driven to add other things to faith in order to satisfy themselves. All this turns on the great fundamental error that the thoroughgoing Papist makes faith in the church the resting-place of his soul and the rule of faith, not the scriptures. If they carried out the error to its results, no Romanist could be saved, for he believes not God's word on God's authority, but scripture and tradition on the church's word. By his own principle he excludes faith in God, and could not truly believe unto life at all. Only through grace men may be better than their principle, as many, alas! are worse when the principle is of God. Believing scripture as God's word is of vital moment.
Facts are of high interest and real importance; and as the Israelite could point to them as the basis of his religion, to the call of Abram by God, and the deliverance of the chosen people from Egypt and through the desert and into Canaan, so can the Christian to the incomparably deeper and more enduring ones of the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God, with the consequent presence of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. But faith to have moral value, to deal with the conscience, to purify and draw out the heart, is not the pure and simple acceptance of facts on reasonable grounds, but the heart's welcoming God's testimony in His word. This tests the soul beyond all else, as spiritual intelligence consists in the growing up to Christ in an increasing perception and enjoyment of all that God's word has revealed, which separates the saint practically to Himself and His will in judgment of self and the world. He has put off the old man and put on the new, being renewed into full knowledge according to the image of Him that created him. To “see and believe” therefore is wholly short of what the operation of God gives; as traditional faith or evidence answers to it now in Christendom. It is human, and leaves the conscience unpurged and the heart without communion. It may be found in him who is in no way born of God (compare John 2:23-2523Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. 24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, 25And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:23‑25)), but also in the believer as here: if so, it is not what the Spirit seals and it in no way delivers from present things. And this it seems to be the divine object to let us know in the account before us. Faith, to be of value and have power, rests not on sight or inference, but on scripture. And as the disciples show the most treacherous memory as to the words of the Lord till He was raised up from the dead (John 2:2222When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. (John 2:22)), so were they insensible to the force and application of the written word: after that they believed both, they entered into abiding and enlarging blessing from above. This, as Peter tells us in his first epistle (chap. 1:6), is characteristically the faith of a Christian, who, having not seen Christ, loves Him; and on whom, though not now seeing Him but believing, he exults with joy unspeakable and full of glory. The faith that is founded on evidences may strengthen against Deism, Pantheism or Atheism, but it never gave remission of sins, never led one to cry Abba Father, never filled the heart with His grace and glory who is the object of God's everlasting satisfaction and delight.
Here also we have the further and marked testimony of its powerlessness; for we are told (ver. 10), “The disciples therefore went away again unto their own [home].” The fact was known on grounds indisputable, to their minds, but not yet appreciated in God's sight as revealed in His word, and hence they return to their old unbroken associations.