We have now reached chapter 24, and here we might generally observe that the Lord takes the scene into His own hands. We observed when He was taken in the garden that He recognized that moment as the hour of the power of darkness. Man was the principal then; man took Him, man nailed Him to the tree, thereby verifying the word, “This is your hour.” Man was disposing of the scene as it pleased him. And so it went on till the three hours of darkness. Then God took it into His hands. That was the time when God bruised Him and made His soul an offering for sin.
It is very desirable that we should see the special characteristic of that moment. All through life, His Father's countenance was beaming on Him. Was He forsaken of His Father through life? Read His utterance in Psalm 16. But now, according to the prophetic voices, according to the premonitions of John the Baptist, there He was — God's Lamb. Then at once He became a conqueror. God did not wait for resurrection, to sanction the death of Jesus. He sanctioned it by rending the veil. This was not the public seal; but ere the appointed third day had come, for the public seal (of resurrection), God put His private seal on it. And the rapidity of it is beautiful. We cannot measure the time between the giving up the ghost and the rending of the veil (Matt. 27:50-5150Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; (Matthew 27:50‑51)). That was the seal of the satisfaction of the throne. In two ways He was doing the will of God here. Through life His business here, as at the well of Sychar, was turning darkness into light. That was the will of the Father when He was a living minister. As a dying victim He was doing the will of the throne. The throne where judgment was seated was satisfied when Jesus gave up the ghost. One was doing the will of the Father; the other was doing the will of God in judgment. After that, having passed through man's hour and God's hour, we see Him in resurrection in His own hour. His own hour is eternity. How blessed to be in His company, to enter a bright and intimate eternity with Jesus.
We now see Him in resurrection, and we find many things here to invite attention. We find in the opening verses that as soon as the Jewish Sabbath was over, the women came with spices which they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher; but they found not the body of the Lord Jesus. Now what do you say to all that? There is something exceedingly comforting in it. It is ignorance and affection mingled. It was ignorance that took them to look for the living among the dead; affection took them, counting the dead body of the Lord of more worth than all around. What are you to do with ignorant affection? Just what Christ did with it. He could appreciate it, but He was not satisfied with it. He will not have love in the place of faith. Love is the principle that gives; faith is the principle that takes. Which is the most grateful to Christ? He will tell you in this chapter. He will have us debtors. He will occupy the place of the “more blessed.” Faith says, Lord, You shall have it so. Another has said, Faith is the principle that lets God think for us; and so to that I add, That puts God into the chief room. If I come naked and empty and make God everything, that is faith. The law makes man principal, and God secondary. Man is to be doing this and that, while God is passive. The gospel changes sides altogether. In the gospel God is the giver and you are the receiver. Here, instead of faith, was ignorant love. They had affection, but they did not understand the victory He had gained in their behalf. It is Christ that has visited me in my grave, not I that have visited Him in His grave. He is the living One, I am the dead one.
So they bring their spices and ointments to the tomb, and there the angels meet them. They were afraid. They were looking for a dead body — they might well be startled by a glittering stranger. The angels were fresh from heaven, the witnesses of the risen and victorious Lord. They had not been thinking of that, so the angels put them to fear. And they said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?... He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee.” That was a rebuke. Do you like to see love rebuked? It is not pleasant, but it is faithful. They were about the business of love, but the business of unbelief too. So in everything God stands vindicated.
Then they remembered the words. How much mischief we get into by not remembering God's words! When the Lord Jesus was tempted, He had the word of God at hand, and by that simple word He could gain the victory in the battle. They do this piece of foolishness, because they had not remembered the simplest words that could have fallen on their ears. How sweet to see the God of all grace in intercourse with us even in our mistakes! Would you like a person to be always standing before a glass, fitting himself for your presence? You would rather find him at ease before you, and so would God. The rebuke was well meant and well deserved, but it was an excellent oil that would not break their heads (Psa. 141:55Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. (Psalm 141:5)). Now this light puts them on quite a different road. Let my mistakes be a link with Christ, rather than the Ephraim condition, “Let him alone.” “Be not silent: lest... I become like them that go down into the pit” (Psa. 28:11<<A Psalm of David.>> Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. (Psalm 28:1)). All this is anything but that. They were well—deserved and sharp rebukes; but again I say, Let my mistakes put me in company with Jesus, rather than that I should not be in company with Him at all.
So they went and told these things to the apostles, “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.” Now would you call the apostles Corinthians, who, by intellectual workings, denied the resurrection? or Sadducees, who, as a depraved sect, denied the resurrection? I could not say that. I should not put them among the Sadducees of Israel or the Corinthians of the Gentiles. How then do you account for their unbelief? Ah, it is hard to believe that God is doing your business in this world. It is much easier to us to do Christ's business than to believe that He has done ours. Not a form of human religion takes up that thought. So it was with the disciples. They could bring their spices and their ointments, but they were not yet able to believe the mighty fact that He had been doing their business. We think of Him as hard, and exacting, and watching above the clouds to find occasion against us. Their hearts had been as leaking vessels of the words of Christ, and they came as the living to the dead instead of believing that He, as the living, has come down to us, the dead. We will spend our days in penances, but we will not trust Him. Then we see Peter in the same plight. Peter! Is it possible! — he that had made the very confession on which the church is founded!
When Peter had to live the confession, he failed. The one among the eleven that ought eminently to have blushed was Peter. How you can distinguish a man from himself at times — his condition from his experience! If he had known what he was confessing, he never would have thought of “the Son of the living God” as among the dead.
Then we leave Peter, and return to the Lord, in company with two disciples. He got the very same element in them. The only exception lay in the distant corner of Bethany. We do not find Mary and Martha at the sepulcher. They had already been at the tomb of their brother. Was it from want of love that they were not at the empty sepulcher? No, but from faith in Christ. Ignorant love brought the Galilee women there; intelligent faith kept the Bethany women aside.
Now He joins these two disciples on the road, as with gloomy clouded hearts they were going back to the city. What made them sad? It was unbelief. That sadness was attractive to Jesus. If the affection that took the spices to His tomb was delightful to Him, the sadness that gathered round their clouded hearts was delightful to Him too. It was reality. Do you not believe that the gospels give you little bits of eternity? The gospels give you intercourse between the Lord of glory and poor sinners, and eternity will give you the same intercourse. It is worth a world to have an intimate eternity with Christ. The gospels prepare our hearts for it, even now, by such confidence. Their confidence was won and retained, though the Lord never made an effort about it. He just threw Himself out on their hearts, and they took Him up as He was.
And He drew near and asked them, “What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?” And they said, “Art Thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?” We have turned our backs not only on Jerusalem but on all our expectations. This is the third day, and now we are going home. It is all over with us. He replied, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe” — to believe what? “All that the prophets have spoken.” That was the cure, and that was where they came short. Oh, how that should bind round your heart and mine every jot and tittle of God's Word! Then He showed them how Christ should suffer, and expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Now their reasonings turn into kindlings. What turned them? Jesus had interpreted Himself. How natural then that He should make as though He would go farther! He was hiding Himself under a veil, and, as a stranger, He would not intrude on them. “But they constrained Him.” I do not thank them a bit — I thank the kindlings they were enjoying — for this piece of courtesy. We had better take up our thanks to the One to whom thanks are due. We know how it ended. Be sure the joy of eternity will never weary you. Kindlings will be there in seraphic order. Give me a seraphim mind within, and the glories of Jesus around. That will be heaven.