The resurrection and glory of the Lord Jesus is a great fact. Whether we will hear, or whether we will forbear, there it is, and cannot be gainsayed. And further, we have to do with it, and cannot escape from the application of it to ourselves. It is set above us, and before us; as at creation, the sun was set in the heavens, and the creation of God had to do with it.
It is thus treated in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. It is there dealt with as a fact, from the application of which to themselves none could escape. It has its different virtue, its two-fold force and meaning; and men are to know how it addresses itself to each of them. But there it is and no one can elude it.
Who could pluck the sun out of the heavens?
The glory seated itself in the cloud, and Israel must know it there, and have to do with it there. It may conduct them cheerfully, or rebuke them and judge them; but there it is in their company, in their midst, and the camp in its different conditions must have to do with it.
Prophets from God came among the people. There they are, whether the people will hear, or whether they will forbear they have to know—they must know—that a prophet has been among them. They cannot gainsay the fact, or escape its application to themselves in judgment or blessing.
The budding rod I might have noticed in this connection. It is brought out from the sanctuary to the camp, and the camp must accept its presence. That it is there is a fact, and none can deny it, whether they will use that fact obediently, and taste the fruit of the service of God’s Anointed One, or whether they will still rebel to their own destruction is another thing. But the budding rod that speaks both of judgment and of mercy is in the midst of them.
The Lord in the garden of Eden was the same at the beginning. It was a fact. Adam could not displace Him. He was there-as the sun at that moment was in the heavens.
Adam must have to do with Him If he be in innocency, as in chapter 2, that fact will be his joy. If he be in guilt, as in chapter 3, that fact will be his doom. But he cannot elude the force of it; nor withdraw himself from the application of it.
I might say that Christ in the world that Satan had usurped through subtlety, was also a kindred fact. None could, in that day, deny it, or rid themselves of the force of it. Satan himself shall know it, and men shall have their blessing brought to them by it; or their guilt and judgment enhanced through it. The kingdom of God had come, and they must accept it as a fact.
Just thus, just after this manner, is the present great fact of the resurrection. Jesus is risen and exalted—He is ascended and glorified. We might as well pluck the sun from the heavens and try to escape the application of this fact to our condition, whether of repentance or of unbelief.
The great characteristic teaching of the apostles, in the book of Acts, is interpretation of this fact to the conscience of sinners.
This makes apostolic ministry among men very simple; and blessed it is from its simplicity.
Peter, who opens that ministry, at once takes the resurrection of the Lord as his text. He exhibits that great fact in its judicial, and its saving power. He preaches from it the glories of the Lord Himself; and he derives from it the blessings of all believing sinners. It is the object constantly before him He gives it different characters, or invests it with different virtues; but it is the object constantly before him, and the fact which he declares again and again-his fullest interpretation of it being found at the very close of his ministry, in the house of Cornelius, when he preaches that the risen Jesus is set of God, both for judgment and for salvation. (See Chapter 10:42,43.)
The risen Jesus may be boldly resisted, as in Saul’s case. (Acts 9) But it is equally death for the soul to despise it. (Chapter 13:41) It is not so shocking to the moral sense of man, but it is equally death in the judgment of God.
Paul in his ministry, as constantly uses the same great fact of the resurrection of Christ, interpreting it, like Peter, to the heart and conscience.
In his first preaching at Antioch we see this. In the synagogue there, he conducts the story of God’s ways with Israel from the day of the call of Abraham to the resurrection of Christ; and then upon the resurrection, preaches the forgiveness of sins. But he adds that the despising of that great fact, the being careless about it, with a carnal mind indifferent to it, will as surely be followed by judgment, as the generation which the prophet addressed was visited by the judgment of God through the Chaldees.
At Athens, where his next great preaching was, he has still the same great fact as his theme. But he gives it its solemn meaning. He invests it with its terrors: for he found this Gentile people full of idolatry, though in the pride of their sects of learning, and in the carnal busy desire of anything new in the earth or among men. He tells them of this great mystery, which was a fact in heaven, registered there, and he gives it its meaning for them. Referring to their besotted worship, he says to them, “the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead..” (Acts 17:30,3130And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:30‑31).)
And after his ministry had formally terminated, and he becomes the prisoner rather than the servant of Jesus, still before his judges it is of the resurrection he speaks. (See Acts 26)
The moral that we draw is, the sweet positive application of this great fact to each one of us. We have, each one of us, individually to do with it-or rather it has to do with us.
The resurrection speaks of judgment to man as man-for it is the witness of a solemn collision between God and man. God is on the side of man’s victim. God has glorified the One, whom man denied and crucified. Here is collision—and the result of that is judgment: for God is stronger than man. Man must be overthrown in such conflict. Judgment must fall on him that is opposed to God. The “pricks” cannot be “kicked against.” Saul of Tarsus persecuting Jesus, shall be found in a work of self-destruction.
The resurrection speaks of salvation to the broken, confessing sinner. Because the resurrection witnesses God’s satisfaction in that atonement for sin which Jesus offered; and if God is satisfied, who can condemn? If God witnesses that such has been put away for all that will trust and plead the death of Christ—who shall lay anything to the charge of such? what tongue can prevail against them?
The resurrection thus speaks of “judgment” and of “mercy,” as we either look to the cross of Christ, with the interest of convicted believing hearts, or as we despise and slight it. It has a voice in the ear of all. It speaks to us, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear. To enjoy it as the salvation of God, we must personally, and livingly by faith, be brought into connection with it-but if we slight it all our days, it will at the end bring itself in connection with us, as it were whether we will or not. In this way it brings to mind the Lord Jesus in Mark 5. In spite of Satan, Jesus puts Himself in connection with him in the person of the Gadarene, in order to judge him and destroy his work. But He does not put Himself in connection with the poor diseased woman in the crowd, till she by faith had put herself and the necessity she carried in connection with Him. Surely her faith was given to her of God. It was no notion of her own, but the fruit of the drawing of the Father in the power of the Spirit. But still so it was; that the virtue in Jesus did not visit her, till her faith had visited Him.
And this distinction has a deeply serious fact in it. If we by faith use not a risen Jesus now, and get the virtue that is in Him, He will visit us by and by, and that, too, with the judgment that will then be in Him No depreciation will then avail—no seeking now can but avail!
By the preaching of the resurrection in the Acts, we learn that God has taken out of man’s hand the very weapon of his fullest enmity against Himself, and used it for man’s everlasting blessing—but if man will despise such goodness then he must answer for having taken that weapon into his hand. The sword that man was using in hostility to God, God has turned as into a plow-share, whereby to get for man the bread of everlasting life. Joseph of old was sold by his brethren-but Joseph sold became an instrument and channel of life to them who had sold him. Their very wickedness was turned of God to their blessing.
J. G. B.