IT was surely not unreasonable when Paul demanded of King Agrippa: “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8). Let it once be admitted that there is a God Who is supreme in the universe, and it is easy to believe in resurrection, however stupendous the miracle may be. He who created man from dust is surely able to call him forth again from the domain of death if it please Him so to do.
But God alone can perform such a marvel. When at different times Elijah, Peter and Paul raised persons from the dead, they were manifestly wielding power not their own, and the miracles were granted in response to their prayer of faith. But He who was greater than they could arrest a funeral procession with His majestic “I say unto thee, Arise,” and death immediately yielded up its prey. Well might the people say that He spake as One having authority, and that never man spake as He.
We have before our minds just now His action at the gate of Nain (Luke 7:11-17). As He approached the place, accompanied by His disciples and followed by the usual multitude, a dead man was being carried out to burial. He was the only son of a widowed mother. So sorrowful a spectacle could not fail to appeal to the tender heart of the Saviour. All His sympathy went out forthwith to the desolate mourner. But in Him sympathy was ever combined with power. Hence He not only said to the mother, “Weep not”; He also said to her son, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” “And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother.”
We recall His claims as recorded in John 5:21-29. He affirmed that as the Father raises up the dead and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will. He further asserted that the Father has committed all judgment unto Him, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. Quickener of the dead, and Judge! Tremendous claims assuredly, with which none dare trifle. If Jesus of Nazareth be not all this, let us never more breathe His name. He who claims such prerogatives falsely must be branded as the worst and most dangerous of men. But if He is indeed both Quickener and Judge, let us hasten to His feet, and acknowledge His title with reverence and godly fear. He quickens the spiritually dead in this Gospel day by means of the written Word (John 5:24-25), and all who are thus quickened become possessors of eternal life; when the Gospel day is over He will quicken men’s bodies also, calling forth those who have done good unto the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29). Yet this does not imply that all will be raised simultaneously; Revelation 20:5-6 makes it perfectly clear that a thousand years will elapse between the resurrection of the blessed and the resurrection of the lost.
The greatest marvel of all is that One possessed of such prerogatives should have stooped to death Himself for the blessing and salvation of men ruined and undone. It becomes us to bow our heads adoringly in the presence of His own declaration: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).