1<\/strong>. Now<\/em> ] Rather, But.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n very early in the morning<\/em> ] Literally, at deep dawn, i.e.<\/strong> at the earliest morning twilight, ‘while it was yet dark’ (Joh 20:1<\/span>), though the sun began to rise before they reached the tomb (Mar 16:2<\/span> ).<\/em> St John mentions only Mary of Magdala (Joh 20:1<\/span>); St Matthew adds Mary, mother of James (Mat 28:1<\/span>); St Mark adds Salome (Mar 16:1<\/span>); and St Luke Joanna, Luk 24:10<\/span>. They may have gone singly or in small groups, the Marys being separate from the others. There is no discrepancy in the different narratives, although, as we might have expected, they are fragmentary and seem to reflect the varied and tumultuous emotions of those who were the first to see the Lord. The Easter music, as Lange says, is not ‘a monotonous chorale’ but an impassioned fugue.<\/p>\n and certain others with the?n<\/em> ] These words are probably spurious, not being in , B, C, L.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n See the notes at Mat 28:1-11<\/span>.<\/P> <\/p>\n Luk 24:1-10<\/span><\/p>\n Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre<\/em><\/p>\n The first Easter morning<\/strong><\/p>\n The realm of nature a symbol of the realm of grace.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> The gloomy night. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> The much-promising dawn. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> The breaking day. (Van Oosterzee.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The first pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> How mournful they go thither. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> How joyful they return. (Van Oosterzee.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Easter brightness<\/strong><\/p>\n How on Easter morning it began to be bright–<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> In the garden. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> In human hearts. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> Over the cross. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> For the world. <\/p>\n 5.<\/strong> In the realm of the dead. (Van Oosterzee.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Easter morning<\/strong><\/p>\n The first rays of the glory of Christ in the dawn of the Easter morning. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> The stone rolled away. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> The glittering angels. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> The hastening women. (Arndt.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The open grave<\/strong><\/p>\n The open grave of the Risen One–<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> An arch of His triumph. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> A bow of peace denoting heavenly favour and grace. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> A door of life for the resurrection of our spirit and our body. (Hofacker.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Easter among the graves<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> The stone of the curse Ye rolled away therefrom. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> There dwell angels therein. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> The dead are gone out therefrom. (Rantenberg.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Easter festival<\/strong><\/p>\n A festival of–<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> The most glorious joy. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> The most glorious victory. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> The most glorious faith. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> The most glorious hope. (Schmid.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Lords Day<\/strong><\/p>\n Stations on the line of your journey are not your journeys end, but each one brings you nearer. A haven is not home; but it is a place of quiet and rest, where the rough waves are stayed. A garden is a piece of common land, and yet it has ceased to be common land; it is an effort to regain paradise. A bud is not a flower, but it is the promise of a flower. Such are the Lords Days; the worlds week tempts you to sell your soul to the flesh and the world. The Lords Day calls you to remembrance, and begs you rather to sacrifice earth to heaven and time to eternity, than heaven to earth and eternity to time. The six days not only chain you as captives of the earth, but do their best to keep the prison doors shut, that you may forget the way out. The Lords Day sets before you an open door. Samson has carried the gates away. The Lords Day summons you to the threshold of your house of bondage to look forth into immortality–your immortality. The true Lords Day is the eternal life; but a type of it is given to you on earth, that you may be refreshed in the body with the anticipation of the great freedom wherewith the Lord will make you free. (J. Pulsford.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Why seek ye the living among the dead?–<\/strong><\/p>\n The living not among the dead<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> First of all, then, it would seem that we may literally seek the living among the dead if we seek Christ in a Christianity, so termed, which denies the resurrection. If Christs body never left the grave, if it has somewhere mingled with the dust of earth, then, however we may be attracted by His moral teaching, we have no ground for hoping in Him as our Redeemer: there is nothing to prove that He was the Son of God in the way He pointed out, or that He has established any new relation between earth and heaven. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> But nearly the same thing may happen in cases where the resurrection is not denied, but, nevertheless, men fail to see what habits of thought about our Lord it involves. His life is continued on among us; only its conditions are changed. Lo, I am with you alway, etc. I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore. To think of Him as only one of the great teachers of the world, who have come and disappeared, is to lose sight of the significance of His resurrection from the grave; it is to rank Him in thought with men whose eminence has not saved them from the lot of mortality, and whose dust has long since mouldered in the tomb. It is to lose sight of the line which parts the superhuman from the human. It is to seek the living among the dead. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> Yet more literally do we seek the living among the dead, if without formally rejecting Christianity we give the best of our thought, of our heart, of our enthusiasm, to systems of thought, or to modes of feeling, which Jesus Christ has set aside. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> We may not be tempted in these ways to seek the living among the dead teachers or dead elements of old or untrustworthy ways of thinking. But there is a risk of our doing so, certainly not less serious and very much more common, to which we are all exposed. As you know, our Lords resurrection is a moral as well as an intellectual power. While it convinces us of the truth of Christianity it creates in us the Christian life. We are risen with Christ. The moral resurrection of Christians is a fact of experience. Resurrection from the grip of bad habits, from the charnel-house of bad passions, resurrection from the enervation, corruption, and decay of bad thoughts, bad words, bad deeds, to a new life with Christ, to the life of warm and pure affections, the life of a ready and vigorous will, of a firm and buoyant hope, of a clear strong faith, of a wide and tender charity. But, as a matter of fact, how do we risen Christians really act? We fall back, willingly or wilfully, into the very habits we have renounced. Our repentance is too often like the Lent of Louis the Fourteenth; it is a paroxysm, followed, almost as a matter of course, by the relapse of Easter. To do the great French monarch justice, he did not expect to find Christs presence in sin and worldliness, as do they who complain of the intellectual difficulties of faith and prayer, while their lives are disposed of in such a manner, that it would be wonderful indeed if faith and prayer could escape suffocation in that chaos of everything save the things which suggest God. (Canon Liddon.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Christ, a quickening Spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> Observe how Christs resurrection harmonizes with the history of His birth. Others have all been born in sin, after Adams own likeness, in his image, and, being born in sin, they are heirs to corruption. But when the Word of Life was manifested in our flesh, the Holy Ghost displayed that creative hand by which, in the beginning, Eve was formed; and the Holy Child, thus conceived by the power of the Highest, was (as the history shows) immortal even in His mortal nature, clear from all infection of the forbidden fruit, so far aa to be sinless and incorruptible. Therefore, though He was liable to death, it was impossible He should be holden of it. Death might overpower, but it could not keep possession; it had no dominion over Him. He was, in the words of the text, the Living among the dead. And hence His rising from the dead may be said to have evinced His Divine origin. Such is the connection between Christs birth and resurrection; and more than this might be ventured concerning His incorrupt nature were it not better to avoid all risk of trespassing upon that reverence with which we are bound to regard it. Something might be said concerning His personal appearance, which seems to have borne the marks of one who was not tainted with birth-sin. Men could scarce keep from worshipping Him. When the Pharisees sent to seize Him, all the officers, on His merely acknowledging Himself to be Him whom they sought, fell backwards from His presence to the ground. They were scared as brutes are said to be by the voice of man. Thus, being created in Gods image, He was the second Adam: and much more than Adam in His secret nature, which beamed through His tabernacle of flesh with awful purity and brightness even in the days of His humiliation. The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> And if such was His visible Majesty, while tie yet was subject to temptation, infirmity, and pain, much more abundant was the manifestation of His Godhead when He was risen from the dead. Then the Divine essence streamed forth (so to say) on every side, and environed His Manhood as in a cloud of glory. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> He ascended into heaven, that He might plead our cause with the Father Heb 7:25<\/span>). Yet we must not suppose that in leaving us He closed the gracious economy of His Incarnation, and withdrew the ministration of His incorruptible Manhood from His work of loving mercy towards us. The Holy One of God was ordained, not only to die for us, but also to be the beginning of a new creation unto holiness in our sinful race; to refashion soul and body after His own likeness, that they might be raised up together, and sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Blessed for ever be His holy name! before He went away He remembered our necessity, and completed His work, bequeathing to us a special mode of approaching Him, a holy mystery, in which we receive (we know not how) the virtue of that heavenly body, which is the life of all that believe. This is the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which Christ is evidently set forth crucified among us; that we, feasting upon the sacrifice, may be partakers of the Divine nature. (J. H. Newman, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Easter good news<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> How deeply instructive and interesting is the Gospel history of this great resurrection miracle! Take this great truth away from the Church, all faith is then vain, all hope destroyed, and the whole majestic building of Christianity falls and crumbles into ruins for ever. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> We delight, then, to go with these godly women to the tomb of Christ, and while, perhaps, we bring too some humble offering of pure hearts to Him, to find how little it is needed, while we hear some glad tidings of His power, and rejoice in His risen glory. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> As a gentle reproof for want of faith. With all their praiseworthy affection for Christ, even when dead, these devout women, last at the cross, and first at the sepulchre, showed great forgetfulness of the Redeemers words, and their want of faith, as of the other disciples, appears thus gently reproved. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> This is a faithful expostulation to Christians even now. True religion gives gladness, not deep gloom. (J. G. Angley, M. A.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Lord is risen indeed<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> He has left in the grave the spices. We will not start back with horror from the chambers of the dead, for the Lord Himself has traversed them, and where He goes no terror abides. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> The Master also left His grave-clothes behind Him. What if I say He left them to be the hangings of the royal bedchamber, wherein His saints fall asleep? See how He has curtained our last bed! <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> He left in the tomb the napkin that was about His head. Let mourners use it to wipe away their tears. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> He left angels behind Him in the grave. Angels are both the servitors of living saints and the custodians of their dust. <\/p>\n 5.<\/strong> What else did our Well-beloved leave behind Him? He left an open passage from the tomb, for the stone was rolled away; doorless is that house of death. Our Samson has pulled up the posts and carried away the gates of the grave with all their bars. The key is taken from the girdle of death, and is held in the hand of the Prince of Life. As Peter, when he was visited by the angel, found his chains fall from off him, while iron gates opened to him of their own accord, so shall the saints find ready escape at the resurrection morning. One thing else I venture to mention as left by my Lord in His forsaken tomb. I visited some few months ago several of the large columbaria which are to be found outside the gates of Rome. You enter a large square building, sunk in the earth, and descend by many steps, and as you descend, you observe on the four sides of the great chamber innumerable little pigeon-holes, in which are the ashes of tens of thousands of departed persons. Usually in front of each compartment prepared for the reception of the ashes stands a lamp. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of these lamps, but they are all unlit, and indeed do not appear ever to have carried light; they shed no ray upon the darkness of death. But now our Lord has gone into the tomb and illuminated it with His presence, the lamp of His love is our guide through the gloom. Jesus has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel; and now in the dove-cotes, where Christians nestle, there is light; yea, in every cemetery there is a light which shall burn through the watches of earths night till the day break and the shadows flee away, and the resurrection morn shall dawn. So then the empty tomb of the Saviour leaves us many sweet reflections, which we will treasure up for our instruction. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> In the grave of ceremonialism. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> Among the tombs of moral reformation. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> In the law. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> In human nature. <\/p>\n 5.<\/strong> In philosophy. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> Some of these are excellent people, but their temperament, and perhaps their mistaken convictions of duty, lead them to be perpetually gloomy and desponding. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> Another sort of people seem to dwell among the tombs: I mean Christians–and I trust real Christians–who are very, very worldly. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> Once more on this point, a subject more grievous still, there are some professors who live in the dead.house of sin. Yet they say that they are Christs people. Nay, I will not say they live in it, but they do what, perhaps, is worse–they go to sin to find their pleasures. <\/p>\n The resurrection of Christ<\/strong><\/p>\n Let us consider, first, the evidences, and, second, the purposes of the second life of Jesus–the life after the crucifixion. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> Jesus Christ actually died. A million and a half of awe-stricken witnesses saw Him die. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> The second fact in the series of proofs is that Christ was buried. Interment is not often granted to crucified criminals. But Providence overruled the sordidness of the cautious scribes and priests, in order to multiply the witnesses to the resurrection. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> The next fact is that the sepulchre somehow or other was emptied on the third day. How came the sepulchre to be emptied? There are only two theories. The rulers said the body was stolen out of it. The disciples said the body had risen from it. It is manifest that the enemies would not steal the body of Christ, and how improbable it is that His disciples should have done it. How could it have been done by twelve men against sixty, when Jerusalem was filled with an excited crowd, when the moon shone clearly in a cloudless oriental sky? No; it cannot be believed, and we are driven back therefore to the theory that He actually rose. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> The internal evidence is equally convincing. Consider the existence and the spread of persecution for the testimony as to the resurrection of Christ. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> It is a manifestation, a vindication of ancient prophecy and of the personal character of the Messiah as well. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> It is a seal of the acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus, and by consequence of infinite moment to confirm the hopes of the world. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> It is an earnest of our own rising, a pledge of immortality for the race for which the Second Adam died. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> Look at the resurrection as an encouragement. There is a great error, brethren, in Christendom just now, and that is that we believe in a dead Christ. He is not dead, He is living–living to listen to your prayers, living to forgive your sins. (W. M. Punshon, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The living Christ<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> The Saviours perfect humanity. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> The Saviours perfect identity with the cause of man. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> His mission to the tomb was accomplished. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> His vision of immortality was realized. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> The true object of faith was secured. (The Weekly Pulpit.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n An Easter sermon<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> If Jesus really died and then rose from the dead, materialism is completely overthrown. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> Pantheism receives its death-blow with the establishment of Christs resurrection. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> All far-reaching scepticism is undermined. <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> We should live less in tombs. The grave is not half as large as we think. No life is buried there. Everything Christ-like is risen. Let life, not death, be our companion. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> We must trust Christ implicitly. The living way has been set before us. He who is the life of the world has lighted its highway from the cradle, not to, but through the tomb. (D. O. Clark.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The living dead<\/strong><\/p>\n A present Christ<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> In His work of redemption. <\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> In His converting power. <\/p>\n 3.<\/strong> In His Pentecostal influences. <\/p>\n 4.<\/strong> In His administration of earthly affairs. <\/p>\nFuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
I. <\/strong>THE FACT ANNOUNCED BY THE ANGEL IS, AS WE CAN SEE WHEN WE LOOK BACK ON IT, AMONG THE BEST ATTESTED IN HUMAN HISTORY. For forty days the apostles continually saw Jesus Christ risen, touched Him, spoke with Him, ate add drank with Him as before His death. They staked everything upon this fact. It was to them a fact of experience. One or two people may be hallucinated, but not a multitude. A large number of people will not easily be so swayed by a single interest or a single passion as to believe simultaneously in a story that has no foundation in fact. <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>The fact of the resurrection is the ground of THE REMONSTRANCE of the angels with the holy women–Why seek ye the living among the dead? But is this question applicable only to them during that pause when they felt the shock of the empty tomb? Let us consider. <\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>We take THE ANGELS DECLARATION first as the grand truth here–He is risen! Who is thus risen? Who was dead, and has thus sprung from the grave to life? It is Christ Jesus the Lord, who died for our sins, is risen for our justification. The Saviour is no more a sufferer; His sacrificial deed is done. <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>THE ANGELS EXPOSTULATION. This may be considered as twofold. <\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>CERTAIN INSTRUCTIVE MEMORIES which gather around the place where Jesus slept with the rich in His death. Though He is not there, He assuredly once was there, for He was crucified, dead, and buried. <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>Our text expressly speaks of VAIN SEARCHES. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. There are places where seekers after Jesus should not expect to find Him, however diligent may he their search, however sincere their desire. You cannot find a man where he is not, and there are some spots where Christ never will be discovered. <\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>We will again change our strain and consider, in the third place, UNSUITABLE ABODES. The angels said to the women, He is not here, but is risen. As much as to say–since He is alive He does not abide here. Ye are risen in Christ, ye ought not to dwell in the grave. I shall now speak to those who, to all intents and purposes, live in the sepulchre, though they are risen from the dead. <\/p>\n
IV. <\/strong>I want to warn you against UNREASONABLE SERVICES. Those good people to whom the angels said, He is not here, but is risen, were bearing a load, and what were they carrying? What is Joanna carrying, and her servants, and Mary, what are they carrying? Why, white linen, and what else? Pounds of spices, the most precious they could buy. What are they going to do? Ah, if an angel could laugh, I should think he must have smiled-as he found they were coming to embalm Christ. Why, He is not here; and, what is more, He is not dead, He does not want any embalming, He is alive. In other ways a great many fussy people do the same thing. See how they come forward in defence of the gospel. It has been discovered by geology and by arithmetic that Moses was wrong. Straightway many go out to defend Jesus Christ. They argue for the gospel, and apologize for it, as if it were now a little out of date, and we must try to bring it round to suit modern discoveries and the philosophies of the present period. That seems to me exactly like coming up with your linen and precious spices to wrap Him in. Take them away. <\/p>\n
V. <\/strong>THE AMAZING NEWS which these good women received–He is not here, but He is risen. This was amazing news to His enemies. They said, We have killed Him–we have put Him in the tomb; it is all over with Him. A-ha! Scribe, Pharisee, priest, what have you done? Your work is all undone, for He is risen! It was amazing news for Satan. He no doubt dreamed that he had destroyed the Saviour, but He is risen! What a thrill went through all the regions of hell! What news it was for the grave! Now was it utterly destroyed, and death had lost his sting! What news it was for trembling saints. He is risen indeed. They plucked up courage, and they said, The good cause is the right one still, and it will conquer, for our Christ is still alive at its head. It was good news for sinners. Ay, it is good news for every sinner here. Christ is alive; if you seek Him He will be found of you. He is not a dead Christ to whom I point you to-day. He is risen; and He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>AS TO THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTS RESURRECTION, THERE ARE BOTH EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL LINES OF PROOF WHICH GUARD THIS GREAT AND SUBLIME DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>Consider THE PRACTICAL PURPOSES WHICH THE RESURRECTION IS INTENDED TO WORK OUT IN OURSELVES. <\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>A SURPRISING FACT. Jesus among the dead! <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>A MORE SURPRISING FACT. Jesus no longer among the dead! <\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION. <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>THE FACT OF THE RESURRECTION. Conclusion: <\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>THE DEAD ARE THE LIVING. Language, which is more accustomed and adapted to express the appearances than the realities of things, leads us astray very much when we use the phrase the dead as if it expressed the continuance of the condition into which men pass in the act of dissolution. It misleads us no less, when we use it as if it expressed in itself the whole truth even as to that act of dissolution. The dead and the living are not names of two classes which exclude each other. Much rather, there are none who are dead. Oh, how solemnly sometimes that thought comes up before us, that all those past generations which have stormed across this earth of ours, and then have fallen into still forgetfulness, live yet. Somewhere at this very instant, they now verily are! We say, they were, they have been. There are no have beens! Life is life for ever. To be is eternal being. Every man that has died is at this instant in the full possession of all his faculties, in the intensest exercise of all his capacities, standing somewhere in Gods great universe, ringed with the sense of Gods presence, and feeling in every fibre of his being that life, which comes after death, is not less real, but more real; not less great, but more great; not less full or intense, but more full and intense, than the mingled life which, lived here on earth, was a centre of life surrounded with a crust and circumference of mortality. The dead are the living. They lived whilst they died; and after they die, they live on for ever. And so we can look upon that ending of life, and say, it is a very small thing; it only cuts off the fringes of my life, it does not touch me at all. It only plays round about the husk, and does not get at the core. It only strips off the circumferential mortality, but the soul rises up untouched by it, and shakes the bands of death from off its immortal arms, and flutters the stain of death from off its budding wings, and rises fuller of life because of death, and mightier in its vitality in the very act of submitting the body to the law, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Touching but a part of the being, and touching that but for a moment, death is no state, it is an act. It is not a condition, it is a transition. Men speak about life as a narrow neck of land, betwixt two unbounded seas: they had better speak about death as that. It is an isthmus, narrow and almost impalpable, on which, for one brief instant, the soul poises itself; whilst behind it there lies the inland lake of past being, and before it the shoreless ocean of future life, all lighted with the glory of God, and making music as it breaks even upon these dark, rough rocks. Death is but a passage. It is not a house, it is only a vestibule. The grave has a door on its inner side. God has taken our dead to Himself, and we ought not to think (if we would think as the Bible speaks) of death as being anything else than the transitory thing which breaks down the brazen walls and lets us into liberty. <\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>SINCE THEY HAVE DIED, THEY LIVE A BETTER LIFE THAN OURS. In what particulars is their life now higher than it was? First, they have close fellowship with Christ; then, they are separated from this present body of weakness, of dishonour, of corruption; then, they are withdrawn from all the trouble, and toil, and care of this present life; and then, and not least, surely, they have death behind them, not having that awful figure standing on their horizon waiting for them to come up with it I These are some of the elements of life of the sainted dead. What a wondrous advance on the life, of earth they reveal if we think of them I They who have died in Christ live a fuller and a nobler life, by the very dropping away of the body; a fuller and a nobler life by the very cessation of care, change, strife and struggle; and, above all, a fuller and nobler life, because they sleep in Jesus, and are gathered into His bosom, and wake with Him yonder beneath the altar, clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands, waiting the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body. For though death be a progress–a progress to the spiritual existence; though death be a birth to a higher and nobler state; though it be the gate of life, fuller and better than any which we possess; though the present state of the departed in Christ is a state of calm blessedness, a state of perfect communion, a state of rest and satisfaction; yet it is not the final and perfect state, either. <\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>THE BETTER LIFE, WHICH THE DEAD IN CHRIST ARE LIVING NOW, LEADS ON TO A STILL FULLER LIFE when they get back their glorified bodies. The perfection of man is, body, soul, and spirit. That is man, as God made him. The spirit perfected, the soul perfected, without the bodily life, is but part of the whole. For the future world, in all its glory, we have the firm basis laid that it, too, is to be in a real sense a material world, where men once more are to possess bodies as they did before, only bodies through which the spirit shall work conscious of no disproportion, bodies which shall be fit servants and adequate organs of the immortal souls within, bodies which shall never break down, bodies which shall never hem in nor refuse to obey the spirits that dwell in them, but which shall add to their power, and deepen their blessedness, and draw them closer to the God whom they serve and the Christ after the likeness of whose glorious body they are fashioned and conformed. Body, soul, and spirit,–the old combination which was on earth is to be the perfect humanity of heaven. We have nothing to say, now and here, about what that bodily condition may be–about the differences and the identities between it and our present earthly house of this tabernacle. Only this we know–reverse all the weakness of flesh, and you get some faint notion of the glorious body. Why, then, seek the living among the dead? God giveth His beloved sleep; and in that peaceful sleep, realities, not dreams, come round their quiet rest, and fill their conscious spirits and their happy hearts with blessedness and fellowship. (A. Maclaren, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I. <\/strong>THE TENDENCY TO THINK OF CHRIST AS PAST RATHER THAN PRESENT. <\/p>\n