“Basic Christianity, Part 41” by Romans
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
Youtube Audio:
We are continuing in our Series, “Basic Christianity.” Tonight, we are continuing in the review and examination of our Christian walk, as a facet of Basic Christianity. We are going to continue our acrostic review of the phrase, “By Growing in Grace,” in regard to our following in the steps of Christ. We have covered thus far the letters B and Y, and the G, R,O, and W.
Last week, I was unable to be here. Two weeks ago, we continued in the first occasion of the letter “i” in the the word “Growing.” We are reviewing and examining Jesus' I AM statements. Two weeks ago, we reviewed and examined Jesus' I AM declaration, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
Picking up from where we left off two weeks ago, we move on to Jesus' next I AM declaration: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” (John 11:25). Jesus adds in the next verse, And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:26).
Of this, the Alexander MacClaren writes, “JOB'S QUESTION: Job 14:14: “If a man die, shall he live again?”; JESUS' ANSWER: John 11:25-26 {I am the resurrection}: Job’s question waited long for an answer. Weary centuries rolled away; but at last the doubting, almost despairing, cry put into the mouth of the man of sorrows of the Old Testament is answered by the Man of Sorrows of the New.
The answer in words is this second text which may almost be supposed to allude to the ancient question. The answer, in fact, is the resurrection of Christ. Apart from this answer there is none. So we may take these two texts to help us to grasp more clearly and feel more profoundly what the world owes to that great fact which we are naturally led to think of to-day.
I. The ancient and ever returning question. The Book of Job is probably a late part of the Old Testament. It deals with problems which indicate some advance in religious thought. Solemn and magnificent, and for the most part sad; it is like a Titan struggling with large problems, and seldom attaining to positive conclusions in which the heart or the head can rest in peace. Here all Job’s mind is clouded with a doubt.
He has just given utterance to an intense longing for a life beyond the grave. His abode in Sheol is thought of as in some sense a breach in the continuity of his consciousness, but even that would be tolerable, if only he could be sure that, after many days, God would remember him. Then that longing gives way before the torturing question of the text, which dashes aside the tremulous {or, unsteady} hope with its insistent interrogation.
It is not denial, but it is a doubt which palsies hope. But though he has no certainty, he cannot part with the possibility, and so goes on to imagine how blessed it would be if his longing were fulfilled. He thinks that such a renewed life would be like the ‘release’ of a sentry who had long stood on guard; he thinks of it as his swift, joyous ‘answer’ to God’s summons, which would draw him out from the sad crowd of pale shadows and bring him back to warmth and reality.
His hope takes a more daring flight still, and he thinks of God as yearning for His creature, as His creature yearns for Him, and having ‘a desire to the work of His hands.’ [T]he rest of the chapter is all clouded over, and the devout hope loses its light. Once again it gathers brightness in the twenty-first chapter, where the possibility flashes out starlike, that ‘after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God.’
These fluctuations of hope and doubt reveal to us the attitude of devout souls in Israel at a late era of the national life. And if they show us their high-water mark, we need not suppose that similar souls outside the Old Testament circle had solid certainty where these had but a variable hope. We know how large a development the doctrine of a future life had in Assyria and in Egypt, and I suppose we are entitled to say that men have always had the idea of a future.
They have always had the thought, sometimes as a fear, sometimes as a hope, but never as a certainty. It has lacked not only certainty but distinctness. It has lacked solidity also, the power to hold its own and sustain itself against the weighty pressure of intrusive things seen and temporal.
But we need not go to the ends of the earth or to past generations for examples of a doubting, superficial hold of the truth that man lives through death and after it. We have only to look around us, and, alas! we have only to look within us. The modern world is caught in the rush and whirl of life, has its own sorrows to front, its own battles to fight, and large sections of it have never come as near an answer to Job’s question as Job did.
II. Christ’s all-sufficing answer. He gave it there, by the grave of Lazarus, to that weeping sister, but He spoke these great words of calm assurance to all the world. One cannot but note the difference between His attitude in the presence of the great Mystery and that of all other teachers. How calmly, certainly, and confidently He speaks!
Mark that Jesus, even at that hour of agony, turns Martha’s thoughts to Himself. What He is is the all-important thing for her to know. If she understands Him, life and death will have no insoluble problems nor any hopelessness for her. ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’ She had risen in her grief to a lofty height in believing that ‘even now’-at this moment when help is vain and hope is dead-’whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee...’
but Jesus offers to her a loftier conception of Him when He lays a sovereign hand on resurrection and life, and discloses that both in Him and from Him flow to all who shall possess them. He claims to have in Himself the fountain of life, in all possible senses of the word, as well as in the special sense relevant at that sad hour. Further, He tells Martha that by faith in Him any and all may possess that life.
And then He majestically goes on to declare that the life which He gives is immune from, and untouched by, death. The believer shall live though he dies, the living believer shall never die. It is clear that, in these two great statements, to die is used in two different meanings, referring in the former case to the physical fact, and in the latter carrying a heavier weight of significance, namely the pregnant sense which it usually has in this Gospel, of separation from God and consequently from the true life of the soul.
Physical death is not the termination of human life. The grim fact touches only the surface life, and has nothing to do with the essential, personal being. He that believes on Jesus, and he only, truly lives, and his union with Jesus secures his possession of that eternal life, which victoriously persists through the apparent, superficial change which men call death.
Nothing dies but the death which surrounds the faithful soul... So though the act of physical death remains, its whole character is changed. Hence the New Testament euphemisms for death are much more than euphemisms. Men christen it by names which drape its ugliness, because they fear it so much, but Faith can play with Leviathan, because it fears it not at all.
Hence such names as ‘sleep,’ ‘exodus,’ are tokens of the victory won for all believers by Jesus. He will show Martha the hope for all His followers which begins to dawn even in the calling of her brother back from the grip of death. And He shows us the great truth that His being the ‘Life’ necessarily involved His being also the ‘Resurrection...’
for His life-communicating work could not be accomplished till His all-quickening vitality had flowed over into, and flooded with its own conquering tides, not only the spirit which believes but its humble companion, the soul, and its yet humbler, the body. A bodily life is essential to perfect manhood, and Jesus will not stay His hand till every believer is full-summed in all his powers, and is perfect in body, soul, and spirit, after the image of Him who redeemed Him.
III. The pledge for the truth of the answer. The words of Jesus are only words. These precious words, spoken to that one weeping sister in a little Jewish village, and which have brought hope to millions ever since, are as baseless as all the other dreams and longings of the heart, unless Jesus confirms them by fact. If He did not rise from the dead, they are but another of the noble, exalted, but futile delusions of which the world has many others.
If Christ be not risen, His words of consolation are swelling words of emptiness; His whole claims are ended, and the age-old question which Job asked is unanswered still, and will always remain unanswered. If Christ be not risen, the hopeless {conversation} between Jehovah and the prophet sums up all that can be said of the future life: ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord God, Thou knowest!’
But Christ’s resurrection is a fact which, taken in connection with His words while on earth, endorses these and establishes His claims to be the Declarer of the name of God, the Saviour of the world. It gives us demonstration of the continuity of life through and after death.
So in despite of sense and doubt and fear, notwithstanding teachers who, like the [proud] philosophers on Mars Hill, mock when they hear of a resurrection from the dead, we should rejoice in the great light which has shined into the region of the shadow of death. We should clasp His divine and most faithful answer to that old, despairing question, as the anchor of our souls, and lift up our hearts in thanksgiving in the triumphant challenge, ‘O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?’
To this Matthew Henry adds, “First, The power of Christ, his sovereign power: I am the resurrection and the life, the fountain of life, and the head and author of the resurrection. Martha believed that at his prayer God would give any thing, but he would have her know that by his word he could work anything. Martha believed a resurrection at the last day; Christ tells her that he had that power lodged in his own hand, that the dead were to hear his voice (see John 5:25).
[Thus] it was easy to infer, He that could raise a world of men that had been dead many ages could doubtless raise one man that had been dead but four days. Note, It is an unspeakable comfort to all good Christians that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life, and will be so to them.
Resurrection is a return to life; Christ is the author of that return, and of that life to which it is a return. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, and Christ is both; the author and principle of both, and the ground of our hope of both.
Secondly, The promises of the new covenant, which give us further ground of hope that we shall live. Observe, a. To whom these promises are made - to those that believe in Jesus Christ, to those that consent to, and confide in, Jesus Christ as the only Mediator of reconciliation and communion between God and man, that receive the record God has given in his word concerning his Son, sincerely comply with it, and answer all the great intentions of it.
The condition of the latter promise is thus expressed: Whosoever liveth and believeth in me, which may be understood, either, (a.) Of natural life: Whosoever lives in this world, whether he be Jew or Gentile, wherever he lives, if he believe in Christ, he shall live by him. Yet it limits the time: Whoever during life, while he is here in this state of probation, believes in me, shall be happy in me, but after death it will be too late.
Whoever lives and believes, that is, lives by faith (see Galatians 2:20), has a faith that influences his conversation. Or, (b.) Of spiritual life: He that lives and believes is he... to whom to live is Christ - that makes Christ the life of his soul. b. What the promises are (“he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,” John 11:25):
Though he die, yet shall he live, nay, he shall never die, (as we read in John 11:26. Man consists of body and soul, and provision is made for the happiness of both. (a.) For the body; here is the promise of a blessed resurrection. Though the body be dead because of sin (there is no remedy but it will die), yet it shall live again. All the difficulties that attend the state of the dead are here overlooked, and made nothing of.
Though the sentence of death was just, though the effects of death be dismal, though the bands of death be strong, though he be dead and buried, dead and putrefied, though the scattered dust be so mixed with common dust that no art of man can distinguish, much less separate them, put the case as strongly as you will on that side, yet we are sure that he shall live again: the body shall be raised a glorious body.
(b.) For the soul; here is the promise of a blessed immortality. He that liveth and believeth, who, being united to Christ by faith, lives spiritually by virtue of that union, he shall never die. That spiritual life shall never be extinguished, but perfected in eternal life... So if by faith it live a spiritual life, consonant to its nature, its felicity shall be immortal too.
It shall never die, shall never be otherwise than easy and happy, and there is not any intermission or interruption of its life, as there is of the life of the body. The mortality of the body shall at length be swallowed up of life; but the body shall not be for ever dead in the grave; it dies (like the two witnesses) but for a time, times, and the dividing of time;
and when time shall be no more, and all the divisions of it shall be numbered and finished, a spirit of life from God shall enter into it... Blessed and holy, that is, blessed and happy, is he that by faith has part in the first resurrection, has part in Christ, who is that resurrection; for on such the second death, which is a death for ever, shall have no power; see John 6:40.
Christ asks Martha, “Believest thou this? Canst thou take my word for it?” Note, When we have read or heard the word of Christ, concerning the great things of the other world, we should seriously put it to ourselves, “Do we believe this, this truth in particular, this which is attended with so many difficulties, this which is suited to my case?
Does my belief of it realize it to me, and give my soul an assurance of it, so that I can say not only this I believe, but thus I believe it?” Martha was doting upon her brother's being raised in this world; before Christ gave her hopes of this, he directed her thoughts to another life, another world:
“No matter for that, but believest thou this that I tell thee concerning the future state?” The crosses and comforts of this present time would not make such an impression upon us as they do if we did but believe the things of eternity as we ought.[5.] Martha's unfeigned assent yielded to what Christ said, “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world” (John11:27). We have here Martha's creed, the good confession she witnessed, and it is the conclusion of the whole matter.
The Sermon Bible adds, “John 11:25: This Divine name is a pledge to us of many joys; but chiefly of three Divine gifts. I. The first is a perfect newness of body and soul. This is a thought of wonder almost beyond conception or belief. Death and the forerunners of death have so fast a hold upon the body; sin and the soils of sin pierce so deep into the soul, that the thought to be one day deathless and sinless seems to be a dream.
People believe, indeed, that they shall rise again, not disembodied, but clothed in a bodily form; but do they realise that they shall rise again with their own bodies, in their very flesh, healed and immortal? And yet this is pledged to us. This very body shall be deathless and glorious as the body of His glory when He arose from the dead. And so, too, of the soul. It shall be still more glorious than the body, even as the Spirit is above the flesh.
To be ourselves the subject of this miracle of love and power, to be personally and inwardly restored to a sinless perfection and raised to the glory of an endless life, as if death and sin had never entered, or we had never fallen, is among those things which we almost "believe not for joy." This is the first Divine gift pledged to us by the resurrection of our Lord.
II. Another gift also pledged to us is the perfect restoration of all His brethren in His kingdom. We shall be with Him. We shall behold Him as He is; He will behold us as we are; He in the perfect sameness of His person; we in ours. And they who knew Him after He rose from the dead, and knew each other as they sat in amazement before Him in the morning at the sea of Tiberias, shall they not know each other in the light of His heavenly kingdom?
O dull hearts, and slow to believe what He has Himself spoken! "God is not the God of the dead,"—of nameless, obscured, obliterated spirits, of impersonal natures, beings robbed of their identity, spoiled of their consciousness, of blinded eyes, or marred aspects. The law of perfect recognition is inseparable from the law of personal identity.
III. And lastly, this title pledges to us an immortal kingdom. "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." When the happiness of this life burns down, who can re-kindle it? The joy of today sinks with the sun, and is remembered with sadness tomorrow. All things are fleeting and transient; to see them, we must look behind us. Old friends, old homes, old haunts, old faces, bright days and sweet memories, all are gone.
Such is the best the old creation has for man. But the kingdom of the resurrection is before us, all new, all enduring, all Divine; its bliss has no future, no clouds upon the horizon, no fading, no instability. All that we are, by the power of God, we shall be, without cloying or change or weariness for ever.” H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 342.
In these words Christ says to us: there is in Me a life which, by dying, rises to its perfection; and therefore death is no more death, but resurrection to the fulness of life. In three ways this is true. I. Our life in Christ is a battle; through death it rises into a victory. II. Our life in Christ is a hope; by death it rises into its consummation. III. Our life in Christ is a spiritual fellowship; by death it becomes perfect and eternal.” E. L. Hull, Sermons, vol. i., p. 1.
I. There is in this text something far beyond the general lot of man, or of man’s world; here is a conscious act of man’s spirit spoken of as the condition of life with Christ, and that state asserted to place a man superior to death and all its power. And this conscious act of man’s spirit is faith; believing on Him. This expression "believeth on Me" is one of much depth of meaning.
It is quite distinguished from "believing me" merely; I may believe a fellow-man, but I never can believe on a fellow-man. There is involved in the expression, receiving and resting on Christ; believing what Christ says, but so believing it as to cast a man’s whole being and energies and sympathies and hopes on and into Christ and His words; so receiving Him, as to live on Him, and to wait on Him, and to hope on Him, and to look for Him, and to have Him for the soul’s centre and the chief desire and object in life.
Now to those who thus receive Christ, He is the Resurrection and the Life. "Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die," i.e., they who believe on Me here on earth, in them is begun a glorious life, which, though they must pass through natural death by the common sentence of all flesh, shall not by that be interrupted or brought to an end, but shall continue through in spite of that natural death, so that they shall never die, but live for ever.
II. What kind of life is this of which these glorious words are spoken. Is it the life of the body? Doubtless it is. These frames, so fearfully and wonderfully made, shall not perish. They shall moulder away into dust, but God shall build them up again; freed from sin and sorrow and pain, they shall live for ever. Is it the life of the mental faculties, the judgments, the feelings, the affections? Doubtless it is.
But above all, this life here spoken of is the life of the Spirit. The life of the body the natural man lives; the life of the mind and affections the worldly man lives; but the life of the Spirit no man lives, but they who have been born again by the operation of the Holy Spirit of God working in them through faith in Christ.
The resurrection life inherent in our risen Saviour is imparted to all who believe in Him, so that through death they shall live; and even though subject to what men call death, they shall never die.” H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 285.
Comfort for Mourners: The intention of our Lord in this passage was so plainly to make an immediate comfort out of that which is generally held as a prospective joy, the expressions are so strong, and the idea is so exceedingly high and wonderful, that it is as important as it is difficult to get at the exact sense of the passage.
Life and death are both very deep mysteries. We can only go a very little way; but both the language which our Lord used, and the mighty words by which He illustrated, have a meaning, and we must try to read it. I. Christ, then, lays down two great bases, "I am the resurrection,"—whatever rises, rises in Me. That is the first. And then I am more than the resurrection; I am that which follows the resurrection, that which makes the resurrection;
I am the life. The life is greater than the resurrection, even as the end is greater than the means by which that end is attained. Of the resurrection, properly so-called, the resurrection of the body, Christ does not say any more. But he follows on and expands the word "life" as the higher and conclusive thought.
When a man really believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, an act of union takes place between Christ and his soul. That union is life. Over that life death has no power; because there is no dividing principle, there is no death. And so we arrive at it, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 5th series, p. 278. References: Joh_11:25, Joh_11:26.—F. W. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles, vol. ii., p. 156; R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth, p. 251. Joh_11:26.—J. B. Paton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 52; F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of St. John, p. 300; L. Mann, Life Problems, p. 18; W. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 117; W. Morley Punshon, Sermons, p. 22. Joh_11:26.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1568; Homilist, vol. ii., p. 310; J. Kennedy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 225. Joh_11:28.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1198; W. Hay Aitken, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 179; J. Morgan, Ibid., vol. xv., p. 81; S. R. Macduff, Communion Memories, p. 151. Joh_11:29.—S. Baring Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii.; Appendix, p. 29.
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Basic Christianity, Part 41.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on July 14th, 2020.
I have designed a website to serve as an Online Book Store for the things I have written and published on Amazon. These are in the form of both Kindle eBooks, and paperback books. Some of you may recall a Series I presented on "The Lord's Prayer" several years ago. My original notes for this and other Bible Studies have been greatly revised and expanded for these publications. For further details on the books that are available, and for ordering information, click the following:
https://arvkbook.wixsite.com/romansbooks
If you purchase and read any of my books, Thank you! I would also greatly appreciate a review on Amazon!