IX.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, AND WHAT IT

IMPLIES.

'It is said that the theo-philanthropist LarevellièreLépeaux once confided to Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill-success of his attempt to bring into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a sort of benevolent rationalism which he had invented to meet the wants of a benevolent age. "His propaganda made no way," he said. "What was he to do?" he asked. The ex-bishop politely condoled with him, feared it was a difficult task to found a new religion, more difficult than could be imagined, so difficult that he hardly knew what to advise! "Still," so he went on after a moment's reflection,-"there is one plan which you might at least try: I should recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third day."'

1

This statement so tersely put contains within it an all-important double-edged truth. It contains the explanation of the failure of mere man-made systems

1 Natural Religion, p. 181.

of religion. They fail to a large extent because they want the divine credentials of miracles like our Lord's resurrection, and the spiritual power contained in such a supernatural fact. But it also contains the explanation of the success of Christianity. It is to be found in the fact and power of our Lord's resurrection. We may sometimes meet with those who profess to be Christians, and yet affirm that the truth of Christianity depends but little upon the reality of the resurrection ;1 but Strauss, from his position of determined antagonism, is acute enough to perceive that it is 'the centre of the centre, the real heart of Christianity,' and says, that 'it can scarcely be doubted that with it the truth of Christianity stands or falls.'

It is clear from the New Testament that the apostles attached the profoundest importance to the resurrection of Christ. In their estimation it was the crowning test in regard to His divine mission and propitiatory work. If it was false, then His mission was a delusion, His teaching no less a delusion, and His death that of an impostor, or at best that of an amiable enthusiast. If it was true, then He is the divinely-appointed Messiah, His teaching the eternal truth of God, and His death the propitiation for the sins of the world. Hence it is that the apostles were required, as an important part of their work, to bear personal testimony to the resurrec

1 See Appendix, Note XIII.

tion.

Hence it is that we find them in their early sermons, as recorded in the Acts, always giving a foremost place to this grand truth. Hence it is that we find it not only laid down as a fact, but taken for granted in all the leading books of the New Testament. And hence it is that we find Paul very explicitly declaring, ‘If Christ be not risen, our faith is vain, and we are yet in our sins' (1 Cor. xv. 17). Indeed, we might almost say that the resurrection of Christ is the keystone in the arch of the Christian evidences. If it be removed or broken to pieces, the arch collapses: if it holds, the arch is strong and safe, and able to bear upon it the weight of the whole system of Christian truth.

In endeavouring to establish the fact of the resurrection, it is of importance at the outset that we clearly see what is the kind of proof which we have a right to expect. It is an event of the past, an historical event, and that determines at once that the proof must be mainly historical. We cannot expect mathematical proof; for it is not a mathematical truth. We cannot expect the proof of our own senses; for it is a past and not a present event. We cannot expect the proof of intuition; for that is restricted to necessary and axiomatic truth. It is an historic event belonging to the past, and therefore, from the nature of the case, we must be content mainly with historic proof.

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In approaching the consideration of the evidence, it may be well to observe, that there is a distinctly-felt fitness and consistency between the person and character of Christ and the fact of His resurrection. He is represented as the Incarnate Word, as God manifest in the flesh, as the Holy One of God, holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from sinners. Our Christian instinct at once sees that it falls in with the nature of things that such a Person should not see corruption. We can scarcely think of Him becoming the prey of ordinary decomposition in the grave, without a feeling of the utmost incongruity. It may be very natural for man, whose body has been poisoned and permeated with sin, to become the prey of corruption; but it is quite otherwise with the body in which God became incarnate, and which knew no taint of sin. 'It was not possible that He should be holden of death.' Furthermore, it is very obvious that the resurrection was a most natural pledge that He had completed His appointed work, that the conditions of the covenant had been fulfilled, and that the Father had fully accepted His propitiation. short, it fits, with the utmost consistency, into the New Testament doctrine in regard to the person and work of Christ, and therefore has all the force which the argument from natural congruity can give.

In

We find that our Lord distinctly foretold the fact that He should rise again. He did so repeatedly, and

utterances to this effect are recorded in all the evangelists. He declared that, 'as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth' (Matt. xii. 40),—a prophecy this all the more likely to have been vividly remembered from its peculiar and memorable form. We find another explicit statement in Matt. xvi. 21, in connection with the strong rebuke to Peter, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan,' a circumstance well calculated to impress it deeply upon the minds of the apostles. It is to be noted that this prophecy is also related by Mark (chap. viii. 27-33), and that he wrote his Gospel from the recollections of Peter, who could not possibly have forgotten the circumstance. Again, He charged His disciples after the transfiguration, that they should 'tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead' (Matt. xvii. 9; Mark ix. 9). It is to be noticed that this announcement is not only given in two Gospels, but is also connected with an incident which must have helped to fix it indelibly in the minds of the apostles. Once more, we find Him saying in John ii. 19, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,' in which He refers, as John declares, to His resurrection. That this statement was actually made by Christ is rendered certain in the highest degree by the fact, that it is brought up in Matthew and Mark in