The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-04-14


raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit
that dwelleth in you.-Rom.. viii: IL.
As the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in
Him secured His rising from the dead,
SO the indwelling of the Spirit in us will
secure our rising from the dead. And
the fact that He did rise, is the pledge to
us that we shall rise also.
2. A second power of his resurrection
is that by means Of it all believers are
justified. He was delivered for our of
fences, and was raised again for our JUS
LITIGATION. Rom. iv: 25 The work of
our justification was only begun in His
death. Had it been arrested by His fail
ure to rise, we could never have been
justified. He wrought our justification
IN His death, but its efficacy depended on
His resurrection. By His death He paid
our debt; in His resurrection He received
our acquittance.
lfChrist had remained under the power
OF death, the curse of the law could not
have been removed from us; we should
have been left to die in our sins. He
bowed beneath that death which the law
demanded; and He came victorious from
the conflict. When our great Substitute
had given up the ghost, and descended
into hell, the possibility of his return to
us depended on His ability to meet and
exhaust the wrath of the infinite God.
When the terrific cup was administered
to him and He drank it and died, His
slumbers in Joseph's tomb could never
have been broken unless He could thun-
der with a voice like God, and bear the
burden of infinite woe. The third day.
which proclaimed His triumph, declared
Him to be the Son of God with power,
by His resurrection from the dead He
had died a death which none could die
but one who was almighty. And when
He arose from that death he arose iusti-
fed, and drew in His train all whose sins
He bore; and thus He arose for their
justification
3. In close conlection with this thought,
l call your attention to what may be
called the physical power of His resur-
rection. On the first day of the week
after Christ's burial at early dawn, there
was great earthquake, and the body of
Jesus arose, and He walked forth from
the grave a living man. Now, an earth
quake is a physical effect, the result of
stupendous forces. This earthquake was
no accidental coincidence; it was actually
produced by Jesus rising from the dead.
1t was one among many indications of
the power of His resurrection. The earth
IN giving up the dead was convulsed with
mighty throes, and thus the forces Of ma
ture attested the power of His resurrec-
ton.
But this was not all. He burst the
bars of the grave not only for Himself,
but for others. The graves all around
His We're opened, land many bodies Of
saints which slept, arose, and came out of
the graves after His resurrection, and
went into the holy city, and appeared
unto many. Matt. xvii: SO, So. Now,
here was another stupendous physical
effect: that as soon as Christ arose, He
drew others with Him and brought them
into the living world 1t shows that the
power OF His resurrection reached down
into the domain of the dead, and that
there He overthrow the empire of the
devil, who, according to the Scriptures.
had the power of death, and acquired the
authority to wrest from the bonds of the
curse the bodies of those whom He had
redeemed and present them in glorifca-
ton to His father.
For want of time, passing over several
complications of the power of His re-
surrection, direct your attention to it
as manifested in the course of human his
tory Read the Acts of the Apostles.
and you will see that the chief element
in their preaching was personal testimony
to the resurrection of Jesus. You will
see that Matthew was chosen in place of
Judas to be with the rest witness to the
fact. And in order that Saul of Tarsus
might be qualified to be an apostle, he
was brought to a personal interview with
the risen and assembled Saviour, so that
he might be able to say he had seen the
risen Lord
Now, as l said in the beginning, that
the resurrection of Jesus is the keystone
in the arch of redemption, so from an
other point of view it may be considered
the foundation upon which the Church of
God is built. The Christian Church is
the colossal structure reared upon this
foundation deep as the granite bases of
the world. eff Christ be not risen, then
is our preaching vain, and your faith is
also vain But the preaching of this
risen Christ has revofutionized human
history; it has brought new power into