The Penn's Grove record., 1906-08-24

no conception Of the meaning but
simply wrote what he saw.
We have a volume of evidence on
the resurrection of that kind. First,
the apostles, beyond pe~radventure,
made b resurrection of Jesus the
cornerstone of their preaching, and
they preached it in the very city
where He was crucified and before
the court that condemned him. Fur
thermore, they gave their lives for a
testimony. Men do not do that for
what they know to be false. Second
ly, the early church, which came out
OF the Jewish church, changed the
Sabbath observance from the seventh
day to the first day of the week, and
anyone who has studied Jewish his
tory knows the hardest thing in the
world is to change Jewish customs,
AMI something tremendous must have
happened to make this change posi-
bic, simply by common consent. The
third fact is most signiicant-the
moral transformation of the apostles
themselves. They were a pack of ut
terly demoraliZed towards, and a few
days after we see that same company
filled with the most indomitable cour-
age that the world has ever seen.
What had happened? Jesus had risen
and they had een Him. All intelli-
gent men who deny the resurrection
admit that the apostles thought He
had risen. Straus says: I'VE admit
that they had seen something; may
not this appearance have been Wis
fonary?" That is, they saw a vision.
Our answer is this: Whoever heard
of eleven men having the same vision
at the same time; and of 500 men
having the same vision? An old ar
gument against the resurrection has
been revived within the last five
years, and it was that Jesus was not
really dead and was r~esuscitated, and
they appeal to a historic fact that a
certain Jewish officer was taken down
from a cross and brought back to
life. We have five objections to this:
First, what preceded the c%rucifixion
the scourging, etc. Second, the
Jews and the Romans took special
precautions to prevent this. Third.
remember His broken heart. Fourth,
If He had been resuseitated He would
have been in a state Of absolute phys
ical collapse, as was the case with
the Jewish officer, who was an in
F6AAA VI LID 41IO. I4llut IL 81, ln0
ones who resuscitateG Jesus must
have been the apostles and the trans
formation in them remains unac-
counted for. Finally, if it was not
resurrection, then the whole thing is
a fraud, and a deliberate fraud. Who
car believe that Christianity with it's
lofty precepts of morality and holy
living rests upon a fraud and that
Jesus was a party to it? No man can
believe it.
There is only one conclusion: The
resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead is the best proved fact in
history. There is only one really
strong argument against it, and that
is that no one else was ever raised
from the dead. The answer to that
is that the life of Jesus was unique.
His mission and nature and character
were all unique and it was only to be
expected that the issue of that life
would be unique. 1t is impossible
for any la of loyal mind, or who
has had any experience of evidence,
who wants to know the truth, to sit
down before the four Gospels and
take them up, point by point. examine
| the statements and thoroughly sift the
evidence, to come to n other con-
clusion than that Jesus Christ actual
ly arose from the dead, as recorded
in the four Gospels. What of it?
Everything. If Christ rose again then
Christianity is no longer a system of
abstract divinity, but a gospel of
proven facts, and everything that you
and 1 have been taught to believe,
and that is dear to the Christian
heart, and the glory of the life to
come, is an absolute certainty.