Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1912-04-20
Pastor RusselI's Sermon

selves, one Of which can be answered
and the other cannot. The unanswer-
able difficulty is where a natural-mind-
ed man undertakes to reason the sub
ject out. He finds 1t impossible Of
comprehension as he finds other items
Of Divine revelation. st. Paul explains
this, saying, "The natural man receiv-
eth not the things Of the Spirit Of God,
neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually dlscerned." The
Apostle proceeds to tell US that all men
are natural men, except such as have
been begotten by the Holy Spirit. All
natural men will, in their resurrection,
receive earthly, or human bodies. while
all spiritual ones, New Creatures In
Christ, will receive spirit bodies, as st,
Paul explains in our context, verses
$3.50.
Those of my hearers, therefore, who
have never accepted Christ, and made
full conservation Of their all to be His
disciples, following in His footsteps,
mag know that they have not been be-
gotten Of the Holy Spirit because only
upon these terms are any begotten Of
the Spirit. These, therefore, | will
ask to consider what | say, and hold 1t,
II they please, tentatively, until such
time as, in Gods providence, they may
be begotten Of the Holy Spirit, and
thus be enabled to understand spiritual
matters such as this
Another class who have difficulty on
this subject are the spirit it.begotten ones
who have been entangled in their rea
soning by the declaration of the creeds
respecting the resurrection Of the body.
1t is difficult to unlearn error When
visiting various lands and learning Of
the hold OF superstition upon the hea.
thensr ! said to myself, believe that
we Christians experience just as much
difficulty in unlearning our errors as
these heathens do in getting free from
theirs.
Tho Unoonsscrated Cannot Understand
Spiritual Problems.
Coming to the point Of what is to be
resurrected, we note the fact that our
Lord appeared In body Of flesh, and
showed the disciples the print of the
nails and the hole made by the spear.
But we, perhaps, failed to note that
only twice did He thus appear and but
for a few moments each time His
other six or seven appearances during
that forty days were also very brief,
and In various bodles--Once as a gar
dener, another time as a traveer-His
third time as stranger on the shore,
and to Saul Of Tarsus, as a spirit be-
ing, Of more than angelic brightness,
Shining above the brightness Of the
sun at MONDAY" We overlooked the
fact that these appearances, If all put
together, would probably not have ex-
ceeded four hours out Of the entire for
" days In which our Lord tarried with
His disciples after His resurrection
and before His ascension, We were
not critical students when we over
looked those things, and forgot to
ask ourselves why these things were
80.
Now we see more distinctly why our
Lord did as He did. His disciples were
natural men and therefore could not
appreciate spiritual things Further !
more, they could not receive the guild
ing Of the Holy Spirit until the Lords
ascension aud appearance in the pres
ence Of the Father on behalf Of His
Church, to make satisfaction for their
sins, and to make them acceptable
jolnt-sacrlhcers with Him. Meantime,
had Jesus not tarried those forty days |
had He ascended Immediately after
His resurrection-the disciples, stunned |
and bewildered, would have had no
assurance Of His resurrection. They |
would have found It impossible to go |
out and tell the people that He had
risen from the dead when they had no
proof to this effect.
And even II Jesus had appeared to
them as He did to Saul Of Tarsus,
above the bright shining Of the sun,
this would not have been convincing
and satisfactory. They might have
said, Here is phenomenon but how
can we positively associate 1t with the
life and death Of Jesus? Matters were
different with Saul of Tarsus. lie
needed something TO thoroughly arouse
him and to teach him for all time
and Others through him, that the Lord
Is not Il Man, but that Spirit" Re
Sides, some Of the disciples who al.
ready believed were able to give Saul
Of Tarsus assurances Of what they
knew respecting the resurrection Of
Jesus and His ascension.
No Foolish Suggestions In Bible About
the Resurrection.
The Lord adopted the only reason
able way Of helping His disciples to
understand that He was no longer
iead-that He had risen from the dead
and that He was no longer human,
but had been glorihcd, aud had become
spirit being. The two things were
necessary and they were done at the
iame time
Even ON the occasions when our Lord
appeared in body like to the one cru.
lied, He took care that the manIfes.
alton should DO under such conditions :
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