Chapter 44—The Risen Saviour
[
This article appeared in
The Youth’s Instructor, August 4, 1898
.]
“I am the resurrection, and the life” (
John 11:25
). He who had
said, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (
John 10:17
),
came forth from the grave to life that was in Himself. Humanity died;
divinity did not die. In His divinity, Christ possessed the power to
break the bonds of death. He declares that He has life in Himself to
quicken whom He will.
All created beings live by the will and power of God. They are
recipients of the life of the Son of God. However able and talented,
however large their capacities, they are replenished with life from the
Source of all life. He is the spring, the fountain, of life. Only He who
alone hath immortality, dwelling in light and life, could say, “I have
power to lay it [my life] down, and I have power to take it again” (
John
10:18
).
The words of Christ, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (
John
11:25
), were distinctly heard by the Roman guard. The whole army
of Satan heard them. And we understand them when we hear. Christ
had come to give His life a ransom for many. As the Good Shepherd,
He had laid down His life for the sheep. It was the righteousness of
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God to maintain His law by inflicting the penalty. This was the only
way in which the law could be maintained, and pronounced holy, and
just, and good. It was the only way by which sin could be made to
appear exceeding sinful, and the honor and majesty of divine authority
be maintained.
The law of God’s government was to be magnified by the death
of God’s only-begotten Son. Christ bore the guilt of the sins of the
world. Our sufficiency is found only in the incarnation and death of the
Son of God. He could suffer, because sustained by divinity. He could
endure, because He was without one taint of disloyalty or sin. Christ
triumphed in man’s behalf in thus bearing the justice of punishment.
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