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From Heaven With Love
certain of the dead who came forth with Christ appeared to many and
declared that He had risen. The priests and rulers were in continual
dread, lest in walking the streets or within the privacy of their own
homes, they should come face to face with Christ. Bolts and bars
were but poor protection against the Son of God. By day and by
night that awful scene when they had cried, “His blood be on us,
and on our children,” was before them.
Matthew 27:25
.
The Guarantee of Our Resurrection
When the voice of the mighty angel was heard at Christ’s tomb,
saying, Thy Father calls Thee, the Saviour came forth from the grave
by the life that was in Himself. Christ had proclaimed in triumph, “I
am the resurrection and the life.” These words could be spoken only
by the Deity. All created beings are dependent recipients of the life
of God. Only He who is one with God could say, I have power to
lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. See
John 10:18
.
Christ arose from the dead as the first fruits of those that slept,
and His resurrection took place on the very day when the wave sheaf
was to be presented before the Lord. For more than a thousand years
when the people went up to Jerusalem to the Passover, the sheaf of
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first fruits, the first heads of ripened grain, was waved as a thank
offering before the Lord. Not until this was presented could the
sickle be put to the grain. The sheaf dedicated to God represented
the harvest. So Christ’s resurrection is the type and pledge of the
resurrection of all the righteous dead. “For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God
bring with Him.”
1 Thessalonians 4:14
.
Many Resurrected With Jesus
As Christ arose, He brought from the grave a multitude of cap-
tives. See
Matthew 27:52
. They were those who at the cost of
their lives had borne testimony to the truth. Now they were to be
witnesses for Him who had raised them from the dead.
During His ministry, Jesus had raised the dead to life. But these
resurrected ones were not clothed with immortality. They were still
subject to death. But those who came forth from the grave at Christ’s