Christ our substitute. transgressors who believe in Jesus. He dies "for us," and "by His stripes we are healed. He pays the penalty we had incurred, and ransoms us from everlasting destruction. He takes our place; He expiates our offences; He bears the burden of our sins, and endures their penal consequences. From His cross we catch the inspiration of self-sacrifice; ation of the the motive to it is found in His own voluntary offering, the power accomplishing it springs from His Holy Spirit. Finally, the Atonement fills power of it. heaven with interest and rapture; and angels unite The interest with redeemed men in worshipping "the Lamb which has been slain." The cross the inspir spirit of selfsacrifice. The Holy Spirit the awakened in Heaven. Intellectual conviction and person al trust dis Intellectually to admit the doctrine of the Atonement, and to satisfy our reason respecting it, tinguished. is one thing; to trust firmly for personal salvation to the all-atoning Redeemer, and to live under the power of His gracious Spirit, is quite another. This is to have sufficing guardianship amidst the world's temptations, unfailing help for every duty, abundant comfort under manifold sorrows, spiritual blessedness crowning earthly joys, and “a hope which maketh not ashamed," bearing a bright torch at the last hour, and throwing glorious light into "the valley of the shadow of death." PRESENT DAY TRACTS, No. 44. THE resurrection of Christ shown to be a plain historic fact, as distinguished from a fact in the sphere of faith. The validity of the evidence as stated by Dr. Westcott. It is in perfect unison with the drama of contemporary history. Foreshadowed by previous resurrections. Foretold. Can alone account for the Pentecostal change in the disciples' attitude and spirit. Scherer's vivid description. Lessing's admission of its historic certainty. The fact analysed in the following propositions: I. The resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaims an accepted II. The resurrection of Jesus Christ endows the Church with a living Saviour. III. The resurrection of Jesus Christ crowns human nature with a Divine Head for ever. IV. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ the Father secures the salvation and sanctification of sinners. (1) As affording the great assurance of justification. (3) As affording the great type of spiritual experience. (4) As the great incentive to morality. (5) As throwing an air of consecration over the believer's time. V. The resurrection of Jesus Christ throws welcome light upon the doctrine of the last things. Recapitulation of results, and indication of the historic, dogmatic, moral, and spiritual value of the fact. Conclusion. THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST, IN ITS Historical, Doctrinal, Moral, and Spiritual Aspects. 1 The history Christ beyond the of Jesus extends has been said that every man's history ends with his grave, and that what lies beyond belongs to the sphere of faith, and is ascertainable by no historical inquiry. To such a rule, however, Jesus Christ at all events has proved an exception. A mass of historic evidence meets us which shows that on the third day after His death and burial He must have risen from the dead, for He appeared in bodily form to His disciples, with the nail-prints in His hands and feet, with the spear-gash also in His side. He spoke to them, ate with them, He was no challenged them to handle Him, and convince phantom themselves by actual contact that He was no mere phantom. but a living man with flesh and bones. These "infallible proofs" were repeated 1 Weiss' Leben Jesu, Band II. s. 595, mere Christ appeared many times after His many times during the forty days which intervened between the resurrection morning and His visible resurrection. ascension from Olivet. At a later period He appeared to the arch-persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, on the way to Damascus, and changed him into the chief witness of His resurrection. Now it will not do to say that these proofs of the resurrection were given in the sphere of faith as distinguished from the sphere of sense and sight. They were given to the sense, not of disHis appeal ciples only, but of one who, till the moment of the risen Saviour's manifestation to him, had been was to the senseperception of many. It is the matter-offact, not the cause, of death and life, which has to be determined. 1 an open enemy, but who was so convinced by the manifestation as to become ever after a friend. The question consequently is a purely historical one, for which the testimony is that of eye-witnesses with all their senses about them.2 And if it be insinuated that the witnesses were not scientific experts, it is sufficient to reply that the question to be determined in the case was the fact of life and death, not the cause of either; and experts are only introduced in inquests when the cause is to be determined, the matter-of-fact as to life and death being left to the twelve plain men who view the body. The more, consequently, the evidence in favour of our Lord's resurrection is investigated, 1 Hegel's Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion herausgegeben von Marheineke, 1832, s. 250. 2 Güder's Die Thatsächlichkeit der Auferstehung Christi, s. E. |