MEDITATION III.

The Resurrection.

The gospel of God, which he promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name's sake. Rom. i. 1-5.

1. THE GLORIFIED HUMANITY.

No eye of man witnessed the Resurrection, for it was an act which human understanding could not fathom. As the act of Creation baffles the cognisance of human senses, so does the Resurrection of Jesus. It is not like the resurrection of Lazarus, coming back bound in grave-clothes to the life of earth, as if waking up from sleep. It is the beginning of a new Creation, the exaltation of man's nature to a region of spiritual power that is altogether new.

The Resurrection of Christ could not be seen by man, for it was a resurrection into a world where no human senses could follow it. There are many powers in nature to which we can have no immediate outer testimony. We know their existence by their results. So is it with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We experience its power because He went into a world beyond our natural gaze. He has entered upon the exercise of powers whose influence

we acknowledge, and from whose control none can escape.

We are not to think merely that He lived before in the region of the natural world, and is now passed over into the spiritual world. He might have done so, using His material organism as the instrument of action while He was here, and casting it away so as to act by purely spiritual power in His new estate. He has done much more than this. He has elevated His material nature to be for evermore the instrument of spiritual action, acting not according to the limitations proper to itself, but according to the powers of the spiritual world with whose operations it is henceforth to be identified. It is raised,' says St. Paul, a spiritual body' (1 Cor. xv. 44). That which lay in the sepulchre is transformed and glorified. It is not that it shines with the light of the Divine presence within it. So it shone once at the Transfiguration. Now it has passed into the world. of spirit-life, and it manifests itself in this lower world, not by subjecting itself to our natural senses, but by communicating to those to whom its manifestation is made the supernatural power of the Spirit by which alone it can be perceived, as by that power alone it can draw near.

The whole human being of our Lord Jesus was glorified by the Resurrection. There was no part of it left in the grave. All was transformed. The unction of the Divine presence filled the whole manhood, body and soul, with the renewed spiritual life which Adam's sin had forfeited, and the union with Godhead was a better, closer union than Adam could

claim. Adam lost the companionship of the Holy Ghost which filled his soul with spiritual life. Jesus being consubstantially united with the Godhead can have no part of His Being withdrawn from that Divine life. Whatever belongs to Him as a Person is, and must be, under the quickening influence of His Divinity. The law of His human life could suffer no violation. His human organism could not be maimed. All that He had assumed into vital connection with Himself He glorified, for that vitality was imperishable.

His material nature was thus completely taken up into the condition of spiritual life, and exempted from those conditions which fetter the created world.

That which makes a substance to be what it is, is force or power. Created substances are formed as parts of a whole, so as to be dependent one upon the other, with mutual attraction and antagonism. The Body of Christ was taken up by the resurrection so as to act with the sovereign power of the inherent Godhead, unimpeded by any lower forces belonging to the created world.

Space is the contemporaneous manifestation of many created forces as combined and opposed. The Body of Jesus is taken into a condition of superiority to all. Nothing can oppose it. It is therefore capable of appearing in any point of space at any moment. It disturbs not those forces in the midst of which it makes itself manifest, for disturbance implies antagonism, and antagonism implies the kindred character of those substances which replace one another. The Body of Jesus consequently appears as He wills. Space has for Him

no limitative power. He leaves the tomb, as afterwards He enters the Apostolic chamber, without any aperture through which to pass. He rises from the grave and shows Himself in various places, but it is without motion. Natural substances existing under the laws of space move in space by a change of relationship to the forces round about them. The Body of Jesus abides in its own glorious sovereignty, supreme over created forces. He has but to will, and instantly His Body is present to act upon the created forces round about Him in any place, without being Himself limited or opposed by any power, however solid it may seem. He Himself says, ' All power is given unto Me both in Heaven and upon earth.'

This condition of supreme power is altogether beyond our perception. We may argue up towards. it, but we cannot apprehend it. We may experience its results, but we cannot know it in itself. All our knowledge is the result of experience, and until we are taken into the higher condition of life wherein. Jesus is glorified we cannot know it. We never indeed can attain to know it as peers. It never can be to us an external object of observation. We can only know it as being made His members and living ourselves in Him. In proportion as the force of His Resurrection-Body moves us, we shall know the reality of the power of His resurrection. To see the Body of Christ as an external object would necessitate its becoming a co-ordinate object with the eye or the mind of the observer. If He condescends to make His presence manifest in any

way to our senses, it is by the exercise of a power of adaptation within Himself. In Himself He remains. superior to all created knowledge. As no man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in Him, even so the things of the risen Christ knoweth no' created being but the Spirit of Christ alone,' and He to whom this Spirit communicates the fellowship of the same life.

O Jesu, who hast glorified our human nature by Thy Resurrection, do Thou, as Thou hast called me to partake of Thy glory, grant that I may live in its · contemplation and know Thee in the eternity of Thy truth.

My son, thou must abide in Me with the loving exercise of faith, that so thou mayest grow to the full measure of that knowledge which I desire to give thee.

O Lord Jesu, I desire to know the fulness of Thy mystery, Thy truth, Thy love. No man can teach me that which I need. O let Thy loving Spirit perfect me in the blessed experience of Thy power, that Thou mayest be revealed within me, and I may attain Thy perfect knowledge and Thine endless life.

2. THE MANIFESTED GODHEAD.

Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness by the resurrection from the dead. He did not enter into the Godhead by His resurrection, but he made manifest that Godhead which was His eternally.