“BEHOLD, I AM ALIVE FOREVER MORE.” Part 1 – REV. 1:18.

– JOHN 20:11-18.

Not only was it necessary that Christ should rise from the dead and become alive forevermore in order to accomplish the great work planned of God and foretold in the prophets, and secured by his own sacrifice, but it was necessary also that indubitable proofs of his resurrection should be given to his disciples, for themselves and for us through them.

The necessity for this lay in the fact that in the divine plan this Gospel age was marked out to be a FAITH AGE – for the selection of a special little flock, able, like father Abraham, to walk by faith and not by sight. But faith, in order to be faith, and not merely credulity, must needs have some reasonable foundation upon which to build its superstructure; and it was to provide this foundation for faith that our Lord remained with his followers for forty days after his resurrection, before ascending to the Father, – as the Evangelist declares, “He showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” – Acts 1:3.

The disciples realized that great events were transpiring, though how great and momentous was their character, they but slightly comprehended. They knew that their hopes as respects an earthly Kingdom, and their Master as an earthly Lord, had failed. They had vague, indefinite hope that all that he had said to them would in some manner have a fulfilment, but how or when or where, was beyond their conception. They knew not that a change of dispensation was occurring; – that the rejection of Israel after the flesh, and the calling of a new Israel after the spirit, (Spiritual Israel) was commenced; and that they themselves were amongst the first thus privileged to pass from the relationship of servants of God to that of sons. – John 1:12.

As yet they knew nothing about spiritual things, not having been begotten of the holy spirit to sonship and the knowledge of things to come, Jesus not yet having been glorified, and it being impossible for the holy spirit of adoption to come upon them until after his sacrifice for sins had been presented in the Most Holy, and accepted of the Father (As we had mentioned in our study “The Thief in Paradise”). They knew not that the new Kingdom was to be a spiritual one, and that Christ, its Head, must pass from fleshly conditions to spiritual conditions in this resurrection, even as he had foretold, saying, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” They had much to learn, but they had a great Teacher, and, as we shall see, his arrangements for their instruction were specially adapted to their conditions as natural men (at the time); to give them such foundation of knowledge and experience as would subsequently be helpful to them when they should be begotten of the holy spirit at Pentecost.

The Apostle informs us that Christ was “put to death in flesh and quickened (made alive) in spirit” (we give a literal translation). The Apostle’s words being true, those who declare that our Lord arose from the dead a fleshly being (experienced a bodily resurrection) at the time of his ascension are grossly in error.

Indeed, it is evident that they have misconceived the entire subject of the atonement, for if our Lord, as the man Christ Jesus, gave himself a ransom, he could not be restored to manhood (the human nature) in a resurrection, without annulling the ransom – taking back the price he had paid for our sins. The Scriptural thought is that as man (a human being) had sinned, and been sentenced to death, it was necessary that the Redeemer should become a man (a human being himself, taking the form of flesh and blood), and should give his manhood (his life) as the ransom-price for Adam and his race; and the Scriptural declaration is not that this ransom price was taken back, but that God raised him from the dead a new creature of a new nature, – not in flesh, not in human nature, but in spirit, a spirit being. – 1 Pet. 3:18.

The Apostle Paul agrees with Peter’s testimony, that Jesus was quickened in spirit, saying that Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4); and again, the same Apostle, describing the first resurrection, in 1 Cor. 15:42-45, says: “Thus also is the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural [animal] body, it is raised a spiritual body.”

The Apostle elsewhere declares that the Church’s highest ambition is to be a partaker in this first resurrection, which he denominates “his resurrection,” the Christ-resurrection, the resurrection to spirit conditions, which came first to our Lord Jesus, and in which all of his body, his Bride, is to have a share. – Phil. 3:10; Rev. 20:6.

There can be no question that the Apostle, in this description of the first resurrection, means us to understand his words just as they read – whoever interpolates and adds to the Word of God, and declares that it was sown a natural (animal) body and raised a natural (animal) body, and subsequently changed to a spiritual body, wrests the Scriptures to his own injury, to the darkening of his own understanding of the divine plan.

In the same connection the Apostle declares that that body which thou sows is not quickened (made alive), but in the resurrection God gives it a body as it hath pleased him, to every seed his own body – in the resurrection, not after it. (1 Cor. 15:35-38.) If the Church belongs to the spiritual seed, to which is to be given the spiritual body in the resurrection, then unquestionably the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church, belongs to the same spiritual seed, and accordingly God gave him a spiritual body in his resurrection. Likewise, in a succeeding verse, the Apostle declares that our Lord at his resurrection became the second Adam, and then contrasting this second Adam with the first, he says, “The first man Adam was made a living soul [an animal or earthly being] (That is to say, God formed man of the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils, and man became a living soul.); the last Adam was made a quickening [life-giving] spirit [being].” – 1 Cor. 15:38-45.

The lessons to be learned by the Lord’s immediate followers would necessarily be much more difficult to them than to us; because we have been begotten of the holy spirit, and are thereby enabled to appreciate spiritual things. To meet the exigency, it was necessary that our Lord, the spirit being, should be present with them for forty days, – invisible, as spirit beings are always invisible to men, unless through the operation of a miracle. It was necessary for them to know of his resurrection in order that they should have faith in his message, and act accordingly, as he desired; yet, had he appeared to them in the glory of his spirit being, opening their eyes to see the supernatural splendor as he showed himself in vision to John on the isle of Patmos, his face as lightning, his arms and his feet shining like molten brass in the furnace – the effect would have been to terrorize them, and their natural minds would have been unable to link such manifestations with their Lord, recently crucified; neither would he have had opportunity, under such conditions, to have given them instructions, for they could not have received them by reason of terror.

It was necessary therefore, that our Lord, a spirit being, should manifest himself, as he had in the long past manifested himself to Abraham and Sarah, and as angels, under divine commission, had done on sundry occasions – as a man. (Gen. 18:1.) He must lead their minds step by step, and their thoughts link by link, from the cross and the tomb to an appreciation of his present exaltation as a spirit being, respecting which he himself explained to them, contrasting it with his previous condition, “All power in heaven and in earth is given unto me.”

And this leading of their minds must be such as would gradually force upon them the conviction that he was “changed,” that he was no longer a man (a human being, composed of flesh and blood), no longer subject to human conditions, as before his death. Having this thought in mind, we will have no difficulty whatever in seeing how our Lord inculcated (instilled) these instructions (fixed these beliefs or ideas in their minds, by repeating them often) during the forty days in his various interviews with his followers.” (R2797)

Continued with next post.