ROMANS — 9
130 NO CASE
must of necessity die, and so make His soul an offering for sin. If Christ be our passover, He must be sacrificed for us. (3) Thirdly, there was a necessity that Christ should die, in reference to His Regal office. " 0 king, live for ever " is either the loyal or the flattering vote for temporal princes ; either the expression of our temporal desires, or the suggestion of their own: whereas our Christ never showed more sovereign power than in His death, never obtained more than by His death.^
When shadows of the valley fall, When sin and death the soul appal, One light we through the darkness see —
Christ on the Cross,
We cry to Thee! 2
2. Christ Jesus rose again. — Regarded in its expiatory char- acter, the death of Christ carried in it an all-satisfying virtue, a Divinely and therefore an infinitely satisfying virtue. All that the circumstances of the case required, all that law and justice demanded, was fully met in it. In this respect the argument of the text has quite enough to warrant it in the first strand of the rope by which it holds : " It is Christ that died." At the same time, this warrant might not have thus appeared to be all-decisive. If Christ had been detained among the dead, the thought might not unnaturally have arisen, Can it be that He has failed ? Where is the evidence that the expiation of His atonement is Divinely satisfying ? Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? For it is very great. The stone is rolled away. " He is not here ; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." " It is Christ that died ; yea rather, that is risen again."
The resurrection of Christ has a twofold value. It is the pledge of victory and it is the manifestation of acceptance. He has conquered death. " 0 death, where is thy sting ? 0 grave, where is thy victory ? " But His resurrection is also His Father's testimony to the sufficiency of the atonement by the cross. "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins."
^ Exposition of the Creed (Camb, ed.), 409. " Tudor Jenks.
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^ By the resurrection, says Pearson, we are assured of the justification of our persons ; and if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, it will be imputed to us for righteousness ; for He " was delivered for our olfences, and was raised again for our justification." By His death we know that He suffered for sin, by His resurrection we are assured that the sins for which He suffered were not His own. Had no man been a sinner. He had not died; had He been a sinner, He had not risen again ; but, dying for those sins which we committed, He rose from the dead to show that He had made full satisfaction for them, that we believing in Him might obtain remission of our sins, and justification of our persons. " God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," and, raising up our Surety from the prison of the grave, did actually absolve, and apparently acquit, Him from the whole obligation to which He had bound Himself, and in discharging Him acknowledged full satisfaction made for us.^
^ " Yea rather ! " The emphasis is on these two words. " Yea." " It is Christ that died." Behold the expiation of all your guilt, the atonement for all your sins. " Eather." " It is Christ that is risen again." Behold the discharge of all your legal obligations, the authoritative receipt of all your debts as paid by Him in full. "Yea rather." Behold the two together, His death and His resurrection always both together. For in the same character and for the same purpose that He died, in the same character and for the same purpose was He raised.^
"He is dead," we cried, and even amid that gloom The wintry veil was rent! The new-born day
Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb And the stone rolled away.
It is the hour ! We challenge heaven above Now, to deny our slight ephemeral breath
Joy, anguish, and that everlasting love Which triumphs over death.^
3. Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God. — He who was once despised and rejected of men now occupies the honourable position of a beloved and honoured Son. The right hand of God is (1) the place of majesty and favour. Our Lord Jesus is His people's representative. When He died for them, they had rest ;
^ Exposition of the Creed, 506. ' E. A. Thomson.
* Alfred Noyes, Kesurrcction.
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when He rose again for them, they had liberty; when He sat down at His Father's right hand, they had favour, and honour, and dignity. The raising and elevation of Christ is the elevation, the acceptance, the enshrinement, the glorifying of all His people, for He is their head and representative. This sitting at the right hand of God, then, is to be viewed as the acceptance of the person of the Surety, the reception of the Eepresentative, and, therefore, the acceptance of our souls. But the right hand is (2) the place of power. Christ at the right hand of God hath all power in heaven and in earth. Who shall fight against the people who have such power vested in their Captain ? If Jesus is our all- prevailing King, and hath trodden our enemies beneath His feet ; if sin, death, and hell are all vanquished by Him, and we are represented in Him, by no possibility can we be destroyed.