Thus through the Resurrection Jesus is pro- claimed not only as 'Messiah' (3'"-^ 4=°-^), hut a^ ' Lord ' (1=' 2='- 33. 30 3'"- '^ 5" 10'«), ' Saviour ' (5^' 4'^ ' In none other is there salvation '), ' Prince of life ' (3" 5"), and ' Judge of quick and dead ' (lO", repre-
330 KESURRECTION OF CHRIST
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
seiited as in accordance with the teaching of Jesus Himself). So men arc called to repentance and to be baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of sins and receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit (238 10«).
(6) Not only is tlie resurrection of Christ the fontal source or spring of Apostolic Christianity, so that from it the apostolic gospel dates ; it is itself the very centre and substance of His gospel. So far from being a mere accessory or appendage to the apostolic message, a detached event added on to the life and teaching of Jesus to assure the disciples of His survival of death and of the truth of His claim, in it lay germinally and as in a kernel the whole gospel they had to preach ; so that the preaching of Christ is for the apostles the preaching of His resurrection, and their primary function is to be witnesses of the fact (Ac I'- --, etc. ). St. Paul but represented the common apostolic mind when, writing to the Corintliians, he said : ' If Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain ' [Ketidf, there is nothing in it, it has no real content); and 'your faith is vain {fjiarala, it is futile, to no purpose, fruitless of effect) ; ye are vet in your sins' (1 Co 15"- "). If Christ died anti in that ' lorn Syrian town ' lies in His grave like other men, then the whole gospel of the apostles falls to the ground, for the good news they have to declare is that God hath raised up Jesus from the dead and made Him tlie Exalted Lord to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth. ' This Jesus whom ye crucitied God hath made both Lord and Christ ' (Ac 2**) — this is the concentrated essence of the gospel they proclaim. There is nothing else in it except what comes out of this, and belongs to this, and is illumined by this.
The resurrection of Christ, viewed not as a mere revivification of His earthly body but as His entrance on a state of exalted power and Lordship, is the key which unlocks the inner meaning and significance of His earthly life and ministry. The earthly life of Jesus, with its amazing memories, is seen to be a very incarnation of God, a 'sending forth ' of His Son by the Father, the event to which all else in the world's history had been moving (Gal 4*). The Death on the Cross, the very symbol of shame, which had seemed to wipe out for them the meaning of the Life, becomes in the light of the Resurrection full of Divine meaning and signi- ficance, the central disclosure of redeeming self- sacrificing Love.
But more than this ; the revelation of the life and death of Christ attained its end and became an effective reality only through the Resurrection. For only through His being raised from the dead and His exaltation to supreme power and sove- reignty with the redeeming virtue of His life and death in Him, did Christ enter fully on His career as Prince and Saviour (Ac 5"), and become the life- giving principle of a new humanity (1 Co 15°-), the second Adam (Ro 5'='-, 1 Co 15"), inaugurating a new era in the process of Divine creative evolution. The religion of the apostles is communion with a Risen Lord. Only 'in Hira,' 'in Christ,' in union with a living Saviour, have we redemption and renewal of life (Eph 1', Col 1" 2'", Ro 3=').
(c) As the entrance of the crucified and buried Jesus on a state of exalted power and glory in which He is Lord both in grace and in nature, the Resurrection is, further, the fundamental determin- ative principle of the whole apostolic view of the world and life. It pervaded and revolutionized their whole universe of thought, controlling and governing their interpretation of existence and creating a new intellectual perspective so that all things — God, the world, man — came to be viewed sub specie Resurrection is. The characteristic apo- stolic title for God becomes ' God the Father who
raised Jesus Christ from the dead ' (e.g. Ro 4-'' 6* 8", Col 2'=, 1 P 1-'). The God in whom they believe is One whose character is once for all made manifest in that He raised up Jesus Christ. The Cross and the Burial had seemed to be the triumph of evil in the world, the final defeat of holy love. But by the Resurrection and Exaltation God had vindicated the holiness of Jesus, and by thus vin- dicating Jesus had vindicated and authenticated Himself. At the great crucial moment in the world's moral history, in the case of a perfectly holy life, the omnipotence of God — in apostolic language the ' working of the strength of his might' (Eph I") — was shown to be on the side of goodness and righteousness. Through the resurrec- tion of Christ, too, as no merely spiritual resur- rection— ' the survival of personality beyond death ' — but a rising from the grave and from the power of death, God has convincingly manifested the supremacy of spirit over the strongest material forces.