Jesus, however, after his return from the grave, was a man beyond death. He was the same person who had lived and died, and yet he was changed. He appeared and disappeared at will. He entered rooms through closed and barred doors. At last his body ascended from the earth, and passed up to heaven, subject no longer to the laws of gravitation. We see in Jesus, therefore, during the forty days, one who has passed into what we call the other life. What he was then his people will be when they have emerged from death with their spiritual bodies, for he was the first-fruits of them that are asleep.
As we study Jesus in the story of those days, we are surprised to see how little he was changed. Death had left no strange marks upon him. Nothing beautiful in his life had been lost in the grave. He came back from the shadows as human as he was before he entered the valley. Dying had robbed him of no human tenderness, no gentle grace of disposition, no charm of manner. As we watch him in his intercourse with his disciples, we recognize the familiar traits which belonged to his personality during the three years of his active ministry.
We may rightly infer that in our new life we shall be as little changed as Jesus was. We shall lose our sin, our frailties and infirmities, all our blemishes and faults. The long-hindered and hampered powers of our being shall be liberated. Hidden beauties shall shine out in our character, as developed pictures in the photographer's sensitized plate. There will be great changes in us in these and other regards, but our personality will be the same. Jesus was easily recognized by his friends; so shall we be by those who have known us. Whatever is beautiful and good in us here,--the fruits of spiritual conquest, the lessons learned in earth's experiences, the impressions made upon us by the Word of God, the silver and golden threads woven in our life-web by pure friendships, the effects of sorrow upon us, the work wrought in us by the Holy Spirit,--all this shall appear in our new life. We shall have incorruptible, spiritual, and glorious bodies, no longer mortal and subject to the limitations of matter; death will rob us of nothing that is worthy and true, and fit for the blessed life.
"We are quite sure That he will give them back-- Bright, pure, and beautiful. * * * He does not mean--though heaven be fair-- To change the spirits entering there That they forget The eyes upraised and wet, The lips too still for prayer, The mute despair. He will not take The spirits which he gave, and make The glorified so new That they are lost to me and you. * * * I do believe that just the same sweet face, But glorified, is waiting in the place Where we shall meet. * * * God never made Spirit for spirit, answering shade for shade, And placed them side by side-- So wrought in one, though separate, mystified, And meant to break The quivering threads between."
It is interesting, too, to study the friendships of Jesus after he came from the grave. He did not take up again the public life of the days before his death. He made no more journeys through the country. He spoke no more to throngs in the temple courts or by the Seaside. He no more went about healing, teaching, casting out demons, and raising the dead. He made no appearances in public. Only his disciples saw him. We have but few details of his intercourse with individuals, but such glimpses as we have are exceedingly interesting. They show us that no tender tie of friendship had been hurt by his experience of dying. The love of his heart lived on through death, and reappeared during the forty days in undiminished gentleness and kindness. He did not meet his old friends as strangers, but as one who had been away for a few days, and had come again.