The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 617

The qnestion is-How WBS this belief produced? There arc three answers. (1) Tho ,fociples snw onr Lord alive after crucifixion, but he had nevel' been dead. (2) They only thought they saw him. (3) They did see him alive after being dead and buried. The first is scarcely worthy of attention,-it is so obviously inadequate, We ask for an explanation of this singular circumstance, that a number of men arrived at the firm con'l"iction they had an .Almighty Friend, One who had 1111 power in heaven and on earth, and we are told they had seen their Master after crucifixion, creeping about the ea.rth, Rcarcely able to move, pale, WMk, helpless. This supposition is no explanation of their faith in him as a risen, glorious, almighty Lord. The second would suffice bad we only to explain how one person believed he or she had seen the Lol'd. But what we l1ave here to explain is bow several persons, in different places, at different times, and in various moods of mind, came to believe they had seen him. He was recognized, not by persons who expected to see him alive, but by women who went to anoint him dead; not by credulous, excitable persons, but by persons so resolutely sceptical and so keenly alive to the possibility of delusion that nothing but handling his body could comince them, Nothing will explain the faith of the apostles and of the rest but the fact of their really seeing the Lord, after his death, a.live and endowed with all power. They were men animated by no paltry spirit of vain-glory, but by seriousness, even sublimity of mind-men whose lives require au explanation precisely such as is given by the supposition that they had been brought into contact with the spiritual world in this surprising and solemnizing manner, H is not denied that the evidence for the Resu1Tection would be quite sufficient to authenticate any ordinary historical event. It can be refused only on the ground that no evidence, however Rtrong, could prove such a.n incredible event, The supernatural is rejected as a. pre- liminary, so as to bar any consideration of the most important evidences of the euper- natnraL No account of the belief in the Res1nTection bas ever been given more credible than that which it seeks to supplant-the simple one that the Lord did rise again. The position of the Resurrection in the system of Christian facts and motives is all-important. I. It is the chief proof that Jesus was not mistaken regarding his own Person, hie own work, his relation to the Father, and the prospects of himself and his people. It is also the Father's attestation to the sufficiency of his work. IL If our Lord's work be viewed as a revelation of the Father, the Resurrection will equally be seen to be necessary. Were there no resurrection, ,we should be obliged to seek our highest ideas of God in the tomb, not in the Divine condescension and love which are visible on the cross, but in a being overcome and defeated by the same ills that overwhelm us all. m In the risen Lord we find the source of all spiritual strength. Any one who pa.sses through dea.th uninjured, who conquers that which conquers all other men without exception, shows that he bas some command over nature which does not belong to other men. And he who shows this superiority in virtue of a moral superiority, and uses it in the furtherance of the highest moral ends, shows a. command over the whole affairs of men which makes it easy to believe he can guide us into a condition like his own. Especially does the Resurrection enable us to believe that our Lord can communicate the Holy Spirit. Salvation is reduced to very small limits indeed and the Christian religion becomes a mere system of morality, if there be not now a. '!iviDg Christ able to bestow a living Spirit. . . . IV. In the risen Lord we see the character of the life to which we a.re called lil fellowship with him, and also the destiny that awaits us in him, As he passed to God and lives wiih him, so must we now live wholly to God, letting this great gulf of death stand between us and our past life of self-pleasing and worldliness, In him risen, with a human body and not a. bare spirit, we see what we ourselves are to "8 in that future life. The Divine Spirit is the source both of holiness and of immortality; if we now have the one evidence of his indwelling, we shall one day have the other.-D. Vere. 1-10.-The price of blood. The day, whose dawn brought repentance to Peter, found the Jewish rulers still plotting how they might effect the murder of JesuR, They had in the night infamously condemned him as a blasphemer, thereby exposing him to the penalty of death by stoning. Almost a. hundred years before this Judaia ou. xxvu. 1-66.J THE GOSPEL .ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. IJ23