However, it is well to see with distinctness, that the same truth which gives the soul settled peace, puts it also into the position of intelligent worship, acceptable service, and effectual testimony. In the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, the apostle sets forth the death and resurrection of Christ as the grand foundation of everything.--"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." (Ver. 1-4.) Here is the gospel in one brief and comprehensive statement. A dead and risen Christ is the ground-work of salvation. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.) To see Jesus, by the eye of faith, nailed to the cross, and seated on the throne, must give solid peace to the conscience and perfect liberty to the heart. We can look into the tomb, and see it empty; we can look up to the throne, and see it occupied, and go on our way rejoicing. The Lord Jesus settled everything on the cross on behalf of His people; and the proof of this settlement is that He is now at the right hand of God. A risen Christ is the eternal proof of an accomplished redemption; and if redemption is an accomplished fact, the believer's peace is a settled reality. We did not make peace, and never could make it; indeed, any effort on our part to make peace could only tend more fully to manifest us as _peace-breakers_. But Christ, having made peace by the blood of His cross, has taken His seat on high, triumphant over every enemy. By Him, God preaches peace. The word of the gospel conveys this peace; and the soul that believes the gospel, has peace--settled peace before God, for Christ is his peace. (See Acts x. 36; Rom. v. 1; Eph. ii. 14; Col. i. 20.) In this way, God has not only satisfied His own claims, but, in doing so, He has found out a divinely righteous vent through which His boundless affections may flow down to the guiltiest of Adam's guilty progeny.
Then, as to the practical result of all this. The cross of Christ has not only put away the believer's sins, but also dissolved forever his connection with the world; and, on the ground of this, he is privileged to regard the world as a crucified _thing_, and to be regarded by it as a crucified one. Thus it stands with the believer and the world,--it is crucified to him and he to it. This is the real, dignified position of every true Christian. The world's judgment about Christ was expressed in the position in which it deliberately placed Him. It got its choice as to whether it would have a murderer or Christ. It allowed the murderer to go free, but nailed Christ to the cross, between two thieves. Now, if the believer walks in the footprints of Christ--if he drinks into and manifests His spirit, he will occupy the very same place in the world's estimation; and, in this way, he will not merely know that, as to standing before God, he is crucified with Christ, but be led to realize it in his walk and experience every day.
But while the cross has thus effectually cut the connection between the believer and the world, the resurrection has brought him into the power of new ties and associations. If in the cross we see the world's judgment about Christ, in resurrection we see God's judgment. The world crucified Him, but "God hath highly exalted Him." Man gave Him the very lowest, God the very highest, place; and, inasmuch as the believer is called into full fellowship with God in His thoughts about Christ, he is enabled to turn the tables upon the world, and look upon it as a crucified thing. If, therefore, the believer is on one cross and the world on another, the moral distance between the two is vast indeed. And if it is vast in principle, so should it be in practice. The world and the Christian should have absolutely nothing in common; nor will they, except so far as he denies his Lord and Master. The believer proves himself false to Christ to the very same degree that he has fellowship with the world.
All this is plain enough; but, my beloved Christian reader, where does it put us as regards this world? Truly, it puts us outside, and that completely. We are dead to the world and alive with Christ. We are at once partakers of His rejection by earth and His acceptance in heaven; and the joy of the latter makes us count as nothing the trial connected with the former. To be cast out of earth, without knowing that I have a place and a portion on high, would be intolerable; but when the glories of heaven fill the soul's vision, a little of earth goes a great way.