How is this possible?

Only by this, that both in your faith, and in Jesus’ resurrection, a power showed itself which for ever and always governs the condition of the whole earth, of all stars and all suns, in brief: a power that rules the condition of the entire universe.

Why God created the world, He Who is all-sufficient unto Himself, who shall reveal it unto us?

Man knows it not, God knows it.

But now that He has created that world, God loves that whole world, all His makings, His work, His invention and creation of His hands.

And that He created a world, does not mean merely, that He created an endless host of all sorts of matter and forces, for this by itself was yet nothing more than the chaos of all the elements. But far more and far higher, it means that God put all matter and force in order, combined them, put them together into one mighty organic connection, and that in this one great organism the higher governs the lower, that in the highest creature, i. e. in man, it will let itself be governed of God, that so this God should be King of glory in all His creation.

So God bore rule in the soul of man, the soul of man bore rule over his body, through his body man ruled not only the animal but also every realm of nature, and it was from man and through man, as the mouth of the whole creation, that praise and glory and worship were offered unto God.

All this hung together as one inseverable whole. A Divine masterpiece and exhibition of the Lord’s manifold wisdom.

And as man through his soul governed his body, and through that body the world, so in all men ruled the head of humanity, and therefore, when that head of humanity, i. e. when Adam fell, everything fell.

With the praise which Adam first brought unto God the whole creation thrilled as with one thrill of joy, but when Adam fell, from his human heart corruption communicated itself as in a straight line to all the ends of the circumference of the creation, and that corruption was death.

And for this reason that violence of death could not be resisted, cast down, disjointed and destroyed in any other way, than along the selfsame way, by which death had once stolen into the Creation.

Now again there had to be a head of humanity; that head of humanity must needs avert death from his soul, and thus let his soul rule his body; to the end, that, having destroyed the germ and the root of death in his own body, even to create thereby the starting point, at which from humanity first, and by that humanity presently from the whole world, death could be repulsed.

So you understand, how the fact, that power entered into the soul of Jesus, as Head of humanity, actually to destroy death in His own body, and, free from death, for ever to rise, has become the great mighty turningpoint in the lot of the whole universe. For now the igniting spark of life goes out from Him upon all that are His, from that regenerated humanity upon the whole world, from the whole world upon the whole creation, and thus Satan’s attempt to frustrate what by Himself God had intended with respect to His creation, is once and forever thwarted.

Therefore says the holy apostle, that Christ, by His death, has brought to nought him who had the power of death, namely the devil (Heb. 2:14).

On the other hand that same apostle writes to the church of Ephesus, that God, when by the all else surpassing power of His almightiness He made Christ to triumph in His body over the poison of death, has subjected “all things”, i. e. the whole universe under His feet, “all principality, all power, all dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come”; and that now Christ exercises that working, reaching and all things penetrating power “by His church”, i. e. by His regenerated humanity, because she is His body, and the fulfilment, or if you like the everything-reaching-organ, of Him, “that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:20-22).

A most glorious anthem of praise, which is sung from the theme of Jesus’ resurrection; but which is neither understood nor grasped, except you hold fast this golden chain: The Head of humanity is ruled by God; humanity by her Head; in that humanity the soul governs the body; in that humanity through the body it bears rule over the whole universe.

Christ is subjected to God; all things are subjected to Christ; and all things are subjected to Christ through the tie of His church.

How does the lightspark of the life regained, and by the resurrection rendered indestructible, extend itself along this golden chain?

This you will understand, when you go back to the first beginning of Genesis one.

There was chaos, but that chaos was not as yet the world. It proceeded from the creation, but that creation was only finished, when God had set in order everything that chaos contained, had combined and bound it into one mighty whole (See Gen. 2:1).

And against this death reacts.

Creation is binding together, death is dissolution.

By creation you advance from chaos to a world as God’s work of art; by death you turn from that creation back to chaos. Death goes in against creation, brings creation to nought, is the direct opposite of creation.

See it in a corpse.

First there was the body, one animated, living, vigorous whole, with all sorts of matter and chemical forces in that body, but altogether governed by the life of the soul operating in that body.

So long therefore as the soul dwells in the body, and governs it, it remains one whole, and all these hidden powers and matter are articulated, bound together as one body, and are maintained by the soul as one organism.

No sooner however has death entered in, and separated the soul, than the body becomes a corpse, and if you give that corpse but time, you see dissolution come. When death has entered in all these different kinds of matter and their powers have lost their master. Now they all go their own way. The one is loosed from the other. Dissolution progresses on and on. In the end nothing remains but a chaos, disintegrated particles of matter, forces wrenching themselves more and more free. The body is no more; and even the corpse vanishes.

In altogether the same way death operates everywhere and in every creature. It does nothing except make loose, separate, dissolve what God in His creation has put together and united. It must all be put apart. The entire beautiful building, that the chief Artist and Master builder had raised, must be broken down, story by story, beam by beam, stone by stone, till finally the foundations are wrenched apart. And when once everything, that God had bound together, would thus have been pulled down, demolished and torn asunder, creation would have been brought to nought, chaos would have returned, and Satan would have triumphed over God.

God as the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth would have been conquered.

Death would have destroyed life.

Over against this our Almighty God has clearly shown, that He can put to nought not only that dissolution of His creation worked by death, through binding it together again, but much more yet, that He can so bind His disjointed creation together again, that from now on the all disjointing hand of death can never more shake or touch it.

This is the re-creation.

For in this re-creation there are three parts. First that God maintains the world, even while it is still under the curse of death. Secondly, that in the end He repels and banishes death from it. And thirdly, that once He will forever exclude death from it, so that, perfected in glory, it shall stand eternally.

But with this re-creation also it goes on after the order appointed of God.

The heart of the world was humanity, and the kernel-point in that humanity was the heart of her Head.

To this appointed order Satan was bound. Hence he could not attack God’s creation in any other way, except by making Adam in his heart break with God. Only thereby could he loosen the tie between the heart of Adam and his body. So likewise the tie between Adam’s body and the earth from whence he was taken. And so finally the tie between this earth and the universe.

But if in his work of destruction Satan was bound to this order appointed of God, God Himself also remained bound to it in His re-creation. Re-creation is the renewal of creation after the order of the first creation.

Thus the plan was ready.

Shattered humanity must be brought together again under a new Head, in Whose heart the tie with God lay indestructibly fixed. That is the Incarnation of the Word.

From that new Head of humanity, from that second Adam, Satan had to break loose the body, till God had the soul and he the body. That is Golgotha.

And then God Almighty had to inwork in that soul of Jesus the all exceeding power, to take back that body, and now so to unite the body with itself, that Satan now nor ever, would be able to loosen a single fiber of it again. That was the Resurrection.

In the manger of Bethlehem soul and body in Jesus separable. On Golgotha soul and body of Jesus separated from one another. By the Resurrection soul and body of Jesus so united again, that they can never more be put asunder.

Thus in the glorified body of Jesus there has a point been given in the creation, against which the violence of Satan’s destruction avails nothing. At that one point restoration, re-creation, glorification is finished. And now all further re-creation follows, in that God links fast all the elect to that risen Savior, with that risen Savior makes them one organism, or as St. Paul says, one planting, making one body of it, and in that one Body of Christ incorporates everything, that has been ordained unto life.

So long as this one point was still lacking, nothing could become of the creation. But now that in the re-united “soul and body” of Christ that one fixed point is given, now the restoration of all things goes out from this with equal fixedness, as the ruin of all things followed of necessity from the breach in Adam’s heart with his God.

In the risen Savior soul and body are re-united, never more to be separated again. Presently our mortal bodies are made like unto His glorious body. Around and for us a new earth under a new heaven. And that new earth, even as that new heaven full of the glory of God.

So from the side of visible things, and together with it, there operates in the hidden world of unseen things, the power of God to give birth to His elect again, and in that re-birth to plant faith in them.

And these two, that Jesus is risen, and that the elect receive faith in the soul, hang together.

Even as our Catechism says.

Christ by His resurrection has first overcome death. It is in connection with this that by regeneration we rise to a new life. And the end is, that from His resurrection flows once also our resurrection in glory.

So everything is linked together, so everything is organically articulated, so everything finds its root, its origin, its startingpoint, in Jesus’ resurrection.

And if finally you ask, why this starting-point, this first motive, is set in the visible, in the material, in the flesh of Christ, in the body of the Holy, the answer is, that the regaining of the lost creation could not begin otherwise, than at that point in the circumference, where it lay farthest distant from God.

This was not in the personal existence of man, for that had been created after God’s image, and thus lay nearest to God.

Neither was it in the soul of man, for that soul is spiritual and is allied to God.

But it was in the body of man, taken from the earth, from its dust, from that, which, so far as contrast here prevails, stands directly over against the spirit; and that sensual, that which lies farthest distant, Jesus had taken up in His body.

As the holy apostle states it with so great emphasis in the epistle to the Hebrews (2:14).

Just because Christ by death, i. e. through the sunderance of soul and body, might destroy him that had the power of death, He must needs become partaker of the flesh and blood of children; even as we all are born as children in flesh and blood.

And therefore the mighty event which we celebrate at Easter, points Christendom back to the original creation, and forward to the eternal glory, and assures us that it is the resurrection of Christ from the dead, that unites the Paradise that was lost with the Paradise, that once surely comes again, in the reality of things itself.

Recently Sascha Schneider, a Russian of German descent, a painter of as rare artistic genius as inspiring faith, has produced on canvas Satan standing by the dead body of Jesus. A masterpiece of conception, arisen in a soul that had grasped the pseudo-triumph of the tempter. Satan is of superhuman form, in the robe of Babylon’s princes, with a strikingly intelligent head, and on the face the expression of inward rejoicing, and at the sight of the corpse, triumphant pride; but yet with anxiety in look and face. There speaks such majesty from that corpse. Satan does not trust that corpse. And in that very mistrust of the corpse Schneider shows himself to have grasped the significance of Easter.

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