Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 896
“Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth—they that ha ve done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”- John 5:28,29.
THE doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead is peculiarly a Christian belief. With natural reason, assisted by some little light lingering in tradition, or borrowed from the Jews, a few philosophers spelled out the immortality of the soul. But that the body should rise again—that there should be another life for this corporeal frame—was a hope which is brought to light by the Revelation of Christ Jesus. Men could not have imagined so great a wonder, and they prove their powerlessness to have invented it by the fact that still, as at Athens, when they hear of it for the first time, they fall to mocking. “Can these dry bones live?” is still the unbeliever’s sneer!
The doctrine of the Resurrection is a lamp kindled by the hands which once were pierced. It is, indeed, in some respects, the keystone of the Christian arch. It is linked in our holy faith with the Person of Jesus Christ and is one of the brightest gems in His crown. What if I call it the signet on His finger, the seal by which He has proven to a demonstration that He has the King’s authority and has come forth from God? The doctrine of Resurrection ought to be preached much more commonly than it is as vital to the Gospel. Listen to the Apostle Paul as he describes the Gospel which he preached, and by which true Believers were saved—“I delivered unto you,” says he, “first of all that which I 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.”
From the Resurrection of Christ he argues that of all the dead and insists upon it, that if Christ is not risen, both their faith and his preaching were vain. The doctrine of the Resurrection in the early Church was the main battle-ax and weapon of war of the preacher. Wherever the first missionaries went they made this prominent—that there would be a judgment and that the dead should rise again to be judged by the Man Christ Jesus, according to their Gospel. If we would honor Christ Jesus the Risen One, we must give prominence to this Truth of God. Moreover, the doctrine is continually blessed of God to arouse the minds of men. When we fancy that our actions are confined to this present life, we are careless of them. But when we discover that they are far-reaching, and that they cast influences for good or evil across an eternal destiny, then we regard them more seriously.
What trumpet call can be more startling? What arousing voice can be more awakening than this news to the careless sinner that there is a life hereafter? That men must stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ to be judged for the things done in their bodies whether they were good or evil? Such doctrine I shall try to preach this morning for just such ends— for the honoring of Christ and for the awakening of the careless. God send us good speed and abundance of the desired results. We shall first expound the text and then, secondly, endeavor to learn its lessons.
I. First we shall EXPOUND THE TEXT. No exposition will be more instructive than a verbal one. We will take each word and weigh its meaning. Observe then, first, in the text there is a forbidding to marvel. “Marvel not at this.” Our Savior had been speaking of two forms of life-giving which belonged to Himself as the Son of Man. The first was the power to raise the dead from their graves to a renewed natural life. He proved this on one or two occasions in His lifetime, at the gates of Nain, in the chamber of the daughter of Jairus and again at the tomb of the almost rotting Lazarus.
Jesus had power when He was on earth and has power still, if so He should will it, to speak to those who have departed and bid them return again to this mortal state and reassume the joys and sorrows and duties of life. “As the Father raises up the dead and quickens them; even so the Son quickens whom He wills.” After our Lord had dwelt upon
that form of His life-giving prerogative, He passed on to a second display of it and testified that the time was then present when His voice was heard to the quickening of the spiritually dead. The spiritually dead—the men who are dead to holiness and dead to faith—dead to God and dead to Divine Grace.
The spiritually dead are the men that lie enshrouded in the grave clothes of evil habits, rotting in the coffins of their depravity. They are deep down in the graves of their transgressions. These men, when Jesus speaks in the Gospel, are made to live! A spiritual life is given to them. Their dead souls are raised out of their long and horrible sleep and they are enlivened with the life of God. Now, both of these forms of quickening are worthy to be marveled at. The resurrection of the natural man to natural life is a great wonder—who would not go a thousand miles to see such a thing performed? The raising up of the dead spirit to spiritual life, this is a greater wonder by far! But albeit that these are wonders and things which it is legitimate to wonder at by way of admiration, yet there is a marveling of mistrustful unbelief which is insulting to the Lord and is, therefore, forbidden.