Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1200
“And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in Hea ven and in earth. Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” Matthew 28:18-20.
THE change from “the Man of Sorrows,” before His crucifixion, to the “Lord over All” after His Resurrection is very striking. Before His Passion He was well-known by His disciples and appeared only in one form, as the Son of Man, clad in the common peasant’s garment without seam, woven from the top throughout. But after He had risen from the dead He was, on several occasions, unrecognized by those who loved Him best. He is once, at least, described as having appeared to certain of them “under another form.” He was the same Person, for they saw His hands and His feet— Thomas even handled Him and placed his finger in the print of the nails! But yet it would seem that some gleams of His Glory were, at times, manifested to them—a Glory which had been hidden during His previous life, except only when He stood on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Before His death, His appearances were to the general public—He stood in the midst of Scribes and Pharisees, publicans and sinners, and preached the glad tidings. But now He appeared only to His disciples, sometimes to one, at another time to two. On one occasion to about 500 brethren at once, but always to His disciples and to them only. Before His death His preaching was full of parables, plain to those who had understanding, but often dark and mysterious even to His own followers, for it was a judgment from the Lord upon that evil generation that seeing they should not see and hearing they should not perceive.
Yet with equal truth we may say that our Lord, before His death, brought down His teaching to the comprehension of the uninstructed minds which listened to it, so that many of the deeper Truths of God were slightly touched upon because they were not able to bear them as yet. Till His crucifixion He veiled the effulgence of many Truths—after His Resurrection He spoke in parables, but introduced His disciples into the inner circle of the great doctrines of the kingdom and, as it were, showed Himself face to face to them. Before His death the Lord Jesus was ever with His followers and even the secret places of His retirement were known to them. But after He had risen He came and went among them at irregular intervals.
Where He was during many of those 40 days, who among us can tell? He was seen in the Garden upon Olivet. He walked to Emmaus. He comforted the assembly at Jerusalem. He showed Himself, again, to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberius. But where did He go when, other than the various interviews, He vanished out of their sight? They were in the room alone, the doors were shut, and suddenly He stood in the midst of them. Again, He called to them from the beach, and on landing they found a fire of coals kindled, and fish laid on them, and bread. His appearances were strange and His disappearings equally so.
Everything pointed to the fact that after He had risen from the dead, He had undergone some marvelous change which had revealed in Him that which had been concealed before! But His identity was still indisputable. It was no small honor to have seen our risen Lord while yet He lingered here below. What must it be to see Jesus as He is now! He is the same Jesus as when He was here—yonder memorials as of a lamb that has been slain assure us that He is the same Man. Glorified in Heaven, His real Manhood sits—and it is capable of being beheld by the eye and heard by the ear—but yet how different! Had we seen Him in His agony, we should all the more admire His Glory!
Dwell with your hearts very much upon Christ Crucified, but indulge yourselves full often with a sight of Christ glorified. Delight to think that He is not here, for He is risen! He is not here, for He has ascended! He is not here, for He sits at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us! Let your souls travel frequently the blessed highway from the sepulcher to the Throne. As in Rome there was a Via Sacra along which returning conquerors went from the gates of the city up to the heights of the Capitol, so is there another Via Sacra which you ought often to survey, for along it the risen Savior went in glorious majesty from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea up to the eternal dignities of His Father’s right hand!
Your soul will do well to see her dawn of hope in His death and her full assurance of hope in His risen life. Today my business is to show, as far as God, the Spirit, may help me, first, Our Lord’s resurrection power and secondly, Our Lord’s mode of exercising the spiritual part of that power so far as we are concerned.