The whole being of man revolts against it, morally, intellectually and organically. Every law of nature in man is against it. Pain and suffering are its protest. To say that it is as natural as birth is to be guilty of pure bathos; even the worm crushed and quivering denies the sentiment. Schwann, the author of the cellular theory, says: "I really do not know why we die."
There is no reason in nature.
The process which renews the body every seven years--so far as any law in nature shows--might go on indefinitely; there is no reason in itself why it should cease, and the soul within is never conscious of the added years. No one ever thinks of asking, "Why do we live?"
Always, and involuntarily, we ask, "Why do we die?" Always we are seeking to continue life, inventing something to make it immune from death. To live, therefore, is natural. Not to live is unnatural.
Being unnatural, it is an interference with nature. An interference with nature is superior to nature. That which is an interference of and superior to nature is a direct imposition upon nature. An imposition upon nature could not be possible without the permission and will of G.o.d. If G.o.d allows and wills it, then the imposition is for cause; being such, it is a judicial act, a judgment, and becomes, necessarily, a penalty. Penalty stands for violated law.
Violated law is transgression. Transgression is sin. Sin, in final a.n.a.lysis, is lawlessness, and lawlessness is treason against Jehovah. Death is, therefore, an imposition of G.o.d, and is his penalty against the treason of sin.
This, then, is the explanation of death--it is the penalty of sin.
This is the definition which Christianity gives--as it is written: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death pa.s.sed upon all men." (Romans 5:12.)
Again it is written:
"It is _appointed_ unto men once to die." (Hebrews 9:27.)
In thus determining and defining death, Christianity reveals both its essence and its mission; for, through its Gospel, Christianity brings the good news that the issue of sin and death as between G.o.d and man has been settled by our Lord Jesus Christ; that he has settled it perfectly and forever according to the terms of divine righteousness by dying as a sacrifice for sin and as a subst.i.tute for sinners.
In order to be a subst.i.tute it was necessary that our Lord Jesus Christ should be a sinless man; otherwise, his death would be only his own execution under the penalty of sin, and could not avail either for himself or others. None of Adam"s race is sinless; a sinless person must be of another race. To be of another race and be human would require a new creation and would be a new and distinct humanity.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was sinless. He was, therefore, of a new and distinct humanity. In incarnation, G.o.d did not take the humanity of Adam into union with himself, the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ was the repudiation of the humanity of Adam. By that incarnation G.o.d was saying: "I have tried the old humanity. I find nothing in it that responds to my claims. At its best it is sinful, only sinful and fit for judgment--the end of all flesh is come before me--and that end is death."
The humanity of Christ is, therefore, not an evolution, but a new creation; it is not an invitation to the natural man, but a condemnation of him. It does not say to him, "Follow me, imitate me and you will be like me"; it says: "I am from above, ye are from below. I am from heaven and G.o.d--ye are from the earth. My humanity is as distinct from yours as the heavens are from the earth."
Such a man is not an example, a copy to be set before men.
And never, not once, do the apostles so set him before the natural man. Always they set him before the natural man as the man who came into the world--not to live as an example--but to die as a sacrifice for men; as one who was fit to die because he was free from the stain and penalty of sin.
But in order that the death of Christ should be of infinite value, he must himself be an infinite person. The value of a deed depends upon the person who does it. The quality resides not alone in the act, but in the actor. The value of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ is not to be measured by its duration, but by himself--by what he was in himself; it does not depend upon the length of time in which as a subst.i.tute he suffered the punishment of those whose place he was taking, but the essential quality of his person. Did our Lord suffer but a moment of time on the cross, the value of his suffering as a satisfaction to the law, government and being of G.o.d would be infinite.
An infinite person is G.o.d.
Always as such do the apostles present our Lord Jesus Christ. Their testimony to his deity rings out like the blast of far-sounding trumpets. In terms that are precise, and so strong and clear that he who runs may read, they proclaim that he is G.o.d of G.o.d, very G.o.d of very G.o.d.
As G.o.d the Son, in co-operation with G.o.d the Father and G.o.d the Spirit, he who is presented to us as the Lord Jesus Christ, took a cell from the substance of the virgin Mary, made it a mould and with generating power wrought from it a real humanity--a new and distinct humanity--and united it to his eternal personality; so that he stands forth as the eternal G.o.d endowed with a human nature--with two natures, human and divine, in one body and one person forever-- the infinite G.o.d-man.
Never do the apostles present him as a mere man. They present his humanity as the background for his deity. His humanity in its most literal revelation is always declared by them to be the revelation and the manifestation of G.o.d. Never do the apostles attempt to reason about the incarnation, with superb affirmation and sublime dignity they declare, "Without controversy, great is the mystery of G.o.dliness; G.o.d was manifest in the flesh."
And it is this G.o.d whom Christianity presents as coming down from the heaven of glory, and clothing himself with a new, a distinct, but a mortal humanity in which to die as an infinite subst.i.tute for guilty men, that through death, he might abolish death for men.
Having died as a sacrificial subst.i.tute, death considered as a penalty, and the guilt and demerit of sin which induced the penalty, have been set aside for all for whom his subst.i.tution avails.
Nor does Christianity leave us long in doubt as to those for whom the subst.i.tution obtains. In full and precise statement of doctrine it tells us that this subst.i.tution is on the behalf of, and for, all who individually claim our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross as a personal sacrifice for sin, and who by faith offer him to G.o.d as the sacrifice and sin offering which G.o.d himself has provided.
Thus it follows, that for every believer--death as a penalty has been abolished, brought to nought.
This is the first great and joyous proclamation of Christianity, _Death has been abolished as a penalty for every believer_.
It has been abolished _de jure_, not yet _de facto_.
The Christian still dies, but his death is no longer penal, it is providential and provisional.
In the hour of death the Christian is not seized as a culprit and hurried away to execution. On the contrary, when the hour of death sounds for him, a voice inspired from heaven a.s.sures him that he has reached the threshold of the "far better"; he arises and "departs,"
that he may be "absent from his home in this body and present at his home with the Lord." His death is not a defeat, but a begun victory, and, inasmuch as both soul and spirit are delivered from the underworld and the shades of death, he has the a.s.surance that the penalty will yet be completely abolished concerning his body: it is both the a.s.surance and the prophecy of it.
Christianity is, then, primarily, the good news, and the doctrinal demonstration, that death as a judicial sentence has been abolished for the Christian.
But Christianity is something more than the abolition of death--it is--
Second--The bringing in and revelation of life.
Through the Gospel, we are told, life has been brought to light.
In the nature of the case this cannot mean natural life.
There was no necessity that it should be brought into light.
It has never been in darkness.
It is manifest everywhere. Light and life are synonymous.
There is not a condition in which in some form or other it does not exist. While one cla.s.s of life may not live in a certain environment, there are other forms to which this environment would be as a hotbed for their production. Life is, indeed, universal, and may be said to be omnipresent. You will find it in the deepest depths of earth, and in the highest reaches of air. It expands on the mountain top, it dwells in the sea; it is organized in the infusoria, it exists in the infinitesimal, and reveals itself at last, in the beauty of woman and the strength of man.
As natural life has always thus been in evidence; as it has never been in the dark at all, then the life which our Lord Jesus Christ has brought to light is not natural life--it is new life--a life unknown to the world before.
It does not come from the natural man. It is not produced by natural generation. It comes from our Lord Jesus Christ and by supernatural generation. It did not come from him while he walked the earth. At no time during his earthly career did a human being receive it. The disciples who followed him--he who leaned upon his breast at supper and was the disciple whom Jesus loved--knew nothing of it. This new and unique life was brought into the light only when that light shone from his empty grave. He gave it forth and communicated it to men only when, as the risen man, he ascended up on high. It comes from him as the second man, as the last Adam, that Adam to whom the first was only as the clay model to the completed statue, as concept is to consummation. It comes from him who is both G.o.d and man, in one body and one person forever; and who, as such, is the head and beginning of the new creation of G.o.d.
By him it is communicated to those who own him as their atoning sacrifice.
The instrument is the word of the Gospel.
The agent is the Holy Spirit.
The Word is preached--it falls into the heart of the believer as seed into the ground.
The Spirit quickens it--the new life is germinated.
That new life is the life and nature of the risen one, our great G.o.d and Saviour Jesus Christ, the man in the glory; it is the mind of him who is called Christ, and it is, therefore, in final term--"the mind of Christ."
It is wrought, not in the soul, but in the spirit of the believer.
By no slow process does it enter--this life of the risen Lord--but by absolute fiat--the fiat of him who said--"Lazarus, come forth."
It is fiat life.
Its entrance into a human being is as light flashes into darkness.
It is as instantaneous as when G.o.d of old said, "Let there be light," and light burst over a world cataclysmically fallen into chaos.