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true. The Lord is risen indeed! Then God loves you with a love which you cannot measure, for of such a love did the Saviour testify (John iii. 16). And the resurrection proves His testimony true. The Lord is risen indeed! Then your sins are put away, so that they cannot obstruct the flow of Divine love; for He came as the sin-bearer, and ere His death exclaimed, "It is finished!" And His resurrection attests that He has done all that He professed to do. The Lord is risen indeed! Then there is forgiveness for you. For He commanded His disciples to preach repentance and remission of sins in His name unto all nations. And His resurrection proves that He has power on earth to forgive sins. The Lord is risen indeed! Then there is lifeeternal life in Him for you. He came that the world through Him might have life. He claimed to be the Resurrection and the Life, and promised eternal life to whomsoever should believe on Him. And by His rising from the dead His claims and promises are verified. power which raised His body from the grave, to die no more, is able also to raise your mortal bodies, and to invest them with immortality. The entrance of humanity in His person into immortal life prepares the way for your entrance. For it is as your forerunner and representative that He has conquered death and ascended on high.-Rev. Wm. Landels.

The

2 The dreadful warning of the resurrection.

3

The call of the resurrection to newness of life.

[13652] It is no use going and gazing at that broken tomb, crying out about resurrection power and glory, and then, like St. James's man, after having beheld our face in the glass, going our way, and straightway forgetting what manner of men we are. What manner of men are we? We are children of the resurrection. If we are really one with Jesus, we are lifted up out of the tomb together with Him into the newness of life which is represented yonder by our Head in glory. Just as the life in my own physical head permeates my whole physical system, so there is a real substantial unity of life between my Divine Head and me, if I am living in Him; so that I have no right to go away and forget what manner of man I am. When we get down to the exchange, to the workshop, do we forget what manner of men we are? Are there any of us who, when we get behind our counter, forget what manner of men we are? We remember it at the Lord's table, we commemorate the fact there, that we are bought with a price, that our position is in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. That is what manner of men we are in theory, in our moments of contemplation; but what about it when we come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, when the glories have for a moment disappeared, when the majesty of God is no longer engross

where that mercy has been despised. Those who would not listen when He said, "Comehim that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out; I am come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly," will be compelled both to listen and obey when He says, "Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity."-Ibid.

[13651] The Lord is risen indeed! Such is the message which comes to you from His empty grave-from His lofty throne-a gracious message to those who will receive it and submit to His authority, and accept of His salvation-a message fraught with warning and terror to every evildoer, who will not come to Him that he may have life. "Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets, Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish.; for I work a work in your day, a work which ye shall in nowise believe, though a man declare it unto you!" God hath raised His Son Jesus Christ. He hath set His king upon His holy hill of Zion. The nations that oppose

then? Have we forgot it? Oh that we had better memories! Unbelief has a very short memory, but faith has a very long one; and the man who walks by faith cannot forget one thing-Christ in him, the hope of glory. That is the secret of resurrection life and power.Rev. W. Hay M. H. Aitken.

[13653] God never gives us a call without its being a privilege; and He never gives us the privilege to come up higher without stretching out to us His hand to lift us up. . . . Come up higher and higher into the realities and glories of the resurrection life. . . . Shake yourself loose of every encumbrance, turn your back on every defilement, give yourself over like clay to the hand of the potter, that He may stamp upon you the fulness of His own resurrection glory, that we, beholding as in a mirror the glories of the Lord, may be changed from glory to glory. -Ibid.

[See Vol. I., "CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES," Section I.]

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5

CHRIST'S TRIUMPHANT ASCENSION AND EXALTATION.

I. QUESTION AS TO THE OBJECT OR DESIGN OF OUR LORD'S REMAINING SO LONG ON EARTH AFTER THE RESURRECTION.

[13654] Why, if Christ's interviews with His followers were so few, His intercourse with them so brief, so broken, so reserved, did Jesus remain on earth so long? Why were so many as forty days of an existence such as His spent by Him in this way? It is scarcely possible for us to forget, or to fail in being struck by it, that this period of forty days was one which had already been signalized in the history of redemption. Was it as Elijah was carried away into the wilderness, to fast and pray there for forty days, to prepare him for his great work as the restorer of the Law in Israel? Was it as Jesus Himself, after His baptism, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, to fast there forty days, and at the end to be tempted of the devil, to fit Him for that earthly ministry which was to close in His death upon the cross? Was it even so that now, for another forty days, our Lord was detained on earth, as the suitable preface or prelude to His entrance upon that higher stage of the mediatorial work in which He is to sit upon the throne, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool ?-Rev. Wm. Hanna, D.D.

[13655] Take the other alternative: that after His resurrection Christ had immediately resumed and continued—even let us say for no longer a time than these forty days-the exact kind of life that He had led before, returning to all His old haunts and occupations-would not such a return on His part to all the old familiarities of His former intercourse have had a tendency to check the rising faith in His Di. vinity; to tie His disciples down again to a knowing of Him only after the flesh; to give to the humanity of the Lord such bulk and prominence as to make it in their eyes overshadow the Divinity? Can you conceive a treatment more nicely fitted to the spiritual condition, to

the spiritual wants of those men at that time, than the very one which the Lord adopted and carried out,-so well fitted as it was, gradually, gently, without violence, to lead those disciples on from their first misty, imperfect, unworthy ideas of His person, character, and work, on and up to clearer, purer, loftier conceptions of Him? In what better way could a faith in their Master's Divinity have been superinduced upon their former faith in Him as a man, a friend, a brother, so that the two might blend together without damage done to either by the union; their knowledge of Him as human not interfering with their trust in Him as Divine; their faith in Him as God not weakening their attachment to Him as man?—Ibid.

I

II. SCENE OF THE ASCENSION.

The hallowed associations of the spot selected, and the true humanity of Christ evinced in the choice.

[13656] The place was Bethany. Why Bethany? He might have ascended from some other quarter of the Mount of Olives; why did He choose this one from which He at least could behold the village of Bethany, and it may be the very house of Martha and Mary? I know not what you may think, but I confess I see in this a new proof of His genuine humanity in an attachment to places-an attachment to some above others because of pleasing associations. In choosing Bethany-village or district, I care not which—as the scene of His departure, He showed Himself possessed of one of the deepest intuitions of our nature. If you had it in your option, where would you wish to leave the world? -on what objects would you like to look for the last time? Would it not be on the friends you loved best, the home that sheltered you, the flowers you planted, the scenes and haunts of childhood, the streams and mountains of your native land? It is said of the admirable Leighton, that he wished that the place of his departure might be an inn; he thought it most conformable to the character of a pilgrim; and, if my recollection serves me aright, he obtained his wish. I cannot but think it was a most unnatural one, partaking of an ascetic character, and to be accounted for only by the fact that

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he had fallen on evil days, and felt so. I do not think that Christianity requires me to disown any of the ties of nature, or any of the promptings of the heart. I am sure this is not the mind of Christ-it is too morbid, too ungenial, too unnatural. On His heart were deeply engraven the beautiful lake of Galilee, and the retired village of Bethany; He visited both ere He left the world.-Rev. A. L. R. Foote.

[13657] In proportion as minds advance in intelligence, they are swayed by manifold considerations. And it may have been that He who knew all things, and whose procedure is influenced not by a part, but by the whole of His boundless knowledge, saw moral as well as natural fitness in the locality which He selected as the scene of that tender parting, and that triumphant ascension. His road led past, or through the Garden of Gethsemane, the scene of His frequent devotion, and of His greatest prostration and agony. Was it not fitted, and may it not have been designed, to connect these things in the minds of His disciples with His ascension ?-to show them the glory to which a life of devotion would ultimately lead; and how the agony must precede the triumph-how we must drink the cup of suffering before we can drink the cup of blessedness; and pass through the valley of humiliation and trial before we can reach the mount of apotheosis and the throne and crown of glory? This is a truth which we greatly need, but are slow to learn.-Rev. Wm. Landels.

[13658] Mount Olivet was the scene of previous prayer and sorrow, near Gethsemane and Bethany. Our Lord ascended not from Jerusalem, to be seen in public by the Jews; nor from Calvary, the place of the curse; but from Mount Olivet, the place of prayer and suffering. Rev. G. S. Bowes, B.A.

III. INCIDENTS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE ASCENSION.

"Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke xxiv. 45).

[13659] When He met with the eleven in the course of that day on which He was taken up into heaven, our Saviour occupied Himself with showing them how needful it was that all things that had been written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms regarding Him should be fulfilled; with showing them how exactly many of their ancient prophecies had met with their fulfilment in the manner and circumstances of His death; with showing them how it behoved Him to suffer, and through suffering to reach the throne of that kingdom which He came to set up on the earth;-at once unfolding to them the Scriptures, and opening their minds to understand them. As on the first, so now on the last day of His being with them, this was the chosen theme on which He dwelt; this the lesson upon which a larger

amount of pains and care were bestowed by our Lord after His resurrection than upon any other.-Rev. Wm. Hanna, D.D.

[13660] Our Lord's exposition of the Scriptures after His resurrection could not have been wholly in vain. When, then, after all the fresh light He had thrown upon the true nature of His kingdom and the manner of its establishment, we find the apostles coming to Him and saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? it could scarcely be that, ignoring all they had just heard, and clinging still to their first belief, they were inquiring about an immediate erection of that temporal and visible kingdom which had previously so engrossed their thoughts and hopes. No; they saw now the need there was that Jesus should have suffered all these things; but still there was a kingdom which, through these sufferings, He was to reach, a glory on which, when these were over, he was to enter. Still there lay within these prophecies, which their minds had now been opened to understand, many a wonderful announcement of the part which Israel was to take in the erection and consolidation of the Redeemer's empire upon this earth.-Ibid.

2 He... said unto them that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations (Luke xxiv. 47).

[13661] They were to receive power from on high to execute that great mission upon which they were to be sent forth; that mission was to consist in their proclaiming everywhere repentance and remission of sins in the name of Jesus; and beginning at Jerusalem as the centre, they were to go forth, not as prophets of the future, but as witnesses of the past, witnesses for Christ, to carry the glad tidings abroad through all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Repentance, a turning from all evil, a turning with true and penitent spirit to God; remission of sins, the covering of all past transgression by an act of grace on the part of God; the remission of sins, offered in the name of Jesus, coming only, but coming directly, immediately, fully, in and through the name of Him who is the one allprevalent Mediator between man and Godsuch was the burden of that simple message which, in parting from them, Jesus committed to His disciples to make known over all the earth.-Ibid.

IV. NATURE OF THE PARTING BLESSING, AND ITS REVELATION OF CHRIST'S LOVE FOR HIS OWN.

[13662]" He blessed them." No one surely can fail to see how this reveals the heart o Jesus. You say at once, how suitable a close is this for His earthly sojourn; how thoroughly in keeping with His whole character and mission! The Son of the Blessed, He came to bless, and

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it was His delight to scatter blessings on all around. Is it not a beautiful corroboration of this that the first word of His public teaching was this sweet one, Blessed? This was on a mountain too, you will remember-hence termed the Mount of Beatitudes. And as He began His ministry with blessing, so He ended it; His last words on earth breathed a beatific spirit; and the Mount of Ascension became the Mount of Beatitude! In regard to the precise form of this act, silence is preserved. Did He use the sublime benediction of the Old Testament Church, felt to be so suitable even under the new economy? "The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift upon thee the light of His countenance, and give thee peace!" He might have done it; I confess I see nothing improbable in this; for, after all, were they not His own words? Still, one rather inclines, I think, to the conclusion, that words specially adapted to the occasionthat of parting-were used; words of surpassing beauty and tenderness, no doubt, never to be forgotten by those who heard them. I own it requires an effort to resist a feeling of regret that they have not been left as a legacy to the Church in all ages. As for the nature of the act, I incline very much to this view of it, that it was not so much an authoritative act, commanding the blessing, nor a mediatorial act, meriting the blessing-though these are not excluded-but rather a paternal act, so to speak. I like to think of Him now surrounded by those eleven disciples, not merely as the great King and Priest of His Church, but also, and very specially, as a Father giving His farewell blessing to His family, now soon to see Him no more. "Having loved His own, He loved them to the end," and I delight to see in this act of His a proof and manifestation of His unchanged and unchangeable affection.-Rev. A. L. R. Foote.

[13663] The God-Man is deeply moved at the present moment; specially the humanity is stirred to its lowest depths, and its sympathies and finer emotions awakened at the thought that the hour is come when these weak and defenceless ones are to be left behind in the world-and such a world! He will bless them once again-He has often done so before, but now it will be doubly sweet to them; and when their hearts are nerved for the crisis by the healing balm He has poured into them, He will ascend, and their last looks of Him, as with straining eyes they follow Him, shall be with still uplifted hands, love beaming in His countenance, and the words of blessing dying on His lips -Ibid.

V. MANNER OF THE ASCENSION.

[13664] They are approaching Bethany. He stops; they gather round. He looks upon them; He lifts his hands; He begins to bless them. What love unutterable in that parting

An

look; what untold riches in that blessing! His hands are uplifted; His lips are engaged in blessing, when slowly He begins to rise earth has lost her power to keep; the waiting, updrawing heavens claim Him as their own. attraction stronger than our globe is on Him, and declares its power. He rises; but still, as He floats upward through the yielding air, His eyes are bent on these up-looking men; His arms are stretched over them in the attitude of benediction, His voice is heard dying away in blessings as He ascends. Awe-struck, in silence they follow Him with straining eye-balls, as His body lessens to sight, in its retreat upward into that deep blue, till the commissioned cloud enfolds, cuts off all further vision, and closes the earthly and sensible communion between Jesus and His disciples. How simple, yet how sublime, how pathetic this parting! No disturbance of the elements, no chariot of fire, no escort of angels; nothing to disturb or distract the little company from whom He parts; nothing to the very last to break in upon that close and brotherly communion, which is continued so long as looking eye and listening ear can keep it up.-Rev. Wm. Hanna, D.D.

[13665] Elijah is translated; a chariot of fire and horses of fire are commissioned to snatch him away from the earth, and carry him to heaven; but our Lord is borne upward by His innate power; He is not translated, He ascends. He came from heaven, and He returns to heaven, as to His natural home. The wonder is, not that He should now at length go to heaven, but that He should so long have tarried upon earth. Calmly, majestically, He ascends, carrying with Him that body which He had redeemed from the grave. No fire-chariot is needed for Him. And why not? Because there is nothing of earthly dross requiring to be burnt out of Him, no wondrous transformation, no last baptism of cleansing fire before He can endure to pass into the presence of his Father; but such as He was upon earth, exactly such He passes into the heavens. No shock, no whirlwind, no violent rapture in His case; for in His ascension there is no breach of the laws of His natural life, but all is in exactest conformity with them.-Abp. Trench.

[13666] How gently and silently this great event appears to have taken place! It is supposed that the Saviour appeared to them first in the early morning; and that after some converse with them He led them out, so that the ascension, as became such an event, must have taken place about noonday. We have no hint that the disciples were looking for it. Indeed, from the surprise which they afterwards evinced, it would appear to have come upon them unexpectedly. In all probability they followed Him with no other expectation than that He was about to visit Bethany, as He had often done before. No crowd was summoned to witness an impos. ing spectacle. If the Jews saw Him walking at the head of His disciples through the streets or