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Page 47
And of the fact of that victory not only the first disciples are
witnesses, but every man and woman since in whose life Christ has been
and is a present force. Explain as we may the details of the
resurrection narratives, conceive as we please of the manner in which
Christ made Himself known to His followers in His post-resurrection
appearances long ago, we know that He is "no dead fact stranded on the
shore of the oblivious years," but a living force in our world today,
and that Easter triumphs are reenacted wherever His Spirit animates the
lives of men. History again and again has demonstrated that His labor
has not been vain in God; that the whole structure and fabric of things
responds to trust and love; that careers such as His cannot be holden of
death, but find an ally in the universe itself, which sends them on
through the years conquering and to conquer. That demonstration in
history confirms Jesus' trust in God, sets a public seal which the whole
world can see to the correctness of His testimony to Him whom He found
in the unseen, and in whose cause He laid down His life.
And Jesus has made still another contribution to the answer of our
question: it is through Him that we form our pictures of the life to
which we look forward so certainly. The New Testament expectations
center about Jesus Himself: "With Me in paradise;" "Where I am, there
also shall my servant be;" "I go to prepare a place for you;" "So shall
we ever be with the Lord." Men who had experienced Christ's hold upon
them, through all the divisive circumstances of life, had no doubt of
His continuing grasp upon them through death; they spoke of the
Christian dead as "the dead in Christ"--the dead under His transforming
control. Not death nor life could separate them from His love.
Since we see God, the Lord of heaven, in Jesus, the only and
all-satisfying knowledge we have of the future life is that it will
accord with the will of the Father of Jesus Christ. Of its details we
can merely say, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that
love Him." But we know God in Christ: we are certain of many things that
cannot be included in a life where His heart has its way; the city of
our hope has walls; but it has also gates on all sides and several gates
on every side, and we are certain of its hospitability to all that
accords with the mind of Christ. That which renders the life within the
veil not all dark to us is the fact that "the Lamb is the light
thereof." There is a connection between it and our life today; the one
Lord rules earth and heaven; and Him we know through Jesus. Humbly
acknowledging that we know but in part, glad that the future has in
store for us glorious surprises, we are convinced that for us there
waits a life in God, in which His children shall attain their Christlike
selves in Christlike fellowship one with another and with Him, their
Christlike Father. More than this who cares to know? More than this, for
what can Christians wish?
_Adhoesi testimoniis tuis, Domine_.
Psalm, cxviii (119): 31, Vulgate.
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