John 11:25

John 11:25

This Divine name is a pledge to us of many joys; but chiefly of three Divine gifts.

I. The first is a perfect newness of body and soul. This is a thought of wonder almost beyond conception or belief. Death and the forerunners of death have so fast a hold upon the body; sin and the soils of sin pierce so deep into the soul, that the thought to be one day deathless and sinless seems to be a dream. People believe, indeed, that they shall rise again, not disembodied, but clothed in a bodily form; but do they realise that they shall rise again with their own bodies, in their very flesh, healed and immortal? And yet this is pledged to us. This very body shall be deathless and glorious as the body of His glory when He arose from the dead. And so, too, of the soul. It shall be still more glorious than the body, even as the Spirit is above the flesh. To be ourselves the subject of this miracle of love and power, to be personally and inwardly restored to a sinless perfection ami raised to the glory of an endless life, as if death and sin had never entered, or we had never fallen, is among those things which we almost "believe not for joy." This is the first Divine gift pledged to us by the resurrection of our Lord.

II. Another gift also pledged to us is the perfect restoration of all His brethren in His kingdom. We shall be with Him. We shall behold Him as He is; He will behold us as we are; He in the perfect sameness of His person; we in ours. And they who knew Him after He rose from the dead, and knew each other as they sat in amazement before Him in the morning at the sea of Tiberias, shall they not know each other in the light of His heavenly kingdom? O dull hearts, and slow to believe what He has Himself spoken! "God is not the God of the dead," of nameless, obscured, obliterated spirits, of impersonal natures, beings robbed of their identity, spoiled of their consciousness, of blinded eyes, or marred aspects. The law of perfect recognition is inseparable from the law of personal identity.

III. And lastly, this title pledges to us an immortal kingdom. "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." When the happiness of this life burns down, who can re-kindle it? The joy of today sinks with the sun, and is remembered with sadness tomorrow. All things are fleeting and transient; to see them, we must look behind us. Old friends, old homes, old haunts, old faces, bright days and sweet memories, all are gone. Such is the best the old creation has for man. But the kingdom of the resurrection is before us, all new, all enduring, all Divine; its bliss has no future, no clouds upon the horizon, no fading, no instability. All that we are, by the power of God, we shall be, without cloying or change or weariness for ever.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 342.

We learn from the text

I. That this life and the life to come are not two, but one and the same. Death is not the ending of one, and the resurrection the beginning of another, but through all there runs one imperishable life. A river which plunges into the earth is buried for awhile, and then bursts forth more mightily and in a fuller tide, is not two, but one continuous stream. The light of today and the light of tomorrow are not two, but one living splendour. The light of today is not quenched at sunset and rekindled at tomorrow's sunrise, but is ever one, always burning broad and luminous in the sight of God and of holy angels. So with life and death. The life of the soul is immortal, an image of God's own eternity. It lives on in sleep; it lives on through death; it lives even more abundantly and with fuller and mightier energy. When we put off our sinful flesh we begin to live indeed. The one endless life of the soul comes forth from its restraint and passes onward to a wider and more kindred world.

II. Another great law here revealed is, that as we die so we shall rise; as there is no new beginning of our life, so there is no new beginning of our character. The stream which buries itself cloudy and turbid shall rise clouded and foul. The waters that pass clear and bright into the earth shall rise from it clear and bright again.

III. We learn further that the resurrection will make each one perfect in his own several character. Our character is our will; for what we willwe are.Our will contains our whole intention; it sums up our spiritual nature. Now this tendency is here imperfect; but it will be there fulfilled. The sinful soul which has here been curbed by outward check, will there break forth into an intensity stretched to the utmost by despair. As lights, when they pass into an atmosphere akin to fire, burst forth into a volume of flame, so the soul, charged with sin, issuing into the abode of anguish, will break forth into the full measure of its spiritual wickedness. So likewise with the faithful; what they have striven to be, they shall be made. Let this, then, teach us two great truths of practice. (1) How dangerous is the least sin we do. Every act confirms some old tendency or develops a new one. (2) How precious is every means of grace as a step in the heavenly stair.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 356.

In these words Christ says to us: there is in Me a life which, by dying, rises to its perfection; and therefore death is no more death, but resurrection to the fulness of life. In three ways this is true.

I. Our life in Christ is a battle; through death it rises into a victory.

II. Our life in Christ is a hope; by death it rises into its consummation.

III. Our life in Christ is a spiritual fellowship; by death it becomes perfect and eternal.

E. L. Hull, Sermons,vol. i., p. 1.