Is Jesus alive, and what does that mean?

Put this truth in an abstract way. We believe in the living Christ. Of course we believe that Christ died also. We know that He came forth from the tomb in the power of the Spirit of God, and by the glory of the Father, and rose up as the One who had vanquished death. We know that He arose. Death has no more dominion over Him who is alive for evermore.

There is an interesting incident in the life of the late Dr. R.W.Dale of Birmingham, a true servant of Christ, a man of fine intellect and simple faith. One day in his study the realization that Jesus was actually alive came upon Him with a force and conviction he had never experienced before. The fact that the Lord Jesus was actually alive just as much as when He convinced the apostles that He was not a phantom or a spirit; as much alive as when He bade Thomas put his fingers into the nail prints, and thrust his hand into his side, and be not faithless, but believing; just as much alive today as when Stephen was martyred and Paul converted; an Unseen Presence but alive, who says to us, as He once said to John, “I am He that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen” (Rev. 1:18). It revolutionized Dr. Dale. No wonder he preached with a new-found vigour and joy for the rest of his days.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is a great reality. It has lifted the black clouds of sin and judgment, and unrolled before us a cloudless sky of eternal glory, blessed be God’s name for ever, all centred in a glorious living Person, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord was now risen. His mighty work was accomplished. He was now alive from the dead to die no more. He had laid down His life for God's glory and for our redemption, and had taken it again in resurrection. God had shown Him the path of life, and He was soon going into His presence, where there is fullness of joy; to His right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore.

But when one knows the infinite truth that the Son came to bring God into the world and put sin out of it, how shocking is the dark incredulity that slurs over facts so transcendent in the words, 'one Jesus now dead, whom Paul asserted to be alive'! The vindication of God's moral glory and the display of His love, and the proof of coming judgment, all turn on it. Without it sin reigns in death, and destruction for sinners without exception or hope. There is no kingdom possible of righteousness and peace, only hell filled with the wicked and accursed. Jesus alive from the dead for evermore has changed all.

Resurrection is the evidence and witness of the satisfaction of God in that which Christ has accomplished, and if you see a living Christ at God's right hand, you will get peace in your soul. You will not get peace by only knowing that Jesus died. There is no dead Christ now. I take you to His grave. There is no buried Christ. Where is He? He is risen! "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" No, my friend, look up. I want you this evening to look up and see at God's right hand that blessed, adorable, holy Man, the Lord Jesus, God's only Son, who was once in death for us. Nothing is left for you or me to do, nothing except to appropriate and enjoy the benefit of the blessing that is connected with Him who died and rose. I was saying to you last Sunday evening that the law did not give life, power, or an object. What does the gospel do? It gives the believer in Jesus all three. It gives you life, eternal life, the gift of God, in Christ Jesus; it gives you power, because the moment you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, the Holy Ghost falls on you, and you have power. And what is the next thing? You get an object for your heart in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I repeat that is what the gospel brings you.

Is Christ alive? God raised Him from the dead. There was a man who deserved to die, and Jesus died for him; and now there lives a Man on the throne of God, and I live in Him. I have "justification of life." Yea, more, it is "eternal life," and all I have to do is to go on my way rejoicing in Him who is my life, and make much of Him till I see Him face to face.

"And, behold, there was a great earthquake," etc. This was an after-occurrence; how long after is not said. We have simply a narrative of events one after another, in these early verses, without defining the intervals of time. We must not confound the visit of the women here (in verse 1) with their visit on the morning of the first day mentioned by Mark and in our verse 5, etc. The Lord was not on this last occasion in the sepulchre, and the angel, descending and rolling away the stone, had nothing directly to do with the Lord's rising. No such interposition was in any way necessary to Him. God raised Him, and He Himself rose — taking up His life as He had laid it down. Such is the scriptural doctrine of the resurrection. This angelic action was, I suppose, to call the attention of men to the Divine act in the resurrection of Jesus, and the more fully to set aside the deceits or the reasonings of enemies.* So the angel's word is, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

Reaching the sepulchre the two disciples find it empty, for an angel had come down and rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre. To let the Lord out? Far be the thought! Not so, but to let you and me look in, and see an empty tomb, and know that we have a risen, a victorious, a triumphant Saviour, who has taken the sting from death, and robbed the grave of its victory.

As Man, and for men, He died; as Man He arose. A hundred insistent voices on the pages of inspired Scripture proclaim it. The Corinthians questioned the reality of His resurrection only to be countered by the mighty phalanx of witnesses marshalled in 1 Cor. 15. The Jews bribed the Roman soldiers to hush up this tremendous reversal of their rejection of their Messiah; but the real personal resurrection of Jesus was the irrepressible testimony of all the apostles of the Lord. The Lord Himself showed Himself alive by many infallible proofs, and in His own inimitable way chided those hearts who thought the facts were too good to be true. He says in Rev. 1:18, "I am the Living One; and I became dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore."

Christ’s resurrection was unique. Never in all the history of the world was there a resurrection where there were no earthly witnesses to give testimony to it, and when the raised person did not rise to die a natural death in the end. For forty days our Lord lived a risen life on earth, and then ascended to glory, and lives “after the power of an endless life” (Heb. 7:16).