Is Jesus dead?

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.

When John was so overcome by a sight of the glorified Son of man that he fell at His feet as dead, the Lord graciously comforted His servant by assuring him that, though He was dead, He is now for evermore a living Person, and holding in triumph the keys of death and hades. "He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [hades] and of death." (Rev. 1:17-18.) Thus the Son of man has triumphed. Death could not detain Him. He rose from among the dead. His was certainly a victorious death.

He is the living One, who once was dead. Why? But He is now alive for evermore. Love carried Him into death. Power has brought Him forth from the grave. What a road He has travelled to His present place in glory. How great has been His triumph. And we can triumph in His victory. And the keys of Hades and of death are in His hand. He is Master of the whole dominion of death, and as we know Him thus the fear of death is gone.

— “Behold, I am living to the ages of ages.” The Victor over death calls attention to the fact that He ever lives, He will die no more. He has emerged from the domain of death, and announces to His saints and Church for their everlasting strength and consolation that He lives, no more to die. The “Amen” in the Authorised Version is unanimously rejected by the critics.

And if the body had been removed by the disciples, why did the chief priests content themselves with bribing the soldiers to tell a lie, involving them in great risk, and not seek by every possible means to find the body? How convincing would have been the proof that there was no resurrection of our Lord, could the chief priests have possessed themselves of the body, and publicly exhibited it to the public at large. That would have settled the matter once and for all. Where was the body? The body was never produced. Why? Because there was no dead body, but a living risen Christ.

But why did He die? I know why other men die. The Scriptures tell us why men die in the plainest possible language. “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). But here the holy, sinless Son of God hung dead upon a cross. Why? There could be no question but that He really died. It was no swoon that John saw, as some of the religious rationalists declare. The soldier's spear thrust settled that. How could a natural body be still alive out of which the life-blood had been drained? Though we know that He was dead already before that last act in the terrible drama of man's sin. He had given up His life; but why?

Another theory of later years has been put forth, that our Lord did not die, but only swooned, that in the quiet and cool of the sepulchre He had revived, and that what had happened was not the resurrection of a dead Christ, but the resuscitation of a living man.

But this theory will not hold together. There were too many witnesses to His death to render it possible. The centurion, who had charge of the crucifixion; the Roman guard, who carried it out; especially the soldier who pierced His side; Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, who brought the body down from the cross, and who would surely have found signs of life, if there had been any—all were witnesses of our Lord’s death. There were also the women, who were present at the interment, including those who loved Him tenderly, and knew Him intimately, among them His own mother according to the flesh.

Moreover, speaking after the manner of a man, was it possible that One, who had gone through the awful experience of crucifixion, and in addition to this had been in the tomb for three days and three nights without food or drink, would be able to release Himself from the swathing of the linen clothes which bound Him, and then roll back the stone, and disappear in the morning light, spite of a guard set to watch the tomb? Impossible!

Notice particularly the words, "If the dead be not raised, then is not Christ raised." Christ was as truly dead as any. He had given up His spirit into the hands of His Father in that supreme hour at Calvary, and His body was taken down and laid in Joseph's tomb. There was no question raised about His death. "If the dead be not raised, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." If the resurrection of the dead is questioned the foundation is swept away at once. People are trying to explain away the fact of Christ's resurrection. When staying at a friend's house I saw a book by a great Russian philanthropist written expressly to prove that Christ did not rise from the dead! And a certain notable clergyman said not long ago that if sufficient care were taken the dead body of Jesus might be found in Jerusalem

The Lord had so frequently foretold His resurrection, that, although His disciples ha .d forgotten it, yet His enemies could not. Hence all their plans to prevent it. That He was dead before being taken down from the Cross, is proved by Pilate's refusal to allow the Body to be removed until assured by his own centurion that the Lord was already dead (Mark). The priests also testified to the fact when they demanded the watch — "He said, while he was yet alive." Now they knew He was dead. Again, they themselves, or by their servants, sealed His body in the tomb; and further, they drew a cordon of sixty soldiers round the sepulchre. Yet, notwithstanding all the precautions taken by the Jews to prevent it, early on the morning of the third day the stone was rolled away and the tomb was seen by all to be empty. The frightened soldiers announce it. The priests confess it. Fifty days afterwards the disciples proclaim it throughout the city, and the priests never once challenge their veracity.

Add to this the witness of the three groups. Of a solitary individual it might be alleged that he was impressionable by nature, a bit of a visionary; but this could not be said of the Twelve, nor of all the Apostles. An alleged appearance to an individual might have been something very secret, a kind of hole-and-corner affair; but it would be impossible to say this about the occasion when He appeared to five hundred brethren at once. No fact of history is better attested than the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.