Tag Archives: Resurrection

“You are only quite a little fellow in a wide world” by J.R.R. Tolkien

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“‘Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!’ said Bilbo.

‘Of course!’ said Gandalf. ‘And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!’

‘Thank goodness!’ said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1937), 305.

“The Living Lord is with us” by William Milligan

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“Our Lord Himself connected both the obligation and the encouragement of Christian work with the thought of His condition now, when after His resurrection He said to the disciples:

‘All authority hath been given unto Me both in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ (Matthew 28:18-20)

Once before He had sent them forth, but it was in other terms, ‘Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ (Matthew 10:5-6)

The time had not yet come for the practical work of the Church to be presented to her in all its extent. Now it has come, and every limitation has disappeared. The Kingdom of God, no longer realised, though imperfectly, in one nation, is to be realised in its highest perfection among all nations.

The love of God is revealed in its fulness in a Redeemer who, exalted in spiritual glory, is equally near to men, whatever be the clime or the age in which they live.

The eye of the Church’s Head travels to every corner of the world—no spot so remote but He is there; no labourer so apparently unnoticed amidst the throng of universal life but He is beside him; no home so poor but He is ready, in the power of His Spirit, to illuminate its darkness and to heal its sorrows.

“Lo, I am with you always,’ is His language— ‘I, to whom all authority has been given both in heaven and on earth, who have alike the power and the right to rule, whose grace shall be sufficient for thee, and whose strength shall be perfected in weak- ness.’

In fulfilling His great commission we need have no fear that we may be out of harmony with God’s eternal plan, and none that our task may prove too much for us to accomplish.

The Living Lord is with us, who once knew every such disappointment as we experience, and every such cause of despondency as weakens us; who once sighed over the stubbornness of men more deeply than we can sigh, and shed more bitter tears for those who refused to listen to Him than we can weep.

Yet He triumphed; and He comes to us now that He may communicate to us His joy of victory, and that, in doing so, He may afford us an earnest of our own.

Thus it is, then, that everything most distinctive of the Church of Christ, alike in her inward and outward life, in her relation to her various members and to the world, flows out of the fact that she is the representative not only of the humbled and suffering but of the Exalted and Glorified Lord.

The great Head from whom she draws all that is most characteristic of her being and her duties is no longer upon earth; He is in heaven,—His humiliation over.

His cup of sorrow drained, His eternal and glorious reign begun. To that Head the Church is united in the bonds of closest fellowship.

She is one with Him who in all His Divine majesty, in all His heavenly power, with all the influences of His Spirit, is at the right hand of the Father, that she may dwell in Him, and may produce even here below the fruits of that tree of life which grows by the river of the water of life, which bears its fruits throughout the year, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations.

The Church of Christ is not an institution of this world’s policy, nor does she exist for this world’s ends.

It is presumption on the part of men clothed with mere worldly power to think that they can lend her strength or that they can save her when she is in danger.

She can lend strength to them and save them; they can do none of these things for her.

Her spirit, her strength, her life are from above.

She is the child of heaven upon earth, that she may witness to the heaven which she now partially introduces, and for the full manifestation of which she prepares and waits.”

–William Milligan, The Resurrection of our Lord (New York: Macmillan, 1917), 220-223.

“He is our king and He is our priest” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

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“The Son of God who made us was made one of us, and He rules us as our king because as our creator He made us.

He through whom we are ruled is none other than He through whom we were made, and we are called Christians because He is the Christ.

The title ‘Christ’ is derived from chrism, which is used in anointing. Kings and priests used to be anointed, and Christ was anointed as both king and priest.

As king He fought for us, and as priest He offered Himself for us.

When he fought for us He was to all appearances overcome, but in truth He was the victor. He was crucified, and from the cross to which He was fastened He slew the devil, and thus He proved Himself our king.

But in what sense is he a priest? Because he offered himself for us.

Give your priest something He can offer. But what could human beings have found that would serve as a clean victim?

What shall your victim be? What clean sacrifice can a sinner offer? Wicked, impious pretender, whatever you bring is tainted, yet something clean is needed to be offered for you.

Look for something fit within yourself: you will find nothing.

Look among your possessions for an acceptable offering: but God takes no pleasure in rams or he-goats or bulls. They all belong to Him anyway, even if you do not offer them.

Go on, then, offer him a clean sacrifice. But you are a sinner, a wicked person, and your conscience is defiled.

If you were purified first you would, perhaps, be in a position to make a clean offering, but, if you are to be purified, something must be offered on your behalf.

What are you going to offer for yourself, to effect your cleansing? Only if you have first been cleansed will you be able to offer anything clean.

Let a clean priest offer Himself, then, and cleanse you. That is what Christ did.

He found nothing clean in human beings that He could offer on behalf of human beings, so He offered Himself as a clean victim.

How auspicious a victim, how genuine; and how spotless a sacrifice!

What He offered was not something we had given Him; rather did He offer what He took from us, but He offered it in a clean condition.

He took flesh from us, and that was what He offered, but whence did He take it?

From the womb of His virgin mother, so that He might offer it clean for us who were unclean.

He is our king and He is our priest.

Let us rejoice in Him.”

–Saint Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms 121–150, ed. Boniface Ramsey, trans. Maria Boulding, vol. 20, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000), 20: 584–585. Augustine is riffing on Psalm 149:2.

“What transformed the weak and cowardly disciples into the spiritual conquerors of the world?” by J. Gresham Machen

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“The disciples of Jesus had evidently been far inferior to their Master in every possible way; they had not understood His lofty spiritual teaching, but even in the hour of solemn crisis had quarreled over great places in the approaching Kingdom.

What hope was there that such men could succeed where their Master had failed? Even when He had been with them, they had been powerless; and now that He was taken from them, what little power they may have had was gone.

Yet those same weak, discouraged men, within a few days after the death of their Master, instituted the most important spiritual movement that the world has ever seen.

What had produced the astonishing change? What had transformed the weak and cowardly disciples into the spiritual conquerors of the world?

Evidently it was not the mere memory of Jesus’ life, for that was a source of sadness rather than of joy.

Evidently the disciples of Jesus, within the few days between the crucifixion and the beginning of their work in Jerusalem, had received some new equipment for their task.

What that new equipment was, at least the outstanding and external element in it (to say nothing of the endowment which Christian men believe to have been received at Pentecost), is perfectly plain.

The great weapon with which the disciples of Jesus set out to conquer the world was not a mere comprehension of eternal principles; it was an historical message, an account of something that had recently happened, it was the message, “He is risen.”

But the message of the resurrection was not isolated. It was connected with the death of Jesus, seen now to be not a failure but a triumphant act of divine grace; it was connected with the entire appearance of Jesus upon earth. The coming of Jesus was understood now as an act of God by which sinful men were saved.

The primitive Church was concerned not merely with what Jesus had said, but also, and primarily, with what Jesus had done. The world was to be redeemed through the proclamation of an event.

And with the event went the meaning of the event; and the setting forth of the event with the meaning of the event was doctrine. These two elements are always combined in the Christian message.

The narration of the facts is history; the narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine.

“Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried”—that is history. “He loved me and gave Himself for me”—that is doctrine.

Such was the Christianity of the primitive Church.”

–J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1923/2009), 24-25.

“It’s the Creator of all these that I am thirsting for” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

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“Whatever God promises you, none of it is worth anything apart from God Himself. Most certainly, God would never satisfy me, unless He promised me God Himself.

What’s the whole earth, what’s the whole sea, what’s the whole sky worth? What are all the stars, the sun, the moon? What’s the host of angels worth?

It’s the Creator of all these that I am thirsting for; I’m hungry for Him, thirsty for Him, it’s to Him I say, ‘with You is the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9).’

And He says to me, ‘I am the bread who came down from heaven (John 6:41).’ May I hunger and thirst for this in my exile, on my journey, so that I may take my fill of it when I arrive in His presence.

The world smiles on us with many things, things of beauty, power, variety; more beautiful is the One who made them, mightier and more brilliant the One who made them, more delightful, more delicious the One who made them.

I will be satisfied when His glory is revealed (Psalm 17:15).”

–Saint Augustine, Sermons 148–183 on the New Testament, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill, vol. 5, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1992), 118. Augustine is preaching on Romans 8:30-31. (Sermon 158.7)

“Dash your old self against the rock of Christ” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

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“He who once came humbly will come in sublime majesty; He who came to submit to judgment will come to judge.

Let us acknowledge our humble Lord, so that we need not be terrified by His majesty; let us embrace Him in His humility, so that we may long for Him in His sublimity; for He will come in merciful grace to those who long for Him.

Those who hold fast in faith to Him, and keep His commandments, are the ones who long for Him. But be sure of this: come He will, even if we do not want Him.

How are we to desire His coming? By living God-fearing lives and doing good.

Memories of the past must not trap us in pleasure, nor must present affairs hold us fast.

Let us not be deterred from hearing by anything in the past, nor become so absorbed in things present that we are prevented from meditating on what is to come; but let us forget the past and stretch forward to what lies ahead.

What we struggle with now, what we groan over now, what we sigh for now, what we speak about now, all that of which we now have some dim intuition but cannot grasp— that we shall grasp, and fully enjoy, at the resurrection of the just.

Our youth will be renewed like the eagle’s, provided we dash our old self against the rock of Christ.

When you pray, O Christian, Your kingdom come, what do you mean? Your kingdom come? Awaken your heart, open your eyes, listen: Your kingdom come! Christ is shouting to you, ‘I’m coming!‘ Doesn’t that fill you with awe?”

–Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms 51–72, trans. Maria Boulding, ed. John E. Rotelle, vol. 17, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001), 17: 321-323. Augustine is commenting on Psalm 67.

“Prayer the church’s banquet” by George Herbert

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Prayer (I)

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

–George Herbert, from ‘Prayer (I)” in Herbert: Poems (Everyman Library) (New York: Knopf, 2004), 37.

“The keys of Death and Hades are now in our Savior’s hands” by Matthew Emerson

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“The most important practical application of the descent, at least in my opinion, is that it means that Christ experienced death in the same way we do and also defeated it.

His human body went to the grave and His human soul went to the place of the (righteous) dead. This is not a natural state for humanity.

Death is an effect of the fall (Gen 3:17–19; Rom 6:23), and Jesus became fully human to the point that He experienced the fullness of death. He did not die one moment on the cross and rise the next moment but remained dead for three days.

This is a great comfort to those who are facing death or those who have lost loved ones. And those two categories encompass everyone on the planet.

When we, or those we love, face death, we can find assurance in the fact that Christ, too, has experienced death in all its fallen fullness. He really, truly died.

His soul was separated from His body for three days. This is just as we will remain dead and just as our souls will remain separated from our bodies until Christ returns.

Our Savior has gone before us.

Just as the Ark of the Covenant went before the people of Israel through the wilderness for three days to find a place for them to rest (Num 10:33), so Christ has gone before us through the wilderness of Hades to prepare a place for us to rest in Him.

But He has not only experienced the fullness of human death; He has also defeated it. Death does not have the last word.

Those of us who trust Christ do not have hope only because Christ experienced it as we do, but because in it experiencing it as the God-Man He defeated it.

And one day He will expel it fully and finally from His presence and from our experience.

We do not remain dead, just as Christ did not remain dead, because Christ has defeated death in His death, descent, and resurrection.

Because Christ rose, we long for the day when we will rise with Him and dwell, bodily, with Him forever on the new heavens and new earth.

This should also bring believers comfort here on earth as they experience evil, suffering, oppression, and all other effects of sin. Christ’s descent answers the problem of evil because in it (and His death and resurrection) He has defeated the principalities and powers (Col 2:15).

The descent, then, ought to be a great comfort to those facing death, whether their own or a loved one’s. It is part of the reason we grieve, but not as those without hope (1 Thess 4:13).

When we cite Paul’s statement in funeral contexts, it is usually to point to the resurrection. And that is right and good, and the ultimate grounds of such hopeful grieving.

But in the meantime, while we think of our departed dead, while we walk in their graveyards and look at their ashes and remember their lives, while we ponder our own deaths, and while we consider how long it is, O Lord, until the Second Coming, we do so with hope.

We hope because Christ also remained buried in the grave, buried with us and for us. We hope because we have a High Priest who has experienced death as we all will, if the Lord tarries.

We hope because we have an advocate who has experienced the pain of death and yet has done so victoriously, rising from it and drawing us with Him on the last day.

We therefore dig our graves, facing toward the East, knowing that as our bodies decompose, our souls remain with Christ, awaiting the day when He will with loud trumpets return and reunite our bodies and souls so that we can live with Him forever by the power of His Spirit to the glory of the Father.

Charles Hill summarizes this hope well:

Christ descended into Hades so that you and I would not have to. Christ descended to Hades so that we might ascend to heaven. Christ entered the realm of death, the realm of the strong enemy, and came away with his keys.

The keys of Death and Hades are now in our Savior’s hands. And God His Father has exalted Him to His right hand, and given Him another key, the key of David, the key to the heavenly Jerusalem.

He opens and no one will shut, He shuts and no one will open (Rev. 3:7). And praise to Him, as the hymn says, “For He hath op’ed the heavenly door, and man is blessed forever more.”

All praise and honor and glory to the Lamb who has conquered! “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth” (Rev. 14:13).

And blessed are we here and now, who even now have this hope, and a fellowship with our Savior which is stronger than death! Thanks be to God. Amen.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.”

–Matthew Y. Emerson, “He Descended to the Dead”: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019), 219–221.

“Light and high beauty forever” by J.R.R. Tolkien

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“At last Frodo could go no further. They had climbed up a narrow shelving ravine, but they still had a long way to go before they could even come in sight of the last craggy ridge.

‘I must rest now, Sam, and sleep if I can,’ said Frodo.

He looked about, but there seemed nowhere even for an animal to crawl into in this dismal country. At length, tired out, they slunk under a curtain of brambles that hung down like a mat over a low rock-face.

There they sat and made such a meal as they could. Keeping back the precious lembas for the evil days ahead, they ate the half of what remained in Sam’s bag of Faramir’s provision: some dried fruit, and a small slip of cured meat; and they sipped some water.

They had drunk again from the pools in the valley, but they were very thirsty again. There was a bitter tang in the air of Mordor that dried the mouth.

When Sam thought of water even his hopeful spirit quailed. Beyond the Morgai there was the dreadful plain of Gorgoroth to cross.

‘Now you go to sleep first, Mr. Frodo,’ he said. ‘It’s getting dark again. I reckon this day is nearly over.’

Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell.

Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot.

Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale.

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.

For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.

His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him.

He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), 921-922.

“The Old Testament is the book of Christ” by Herman Ridderbos

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“Paul proclaims Christ as the fulfillment of the promise of God to Abraham, as the seed in which all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gal. 3:8, 16, 29), the eschatological bringer of salvation whose all-embracing significance must be understood in the light of prophecy (Rom. 15:9-12), the fulfillment of God’s redemptive counsel concerning the whole world and its future.

This redemptive-historical significance of Paul’s Christology also comes to light in the pronouncements, so characteristic of him, concerning Christ as the revelation of the mystery.

Here the past is not described only as a time of darkness and ignorance, but rather as the preparation of the work of God in the course of the centuries.

The grace that has now been revealed ‘was given in Christ Jesus long ages ago’ (2 Tim. 1:9), in the purpose and promise of God and in their initial realization; it was promised by God who cannot lie, before times eternal (Tit. 1:2).

Therefore the mystery that has been revealed with the advent of Christ must also be made known and understood ‘by means of the prophetic writings’ (Rom. 16:26).

The nature of that which has taken place in Christ becomes clear in the light of the fulfilling action of God how much the Old Testament is the book of Christ (2 Cor. 3:14; 1 Cor. 10:4; Gal. 3:16).

For this reason one of the leading motifs of Paul’s preaching is that his gospel is according to the Scriptures (Rom. 1:17; 3:28; cf. Rom. 4; Gal. 3:6ff; Gal. 4:21ff; 1 Cor. 1-10; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 9:10; 2 Tim. 3:16).

However this use of the Old Testament by Paul is further to be judged in detail, a most basic conception of Christ’s advent and work lies at the root of this whole appeal and use, that of the divine drama being realized and fulfilled in His advent and work; this fulfillment was not only foretold by the prophets, but signifies the execution of the divine plan of salvation that He purposed to Himself with respect to the course of the ages and the end of the times (Eph. 1:9, 10; 3:11).

This is the fundamental redemptive-historical and all-embracing character of Paul’s preaching of Christ.”

–Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966/1975), 51.