“We

faith is vain." The apostolic testimony is falsehood. are yet in our sins; and all our hopes of pardon and eternal life are delusive dreams." And viewed in connexion with the principle, that "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures;" the principle, that He "rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures," forms an essential part of that gospel which has been preached to us by the Apostles, which we also have received, and wherein we stand, by which we shall be saved, if we keep in memory what has been preached to us; for "this is the word of faith which we preach," says the Apostle, " that if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."1

The resurrection of our Lord owes its peculiar importance to the fact of its being the result of his penal, vicarious, expiatory, sufferings. It is the evidence of the satisfaction of the supreme Judge with these sufferings, as an adequate satisfaction for the injuries done to his law and government by the sins of men. "It is finished," said the Saviour from the cross; and from out the empty sepulchre comes, to the ear of enlightened faith, the echo of these words, "It is finished;" for God, as "the God of peace," the reconciled Divinity, he who was angry at the sins of men, but whose anger is turned away, " has brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant." Because that blood, by which the everlasting covenant was to be ratified, has been shed, therefore" hath God raised him up from the dead, and given him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God," as well pleased with Him, well pleased with us in Him. Having fully answered all the demands of that law under which he was made for the unjust, having fulfilled all righteousness, having become a curse

11 Cor. xv. 1-4, 14-17. Rom. x. 8-10. 31 Pet. i. 21.

2 Heb. xiii. 20.

for them, having become obedient to death, even the death of the cross, it was not possible that he should continue bound by the bands of death. The only reason which ever existed for his dying-to wit, that human guilt might be expiated, existed no longer. Human guilt is expiated; the great atonement has been made; and it is meet that He who was 66 given," devoted to death as a victim "for our offences," on account of our sins, should be "raised again for our justification;"1 that is, I apprehend, on account of that which avails to our justification, his finished work, called our justification, as it is that which justifies us.

(2.) His ascension to heaven.

I now proceed to remark, in the next place, that as the result of his penal, vicarious, expiatory, sufferings, our Lord ascended to heaven. "He is gone into heaven," says the Apostle. When our Lord was raised from the dead, it was not that he might continue to be an inhabitant of this lower world. It was, that in the nature in which he had obtained eternal redemption for all who obey him, he might presid on the throne of the universe, over the whole train of events by which this everlasting deliverance, in all the variety of its blessings, should be bestowed on those for whom it was procured. He remained on earth long enough to give satisfactory evidence of the reality of his resurrection, and “to give commandments to the Apostles whom he had chosen to wait for the communication of the promised Spirit, and then, in his name, to "Go into all the world," and proclaim to mankind his doctrine and law.

"He

When the forty days appointed for these purposes had elapsed, and the time of his being taken up had come, led his disciples out from Jerusalem as far as Bethany, and lifted up his hands, and blessed them; and it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." They eagerly gazed after him as he

VOL. II.

1 Rom. iv. 25.

2 A

majestically rose, with extended blessing hands, till a cloud received him out of their sight; and, "while they stood looking steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up to heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."1

3

Such is the sublimely simple account of our Lord's going into heaven; but from the intimations of ancient prediction in reference to this event, we cannot doubt that it was accompanied with circumstances of grandeur, too glorious to be made the subject of contemplation to men dwelling in flesh. Beholding it in prophetic vision, at the distance of many centuries, we find the inspired bard exclaiming, "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive." "It would seem," as has been remarked, "that the two radiant messengers who appeared to the disciples as they were gazing after their Master with ardent eyes, formed only a small part of his celestial retinue. It would seem that in his train there were thousands and myriads of the chariots or cavalry of God; that legions of the heavenly hierarchies, and a countless multitude of the noblest of created beings, tuned their harps, or sounded their trumpets, in his praise." It is not an improbable conjecture, though it is nothing more, that the many saints who came out of their graves after his resurrection joined him as he ascended, and went with him into heaven, as a proof that he had vanquished sin and death, and become the "first fruits of them that sleep."

We cannot help attempting to follow him in thought. As he draws near to the heavenly Zion, the perfection of beauty, the city of the great King, the habitation of the

1 Luke xxiv. 50, 51. Acts i. 9-11.

2 Psal. lxviii. 17, 18.

3 Balmer.

heavenly Majesty, the tabernacle which God, not man, has pitched; the whole celestial city is moved at his coming, the everlasting gates are flung open for his reception, and "with gladness and rejoicing he is brought, and enters into the King's palace." "God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises." "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory."1

Where that heaven is which has received our Lord, and which must retain him during the period of "the restoration of all things," when "he must reign till all his enemies become his footstool," we need not inquire, for it is impossible for us to know; but we are warranted in asserting, that it is a place where all the perfections of the Deity, which can be manifested by means of material grandeur and beauty, are displayed in a degree of which we can form no adequate conception; and that whatever can render a place desirable as a residence to a perfectly holy embodied human mind, with its intellectual faculties and moral dispositions and sensibilities in the highest state of perfection, is to be found there in absolute completeness. The best notion we can form of it is the general one, that it is the place which the eternal Father, the God of infinite power, and wisdom, and righteousness, and love, has prepared as a meet residence for his incarnate Only-Begotten, in whom he is well pleased, after he had on earth finished the work which he had given him to do.

1 Psal. xlvii. 5, 6; xxiv. 7, 10.

2 Acts iii. 21. Αχει χρονών αποκαταστάσεως παντων.-Luke iv. 13. Acts xiii. 11. Rom. v. 13. Gal. iv. 2. In all these passages, axe seems to signify "during" -not "until."

31 Cor. xv. 25.

The body in which our Lord rose and ascended was the body in which he had lived and died. It was flesh and blood, as he himself very explicitly states. But "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." A change seems to have taken place on it on the occasion, similar to that which "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," is to pass on the saints who are found alive on the earth at the coming of our Lord, and which also shall take place on them when they are "caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."1

This ascension to heaven, like the resurrection which preceded it, is a result of the penal, vicarious, expiatory, sufferings of our Lord. "He that ascended is the same as he that descended;" and it is because he descended to the lowest depths of suffering as our appointed victim, that he ascends to the sublimest heights of celestial honour and felicity as our perfected Redeemer. The entrance within the vail into the holy of holies was closely connected with the offering of the sacrifice for the atonement of the sins of the whole congregation of Israel. The High Priest entered there, to present the blood of the sacrifice before God. He could not enter there without having made ceremonial expiation for them by that blood; and it was in consequence of our great High Priest having, by his own sacrifice, "for ever perfected all those who are sanctified," that he passed through these visible heavens, the antitype of the vail under the Mosaic economy, to appear in the true Holy of Holies, in the presence of the Divine majesty, with the tokens of his completed sacrifice, and to plead for the communication of those blessings for which he had paid the price of his blood.

(3.) He is "on the right hand of God."

Another result of our Lord's penal, vicarious, expiatory, sufferings is, His being on the right hand of God, in that heaven into which he entered. The phrase, in its complete

11 Cor. xv. 50, 52. 1 Thess. iv. 17.

2 Heb. ix. 12; x. 14.