T. Austin-Sparks
IT is important that we should recognise what a great scope and tremendous emphasis the subject of resurrection has in the Word of God. As a principle it is patent or latent, according to the measure of our discernment, from the beginning to the end of the divine revelation of Scripture. Since the fall, all things which are of God have their new beginning and vital value in and by the representative and inclusive resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. [115/116]
Note how much is wrapped up with the divine attestation of Sonship at the resurrection. Not at His birth nor at His death, not at Bethlehem nor at Calvary, was such a specific attestation made, but it was reserved for resurrection. "Declared to be (marked out as) the Son of God with (in) power ... by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). Psalm 2 prefigures the counsel of malignity against the Lord's Anointed. This counsel is put into action to its utmost limit; He is slain. The ultimate issue is the heritage of the nations; the immediate issue in resurrection is a decree (v.7) "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." He is the representative "first born from the dead" of a specific and peculiar kind of sonship.
To this very passage the company of believers in the presence of a further counsel of malignity made their appeal (Acts 4:25) and received at once a further divine acknowledgment; the place was shaken, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and there were other triumphant issues. Similarly an effectual testimony was borne at Antioch of Pisidia with this very passage at the centre of the message (Acts 13:33), clearly relating the divine pronouncement to the resurrection. Then again, this particular transcendence of Christ's Sonship above angels and all else has this very passage quoted as its basis in Hebrews 1:5. This is related to the inclusive dominion in the universe of the race in Christ, and also to the dethronement of "the lord of death" (Hebrews 2:5-15).
This signifies where the finger of God makes its emphatic seal, and how God is jealous for a testimony to the resurrection of Christ. So we are able to draw attention to a very vital principle in Christian experience as coming out of the divine truth. Have you ever noticed that even that which has its origin in God, which comes forth from God, which is brought about by a supernatural act of God, has to pass into death in order that by resurrection it may have its supreme divine seal and attestation?
THE Old Testament is full of types of this truth. Reflect upon Isaac alone. He was brought into this world by a miracle. There was no natural ground upon which to account for him (see Romans 4:19). Yet he must die and (as it is said of Abraham's body) he was "as good as dead" when the knife was lifted; but for all time, resurrection is the point of divine emphasis in this story, especially in the vindication of Abraham's faith. Isaac was a type of Christ and, as we have said, although Christ was a miracle in His birth and truly the Son of God incarnate, yet the death prepares the way for a superlative testimony from heaven.
Without tracing this principle, so far as the Word is concerned let us note its application in experience as to ourselves. We are born of God, and are sons in the Son by right of our birth from above; but how true it is that the course of our spiritual life seems to consist of deeper and ever deeper baptisms in death -- His death -- in order that more and more of the power of His resurrection may be known by us and manifested in us. There seem to be cycles or tides of death and life, and while each cycle or tide appears to compass our end more completely or to leave us at a lower ebb than ever, there comes with ever-increasing fullness an uprising of spiritual life and knowledge and power. Thus while death destroys "the old man", we live increasingly by that life, "the new man", which is not human but divine, and upon which -- and upon which alone -- the seal of God rests. This is a deliberate course which God takes with us.
SEE it further in service and work. Is it not true that most, if not all, of the pieces of work raised up by God to fulfil some ministry in His eternal purpose have firstly had every evidence of being God-born, but later have gone down into a time of deep and awful death, seeming disintegration, break-up, loss, until it seemed that nothing would remain? Sometimes this has been by persecution or massacre; sometimes by a series of what we humanly call catastrophies, tragedies, misfortunes. Sometimes the causes are not apparent; they are inside, like some evil thing sapping the very vitals. Sometimes, again, it is an inexplicable arrest and pressure, a paralysis and a deadlock, and it is difficult to know whether it is from within or from without. All we know is that death reigns, or appears so to do. Place this rule alongside of some of the great missions for work abroad or at home, and see how it applies. What is true in the greater is also true in the smaller -- a local fellowship, a Sunday-school class, or some other piece of work. Provided always that the initiation of the work was of Him, that we were put into it by Him and that it has been kept on such lines as are consistent with His mind and purpose, such an experience of death is not an argument that the Lord is not in it, but may be regarded [116/117] as evidence of His concern to put the work ever more fully where His highest attestation can be given.
