Perfect Victory

“The foe behind, the deep before,

Our hosts have dared and pass’d the sea;

And Pharaoh’s warriors strew the shore,
And Israel’s ransdm’d tribes are free.
Lift up, lift up your voices now!
The whole wide world rejoices now!
Happy morning, Turning sorrow
Into peace and mirth!
Bondage ending, Love descending
O’er the earth!
Seals assuring, Guards securing,
Watch His earthly prison.
Seals are shattered, Guards are scattered,
Christ hath risen!

“No longer must the mourners weep,
Nor call departed Christians dead;
For death is hallowed into sleep,
And ev’ry grave becomes a bed.

Now once more
Eden’s door
= Open stands to mortal eyes;
For Christ hath risen, and man shall rise!
Now at last.
Old things past,
Hope, and joy, and peace begin;

For Christ hath won, and man shall win!
It is not exile, rest on high:

It is not sadness, peace from strife;
To fall asleep is not to die:

To dwell with Christ is better life.
Where our banner leads us,

We may safely go:
Where our Chief precedes us

We may face the foe.
His right arm is o’er us

He our Guide will be:
Christ hath gone before us,

Christians, follow ye!” M — Dr. NEALE.

INOW late on the Sabbath day, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the

week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, Who hath been crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, even as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples He is risen from the dead; and lo, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. — Matt. 28. 1-8.

And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they come to the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were saying among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? and looking up, they see that the stone is rolled back: for it was exceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he saith unto them, Be not amazed: ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, Who hath been crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold, the place where they laid Him! But go, tell His disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them: and they said nothing to any one; for they were afraid.

Now when He was risen early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. She went and told them that had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. And they when they heard that He was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. — Mark 16. 1-11.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came unto the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, while they were perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel: and as they were affrighted and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead: He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered His words, and returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James: and the other women with them told these things unto the apostles. And these words appeared in their sight as idle talk; and they disbelieved them. But Peter arose, and ran unto the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths by themselves; and he departed to his home, wondering at that which was come to pass. — Luke 24. I-12.

Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid Him. Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. And they ran both together: and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying; yet entered he not in. Simon Peter therefore also cometh, following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again unto their own home.

But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping: so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if Thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Teacher. Jesus saith to her, Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God. Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth the disciples, I have seen the Lord; and that He had said these things unto her. — John 20. 1-18.

1A considering: the crisis of the resurrection, arguments for the actual historical fact will be taken in the last section. First

assuming the fact, its value as a demonstration of Christ’s perfect victory will be considered.

Referring again to Peter’s discourse on the day of Pentecost, a most remarkable epitome of Christian doctrine, there will be found an argument concerning the resurrection which is briefly stated in the words “It was not possible that He should be holden of it,” and is defended by quotation from ancient Scripture, full of value and of suggestiveness. It will be well to read in full, Peter’s statement, and the Psalm from which it is quoted. Having set the Cross in relation to the sin of man, and the grace of God, the apostle continued:

“Whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. For David saith concerning Him:

‘I beheld the Lord aiways before My face;

For He is on My right hand, that I should not be moved; Therefore My heart was glad, and My tongue rejoiced; Moreover My flesh also shall dwell in hope:

Because Thou wilt not leave My soul unto Hades,

Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption.
Thou madest known unto Me the ways of life;

Thou shalt make Me full of gladness with Thy countenance.

ry

The actual words of the Psalm quoted, as they appear in the Old Testament, are as follows:

“J have set Jehovah always before Me:

Because He is at My right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore My heart is glad, and My glory rejoiceth:

My flesh also shall dwell in safety.

For Thou wilt not leave My soul to Sheol;

Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy holy One to see corruption.

Thou wilt show Me the path of life:

In Thy presence is fullness of joy;

In Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
1Acts 2. 24-28. *Psalm 16. 8-11.

Perhaps the true values of the simple statement of the apostle may be gathered by laying eraphasis upon the pronoun having reference to Jesus, and the final one referring to death. “It was not possible that He should be holden of it.” In this way the statement is seen to be a sublime and magnificent one, in which the apostle, conscious of the victory Jesus had won in life and death, treats almost with contempt the last enemy.

“He” that is “Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs,” the One Who “being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay.” This same Person, God “raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: — because it was not possible that He should be holden of it.”* The unifying fact in the whole discourse is the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, and having set in order the movements of that wonderful life, the apostle now declares that God raised Him because He was bound to raise Him. Not to have done so, if this may be reverently supposed, would have been to have violated every principle of law. The necessities of the Divine nature demanded it. The eternal order required it. If death had held Him, the issue must have been disorder, and the defeat of all the purposes of God.

So far this is a bare statement. It remains now to consider why “it was not possible that He should be holden of it”. This is revealed in the apostle’s use of the language of the Psalmist. Peter distinctly declared that what David wrote, he wrote concerning Christ, and was careful by subsequent statements to show that the language of the Psalmist could not have been fulfilled by the experience of the one who wrote it; but its perfect fulfilment was in the Person and victory of Jesus of Nazareth.

Turning to the Psalm, let it be carefully noted that its gladness is caused by the fact of resurrection, and that resurrection is the necessary outcome of a threefold fact in the character and conduct of the One so rejoicing. These facts may thus be tabulated. First, “I beheld the Lord always before My face.” Second, “For He is on My right hand, that I should not be moved.” Third, “Therefore My heart was glad, and My tongue rejoiced; Moreover My flesh

*Acts 2. 22-24.

also shall dwell in hope: Because Thou wilt not leave My soul unto Hades, Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption.” The issue of this threefold assertion is “Thou madest known unto Me the ways of life; Thou shalt make Me full of gladness with Thy countenance,”1

The distinction between the three facts, issuing in resurrection may not be clear, and yet on close examination it will be found that they indicate the threefold victory of Christ, which captured the whole ground of death’s domain, and made necessary the resurrection. This threefold victory may be stated, and then considered as, first, victory over the possibility of originating evil; second, victory over evil as suggested from without; and third, victory over evil as responsibility assumed.

I. Victory over the possibility of originating evil, is suggested by the first statement, “I beheld the Lord always before My face.” Jesus was, in some respects, an entirely new creation. He indeed stood in the same relation to God as that occupied by the angels, who were created prior to man. In emptying Himself of the form of God, it is first stated that He took upon Him the form of a Servant. That is a fact even deeper than that He was made in the likeness of men. In this stoop of the Eternal Son, He passed, as has been seen in a previous chapter, from the place of Sovereignty to the place of submission. In that very fact, there is the possibility of a new beginning of sin. The fall of Satan can only be comprehended by recognising that as to his original creation he was made a servant of God. All the powers of his being were to act under the direction of the Eternal. There was to be no choice of the will save under the guiding principle of the will of God. He was created with his face towards God, and the secret of his fulfilment of the highest possibilities of his marvellous being lay in his setting the Lord always before his face. His fall consisted in the fact, to continue the figure, that he set before his face another purpose, another reason, and thus turned his back upon Jehovah. The new Servant of God in all the facts of His being was able to say, “I have set Jehovah always before My face.” When divesting Himself of the form of Deity, He took the form of a Servant, and entered

17 Acts 2, 25-28 upon the life of subjectivity. He stood in a place where it was ‘ within the possibility of His nature to act apart from the governmental direction of Jehovah. This He never did. Jude the apostle declares in what lay the sin of the angels. “Angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation.”* Let it be carefully noted that their leaving their proper habitation was not the punishment of their sin, but the sin itself. They refused to remain in the habitation marked out for them by the law of God. The punishment of their sin lies in its sequence, that they are cast forth from their habitation by their own act, they are reserved in the bonds or limitations of their false position “under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”. Their own principality, that is, the realm over which God had intended them to rule, they did not keep, because they left their habitation. They turned their back upon Jehovah. Here, so far as has been revealed, is the primal origin of sin in the universe of God. Instead of exercising the magnificent endowment of will under the governing principle of the will of God, they exercised it under another domination, that namely of their own desire, and then turning their backs upon God they left their proper habitation, their first habitation.

Herein by contrast is manifested the first fact in the marvellous victory of Jesus. He, the new Servant of God, kept His principality by abiding in His true habitation. He never exercised will under the constraint of desire, but always setting Jehovah before His face, He lived in unceasing and glad response to all the volition of that will of infinite wisdom, of perfect holiness, and unfathomable love. The first phase of the victory of Jesus was therefore that of victory over the possibility of sinning, by the prostitution of will power, without suggestion made from without.

II. The next phase of the victory is marked by the words, “For He is on My right hand, that I should not be moved.”* Here is something distinct from that already considered. The first fact may be stated by the declaration, I have not moved. But here it is, I should not be moved. That is to say, not merely that there has been no movement from the place of submission to the Divine will, simply on the basis of personal choice; but also that there has been no movement from that position in response to suggestion or

‘Jude 6, Acts 2. 25, temptation from without. It is here that man fell. The fall of the angels was that of ceasing to set the Lord before their face, acting upon their own initiative. The fall of man consisted in his allowing himself to be moved from his loyalty to God, in response to a suggestion coming to him from without himself. Man did not originate sin. He fell under the power of it by yielding to an attack made upon him from without. In this realm also Jesus was victorious. Having held the citadel of His will against the possibilities of His subservient position, He held it moreover, against all attacks of the enemy from without. Recognising the presence of God Who was at His right hand as a wall of defence, He ever acted by remaining in such position, so that God was between Him and every attack of the enemy; and thus the second phase of His victory over sin is that of remaining unmoved, in spite of every attack of the foe to change His relationship to God, by moving Him from the sphere of perfect trust.

Il. But now follows a victory, if possible more remarkable. At least it may be said to be of even profounder interest to man, for in it lies the great pathway of his own escape from the guilt and power of sin. Let the examination be careful. “Therefore My heart was glad, and My tongue rejoiced.”* Why? Because having beheld the Lord always before His face, there had been perfect victory over the possibility of the origination of sin, and because having recognised always the presence of Jehovah at His right hand, He had not been moved. Therefore His heart was glad, glad in the victories won, and in the strength of righteousness resulting. Again the question comes, Why was He glad of the victory 2 Was it simply because of the triumph? Surely that, and surely more. That double triumph creates the strength for another triumph. His heart, His tongue, His flesh rejoice because “Thou wilt not leave My soul unto Hades, Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption.” It is evident that this victorious Person intends passing into Hades. He is going to death, and through death into Sheol. But because of the first victories, it is now certain that death and Hades cannot hold Him. God must raise Him, and bring Him back into life. Herein lies the explanation of the triumphant notes. I rejoice. My heart is glad, My

*Acts 2. 26.

tongue rejoiceth, My flesh rests in hope. The great Person, Who in experience fulfilled this song of the past, declares that because He has set the Lord before His face, because, having the Lord at His right hand He has not been moved, when He descends into Hades, God cannot abandon Him. He must bring Him forth again, and the final note of triumph issuing this double victory achieved, and third victory assured, is expressed in the words “Thou madest known unto Me the ways of life; Thou shalt make Me full of gladness with Thy countenance.”1

Here again the question forces itself upon the mind: Why did this Holy One pass into Hades? The answer is already in our possession from the study of the former crisis in the life and mission of the Christ. As the Lamb of God He had made Himself responsible for the sin of the world, and the issue of that responsibility was death, essential death, the separation of the spirit from God, and death expressed in the separation of the spirit from the body. To that issue the perfect One Who had assumed the responsibility of all human guilt, passed by the way of the Cross. In the deep and unfathomable mystery of the Cross, His Spirit was separated from God, and that Spirit separated also from the body, passed down into Hades. Think reverently, and in solemn stillness of this fact in God’s universe. One Who has obtained a double victory over sin, as a possibility within the very nature of the subservient life, and over sin as a suggestion made by a foe without, has taken upon Himself the responsibility of the sin of a race, and in those solemn hours between the passing of the Spirit of Christ on the Cross and the resurrection morning, the holy body of the Man lies in the tomb. His Spirit has passed into hell, the place of lost spirits. Now hear His words. “Thou wilt not leave My soul unto Hades.” In the mystery of the Cross, all the penalty of sin has been borne. In the place of fire there is no pain for the Holy One, Who has exhausted all its fierceness in the terrible experience of His Passion. In His body has He borne man’s sin, and that work having been as He said finished, the corruption which means the disintegration of the body, cannot touch Him. “Thou wilt not give Thy’Holy One to see corruption.”

In that great expression of triumph which Peter ‘lb ted: there is evident the twofold nature of the perfect Man, and in both realms

*Acts 2. 28, there is the cry of victory. His soul cannot be left in Hades. The body cannot see corruption. Here then is the third fact of the victory. The penalty of death, in its first and deep meaning, was due to sin. He took sin, and because there was no place for death in His life, by dying He exhausted the penalty due to some one else. Thus in the moral realm His death has created a new value, a value that He does not require for Himself, but that He holds for others. Here then is evident the reason of Peter’s confident affirmation. “It was impossible that He should be holden of it.” “It” was the issue of sin. “He” is Victor over sin as to the possibility of origination, as a suggestion coming from without, as a terrible fact for which He has made Himself responsible. Having thus gained a victory over every conceivable form of sin, covering the whole territory of its domain, death cannot hold Him.

The resurrection therefore is the unanswerable argument for the accomplishment by Jesus Christ, of God’s purpose of destroying the works of the devil. There are infinite possibilities of application. Let it only be said that it is from the empty grave that the true song of hope has sounded. Every worker with God is conscious of the presence of evil in the world. Let that consciousness always be held in connection with the glorious fact that over all, Christ is absolute Master. The Church is not fighting a conflict the issue of which is uncertain. The victory has been won, and therefore it must be won. The battle often thickens, and presses upon the weary soldiers of the King, but these are but conflicts of administration. There is no question left as to the final issue. Sometimes the process may seem tedious and the waiting long, and yet this is but false seeming. The movements of God must never be measured by the slowness of a human life, or by the inadequacy of an earthly almanac. Standing by that risen Man of Nazareth, each one putting trust in Him may say with reverence and holy fear, and yet with certainty and absolute boldness, My heart is glad, my tongue rejoices, my flesh also shall dwell in hope. He has won His victories, and evil is doomed. Therefore, at last the victory of souls trusting in Him must also be won. The glories of the resurrection demonstrate for ever the absolute and final victory of the Man of Nazareth over every form and force of evil.