Weariness, Waste, Weakness Here Deathless Energy There
Figuratively speaking, when Christ slipped down from the cross j He descended first “into the lower parts of the earth” and came into the kingdom of death. With one stroke of His mighty sword He cut away the turrets and foundations of death’s temple. With another sweep of that terrible scimetar He broke death’s scepter ‘, smashed his crown, captured his keys, then plunging through the ashes of damnation and lunging on the gates of hell, tore them from their sockets, cutting the bars of iron in pieces and ascending the throne of his imperial majesty the devil, He hurled him into the burning marl and sulphurous flame, then placing His right foot upon the neck of the devil and His left upon the jaws of death, He lifted his hand to heaven and shouted through the gloom of eternal night “I am He that liveth and was dead; and behold I am alive forevermore and have the keys of death and hell.” And in a moment more with Satan chained to one chariot wheel and death to the other, He drove up the steeps of Hades leading captivity captive while heaven s hosts peering over the battlemented walls of jasper shouted in raptured choruses, “He hath prevailed, He hath prevailed; He shall not fail, He shall not fail!’ Emerging at a point called Joseph’s Tomb and remaining forty days with his friends He after this ascended into heaven “from whence we look for the Saviour: the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
—Rev. Homer W. Hodge.
The future of man will be divinely glorious and divinely illustrious. He is to share the place of Jesus, where Jesus and his followers are to be. This is the specific teaching of Jesus. “I go to prepare a place for you,” said Jesus; “and if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also!’ In his sacerdotal prayer Jesus said: “Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” The statement in the Apocalypse is very exalted, very strong, and very clear: “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne.”
Jesus must have the place of greatest dignity, of highest honor in the universe. God has awarded this to him without question or limitation — a name above every name, a place above every place. Jesus calls it paradise, a place of ineffable beauty, God-adorned and exuberant in its divine embellishments — untold beauty to fascinate the eye and ravish and intoxicate the heart. The divine word is that Jesus will shepherd all the blessed flock of that thrice-blessed land. With them Jesus will be, and for them Jesus will be.
The honor, dignity, power, and glory bestowed on him will be theirs. They are joint heirs with him of all God’s most generous inheritance. Rich indeed, surpassing rich, shall be the saints in that large, exhaustless, immortal store.
“I am fully persuaded of this as of a most necessary and infallible truth: that as it is appointed unto all men once to die, so it is determined that all men shall rise from death, that the souls separated from our bodies are in the hands of God and live, that the bodies dissolved into dust or scattered into ashes shall be recollected in themselves and reunited to their souls, that the same flesh which lived before shall be revived, that the same numerical bodies which did fall shall rise, that this resuscitation shall be universal, no man excepted, no flesh left in the grave, that all the just shall be raised to a resurrection of life, and all the unjust to a resurrection of damnation; that this shall be performed at the last day when the trump shall sound, and this I believe the resurrection of the body.”
With what acclamations with saints, rising from the dead, applaud the Redeemer! How will the heaven of heavens resound his praises forever! “Thanks be to God” will be the burden of their song; and angels will join in the chorus and declare their consent with a loud Amen! Hallelujah!