HORIZONED BY RESURRECTION

HORIZONED BY RESURRECTION

Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. ROMANS 1:4.

THESE WORDS constitute the second part of a double statement concerning one Person. That Person is indicated by a reference preceding the statement and by an explanation following it. The reference you will discover in the beginning of verse three: “concerning His Son.” The explanation is contained in the closing part of verse four:”even Jesus Christ our Lord.” Between this reference and this explanation we find the twofold statement concerning the Person thus referred to.

Born of the seed of David according to the flesh. Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

If for purposes of illumination, I may take from each of the two parts of the words necessary to discover the simple contrast, we have this result. Paul says concerning this Person Whom he first designates “Son of God” and finally refers to as “Jesus Christ our Lord,” two things. First, according to the flesh He was “born of the seed of David.” Secondly, according to the spirit He was “declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead.”

The first part of the apostolic declaration is simple and needs neither argument nor explanation, “of the seed of David, according to the flesh.” The second part of the declaration was uplifting and it was impossible, if I may thus interpret the method of the apostle, for him to write the second part without some qualification. “Of the seed of David according to the flesh,” is a perfectly simple and natural declaration; but when he turns to the other side, “according to the spirit,” he has to qualify, “according to the spirit of holiness”; or even more accurately as I think, “according to a Holy Spirit.” “According to the flesh” He was of the seed of David, and Paul knew that no argument of that fact was needed. But, “according to the spirit,” the essential matter in that human life, there was a difference.

The spirit of this Person was holy. All the values of this differentiation are discovered when we reach the eighth chapter of the epistle. At that point the apostle is careful to distinguish between flesh and spirit in every life. In flesh, and in spirit, are the two sides of every human life. They were both present in the life of Jesus. His flesh was “born of the seed of David.” His spirit must be described. It stands alone. There never was such another. It was a holy spirit, the spirit of holiness. In flesh He was absolutely of our humanity. In spirit also and yet different. Numbered with transgressors, separated from sinners. In flesh, of our humanity. In spirit essentially the same, but in character different, holy.

The evidence of His being of the seed of David was abundant and convincing. The evidences of His being the Son of God were abundant but not convincing. The evidence did not convince because those who observed were incapable of judging, for they were spiritually blind. The men who looked at Jesus in the days of His flesh were quite capable of judging material things, fleshly things; they could trace genealogies, and discover racial traits; “according to the flesh, born of the seed of David.”

According to the spirit, they said He was a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, the friend of publicans and sinners. They did not know Him. They could not be sure of Him. The evidence of Divine Sonship was those of holiness. His thoughts, His words, His deeds, all of them were the vehicles through which the essential and awful purity of God sounded and shone upon the ways of men. “When we shall see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” (Isa 53:2). Not that He was devoid of beauty, but that men were so blind they could not see it.

The evidences of fleshly relationship were abundant and convincing. The evidences of Divine relationship were abundant, but not convincing, because men had lost their spiritual vision and were incapable of judgment. If you object to that interpretation, how do you find it in the world today? Is the man of the world of today capable of judging of the beauty of holiness? Is not the sanctified life still the sport of the worldly man? If you dare to season your daily speech with the salt that tells that you have traffic with eternity, the worldly man sees nothing beautiful in it. He shrugs his shoulders. That is the new method of persecution, seeing that the rack has gone out of fashion. He smiles, and perhaps holds you in contempt. Some of you hold the saints in contempt because you are blind and cannot discover the beauty of holiness.

How shall this Man be proven the Son of God as well as Son of man, seeing that the holiness of His spirit does not appeal to men? “Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” It is that declaration of the text which we are now to consider. In order to do so, confining ourselves entirely to this half of the great statement concerning the Person, we must carefully understand what this thing is that the apostle wrote. May I change the phrasing, not that I can improve upon it, but that sometimes by a change of words we are introduced to the meaning which we miss by very familiarity with the older formula. So I read the text thus, “Who was distinguished,” and that word must not be taken in the general sense in which we speak of a man as being distinguished. “Who was marked out as the Son of God with power through the means of the resurrection of dead ones?” May I further change the text, this time not by translation in other words, but by paraphrase. “The resurrection of dead ones set Him with powerful effect upon the horizon as the Son of God.”

I do not suggest that that is translation, so those of you who are reading from the Greek New Testament need not be anxious. I do not intend it as interpretation. Those of you who are familiar with the passage in the Greek will discover that I have dared to take a Greek word and Anglicize it. What is this word “declared,” “distinguished,” “marked out?” It is the word from which we have derived our word horizon. What is the horizon? The boundary. What is a boundary? The end? By no means. It is the beginning. If only I could transport you to the sea, you would understand my text. Standing on the land’s last limit there stretches the sea with its movement and its rhythm, its music and its laughter. What beyond? The horizon, the boundary. Is that the end? That is the beginning. Everything between me and the horizon I can comprehend. The mystery begins where the horizon bounds my vision. It is limitation. The limitation is only the limitation of my vision, not of the essential fact. According to flesh, everyone can read the story, “born of the seed of David.” According to the spirit, “horizoned as the Son of God by the resurrection of dead ones.” Resurrection demonstrated the essential truth concerning Him. Apart from the resurrection, He is “born of the seed of David”; a great and gracious fact, and no one imagines I am undervaluing it. My heart exults with the Apostle John who handled Him. I am glad that men of my kith and kin nineteen hundred years ago did actually lay hands upon the warm flesh of the Man of Nazareth. That, however, is not all. That is not the final fact. If you make that the final fact, your Christianity will be a diminishing quantity, losing all its essential virtue and all its power of victory; until at last you will put Him by the side of Confucius, Buddha, and the rest; a sorry spectacle over which angels might weep.

There is something else. He is the Son of God according to the spirit of holiness; and He is demonstrated as such, horizoned as such, flaming out as the sun upon the horizon, and rising to meridian glory, by way of the resurrection. That is the utmost value of the resurrection.

The resurrection is the unanswerable demonstration of the profoundest fact concerning the Christ, that, namely, of His Divine Sonship. In order to gain appreciation of this, let me take you very quickly along three lines of consideration.

First, the truth that Jesus was the Son of God, as apprehended before the resurrection. Second, the truth that Jesus was the Son of God, as apprehended after the resurrection. Third, the resurrection as the means of demonstration. First, the truth as apprehended before the resurrection. That is to say, I suggest that we shall, for a few minutes only, put ourselves back among the disciples before that event happened which we celebrate today. I take up my New Testament and go through the gospel stories and find three titles of Jesus constantly recurring, “Son of Man”; “Son of God”; and “The Son,” without qualification. I have nothing to do with the title “Son of Man.” That put Him into immediate relationship with humanity. I take the title “Son of God.” Please forgive the statistical way of stating this; I only desire to leave an impression upon your mind. It occurs in Matthew nine times, in Mark four times, in Luke six times, in John eleven times. Of course some of those occasions overlap; it does not at all matter for my present purpose. I find in Matthew that He is called the Son of God six times by men, three times by devils. Mark records two occasions when men so designated Him, and two occasions when devils called Him “the Son of God.” Luke gives one occasion when a man called Him that, and four when devils so named Him, and one when an angel declared Him to be the Son of God. I come to John and I find six occasions when man referred to Him as the Son of God, and five when He so named Himself.

Take the other title “The Son,” more splendid perhaps than the other because of its independence of qualification. Adjectives are often the means of weakening the glory of substantives. The proportion, in which we can use substantives alone, apart from adjectives, is the proportion of dignity of statement and suggestion. Matthew has the description “The Son?" four times, Mark once, Luke three times, John fifteen times. That phrase, according to the records, never fell from the lips of devil, or man, or angel. It is the peculiar phrase of Jesus.

With these figures in your mind, let me take another survey of these gospels. Christ did claim for Himself, by direct use of the title and by constant assumptions of commonplace speech, that He was the veritable Son of God. That fact was attested in a supernatural way on two occasions, when heaven’s silence was broken and the Divine voice was heard. “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased” so at baptism; “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him”; so on the holy mount. The fact was witnessed by devils, as when one said to Him, “I know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God,” and another “Thou art the Son of God,” and yet another “What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, torment me not.” That fact was once confessed by a man amid the rocky fastnesses of Caesarea Philippi, when answering the challenge of Christ Himself he said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But according to God Himself, He was “Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” That is where mystery begins. The horizon.