THE DOOM OF
IMPERFECTION
All this is a startling and terrible fact in its first application
to fallen and degraded humanity. By that solemn act of God in the midst of the
history of the race, an act in which He accepted perfect humanity, He rejected all
imperfection and forever made impossible the hope that any man should find
acceptance with Him upon any other ground than that of a perfect realization of
His purpose and His will. The real value of the resurrection will
never be appreciated except as this fact is recognized. The risen perfect Man
was the condemnation of the imperfect. In the midst of the age, in the sight of
the entire universe, the Eternal God declares that He cannot and will not be
satisfied with anything short of the fullest realization of His perfect
purpose, a perfected mankind (Matt. 5:48).
The resurrection of Jesus is the establishment in the midst of the human race
of a Divine testimony concerning righteousness. In that magnificent moment of
the emergence of Jesus from death into life, the Eternal God took hold upon
perfection, and setting Him in the front of the entire race, declared that Jesus was His
standard of human life. He raised Him from the dead, because of His perfect
realization of all the purposes of His will. By that act the DOOM OF
IMPERFECTION is sounded. If that be the standard of the acceptance of God, then
all such as have failed are rejected.
The resurrection is more than God's
acceptance of the perfect Man. It is His acceptance of Him as the Victor over
evil, and the recognition of His right to claim the spoils of victory, that is
to say, by
resurrection God accepts the redemptive method of the Son. The
Father declares that by the life laid down, a work has been done which is
sufficient for the salvation of men. Yet carefully mark the sequence of this
truth. By the
resurrection of Jesus, God rejects and refuses all other methods of salvation.
He declared in that stupendous act not only His rejection of imperfect man, but
His rejection of every attempt imperfect man may make, to save or reinstate
himself.
And yet when by resurrection God
declared the victory of Jesus, He announced the defeat of all others in their
conflict with sin. Standing in the search-light of the resurrection, man
becomes more conscious of his helplessness than when standing in the shadow of
the Cross. The risen One is Victor and Victor in virtue of the perfection of
life, of the perfection of mediation. Man in his imperfection of life and his inability to work
out a salvation of his own is declared to be vanquished, and unable himself to
become master of the forces which have wrought his ruin.
It is because the resurrection has
not been properly appreciated as the message of God, which is the severest condemnation
of sinning man that men have still imagined that apart from the Passion and
passing of Jesus of Nazareth, it may be possible for them to be accepted of
God.
Gazing into the darkness of the
grave which Jesus has left, man should recognize the utter hopelessness of his
condition, and the utter foolishness of attempting to please God. When the Eternal
raised Jesus from the grave, and took Him to Himself, He by that act hurled the
whole race to destruction. Think of the resurrection for a single
moment, not merely with reference to the truths now considered, but as an
illustration of them in the fact of history. No man saw Him rise. The very disciples were
denied the vision. It may be urged that the weakness of their faith
was the reason, of their failure in this respect. And yet in that very fact is
evident the act of God. As in the Cross there was manifest the element of
lawlessness, crucifying the Son, and the element of Divine counsel and
foreknowledge so also in the resurrection there is manifest man's failure in
his absence and God's rejection of man, in that he was not permitted to see the stupendous
glory of the acceptance of the perfect One but the angels in heaven saw His arrival.
The act of God in the resurrection
of Jesus, was one characterized by marvelous majesty, and overwhelming power.
In describing this, Paul speaks in language which almost seems to be redundant,
and yet is surely necessary to give some indication of the stupendous fact. He
writes: "That working of the
strength of His might." (Eph.
1:19) The might of God, the strength of the might of God, the working of
the strength of the might of God. Simply to read this is to feel the
irresistible throb of omnipotence. In the quietness of that first day of the week, when the
first shafts of light were gleaming on
the eastern sky, the disciples being absent and the enemies, as represented by
the soldiers being rendered blind by the
glory of the angelic splendor, God-raised Him.
Notice what this meant with regard
to the powers that had been against Him. The PRIESTS had labored to encompass
His death, and had been successful. They had done their worst, and God lifted
Him out of the death to which they had condemned Him, and by this act forever
rejected them. The WORLD POWERS had united in religious hatred, and cultured
indifference, and material power to cast Him out; and God placed Him over the
whole of them, crowning Him at the center of all authority, and by that act
rejected FALSE RELIGION, imperfect culture, and merely material power. This is
no mere dream, though for twenty centuries the PRIEST has fought for his
position in the world. He has been defeated again and again, and must
ultimately be defeated, and always in the power of the PRIESTHOOD OF THE RISEN
CHRIST.
So also have FALSE RELIGIONS, the
religions of externalities striven for the mastery, only to be superseded by
the religion of the Christ.
FALSE CULTURE has repeatedly
attempted, with self-satisfied cynicism, to treat with indifference the Christ
of God, only to find that He takes hold upon all the domain of true culture,
and rules ultimately over it.
And moreover, the KINGDOMS OF THE
EARTH in their pride have set themselves against the Lord and His Anointed,
only to find that the King of kings and the Lord of lords defeats their
purpose, spoils their program, and paralyzes their power. All the forces of the
world were placed below Him in resurrection. In the act of the crucifixion of
the Christ, man turned his back upon God. In the fact of His resurrection God
turned His back upon man. The risen Christ was the One with Whom God entered
into covenant to the exclusion of all others.
The resurrection has no message to
men who are attempting in the energy of their own will to please God, except
that of declaring that by the fact of His pleasure in the perfect One, He
cannot be pleased with imperfection in any degree. And if anyone preaches
another gospel than Christ let them by anathema and see if the Father accepts
their gospel method (Gal. 1:8). The answer is clear; He will not resurrect any other. The
resurrection attests to every successive age that in God's acceptance of the
way of salvation provided by Christ, He forever refuses to lend a listening
ear to any who shall attempt that which is impossible, the working out of
salvation in the energy, of a depraved and degraded nature.
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