The Supreme Test

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 19, 1907

THE resurrection of the dead always has been, and still is, the hope of those who believe on Christ as their life. This was really the test of the genuineness of the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, and it was therefore the test of true Christianity. The religious leaders were “sore troubled” because the disciples “proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.” Jesus had declared himself to be “the resurrection, and the life,” and his own resurrection was unanswerable testimony to the truthfulness of his assertion. Upon this fact is based the following masterly argument: “Now if Christ is preached that he hath been raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we witnessed of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.”

Before the Sanhedrin the apostle Paul declared: “Touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question;” and to the Jews whom he addressed in Rome after his arrival in that city as a prisoner, he said: “Because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.” This hope is based upon the great fact that Christ has “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

The ability to conquer death distinguishes Christ from the founders of all false religions, and the hope of the resurrection furnished by Christianity is the overwhelming proof of its superiority to all false religions and to all the modern philosophy which so-called advanced thinkers are seeking to substitute for the original gospel of Christ. That pantheistic teaching which attempts to establish by physical demonstrations the union of God and humanity apart from the work of the great Mediator who veiled his divinity with humanity in order to make possible this union through faith in him, is a poor substitute for the mystery of godliness through which comes the hope of the resurrection. Christian Science, with all its failures to demonstrate its ability to conquer death, supplies no sufficient reason for abandoning old-fashioned Christianity in its favor. All the “isms” which flourish in these last days are an utter failure when the supreme test of the resurrection—victory over death—is applied. Human philosophy can not bridge the grave. The New Theology can not give newness of life. “As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself,” and any teaching which does not rest the hope of eternal life upon personal faith in the Son will prove to be a delusion and a disappointment. “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life.”