“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Eph. 5:14.
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” Isa. 60:1.
The illustration presented herewith pictures the raising to life of the daughter of Jairus.
“Damsel (I say unto thee), arise; and straightway the damsel arose, and walked.” Mark 5:41, 42.
The essential facts connected with the incident are familiar to all, and are quickly told. The ruler’s daughter lies dying; the anxious father presses his way to Jesus and asks Him to come and heal her; the Master consents, but arrives too late,—so the friends believe,—the maid is dead; only the father and the mother, with Peter, James, and John, are permitted to remain with Jesus in the room; and Jesus, taking the child by the hand, says, “Damsel (I say unto thee), arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked.”
The two great factors appearing in this incident are life and death, standing for righteousness and the power of God, and sin and its dread power, the working of Satan. Through sin, death has passed upon the whole race of mankind. All are by nature sinners since the fall of Adam. Death is the wages of all sin; and whether or not one wills to receive the pay, it is dealt out, sooner or later, by an inexorable law of nature, and forced upon every son and daughter of Adam. This is so not only respecting human beings but respecting the whole earth. The seeds of the wicked thing, as tho borne upon blasts from the bottomless pit, have spread hither and yon, fastening upon and working destruction in every animate and inanimate thing. “The whole creation groaneth.” There is absolutely no escaping it. These bodies of ours, all things that we behold, rich or poor, great or small, everything pertaining in anywise, direct or remote, to this sin-cursed earth—and the earth itself—must pass away because of sin.
If there were nothing else entering into the question, we should look to the bitter end and reckon ourselves, even now, the same as dead. And this is exactly the condition of the sinner, as defined in the inspired Word, “dead in trespasses and sins.” Eph. 2:1. Again, were there nothing limiting the execution of the sentence, the death would be eternal. The future would be utterly without hope, and dreadfully drear.
But Jesus Christ has redeemed the race and the whole dominion from the hopelessness of eternal death. Through the efficacy of His great work there is hope beyond the grave for every one that accepts His salvation. He is the resurrection and the life. At that time, in the glad resurrection morn, the redeemed of the Lord will stand with traces of sin forever removed from soul and body. Then those physically dead by reason of the inherited body of sin will come forth from the grave to a joyful immortality.
But there is joy for the Christian before that time. There is great joy even now, for we have the promise of Him whose word can not fail that the redemption is sure, and, more, that it is near. By faith in that word, we deal safely, and without fear of failure, in futures for our present stock in trade. Resting on the absolute stability of that promise, we shake off the dismal sentence of eternal death that has rested upon us while in trespasses and sins, and boldly reckon ourselves to be even now as good as raised from the dead.
But note the purpose of death. It is to destroy sin, and everything connected with it. So if we reckon even now that sin destroys us, then it has accomplished its purpose in us, and can by right have no more claims upon us. This is the purpose of the resurrection in Christ. Then if we reckon ourselves as raised from the dead by the power of our Redeemer, sin is not to have further dominion over us. “For he that is dead is freed from sin;” “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:7, 11. “You hath He quickened [made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins;” “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” Eph. 2:1,24, 5. “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, . . . is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24. “Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead.” Rom. 6:13. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” Col. 3:1.
Not only is Jesus Christ the resurrection and the life, but in close relation He is the light of the world. He is the Sun of Righteousness, at whose approach the shades of the night must flee. In the presence of that great light, which is also life, there is no place for death’s dark night. So, at the word of power, “Arise,” the sleeping child awoke; the night became day. And to every one dead in trespasses and sins, asleep in the night of moral darkness, there comes the word, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”
This is a miracle, no less than the other. At first thought it might seem less, but the word puts it in the same category with the raising of the physically dead, as we have just studied. Still, you say, this last word is the preaching of the Gospel; it is for men not physically dead, and the Gospel message is placed in the hands of finite men to proclaim. Can it be possible, if the two are equally important, that the same almighty power necessary in the resurrection of the physically dead, must work in a similar manner through the Gospel minister in winning souls to Christ?—Why, certainly it is so. It is, all the way through, a work purely and simply of raising the dead, and this itself is one of the great ends of the Gospel.
How many, even among the named ministers of Christ, realize the tremendous import of their work? Do you realize it? How many would stand appalled at the thought of being the instruments through which God Almighty would raise the physically dead, who engage in precisely the same work, expecting identically the same power to work through them in raising souls from moral death to the light of life! Why is it that faith in the one part is less than faith in the other part? It was not so in the early church. Christ is not a Christ of yesterday only, but a Christ of to-day, and forever. How little do men realize their privileges as sons of the living God!
And this means every individual, man, woman, or child. The same call reaches the ears of every one, “Awake, arise.” If they are physically dead, the resurrection depends upon their faith before death; if physically alive, the moral resurrection depends still upon their faith, but of their own free choice. But all who hear the call and accept the redemption, henceforth become representatives of the God of heaven, servants of the Master of life. To such is the command given, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”
Raised to newness of life, standing free from sin, in the full shining of the Sun of Righteousness, they are to reflect all that that light and life are and mean into the moral darkness around them. And the light and the life will do the same work for others through them as they did for them when they were yet in the bondage of sin and death. Have you been awakened? Are you shining? Is the glory of the Lord seen upon you? It is all yours for the willing to have, and the having. If you have it not, try it, when you hear the call of the compassionate Saviour. L. A. P.
