p. 1 | A LESSON FOR THE AGES by X

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 17, 1898

A LESSON FOR THE AGES.

By X

“He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

It is also a lesson for to-day. Every lesson for the ages is a lesson for to-day, for we have reached the time of the culmination, the completion of all the ages of history, when every principle of the past shall bear its ripened fruit for good or ill.

Go back with us, dear reader, eighteen and a half centuries to the most remarkable land of all history, little Palestina. Jesus, “the Desire of nations,” had come “unto His own; and His own received Him not.” He had sublimely met the temptations of Satanic artifice and deception; He had borne with patience and purity the onslaughts of every form of Satanic hatred and malignity, which were satisfied only when the rock grave was sealed under Roman law above His lifeless body. In it all, through it all, under it all, He had never swerved from the eternal principle (not that might is right, but) that eternal righteousness is eternal life and might. Not knowing or realizing this, His little band of disciples had taken Him from the cross of Calvary and, weeping, laid Him in the rock-hewn tomb, offered in charity by Joseph of Arimathea. They saw the door rolled in place, and returned to the sepulcher on the morning of that eventful First Day to embalm the body. They reached it; the body of Jesus was not there, but instead a shining one from the courts of glory, with the message:—

“Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. . . . Behold, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him.” Matt. 28:5–7.

Let us study for a little while the heavenly message.

1. The Actors.—These were, first, the angel sent from heaven; and, secondly, the disciples, honest, interested, earnest, but ignorant. They were truly seeking Jesus, and the angel recognized the fact—“I know ye seek Jesus.” They were interested and earnest; they sought Him. Why should they not? Before this they had left all to follow Him. He was their hope. But now they had lost Him. But because they were seeking Him, the Lord enlightens them, as He will every honest seeker after Him who is the Truth.

2. The Words of the Angel.—“He is not here.” “Why seek ye the Living among the dead?” Luke 24:5. As tho the angel said, Why do you not believe what Jesus said? He told you He would rise from the dead and go before you into Galilee; why do you seek Him here? He was the Righteous One; and righteousness is life. The grave could not hold Him. He is risen. He has life in Himself. As He had power to lay down His life, He had power to take it again. He is not a dead hope, but a risen Saviour. “Come, see the place where the Lord [is lying? no, but where He] lay.” He would not have you worship the place; He would not have you abide there. He would have you see that the Lord is not there. Where is He?—He is gone before you into Galilee. The Lord would not only not have His children abide at the sepulcher, but He would have them get away from Jerusalem, and out into “Galilee of the Gentiles,” to the people which were in darkness. Matt. 4:15, 16. They would find Him there, going before, ministering by all His agencies to the souls in need.

The Lesson for Us.

1. Seeking Jesus among the Dead.—“But surely Christians are not doing that to-day, are they?” Are they not? Are there not thousands, ay, millions, who have been as ignorant since of where to find the Saviour as were those who came to the

sepulcher on that First Day morning? The early Christians, vitalized by the Spirit of God, heeded the angel’s message; and they found Jesus ever going on before them and with them in the way. But as soon as formalism took the place of life, how many sought Christ again in the places where He had been but where He was not and is not! One of the most striking examples of this deception has been the foolish, carnal, superstitious, disgraceful struggle for the “holy sepulcher” and like places through all the centuries since. The culmination of this folly was manifest in the Crusades. As remarked by Gibbon: “The obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity [for their folly] and admiration [for their perseverance]; . . . that six succeeding generations should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before them; and that men of every condition should have staked their private and public fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country.” But Christ was not there. Long before He had risen; and it is a sad tho truthful commentary on such “Christianity” to-day that the presence of Moslem soldiers are necessary to keep peace between the factions of “Christians” which strive over the supposed sacred spots where Christ was but now is not.

2. Dead Creeds.—There have been noble and good men in bygone days who did not have all the truth and light of the Gospel (and who has?). God has blessed these men greatly in their labors, not because of the error they held unwittingly, but because of consecrated hearts in doing the best they knew. Examples of these may be seen in Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, and others. Sometimes these men formulate their belief in a series of articles, propositions, or statements. No sooner are they dead than the opinions of the men become the creed of their followers. They seek Christ in a dead, cold creed of paper and ink. They virtually make an image to Him that becomes their center, their banner, their slogan. The message of the angel to all such is, “He is not here; He is risen.” Those who abide by the creed, who look to find Christ in the past, become formalists, and die spiritually. Those who turn from it to the living Word, follow on, drinking from the living Fountain, guided by the Light of God, led by the Good Shepherd. In turn, perhaps, the words or opinions of these men are crystallized into dead, iron creeds, where ignorant disciples seek in vain the Anointed of God.

3. Methods of Work.—Not alone in places and human creeds do men seek Christ in vain; but in the forms of worship and methods of work by His people. How many foolish quarrels have been waged over the millinery of priest or clergy; and how few souls have been benefited thereby! Instead of studying Christ’s life, and seeking for the guidance of His Spirit, the forms are studied in which men have labored who achieved success. Some soul, by faith in God, led by His Spirit, dares to step out beyond the dead line of human rules and regulations. His work, or God’s work through him, proves a glorious success; and immediately some societies or churches or boards meet and resolve that his work be approved and his method commended as one sure to bring success, and like as not he is sent around the country lecturing or is immediately connected with some missionary training-school to instruct others to work in his methods and by his measure. He does the best he can, he urges men to look to God as did he; and some success follows; but generally the human leader’s work is never equaled, and workers and church generally become discouraged because so little is done for God. Christ is not in the dead form. And then!—more, and more stringent, resolutions and methods of labor follow. God puts His Spirit upon some burdened soul; resolutions are again broken; the dead-line is again crossed, and the same thing is repeated, with the same perseverance that marked the folly of the repeated Crusades to obtain the empty sepulcher of Jesus.

“He is not here; He is risen.”—Jesus Christ, nor His truth, nor His work, can not be imprisoned, or bound, or stayed by stone, or creed, or tradition, or resolution. All the progress of God’s work has been over broken resolutions and wrecked constitutions. He is the Living One. He arose to burst every tomb and bond that binds men, and to set them free. He could not be holden of the grave. Acts 2:24. Nothing in which Christ abides can be bound by man. The life may be crushed out; and the dead grave may remain with us; but “He is not here; He is risen.”

“He Goeth Before.”—There is motion and action and progress in life. Jesus went before His disciples into Galilee. He would lead them out into the great, needy Gentile world, to the souls lost in the darkness of sin. So would Christ lead His people now. He is not here a stationary fixture. He is not in the sepulcher at Jerusalem, nor in the gorgeous marble mausoleums of some of our modern cathedrals and temples. He is not in the cold, dead creeds of men. He is not in “the traditions of the fathers.” He is not in resolutions, or laws, or disciplines which would bind the freed soul in Christ Jesus. Neither is He in rebellion or strife. “He goeth before.” You will find Him speaking to the man of wealth; Sell, and give to the poor. Lay up treasure in heaven. Provide you with treasure sacks which wax not old. Give to Christ in the person of His poor. You will find Him in every home where the star of hope shines on the hearth; in every heart where the hand of faith is outreached to the hand of the Infinite. You will see Him in the streets and lanes, in the highways and hedges, in the prisons and penitentiaries, where are souls who need to be saved and who long for a Saviour. You will see Him in the wild, wind-swept moors of sin, seeking the wanderers. You will see Him on the bleak, barren mountains of destruction, seeking the torn and wounded and lost sheep, and when finding it, gently bearing it home. You will see Him in the house of the publican, speaking His salvation; by the side of the fallen woman, speaking peace and purity; with the impotent slave of sin, speaking power; with His merciful hand stretched out to the lepers of iniquity, speaking wholeness and cleansing. In all these places, Christian, brother and sister, you will see Jesus, ever going on before, ever asking you to follow, living His life, doing His will. O soul, will you not break from all human bondage and follow Him? Brother in Christ, will you not leave all human methods and let His life mold yours in purpose and form. O, we have a risen Christ! He goeth before. Let us follow.