CHRIST’S LIFE by Rev. D. Bagot

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 30, 1877

CHRIST’S LIFE.

By Rev. D. Bagot

There can be no comfort in contemplating only the dying of Jesus. All is dark and dismal and desponding around the tree on which the Man of sorrows hung. If we confine our meditations exclusively to the death of the Redeemer, our feelings will rather resemble those of his mother, and of his mother’s sister—of Mary the wife of Cleopas, and of Mary Magdalene—who stood beside the cross and witnessed the expiring agonies, and heard the dying groans of the Master whom they loved. It is the resurrection of Jesus taken in connection with his death that is a source of comfort and of joy. When the Sun of righteousness set behind the hill of Calvary, the disciples were left in darkness and sorrow; but when he rose with resuscitated splendor on the third, the appointed day, the darkness was dissipated, their sorrow was dispelled, and they “rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

The apostles never preached the death without at the same time preaching the resurrection of Christ, as Paul in the fifteenth chapter of his epistle to the Corinthians tells us how he preached—“I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” His tragic death was a sacrifice or atonement, his glorious resurrection was a demonstration of his power to atone, for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. He was “put to death for our offenses,” but “raised again for our justification,” so that, as Peter says, we are begotten again “unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” —Rev. D. Bagot.