The birth,— the first coming of the Christ to a long waiting world,— and the resurrection of the Christ, the reappearing to the stricken and sorrowing disciples, are to me the two most beautiful and love-inspiring themes in all the gospel of glad tidings.
For many centuries the Christ's coming had been prophesied; but the Jewish people, bowing in adoration to that which symboled the coming One, lost sight of that which was symboled. Thus, the birth of Jesus was, in itself, a resurrection; a raising up from the ritualistic worship of a God that was expected to descend and rule as an earthly king, to the higher thought of man uplifted to God, through Truth, which was the resurrection and the life to all who recognized its appearing. But the many knew him not, and to only the few, did the advent in the flesh typify the new birth that must take place in every heart, or reveal the resurrection power of that Life, born of the Spirit and not of the flesh.
Paul, was preeminently, a teacher and a preacher of the resurrection, and we cannot do better than to study this subject as he presents it. He never stands in a dim, half-light; neither does he sink into the darkened background of ignorance and misapprehension that surrounds him. This is never more true of him, than when the great light of the resurrection dawns upon him, radiates and glows in his heart, until the rays fall upon both the Jews and the Gentiles, as he seeks to reveal to them the true nature of Jesus the Christ, and the living significance of that marvellous Word of God, which had been made flesh and dwelt among them.
