i CONTENTS. WORDS OF THE RISEN SAVIOUR. PAGE INTRODUCTION. WHEN the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 8 places the appearance of the risen and exalted Jesus to himself in direct continuation with the earlier appearances of the Forty Days-without making express mention of the ascension-it might appear that he recognises no distinction between the time before, and the time after, that event; and the meaning which he intended to convey is undoubtedly this, that the same Person who, from the moment of His resurrection, had begun to enter into His glory, after His suffering and death, had appeared and said to him—I am this Jesus. Still more striking, and equally important in its bearing, is the fact that Ananias, in Acts xxii. 14, 15, places the seeing and hearing to which St Paul was chosen, on a level with that seeing and hearing which (according to ch. i. 21, 22) was the qualification of one who should be a "witness to all men of that which he had seen and heard"—that is, of an Apostle. The Lord's life of humiliation and His life of glory are here really embraced in one comprehensive glance; hence, Ananias used the same expression, "the Just One," which Stephen used in ch. vii. 52. All this emphatically teaches us that the transaction with the Apostle Paul must be classed among those manifestations of our Lord which, notwithstanding the intervening glorification in heaven, were bodily manifestations. Jesus appeared to him (Acts ix. 17, xxvi. 16) as to those who saw Him before the ascension; although, on the other hand, A St Paul forgets not, before Agrippa (ch. xxvi. 19), to lay stress upon the heavenly vision. This last passage teaches us further that the ascension, as the final consummating point of the exaltation of Jesus, must, notwithstanding all this, maintain its place. We denounce the blasphemy of those who, with Brennecke, of melancholy memory, fable that Christ lived upon earth twenty-seven years after His crucifixion, planning all kinds of appearances to His disciples; as well as the theory of Kinkel, which has found too much favour with the learned, that there was no real ascension after the resurrection. The different manner in which the Lord appeared and spoke, after His visible ascension, of itself establishes the distinction most firmly; apart from the authentic narrative of that event, and the subsequent doctrine founded upon it. For, although St Paul, according to his essentially correct system, ordinarily gives prominence only to the resurrection (with its infolded results) as the definite point of transition between the humiliation and exaltation of Christ-even as the Church kept Easter first, and only afterwards added the festival of the Ascension-yet the same Apostle speaks abundantly of the Redeemer's session at the right hand of God in heaven (Eph. i. 20, etc., iv. 10; comp. Heb. iv. 14, viii. 1, ix. 24), in the same manner as St Peter does, 1 Pet. iii. 22. We have, therefore, scriptural ground for literally understanding, as the Church has ever believed and confessed, both the "I am not yet ascended" and the "I ascend" of the risen Lord Himself (John xx. 17), and the "He is ascended” of His witnesses; consequently, we are justified in saying that, as the discourses of the risen Jesus were still uttered upon earth, the words of the exalted Jesus are distinctively words from heaven. "The discourses of the Lord Jesus," taken in their strict universality, were not closed with the last sayings of the ascending Christ (Acts i. 8, 9); and the supplement which was promised at the close of our larger exposition must now introduce the essentially last words. Were they absolutely the last? It may be said, in another sense, that the Lord has never ceased to speak to His people, and never will cease to speak to them; that is, by the Holy Ghost. But, with the same propriety as the Lord Himself and the entire New Testament make the distinction, we may dis tinguish between the recorded sayings of the personal Jesus, speaking from heaven, and His internal revelation by the Spirit. It is a different matter, and one which falls not within the range of the task which we propose, that we find the Spirit speaking to Philip on the way to Gaza, Acts viii. 29, as the same Spirit caught him away in ver. 39; and that the Spirit speaks to Peter, ch. x. 19 (xi. 12), even as the angel to Cornelius. With these we must class also the forbidding of the Spirit (and, according to the more correct reading, of the Spirit of Jesus), ch. xvi. 6, 7,1 which may have been by an audible word heard internally; but St Luke expressly distinguishes the speaking of the Spirit from the personal announcements of the Lord, whether speaking in broad day or in night visions. In ch. xiii. 1, 2, where the prophets of the New Testament are spoken of, he passes over into the general expression, "the Holy Spirit," to indicate this indirect, mediated, and continuous intercourse with His people. Thus the "words of the Lord Jesus from heaven" so far as the Scripture records them-retain and exhibit their distinctive peculiarity in this, that the glorified bodily personality of the God-man is manifested, or gives itself expression, with the voice of the individual I. This, on the one hand, is still just as in the Forty Days, inasfar as the personal fellowship, suspended in the rule, is renewed in the exception; on the other hand, there is a great difference, inasmuch as the familiarity which still existed during those days, as they were in some sense linked with His former life upon earth, has utterly ceased, and can never return, even on the occasions of His deepest condescension. But still the unbroken unity and identity of His person, of that person which had sunk into the depths of shame and death, is preserved--I am Jesus of Nazareth! (Acts xxii. 8) I was dead! (Rev. i. 18); just as at an earlier period He who was going to His death could say-Glorify me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was! These manifestations and self-announcements, these direct words and utterances of the enthroned Lord, could not indeed have been utterly wanting upon earth in this final term of transition: they were His superabundant confirmation of His promise and pledge concerning His disciples' not seeing and yet 1 In ch. xviii. 5, "Spirit" is a false reading for “Word.” |