The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

AND THE LIFE 359
desire Him—and declared, " I am the resurrection
and the life," proving His right to the title by a deed
of unheard-of wondrousness. How should He not
evince the same power, and manifest the same glory,
when He shall come amid the clouds of heaven, and
they that are in their graves shall awake, and those
that are His shall be with Him evermore.
He is the life. He can bestow it, He can restore
it— " He that believeth in Me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live." It is not with Him a question of
degree ; it is His not only to revive a flame that is
burning low, but to kindle anew the flame that is
already out. The skilful physician can do much to
alleviate the pains or turn back the tide of disease ;
while there is life, there is hope ;
but when the vital
spark has fled, his power is gone. But hope will
never abandon him who believeth in the Son of God.
There is a voice that will one day say of every
faithful one, " Our friend sleepeth ; but I go, that I
may awake him out of sleep."
And He is the preserver of the life that is
" Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never
die." It is the spirit of this saying which meets us
constantly in the Apostolic writings, when we observe
how, through faith in Christ, the bodily death becomes
a mere episode in the career of the immortal spirit.
The true death in the view of the Apostles is the
death in trespasses and sins—he that believeth not
is condemned already, the judgment is already
past with him ; the true resurrection is the
rising with Christ, the awakening to the life of
obedience and love and holiness. This resurrection
may take place now ; the bodily resurrection when