Matt. xviii. 20. Isaiah ix. 6. doctrine of Soul-Liberty. But what though those ancient doors were closed? The Risen Lord glided through them as easily as light through crystal. Respecting the unique character of Christ's risen body, I have already said something, and shall have more to say a little further on. Meantime observe that His sudden advent in that little gathering of His disciples was a beautiful fulfillment of one of His own precious sayings: "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them." It matters not how numerous or wide apart these gatherings are they may be simultaneous gatherings in Philadelphia, and London, and Alexandria, and Melbourne: enough that they are gatherings in Christ's Name: and, lo! He is present at them all. And He said to them, "Peace be unto you!" It was and had been from the time of the Patriarchs the characteristic salutation of the Jews, being enshrined in the very name of their Capital City-Jerusalem, i. e., Possession of Peace-and surviving in the "Salaam! Salaam!" of the modern Arab, even as the ancient Hebrew had been wont in meeting and in parting to exclaim, "Shalom! Shalom!"-" Peace! Peace!" What though Jesus the Nazarene is the risen Son of God? He is still a man and a Jew, and so He still speaks the language of His people according to the flesh. Moreover, and better than any local or transient consideration, Jesus Christ is Himself the Prince of Peace. The night He was born, a multitude of the heavenly host praised God, saying: "Glory to God in the highest! And on earth, peace, good will toward men!" And the last night He was on earth as the Man of Sorrows, He left to His disconsolate disciples His own priceless legacy, saying: "Peace I leave with you, John xiv. 27. My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you." No wonder, then, that the Prince of Peace, although now in His risen, heavenly estate, still says to His Church, "Peace be unto you!" Ay, Peace ever has been and still is and ever will be, world without end, the watchword of the Mediator's Kingdom, the very Shibboleth of the Peacemaker's Church: Peace with God, Peace with Man, Peace with Self. No wonder the Apostolic Epistles begin and end with Christianity's countersign: "Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ." ing. But, although the Risen Lord greeted the dis- The Holy Chidciples with His customary salutation, His greeting was blended with holy chiding: He upbraided Mark xvi. 14. them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not those who had seen Him after He was risen. And well might He upbraid them. In addition to the moral necessity of His resurrection, as grounded alike in the prophetic Scriptures and in the very constitution of the spiritual life, He had been seen four times that day: He had been seen by Mary Magdalene in the garden, by the other women near the sepulchre, by Simon Peter, by Cleopas and his companion. Surely it ought to have been easier for the disciples to believe the testimony of Christ's friends that He had risen than to believe the tes The Sudden Terror. Luke xxiv. 37. Matt. xiv. 26. The Gracious timony of Christ's foes that His body had been stolen: easier to believe in Christ's own power than in the power of His enemies. The refusal to believe in Christ's resurrection was indeed a painful instance of unbelief and hardness of heart. And now in addition to these four testimonies to His resurrection they have the demonstration of their own eye-sight. But instead of believing and exulting, they are terrified and affrighted, and imagine that they are beholding a specter. It is the same superstitious terror which had seized them months before when they saw Jesus walking over the waves, and were affrighted, and cried out: "It is a phantom!" Believing that He was still dead, and suddenly seeing Him standing before them the doors being still closed-they are terror-stricken, and fancy that they see His ghost. And now observe the beautiful tenderness with Demonstra- which the Lord soothes and convinces His disciLuke xxiv. 38-40. ples. Jesus saith to them: "Why are ye trou tion. bled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself! handle Me, and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet and His side. What a touching instance of patience and condescension and love! He does not turn away angrily. He indulges in no denunciation. He pronounces no oracular, magisterial ipse dixit. He employs no syllogism except the practical syllogism of tactual experiment. Directing their attention to His nail-scarred hands and feet and His spear-pierced side, He calmly says: "Behold My hands and My feet and My side, that it is I Myself! handle Me, and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have." What a lesson for all parents, teachers, and preachers! Instead of dogmatic ex cathedra deliverances, how much wiser and more effective to reason patiently and tenderly, illustrating our teaching by our own personal example! To prove to others the truth of what we are saying by allowing them the demonstration of a personal sight and touch and experience is worth a thousand syllogisms. Observe also what light is shed upon the nature of Christ's risen body by His invitation to His disciples to examine Him and touch Him. They were terrified and affrighted, imagining that they were beholding a spirit or specter. He reassures them by submitting the question of the materiality of His body to the test of ocular scrutiny and the still more decisive test of actual touch. "Do ye think that I am only an apparition? Scrutinize Me more closely. Look at My scarred hands and feet and side, that it is actually I Myself. Handle Me, and see: for a spirit or phantom hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." Perhaps it was a personal reminiscence of this very scene when the Apostle John, writing many years afterward against Docetism or the heresy which taught that Christ's humanity was only apparitional or seeming, speaks of 1 John i 1-3. Him as One Whom he had seen with his eyes, Whom he had gazed upon, Whom his hands had handled. However this may have been, one thing is certain: Christ's proffered test of touch John xx. 20. Luke xxiv. 41. The Decisive Luke xxiv. 41-43. Mark xvi. 14. Luke xxiv. 30. John xxi. 1-14. Acts x. 40, 41. Ac in the matter of the veritableness of His risen body was a perfectly sincere proffer; He meant that it should be accepted as the demonstration that His risen body was really material. cordingly, the disciples did thus accept it. For the Fourth Evangelist records with his characteristic simplicity: "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." What a reaction from the despair of Crucifixion-day and from the superstitious terror of even but a few minutes before! How charming the naïveté with which the Third Evangelist declares: "They still believed not for joy, and wondered"; or, as we phrase it, "Too good news to be true." And now the Lord, in order to scatter for ever the possibility of any doubt as to the materiality of His risen body, resorts to a test absolutely decisive. Jesus saith to them, "Have ye here anything to eat?" And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate before them. Here was an affair incontestably corporeal, necessarily implying physical processes of mastication, deglutition, digestion, and the like. Doubtless it was to this scene of eating, and to the similar scene which has already occurred at Emmaus on this same Resurrection Sunday, and to another similar scene which will occur a few days later on the shore of Gennesaret, that Peter refers when in his interview with the centurion of Cæsarea he declares: "Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him |