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Chapter Three

THE TENFOLD CORD RESISTS ALL BREAKAGE

THE NEED BEING TO AWAKEN

The Dynamic Thrust of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus

Christ's Biological Testimony and

Confrontation with the 'slow of heart'

who soon became fast of foot

You may wonder why Christ Jesus rather than Jesus Christ is found in the sub-heading. The Bible puts it either way, and in this case it is to emphasise that the domain of the Christ, the Messiah, the status of deity, of being sent from deity as deity and for the trinity is emphatically in focus. THAT being who He is, this is His name amid mankind: Jesus.

First we need to consider what this Barrister for Believers (I John 2:1-2), who not only does not charge, but bears the entire cost of the case in Himself (Isaiah 53:1-6), for believers, healed by His stripes, has to say.

He is the King's Counsel (Isaiah 48:16ff., John 1:1-14, I Corinthians 1:30, I John 2:1-2):
what does He declare to the point ?

How does He treat this matter of His own bodily resurrection ?
It is as in the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets (Luke 24:44ff.).
Let us ponder the points together, leading to His explicit response.

	It was physical as in Luke 24:36-42, and John 20:24ff..
	It was distinctive as in I Corinthians 15:35-54.
	It is eternal as in II Corinthians 4:17-5:6.
	It was predicted in physical terms as in Psalm 16, and as a work wrought on a mangled corpse from which the spirit had gone, as in Psalm 22 (cf. Luke 23:46). That was this resurrection base.
	Its place amid the abhorrence of the rulers of the nation was foretold (Isaiah 49:7, 53:1-6, 26:19, Psalm 2, Matthew 16:21, 17:12, Luke 9:22, Mark 8:31), both by earlier prophet and by Christ Himself, repeatedly. No mild reaction was for Him: He was insufferable to the rulers of religion.
	Further, the national result was likewise clear (Daniel 9:24-27, Micah 5:3-6, Zechariah 11:8-13).
	It could come amid the testimony of sufferings, as a fuller focus, a glorious triumph (Isaiah 25:8, 53:6-12), or as the chief focus in itself (Psalm 16).
	It could be shown in a glorified and final format as in Daniel 7:13-14, or in its prelude as in Psalm 40, or indeed in its resultant and continuing rule (as in Psalm 2, 72, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Isaiah 11).
	In it was a chief part of the entire testimony of God to man (Psalm 22:26-31, John 20:39).
	It was linked to test (John 20:27ff.) as to quest (John 20:13ff.), to concern (Luke 24:13ff.) and to discovery (John 21:5-14).
	As in life, so in resurrection, His was always the surprise, for it was a new thing, this incarnation and this ransoming death and this bodily resurrection, all a matter of entry, performance amid man for man.
	It was not a matter of philosophical speculation or wishful thinking, but glorious funding and finding of resurrection, by tactile, visual, dynamic and inter-personal testimony. Death was conquered; it had happened; it was divine; it was for man; and it involved vicarious suffering. It was individual as death and resurrection is; it was an event of the Creator, staggeringly creating an advent for new life, instead of simply obliterating the old.

Such is the theme of Paul, in essence, in I Corinthians 1 and 15.

As noted in the last Chapter, it was a NEW THING, and its novelty, its divine innovation, its merciful quest and potent triumph alike were all fulfilment of the promise of the Father of spirits and the Lord of creation. It is to be listed with the heights of creation because it transcends its ways of does the sky those of the sea. Moreover, it is provided with the depths of detail on earth, because it was for those on earth that it came to be, propelled by the enduring promise of God from the first, in light gathering data over time, till the right time came, and it happened. Such was it, whether in Genesis 3:15, Psalm 2, 16, 22 or Isaiah 25:8, 26:19, 53:11-13 or Malachi 3 and 4.

What however was the express attitude of Christ Jesus to this thing, when having swallowed up death in victory, as foretold, He met those who still seemed in somewhat of a quandary ? How did He deal with dubiety after this resurrection, on the part of some (not John, however, as in John 20:8. The divine response of the Lord to this had many aspects. It was didactic, could contain a dynamic rebuke, whether direct or inferential, present an exposure of what they assuredly should have known, and on occasion seems to have been something like a contemporary coach telling his players to get with it, to awaken to reality, to act as intended, to recognise the facts of what is happening; or a professor instructing his students.

Thus in the Emmaus road incident of Luke 24:13-27, the irony is exquisite. Christ walks with some wondering disciples on a tramp to Emmaus. They speak of recent events, of which He discloses no knowledge, so forcing them to describe them in their own terms. It is now the THIRD DAY, they note ominously, and they were hoping that it was He who should redeem Israel. After all, Christ had predicted the third day, often enough, for His quitting bodily death. What now ? Here He was, duly resurrected ON that very day, and they in ignorance, were wondering at no apparent action. BY then, the clouds of wonder were gathering, when in fact, the action was attested by their sides! They faithfully reported to the stranger, how the women had testified of His resurrection, their words concerning the empty tomb being confirmed; but these travellers appeared somewhat bewildered.

Christ rebuked their state of mind, confronting them with the grounds of expectation and the necessity to follow on in faith, without getting into bewildered mode.

"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things

and to enter into His glory ?"

He exclaimed.

Where was this found ? It was in the very testimony of the Testament which they all studied. Thus He first rebuked their lack of dynamic and realising faith. "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!", He first declared. So He taught them from the prophets, whose words in His life He constantly fulfilled, and expounded these things to them. How slow can you get! How familiar can things be, that yet are not practically received or simply understood! God is a God of action, not mere philosophic speculation, and what He does speaks for itself; yet for the sin of man, it must often be opened, even when in plain sight, and this may be so, even when you are TALKING to the testimony itself, as they were.

Mercifully at request, He then turned aside to eat with them, and it was then that the familiar hands in the familiar setting suddenly brought the simple reality home. The testimony was not only talking to them as the day advanced, but eating with them! Like the great explorers, they suddenly found their quest; but unlike these, it had come TO them!

Such was the attitude of Christ Jesus to those who were troubled with facts, and yet blind through lack of clear-cut and simple faith, to the plain sight and methods of seeking it. Blindness can create confusion and stumbling alike!

Nor did the disciples gathered together in Jerusalem fare any better. When those to whom Christ had just spoken came to Jerusalem, they told the disciples of their discovery (Luke 24:35). Timing His own coming with this, Christ stood in their midst, saying "Peace to you!" This time, in the reinforcement phase, He directly confronted them:

"Why are you troubled ? and why do doubts arise in your hearts ?"

Had He not done many marvellous things, been wise to the point of wonder, overcome arguments, disease and death in His three and one half years of ministry, never failing! and so now why were they in doubt, just because His own, predicted, sacrificial death had occurred precisely as He said it would. Was it not equally clear that His resurrection on this very same third day was just as assured! How could they possibly imagine that His direct dealings with God as His Father (John 5:19ff.) should somehow cease just because of having His own, functionally necessary, often foretold death... Was it imagined that the limitations of a body which He Himself had created in its prototype in Adam, should now prove too ... difficult in death, for life to sweep it out, as a broom sweeps out dust ? Death was after all merely one judicial phase of its operation under the God of creation. If God chose to delete this in the dynamic of dying and arising from the dead, was this not profoundly simple, grand, visionary, practical and a glorious initiative ? Why then simmer in incertitude: was He not there, even then, even with them!

Had they not yet learned that in life or in death the Creator is pre-eminent, inscribing the limits of norms, and not outsourcing the Lordship over it all, but using its own nature to show His supernature to declare deliverance, as so often of old. These had been in less direct but yet exceedingly powerful ways, as at the Exodus and often afterwards, as in the days of Elijah, Elisha and Hezekiah, David and Samuel! Did they not realise the POWER of God, to the full, even yet ? Had they not realised the folly of the approach of the scribes, whom He had answered with force and victory (as in Mark 12:23ff.), on this very topic of resurrection, which they tried to mock, being sharply rebuked for their sophisticated spiritual indolence!

Making their tactile senses and their habitual norms a test, He invited them cordially to "handle Me and see!" - see what ? It was to see that this was no spirit, "for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me to have!"

This generation is no different, but far slower to reform than they, more like the Sadducee-Pharisee-Herodian complex of Christ's day in Israel, who largely became hostile, puerile in their combinations of the disparate models of flesh and spirit. When in the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, called to be a teaching elder, a Minister of that body, having been ordained by them in the preceding year, in 1967 I asked the Presbytery to affirm the resurrection of the body of Christ as a basic and essential testimony, they simply refused to do so. The case was clear: corruption ruled, doubt directed, or else, mere moveablel feelings were all for most.

In the 1966 Assembly, myself present as a representative elder, we faced the resurrection of the body, because an erring Principal had categorically denied it, there was further evidence of rampant unbelief. Indeed, the disbelief of their only seminary Principal had become a national shock, on this point of the bodily resurrection of Christ, and this theological mathematician had acted as if supernature had no place in the world of the 20th century. The 'church' had to join the cultural passions and follow them. Judas himself could scarcely have done better; but he was soon overcome in horror.

Not so in New Zealand in that day. The basis for the change seemed to include irrelevant desire, apparently a convenient blend of unbelief and new definitions of terms, so that yes becomes no, and vice versa. This greatly resembled the blatant passion for incredulity, and the astonishingly truncated approach of many of modern mankind to Christ. It was as if the Great Commission had been, Go into all the world and learn the Gospel, and teach what they tell you! It was a betrayal not only of the Church, but by it.

As Assembly met, I was authorised to I confront them. On that occasion, as commissioned by the Session in Blenheim, that is, the group of elders of the congregation, an Overture, that is, an direct approach for Assembly response, was delivered to them. Rotting, I indicated as in Psalm 16, as in Acts 2, was expressly excluded in the resurrection of the body, and concerning Christ, this lethal process was dramatically and emphatically denied. HIS BODY DID NOT ROT. Why then did they suffer the denial of the bodily resurrection of Christ, or show indifference to it, or suffer it in their midst ? Why was this body, called Presbyterian, in such unhallowed ground, frank denial, as if a dentist would say there was no such thing as teeth!

In the allowed 7 minutes to expound the Overture, they were challenged in this kind of manner, for had not a central apostle on a central occasion concerning the central Person in Christian redemption, Jesus Christ, expressly dismissed this rotting because the resurrection had dismissed it! What then was this folly, in the heartland of what Christianity, all about ? We had traffic light installed in the body of the Assembly at that time, and when the 7 minutes of challenge were up, red showed...

Yet they would not yield their unbelief, nor give any evidential reason; and the newspaper, covering it, even managed to ignore my REGISTERED DISSENT from their resurrection statement, one which made belief in the bodily resurrection a mere option. Indeed that newspaper directly refused to publish the truth, the fact, though the testimony had been formally made AND registered IN the Assembly sitting! In accord with this, Whatever the Assembly did with it, I therefore was registered in their very midst, by due authority, as opposed. How could one not deny and denounce this denial of the works of the Lord!

In a local magazine, therefore, I had to insert the truth of my entire rejection of this evil lapse in Assembly, which like that of the resurrection itself, was being suppressed in that land. Indeed, the chief executive officer of the Assembly advised me, as if a mafia style of work had penetrated into the Assembly, that the Presbytery would take care of me! They did, but were baulked at that time, by the group of elders, who however, later also yielded, so that my Ministry was transferred (in three days as a glorious and divine act of impact) to that of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod in the USA.

This unhappily was later swallowed up in toto by the newly formed, though in substance conceived as extended, Presbyterian Church in America. As they were not separated as had been the RPCES, in the end, in view of the developing divergence in doctrine from the Bible, on the part of that larger body, I had to leave them. Having no place to go, one had enough notwithstanding, to have the company of the Lord. We continued the testimony in what is now the Australian Bible Church (Presbyterian). The formal grounds for leaving the PC in America are on the Web, and have been for quite a few years. The decline and fall of much continues as a predicted mark of our times (II Peter 2:1ff., I Timothy 4, II Timothy 4, Matthew 24:24, cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5 with SMR Ch. 8).

The Bible in such places teaches us that the precise area in which we now find ourselves, in terms of happening, is one in which to EXAMINE and test all things (Matthew 24:22-23, I Thessalonians 5:21-22); for if this be not done, it can become like a case of adultery, the husband indifferent to it, never listening to anyone or anything as the scandal develops, unsubdued, unsuppressed and above all, unremedied.

In such a case, domesticity can be slashed, the family ruined, the growing children mocked. If it be so in the family, how much more in the family of God, when wantonry in doctrine and woe in teaching takes the place of certified truth bound in and by Jesus Christ. Here is the usurping of its utterly vital basis, based on nothing but undisciplined imagination, contrary to all reason (cf. SMR esp. Ch. 6, The gods of naturalism have no go! TMR).

Abandoning what is the all too vital basis of the faith, the people rejoiced. That this ultimate mis-assessment and recoil from the faith should be a cause for rejoicing, added to the atrocity and the plea for penalty from the nation! Whatever man does with the testimony (cf. Luke 9:25-26), is merely done back to himself ... for the word of God continues to cover the case, now as always, and the end is becoming nearer, all in order. Thus, though the falls are horrible to contemplate, yet the end comes, with this their predicted prelude; and it is coming faster, like an accelerating cyclotron. Then as in Malachi 4, Isaiah 59, Jude, Matthew 24, there is Christ Himself, returning to our joy, just as He was resurrected in body, to that of the early disciples.

In the New Zealand case, a testimony in Christ's name was given, and speedily rejected. It was even covered up. In the mode of the Emmaus case, it was very much more direct. In NZ, it was merely a disciple who addressed the people in Assembly, whereas there Christ Himself spoke directly in His own Person. In NZ, most if not all others seemed to show themselves far from discipleship, and they did not accept the testimony, but both denied it and allowed others to deny it, sweeping aside the confrontation in Assembly, and the testimony of truth and denunciation given. Some seem to believe this lie that this confrontation was never made, despite its being authorised by Session and made before hundreds of people; but such dimness seems to savour of the eruptive pre-Emmaus period. Alas HOW SLOW indeed are many to believe either the resurrection, or its testimony, or to ally themselves with this testimony when it is made, as if theology had little practical outcome, even when God has been active and confrontational in historic happenings in the Church, through which indeed it was founded! (Romans 10:9, I Cor. 1). On this, see documentation in A Time to Praise God, Appendix II.

The state of heart and the state of the case are mercifully two entirely different things, the one subjective, the other objective, and the testimony will endure to the end, despite manifold and manifest betrayals such as one has both seen and suffered, repeatedly.

What of Emmaus, the happier case ? Beginning at Moses, Christ Himself spoke to the somewhat befuddled disciples at that time, they being numbed with grief, astounded in anxiousness, and to them He paraded the prophecies concerning Himself, so bringing to willing hearts an awakening that thrust through to the mind; as at Pentecost, it thrust through to the preaching of those who attested what they had both seen and heard. Further, it was precisely in those terms that Peter and John spoke to the judicial murderers responsible for the Messianic assassination (Acts 4:19-20). Indeed, those their words ring like a carillon to this day, and so let us hear them again:

"Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge;
For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."

To what words had they been commanded to listen, then, proceeding with due judicial solemnity, from the religious authorities of the day, overall a virtual murder council ? They were

"commanded not to speak at all
not teach in the name of Jesus."

In that sad day for Israel, some 40 years after the party of those who so commanded the apostles, this with the entire city was destroyed.

They had sown the wind, and now were reaping the whirlwind (as in Hosea 8:7). The wind has been just waiting awhile before the Lord endorsed it to become the whirlwind. Jesus Himself had warned of the coming destruction (Matthew 24:1ff.), and no wonder He wept (Luke 19:42ff.). How much was involved, and how many cases, as the blasphemies multiplied and a new generation of children were indoctrinated with rebellion. There are some things from which death is a deliverance! for spiritual cancers can surpass even the physical (Isaiah 1).

Indeed, because of this, their destiny through unbelief, Jesus Christ both lamented and wept (Mathew 23:37ff., Luke 19:42ff.). Many a contemporary nation in this our own day, and not a few churches, seem to be seeking to imitate this sad prelude to the desolation suffered by ancient Israel, by duplicating as far as they may, the grounds for it!

If you want to kill God (that is, the actual one with the actual deeds and actual programs which are His, from creation to resurrection and from this to judgment), you cannot succeed, except only in this: in bringing desolation. This, for the whole world, gets ever closer, not as a mystic process, but as a divine necessity. Amos 4 shows the principle, for if you go far enough and long enough, the reminders come like bank letters; but if you WILL not repent of folly, then you inherit it, after using up the borrowed money/time! Who could not warn in such as case, as now with increasing treachery, besets this our land of Australia!

In fact, we have been studying events of prophetic and apostolic times, with application to our own, and the above, the direct testimony of Jesus Christ, is really the first historic pointer to be noted in a cord of ten strands, concerning the resurrection, prepared for today. Let us now consider the other nine, with this the seventh in the list, all selected for today. The last include expansion into relevant points for our own time, so fortunately placed, that we have both the current and the old to ponder jointly.

The Resurrection as Redeemer of Christ Jesus.

How do doubters fare ?

What then of this action to negate the wonder of our epoch, forget the faith of ages,
annul the blessing of mankind, leading on to foretold desolation (Daniel 9:24ff.) ?

What of the essence of efforts to countermand it, from the day of the guards^*1 till the present ? What then is in view concerning such things, efforts to fudge or forget. Did it happen they ask ? How not then!

1) It couldn't be confusion (Matthew 27:57-66, John 19:38-42, Luke 23:55-56).

The case was notable, the Roman Governor having been approached for the possession of the relic of the
judicial murder, the body for burial, this high official in charge, Pilate himself, granted the request.

The body went to a new tomb, hewn from rock for a rich man, named, Joseph of Arthmathea.

The women carefully observed the site and did what was needed in terms of spices for burial.

The interview with the Governor was not the only one. Priests also called on him
for a guard, and were told to handle it themselves, with their own guard. Pilate was not impressed, his will having been flouted through their venom and his own weakness. It was now done, except for justice,
being clear-cut, formal, official, notably public and noticeably open, except for the hearts.

The virtual riots which had preceded, a testimony in the annals of starkly horrible history,
involved a crowd wave to subvert a Governor's sense of justice, a successful push,
to be relished by those who had in other things suffered enough from Herod,
and it led to a heyday for sadism, a religious renegacy of all humanity,
a public feast and fiesta of suffering, a time for the power-brokers and the high
to indulge in jibes at the suffering form of their judicial iniquity,
the dying body of Christ, whom in this putsch of hatred, they lustfully killed.
Ït was in a setting so public and so prevailing, that even the centurion and his associates
found the total event, involving His staunchness and prayer for their forgiveness,
enough to find that He must indeed be
the Son of God (Matthew 27:54).
Literally that is not "this is son of God,"
but "of God, son is this." He is recognised as the Son of God (AV).
The alliance with deity is so close as that,
unique, testimonial in itself, an intimacy of kindredship,
confirming His claim to be the only begotten Son of God,
the challenge concerning this, being met by murder, but never in tongue or deed
by those in contemporary political and ecclesiastical power,
precisely because they could find not other way to subvert Him,
answer His logic, displace His knowledge, or obviate His power.
They had surely tried! (Luke 11, Matthew 22).

These things being so, there was no room for confusion about who He was,
what happened to the corpse, whether its emplacement,
where and how it was guarded, sealed, shut in by a great stone,
the wealthy wonder of the rock-hewn tomb,
or the significance of the three days,
as indeed recognised so clearly by the priests (Matthew 27:62-63);
and thus of the whole official scenario, scene and emplacements.

Indeed AS A PEOPLE, they had in their passion and decisive involvement,
in seeking to secure Pilate for their sin, placed the sin on their succeeding race (Matthew 27:25).
As Pilate uselessly and literally washed his hands of his acquiescence for the judicial murder,
the people were so keen to escape the Lord, that they made this terrible transfer,
as if their will could accomplish their crime the more. But those who repent
are freed in the ongoing race (as in Exodus 20:5), where it is
those who hate the Lord who are the ones to receive the evil results
of preceding generations (cf. Ezekiel 18:2ff.).

Their participation, pursuit of detail, deepest longing and zeal
in this matter made them exceedingly acute,
while the disciples had far more at stake, even than that!

As so often, people will use some other model to understand a given case,
and so confuse the significance or background, the impetus or motivation,
of people are capable, with their own languid wavering or ceaseless
intoxication with desire to avoid the obvious.

2) It couldn't be ignorance

Nor could any be able to be genuinely confused about the physical exteriors
of the scene, ignorant of the setting, any more than concerning the heights of its significance,
or the items on the agenda of the brazen and heinous events.

Not only are the varied data recorded, but even to imagine it otherwise, as if
for example Mary Magdalene had said to herself, "Heigh ho!
they come, they go!" and departed ignorantly from the unobserved scene.
This would be not only to make a new text but a new Mary, not the one
out of whom He had cast seven devils.
Very different is her concern
(John 19:25, Matthew 27:56, John 20:1-17), for all the details,
her longing, brooding about the premises of the tomb (John 20:1-11).
As if such were without concern to cover the corpse,
anoint it as they did, follow it, know all about the end
of a ruinous seeming day. Imagining the opposite is not apposite,
but a work of unaligned thought and blissful bane,
as if humans were not what they are.

3) It couldn't be brazenness,

this on the part of the soldiers, co-operating with some surrealists,
on such a basis as this verbalised below,

	Well, what does it matter, certainly we can break orders, break seal, move a great stone, and participate illegally in a massively public and extraordinarily arresting event, involving soldier and governor alike, Sanhedrin on the war-path and disciples as one, all aroused to the uttermost in pursuit of murder or devotion, officialdom or control.
	All we may meet if we subvert this coverage of the corpse, by a little after-care, shall we say, is death penalty for negligence, or worse, if collusion is shown, and these priests are not all without foxy facilities!

To become martyrs for madness is where such irrational ideas land us,
in any belligerent reconstruction, moulded to obfuscation.

That is not the way, nor is madness to be assumed.

4) Even if impossibly in kind, a hoax or deception be imagined,
if Christians did it,
they would have hell for presumptuous prodigies of lying,
even about God, even implacably, on their consciences;
and in the end, all would have to be co-conspirators
as they approach torture, death and social rejection as believers,
for what in that case would not at all be a story of power,
but in fact of debunking in operative presence of weakness,
and a tale of triumph, in the site of nullity.
Nor could anything be done to verify, since corpses are notably
both smelly and functionless. Slow death on earth
for longer decay in hell is a strange package to posit!

If on the other hand, non-Christians are imagined in action, then it is obvious
they neither would nor could have
the power to give any credibility to their claims,
for again, corpses in themselves are in power inconsequential,
and their testimony would be contrary to each aspect of evidence,
and neither would not could gain a foothold.

In either case, this is not paper-work for a crooked business,
but personal work for an all-powerful God,
where delusion is as obvious as dynamic,
and deeds are as separable from dreams
as fish from gut.

This however is merely a fortiori, the basis already removed.

5) As to the product, the emphasis was in part scientific.'

Thomas appears the hard-headed, "tell me like it is" kind of person, who in this case
was at his most obtrusive and conclusive. Not at "Church" on the first Sunday,
hearing report on things that to him needed precise confirmation,
namely the physical in the physical level of investigation,
he came with a prior claim:

Let me poke the body, and see!
Then and not till then will I believe!

was the tenor of his protest
and his condition.

There are minds like that, and his held in this the ultra-scientific flair,
where no inference is allowed till precise, direct data are funded
for the bank of belief.

When however, He actually met the Christ who had earlier challenged,
with the words,
A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me to have:
Handle Me and see!
and this same Jesus actually invited
the tactile test to be performed at once,
Thomas capitulated, being overwhelmed with a reality
ready for any test. Instead of becoming testy or evasive,
in contrition he acknowledged the ONLY ONE
who could be in this frankly bodily state, after death.
He MUST then be the Son of God, so that the now
better informed disciple could only exclaim,

"My Lord and My God," as in John 20:28.

For those who are inclined to make little gods and not face God Himself,
in the grandeur of His coming for us in such a way, with such a motive,
with such majesty and in such self-imposed humiliation,
it is to the point that the Greek has "the God of me."
H E is THE GOD.

This Christ IS GOD, no less,
and nothing else.

As with truth, it cannot be contained, but attests
on all sides, remorselessly, ruthless though without passion,
unyielding however maligned.

	6) As to the timing, it was precise. From first to last, and whether in symbol or in Christ's own prediction, it was, the death prior to rising, a matter of precisely three days. Had it been two or four, it would be a fiasco. God knows. If Christ be God, then, in all fairness, let His word not fall to the ground: three it was to be, and should it vary from this, unbelief would be authentic! That after all was the way, even for ordinary prophets (Deuteronomy 18:15-22). Let them misfire ? at all ? then they are not a matter of concern at all, mere spiritual drift-wood. Over the centuries, the contrary was eminently distinctive, not rare, but always notable and a testimony that could not be contained by deceit. As to pretenders, without divine confirmation, they had NO authority and were NOT sent by God if their predictions were not delivered. Speaking in the name of the living God and not doing so, has a difference as that between chaff and wheat, and the ACTUAL word of God breaks even rock (Jeremiah 23:21-29). Rock is no impediment to that. When the Christ Himself came, in ALL things, what He said is fulfilled, what He did fulfils or gives only further grounds for faith. He is consistent, insistent, and persistent, never prevaricating, always in whatever case, saying what is true (Matthew 17:24-27, Mark 2:1-10), accomplishing what is needed, never failing, word and deed, both stark in supernatural reality, never separated. The test of the testimony was continual, and always positive, whether utterly extraordinary , totally unique ... or not . Thus when even death could not dim the precision, the scientific accuracy of the time of His arising, three days, soon all thoughts below the uttermost level vanished in the hearts of His own, if not before! At that, God does not force faith, so that some could indeed doubt, even if, as Christ predicted, one should rise from the dead (Luke 16:19-31), even if in the process of continuing disbelief, logic itself were viewed as dementia! (cf. Romans 1:17ff.)
	7) As to the rebuke for not seeing the entire realisation of prophecy, it was confrontational. This has been covered above. Christ dealt with the confused, the lagging, the unsensational students in many ways and in great depth. It was multi-tasking in his enlightenment for them. There was the love and the laceration, the confrontation and the diplomacy, the acrid challenge and the tender teaching, all as one, with one result, showing the effect of the indisputable on those willing to listen.
	8) As to the Jewish State, it fell as Christ had predicted, the gloaming for the physical setting sun, which really had hardly gone at all, being merely temporarily, as is the case with the celestial sun, out of sight. In Matthew 24:1-2, as in Luke 19:42ff., there is a clear announcement of coming ruin to that great city of testimony, even Jerusalem. A name is not a life, and what had rejected its King, deity in human form, did not have much life remaining till centuries of horror, should attest the meaning of cutting yourself off, from your God of faithfulness, and finding life on the road without Him who made both it and you. It came. A generation passed, and then so did it.

It would go until eventually restored, yet once more
(with Ezra and Nehemiah it has been restored once already,
and this adorned by King Herod).

That great day was involved in the prediction of Jesus (Luke 21:24),

that at the time of the end of the Age, or near it,
Jerusalem would no more be trodden under foot by its enemies.
This was to happen, and of course, has happened,
notoriously, famously, in stages, 1848, 1967,
and with just that international resistance
which was predicted in Zechariah 12, for this period,
pending the conversion of many in Israel (12:10),
Then, said Zechariah, about 500 years before the crucifixion itself,
in spirit they would see the One whom they had crucified,
and stark in repentance, would find
and the opening of a fountain for sin in Jerusalem.
That last is yet to come, like the last station on a train line.

All attendant details, national, international, moral and spiritual,
historic and atmospheric, these are fulfilled, being fulfilled
on the very verge of culmination.
Israel has been sacked, subdued, invaded, controlled, and now
Jerusalem is restored to it.
The people have come back
as foretold in Ezekiel 36-39,
soon for the appointment with their Messiah
leading on to His rule over a tempestuous and
often untruthful earth, now delivered before dismissal,
as in Jeremiah 23:5-6, Psalm 72.
Nothing stands in the way, all things
like a chorus in Handel's Messiah,
echo for each other, implements of the sublime majesty
both of what God has said, and of what He has done.

9) As to the ensuring result, Rome fell.

Israel did not suffer so that Rome might take comfort in her sufferings,
though she was just as involved; for without Pilate's sanction,
the worst of priestly hypocrisies would have been in heart, but not in history.

Indeed from the day of Daniel (Chs. 2, 7, 9 for example),
there were well-known two basic facts.
First, there was a stated sequence of imperial powers,
traced and named through Babylon, Persia-Media, Greece
till the fourth one came, and all of them^*2
would fail, the last one of all being the kingdom of God,
and of this the Son of Man would be Ruler.
It would be distinguishable in this, that it would not be destroyed.
Source supernatural, scene secure, position, purged,
destiny eternity: that was for this kingdom (cf. Isaiah 9:6-7).

Rome therefore also, the fourth, this went in its blatant form,
being humiliated as Jerusalem had been,
taken over by the uncultivated, ruled by the
uninitiated. It went down in 410 A.D. though its Western Empire,
in Constantinople, continued to around 1453 A.D..
The "Holy Roman Empire" also came and went,
its deeds as in persecuting Luther,
neither holy nor godly, a container unit for the former imperialism.
Rome now remains religiously significant,
but an enclave, in the former rumbustious
religious sense, a Vatican, a bit given over, a realty trifle for its operation,
though the city is in some ways still a container unit for it.
Even this, the EU has failed to endorse in its statement
of identity, its coming Constitution, despite pleas for it.
Yet it is this kingdom from of old, as Daniel specified, which has continued
in various formats,
in its religious impact till it be destroyed^*3 (as in Revelation 18-19),
in one hour (Revelation 18:17-20), its tortures acknowledged, its errors finalised,
in time for the vast operation of the antichrist itself (Revelation 17:13-18, Daniel 9:27).
Like the rest, this fourth empire
is cited to go, the kingdom of heaven alone continuing without cease (Daniel 7).

In things great and small the word of God has continued
to operate, and all things have fulfilled it, or move to do it.
The power of the resurrection^*4 is that of God, who uses it
to fulfil all that from the first His wisdom has supplied,
be it Gospel, creation of the human body, or its resurrection.
Not to know this, declining its warrant,
in the end conveys death (John 3:19,36, Jeremiah 9:6),
while its realisation through faith,
is the way of life (Romans 10:9).

Both structure and stricture, the organisation and the teaching, remain as at the first,
the one to be smitten for its enduring sins, the other to remain.
It is in this way that the message of glory to God
comes even now, to the spiritual outcast (Ephesians 2:1-12, 4:17-19),
who with this, become the repentant and the redeemed.

10) As to the one "family" over the generations, this continues,
flowing like a stream, now here, not there, festooning into a surging river.

This has been exposited from Psalm 22 and I Peter 2 before, in Chapter 1 above.
Here we find that just as the nations, peoples, philosophies come and go as divinely recorded in advance,
so the whole nexus of spiritual regeneration proceeds.
Not least is the enormous vogue for Christianity that has come,
sometimes far from reality, a sort of distorted and disconformed version,
as in some political groupings
that largely made use of it,
but at other times in revivals of vast extent.
The reality of Christ crucified, yea rather resurrected
who has become a torch, a vision, a way of life, an inspiration,
and through the work of the Holy Spirit,
a dynamic in the minds and hearts of multiplied thousands,
erupting as volcanoes on the earth, now here, now there, and churches,
sometimes genuine and suffering much, even prevailing in vast works
of humanity, and enormous proliferations for a time.

The prediction at the end of Psalm 22 has been fulfilled to the uttermost,
one Lord and Saviour the lasting source of many children, from generation to generation.
Now many are changing as the final test comes; but what marvels (as in Fox's Book of Martyrs)
have come and how many are the great historians who have shown this
(such as Philip Schaff in his 8 volume History of the Christian Church).
What wonders indeed will last till the end, even when, as in the New Zealand case noted,
testimony of truth is both avoided and then denied!
The lie has its own ways; but light always illuminates in the end,
and when it IS the finale, then no lie will remain, but truth only,
and that for man, courtesy of mercy, and the kindness of God to man,
as shown in Ch. 1 above and declared for example,
in Titus 2-3.

Some say that God is everywhere. In fact, His power nothing can banish,
but the schemes of the devil are not a scene for His holy presence,
nor the counsel of the nations, though He knows all of it,
and has even foreknown it, hence predicting its paths.
His knowledge is of everything, and it is He is Himself alone, who is over all the creation.
He acts like it, speaks like it, fulfils like it,
and can neither fail nor lie.

A glorious incapacity is that! Were He to lie, it would be like two almighty elements cancelling each other,
His irresistible power confronting irresistible dynamic to the contrary. Hence He cannot lie, for it is for Him,
what is on the one hand, and what is said on the other, would be impossible to combine, each with all power.
Irresistible He is in truth, there being no denial of Himself.
TO deny Himself would be untrue, and put the verbal against the verifiable,
in a mess, fit for man, but mere extermination for any such Being as He,
by such imaginary thoughts merely discarded. As He is eternal, this is impossible,
not FOR Him, but WITH Him. He desires not what is mere self-denial.

GOD cannot and does not lie (cf. Barbs... 6 -7), being the truth.
His word and His deed move together, closer than husband and wife,
each confirming the other, and both instructing mankind, when he will listen.

In truth the ten-strands noted attest, as nothing else does or can,
the happenings of our present concern, the resurrection of the body of Christ,
not an atom, but part of a vastly composed molecular transmission,
answering all, true to all, without answer or rejoinder.

In this, all are for one, and one is for all.

The only question is this: to believe in Him, or not. The evidence is withering; the truth is irresistible:

but human will can be so contaminated, that the pure tastes foul, and the foul acceptable.

It is hence God only who can save, and the first step is repentance (Luke 13:1-3),
and the next faith in Him,
not less than a dog in his master,
but incomparably more, a dedicated devotion in faith to fact,
to the greatest fact of all, the living God, who when known both transforms and keeps,
and may be found only in the way appointed.

Laws are what they are in physics and chemistry; they act accordingly.
How much more the Lord! He is the first and the final I AM WHO I AM! (Exodus 3:14, John 8:58).
It is necessary therefore to know Him, and for that, to find Him where He is, as in
Isaiah 55:6-8:

"Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way;
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon."

NOTES

The fiasco of the reported testimony concerning the guards is solemn farce (Matthew 28:11-15).

Money could buy their mouths but not secure the seduction of truth.

This may be the first testimony received from those confessedly asleep.
How COULD the guards know there was a stealing of the body,
even if they had been mad enough to allow it being awake,
when they were confessedly asleep. This rough confusion bespeaks the folly of haste,
of being outwitted by pure power, and so seeking the impossible
as the easiest way out. It fits with the entire testimony
of injustice, murder and attempted cover-up.

The rational explanation of the whole guard episode
is that at the time of the resurrection,
"the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men" (Matthew 4),
when the Lord sent by supernatural power and agency, to roll back the stone.

Not asleep but dazed as if dead, they saw what they dared not describe.
Men do not do what angels do, nor make quite such an impact,
nor are guards frozen as if dead, when the expected arrives.
Nor do hostile authorities pay those derelict to death, for their services.

See SMR pp. 886ff..

See SMR pp. 946ff..

On the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, see the following for example:

NOGBG 9
GREGRACE 7; BAB Appendix 3,
BB Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2, BIBLE TRANSLATIONS 33
AAA 11, HEART 3, REFRESHINGS   5
The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1,
IMMFAITH 11, SMR Ch. 6 and Index,
KH 9, Section 14, JJ 25, ASP 15, 16,
STEP 5, TOAN 2, Excursion 2A; LIGHT 3,
BCDSFACEDIVINE 2; DDHCBIT 2; REF 5, 6,
AWME   8 (on resurrection and Lazarus, yes and both with Jerusalem);
contrasting Greek bodily terms - GBG 2 ;
and New Zealand DDHCBIT   6, FM 4;
BBBCH   1
In the above codes:

NOGBG refers to Not Only is God Great, but Glorious
Gregrace refers to Great Execrations ... Greater Faith
BB refers to Biblical Blessings.
AAA to Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ
REFRESHINGS to Spiritual Refreshings...
IMMFAITH to Dastardly Dynamics ... and Immovable Faith
KH to The Kingdom of Heaven
JJ to Joyful Jottings
ASP to A Spiritual Potpourri
STEP to Stepping out for Christ
TOAN to Things Old and New
LIGHT to Light of Dawn
BCDSFACE DIVINE to Beyond the Crypt ... the Face of God
DDHCBIT to Dizzy Dashes ... and the Brilliant Harmony of Inevitable Truth
AWME to Ancient Words and Modern Events
GBG to Let God be God!
FM to The Frantic Millenium ...
BBBCH to Bewilderment ... or the Beauty of Christ's Holiness.