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CHAPTER 7

  PELLUCID THRUST OF THE RESURRECTION

30 Considerations that Attest what is Best

Introduction

REVIEW OF THE PERSONAL THRUST, SIMPLICITY AND CLARITY

For every grand work, design, assignment, arousal of spectacular results, there is a basis, a cause, a reason, a power correlative, both in anterior system or spirit beyond system but able to create system by understanding and control. Remove all form, format, order, law and there is nothing left. Nothing is unproductive. God is not.

What was His approach. Fortunately for us, He has told us in the only authorised divine deposit in writing of His word to man, the Bible (SMR et al. and see Index at Apologetics and Bible).

God created man, mind, matter and spirit. In each domain, it was conspicuously clear, perspicuously evident. Nothing was drawn from anything, but all from God (Hebrews 11:1ff.). Nothing produced what it is good at, nothing. God produced what He has power to do, something; and that something took the power He had, and mirrored it.

Man was its summit, at the level of mind-matter-spirit, involving frank and direct power to commune, have fellowship with God. This was an awesome experience, since God is infinite in power, alien to all limitation, the only source  of  all and of limitations; and being who and what He is, He instituted what He had thought, designing its components, integrating its elements so that man became a living exponent of Himself, with components to enable this in a humble but utterly brilliant format, as lowly as the material elements, dust (though their construction is immensely deep and legalised, formatted and functionalised in myriad manners), as high as the spirit that can compose, cognise and construct, imagine and love, choose and lose, equipped with a limited but crucial freedom, which once compromised, can become like a brake permanently on, or the smell of rubber, permanently present as one drives a car.

God loved man, having nothing to gain from Him, being without that breach that incapacity brings to desire, for nothing limits Him, since it is not there to do it, and all depends on and derives from Him, the Producer who is not nothing, but what He shows Himself to be, in word and work, over time, and the reason He has given, exhibits Him to be, and His word which is proven (see refs. above), reveals Him to be.

Hence, when the splendour of liberty turned to the squalor of self-assertion, duplicity and cunning, as if one would outwit God or He has devious motives as Satan suggested, there was a crash not of a simple cell, but of mankind in its enormous potentials and powers, which though highly limited physically, were by virtue of association with God, of a most extraordinary kind. Extraordinary comes, extraordinary goes: the result, like that of a space-craft into which billions are poured, is co-ordinate with the splendour made. It is corrupt, corrosive, explosive, awry, unreliable, and in man's case, its corruption makes of deceit a task force, one never inactive, though always impotent.

In the interim before judgment, it becomes spiritually soporific, and artfully militant, a fatal combination, and the world was programmed, by adroit and wise use of the evils with divine oversight, though despising them, for they ARE odious, to rebuke themselves and expose their nature. In that way, in eternity, there will be a whole demonstration lesson from history remorselessly exhibitive of reality, leaving in a very due darkness, what exalts itself and its own thoughts as if it were God, blustering against truth, but never able to gain it, divorced from it in system, for where no Almighty is, and relativism rests, there IS no truth. This once stated and realised ends the problem mentally, for this is then being asserted as if it were the truth, an ultimate self-contradiction.

Contradicting God, man ends contradicting himself also, a miserable misfit.

However God loves and lives and acted. He selected a race, a man, provided a message, focussed an anointed one, the Messiah, composed the plan for man to behold in advance, told the details including date for the sacrificial, vicarious death which would atone for man's sins, sent prophets to elaborate, fulfilled it all in the face of learned and vitriolic and indeed murderous enemies, showed in this way direct to man the state of his heart, moved through the one race not only to the coming of this Messiah, but to His resurrection, showing pity and power, and exposed the Gospel of grace to all for a couple of thousand years, just as He had prepared for a couple of thousand years after choosing the man for the race, message and mission, in Abraham.

In the middle, when the race from Abraham, in the format of the nation of Israel,  was involved in the murder of  the Messiah, and before the rest, called the Gentiles, which just means the other nations (or 'nations'), there was occasion, as at the creation, for the resurrection. Just as man is a tri-partite marvel of mind, matter and spirit, and so vulnerable physically and mentally and arrestable spiritually till he becomes a spiritual dud, well made but messed to the point of substantial spiritual dysfunction and indeed malfunction (Ephesians 2 and 4, Romans 1 and 5), though equipped with immense potential, so the resurrection of a wrecked,  spoiled, ruined body with mind intact was a work belonging to the infinite God. HE makes the equipment marred by man, the burden of the message of John 3:16-19, and He provides the restoration procedure and power, through His own love and deeds. It is NOT, repeat not His love which lacks, His planning procedures, for God SO loved the world, intending not judgment but salvation, that He so acted in Christ, whereas THIS is the condemnation, that MAN at the crucial level prefers darkness to the light which He is. There is neither excuse nor ground for hopelessness; only for repentance, faith and regeneration in what is now given.

What then ? The sheer intricacy on which we have been dwelling in the first Chapter of this volume, and the painful horrors of the protracted death left a work of a spiritual grandeur matching that of creation, to be done. Otherwise, the love and the death would only be an emotional matter, or a spiritual bloom, but not a matter of the majesty of the ACTUAL GOD who made us. Thus as in Romans 1:4, Christ in bodily resurrection (the rest is a fraud and an unbiblical masquerading of counter-Christianity by enemies of the faith, who have infiltrated - see Index Resurrection)  was in the entire setting, a demonstration that He was as He is, precisely and potently, the Son of God, incarnate, crucified and resurrected, the core of the Gospel, the place of rest for needy souls.

This was applied by the Holy Spirit, just as it was done by the Word of God incarnate, and thrust in application, into being by the Father of spirits, the God of eternity, the Spirit (John 16) which does not speak of Himself, just as Christ did not give His own doctrine but what the Father gave to Him in His role as Messiah (John 12:48-50). At Pentecost, a miracle of another sort occurred, for the apostles were filled with a spiritual power inspiring loss of fear (it is hard being in the background of a murdered leader who has shown the power of God but is now restored to heaven), a spiritual gift which enabled automatic translation of their speech into the foreign languages spoken by a huge international gathering (as if a pre-UN work of translation, without interpreters, God His own interpreter). With this, by the power of the Holy Spirit, there came a spiritual thrust, as at the creation, so that now they could give and gave orientation to all in the light of the sustained and miraculous ministry and meekness of the fearless and forthright Christ. Persistently, consistently they pointed to Him whom not even death could tame, and not even murder could ultimately massacre. Everything went according to plan, and the revealed plans were multitudinous and testable at every point, including this resurrection on the third day as so often pre-announced (cf. SMR Ch. 6, Matthew 17:22-23).

The love of God, therefore, had been vast to the point of personal participation in the parallel to an earthquake clearance with gore and horror, at the Cross. He did all that love could do, in spiritual integrity,  without its becoming seduction of spirit. He presented all that could be shown, without propaganda. He moved all that might be moved, without subterfuge. In truth, He presented love, in power He presented testimony, not only in one, but in all His entire years of works and words, fulfilment and function at a level never before or since to be seen or shown, despite efforts both malign and effusive. He made it clear that His love was for all, on a uniform basis of outreach (Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 2, Ezekiel 33:11), could not be trifled with (John 3:16,36), was alert in truth (I Corinthians 13), and indeed it loved the truth. Truth would not move, but man might, so that the love of God through salvation could be and through faith was alive to man, to redeem as many as came. As to these, they were foreknown before time for creation began, in its chronological constraints, in terms of that same love that would have ALL things, yes ALL whether in heaven or on earth, reconciled to Himself as in Colossians 1.

Thus is the mantle from the Lord, to cover the earth, despite the dilemmas of many who prefer to be naked: and it is better to be naked to radioactivity than to the Lord without His peace through His Gospel (Hebrews 25:25-29).

Some try to pinch the love of God, as if the RESULTS of its rejection, foreseen and foreknown, crimp its reality; but this is a profound presumption and distortion. In John 3, it is GOD who so loves, it is the WORLD which is the thing loved, it is whoever believes, who is the outcome, it is NOT judgment of the world which is the intention, but that the world might be saved. It is NOT GOD who is the source of exclusion, since the world and its salvation is the perimeter of bounty, indeed all things, to cite the word of God, whether in heaven or on earth. It is MAN who is the cited source of the final detachment, and he is cited for that (John 3:19). Anyone who INSISTS on not believing the word of God has no other option.

Nor is it man who 'decides' as if he were the ultimate functionary (John 1:12). God is above that. It is no matter of some psychic twitch or imaginative moment. It is not of the will or flesh or blood of man, but of God that the entire salvation proceeds, the God who WOULD HAVE ALL to be reconciled to Himself, having tied up what that meant in foreknowledge and hence that predestination which ensured that it went according to truth. Hence it is not possible that any of His be lost (John 13), or that any fraud be accounted as saved. If YOU want Him, He is there, available on immutable, beautiful and simple terms of repentance, reconciliation, redemption, surrender, faith in Him according to His word, in a gospel of free grace where you are no co-saviour but find Him without works, and are saved by His works, those noted (Romans 3:23ff.). Hence once you are found, if it is HE who finds, you cannot be lost (Romans 8:29ff., Ephesians 1:5-11). Fiascos faint; truth lives, and mercy is fulfilled.

So we turn to the resurrection and consider it, this time, not so much in the logical necessities as before at times, but in the sheer empirical flow as an emphasis. It is all  pellucid, vital and filled with wisdom, simple enough for a child, deep beyond contemplation in its wonders, and clear in its nature, filling with awe, apt to instruct, lovely in its features.

Since much has  already been done, as seen in the Index on  resurrection, to show the meaning and depth of these things, this will be presented as a reminder list, the point  simply the ordering and aggregation of features.

REVIEW OF THE PERSONAL THRUST in the RESURRECTION

1. There is the thrust. Often announced, the resurrection was fulfilled in every detail, to the third day as noted, like a feature focus in which one not only does the impossible, but does it on time, at the time pre-announced in the papers. He comes, shows the power over death in various resurrections and enormous multitudes of healing, and then in achieving the purpose of love at the ultimate and uttermost, experiences death to overthrow it, meet its point in the points inserted into His body, to enable slow and agonising death, which mirroring sin and being its due, settles accounts and shows its nature at the same time. He arises and meets quietly with His disciples upon bodily resurrection stays 40 days to teach, and leaves as pre-announced, for He would go where they could not come (John 8:21).

2. There was the question. WHERE is He ? It IS the Third Day (Luke 24). The disciples were mystified.  This was prelude. Then quietly to their astonished eyes, He exposed who He was, incognito to unbelief, as sadness sniffled its shame, but ready to reveal where life arose and hope was confirmed and fact conformed, as with those on the Emmaus road. The 'impossible'  dazzled but the reality confirmed.

3. So came the power. To the disciples He proceeded, for their meeting, to confirm what the Emmaus disciples had found, then to Thomas, pragmatic empiricist, He came, the others present, to invite some digital experimentation with His body, to assure the staggered eyes. To Peter He early went on the first day, to rescue the withered soul who had denied Him, but who was His and whose work would show it; to Mary, woeful in the apparent absence of the One who in the power of God had remade her life, He came and she could scarcely cease clinging to Him (John 20:17). "A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me to have!"  He reminded the astonished disciples when He met them (Luke 24:39). Fish He ate, as seen in the same Chapter, and work He did, till that done, He told them to await the next phase in the spiritual scenario, the arrival of the power of the Holy Spirit for testimonial and convincing purposes, to apply what He had done over mankind (Luke 24:49). For that, as for the 3 days, they had to wait. All was in sequence and order, as in a chemical experiment; but this, it was a demonstration of life. So the apostles could move with the same power, since He had dowered it in a form appropriate to them as He announced (Acts 9, 16).

4. So likewise came the perception. Mary, John (where it was immediate - John 20:8), Peter, 500 disciples at once (I Corinthians 15), which raced at Pentecost, after due confirmation for a good time, to the point of thousands being rescued from dead religious deceit, in a hijacked religion (cf. Matthew 23), and many priests (Acts 6).

5. Not missing was the confrontation. It was with the High Priest (Mark 14:60ff.) leading to the manipulated people where the gory told the story, but still the priests urged them to kill (John 19), and madness  seizing them (Matthew 27:25), they consigned themselves to their contempt and folly. It was with the Sanhedrin when Peter and John put them firmly in place, despite the whipping ceremonials, telling them to ponder, should they obey them or God! (Acts 4:19, 5:29).

6. Plentiful was the information. This was both before and after the resurrection (Matthew 17:22-23), for He often outlined His intention to die, as a sacrifice (cf. Matthew 20:28), having been heralded as "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"  (John 1:29) by John the Baptist, recognised by Simeon as the one who would be the light to the Gentiles (Luke 24:25ff.) and to His people, Israel, as by the centurion at the cross (Matthew 27:54), as by one of the criminals next to him on crosses of their own (Luke 23:39-43), by Peter (Matthew 16) - though de-recognised by the stone who was no rock! (different words - cf. SMR pp. 99ff.), for a time! (Matthew 26:69ff.), as Christ foretold (Matthew 26:31ff.).

With THAT information before the denial, however, came the most encouraging further information that he would be changed and then be used to strengthen his brethren (Luke 22:31-32), though ALL are BRETHREN with none pre-eminent at all (Matthew 23:8-10). Peter thus was used to show the depths of temporary failure from which Christ can rescue, His perfect knowledge of the various vicissitude, surprised at nothing, and staunchness after trip-up, even if on occasion he was rebuked (as by Paul as seen in Galatians 2:11-14). Information was disseminated at the preaching Pentecost (Acts 2) and by the recall of His words (John 14:26) and the enlightenment of meaning (I Corinthians 2:9ff.), which was focussed on the written word of God, the Bible as then written, and to be written, and on the living word of God, as smitten, raised and to return (Acts 1, Matthew 24). The focus did not lift, for it was not mist but must, command, Christ, Gospel and truth; and so the end of the testimony in its base and scope appeared (Revelation 22:18-19).

God did not leave them without information! Indeed, the Bible is filled with sequences and exposures of things to come, very much of which has come within the scope of this author's own life-time (cf. SMR Chs.  8 -   9).

7. Grand was the mastery. There was no dither, though there was anguish which was faced to the uttermost at Gethsemane (Luke 24). Teaching as in John 6, accompanied question with a majestic style and assured power (John 6:6), a composure (John 6:10ff.), as likewise seen in the episode of the potential drowning (Matthew 8:23), where fear was literally impertinent! and that of Peter on the water (Matthew 14:30). It was shown when the priests' soldiery came to take Him, even to the point that they were thrown back to the ground during the arrest, by no visible power, and He rebuked Peter for using his sword to defend Him, who Person needs no defence! (Matthew 26:52ff.). This gives the lie to lesser and even deceived beings who have used physical power as if it has anything to do with faith, that is, as an oppressive instrument to secure support, as in the Inquisition and the movement of Muhammad to Mecca, with soldiers instituting religion, once for all setting amiss the nature of force in that faith.

8. With mastery, and expressive outcomes of the most piercing, soothing, appealing, revelatory, there was also the quietness. Thus, in the episode of revealing His resurrected body to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, there was an exquisite restraint, possibly aided by the time of day, the heaviness of heart of the disciples, the dumpy gloom of growing disappointment, the strangeness of the one who accosted them, the distemper of feeing dumped. Christ did not acknowledge what He knew as the central agent in the things that had just been happening in Jerusalem, but asked so that they might have to formulate for themselves and assess what had happened. Don't you know the things that have been happening ? What things ? came the reply.

Then He expounded the scriptures concerning the necessary suffering before glory, for the Messiah, the Christ as Greek has it, and showed them the prophetic facts. Was it not mandatory that the suffering occur, so why this amazement or gravitas as though it were some strange thing! Thus raising their minds to the threshold of understanding, at the breaking of bread as had been taken together at the darkening hour, for before that their eyes were clouded by His own will, He let them suddenly into the reality of the case as the well acquainted way of that time recalled them to the times antecedent to the crucifixion, and whose hands these were ."Their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know them," Luke 24:16, was the preliminary as God used His own way to breach doubt and to teach, but then they were opened, as from inner realisation and outer perception both conjoining (Luke 24:31).

You see something similar in Genesis 3:7, when a realisation came to the first parents of man, in II Kings 6:20, when the eyes of the young man with Elisha were opened to the real source of power, and it is found in one's own experience when one can hardly believe how insensitive to the obvious about someone one can be, and then how overwhelmingly clear it becomes. Thus their state, stage, thoughts, fears, apprehensions may have acted almost like a drug, as do some approaching melancholia; but what was decisive was what was stated, that their eyes were restrained, inhibited, not enabled at first, till they were ready. So does the Lord sometimes act, as we almost feverishly search for this or that, and CANNOT find it, some name, memory, that one ought to know, some element of research; and then, it is apparent. However could one possibly have failed to see it sooner!

Thus Christ quietly prepared their minds, as a teaching mode, reasoned with them as an illuminative, ruminative thrust, concerning the biblical coverage, incisively showing what they had perhaps partially known, awaited their interest when they called to Him to stay with them, and then, the fellowship being established, allowed their eyes to see, the mist of confusion removed, and the clarity of everyday life restored, perhaps with more intimate lighting both within them and outside, so that they then knew. At once He was gone. There was the very opposite or prolonged hanging, and the very perfection of peace. "In returning and rest you will be saved: in quietness and assurance shall be your strength," Isaiah 30:15. It is as in Isaiah 26:3ff.: "You will keep him in peace, peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever  ..."

This focusses two sides in the matter. You have to be really persuaded in your own mind, on the one hand, and carefully instructed on the other, whether directly by God IN TERMS OF HIS WRITTEN WORD, THE BIBLE, and by His Spirit, or with specialised teaching, for which you rely on the Lord, whatever means He sees fit to use (I John 2:27). At the Emmaus occasion, the Lord enables their eyes no more to be restrained on the one hand, and opens the Bible for them, on the other! There is no such Teacher1

9. Then we come to the scope of the Lord's resurrection thrust in its setting. I Corinthians 15 tells us something of the order of revelation of the resurrected Christ. Peter for example was an individual matter, as well it might be! in view of his calamitous fall, one which however the goodness of the Lord contained. The apostles then saw Him, and later 500 brethren in perhaps 'the great congregation' in which He could as in Psalm 22, offer praise. James also saw Him, most likely his brother who was to take a leading role in the Church (as in the Acts 15 case, where he seems to have had a chairman type of position). THAT would have been a meeting indeed! (in view of John 7:3ff.), and James was very clear about Christ (James 2:1), and about making your yea yea, and nay nay as did the Lord and must we all! (Matthew 5:37). As God is just and clear, while tender-hearted, so also He does not accept lassitude or laxity, enemies of faith and stand-ins for spiritual Autumn.

10.

With all this, goes the precision of His dealing. Thus it is repeated that it must be THREE days that He is in the tomb, as noted above, that He must suffer, that He must be rejected and scorned, that He will raise up the smitten body (John 2:19) and that it will be raised up (as was the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus, a trailer for what was to come), as seen in Matthew 16:21, 17:23, Mark 9:12-13, Luke 9:44. Indeed, it is clearly a theme of His words as in Matthew 16:21:

"From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem,
and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes,
and be killed, and be raised the third day."

Challenged by Peter (no pseudo-pope, but an earnest follower), Christ spoke of none less than Satan as back of the effort! It was central, crucial and it included the resurrection, the raising up as with Lazarus of what humanly was past all redemption. The REDEEMER however DID the redeeming, and His body was not subject to the sentence on sin at all, so that death could not hold this Fashioner of Life, and this sinless Saviour! (Acts 2:23-24).

It had to be, this death-cum-resurrection of His body, at Jerusalem, with priests and temple leaders the enemy of His life, with scorning and derision, followed by raising of the body not ANY TIME at all, not WITHIN THREE DAYS, but ON the third day! It had to be in Jerusalem, and the subsequent time together had to feature Galilee, an appointed rendez-vous (Matthew 26:32). They were even reminded of this by the angel at the tomb (Matthew 28:7).

Just as the Lord did not let any of the words of the prophet Samuel fall to the ground (I Samuel 3:19), so the words of Christ were then as now, directive of history, and precise. When one knows, and more especially if the ONE made all things, then knowledge is no problem! Full of grace and truth, He so operated. In Matthew 27:46, we see Him even using the precise, predicted words for the slain Messiah from Psalm 22:1. Thus when He foretold Peter's fall, He equally foretold his restoration, firstly, later use to strengthen, secondly, and violent death before old age (John 21), thirdly. Reality was a friend, for He was and is Lord of it. He could even select a fish as source for Temple Tax (so keeping the law, as a citizen, but not using mere available market money for it, but taking it from a part of His creation, the fish), without question of what might happen (Matthew 17:27).

The fish selected was specified: the first one to come up when Peter went and sought it. No wonder they trusted Him, for precision was His purview, in His interview, nothing askew, and power accompanied but this deliciously, not for His comfort or convenience (as shown so crucially in the temptation of Matthew 4), but for His mission and authority. Hence His servants should seek in this name for what is needed for the work and the will and the wisdom and the grace of God as they work for Him (John 15:7, Mark 11:22ff.). As this showed PRECISION, it also showed POWER, in its PURITY.

11. Some of the apostles had been fishermen, so fish figure. When Christ, not long from the tomb, met with them together, telling them to distinguish between flesh and bones as they saw Him to have, and spirit, which has neither, so to realise and identify resurrection, not ghost story, reality, not dreams, giving place to fact and not to fear, heeding the One who came from the dead without visible interference, as in the case of  Lazarus, where he was CALLED to come out, by Christ, there was a simple additive. He ate some fish with them. It was like having a soldier back from the war, one reported dead, and as you overcome the crisis of wonder, sitting down to have cup of tea and being in this way recalled suddenly to fact!

Eating together takes some beating as a mundane, household type of restoration to continuity; and so do old friends sometimes renew their mutual acquaintance. This after all  was the beginning of an epoch the like of which the world has never seen, nor would see, for by one man, sent from heaven, His eternal home, death, that salivation of sin, that sentence on it, that breach of human continuity, that ultimate horror outside hell itself, was itself sentenced to death, for those who receive the ransom in Christ, by faith in Christ, through the entire and unaided grace of God, and so share the triumph of Christ.

12. If eating provides a shared, domestic intimacy, then clinging is even nearer in physical contact. When therefore Christ told Mary Magdalene, the first to find Him resurrected, since in the intensity and immensity, the appalling horror of her grief, who had been rescued from the very threshold, the sonorous and clangorous threshold of hell, the Prince of compassion, dead, could become as a recurrent nightmare. He did not  leave her long. She was the first to be found, too dim in her wallowing to distinguish that He was THERE, He whom she sought, and she was evens speaking to Him. When, at one word from Him (I find on the telephone, perhaps 2  words can enable me to distinguish a caller, at times, and one word might well do in some cases), she knew beyond doubt that the mist of tears hid the feast of the eyes and had made her fail to realise a triumph that added substantially and categorically to the wonder she had previously held, as if her king should not only deliver the country but insure it against further insurrection, she clung to Him. He had to tell her to cease (present tense, middle voice, in the imperative) - to desist from the physical clinging, for He was not yet risen to the glory of His post-resurrection condition.

The grammar here matters.  Thayer in his justly famous and classic Greek dictionary of the New Testament tells us that the middle voice properly gives the notion of clinging or being attached to something. In the case here in John 20:17, being a present tense, middle voice has the sense, he notes, "Do not handle me to see whether I am still clothed with a body. There is no need of such an examination." There WAS a need to stop the clinging, the being attached, to stop the action which in the present was occurring. It was not a mere command, but one to cease from what was occurring.

One can imagine the scene. She is glorying in His substantiality, not wanting once more to have any evacuation, rejoicing in the reality, but it is not necessary. It is obvious enough, and not fit for a medical overview! Accordingly in Matthew 28:9, we read of the women who later in a group met Him, in the midst of the goings and comings associated with this field day for faith,  "so they came and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him."

There was reason more than enough for this: it was no MERE resurrection (vast and significant as that is when it is in an identifiable and verifiable setting). It was that of One who had STATED that it would occur, the number of days after death that it would wait (no mere fainting mode, as already demonstrated with Lazarus), and which had been prophesied long before (cf. SMR Ch. 6). It had been denoted as to its power and significance (John 2, Matthew 20:28, John 1:29, Luke 2:29ff., Isaiah 49-55), its theological point proclaimed centuries before, its major thrust a millenium in advance of the deed. It was the ultimate answer to hatred, to guilt, to the robbery of peace, to the vulnerability of man,  from the glory of God. It was intimate, not lordly, it was magnificent, not measly, glorious and holy, not a mere laboratory exercise; but it was for all that, susceptible to such a mode if need be (as in John 20:24ff.), when the pragmatic, empirical bent of Thomas for all time shared that perception!

13. The  consequences of these things were illimitable. Death was put to death without sedation, if not for the whole human race, in a scope which matched its every need, leaving only obfuscation, renegacy, spiritual dissidence from data, delusion and that devastating sink of professional unbelief, which distinguishes man from animals, as surely as does his ramifying research based on abstractive mathematics, and disciplined by empirical findings. It meant that the fear of death was no longer rational for those who received Him, and worse than rational for those who refused Him, for then it hit the ultimate of horror, wilful separation from God, made to endure by living a lie, pestering a reality, like a Senate filibuster that could not stop since it held no line of communication, but from itself, internally, before the event, here the actuality. This is stressed in Hebrews 1-2, John 3:36, II Timothy 1, Titus 1, I Corinthians 15, Luke 1, and becomes part of the very texture of perspective and analysis, of Romans 1.

Death ceases to be so consequential, and we are brought back to the day of Elijah, when it was disturbed by his ascension, just as here it is dismissed by an enduring bodily resurrection, such as foretold so amply in Isaiah 26:19, Psalm 16, implied clearly in Psalm 22, set as a divine intent, in Hosea 13:14 and shown in its drama, in Psalm 2, where it is conjoined with the eventual episode, where the ransom being paid, the Almighty have become man, the stringency of death having been disrupted, the plans and lies of mankind being met, there is a rule which once for all breaks the bondage of social, national, personal power lust in man, and settles unsublimely in the dust, his efforts at another vicarious action, that of taking over the reins of divine government and seizing this earth.

Be very sure, that is the ultimate theft, and the dictators of today and of yesterday, have been like military messengers of the eventual lust of man, to be as God, which was also the devil's negative inspiration at the first. That came with his typically insidious and invidious insinuation that God was keen not to have His product (made in body from mere chemical  elements in the soil, as later chemical  analysis confirms), coming up to equality with Himself, so that one really ought to disregard His commands! At it from the first, the devil is almost literally dying to keep at it to the last. You see something of this in Revelation 12, and 19-20.

14. If the consequences were vast, the conviction was strong which attested not merely this FAITH, but this FACT in which the faithful found rest, since the fact related not only to assessable reality, but to a personal Being, who was both human and divine, both sympathetic and empathetic, both victorious and uninjurious, both seeking the lost. It was He who, suffering what they had to lose (II Peter 3:18, Galatians 3), for those who received Him, had become the go-between with sin on the one hand, like a pack of leaping wolves in a desolate forest, and death on the other, like stinking flesh from their past repast, to the left and to the right, as they now leapt anew. With a buffeting and a drubbing, a gory gauntlet venting hatred with ambition, confusion with reconfiguration of reality, lust with lovelessness, dastardly mutation of the human spirit from its site in spirituality to its unrequited spiritual ambition, Christ did all; with His bodily resurrection, He sealed it. With His call, that those who believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life as in John 3, He made it simple. It was substitution of the Redeemer for the Redeemed or prostitution of spirit for the irredeemable, lost in lust, the swamplands as in Ezekiel 47, to which the pure waters coming from the altar, did not reach.

Faith received. Here was conviction. Being convinced of truth, these had the way now free to escape conviction of guilt (as in Hebrews 6:19, 2:1-3, 9:12ff.).

Christ operated. Faith was not in faith itself, like a subjective fallacy, but in the OBJECT which being the subject of death's dismissal, and acting and speaking as God on this earth, made this final confirmation, not merely experimental in significance for the hard heads, but personal in nature, for the stricken hearts. THIS is the topic of Paul in I Corinthians 15. This is the divine task-force of ONE, who being Himself the eternal word of God, was utterly sufficient. Hence the Christian may indeed reflect, If God be for us, who shall be against us ? (Romans 8). If death is no chain, where is the prison!

15. These things being so, there was no private entente as if it were a select thing for the wise and remarkable (cf. I Corinthians 1): it was made the subject of a vastly invasive address to an international multitude, in which the miracle of having immediate translation by the Holy Spirit into languages other than that used by the apostles, was a remarkable technical attestation to reach yet more. It was a public call, and this, it was a sanctified communication.

16. It did not lack agents. There was COMMISSION!

The apostles had already been chosen, appointed, anointed, both in the last hours of the day of Christ on earth (John 14-17), and at Pentecost (Acts 2), empowered in many ways (as in John 14:26), so that the divine trinity could be discerned not only in the relationship of the Son as Messiah, to the Father (as in John 8:29), but in that of the Spirit of God to the Son (as in Acts 2 on the one hand, and John 14:14-18, 16:5-18). Just as the Son as Messiah did not speak of Himself (John 12:49, 14:10), so the Spirit does not speak of Himself (John 16:13). It is not like a threesome in golf, competitive or merely comradely. There is an immense, intense, unvariegated communality on the one hand, a oneness that is more than aggregation of any kind, but individual singularity on the other, so that the identity of divine nature, in the trinity, is not to be confused with unidentifiability of each One.

There is a holy diversity in operation of each Person,  and a total sameness in nature, a splendour beyond solidarity, but not less; and an individuality beyond individualism, and much more. Three in Persons, one in Being, with no being-ness beyond the persons, like a pool of finances from various investors, here is the ultimate in sharing, in individuality, since it does not stress the singularity, nor deny the separability in discernment, only in being. This concourse is of the eternally one, and it is the source of all, both group and individual, family and nation. Infinite in oneness, the members of the trinity have no call to demonstrate separability, though it shows as He moves and speaks, a concourse of the eternally one, for whom separation applies to  creation, not to internal life of Himself, jointness to action, not to be joined, for that which is eternal and foundational is what it is, subject to nothing and to none, as it is, the eternal object for worship, basis for creation and communion and concourse of Spirit.

The apostles on the other hand are SENT, not from heaven, but as on earth, are an assemblage, not from eternity but in time, have gifts, not without limit (as for Christ in John 1:14,16,18, 3:34), but with it (Romans 12:6), and are sent, not with eternal consent, which belonged to Christ (Psalm 40), but with timely delight (cf. John 20:21). How much less would they speak of their own authority, when Christ AS MESSIAH, in that lowly format, did not speak His own doctrine (John 12:48-50), and the Spirit does not speak on His own authority, as He applies the reality from God to man! AS the Father sent the Son, then, and He obeyed, so the apostles far more, were bound to obey, not in the rancour or headiness of power, but in the thankfulness of function, acting as sent, in the confines of the inspiration accorded and recognised, with the power needed for the application of the word of God and the performance of His work. HENCE cut off from mere unravelling quasi-revelation, the world since their day (Revelation 22:18-19), is forbidden to add to these THINGS, the doctrine, as to subtract from these WORDS, the way in which it is presented.

In fact, not only the expressive media, the verbal control, but he understanding was given for inspiration, so that both in substance and defined representation in words, the matters were settled in heaven and sent to earth. This is abomination to attention-seeking false prophets, who now as in the days of Jeremiah (23) presumed to run, but were not sent! It is this which the prophet indicated, would come to its maturity, its completion in the last days of which we are all now the inhabitants (cf. Luke 21:24,28, Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8).

As to differentiation, the commission to the apostles, who were the twelve, and who had the task of replacing just one when just one who was not just, was lost (Acts 1), had a separability, though the totality was unified. Thus to Peter came a threefold question, Did he love the Lord (John 21), the terms used signifying both friendship and worship, just as he had made a threefold (highly individual) denial of Christ, when forbidden the physical means of fighting the Lord's enemies, since that is left to what is NOT of faith by Christ's own declaration. Whatever uses those means of force in matters of faith has NOTHING to do with God (John 18:36, Matthew 26:52ff.), but much to do with rebellion against reason, reality and the Redeemer. THAT is not the way to the heart of man. It may help if he beholds the judgments of the Lord, but whatever tries to make this a servitude to force is as far from the Gospel, the reality of God, as one CAN be. That is the devil's way: MAKE them do it! With Christ, He made Himself do it for them, that they by the faith which is the due and proper mode of connection between man and God, the substantiation of the spiritual, the assurance of the invisible, the conviction with constraining force concerning the Creator-Redeemer, might receive what He had to offer.

It was the same pardon as always available to faith in the Covenant of mercy (Psalm 51 is dramatic in this, for David had fallen far), the same God who created now Redeemer (as in Job 19, so long before so clearly realised), and the commission now to spreading its news throughout the world till the Saviour returned to rule (as in Psalm 2, Isaiah 11, Acts 1) became a diversified commission, with a unitary base. JOHN was to stay on, in the earth, for vast was to be the contribution from one then so young; PETER by contrast was to suffer an earlier death, having become ready to transmit what was given, and HOW beautiful it has been in I Peter and II Peter, and strong was the testimony (as in Acts 9) with much power, as also much humility (Galatians 2). If no rock! (Psalm 62, Matthew 23:8-10, Isaiah 44:8), he was at least a stone, and one who in recognising his place was a monument to meekness (I Peter 5).

COMMISSION and POWER were present at Pentecost when Peter spoke concerning the bodily resurrection of Christ in a way which the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, to its eternal shame, disregarded, though the author had the privilege of being the only one to have his dissent, complaint and objection at this shocking disregard of reality formally noted, being of that a member (1966). It is ever a strong test of faith, basic to all theology, to Christ's message, despatched as necessary by unbelief, false prophecy in this reaching its culmination. What did PETER under commission say: it was this. Peter declared that David had spoken of the body not rotting, but it was not of his own he spoke, since his body was long ago buried (Acts 2). It was that of Christ, and it is HE whose body did not rot, and though He was slain by wicked hands, yet by the power of God that body DID NOT ROT, being raised. In then negation it is clear, in the affirmation it is overpoweringly simple and straightforward.

Thus one of the qualifications of apostle, as in Acts 1:22, was that of a witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Omit that and you have a different religion, and the SORT of resurrection as Peter proclaimed it internationally at Pentecost, it was simple, emphatic, dramatic, overwhelming in its grandeur: HIS body did not rot but rose!

It is well the apostles do not have new ones to vary the load, change the determinations and add imagination to the experimental test once made. Those who heed the false prophets of today, are joined to them, not as a trinity, but as a revolt.

17. With the commission to the apostles went the look at, that look from the eyes of Christ, toward Peter. It came amid his brazen denial of Christ. Such commission is not to barren authority, but to field service, and Peter in his oaths and reckless, much rued unruliness had gone about as far as words could do, in his extermination of any thought of his relating to the Galilean now in hock. It is always to be remembered that he was the first to take sword and offer resistance, but this removed, his remedial vocabulary changed, and in fright and disorientation he lived this treacherous, if short, episode noted in Mark 14:72, Matthew 26:69-75, Luke 22:24-62. Here was authority, in humility, not in teeming self-exultation as is the way with some who know not the Lord (Matthew 23:8-10). He simply did not cohere with this odium, but in sensitive humiliation was moved to bitter tears, through the discipline of a LOOK! As always, facts were not far behind: right then the prediction of Jesus Christ that he would betray Him before the rooster had his crowing, lent its own scorn to his plight!

It was not till the resurrection that Peter would meet that again, and personally first, then publicly as in John 21. 

Just as the sinner must LOOK to the Lord and be saved as in Isaiah 45:22-23, so must the saved soul look at the Lord and be ready for the LOOK, which speaks, the word which removes evil, exposes fault, shines like the sun on the ice, and melts the stubborn trends which so easily set in (Hebrews 12:1). In this case, the resurrection was anticipated, for what Peter SAW when the Lord looked at him in that case, was what he FOUND when the Lord SPOKE to him later as in John 21.  Moreover the Lord even vouchsafed to him a personal interview at the outset, not the first to any, but in the line of the first attestations, as noted by Paul in I Corinthians 15.

It was as a thing the Lord entered the tomb, in that His Spirit was already sent back to the Father (John 19:30, Luke 23:46); it was as a smitten and slowly strangulated body. It was as a restoration with body, that He moved out, and so could not be found, though the tomb had been carefully noted, as well it might be, by the women to whose lot fell the anointing after the Sabbath (as in Luke 23:55-56). The MOST precious thing in the world is not abandoned, nor the most reverential task ignored, as indeed it was not; for having carefully observed the place, they were as early as first dawn on the Sunday, the day following the Jewish Sabbath, with those self-same spices for anointing of the slain body in the place where they had conscientiously, indeed necessarily found to be the one of His burial.

Christ LOOKED on Peter, sinners must LOOK to the Lord and the women LOOKED where He was buried, and indeed further, as the stone was removed that barred the tomb and the Lord appeared to them, a little later (Matthew 28:9-10).
 

18.

Thus there had been an unimpeded coup by the priests, to cut out the Lord, their employer, in a way not unknown among men; there had been an unimpedable coup by the Lord, the Saviour, in a way unknown to men, in breaking the death sentence by demonstrating that the Maker of human life had it in His pocket to remake it, the Trinity inseparable, at work and this declared by the Holy Spirit (as in Romans 1:4), tested by Thomas, seen by those moving to Emmaus, observed by the apostles, having fellowship with many and teaching for 40 days, before leaving the GOSPEL as the calling card, and the judgment for its exclusion. Then there was the coup of Pentecost, where in public before a multitude (as if at the Kremlin, a martyr's malevolent mistreatment were exposed), the facts were openly broadcast, resulting in thousands becoming Christ's.

This coup of the Lord, it was a coup de grace in more ways than one. It was a coup of GRACE, over works, since God had done it, and needed no help in that performance, just as He allows none in the act of salvation (Romans 3:23ff., 10:1-15, 11:1-6, Ephesians 2). Grace before works; grace through faith before works, indeed as Paul declares in Ephesians, this whole ensemble is exclusive of works of man. It is inclusive of the works of God, based on that coup, on that wallop to woe and that victory of life over death, even when the latter is the result of sin, because sin borne is sin torn from its lair, so that life and immortality is brought to light (II Timothy 1), not by talk, though this preceded and followed, but by torque, a turning of death into life, of brokenness into restoration, of mortality into immortality, of disruption and waiting corruption, rotting, into resurrection. No coup since has anything to match; and many are those coups which wrought in flesh, oppress flesh, as in the French Revolution, the Russian one, the Iranian one and so many take-overs which like cancer, being flesh, soon become proud flesh, with nowhere to go but inane expansion and devilish domination.

Such is not THAT COUP, the finale of creation, the resurrection that proclaims the redemption, the work of God and therefore free (Isaiah 55, Romans 3), a matter of robing with righteousness (Isaiah 61:10, Romans 5: 12-18), of coming to terms with the gift of God. What is His is perfect, and what is perfection in righteousness being the gift of God to believers, they therefore stand in His standing, and having stood, continue to stand, since what is dependent on nothing but God, cannot be lost by man, who in that is irrelevant. Hence Ephesians 1:11 denotes that the believer HAS received an inheritance as does I Peter 1:5-8, John 11:25, 6:5-54, 10:9,27-28, Romans 8:29ff., justification being in the framework which nothing can smash, ending in glory. While many SPEAK of the Lord (as in Matthew 7:15ff.) AS IF  He were Redeemer, that is as far from enough as was Judas from salvation.

It is a matter of faith, not a mutter of fidelity. FAITH is the assurance of things hoped for, the attestation of things unseen, grasping its object; and even a dog can show it! It is mixed with devotion and fraught with a trust that is operative simply because it is there, and He to whom it is directed, is active as well as enactive in the COUP. There is cover as well as coup; and indeed the coup is indicative of the tenacity of Him whose name one comes to bear by faith.

19.

Judas was mentioned. Alas, he known to be a devil (John 6:70), long before; and since he played a part as in Psalm 69, 109 in the divine strategy, for God knows how to use manipulators and deceivers, just as He used Sennacherib, though that king did not know Him (Isaiah 37:22-27). Indeed to that monarch and his kingdom, He declared this before acting against it:
 

"Did you not hear long ago how I made it, from ancient times that I formed it ?

"Now I have brought it to pass, that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.

"Therefore their inhabitants had little power; they were dismayed and confounded ..
But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me.

"Because your rage against Me and your tumult have come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips,
and I will turn you back by the way which you came."

In terms of that nation, in its later manifestation, which involves current Iraq and Iran, He had more to say. This you see in Micah 5:5ff., after the depiction of the arrival of the Messiah,  as in Isaiah 10, which leads on to the Messiah's rule on this earth, Isaiah 11, and in Isaiah 30:27ff., which likewise leads on to Isaiah 32 and the rule of the Messiah.

Here is seen the end of a nation proud in its self-glorying, just as in the Psalms above noted, you see the depiction of the ultimate betrayal, not that of a nation, but of a man, of a companion of the Lord, a close associate, a friend who lapsed in the midst of his meditations, whom Satan entered. He was a lien on the crucifixion, leading the armed force to capture Jesus discreetly by night, kissing to redouble the double-cross, and using even  THAT as a means of identification for betrayal purposes (Mark 14:44). Here was the BETRAYAL like an evil dawn, for the day of death but a needful element in what therefore became the resurrection.

Treachery is the antithesis of truth, and how many have followed it (cf. II Peter 2:1ff., Jude). Betrayal whether of conscience or reason or heart, but certainly of the God of creation, of the redemption that is thrown away, of the greatest price ever paid for anything, that is in its court.

It is the END OF THE BETRAYER which is so striking, just as is the arising of the Stricken Saviour! His bowels (not of mercy - Philippians 2:1) were lost in his desolation (Acts 1:18) and the field of his purchase was indeed, The Field of Blood. Things that are not God have a beginning and an end, except God intervene; for the perishable perishes, this being its time and day, the ruined goes to its rot, but the redeemed, not in word and pretentious utterance, but in simple empirical fact, this goes to the Lord to share His eternity. When God redeems WITH God (which as trinity is open to His desire), then WHAT is so personally redeemed being His, it shares that eternity (Romans 8:36, John 10:27-28, II Timothy 1), being subject to death, to mortality, to corruption no more. Even if we are faithless, HE remains faithful; even if Peter falls he, being His, is raised up once more to complete and fulfil his commission; for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, and He KNOWS His own (Romans 11:29, II Timothy 2:19).

20.

Indeed, foreknown to God, not just like a stream of events pouring out from some machinery of history, but as moulded and controlled events, where liberty has its place and the mind of God knows how to use its results, and more, how to invest His will and word in hearts that are His, and turn the wicked to plan, since it elects to be wicked, to fit His deliberations, foreknown to Him are all events, so that to predict a particularity in the midst of history, millenia ahead can be done in any degree of detail. This being so, He has done it repeatedly, and monumentally in the Psalms, such as 2, 16, 22, 40, 69, Isaiah such as 7,9,40-42, 49, 52-53, and Zechariah 4, 6, 11, as in Micah 5, with eminent focus on the first and second comings of the Messiah, the Christ, where in Daniel, the death date is provided likewise (Daniel 9:24-27 cf. Christ the Citadel ... Ch. 2).

The COMING of Christ was foretold, its place, its purpose, its results, His power, His sacrifice of Himself, and His resurrection. It is the prediction of the resurrection which is so striking. It is one thing to bluster like Saddam Hussein; but it is quite another to predict the greatest war of all time, that against death, by the singular event of all time, the Incarnation, with the creation and the consummation, with the unquenchable result, the resurrection of the body itself by God for His own glory and man's deliverance (Psalm 16,22), centuries in advance. Indeed, foretold from the first in essence (Genesis 3:15), it is maintained to the last in performance. Such is the Lord and such is even the atmospheric prediction of the resurrection, its spitting, its scorn, its degradation, even its vaunting taunting by murderous employes or nationalists of His realm! (Matthew 27:31,39,42, with the prediction in Psalm 22:8). LET HIM  DELIVER HIM, SINCE HE DELIGHTED IN HIM! As prescribed, so was the atmosphere of the incarceration, crucifixion, efforts to cut off in scorn, the very power of God.

21.

Remarkable as is the prediction concerning Christ, His treatment, such also and no less is the prediction by Christ when He was in the flesh (Luke 24 cf. SMR Ch. 8), much of which is now history (not in the sense - a matter of failure, but in this, that what Christ declared would happen, in already substantially written up among men as having happened, like it or not. Thus history is shown in this sustained and precise outcome, as a resultant outcome, in some ways like a dog on a lead, for Jesus the Christ, commissioned Messiah from eternity. Much happens because He does  NOT intervene (as in Psalm 1:4-5, so that the ways of flesh and woe naturally accrue for those who do not receive Him in His mercy. Some things on the other hand, are ensured by His action, though often with grief, as in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, sadly announced because they cancelled out His offer, in Matthew 23:37,  Luke 19:42ff..

Good things also are foretold, such as His being with us to the end of the Age, who believe and on commission from and for Him, present the way of mercy to a world both suffering and in much almost insufferable because of stubborn enchantments, that it will not discard! Foretold likewise, was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the leading into all truth (cf. I Corinthians 13, John 16:13) has likewise been fulfilled, notably at Pentecost (which is quite different from what Pentecostalism characteristically emphasises, which is Corinthianism as in I Corinthians 12-13 cf. A Question of Gifts). With that birth-date of the Christian Church in its post-resurrection glory, came that inspiration and direction as in Acts 13-16, as in I Corinthians 2:9-13, which led on to the placarding of Christ to the whole world. The team chosen, these same apostles to whom He spoke (John 14-17), soon to include outrider Paul ("one born out of due time," as he says, but not the less for that - I Corinthians 15:8), was moved to open the way to the world, as the stone closing the tomb was likewise moved, so that the Lord's evacuation of that place might become obvious.

The Spirit of God moved in men, in hearts, in consciences, producing conviction, guidance from God in the name of the victor over death. This power of enablement, source of counsel, mode of continuity of His ministry (Acts 1:1ff.), not as speaking of Himself, this Spirit (John 16:13), but as applying the realities wrought, this very Spirit of Truth.

God Himself is the truth, the way and the life, which is true thus of Christ - John 14:6): and sending His only begotten Son, He has provided redemption for faith in Him, His identity and works, solely sufficient for salvation. The Spirit of God,  moving in after the work of redemption to apply it: He is the bloom of the beauty of holiness, enabling prayer (Romans 8:26), like water to the soul (John 7:37-38), applying the blood of Christ (cf. Hebrews 9:14, Zechariah 12:10, I Peter 1:2), enabling mighty works in His name (cf. John 14:12, Matthew 12:27, Acts 6:8-10, 8:29, 16:7, II Corinthians 3:17-18, Romans 15:16-19). In the last of these,  we learn that called to be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, "ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit." THAT offering up is from the prediction of Isaiah 66:20, where the Old Covenant limitations are supervened, and some from non-Jewish sources become those who work for the Lord in His kingdom.

Paul proceeds to sum up some of the work God has done through him:

 "Through might signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God,
so that from Jerusalem, and round about to IIlyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ."

 In the name of Jesus Christ, not in sensationalistic transgressions without reverence, adorning impiety, but in actualisation of gifts and power from God for believers, enormous works have been done,based on the power shown by God in the resurrection of His only begotten Son (Ephesians 1:19).

At this point, His outpouring on Israel is yet to come (Romans 11:25ff., Zechariah 12-13), but the entire environment, ready for this, has come (as in Ezekiel 36-37 cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 20). The wars, the triumphs, the return to Jerusalem, the undue concern of many nations to act as if they were directors of Jerusalem,  as foretold (Zechariah 12:2-4), it is all there; as is the plight of the Gentile world (as in Matthew 24). Nothing lacks. Christ foretold the Jewish restoration to Jerusalem AFTER the predicted  destruction of the Temple, in Luke 21:24; for all things have their season, which merely occupy history, and not eternity.

The season for the Temple to bloom, it came with Ezra and Nehemiah; for it to be destroyed, it came with the crucifixion of the Redeemer, when a generation had passed, so that while HE was bodily resurrected, IT was bodily destroyed. What God does, He does forever: what is HIS work endures. But what passes it due date, and is finished in His instruction, goes as the timeless realities supervening, we come from symbol to substance, and from infrastructure to the very building in the truth.

There was a time for the Temple to be under the tread of Gentile feet,  and for that to finish. It is WHEN that is finished,  as it now is, that the end and the return of Jesus the Christ, is near as in Luke 21, where it forms part of the criteria for this being "near". Indeed, the coming of the Holy Spirit with power  was likewise foretold as seen in Luke 24:49. Those like Ahmadinejad who love to produce satirical, malign, self-assured tirades against Israel, telling them to get back to where they came from (which of course is Israel from some 3 millenia ago, in a  parade of centuries which showed forth their occupancy sometimes well, at times badly, before all the world), so that it would be a journey nowhere for them, just a consolidation in reality, they are like those who seek to molest a elephant with their bare hands.

The power involved is that of the Lord who will account for such presumption, as in Isaiah 66:13-16, Micah 7:15ff., Ezekiel 38-39, Revelation 19-20, in such ways as He has assigned. Try to rape someone's wife in broad daylight, and you may be mad. Try to seize, this former wife of the Lord, to use the symbolic terms of Hosea, who is to return to Him as in Romans 11:15,25ff., ignoring the warning in Romans 11:21,24, Zechariah 12:10-13:1, who is disciplined but to be restored as delightful as you see in Jeremiah 31:18ff., 33:21ff., Psalm 2,  110, 72: and to delete what He affirms to have a future to look forward to, a place and a site, a city and a conclusion to His glory, it is as if to press the button of a foreign dictator who already has the rockets ready to launch on your own land. It is worse than foolish, for it is suicidal, and one can only hope that some may be spared, who slip through such artful and hideously presumptuous fingers.

As He HAS done (cf. Micah 7:15ff.), SO He will do. He has already all but completed the preparatory scenario (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9). Now comes the very straight, for the athletes to run to the line! But what will it reveal  ? It is the resurrected Christ, whose entire identity was not only preserved but glorified, who will judge in that day, and nothing is hidden from Him, nor is there any temptation of which He is alien, but rather is He qualified to the uttermost, leaping over the squalid to the celestial which is and ever has been His home.
 

22. With all of this, there is  conducted conformity. It is that of events in our history, even now 2000 years or so later, to Christ's words. For that, power is required, not mere intent. This too is that which raised Christ from the dead,  stopped by nothing, not feckless or reckless, but irresistible; not for totalitarian regimes, but for volunteers (Psalm 110) in the day of His power. If it were MERE power, all could be destroyed at once as it deserves (cf. Romans 7:18, Psalm 32:1-7, 130:3-4). With Him,  there is forgiveness that He might be feared! His commandments are not grievous! (I John 5:3). His power is most adequate for  reconstruction, remediation, deliverance, His commitment as sure as the resurrection which completely the attestation just as the crucifixion completed the payment (cf. Hosea 13:14,  Luke 9:51). 

Yet while power is restrained, it is not inoperative, and the world whirls in its contempt, as contemptible in its unholiness as it was contemptuous of His holiness. The power  leads  to historical conformity to the word of God, whether through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the prophets in the Bible, or through the direct declaration of Christ on earth,  whether concerning Jew or Gentile, this nation or that, Nineveh, Babylon, Edom, Petra, Assyria, Nineveh, Tyre, Rome, the list of empires as in Daniel, the Gentile initial acclaim in many, even from kings, for Christ and their lurking ruin in discord, war and disbelief, the restoration of Israel, the pre-occupation of many in becoming directors, though neither Jew nor born there, the triumph of Israel over far greater enemies in grossly unequal wars, the division of Jerusalem into two before the restoration in the Lord, the first coming to sacrificial death and bodily resurrection of the Lord, and the second coming and its now almost entirely fulfilled preliminary events as in Luke 21,  Matthew 24, Zechariah 12, Ezekiel 36-37, right down to the sprinkling of water, of those who come from Israel to the Messiah at length, one Gospel, one Lord for Jew as for Gentile (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, Galatians 3).  it is all there, and this has often enough been told and itemised in detail, before on this site^*1. And now ?

Thus the earth is heaving and moaning as Middle Eastern powers are in tumultuous uprisings, assassinations, expanded  to  the murder of thousands who wish to be rid of an imperious upstart Captain, who secured dominion some years ago by a coup. He seems to wonder if he can safely have a river of blood in the desert, being so committed if really necessary, some nations,  especially England and France, wonder if they should impose a no-fly zone in his land, and so have to make an attack on his capital, Tripoli, in order to be able to secure this result, others wonder how long how many millions, surging from flaming strife, can last and how long in Egypt, in Tunisia, or wherever, and how much relief and how soon can come to their uprooted masses, as machine-like men impose their lusts on the dust. It is an old  story, repeated in World War II, specialised in the case of the Jews under Hitler, as now increasingly, in a slightly different format,  against the Muslim hosts, with vast lands at their disposal for their particular zeal, who try to slay Israelis and secure parts of their historic capital for themselves, though it has never been the enduring capital of any other people.

The new Hitler, occupying the post of the President of Iran, now seeks to impose his laughing will, his charming devices, while enriching radioactive material for the most peaceable of purposes, with just that cloud cover of apparent innocence, that so became dear Adolf in is earlier days. Assyria of old, now in Iraq and Iran continues to make its biblically predicted forays on Israel, and the result is so far half way, or perhaps more, in view of what has befallen Iraq (cf. Micah 5-6, following the birth and rejection of the Messiah, 5:1-3, and Isaiah 10:9ff., before the Messianic rule on earth in Isaiah 11, with Isaiah 30:27-33, prior to the same rule as in Isaiah 32. Many are those to  come in their battalions to battle as in  Ezekiel 38-39, and  slight is their joy in the process. Yet like self-imposed visitors to the guillotine in action in the French revolution, they ascend the tumbrils as if by vocation, and press on to the blade. May the Lord have mercy on some of them, for it is sad to see.

It is as foretold in the maelstrom of excited and disastrous, deadly and incited events shown in Revelation 6, where inflicting death becomes a passion, a way of life! So it was to be; so it is, and civilisation, necessarily proceeded in the best of all possible worlds, for the least of  all possible reasons, to its climacteric peak, in fact is becoming, as biblically foretold, such a categorical failure that even now it threatens to explode, implode and be disposed of; and indeed, the Bible foretells through the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ, that UNLESS He returned, life on this earth would not be capable of continuing, would not be spared. So it was to be, and so now despite delusive dreams, which at two a penny are wantonly too expensive, continue their verbal barrage, and their magics reported in full in the ears of the young, an increasingly world-wide  sacrifice, carried out in the name of education.

The translation of apparent 'love', is not obvious from the deeds. Tumult among the nations mixed with false prophets makes that a heady brew amid hiccoughing  brewers and brewsters, one that has seized the fancy of much of the world (cf. Matthew 24:24, 24:6, Revelation 6) and shocked the susceptibilities of more.

Meanwhile,  Islamic powers try to invade the toleration of Israel by extending earthworks in Jerusalem's Temple site area, so that it becomes a powder keg, with many matches jabbed at it, perhaps to try to make of it, a prelude to the grabbing of part of Jerusalem, so that the many vast lands of Islamic  concentration, used freely for their religion, might have a holy part added, though diminutive as a flea before their huge territories in this world. The historic capital of Israel with endless attestations, literary and archeological, and international notation as such in the Balfour Declaration,  must be subdued by Islam, the religion which means subjection, so that it can add it to a holy list of places, on the basis that is not to be found evidentially at all. So does this world clamour for calamity.

Is it holy, this part, this select site in the city of Jerusalem, and is it a place for their religions which followed some 1600 years after Jerusalem was Israel's capital ? Is there no end to verbal play! Take  good note of these perversions of fact, for the Lord when He acts, has not been deaf beforehand, in His vast forbearance!

On the basis of what texts is the site in Jerusalem holy to Islam ? evidence ? Can anyone just say this or that happened and need not evidence reality past imagination, be it called holy or not ?  Is reason to go into recess ? As to the occupancy of the famous site of Israel's times of evidence under David, Solomon and the Maccabees, more and more archeological artefacts, some found in material excavated by Arabs from the temple environs, and dumped nearby, come to light continually; and Israel has attested the realities in literature and stone, more than amply. There is no evidence to the contrary, only the puffing out of words, as if these were made in concrete, because of fear! Taking over after a millenium and more of Israel's time in the Holy Land, as an established nation with Jerusalem the Capital, in gaining an extension to their territories, as if this lent some illusive but actually merely illusory claim, is nonsense. 

When the biblically appointed nation returned, swamp turned to fruitfulness and barrenness to world-class agricultural prowess; and what had been the capital of the nation, returned to its appointment as such. To rub out history is mere illusion. To invent an approach by Abraham to the utterly contrary God of Islam,  some two and one half millenia before Muhammad even uttered his assaults on the biblical faith, is surely one of the most manifest transgressions ever made by anyone against evidential reality. To make of a more recent Islamic take-over of its land, from a devastated and expelled nation^*2 (wrought for a period by the imperial Roman assault, following A.D. 70), an historic ground, the new for the old, an element for a capital city of old,  ignores nothing more than history, just as it affronts no one more than the Lord of creation and redemption.

As in Ezekiel 39, He sacked Israel from its site for its sins, and when He deals with the aggressors who wish to complete the strangulation of the country, when in His divine mercy, it has returned at last to its land, it will be realised at last that it is HIS word and rule which has occasioned it all, and presumption that His discipline means weakness on His part, will be overthrown by His own power. It is better to think first, that grieve later. It is well to study Isaiah 51:21-23, closely followed by Isaiah 52-55,  Messianic, than to study one's wounds. One wishes for all that they might be wise, as God advises such, in Psalm 2, before wisdom looks on loss; but if not, God is not mocked, a fact continually found, even among the testimonials to His love, found in the slain bodies of the faithful (cf. Colossians 1:23-24).

Muhammad came to earth some 1600 years after the founding as Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel, and claims on this name in terms of history, are as void as the evidence of a pre-incarnate action by the prophet. It is too late to lay claim to historical possession and priority, 1600 years after Israel's time. It is an imposition. There is not only no precision, there is not even conformity to stark fact. Indeed, there is collision with fact.

If then this world out of fear of terrorism, having buildings destroyed in hate, begins to succumb to mere self-aggrandising propaganda, as it began to  do with the case of Hitler in 1939, after his ludicrous claims and action concerning Austria, then it merely asks for one more totalitarian dictator, whether the 'law' be that inscribed in a Mein Kampf or a Koran, or a tradition based on it, or even not based on it. NOTHING is holy which makes of man a subject of what lacks evidence, and works contrary to it. In nothing is this more obvious (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff.), than in the endorsement of the Jewish prophets by Muhammad,  as from God, while he subverted, suppressed, denied to the utmost the entire substance of their sacrificial atonement, and Messianic crucifixion (cf. Joyful Jottings 22  -25). 

It is neither a matter of respect nor disrespect, but of fact: what  Muhammad used to gain acceptance more broadly, that is the prophets of the Old Testament as forerunners, denied what he affirmed for his religion, just as he ignored what it required. What is founded on non-fact, contrary to fact, in the end founders, not once, not twice, but over time, despite every advantage and all help. What happens when God Himself acts concerning the land, the people who foretold the Messiah, the Christ, from whom He came, that is a matter where precision is linked to power, and both to a grief for the misled. It is still time for many to seek the Lord, where He may be found, in Jesus Christ the Saviour without whom NOTHING may be gained in salvation, with whose name NO OTHER may be linked (Acts 4:11-12).

Hitler and Germany found alas their woe, as did the USSR in its forcible retention of millions, for it is no more, Europe has suffered two of the most destructive wars in history, and has rendered itself more vulnerable to many, while the USA has twice come to help or rebuild, and is now in vast debt, drained and misled as it falls from its former trend to biblical Christianity, to a mess of polluted pottage, doing anything and affirming anything, indeed, if some have their way, making of two of one sexual type, a marriage. Nor is it alone, for just such a a counter-design folly has come near enough to enaction in this land, though some wisdom has at least put it on hold. If you are going to provoke, be sure it is not God to whom you give your provocation; as Romans 1 attest (vv. 17ff.), there is a path to follow, almost clinically, when God is set aside and the knowledge of Him is dismissed, despised, deleted in delusion. It has a certain lack of charm.

Precision and conformity of history to divine declaration,  however is found in the Bible which predicts the date of Christ's death (Christ the Citadel... Ch. 2), and so many other features which even the most eagle-eyed opponents could not gainsay nor find as a way out of killing Him:  this appeared the only option for power when fact did not co-operate (cf. SMR pp.939ff., 973A). Foretold was the restoration of the First Temple with allowance from Cyrus (actually named over a century before he came  to rule cf. Isaiah 44-45); the production of the Gospel as defined (Isaiah 49-55) into history in its substantiated format, in the Messiah; the spread of this in vast application to the  Gentiles; the return of Israel after fearful depredations worked on it (as in Leviticus 26 with Deuteronomy 28-32, Hosea, Ezekiel 36ff., cf. SMR Appendix A); its recovery of Jerusalem after a long time, the flurry of adversaries and the immense victories of a few in Israel against many. This was to occur, and did occur,  ON this long-delayed return of Jews to the land, as did the discomfiture of the Gentiles as in Matthew 24, Luke 21. It goes on and on: history is unwound as directed. Romans 1 proceeds as if from X-ray, to its fulfilment.

Even the three days, on which Christ laid repeated emphasis as also foretold in direct and indirect fashion (cf. SMR Ch. 6, Matthew 16:21, 17:9-12, for example) was foretold as the TIME duration of His interment. Indeed. In the last verses just noted, we find from  Him a simple reference to the transfiguration which He had shown (so much the more impressive when He repeated and in the most public possible manner healed multitudes of all kinds of diseases). What was His request of the disciples ? It was that they keep silent about this remarkable event, for the time being.

DON'T tell of this, He told the disciples, until the Son of Man -  one of His names, is risen from the dead. Not only the coming crucifixion but the resurrection of that self-same body from the dead, one of the indispensable and indisputable hallmarks of the Old Testament prophets and the Lord Himself on earth, this is taken for granted. It is as if some might now say, When I am 65 I shall retire! For many, this is taken as a mere passing word.

So with Christ and His resurrection (take for granted the murder). It is a matter of course. He did not come for nothing or merely to die; it was to rise and to rescue from judgment, such as the flood foreshadowed and illustrated as due to man.  This was kept in mind,  as might be the life of someone with a brain cancer,  successfully being removed with confidence, in the mind of the surgeon.  With Him, the confidence was complete. WHEN He had arisen, THEN they could tell of this transfiguration. It was not timely before that. It was all a matter of unlimited power and purpose, authenticity and action. Suffering showed its nobility; but it only highlighted its integrity and objectives. He came; it proceeded till complete (cf. Matthew 26:52ff.).

So was it with His many miracles, His answers of the lips to the adversaries, both learned and numerous, His complete inability to be controverted, shown ignorant or wrong, undiscerning or foolish (cf. Luke 11:52-54): all of these were shown and fulfilled as what had been predicted of His power (cf. Isaiah 11) which though here subdued before crucifixion, was not quenched by suffering. Here in practicality for rescue, He came, then in power for government He will come (cf. Luke 24:25).  Anguish was the prelude, glory is the afterglow: first things first. Luke 24 enshrines His protestation to this effect.

Christ was not limited by inability of any kind (cf. John 1:1-14), though He refused as Messiah to use power to render His task easy, for it was not only as ransom but example that He came (Hebrews 2). Indeed,  people would lie in wait to expose Him as fraud; but their teeth closed on no meat. Truth could be bruised but not broken. Therefore to them  was it necessary, for their odious desires, that He die. There was simply no other way for truth to be defeated, even if only temporarily and in form not feature;  and even if it had to be done, the killing, even this was by the FULFILMENT of many prophecies as to method!

They did not lightly undertake the murder of so popular a figure, but were  flummoxed! Hear it now as of old from John 11:47ff..

"Then the chief priests and the Pharisees, a council, gathered and said:

What are we to do ? for this man does many miracles."

The power of God for a needy and in some ways a seedy nation (at the  religious level, in many of its officials and in their ways) was a PROBLEM! How inverted can desire make truth! The mandated miracles were an aggravation. How is that for unthankfulness! Many are the nations which seem now to be wanting to emulate this attitude in Israel at the time of Christ, and receive like consequences if they are not very careful; for man has made it an age of madness and power in an inseparable mix, one that only the God who is real and actual, can fix. He does it in only one way, His: even a doctor is respected in such decisions, how much more the Lord who made us!

The troubled theological Mafia, as they then became on clear record, then pursued the problem, which they made out of such unlimited blessing (John 11:48):

 "If  we  let Him alone in this way, all men  will believe on him,
and the Romans will  come and  take away both our place and nation."

It is then that the High Priest,  from his lofty and exalted position, told them to wake up:

"You know nothing at all,
nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people,
and that the whole nation should not perish."

This became a prediction that fulfilled what King David had been inspired to predict a millenia earlier (Psalm 22). However, the SENSE in which He would die for the people, was not at all some subservience to priests implacably set on their own way (take away "our place" and nation); for it was He who predicted the entire desolation of the Temple (Matthew 24:1ff.).

That, it was to the authorities,  a thing so unthinkable, though their betrayal of their King led directly to it. It was not in that way that He would die for the people, but rather in the sense that such sins as theirs, if repented of, could be pardoned and a place of grace, not of devious officialdom, could be found in the very presence of God. For that He died; for a temple, He did not. It perished; He lived. As He declared in advance, "Because I live, you will live also," John 14:19.

The Mosque now in its place, near the former Temple site,  is merely a taunt, or a challenge to Israel and to the world, that if they will not BELIEVE in Christ, then  temple or no temple, or idolatrous construction, it makes little difference, for all is lost in such reversions, and nothing matters to the point. It might as well be an idol temple, or no temple: what can it do but show the folly of not receiving the PERSON SENT (Isaiah 48:16), to redeem (Isaiah 53) and to provide resurrection (Psalm 16, Isaiah 26:19,  Daniel 12). Temples as operative sanctuaries, centres without Christ,  are out of place when it comes to God, now. They become antagonistic competitors. There is ONE TEMPLE which is effectual with God, and that is Jesus Christ (cf. John 2:20-22). There are sites for His worship now, but the temple is gone, and the new Temple is come, where the operations of salvation are lodged, even in Him, and many are the sites to show it, none in itself of any vast importance, since He is now all-important and symbols are satisfied in nothing and no one less or other.

Since, then,  THE temple is Christ, and the PRIEST who sacrificed is Christ, and it is HE who sacrificed Himself, and the offering, these are all concentrated into one, His own, with this remarkable difference, that from it, He arises, immune to death's harsh end, unable to be held down by it (Acts 2:23-24), holy temples are stone sanctuaries, but nothing more. Such is the burden of Hebrews 7-10. There is NO ACCLAIM except in HIM! Isaiah 53, 66 has much to say on this topic!

It is this which is manifest in the sudden change from tormented death to declaring good news to the brethren in Psalm 22, and in the non-rotting flesh of Psalm 16, as in the arising from the dust, as His body, in Isaiah 26:19. It is important, in this regard,  to translate what is there, not what is imagined. It is this, MY DEAD BODY SHALL THEY ARISE, which is written in Isaiah 26, in full accord with Hosea 13:14.

It has  all  happened in entire agreement, precise and particular, with the word of God, the only authorised word of God to mankind, the Bible. It speaks for itself! God speaks; history conforms. There, it is sovereignty in speech; in history, is its enaction. His body confirmed it; that is power. The body of truth never languishes, for He has inspired and fired it, and with it, He moves, to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17-19), just as He moved to thrust up to physical life once more, this better than Lazarus demonstration of His entire oversight, immovable even when He moves, removing what obstructs, and altering what man imagines to be sedate!

Death, it was so sedate! You don't have to worry any more about contrivances and strategies once the opponent is dead! Had not His adversaries triumphed over Him ? Could they not parade His corpse at will ? Not really, for the rupture of death was a universally valid option taken by God in pity and mercy, and the testimony sought to be buried, arose to be for two millenia broadcast.

They had not thought so to act (cf. I Corinthians 2:9). Well done mates! they think as they taunt Him when He was on the Cross. . But their vaunting left their grand children in woes unspeakable, at the hand of that very Rome which their progenitors at the time of His death, imagined they could avoid in its destructive power. How would they avoid it ?  by a little convenient thing called murder. What was the outcome ? mass murder by that self-same Rome, whom in fear, they sought to placate.

They were successful in the murder of One, who had prescribed it a millenium before, indeed further back; but they were not successful in avoiding the very vengeance of Rome, which they feared; for it was this which ruined them appallingly, their  temple and all humanly devisable prospects. Christ escaped  from their power, prison and pretension by  resurrecting the body which  they had sought to delete; they could NOT escape. So did their protection become their punishment, and did His willingness becomes His escape; and who does not escape who knows Him: "My dead body shall they arise!" said the Lord. So will His people, from whatever race or clime, be resurrected on the grand basis of His own raising of the dead, as in Lazarus, followed by His own arising, this taunting the taunters, but He did not descend to them again, except by the power of His Gospel and Spirit, that they like anyone else, might be forgiven, should they come. What HE has accomplished is not for sale, for it is free (Isaiah 55, Romans 3:23ff.); but it IS for scheduled application. Just as the Cross of One saved from judgment, many, so the resurrection of One, gives life to many, eternal  life, His to give (Matthew 11:27, I Corinthians 14:42ff.).

The height of love is shown in death; but the grandeur of grace, is shown in the wisdom which translates betrayal into sacrifice, resurrection of the marred One, as the schedule for those marred by sin,  and kindness into liberty.
 

23. The resurrection has many pointers and results. The power which brought it to pass was not lacking in the tongue of Christ. With all of this, while He was available for attack, there was exhibited for one as for all  inability to refute, before and after the crucifixion. 

Not only is this seen in Luke 11:51ff., but in Matthew 22:46. With His unbending and unamendable power to refute, to teach, to correct , to impute  to error,  its own follies, and to sustain His point  against all retort, there came at length an awareness of futility:

"And no man was able to answer Him a word, neither did any dare from  that day onward, 
to ask Him any more questions."

Afterwards, a quiet conversation on the road to Emmaus becomes a staggering revelation, at the occasion of Luke 24. There, concern amid disciples, as of students unable to comprehend some staggering finding in the laboratory, became the opportunity for a profound instruction, and recognition became conviction and thus faith came by which one may be saved. Again,  a fishing group on expedition in the Sea of Galilee,  becomes the ground for vast commissions (John 21), while protest becomes acquiescence,  and understanding in the 40 days, becomes a routine reality. Experiment, as with Thomas, is well used for empirical demonstration of the resurrection, no fact is too small, or too profound in implication.

All is known; all is applied; nothing lacks. Such is the way with truth; and if it had been yours before and during all time, it is as no stranger that the Messiah speaks it and presents it and exhibits Himself as its nerve, basis and foundation! (John 17:1-3, Proverbs  8), within the Trinity (cf. John 12:48-50). For One who is resurrected amid death, conqueror of a lavish blood-letting on a diminuendo basis, slowly, slowly does it as in the most refined of torture, conqueror of the grave, Creator from the first (Colossians 1:15): there is no shadow of problem, whatever  the anguish of love's attainment, instead of power's force might be!

24.

In this realm of resurrection point, power and purpose, we come to the deliverance of Peter from death in a way as formidable in portent as the Cross, but he did not at that time have to bear it, and the manner of his excavation from the fortress was more than memorable: it was beautiful (Acts 12:5-19), even provided with a modicum of holy humour (12:12-16). Herod the murderer of James, who liked to be in with the people, using this and that means of placation, had a ghoulish end to his uninhibited ways (Acts 12:20-23), so that the impetus continued. Miracles closely followed the ascension, almost in routine fashion, from the hands or even shadow of apostle, or sent saint. You see this in Acts 9:32ff., and 10, in Acts 5:15, in Paul's conversion, commission and enablements in Acts 9, 13-20, and it is highlighted in many ways, such as with Stephen before his glowing death (Acts 6:8, 7), with Paul in Acts 19:11, Philip in Acts 8:6. The POWER of the resurrection was an index the forgiving Spirit of God, who would have all whether in heaven or on earth, to be reconciled to Himself, and in Acts it is as if the work which Christ did, had this immediate continuation, for in Luke, we find at the outset in Acts, was what Jesus began to do and to teach.

So was the planting of the faith in the tempests of murder. The miracles that closely followed resurrection were a bloom on the peach.

25. The amplitude of Pentecost, not just the noise, the flames, the courage, the power to present, the inspired and inspiring message, the thousands convicted and converted, but the translation into many languages of what Peter spoke, as if to reverse Babel in terms of what God had now done, not as a permanent bequest, for man must labour, but as an index to divine mercy without limit: this spoke yet another volume of the beauty of the Lord. It was no less a confirmation of the resurrection, at the linguistic level.

26. The conversion of many priests showed the penetrating power of the Gospel, the unanswerable reality of the bodily resurrection, central to it, even amid trained observers and students of these things (Acts 6:7).

27. The overpowering of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, precisely with that ruthless thoroughness that Christ had in lamentation for it, since it would not believe in Him. This was by Him  foretold (Matthew 24:1ff.), so that history made wasters to be wasted, those who made of the Messiah's body a wasteland, to own one, except that even from this there was much exclusion for long! Thus renegades became targets,  deviousness was exposed, the delinquent given to horror; for what horror is this, which not only slays the Messiah and punishes the Prince, all precisely as foretold to the point that NONE could show fault in facts, but also refuses to repent while seeking advantage out of it!

Grievous as this demonstrably was to God (as if you paid for a college education for several of your children and all turned out wasters), not only for what it cost, but for what was lost, and the pangs were strong (as in Luke 19:42ff.), as well as foreseen, it teaches us much. Thus it is useless to say, Ah well, all the large denominations seem to be leaving strict biblical fidelity, and it is just a question of what sacrifice to make of the word of God: what does it matter! Take your pick and enjoy yourself; or THIS is my passion, to have Christ in name and my pleasure in practice! It is perilous to the uttermost to remain in many of the churches of this end of the Age scenario (as in I Timothy 4, II Timothy 3-4, II Peter 2, Revelation 13, Matthew 24:24), as they take up new traditions of devious deceit, elongated el Greco type change or mutant spotty painting of facts in strange ways, Picasso spiritualists. Jerusalem, heart and capital of glory and wonder, with the symbolisms of the faith enshrined in its very structure and function, the site of centuries, THIS went. as sadly did those who trusted in it. What has lost its foundations and its handbook, far older than any temple, this is no site for spirituality^*3. There is a valuable lesson to be learnt from much suffering, which speaks from afar and from  far off, concerning what is now near.

28. The capture of the Roman Empire via Constantine, whatever the wisdom of some of his actions, was a further exhibit that while Christ does not in this Age, rule the world, for its prince has NOTHING in Him, as He stated (John 14:30) and has his little day till his doom is finally found in glowering follies innumerable, yet His word can reach any, overcome anything, and far from obscure, is the power that nothing can break, though much breaks as it shifts shiftlessly this way and that.
 

29. The perspicuity of the whole, the omission of nothing: this attests the same power that was in Christ when He healed many multitudes on many occasions of diseases that could not deny Him, cast out evil spirits that could not withstand Him, so that His word become the epitome, and tested in singular circumstances failure in any one of which would be fatal to His Messianic testimony, He always prevailed (cf. Mark 2, Luke 9:37-42). That is part of the beauty of it all, that when the presentation is by prophecy over millenia, aggregating like an army, and the actualisation is the miraculous fulfilment of it, sustained and without loss on any occasion or confrontation, and the issue is this, that the Messiah is Lord and God (as seen and noted in John 20:27-29), then it is not so hard to see the result. God is infinite; man is finite. God is the truth without whom there could not be any, since He alone knows all and is the unsusceptible standard whom none can change, having invented time as part of the creation and being who He is before all time and all that would come with His permission or ordination. Hence to distinguish whether some man is or is not God is one of the simplest exercises of all time.

To tell a flea from a mountain is not difficult; but to tell a living person, born, brought up, unleashed as Messiah into this world, into the nest of the learned and the ultimately negatively motivated, the powerful and the antagonists, and to fail not at all, though open to immediate exposure if failing to operate at the divine level: that is the work of simplicity itself.

So in quality of the Person, in quantity of the testimonies, during and after His coming, in the precision and power of His performances, in the willingness to go through the gates of death, and His hindering what would have hindered this, time and again (cf. Matthew 16:22-23, 26:52ff., 4:1ff.), or avoiding what would have stricken it, in His own time and in the two millenia since, His word has ruled, does rule and continues to rule, and nothing either can or does rule it out.

No detail is too small; no prayer is too great, no grace is too much, nor is He deceived at all, and even the deceivers, in our own generation as in His, while they smash much, alter neither His word, His Gospel, His salvation by grace through faith, alone, His one basis of the one salvation, the continuing faithful testimony of the saints, or the continual consummation of events, as the end comes, PRECISELY as indicated (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8).

30. It is the same in verifications innumerable, in logical duress, which will suffer no alternative, as seen in SMR,  TMR, Deity and Design ...,  Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ ... Philosophies fail (cf. SMR Chs. 3 and 10, in contrast with Ch. 5), political hopes lose purchase, though their purchase cost much, follies arise, madness froths, the world is on collision course with reality, and this is by its very nature perilous; but it continues so, implacable to the end, undivinely inspired (cf. Revelation 20:3). The power of God as demonstrated in the resurrection positively, is also attested in its negative depictions, and this despite remonstration and appeals innumerable: for it is ignored into weakness, and joy becomes woe, as foretold.

The waters that refresh, the rest that brings realisation, the truth that is fulfilled, the realism that is never daunted, the Gospel which though often blighted, never wavers, these mercifully continue as does the near to the end appeal, at last as at first,  in Revelation 20:17:

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! and let him who hears say, Come! And let him who thirsts come.
Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely."

NOTES

*1

See for example SMR Chs.   8,    9, The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 4, Jesus Christ for the People but Not for This World Ch. 8, Answers to Questions Ch. 5,  and both index systems, in that for the REST, including recent volumes, also under BIBLE, with sub-heading, further on prophecy.

*2 Abraham, Testimony and Religion

_{This was wrought by imperial Rome following its devastation in Israel, of Jerusalem and of the Temple in A.D. 70. Abraham in his far earlier days, was held before the Lord in terms of sacrifice, as fundamental. It even went to the point of his being tried in a matter of sacrificing his son, to show the elemental necessity for meeting judgment in this way, in order to be  clear before the Lord, a replay of the differentiation between Cain and Abel, the only one able to satisfy God being the one who sacrificed. Giving never was enough; it never was what man did, gained, offered from his works, which satisfied God. It has to be from God's own works, life, and it had to be adequate in symbol, as later in fact.}

_{God of course intervened with Abraham,  before he slew his son, by providing at His own hand, a ram for the utterly necessary sacrifice, from the thicket, staying the hand of the patriarch.}

_{Thus it was neither necessary nor adequate to sacrifice  even one's only heir,  when the one who sacrifices is himself a sinner. How vast therefore was, as it still is, the need, and is the demand of justice for a really adequate cover, foretold from the first in Genesis 3:15, elaborated in the prophets, and made systematic through Moses, as he applied by the inspiration of God  as shown in the Old Testament, with multitudes of examples. Indeed with the  following patriarchs the procedure is followed as in Genesis 31:54, 46:1.}

_{It is most interesting and applicable, that the action of God, as seen in Genesis 15, in terms of ratifying the covenant with Abraham, whose lineage is traced with entire precision to the Hebrews unambiguously, is signed and symbolised by a specific sacrifice used in vision. This took the form of the presence of God being seen by Abraham to  move between the parts of the slain creatures. These were placed there by divine command, by the hand of Abraham, this being the testimony that blood covered the covenant, or would do so, was basic to it and assurance of it, that the divine agreement was as deep as blood, as life. This signification of blood in sacrifice is shown in Leviticus 17:11:}

 "For the life of the flesh is in the blood:
and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:
for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul."

_{The atonement or cover, the sacrifice for reconciliation with the Almighty was necessary, requisite to the uttermost, unequivocal,  applied multitudinously in Leviticus, just as it was underlined as necessity in the most dramatic conceivable fashion, with Abraham. Not only does it indicate the ravagement of sin, that it kills, but the redemption from sin for atonement, that God will do the slaying in Himself. The ram in the bushes became then a burnt offering, one for sin, which replaced Abraham's move to sacrifice his son, thus showing that most  clearly: GOD WILL  PROVIDE, BUT sacrifice IS necessary, fundamental, and the necessity for life for life, will be met by the Lord Himself. It was so confirmed, in Christ, His butchered body (Isaiah 52:13ff.), the culmination and the cover for ever.}

_{Another Abraham in another setting may be invented by imagination, protested by nations, invented by desire; but there is no other testimonial.}

_{In this respect it is necessary to add that religion is not a substitute for reason and evidence, but is attested by the God who made us, and this in any way apt for the WAY and for the FORMAT that He has given us. Reason is part, empirical observation is part, inner conviction is part. God in His kindness and unambiguity, His perspicuous clarity, has put all together, demanding first belief in His own word, but graciously giving to reason EVIDENCE, both empirical and multiplied, so that what is needed for His identification on all sides, is coincident in force, fulness and grandeur. 'Religion' is no excuse for being irrational, and fraud is as possible when that word is used as when it is not. Examine all things remains the scriptural wisdom, and hold fast to what is good (I Thessalonians 5). What is unreasonable merely contradicts one of the means which God has given to test,  for there are indeed many deceiving spirits. When God uses His own infinite power or knowledge, this is by no means limited by the test of reason,  since it is most reasonable that being so able, He uses His ability, when in conformity with His gracious and loving character, justice and sovereign majesty.}

*3

See for example Separation.