by A.W. Tozer
When considering the resurrection of Christ and the promised future resurrection of the redeemed, we may at times be disturbed by a sense of unreality about the whole thing. We just cannot picture it. The thought of it is so completely unlike anything that has occurred in our experience that our minds cannot find a definite place to light; so they flutter over the idea like a bird over unfamiliar terrain.
No doubt this bothers many of God's people not a little. They fear that the mental uncertainty they feel is a proof of unbelief and wonder whether they actually believe in the resurrection of the body as taught in the New Testament and repeated in the Creed. I believe these fears are groundless. Here's why:
These "fearful saints" are confusing two things which are wholly unlike each other, that is, they are confusing faith and imagination. Faith is confidence in the character of a moral being which takes the word of that being as completely trustworthy and rests in it without question. Imagination is the power to visualize, to create in the mind a picture of things unseen. We may have either one without the other. The two are not identical and are indeed only distantly related.
A soldier has been overseas two or three years and is now on his way home. As he gets closer to his native shores anticipation mounts in his heart. He visualizes the joyous meeting soon to take place. He pictures his mother, his sister, his wife, and he smiles as he thinks of how much his little son may have grown since he saw him last. The whole scene is before him as he dreams of the long-awaited reunion. Intelligence dictates a slight difference in the appearance of his loved ones. He knows they will have changed, and he tries to adjust his mental image accordingly. He thus visualizes an event which has not yet occurred by drawing on past experience.
It is right here that thought breaks down when it comes to the resurrection. We have no experience to guide us. When Christ rose from the dead He did what no one had ever done before. We cannot imagine how He accomplished the miracle. We are not even sure exactly what wonderful thing happened there in the silence of Joseph's new tomb. That He came forth, alive forevermore, has been the firmly settled faith of the Church from the beginning. How He accomplished it is a secret locked in the mind of God. We should remember the wise admonition of John Wesley: "Let us not doubt a fact because we do not know how it was accomplished." The resurrection of Christ is a fact. More than that we need not know.
Our own future resurrection is even harder to visualize. To paint a mental picture of our death is not so difficult because it has been our experience that everyone goes out that way.
Thou knowest must die 'tis common,-all that live,
Passing through nature to eternity.The mind can visualize our departure from this earth because it has something to guide it in forming its mental picture, but the resurrection affords it no familiar stuff with which to work. And here is where anxiety and self-reproach enter. Because we cannot visualize it we are afraid that we do not believe it.
The hope of the resurrection is a matter of pure faith. It rests upon the character of God and draws its comfort from the knowledge that God cannot lie nor deceive nor change. He has promised that all who sleep in Jesus shall be brought again from their graves to meet the Lord in the air and be with Him forever. The New Testament is filled with this joyful expectation. How God will bring it all to pass is not for us to know. We are not called to understand, but to believe.
Though a detailed knowledge of the mysterious ways of God in accomplishing the resurrection were possible for us, I wonder if we would be any better off for it. We honor God more by believing Him to do the impossible. And after all, nothing is impossible with God.
( Article taken from The Price of Neglect, Chapter 22 )
[ Back ]
Place on line by the Neve family. We'd like to hear your comments : click here