August 5

"Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him." Romans 6:9.

The resurrection of Christ was the consummation of His glorious victory. Until this moment, the Redeemer had all the appearance of one vanquished in the great fight. He was left slain upon the battle-field. Indeed it would appear that He had really endured a momentary defeat. He was now under the dominion of death; and as death was the consequence and penalty of sin, so long as He was subject to its power, He still lay beneath the sins of His people. Cancelled although they were by the blood He had just shed, the great evidence of their remission did not and could not transpire until the resurrection had passed. What gloom now enshrouded the church of God! The Sun of Righteousness was setting in darkness and in blood; and with it was descending into the tomb, the hopes of patriarchs and prophets, of seers and apostles. The "king of terrors" had laid low his illustrious victim; and the cold earth had closed upon His sacred body, mangled and lifeless. Oh, what a victory did hell and sin, death and the grave, now seem to have achieved! But the "triumphing of the wicked is short." In three days the tomb, at the mighty fiat of Jehovah, unveiled its bosom, and yielded back its Creator and Lord.

The Sun of Righteousness ascended again in cloudless glory and peerless majesty, to set no more forever. The church of God, now "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," arose from the dust, and put on her beautiful garments. Now was the scene changed. His enemies, no longer wearing even the semblance of victory, were overthrown and vanquished. Hell was disappointed, and its gates forever closed against the redeemed. Sin was thrown to an infinite distance, and "death had no more dominion over him, God having loosed its pains, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it." He rose a mighty and an illustrious Conqueror. And all this conquest, let it not be forgotten, was achieved in behalf of a chosen and a beloved people. It was our battle that He fought, it was our victory that He won. Therefore, called though we are to "wrestle against principalities and against powers," and exhorted though we are to "take unto us the whole armor of God," we are yet confronted with enemies already vanquished. It would seem as though we were summoned, not so much to go out upon the field of battle, as upon the field of conquest; not so much to combat with the foe, as to gather up the spoils of victory. For what is every successful conflict with our spiritual adversaries—what is every corruption mortified—what is every temptation resisted—what is every sin overcome—but a showing forth the great victory already won by the Captain of our salvation? Every triumph of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a regenerate man is a display of the triumph of Him who, in hanging on the cross, and in rising from the grave, "spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."