After Christ rose from the dead, He proclaimed over the sepulcher, “I am the resurrection and the life.”John 11:25. Christ, the risen Saviour, is our life. As Christ becomes the life of the soul, the change is felt, but language cannot describe it. All claims to knowledge, to influence, to power, are worthless without the perfume of Christ’s character. Christ must be the very life of the soul, as the blood is the life of the body....
(1SM 114.1)
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Those who are connected with the service of God must be purified from every thread of selfishness. All is to be done in accordance with the injunction, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all” (Colossians 3:17) “to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). God’s laws of justice and equity must be strictly obeyed in the transactions between neighbor and neighbor, brother and brother. We are to seek for perfect order and perfect righteousness, after God’s own similitude. On these grounds alone will our works bear the test of the judgment....
(1SM 114.2)
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Christianity is the revealing of the tenderest affection for one another. The Christian life is made up of Christian duties and Christian privileges. Christ in His wisdom gave to His church in its infancy a system of sacrifices and offerings, of which He Himself was the foundation, and by which His death was prefigured. Every sacrifice pointed to Him as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, that all might understand that the wages of sin is death. In Him was no sin, yet He died for our sins.
(1SM 114.3)
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The symbolic system of ceremonies worked to one end—the vindication of the law of God, that all who believe in Christ might come “in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). In Christian work there is ample room for the activity of all the gifts God has given. All are to be united in carrying out God’s requirements, revealing at every advance step that faith which works by love and purifies the soul.
(1SM 114.4)
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[This article appeared in The Youth’s Instructor, August 4, 1898.]
(1SM 301)
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“I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25). He who had said, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17), came forth from the grave to life that was in Himself. Humanity died; divinity did not die. In His divinity, Christ possessed the power to break the bonds of death. He declares that He has life in Himself to quicken whom He will.
(1SM 301.1)
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All created beings live by the will and power of God. They are recipients of the life of the Son of God. However able and talented, however large their capacities, they are replenished with life from the Source of all life. He is the spring, the fountain, of life. Only He who alone hath immortality, dwelling in light and life, could say, “I have power to lay it [my life] down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18).
(1SM 301.2)
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The words of Christ, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25), were distinctly heard by the Roman guard. The whole army of Satan heard them. And we understand them when we hear. Christ had come to give His life a ransom for many. As the Good Shepherd, He had laid down His life for the sheep. It was the righteousness of God to maintain His law by inflicting the penalty. This was the only way in which the law could be maintained, and pronounced holy, and just, and good. It was the only way by which sin could be made to appear exceeding sinful, and the honor and majesty of divine authority be maintained.
(1SM 301.3)
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The law of God’s government was to be magnified by the death of God’s only-begotten Son. Christ bore the guilt of the sins of the world. Our sufficiency is found only in the incarnation and death of the Son of God. He could suffer, because sustained by divinity. He could endure, because He was without one taint of disloyalty or sin. Christ triumphed in man’s behalf in thus bearing the justice of punishment. He secured eternal life to men, while He exalted the law, and made it honorable.
(1SM 302.1)
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Christ was invested with the right to give immortality. The life which He had laid down in humanity, He again took up and gave to humanity. “I am come,” He says, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54). “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).
(1SM 302.2)
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All who are one with Christ through faith in Him gain an experience which is life unto eternal life. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57). He “dwelleth in me, and I in him” (John 6:56). “I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54). “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19).
(1SM 302.3)
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Christ became one with humanity, that humanity might become one in spirit and life with Him. By virtue of this union in obedience to the Word of God, His life becomes their life. He says to the penitent, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25). Death is looked upon by Christ as sleep—silence, darkness, sleep. He speaks of it as if it were of little moment. “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me,” He says, “shall never die” (John 11:26). “If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death” (John 8:52). “He shall never see death” (John 8:51). And to the believing one, death is but a small matter. With him to die is but to sleep. “Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1 Thessalonians 4:14).
(1SM 302.4)
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While the women were making known their message as witnesses of the risen Saviour, and while Jesus was preparing to reveal Himself to a large number of His followers, another scene was taking place. The Roman guard had been enabled to view the mighty angel who sang the song of triumph at the birth of Christ, and hear the angels who now sang the song of redeeming love. At the wonderful scene which they were permitted to behold, they had fainted and become as dead men. When the heavenly train was hidden from their sight, they arose to their feet, and made their way to the gate of the garden as quickly as their tottering limbs would carry them. Staggering like blind or drunken men, their faces pale as the dead, they told those they met of the wonderful scenes they had witnessed. Messengers preceded them quickly to the chief priests and rulers, declaring, as best they could, the remarkable incidents that had taken place.
(1SM 303.1)
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The guards were making their way first to Pilate, but the priests and rulers sent word for them to be brought into their presence. These hardened soldiers presented a strange appearance, as they bore testimony to the resurrection of Christ and also of the multitude whom He brought forth with Him. They told the chief priests what they had seen at the sepulcher. They had not time to think or speak anything but the truth. But the rulers were displeased with the report. They knew the great publicity had been given to the trial of Christ, by holding it at the time of the Passover. They knew that the wonderful events which had taken place—the supernatural darkness, the mighty earthquake—could not be without effect, and they at once planned how they might deceive the people. The soldiers were bribed to report a falsehood.
(1SM 303.2)
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[This article appeared in the the Youth’s Instructor, August 11, 1898, under the title “The Risen Saviour—Part 2.”]
(1SM 304)
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When Christ cried out while upon the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), there was a mighty earthquake, that rent open the graves of many who had been faithful and loyal, bearing their testimony against every evil work, and magnifying the Lord of hosts. As the Life-giver came forth from the sepulcher, proclaiming, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25), He summoned these saints from the grave. When alive, they had borne their testimony unflinchingly for the truth; now, they were to be witnesses to Him who had raised them from the dead. These, said Christ, are no longer the captives of Satan. I have redeemed them; I have brought them from the grave as the first fruits of My power, to be with Me where I am, nevermore to see death or experience sorrow.
(1SM 304.1)
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During His ministry, Jesus raised the dead to life. He raised the son of the widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus, and Lazarus; but these were not clothed with immortality. After they were raised, they continued to be subject to death. But those who came forth from the grave at Christ’s resurrection were raised to everlasting life. They were the multitude of captives that ascended with Him as trophies of His victory over death and the grave.
(1SM 304.2)
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