not of shattering, their fellowship? How came Peter to be so sure
that a man who had died was the 'Prince of Life'? The answer, the
only one psychologically possible, is in what Peter here proclaims to
unwilling ears, 'Whom God raised from the dead.'

The fact of the Resurrection sets the fact of the Death in another
light. Meditating on these twin facts, the Death and Resurrection of
Jesus, we hear Himself speaking as He did to John in Patmos: 'I am
the Living One who became dead, and lo, I am alive for evermore!'

If we try to listen with the ears of these first hearers of Peter's
words, we shall better appreciate his daring paradox. Think of the
tremendous audacity of the claim which they make, that Jesus should
be the 'Prince of Life,' and of the strange contradiction to it which
the fact that they 'killed' Him seems to give. How could death have
power over the Prince of Life? That sounds as if, indeed, the 'sun
were turned into darkness,' or as if fire became ice. That brief
clause 'ye killed the Prince of Life' must have seemed sheer
absurdity to the hearers whose hands were still red with the blood of
Jesus.

But there is another paradox here. It was strange that death should
be able to invade that Life, but it is no less strange that men
should be able to inflict it. But we must not forget that Jesus died,
not because men slew Him, but because He willed to die. The whole of
the narratives of the Crucifixion in the Gospels avoid using the word
'death.' Such expressions as He 'gave up the ghost,' or the like, are
used, implying what is elsewhere distinctly asserted, that His death
was His offering of Himself, the result of His own volition, not of
exhaustion or of torture. Thus, even in dying, He showed Himself the