from the throne, and we can see in Him, the Son of God. But if death
holds Him still, and 'the Syrian stars look down upon His grave,' as
a modern poet tells us in his dainty English that they do, then what
becomes of these words of His, and of our estimate of the character
of Him, the speaker? Let us hear no more about the pure morality of
Jesus Christ, and the beauty of His calm and lofty teaching, and the
rest of it. Take away His resurrection from the dead, and we have
left beautiful precepts, and fair wisdom, deformed with a monstrous
self-assertion and the constant reiteration of claims which the event
proves to have been baseless. Either He has risen from the dead or
His words were blasphemy. Men nowadays talk very lightly of throwing
aside the supernatural portions of the Gospel history, and retaining
reverence for the great Teacher, the pure moralist of Nazareth. The
Pharisees put the issue more coarsely and truly when they said, 'That
deceiver said, while He was yet alive, after three days I will rise
again.' Yes! one or the other. 'Declared to be the Son of God with
power by the resurrection from the dead,' or--that which our lips
refuse to say even as a hypothesis!

Still further, with the Resurrection stands or falls Christ's whole
work for our redemption. If He died, like other men--if that awful
bony hand has got its grip upon Him too, then we have no proof that
the cross was anything but a martyr's cross. His Resurrection is the
proof of His completed work of redemption. It is the proof--followed
as it is by His Ascension--that His death was not the tribute which
for Himself He had to pay, but the ransom for us. His Resurrection is
the condition of His present activity. If He has not risen, He has
not put away sin; and if He has not put it away by the sacrifice of
Himself, none has, and it remains. We come back to the old dreary
alternative: 'if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, and our