The annual celebration of the world’s phony Easter with all its gala accouterment of feasting, flowers, and finery has the Devil‘s full endorsement. Crowded churches for once with an apostate clergy repeating heresy as old as the hills, that’s okay–too. But the preaching of the literal, bodily resurrection of our Lord from .the tomb in the garden of Joseph of Arimethea –that is positively taboo.
And with good reason. Why? Because Satan knows just what’s at stake. Deny the actual, factual, historical resurrection of Christ, and the whole Gospel collapses like the proverbial house of cards. The fact of the resurrection is the cornerstone on which the whole structure rests.
And now, what follows? It should be clear as bright sunshine at noonday that for the believer the fact of our Lord’ resurrection is for us not something to be discussed in an objective, academic, detached manner. God forbid! Simply. because everything is hanging in the balance. At this point, anyone who knows the score must realize that to make the resurrection something relative, an either-or, take-it or leave-it matter is to commit spiritual suicide.
To Paul, the historical fact of our Lord’s resurrection was exciting, incontrovertible, and absolutely non-negotiable. Paul’s magnificent and inspired treatise in I Corinthians 15 speaks volumes about this. Surely, the matter calls for our most careful attention as Easter is once again at hand. The following four points are of the utmost importance.
1. He is risen! What’s the difference?
Number one; it’s the difference between true faith and self-deception.
“And if Christ hath not been raised,” according to the Apostle, “your faith is vain” (I Cor. 15:17).
If the bodily resurrection of our Lord is not literally true, then our faith in Him is vain—that is, empty or good for nothing. Then we have rested all our hopes and expectations for both time and eternity on a He, and we will forever be the laughingstock of all who have ever scoffed at what we believed.
You see, our Lord repeatedly made it plain beyond a doubt that He would be raised up on the third day; and, by God’s grace, we have taken Him at His word. Now if this sure promise He gave us should prove to be false, then we can no longer be sure of anything He ever said.
Moreover, our Lord‘s actual and factual resurrection is the capstone or the grand finale of all His Messianic work on earth. Without this outcome or climax, all His efforts would have ended in defeat and our faith would be vain.
“But,” says the Apostle, “now hath Christ been raised from the dead . . .” Our faith is not vain but genuine and true.
Hallelujah!
2. He is risen! What’s the difference?
Number two; it‘s the difference between justification and condemnation.
“And if Christ hath not been raised,” according to the Apostle, “ye are yet in your sins” (I Cor. 15:17).
According to Romans 4:25, Christ was “delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.”
Obviously there is a very close relation between Christ’s actual, literal resurrection and our justification. I know of no better definition of justification than that found in Berkhof’s Systematic Theology (p. 513):
“Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner.”
Justification is then God‘s declaration to this fact: He has pardoned all our sins and has adopted us to be His children and heirs—all on the basis of the righteousness of Christ as our Lord and Savior.
Now there is a very close relationship between the literal resurrection of Christ and our justification—He was raised for our justification.
On the cross, Jesus, as it were, made His report to God concerning His Mediatorial work for us when He said, “It is finished.” And, in response to this, God showed His approval of and acceptance of Christ’s work by raising Him from the dead. Scripture tells us, on the one· hand, that Christ arose and, on the other hand, that God raised Him from the dead. Infidels may scoff at this as showing that Christ, whom we claim to be divine, must have needed help in rising from the dead.
But the infidel, wise in his own conceit, misses the whole point. God, the righteous Judge, showed His complete satisfaction with Christ’s Mediatorial work on our behalf by raising Him from the dead. If Christ had not been raised, we would have no reason to believe that Christ’s work had been successful and that we are no longer in our sins.
“But,” Paul writes, “now hath Christ been raised from the dead . . .” And now we may say in full assurance:
“My sin—the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part, but tile whole, Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more; Praise, the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”
Hallelujah!
3. He is risen! What‘s the difference?
Number three; it‘s the difference between hope and despair.
“And if Christ hath not been raised . . .” Paul writes, “Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (I Cor. 15:18).
Today, at the time of this writing, my wife and I were called upon once again to make that sad journey to the cemetery for the burial of a relative. Stricken with a heart attack, he did not live out the day and his dear ones were left with an aching void at this sudden and painful separation.
However, the officiating minister was a man of God who spoke words of truth and wisdom as He reminded the family and others present that the departed loved one had confessed that for all who believe, to live is Christ and to die is gain. By the spoken word and hymns of faith, the gloom was dispelled; and, through their tears; those bereaved might see the glorious promises of God and the light of heaven.
The resurrection of Christ is that which makes the difference. Suppose that one of your dear ones would fall off a pier, down in the water, and disappear from sight. And suppose that then some would-be rescuer would dive in to save your loved one and then be drowned himself. All such good intentions would be of no help and that loved one would be drowned as well.
The application is obvious. Jesus promised to enter death and the grave to deliver us and our dear ones who have fallen asleep in Him. However, if our Lord Himself had not been able to rise from the dead, He would not be able to do anything for others, and our hope concerning departed loved ones would be turned to despair.
“But,” says Paul, “now hath Christ been raised from the dead . . .” It follows then that our departed loved ones are safe according to both body and soul for ever and ever. And so we can go to the grave triumphantly, like the Puritans, of whom we are told that they carried the coffin on their shoulders and sang a psalm,
“I know that I shall not be left Forgotten in the grave, That from corruption, Thou, O Lord, Thy Holy One wilt save.”
Hallelujah!
4. He is risen! What’s the difference?
Number four; it’s the difference between blessedness and abject misery.
“If we have only hoped in Christ in this life,” Paul adds, “we are of all men most pitiable” (I Cor. 15:19).
Our historic form for the baptism of ·infants contains this striking statement in one of the prayers: “this life, which is nothing but a constant death.” You see, the Christian dares to face reality and acknowledge that this life, from the time we are born, is gradually slipping from our grasp. Pity those who have no risen Lord and therefore nothing except this life which is here today and gone tomorrow.
Every pastor and others also have probably stood at the deathbed and at the open grave to witness the unspeakable tragedy of the departure of someone without God in the world and without hope. The unbeliever may be a millionaire, but at death he is the most pitiable of all paupers. How man clings to this life when that’s all he has and when death is a blank wall or a leap in the dark.
In “The Two Voices,” Alfred Tennyson gave expression to what we all experience when he wrote:
“This life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh, life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.”
Without a risen Lord, this intense yearning for life can only end in utter despair as all the lights go out only to be turned into the outer darkness of hell. Indeed, if this would be true of us, we would be “of all men most pitiable . . .”
“But,” Paul writes in triumph, “now hath Christ been raised from the dead.”
He is risen! What’s the difference?
This is what spells all the difference between heaven and hell. With a risen Lord we celebrate Easter, we live and we may die, in the full assurance that we have been saved from the depths of perdition and that we are on the way to the heights of glory.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
Twenty-five years ago, April 1951, TORCH AND TRUMPET (now THE OUTLOOK) began publication. Throughout this twenty-fifth anniversary year (1976), notice is being taken of this event by reprinting articles that appeared in those early years of publication. It should now be of special interest, in this anniversary issue, to reprint excerpts from the very first article that appeared in the first issue under the title Why? in answer to the question, “Why another magazine?”
Over the signature of Reformed Fellowship, Inc., this question was answered in part as follows:
“We are frank to say that we are moved by a serious concern for the welfare of Zion. Alarmingly and increasingly persistent are reports that there are so many in the Reformed churches who seem to be insensitive to the real meaning of a Reformed confession and life. Men and women with sharp Reformed ‘feelers’ (Gereformeerde voel–horens) are becoming almost a curiosity.
“Only the ignorant or the blind can dare hold to the comfortable opinion that the flood–tide of antidoctrinal, man-centered modernism has graciously bypassed the Reformed churches. And in more recent days, we have Barthianism, called ‘neo-orthodoxy’ by many. We are persuaded that this new brand of theology is better called ‘a new modernism,’ and that it jeopardizes the foundations of the faith with even greater subtlety than the older liberalism. Furthermore, we may not fail to take note of the influence upon the Reformed churches of that strange mixture of truth and error commonly called Fundamentalism in our day.
“It is our purpose to arouse those of like mind with us to a more serious study of the Word and the Reformed heritage, that we may all put on the whole armor of God and be the better equipped to fight the good fight of faith. We believe the disease of religious and doctrinal indifference is making insidious progress among us, and we would indoctrinate our people with the truth of God. Then too, we who think and live under the mandate to subdue all things for God’s glory must speak with greater clarity to a generation whose culture is decadent because the people stagger in drunkenness with man-centered ways of life and thought. If in God’s good providence we can do only a little to help many give clearer expression to that voice in our time, we shall feel that our purpose is being realized.”
And now God has graciously blessed and prospered this undertaking for a quarter of a century. In His good providence, circulation and subscriptions have increased. Although there have been times of embarrassment on this score, our publication is now in a healthy financial condition, thanks to generous donors whom the Lord has given a heart for the cause. “Ebenezer . . . Hitherto hath Jehovah helped us” (I Sam. 7:12).
The founders of our publication set their sights high and had their purpose clearly in mind. It is our conviction that today the need for what they envisioned as their calling in Christian journalism is greater than ever. We would give God all the honor for whatever good may have been accomplished during the past twenty-live years in keeping with that purpose. We humbly acknowledge that our endeavors have not been free from shortcomings and failures and we look to Him for pardon.
Moreover, as we face what may still be to come in our efforts to serve by means of the printed page, we rededicate ourselves to “the exposition and defense of the Reformed faith,” and together with the man of God, Moses, we also pray:
And let the favor af the Lord our God be upon us; And establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. (Ps. 90:17)
ITEMS OF INTEREST
The following items are deserving of mention and your consideration:
1. Due to the generous contributions from members of Reformed Fellowship and friends of THE OUTLOOK it has become financially possible in this twenty-fifth anniversary year to offer a one-year free subscription to all consistory members. The response to this offer has been most encouraging, almost overwhelming. This increase in circulation is greatly appreciated. Of course, it is our hope and prayer that many or most of these recipients will continue as regular subscribers. Due to the strategic position of the elders and deacons, the importance of having them as readers can hardly be overstated. A hearty welcome to them!
2. Mention should be made also of the fact that it is by way of exception that this anniversary issue is thirty-two instead of the regular twenty-four pages. It is planned to have another thirty-two page issue in the near future. And the hope is that further generous financial contributions may make it possible to publish such enlarged editions from time to time or, if the Lord prospers us to that extent, even regularly.
3. Elsewhere in this issue, the review by Dr. William H. Rutgers of a paperback reprint of The History of Christian Doctrine by Professor Louis Berkhof gives occasion for additional comment. With good reason, Dr. Rutgers is enthusiastic in his endorsement and commendation of Berkhof’s clear and systematic presentation of Reformed doctrine. My own experience has been that appreciation of Berkhof’s sound and lucid teaching continues to increase through regular use, especially of his Systematic Theology, throughout the years. Without any disparagement of our other professors during our student days at Calvin Seminary (1927–’30), it was, as one colleague once observed in retrospect, “Berkhof really gave us the backbone of the whole business.” It was that because sound doctrine is as essential to good preaching and teaching as the backbone is to the well-being and proper functioning of the rest of the body.
Familiarity with The History of Christian Doctrine is so necessary for a number of reasons, two of which are the following. First, it is only as we come to know this history that we learn to appreciate how the Holy Spirit has been leading the church throughout the years. Second, to the extent that we become better acquainted with such history it will become increasingly clear to us that today’s heresies of the so-called “moderns” are really nothing else than reruns of the past or the same old heresies of long ago now dressed in modern garb.
In distinction from the many fly-by-night books, Berkhof’s works are staple merchandise to be found on the shelves of all our studies and libraries for handy reference and regular use.
4. Once again, Reformed Fellowship invites all friends of the Reformed Theological College of Nigeria to send contributions: (1) to provide books for those preparing for the ministry in Nigeria; and (2) to help pay for the buildings needed. Further information about the needs for this worthy cause has been solicited and we hope to be able to publish this information soon. Contributions to be forwarded to the RTCN may be sent to Reformed Fellowship, Inc., P.O. Box 7383, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49510.
5. And then there is the news about the Florida Vacation Bonanza for ministers and their families. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, someone with a big heart for ministers and their families has two completely-furnished homes that he makes available free of charge for ministers and their families upon request. Having taken advantage of this generous offer some time ago, among the hundreds of names of ministers listed as having been there, we could find the name of only one CRC minister. Obviously the word has not been passed along to the CRC clergy even though they are as welcome as anyone else. Mr. Hugh Hoffman, the owner, gladly approved of my suggestion that we give some publicity to this. The only hitch is that, due to the many requests, application must be made quite far in advance. Anyone interested may write to: Mr. Hugh Hoffman, 52.4 N. E. 16 Court, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33305.
6. Finally, in this twenty-fifth anniversary year of our publication, it is most fitting that a word of hearty appreciation be expressed to Mr. Peter Wobbema, Jr., and to the Wobbema Press, Inc. for all the generous assistance and cooperation given throughout the years to make the uninterrupted publication of THE OUTLOOK (formerly TORCH AND TRUMPET) possible. First it was Mr. Peter Wobbema, Sr. who did so much to enable our journal to continue. As I am informed, it was his deathbed request that, come what may, this publication must go on. Ever since that time, his son has carried on with the same commitment. In times when Reformed Fellowship ran seriously in the red, there was never a time when Wobbema Press was not willing to carry us along. Office space and a board meeting room are regularly provided for our needs. We can only thank our God for all that He has made the Wobbema’s able and willing to do.