Part 7 (1/2)

1. A sound came from heaven as of a mighty rus.h.i.+ng wind, and filled the house where they were sitting.

2. Cloven tongues, like tongues of fire, sat on each of them.

3. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Joel, the son of Pethuel, would probably be surprised at Peter's appropriation of his prophecy. No doubt it is applicable to any general religious awakening or excitement in any land or at any time. But Joel is referring to some invasion, or threatened invasion, of Judea, and to a deliverance accompanied with a religious revival and thanksgiving. The exact circ.u.mstances in which he wrote, if known, would make his obscure allusions clear. The incidents, however, of the mighty rus.h.i.+ng wind and the cloven fiery tongues receive no support from his prophecy.

(w.) _The calling of the Gentiles_ (Amos ix. 11, 12; Acts xv. 13-16).

Amos' prophecy has been falsified by the event. The Jews, who were no more to be pulled out of the land the Lord had given them, were pulled out of it eighteen centuries ago, and so remain. The disingenuous way in which James applies to the conversion of the Gentiles what is clearly a reference to a return from captivity is very striking.

CHAPTER V. THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF JESUS

1. The resurrection of Jesus is the keystone of Christian faith, the central stay on which the structure rests. ”If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that G.o.d raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” What a glorious hope for all mankind would lie in such a fact as that one, a fellow-man, had been killed because of his supernatural claims; had lain for a time in the grave, and on the third day, as predicted by himself, had risen from the dead! So marvellous an instance of nature-controlling power might well be held to establish, in the most conclusive manner, the validity of the claims of the person resuscitated; it would show that G.o.d was with him in an especial manner, that his words were true, that his promises would not fail.

2. What, then, are the evidences of this so glorious an event?

(a.) The four gospels agree in narrating that, while Jesus hung lifeless on the cross, a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, himself a disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and obtained permission to take charge of the body; that he laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out of a rock; that certain women saw where the body was laid, and that a great stone was rolled to the door of the tomb.

(b.) Matthew alone avers that, with Pilate's consent, the chief priests and Pharisees had the stone sealed, and a watch (of Roman soldiers) set.

(c.) Thus the tomb remained from the evening of the day of the crucifixion over the next day, the Jewish sabbath.

(d.) But early on the morning of the following day, the first day of the week, Jesus arose from the dead. Of this event--so entirely the reverse of all human experience, but of the last importance to each mortal man if it happened--the witnesses, of whose personal character among their neighbours for veracity and general trustworthiness nothing is known, thus present themselves:--

Matthew and John, eye-witnesses of the risen Jesus:

Mark, companion of Peter, an eye-witness:

Luke, companion of Paul, who had intercourse with eyewitnesses, and who himself professes to narrate the testimony of eye-witnesses (Luke i. 2):

And what they aver is a.n.a.lysed and compared in the following paragraphs:--

3. _The empty tomb_.--All four agree that in the morning (at dawn, at sun rising, very early, when it was yet dark) of the first day of the week the tomb was found empty by those who went to visit it.

4. _Visitors to the tomb_.--Matthew mentions ”Mary Magdalene and the other Mary;” Mark, ”Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome;” Luke, ”Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other Galilean women,” and afterwards, on the report of the women, Peter; John, ”Mary Magdalene” only, and afterwards, on her report, himself (John) and Simon Peter, Mary Magdalene returning after them.

5. _Appearances at the tomb_.--(a.) The great earthquake and the awful appearance of the angel to the watch--”countenance like lightning, raiment white as snow;” and the effect on the startled soldiers, who swooned away ”as dead men,” as also the subsequent report of the watch and their acceptance of a bribe (large money) from the chief priests to publish a falsehood and confess that they--Roman soldiers--had slept at their post, are mentioned by Matthew alone. Matthew does not name his informant, whether it was a chief priest or one of the soldiers who betrayed his own and his comrades' infamy.

(b.) The stone securing the tomb was rolled away. So all four affirm.

This was one object of the angel's visit. Jesus rose from the dead, but the angel's a.s.sistance was necessary to open the tomb.

(c.) Matthew a.s.serts that the angel sat on the stone, outside the tomb.

Mark, that he appeared as a young man sitting within the tomb, on the right side, clothed in a long, white garment. Luke has ”two men” in glittering garments, who made themselves manifest as the perplexed women were gazing at the empty tomb. John states that Mary Magdalene, on her _second_ visit, saw two angels, one sitting at the head the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. When, according to Luke, Peter visited the tomb, or according to John, when Mary Magdalene in the first instance, and then Peter and John, on hearing her report, went there, no such marvellous angelic being was manifest. The appearance was to perplexed and timid women. Wherein did they differ from other weak women, that their testimony received at second hand should be held trustworthy? Supposing, for instance, that it had been the young man with the linen garment about his naked body (Mark xiv. 51, 52), seated within the tomb, would not their excited imaginations have transformed him into a messenger from heaven?

6. _Announcements of the angels at the tomb_.--(a.) Matthew's dread angel announced to the women that Jesus had risen from the dead, directed them to go at once and inform his disciples that ”he goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him.” Trembling and joyful they ran away at once to bring ”his disciples word.”

(6.) Mark's white-clad young man made the same announcement of Jesus preceding his disciples to Galilee; but instead of obeying the angel's direction as to informing the disciples, ”they went out quickly and fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid.”

(c.) Luke's two bright-clad men announced that Jesus was risen, as he had told them while yet in Galilee. ”They remembered his words, and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.” There is no mention here of Jesus going before his disciples into Galilee.