Part 9 (1/2)

He says, ”I have flesh and bones.”

They are still silent.

Then he stretches out his hands towards them. He shows them his feet.

There are great marks in them--there is around these marks as the stain of blood, or of wounds whence blood had flowed.

Still they do not speak. They are afraid to believe; it is too good to be true.

He says to them, ”Handle me and see--take hold of my feet--feel me-- examine me for yourselves.”

They are as immovable and speechless as men changed into stone.

He turns upon them quickly and says, ”Have you anything to eat?”

They point to the untasted supper.

Then comes the climax.

He goes to the table.

He sits down.

He eats before them.

It is of record that he did eat _broiled fish_ and an _honeycomb_.

Either this is the worst fable ever palmed off on the church of Christ--on the credulity of aching human hearts--or it is the truth of G.o.d.

Call it the truth of G.o.d--then the body in which our Lord Jesus Christ rose was the body in which he died.

That body, stamped and sealed with the stigmata of the cross, is the living, quivering definition, and indisputable demonstration of immortality. Immortality is the living again in a body which was dead and dieth no more; or, it is the change of the body in which we now live into an incorruptible, glorious body which shall never die.

In that body which he raised from the dead, and which never saw corruption, our Lord Jesus Christ now sitteth at the right hand of G.o.d.

He is there as the vision and standard of immortality.

He is there as the forerunner, the prototype, the sample and prophecy of immortality for the Christian.

Until the Christian is made immortal his redemption is not complete.

The Christian who dies is transported to heaven.

His estate there as compared to this is ”far better.”

But ”far better” is not the ”best.” It is only a comparative.

The superlative requires that the Christian shall have a body.

Without a body the Christian is neither a complete human being nor a perfect son of G.o.d.