Oneness With God In His Method and In His Power (continued)
When we come to this matter of resurrection we have to recognize that it is the crisis in the life of the child of God. In the case of Isaac, and in the case of every child of God, the beginning is resurrection. It is the giving of a life which has already conquered death, and that is what Isaac stands for, as a type. He was, in a parable, brought back from the dead, and the life which he lived from that day onward was a life which had triumphed over death. And so it is with every true child of God. By the resurrection of Jesus Christ, every true child of God receives a life which has conquered death, a life over which death has no power. It is called 'eternal life' in the New Testament.
Science has proved that life can only come from life and can never come from something which is dead. This is true in the spiritual life. We can only have resurrection life from what that life comes. The Lord Jesus Christ truly died and was raised again as a FIRST ONE of resurrection, and, being the FIRST ONE of resurrection, life can only come from Him. This is a crisis in the experience of a child of God.
To begin with, it is not a process, but a definite, precise act. It is so definite and so precise that at one moment you do not have it, and the next moment you have it. At one moment you are what God calls 'dead,' and the next moment you are what He calls 'alive.' It is as definite as that.
Let us take Abraham and Isaac as an illustration.
Abraham bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar, and then he raised the knife to plunge it into Isaac. At the moment that Abraham raised the knife Isaac was dead, and the moment that the angel of the Lord got hold of Abraham's hand Isaac was alive. It was as precise as that.
I do not know why it is that the Lord compelling me to speak so much about the beginning of the Christian life. It is not what I had thought of for a conference of Christians, but, against my own pre-mediation, I was compelled to give that message last night, and I discovered afterward that there were a number of unsaved people in the meeting and also a number of young Christians who do not understand the meaning of the beginning of the Christian life. Now we are here again tonight. It may put a big strain upon the patience of the older Christians, but we must take nothing for granted. We must not take it for granted that everyone really understands the nature of the new birth, so we repeat, the true beginning of a true Christian life is nothing other than a resurrection from the dead. It is the receiving of a life which is called resurrection life.
The next thing is that resurrection is God's unique act. Resuscitation is not resurrection. Wonderful things are being done in our time. We hear of people whose hearts stop beating, and then by some artificial means they are started again. People are calling that 'bringing them back to life from the dead.' Then there are people who are drowned. After some artificial application there is given what has come to be called 'the kiss of life,' which means that someone breathes into their mouth and inflates their lungs again, and they come back to consciousness. Men are calling that 'raising from the dead.' But it it that? Let them stay in their condition for four days. Let the blood run cold, and then, after four days, try artificial respiration. Well, you can work at it for ever and they will not come back to life. Lazarus was dead and in the grave for four days, and Jesus refused to go near him during that time, so that no one would be able to say: 'It was resuscitation.' It had to be resurrection.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 21)
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