IMPELLED by the terror of the Lord and constrained by the love of Christ, behold Paul at Athens. Think of the matchless splendor which burst upon his view as he rolled his eye round the enchanting outlook that encircled Mars Hill. Standing on its summit, there was spread out before him, on one hand, a lovely prospect of mountains, islands, seas, and skies; on the other, lay, within range of his vision, the plain of Marathon bristling with historic associations. Behind him towered the lofty Acropolis, crowned with the pride of Grecian architecture. There, in the zenith of their glory and the perfection of their beauty, stood those peerless temples, the very fragments of which are regarded by modern travelers with an idolatry almost equal to that which reared them. Stretched along the plain below him, and reclining her head on the slope of the neighboring hills, was Athens, mother of the arts and sciences. The Porch, the Lyceum, and the Grove, with the statues of departed sages, and the forms of their living disciples, were all within the sweep of the apostle’s eye. How admirers of classic lore would have envied his position and gloried in the entrancing scenery! But there stood Paul, as insensible to all this grandeur as if nothing was before him but the treeless, turfless desert. A light above the brightness of the sun at noon had eclipsed all that for him. A zeal of a different kind filled his breast. The situation had no charms for him. He felt none of its fascinations. Nay, a pang went through his very soul, and his spirit was stirred to its depths when he saw “the city wholly given to idolatry.” The Athenians might be at the height of civilization and literature, but he saw them as they really were, in the very depth of misery, having no hope, and without God in the world.
The great apostle of the Gentiles here actually bewailed a city of philosophers with more intense grief than any of us ever did a horde of savages. Inspite of all the pomp of earthly magnificence with which he was surrounded, to him it seemed nothing but a ghastly scene of death, where men lay dead in trespasses and in sins, and all that the dim light of philosophy could afford only served as the lamp of the sepulcher. And what was Paul’s antidote for that state of things?
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION.
Such is God’s provision for the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant. How many in this advanced age appear to think that, with civilization, education, and culture, nothing more is needed. They seem to forget that an educated sinner requires salvation quite as much as an illiterate one, that what a man dead in sins needs is life not letters, and what a man alive in sins must have is justification from all things and peace with God, not scholastic information, however extensive. No class is more difficult to reach than this. They are well nigh unapproachable. Divine things are kept at arm’s-length, and as for Jesus, that name, sweet as it sounds in a believer’s ear, never passes their lips. Yet they have a claim upon us. Their souls are precious, and they are part of the very world that God so loved as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Has it ever occurred to you, my dear cultured friend, how thoroughly what Paul preached to the Athenian philosophers of old meets your case? “He preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.” In other words, he offered them a Saviour, and this same Jesus is a Saviour for you. His very name implies it. “He was called Jesus,” “for he shall save his people from their sins,” and on the cross He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Paul accordingly proclaimed “Jesus,” but did not stop there. It was Jesus and the resurrection. He is a Saviour surely, but not that only. He is a Saviour mighty to save, He was triumphant over death. Alone He went into the fight for us, but the issue of the conflict was neither doubtful nor uncertain. The foe was crushed, and the victory decisive and complete all along the line. He abolished death, rose a Conqueror, and brought life and incorruptibility to light.
This is something outside the sphere of all science. It is the demonstration of a power entirely above and beyond natural law. It is Divine power, Resurrection does not follow the ordinary sequence of nature. It is the supernatural intervention of a power that is paramount to death. Moreover it is a fact which is past debate and admits of no contradiction. That God should become a man, that the Son should be revealed as man on earth, that He should die as man on the cross, that He should rise from the dead, that He should ascend as man in a spiritual and glorified body to heaven, assuring those who believed on Him that they would be with Him, and like Him― these are facts which no science can ever give, and no philosophy can ever teach you. Indeed, the fatal defect in both these is that each starts with the assumption that man is a being in his normal state going on from one excelsior stage of progress to another, instead of a fallen creature, who has departed from God, and must either return to Him or be judged if he refuses. But, thank God, in the midst of man’s ruin He has provided a remedy that more than covers it. Paul boldly announced it in the ears of instructed men at Athens― “Jesus and the resurrection;” and it is indispensable for learned and unlearned in our day if they are ever to be eternally blessed.
You may ask, however, What does Jesus and the resurrection mean? How does it apply to the salvation of a man’s soul? Let me tell you how it was brought home to a young man of singular intellectual attainments, and with an exceptionally promising future. His university career was crowned with success, but in the too eager pursuit of his studies, and incessant application to books, the strain had been too much for his health. Examined by his medical adviser, he was immediately ordered a bracing climate and complete rest from mental work. It came like a shock on the family circle. The anxiety of a fond parent lost no time in getting him away as advised, hopeful that the thoroughness of the change might restore him to his wonted vigor. But alas! matters did not improve. His strength, on the contrary, was fast failing, and his life was ebbing away. Unable to leave his room, it was, to one of his accomplishments, a bitter disappointment, as he lay on his bed, to think of this early blighting of his brilliant prospects, and the, utter collapse of all his well-laid plans for this life. Still nothing now remained but to face the worst. A devoted laborer for God happened to be there, though the young gentleman was rather averse to be spoken to about spiritual things, but something he had heard concerning this particular servant of the Lord induced him to desire that his father should invite him to come and see him. He was soon by his bedside, only to find that he had covered his head with the bed-clothes. He quietly took out his Bible, and opening it at the tenth chapter of Romans, began to read, “‘Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” A brief pause ensued, and then raising his voice, he said, “Young man, that is my desire for you, take down the bed-clothes.”
He instantly relaxed and tremblingly uncovered, when a pale, anxious face was revealed, looking imploringly at the visitor who had thus in so kind a manner broken down his reserve, and continuing, inquired―
“What is your trouble?”
The reply was― “My sins, my sins. I have been leaving God out. I have been forgetting Christ.”
“Well, then,” said the Lord’s servant, “hearken to what I am about to read. These people were not saved. What was it that prevented them from being saved?” He read slowly and distinctly. ‘“For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish a righteousness of their own, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.’” Proceeding, he said, “Now you see there is a way not to be saved as well as a way to be saved.”
“Yes,” answered the young man, “that seems clear.”
“What, then, is the way not to be saved? Hear while I read: ‘For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man that doeth those things shall live by them.’ But no one ever lived by them, because he could not do them, and he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all. Hence if you have offended in one point, the law can only curse instead of bless. There is no hope, then, on the principle of doing. But what is the way to be saved?” and then with a pathos which went to the young man’s heart, he said, “Listen, as for your very life, while I tell you the way to be saved.” This was the decisive moment. He read feelingly: “But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh, thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
He followed every word with intense interest, a new light broke into the dying young man’s soul, and grasping the hand of the visitor he breathed out, “Saved, saved.” It was a solemn but an eventful time. His distress was gone, a calm peace filled his breast, and a glory seemed to light up his countenance. His regrets were over. He had found satisfaction in Christ.
The true significance, my friend, ought to be evident now of what Paul meant by “Jesus and the resurrection,” and the connection between that and salvation. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
On calling next day, the young man said, “I am now going to meet God, I shall soon be in His presence, but having already met Him in Christ, and now resting in His word that cannot lie, ‘thou shalt be saved,’ it is going home, not death.”
Soon after he went to be with Christ, which is far better. Can you, dear reader, say, “Christ for me”? Can you say, “Jesus is mine”?
W. S. F.