# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 05 13_S149
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

149

For it took place, not by chance and unexpectedly, but after JEsus had long before, both privately and publicly, before friends and enemies, announced it beforehand as a miracle wherewith he would seal the truth of his testimony concerning himself and the divinity of all his other miracles. Scarcely had JEsus appeared publicly in Israel, when, to the question of the Jews, wherewith he would prove his divine authority, he gave answer, pointing to his body: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And when afterward, in spite of the glorious miracles which he had already wrought, out of idle curiosity they desired yet other signs, he answered: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." At another time he said before a great assembly: "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." The nearer the time of Christ's death drew, the more often, the more plainly and the more definitely he spoke also of his resurrection following upon his death. Even on his last journey to Jerusalem he said to the twelve: "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge him, and put him to death; and the third day he shall rise again." Yea, as we have already heard, even in the last judicial hearing JEsus gave his judges to understand that his death and grave would be the last step of his humiliation, and that thereupon the revelation of his divine power and glory would soon follow.

And what has happened? Was JEsus also able to keep this great word of his? and has he now kept it? — Yes, — praised be JEsus Christ! — he was able to keep it and he has kept it *). With the first ray of morning of the third day, after his shameful death upon the cross, behold! then Christ penetrated with his glorified body, as light penetrates through glass without injuring it, through the gravestone without breaking its seals, and an angel descended from heaven, rolled away, amid the quaking of the earth, the stone from the opening of the tomb, showed that the grave was empty, and called to those who sought JEsus' body in order to anoint it: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen!" And this word: "The Lord is risen!" went forth thereupon with the speed of lightning from mouth to mouth, has resounded like a sound from the trumpet of God himself through all lands and echoed on through all the centuries down to the present day, and has proved itself a true word by the divine power which it has manifested in millions of hearts and still manifests to this hour, to awaken, to quicken, to renew, and to give the peace of heaven which nothing else in this world can give.

*) It is well known that at the beginning of the last century the fanatical so-called Inspired, who had fled from the Cevennes to England, in order to raise the divinity of their alleged revelations above all doubt, at length undertook to have a certain man of their fellowship, the physician Thomas Emes, who had died on the 25th of December, 1707, raised again by the Chevalier Lacy on the 25th of May of the following year. The appointed day came, and an immense multitude of people assembled about Emes' grave to be witnesses of the promised great miracle. But what happened? — Lacy stayed outside, and excused himself by saying that he himself had as yet received no command from the "Spirit" for this work. Full of vexation the multitude dispersed.

O what a good, firm, unshakable ground for a joyful confession of our faith, that JEsus is the Son of God, have we Christians therefore! From the resurrection of JEsus Christ we perceive: There, where the power of all men comes to an end and where even the mightiest in the world becomes powerless, in death, — there JEsus' power is yet not at an end; yea, there it first revealed itself in its invincible greatness. There, whither no man's wisdom reaches; where it is suddenly all over with all men and their plans, designs and devices; where it is said to all in the midst of their course: "Hitherto, and no further!" in death, — there it is yet not over with JEsus' counsels; yea, there he has gloriously carried out what he had resolved. There, where it becomes manifest that even the highest upon earth, who was deified by others or deified himself, was yet also only a man, a son of dust, who becomes dust again, who cannot help himself, in death, — there it becomes manifest in JEsus that He has not only a human nature, by virtue of which he could die, but that in this mortal human nature there dwelt at the same time another, which had life in itself; which was itself the fountain of life; which needed not to wait for quickening; which therefore no death could separate from the dissolved human nature; another, which was rather mighty to rebuild the broken temple of humanity in three days. From the resurrection of JEsus Christ we see that he is a Lord also over the king of terrors, death; a Lord of him who binds every creature that comes into his kingdom with unbreakable bonds and lays it at his feet. From the resurrection of JEsus Christ we see therefore that he is the Lord of death and Prince of life — the true God and eternal life himself.

Here, however, perhaps many a one will think in his heart: But perhaps God the Father raised up Christ; how can that, however, prove Christ's divinity? Was the son of the Shunammite therefore the Son of God, because Elisha had raised him from the dead? — To this I answer: God the Father has raised up JEsus not merely "perhaps," but, according to the Scripture, certainly and truly, for what the Son doeth, that doeth the Father also. But far from this weakening the proof of his divinity which lies in the resurrection of Christ, it raises this proof, on the contrary, above all doubt and contradiction to the highest degree of certainty. Consider, whoever is not true God, and yet says that all should honor him even as they honor God the Father, is a blasphemer. But Christ has spoken thus; Christ has made himself equal with God, and promised to prove his right thereto by his resurrection on the third day after his death. What would God the Father now have done, if Christ had not been what he had declared himself to be? Would he have raised him up? — Never! — Since, then, the Father has nevertheless raised him up, God has thereby in fact confirmed and sealed Christ's own testimony concerning his divinity. Yea, by the raising of Christ God the Father himself has called down from heaven before all the world, louder than formerly at the Jordan: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." By the raising of Christ God the Father has given to all that Christ has testified of himself his eternally decisive, solemn Yea; thereby God the Father himself has said: Yea, ye men, this JEsus is not only a man, but at the same time your God; of the same essence with me, equally eternal with me, equally great and glorious, of equal divine majesty and sovereignty, and to him is due, as to me, praise, honor and adoration from angels and men, in heaven and on earth, from everlasting to everlasting.

Behold, ye Christians, hereafter ye can confidently confess before all the world that JEsus Christ is the Son of God. It is impossible that ye could err here, for God the Father himself have ye here as witness. Confidently can ye answer the scoffer who mockingly asks you: What? thou prayest to a crucified one? Yea! for he is my LORD and thy LORD; he is my God and thy God; therefore I worship him and will worship him unto all eternity. But thou, who wilt not submit thyself to him, tremble! Thou wilt not submit thyself to him who by his glorious resurrection, as the great apostle of the Gentiles writes, "was declared to be the Son of God with power," who has thereby himself proved that he hath the keys of life and of death, the keys of heaven and of hell, and that he can therefore save, but also destroy both body and soul in hell. Thou wilt not submit thyself to him to whom the Father by his raising from the dead has in fact spoken before heaven and earth: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies,