CHRIST spoke the words we have in this chapter shortly before He suffered death. He tells that the world shall not see Him any more, but that His disciples would see Him. Accordingly, it is remarkable that none saw Him after His resurrection and during the forty days He remained on earth before His ascension to Heaven, except His own disciples—They saw Him by their bodily eyes after His resurrection, but they saw Him by the eye of faith after he had ascended to Heaven. He told them that they would live also in a manner in which the world could not live, and that because He lived. In speaking from the words of the text we shall notice:—
I. The life of Christ—He lives.
II. The benefit that flows to Christ’s people in consequence of His life—They shall live also.
I. The life of Christ—”I live.”
Christ died to secure life to His people. He rose again to life, and He lives for evermore. Death has no more dominion over Him. He died a cursed death; He lives a glorious life with the Father. Christ lives from everlasting to everlasting (1) as God, therefore He says—”I live.” (2) Though He died as to the natural life of His human nature, yet He took that life to Himself again at His resurrection, and He lives to die no more. (3) He lives as the Head of His Church, as the second Adam. Christ does not say—”Because I shall live,” but “because I live.” He, the great I am—Jehovah—from everlasting to everlasting—without beginning or end—was living when He was hanging on the cross, when He was lying dead in the grave. He was then the living Shepherd of Israel, watching over His flock, leading and feeding them. As the eternal God He never sleeps nor slumbers, He never died. When Christ as the eternal and everlasting God combated with eternal death—the wages of sin—He swallowed it up in victory. Though He laid down His life as to His human nature, He was living when He did so, and because He was living He had power to take that life again. He rose from the dead, and He lives for ever more. He now lives in His glorified state, as the Head of His Church—a Head of power and life, having all power in heaven and earth, and all fulness of life for His Church.
II. The benefit that flows to His people because He lives, they shall live also.
There is a union between them and Christ that makes it sure that they shall live. There is a federal union, and there is a vital union. In virtue of the former union, they shall live because He, their federal Head, shall not, like the first Adam, die. Their life depends on His living, and in virtue of the latter union they shall live—ever drawing supplies out of His fulness of life to maintain the eternal life He has imparted unto them. He is their covenant Head, and they are His covenant people by a vital relation. He is the vine and they are the branches—united to Him by the Spirit on the one hand and by faith on the other. Christ’s disciples are often tempted to think that all their hope is gone when they find that there is nothing in them (as to their experience), but death, forgetting that their life depends on Him—forgetting that He lives. The following anecdote may be useful to illustrate this:—There was a godly old man who had a little granddaughter living with him. He would be often speaking to the child about God—His love to sinners, His mercy, His goodness—and the little girl thought that there was none her grandfather loved so much as the God he so much recommended to her. On one occasion the old Christian fell into a very low state of mind through unbelief. He was in misery, and spoke nothing to the child for days. He was pacing up and down in his room, wringing his hands in agony. The child was observing him, and pitying him, and as she thought that nothing would leave him so sad, but to hear that something happened to God, whom he so much loved, she asked her grandfather, “Did God die when you are in that sad state?” The question of his little grandchild was the means of relief to the good man. He remembered that his God was living, and he was comforted: “Because I live ye shall live also.” Christian, do not conclude that you shall die so long as Christ lives, and remember He lives for ever more, and His cause in the world shall not die either, because He lives. (1) The life of grace in them is everlasting. It will never die, however low it may come as to their experience, because Christ, the source from which that life proceeds, lives to give them additional supplies according to their needs during their time in the world. (2) Though they must die the natural death, they shall be raised to life again to die no more, like their Head. Although all the human race will be in being after the resurrection, the wicked as well as the righteous, the latter shall live a life of holiness and happiness, because Christ, the second Adam, lives in human nature for ever. Death hath no more dominion over Him. All their life depends upon the covenant head. (3) They shall live a life of glory in heaven for evermore. All this results from the fact that Christ lives. The state of the human race when God created man was mutable—all depended on the human side, in the first man, who was the representative head of all his ordinary posterity. If he stood, they would stand, but if he fell, they would fall. Adam sinned and fell, and died. But Christ, the second Adam, having secured eternal life for His people, shall never forfeit that life, and as their continuance of that blessing depends on their representative Head, they shall never loose it. Because He lives, they shall live also. A great element in the state of glory is its everlastingness. The redeemed shall never fall from that state; for Christ shall never fall from it. They are wholly indebted to Christ for bringing them to that state, and for keeping them in it. This is a most comforting doctrine. Christ preached it to His disciples in the time of need. He told them He was leaving them as to His bodily presence, and they were filled with sorrow. They felt themselves like orphans, destitute of a father to care for them, exposed to the malice of the world, they saw nothing before them but death. But He comforts them, and tells them that there was no real ground for their fear and misgivings: “Ye shall not die; because I live ye shall live also.” How much comfort we might have if we looked to Christ more than we look to ourselves and to other men, and remember His gracious words. Through unbelief we often consider our own weakness and the dangers to which we are exposed in a world of sin and trouble; we feel disheartened, and ready to perish. How seasonable in such circumstances are all the inspiring words of the Saviour—”Because I live, ye shall live also.” But of ourselves we cannot remember His words so as to derive comfort from them. We need to pray—”Remember the word of thy servant, upon which thou hast caused him to hope.” The Lord, however, considers our weakness, and comes to us, and speaks a word in season to our troubled souls.
In the midst of all troubles that meet the Lord’s people in the wilderness there is enough in Christ to comfort and support them, enough in His fulness, enough in His promise, and it is their duty to look to Him, to take hold of His promises, and to trust Him. Christ in the text set an example before ministers of the Gospel how they should feed His flock. They should not leave them on the bare hill, but lead them to the green pastures of the Gospel; they should open the gates of the parks of His rich promises, and allow the poor creatures to take their fill there. The ministers themselves would get enough for their own hungry souls, too. In the midst of all the changes that take place in the world, and in the experience of the flock, there is no change in Christ. He lives, and, therefore, His people, individually and collectively, are safe. They shall not die, but live, and it is their duty to declare the works of God. They are reconciled through His death, they are saved by His life, they shall live on and with Christ for ever. They have their natural life from Christ, and they shall live in the world till the time appointed come, notwithstanding the devices of Satan and his children to get them out of the world. At the resurrection their natural life shall be restored to them, and they shall live that life for ever. They shall glorify God with their bodies and spirits, which are now His by redemption as well as by creation. They live a life of grace on earth, they live a life of glory in heaven.
The text is a window of heaven, which Christ opened before He left the world, that His poor people might see Him in His exalted state, as their living Saviour, and also see their own safety in Him. It was originally spoken to the few disciples He had in His state of humiliation, but it is written for the comfort of all His people to the end of time. His Word is the channel through which He yet speaks, and when He gives comfort through the written Word to His people in the time of need it seems to them as if He spoke with the freshness and life that accompanied His Word when He spoke on earth. Christ, the Speaker, seems to be present. We cannot be too thankful for the Scriptures. They are, so to speak, the telephone through which Christ speaks to His people on earth. When He speaks through this telephone to them while yet on earth He seems to be present with them. There was a man in the telephone service in London, who, when on holiday at a place far away from London, was telephoned to by his next-door neighbour, asking information about some particular business. In the reply the voice was so audible that the inquirer thought the speaker had returned to his office, and asked him when had he come back. The man answered—”I have not come back at all. I am still away on holiday.” As already stated, when Christ speaks to His people on earth through the medium of His Word, they think that He is still with them on earth.
In conclusion, what unspeakable privileges the Lord’s people have. Among these is the life eternal spoken of in our text. This life they have in Christ and the union with Him. Their natural life shall be taken from them, but this life none can take away; it is insured and secured, it is hid in Christ with God. How miserable must be the case of all who die without Christ. They lose their life, which is the most precious thing man has in this life. Sinner! are you in this sad condition? Think of it before it is too late. Cry to Him who saved His people from sin and eternal death. He is the hearer and answerer of prayer. He may hear your prayer, and say to you before you leave this world—”Because I live you shall live also.” So may it be. Amen.