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The resurrection of Christ —

I. IS THE GREAT PUBLIC MANIFESTATION OF HIS AUTHORITY OVER PHYSICAL DECAY AND DEATH. This it is by being His own personal conquest of that power as it had been exercised upon Himself: a characteristic which separates it from all other instances of similar miraculous restorations. All others, in whatsoever age of the world, had been raised by a power from without: He alone by Himself. The power that revived all, stands self-revived.

II. BEING A SELF-RESURRECTION, STANDS ALONE AS A MONUMENT OF HIS INHERENT POWER OF LIFE. There seems a sort of progressive scale of the other resurrections noted in the gospel history. The daughter of Jairus was raised before she was conveyed from her chamber; the son of the widow of Nain was being carried out to burial; Lazarus had been four days in his grave. Neither were self-raised; Christ was self-raised.

III. WAS THE RESULT OF A POWER THAT DID NOT CEASE AT HIS DEPARTURE FROM THE WORLD. The whole Church is the monument of its existence and its exercise; it is built upon His resurrection. For there is a spiritual resurrection and there is a physical resurrection. The latter was wrought by Christ when on earth, as a visible symbol of the other, and a proof of His power to effect it. His own resurrection from the dead mysteriously exemplified both: the general resurrection of the just at the consummation of all things shall again and for ever combine them. The resurrection of Christ, once performed in act, is immortal in energy; He rises again in every new-born child of God.

IV. SHOULD PROMPT THE DESIRE FOR THE FINAL CONSUMMATION OF HIS WORK, THE RESTORATION OF AN IMMORTAL BODY TO AN IMMORTAL SOUL. "In Christ shall all be made alive." All men are to be made alive spiritually and physically. Behold! we stand alone in creation; earth, sea, and sky can show nothing so awful as we are! The rooted bills shall flee before the fiery glance of the Almighty Judge; the mountains shall become dust, the ocean a vapour; the very stars of heaven shall fall as the fig-tree casts her untimely fruit! Yea, heaven and earth shall pass away, but the humblest, poorest, lowliest among us is born for undying life. Amid all the terrors of dissolving nature, the band of immortals shall stand before their Judge.

(W. Archer Butler, M.A.)

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KJV: For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

WEB: For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man.