Ephesians 1:19-20 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, How is it that Paul speaks with such a passion of emphasis of "the working of the strength of God's might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead"? The apostle seems struggling with an idea too large for expression. The Divine power manifested in the resurrection of Christ appears to him so immense that he accumulates epithet on epithet to describe it. What is the explanation of the extraordinary strength of the apostle's language? The answer is to be found in the unique character of our Lord's resurrection. When the daughter of Jairus was brought back to life, she returned to the same life that she had lived before she died; she was a child again in her father's home. We know nothing of her later history; but if she lived many years she passed through all the common experiences of the race; she grew up to womanhood; she may have married; she had the ordinary cares and sorrows and joys of womanhood; illness came to her as it came to others, and at last she died a second time and was buried. It was the same with the young man at Nain. He went home with his mother, continued to work at his trade, took once more the place in the common ranks of men which for a few hours had been vacant, lived and died like other men. It was the same with Lazarus. He took up the broken threads of life just where he had left them, and was the same man that he had always been, except that the days of death and the hour in which at the command of Christ he returned to the common paths of men must always have been recalled by him with a certain wonder and awe. But the resurrection of Christ was not a return to the life which death had interrupted. It was the beginning of a new life under altogether new conditions. The resurrection was followed by the ascension. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, |
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