NO REASON TO FEAR

The fear of the keepers was well grounded. They were in the service of the Jewish Sanhedrin, and they were charged to prevent the resurrection of Christ. They were in service of the devil and must take care that neither the disciples nor the women nor any others of Christ’s friends would approach the grave. And Christ Himself had said, “He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad.”

Thus they were enemies of Christ, haters of God’s people, hence graceless people. Such have all reasons to tear.

“He shall consume afar and near
All those that evil cherish:
As smoke before His dreadful ire
As wax is molten by the fire
So shall the wicked perish.”

God’s Word speaks sufficiently of what all those may expect who persist in their enmity and obduracy. Because of our original and actual guilt, we lie under God’s wrath and the just judgment of God will surely strike us. God may cut us off any moment of our life, and summon us before His tribunal; and we may be hardened in sin, but we cannot do with our conscience as we please.

Those keepers became aware of that. When the earthquake took place, and the angel descended, they were afraid, greatly frightened, and became as dead men. When God manifested only a little of His glory in nature and when the angel appeared, they did not know where to turn. They did not remain at the grave of Christ, but they fled hastily to the city. The fear of judgment filled their heart. 0, what shall it be when once the time and the day shall dawn, when man shall no more be able to flee away. And that moment shall surely come, but the state of unbelief in which we are by nature is so terrible that man blindfolds himself, and hardens himself in evil.

The women feared too, but their fear was altogether different from that of the keepers. To be sure, there is no one who can stand before God. In ourselves we are rejectable and condemnable, deserving a full measure of the wrath of God. Those who are made alive and convinced by God’s Spirit, know their misery and sin. They have become acquainted with the fact that they have sinned against God, have violated God’s virtues, have transgressed His law, and have done that which is evil in His pure and holy sight. They have learned to know their guilt before God that reaches to the sky, but have also lamented and acknowledged it. They have acknowledged God’s righteousness and have accepted the punishment of their iniquity. Their iniquities have testified against them, and they have also learned that their righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. According to God’s righteousness and holiness they have to be cast away forever.

But God views His people in Christ, and on the basis of that acquired, merited and perfect righteousness of the Surety of the Covenant, they are acquitted of guilt and punishment and they also receive a right to eternal life. But although in justification the guilt of sin is taken away and cast into the sea of eternal forgetfulness, and God will not remember them anymore, yet the stain of sin remains with them unto the end. O, sin always makes a separation between God and their soul.

So often they miss the friendly face of their God and King. As to its character, sin always is God dishonoring and soul destroying. In regeneration those people have been endowed with a childlike fear; with that fear which is the beginning of all true wisdom and which causes them to hate sin and to pursue righteousness. But as long as they are absent from the Lord, they are constantly plagued with slavish fear.

Although Christ had died for those women at the grave, he was not yet risen. They had followed Him from Galilee. They knew very well why and in what manner they had become united to Him. They had been sought by Him; He had captured their whole heart. They had been made willing in the day of God’s power. They had been made amenable to follow. They had left and forsaken everything, denied themselves, and followed Him, and they never, no never, regretted that. God’s work is perfect in the hearts of His people.

They remained faithful to Him, even when Christ was buried, and in the early hours of the third day they were the first ones in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. And why ail that? The answer to that is not difficult to find. God had loved and chosen them from eternity, and in God’s time, in the time of love, they were drawn with the cords of God’s eternal love. They were born again and had received that new life which is of God. They were blessed with faith, hope and love and they were brought to Christ.

One among them was Mary Magdalene, out of whom Christ had cast seven devils. She had loved much, but much had also been forgiven her. By God’s Spirit all those women had been bound to Christ with unbreakable bands.

He was their Prophet and Teacher, their Master. He was everything to them. By grace they could all say, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I should desire beside Thee.” Christ was their hope, their expectation, their life. He occupied the highest room in their heart because the blessed Christ had made room in their heart by His Spirit. Those women had been drawn by Christ, and they had always followed Him, and notwithstanding all the reproach and scorn, the devil had not been able to break that band of love.

They had even been present at the cross. Of all the disciples we read that only John stood there too, but nothing is mentioned of the others. The women had witnessed the suffering and death of Christ. O what a profound sorrow had filled their heart when they sat there over against the sepulchre. Their soul was not filled with what they had done or what they had been for Christ, but their heart and thoughts were filled with Christ Who had loved them freely, and in Whose presence and communion they had tasted so much bliss.

That the precious body of Jesus had been buried with such reverence and tender care by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had no doubt been remarkable to the women and had given them some comfort but ah, the grief and sorrow that Christ had died was so great.

The Bible tells us, “For as yet they knew not the Scriptures that He must rise again from the dead.” When we consider it superficially we would say, “How is that possible?” But beloved, as long as we personally have no light upon those things then it is hidden from us. That does not excuse us, but it is certain and true that God Himself must give us light concerning these things.

After the burial, they went to their home. Soon it would be Sabbath, and they needed the time to prepare spices in order that after the Sabbath, they could bestow their last honor and love to Christ. The Lord Jesus was now buried. He was now resting from His labors which He had finished. They also rested according to the commandment, but oh, how restless it must have been inside. At one time the Lord Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. At that time Christ had defeated Satan, but then the truth tells us, “And the devil departed from Him for a season.” That signified that he would come back, and he did come back. With all his fiendish rage and violence that devil fell upon Him, but Christ had bruised his head and on the cross He triumphed over all principalities and powers. Christ was now forever beyond the reach of the enemy, but such was not the case with the women. They were still in the battlefield of this life. It is impossible to say how many arrows from hell were shot at their soul. It is true the Lord was near, but yet who knows what went on in their mind. How the storms must have raged there. Faith was at a low ebb, and of the hope which sustains life, there was but very little, but the fire of love was not extinguished. Love will never perish. No matter how many waves dash against it, all the waters of the ocean cannot wash it away. O, no, God never forsakes the work of His hands. Of course, it is to be understood that those women stood before mountains over which they could not look, and before a wall through which they could not see. How it was, and how it had to be was all a riddle to them. They had hoped to the last that Christ would be relieved of His sufferings and that deliverance would come. It was with those women as with the disciples. They were so blind for the necessity of the mediatorial work of Christ. Christ had spoken about it to them so often but they had no insight in it.

How blind are we for the ways of God. We only know as much about them as it pleases God in His Sovereignty to teach us. God Himself must give us an insight into those things. Our wisdom is only foolishness before God, and let us never imagine that we with our intellect can comprehend the Divine mysteries and secrets. Even though we have been initially enlightened by God, we still stand in need of the instructions of the Holy Spirit. We must die, and when we stand before it, we can never conceive that after death there is life, and out of loss, gain is born. It is different when we have experienced it. But as long as we stand before it, then it is fearful.

The women had no more light about the resurrection than they had about the death of Christ. God’s people cannot save themselves with speculations. God Himself must teach them by His dear Spirit. Even though we know God’s Word from Genesis to Revelations, that does not help us. As long as we have no hold upon it, and no light in it, we grope as a blind man for the wall.

God Himself must solve it, remove the darkness and cause His light to rise within our hearts. In Thy light we see light, and for that light these blind people must wait. No, they are not jealous of all those talkers that discuss it, but rather of those people who have been redeemed with judgment, and whom God has delivered out of bonds and out of prison. We may talk about a great faith, and be more assured than the most assured of God’s people, but all those outward professors who think themselves great Christians, still lack that which those women possessed, and which remained with them in their grievous distress. And what is that? The love of Christ. They knew Whom they were seeking and Whom their heart longed for. Although they sought the living among the dead for which they were gently reproved in God’s Name, yet as to their seeking of the Lord Jesus Himself, they were not condemned. They received a Divine approbation on that and were encouraged in their seeking. Yea, by means of the angels they received light upon the way of the suffering Surety Who was now resurrected. In all their sorrow they could cry out with David before God, Psalm 38:9; Psalter No. 102:4:

Weak and wounded, I implore Thee;
Lord, to me Thy mercy show;
All my prayer is now before Thee,
All my trouble Thou dost know.

The people to whom God reveals Himself at times and into whose heart He has poured out His love cannot deny it. No matter how dark it may be, and although it seems to be lost on all sides, yet when they have been favored to behold something of the glory of Christ, their heart goes out after Him.

Rebekah had never seen Isaac, but because of all that she had heard and received of him, there was such a strong desire in her heart for him that there was no other man in the whole world whom she wanted to marry but that man.

And now those people that have walked with Him, have hung upon His lips, and have been favored to be in His presence, cannot do without Him anymore.

Their desire is unto Him; His communion is their life. They cannot do without Him even though at times they have to live without His presence. Their soul longs for Him, but of course that is no fruit of our own field. By nature we have no longing for the Lord Jesus. Then He has neither form nor comeliness and no beauty that we should desire Him. By nature we do not know what to do with the Lord Jesus, but it is God’s Spirit Who reveals the necessity of Him. Christ becomes indispensible to them. He only can perfect their salvation.

Love impelled them to go to the grave when it was still dark. No, they did not sleep too long. They needed no alarm clock to awaken them. They did not say with the Bride in Songs of Solomon 5:3, “I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?”

Day and night their hearts were filled with Christ, and notwithstanding their want, love was so strong that they could not remain at home. On the way difficulties arise, but the Lord conceals the greatest difficulty from them. They become anxious about the stone which had been rolled before the grave. They do not talk about the seal or the keepers. O, the Lord is so good for His dear people. He does not put too much upon man. If all those difficulties had come to mind, they would have succumbed on the way and had never come to the grave. But the Lord knows how much they can bear. The Lord wanted those women to come to the grave. At the grave it turned out better than was expected.

O, so often when difficulties arise within us, then God has already removed them for His people. So it was here also. That stone was already rolled away.

Of course, those women could have never done it, but God does everything for His people. In the resurrection God has removed all stones for His people. Death is swallowed up in victory. God is satisfied with His people. The father has glorified His Son because His justice is satisfied; His wrath has been pacified and His anger has been quenched. Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. When Christ entered into death and the grave, He took His entire Church with Him, but now that He is risen, the entire chosen Church is risen with Him out of the grave of sin and curse. There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. Reconciliation had been made for iniquity, and now those people shall receive double for all their sins. In the resurrection from the dead, Christ has been justified in the Spirit. The Father has highly exalted Him, because the Son has satisfied all the demands of the Divine justice, disarmed the law of its curse, and also fulfilled it. As the Surety and Mediator, Christ had glorified the Father, and now the Father glorified Him. “He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore He shall lift up the head.” That which the Father in the council of peace had sworn with an oath, He now fulfilled.

The Church stands now free in Christ, and the Father embraces the Church in Christ. He will never again be angry with them nor rebuke them. O, what rich provision there is for God’s Church in the resurrection of Christ. But it must be revealed to us personally and applied by the Holy Spirit Who glorifies Christ in the hearts of the elect.

And everything in our life depends upon that. Those women also experience that. How small an opinion they had of Christ, as if He had to remain in death and that the stone was in His way. O, how often ignorance and unbelief oppress and burden our spiritual life, and for that reason (because it is our own fault) we must often wander around in darkness. But the faithful Jehovah has promised that they that erred in spirit shall come to understanding and they that murmured shall learn doctrine. Isaiah 29:24, “Their day of bliss is dawning.”

(To be continued)

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