Post Easter: An Apostolic Call to Remembrance

These words, which we wish to consider at this time, were written by Paul to his beloved son Timothy. When he wrote them, Paul was a prisoner at Rome. Considering the charge against him, it looked serious for Paul. He had been cast into prison as an evildoer and as one guilty of causing riot. As matters stood, he would soon be condemned to death. No wonder he desired to see his faithful friend Timothy before he died. In this connection he wrote this epistle and also to encourage Timothy in his important and difficult task at Ephesus.

The young pastor had great need of courage to strengthen him against attacks by many teachers of false doctrines and lying prophets. Paul was closely bound to Timothy with bonds that God had laid between them.

According to Acts 16, it was on Paul’s second missionary journey that he met him at Lystra after Timothy had embraced the Christian faith.

The way in which Paul was led, by the sovereign will and counsel of God, differed greatly from the way Timothy was led. Paul, as we know, was stopped while on his way to Damascus to persecute the people of God. With power God laid hold on his heart. Not only this, but in a very few days he was led through the various steps of salvation. Of that outward change Timothy knew nothing. In his youth the Spirit of God drew him and granted him saving faith.

However great the outward difference, Timothy was partaker of the same grace that God had glorified in Paul. They were both known of God from all eternity. Christ had satisfied for them both. They were purchased by the same blood. The Holy Spirit had worked the same sorrow after God in their hearts and had given them the same faith that unites with Christ. They both glorified God through Christ. Lost in themselves, they both found salvation only in the Mediator. The work of God had bound them together.

God is as free in the bestowal of His grace as He is in His choice of the way He employs to gather His people. One is plucked as a brand from the fire of hell and the other God leads in pleasant paths. In our day many people claim to be converted as Timothy was. But we fear, yes, we can safely say that thousands are deceiving themselves for eternity. We can be sure that if Timothy were to meet the great majority of people of our day, he would not be in accord with them and would earnestly warn them.

Oh beloved, let us remember that a work of God has to be glorified in our hearts! Shall we ever be able to respect and love one another, it is necessary that we be joined together in our hearts by the Spirit of God. If this agreement concerning the work of God is not evident, it is a bad sign.

We were all conceived and born in iniquity. We must all be born again and renewed by the Holy Spirit. We must all know through a hearty sorrow that we have made God angry by our sin. We must know a hating of and a fleeing from sin. We must acknowledge ourselves to be lost before God and that our salvation is only in Christ. The people of God receive also a hearty joy in God through Christ and a true desire to live a life of good works. They all experience sorrow as well as joy. By experience, between God and their soul, they all know something of hell, but also of heaven.

Oh, that each one would examine his soul as before the face of the Lord! The Lord desires truth in the inward parts. Only one of two things can be true; either we have knowledge of these things or we stand outside. Christ did not die for all men, but only for His people. He arose from the dead only for the elect. Their spiritual resurrection as well as that of the body are assured by the resurrection of Christ. Paul knew the power of that resurrection and Timothy was no stranger to it.

The time of Paul’s departure was at hand, but Timothy was yet in the midst of the conflict. What could give him greater strength and courage in this spiritual warfare than to remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead? Great, so very great was the love of Christ, that He humbled Himself even to the death of the cross. The righteousness and truth of God demanded that, as Surety, Christ enter into death. To that end He took our human nature upon Himself because the Godhead cannot suffer and die.

Still, His resurrection has greater value than His death on the cross, however great that value may be. Did not the apostle Paul say in Romans 8, “It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again”? Had Christ remained under the power of death, the deliverance from the death state in which we all lie by nature would have been impossible. Death would then have retained its power to hold the elect and all of Adam’s descendants in its grasp. But even as death could not hold Christ so neither will death be able to hold the people of God. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom. Eternal life was prepared for them from before the foundation of the world. Who shall alter the eternal counsel of God? To the end that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in His hand, it was necessary for Christ to be raised from the dead. He Himself testified that He had power to lay down His life and power to take it again. Jonah as a type showed that the Son of Man would be only three days in the heart of the earth.

Samson took away the doors of the gates of Gaza where they sought to put him to death. So, too, did Christ take away the doors of the gates of death. Only through Him shall His people arise from the grave and be eternal victors over death. In Christ they are more than conquerors. The resurrection of Christ is the fountain of all life. From the resurrection all good flows to the Church, as the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15: “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” The awakening out of the grave of sin, the passage through death without being harmed by it, and eternal life, all result from the resurrection of Christ. Thus we see that the resurrection of Christ is of the greatest value and importance.

Already in the Old Testament times the resurrection of Christ was prophesied. It was preached and proclaimed by Christ Himself. Victory by Christ over Satan, the world, and sin was heralded by the resurrection. The keepers of His grave must needs flee to the city and the women and disciples behold Him in His glorified body. The Father raised up His Son. The Father sent an angel from heaven to roll away the stone from the door of the grave so that the Surety of the covenant might leave freely.

In John 17, the Lord Jesus had already declared: “Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” He had drained the cup of the wrath of God to the last drop. He paid the full debt of His people and so satisfied the justice of His Father. In the full knowledge of that fact the Lord Jesus, while dying on the cross, cried out, “It is finished.” In His resurrection from the dead the Judge rendered the verdict and gave a receipt as evidence that all the debt was paid. Not only must Christ declare that He had satisfied, but God the Father must vindicate, His violated righteousness and it was He who must give the acquittal. We have sinned against God and, if we are numbered among the elect, we shall in this life come to know God as Judge. Upon the basis of complete satisfaction the Lord Jesus was declared righteous by His resurrection, as in the old dispensation Joshua the high priest was declared righteous in Zechariah 3. In Christ all are justified whom the Father has given Him. Upon the basis of the justification of Christ His people are justified by faith. So Paul wrote in Romans 4:25, “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

That is the foundation of salvation. The people of God are not smuggled into heaven, but are redeemed by justice. In Christ they are accounted guiltless. Oh, blessed indeed is the people who are acquitted on this basis and receive the right to eternal life! In ourselves we cannot stand before God. God must condemn us. But in Christ we are righteous before God. Our works are not found perfect before God. In ourselves and with all we possess, we must eternally perish. All our emotions, experiences, and frames of mind shall fail as a basis for salvation. No, nothing of ours has any value placed in the balances of God. It shall be only through Him, through Him alone, because of His eternal good pleasure.

Freely He gave Himself in the eternal Council of Peace when the Father called upon Him. Freely He gave Himself in the fullness of time. Freely He lay down His life and purchased His people with His precious blood. His righteousness was perfect and the Father was completely satisfied with it. Oh! the Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed. He bruised the head of Satan, destroyed death, and obtained eternal victory. Oh! how great is the possibility for a lost sinner to obtain salvation, to obtain salvation without loss or injury to the justice and virtues of God. But let us bear in mind that to have the joy of Easter in our heart something must take place beforehand.

Before we can come to Christ, a quickening act must take place. We must be called out of death to life. The state in which we all lie, because of our fall in Adam, is a state of death. Willingly we subjected ourselves to corporal, spiritual, and eternal death. The condition of man is such that while he is dead—that is, totally unable to perform spiritual good—still he is alive to do that which is evil. Man’s state of death is a state of enmity. We are separated from God but by nature it does not grieve us. We parted from God and intended never to return. Words cannot describe how wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked we have become through sin. If it were left to us to return, nothing would come of it. But God had eternal thoughts of peace concerning some of Adam’s sons and daughters. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ not only entered into death to deal it the eternal death blow, but He also arose from the dead to reveal Himself as the Victor over death. The Lord Jesus Himself said: “The hour cometh and now is that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live.” It is He that calls His people forth from their grave of sin. He passes by them cast out in the open field and calls unto them: “Live, yea, in thy blood live.”

Oh, what a great blessing it is when by the ministrations of the Holy Spirit we are cut off from ourselves and all things and find our life only in Christ! What a blessing it is when He is the joy of our soul, when our boasting is only in Him who is our life and the desire of our heart! What a blessing when we die to self so that He is unto us not only justification but also sanctification! Oh, to be poor and empty in ourselves and to be rich and full in Him; to have a constant desire to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and to be made conformable unto His death!

It is that people who are called upon to remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The people of God again and again have need to be cleansed and sanctified in the blood of Christ because of the sinful and vain thoughts that fiil their hearts. Notice that Paul did not say, “Remember that you are converted or that you are justified.” It is a privilege if we possess saving grace and a greater privilege if we know that we have peace with God. However, it is also a blessing when all those benefits fail us as ground and that our life is in Christ alone. Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. To remember means to acknowledge by faith that Christ is the resurrection from the dead. We can know Him only by faith. Who, without the light of the Holy Spirit, can know the mystery of the resurrection? By nature we do not know Christ regardless of how much we may have heard about Him. Our eyes must be opened and a divine miracle must take place shall we ever be able to know Christ. The apostle had experienced it. He had been instructed at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers of that day. Yet, when God stopped him on the way to Damascus and Christ spoke to him, that same man humbly asked: “Who art thou Lord?” He did not know Him. Later he wrote to the Galatians: “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” Thus we see that we can never know Christ of ourselves. It is God’s own work to impart the knowledge of Christ in the beginning as well as in the way of further progress. God’s people only are partakers of that benefit. Unto them He reveals Himself as He does not reveal Himself to the world.

Consider Jacob at Bethel. He did not know which way to turn. All was dark, all seemed lost, and all hope was gone. In that dark night Christ was revealed to him in Jacob’s ladder that was set upon the earth, and the top of which reached to heaven. So it was, too, in the resurrection of Christ. The Father raised Him up and Christ arose. He obtained the eternal victory for His own and brought life and immortality to light. Yet His disciples sat down, as it were, in sackcloth and ashes.

The Lord Jesus had spoken so often to the disciples about His resurrection and the women, too, had heard it. But instead of joy, sorrow had filled their hearts. The women had taken spices and gone to the grave to bestow the last honor upon the body of Christ who was so precious to them. They sought the living among the dead. The stone was rolled away, the grave was open and empty, and still they could not imagine that He had risen. The Lord Jesus had to reveal Himself to them. Such was the case with the weeping Mary and with the other women. The disciples had heard about the resurrection of Christ and still they had locked the doors for fear of the Jews. In spite of what the women had reported, they simply could not believe it until Christ Himself stood in their midst.

So it was with the men on the way to Emmaus. They had gone from Jerusalem sorrowful and disappointed. Their hopes had vanished and their expectations had come to nothing. He opened the Scriptures unto them, but they did not recognize Him until He revealed Himself in the breaking of bread. Then they believed that Christ was risen, and a new joy, such as they never knew before, filled their hearts.

Faith is the gift of God. It is not within our power to believe; it must be granted from above. We may not defend unbelief, far be it from us to do so; unbelief is always sin. But we must sound a serious warning to all those who simply believe and accept without a sound basis. From our side, believing is impossible. But when it pleases God, by the operation of His Spirit, to grant faith, then no effort is required to exercise it. The people of God are made to realize their poverty and that they are in a state of death in order that room will be made for Christ in their hearts. A poor sinner comes to that rich Savior only because the Father draws him and the Lord Jesus reveals Himself to him.

Consider the case of Thomas. He was wrong in withdrawing from the disciples and in not giving heed to the many reports that Christ had risen. But the people of God cannot believe either, except it be given them. In Christ there is an eternal fulness, but we must be brought to Him. He must reveal Himself and break our fetters.

The revelation of Christ always precedes the exercise of faith. This is true even if we know Christ as our Surety and Mediator by whom we are reconciled to God. Oh, it is Christ only who can deliver us and bring us forth out of the grave of sin, out of darkness when God hides His face, from listlessness, trials, unbelief, and doubt!

People of the Lord, hold Him in remembrance when your conscience accuses you. Hold him in remembrance amid all your grief and conflict which at times are so heavy. Hold Him in remembrance when the fear of death lays hold on you. Daily, without ceasing, hold Him in remembrance. Oh, that your eye may at all times be upon Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. May your heart be filled with Him and may He give joy to your soul. That shall give you rest amid all the unrest of life. That shall keep you from all doubt and despair. That shall cause you to go your way rejoicing. Proclaim the death of Christ until He come. Let his resurrection be of comfort to you. After awhile you shall die but your death, people of the Lord, is no more the wages of sin but the death of sin and a passage into eternal life.

Christ has hallowed the grave and for you it will be a resting place. In the resurrection morning you will be awakened and receive a glorified body which, united with your soul, shall praise the triune God unto all eternity.

My unconverted fellow traveler, oh, what shall it be for you to have lived without Christ and soon to die without Christ! May the terror of the Lord move you to faith and salvation. May you yet fall down at the feet of God before it is forever too late.

Boys and girls who still sing and dance, may God yet overpower you, cast you down, and fill your soul with a sorrow after God. May you be filled with that godly sorrow that worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. Yes, old and young, kiss the Son, lest He be angry and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. May Christ, who is now your Judge, yet be your Redeemer to your eternal welfare both for time and eternity.

Rev. W.C. Lamain (1904-1984) pastored the Netherlands Reformed Congregations of Leiden (1929-1932), Rotterdam-South (1932-1943), Rijssen-Wal (1943-1947), and Grand Rapids, Michigan (1947-1984).

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