rection
brings within our reach--remission of sins and salvation from eternal
death. Lest, however, our wanton, indolent nature deceive itself by
imagining the work is instantaneously wrought in ourselves, and that
simply to receive the message is to exhaust the blessing, Paul always
adds the injunction to examine our hearts to ascertain whether we
rightly apprehend the resurrection truth.

HOW WE ARE RISEN WITH CHRIST.

2. By no means are we simply to assent to the words of the doctrine.
Christ does not design that we be able merely to accept and speak
intelligently of it, but that its influence be manifest in our lives.
How is a dead man profited, however much life may be preached to him,
if that preaching does not make him live? Or of what use is it to
preach righteousness to a sinner if he remain in sin? or to an erring,
factious individual if he forsake not his error and his darkness? Even
so, it is not only useless but detrimental, even pernicious in effect,
to listen to the glorious, comforting and saving doctrine of the
resurrection if the heart has no experience of its truth; if it means
naught but a sound in the ears, a transitory word upon the tongue,
with no more effect upon the hearer than as if he had never heard.

According to Paul in the text, this nobly-wrought and precious
resurrection of Christ essentially must be, not an idle tale of fancy,
futile as a dead hewn-stone or painted-paper image, but a powerful
energy working in us a resurrection through faith--an experience he
calls being risen with Christ; in other words, it is dying unto sin,
being snatched from the power of death and hell and having life and
happiness in Christ. In the second chapter (verse 12), the apostle
puts it plainly, "buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also
raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him
from the dead."

3. If, Paul says, ye have apprehended by faith the resurrection of
Christ and have received its power and consolation, and so are risen
with him, that resurrection will surely be manifest in you; you will
feel its power, will be conscious of its working within. The doctrine
will be something more than words; it will be truth and life. For them
who do not thus apprehend the resurrection, Christ is not yet risen,
although his rising is none the less a fact; for there is not within
them the power represented by the words "being risen with Christ," the
power which renders them tr