Christian! the grave is lit with Emmanuel's love. The darkest of all clouds,
that which rests over the land of Hades, has the brightest rainbow in it. These
gloomy portals are not to hold your loved and lost ones forever. The land of
forgetfulness, where your buried treasures lie, is not a winter of unbroken
darkness and desolation. A glorious spring time of revival is promised, when the
mortal shall put on immortality, and the corruptible shall be clothed with
incorruption.
The resurrection of the body! It is the climax of the work of
Jesus; its culminating glory. Paul represents a longing Church as "waiting for
the adoption, the redemption of the body." It was the pre-eminent theme of his
preaching; "He preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." It was the loved
article in his creed, which engrossed his holiest aspirations, "If by any means
I might attain to the resurrection of the dead." It was the grand solace he
addressed to other mourners. It is not when speaking of the immediate bliss of
the departed spirit at the hour of death, but it is when dwelling on the "last
trump"; the dead "rising incorruptible," and "caught up," in their resurrection
bodies, "to meet the Lord," that he says, "Therefore comfort one another with
these words."
[John MacDuff]
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Hosea 13:14 ... I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
Isaiah 25:8 ... He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.
1 Corinthians 15:54 ... So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 ... For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. ❤
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 ... For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. ❤
