“But thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:57-58).
The first of these two verses easily divides itself into two parts—first, God; second, God’s victory.
In this country we are so used to the name of God that we are not a little in danger of losing the sense of the greatness and the majesty of His Person. Do we not sometimes think more of the greatness of our blessing than of the One who gives it?
Our relationship to Him often occupies us so much that we lose sight of the greatness of the One to whom we are related. Let us dwell upon it a little. The Creator of the universe (Gen. 1) is “the Almighty God” (Gen. 17) and Israel’s Redeemer, “Jehovah” (Ex. 6), God made known in covenant relationship; this same wondrous Person is our Father, and is the Most High over all the earth of a coming day (Dan. 7:25). Think of the solitude in which He dwelt before the worlds were made, that majestic self-sufficiency which was His (a quality so unsuitable and sinful in man—a creature, but so suitable to God as God, before the heavens and the earth were called into being, and all that is therein (so necessary for our well-being and enjoyment) formed and placed in order. Think too of the sun and moon and stars, and the little earth on which we live, all so perfectly adjusted and rolling on in their appointed orbits for thousands of years. All human instruments of measurement are inadequate for the immensity and perfection of His works; but, “He measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance” (Isa. 40:12).
He “stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in” (Isa. 40:22). Even the stormy wind fulfils His word (Ps. 148:8). The nations are esteemed as a drop of a bucket, and as the small dust of the balance (Isa. 40:15). The God who rolled the mountains together, laid valleys, seas, and rivers in their places, and calls all the stars by name, so that not one faileth (Ps. 147:4), this is the God who loves me! Our hearts bow down before the marvellous wisdom, skill, and greatness of such a God. And this God, who spans the heavens and measures the sea in the hollow of His hand, describes Himself as one who notices the falling sparrow and counts the hairs of His people’s heads (Matt. 10:29).
For a brief moment God was supreme in wisdom and in goodness in the midst of His creation, and man was blessed in His presence. But another influence came in to destroy the creature’s confidence in God, to take away his happiness in this life of innocent obedience. This evil influence gained the victory, and man fell completely under Satan’s power. The story of the ages only proves that man could not extricate himself; death reigned from Adam to Moses, and after Moses too. But if man cannot, God can get the victory. As far as men were concerned, all down the ages death was the victor: “and he died,” “and he died,” “and he died” is the record of one after another (Gen. 5).
But when Jesus came, it was Jehovah the Saviour. He was going to bring in victory over death. None of the taint of the fall in Him. No liability to death there. Every step pleasing to His Father, all fragrant to Him. A Man after His own heart. When His heart throbbed in tenderness and His hands moved in compassion, it was God’s heart and God’s hands shown to us. See those words in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “accord to the scriptures,” “according to the scriptures,” Jesus was the One appointed, delegated to this wonderful work, the only One “able to save.” Moses cannot save us, Elias cannot; in order that victory should be gained for God this was necessary. Think of it! He who was from all eternity the “Ancient of Days” (Dan. 7:9) was here on earth as a child, a youth, a man. His years were numbered. “He was about twelve years” “thirty years.” Oh, the wonder of it all! If He were not a divine Person, salvation were impossible for us. If He were human merely, how could He have met death, the grave, Satan, and have got the victory? Yet how truly He was human! In that dreadful day when He looked on to the cross and all the terrible consequences of sin His sorrow was so deep, so real, that we read He was greatly depressed (Matt. 26:7). His feelings were so strong, so pure. How He dreaded the thought of contact with sin, and He was to be made sin—endure the hiding of God’s face. “If it be possible,” said He, “let this cup pass; nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). If these words meant as much to us as they meant to Him, what should we feel about the sufferings of Christ? It was not possible, for there was no other way whereby sin could be judged and the sinner set free. Never was there a day in which death was so present with its sting as on that day. All that the vindictive violence of Satan and the malice of man could devise was heaped upon the sinless One. God looked upon Him there as made sin for us. Every blow that sin deserved fell on that blessed One. There was no diminution of the sentence, no softening down of the dreadful penalty due to the sinner, because the Son of God was to bear it. It seems almost a marvel that the very works of His own hands, the wood His hands had made, and the nails, the metal of which He had created, did not refuse their part in such a scene. A word from Him, and they would have refused. Nothing could have held Him there; but He never gave that word. His love kept Him there devoted obedience to His Father’s will kept Him there.
Satan spent his utmost strength, and thought, no doubt, that he was victorious when the sealed stone was before His grave. It looked as though Satan, sin, death, and the grave had gained the victory. But the power of God visits that tomb, and we see death is conquered, the grave overthrown, deliverance brought in for those “who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:15). We all remember hearing during the late war that, on a certain date, Ladysmith “was relieved”; what did that mean to those who had so long been in captivity (one might almost say) in that city? It is impossible for us to realize the feelings of those men, but it meant victory.
Here is the relief God brings in Ages before; through failure and disobedience, man fell under the mighty power of the enemy, but here is his effectual defeat (1 Cor. 15:1-7). According to Scripture, Christ died, was buried, rose, was seen of more than five hundred at once, and was present with them at their meals on several occasions. Was this defeat? With heavenly dignity and power He completed the work He came to do, and assured, His people by many infallible proofs that He was indeed alive from the dead, appearing, last of all, to the one who was in a special way to tell the story of His triumph, and to open up the blessed thoughts of God, leading us up to Christ in glory and showing us who are His companions in the victory. And who are they? Men who had been worshippers of dumb idols (1 Cor. 12:2). Gentiles, distant aliens. “Such were some of you,” he adds, after, describing many forms of evildoers (1 Cor. 6:9-11). What a company! Surely the worst of Corinth!! Totally incapable of reforming themselves, but described “as washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Have you come under the influence of all this grace?
In 1 Corinthians 1:26 we learn a little more about these people: “foolish, weak, base, despised”—nothing at all—a lot of nobodies. Suppose I write a cipher standing alone. What value has it? None; but God puts One forward who gives value to every poor nobody attached to Him. He places His blessed Alpha and Omega, that First and Last of His thoughts, and adds a poor little nobody to Him, and then there is a value. Each one takes a wonderful glory from association with Him, and each one saved and added to Him brings glory to Christ, though nothing at all in ourselves from beginning to end. In every sphere He is going to have the victory, and He is coming to claim every one of these nobodies who trusted in Him that they may be His companions for ever, sharers in His victory and in His joy. In a moment (v. 52), such the rapidity of His action, such the searching glance of His eye, He will find out and call forth every one from every land—many from this land, many too from the land I came from, Africa.
Then again will there be that solitude of glory (if we may so express it), God all in all—none to call in question His rule of holy love.
Then follows verse 58, suggesting subjection to Christ, delight in Christ, and service for Christ. Every little bit of truth is to strengthen us, make us steadfast. Let us feed on it, delight in it, make it our own, live it out every day, and never forget, as we go on ourselves with God in the enjoyment of His wonderful grace, to seek earnestly to serve others for Christ’s sake, to serve Christ. How many there are who don’t know the true gospel; how many are weak, and weary, and fainting for want of a little lord of advice, of cheer, of encouragement, and of love. Let us always remember resurrection is what God has in reserve, let us in the meantime rejoice in the greatness of God’s victory and in the grace that makes us participate in it.
W. H. Westcott.
Simple Testimony 1906, p. 321