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I. THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST HAVE EACH THEIR OWN EFFICACY AND DISTINCT GIFT.

1. That death paid the ransom for the whole world, but the world lay as yet in darkness and sin. In that awful night, when the first fruits of our redemption, the pardoned malefactor, was by Christ's side in Paradise, and He brought that blessed tidings to the righteous departed who had so long awaited His coming, how lay our earth? Apostles dismayed and perplexed; Peter weeping his fall; the blood of the Redeemer resting on the Jews and their children; the chief priests seeking to secure the past by further sin; the sun gone down at noon, with. drawing itself from witnessing man's extremest sin. The mercy of the Redemption had been accomplished, but the ransomed were not as yet set free. They were "yet in their sins." For this blessed day it was reserved to bring life out of death, to "bring out the prisoners from the prison," and "let the oppressed go free," "to bring in everlasting righteousness." His death atoned for us; His resurrection justifies us.

2. What St. Paul declares here, he teaches elsewhere (1 Corinthians 15:17). He says not merely if Christ be not risen no proof hath been given that His atonement hath been accepted, but "your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins"; the world's sin has been atoned for, but the cleansing blood has not reached to you. The Cross, then, did not at once justify us. Before, all in a manner looked on to it (Revelation 13:8). Since all looks back to it, all flows from it (Revelation 5:12). Yet such was the will of God, that it should not by itself directly convey the mercies it obtained. What He purchased for us by His death He giveth us through His life. It is our living Lord who imparts to us the fruits of His own death (John 10:17; Revelation 1:18). As truly, then, as the death of Christ was the true remission of our sins, though not yet imparted to us, so truly was His resurrection our true justification imparting to us the efficacy of His death, and justifying us, or making us righteous in the sight of God.

II. SCRIPTURE TELLS US HOW THE RESURRECTION IS TO US THE SOURCE OF JUSTIFICATION AND LIFE.

1. It was the especial promise of the resurrection that our Lord would thereby come into a closer relation with "His disciples, no longer to be in outward presence with them, but to be in them and be their life" (John 14:17-23).

2. And with this agrees the language in which the blessings of the gospel are, in such a marked and repeated way, afterwards expressed, that we are in Christ Jesus, and that His Spirit dwelleth in us. But we can be "in Christ" only by His taking us into Him by His Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:5). Again, as our Lord declared, "I am the Life," so St. Paul says, having been "crucified with Christ," "it is not I which live, but Christ liveth in me," "your life is hid with Christ in God."

3. These are indeed all one gift, variously spoken of according to our various needs, or deaths. It is life, as opposed to our state of death in sin; righteousness, whereas we were unrighteous; sanctification, since we were unholy; redemption, as Satan's captives; wisdom, as become brutish; truth, as in error; but the one gift in all is our Incarnate Lord, who is Himself "made unto us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption"; "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." He doth not merely give these gifts as gifts, precious indeed, yet still outward to and without Himself. He Himself is them, and all to us. These are the gifts which, as man, He received, to shed down abundantly on man, through His risen and glorified humanity.

4. So, further, St. Paul speaks of the knowledge of Christ, and of "the power of His resurrection," as the fruit of being "found in Him," and of "the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelling in" us, and of "the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe" being "according" or conformable "to the working of the might of His power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead"; in all cases bringing our life close to the resurrection, and showing how the same Spirit, whereby His body was raised, is communicated to us, and that, because we are in Him, taken unto Him by His indwelling Spirit, and having the Spirit, because "in Him." This, then, is the sum of what Holy Scripture teaches many ways. All salvation, forgiveness, overcoming of death, restoration to life, oneness with God; all treasures of wisdom, mercy, and righteousness, and holiness lay in His atoning blood; but, that they might be applied to us, He in whom they were must come to us and take Us unto Himself. What in Himself He is, that to us He becometh, by dwelling in us, that we may dwell in Him. And of these gifts His resurrection was the pledge and beginning. It was the earnest that that same Spirit, through which His holy body was raised, should be diffused through that whole body which He purposed to join to Himself, the Head. It was the commencement of that, of which the day of Pentecost was the fulfilment; and thus our weekly festival is at once that of the rising of our Lord, and His coming to us by the Spirit. On the Cross our Lord gave Himself for us; through the resurrection He giveth Himself to us. On the Cross, He was the Lamb which was slain for the sins of the world: in the resurrection, that body which was slain became life giving.

(E. B. Pusey, D. D.)

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KJV: Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

WEB: Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone,