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Concerning the souls of our departed Christian friends we suffer no distress. Our main trouble is about their bodies. Even the perfect Man could not restrain His weeping at Lazarus' tomb. The doctrine of the Resurrection teaches us that we need have no trouble about the body, it has not gone to annihilation. The Lord's love to His people is a love towards their entire manhood. He took into union with His Deity both soul and body, and redeemed both, and both are sanctified by the Divine indwelling. So our complete manhood shall have it in its power to glorify Him forever. This being our hope, we nevertheless confess that sometimes the evil heart of unbelief cries, "Is it possible?" At such times the text is needful.

I. LET US LOOK THIS DIFFICULTY IN THE FACE. We rejoice in the fact that there will be a great change in the body; that its materialism will have lost all its grossness and corruption, and that it will be adapted for higher purposes; but there shall be an identity between the body in which we die and the body in which we rise. Not, however, that identity is the same thing as absolute sameness of substance and continuance of atoms. We are living in the same bodies which we possessed twenty years ago; yet no single atom remains that was in it then. Admit the like identity in the resurrection, and it is all we ask. Now this hope is naturally surrounded with many difficulties, because: —

1. The large majority of dead bodies have been utterly dissolved.

2. Think how widely diffused are the atoms which once built up living forms.

3. The difficulty increases when we reflect that all men will rise again. Think of the myriads who have passed away in countries like China, of those who have perished by shipwreck, plague, and war.

4. The wonder increases when we remember in what strange places many of these bodies now are. In fact, where are not man's remains? Blows there a single wind down our streets without whirling along particles of what once was man?

5. And, moreover, to make the wonder extraordinary beyond conception, they will rise at once, or perhaps in two great divisions (Revelation 20:5, 6). Where shall they stand? What plains of earth shall hold them?

6. And then this resurrection will not be a mere restoration, but in the case of the saints will involve a remarkable advance. We put into the ground a bulb, and it rises as a golden lily; we drop into the mould a seed, and it comes forth an exquisite flower; even thus, the bodies, which are sown in burial, shall spring up by Divine power into outgrowths, surpassing all imagination in beauty.

7. One of the difficulties of believing it is, that there are positively no full analogies in nature by which to support it. Some have seen in sleep the analogy of death, and in our awakening the resurrection. But a continuance of life is manifest to the man in his dreams and to all onlookers. The development of insects is quoted as a striking analogy. But there is life in the chrysalis, organisation, in fact, the entire fly. Nor is the analogy of the seed much more conclusive, for a life germ always remains, and the crumbling organisation becomes its food from which it builds itself up again. The resurrection stands alone; and, concerning it, the Lord might well say, "Behold, I do a new thing in the earth." Here, then, is the difficulty. Is it a credible thing that the dead should be raised?

II. REMOVE THE DIFFICULTY. It might seem incredible that the dead should be raised, but why should it seem incredible that God should raise the dead? Grant that God is, that He is omnipotent, and that He has said the dead shall be raised, and belief is no longer hard but inevitable. Difficulty is not in the dictionary of the Godhead. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

1. When Paul uttered our text he was speaking to one to whom he could say, "Believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest!" It was, therefore, good reasoning to say, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you?" etc. For, as a Jew, Agrippa had the testimony of Job — "For I know that my Redeemer liveth"; and of David (Psalm 16); of Isaiah (Isaiah 26:19); of Daniel (Daniel 12:2, 3); of Hosea (Hosea 13:14).

2. To us as Christians there has been granted yet fuller evidence (John 5:28; John 6:30; Romans 8:11; Philippians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 15:1).

3. At the same time it may be well to look around us, and note what helps the Lord has appointed for our faith.

(1) There are many wonders which we should not have believed by mere report, if we had not come across them by experience. The electric telegraph, e.g. When our missionaries in tropical countries have told the natives of ice, the natives have refused to believe. After the resurrection we shall regard it as a Divine display of power as familiar to us as creation and Providence now are.

(2) Will resurrection be a greater wonder than creation? To create out of nothing is quite as marvellous as to call together scattered particles and refashion them.

(3) Christ rose again and He is the cause of your resurrection, the type of it, the foretaste of it, the guarantee of it.

(4) Remember also, that you who are Christians have already experienced as great a work as the resurrection, for you have risen from the dead as to your innermost nature.

III. OUR RELATION TO THIS TRUTH

1. Comfort one another with these words. You have lost those dear to you. Sorrow ye must, but sorrow not as those that are without hope.

2. Let us cheer our hearts in prospect of our own departure.

3. Expecting a blessed resurrection, let us respect our bodies. Bodies that are to dwell forever in heaven, should not be subjected to pollution here below.

4. The ungodly are to rise again, but it will be to a resurrection of woe. "Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

WEB: Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead?