RESURRECTION
Alistair M Brown
John 5: 24-29
All that we are doing today in gathering with a view to burying the body of our sister whom the Lord has taken home is done in the light of resurrection. Resurrection is a tremendously important matter. Our brother has referred to what God does that we cannot do, and clearly men are incapable of raising one another or themselves from the dead. But God has the power to raise from the dead, and we can say from this scripture that that power has been given to one blessed Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is, of course, God in His own Person. He is God “manifested in flesh”, 1 Tim 3: 16. He is a wonderful Man. For those of us who know Him, He becomes more and more attractive to us, and more and more indispensable as we have also been reminded. One desire that those of us who believe in the Lord Jesus and love Him carry in our hearts is that others should do so as well. We would appeal again to any heart which has not yet submitted to Christ and surrendered to Him in repentance and in faith, to do so. What a Person He is! Our sister knew Him, and brothers have spoken about the results that there were in her life, and in the life of her dear husband too. They were themselves undeniable witnesses to the reality of what Christ has done, and to His saving power, and to the blessings of Christianity.
We can read in the Bible, and everything that it says is true, and we can speak from the Bible, and it is wonderful that God’s word is available to us. There is also a witness borne in the lives of believers, and we have seen it in our dear sister. Her words were quoted, ‘What would we do without the Lord?’. What indeed would we do without the Lord? We would have no hope. Believers in Jesus, our dear sister among them, have hope because of who Christ is and what He has done. One of the things that He has done is to go into death and break its power by rising from it. I believe that. Do you, friend? If we do not believe that, we need to go to God about it, because it is essential that we have our faith in Christ and in what He has done; and particularly in the fact that He is risen from among the dead. He was “raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father,” (Rom 6: 4), and what power there was in that matter! It is a history-changing event. The world was never the same again after Jesus rose from the dead. The effect of what He has done continues now and it fills the heart of most of the people who are gathered in this room. It fills the heart of millions of believers, those who belong to Jesus.
I wanted to draw attention to what the Lord says, “he that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me” - that is, the Father Himself - “has life eternal”. He then says, “an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”. When the Lord refers to the dead in this verse, He is not speaking about people who were physically dead but to people whose ears were stopped, those who had been under the influence of Judaism, for example, as Jewish people were, or perhaps others who believed in false gods or idols. They were dead as far as God was concerned, and what the Lord says is “an hour is coming, and now is” when these people “shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”. Well, “the voice of the Son of God” is heard in the preaching of the gospel, and those that hear, as our sister did and as most, and I trust all, in this room, have heard, then we have life in Him.
The Lord also says in chapter 14 of John’s gospel, “because I live ye also shall live”, v 19. That is the life that believers derive from Christ, a life that is different from the self-centred and self-seeking life that belongs to me naturally. That life is derived from Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, to which reference has already been made. The gift of the Holy Spirit is a wonderful gift of God to those that ask and to those that obey. It is a blessed matter! The Lord Himself says, “the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”. I appeal again to each one here, have we heard the voice of the Son of God? It is not a voice thundering in judgment; it is the voice of a Shepherd; it is the appeal of One who loved us enough to die for us. That is the voice of the Son of God.
And then He goes on to say, “he has given to the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is Son of man” and then the Lord says, “Wonder not at this, for an hour is coming” - He does not say ‘and now is’, because this is future - “in which all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice”. That is a reference to the actual resurrection of people who have died. It is the voice of the Son of God in its irresistible power which will speak; and we know from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians that that voice will be heard by those that know and love the Lord Jesus as “an assembling shout” (1 Thess 4: 16), and the dead in Christ will be raised. Reference has already been made to bodies of glory, Phil 3: 21. What we are saying here is all written in the Scriptures. None of this is a product of man’s mind; it never could be. It is God’s word conveyed in the Scriptures that the Lord’s voice will be heard and those that have heard the voice of the Son of God in their lives here, as our sister has, will rise. She and those who have died in the Lord will hear that “assembling shout”. Then “we, the living, who remain”, as the apostle speaks (1 Thess 4: 17), referring to Christians, believers, who are living now, will hear that “assembling shout” too and we will be changed and given bodies of glory. What a wonderful thing that is!
That is our hope. If you go through life with that hope, friend, it is life-changing. The glory is for God, and the truth on which that hope rests is guaranteed by God Himself. It is in His word, and we believe it. It changes the believer from the inside out, and it changed our sister. She was given perseverance, and courage, and patience, and strength, and peace because of what she believed. Her faith was tested. None of us could speak about all that she went through in her life; what testing she faced, what sorrow - you might say, “sorrow upon sorrow”, Phil 2: 27. Did it drag her down? Did it make her a miserable person? No, she was happy in the Lord. Her faith was in Christ, the One whose “assembling shout” she will soon hear.
Friend, do not risk being among those who are spoken of at the end of verse 29. Now is the time to “hear the voice of the Son of God” and to accept Christ and live. We have spoken of both our sister and her dear husband as examples. What examples they were! But we can all be examples. We can all convey something to those around us of the blessedness of having Christ as Saviour, as our sister did, and the blessedness of having hope in being with Him again when we hear that “assembling shout”. Do not put it off, or put it away from you! Perhaps you are saying, ‘Well, it is true for him, this person that is speaking, but it is not for me’. But if it is set out in God’s word, and it is true for me, and if it is true for many in this room and true for millions of believers, then it is the truth. Please hear the voice of the Son of God speaking, hear it and receive it, and live. Make it true for yourself as it was true for our dear friend and sister, and may there be blessing as a result of the sorrow for the Lord’s Name sake!
Bo’ness
15th July 2024
Words at the burial of Mrs Marjorie Spinks
Edited and Published by David Brown and Andrew Burr
81 Roxburgh Road. West Norwood. London. SE27 OLE