DISCOURSE XXIX. THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. JOHN II. 18-22. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. IN entering upon the sixth and last branch of our announced classification, namely, THE TRIUMPHS OF OUR LORD, we come immediately to consider a subject which is among the most important of all that are connected with the Christian Faith. It is the subject of our Saviour's Resurrection. That event, substantiated by the most indisputable evidence, was the commencement of his manifested triumph over the powers of darkness. It matters not that the subject is here presented to us in the language of prediction. That prediction was strictly and fully accomplished, according to its signification as uttered by our Lord in figurative expressions, as we shall briefly notice in the course of the following discussion. And since that accomplishment, as the terms of the prediction expressly intimate, was effected by our Lord himself,—the event may well be considered as justly entitled to a place among the miracles which he performed. It is proposed then, in dependence upon the Divine blessing, I. TO REVIEW THE NARRATIVE BEFORE US: II. TO ESTABLISH THE FACT WHICH IS HERE PREDICTED: and III. TO DEduce SOME GENERAL INSTRUCTION FROM THE WHOLE. I. In the first place, then, LET US REVIEW THE NARRATIVE. It is thus introduced by the Evangelist: "Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" The perverseness and infatuation of those who proposed this question, can scarcely fail to strike any one who seriously and attentively peruses the foregoing context. It will thence appear, that these very persons had seen, or at least had been fully apprized of, a most extraordinary transaction which had occurred a very short time before they addressed this inquiry to our Lord;—a transaction in reference to which it was proposed, and which might |