Celebrate! The Lord is Risen!

A blessed Easter to all! Say, "Christ is risen!"; and hear the reply, "He is risen indeed!" In the (slightly adapted) words of a wonderful hymn by Isaac Watts:

He dies! the Friend of sinners dies!
Lo! Salem's daughters weep around!
A solemn darkness veils the skies;
A sudden trembling shakes the ground:
Come, saints, and drop a tear or two
On the dear bosom of your God:
He shed a thousand drops for you,
A thousand drops of richer blood.

Here's love and grief beyond degree;
The Lord of glory dies for man!
But lo! what sudden joys I see;
Jesus, the dead, revives again!
The rising God forsakes the tomb;
The tomb in vain forbids his rise!
Cherubic legions guard him home,
And shout him welcome to the skies!

Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell
How high your great Deliverer reigns;
Sing how he spoil'd the hosts of hell,
And led the monster death in chains.
Say, "Live forever, wondrous King!
Born to redeem, and strong to save!"
Then ask the monster, "Where's thy sting?"
And, "Where's thy victory, boasting grave?"¹

Or, in the words of the full version of the classic Charles Wesley hymn for an occasion no less than this:

"CHRIST the Lord is ris'n To-day,"
Sons of Men and Angels say,
Raise your Joys and Triumphs high,
Sing ye Heav'ns, and Earth reply.

Love's Redeeming Work is done,
Fought the Fight, the Battle won,
Lo! our Sun's Eclipse is o'er,
Lo! He sets in Blood no more.

Vain the Stone, the Watch, the Seal;
CHRIST hath burst the Gates of Hell!
Death in vain forbids his Rise:
CHRIST hath open'd Paradise!

Lives again our glorious King,
Where, O Death, is now thy Sting?
Once He died our Souls to save,
Where thy Victory, O Grave?

Soar we now, where CHRIST has led,
Following our Exalted Head,
Made like Him, like Him we rise:
Ours the Cross; the Grave; the Skies.

What tho' once we perish'd All,
Partners of our Parent's Fall,
Second Life we All receive,
In our Heav'nly Adam live.

Ris'n with Him, we upward move,
Still we seek the Things above,
Still pursue, and kiss the Son,
Seated on his Father's Throne;

Scarce on Earth a Thought bestow,
Dead to all we leave below,
Heav'n our Aim, and lov'd Abode,
Hid our Life with CHRIST in GOD!

Hid; 'till CHRIST our Life appear,
Glorious in his Members here:
Join'd to Him, we then shall shine,
All Immortal, all Divine!

Hail to the LORD of Earth and Heav'n!
Praise to Thee by both be giv'n:
Thee we greet Triumphant now;
Hail the Resurrection Thou!

King of Glory, Soul of Bliss,
Everlasting Life is This,
Thee to know, thy Pow'r to prove,
Thus to sing, and thus to love!²

What a wonderful thought! And today is the day we have the privilege of celebrating it. I don't think I can express it better than the words of Paul:

If we've been united with him in a death like his, we'll certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we'll also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he can't die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:5-11)

---

¹ Hymn 553, in John Wesley, A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People Called Methodists (London: John Mason, 1845), 515; compare a similar version as Hymn 133 in Hymn-Book of the Evangelical Association (Cleveland, OH: Evangelical Association, 1882), 81.
² John Wesley and Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems. 4th ed. (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1743), 144-146.

* For Easter, see also Kristine's post "Eternity's Sunrise" at the By Common Consent blog, and also the recent videos put out by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "He Is Risen" and "Jesus Is Resurrected".

Daniel Tyler on the Resurrection

The following is taken from Daniel Tyler, "The Gospel Principles: The Resurrection", Juvenile Instructor 13/23 (1 December 1878): 269.

"But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" (1st Cor., xv., 35).

Some professed Christians answer the above question by saying that the body goes down into the grave and the spirit ascends to God, after which, if the party was righteous, it remains on the right hand of God to all eternity, singing praises to Him, ceasing only long enough on the great day of judgment to hear the plaudits of welcome. While, on the other hand, the wicked, including all except religious folks, no matter how moral, honorable, benevolent or good, must, as soon as the spirit leaves the body, be cast into a lake burning with fire and brimstone, there to remain eternally, except during a period just long enough to hear the awful sentence to return to the same dreadful lake, and be perpetually burning, but never consumed. While others believe that when Christ comes to reign on the earth a thousand years, the spirits of the righteous will receive bodies similar to our mortal bodies - out of the same kind of material, but not the same bodies.

Were we to tell you all the different conflicting views of this wicked, perverse generation of pretended Christians we should have no room or time to tell you the facts in the case.

Well, then, "With what body do they come?" Joseph Smith said they would come with the same body they had here, in all of its parts except the blood. To all Latter-day Saints, that should settle the question, once for all. But as there are some who read the Juvenile Instructor who are not Latter-day Saints, and that our youth may be prepared to answer those not of our faith, I will quote a few passages from the old scriptures, which are also corroborated in the new.

St. Paul, in the same chapter from which we have quoted, comparing the spirit to the germ of grain, says, "God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body." In other words, each spirit, no matter whether of man, of beasts, of fowls or of fishes, will receive its own body in the resurrection. The different elements comprising the different kinds of flesh will not be amalgamated. It will be observed that although the Apostle mentions the body, he no where mentions the blood; in fact, no part of the scriptures indicate that blood, which is the life of the mortal body, will be restored in the resurrection. But they do say that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." It is no where written that neither flesh nor blood can enter into that kingdom. That is to say, flesh with the blood cannot enter. They must be separated. Jesus, who is the type of the resurrection, had His blood shed for the sins of the world, yet He arose with every component part of His body except blood, as He said to His disciples, "handle me, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." The prints of the nails will still be visible in His hands and feet when he appears on Mount Olivet to deliver the Jews in the last days. In answer to their inquiry, He will say, "These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." Perhaps some will say all that might be, as His body never decayed or saw corruption. If Jesus was a pattern of the resurrection, as we have indicated, this would make no difference. To show that the same rule holds good with decomposed bodies, we will refer you to the 37th chapter of Ezekiel. Ezekiel saw in a certain valley a great quantity of bones which he says were very dry. How long they had been bleaching we are not told, but the flesh and sinews were gone from off them. After informing us that he had been commanded to prophesy unto them, and promise them life, the prophet says: "So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them." Why is the qualifying adjective the so oftenly repeated - the bones, the sinews, the flesh, the skin? The answer is plain. It is that there may be no mistake as to whether the bones, sinews, flesh and skin were the same that the individuals had before they were slain or died a natural death. This is doubtless done to remove the last doubt from the minds of those who believe in the revelations of God to man.

Should there be any who still doubt, the Lord tells them in the same chapter that when He brings them out of their graves and places them in their own lands, they shall know that He spoke it, and performed it. He says He will put His spirit in them and they shall live. Thus, you see, instead of having blood in their bodies they will be filled with spirit.