There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, SERMONS. THE LIVING ONE. 'I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.'-REV. i. 18. HERE can be no question that the Being who made to THER John the wonderful revelations which this book contains was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He reveals Himself to the exile of Patmos under names and titles which can apply to no other being whatsoever. To these titles, as they stand recorded in our text, we propose to direct your attention. I. JESUS CHRIST CLAIMS TO BE THE PROPRIETOR OF LIFE: 'I am He that liveth.'-The language is emphatic, significant, and suggestive. It is not 'I live.' Every animated existence in the universe might with truthfulness say, I live. Angels live, men live; the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the insect on the wing, the worm in the dust-all live, and have life. It is, however, one thing to possess life, but quite another thing to have it at our disposal. It is one thing to be a steward, but quite another thing to be the proprietor. Life is a trust committed to you and me by the universal Proprietor. Life is a gift, and He who gave claims the distinguished prerogative of taking away. Amid the teeming myriads of existences which people the universe, there is not a creature in the heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the faroff districts of immensity, that can with any degree of truth apply to himself the lofty language of the text, and say, 'I am He that liveth,' or 'I am the Living One.' The title belongs exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Lord and sole Proprietor of life. He is Self-existent. He lives in and of Himself. There is no higher source to which He is indebted for the life He possesses. Unlike all creatures, He is not the recipient, but the Bestower of life. The plenitude of life is in Him, and from Him it emanates to all animate existences. Life is a mystery which no man can solve. Suppose I put the question, How is it that I have the power to move my body backward or forward, to the right or to the left, just at will? The scientists would reply, only in more scientific language than we can venture to employ, that one muscle moves because drawn by another, and that the second muscle moves because acted upon by a nerve which has the power of contraction or expansion. If I ask, How this mechanism of my frame is kept in motion for so many years together? he would reply, Because the heart beats. If, again, I ask, How does the heart continue to beat? the oracle is dumb; his philosophy ends there. The only answer is a Christian one. It is what the peasant believes, but it is what philosophers cannot understand, but which they cannot gainsay. God moves the heart. While we are speaking, Jesus Christ has His hand on every heart in this assembly, making both yours and mine throb with vitality. He touches the springs of life, and sends the vital flood coursing through the hidden channels of our frame. Only let Him withdraw for one moment that vitalising touch, and in an instant there is a solemn pause in the heart's action, vital throbs are felt no more, the whole mechanism of our frame is dislocated, and I in the pulpit, and you in the pew, fall lifeless to the ground; and the sanctuary in which we worship, instead of being peopled with living souls, is converted into a sepulchre where only death lives and reigns. This significant title suggests that Jesus Christ is the Proprietor of His own life as well as ours. When He expired on the cross, His life was not violently and irresistibly taken from Him. With a strong hand He might have closed for ever against Himself the gates of death. He might have resisted an entrance into the gloomy domain of mortality, and defied earth and hell, men and demons, to deprive Him of life. He spake like a God, and as none but God could speak, when He said, 'No man taketh My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.' While languishing on the cross, with a glance of his eye He could have scattered every foe, and left Himself sole possessor of the hill of suffering. He might have de scended alive from the cross, and sent ten thousand thunderbolts into the midst of His enemies, to their confusion and entire overthrow. You are greatly mistaken if you imagine for a moment that the fierce nails cruelly driven through His hands and feet kept Him hanging there. No, they were not the nails at all. It was His love for you and me that fastened Him to that awful cross. Had there been no love, the nails could not have detained Him. Even when entombed in the grave He was still the Proprietor of His life, and had perfect power over it. The grave had no power to detain His body a moment longer than He chose to submit to its detention. It belonged to Him at any moment to summon back His departed soul, and so convert the grave into a habitation of the living. He possessed the power to recall the vital spark and bid it quicken once more the lifeless form. And this He did when the purposes of the Father had been accomplished, and He had been in the grave long enough to prove beyond all doubt the reality of His death. Means were employed to make Him the everlasting prisoner of the tomb. Imperial guards watched the grave, and the seal of imperial authority was upon the stone; but when the bright hour arrived neither seal nor soldiers could detain Him. By the exercise of His almighty power He burst asunder the one, and filled with terror and trembling the others "The rising God forsakes the tomb : The tomb in vain forbids His rise!' Bursting the bands of death, He stands at the mouth of His sepulchre radiant with immortality, sheds a lustre on |