It is of no use paring down the supernatural in Christianity, in order to meet the prejudices of a quasi-scientific scepticism, unless you are prepared to go the whole length, and give up the Resurrection.  There is the turning point.  The question is, Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, or do you not?  If your objections to the supernatural are valid, then Christ is not risen from the dead; and you must face the consequences of that.  If He is risen from the dead, then you must cease all your talk about the impossibility of miracle, and be willing to accept a supernatural revelation as God’s way of making Himself known to man.

But, further, let me remind you of the bearing of the Resurrection upon Christ’s work and claims.  If He be lying in some forgotten grave, and if all that fair thought of His having burst the bands of death is a blunder, then there was nothing in His death that had the least bearing upon men’s sin, and it is no more to me than the deaths of thousands in the past.  But if He is risen from the dead, then the Resurrection casts back a light upon the Cross, and we understand that His death is the life of the world, and that ’by His stripes we are healed.’

But, further, remember what He said about Himself when He was in the world—­how He claimed to be the Son of God; how He demanded absolute obedience, implicit trust, supreme love, how He identified faith in Himself with faith in God—­and consider the Resurrection as bearing on the reception or rejection of these tremendous claims.  It seems to me that we are brought sharp up to this alternative—­Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and was declared by the Resurrection to be the Son of God with power; or Jesus Christ has not risen from the dead—­and what then?  Then He was either deceiver or deceived, and in either case has no right to my reverence and my love.  We may be thankful that men are illogical, and that many who reject the Resurrection retain reverence, genuine and deep, for Jesus Christ.  But whether they have any right to do so is another matter.  I confess for myself that, if I did not believe that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, I should find it very hard to accept, as an example of conduct, or as religious teacher, a man who had made such great claims as He did, and had asked from me what He asked.  It seems to me that He is either a great deal more, or a great deal less, than a beautiful saintly soul.  If He rose from the dead He is much more; if He did not, I am afraid to say how much less He is.

And, finally, the bearing of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ upon our own hopes of the future may be suggested.  It teaches us that life has nothing to do with organisation, but persists apart from the body.  It teaches us that a man may pass from death and be unaltered in the substance of his being; and it teaches us that the earthly house of our tabernacle may be fashioned like unto the glorious house in which He dwells now at the right hand of God.  There is no other absolute proof of immortality than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.