but a begun victory,
and, inasmuch as both soul and spirit are delivered from the
underworld and the shades of death, he has the assurance that the
penalty will yet be completely abolished concerning his body: it is
both the assurance and the prophecy of it.

Christianity is, then, primarily, the good news, and the doctrinal
demonstration, that death as a judicial sentence has been abolished
for the Christian.

But Christianity is something more than the abolition of death--it
is--

Second--The bringing in and revelation of life.

Through the Gospel, we are told, life has been brought to light.

In the nature of the case this cannot mean natural life.

There was no necessity that it should be brought into light.

It has never been in darkness.

It is manifest everywhere. Light and life are synonymous.

There is not a condition in which in some form or other it does not
exist. While one class of life may not live in a certain
environment, there are other forms to which this environment would
be as a hotbed for their production. Life is, indeed, universal, and
may be said to be omnipresent. You will find it in the deepest
depths of earth, and in the highest reaches of air. It expands on
the mountain top, it dwells in the sea; it is organized in the
infusoria, it exists in the infinitesimal, and reveals itself at
last, in the beauty of woman and the strength of man.

As natural life has always thus been in evidence; as it has never
been in the dark at all, then the life which our Lord Jesus Christ
has brought to light is not natural life--it is new life--a life
unknown to the world before.

It does not come from the natural man. It is not produced by natural
generation. It comes from our Lord Jesus Christ and by supernatural
generation. It did not come from him while he walked the earth. At
no time during his earthly career did a human being receive it. The
disciples who followed him--he who leaned upon his breast at supper
and was the disciple whom Jesus loved--knew nothing of it. This new
and unique life was brought into the light only when that light
shone from his empty grave. He gave it forth and communicated it to
men only when, as the risen man, he ascended up on high. It comes
from him as the second man, as the last Adam, that Adam to whom the
first was only as the clay model to the completed statue, as concept
is to consummation. It comes from him who is both God and man, in
one body and one person