What divine joy it sends into one's heart: just by faith to go back to that first morning, the like of which never was seen upon this earth before; for there never was such a day upon this earth as that first resurrection morning; and is it not like the outshining of the sun after a long, dreary night?

I can well understand how the hearts of His own, fearing, trembling, clung to Him-- ignorant and weak no doubt, yet they clung to Him, as it was His Person that attracted them-- and they did cling to Him, oftentimes contrary to the poor, wretched, feeble convictions of their own poor hearts.

Yes, I can well understand that, when the fact that He was risen was established among the disciples, how they went about to each other that morning: "The Lord is risen indeed!"-- What a greeting! What a word to meet each other with on that first morning, after that long, dreary night of winter, so to speak, that had settled down upon this whole world of mankind, with that long and monotonous inscription that is recorded upon every great man in the Old Testament times: "He died." Not a single star to relieve the blackness of it; "he died."

You will find in the Old Testament everything is made of death, and burial, and funerals. Look at the patriarchs. Death was more important to them than life; death brought them into Canaan. And it was the belief of the Jews that they should be raised in Canaan, and therefore death was far more important to them than life because resurrection had not come out as a manifested reality; resurrection was not brought to light. As the apostle says, Neither life nor incorruptibility, had come to light before the glad tidings. It was not that they were not in existence, but God had not brought them out.

But now we can understand, and our hearts can enter into the reality of the thing, that they should go about to one another and say, "The Lord is risen indeed." And what always is a delight to the heart is that they connect with the fact of His resurrection the grace of His unchanged heart, for they say, "and hath appeared unto Simon." Poor Peter that denied Him-- even though he had been warned-- the man that trusted his own heart like a fool, in face of the remonstrance of Jesus; still, there was His heart unchanged, and connected with that blessed new testimony of His resurrection, was the testimony of the unchanged, unaltered heart of Christ.

Oh, beloved friends, there is nothing more precious than to see that, on the most blessed morning that ever beamed upon this sinful earth, the morning of resurrection, the testimony to the completeness of the glory of His Person, as well as the perfections of His triumph, there should go out that testimony in connection with the risen Christ that He was unchanged, His heart was the same. Peter might forsake Him and deny Him, but He was the same. Nothing could be more precious and more blessed for our hearts.