A Classic Holiness Sermon

The Untenanted Universe of Easter

By Oswald Chambers

“He was seen by me also” (1 Corinthians 15:8)

Very few of us come to realize what is ours through the resurrected Lord, namely, that we can really draw on Him for body, soul, and spirit now. We do not trust in a Christ who died and rose again twenty centuries ago; He must be a present reality, an efficacious power now. One of the great words of God in the spiritual calendar is now. It is not that we gradually get to God or gradually get away from Him; we are either there now or we are not. We may get into touch with God at once, if we will, not because of our merit but simply on the ground of the Redemption; if we have got out of touch with God in the tiniest degree we can get back now, not presently, not be trying to recall things that will exonerate us for what we have done but by an unconditional abandon to Jesus Christ, and we will realize the efficacious power of the resurrected Lord now.

To use the New Testament as a book of proof is nonsense. If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the New Testament will not convince you that He is; if you do not believe in the Resurrection, the New Testament will not convince you of it. The New Testament is written for those who do not need convincing. After the Resurrection our Lord appeared to those only who knew Him in the days of His flesh. How many people recognized that the carpenter of Nazareth was God incarnate? Very few bothered their heads about Him; He was totally ignorable. The relationship to our Lord is a purely spiritual one, and the Resurrection brought out the personal relationship of each one—of Peter and John, Mary and Thomas (John 20 and 21), and here the marvelously personal note is brought out: “He was seen by me also.” Our Lord never sent out His disciples to proclaim the Gospel on the ground that He had done something for them but only on the ground that they had seen Him. “But go to My brethren and say to them . . .” (John 20:17). Mary Magdalene was not sent on the ground that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her but on the ground of the Resurrection. She knew now who Jesus was; before, she only knew what He could do.

1. The Last Word About Myself

“After that He was seen by Cephas” 1 Corinthians 15:5

Cephas was the man who but a little while before denied that he knew Jesus; he saw Him on the cross dead, and the last memory in his mind would be, “Yes, and I did not stand by Him, I denied Him with oaths and curses.” Think of the agony of Peter’s mind, and then think of this: “He was seen by Cephas.” Jesus came to His heartbroken disciple after His resurrection; no record is given of what took place, all we know is that Jesus reinstated Peter in public (John 21:15-17). But read Peter’s epistles—they are full of the kindness of the Good Shepherd to the sheep.

The great essential bedrock of relationship to the resurrected Lord is that we know the last word about ourselves. Do I really know that I am a pauper spiritually? Then, Jesus says, Blessed are you. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). The Easter message is that the Lord “was seen by me also.” I know Him personally for myself.

Supposing I have been delivered from sin, would that necessarily assure me that I would know Jesus if I saw Him? Not the tiniest bit. Mary Magdalene had had seven demons cast out of her, but when she saw Jesus after the Resurrection she was blinded by grief and personal sorrow, and she mistook Him for the gardener. I, too, may mistake Him for the gardener. But the eternal, resurrected Christ may touch me through the gardener. He may touch me through a child, through a flower. If I am in living personal relationship to Jesus, the things that make the common affairs of life become conveyors of the real presence of God.

If you have come to the last word about yourself, watch for the Lord; He is there all the time, and He will come to you in some supernatural way. “Lo, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). It is not an effort of faith but a marvelous realization.

2. The Least Witness to the Lord

“Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.” 1 Corinthians 15:8

“By me also”—the most unlikely! It is easy to pretend to be less than the least without being it, easy to be false in emotion before God, but Paul is not a pretentious humbug; he is not simply speaking out of the deep modesty of his soul, he is speaking what he believes. One of the greatest revelations is that Jesus does not appear to an individual because he or she deserves it but out of the generosity of His own heart on the ground of the individual’s need. Let me recognize I need Him, and He will appear. I believe many a person keeps away from Jesus Christ through a sense of honor—“I don’t deny that God can forgive me, but I know what I am, and I don’t want to let Him down.” Once let that person realize that Christianity is not a decision for Christ but a complete surrender to let Him take the lordship, and Jesus will appear to him or her. He will do more! He will put into that person a totally new heredity, the heredity that was in Him. That is the amazement of regeneration. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13).

3. The Living Way Before the Lord

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:16

It is a marvelous thing to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but a more marvelous thing to know that He is the Son of God in me. “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood” (Galatians 1:15-16). My relationship to Jesus is not on the ground of Christian evidences, that I can pass an examination on the doctrine of the person of Christ, but suddenly, by the great surprise of the indwelling Spirit of God, I see who Jesus is—the Son of The living God, absolute Lord and Master. The basis of the Christian life is an inner illumination that reveals to me who Jesus is, and on that revelation and the public confession of it Jesus says He will build His church (Matthew 16:15-18).

The searching point is, Has Jesus appeared to me also? Not simply am I saved and turned into another man or woman, but do I know Him? Is He evidencing His marvelous presence in me? Can I bank on Him not by an effort of faith but by a real influx of His resurrection life? One of the greatest indications as to the way the Spirit of God deals with us is to notice where we are exhausted without recuperation. When, by excessive energy on our part or over calculation of our own, we undertake more than God has sanctioned, there is the warning note of weariness. If spiritual people would only take heed, they would find God’s gentle warning always comes, Not that way; that must be left alone, this must be given up; this is the course for you.

The living way before the Lord is to keep in personal touch with Jesus Christ. Never take Jesus Christ as the representative of God; He is God, or there is none. If Jesus Christ is not God manifest in the flesh, we know nothing whatever about God; we are not only agnostic, but hopeless. But if Jesus Christ is what He says He is, then He is God to me.
Christianity is a personal history with Jesus. “You shall be witnesses to Me.” The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not mean that we are put into some great and successful venture for God but that we are a satisfaction to Jesus wherever we are placed. It is not a question of service done but that our living relationship to Him is a witness that satisfies Him.

*From He Shall Glorify Me (Oswald Chambers Publications Association, 1946).