What would our objectors have said at the grave-side of Jesus? “The beautiful dreamer, the sublime idealist! He was too good for a world such as ours. It was sure to end like this. His ideas of life were utterly impracticable.” So they would have moralized. “And the good prophet talked--strangest fanaticism of all--of rising again on the third day! One thing at least we know, that the dead are dead and gone from us. No, we shall never see Jesus or His like again. Purity cannot live in this infected air. The grave ends all hope for men.” But, despite human nature and human experience, He has risen again, He lives for ever! That is the apostle’s message and testimony to the world. For those “who believe” it, all things are possible. A life is within our reach that seemed far off as earth from heaven. _You_ may become a perfect saint. From His open grave Christ breathed on His disciples, and through them on all mankind, the Holy Spirit. This is the efficient cause of Christianity,--the Spirit that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. The limit to its efficacy lies in the defects of our faith, in our failure to comprehend what God gave us in His Son. Is anything now too hard for the Lord? Shall anything be called impossible, in the line of God’s promise and man’s spiritual need? Can we put an arrest upon the working of this mysterious force, upon the Spirit of the new life, and say to it: Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther? Look at Jesus where He was--the poor, tortured, wounded body, slain by our sins, lying cold and still in Joseph’s grave: then lift up your eyes and see Him _where He is_,--enthroned in the worship and wonder of heaven! Measure by that distance, by the sweep and lift of that almighty Arm, the strength of the forces engaged to your salvation, the might of the powers at work through the ages for the redemption of humanity. FOOTNOTES: [61] See Westcott and Hort’s _New Testament in Greek_, vol. ii., pp. 124, 125. [62] Dr. Beet abides by the critical text. He solves the difficulty by giving πίστις a double sense: “the faith among you in the Lord Jesus, and the _faithfulness_ towards all the saints.” See his Commentary on _Ephesians, etc._, pp. 284-6. [63] In 1 Thess. i. 7-9; 2 Thess. i. 4, the same thought enters into Paul’s thanksgiving; comp. 2 Cor. ix. 2. [64] This is the emphatic ἐπιγνῶσις, so frequent in the later epistles. See Lightfoot’s _note_ on Col. i. 9; or Cremer’s _Lexicon to N.T. Greek_. [65] See ch. iii. 3-5, iv. 11; and comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 26-40, etc. [66] Adolphe Monod: _Explication de l’épître de S. Paul aux Éphésiens_. A deeply spiritual and suggestive Commentary.