Both the friends and the enemies of Christianity admit that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is vital to the religion that bears His name. The Christian confidently appeals to it as an incontrovertible fact; the sceptic denies it altogether as a historical reality. "If the resurrection really took place," says an assailant of it, "then Christianity must be admitted to be what it claims to be--a direct revelation from God." "If Christ be not risen," says the Apostle Paul, "then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." The one tries all he can to do away with the proofs submitted for the accepted fact; the other plainly says that if the resurrection cannot be believed, then Christianity is nothing but a sham. If the resurrection of Christ can be successfully denied, if it can be proven to be absolutely untrue, then the whole fabric of the Gospel falls to pieces, the whole structure of the Christian religion is shaken at its foundation, and the very arch of Christianity crumbles into dust. Then it has wrought only imaginary changes, deluded its most faithful adherents, deceived and disappointed the hopes of its most devoted disciples, and the finest moral achievements that adorn the pages of the history of the Christian church have been based upon a falsehood. Nor must we ignore the prominent place the resurrection of Jesus Christ occupies in the Scriptures. More than one hundred times is it spoken of in the New Testament alone. II. THE NATURE OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 1. JESUS CHRIST ACTUALLY DIED. Some who disbelieve in the resurrection of Christ assert that Jesus merely swooned, and that pitying hands took Him down from the cross, thinking that He had died. The cool air of the tomb in which He was placed revived Him, so that He came forth from the tomb as though He had really risen from the dead. The disciples believed that He had really died and risen again. This theory is false for the following reasons: Jesus Christ appeared to the disciples after the third day, not as a weak, suffering, half-dead man, but as a conquering, triumphant victor over death and the grave. He never could have made the impression upon the disciples that He did, if He had presented the picture of a sick, half-dead man. From John 19:33-37 we learn that when the soldiers pierced the side of Christ, _there came forth blood and water_. Physiologists and physicists agree that such a condition of the vital organs, including the heart itself, precludes the idea of a mere swoon, and proves conclusively that death had taken place. Joseph of Arimathaea asked permission to bury the body of Jesus because he knew that Jesus had been pronounced dead (Matt. 27:57, 58).