Yes,
we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in
ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:9)
We
shall not be able to raise ourselves any more than we can crucify ourselves,
but we must recognize that the Lord's dealings with us are with that in view.
In order to display the power of His resurrection, He will very often have to
take the attitude toward us of letting things get well beyond all human power
to remedy or save, of allowing things to go so far that there is no other power
in all the universe that can do anything whatever to save the situation. He
will allow death, disintegration to work, so that nothing, nothing in the
universe is of any avail, except the power of His resurrection.
We
shall come to the place where Abraham came, who became the great type of faith
which moved right into resurrection:
"He considered his own
body now as good as dead" (Rom. 4:19).
That
is the phrase used by the apostle about Abraham: "as good as dead."
And Paul came into that:
"We had the sentence
of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which
raises the dead" (2 Cor. 1:9).
Whatever
else men may be able to do in the realm of creation, they stop short when death
has actually taken place; they can do no more. Resurrection is God's act, and
God's alone. Men can do very many things when they have got life, but when
there is no life it is only God who can do anything. And God will allow His
Church and its members oft-times to get into such situations as are altogether
beyond human help, in order that He may give the display, which is His own
display, in which no man has any place to glory.
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