Because Christ Lives, We Shall Live

"Thy dead men shall live, together with My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." -Isaiah 26:19 [KJV]

When Jesus died on the cross, not as a private person, but as the public Head of His church, then He paid the full debt of sin, and when He arose from the dead, the full release was given to our whole nature in Him. Jesus received the discharge; the bond He had entered into for His people was cancelled, and His resurrection became the proof of their’s also.

But as the justification of all the persons of His redeemed is in Him, and by Him, so another sweet confidence is in Him also: Jesus is not only the cause of their being justified, but of their being glorified also. In these precious words we have, first, God the Father’s promise to His dear Son: "Thy dead men shall live" first in grace, and then in glory. How shall this be effected? Christ then takes up the subject in answer; "Together with My dead body" (saith He) "shall they arise" or it is possible the words may be still the words of the Father; for the body of Christ is said to be given of the Father: "A body hast Thou prepared Me" (Hebrews 10:15).

But in either sense, the doctrine is the same; the resurrection of the believer is assured from its union with Christ. Jesus is the Head of His body, the church. "Your life" (saith the apostle) "is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). And so again: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you; He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11).

Lastly, to crown all, as Jesus is the whole cause, both in justifying, and in glorifying, so is He the pattern, in His resurrection, how they shall arise. "As the dew of herbs" casteth out the same from the earth every year, so shall the earth cast out her dead. Christ’s body was in substance the same, and so must be His people. "This corruptible," saith the apostle, this very identical body, "must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." Not another body, for then it would be another person; and this, instead of a resurrection, would be a creation.

But the identical person that was buried, shall arise with the same identity. Well might the prophet, when giving this blessed promise, at the command of Jehovah, close it with that delightful injunction: "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." And what a song to God and the Lamb will burst forth at once from millions of the redeemed, when rising to all the wonders of futurity, in, and through, and from a personal union with the Lord Jesus Christ!

–Gospel report from preacher Robert Hawker (1753 – 1827 A.D.)