Very remarkable that this super-human being should be described as a “young man.” Immortal youth, with buoyant energy and fresh power, belongs to angelic beings, and to the children of the resurrection, who are to be “equal unto the angels.” No waste decays their strength, no change robs them of forces which have ceased to increase. Age cannot wither them.
I. The life of the faithful dead is eternal progress towards infinite perfection. Their being never reaches its climax; it is ever but entering on its glory. Their goal is the likeness of God in Christ-all His wisdom, His love, His holiness. He is all theirs, and all that He is is to be transfused into their growing greatness. They rise like the song bird, aspiring to the heavens, circling round, and ever higher, up and up through the steadfast blue to the sun! They shall lose the marks of age as they grow in eternity, and they who have stood before the throne the longest shall be likest him who sat in the sepulchre young with immortal strength, radiant with unwithering beauty.
II. The life of the faithful dead recovers and retains the best characteristics of youth.
1. Hope. No more disappointments; a boundless future of blessedness.
2. Keenness of relish. The pleasures of heaven always satisfy, but never cloy.
3. Fervour of love. Zeal such as that of the seraphs, that have burned before the throne unconsumed and undecaying for unknown ages.
4. Buoyant energy. All that maturity and old age took away, is given back in nobler form. All the limitation and weakness which they brought, the coldness, monotony, torpor, weariness, will drop away; but we shall keep all the precious gifts they brought-calm wisdom, ripened knowledge, full-summed experience, powers of service acquired in life’s long apprenticeship. The perfect man in the heavens will include the graces of childhood, the energies of youth, the steadfastness of manhood, the calmness of old age; as on some tropical trees you may see at once bud, blossom, fruit-the expectancy of spring, the maturing promise of summer, and the fulfilled fruition of autumn-hanging together on the unexhausted bough.
III. The faithful dead shall live in a body that cannot grow old. No weariness. Needing no repose. No death (1Co_15:42-44; 2Co_5:1-4; Rev_7:13-17). (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Youth in heaven
If all this be true, that glorious and undecaying body shall then be the equal and fit instrument of the perfected spirit, not, as it is now, the adequate instrument only of the natural life. The deepest emotions then will be capable of expression-nor, as now, like some rushing tide, choke the floodgates through whose narrow aperture they try to press, and be all tossed into foam in the attempt, All outward things shall then be fully and clearly communicated to the spirit; that glorious body will be a perfect instrument of knowledge. All that we desire to do we shall then do, nor be longer tortured with tremulous hands that can never draw the perfect circle we plan, and stammering lips that will not obey the heart, and throbbing brain that will ache when we would have it clear. The young spirit shall have for true yokefellow a body that cannot tire, nor grow old, nor die. The aged saints of God shall rise then in youthful beauty, More than the long-vanished comeliness shall then rest on faces that were here haggard with anxiety, and pinched with penury and years. No more palsied hands, no more scattered grey hairs, no more dim and horny eyes, no more stiffened muscles and slow-throbbing hearts. “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” It is sown in decaying old age; it is raised in immortal youth. His servants shall stand in that day among “the young-eyed cherubim,” and be like them forever. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The presence of the angel
Here is one keeper more than the Jews looked for about our Saviour’s sepulchre, on more than Pilate appointed. One mighty prince of that supernal host, whose countenance was able to daunt a legion of the best Roman soldiers; perhaps there was a multitude with him to celebrate the resurrection, as there was a multitude that appeared in the fields of Bethlehem to rejoice at Christ’s Nativity. But this angel, I may say determinately, was one of the most royal spirits that stand before the face of God forever. How sweetly the eternal wisdom did dispose to let an angel show himself openly at this place of the grave, and upon the celebration of this great day!
1. Those ministering spirits had been attendants upon all the parts of our Saviour’s humility; good reason they should be occupied upon all occasions of His exaltation and glory.
2. The women came out with confidence to embalm Christ’s body, without considering how many difficulties were in their way; such difficulties as could never have been mastered if the angel had not been sent to facilitate all things for them.
3. The presence of the angel showed that He who had been buried there was God as well as man; for angels were as officious at the sepulchre as they use to be in heaven, which is the throne of God.
4. If not an angel, who else would be believed in so great a matter as this? Tell me, who could give testimony beside that would be credited? The disciples were never so tardy to conceive, never so unapprehensive in anything else as in this! They knew not as yet what the rising from the dead did mean.
5. It is in effect a promise that we shall be exalted after death to the society of angels.
6. Angels desire to be present at everything wherein mankind is benefited, that they may rejoice with us. No envy, no malignity in them, that we shall be made perfect in both parts of nature, both in body and soul, and so in that respect exceed them who are only spiritual substances. (Bishop Hacker.)
