HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” (Revelation 1:18).

Here is the message of the Christ of the cross and the still more glorious and precious Christ of the resurrection.

It is beautiful and inspiring to note the touch of light and glory with which these simple words invest the cross. It is not said I am He that was dead and liveth, but “I am He that liveth and was dead, but am alive forevermore.” Life is mentioned before death. There are two ways of looking at the cross.

One is from the death side and the other from the life side. One is the ¹Ecce Homo and the other is the glorified Jesus with only the marks of the nails and the spear. It is thus we are to look at the cross. We are not to carry about with us the mould of the sepulchre, but the glory of the resurrection. It is not the Ecce Homo, but the Living Christ.

And so our crucifixion is to be so complete that it shall be lost in our resurrection and we shall even forget our sorrow and carry with us the light and glory of the eternal morning. So let us live the death-born life, ever new and full of a life that can never die, because it is “dead and alive forevermore.”

¹Ecce homo (Ecclesiastical Latin: [ˈettʃe ˈomo], Classical Latin: [ˈɛkkɛ ˈhɔmoː]; “behold the man”) are the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of the Gospel of John, when he presents a scourged Jesus Christ, bound and crowned with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion.