(NOTES OF AN ADDRESS BY C. GRAIN.)

There is a striking contrast in these two psalms :the 90th brings before us the first man, the gist sets before us the Second Man. The first of these two psalms gives us the disaster and ruin brought in by the first man-a disaster and ruin in which all of his race are involved. In the other psalm we have the character of the Second Man and His blessing; and not His alone, but the blessings which He has found for those who put their trust in Him.

Notice the title of the 90th Psalm. It is called " The prayer of Moses, the man of God," but it is striking to find that the larger part of it is in fact concerning the first man. In it Moses surveys the first man's world. He considers all that characterizes it. Man, being made in the image and likeness of God, was to abide, to dwell with God; that is what is spoken of in the first verse of the psalm:"Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations."

When God created man and established him here upon the earth, his security and blessing was in abiding under God's sheltering wing. What a privileged, happy creature God had made him ! Had he continued abiding with God, no ruin would have come near ; never would have been the condition of things which exists to the present day.

In verses 3-6 he says, " Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men; Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep ; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up ; in the evening it is cut down and withereth." What is in the mind of "the man of God " as he looks about over the first man's world? Generations upon generations are passing away-fleeing away, as it were, before God's rebuke. Let us look a little at the significance of it all.

Although the world has endured many centuries since Moses uttered these words, if we look at the history of men upon the earth with the eyes of Moses, we shall realize that man, is a passenger in this world, passing through it rather than a dweller in it. He cannot abide here. Turning his eyes from man to God, Moses says, " Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." He is the eternal-the same from everlasting to everlasting. He does not fly away. He is not involved in the disaster or ruin of man. He dwells in peace eternal from everlasting to everlasting. But man, where are the generations that lived and peopled the earth before the days of the flood ? Where are the generations that followed after the flood ? Where are the builders of those Egyptian pyramids ? All gone; all passed away one after another. Where are the empires of Assyria, of Babylon, of Persia, of Greece? All passed and gone; only their histories and their ruins remain-silent witnesses to their past greatness and the truth of God's word! And again, if we look around, what is it we see daily ? Funeral processions, following one after another! Some of us, who have reached what we call advanced years, begin to realize our stay here is coming to an end. Every gray hair is witness that the seed of mortality is in us. And we, too, like the generations of the past, will be here no more. We are but sojourners here, and death is stamped upon man.

If I pass along the streets, and see a fine building, then a day or two afterward find one half of the building has been demolished, I say, It is ruined; it is no longer suited to the purpose for which it was built. Now, death, as regards man, is like the demolition or destruction of one half of the building. When man dies, he is no longer a complete man, with spirit, soul and body. When his body goes to corruption, he is no longer in the condition in which he was created. Death is not indeed an extinction of being, as some affirm. It is ceasing to be in the form of being in which he was created. In dying, man passes out of the present form of existence into another. As dead, his spirit and soul are without a body. Using my illustration, we may say one half of the building has been demolished. Just as the half-demolished building is no longer suited for the purpose for which it was built, so man in death is no longer suited for the purpose for which he was created. He is not a complete man.

I think this is a complete argument for the resurrection. If death is a cessation of the present form of being, the passing out of the present into another form, no longer a complete man, implies that one day he is to be a complete man again. Physical death is only a temporary condition. Scripture says that death is the last enemy that is to be destroyed. The Son of God, who came into the world to undo the works of the devil, is going to wipe out completely the serpent's work; it will be fully accomplished at the last resurrection, when the dead, small and great, shall be raised to stand before the great white throne. Those that have not part in the first resurrection, shall be raised to judgment at the second, the last resurrection. Physical death shall then come to an end. In Rev.20:5 we learn there will be an interval of at least 1000 years between the first and the last resurrection, but when the last resurrection occurs, it will be the end of physical death. Brought oat of the death-state, they shall be in man's complete state again-not disembodied spirits any more.

What is the significance of death ? It is the expression of God's abhorrence of sin. As Moses says in this psalm, "We are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee; our secret sins in the light of thy countenance." Death, then, is God's stamp upon sin. Has there ever been any exception ? Some will tell me that Enoch did not die, and Elijah was caught up to heaven without dying. But neither Enoch nor Elijah went to heaven by virtue of any power in themselves. Neither Enoch nor Elijah annulled the sentence of death to which they were exposed; they were exempt only by God's sovereign grace. So they are no exception to God's sentence upon man- upon sin.

Now, is it possible for man to recover himself from the sentence of death to which he is exposed ?
The law raised this question, and there is great misapprehension as to the law in the mind of many. People think the law of Moses was given to man as a means to get to heaven. But God had another reason for imposing the law upon the nation of Israel. God would have man to learn, by practical experience, his helplessness; that by practical experience men should learn their utter inability to recover themselves. In order to teach the lesson God desired men to learn it was not necessary to impose the law upon everybody. It was sufficient to take up one nation, and work out the question there. This lesson was fully demonstrated in connection with that nation. There it stands for all mankind. Let us look at it.

The law proposed life on the ground of obedience. It did not give life. The law says, "This do, and thou shalt live." But while it says what man is to do, it also says, " Cursed be he that continueth not in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Here is the question raised :Can fallen man, on that ground, establish a right to exemption from death ? Did any of the children of Israel, to whom the law was given, ever come in God's presence and assert his right to be exempted from death? No; not one! Why? The opportunity was given them, but not one ever succeeded in obtaining the right to be exempted from death. Not one of the nation ever succeeded in establishing a claim to life. Not one continued in all the things which were written in the book of the law; therefore, the law said:You are under a curse, you must die!

In Romans, chap. 3, we read that "what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth maybe stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." In Israel, God has worked out in a practical way the question of man's competency to establish a right to live, and thus proved that no man is competent to deliver himself from the sentence of death to which he is exposed. It is not only that no Israelite is competent to deliver himself from the sentence of death, that no Israelite is able to establish a right to live, on the ground of compliance with the conditions imposed upon him by the law, but it proves that no man can do it. If none of that nation could establish a right to live, it settles the question definitely and finally for all mankind. No man under less favorable conditions is able to do so.

Apart from God's provision for man, we should say that man's case is hopeless. He is doomed. The stamp of death is upon him, which means, finally to stand before the great white throne to be judged for his sins. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." Death is the sign that man is on his way to the judgment of God, and apart from God's provision for man, as revealed in Scripture, we have to say that man's case is absolutely hopeless ; for the result of having to stand before the great white throne, will surely be the lake of fire; and the lake of fire is "the second death"-not another physical death ; and to be consigned to the lake of fire, is to be for ever and ever lost!

But we turn to the gist psalm, and there we read about another Man, a Second Man. If the first man found the path to death and corruption, the Second Man, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, has found the path to life. This Second Man-come into the world in a supernatural way-is a unique Man, a sinless Man, on whom death had no claim. It will be asked, and has been asked, Did He not die ? We will look at that directly, but I repeat, He was not a mortal man; no seed of mortality was in Him. He alone of all mankind could stand before God, and say, "Death and judgment have no claim upon Me."

That, in substance, is what is presented to us in the gist psalm; the perfection of the character of the Second Man-the One perfectly obedient, perfectly submissive to the will of God, absolutely perfect. The eternal God was His dwelling-place. He never left that place. In this 91st Psalm we have the perfection of His character as a man living here in the world in subjection to the will of God, in perfect obedience to Him; a man therefore who could stand before God and say, Death has no claim upon Me.

Thus, in John 10 :18, we hear Him say, " I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again. No man taketh it from Me." It is one who is exempt from the claim of death; one who has a right to live; one who has a personal claim on life, with whom there is no presumption in coming into the presence of God and saying, I have a just right to live. And He has come into the world for the purpose of finding the path of life -not for Himself (though in a sense it was true that for Himself He found that path in His sinless holy life upon earth), but for us the path of life is found in His death. Thus, in John 10 :11, He says, "I am the Good Shepherd:the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep." This unique, perfect and obedient Man, has come into a world where sin and death reign, to provide a path of life for His sheep; and He had to provide it by His death. In coming to those who are under the sentence of death, to find the path of life for them, He must enter into death Himself, and He enters it to annul it for us. Of His life He says, "No man taketh it from Me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." In the body prepared Him He acquired ability to die, but there was no seed of mortality in Him. In His own unique and blessed person He was the annulment of death and corruption.

In John ii, Jesus said to Martha, " I am the Resurrection and the Life." That is, He is announcing Himself to Martha as the One in whom is the annulment of death and corruption. When our Lord Jesus was here upon earth, He came in contact with lepers. He touched the leper, and the leprosy was banished. The power of life was there to annul leprosy, sin, and death itself. If by His touch He could annul leprosy, He has power to annul corruption in any sense, and that is what is meant when He says to Martha, " I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." He is the annulment of death and corruption. He was capable of entering into the kingdom of death, and did so of His own voluntary will, righteously to abolish its power over us who have fled to Him as our Saviour. Sovereign in death as in life, death had no more power over Him when He was in death than it had over Him when He was living upon the earth-when He raised the little maid that had just died-raised the widow's son as they were carrying him to the grave-and raised Lazarus who had been dead four days. He was master over death. When He Himself was put to death in the flesh, it had no more power over Him than when He was a living man upon the earth. All being accomplished according to God's will, He arose from the dead absolutely untainted by corruption, having found for us the path of life through His death. He was raised out of death to life, as verse 14 of this gist psalm expresses it:"Because He hath set His love upon Me, therefore will I deliver Him. I will set Him on high, because He hath known my name." Having in all things glorified the Father in His life upon earth, He was raised from the dead and glorified in heaven.

In Revelation i :18 He says, "I am the First and the Last. I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of death and hades." He is a Man in triumph over death, over the power of Satan, eternally triumphant. He has found the path of life for us; and we, sinners as we are, incapable of delivering ourselves from the sentence of death, we come to Him who died for us and rose again. We put ourselves and our eternal destiny in His hands. We believe in Him, trust Him, and that links us with Him forever. He who lives and believes in Him shall never die.

But some one may say, "Do not believers also die ? Do not Christians die ? " Ah, my friends, while one after another of us is passing away, there is an eternal link in our souls by faith in Him who ever liveth in the presence of God, and this means that death has no more claim over the believer than it has over Him who died for us and rose again. The penalty of sin is abolished for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ; he has forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Christ triumphant. In John 5 :24 we read, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment." Our sins will be remembered no more. We have eternal life; we have passed out of death into life. Death is annulled for him who believes in Jesus, and in whom Christ now dwells.