Mark 16:12

After that He appeared in another form.

The changing form of the unchanging Saviour

I. Christ has a form. Eliphaz said (Job 4:15). Not thus is the Lord Jesus presented to us in the New Testament. Throughout His earthly life He appears, not in uncertain and wavering lines, but in all the distinctness and power of a human personality. And during the forty days it is the same. The corporeity of the Redeemer is glorified, but it is still the “man Christ Jesus” with all His individual characteristics. In our day strong endeavours are being made to get rid of the “form” of Christ; to substitute what is vague and visionary for the definite and palpable truth as it is in Jesus. The prophet says, “The heart is deceitful.” Half this, it seems, is true; the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately good, for modern introspection has found in it a Messiah, a Church, and a Bible. Let us enter our protest against these endeavours to reject a substantive religion.

1. We have those who reject the historical Christ on behalf of a mystical Christ. Spiritual men, we are told, attain positions which render historical saviours redundancies. They find a diviner Christ in their heart. But, my brethren, can we forego the Christ who is painted with such severe realism in the New Testament for that idealistic Christ whom men assume to find in their own heart? Must we vaporize the Christ of the Gospels into that formless, bloodless Christ known in certain quarters as the inward, the spiritual, the eternal Christ? Surely not. If we reject the historic Christ we shall soon have no Christ at all, for the Christ we find in our heart is simply the reflection of the historic Christ. What Christ did Morison find in the heart of the Chinese? or Carey in the heart of the Hindoo? or John Hunt in the heart of the Fijian? A very equivocal Christ, surely!

2. We have those who reject the visible Church for the invisible Church. The Church of God does not exist, we are told, as a visible institution. The external Church-sacraments, ritual, ministers, and impertinences. “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” Once more Christ is to become disembodied and formless; His Church is to be sublimated into that featureless shade known as Plymouthism. Against this etherealization we must protest also. The true Church, which is Christ’s “body,” will resemble Christ’s resurrection body; being at once spiritual and corporeal; heavenly and earthly; invisible, as its deepest life is hid in God, and yet revealing in its organisation and government and ordinances the power and grace of its immortal Head; with human features and human raiment, and yet standing before the world, as the Master stood on the Mount, transfigured in a glory altogether unearthly and Divine.

3. We have those who reject dogmatic theology for subjective truth. Some of these reject the Scriptures altogether-looking into the heart they find a surer Bible. They spurn a “book revelation;” the eternal truth is wronged by any attempt to give it “form.” Or, if revelation is accepted, no “form of sound words” must be allowed; the teachings of revelation must not be expressed in any distinct and definite doctrine. They must have the milky way where all is nebulous and undistinguished light; they cannot tolerate the astronomy which for practical purposes makes a map of the stars; they must have the light-the pure, white, orbless light-and look with contempt on Sir Isaac Newton who with the prism breaks up the light for human uses. The mysticism which rejects the orb, which rejects the prism, forgets the limitations of man, and the practical needs of human life. The Word of God and the creed of His Church are sun and rainbow, one shedding the light, the other analyzing it, and both essential for the illumination and pacification of the world.

II. The form of Christ is susceptible of change. “In another form.” The form of Christ still changes, as perhaps all forms change. There are constant and legitimate changes in the presentment of Christ; in the expression of evangelical doctrine; in the ritual and government of Christ’s Church. Christ changes the form of His manifestation for great ends.

1. That the form shall not stand between us and the Saviour Himself. We can only know Christ through the form, and up to a certain point any particular form may help us, but at length the form instead of being a medium of revelation may become a screen. Spiritual meaning evaporates from the best definitions; ceremonies are emptied of their meaning; and the Church order which once aided the gospel may become inoperative and obstructive. The form may become a darkened glass to hide Christ, and lest this should be the case the form is ever being changed so that we may all with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord.

2. That He may make Himself known to men of the most diverse character and circumstance. It seems very probable that the appearance of Christ was altered from time to time during the forty days to meet the several cases of the disciples. Our religion, thank God, is for the world, and it has all the richness and versatility of a universal faith. What a scene of infinite variety is this world of ours! How it teems with individuality, originality, eccentricity, divergence, contrast! So the Christian Church does not come with stereotyped language, a rigid ritual, an unalterable rubric, but it meets the infinite richness of human nature with infinite flexibility and inexhaustible resource. Christ comes in many forms that He may meet the multitudiousness and manifoldness of the race.

3. That He may become the Saviour of all generations. With the perpetual and inevitable changes of time Christ constantly reappears in new forms. The world does not outgrow Christ, but Christ confronts successive generations in new forms, appropriate forms, richer forms. Christianity never becomes obsolete; in the midst of a new world it stands forth in a new form, but with all its ancient power and grace. The old truth speaks in new language; the old spirit passes into new vessels; the old life pulsates in new organizations; the old purpose is accelerated by a new programme. The Church of Christ does not present the spectacle of an antique corporation, but it is strong, fresh, aggressive, and hopeful a ever today (Psalms 110:2). The “new religion,” what is that, Positivism? No, Positivism is the new superstition; Christianity is the new religion - the old religion and the new. This earth is old, very old, and yet today when you look at the primrose, the anemone, and all the fresh young beauty of the spring, you feel it is the new earth also. So is it with Christianity. Older than the hills, it is vital, and fresh and fruitful as ever. The Christianity of St. Paul, of Chrysostom, of Bernard, of John Howe, of John Wesley, produces at this very moment the brightest, grandest, happiest thoughts and things of the modern world. “The word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” Observe-

III. That under the changing form are abiding characteristics. For a time the eyes of the disciples were holden, and they knew not with whom they talked, but in the end they recognized their Master. How shall we recognise the Master? Under changing forms how shall we be sure of His presence? There are many anti-Christs in the world; many creeds and doctrines set forth as Christ’s which are not Christ’s. The old Scandinavian heroes after eating an ox are fabled as making another to grow in its hide the next day. Many in modern times have caught the trick of denying the vital facts and doctrines of the gospel, and then substituting vain dreams of their own under the language, institutions, and symbols of Christianity. But yet we need hardly be deceived.

1. There is the sign of reality. John writes (2 John 1:7.) Let us turn from all those who would turn Christ into an abstraction or personification.

2. There is the sign of glory. In the beginning of their intercourse with the stranger Cleophas and his companion had no exalted idea of the stranger, but as they conversed with Him their sense of His greatness grew until they knew Him to be their risen Lord. They recognized the sign of His divinity. Where the glory of the Divine, the Risen, the Reigning Lord does not shine forth, “this is a deceiver and anti-Christ.”

3. There is the sign of sacrifice. It has been conjectured that in the breaking of the bread the disciples saw the mark of the nails in the Saviour’s hands. However this may be, their mind was full of the sufferings of Christ, and they recognized in Him the Victim of Calvary. Let us, like the monk in the old legend, ask for the print of the nails. The true gospel is the gospel of the cross; the true ministry confesses, “I am determined to know nothing among men, but Jesus Christ and Him crucified;” the true worship ascribes salvation “to Him who has washed us from our sins in His own blood.” The “form” may change, but by “the tokens of His Passion, by the marks received for me,” all His people discern Him with exultation and assurance. (W. L. Watkinson.)