Romans 14:9

For to this end Christ both died and rose,… that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.

How we should improve the end of Christ’s death and resurrection

Christ’s death and resurrection are firmly believed, and often considered by us; but too little attention is paid to the end of both.

I. What is this end?

1. That He, as man, might be the lawful possessor of the dead and living. Man has, by sin, forfeited all he has and is, into the hands of justice. Christ, by His death, has satisfied justice, and purchased us for Himself: and in consequence of His resurrection He rescues us, both the living and the dead (Philippians 2:6).

2. That He might be their Deliverer, Protector, and Ruler, defending them from their enemies, and reigning in and over them.

3. That He might be their Master, that they might obey His will, and promote His glory: His sufferings and death supply the greatest inducement to this, and procure grace for us: His resurrection confers that grace, and enables us to live to Him.

4. That He might be the Head and Husband of the dead and living. Lord sometimes means husband. His death manifests His love to His spouse, the Church (Ephesians 5:25): His being raised, makes Him able to fulfil the part of a husband (Romans 7:4), including union (1 Corinthians 6:17), communion, maintenance, guidance, government. Hence it appears that the dead are not dead: He will not be the Husband of the dead.

5. That He might be the Judge of the dead and the living (Romans 14:10; Acts 17:31). This honour is conferred upon Him as a fit reward of His sufferings and death: He rose to give full assurance of it: He is thereby capacitated to exercise it.

II. The use we should make of this doctrine. Did He die and rise again--

1. That He might be our Owner? Then let us give Him His own (1 Corinthians 6:19).

2. That He might be our Governor? Then let us be subject to Him in heart and life, and dependent on His protection.

3. That He might be our Master? Then let us live to Him (2 Corinthians 5:14); this is our duty, in justice and gratitude.

4. That He might be our Husband? Then how great the honour and happiness He designs for us! Let us immediately embrace it.

5. That He might be our Judge? Then let us keep the awful day in view, and prepare for it. (J. Benson.)

Christ, Lord of the dead and the living

This Lordship--

I. Provides the only solid and satisfactory assurance of the future reunion and recognition of His followers. The question that rises oftener than any other to the lips of the bereaved touches this point of reunion. You may try to construct a heaven cut clean off in all its sympathies and attachments and recognitions from this world we are in now. But you will almost certainly then have before the mind a heaven practically destitute of sympathies and attachments, too vague to awaken expectation, too unreal to inspire enthusiasm. He who rose is the Lord of the living and the dead. They are not two families, but one, because they are all in Him, in spite of the transient curtain that hangs between the departed and ourselves--a curtain that probably has its only substance in the eyes of our flesh. The resurrection of the body of Jesus signifies the literal reality of all that is promised the Christian in his future home--the actual identity of the person here and the person there, and the actual renewal of affections and their interchange; for what is the identity, or the blessing of it, if the heart has got to begin its whole history afresh? It signifies the actual restoration, too, of the society, only in more exalted forms, of those who have believed and worshipped the same Saviour here. There will be no confusion of persons, no obliteration of the lines that mark off one soul from another. We shall be just, as distinct persons: with all personal faculties, affections, sympathies, substances, yes, and appearances, as we are now. In those celestial congregations there will, no doubt, be something to be recognised by, in feature or form, inbred on earth and indestructible by dissolution. Hence the need of a glorified resurrection body, to be set free at the last change--following the analogy still of His body who died and rose the same.

II. Suggests that our resurrection life will be social as well as individual. As everything in the kingdom of heaven has its type and model in the Person of our Lord, so in the rising of His form, and the subsequent interviews with His disciples, we see a promise that, literally and for ever, those to whom He imparts His Spirit will move together in a family order and freedom about Him. Nothing less than this can be taught us by the parable of Lazarus, by the inspired images of the Apocalypse, by the company of saints made perfect; but, more than all these, by the reappearing, in the body, of the Lord of the dead and the living. Whither would the forth-going soul take its strange journey if there were no centre of spiritual attraction, no Christ receiving the believer to Himself where He is? (Bp. Huntington.)

Christ’s Lordship

I. Its nature.

1. Universal. He is Lord over all the dead and all the living; but in a peculiar manner over His Church, even as a husband is lord over his wife, which is a lordship with sweetness. It is indeed a lordship; but it is such as is good for His subjects. Christ accounts Himself happy in His Church, which is His fulness, and (Ephesians 1:23) the Church is most happy in His government.

2. Independent. Only His Father joins with Him. All human authority is derived from Him (Proverbs 8:15). “King of kings,” He is Lord Paramount over all.

3. Complete. He is a Lord of the whole man, body and soul. He sits in the throne of conscience. There He prescribes laws to it, pacifies, stablishes, and settles it against all fears. He bows the neck of the inward man, and brings it wholly to be subject to Him.

4. Eternal. Other lords have nothing to do with men when they are dead, because they are lords over the outward man only. But Christ’s lordship is when we are gone hence, and then more especially. For then we are more immediately with Him (Philippians 1:23).

5. Excellent. He hath all things that a lord should have.

(1) Authority. He purchased it, and His Father gave it Him (Psalms 2:8; Matthew 28:18; John 17:2).

(2) All graces and virtues fit for a lord and governor--righteousness, wisdom, bounty, affections, etc. (Psalms 45:6).

(3) Strength. Answerable to His authority; for He is a Lord that is God.

II. Deductions from it. We see--

1. That the grounds of a Christian’s faith and comfort are very strong. God doth all to ends, it being a point of wisdom to prefix an end, and work to it. Here the greatest work hath the greatest end.

2. That the principal points of religion have an influence on all the particulars. For one is the cause of another, and one depends upon another. Christ is proved to be Lord of all, because He died and rose.

3. The truth of the Catholic Church, from the first man living to the end of the Church, under one head Christ (Hebrews 13:8; Acts 4:12).

4. The blessedness of being under the sovereignty of Christ. To be Solomon’s servant was accounted a great happiness (1 Kings 10:8). What shall we think of those that are under Christ, who is greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42). For Christ’s servants are so many kings (Revelation 1:6), and such kings as do not rule over slaves, but over the greatest enemies of all. A Christian can think with comfort upon those enemies that make the greatest tyrants quake--death, sin, and the law. Therefore, those Christians that are afraid of death, forget their dignity. If Christ be their Lord when they die, what need they fear to die?

5. The duty we owe to our Lord--

(1) To live to Him. This we do--

(a) When we know and acknowledge Christ hath a full interest in us. Upon this issues all other obedience.

(b) When we are directed by His will, and not our own. Christ squared His life immediately according to His Father’s will (Psalms 40:7). So all that are Christ’s must have the same spirit.

(c) When we aim at the glory of Christ in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31). The contrary to this the apostle complains of (Philippians 2:21).

(2) To die to Him. This we do when we know and acknowledge that Christ hath power over us when we die, and

(a) thereupon submit ourselves to Him, and not murmur when He comes to call for our life.

(b) When upon any good occasion He calls for our life in standing for a good cause--for the Church or State--we are ready to lay it down.

(c) When we carry ourselves so, when death comes, as we may express such graces as glorify God, and when we study to do all the good we can, that we may die fruitfully.

6. What we may expect from Christ, and what we ought to return to Him again. For relations are bonds.

(a) That He will make us willing and able subjects. He is such a Head as quickeneth dead members; such a Husband as makes His spouse beautiful. A king cannot alter his subjects; but He is such a King as can, and does. He takes them out of a contrary kingdom, as being not born its subjects, but “born anew by the Spirit.”

(b) Advancement. The meanest man that is a subject to Christ is a king, and a king over that which all others are slaves to. They rule over others, but they are in thraldom to their own lusts.

7. How to carry ourselves to men otherwise affected. Christ rules over us, both living and dying; therefore be not the servants of men, but “in the Lord”--i.e., so far as it may stand in the will and pleasure of Him that is the Lord of lords. For when the authority of any superior doth countermand against the will of this Lord, it ceaseth to bind. (R. Sibbes, D.D.)

Christ’s lordship over the dead and living

I. It is plainly a mediatorial lordship that Christ is here said to have. It is altogether apart from the supreme dominion belonging to Him as God, and from that universal lordship which has been conferred on Him as Mediator. The apostle is teaching a lesson of Christian forbearance. You differ from one another about some doubtful points. But do not judge one another. Let every man judge for himself. You are not one another’s lords. Nay, you do not belong to yourselves. You all belong to Christ, who, that He might be your Lord, both died and rose again. Thus far the argument tells for its being a restricted lordship. But why is there any mention made of the dead as distinct from the living? It is the living only who are or can be concerned about the rule. But the living, who have to do with the rule and the reason for it, are soon to be themselves the dead. You are to look at the point in dispute in the light in which it will appear to you when you are dead. You are equally amenable to the Lord now as then. Dead, you will completely own His lordship; living, own it all the same. The lordship of Christ, therefore, is a lordship over His people; and such a lordship over them living, as has its type, one may say, as well as its consummation, in His lordship over them when dead.

II. The connection between this Lordship of Christ and his death and resurrection is very close. “ To this end” (Hebrews 12:2)--

1. It is the appropriate reward, the natural fruit and issue of His dying and rising again, that He is Lord. Christ died and rose again, not as an isolated private individual, transacting with the Father for Himself alone. He bore a representative character. He had gathered up in His one single person all the interests of all His people. Lordship over them is really involved in His dying and rising again. He has them as much at His disposal as He has His own body.

2. Yet there is not much of apparent lordship here. He appears rather as passive than as active. Dying and rising again, He stands forth as not Lord, but servant. But it is through this service that He reaches His lordship. And the lordship answers to the service in all respects.

(1) The persons interested are the same. He is, no doubt, Lord over all mankind; but what is here asserted is a lordship which only true believers can acknowledge--viz., a lordship founded on the Lord’s dying and rising again. They may not be more absolutely in His hands, as mediatorial Lord, than all creation is. And in both cases His mediatorial lordship is the fruit of his dying and rising. But--

(a) There is intelligence and consent in the one case that we cannot find in the other.

(b) There is a real distinction, as regards the dependence of Christ’s lordship, in His dying and rising again, between the two cases. It is indispensable to the accomplishment of the end for which He died and rose again, that He should have as part of His recompense this wide prerogative of universal lordship. But the end itself, the joy set before Him, was surely a lordship more peculiar and more precious (John 17:1).

(2) There is a correspondence between the lordship itself and that on which it rests, and from which it flows. It rests on service and flows from service--the service of sacrifice. But He died and rose not that He might be different as Lord from what He was as dying and rising. No. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It would seem, therefore, that His lordship must be in some sense a continuation of His service. Christ, as His people’s Lord, cannot be to them different from what He was when as the Father’s servant on their behalf He died and rose.

3. Thus, carrying back the lordship into the dying and rising, we may see, even in the humiliation, the real glory of the exaltation. He is Lord, when He dies and rises and lives; Lord, in their life and in their death, of those for whom He dies and rises and lives. His dying and living again is in itself an act of lordship over them.

III. In the light of this connection, consider the Lordship of Christ in its bearing upon those over whom it is exercised.

1. As dying and rising, He is Lord of His own dead.

(1) Giving them victory, and taking from death his sting.

(2) Receiving them to Himself.

(3) Changing their mortal bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto His own glorious Body.

(4) Leading them among the many mansions of His Father’s house, and finding them, as He rules them, congenial subjects.

2. The Lord of you living; the Lord of your life--of the life which you have in Him as dying and rising. Surely it is a Blessed lordship for you now to realise and own. Is not that a source of confidence alike in life and in death? And is it not also a motive to most thorough self-surrender? (R. S.Candlish, D.D.)

The dominion of Christ over mankind

is--

I. Mediatorial.

1. As God, He reigns in His own eternal right.

2. As man, by the appointment of the Father.

II. Absolute. He has all power--

1. To determine their conditions.

2. To pardon and save them.

2. To command their service.

3. To decide their eternal lot.

III. Universal. It includes the living and the dead.

IV. Righteous. It is secured by--

1. His death.

2. His resurrection. (J. Lyth, D.D.)