Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 150:597 (Jan 1993)
Article: The Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord
Author: Edward Robinson

---

BSac 150:597 (Jan 93) p. 9

The Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord

Edward Robinson

[This article, written by the founder and first editor of Bibliotheca Sacra, was published in 1845, the third year of the journal’s publishing history. Edward Robinson was a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York and served as editor of Bibliotheca Sacra for its first year (1843). This article is reproduced here without editing to give today’s Bibliotheca Sacra readers an idea of the kind of material produced almost 150 years ago. {Editor’s note: This paragraph was originally a footnote numbered * on the title line.}]

{Editor’s note: The footnotes in this reprint were originally numbered sequentially for each page. As is now customary, in this electronic edition, they are numbered sequentially for the whole article.}

The great fact of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead, by which “he was declared to be the Son of God with power,”1 and in which “God fulfilled unto the children the promise made unto their fathers,”2 stands out everywhere prominently on the pages of the New Testament, as one of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian’s faith, and the earnest of his own future resurrection. The burden of Paul’s preaching was, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”3 The apostle goes on likewise strongly to affirm, that “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God, that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.”4

Yet with all this certainty as to the great fact itself, it is not less true, that in respect to the circumstances connected with this important event, difficulties are presented to the mind even of the sincere inquirer, by the different manner in which the four Evangelists have placed these circumstances on record. Not that the facts recorded by them are in a single instance inconsistent with each other; but the main difficulty lies in harmonizing the four accounts in such a way as to bring out a full and complete

BSac 150:597 (Jan 93) p. 10

order and sequence of the events, so natural and consistent as to commend itself to the understanding of all. To do this in any good degree there must be introduced something of hypothesis. Certain things must be assumed as links, to connect facts otherwise isolated. Now there is...

visitor : : uid: ()