The Resurrection Taught at the Burning Bush

THE Son of God has given us a wonderful exposition of the words that were uttered from the burning bush. It is by reasoning, or deduction, or inference, that our Lord draws the fact of the resurrection from thence. But a necessary inference is always legitimate proof, and such is the inference which the Saviour draws. The Lord said to Moses, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Ex. 3:6.

Whenever God says he is the God of any person, or of any class of persons, it is necessarily implied that they who are thus owned of him are his people. In other words, if God calls himself the God of the patriarchs, it is equivalent to calling the patriarchs his servants and his people. There is something reciprocal in the matter. So when God says of his people, "I will be their God," he adds, "And they shall be my people," which indeed is the necessary conclusion. It is the same as though we speak of Zacharias as the husband of Elizabeth. Luke 1. Now this of necessity implies that Elizabeth was the wife of Zacharias. But suppose that Elizabeth is dead and Zacharias still living, we cannot then speak thus of him. He had been her husband, and she had been his wife, but this was dissolved by death. Now our Lord reasons exactly thus when he proves the fact of the resurrection of the patriarchs from the statement of the Most High, made some centuries after their death, that he was their God. They could offer no worship before him, as his people, for they were dead. Ps. 115:17. And hence our Lord lays down the proposition that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for it is the living alone that can sustain the relation of his people to him. Luke 20:37, 38.

God speaks of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as he would speak if they were alive at the very time he spoke. Therefore, says our Lord, these men shall be raised from the dead. But how could God speak thus? Simply because that in his purpose they were certainly to live again. Therefore, to him it was the same as though they were even then alive. And observe our Lord's words, "For all live unto him." If they were actually alive, and not merely in his purpose, they would not live such merely to him, but to the conception of other intelligent beings. But it is God's prerogative to call the things that be not as though they were. Rom. 4:17. And so he virtually pledged himself to raise the patriarchs when he styled himself their God.