Christ's Lordship Over the Dead and Living
R. S.Candlish, D.D. Romans 14:9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of 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). (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.) Parallel Verses KJV: For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. WEB: For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.