Recalled To Life

John 5:24-29

In Charles Dickens famous book A Tale Of Two Cities the major theme of the book is laid out very early in the novel. This theme is Recalled to Life.

The three main Characters of the book, Dr Manette, Charles Darnay, and Sydney Carlton all experience a sort of resurrection, or a second chance of life. Dickens draws this theme from the doctrine of the resurrection, especially depicted in the final chapter in which Sydney Carlton would give his life by going to the guillotine in Charles Darnay’s place so that Darnay and Mrs Darnay (In whom Carlton once loved) could have a happy life together.

Dickens puts more emphasis on the first resurrection that Jesus speaks of in our text which is the passing from spiritual death to spiritual life. (Versus 24-27) According to the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:1-3 we are born in trespasses and sins. Then in the fourth and fifth verse Paul wrote “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” What Paul is conveying is the same thing that Dickens is conveying in his novel, that through the grace and mercy of a loving God we have been Recalled to life and become new creatures in Christ.

Dr Manette has spent eighteen years of his life imprisoned in the Bastille for trying to expose the crimes of Dr Evremonde. In those eighteen years his daughter considered him to be dead. But at the end of the eighteen years, she come to realize that the father she never knew was alive. Here, Dickens draws on the second resurrection of which Jesus spoke of in our text. (Versus 28,29)

We have all lost loved ones who have gone on to be with the Lord. But there will come a time when their dead bodies shall rise again at the resurrection. They will be called by the sound of a trumpet and the voice of the arch angel, rising up and meeting Christ in the air to go on to be with the Lord forever. In essence they too will be recalled to life.

These two resurrections, the first from spiritual death and the second from physical death are the hope of all of mankind, especially those who have faith in Christ. Without the first resurrection there is no hope of the second. You must be born again! When that happens, then the words of Jesus have their fullness of meaning when He said, “Because I live you shall love also.”

Pastor Robby