A Devotion from Thomas Boston

He spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
-Psalm 33:9

[The power of God appears] in supporting the human nature of Christ and keeping it from sinking under the terrible weight of divine wrath that came on him for our sins and in making him victorious over the Devil and all the powers of darkness. His human nature could not possibly have borne up under the wrath of God and the curse of the law nor held out under such fearful contests with the powers of hell and the world, if it had not been upheld by infinite power. Thus, his Father says concerning him: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold” (Isa. 42:1).

The divine power appeared in raising Christ from the dead (Eph. 1:19). The unlocking the belly of the whale for the deliverance of Jonah, the rescue of Daniel from the den of lions and restraining the fire from burning the three children were striking declarations of the divine power and were foreshadows of the resurrection of our Redeemer. But all these are nothing to what is represented by them, for these showed a power over natural causes and curbing of beasts and restraining of elements. But in the resurrection of Christ, God exercised a power over himself and quenched the flames of his own wrath, which was hotter than millions of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnaces. He unlocked the prison doors in which the curses of the law had lodged our Savior, stronger than the belly and ribs of a leviathan. How admirable it was that he should be raised from under the curse of the law and the infinite weight of our sins and brought forth with success and glory after his sharp encounter with the powers of hell! In this the power of God was gloriously manifested. Hence he is said to be raised from the dead “through the glory of the Father,” and “declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). All the miraculous proofs by which God acknowledged him for his Son during his life were ineffective without this. If he had remained in the grave, it had been reasonable to believe him only an ordinary person and that his death had been the just punishment of his presumption in calling himself the Son of God. But his resurrection from the dead was the most illustrious and convincing evidence that really he was what he declared himself to be.