the disposition, with many, is to forget the dead as soon as possible,
and forever. Some need to think far more of the deceased. They should
remember that the dead are alive; that no doubt they think of them; and
that, instead of being separated farther and farther from the deceased,
by the lapse of time, they are every day coming nearer and nearer to
them, and they must meet again.
It is well for us frequently to remember that the silence of the dead is
no true exponent of their real state. Incoherent and wild as the
thoughts and feelings sometimes are, under the distracting influence of
affliction and death, and all uncertain as we are about the departure of
the soul, we are not left without sure and most satisfying information
respecting the separate state.
There is no annihilation. The life of the soul is not extinguished like
the flame of a lamp. Existence is not that lingering, twinkling spark
which it seems to be in the moments preceding death. To be absent from
the body, for a Christian, is to be present with the Lord; to die is
gain; to depart, and be with Christ, is far better. When the dust
returns to the earth as it was, the spirit ascends to God, who gave it.
The soul is more vigorous and active than when shut up in the body,
because a higher form of life is required in being with God and angels.
We are told that the pious dead are "the spirits of just men made
perfect." All imperfection arising from bodily organization, as well as
from our fallen state here, has ceased, and the soul has become a pure
spirit, in a spiritual world, engaged in spiritual pursuits. Memory is
awake; every perceptive faculty is in perfection; the soul that sees far
distant places, in a moment, in sleep,--that holds converse with other,
but absent, minds, while the body is sealed in slumber,--not only does
not need the present body to make it capable of perception, but when
escaped from this material condition, and from dependence upon these
bodily senses, which now are like colored glass to the eyes, it will be
far more capable than before; though the spiritual body, at the last,
will advance it to a still higher condition. Its judgment is sound, its
sensibilities are quick, its thoughts are full of unmixed joy. But we
probably could not understand the nature of its employments, nor its
discoveries, nor its sensations, any further than we now do from the
word of God. We have no record, nor tradition, of any disclosures made
by Lazarus, or the widow of Nain's son, or the dead who came out of
their graves at the crucifixion, and went into the Holy City, and
appeared unto many. The only way to account for this seems to be, to
suppose that they told nothing of what they had seen or heard. Had they
made any disclosures of the unseen world, those disclosures would never
have been forgotten. They would have been preserved in the memories of
men, to be handed down from age to age. Paul himself had no very
distinct recollection of what he had heard and seen in Paradise; for he
says that he could not tell whether he was in the body or out of the
body. We think in words, which at the time are intelligible, but we
often fail when we try to produce them; so that Paul's expression, very
singular in each part of it,--"heard unspeakable words,"--may refer to
the impressions made on his own mind in his revelations, as not possible
to be clothed in speech. It may have been with him, upon his return to
the body, and with the risen dead, as it was with Nebuchadnezzar, who
knew that he had dreamed, and the dream had made powerful impressions on
his mind, but the dream itself had departed from him. Now, if the bodily
senses, or the soul while in the body, cannot comprehend so as to
express what has been seen in heaven, it is doubtful if we could
understand it if it should be revealed by a spirit from heaven. The
Bible has probably given us as definite information about heaven as we
could possibly understand--certainly as much as God judges best for our
usefulness and happiness. But we must probably learn an unearthly
language, and, in order to this, unearthly ideas, before we can
understand the things which are within the veil. The modes of
communication in heaven between people of strange languages, whether by
a common speech, or by the power given to the disciples at the day of
Pentecost, or by intuition, are not made known to us; but this wonderful
faculty of language, holding an intermediate place between spirit and
matter, has, of course, a corresponding faculty in the world of spirits.
It is, no doubt, an inconceivably pleasurable source of enjoyment. This
increases the sublimity which there is in the silence of the dead, and
its impressiveness. For what fancy can conceive of the communications,
from heart to heart, in that multitude where every new acquaintance is
the occasion of some new joy, or wakes some thrilling recollection, or
leads to some interesting discovery, and gives some fresh objects of
love and praise! The land of silence surely extends no farther than to
the gates of that heavenly city. All is life and activity within; but
from that world, so populous with thoughts, and words, and songs, no
revelation penetrates through the dark, silent land which lies between
us and them. Our friends are there. Stars, so distant from us that their
light, which began its travel ages since, has not reached us, are none
the less worlds, performing their revolutions, and occupied by their
busy population of intelligent spirits, whose history is full of
wonders. Yet the first ray denoting the existence of those worlds, has
never met the eye of the astronomer in his incessant vigils.
The silence of the departed will, for each of us, soon, very soon, be
interrupted. Entering, among breaking shadows and softly unfolding
light, the border land, we shall gradually awake to the opening vision
of things unseen and eternal, all so kindly revealing themselves to our
unaccustomed senses as to make us say, "How beautiful!" and instead of
exciting fear, leading us almost to hasten the hand which is removing
the veil. Some well-known voice, so long silent, may be the first to
utter our name; we are recognized, we are safe. A face, a dear, dear
face, breaks forth amidst the crayoned lines of the dissolving night;
a form--an embrace--assures us that faith has not deceived us, but
has delivered us up to the objects hoped for, the things not seen.
O beatific moment! awaiting every follower of them who, by faith and
patience, inherit the promises--dwellers there "whither the Forerunner
is for us entered."
* * * * *
As we are soon to be utterly silent towards surviving friends, and the
world in which we now live, we should use our speech as we shall wish we
had done when we are silent in death. Any counsels, instructions,
records, explanations, communications of any kind, which we would make,
we should be diligent to perform. All the loving words, and tokens of
affection, which we may suppose we shall hereafter desire to
communicate, we shall do well habitually to bear in mind, and let them
influence our feelings and conduct, day by day. In times of sickness, of
separation, of absence, at happy returns, our feelings towards familiar
friends and members of the family are such as might well be the
standard, and pattern, of our general intercourse, especially when we
think that the days will come when we shall highly prize and long for
that intercourse, which now we have such opportunity to enrich with
sweet and fragrant recollections, occasioning no pang of regret, nor
sting. It is well to remember that, one day, we must part, and to let
that anticipation intensify our love, and add charms to this daily
companionship, which may soon appear to be a privilege which we did not
sufficiently prize.
The time will come, when, to many a beloved survivor, a word or sign,
breaking the silence of the departed spirit, and giving some assurance
that it is happy, would, perhaps, be the means of dispelling a life-long
sorrow--would lift a crushing burden from the heart. The time to prepare
that assurance, so that it shall come with most effectual power, is now,
in days of health, when the evidences of our piety shall not be
attainted by a suspicion of constraint and insincerity, arising from
late repentance and an apparently forced submission to God. Our
recollections of a departed Christian friend, of whose salvation his
pious life makes us perfectly assured, come over us like the soft
pulsations of a west wind in summer, laden with the sweets of a new-mown
field; or like the clear, streaming moonlight in the brief interval
between the broken clouds; or like remembered music, which some
accidental word of a song has startled from its place and diffused
through the soul. Thus departed Christian friends are the means of
unspeakable happiness to survivors; thus "their works do follow them;"
and we should make large account of this when we are weighing the
question whether we will now, or in the closing hours of life, so
fearfully uncertain, begin to love and serve God.
The question which earth asks respecting one and another, "Where is he?"
is no doubt repeated in heaven: Have you met him in any of these
streets? Did you see him on yonder hills? Angels, returned from other
happy worlds, have you heard of him? Where is he? He is conscious,
intelligent, receiving sensations from objects around him as vividly as
ever. But, Where is he?
Of others, the question could be answered by ten thousand happy voices,
"All is well." With regard to many, the silence of the dead, forbidding
our inquiries, is the only thing which, in any measure, composes the
grief of friends. But as to our Christian friends, we have no more
reason to inquire with solicitude respecting them, than concerning the
Saviour himself. "I go to prepare a place for you,"--"that where I am,
there ye may be also." The dying Christian may truly say to his friends,
as the Saviour did to his: "WHITHER I GO YE KNOW, AND THE WAY YE KNOW."
V.
THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY.
What though my body run to dust?
Faith cleaves unto it, counting every grain
With an exact and most particular trust,
Reserving all for flesh again.
GEORGE HERBERT.
It is good to think of Michael, the archangel, disputing with the devil
about the body of Moses. The dispute was over a grave. The Most High had
himself performed the funeral rites of his servant; for, we read, "The
Lord buried him." We naturally think of the archangel as placed in
charge of the precious dust.
Some great commission, connected with the resurrection of the dead,
appears to be held by the chief spirit of the angelic world. "For the
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and the trump of God." The burial of each and every body
which is destined to the resurrection of the just, is, therefore, not
improbably an object of interest with him who, under the God-man, will
have the supervision of the last day. With a view to that harvest of the
earth, he will now see the furrows made, the seed planted, the hill
prepared. He will have a care that every thing lies down, whether by
seeming accident, or by violence, or by design, in just the place from
which the arranging mind of Him who is Lord both of the dead and of the
living, has appointed it to come forth. Every circumstance attending
that event, the great object of hope in heaven and on earth,--our
resurrection,--is of sufficient importance to be the subject of thought
and preparation on the part of Christ, himself the first fruits of them
that slept.
The care of the patriarchs concerning their burial places is like one of
those premonitions in an antecedent stratum of geology, or species of
animals, of a coming manifestation;--a prophesying germ, a yearning,
created by Him who, with all-seeing wisdom, establishes anticipations
in the moral, as well as in the natural, world, concerning things with
regard to which a thousand years are with him as one day.
Not on earth alone, as it seems, is an interest felt in the death and
burial of the righteous.
For when the leader of Israel in the wilderness went up to the hill top
to die, the two great angels, of heaven and hell, met and contended over
his grave.
Denied the privilege of burial in the promised land, Moses may have
appeared to Satan so evidently under the frown of God, as to encourage
his meddlesome efforts to inflict some injury upon him, through dishonor
done to his remains. Perhaps he would convey them back to Egypt, a gift
to the brooding vengeance of the Pharaohs, who would gratify their anger
by preserving that body in the house of their gods;--thus showing their
spiteful satisfaction at the disappointment of the prophet whom Jehovah
would not permit to enter that promised land, in hope of which the
great spoiler had led away the bondmen of Egypt.
Perhaps the devil would gratify the desire of some idolatrous nation,
craving new objects of worship, by leading them to canonize this Hebrew
chief; and thus make of the lawgiver and prophet of Israel a false god.
Perhaps he could even prevail on some of the Israelites themselves, if
not the whole of them, to worship this revered form; or might he but
have the designation and the custody of his grave, he would, perhaps,
fix it where it would be most convenient for the nation to assemble, at
stated times, for some idolatrous rites.
But the great vicegerent of the resurrection was there. To him the body
of a saint is suggestive of the last day; it is a special assignment by
Christ, an official trust, to the archangel. Bodies of saints are,
therefore, most precious to him. Particles of the precious metal are not
more precious to the miner, pearls to the diver, ivory to the
Coast-merchant, and the shell-fish to the maker of Tyrian purple. The
body of each saint is an unfinished history of redemption; a destiny of
indescribable interest and importance belongs to it. Any subaltern angel
may have charge of winds and seas, of day and night, of summer and
winter; but only the archangel is counted meet to have charge, and to
keep watch and ward, over the bodies of saints as they sleep in Jesus.
"He disputed about the body of Moses." It was a dispute characterized on
the part of the archangel more by act than word. Words are hushed in
great encounters. Debate with a pirate, a body-snatcher, would be folly;
no arguments, therefore, were wasted, on the top of Nebo, by Michael,
over the grave of Moses. "The Lord rebuke thee," was his retort; his
heavenly form stopping the way, his baffling right arm hindering the
accursed design, were the invincible logic of that dispute.
O prince of angels, watchman, herald, master of the guard, at the
resurrection of the just,--comptroller, now, of that treasury which
receives and keeps their precious forms,--from whose lips that signal
is to come which millions on millions are to hear, and live,--what
images of glory and terror fill thy mind in the anticipation of that
moment when thy dread commission is to be fulfilled! Is not that
"trumpet" sometimes taken into thy hand? Dost thou not place it to thy
lips, but quickly lay it aside, and patiently and joyfully watch the
swelling number of the graves of saints? Funerals of those who fall
asleep in Jesus, to thee are pleasant scenes; they are spring-work,
planting times, for thy harvest, O chief reaper! While, with bursting
hearts, we turn from the new-made mound, one more glorified body, in
anticipation, is added to thy charge.
Smiling at our sorrow, in joyful thought of the change to be witnessed
in and around that sepulchre when the family circle shall there put on
incorruption, thou canst not pity us except as we pity the brief sorrows
of children. If the devil should approach that spot, to work some
unknown, and, to us, inconceivable, harm to that body,--be it the body
of the humblest saint, one of those little ones who believe in Jesus, or
of those infants whose angels do always behold the face of God,--thou,
mighty cherub, wouldst be there, and, if need be, with a band of angels,
"every one with his sword upon his thigh, because of fear in the night;"
and Nebo and its "dispute" would reappear. Poor, dying, mouldering body!
hast thou the archangel himself for thy keeper? Not only so:
"God, my Redeemer, lives,
And often from the skies
Looks down and watches all my dust,
Till he shall bid it rise."
Nor is it strange, since we read, "The body is for the Lord, and the
Lord for the body." "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost which is in you?"
To rise from the dead seems to have been something more to Paul than
going to heaven, or than being in heaven. He knew that he was to spend
the interval between death and the resurrection in heaven; but beyond
even this, he had a joy which he felt was essential to the completeness
of the heavenly state.
See the proof of this in the following words: "If by any means I might
attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
Since he was destined, like all of Adam's race, to come forth from his
grave, he needed to make no effort whatever merely to rise from the
dead; that was inevitable, and irrespective of character. Besides, he
represents this object for which he strove as something which required
effort, which cannot be said of merely rising from the grave.
Paul had been permitted to know, by personal observation, what the
rising from the dead implies. Caught up into Paradise, we may suppose
that he had seen the patriarch Enoch, and the prophet Elijah, with their
glorified bodies; the presence of which in heaven, we may imagine, has
ever served to enhance the happiness of that world, by holding forth,
before the eyes of the redeemed, the sign and pledge of their future
experience when they shall receive their bodies. For it is not
presumptuous to suppose that the sight of Enoch and Elijah has been, and
will be, till the last trumpet sounds, a source of joyful expectation to
the inhabitants of heaven, leading them to anticipate the final day with
intense interest, as the time when they will be invested, like those
honored saints, with all the capacities of their completed nature, which
nature, while the body lies buried, is in a dissevered state. If Paul,
when in heaven, saw and felt the power of this expectation in the minds
of glorified saints, no wonder that the resurrection of the body seemed
to him, ever after, to be the crown of Christian expectation and hope.
More than all, he had seen the man Christ Jesus, in his glorified body;
who on earth had said, "I am the resurrection and the life"--himself an
illustration of it, whom alone the grave has yielded up to die no more.
He is, therefore, to saints in heaven, a far more interesting object
than Enoch and Elijah, who never died. "For now is Christ risen from the
dead, and is become the first fruits of them that slept." This sight, of
Christ in heaven, must have had unutterable interest for Paul, from the
assurance that Christ will "change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body;" for "we know that when he shall
appear," Paul himself tells us, "we shall be like him; for we shall see
him as he is." This knowledge, obtained in the heavenly world, may have
led the apostle to think of the resurrection as the crown of all his
expectations and hopes.
It is noticeable that the writers of the New Testament, and Jesus
himself, refer chiefly to the resurrection and the last day as sources
of comfort, and also of warning. Now this is made a principal ground of
belief, with many, that there is either no consciousness between death
and the resurrection; or, that none have gone to heaven, nor to hell,
but to intermediate places, seeing that final rewards and punishments
are, in so many instances, wholly predicated of the last day.
But those who believe that the souls of the righteous are, at their
death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, see
proof, in all this prominence which is given to the last day, and to the
resurrection, that the sacred writers regarded the resurrection and
final judgment as the great consummation, towards which souls, in heaven
and in hell, would be looking forward with intense expectation and
interest; that neither will the joys of heaven nor the pains of hell be
complete, till the account of our whole influence upon the world,
extending to the end of time, is made up, and the body is added to the
soul. When Paul comforts the mourners of Thessalonica, he bids them to
"sorrow not as they that have no hope; for," (and now he does not speak
of heaven, and of souls being already there, as the source of
consolation, but) "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so
them, also, that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him;" and he
proceeds to speak of the resurrection,--not of the speedy reunion of
friends after death, but of the departed as coming with Christ at the
last day. This, instead of being an argument against the immediate
departure of souls to heaven, arises from the desire to employ the
strongest possible proof that the pious dead are not only safe, but are
greatly honored. "Resurrection" was an abounding subject of thought,
argument, and illustration in those days; the state of the dead between
death and the last day, is comparatively disregarded by the apostles,
while their minds were full of the great question of the age--the
Resurrection. This fullness of thought and constant occupation of mind
about the resurrection, as the cardinal doctrine of Christian hope,
explains the apparent belief of the apostles, in some passages, that the
final day was near. This the apostle Paul expressly denies, in the
second chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. But a greater
event, looked at in the same line of vision with an intermediate and
smaller object, will, of course, have the prominent place in our
thoughts. The less will be held subordinate to the greater; perhaps we
shall seem to underrate the less, in our exalted conceptions of that
which rises beyond and above. We shall see, as we proceed, why the
expectation of the last day seemed to occupy the thoughts of apostles as
the paramount object of expectation.
It is perfectly obvious that, at the resurrection, the bodies of the
just will be endued with wonderful susceptibilities and powers. This is
rendered certain by the great mystery of godliness,--God manifest in the
flesh. The greatest honor which could be conferred upon our nature, and
the greatest testimony to its intrinsic dignity, and to its being, in
its unfallen state, in the image of God, is bestowed upon it by the
incarnation of the Word. True, there was a necessity that the Redeemer
should be made like unto us, however inferior human nature might be in
the scale of creation; still, unless there had been such intrinsic
dignity and excellence in our sinless nature, as to make it compatible
for the second Person in the Godhead to be united with it, we cannot
suppose that this union would have been permanent; it would have
fulfilled a temporary purpose, and then have ceased.