"Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit: in
which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which
aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of GOD waited in
the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing."
--1 PETER III. 18, 19, 20 (_R.V._)
So far we have considered the case of those who die in the favour of GOD,
and, though as yet unfit for the vision of GOD in Heaven itself, are
nevertheless capable of becoming so in the course of the Intermediate
Life.
What, however, must be said of those who in life had light and knowledge
of GOD and of His will, and yet hardened themselves against GOD; who were
free, and in the exercise of their freedom rejected GOD? Of these
unhappy souls, if there is no yielding of their will to GOD in the
Intermediate Life, if, and so far as, they have absolutely made
themselves by the fixedness of their choice incapable of yielding, if
after death they still hate GOD and set the whole force of their
determination against Him,--one can only fear that even GOD Himself
cannot help them. On the supposition that the prerogative of free will,
once for all given to man, must be respected by GOD, we are driven to the
belief that GOD cannot force the will. It is not that GOD changes
towards them. It is not necessary to suppose that He is even punishing
them. He may still be in Himself all that He is to all, full of love
towards them, full of pity, full of mercy. "His mercy is over all His
works." He can no more cease to be a Father to every man than He can
cease to be GOD. He hates nothing that He has made. But if the very
knowledge and thought of GOD'S longsuffering patience serves only to
harden and to exasperate, if it only stirs in the lost soul deeper pangs
of inexorable hatred, then,--man being man and GOD being GOD,--what can
GOD do? It is they who reject GOD, not GOD Who is rejecting them. It is
they who spurn Him, not He Who chastises them. He does not banish them
from His Presence: it is they who banish Him from their presence. And if
this defiance against GOD survives and lasts, if, as ages pass, it
becomes more resolutely inveterate and set, what power can stop it, what
love can soften it? And if it is never to be pacified, and never yields,
what shall hinder it from going on up to and beyond the Day of Judgment?
It may be said that such utter determination is a moral impossibility,
that no will of man could finally defy and resist the love of GOD. If
that be so, well! But on the assumption that it is not impossible, the
inference which has been drawn is inevitable.
But there are others who in life have never heard of Christ, the millions
of heathen in all ages and all lands since the world began, of whom it
may truly be said that they never had a chance of salvation. To these
may be added many who have indeed fallen in with Christianity, but with a
Christianity of such a sort, presented to them in such a way, in such a
form, and under such circumstances as almost naturally to create in their
minds a really honest doubt and distrust of it. What shall be said of
these honest unbelievers, and, scarcely through their own fault, blind?
As to these, let us ask whether the doctrine of the Intermediate State
can help to give us some better hope.
In the text, {72} we are told that Christ was put to death upon the Cross
in the flesh, but was quickened in His human Spirit, that is to say, that
after His human Spirit left His Body it was still quick or alive. We
know, from the Gospel of S. Luke, whither His human Spirit went. It went
to Paradise. S. Peter now tells us what His Spirit did there. He tells
us that it preached unto other spirits, and he names the spirits of those
who for 120 years, while Noah was building the ark, were disobedient.
They had rejected Noah, "the preacher of righteousness" {73} as S. Peter
calls him; and now a greater Preacher went to preach to them. Further,
we are told, that they were "in prison." The word should rather be
rendered "in safe keeping," that is to say, still waiting, under GOD'S
care, for this visit of Christ's human Spirit, when He should preach to
them. Why the spirits of these men, who lived before the flood, are
singled out for special mention, is a question that does not really bear
upon the point which we have in hand. And we had better keep to that
point, and not be tempted to digress. What then follows from this? Two
things are clear,--first, that from as far back as the days before the
flood, that is to say, from the very beginning of human life on earth,
souls in the Intermediate State had been waiting in safe keeping all
these many thousand years; and, secondly, that the disembodied soul of
our Lord Jesus Christ visited them there and preached to them. Assuming
that these souls had repented, however late, before they died, still we
learn that something more than repentance was needful to them. In this
case, it is clear that instruction was given to them. It would not have
been given if it had not been necessary. And what instruction? Christ
"proclaimed," we are told, to them. What did He proclaim? Surely the
good news of the Gospel, {74} which He had been proclaiming on earth by
the voice of the Apostles. What else did He make known than the mystery
of His Incarnation and the Atonement which He had wrought out upon the
Cross, in bearing the sins of men, and their sins, too, who had so long
been waiting in the Intermediate State, to hear it to their salvation? S.
Peter, therefore, in another place, says, "For this cause," that is,
because Christ will Himself be the Judge of the living and the dead,--"for
this cause was _the Gospel_ preached even to the dead." {75}
Here, then, we have a set of facts which throw light upon some of the
dark places of that unknown and unseen land, the Intermediate State. If
we do justice to our Bibles we must regard these as facts, whether we can
fully explain them or not. Scriptural facts they certainly are. What,
then, can we learn from them? First, we seem to learn this,--that some
provision is made in the Intermediate State for the salvation of those
souls who in this life never heard of Christ, never had a chance, as we
say, of salvation. And when we think of it, does it not seem to belong
to GOD'S eternal justice that souls should not be condemned for that
which they could not help? Every human soul must have had a chance of
knowing Christ, before it can justly be punished for the consequences of
not knowing Him. Countless millions in all ages, since the world began,
in our own land, and in other lands, have never heard the good news of
Jesus Christ in life. It is not so with us. With them it is and has
been so. Christ preached to those who in safe keeping had been waiting
long. Then is it not possible for such as those in all ages to receive
the teaching in the Intermediate Life which they never received in this?
Why should Christ preach to those and not to these?
This hope helps to solve that harassing enigma which perplexes and
oppresses so many of us,--I mean, as to the condition and future destiny
of the heathen, and the outcast, and the blind, and the ignorant. There,
in that stillness of the disembodied life, souls may be taught and
trained to know what they never could know in this life on earth, the
wonders and the blessings of the life in Christ.
And, besides, do we not at least learn this from Christ's preaching to
these souls, that intercourse and communication is _possible_ in the life
after death, and will take place? And this suggests another aspect of
the work in that life, besides the work of progressive cleansing and
perfecting. The souls of the faithful rest from their labours. Yes! but
they have also a work to do which can only be done then, the work of the
soul's purification. The work, however, which they can do for others is
better than that which can be done for themselves. What can they do for
the souls of others? Can they not do what Christ's human spirit did?
Here on earth men are charged, not only with the care of their own souls,
but with the care of the souls of others also. And why should they not
be ambassadors for Christ there, if Christ's work has to be done there?
Here on earth He uses imperfect men to proclaim His Gospel. There, in
that after life, if His Gospel is to be proclaimed to those that never
heard it in this life, why should He not employ souls also, not yet
perfected, upon the same happy task?
And may not this charge, laid on ministering souls in the Intermediate
Life, help to solve another mystery--the mystery of many an early and, as
we might think, untimely death? How often do we see a life cut short at
the very climax of its best powers, in the very midst of its noblest
service! All the earlier days had been directed, and had contributed to
the perfection of the instrument, and then, just when its work was doing,
came the sudden end. Was it not so to our Blessed Lord Himself? May it
not be said with due reverence that, if only His human life on earth had
been prolonged, His teaching, and His miracles, and His sinlessness, and
His love must have swayed and melted the hearts of men, even of those who
so long and so stubbornly withstood Him? We might so think. But, just
when His young life was at its prime of human excellence, He died, and
His human Spirit passed to preach salvation to souls in the spirit land.
So are souls, it may be, taken from us at the summit of their ripeness,
but only to be transferred to another scene, and to be employed upon
other work. Their labours change, but their works indeed do follow with
them to that land where other souls of those who knew not Christ here may
learn to know Him there, and knowing Him may choose Him, and choosing Him
may be His and He theirs even to the end.