"_Where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves
do not break through nor steal._"--MATT. vi. 20.
"_Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched._"--MARK ix.
48.
These are both sayings of Christ, and each has reference to the life
beyond death; together they illustrate the two-fold thought of the
future which finds a place in all the records of our Lord's teaching.
Popular theology, it is sometimes said, seriously misunderstands and
misinterprets Jesus. And so far as the theology of the future life is
concerned there need be no hesitation in admitting that, not
unfrequently, it has been disfigured by an almost grotesque literalism.
The pulpit has often forgotten that over-statement is always a blunder,
and that any attempt to imagine the wholly unimaginable is most likely
to end in defeating our own intentions and in dissipating, rather than
reinforcing, our sense of the tremendous realities of which Christ
spoke. Nevertheless, much as theology may have erred in the form of its
teaching concerning the future, its great central ideas have always been
derived direct from Christ. It has not, we know, always made its appeal
to what is highest in man; it has sometimes spoken of "heaven" and
"hell" in a fashion that has left heart and conscience wholly untouched;
nevertheless, the time has not yet come--until men cease to believe in
Christ, the time never will have come--for banishing these words from
our vocabulary. Unless Christ were both a deceiver and deceived, they
represent realities as abiding as God and the soul, realities towards
which it behoves every man of us to discover how he stands. In the
teaching of Jesus, no less than in the teaching of popular theology, the
future has a bright side and it has a dark side; there is a heaven and
there is a hell.
I
That there is a life beyond this life, that death does not end all, is
of course always assumed in the teaching of Jesus. But it is much more
than this that we desire to know. What kind of a life is it? What are
its conditions? How is it related to the present life? What is the
"glory" into which, as we believe, "the souls of believers at their
death do immediately pass"? Perhaps our first impression, as we search
the New Testament for an answer to our questions, is one of
disappointment; there is so much that still remains unrevealed. We do
indeed read of dead men raised to life again by the power of God, but of
the awful and unimaginable experiences through which they passed not a
word is told.
"'Where wert thou, brother, those four days?'
There lives no record of reply.
. . . . .
Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal'd;
He told it not; or something seal'd
The lips of that Evangelist."
How much even Christ Himself has left untold! At His incarnation, and
again at His resurrection, He came forth from that world into which we
all must pass; yet how few were His words concerning it, how little able
we still are to picture it! Nevertheless, if He has not told us all, He
has told us enough. Let us recall some of His words.
He spoke of "everlasting habitations"--"eternal tabernacles"--into which
men should be received. Here we are as pilgrims and sojourners, dwelling
in a land not our own.
"Earth's but a sorry tent,
Pitched but a few frail days;"
and the chances and changes of this mortal life often bear heavily upon
us. But there these things have no place. Moth and rust, change and
decay, sorrow and death cannot enter there.
"The day's aye fair
I' the land o' the leal."
Again, Christ said, "I go to prepare a place for you." Just as when a
little child is born into the world it comes to a place made ready for
it by the thousand little tendernesses of a mother's love, so does death
lead us, not into the bleak, inhospitable night, but into the "Father's
house," to a place which love has made ready for our coming. "Father,
into Thy hands I commend My spirit." _Into Thy hands_--thither Jesus
passed from the Cross and the cruel hands of men; thither have passed
the lost ones of our love; thither, too, we in our turn shall pass. Why,
then, if we believe in Jesus should we be afraid? "Having death for my
friend," says an unknown Greek writer, "I tremble not at shadows."
Having Jesus for our friend we tremble not at death.
Further, Christ taught us, the heavenly life is a life of service. Every
one knows how largely the idea of rest has entered into our common
conceptions of the future. It is indeed a pathetic commentary on the
weariness and restlessness of life that with so many rest should almost
have come to be a synonym for blessedness. But rest is far from being
the final word of Scripture concerning the life to come. Surely life,
with its thousandfold activities, is not meant as a preparation for a
Paradise of inaction. What can be the meaning and purpose of the life
which we are called to pass through here, if our hereafter is to be but
one prolonged act of adoration? We shall carry with us into the future
not character only but capacity; and can it be that God will lay aside
as useless there that which with so great pains He has sought to perfect
here? It is not so that Christ has taught us to think: "He that received
the five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou
deliverest unto me five talents: lo, I have gained other five talents.
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast
been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter
thou into the joy of thy lord." God will not take the tools out of the
workman's hands just when he has learned how to handle them; He will not
"pension off" His servants just when they are best able to serve Him.
The reward of work well done is more work; faithfulness in few things
brings lordship over many. Have we not here a ray of light on the
mystery of unfinished lives? We do not murmur when the old and tired are
gathered to their rest; but when little children die, when youth falls
in life's morning, when the strong man is cut off in his strength, we
know not what to say. But do not "His servants serve Him" there as well
as here? Their work is not done; in ways beyond our thoughts it is going
forward still. [60]
One other question concerning the future with which, as by an instinct,
we turn to Christ for answer is suggested by the following touching
little poem:
"I can recall so well how she would look--
How at the very murmur of her dress
On entering the room, the whole room took
An air of gentleness.
That was so long ago, and yet his eyes
Had always afterwards the look that waits
And yearns, and waits again, nor can disguise
Something it contemplates.
May we imagine it? The sob, the tears,
The long, sweet, shuddering breath; then on her breast
The great, full, flooding sense of endless years,
Of heaven, and her, and rest."
Can we quote the authority of Jesus for thoughts like these? The point
is, let it be noted, not whether we shall know each other again beyond
death, but whether we shall be to each other what we were here. At the
foot of the white marble cross which his wife placed upon the grave of
Charles Kingsley are graven these three words: _Amavimus, Amamus,
Amabimus_ ("We have loved, we love, we shall love"). After Mrs.
Browning's death her husband wrote these lines from Dante in her
Testament: "Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that
from this life I shall pass to another better, there, where that lady
lives, of whom my soul was enamoured." Will Christ counter-sign a hope
like this? I do not know any "proof-text" that can be quoted, yet it
were profanation to think otherwise. There are many flowers of time, we
know, which cannot be transplanted; but "love never faileth," love is
the true _immortelle_. And whatever changes death may bring, those who
have been our nearest here shall be our nearest there. And though, as I
say, we can quote no "proof-text," our faith may find its guarantee in
the great word of Jesus: "If it were not so, I would have told you."
This is one of the instincts of the Christian heart, as pure and good as
it is firm and strong. Since Christ let it pass unchallenged, may we not
claim His sanction for it? If it were not so, He would have told us.