THE THREE STAGES OF EXISTENCE
§ 1
Now, grip with both hands the fact that this life, as you know it, is
but one single stage in God's plan for you--the Kindergarten stage, the
caterpillar stage of your existence. That in five thousand years that
spiritual being looking out from behind the mask of your face to-day
will be living still, and feeling still, and thinking still. That what
you call death, the end of this career, is but birth into a new and
more exciting career, stretching away into the far future, age after
age, aeon after aeon, whose prospect should stir the very blood within
us.
There is nothing which so touches some of us as a thing with "makings"
in it, a thing with untold potentialities in it, a thing which may come
in the future to God only knows what. Talk of the caterpillar which is
to develop into the butterfly or the acorn which shall one day be a
mighty oak. Why, these miracles are but child's play compared with the
miracles potentially wrapped up in this poor little self. No wildest
fairy tale can suggest the wonder of its possibilities as it passes out
into the new adventure of the life beyond.
§ 2
Thirteen hundred years ago there was an eager discussion in the court
of King Edward of Northumbria. The old wattled hall was blazing with
torches and a crowd of eager listeners hung intent on the teaching of
the Christian missionaries who had just arrived. At last a grim
bearded old earl rose in his place. "Can this new religion," he asked,
"tell us of what happens after death? The life of man is like a
swallow flying through this lighted hall. It enters in at one door
from the darkness outside, and flitting through the light and warmth
passes through the farther door into the dark unknown beyond. Can this
new religion solve for us the mystery? What comes to men in the dark,
dim unknown?"
Perhaps he was thinking of his dead wife or his brave boy killed in
battle. The old earl's question is the question of humanity in all
ages gazing out into the darkness after its dead. The full answer can
only be had by dying. But a partial answer can be had now.
The Bible reveals to us that there are three stages of human existence:
1st. _The earthly stage_, where "I," the mysterious "I," live with a
body woven around me. The Bible hints that this stage is of untold
importance. In fact, all the future stages depend largely on how it is
lived. That is what makes this first stage so awfully important. It
is the formative time whose influence spreads out into eternity. In
this stage Acts make habits. Habits make character. Character makes
Destiny.
2nd. _The intermediate life_ BEFORE THE JUDGMENT, THE "NEAR HEREAFTER"
WHEN "I" LAY ASIDE THE BODY AT DEATH. THIS IS THE STAGE BEFORE THE
RESURRECTION WHICH IN OUR LORD'S TIME THE JEWS CALLED HADES, AND IN
WHICH THEY CALLED THE SPECIAL STATE OF THE BLEST PARADISE, ABRAM'S
BOSOM, UNDER THE THRONE, ETC.
3rd. And away after this _final stage_ the "Far Hereafter" in the "end
of the age," as our Lord says, where come the General Resurrection, the
Judgment of Men, the final stages of Heaven and Hell. _That stage has
not yet arrived in the history of humanity_.
In Part I of this book we are only concerned with the Intermediate
Life, the life of the near Hereafter which comes after Death and before
the Judgment. We are to study what can be known about it.
With educated people it should not be necessary to combat the foolish
popular notion that at death men pass into their final destiny--Heaven
or Hell--and then perhaps thousands of years afterwards come back to be
judged as to that final destiny! To state such a belief should be
enough to refute it. Those who hold it "do err not knowing the
Scriptures." For the Scriptures have no such teaching.
The Jews in our Lord's time believed in a waiting life of departed
souls before the Judgment. Owing to vagueness and contradictions in
the Rabbinical teaching it is impossible to state their notions about
it with definiteness. But in the main it may be said that when they
speak of that life as a whole without distinguishing between the states
of the good and the evil they call this whole by the general name of
HADES, _i. e._, "the Unseen" (the Hebrew word was Sheol), but they also
distinguished in it the abode or state of the Blest as PARADISE, or the
"Garden of Eden," or "ABRAHAM'S BOSOM," or "UNDER THE THRONE," _e. g._,
"Abraham whom God planted in the Garden of Paradise," "our master Moses
departed into the Garden of Eden." The holy Judah rests this day in
"Abraham's Bosom."
Their teaching is of course not authoritative for us. Doubtless many
of their notions on the subject needed much correction. But our Lord
gives His sanction in the main to their belief and uses their very
phrases in speaking of the new life, _e. g._, Dives "in HADES (not
Hell, see R. V.), lift up his eyes being in torment"--Lazarus "was
carried by the angels into ABRAHAM'S BOSOM." "To-day thou shalt be
with Me in PARADISE" is His promise to the dying thief. And it is
clear that He did not mean the final Heaven for He says, "No man hath
ascended into Heaven only the Son of Man who is in Heaven." Even He
Himself did not go to Heaven when He died, for this is His statement
after the Resurrection, "I have not yet ascended unto My Father."
Where, then, did His Spirit go? The whole Church throughout the world
repeats every Sunday, in the creed, "He was dead and buried, and
descended into HADES"--the life of the waiting souls. St. Peter tells
us in his first Epistle that in those three days Christ's living Spirit
went and preached to the spirits in safe keeping who had been
disobedient in the old world. For which cause he says, "was the Gospel
preached to them that are dead." The same thought was evidently in his
mind in his first sermon (Acts ii. 31). "David," he says, "prophesied
of the resurrection of Christ that His soul was not left in Hades."
§ 4
And this is the point of view of all the New Testament Scriptures.
Heaven and Hell are always spoken of as states _after the Judgment_ and
the Judgment is to be in the "end of the world" or the "end of this
age."
The great crisis of expectation set before men is not death, but "the
Day when the Lord shall appear," _e. g._, "That ye may be saved in the
Day of the Lord," "The Day of the Lord is as a thief in the night,"
"Looking for and hasting to the coming of the Day of God," "Keep the
commandment till the appearing of our Lord," "To be found with praise
at the appearing of Jesus," etc., etc. Warning, reproof, exhortation,
encouragement are all directed to that great day at the end of the
Waiting Life--the Judgment at the second coming of the Son of Man.
Naturally this belief passed into the thought of the early church.
"The souls of the godly abide in some better place and the souls of the
unrighteous in a worse place expecting the time of judgment.... These
who hold that when men die their souls are at once taken to heaven are
not to be accounted Christians or even Jews" (Justin Martyr, A. D. 150,
_Dialogue with Trypho_). "The souls of Christ's disciples go to the
invisible place determined for them by God and there dwell awaiting the
Resurrection" (Irenaeus, _Against Heretics_, A. D. 180). "All souls
are sequestered in Hades till the Day of the Lord" (Tertullian, _De
Anima_, A. D. 200). "Let no man think that souls are judged
immediately after death; all are detained in one common place of safe
keeping till the time when the Supreme Judge makes His scrutiny"
(Lactantius, _Div. Institutes_). "During the interval between death
and resurrection men's souls are kept in hidden receptacles according
as they severally deserve rest or punishment" (Augustine).
Does it not all give a fuller meaning for us to the words of our Lord,
"In My Father's house are many mansions" (or abiding places).
This whole teaching about the Intermediate Life has been obscured in
our day by the fact that most people read the Authorized Version of the
Bible where the word Hades has been unfortunately translated "Hell,"
just the same as the darker word Gehenna. At the time of the
translation of the Authorized Version the old English word _hell_--the
hole--the unseen, had not yet stiffened into the awful meaning that it
has attained in our day. It was not then a word set apart to designate
the abode of the lost. It simply meant the "unseen place," "the
covered place." In the south of England still a thatcher who _covers
in_ a house is called a "hellier." Even in games it was used. In the
old English games of forfeits, on the village green, the "hell" is the
hidden place where the girls ran away to escape being kissed. You can
see it had no awful meaning necessarily connected with it. Therefore
it did not seem repulsive to translate the Greek word "Hades," the
Unseen, by the English "Hell." But it has become very misleading in
later days, and our own conservative instincts which prevent our
altering the word in the creed has helped to perpetuate the error.
The revised version has put all this right, _e. g._, "His soul was not
left in Hades (not hell), nor did His flesh see corruption" (Acts ii.
31). "I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Rev. i. 18). At the end
of the world "death and Hades gave up the dead" (Rev. xx. 13). In
Hades (not hell) "the rich man lifts up his eyes, being in torment"
(St. Luke xvi. 23).
§ 5
The Bible, then, teaches to every careful student that there is the
Intermediate Life beyond the grave, a vivid conscious life. That all
men go there when they depart this life. No man has ever yet gone to
Heaven. No man it would seem has ever yet gone to Hell. No man has
ever yet been finally judged. No man has ever yet been finally damned.
Thank God for that at any rate. The Bible teaches that all who have
ever left this earth are waiting yet--from King Alfred to King Edward;
from St. Paul to Bishop Westcott; from the poor struggler of the
ancient days in the morning of history to the other poor struggler who
died last night.
We are now to study this next stage of our history, beginning at what
we call death which is really birth into the next stage of life, just
as the death of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly. In this
next stage are living to-day our dear children and brothers and sisters
and wives and husbands within the veil. In a very few years we shall
all have gone through--each of us just the same "I."
The Bible does not reveal very much about it as was to be expected.
The Bible is intended to guide our conduct and prepare us for a final
Heaven. Therefore it busies itself with the responsibilities of this
present life and the glories of the final prospect--touching very
lightly the intermediate stages, just as we press on a boy the
importance of his school days and the high prospects for his manhood,
touching very little the stages between.[1] But there is much more to
be learned from Scripture about this Intermediate Life than most people
think.
[1] There is a further reason as regards St. Paul's epistles, which
form one-third of the whole New Testament. The reason is that St. Paul
and his people were not greatly interested in the Intermediate Life.
They looked for the Lord's coming in glory during their own lifetime.
Even if some died before, the intermediate waiting time would be so
short that it excited no absorbing interest. They did not dwell on it.
It could not concern them as it concerns us.