WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT THE NEAR HEREAFTER
We are now to enquire about that life into which our departed ones have
gone from us. "I" has gone on his mysterious journey into the strange,
new land. We are standing in the darkened death chamber, where the
dead body lies, with close shut eyes, like an empty house whence the
tenant has gone out, closing the windows after him, and the sobbing
friends are feeling the inevitable pressure of the questions, "Where is
he? What is he doing? What is he seeing? Can we know anything at all
about his condition now?"
Many of them say, "No, we cannot know anything; all is vague, shadowy,
unreal. It is vain to torment our hearts by thinking." So they lock
away his photographs and letters, and they gradually, reluctantly let
him drop out of their conversation and their prayers, and, as far as
possible, out of their thoughts, trusting sadly in the healing
influence of time and forgetfulness to quiet the aching questions in
their hearts. Ah! it is a poor comfort!
Some of them even think that there is something presumptuous in
intruding into mysteries which they say God has not revealed. "Do not
the secret things belong unto the Lord our God?" What a pity they do
not complete that text, "But the things that are revealed belong to
us;" and then go on to find out whether, after all, God has not
revealed a great deal more than they think about that mysterious
journey on which the beloved one has gone. A reverent curiosity
concerning the life of our departed is surely not displeasing to God.
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren," says St. Paul,
"concerning them that are asleep."
I wish I could comfort those sorrowing questioners, as I have comforted
myself, by thus searching for what God has revealed. I do not want to
offer mere sentimental guesses. I want to find for them the "things
that God has revealed," and if I draw some conclusions which I cannot
definitely prove from Scripture, they are only such as seem to me
reasonable and probable from a fair consideration of the evidence, and
I shall draw a clear distinction between the authoritative teaching of
Scripture, which you are bound to accept, and any conclusions which I
draw from Scripture, which you are free to reject.
Let me first put your questionings into clear, definite shape, as you
look upon the face of your dead. Is it a life of sleep and
unconsciousness into which he has gone, or is he as fully alive and
conscious as he was an hour ago? Is there further probation in that
life? Is there growth and progress? Does he still remember? Does he
still love? Does he still know or care anything about the old home and
about us who are left behind? Can he help us? Can we help him? Are
we to think of him as one gone absolutely into the unknown, or may we
think of him as we do of our other absent one who went to India last
year, only with the difference that one writes home and the other does
not?
II
As in all our troubles, we had best go first to our Lord. As He is the
only one who really knows all the questions of our hearts, so He is the
only one who really knows the secrets of the invisible world. He is
the only one on earth who has ever gone away into that strange land and
then came back to tell us anything about it. In all things He is our
great forerunner. He, the Son of Man, has gone before us poor sons of
man in all the experiences of life,--childhood, youth, manhood,
temptation, struggle, sorrow, disappointment, victory, joy. And He has
gone before us, too, into the Unseen Land, as if to lead us and say to
us "Be not afraid."
He does not speak much about it. As I have already shown you, this was
to be expected. In the first place, in our present imperfect, limited
condition, with senses fitted only for this poor earthly life, it would
probably be impossible to teach us anything definitely about the higher
life of the spirit world. How can you teach a blind, deaf man about
this world of beautiful sights and sounds in which you are living? How
could God teach us definite details about a life which no experience of
ours can help us to imagine? And, besides that, Scripture is intended
to guide our conduct in this world, not to gratify our speculations
about another world. At any rate, there is a marked reticence and
reserve all through the Bible in speaking of the Hereafter, which
reticence and reserve we shall do well to imitate.
§ 1
First, watch our Lord draw the curtain a little in His story of the
Rich Man and Lazarus. The "story" I say, not the "parable." It is no
parable. A parable is the statement of an analogy between visible
things and invisible. This is a direct statement about the invisible
things themselves. Jesus is telling what happens after death. Indeed,
many in the early Church thought, and many to-day think, that this is a
direct historical account by Christ of the life of a certain selfish
rich man in Jerusalem whom He knew and of a certain beggar that lay at
his gate. They died and were buried, and those who followed them to
the grave could see no further. But the Lord is watching them still as
they pass into the land which He knew so well. Whether this was the
story of a certain man, or only a general statement about all such men,
does not matter. Christ was telling of what happens just after death,
when the "I," the self, has laid aside the body and gone out into the
Unseen.
I do not mean that this story is intended as a revelation of that life.
If it were it would doubtless have been more complete. It is simply a
passing reference to it in warning against the danger of a selfish
life. But it lifts the curtain a little bit.
§ 2
Be quite clear about this--that our Lord is not speaking of the FAR
Hereafter--of the final stage of human life at the end of the world, in
which after the Final Judgment come Heaven and Hell. He is speaking of
the near Hereafter, the life immediately after death. We have seen
that there are three stages in our history: 1st. This Earth life,
where the "I," the self, has a body woven around it. 2nd. The
Intermediate Life before the Judgment, into which I go at death without
my body into my second stage of being. 3rd. The final stage at the
end of the age in which come the Final Judgment and Heaven and Hell,
which stage is still in the future for all humanity.
Clearly our Lord is speaking of the Intermediate Life, of the unseen
life existing to-day, running on side by side with the earthly life.
For you see the men He speaks of are not long dead. Dives' brothers
are still living here. Dives is quite conscious that the ordinary life
of men is still going on on earth side by side with that other life.
Clearly Jesus is telling of the present stage in the life of the
departed--that life in which all our dear departed ones are living at
this moment.
§ 3
Next I notice that that life in its inmost experiences seems very like
this life, and follows from it quite naturally. He depicts it as a
clear, conscious life. They are not dead nor asleep nor unconscious.
They are very much alive. He represents them as thinking and speaking
and feeling. Lazarus is feeling "comforted." Dives is feeling
"tormented," and thinking keenly of his own misery and of his brothers'
danger on earth at that moment. So actively alive are they all to him
that he wants one of them to go back to earth to tell his brothers
about it.
Be quite clear about this. Challenge every statement as I go on. Is
this a mere speculation of mine or have we Christ's authority for
saying that in the new environment men are living a life as clear and
vivid and conscious as on this earth--that death makes no break?
§ 4
Next I learn that each feels himself the same continuous "I" that he
was on earth. Lazarus feels himself the same Lazarus, Dives feels
himself the same Dives, the brother of those five boys. I shall still
keep on saying "I." I am not somebody else over there. That is what
Jesus said from the other side of the grave--"Handle Me and see--it is
I, Myself."
§ 5
Next I read on His authority that there is no break in memory. Of
course there could not be if I am still "I." But our Lord confirms
this. Lazarus remembers Dives. Dives remembers Lazarus so well that
he wants him to go back to convert his brothers. Aye, he remembers the
brothers in the old Jerusalem home, the five boys that grew up beside
him. He remembers sorrowfully that they have grown to be selfish men
like himself, perhaps through his fault. He is thinking about them and
troubling about them. And Abraham assumes this memory as a matter of
course. "My son, remember that thou in thy lifetime, etc."
Does not all this confirm our statement in Chapter I, that memory is
something more than impressions on the gray matter of the brain; that
memory is in the man himself who is behind the brain and, therefore,
must go on with him.
§ 6
I read on, "Now he is comforted and thou art tormented." That again is
just what I should expect. It is all quite natural. If "I" am still
the same "I" in full vivid conscious life, in full memory of the
past--if I have passed out of the mists of earth into the full light of
the Eternal, where everything is seen at its full value, where money
counts for nothing and love counts for everything, it is of course
natural that the good man should feel comforted and the bad man should
feel tormented.
Only more so. Only more so. That is the difference. The poor humble
follower of Christ, even on earth, is in the main happy--at his best
moments. But he is not always very happy. He has the inner comfort of
the peace of God. But there is much worry and distraction, about his
business and his sickness and his troubles of many kinds to spoil his
peace. All these earthly troubles are gone now. He sees Christ. He
knows of the boundless joy before him by and by. He is comforted.
And I read that Dives "is tormented." Here again all is natural and as
we should expect. The godless man is in some degree tormented in this
life--at his best moments, when he stops to think, when he lies awake
in the lonely night and conscience speaks to him. But there are many
distractions to ease his pain--the pleasures and amusements of life,
the company of friends, the pursuit of business, the excitements of
ambition. So he can manage a good deal to forget God, to acquire a
distaste for God, and yet to dull the still small voice that hurts him.
But these distractions are gone now. He has gone out into the new
life, naked, alone. All the money and business excitement are gone.
All the things of sense and appetite are gone. That poor soul of his,
dwarfed and degraded, stands in the dread loneliness before God, full
of the sense of loss and misery--of shame for the past--of dread of
what is to come--of wretched discord between himself and all that is
good. In Hades, says Christ, not in Hell (the Revised Version puts
that right), in that life just after death, he lifted up his eyes,
being in torment. The Judgment has not come yet. He is not in Hell.
Hell has not yet come. Those things are in the final stage of being.
But already, just after death, Christ says, he is in torment of soul.
§ 7
I do not think we should pass over the expression "carried by the
angels into Abraham's bosom." Notice that our Lord makes it simple and
intelligible for the Jews by using their own phrase, "Abraham's Bosom,"
their name for the state of the faithful departed immediately after
death. And He says, Lazarus "was carried by the angels." If anybody
else but Jesus had said it, we might pass this over as a piece of
poetic imagery. But it was Jesus who said it. He says so much about
the angels. He says that there are guardian angels of the children.
He says that the angels rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. He
would not say this about Lazarus carried by the angels unless it meant
something real. If so I think we have here our Lord's authority for
the ministry of angels at death, an indication that the poor soul does
not go out solitary into a great lone land--that there are loving
watchers around the death-bed "sent forth to minister to the heirs of
salvation."
I do not know how much weight we should attach to the suggestion that
Dives seems the better for the discipline of the new life. His
selfishness on earth bulks largely in the story. Now in all his
trouble he is thinking of his five brothers "lest they also come to
this place of torment."
§ 9
The next words suggest a very serious and awful question. Is the
destiny and the condition of every soul fixed forever at death? What
is the meaning of the phrase: "Between us and you there is a great gulf
fixed"? That is too large a question to deal with here. I postpone it
to a later chapter. I have already reminded you of the tremendous
importance of this life in its bearing on our final destiny.
III
We get another hint of the Unseen Life in the story of the
Transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah, two of the greatest souls of
the old world days in the wondrous Waiting Life, come out from that
life to meet the Lord and to speak with Him "of His decease, which He
should accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke ix. 31). Does it not suggest at
once the deep interest which they and their comrades, the great souls
within the Veil, were taking in the mighty scheme of Redemption that
was being worked out on earth? Does it not suggest that in the spirit
land they are watching our doings here? Does it not help us to
anticipate the joy in that wondrous life when, straight from the Cross,
Christ the triumphant victor "descended into Hades" (Apostles' Creed)
to proclaim the glad news to the dead (1 Peter iv. 18); to unfurl His
banner and set up His Cross in the great world of the departed?
IV
Our next hint comes when the Lord is dying on the Cross. The penitent
thief is hanging beside Him. Death is drawing near. The poor sinner
is about to take the leap off into the dark. He does not know what is
before him: Darkness--unconsciousness--nothingness--what? He does not
know. The only one on earth who does know is on a cross beside him.
"LORD, REMEMBER ME WHEN THOU COMEST IN THY KINGDOM." And Jesus said:
"TO-DAY THOU SHALT BE WITH ME IN PARADISE." Not in Heaven, but in
Paradise--the Jews' word for the resting place of good men after death.
Now, when one man says to another at such a tune, "To-day you shall be
with me," surely it suggests, "You and I will be living a full,
conscious life, and you will remember our acquaintance here upon the
earth; we shall know each other as the two who hung together this
morning on calvary." Does it not, at least suggest, recognition in the
Unseen Land?