MINISTRY IN THE UNSEEN LIFE
§ 1
Is it allowable here to make a venture of faith and speculate on a
matter of which we cannot give definite proof? There is a beautiful
old allegory of KNOWLEDGE, the strong mailed knight, tramping over the
great table-land that he surveyed, and testing and making his ground
sure at every step, while beside him, just above the ground, moved the
white-winged angel FAITH.
Side by side they moved, till the path broke short off on the verge of
a vast precipice. Knowledge could go no further. There was no footing
for the ponderous knight; but the white-winged angel rose majestically
from the ground and moved across the chasm, where her companion could
not follow.
Our path has broken off--knowledge can go no further. May we speculate
with faith on something we cannot prove? I am thinking of a
speculation very dear to myself, about that progress of our dear ones
in the presence of Christ. Will not much of that progress in the life
beyond come through unselfish ministry to others? Let us see what
reason there is to hope it.
Think of all the true hearts who have lived on earth the Christ life of
unselfish helpfulness. Can you imagine them never helping any one
there, where growth in love is God's highest aim for them?
Think of our Lord's mysterious preaching in the Life after Death and
remember that some of the best known teachers of the early Church
believed that the apostles and others had followed His example. (See
Chapter IV, p. 59.)
Think that there are countless millions in the World of the Departed
born in heathen lands, born in Christian lands, who had no chance on
earth of knowing Christ in a way to win their love for Him.
Think, how shall His command be fulfilled by His Church, "Go preach the
good news to every creature"--EVERY creature. What a mockery it seems
with the heathen dying half a million every week if no work for Christ
goes on in the Unseen! If millions of those Hindoos who have died
without the Gospel would have accepted it, do you think it is not being
taught to any of them now? If the men of ancient Tyre and Sidon would
have repented at the teaching and work of Christ, if the mighty works
had been done in them, do you not think He has taken care since that
the men of Tyre and Sidon should have their chance? If the heathen
Socrates, and Plato, and Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus would have
fallen at His feet as their Master and Friend--and you know they
would--do you think they have not learned to know Him by now? If
honest hearts in our own land who have died repelled from Him through
their ignorance and through stupid misrepresentations would have loved
Him if they knew Him as He really is, do you think that no one is
helping them to understand Him now? Can we doubt that somehow within
the Veil they will learn more fully of His tender love? And judging
from what we know of God's methods on earth, is it unreasonable to
think that they will learn it from their brethren? True, God might
help them by means of the angels. But in God's dealings with men's
souls on earth not angels but men were the helpers He gave them. Even
in the stupendous miracle of the conversion of St. Paul it was a man
(Ananias) whom God sent to help him.
§ 2
Here comes an interesting question about the doctrine of Election. To
the generation before us it was a horrible doctrine clashing with all
sense of fairness or right. Men said it meant that God decreed certain
men to eternal Heaven and certain others to eternal Hell by His own
arbitrary will. The stern revolt of Conscience at length sent us back
to study our Bibles more carefully. We found that in the first
recorded case of election Abraham was called _for the good of others_
"that in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed."
We saw reason to believe that Abraham's case was a type of all other
elect--_elect for the service of others_. We found that the Bible
consistently and throughout affirms that when "God calls or separates
one man to Himself it is for the good of other men; that when He
selects one family it is that all families should be blessed; that when
He chooses one nation it is for the welfare of all nations; that when
He elects and establishes a church it is for the spiritual benefit of
the world. No man, no family, no nation, no church possesses any gift
or privilege or superior capacity or power for its own use and welfare
alone but for the general good." So we learned that God's word is true
in spite of our stupid misunderstanding of it and that this doctrine of
Election rightly understood is one of the noblest things in the whole
Bible.
Now comes my question. Are God's elect in the Hereafter life still
"_elect for the service of others_"? Are those loving souls who are
joyfully accepting Christ's service here,--destined for a still more
glorious service in this ministry in the Unseen--the "first-fruits" of
a great harvest which through them the Lord will reap in the Hereafter?
Will some be just saved, saved so as by fire, saved "by the skin of
their teeth," as we say, missing the noble destiny of the "elect," the
joy of being a blessing to their race?
§ 3
"You have preached your last sermon," said one to Frederick Denison
Maurice as he was dying. "Aye," he said; "but only my last sermon in
THIS life." He believed he was going through the veil to preach to
men. I believe it too, though I cannot prove it, nay, even though
there be difficulties in the way of believing it. And many men greater
than we are believing it, impelled by the stirring of Divine impulses
within.
Do not think of it as merely a work for preachers and teachers. Every
brave boy here who is trying to do right, every poor woman who is
learning to love, every one who is blessing the world by kindly
unselfishness, is helping on the Kingdom of God on earth and will be
helping on the Kingdom of God beyond.
Surely there will be scope for them all. When you think of that great
mingled crowd that is daily passing through the gates of death, all
sorts and conditions--from the strong saints of God to the poor
children brought up in homes of sin--you need have little doubt that
there is room for service.
If it be true, ah! think of it, you who are trying to forget
yourselves, and live for others--think of the blessedness of your life
in the waiting land. With the weak and the ignorant needing to be
helped; with the little children needing to be mothered and loved; with
the great heathen world, who have gone within the veil, never yet
having heard of Christ.
§ 4
If it be true, think how it takes away the reproach of "glorified
selfishness," which many attribute to the Christians' glad hope.
Think how it helps in the perplexities about God's dealings when young
and useful lives are taken from the earth. An angry mourner said to me
recently, "I don't believe God has anything to do with it, else why
should He take away a noble life like that and leave all these stupid
useless people in the world?" I told him of my hope of this ministry
in the Unseen and suggested that perhaps God did not want ONLY the
stupid useless people.
And think especially how it deepens the importance of our life on earth
to feel that it has a bearing on our usefulness for ever. The more we
increase our talents here, the more we shall be able to help our
Saviour there. He Himself suggests this in the parables of the Talents
and the Pounds. "Thy pound has gained five, I will set thee over five
cities. Thy pound has gained ten, I will set thee over ten cities. I
will give thee a larger and nobler work hereafter." Is not that an
incentive to stir one's blood? The more I grow in love, in
unselfishness, in knowledge of God, in righteousness of life, the more
use I shall be to my dear Lord and to my brethren for ever.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION
So we close our thoughts about the NEAR HEREAFTER, the life immediately
after death. The FAR Hereafter--the great mystery of Judgment and Hell
and Heaven belongs to a later section. Here we have been dealing only
with the life going on to-day in the Unseen--side by side with our
present life.
Ah! that wonderful Paradise land--that wonderful Church of God in the
Unseen--with its vast numbers, with its enthusiastic love, with all its
grand leaders who have been trained on earth. WE AND THEY together
form the great continuous Church of God. We are all ONE LONG
PROCESSION; they at the head in the Unseen. What a life it is! What a
work it has!
Said I not well it was a Gospel of the Hereafter, a good news of God!
It will make you solemn as you feel that character passes on unchanged.
That is good; but it will do more. It will take away the sting and the
horror of death. It is not the pain of dying that makes that horror
when I come to die. After all, men bear far more pain without
flinching. It is not merely the parting for the present with those I
love. We have constantly to do that when they go to other lands
without breaking our hearts about it. It is not even any doubt about a
future Resurrection at the Second Advent. I may believe that, and yet
get little comfort from it. That Advent seems so far away. It may be
next week; but it may be 5,000 years hence, and meantime what of my
life? Sleep, unconsciousness, darkness? What? No wonder I should
shrink from that mysterious unknown.
But teach me the ancient Scriptural doctrine of the PARADISE life as it
appears in the Bible. Teach me that in the hour after death I shall
pass into the Unseen with myself, with my full life, my feelings, my
character, my individuality, and in that solemn hour death will lose
its horror. Is not that a Gospel?
In the awful days of bereavement it will bring God's peace, and it will
bring elevation of character. "Where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also."
"He is not dead, the child of your affection,
But gone into that school
Where he no longer needs your poor protection,
And Christ Himself doth rule."
You think of your boy as serving at one side of the veil, and you at
the other; each in the presence of Christ. You think how he is being
lovingly trained and disciplined. How all his abilities are being used
in self-sacrificing deeds for others. Not in a glorified selfishness
in thanking God that he is safe, though his brethren be lost. Ah, no!
but in perfect self-sacrifice, even as his Lord. You think of him as
learning to fight for righteousness--to help the weak, aye, mayhap, to
go out--God's brave young knight--out into the darkness after some one
who has missed of Christ on earth. Realize that and your whole life
must perforce grow nobler. And realize that you will not have to wait
for the Resurrection or the Advent to meet him and learn all.
When your death comes, he will be waiting for you. He has been praying
and watching over you. He will tell you of all that has been
happening. And together in Christ's loving presence, side by side, you
will work and wait, and help your brethren; and look forward to the
glory of the heaven that is still in the future. Is not that a Gospel
worth the preaching--a Gospel to stir our souls and to comfort our
hearts for those "whom we have loved long since and lost a while"?
Thank God for the blessed doctrine of the Paradise life!
Thank God for all His poor penitent servants departed this life in His
faith and fear!
PART II
The Far Hereafter
I
THE JUDGMENT
We touch lightly on the subject of the FAR Hereafter which is still
away in the future for all humanity. One day the Intermediate Life
will close. The end of this age will come at the Second Advent. And
at this crisis our Lord places the great drama of the Judgment and the
final decision of each man's destiny. Whether it will be a great
spectacular event such as His picture suggests, with all humanity
assembled and the Judge on the great White Throne, or whether His
picture is figurative, we cannot affirm. We can only gather that it
will be a final judgment and that it will be a judgment according to
finally developed character, when men shall be clearly seen to belong
to the right hand or the left, the sheep or the goats, to the wheat or
the tares, to the good fish to be gathered up or the bad fish to be
thrown away.
Then come the final stages in the history of humanity, Hell and Heaven.
II
HELL
Here we touch the awful part of our study. In Christ's great drama of
the Judgment those on the left hand are passing out into the darkness,
and we see them no more. In that darkness there seems no ray of hope.
So far as we can learn, it means irrevocable ruin and loss. In spite
of God's love and pain for them on Earth and in Hades, they seem at
last to have destroyed in themselves everything of good, and so placed
themselves beyond possibility of restoration for ever. The judgment
has clearly the ring of finality. There seems nothing more to be said.
And so, with pain in our hearts responding to the pain of the Father,
we are forced to leave them in the darkness and mystery in which
Scripture enshrouds them.
This is, I think, all that can justifiably be said. The reticence and
reserve of Scripture forbids any definite doctrine of Hell.
And this is all that would have needed to be said if men had kept to
that reticence and reserve of Scripture, and to all further
questionings contented themselves with the answer that the Judge of all
the earth will do right. But they have not so contented themselves.
It is hard to blame them. For beyond the main facts about the doom of
the impenitent there are here and there through the Bible many
tantalizing hints perplexing and difficult to reconcile with each
other, but very tempting to follow out. By emphasizing certain of
these and ignoring or dwelling more lightly on certain others which
seem to contradict them, men have formulated definite doctrines about
Hell, differing widely from each other but each with apparently strong
Scriptural support. This is only what may happen in any department of
study. The strict rule of evidence in any enquiry is that _all_ the
facts must be studied and that no theory shall be accepted as entirely
trustworthy while any of the evidence remains unaccounted for.
There are three theories which hold the ground to-day, each of them
seemingly with much evidence in its favour, but each of them seriously
unsatisfactory as conflicting with other evidence.
(1) The theory of Everlasting Torment--that every soul which has missed
of Christ shall be plunged into a Hell of torment and sin for ever and
ever, growing worse and worse and lower and lower through all the ages
of Eternity.
(2) The theory of Universalism--that in the ages of the far future
through the stern loving discipline of God all men shall at length be
saved.
(3) The theory of Conditional Immortality--that all souls who fail of
Eternal Life shall be punished not by Everlasting Torment, but by
annihilation and the loss of God and Heaven for ever.
At first sight it seems almost impossible that such conflicting
theories could be formed out of the same Bible. But a little
consideration of the evidence and of the power of prejudice and
preconceptions in estimating evidence makes it easier to understand.
The main trend of all Scripture teaching is that it shall be well,
gloriously well, with the good, and that it shall be evil, unutterably
evil, with the wicked. That there is a mysterious and awful malignity
attaching to sin--that to be in sin means to be in misery and ruin in
this life or any other life--and that sin persisted in tends to utter
and irretrievable ruin. No arguments about the love and power of God
to save to the uttermost can cancel the fact of the free-will of man or
the plain statements of Scripture confirmed beyond question by the
loving Lord Himself as to the awful fate of the finally impenitent.
But running through all this dark background of Scripture is a curious
golden thread of prophecy that evil shall not be eternal in God's
universe. One turns to it perplexed with wondering hope. For however
fully Conscience recognizes the righteousness of a terrible retribution
for sin, there is in all thoughtful minds a shrinking from the thought
that Evil shall be as permanent as Good in the universe of the All-holy
God--that any evil power can exist unendingly side by side with Him and
unendingly resist Him; that Hell and Heaven, Satan and God shall
co-exist for all eternity. This is almost unthinkable to thoughtful
men. It is a Dualism repugnant to all our ideals of God. And this
golden thread, running through the Old and New Testaments alike,
confirms this thought, in its dim vision of a golden age somewhere away
in the far future--away it would seem beyond the dark vision of
Hell--when evil shall have vanished out of the Universe for ever and
"God shall be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 28)--when there shall come "the
times of the Restoration of all things which God hath promised by the
mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts iii. 21).
Naturally there is danger of people emphasizing strongly either one of
these trends of Scripture and gathering certain proof texts according
to their own prejudices and preconceptions of what ought to be. "The
way in which some people read their Bibles," says Mr. Ruskin, "is like
the way in which the old monks thought that hedgehogs ate grapes. They
rolled themselves over the grapes as they lay on the ground and
whatever first stuck to their spikes they carried off and ate." If the
grapes are of various kinds as are the passages of Scripture we cannot
judge thus of the taste of the vintage. To get the true taste of the
grapes we must press them in cluster. To get the true meaning of
Scripture we must study the whole trend of Scripture. Before we can
accept any doctrine from separate passages of Scripture we must assure
ourselves that it is in harmony, not only with other passages but also
with the ruling thoughts which run through all Scripture, God's
unutterable holiness, God's awful hatred of sin and stern denunciations
of doom against the impenitent, God's love, God's unchangeableness,
God's reasonableness and fairness, and the mysterious golden thread of
hope which runs through all.
Now we glance as briefly as possible at the three theories referred to.
I
_The theory of Everlasting Torment and Everlasting Sin_.
This theory keeps with Scripture in asserting the fatal and irrevocable
result of unrepented sin--but it goes beyond the reserve of Scripture
in defining that result and so defining it as to impugn the character
of God. It teaches that all who are condemned in the Judgment are
doomed to a life of endless torment, in the company of devils--forsaken
of God. Millions of millions of ages shall see this punishment no whit
nearer to its end. It must go on for ever and ever and ever.
It takes perhaps a child's or a woman's heart to realize the horror of
that thought. I remember as a child reading a Sunday-school book that
helped me to realize the meaning of this "for ever and ever in hell."
I was to imagine a huge forest, and a tiny insect coming from the
farthest planet and biting an atom out of one of the leaves, and
carrying it away to his home, the journey taking one thousand years.
Then I was to imagine the ages that must elapse before that whole leaf
was carried off. Then the stupendous time before the whole tree would
be gone. Then, as my brain reeled at the thought, I was to look
forward to the carrying away of the whole forest, and from that to the
carrying away of the whole world. Then came the awful sentence in
italics, _Even then eternity would but have begun_. I suppose God will
forgive the people who wrote that book for children if they repent, but
I don't feel much like forgiving them. I can remember still lying
awake in the night and crying as I thought of the lost souls in Hell as
my poor little brain reeled at the thought of the journeys of that
wretched insect and of those whom God kept alive to suffer for ever and
ever and ever.
Then as one grew older came the further horror that these "lost" are
kept alive not only to suffer but to sin everlastingly. They are to go
on increasing in sin for ever and ever and ever in the universe of the
All-holy God. One tests this by the ruling thoughts of Scripture. One
thinks of God's holiness. One thinks of the golden thread of hope.
One wonders what it means that Christ came to "destroy the works of the
devil"[1] and to destroy the devil (bruise the serpent's head[2]) and
how one day "God shall be all in all" if straight opposite for all
eternity shall be Satan's Kingdom of misery and sin. Surely Christ has
not failed! And yet--and yet--what shall we say? And what shall we
say of God's fatherhood? Shall we say as some do that as Judge He must
do cruel things which as Father He would shrink from? God forbid! The
Judge and the Father are one. Men would never use such sophistry about
the character of God if it were put into plain words. "Ye must ken,"
said a godly old Scotchman, "that the Almighty may often have to do in
His offeeshial capacity what He would scorn to do as a private
individual!" I quote this not with flippancy but with stern
indignation. That is baldly what such sophistry means.
Clearly one who insists on this doctrine ought at least to be
absolutely certain that Scripture leaves him no escape from it. Now
the conclusion which a thorough study of the question leads to is
this;--that Scripture nowhere definitely affirms that the sufferings of
the lost _shall not be_ everlasting, and nowhere definitely affirms
that they _shall be_ everlasting.
Even that if it be true is some relief. We should no longer be forced
to believe of God what Conscience declares to be unworthy of Him. But
is it true? I can already see the Bible turned over for the dark array
of texts beginning with "He that believeth not shall be damned," "How
can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" "These shall go away into
everlasting punishment," etc.
Let me explain.
If we examine the Bible carefully we shall find that, while there are a
great many clear proofs of the certainty and awfulness of Hell, the
proofs of this theory of Everlasting Torment are not much to be
depended on. Practically they can all be gathered into three groups.
In the first the chief word is DAMN or DAMNATION.
In the second the chief word is HELL.
In the third the chief word is EVERLASTING.
It is not too much to say that if these three sets of passages were
removed from the Bible nobody would think of believing in everlasting
torment. Now let me make the assertion straight out--There is no word
in the original language of the Bible that at all justifies the use of
either of these words in the meaning that we have attached to it--and
therefore the Revised Version of the Bible has practically swept them
all away.
§ 1
Take first the words Damn, Damnation which convey to us the idea of
doom to a Hell of never-ending torment and never-ending sin. The
original word conveyed no such idea to our Lord or the Apostles. It
conveyed no such idea to the translators of the Authorized Version.
When they translated it Damn and Damnation they did not at all mean
what we now mean.
There are two Greek words, _krinô_ which means simply _to judge_, and
_kata-krinô_ which means to _judge adversely_, to _condemn_, and it is
sometimes the first and sometimes the second of these words which is
translated "Damn." Why is it so translated? Surely the translators
did not think so evil of God as to believe that He could never judge a
man without condemning him and that He could never condemn him except
to everlasting torment. Not at all. They had no thought of this. The
English word "damn" at that time had no such awful meaning as has grown
into it in our day through the wide-spread influence of the theory
which I am criticizing. It simply meant what the Greek word meant. I
find an interesting illustration of this in the Wycliffe Bible in the
passage about the woman taken in adultery. Jesus saith, "Woman, hath
no man damned thee?" "No man, Lord." "Neither do I damn thee." That
is to say the English word Damn at that time only meant "_condemn_."
But words are dangerous things if not carefully watched, owing to their
tendency to change their meaning as a language grows. A new, darker
meaning has grown on to the English word since. Once an innocent word,
it has now become dangerous and misleading. Therefore, the Revisers
have swept it away, and _the words damn and damnation have now vanished
entirely and for ever out of the pages of the English Bible_.
Unfortunately the public do not read the Revised Version.
With this explanation I ask the reader to turn back to his Bible. In
our sense of the word did our Lord say, "He that believeth not shall be
damned"? Most certainly not. He said that he should be _condemned_
for wilfully disbelieving, but He did not say to what he should be
condemned, nor for how long. I should condemn you for doing a selfish
act, but that would hardly mean sending you to endless torment. Did He
say that those who had done evil should rise to the resurrection of
damnation? (1 John v. 29). No. He said, "to the resurrection of
judgment." (See R. V.) Did St. Paul say, "He that doubteth (about
eating certain meats) is damned if he eat"? (Rom. xiv. 23). Did he
say that a church widow should have damnation for marrying again? (1
Tim. v. 12). Of course not; the word only means judgment or
condemnation. There is no thought at all in it of this endless Hell as
the Revised Version has plainly shown. So we see that at any rate all
these texts about "damnation" can no longer be used in proof of
everlasting torment and everlasting sin.
§ 2
Something similar is true about the texts whose chief word is "Hell."
The word "hell" occurs eighteen times in the Authorized Version. Once
it is a translation of a Greek word Tartarus (2 Peter ii. 4) cast down
to Hell to be reserved "_unto the Day of Judgment_." That certainly
was not everlasting. Five times it is a translation of the word Hades
whose meaning we already know, and which certainly did not mean
everlasting. The other twelve times it is a translation of the word
Gehenna used by our Lord, and no scholar with the least regard for his
reputation would dream of stating that our Lord certainly meant it to
convey the idea of endlessness. It was the name of a horrible valley
outside Jerusalem where things were cast out to be burnt, to keep the
city pure. The Jewish prophets took the word as a metaphor to express
the fate of wicked men. From it they drew their images used by our
Lord of "the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched"
(Mark x. 46). To be in danger of Gehenna was to be in danger of a
hereafter doom suggested by this dread place.
Our Lord simply took up the vague Jewish word and did not define it.
What exactly had He in His mind when He used this word? This is a
question of terrible importance. He certainly meant something very
stern and awful. He seems to indicate also something final and
irrevocable. But there is absolutely no reason to believe that He
meant to convey the idea in our minds of a vast prison, in which the
souls of the lost are pierced through with agony for ever and ever.
You ask, How can I know what He meant? How could I know what
Shakespeare meant by a certain word? I should read up all the books
and letters of Shakespeare's times in which the word occurs, and
whatever it commonly meant to the people of Shakespeare's time I should
accept as being what Shakespeare meant. That looks sensible, does it
not? Well, a very interesting investigation has been made by various
scholars. They have examined all the existing Jewish writings where
the word Gehenna was used from 300 B. C. to 300 A. D. Then they have
examined the Jewish Talmuds which run on to the fourth and fifth
century. A modern English scholar, Dr. Dewes, says (_Plea for a New
Translation_, p. 23): "Every passage has been carefully examined which
is quoted in the works of Lightfoot, Schoetgen, Buxtorf, Castell,
Schindler, Glass, Bartoloccius, Ugalino and Nork, and the result of the
whole examination is this: _there are only two passages which even a
superficial reader could consider to be corroborative of the assertion
that the Jews understood Gehenna to be a place of everlasting torment_."
I give a few specimens from the Talmuds. "Gehenna is ordained of old
because of sins." "The ungodly will be judged in Gehenna _against the
day of judgment_." "The ungodly shall be judged in Gehenna _until the
righteous shall say of them, We have seen enough_." "The judgment of
the ungodly is for twelve months." "Gehenna is nothing but a day in
which the impious will be burned." "The sinners ... shall descend into
Gehenna; at the end of twelve months the body shall be consumed and the
soul burned up and the wind shall scatter it under the feet of the
just."
The reader sees, of course, that the vague Jewish opinions have no
authority for us except to help us to get at the meaning of our Lord
when speaking to Jews about Gehenna. We may assume that He used their
familiar word in the sense in which they would naturally understand it.
They certainly would understand Him to proclaim some terrible doom,
probably also an irrevocable doom. But can any one affirm that they
must have understood Him to mean endless torment, in the face of this
evidence--and its powerful confirmation by the greatest of all modern
Jewish students of the Talmud, Emanuel Deutsch. "There is no
everlasting damnation in the Talmud" (_Remains_, p. 53), and again,
"There is not a word in the Talmud which supports the damnable dogma of
endless torment" (Conversation with Mr. Cox, _Salvator Mundi_, p. 72).
The American Revised Version has very wisely removed the word Hell
altogether on account of the misleading associations connected with it.
It substitutes the word Gehenna, leaving the reader to ascertain its
meaning. The English Revisers have retained the word Hell and put the
word Gehenna beside it in the margin. I think this was a pity, as it
will be hard for the ordinary reader to dissociate the word Hell from
the theory which has unwarrantably grown on to it. But at any rate I
think we may safely say that no reader who understands the position
will ever again use the texts in which our Lord speaks of Hell to prove
the absolute certainty of the theory of Endless Torment and Endless
Sin. So vanishes another group of the proof texts for this theory.
§ 3
Now take the group of texts with the word "everlasting." It is surely
significant that the Revisers have completely removed this word also in
every case and substituted for it the word "eternal," a less definite
word and which in scholarly usage means rather the opposite of
temporal--that which is above the sphere of time and space--that which
belongs to the other world. At any rate the fact that they have
removed it in every case shows that the word "everlasting" did not seem
to them a correct translation.
There is only space for a brief explanation. The original word is the
adjective _aiônos_ (aionios) (Eng. aeonian), coming from the noun
_aiôn_ (aion) (Eng. aeon), an age, an epoch, a long period of time.
This noun cannot mean eternity for it is repeatedly used by St. Paul in
the plural "aeons" and "aeons of aeons." As we speak of great periods
of time, "the Ice Age," "the Stone Age," etc., so the Bible speaks of
"this age" (aeon), "the coming age" (aeon), and "the end of the age,"
etc. These aeons or ages are thought of in Scripture as vast periods
past, present and future in which the Divine purpose is working itself
out, _e. g._, God's purpose is the purpose of the ages (aeons) (Eph.
iii. 11). Christ's name is above every name not only in this age
(aeon) but in that which is to come (Eph. i. 21). "That in the ages
(aeons) to come He might shew," etc.
From this noun, then, conies the adjective _aiônios_ (aionios)--aeonian
which may be defined "age long" or "belonging to the ages," etc. Any
Greek scholar will assert unhesitatingly that of itself it does not
mean endless or everlasting. Sometimes, as when applied to God, it may
be thus translated but only because the meaning is inherent in the noun
to which it is applied. The word _aiônios_ of itself would not
positively prove the endlessness of God. This adjective when applied
to any thing or any state of being cannot of itself be used to prove
its endlessness.
It is worth notice too that in the Septuagint Greek Bible, the version
usually quoted in the Gospels and Epistles, this word _aiônios_ is
frequently applied to things that have ended, _e. g._, the gift of the
land of Canaan, the priesthood of Aaron, the kingdom of David, the
temple at Jerusalem, the daily offerings, etc. When the noun always
means a finite period and the adjective is applied both to that which
is ended and to that which is endless it would surely be poor
scholarship if the Revisers allowed the word "everlasting" to remain as
its translation, or if students of theology should argue from it the
endlessness of anything. To which we may add that there are Greek
adjectives and phrases which _do definitely mean_ "endless" and which
are never used in the Bible of men's fate in the Hereafter.
Be it observed that all this does not prove that the punishment of the
future ages _may not_ be everlasting. It only proves that Scripture
nowhere asserts unmistakably that _it must be so_. It simply asserts
that it is aeonian.
The thoughtful advocates of Everlasting Torment are of course aware of
all this. But they honestly feel that in spite of the indefiniteness
of the adjective, our Lord has fixed His meaning beyond question in the
one passage that has become so famous as the great proof text in this
controversy, "These shall go away into _aeonian_ punishment, but the
righteous into _aeonian_ life" (Matt. xxv. 46). Very reasonably they
say, "If the word asserts everlastingness in the one case it must also
in the other." The answer is that the word _of itself_ cannot assert
everlastingness in either case. If this word were our only proof of
everlasting life then everlasting life would be a doubtful matter. But
the everlastingness of that life like the everlastingness of God is
evident all over the Bible quite apart from this. The words here
simply tell that the one shall go into the aeonian life and the other
into aeonian punishment, _i. e._, that the one shall go into the life
of the future age and the other into the punishment of the future age
without exactly specifying the duration of either.
I quite feel that the close connection of the words suggests at least
the probability that one is as lasting as the other. Yet even that
consideration is weakened by asking if people are willing to apply it
to St. Paul's statement, "As in Adam _all_ die even so in Christ shall
_all_ be made alive" (the context suggests eternal life). I would
point out, too, that a somewhat similar verse is in the Septuagint
Bible of our Lord's day in Hab. iii. 6, where the (aeonian) everlasting
mountains were scattered before God, whose ways are (aeonian)
everlasting. Yet it does not prove that the one is as endless as the
other. And in Rom. xvi. 25-26 the mystery hid in the (aeonian) times
"before the world began" is now manifested according to the command of
the (aeonian) eternal God. But the age "before the world began" is
ended.
At any rate I must leave the matter here. I have no space for fuller
statement. If any man feels that a world of increasing sin and awful
torment growing no nearer to its end after millions and millions of
ages does not disturb his conscience or the thoughts of God which he
has learned from the whole trend of Scripture this text will probably
weigh strongly with him in spite of all that I have said. But to him
who is tortured by such a thought of God and yet feels that Scripture
binds him to it, it must surely be some relief to feel that even in
this great bulwark text of Everlasting Torment our Lord only asserts
that these shall go away into the aeonian punishment or chastisement[3]
whatever that may mean.
Reluctantly, impelled by a sense of duty, I have dealt with this theory
more fully than with the others. Should any godly people fear that I
am lightening an awful deterrent to sin let me say what long experience
has taught me of the danger of this common theory.
It is making sad loving hearts whom God has not made sad and making
earnest Christians, who feel forced to believe it, perplexed about the
love and justice of God and the prophecies of the final victory of good.
It is forcing into the background the true and awfully solemn teaching
about Hell which ought to be prominent in all our pulpits. When men
cannot see any possible reconciliation between the doctrine of God's
love and their doctrine of Hell they are very apt to find an easy way
out. "We cannot reconcile them," said a young layman to me one day,
"therefore we drop out one of them--Hell." Do not be shocked at it.
Many besides my young layman are unconsciously doing it. Nowadays more
than ever we, clergy, are teaching much about the love of God. But
nowadays more than ever we are holding our tongues about Hell. We know
the horrible idea which Hell commonly conveys. Therefore we keep it in
the background trusting that our hearers will leave it there during the
sermon on God's love. But they do not, and so we are very unconvincing
about both doctrines.
Again, this common theory of Hell is so unreasonable that it has lost
its power as a deterrent. No teaching from which Conscience revolts
can long hold its power over men. The rough common sense, the rough
moral sense of careless men makes them reject it and treat it as a
subject of jest. When men can stupidly laugh together over jests about
hell-fire, when the devil is presented as a clown in the pantomime it
indicates something very wrong in the teaching. No doctrine has any
real hold on the crowd when they can lightly jest about it. And
because of their unbelief in this false notion of Hell they are ceasing
to believe in any Hell at all--ceasing to believe in that awful real
Hell which is taught in the Bible and of which God is giving some men
foretastes even in this life.
And this false notion of Hell tends to shake men's belief in the
reality of Heaven. For if the redeemed could enjoy their bliss in
Heaven, knowing that myriads are existing for ever and ever in endless
suffering and still worse in endless sin, one feels that they have
grown so selfish and opposite to Christ that they have no business in
any heaven.
We dare not leave out the love of God and we dare not leave out the
doctrine of Hell. Both are certainly true. Therefore they must be
capable of reconciliation. The reconciliation must not come in
ignoring Hell or believing in a kindly, good-natured God who does not
judge severely about moral character and who only cares that His child
should stop crying and be happy. We are having too much of this
sentimentalism nowadays. It is a miserable misconception of that awful
holiness which is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." It would
never explain the need of Christ dying on the cross to put away sin.
Whatever reconciliation we find here or hereafter it must have at
bottom God's unutterable hatred of sin but also God's unutterable love
and pain over every sinful soul which He has made. This theory of
Endless Torment and Endless Sin certainly does not appear to satisfy
this test, and it has in addition to face the stern revolt of Reason
and Conscience.
II
_The theory of Universalism, i. e., that all men shall at length be
saved_.
This opinion is based on the more hopeful side of Scripture that we
have referred to, but it ignores or explains away what contradicts it
in the darker and sterner side. If one could forget that, it would be
the most inspiring of all the guesses that have been made. As
presented by its best exponents, such men as Allen and Jukes and Cox,
it is wonderfully attractive and at first sight seems to satisfy many
of the conditions of the problem. It takes account of a just and awful
retribution for every sin, and takes account also of the mysterious
hope in the Hereafter which runs through the Bible. It believes that
the power of God has infinite resources and that the love of God has
unwearying persistence and that no soul can ultimately resist such
resources and such love. Even Hell itself it deems God's final effort
when all other means have failed.
The reader who thinks there can be no possible excuse for such a theory
should glance at a few of the passages quoted in its favour:
"God who wills that _all men_ should be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4), and "who
wills that _all men_ should come to repentance" (2 Peter iii. 9). And
this will or determination of God is "_immutable_" (Heb. vi. 7).
Again, "Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the Prince of this
world be cast out, AND I, if I be lifted up, will draw _all men_ unto
Myself" (John xii. 31, 32). "_All flesh_ shall see the salvation of
God" (Luke iii. 6). "His grace bringing salvation to all men" (Titus
ii. 11). "We trust in the living God who is the Saviour of _all men,
especially_ of those who believe" (1 Tim. iv. 10). "He is the
propitiation _not for our sins only, but also_ for the sins of the
_whole world_" (1 John ii. 2). "He was manifested that He might
_destroy_ the works of the devil" (1 John iii. 8) [and _destroy_ the
devil (bruise the serpent's head) Gen. iii. 15]. "He shall _overcome_
the strong man armed (the devil) and take away his armour and divide
his spoils" (Luke xi. 21, 22). "He was manifested to _put away_ sin by
the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. ix. 26). "God hath not cast away His
people whom He foreknew ... and so _all Israel shall be saved_" (Rom.
xii. 25-33). "The times of the _Restoration of all things_ which God
hath promised by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world
began" (Acts iii. 21). "As in Adam _all_ die, even so in Christ shall
_all_ be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the
first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming. Then
cometh the end ... when all things have been _subjected unto Him_[4]
... then shall the Son also be subjected unto Him that put all things
under Him that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 22-29).
One can see how the constant study of such passages should lead men to
an enthusiastic hope and lead them to study less carefully the stream
of darker teaching that seemed to conflict with these. Whatever may be
said against the advocates of Universalism we at least owe to them a
clearer emphasizing of the mysterious hopefulness of Scripture as to
the final triumph of good.
But with deep reluctance one is bound to assert that the advocates of
Universal Salvation to a great degree ignore or explain away
unsatisfactorily much of the sterner side of the Bible. For amid all
its hopefulness there is a steadily persistent note in Scripture,
stern, awful, sorrowful, which seems impossible to reconcile with
Universalism. There are clear and repeated assertions that some men at
any rate will not be saved. It is St. Paul, the author of so many of
those hopeful Scriptures quoted, who tells us "even weeping" of men
"whose end is destruction" (Phil. iii. 19), and of those whose fate
shall be "eternal destruction from the presence of God" (2 Thess. i.
9). It is the loving Christ Himself who said of one of His apostles,
"It were good for that man if he had not been born" (St. Matt. xxvi.
24).
We are warned back too by the tendency of character to grow permanent.
And when we are told that God "willeth all men to be saved," and that
God can do everything, we are forced to ask, Can God do contradictory
things? Can God make a door to be open and shut at the same time? Can
God make a thing to be and not to be at the same time? Can God make a
man's will free to choose good or evil and yet secure that he shall
certainly choose good at the last? One longs to believe that
Universalism should be true, but to believe it we must ignore much of
the evidence of Scripture.
III
_The theory of Conditional Immortality, i. e._, that all souls who fail
of Eternal Life shall be punished not by Endless Torment, but by
Annihilation and the loss of God and Heaven for ever and ever.
This is another conjecture framed to escape the difficulties of the
former two. It would be consistent both with retribution for evil and
also with the final victory of good. That in the mysterious nature of
things when the malignity of sin becomes incurable, a soul rotted
through with sin might ultimately die out of existence; this opinion is
at least allowable as a conjecture to escape from the theory of Endless
Torment and Sin. It would in a real sense be an everlasting
punishment, being an everlasting loss of Heaven and God. But it too is
founded only on part of the evidence, on such texts as "The gift of God
is eternal life," "He that hath the Son hath life," implying that
immortality is a conditional thing granted only to those who are saved,
and such texts as "eternal _destruction_ from the presence of God," and
the idea of utter annihilation in such passages as "burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire." There is much in favor of it but there is
much in Scripture which makes it difficult to accept it. And it
contradicts straight out the wide-spread Christian belief in the
essential immortality of the soul (though that belief also needs to be
examined). At any rate it cannot claim authority as a theory of future
punishment.
IV
These are the only conjectures offered us to solve the difficulties
connected with Final Retribution. We find them all unsatisfactory. We
have reached no definite doctrine of Hell. With the evidence at our
disposal it seems impossible to do so. The failure of all attempts at
reconciling the seeming contradictions of Scripture must suggest to us
that the solution of this problem is beyond the range of our present
powers. At any rate it is beyond the range of our present knowledge.
Surely it is wise and reverent to think that this points to _some
dealing of God beyond our human ken_ which will one day reconcile all
the difficulties.[5] Our little guesses do not exhaust God's
possibilities. Some day we shall find the answer in that land where we
shall know even as we are known. And when we find it we know it will
be consistent with our highest thoughts of God. I like to think that
it is those who have grown closest to Christ in sympathy for sorrow and
pain and who unlike us, know all the facts of the case, who are
represented as joining in that glad shout hereafter, "Hallelujah!
salvation and glory and power belong to our God, FOR TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS
ARE HIS JUDGMENTS." Leave the manifestation of this to God. A wise
old man once said, "God has a good deal of time to do things between
this and the other side of eternity."
This then is the conclusion of the whole matter. A return to the
reserve and reticence of Scripture. But with this result of our study,
that we feel no longer forced to believe of God that which Conscience
declares to be unworthy of Him. We are set free to believe that the
Judge of all the earth will do right--that Hell as well as Heaven is
within the confines of His dominion--that evil shall not last for ever;
that in spite of all its conflicting evidence the trend of Scripture
moves towards the golden age, the final victory of good.
Thus we leave it.
In our final vision of humanity in Christ's great drama of the
Judgment, those on the left are passing into the outer darkness and as
they pass the curtain falls behind them and we see them no more. We
know not what is passing in that outer darkness where there is "weeping
and gnashing of teeth." We have no grounds to believe that any soul
there is being born again through sorrow and shame, that any spoiled
and deformed life is being remoulded in that awful crucible of God.
But as we watch the awful shadows of that outer darkness, there comes
beyond it on the far horizon the quivering of a coming dawn. For that
age of God's Gehenna is to have its end, and far away the day will dawn
for which the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together; when
evil shall have vanished out of the universe for ever; when death and
Hell, the evil and the Evil One shall be cast into the lake of fire;
when "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things in Heaven and
earth, and under the earth" (in the world of the dead). "And every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father." "Then cometh the end," says St. Paul, "when Christ shall
deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when all His enemies
shall be subjected unto Him. And when all His enemies have been
subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected unto
Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
That is what shall be. One day, somewhere in the far mysterious future
the "purpose of the ages" shall be accomplished. Evil shall have
vanished out of the universe for ever and God shall be all in all. One
day again it shall be as at the creation when "God looked on everything
that He had made and behold it was very good." How? We know not and
we need not know. We need not be able to assert dogmatically how He
will accomplish His purpose. We need not be able to assert that all
men shall be saved or that all who are not will be annihilated. But we
must be able with trustful hearts to assert God's love and God's power
and the final abolishing of evil, even though we can only do it with
the poet's vagueness:
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"
To which an answer pealed from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand,
And on the glimmering summit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.
[1] 1 John iii. 8.
[2] Gen. iii. 15.
[3] _kolasis_--chastisement, correction, punishment (see Greek Lexicon).
[4] The same Greek words are used of His enemies' subjection to Christ
as of Christ's subjection to the Father suggesting that it would be of
the same kind.
[5] In other antinomies of Scripture, _e. g._, Man's free will and
God's foreknowledge, we have to take refuge in a similar belief.
III
HEAVEN
At last "I" has reached the goal. In that far future comes the glad
finale of human history, the realization of the eternal thought in the
mind of God from the beginning. As the unwritten play of a great
dramatist lies in his mind before it is uttered or acted, with every
problem solved and every contingency provided for--so we believe the
whole extended drama lay in the Eternal Mind--the path of struggle and
pain--the cross-currents of human will--the glorious conclusion of it
all. Nothing was an after-thought. Now at last Christ "shall see of
the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." Aye--satisfied. It
was worth the cost. Worth the Incarnation of the Eternal Son--worth
the sorrow and the pain--worth being misunderstood and shamed and
mocked and scourged and spitted on and crucified--this final
satisfaction of His tender love. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor
hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things that God
hath prepared. They shall hunger no more nor thirst any more, neither
shall the sun light on them nor any burning heat, for the Lamb which is
in the midst of the Throne shall shepherd them and lead them to eternal
fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away every tear from their
eyes. There shall be no more death--no mourning nor crying nor pain
any more, for the former things--the old bad things--have passed away."
That is the end of God's purpose for men. Surely it will be the
wondering cry of the angels for ever, "Behold how He loved them!"
I. WHAT IS MEANT BY HEAVEN?
To us with our limited faculties Heaven is practically inconceivable.
We have no experience that would help us to realize it. Even the
inspired writers can but touch the thought vaguely in allegory and
gorgeous vision, piling up images of earthly things precious and
beautiful--thrones and crowns and gates of pearl and golden streets in
the heavenly city "coming down from God prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband."
The only clear thought we have about external things in Heaven is that
"I" who lived here in an earthly body and in the Near Hereafter lived a
spirit life "absent from the body"--shall in that Far Hereafter have a
spiritual body analogous we suppose to the body "I" had on earth. Not
the poor body, certainly, which rotted in the grave, "ashes to ashes,
dust to dust" but a "glorified body," and yet it would seem having some
strange mysterious connection with the earthly body. As the oak is the
resurrection body of the acorn, and the lily of the ugly little bulb
that decayed in the ground, "so also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in
weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is
raised a spiritual body." That gives very little information but it
gives some tangible idea to grasp. Beyond this there is no hold for
imagination.
But as we saw in the earlier chapters on the Intermediate Life I am
still "I," the same conscious self through the whole life of Earth.
and Hades and Heaven, and therefore the _real life, the inner life_ can
still be understood. So when we enquire what can be known about the
meaning of Heaven--at the very start I strike the key-note of the
thoughts that follow, in the words of Christ Himself, "The Kingdom of
God is within you." Heaven is a something within you rather than
without you. Heaven means character rather than possessions. The
Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but Righteousness and Peace and
Joy in the Holy Ghost.
That is the thought which I am trying to keep prominent all through
this book. Hades life is dependent on character. Judgment is a
sorting according to character. Heaven and Hell are tempers or
conditions of character within us. They are not merely places to which
God sends us arbitrarily. They are conditions which we make for
ourselves. If God could send all men to Heaven, all men would be
there. If God could keep all men from Hell, no one would be there. It
is character that makes Heaven. It is character that makes Hell. They
are states of mind that begin here, and are continued and developed
there.
I have known men who were in Hell here--they told me so--men of brutal
character, men in delirium tremens, who saw devils grinning at them
from the bed. That if continued and developed would mean Hell there.
I have known sweet, unselfish lives who are in Heaven here. That
continued and developed would mean Heaven there. You know how one
could be in Heaven here. Do you remember these wonderful words of our
Lord, "No man hath ascended into Heaven, only the Son of Man who is in
Heaven"? Not _was_, not _shall be_, but is always in Heaven, because
always in unselfish love--always in accord and in communion with God.
So, you see, a man carries the beginning of Heaven and Hell within him,
according to the state of his own heart. A selfish, godless man cannot
have any Heaven so long as he remains selfish and godless. For Heaven
consists in forgetting self, and loving God and man with heart and soul.
§ 2
Do you see, then, the mistake that people have been making in
discussing what is meant by Heaven? In all ages--in all races--men
have speculated about it, and their speculations have been largely
coloured by their characters and temperaments. The Indian placed it in
the Happy Hunting Ground. The Greeks placed it in the Islands of the
Blest, where warriors rested after the battle. The Northman and the
Mussulman had his equally sensual Heaven. And many Christians have as
foolish notions as any one else. Some think that they win Heaven by
believing something with their minds about our Lord's atonement. Some
think they go to Heaven by soaring up through the air. Some of them,
taking in its literal meaning the glorious imagery of the Apocalypse,
picture to themselves streets of beaten gold and walls of flashing
emerald and jasper, and the wearing of crowns and the singing of Psalms
over and over again through all the ages of eternity.
What is the fault in all such? That they do not understand what Heaven
really means. They think of it as a something outside them which
anybody could enjoy if he could only get there. They do not understand
that Heaven means the joy of being in union with God--that the outward
Heaven has no meaning till the inward Heaven has begun in ourselves. I
need not point out to you that our immortal spirits would find little
happiness in golden pavements and gates of pearl. People on this
earth, who have their fill of gold and pearl, do not always gain much
happiness from them. They are mere external things--they cannot give
eternal joy, because that comes from within, not from without. It
depends not on what we have, but on what we are, not on the riches of
our possessions, but on the beauty of our lives.
The gorgeous vision of the Apocalypse has its meaning, but it is not
the carnal, literal meaning of foolish men. It tells of the bright
river of the water of life; of glorified cities, where nothing foul, or
mean, or ignoble shall dwell; of the white robes of our stainless
purity; of the crowns and palms, the emblems of victory over
temptation, of the throne which indicates calm mastery over sin; of the
song and music and gladsome feasting to image faintly the abounding
happiness and the fervent thanksgiving for the goodness of God. They
are all mere symbols--mere earthly pictures with a heavenly meaning,
and the meaning which lies behind them all is this: _The joy of Heaven
means the inward joy; the joy of character; the joy of goodness; the
joy of likeness to the Nature of God_. That is the highest joy of
all--the only joy worthy of making Heaven for men who are made in the
image of God.
§ 3
It is not difficult to show this to any true man or woman who is humbly
trying to do beautiful deeds on earth. Of course, if a man be very
selfish and worldly; a man who never tries to help another; a man who
smiles at these things as unreal sentiment; who tells you that hard
cash and success in life, and "to mind number one," as they say, are
the chief things; a man who never feels his pulses beat faster at the
story of noble deeds--you cannot absolutely prove to him that the joy
of character is the highest happiness. You cannot prove to a blind man
the beauty of the sunset sky; you cannot arouse a deaf man to
enthusiasm about sweet music; and you cannot prove to an utterly
selfish, earthly man that self-sacrifice and purity and heroism and
love are the loveliest and the most desirable possessions--the sources
of the highest and most lasting joy. But I feel sure that most of us,
with all our faults, have in our better moments the desire and the
admiration--aye, and the effort, too, after nobleness of life, and
therefore we can understand this highest joy of Heaven. We have had
experience sometimes, however rarely, of lovely deeds, and the sweet,
pure joy that follows in their train. Well, whenever you have
conquered some craving temptation or borne trouble for another's sake;
when you have helped and brightened some poor life, and kept quiet in
the shade that no one should know of it; when you have tried to do the
right at heavy cost to yourself; when the old father or mother at home
has thanked God for the comfort you have been in their declining years;
whenever in the midst of all your sins you have done anything for the
love of God or man, do you not know what a sweet, pure happiness has
welled up in your heart, entirely different in kind, infinitely higher
in degree than any pleasure that ever came to you from riches or
amusement or the applause of men. Of this kind surely must be the pure
joy of Heaven. Call up the recollection of some of those cherished
moments of your life, and multiply by infinity the pleasure that you
felt, and you will have some faint notion of what is meant by Heaven,
the Heaven that God designs for man.
II. WHAT IS HEAVEN'S SUPREME JOY?
Thus, then, we answer the first of our questions--What is meant by
Heaven? Heaven means a state of character rather than a place of
residence. Heaven means to be something rather than to go somewhere.
But though Heaven means a state of character rather than a place of
residence, yet it means a place of residence, too. And though Heaven
means to be something rather than to go somewhere, yet it means to go
somewhere, too. And from this the second question easily follows.
What can be known about that life in Heaven?
"Oh, for a nearer insight into Heaven,
More knowledge of the glory and the joy,
Which there unto the happy souls is given,
Their intercourse, their worship, their employ."
We do not know a great deal about it.
The Bible is given to help us to live rightly in this world, not to
satisfy curiosity about the other world. But yet some glimpses of the
blessed life have come to us, for our teaching.
The first thing to learn is that the chief joy of Heaven shall consist
in that of which we can only dream in this life, of which we can have
but a partial glimpse even in the Hades or Paradise Life--_the Beatific
Vision_, the clear vision and knowledge of God. All this life and all
the Paradise life are fitting and training and preparing us for this
consummation.
Wise theologians of old divided the happiness of Heaven into
"_Essential_" and "_Accidental_." By _essential_ they meant the
happiness which the soul derives immediately from God's presence, from
the Beatific Vision. By _accidental_ they meant the additional
happiness which comes from creatures, from meeting with friends, from
the joyous occupations and all the delights of ever-widening knowledge.
But the Presence of God, the Vision of God, is the essential thing
which gives light and joy to all the others. Without that Vision of
God all would be dark as this beautiful world would be without the sun.
Without that joy of God's presence all other joys would be spoiled,
just as the gifts of this life would be without the central gift of
health.
That is the central thought about Heaven in the Bible, the central
thought of God's noblest saints of old, aye, and the central thought of
some of the noblest amongst ourselves to-day.
Does it seem unreal, unnatural, to some of us? I can well believe it.
Few of us love God well enough yet to desire Him above all things.
Most of us, I fear, if we would honestly confess it, think more of the
joy of meeting our dear ones than of the joy of being with God. But
God is very gentle with us. "He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that
we are but dust." He will gradually train us here and hereafter, and
one day we, too, shall love Him above all things. Oh! I do think that
to know the tender patience of Christ's love as we shall know it then,
to know God as He is, with all the false notions about Him swept away,
will make it impossible to withhold our love from Him. And if even our
poor love for each other on earth is such a happiness think what joy
may come from dwelling in that unutterable Love of God.
III. THE LIFE IN HEAVEN
What can we know further about the life in Heaven, about what the old
theologians called the _secondary_ or _accidental_ joys as compared
with the supreme joy of the Beatific Vision?
We know, first, _There shall be no sin there_. It shall be a pure and
innocent life. All who on earth have been loving, and pure, and noble,
and brave, and self-sacrificing, shall be there. All who have been
cleansed by the blood of Christ from the defilements of sin, and
strengthened by the power of Christ against the enticements of sin,
shall be there. There shall be no drunkenness nor impurity there, nor
hatred, nor emulation, nor ill temper, nor selfishness, nor meanness.
Ah! it is worth hoping for. We poor strugglers who hate ourselves and
are so dissatisfied with ourselves, who look from afar at the lovely
ideals rising within us, who think sorrowfully of all which we might
have been and have not been--let us keep up heart. One day the ideal
shall become the real. One day we shall have all these things for
which God has put the craving in our hearts to-day. We shall have no
sin there. We shall desire only and do only what is good. We shall be
there what we have only seemed or wished to be here--honest, true,
noble, sincere, genuine to the very centre of our being.
No sin there.
§ 2
And that will make it easier to understand the second fact revealed to
us. _No sorrow there_. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any
more. There shall be no more curse ... no pain, nor sorrow, nor
crying, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That is
not hard to believe. Sin is the chief cause of our sorrow on earth.
If there be no sin there; if all are pure and unselfish and generous
and true, and if God wipes away all tears that come from causes other
than sin, it is easily understood.
But let us not degrade this thought or make it selfish or unreal. One
often hears the sneer or the doubt about the happiness of Heaven while
any exist who have lost their Heaven. We do not know the answer now.
But we shall know it then. And we must be absolutely certain that the
answer lies not in the direction of selfish indifference. The higher
any soul on earth grows in love the less can it escape unselfish sorrow
for others. Must it not be so in that land too? Surely the Highest
Himself must have more pain than any one else for the self-caused
misery of men. If there be joy in His presence over one that repenteth
must there not be pain over one that repenteth not? We can only say in
our deep ignorance that until the day when all evil shall have vanished
there are surely higher things in God's plan for His redeemed than
selfish happiness and content. There is the blessedness that comes of
sympathy with Him in the pain which is the underside of the Eternal
Love.
§ 3
No sin in Heaven. No sorrow in Heaven. What else do we certainly
know? _That the essence of the Heaven life will be love_. The giving
of oneself for the service of others. The going out of oneself in
sympathy with others. There at last will be realized St. Paul's
glorious ideal. There it can be said of every man, He suffereth long
and is kind; envieth not; vaunteth not himself; is not puffed up;
seeketh not his own; behaveth not uncourteously. He is like the
eternal God Himself, who beareth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things (1 Cor. xiii. 4-7).
§ 4
We may well believe _that there will be no dead level of attainment_,
no dead level of perfection and joy. That would seem to us very
uninteresting. If we may judge from God's dealings here and from the
many texts of Scripture, there will be an infinite variety of
attainment, of positions, of character. "In the Father's house there
are many mansions." Our Lord assumes that we would expect that from
our experience here. "If it were not so, I would have told you." I
suppose there will be little ones there needing to be taught and weak
ones needing to be helped; strong leaders sitting at His right hand in
His Kingdom, and poor backward ones who never expected to get into it
at all.
And so surely we may believe, too, will there be _varieties of
character and temperament_. We shall not lose our identity and our
peculiar characteristics by going to Heaven, by being lifted to a
higher spiritual condition. Just as a careless man does not lose his
identity by conversion, by rising to a higher spiritual state on earth,
so we may well believe when we die and pass into the life of the
waiting souls, and again when at Christ's coming we pass into the
higher Heaven we shall remain the same men and women as we were before
and yet become very different men and women. Our lives will not be
broken in two, but transfigured. We shall not lose our identity; we
shall still be ourselves; we shall preserve the traits of character
that individualize us; but all these personal traits and
characteristics will be suffused and glorified by the lifting up of our
motive and aim. As far as we can judge, there will be a delightful,
infinite variety in the Heaven-life.
What else? There shall be _work in Heaven_. The gift of God is
eternal _life_ and that life surely means activity. We are told "His
servants shall serve Him." We are told of the man who increased the
talents or the pounds to five or ten that he was to be used for
glorious work according as he had fitted himself--"Lord, thy talent
hath gained five talents, ten talents." What was the reply? "You are
now to go and rest for all eternity." Not a bit of it. "Be thou ruler
over five cities, over ten cities; enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord." I know some men who are now retired after a very busy active
life of work, and they hate the idleness, they are sick of it. No
wonder the conventional Heaven does not appeal to them. Ah, that is
not God's Heaven. "They rest from their labours." Yes; but that word
"labours" means painful strain. In eternal, untiring youth and
strength we shall be occupied in doing His blessed will in helping and
blessing the wide universe that He has made. Who can tell what
glorious ministrations, what infinite activities, what endless growth
and progress, and lifting up of brethren, God has in store for us
through all eternity. Thank God for the thought of that joyous work of
never-tiring youth and vigour; work of men proudly rejoicing in their
strength, helping the weak ones, teaching the ignorant aye! perhaps for
the very best of us going out with Christ into the outer darkness to
seek that which is lost until He find it. For even that is not shut
out beyond the bounds of possibility in the impenetrable mystery of the
Hereafter. Do you know Whittier's beautiful poem of the old monk who
had spent his whole life in hard and menial work for the rescue and
help of others? And when he is dying his confessor tells him work is
over, "Thou shalt sit down and have endless prayers, and wear a golden
crown for ever and ever in Heaven." "Ah," he says, "I'm a stupid old
man. I'm dull at prayers. I can't keep awake, but I love my fellow
men. I could be good to the worst of them. I could not bear to sit
amongst the lazy saints and turn a deaf ear to the sore complaints of
those that suffer. I don't want your idle Heaven. I want still to
work for others." The confessor in anger left him, and in the night
came the voice of his Lord--
"Tender and most compassionate. Never fear,
For Heaven is love, as God Himself is love;
Thy work below shall be thy work above." [1]
Be sure that the repose of Heaven will be no idling in flowery meadows
or sitting for ever in a big temple at worship, as the poor, weary
little children are sometimes told after a long sermon in church. No,
"there is no temple in Heaven," we are told--no Church. Because all
life is such a glad serving and rejoicing in God that men need no
special times and places for doing it.
IV. SHALL WE KNOW ONE ANOTHER IN HEAVEN?
What else can we learn? Shall we know one another? Does any one
really doubt it who believes in God at all? What sort of Heaven would
it be otherwise? What sort of comfort would there be if we did not
know one another? Oh, this beggarly faith, that God has to put up
with, that treats the Father above as it would treat a man of doubtful
character. "I must have His definite texts. I must have His written
pledges, else I will not believe any good thing in His dealing." That
is our way. We talk very piously about our belief in God's love, but
we are afraid to infer anything, to argue anything from the infinitude
of that love. No, we must have God's bond signed and sealed. I do
believe that one reason why we have not more of direct answers about
the mysteries of the future life is because God thought that no such
answer should be necessary--that His love, if one would only believe in
it, is a sufficient answer to them all.
There is less need of discussing the subject here, since we have
already dealt with the question of Recognition in the Intermediate Life
(Part I, Chapter VII). If even in that imperfect state "absent from
the body" we saw reason to hope for recognition, think how that hope
rises to certainty in the great perfect life of Heaven where "I" shall
be again "in the body" the glorious perfect spiritual body.
As I have pointed out the Bible gives only passing hints on the
subject. But it comforts the mourners with the thought of meeting
those whom Christ will bring with Him. What would be the good of
meeting if they should not know them? St. Paul expects to meet his
converts and present them before Christ. How could he do so if he did
not know them? Our Lord depicts Dives and Lazarus even in the lower
Hades life as knowing each other. He says to the dying thief as they
went within the veil, "To-day shalt thou be with Me." What could it
mean except they should know each other within?
But surely the Bible does not need to say it. It is one of those
things that we may assume with certainty. We know that Heaven would
scarce be Heaven at all if we were to be but solitary isolated spirits
amongst a crowd of others whom we did not know or love. We know that
the next world and this world come from the same God who is the same
always. We know that in this world He has bound us up in groups,
knowing and loving and sympathizing with each other. Unless His method
utterly changes He must do the same hereafter. And we have seen what a
prophecy of recognition lies deep in the very fibres of that nature
which God has implanted in us. If we shall not know one another, why
is there this undying memory of departed ones, the aching void that is
never filled on earth? The lower animals lose their young and in a few
days forget them. But the poor, human mother never forgets. When her
head is bowed with age, when she has forgotten nearly all else on
earth, you can bring the tears into her eyes by mentioning the child
that died in her arms forty years ago. Did God implant that divine
love in her only to disappoint it? God forbid! A thousand times, no.
In that world the mother shall meet her child, and the lonely widow
shall meet her husband, and they shall learn fully the love of God in
that rapturous meeting with Christ's benediction resting on them.
I know there are further questions rising in our hearts. Will our dear
ones remember us? Will they, in all the years of progress, have grown
too good and great for fellowship with us? There is no specific answer
save what we can infer from the boundless goodness and kindness of God.
Since He does not forget us we may be sure they will not forget us.
Since His superior greatness and holiness does not put Him beyond our
reach, we may be sure that theirs will not--their growth will be mainly
a growth of love which will only bring them closer to us for ever and
ever.
V. HOW DO MEN ENTER HEAVEN?
We have asked, What is meant by Heaven? What can be known of the
details of life in Heaven? And now I close this book with the solemn
question for us all: How shall we enter Heaven? If you have followed
me thus far the answer is easy. Though there is a special place which
shall be Heaven, yet, if Heaven means a state of mind rather than a
place of residence, if Heaven means to be something rather than to go
somewhere, though it means to go somewhere, too, then the answer is
easy. We enter Heaven by a spiritual, not by a natural act. We begin
Heaven here on earth, not by taking a journey to the sun or the
planets, not by taking a journey from this world up through the air,
but by taking a journey from a bad state of mind to a good state of
mind; from that state of mind which is enmity against God, to that of
humble, loyal, loving obedience to Christ. It is not so much that we
have to go to Heaven. We have to do that, too. But Heaven has to come
to us first. Heaven has to begin in ourselves. "The beginning of
Heaven is not at that hour when the eye grows dim and the sound of
friendly voices becomes silent in death, but at that hour when God
draws near and the eyes of the spiritual understanding are opened, and
the soul sees how beautiful Christ is, how hateful sin is; the hour
when self-will is crucified, and the God-will is born in the
resolutions of a new heart." Then Heaven has begun, the Heaven that
will continue after our death.
Do we believe that this is the right way to think of Heaven? For if so
it is a serious question for us all. What about my hopes of entering
Heaven? If Heaven consists of character rather than possessions, of a
state of mind rather than a place of residence, if, in fine, Heaven has
to begin on earth, what of our hopes of entering Heaven? Is it not
pitiful to hear people talk lightly about going to Heaven, whose lives
on earth have not any trace of the love and purity and nobleness and
self-sacrifice of which Heaven shall entirely consist hereafter? To
see men with the carnal notions about Heaven as a place of external
glory and beauty and jasper and emerald, where, after they have misused
their time on earth, they shall fly away like swallows to an eternal
summer. Why, what should they do in Heaven? They would be miserable
there even if they could get there. They would be entirely out of
their element, like a fish sent to live on the grass of a lovely
meadow. Those who shall enjoy the Heaven hereafter are they whose
Heaven has begun before. They who may hope to do the work of God
hereafter are those who are humbly trying to do that will on earth.
These shall inherit the everlasting Kingdom. Unto which blessed
Kingdom may He vouchsafe to bring us all! Amen.
[1] Whittier, "The Brother of Mercy."