11 - Chapter 11
CHAP. XI. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED WITH RESPECT TO A FUTURE EXISTENCE. The comfort of a Christian in the present life rests on the prospect of a happy existence after death. Beset by the troubles common to all men ; bearing strongly in mind the uncertainty and the short continuance of all earthly possessions and enjoyments ; perpetually feeling and lamenting his sinfulness, and the worth- lessness of his best actions when tried by the holy law of his God : he turns his thoughts to futurity, and supports and delights himself in the hope that, when this house of his earthly tabernacle is dissolved, it shall be replaced to him by a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In this hope the true disciple of Christ is warranted by the Gospel, which has brought life and immortality to light. He is warranted in it by the most solemn and express declarations of his Saviour. Our Lord affirms, that in his Father’s house are many mansions ; that in the unbounded and illimitable dominions of the Almighty, in comparison with the extent of which all conceivable space is but a point, are worlds beyond worlds capable of receiving all the created servants of God, whether angels, or spirits of just men made perfect, or purified beings of whatever other nature and description unrevealed to man, into abodes of secure and appropriate happiness. Of this animating intelligence He communicates, as it were, additional confirmation to his apostles, by an assurance uniting the simple dignity of truth with the most affectionate condescension— If it were not so, I would have told you: had the case been otherwise, I would not have deluded you by any groundless expectations. He proceeds to apply the encouragement specially to themselves. And in that application, manifestly addressing them also as the representatives of all who should afterwards believe on him through their ministry and the ministry of their successors, he carries forward the promise to all true Christians even to the end of the world:— / go to prepare a place for you.1 Respecting these promised mansions in his i John 14:2.
Father’s house, in which our Redeemer since His ascension into heaven has provided an everlasting abode for His faithful followers; respecting the nature of the blessedness which shall there be their unfading portion; and respecting the changes which, if we ourselves shall be admitted through His atonement and His grace into those regions of bliss, will be wrought in our own nature, in our capacities and in our powers, in order to qualify us for the occupations of heaven, for the society of angels, for the presence of God; the mind may reasonably feel a deep and longing interest, an ardent desire for all the knowledge which it is lawful for man to possess. Yet reflection will speedily convince us that these are subjects on which our present knowledge of particulars cannot be great. Great it cannot be; for it cannot exceed the measure of our existing faculties. If the righteous are to be exalted after death to a more elevated state of existence, to a state of existence wholly different from the condition of mortal life upon earth; it is to be presumed that faculties wholly new, and adapted to new objects, will be conferred on those glorified spirits. Even if the intellectual change then to be manifested in the immortal soul were but a change in degree; if the powers then to be possessed, then to be developed and exercised in the contemplation and the enjoyment of the unknown objects of eternity, were to be merely the present faculties of man exalted and expanded in measure proportioned to the difference between earth and heaven: how could that immense enlargement be comprehended by the existing scantiness of human perception? How then could new faculties, how could the objects with which they are to be conversant, be rendered intelligible to man ? How could they be comprehended by a being who does not himself possess the faculties, nor understand nor know the objects ? Take a man who has been blind from his birth. Can you communicate to him any distinct idea of the faculty of seeing ? Can you cause him to understand the nature of light, of colours, of the visible forms and appearances of the woods, and the mountains, and the clouds ? Take another who has always been completely deaf. Can you convey to him any conception of sound, of language, of conversation, of music ? As reasonably might you expect to render sight intelligible to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, as to comprehend in your present state the unknown faculties with the possession of which departed saints are to be blessed, or the objects on which those faculties are to be employed. It is not only in magnitude, but in nature also, that the things which God has prepared for those who love Him are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. Neither would it be consistent with the wisdom of God, so far as we may presume to reason by the analogies which the Scriptures furnish, nor with the statements which he has there recorded concerning human obligations, that the knowledge in question should be largely communicated to men, even if they were capable of understanding it. A wide insight into the details of future existence beyond the grave would have been inconsistent with that course of duty which God has appointed to us while on this side of the grave. As followers of Christ we are to walk by faith, not by sight.1 We are not to be made acquainted with the i 2 Corinthians 5:7. mysteries of eternity. We are not to refuse to trust our Redeemer who died for us farther than we see him. We are to remember that faith is the evidence of things unseen. Though our life, if we are servants of Christ, is hid with Christ in God; though it doth not yet appear what we shall be1; we are with undoubting confidence to leave the sources and the adjustment of everlasting blessedness in the hands of its glorious author, who purchased it on the Cross. But while, for the evident reasons which have been stated, possibly on various other accounts also, which do not or cannot present themselves to mortal conceptions, the New Testament does not profess to furnish detailed information concerning the nature of heavenly existence; it neither forbears from throwing some general light on the subject, nor suffers us to remain without decisive demonstration that the happiness and glory reserved for the blessed in heaven are greater than language can describe.
Let us attend to some of the leading circumstances which the Scriptures have revealed.
1 Colossians 3:3: 1 John 3:2. In the first place, the Sacred Writings pronounce that unhappiness of every kind and in every degree, together with all the causes, and instruments, and occasions of discomfort, shall be for ever unknown in heaven. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away, ’ These are appendages and adjuncts to the mortal frame, and together with the mortal frame will drop away from the ascending spirit of the righteous. Above all, sin, the origin of all misery, is excluded. Into the kingdom of God nothing entereth that defileth. The Devil and his angels are cast into hell, and bound in everlasting chains. To the same prison, to the same chains, wicked men, the servants of the Devil, are consigned for ever. In heaven all is unsullied peace, and joy, and security, and holiness. In the next place, the greatness of the happiness and of the glory of the righteous is declared by the nature of the general terms in which they are described. The signs and emblems, which are employed by the Holy 1 Revelation 21:4.
Ghost in the Sacred Writings to express that happiness and glory, must necessarily be borrowed from objects and circumstances which are familiar to men. And they are uniformly chosen from objects and circumstances which bear in the eyes of men the strongest impressions of power, dignity, and delight. Thus the righteous are represented as inheriting a kingdom; as wearing a crown of glory that fadeth not away; as reigning with Christ; as sitting with Christ on his throne; as shining like the brightness of the firmament, like the sun and the stars for ever and ever. They are with God in heaven, in the habitation of his holiness, the place where his honour dwelleth; with God, in whose presence is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore,
Farther; the body is to be raised from the grave and again united to the soul, that in every particular the happiness of the individual may be complete. The body which on earth was a clog and a burden, a continual occasion of anxiety and pain, sinking under infirmities, and tending to decay, shall be changed in its nature, purified in its qualities, fitted for the bliss of its heavenly abode. Tliis corruptible must put on incorruption; this mortal must put on immortality. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Christ shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the wonderful working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.
Farther; the blessedness of heaven will in part consist in the delight which the righteous will experience in the society of holy men of all generations from the beginning of the world. The Patriarchs of ancient days; the Prophets, who in succession were luminaries of the Church of God through a long course of ages; the Apostles of our Lord; the Martyrs, who, with Saint Stephen at the head of the glorious company, for the love of their Redeemer laid down their lives; all the Saints of the Most High whose characters we read with reverence in the Scriptures; all the excellent of the earth who in various lands and in various periods have trodden in their steps; — all will be assembled in heaven to welcome every other servant of God as a brother, and to contribute to the increase of his happiness. But among these new associates from distant regions and ages, these new promoters of his felicity, the righteous man will also meet others, once like himself inhabitants of earth; associates who, if they do not excite equally sublime emotions, will awaken and perpetuate more tender recollections. He will meet all those friends, all those relatives, all those companions endeared and united to him by the closest of human ties, who, like himself, have died in the Lord. He meets them never again to be separated. He meets them to dwell together in bliss never to be dimmed by offences, by infirmities, by contentions, by jealousies, by suspicions, by any of those disquietudes which shade with passing clouds the purest sunshine of human friendships and affections. He meets them with the certainty that their happiness and his own, both already inexpressible, will be uninterruptedly heightened throughout eternity by mutual participation. But still more to enhance his blessedness, he is surrounded by a yet nobler host of companions in glory, the innumerable company of angels; the countless myriads of those heavenly spirits, who, having been called into being by the voice of God in the unknown depths of duration antecedently to the existence of the earth, withstood the rebellious wiles of Satan, kept their first estate, and are established in it for ever. But can men, the offspring of yesterday, transgressors pardoned through grace, can they presume to join themselves to angels, can they be fitted to associate with the thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers of heaven ? Yes. The redeemed inhabitants of the earth, justified through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and sanctified by his Spirit, are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.l If the spirits of just men made perfect are the associates of the angels, are equal to the angels; their faculties must be the faculties of angels, their occupations must be the occupations of angels. What views of magnified and multiplied blessedness are opened by these considerations! The righteous, endowed in
1 Luke 20:36. heaven with the powers now granted to angels, will become jointly with the Angels ministering spirits to the Most High; will contemplate His works, will comprehend His operations, will execute His purposes, will rejoice in manifesting His glory, throughout the universe of creation, and during existence without end. But loftier certainties of bliss remain. The righteous shall dwell through eternity in the immediate presence of God Himself; in communion, resembling the intercourse between children and a father, with the fulness of Infinite Perfection. They shall ever be with the Lord1— with the Lord Jesus Christ; with the Son, with the Father, and with the Holy Ghost. Not only shall they for ever be with the Lord, their glorified Redeemer, but to that glorified Redeemer shall they be rendered like in glory; and not only in the splendour of outward glory, but like to Him in the nature of the powers and faculties with which, as the Christ exalted to heaven, he is arrayed. Are their bodies become like unto His glorified body ? Their spirits also are become like unto His glorified Spirit. The words of St. John i 1 Thessalonians 4:17. concerning the state of the true servants of Christ at the resurrection proceed argumenta- tively and decisively to that conclusion. WTien he shall appear, we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He
Judge, then, whether St. Paul employed too strong language; judge whether his language, if stronger could have been found, would not have been liable to be reproved for its weakness; when he affirmed that the blessings which God has prepared for those who love Him are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to conceive. Judge how inexpressibly glorious must be that place, which Christ is gone to prepare among the many mansions of His Father’s house for the redeemed who shall be made like unto Him, and shall dwell with Him throughout eternity. Could we desire additional proof that God is Love ?