03.19. LECTURE 19 - FINAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS
LECTURE XIX FINAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.
It is a very striking infelicity that so many of our systems of theology end as their last words with " hell" and " eternal punishment," as if these were the climacteric categories in which the study of the nature, purposes and works of the Lord must find their final and characteristic goal. Such an arrangement has little influence upon the substance of the doctrine held, but it mars the symmetry of truth, it misrepresents the real facts of the case, and it must depress the enthusiasm of the believer and give unnecessary occasion of stumbling and of offence to the unbeliever.
We will therefore purposely reverse the common order, and consider, first, what the Scriptures teach us as to the future of those who depart this life finally impenitent, and after that close with a short study of the glimpses they afford us into the endless blessedness of the redeemed.
I. It seems to be very clear that there "are only seven distinct views as to the final destiny of man which are possible, one or other of which, with very slight modification, must be held by all who think upon the subject.
1. It has been held by many that one end happens to man in common with all other animals, that his conscious intellectual life is inseparable from his body, and that when the one falls to pieces and decays at death the other ceases absolutely and for ever. Against this materialism human nature in all its varieties and throughout its entire history has protested. The false religions have here joined voices with Christianity in holding before all the inhabitants of the earth the certainty of a future life.
2.Again, many parties with whom the sense of sin and its ill-desert is vague and slight have flattered themselves that the benevolence of God was his only characteristic moral attribute, and the universal happiness of his creatures his one chief end. These have consequently held an indiscriminate Universalism, including the immediate happiness of all men after death, without reference to distinctions of moral character or to the redemptive work of Christ.
This, of course, is abhorrent to an enlightened moral sense, and derogatory to the personal holiness and governmental rectitude of God. All who bear, however loosely, the Christian name must repudiate this view, since it absolutely repudiates Christ and the value and dignity of his mediation.
3.Universalists, who have at the same time endeavored to justify their claim to being a Christian sect, have maintained that since Christ died for all men, all men must be saved; that this salvation, depending as it does upon what Christ has done and will do in man’s behalf, cannot be rendered of no effect by what men themselves may do or experience on earth ; that in some way and at some time, and probably sooner and with far less difficulty than we are apt to fear, Christ will draw the spirits of all men to himself and secure for them the conditions of perfect happiness for ever. This view, although it names the name of Christ, and professes to rest all its hopes upon his mediatorial achievements, nevertheless is essentially as anti-Christian as those we have just dismissed. It puts a higher estimation upon happiness than upon holiness. It puts mere benevolence on a higher rank among the attributes of God than purity and righteousness. It regards deliverance from the mere punishment of sin as of greater importance than deliverance from the pollution and power of sin itself. It is founded not in the least upon positive revelations of God’s purposes, but is maintained upon grounds of human sentiment and reason exclusively, against evident testimony of God’s inspired Word and the uniform belief of God’s historic Church.
4. In latter times the view has been entertained by many that although the Scriptures plainly teach that all who reject Christ and die finally impenitent shall be condemned in the judgment of the great day and condignly punished, yet two immutable facts remain which must always afford a rational basis for an eternal hope with regard to all men:
(1) They are essentially free agents, and as such possess an inalienable power of self-determined choice. As soon as they cease to be moral agents they must cease to be proper subjects of punishment. As long as they continue to be moral agents they continue (so it is claimed) to possess the power of repentance and the will (at least) to reform. No one can predict (it is argued) that penal sufferings will be unending, because no one can be certain of any sinner, in any state or in any world, that he will not repent and return.
(2) God is immutably and before all things merciful. All his government, penalties as well as blessings, looks to pronioting the excellence and happiness of all his creatures. He has sought by temporal dispensations to bring men to repentance in this life; so he will ceaselessly continue to seek to bring the condemned and suffering spirits of lost men in the world of penal inflictions to repentance by means of those more tremendous and more cogent disciplines. Reason and conscience will always be pleading with men to repent and throw down the weapons of rebellion. The sufferings of perdition will afford the most powerful arguments conceivable to induce men to close their ears to the suggestions of sinful passion and to open them obediently to the influence of reason and conscience. And all the while the eternal God is eternally the God of mercy and grace, and to the latest moment yearning to receive the prodigal with open arms upon the first indication of his willingness to return. Immediate punishment after death of all who reject the gospel and die unreconciled to God, and the ultimate restoration of all during the future ages, are the hope of many.
5.Others, who cannot admit that the Scriptures leave any opening for the indulgence of this eternal hope in behalf of all souls, nevertheless maintain, both on the ground of justice and upon that of harmony with the characteristics of God as revealed in nature and in revelation, that hereafter, at some time between death and the final judgment, the gospel will be offered under favorable conditions and with hopeful results to all to whom it was not clearly revealed and upon whom it was not urgently pressed in this life.
6.Many others, who cannot disguise to themselves the obviously anti-scriptural character of this so-called "eternal hope," admit that the Word of God plainly teaches that all human probation, in every sense, ceases with the close of the present life; that the sentence pronounced on the reprobate in the judgment of the great day is absolutely final and irreversible; that those upon whom the sentence is pronounced will never be restored. But they claim that continued conscious existence after death and after judgment is no part of man’s natural inheritance and no part of the sinner’s doom. They hold that immortality is conditioned upon the personal attainment of eternal life, and that it is a gift which Christ graciously bestows only upon his redeemed. The penalty of eternal death, which will certainly be inflicted upon all who depart this life impenitent, is just the ceasing to be, the being cast utterly and finally out of existence, as the penalty exacted of the sinner by the law of God.
7. There remains room in this series of alternative hypotheses only for the catholic doctrine of the entire historical Church:
(1) that the probation of man in every sense, under both gospel and law, terminates with death;
(2) that the state of the relations subsisting between any man and God at that crisis will remain absolutely irreversible for ever;
(3) that neither during the intermediate state between death and the resurrection nor after the judgment, at any time through the endless ages, will any conditions of restoration be offered, or efficient grace extended;
(4) that all the lost will continue conscious rebels and sufferers through absolutely unending duration.
II. It appears that this classified statement of opinion is absolutely exhaustive. Any possible opinion on the subject of man’s future destiny must be capable of being brought in under one or other of these heads. Such a position can differ from the corresponding statement here made only in the details. Leaving aside the first three views as plainly beyond the pale of Christianity, it seems that the choice is necessarily confined to the following positions:
(1) Either universal restoration of all to holiness and happiness;
(2) or the offer of the gospel in the future world under more favorable conditions to all those who were left to live and die ignorant of it in this world;
(3) or the annihilation of all the finally impenitent ,·
(4) or the Church doctrine of the eternal conscious misery of all those who depart this life unreconciled to God.
III. In preparing ourselves for an examination of the testimony of the Word of God on this subject, we should, in the first place, seek to be profoundly impressed with its vital importance. Before any other knowledge attainable by us in the compass of the universe, it is most essential for us to know what our Creator and sovereign Lord intends to do with us after death—whether deliverance from the sin and misery and the fearful looking-for of judgment which afflict us in this world is possible for us, and upon what conditions. If any preparation is to be made for the future, it must be made now. If there await us any future dangers which are in any way avoidable, the present time affords us the only possible opportunity of avoiding them. What we need above all other things that God can give us is a clear, certain knowledge of the actual truth. It is very natural for us to shrink from facing the truth boldly and to turn away from the evidence of coming danger, and to fix our attention upon every flattering light which appears to promise some relief from danger. If we really wish to be safe, we must be honest with ourselves. If we really wish to be honest with ourselves, we should suspect our natural tendency to shrink from the evidence which threatens danger, and to resist it with all our might.
More than all this, we should recognize the superficiality and essential cruelty of that mock charity which makes so many professed theological reformers disguise from sinners or explain away the real facts as to the attitude of the Word of God on this subject. Even if mistakes should be made in the way of rendering the aspect of scriptural teaching more menacing than it really is, while it might give unnecessary pain for the present, it could not betray souls to unexpected dangers hereafter. But there is no more deadly injury, no more wanton cruelty, which any man can perpetrate upon a fellow-creature, than that which the theological reformer is in danger of when, against the apparent meaning of God’s Word, against the unanimous judgment of Christ’s Church, he softens the emphasis of warning, and assures the incorrigible sinner that it is not, after all, so certain that he must die the second death of eternal pain and shame.
IV. Unquestionably, every Christian who understands his own heart will recognize the fact that he Sympathizes profoundly with the feeling of his brethren who from a mistaken philanthropy seek relief from the plain teachings of Scripture as to the fearful doom of the finally impenitent. To human view the conception of never-ending, hopeless sin and misery is absolutely overwhelming. If we could realize its tremendous meaning it would paralyze our minds and hearts. We think and speak of it so calmly because it is so far off and so vague that it fails to impress us as an actual reality.
There is nothing on earth more outrageously vulgar and profane than the coarse and careless shouting out of threats of damnation against heedless sinners by an orthodox ranter. When we declare the terrible judgments of our Lord against our fellow-sinners, of our own flesh and blood, who by nature are no worse than we are, we should do it tremblingly and with tears. We should remember that in all respects we deserve the same fate ourselves, and that it is only infinite undeserved grace which has made us to differ. We should seek to treat all impenitent sinners with the yearning tenderness with which our blessed Lord wept over Jerusalem, with outstretched arms and heaving breast: " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes."
V. Our appeal must be made exclusively to the Scriptures. We accept these as the infallible rule of faith because they are the very Word of God. They were designed to furnish us all the information which is needed by us, and all that God intends us to have on this subject.
We must come to the study of this Word in a teachable spirit, with a mind open to receive all that it has to convey to us, with simplicity and godly sincerity, without prejudice. What we need above all things to know is, not what we think or what other men think, ought to be, but what is, in fact, the real, plain meaning of God’s declaration on this subject. The question is not what can we, with skillful exegeti-cal management, get out of the Bible on this question by breaking up the text and bringing the stress of our strong wills to bear against the natural sense of each separate clause. The question is not, What may the several passages possibly mean in the way we wish ? but What, upon the whole and along the entire line of Scripture, did God the Holy Ghost intend us to believe; what impression did he intend to make upon us as to these stupendous subjects by the language he has chosen, by the general method in which he has conducted the argument?
1.Remember that it was "the Lamb of God," the tender and compassionate Saviour, who gave himself to die for the sins of men, who taught the most frequent and the most terrible lessons upon this subject. He addressed the common people in common language, and his representations, statements and metaphorical descriptions were of one consistent tone from the beginning to the end of his ministry, without the least variation or modification of view. They must have understood him in the common meaning of terms as then currently received. Josephus (Antiq., xviii. ch. i. 2; Bell. Jud. ii. ch. viii. 14) says that the Pharisees of that day taught that the souls of the wicked after death were consigned to an everlasting imprisonment, to be punished with eternal vengeance. Christ, therefore, knew perfectly how his hearers, holding these opinions, would understand his frequently-repeated " gehenna of fire " (Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47 ; Luke 12:5).
2.As to either the restoration or the annihilation of those who depart this life impenitent, the Scriptures say absolutely nothing. There is no single passage in the whole New Testament which indicates or suggests either of these views when frankly and reasonably interpreted. On the contrary, the ceaseless, hopeless, conscious suffering of those who die impenitent, both during the intermediate state before the resurrection and in the final state after the resurrection and judgment, is asserted over and over again in every form, in the most definite language and with the greatest emphasis possible.
(1)In the first place, it is explicitly declared that the sufferings of the wicked shall have no end: Their fire is not quenched, and shall never be quenched, and " their worm dieth not" (Mark 9:44-46). Because the fire is unquenchable (Matthew 3:12): "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night" (Revelation 14:11).
(2)In the second place, the Word of God explicitly affirms that this suffering shall last, shall endure, for ever: " The children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth " (Matthew 8:12). Jude 1:13 says the wicked " are wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." And Peter (2 Peter 2:17) says of them, "To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever." The fire (which is the metaphor expressing their torment) is declared to be " everlasting " (Matthew 25:41-46; Mark 9:43), and the wicked are declared "to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire " (Jude 1:7). It is an " eternal judgment" which comes after the resurrection of the dead (Hebrews 6:1-2). Those who obey not the gospel "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power " (2 Thessalonians 1:9); "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2).
It is never said that the " effects" of this punishment are everlasting, which might be true if that punishment were a condign annihilation of the sinner once for all. The effects would continue for ever, even although the punishment itself was inflicted in one act. But, on the contrary, the Scriptures declare that not the "effects" only are everlasting, but that " the condemnation," " the punishment," "the contempt," "the torment," "the fire," "the worm," "the chains," are everlasting, are never to cease to be. What is the sense of " everlasting" "torment," "chains," "fire," "worm," of "no rest day nor night for ever," if the sinner himself has ceased to be, or if the sinner himself has in the mean time been restored to the divine favor?
This, we assert, is the general, uniform and characteristic language of the Scriptures on this awful subject. It is the most intensely practical of all subjects, and as far removed from a merely theoretical and speculative interest as the heavens are above the earth. This is language addressed by God to plain, practical people of all classes, who would only be deceived by any subtleties of language. It is addressed to Jewish hearers and readers, who, God knew, understood this very same language in their ancient Hebrew Scriptures to mean definitely and surely this awful doctrine of endless conscious suffering, and this only.
Now, we charge you that God is always true and frank. He speaks, not to frighten, but in order to be understood. And he means what he says—just what he says. Is it not infinite blasphemy for man to dare to modify his words on such a subject? Is it not the utmost reach of human folly to attempt to erect flimsy gauze barriers to shut out the approach of the intolerable fires he declares it to be his purpose to pour out? Is it not the last refinement of cruelty to administer to bewildered sinners moral anaesthetics, assuring them of an " eternal hope," only that they may meet " the vengeance of God’s eternal fire" with drugged consciences?
3. As to the supposition that to those to whom the gospel has not been plainly offered in this life it must in justice be offered hereafter, there are two things to be said, very plain and very certain:
(1.) And first, this supposition, even if it should turn out to be true, would bring no relief to us who have had the gospel offered to us in this world. It would still remain true, what God so terribly affirms, that " if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries" (Hebrews 10:26-27.)
(2.) The second thing to be said is that the Scriptures from beginning to end do not afford any ground for this " supposition." We are told to believe in Christ now or we shall be damned. We are told to take our lives in our hands and make every sacrifice to preach the gospel to every creature in this life, in order that he may be saved. Christ promises to bless the preaching of the gospel in this world unto the end of the present age. But there is not the slightest suggestion that if men die without hearing the gospel in this life it will be preached to them in the next.
(a) It is not promised. (6) The presumptions are all against it. The circumstances of the unregenerate in the next world are all unfavorable. The world into which they pass immediately after death is everywhere and uniformly described in Scripture as a place of awards, and not of probation, and as the scene of sufferings absolutely endless, (c) The Bible always speaks of death as closing probation : "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation;" "After death comes the judgment;" "For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law" (Romans 2:12). Remember that the term " law" with Paul included the sum of all God’s revelations to men, the " gospel" as well as the moral law. The matter of the judgment is to be " the deeds done in the body." The question, as Christ puts it, is the treatment we extended to him in the persons of his disciples in this life, (d) Christ owes the unevangelized nothing, absolutely nothing. Salvation is of grace. The gift of Christ to expiate the sins of men was wholly and simply gratuitous. If God owed salvation, then expiation was a farce. If God owed salvation, then it was the height of false pretences for him to pretend that " he so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." If he did not owe it to all, he did not owe it to any. He was then absolutely free to grant it to none, or to all, or to few, or to many, as he pleases, " according to the good pleasure of his will."
Considering what we are and what Christ is, and what he, out of his infinite love, has done for us, it is the last and meanest insult that either man or devil can give, to cast in his face that his amazing self-sacrifice was the payment of a debt—that he ought to have made it—that we had a right to expect it for ourselves, and have a right to expect, independent of all promise on his part, that he will send the knowledge of it to others, either in this life or in that which is to come.
4. The Greek words and phrases in the New Testament (aion, aionios, eie ton aiona, eis tons aionas, etc.) translated " eternal," " everlasting," " for ever and ever," and applied to the never-ending sufferings of the lost, mean in the usage of the Greek language precisely what their English equivalents mean in the usage of the English language. The attempt of a class of Bible-interpreters to establish a new sense to the term " eternal" or " aionion" shows how far scholarly men, otherwise honest, may be warped by a determined bias of desire in representing the plainest and most certain and universally-known matters of fact They maintain that these terms, as used in the Bible, do not express measures of duration, but express only the quality of the things of which they are predicated.
It is a simple matter that endless duration should also carry with it, because endless, an added idea of quality. If a man believes in Christ, he has " eternal life" already abiding in him. This life is not without either beginning or end in us, but it is without beginning or end in God : it is self-originating, self-existent and inexhaustible and endless in God, from whom we receive it; and therefore it is called eternal. And in us also it will prove inexhaustible and endless.
It is simply absurd to deny that these terms originally, naturally and always mark duration, and duration corresponding to the nature of the object of which they are predicated. Applied to God, they express his infinite duration as the metaphysical eternity, without beginning, end or succession. Applied to the soul of man and his future experiences, they express the strictly everlasting, that which has beginning, but no end. Applied to the " everlasting mountains " (Habakkuk 3:6), they express the duration of mountains.
They are the very words used in the New Testament to express the eternal duration of God (Romans 1:20; 1 Timothy 1:17; Romans 16:26; Hebrews 9:14), and the endless reign of Christ (Revelation 1:18), and the unending duration of the happiness of the redeemed (Matthew 19:29; Matthew 25:46; Mark 10:30; John 3:15; John 6:57-58; Romans 2:7; 2 Corinthians 9:9), as well as the unending duration of the miseries of the lost
They always express the idea of " unending continuance." The existence of God, the glory of God, the reign of Christ, the blessedness of the saints (Galatians 1:5; Ephesians 3:21; Revelation 1:18; Revelation 4:9; Revelation 10:6; Revelation 15:7; Revelation 22:5), all continue for ever. So, of course, will the suffering of the impenitent continue for ever (Revelation 14:11; Revelation 19:3; Revelation 20:10). These terms are used to express a state of things opposed to this present life as one that passes away, that ceases to be (Luke 18:30), and they are used as synonymous with apthartos, incorruptible, immortal, that which never ceases to be (Romans 1:23; 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Corinthians 9:25; 1 Peter 1:4), and with akataluto8, indissoluble, and hence endless, enduring for ever (Hebrews 7:16).
VI. Human reason is not qualified to judge of the absolute justice or of the governmental propriety of eternal suffering as the penalty of sin.
1. In comparison with God the human intellect is very narrow in its range and imperfect in its processes.
2.In comparison with God our point of view is infinitely inferior. We see from beneath, he sees from above; we see only in part, his vision comprehends the whole sphere, and discerns all objects in their true proportions and relations. He alone can judge of the real evil of sin and of the measures proper to its punishment and restraint.
3.We are ourselves the malefactors. It is self-evident that self-interest, that moral blindness and callousness, for ever render every criminal an utterly incompetent judge of the measure of guilt attaching to his own wrong-doing. All experience proves this in criminal jurisprudence and in private life. If this be true when we judge of the heinousness of our offences against our fellow-men, how much more must it vitiate our judgments as to the heinousness of our sins against the infinitely holy God!
We are not required to assent to the abstract metaphysical dictum that every sin, being committed against an infinite God, is essentially an infinite evil and intrinsically deserves an infinite penalty. It is perfectly sufficient, in order to establish the abundant justice of eternal suffering, for us to recognize the common-sense principle that never-ending sin richly deserves never-ending punishment. Every sin continues as long as it is unrepented of. And every sin continues unless the wrong-doer not only repents, but also reforms. But sinners in hell never repent nor reform.
Even if a sinner, by a miracle, did repent and reform, it would still remain that his guilt would demand condign punishment or vicarious expiation. But in that case, on the hypothesis of a sinner’s repenting and reforming, God has never revealed to us that the guilt of his temporal sin, now repented of and reformed, deserves or would be punished with unending suffering. But that is a purely hypothetical case, which never, absolutely never, occurs. Surely a Christian who has lifted his eyes to the divine Victim upon the cross can never feel any difficulty in recognizing the perfect justice of the unending suffering of the finally impenitent. Surely, sinners who never repent nor reform, who continue in a course of never-ending sin, deserve, yes, demand imperatively from justice, never-ending punishment. The plea is now frequently offered that the stern doctrines of unending punishment are offensive to the sense of justice of an enlightened age, and are the exciting causes of a great deal of the infidelity now prevalent. This is utterly false as a fact, and as a plea is most unworthy and degrading in spirit. Infidelity has its source not in the injustice of God, but in the rebellious will and impenitent blindness of men. Men doubt about eternal punishment because they are blind to the infinite evil of sin; and they are blind to the infinite evil of sin because they have inadequate and unworthy views of the absolute holiness of God. In an age of general peace and epicurean luxury, when, in the whole sphere of human thought, the supernatural has been overcast and hidden by the natural, God appears to us "altogether such an one as ourselves." We conceive of him as confederate with us in our pleasures and as connivent with us in our sins.
What is needed to break down rebellion is not the lowering of the claims of the government. What we need to render infidelity impossible is surely not a further obscuration of the awful majesty and holiness of God. What we need to render moral evil infamous is surely not the lowering the standard either of the laws demands or its penalties. There will be no infidelity in hell, nor before its opened mouth in judgment. And there will be far less infidelity when all who speak for God in the pulpit or in the press cease from human sentiment or speculation, and conform their utterances, both in matter and form, to the frank, explicit, majestic, though terrible, utterances of God’s Word.
VII. We have in support of this doctrine also the true and genuine witness of the " Christian consciousness." The organ of this "Christian consciousness" cannot be any particular age of the Church nor any self-appointed school of Christian thinkers, no matter how cultured or self-conscious of their own superiority. The presumption is ten thousand to one that the Bible does teach that God wills the finally impenitent to suffer endlessly. The Old Testament was in the hands of the Jews centuries before Christ came. They uniformly understood these Scriptures as teaching that the wicked are to suffer for ever (Josephus, Wars, ii., ch. viii. 14; Antiq.y xviii., ch. i. 2; Philo Judaeus, i. p. 65 and p. 1391). The New Testament has been in the hands of Christians for eighteen hundred years. All the great Church fathers, Reformers and historical churches, with their recensions and translations of the sacred Scriptures, their liturgies and hymns; all the great evangelical theologians and biblical scholars, with their grammars, dictionaries, commentaries and classical systems,—have uniformly agreed in their understanding of the teaching of the sacred Scriptures as to the endlessness of the future sufferings of all who die impenitent. And this has come to pass against the universal and impetuous current of human fears and sympathies. The only exception to this unanimous judgment of the Christian Church of all ages consists of relatively a few men, who, hating this doctrine, have beforehand determined that the Bible cannot teach it, and so afterward easily persuade themselves that it does not
VIII. Heaven ! Of heaven, the final home of Christ and his people and of the eternal rewards of well-doing, we are told far more in the Scriptures than we are told of the final punishment of the wicked. The facts are no surer, but the details are much clearer. And yet we do not need to say much on the subject. There is prevalent no prejudice against the doctrine of heaven, as there is in this day against that of hell—no array of objections to the Church doctrine to be refuted. It is sufficient for Christians that, with the Bible in their hands, they set their affections on things above, and seek, through grace and the diligent observance of all means and duties, to grow constantly in meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. The main points embraced within our present knowledge can easily be stated.
1. Heaven, as a place, is where Christ, the God-man, is. Heaven, as a state, is one of intimate knowledge of him and of the whole Godhead in him, and of fellowship with him. Although we shall be perfectly holy and confirmed in grace, so that we shall never more be liable to sin, nevertheless the atoning, sin-expiating blood of Christ will for ever be the only foundation of our claim and our only plea for life or blessedness. It will always be our " purchased possession." As Christ is inexhaustible, so heaven is inexhaustible. There is room and verge for every capacity, for every idiosyncrasy, and indefinite progress in all directions through the eternal ages.
2.Heaven, as the supreme centre of divine revelations and communications through Christ, must pre-eminently bear the characteristics of God. It will be absolutely pure, majestic, holy, noble in all its elements and characteristics. Everything that is impure and that defileth will be excluded. Its inhabitants will all be arrayed in linen fine and white which has been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Everything, therefore, that encompasses our life on earth, which is narrow, dark, selfish, petty, ungenerous, untrue, unclean, must be faithfully cut away at every cost. There can absolutely be no compromise between light and darkness—between the candidate for heaven and the spirit and fashion of this world.
3.Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and of all the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions and activities. Its joys and its occupations must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary and active. There must be the exercise of all faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all latent capacities, the realization of all ideals. The reason, the intellectual curiosity, the imagination, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human soul, must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction. Then there must always be a goal of endeavor before us, ever future. It will never be said there that we have already attained or have already finished, but, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before, we will press toward the ever-advancing mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Ever upward and onward the pathway of the redeemed and glorified will always be, with Christ God ward.
4.The constitution of heaven will be related not only to human nature, redeemed and glorified, but also to angelic nature in all its grades and orders. Christ and the commonwealth of his redeemed kindred after the flesh will be central. But with us all holy intelligences in all their infinite varieties of rank and gifts and functions will be comprehended. Heaven will prove the consummate flower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe. Every sun and all the stars will send tribute. All nations and generations of mankind, all varieties of rational spirits, all angels and archangels, all cherubim and seraphim, will send representatives. For this is the mystery of God’s will according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together, under one Head, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him (Ephesians 1:9-10).
5.Although heaven can only be entered by the holy, yet such, we are assured, is the infinite provision made for human salvation, and such the intense love for human sinners therein exhibited, that the multitude of the redeemed will be incomparably greater than the number of the lost. My father, at the close of his long life spent in the defence of Calvinism, wrote on one of his conference papers, in trembling characters, a little while before he died, "I am fully persuaded that the vast majority of the human race will share in the beatitudes and glories of our Lord’s redemption." Remember that all who die before complete moral agency have been given to Christ. Remember that the vast populations of the coming millenniums are given to Christ. Then shall the promises of Christ to the great Father of the faithful be fulfilled to the letter: " Thy seed shall be like the sands of the sea-shore;" " Thy seed shall be like the stars of heaven for multitude," and recollect that when God made this promise, while Abraham saw only with the naked eye, God took in far more than even the telescopic heavens in magnitude.
6. While heaven is thus infinitely comprehensive, and all the more blessed because it is so, yet each individual, however humble and useless, will have his special individual place prepared expressly for himself. Every glorified body will be articulated to the idiosyncrasies of each individual soul. Every glorified person will be exactly adjusted to his personal friends, associations, relations and personal work. Paul said of Christ in his personal relation to himself, u Who loved me, and gave himself for me," We will never, not the least one of us, be lost in the crowd. Our infinite-sided Saviour will have his special recognition, his special communion and his special tokens of love for each of us. We will all be exalted by being parts of an infinite whole. But we will none of us be lost in the mass. Each will retain his personal value, and in Christ his private life. "To him that overcometh will I give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it" (Revelation 2:17). And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me congratulate you. You have exercised great patience of faith in holding out through these trying Lectures to the end. The end is now come when you, having finished the course, may rest from your labors. We shall not meet together here any more. Let us pledge one another, as we part, to reassemble in heaven. We are now parting from one another, as pilgrims part upon the road. Let us turn our steps homeward, for if we do we shall soon—some of us now very soon—"be at home with the Lord." Adieu! *
* So ended the first course of Lectures delivered by Dr. Hodge in Philadelphia, Tuesday, May 30, 1886. The propriety of leaving this conclusion unchanged is obvious. How sadly the words were verified!