Produced by Keith G. Richardson




The Blessed Dead.



THE STATE

OF THE

BLESSED DEAD.

By

HENRY ALFORD, D. D.,

DEAN OF CANTERBURY.

LONDON:

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXIX.



_The following Discourses were delivered in Canterbury Cathedral
during Advent,_ 1868, _and appeared in the_ "Pulpit Analyst," 1869.



The State of the Blessed Dead.

I.

I HAVE already announced that during this Advent season I would call
your attention to the state of the blessed dead. My object in so doing
is simply that we may recall to ourselves that which Scripture has
revealed respecting them, for our edification, and for our personal
comfort. And I would guard that which will be said by one or two
preliminary observations.

With Death as an object of terror, with Death from the mere moralist's
point of view, as the termination of human schemes and hopes, we
Christians have nothing to do. We are believers in and servants of One
who has in these senses abolished Death. Our schemes and hopes are not
terminated by Death, but reach onward into a state beyond it.

Again, with that state beyond, except as one of blessedness purchased
for us by the Son of God, I am not at present dealing. It is of those
that die in the Lord alone that I speak.

And this being so, it is clear that the first point about them
demanding our attention is, the very commencement of their state at
the moment of death. And this will form our subject to-day.

We shall be guided in its consideration by two texts of Holy
Scripture. The one is that where Our Lord answers the prayer of the
dying thief that He would remember him when He came into His kingdom,
Luke xxiii. 43: "VERILY I SAY UNTO THEE, TO-DAY SHALT THOU BE WITH ME
IN PARADISE."

And the other is an expression of St. Paul, Phil. i. 23, not
improbably taken from those very words recorded in the gospel of that
evangelist who was his companion in travel--"TO DEPART AND TO BE WITH
CHRIST."

Now in both these one fact is simply declared, viz.: that the departed
spirit of the faithful man is WITH CHRIST. It is as if one bright
light were lifted for us in the midst of a realm brooded over by
impenetrable mist. For who knows whither the departed spirit has
betaken itself when it has left us here? One of the most painful pangs
in bereavement by death is the utter and absolute severance, without a
spark of intelligence of the departed. One hour, life is blest by
their presence; the next, it is entirely and for ever gone from us,
never to be heard of more. One word, one utterance--how precious in
that moment of anguish do we feel that it would be! But we are certain
it never will be granted us. None has ever come back who has told the
story. Where the spirit wakes and finds itself,--this none has ever
declared to us; nor shall we know until our own turn comes. Now in
such a state of uncertainty, these texts speak for us a certain truth:
The departed spirit is WITH CHRIST.

I shall regard this revelation negatively and positively: as to what
it disproves, and as to what it implies.

First, then, it disproves the idea of the spirit passing at death into
a state of unconsciousness, from which it is to wake only at the great
day of the resurrection. If it is to be with Christ, this cannot be.
Christ is in no such state of unconsciousness; He has entered into His
rest, and is waiting till all things shall be put under His feet; and
it would be a mere delusion to say of the blessed dead, that they
shall be with Christ, if they were to be virtually annihilated during
this time that Christ is waiting for His kingdom. Besides, how then
would the Lord's promise to the thief be fulfilled? What consolation
would it have been to him, what answer to his prayer, to be remembered
when Jesus came in His kingdom, if these words implied that he should
be unconsciously sleeping while the Lord was enjoying his triumph?
Therefore we may safely say, that the so-called "sleep of the soul,"
from the act of death till the resurrection, has no foundation in that
which is revealed to us.

It is perfectly true, that the state of the departed is described to
us as "sleeping in Jesus," or rather, for the words are a
misrendering, a having fallen asleep _through_, or _by means of
Jesus_. But our texts are enough to show us, that we must not take
such an expression for more than it really implies. Sleeping, or
falling asleep, was a name current among Jews and Christians, and even
among the best of the heathens, for death, implying its peace and
rest, implying also that it should be followed by a waking: but
apparently with no intent to convey any idea of unconsciousness. It is
a term used with reference to us, as well as to the dead. To us, they
are as if they were asleep: removed from us in consciousness, as in
presence. The idea also of _taking rest_ tended to make this term
appropriate. But it must not be used to prove that to which it
evidently had no reference.

The spirit, then, of the departed does not pass into unconsciousness.
What more do we know of it? It is WITH JESUS.

We have now to consider what this implies. And in doing so we shall
have further to make certain that which we think we have already
proved. For first, it clearly implies more than a mere expression of
safe-keeping, or reserve for a future state of blessedness. "The
righteous souls are in the hand of God, and there shall no harm happen
to them." This is one thing: but to be with Christ is another. We
might again appeal to the spirit of the promise made to the penitent
thief, in order to show this: we might remind you that in the other
text, St. Paul is comparing the two states--life in the midst of his
children in the faith, and death; and he says, "I have a desire to
depart and to be with Christ, which is far better:" better than being
with you, my Philippians.

So that more must be meant than mere safe keeping in the Redeemer's
hands. We may surely say, that nothing less than conscious existence
in the presence of Christ can be intended. And if that is intended,
then very much more is intended also, than those words at first seem
to imply. Remember the contrast which this same Apostle elsewhere
draws. "We know," he says, "that while we are present in the body, we
are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by appearance: we
are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the
Lord." That is, if we follow out the thought, this present state of
dwelling in our home the body is a state of severance from the Lord;
but there is a better state, into which we shall be introduced when
this house of the body is pulled down: and from the context in that
place we may add, much as we wish to be clothed upon with our new and
glorious body which is from heaven, yet even short of that, we have
learned to prefer being simply unclothed from the body, because thus
we shall be present with the Lord.

So that we may safely assume thus much, my brethren: that the moment a
Christian's spirit is released from the body, it does enter into the
presence of our Blessed Lord and Saviour, in a way of which it knows
nothing here: a way which, compared to all that its previous faith
could know of Him, is like presence of friends compared to absence.

Now let us take another remarkable passage of Holy Writ bearing on
this same matter. St. John, in his first Epistle says, "Beloved, now
are we children of God, and it never yet was manifested what we shall
be; but if it should be manifested, we know that we shall be like Him:
for we shall see Him as He is:" for this is the more accurate
rendering of the words: meaning, if any one could come back, or come
down, to us, and tell us what our future state is to be, the
information could amount for us now only to this, that we shall be
like Him, like Christ; because we shall see Him as He is. And in
treating these words at considerable length last year, I pressed it on
you that this concluding sentence might bear two meanings: either, we
shall be like Him, _because in order to see Him as He is, we_ MUST _be
like Him;_ or, _we shall be like Him, because the sight of Him as He
is will change us into His perfect likeness_. For, our present
purpose, or indeed for any purpose, it matters little which of these
meanings we take. At any rate, we have gained this knowledge from St.
John's words, that the sight of the Blessed Lord which will be enjoyed
by the Christian's spirit on its release from the body, will be
accompanied by being also perfectly like Him.

Now, here, my brethren, are the elements of an immediate change,
blessed and joyous beyond our conception. Let us spend the rest of our
time to-day in dwelling upon it.

And I will not now insist on the deliverance of the spirit from the
infirmity, or pain, or decay of the body; because this is not so in
all cases. Many a Christian's spirit is set free from a body in
perfect vigour and health. Let us take nothing but what is common to
all who believe in and serve the Lord. Now what is our present state
with reference to Him whom all Christians love? It is, absence. And it
is absence aggravated in a way that earthly absence never is. For not
only have we never seen Him, which is a case perfectly imaginable in
earthly relations, but also, which hardly is, we have no absolute
proof of His existence, nor of His mind towards us. Even as far as
this, is matter of faith and not of appearance. We have no token, no
communication, from Him. I suppose there hardly ever was a Christian
yet, living under the present dispensation, entirely dependent upon
his faith, who has not at some time or other had the dreadful thought
cross his mind--overborne by his faith, but still not wholly
extinguished, "What if it should not be true after all?" And much and
successfully as we may contend with these misgivings of unbelief, yet
that frame of mind which is represented by them, that wavering,
fitful, unsteady faith, ever accompanies us. The distress arising from
it is known to every one who has the Christian life in him. Only those
never doubt who have never believed: for doubt is of the very essence
of belief. But some poor souls are utterly cast down by the fact of
its existence--shrink from these half-doubting fits as of themselves
deadly sin, and are in continual terror about their soul's safety on
this account: others, of stronger minds, regard them truly as
inevitable accompaniments of present human weakness, but of course
struggle with them, and evermore yearn to be rid of them.

Now if what we have been saying be true,--and I have endeavoured not
to go beyond the soberest inferences from the plain language of
Scripture,--if so much be true, then the moment of departure from the
body puts an end for ever to this imperfect, struggling, fitful state
of faith and doubt. The spirit that is but a moment gone, that has
left that well-known, familiar tabernacle of the body a sudden wreck
of inanimate matter, that spirit is with the Lord. All doubt, all
misgiving, is at an end. Every wave raised by this world's storms,
this world's currents of interest, this world's rocks and shallows, is
suddenly laid, and there is a great calm. Certainty, for doubt--the
sight of the Lord, for the conflict of assurance and misgiving--the
face of Christ, for the mere faith in Christ--these have succeeded,
because the departed spirit is "with the Lord"--companying with Him.

Before we follow this out farther, let us carefully draw one great
distinction. We must not make the too common mistake of confusing this
sight of the Lord which immediately follows on the act of death, with
that complete state of the glorified Christian man, of which we shall
have to speak in a subsequent sermon. Though greater than our thoughts
can now conceive, the bliss of which we are speaking to-day is
incomplete. The spirit which has been set free from the body is alone,
and without a body. This is not the complete state of man. It is a
state to us full of mystery--inconceivable in detail, though easily
apprehended as a whole. We must take care, in what we have further to
say, that this is fully borne in mind. And, bearing it in mind, let us
proceed.

This sight of Christ, this calm of full unbroken assurance of His
nearness and presence, what does it further imply? As far as we can at
present see, certainly as much as this. First, the entire absence of
evil from the spirit. It would be impossible to be with Christ in any
such sense, unless there were entire agreement in will and desire with
Him. It would be impossible thus to see Him as He is, without being
like Him.

Let us imagine, if we can, the effect of the total extinction of evil
in any one of our minds. How many energies, now tied and bound with
the chain of sin, would spring upward into action! How many imprisoned
yearnings would burst their bonds, and carry us onward to higher
degrees of good! And all these energies, all these yearnings, can
exist in the disembodied spirit. It is in a waiting, a hoping state:
the greater the upward yearnings, the greater the accumulated energies
for God and His work, the higher will be the measure of glory to be
attained after the redemption of the body, and the completion of the
entire man.

Well--as another consequence, following close on the last, all
_conflict_, from that same moment, is at an end. Conflict is ordained
for us, is good for us, now. If it were to cease here below, we should
fall back. We have not entered into rest, it would not be good for us
to enter into rest, in our present state. Here, this little platform,
so to speak, of our personality, is drawn two ways, downward and
upward: and it is for us who stand thereon, to keep watch and ward
that the downward prevail not; but from that moment, the dark links of
the downward chain will have been for ever severed, and the golden
cord that is let down from the Throne will bear us upward and onward,
unopposed. So that as to conflict, there will be perfect rest.

And let us remember another matter. If the departed spirit were during
this time dwelling on its own unworthiness, casting back looks of
self-reproach, weighing accurately God's mercies and its own requitals
during life past, there would of necessity be conflict: there would be
bitter self-loathing, there would be pangs of repentance. It would
seem, then, that during the incomplete and disembodied state, this is
not so; but that all of this kind is reserved for a day when account
is to be given in the body of things done in the body: and we shall
see, when we come to treat of that day specially, how its account will
be, for the blessed dead, itself made a blessing.

Again, as all evil will be at an end, and all conflict,--so will all
labour, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the
Spirit, for they rest from their labours." Now labour here is a
blessing, it is true: but it is also a weariness. It leads ever on to
a greater blessing, the blessing of rest. Christ has entered into His
rest; and the departed spirit shall be with Christ: faring as He
fares, and a partaker of His condition. Any who have lived the
ordinary term of human life in God's service (for it is only of such
that we are now speaking) can testify how sweet it is to anticipate a
cessation of the toil and the harassing of life: to be looking on to
keep the great Sabbath of the rest reserved for the people of God.
What more may be reserved for us in the glorious perfect state which
shall follow the resurrection, is another consideration altogether:
but it clearly appears that the intermediate disembodied state is one
of rest.

And let none cavil at the thought, that thus Adam may have rested his
thousands of years, and the last taken of Adam's children only a few
moments. Time is only a relative term, even to us. A dream of years
long may pass during the sound that awakens a man; and a sleep of
hours appears but a second. What do we know of time, except as
calculated by earthly objects? Day and night, the recurrence of
meals,--these constitute time to us: shut up a man in darkness, and
administer his food at irregular intervals, and he loses all count of
time whatever. Surely, then, no cavil on this score can be admitted.
In that presence where the departed spirits are, one day is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Let us conclude with a consideration, to a Christian the most glorious
of all. The spirit that is with Christ in nearest presence and
consciousness, knows Him as none know Him here. Here, we speak of His
purity, His righteousness, His love, His triumph and glory, with
miserably imperfect thoughts, and in words still more imperfect than
our thoughts. We are obliged to employ earthly images to set forth
heavenly things. The revelations of Scripture itself are made through
a medium of man's invention, and are bounded by our limited
vocabulary. But then it will be so no longer. The Apostle compares our
seeing _here_ to that of one who beholds the face of his friend in a
mirror of metal, sure to be tarnished and distorting: and our vision
_there_ to beholding the same face to face,--the living features, the
lips that move, the eyes that glisten. That spirit which has but now
passed away, knows the love that passes our knowledge; contemplates
things which God has prepared for them that love Him, such as eye has
never seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man
to conceive.

Therefore, beloved, let us be of good cheer concerning them that have
fallen asleep through Jesus: and let us be of good cheer respecting
ourselves. Good as it is to obey and serve God here, it has been far
better for them to depart and to be with Christ; and it will be far
better for us, if we hold fast our faith and our confidence in Him
firm unto the end. If to us to live is Christ, then to us to die will
be gain.



II.

WE stand to-day at this point in our consideration of the state of the
blessed dead. They depart, and are with Christ. "This day," the day of
the departure, they are consciously, blissfully, in His presence.
Their faith is turned into sight: their misgivings are changed for
certainty: their mourning for joy. Yet, we said, their state is
necessarily imperfect. The complete condition of man is body, soul,
and spirit. The former of these three, at all events, is wanting to
the spirits and souls of the righteous. They are in a waiting, though
in an inconceivably blissful state. Of the precise nature of that
state,--of its employments, if employments it has, we know nothing.
All would be speculation, if we were to speak of these matters.

Our concern to-day is with the termination of that their incomplete
condition. When shall it come to an end? We have this very definitely
answered for us by St. Paul, in a chapter of which we shall have much
to say, and in a verse of that chapter which we will take for our
text, 1 Cor. xv. 23. Notice, he is speaking of the resurrection of the
dead: and he says, "BUT EVERY ONE IN HIS OWN ORDER: CHRIST THE
FIRST-FRUITS: AFTERWARD THEY THAT ARE CHRIST'S AT HIS COMING."

Well then: from these words it is clear that the end of the expectant
state of the blessed dead, and the reunion of their spirits with their
risen bodies, will take place AT THE COMING OF CHRIST. Here at once we
are met by a necessity to clear and explain that which these words
import. In these days, it is by no means superfluous to say that we
Christians do look forward to a real personal coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ upon this our earth. I sometimes wonder whether ordinary
Christian men and women ever figure to themselves what this means. I
suppose we hardly do, because we fancy it is so far off from ourselves
and our times, that we do not feel ourselves called upon to make it a
subject of our practical thoughts. To this we might say, first, that
we are by no means sure of this; and then, that even if it were true,
the interest of that time of His coming for every one of us is hardly
lessened by its not being near us, seeing that if we be His, it will
be, whenever it comes, the day of our resurrection from the dead. It
is evidently the duty of every Christian man to make it part of his
ordinary thoughts and anticipations--that return of the Lord Jesus
from heaven, even as He was seen to go up into heaven. Now, our object
to-day is to ascertain how much we know from Scripture, without
indulging in speculations of our own, about this coming, and this
resurrection which shall accompany it. The latter of these two we made
the subject of a sermon a very few Sundays ago; but it was not so much
with our present view, as to lay down the hope of the resurrection as
an element among the foundations of the Christian life.

Now one of the first and most important revelations respecting this
matter is found in the fourth chapter of 1 Thess., ver. 13-18. These
Thessalonians had been, as we learn from the two epistles to them,
strangely excited about the coming of the Lord's kingdom. Perhaps the
Apostle's preaching among them had taken especially this form; for he
was accused before the magistrates of saying that there was besides or
superior to Caesar another king, one Jesus. And in this excitement of
the Thessalonians, fancying as they did that the Lord's kingdom would
come in their own time, they thought that their friends who through
Jesus had died a happy death were losers by not having lived to
witness the Lord's coming. Indeed, they sorrowed for them as those
that had no hope: by which expression it seems likely that they even
supposed them to be altogether cut off from the benefits and
blessedness of that coming by not having been able to see it in the
flesh. Thereupon St. Paul puts them right by saying,--using the same
argument as in that great resurrection chapter, 1 Cor. xv.,--that "_if
we believe that Jesus Himself died and rose again, even so also those
who through Jesus have fallen asleep will God bring with Him_," that
is, will God bring back to us when He brings back to us Jesus.

You may just observe, by the way, that the whole force of what the
Apostle says is very commonly lost, by a wrong method of reading these
words. We very commonly hear them read, "will God bring _with_ him."
But thus we, as I said, lose the force of the argument, which is:--If
Jesus, our first-fruits, our representative, died and rose again, so
will all who die in union with Jesus rise again. And in order to that,
the same power of God which brings Jesus back to us, will with Him,
with Jesus, bring their spirits back, in order to that resurrection.

Well, what then? "_This we say unto you by the word of the
Lord_"--thus the Apostle introduces, not an argument, not a command or
saying of his own, but a special revelation--"_that we, which are
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord_" (for notice that at
first, at the early time when these Thessalonian epistles were
written, first of all St. Paul's letters, the Apostle looked forward
to that day of which neither man nor angel knoweth, as about to come
on in his own time) shall have no advantage, no priority, over them
which have fallen asleep. And why? For this reason--that "_the Lord
Himself shall come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall
rise first:_" that is, shall rise before anything else happens--any
changing, or summoning to the Lord, of us who are alive.

Now here let us pause in the sacred text, and consider what it is
which we have before us. Mind, we are speaking to-day, as the Apostle
is speaking in this passage, entirely of the blessed dead; of those
of whom it may be said that through Jesus their death is but a
holy sleep. We have clearly this before us:--at a certain time,
fixed in the counsels of God, the Father, known to no created
being,--mysteriously unknown also, for He Himself assures us of this
in words which no ingenuity can explain away, to the Son Himself in
His state of waiting for it,--at that fixed time the Lord, that is,
Christ, shall appear in the sky, visible to men in His glorified body;
and His coming shall be announced to men by a mighty call, a signal
cry, and by the trumpet of God.

Now let me at once say that as to such expressions as this, when we
are told that they cannot bear their literal meaning, but are only
used in condescension to our human ways of speaking, and thus an
attempt is made to deprive them in fact of all meaning, I do not
recognise any such rule of interpretation. If the _words_ are used to
suit our human ways of thinking, I can see no reason why the _things
signified_ by those words may not also be used to affect our senses,
which will be still human, when the great day comes. As to the sound
being heard by all, or as to the Lord being seen by all, I can with
safety leave that to Him who made the eye and the ear, and believe
that if He says so, He will find the way for it to be so.

Now let us follow on with the description. With the Lord Jesus,
accompanying Him, though unseen to those below on the earth, will be
the myriads of spirits of the blessed dead, And notice,--for it is an
important point, since Holy Scripture is consistent with itself in
another place on this matter,--that at this coming none are with the
Lord, no spirits of the departed, I mean, except those of the blessed
dead. In other words, this is not the general coming to judgment, when
the whole of the dead shall stand before God, but it is that first
resurrection of which the Evangelist speaks in the Apocalypse, when he
says, chap. xx. 5, "_The rest of the dead lived not again until_ (a
prescribed time which he mentions, whatever that may mean) _the
thousand years were finished This is the first resurrection. Blessed
and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the
second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ_."

Then, the Lord being still descending from heaven and on the way to
this world, the dead in Christ shall rise first--the first thing: the
graves shall be opened, and the bodies of the saints that sleep shall
come forth, and, for so the words surely imply, their spirits, which
have come with the Lord, shall be united to those bodies, each to his
own.

Here, again, I can see no difficulty. The same body, even to us now on
earth, does not imply that the same particles compose it. And even the
expression "the same body" is perhaps a fallacious one. In St. Paul's
great argument on this subject in 1 Cor. xv. he expressly tells us,
that it is not that body which was sown in the earth, but a new and
glorified one, even as the beautiful plant, which springs from the
insignificant or the ill-favoured seed, is not that which was sown,
but a body which God has given. Whatever the bodies shall be, they
will be recognised as those befitting the spirits which are reunited
to them, as they also befit the new and glorious state into which they
are now entering.

This done, they who are alive and remain on earth, having been, which
is not asserted here, but is in 1 Cor. xv., changed so as to be in the
image of the incorruptible, spiritual, heavenly, will be caught up
together with the risen saints in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:
to _meet_ Him, because He is in His way from heaven to earth, on which
He is about to stand in that latter day.

Thus, then, the words which I have chosen for my text will have their
fulfilment. Christ has been the first-fruits of this great
harvest,--already risen, the first-born from the dead, the example and
pattern of that which all His shall be. This was His order, His place
in the great procession from death into life; and between Him and His,
the space, indefinite to our eyes, is fixed and determined in the
counsels of God. The day of His coming hastens onward. While men are
speculating and questioning, God's purpose remains fixed. He is not
slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness. His
dealings with the world are on too large a scale for us to be able to
measure them, but in them the golden rule is kept, every one in his
own order. Christ's part has been fulfilled. He was seen alive in His
resurrection body; He was seen taking up that body from earth to
heaven. And now we are waiting for the next great event, His coming.
Wisely has the Church set apart a season in every year in which this
subject may be uppermost in our thoughts. For there is nothing we are
so apt--nothing, we may say, that our whole race is so determined to
forget and put out of sight. It is alien from our common ideas, it ill
suits our settled notions, that the personal appearing of Him in whom
we believe should break in upon the natural sequence of things in
which we are concerned. And the consequence is, that you will hardly
find, even among believing men, more than one here and there who at
all realizes to himself, or has any vivid expectation of, this
personal coming of Christ. Think of the Christian Church as taking its
faith and hope from the New Testament; and then compare that faith and
hope, as it actually exists with reference to this point, with the New
Testament,--and the discrepancy is most remarkable. In the days when
it was written, eighteen hundred years ago, every eye was fixed on,
every man's thought was busy about, the coming of the Lord. You will
hardly find a chapter in the epistles in which it is not spoken of, or
alluded to, with earnest anticipation and confidence. Whereas now,
when it is brought so much nearer to us, it has almost vanished out of
the consideration of the Church altogether. No doubt, something may be
said by way of reason why it should occupy a less prominent place in
our thoughts than it did in theirs. The Lord's own words, and those of
the Divinely-commissioned messengers who announced His return, spoke
of it simply as certain, without any note of time being attached.
Hence, those who had seen Him depart believed that they themselves
should behold Him returning. There can be no doubt in any fair-judging
mind that, besides these eye-witnesses, St. Paul, when he wrote that
fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, had a full
persuasion that he himself should be of those on whom the house not
made with hands that is to be brought from heaven was to be put,
without his being unclothed from the earthly tabernacle. He looked at
such unclothing in his own case as possible, but was confident that it
would not happen so. And again, when, in the over-zeal of the
Thessalonians, they imagined that the coming of the Lord was actually
upon them, and he in his second Epistle checks and sets right that
premature assumption, he does so in words which, as he wrote them,
might very well have had all their fulfilment within the lifetime of
man. Those words now appear to us in more of the true sense in which
the Spirit, who spoke by Paul, intended them: we see that the apostasy
there predicted, and the man of sin there set down as to be revealed,
are great developments or concentrations of the unbelief of churches
and nations; but there is no evidence that the men of that day saw any
such meaning in the words. As it was gradually, and not without
conflict of thought, revealed to Peter and his side of the apostolic
band, that the Gentiles were to be fellow-heirs and partakers of the
peace of Christ, so it was gradually, and not without some sickness of
hope deferred, made manifest to the Church, that the coming of the
Lord should be for ages and generations delayed. Unmistakable
indications of this truth appear in the Lord's own prophetic
discourses, which we now know how to interpret.

And all this is no doubt a reason why the great subject should be less
constantly and less vividly before our minds, than it was before
theirs. But it is no reason why it should have dropped out altogether;
none, why we should almost universally neglect the revelations of
Scripture respecting the manner and details of His coming, and confuse
them altogether in a vague popular idea of the judgment day; none, why
we should forget the mention of the landmarks which He Himself has
pointed out along the wilderness journey of His Church,--and so, as
far as in us lies, provide for her being unprepared when He appears.

The end of the state of waiting of the blessed dead, the end of our
present state of waiting will be, that day of His appearing. Let us
fix this well in our minds; and do not let us be kept from doing so by
being told that there is danger in allowing the fancy to exercise
itself on the unfulfilled prophecies. No doubt there is. But I am not
exhorting you to exercise your fancy on them. Faith and fancy are two
wholly distinct things. To my mind, there can be hardly anything more
detrimental to the faith of the Church, than always to be fitting
together history and prophecy, magnifying insignificant present or
past events into fulfilments of prophetic announcements. They who do
this are for ever being refuted by the course of things; and then they
shift their ground, and come out as confidently with a new scheme, as
they did before with their old one. Nothing can more tend to throw
discredit on God's prophetic word altogether; and it is no doubt in
part owing to such speculations, that faith in the Lord's coming has
become weakened among us. He Himself has told us the great use of His
announcements of the future. "_These things have I told you, that,
when the time is come, ye may remember that I told you of them_." When
and as each prophecy comes to its time to be fulfilled, just as the
years of the captivity predicted by Jeremiah were interpreted by the
Church in Babylon, so the Lord's predictions, and the predictions of
His apostles, will fall each into its place; and the Church, if she
endure in faith and watchfulness, will stand on her look-out, and be
prepared for the sign of His coming.

Let us, my brethren, with regard to those who have left us in the
Lord,--let us, with regard to ourselves and our own future, be ever
looking for and hasting to that day of God; the day when that better
thing which God hath provided for us shall be manifested, and they
with us shall be complete, who without us were not perfect.

And let us not be discouraged by unpromising signs, or by prevalent
unbelief. Remember what our Master has said to us in the services of
this day, "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not
pass away."



III.

WE have traced the condition of the blessed dead, from their departure
and being with Christ, to the glorious day of the resurrection. Their
spirits are safe in His keeping, till that day when He shall call
their bodies out of the graves, and they shall be once more complete
in manhood, body, soul, and spirit. And our present consideration is,
What, on that resurrection, is the next thing which shall befall them?
Now the best, because the most general text on this matter, is that in
Heb. ix. 27, "IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN ONCE TO DIE, BUT AFTER THIS,
THE JUDGMENT."

You will see that here is enounced something common to our nature. We
are all to die; we are all to be judged after death. And that this is
really true of all, and not merely stated generally, to be met
afterwards by special exceptions, St. Paul shows, when he, speaking of
things belonging entirely to his own practice, and his own
justification before God, says, in 1 Cor. v., "We labour, that whether
present in the body or absent from the body, we may be accepted with
Him. _For we must all be made manifest_ (there is nothing about
_standing_ in the original) _before the judgment seat of Christ, that
every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that
which he did, whether it be good or bad_." You will see that here he
expressly includes himself among those who are to be made manifest
before the judgment seat of Christ.

Now perhaps you are wondering why I am accumulating this Scripture
evidence to show a matter which seems to all so plain. But I have a
sufficient reason. And that reason is, because in other passages of
Scripture the blessed dead, or rather the believers in Christ, whether
living or dead at that day, are spoken of as if they were not
subjected to the general judgment of all, but passed into the glorious
life without undergoing that judgment. Thus our Blessed Lord Himself;
in John v. 24, says, "_Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth
My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and
cometh not into judgment_" (for that, and not "_condemnation_," is the
word used by our Lord),--"_cometh not into judgment, but hath passed
out of death into life_." That would seem to mean that the faithful
man has already passed over out of death, and all that belongs to
death, sin, and guilt, and judgment, into life; and therefore when the
judgment comes he can have no part in it, cannot come into it at all,
because he is acquitted already through the faith in Him who bore his
guilt and took away his sin. And similarly, again, a few verses
further on, ver. 29, our Lord says, "_An hour cometh in which all that
are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall
come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life;
and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment_." That
is, I suppose, the one shall rise into eternal life,--into the full
bliss of the heavenly state, and the others into the condition,
whatever it be, which the judgment shall decide. Of course I am fully
aware that I have not quoted these texts as they are read in our
English Bibles. The matter stands thus: the word which I have rendered
"_judgment_" is the word always meaning judgment--the word occurring
in the very next verse where our Lord says, "_As I hear, I judge, and
My_ judgment _is just;_" the word used also above in ver. 22, where He
says, "_The Father committed all_ judgment _unto the Son_." In those
two places, because there was no difficulty, our translators kept the
word "_judgment_." But in these other two which I have quoted, because
there was an apparent difficulty, they changed "_judgment_" in one
verse into "_condemnation_," and in the other into "_damnation_,"
without any reason or right soever. Indeed, in the latter of the two
passages, not only is this so, but the whole sense is broken up by
their unfaithfulness. Our Lord having mentioned the resurrection of
judgment, proceeds to vindicate the justice of that judgment: "_As I
hear, I judge: and My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own
will, but the will of Him that sent Me_." So that the difficulty,
which man's meddling with the Bible has tried to remove, does exist in
the Bible as it came from God. And we must try to see through it, not
to hush it up by being unfaithful to the plain language of our Lord.

Nor does it exist here only. Our Lord Himself has given us one great
description of the final day of judgment, in His own discourses; and
another by the pen of His beloved apostle. We will take the latter
first, as being, for our present purpose, the fuller of the two: and
we will show in what remarkable point the two agree. In Rev. xx. 4, a
passage to which we made reference last Sunday, we find the first
resurrection taking place, and the faithful dead rising to reign with
Christ during a period known as a thousand years. And it is expressly
said, "_The rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were
finished_." Now, I am not here taking upon me to explain the meaning
of this, but merely to insist on the fact that, whatever may be the
precise import, it is so stated. Well, and what then? When the
thousand years are expired, and when the last great victory of the
cause of God over evil has been gained, then we read, "_And I saw a
great white throne, and Him that sat on it; and I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another
book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged
out of those things which were written in the books, according to
their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death
and Hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged
every man according to his works_." So far the description in the
Revelation. Now, in that given us by our Lord in Matt. xxv. we find
the Son of man coming in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him,
and sitting on the throne of His glory, and all the nations gathered
before Him. But there is this singular coincidence with the other
account, that when the King comes to address those on the right hand
and those on the left, He says, "_Inasmuch as ye did it_ (or _did it
not_) _unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it_ (or _did
it not_) _unto Me_." Now "_these My brethren_" cannot of course mean
the angels; therefore there must be some with Christ to whom the words
must refer. In other words, we have here also the risen saints in
glory with the Lord, as in that other account.

But we may go even further yet, and may discover more from Scripture
respecting the position and employment of these the saints who are
with the Lord. When St. Paul in 1 Cor. vi. is dissuading the
Corinthians from taking their disputes before the heathen courts to be
settled, he says, "_Know ye not that the saints shall judge the
world?_" and again, "_Know ye not that we shall judge angels?_" Such
expressions as these can bear but one meaning, and that is that the
saints of Christ are actually to bear part in the judgment, as His
assessors. Further than this we now not. It is not our duty to be wise
above that which is written; but it is our duty to be wise up to that
which is written: otherwise it was written in vain. What, then, are we
to say respecting this apparent discrepancy in the statements of Holy
Scripture concerning the dead in Christ? If it be true that it is
appointed unto all men once to die, but after that the judgment; if it
be true that we all, including even the apostles themselves, shall be
manifested, laid open, before the judgment-seat of Christ, how can it
be also true that the believer in Christ has already passed from death
into life, and therefore cometh not into judgment at all? How can it
be true that while others shall rise to a resurrection of judgment, he
shall rise to a resurrection of life? How can those descriptions be
correct which we have been quoting, of these living and reigning with
Christ long before the general judgment, and even taking part in it
with Him?

I believe the answer is not difficult, and perhaps may best be found
by remembering another variety of expression in Scripture respecting a
kindred matter; I mean the way in which the saints of God are spoken
of in relation to death itself. On the one hand we know that it is
appointed unto all men to die; and that the faith and service of the
Lord bring with them no exemption from the common lot of all mankind.
Not only is this proved every day before our eyes, but Scripture gives
us its most direct testimony that those who believe in Christ must
expect it. The very expressions, "_the dead in Christ_," "_those who
through Jesus have fallen asleep_," show that this is so. Yet again,
on the other hand, some passages would almost look as if death itself
for the Christian man did not exist. Christ is said to have abolished
death; we learn from His own lips that "if a man keep His word he
shall never taste of death;" He has said again, "He that liveth and
believeth in Me shall never die." Now in this case there is no
practical difficulty, yet the variety of expression is very
instructive. We all know what lies beneath it; namely, the fact, that
though the believer in Christ must undergo the physical suffering of
death like other men, yet death has become to him so altogether
without terror and curse, that it has been for him deprived of real
existence and power. The apostle in Rom. viii. gives the full
explanation: "_the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit
is life because of righteousness_."

Well, now let us apply this to the case before us. Let us take the
same solution, and see whether it will not suffice. The Christian
shall, like other men, undergo the judgment after death; thus one set
of Scripture declarations shall be fulfilled. But to the believer, who
has died in the Lord, what is the judgment? He stands before the
judgment-seat perfect in the righteousness of Him to whom he is
united, and from whom death has not separated him. His sentence of
acquittal has been long ago pronounced; he cometh not into judgment,
so that it should have any substantial effect in changing or
determining his condition. The resurrection is for him not a
resurrection of judgment, not one in which the judgment is the leading
feature and characteristic, but it is only and purely a resurrection
of, and unto life: one in which life is the leading feature and idea.

Thus for the blessed dead, the judgment has no dark side: "there is no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." But though it has no
dark side, it has a bright one. Never for a moment do the Christian
Scriptures lose sight of the Christian reward. Those who die in the
Lord, like the rest of men, shall be laid open before the tribunal of
Christ. Their sins have been purged away in His atoning blood; they
have been washed and justified and sanctified in the name of Jesus and
by the spirit of their God.

But to what end? for what purpose? Was it merely that they might be
saved? No indeed, but that God might be glorified in them by the
fruits of their faith and love.

And these fruits shall then be made known. The Father who saw them in
secret shall then reward them openly. The acts done and the sacrifices
made for the name of Christ shall then meet with glorious retribution;
yea, even to the least and most insignificant of them,--even according
to our Lord's own words,--to the cup of cold water given to one of His
little ones.

It is much the fashion, I know, in our days, to put aside and to
depreciate this doctrine of the Christian reward. It looks to some
people like a sort of reliance on our own works and attainments; and
so, though they may in the abstract profess a belief in it because it
is in Scripture, they shrink from applying it in their own cases or in
those of others. Now, nothing can justify such a course. We have no
right to discard a motive held up for our adoption and guidance in
Scripture. And that this is so held up, who that knows his Bible can
for a moment doubt? Think of that saying of our Lord about the cup of
cold water just quoted,--think of the series of sayings of which it is
the end--"He _that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a
righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward_," etc. Think,
again, of that series of commands, to do our alms, our prayers, our
abstinences, in secret, each ending with--"_and thy Father which seeth
in secret shall reward thee openly_." Think, again, of the parable of
the labourers in the vineyard, where the great final blessing at the
hand of the Lord is throughout represented to us as reward, or
rather--for so the word used properly means--wages for work done. And
it is in vain in this case to try to escape from the cogency of our
Lord's sayings by alleging that the doctrines of the Cross were not
manifested till after His death and glorification. For if this were
so, then the apostles themselves had never learned those doctrines.
For the apostles constantly and persistently set before us the aiming
at the Christian reward as their own motive, and as that which ought
to be ours. Hear St. Paul saying that, if he preached the gospel as
matter of duty only, it was the stewardship committed to him; but if
freely and without pay, a reward, or wages, would be due to him. Hear
him again, in expectation of his departure, glorying in the certainty
of his reward: "_I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give
me at that day: and not to me only, but to all them also that love His
appearing_." Listen to St. John, whom we are accustomed to regard as
the most lofty and heavenly of all the apostles in his thoughts and
motives. What does he say to his well-beloved Gaius? "_Look to
yourselves, that we lose not the things which we have wrought, but
that we receive the full reward_." Listen, again, to the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, that apostolic man, eloquent and mighty in the
Scriptures, and hear him describing the very qualities and attributes
of faith, that he who cometh to God must _believe that He is, and that
He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him_, and saying of one
of the first and brightest examples of faith, that _he had respect
unto the recompence of reward_.

So, then, these holy dead who have died in the Lord will in that
judgment have each his reward allotted him according to his service
and according to his measure. Then the good that has been done in
secret will all come to light. All mere profession, all that has been
artificial and put on, will drop off as though it had never been; and
the real kernel of the character, the fair dealing and charity and
love of the inner soul, will be made manifest before men and angels.
Then, not even the least work done for God and for good will be
forgotten.

How such an estimate of all holy men will be or can be made and
published, utterly surpasses our present powers to imagine. We have no
faculties now whereby to deal thus truly and fairly with all men: our
organs of sense in this present state, and the minds themselves to
which those organs convey impressions, are too feeble and limited for
the effort required to apprehend all respecting all, as we shall then
apprehend it. But this need not form any difficulty in our way to
believe that such a thing shall be. The power to understand it and the
power to receive it surely do not dwell farther off from our matured
powers now, than the full powers of a grownup man from the faculties
and conceptions of a child. In all such matters, we are children now.
Think we then of the blessed dead at that day of the resurrection, as
rising sure of bliss and of their perfection in Him to whom they were
united; being as though there were no judgment, seeing that they have
One who shall answer for them at the tribunal: judged notwithstanding
before the bar of God, and passing not to condemnation, but to their
exceeding great and eternal reward.

One more thing only now is left us: to ask what we know of that last
and perfected state of man--that highest development and dignity of
our race, when body, soul, and spirit, freed from sin and sorrow,
shall reign with Christ in light.

With that question, and its answer, we hope to conclude this course of
sermons next Sunday.



IV.

WE are to speak to-day of the final state of bliss of those who have
died in the Lord. Their state of waiting has ended; the resurrection
has clothed them again with the body, the final judgment has passed
over them, and their last unending state has begun. There are no words
in Holy Scripture so well calculated to give a general summary of that
state as those concluding ones of a passage from which I have before
largely quoted: 1 Thess. iv. 17: "AND SO SHALL WE EVER BE WITH THE
LORD."

For these words contain in them all that has been revealed of that
glorious state, included in one simple description. The bliss of the
moment after death consisted in being with Christ: the bliss of
unlimited ages can only be measured by the same. Nearness to Him that
made us, union with Him who redeemed us, the everlasting and unvexed
company of Him who sanctifieth us: what glory, what dignity, what
happiness can be imagined for man greater than this?

And yet it is not by dwelling upon this, and this alone, that we shall
be able to arrive at even that appreciation of heaven which is within
our present powers. We may take these words, "for ever with the Lord,"
and we may find in them, as in our Father's house itself, many
mansions. In various ways we are far from the Lord here; in various
ways we shall be near Him and with Him there.

But first of all we must approach these various mansions through their
portals and the avenues which lead up to them. And one of those is the
consideration, who, and of what sort, they shall be, of whom we are
about to speak. It will be very necessary that we should conceive of
them aright.

Well, then, they will be men, with bodies, souls, and spirits like
ourselves. The disembodied state will be over, and every one will have
been reunited to the body which he or she had before death. What do we
know of this body? Very glorious thoughts rise up in our minds when we
think of it: but in this course of sermons I am not speculating; I am
inquiring soberly what is revealed to us about the blessed dead. Well
then, again, what do we know of this body of the resurrection? In
Phil. iii. 21, there is a revelation on this point. It is there said
that "our home is in heaven, from whence also we expect the Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change the body of our degradation
that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory." And this
change is very much dwelt on as a necessary condition of the heavenly
state in 1 Cor. xv. "_Flesh and blood_," we are told, _i.e._, this
present natural or psychical body, the body whose informing tenant is
the animal soul, _cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither can
corruption_, that which decays and passes away, _inherit
incorruption_, that state where there is no decay nor passing away.
So, then, a change must take place at the resurrection: a change which
shall pass also on those who are alive and remain at the Lord's
coming. The bodies of the risen saints, and of those who are to join
them in being for ever with the Lord, will be spiritual bodies: bodies
tenanted and informed in chief by that highest part of man, which
during this present life is so much dwarfed down and crushed by the
usurpations of the animal soul; viz., his spirit.

Now, it would be idle to conceal the fact, that we cannot form any
distinct conception what this spiritual body may be. No such thing has
ever come within the range of our experience. But some particulars we
do know about it, because God has revealed them. And of those, the
principal are specified in this very passage: "_It is sown in
corruption: it is raised in incorruption_." It cannot decay. Eternal
ages will pass over it, and it will remain the same. Again, "_it is
sown in dishonour: it is raised in glory_." There will be no shame
about it, as there will be no sin. Thus much from these words is
undoubted. What else they may imply we cannot say for certain;
probably, unimagined degrees of beauty and radiancy, for so the word
glory as applied to anything material seems to imply. Further: "_it is
sown in weakness: it is raised in power_." That is, I suppose, with
all its faculties wonderfully intensified, and possibly with fresh
faculties granted, which here it never possessed, and the mind of man
could not even imagine. This last also seems to be implied by its
being called a spiritual body. As here it was an animal body, subject
to the mere animal life or soul, hemmed in by the conditions of that
animal life, so there it will be under the dominion of, and suited to
the wants of, man's spirit, the lofty and heavenly part of him.

And if we want to know what this implies, our best guide will be to
contemplate the risen body of our Lord, as we have it presented to us
in the gospel narrative. As He is, so are we in this world in our
essence even now--and as He is so shall we be entirely there. He is
the first-fruits, we follow after as the harvest. What, then, was His
resurrection body? While it was a real body and admitted of being
touched and seen, and had the organs of voice and of hearing, yet it
was not subjected to the usual conditions of matter as to its
locomotion, or its obstruction by intervening objects. It retained the
marks of what had happened before death. In order to convince the
disciples of His identity, our Lord ate and drank before them. We must
therefore infer that these were natural acts of His resurrection body,
and not merely assumed at pleasure.

With a body, then, of this kind will the blessed be clothed upon at
the resurrection, and remain invested for ever in glory. Now let us
see what further flows from this as an inference. We may further say,
that we have implied in it a surrounding of external circumstances
fitted to such a state of incorruptibility and glory. Man redeemed and
glorified will not be a mere spirit in the vast realms of space, but a
glorious body moving in a glorious world. Nor is this mere inference,
however plain and legitimate. Holy Scripture is full of it. The power
of words does not suffice to describe the beauties and glories of that
renewed and unfailing world. I need not quote passage after
passage--they are familiar to you all. Nor, again, is it nature alone
which shall be glorious above all our conception here. It would appear
that art also shall have advanced forward, and shall minister to the
splendour of that better world. The prophets in the Old Testament, and
the beloved Apostle in the New, vie with one another in describing the
heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her husband,
lighted by the glory of the indwelling Godhead.

_Where_ this glorious abode of Christ and His redeemed shall be, we
have not been told by revelation; and it were idle to indulge in
speculations of our own. From some expressions in Scripture, it would
seem not improbable that it may be this earth itself after
purification and renewal: from other passages, it would appear as if
that inference were hardly safe, and that other of the bodies in space
are destined for the high dignity of being the home of the sons of
God.

We have now, I believe, cleared the way for the answer to a question
which presses upon us to-day: as far, at least, as that answer can be
given on this side of death. Of mankind in glory, thus perfected, what
shall be the employ? For I need hardly press it on you that it is
impossible to conceive of man in a high and happy estate, without an
employment worthy of that estate, and in fact constituting its dignity
and happiness.

Now, some light is thrown on this inquiry by Holy Scripture, but it
must be confessed that it is very scanty. It is true that all our
meditations on and descriptions of heaven want balance, and are, so to
speak, pictures ill composed. We first build up our glorified human
nature by such hints as are furnished us in Scripture; we place it in
an abode worthy of it: and then, after all, we give it an unending
existence with nothing to do. It was not ill said by a great preacher,
that most people's idea of heaven was to sit on a cloud and sing
psalms. And others, again, strive to fill this out with the bliss of
recognising and holding intercourse with those from whom we have been
severed on earth. And beyond all doubt such recognition and
intercourse shall be, and shall constitute one of the most blessed
accessories of the heavenly employment; but it can no more be that
employment itself than similar intercourse on earth was the employment
of life itself here. To read some descriptions of heaven, one would
imagine that it were only an endless prolongation of some social
meeting; walking and talking in some blessed country with those whom
we love. It is clear that we have not thus provided the renewed
energies and enlarged powers of perfected man with food for eternity.
Nor, if we look in another direction, that of the absence of sickness
and care and sorrow, shall we find any more satisfactory answer to our
question. Nay, rather shall we find it made more difficult and beset
with more complication. For let us think how much of employment for
our present energies is occasioned by, and finds its very field of
action in, the anxieties and vicissitudes of life. They are, so to
speak, the winds which fill the sail and carry us onward. By their
action, hope and enthusiasm are excited. But suppose a state where
they are not, and life would become a dead calm; the sail would flap
idly, and the spirit would cease to look onward at all. So that,
unless we can supply something over and above the mere absence of
anxiety and pain, we have not attained to--nay, we are farther than
ever from--a sufficient employment for the life eternal. Now, before
we seek for it in another direction, let us think for a moment in this
way. Are we likely to know much of it? We have before in these sermons
adopted St. Paul's comparison by analogy, and have likened ourselves
here to children, and that blessed state to our full development as
men. Now ask yourselves, what does the child at its play know of the
employments of the man? Such portions of them as are merely external
and material he may take in, and represent in his sport: but the work
and anxiety of the student at his book, and the man of business at his
desk, these are of necessity entirely hidden from the child. And so it
is onward through the advancing stages of life. Of each of them it may
be said, "We know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come
hither."

So that we need not be utterly disappointed, if our picture of heaven
be at present ill composed: if it seem to be little else than a
gorgeous mist after all. We cannot fill in the members of the
landscape at present. If we could, we should be in heaven.

Remembering this our necessary incapacity for the inquiry, let us try
to carry it as far as we may. And that we may not be forsaking the
guidance of Holy Scripture for mere speculation, let us take the words
of St. Paul--"_Now we see in a mirror, obscurely, but then face to
face: now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I was
known_ (_by God_.)" This immense accession of light and knowledge must
of course be interpreted partly of keener and brighter faculties
wherewith the blessed shall be endowed; but shall it not also point to
glorious employment of those renewed and augmented powers? How could
one endowed with them ever remain idle? What a restless, ardent,
many-handed thing is genius even here below? How the highly endowed
spirit searches about and tries its wings, now hither now thither, in
the vast realms of intellectual life! And if it be so here, with the
body weighing on us, with the clogs of worldly business and trivial
interruption, what will it be there, where everything will be
fashioned and arranged for this express purpose, that every highest
employment may find its noblest expansion without let or hindrance?
Besides, think for a moment of the relative positions of men with
regard to any even the least amount of this light and knowledge of
which we are speaking. In order to take in this the better, think of
the lowest and most ignorant of mankind who shall attain to that state
of glory. Measure the difference between such a spirit and an
Augustine, and then recollect that Augustine himself, that St. Paul
himself, was but a child in comparison of the maturity of knowledge
and insight which all shall there acquire. Such a thought may serve to
show us what a gap must be bridged over, before any such perfect
knowledge will be attained by any of the sons of men. And when we
remember that all blessings come by labour and the goodly heat of
exercised energy, shall we deny to the highest of all states the
choicest of all blessings? So that the attainment of, and advance in,
the light and knowledge peculiar to that glorious land must be
imagined as affording unending employment for the blessed hereafter.
And this gives us another insight into the matter. As there is so
great disparity among men here, so we may well believe will there be
there. All Scripture goes to show that there will be no general
equalizing, no flat level of mankind. Degrees and ranks as they now
are, indeed, there will be none. Not the possession of wealth, not the
accident of birth, which are held here to put difference between man
and man, will make any distinction there: but inequality and
distinction will proceed on other grounds; the amount of service done
for God, the degree of entrance into the obedience and knowledge of
Him, these will put the difference between one and another there.

But we hasten to a close: and in doing so, we come back to the simple
words of our text, "for ever with the Lord;" and we would leave on
your minds the impression that these, after all, furnish the best key
to the employment of the blessed in heaven. If they are fit companions
for the Lord, then must they be like Him as He is there; and thus we
seem to have marked out an employment alone sufficient for eternity.
Look at it in its various aspects.

What is, what will be, the Lord doing in that state of blessedness?
Will He be idle like the gods of Epicurus, sitting serene above all,
and separate from all, created things? No, indeed, no such glorified
Lord is revealed to us in Holy Scripture. "My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work." The created universe will be then as much beholden to His
upholding hand as it is now. If they are to be for ever with Him,
attending and girding His steps, they, too, will doubtless be
fellow-workers with Him there, as they were here. And in this, only
consider how much of His creation was altogether hidden from them
here! Look abroad on a starry night--behold a field of employment for
those who shall be ever with the Lord. The greater part of His works
never came within sight of this our mortal eye at all. These are only
hints, it is true, which we have no power of following out: but they
may serve for finger-posts to point to whole realms of possible
blessed employment.

Then, again, there is more in the words "for ever with the Lord" than
even this. Who can tell what past works, not of creation only, but of
grace also, the blessed may have to search into--works wrought on
themselves and others which may then be brought back to them by memory
entirely restored, and then first studied with any power to comprehend
or to be thankful for them?

Then, again, the glory of God Himself, then first revealed to
them,--the redeeming love of Christ,--the glory of the mystery of the
indwelling of the Spirit,--dry and lofty subjects to the sons of men
here, will be to them when there as household words and as daily
pursuits. It seems to me, my brethren, when we look at all these
sources of blessed employment, though we are unable from our present
weakness to follow them out into detail,--and when we think that
perhaps after all in our earthly blindness we may be omitting some
which shall there constitute the chief, it seems to me, I say, as if
we should have to complain not of insufficient employ for the ages of
eternity, but of an infinite and inexhaustible variety, for which even
endless ages of limited being hardly seem to suffice.

Such, then, beloved, are the thoughts which have occurred to us on a
subject of which I pray that it may be one of personal interest to
every one here present.

When we are to leave this present state, is a matter hidden from our
eyes, and not dependent on ourselves: but how we will leave it,
whether as the Lord's blessed ones, or with no part in Him, this is
left for ourselves to determine. There is set before us life and
death. May we choose life, that it may be well with us; that we may
wake from the bed of death and find ourselves with the Lord; that we
may pass in joyful hope through the waiting and disembodied state, and
wake at the morning of the resurrection to that fulness of completed
bliss of which we have this day been speaking.

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End of Project Gutenberg's The State of the Blessed Dead, by Henry Alford