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Job Chapter
Fourteen
Job 14
Chapter Contents
Job speaks of man's life. (1-6) Of man's death. (7-15) By
sin man is subject to corruption. (16-22)
Commentary on Job 14:1-6
(Read Job 14:1-6)
Job enlarges upon the condition of man, addressing
himself also to God. Every man of Adam's fallen race is short-lived. All his
show of beauty, happiness, and splendour falls before the stroke of sickness or
death, as the flower before the scythe; or passes away like the shadow. How is
it possible for a man's conduct to be sinless, when his heart is by nature
unclean? Here is a clear proof that Job understood and believed the doctrine of
original sin. He seems to have intended it as a plea, why the Lord should not
deal with him according to his own works, but according to His mercy and grace.
It is determined, in the counsel and decree of God, how long we shall live. Our
times are in his hands, the powers of nature act under him; in him we live and
move. And it is very useful to reflect seriously on the shortness and
uncertainty of human life, and the fading nature of all earthly enjoyments. But
it is still more important to look at the cause, and remedy of these evils.
Until we are born of the Spirit, no spiritually good thing dwells in us, or can
proceed from us. Even the little good in the regenerate is defiled with sin. We
should therefore humble ourselves before God, and cast ourselves wholly on the
mercy of God, through our Divine Surety. We should daily seek the renewing of
the Holy Ghost, and look to heaven as the only place of perfect holiness and
happiness.
Commentary on Job 14:7-15
(Read Job 14:7-15)
Though a tree is cut down, yet, in a moist situation,
shoots come forth, and grow up as a newly planted tree. But when man is cut off
by death, he is for ever removed from his place in this world. The life of man
may fitly be compared to the waters of a land flood, which spread far, but soon
dry up. All Job's expressions here show his belief in the great doctrine of the
resurrection. Job's friends proving miserable comforters, he pleases himself
with the expectation of a change. If our sins are forgiven, and our hearts
renewed to holiness, heaven will be the rest of our souls, while our bodies are
hidden in the grave from the malice of our enemies, feeling no more pain from
our corruptions, or our corrections.
Commentary on Job 14:16-22
(Read Job 14:16-22)
Job's faith and hope spake, and grace appeared to revive;
but depravity again prevailed. He represents God as carrying matters to
extremity against him. The Lord must prevail against all who contend with him.
God may send disease and pain, we may lose all comfort in those near and dear
to us, every hope of earthly happiness may be destroyed, but God will receive
the believer into realms of eternal happiness. But what a change awaits the
prosperous unbeliever! How will he answer when God shall call him to his
tribunal? The Lord is yet upon a mercy-seat, ready to be gracious. Oh that
sinners would be wise, that they would consider their latter end! While man's
flesh is upon him, that is, the body he is so loth to lay down, it shall have
pain; and while his soul is within him, that is, the spirit he is so loth to
resign, it shall mourn. Dying work is hard work; dying pangs often are sore
pangs. It is folly for men to defer repentance to a death-bed, and to have that
to do which is the one thing needful, when unfit to do anything.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 14
Verse 1
[1] Man
that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
Man — A
weak creature, and withal corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and
all other calamity was brought into the world.
Verse 2
[2] He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a
shadow, and continueth not.
Flower —
The flower is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow
is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost in the shadows of night. Of
neither do we make any account, in neither do we put any confidence.
Verse 4
[4] Who
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
Not one — No
man. This is the prerogative of thy grace, which therefore I humbly implore.
Verse 5
[5]
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou
hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
Determined —
Limited to a certain period.
With thee — In
thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond
which he cannot prolong his life.
Verse 6
[6] Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling,
his day.
Turn —
Withdraw thine afflicting hand from him, that he may have some present ease.
'Till — He
come to the period of his life, which thou hast allotted to him, as a man
appoints a set time to an hired servant.
Verse 8
[8]
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the
ground;
Die — To
outward appearance.
Verse 9
[9] Yet
through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
Scent — By
means of water. Scent or smell, is figuratively ascribed to a tree.
Verse 10
[10] But
man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
Man —
Two words are here used for man. Geber, a mighty man, tho' mighty, dies. Adam,
a man of earth, returns to it. Before death, he is dying daily, continually
wasting away. In death, he giveth up the ghost, the spirit returns to God that
gave it. After death, where is he? Not where he was: his place knows him no
more. But is he nowhere? Yes, he is gone to the world of spirits, gone into
eternity, gone, never to return to this world!
Verse 11
[11] As
the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
As — So it is with man. Or
thus, as when the waters fail from the sea, when the sea forsakes the place
into which it used to flow, the river which was fed by it, decayeth and drieth
up without all hopes of recovery.
Verse 12
[12] So
man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not
awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
Lieth — In
his bed, the grave.
'Till —
Until the time of the general resurrection, when these visible heavens shall
pass away.
Verse 13
[13] O
that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret,
until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember
me!
The grave —
The grave is not only a resting-place, but an hiding-place to the children of
God. He hides them in the grave, as we hide our treasure in a place of secrecy
and safety. Hide me there, not only from the storms of this life, but for the
glory of a better.
Until thy wrath be past — As long as our bodies lie in the grave, there are some fruits of God's
wrath against sin: until the set time comes, for their being remembered, as
Noah was remembered in the ark, Genesis 8:1. Our bodies shall not be forgotten
in the grave, there is a time set for their being enquired after.
Verse 14
[14] If a
man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait,
till my change come.
Shall he live? — He
shall not in this world. Therefore I will patiently wait 'till that change
comes, which will put a period to my calamities.
Verse 15
[15] Thou
shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of
thine hands.
Answer thee —
Thou shalt call my soul to thyself: and I will chearfully answer, Here I am:
knowing thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands - A love for the soul
which thou hast made, and new-made by thy grace.
Verse 16
[16] For
now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?
Numbereth —
Thou makest a strict enquiry into all my actions.
Verse 17
[17] My
transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.
Sealed — As
writings or other choice things, that they may all be brought forth upon
occasion, and not one of them forgotten. Thou keepest all my sins in thy
memory. But herein Job speaks rashly.
Verse 18
[18] And
surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of
his place.
And — As
when a great mountain falls, by an earthquake or inundation, it moulders away
like a fading leaf, (as the Hebrew word signifies) and as the rock, when by the
violence of winds or earthquakes it is removed out of its place, and thrown
down, is never re-advanced: and as the waters by continual droppings, wear away
the stones, so that they can never be made whole again: and as thou wastest
away, by a great and violent inundation, the things which grow out of the dust
of the earth, herbs, and fruits, and plants, which once washed away are
irrecoverably lost; in like manner, thou destroyest the hope of man: when man
dies, all hope of his living again in this world is lost.
Verse 20
[20] Thou
prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance,
and sendest him away.
Prevailest —
When once thou takest away this life, it is gone forever.
Sendest — To
his long home.
Verse 21
[21] His
sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he
perceiveth it not of them.
Knoweth not —
Either is ignorant of all such events: or, is not concerned or affected with
them. A dead or dying man minds not these things.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
14 Chapter 14
Verses 1-22
Verse 1-2
Man that is born of a woman is of few days.
The brevity and burden of life
The knowledge and the conduct of mankind are very frequently at variance.
How general is the conviction of the brevity of human life and of the certainty
of death! How wise, virtuous, and happy would the human species be were their
conduct conformable to this conviction! But how rarely is this the case! Do not
the generality live as if their life were never to have an end?
1. Our life is of short duration. Many are snatched away by death
while children. A considerable portion of mankind fall a prey to the grave in
the liveliest period of their youth. Many are taken off by sudden disease. If a
man lives long, how short life appears to him on review of it.
2. Our life is full of trouble. To how many evils and dangers, how
many calamities are we not subject from our birth to our death! How often are
our joys converted into sorrows! Our life is interwoven with many perils and
distresses. Let us never add to their number by a disorderly and criminal
conduct. If life then be so short and so insecure, how irrational is it to
confine our hopes to these few moments, and to seek the whole of our happiness
here on earth! We impose upon ourselves in thinking to build our felicity on
the unstable possession and enjoyment of these fugacious objects. We are formed
for eternity. Our present condition is only a state of preparation and discipline;
it only contains the first act of our life which is never to terminate. The
blessed, undecaying life should be the object of our affections, our views and
our exertions; it should be the principal ground of our hopes and our comfort.
(G. J. Zollikofer.)
The brevity and troubles of human life
I. Man’s days are
few. Time is a word of comparison. Time is a portion of eternity, or unlimited
duration. But who can form a just conception of eternity? That which we call
time we may attempt to illustrate by observing that when one event has
reference to and is connected with another which precedes it, the distance
between them is marked, and the portion of duration is designated time.
Eternity was, before the sun and moon were made, eternity is now, and eternity
will continue to be, when suns and moons shall have finished their course. To
aid our meditations on the shortness of time, we may endeavour to contemplate
eternity. We may draw a circle, place our finger upon any part of it, then
follow by tracing the line, but when shall we reach the termination of that
line? Round and round the circle we may move, but we shall come to no end. Such
is eternity, it has no limits. Turning from the thought of the vastness of
eternity, while contemplating which we cannot but feel our own insignificance,
let us see if, in comparison, time be not a very little thing, less than a drop
of water compared with the ocean, or a grain of sand with the dimensions of the
globe. In the short period of a few years one generation passes away, and
another and another succeed. Few are man’s days, but long and important is the
train of events dependent upon the manner in which they are spent.
II. The days of man
are full of trouble. The troubles of man commence at a very tender age. In man’s
daily movements he is liable to many personal dangers. He is brought through
distressing scenes. No stage of life is exempt from troubles, from infancy to
grey hairs; but although this is a state and condition of sorrow, it need not
be one of despair. Trials and troubles are our portion, but there is a state to
which we may attain which will far more than compensate for all we may be
called to endure here below, and true wisdom consists in securing to ourselves
this inestimable blessing. (Sir Wm. Dunbar.)
The brevity and burden of life
That life is of short continuance and disquieted by many
molestations every man knows, and every man feels. But truth does not always
operate in proportion to its reception. Truth, possessed without the labour of
investigation, like many of the general conveniences of life, loses its
estimation by its easiness of access. Many things which are not pleasant may be
salutary, and among them is the just estimate of human life, which may be made
by all with advantage, though by few, very few, with delight. Since the mind is
always of itself shrinking from disagreeable images, it is sometimes necessary
to recall them; and it may contribute to the repression of many unreasonable
desires, and the prevention of many faults and follies, if we frequently and
attentively consider--
I. That man born
of a woman is of few days. The business of life is to work out our salvation;
and the days are few in which provision must he made for eternity. Our time is
short, and our work is great. We must use all diligence to make our “calling
and election sure.” But this is the care of only a few. If reason forbids us to
fix our hearts upon things which we are not certain of retaining, we violate a
prohibition still stronger when we suffer ourselves to place our happiness in
that which must certainly be lost; yet such is all that this world affords us.
Pleasures and honours must quickly fail us, because life itself must soon be at
an end. To him who turns his thoughts late to the duties of religion, the time
is not only shorter, but the work is heavier. The more sin has prevailed, with
the more difficulty is its dominion resisted. Habits are formed by repeated
acts, and therefore old habits are always strongest. How much more dreadful
does the danger of delay appear, when it is considered that not only life is
every day shorter, and the work of reformation every day greater, but that
strength is every day less. It is absolutely less by reason of natural decay.
In the feebleness of declining life, resolution is apt to languish. One
consideration ought to be deeply impressed upon every sluggish and dilatory
lingerer. The penitential sense of sin, and the desire of a new life, when they
arise in the mind, are to be received as monitions excited by our merciful Father,
as calls which it is our duty to hear and our interest to follow; that to turn
our thoughts away from them is a new sin.
II. That man born
of a woman is full of trouble. The immediate effect of the numerous calamities
with which human nature is threatened, or afflicted, is to direct our desires
to a better state. Of the troubles incident to mankind, everyone is best
acquainted with his owe share. Sin and vexation are still so closely united,
that he who traces his troubles to their source will commonly find that his
faults have produced them, and he is then to consider his sufferings as the
mild admonitions of his Heavenly Father, by which he is summoned to timely
repentance. Trouble may, sometimes, be the consequence of virtue. In times of
persecution this has happened. The frequency of misfortunes and universality of
misery may properly repress any tendency to discontent or murmuring. We suffer
only what is suffered by others, and often by those who are better than
ourselves. We may find opportunities of doing good. Many human troubles are
such as God has given man the power of alleviating. The power of doing good is
not confined to the wealthy. He that has nothing else to give, may often give
advice. A wise man may reclaim the vicious and instruct the ignorant, may quiet
the throbs of sorrow, or disentangle the perplexities of conscience. He may
compose the resentful, encourage the timorous, and animate the hopeless. (John
Taylor, LL. D.)
The brevity and uncertainty of man’s life
Man’s life is short.
1. Comparatively. Our fathers before the flood lived longer. Compared
with the duration of the world. Compared with the years that some irrational
creatures live. Eagles and ravens among birds, stags and elephants among
beasts. Compared with those many days that most men abide in the grave, in the
land of oblivion. Compared with the life to come.
2. Absolutely. It is a great while before he really lives, and he is
a long time alive before he knows it, and understands where he is. When he
comes to five, the whole work of life has to be dispatched in a short compass.
Man is made of discordant elements, which jar and fall out with one another,
and thereby procure his dissolution. So that it is no wonder that he drops into
the grave so soon.
3. Man’s life is thus short by the just judgment of God. By reason of
Adam’s sin and our own.
4. Man’s life is abbreviated by the mercy and favour of God. Apply--
Seeing life is so short and uncertain, how absurd a thing is it
for a man to behave himself as if he should live forever! Do not defer
repentance. (J. Edwards.)
The proper estimate of human life
Job’s beautiful and impressive description of human life contains
no exaggerated picture. It is a just and faithful representation of the
condition of man on earth.
I. Man is of few
days. The short duration of human life, and its hasty progress to death and the
grave, has in every age been the pathetic complaint of the children of men. If
he escape the dangers which threaten his tenderer years, he soon advances to
the maturity of his existence, beyond which he cannot expect that his life will
be much prolonged. He must fall, as does the ripe fruit from the tree. No
emblem of human life can be finer than this used in the text, “as a flower”;
“as a shadow.” How rapid the succession of events which soon carry man into the
decline of life! How frequently is the hopeful youth cut off in the very pride
and beauty of life!
II. Man’s days are
full of trouble. Trouble and distress are our inevitable inheritance on earth.
In every period, and under every circumstance of human existence, their
influence on happiness is more or less perceptible. Some reflections--
1. Since man is of few days and full of trouble, we should sit loose
to the world and its enjoyments; we should moderate our desires and pursuits
after sublunary objects.
2. Instead of indulging in immoderate sorrow for the loss of
relations or friends, we should rejoice that they have escaped from the evils
to come.
3. We should rejoice that our abode is not to be always in this world.
The present state is but the house of our pilgrimage.
4. We should prepare for the close of life by the exercise of faith,
love, and obedience to our Saviour; by the regular discharge of all the duties
of piety; by the sincere and unremitting practice of every Christian grace; and
by having our conversation at all times becoming the Gospel. (G. Goldie.)
On the shortness and troubles of human life
I. The shortness.
When God first built the fabric of a human body, He left it subject to the laws
of mortality; it was not intended for a long continuance on this side the
grave. The particles of the body are in a continual flux. Subtract from the
life of man the time of his two infancies and that which is insensibly passed
away in sleep, and the remainder will afford very few intervals for the
enjoyment of real and solid satisfaction. Look upon man under all the
advantages of its existence, and what are threescore years and ten, or even
fourscore? “He cometh up like a flower, and is cut down.” An apt resemblance of
the transient gaieties and frailties of our state. The impotencies and
imperfections of our infancy, the vanities of youth, the anxieties of manhood,
and the infirmities of age, are so closely linked together by one continued
chain of sorrow and disquietude, that there is little room for solid and
lasting enjoyment.
II. The troubles
and miseries that attend human life. These are so interspersed in every state
of our duration that there are very few intervals of solid repose and
tranquillity of mind. Even the best of us have scarcely time to dress our souls
before we must put off our bodies. We no sooner make our appearance on the
stage of life, but are commanded by the decays of nature to prepare for another
state. There is a visible peculiarity in our disposition which effectually
destroys all our enjoyments, and consequently increases our calamities. We are
too apt to fret and be discontented under our own condition, and envy that of
other men. If successful in obtaining riches and pleasures, we find inconveniencies
and miseries attending them. And whilst we are grasping at the shadow, we may
be losing the substance. And we are uneasy and querulous under our condition,
and know not how to enjoy the present hour. Substantial happiness has no
existence on this side the grave. The shortness of life ought to remind us of
the duty of making all possible improvements in religion and virtue. (W.
Adey.)
Job’s account of the shortness and troubles of life
Never man was better qualified to make just and noble reflections
upon the shortness of life and the instability of human affairs than Job was,
who had himself waded through such a sea of troubles, and in his passage had
encountered many vicissitudes of storms and sunshine, and by turns had felt
both the extremes of all the happiness and all the wretchedness that mortal man
is heir to. Such a concurrence of misfortunes is not the common lot of many.
The words of the text are an epitome of the natural and moral vanity of man,
and contain two distinct declarations concerning his state and condition in
each respect.
I. That he is a
creature of few days. Job’s comparison is that man “cometh forth like a
flower.” He is sent into the world the fairest and noblest part of God’s work.
Man, like the flower, though his progress is slower, and his duration something
longer, yet has periods of growth and declension nearly the same, both in the
nature and manner of them. As man may justly be said to be of “few days,” so
may he be said to “flee like a shadow and continue not,” when his duration is
compared with other parts of God’s works, and even the works of his own hands,
which outlast many generations.
II. That he is full
of trouble. We must not take our account from the flattering outside of things.
Nor can we safely trust the evidence of some of the more merry and thoughtless
among us. We must hear the general complaint of all ages, and read the
histories of mankind. Consider the desolations of war; the cruelty of tyrants;
the miseries of slavery; the shame of religious persecutions. Consider men’s
private causes of trouble. Consider how many are born into misery and crime.
When, therefore, we reflect that this span of life, short as it is, is
chequered with so many troubles, that there is nothing in this world which
springs up or can be enjoyed without a mixture of sorrow, how insensibly does
it incline us to turn our eyes and affections from so gloomy a prospect, and
fix them upon that happier country, where afflictions cannot follow us, and
where God will wipe away all tears from off our faces forever and ever. (Laurence
Sterne.)
Man’s state and duty
I. Man’s present
state.
1. Its limited duration, expressed by the term “few days.” How short
life often is! In sleep alone one-third is consumed. The period of infancy must
be deducted, and the time lost in indolence, listlessness, and trifling
employment, in which much of every passing day is wasted. The varied
employments in which men are compelled to labour for the bread that perisheth
rarely furnish either pleasure or spiritual improvement.
2. The frailty of man’s state. “He cometh forth like a flower and is
cut down.” The allusion is to man’s physical origin and condition.
3. It is full of trouble. It has been remarked that man enters the
present life with a cry, strangely prophetic of the troubles through which he
must pass on his way to the grave. No stage of life is exempted from trouble.
II. Man’s duty. His
chief business on earth is--
1. To prepare for death.
2. To dread sin.
3. To be humble.
4. To be grateful to the Saviour. (Peter Samuel.)
The shortness and misery of life
We should hardly imagine this verse to be correct if we were to
judge of its truth by the conduct of mankind at large. The text is more awfully
true, because men willingly allow their senses to be stupefied by the
pleasures, or distracted by the cares of this their fleeting existence. Ever
and anon, however, we are startled from our stupor, and awake in some degree to
our real position.
I. The shortness
of life. In the first ages of the world, the term allotted to man was much
longer than it is at present. In the sight of God, the longest life is but, as
it were, a handbreadth. Life is compared to a vapour, or fog, which is soon
scattered by the rising sun; to a swift ship; to an eagle hastening to its prey.
“Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
II. The troubles of
life. These come alike to all. All may say, “Few and evil have the days of the
years of my life been.” Man is “full of trouble.” But we must discriminate between
the saint and the sinner. When we think and talk of death, we should ever
connect it with that which follows. We must stand before the judgment seat of
Christ. May you all be found standing with your lamps burning, and with your
loins girded, “like men that wait for the coming of their Lord.” (C.
Clayton, M. A.)
The fragility of human life
I. The important
ideas suggested.
1. That human life is flattering in its commencement. Man “cometh
forth like a flower.” Imagery more appropriate could not have been selected.
Children are like flowers in the bud, unfolding their beauty as days and months
increase; the expansion of the mind, and acquisition of new ideas, fascinate
and involuntarily allure the affections of their parents, who watch over them
with the tenderest anxiety. The flower is cut down (Psalms 103:15-16; Isaiah 40:6-7; James 1:10-11; 1 Peter 1:24).
2. Disastrous in its continuance. “Full of trouble.”
3. Contracted in its span. “Few days.” Life, in its longest period,
is but a short journey from the cradle to the tomb (Genesis 47:9). Various are the figures
employed to illustrate the shortness of human life; it is compared to a “step”
(1 Samuel 20:3), “a post” (Job 9:25), “a tale that is told” (Psalms 90:9), “a weaver’s shuttle” (Job 7:6), and a “vapour” (James 1:14).
4. Incessant in its course. “Fleeth as a shadow.” Human life is
measured by seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. These periodical
revolutions roll on in rapid succession. Some suppose it the shadow of the
sun-dial; but whether we consider it as the shadow of the evening, which is
lost when night comes on; or the shadow on a dial plate, which is continually
moving onward; or the shadow of a bird flying, which stays not; the figure
fully represents the life of man, which is passing away, whether we are loitering
or active, careless or serious, killing or improving time.
5. Eventful in its issue. Death introduces us into the fixed state of
eternity, and puts a final period to all earthly enjoyments and suffering; the
soul, dismissed from its clay tabernacle, is introduced into a world of
spirits, from whence there is no return.
II. Improve them by
practical inferences. Such being the character of human life, it is the duty
and wisdom of piety--
1. To enrich the juvenile mind with religious instruction. “Man cometh
forth as a flower,” therefore let instruction drop as the rain and fall as the
dew: no time must be lost.
2. Improve the dispensations of providence.
3. Be diligent.
4. Maintain a noble detachment from the world.
5. Live in a constant readiness for your change. (Sketches of Four
Hundred Sermons.)
Human life troublous and brief
Goethe was considered by his compeers a man highly favoured of
providence. Yet, what said he, as he drew near his end, and passed in review
his departed years? “They have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any
wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has been nothing but sorrow
and labour; and I may truly say that in seventy-five years I have not had four
weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that was always
to be lifted anew. When I look back upon my earlier and middle life, and
consider how few are left of those that were young with me, I am reminded of a
summer visit to a watering place. On arriving one makes the acquaintance of
those who have already been some time there, and leave the week following. This
loss is painful. Now one becomes attached to the second generation, with which
one lives for a time and becomes intimately connected. But this also passes
away, and leaves us solitary with the third, which arrives shortly before our
own departure, and with which we have no desire to have much intercourse.”
And is cut down.--Never a day
passes but we are presented with objects which ought to make us reflect on our
final exit. And serious reflections on this important event would never fail to
have a due influence on our conduct here, and, consequently, on our happiness
hereafter. But such is the depravity of our nature, that, regardless of the
future, wholly engrossed by the present, we are captivated by the vain and
empty pleasures which this world affords us. If man were capable of no higher
happiness than what arises from the gratification of his carnal appetites, then
to vex and torment himself with the thoughts of death would serve no other
purpose but to interrupt him in the enjoyment of his sensual pleasures. But if,
on the contrary, man is not only capable of but evidently designed by his
Creator for a happiness of the most lasting and durable, as well as the most
noble and exalted nature, then it is the greatest madness not to lay to heart
and seriously to consider this great event, which is big with the fate of
eternity. There is nothing in nature so full of terror as death to the wicked
man. But to the righteous man death is divested of all its terrors; the
certainty of the mercy of God, and the love of his blessed Redeemer, fill his
soul with the most entire resignation, enable him to meet death with the most
undaunted courage, and even to look upon it as the end of his sorrow and vexation,
and the commencement of pleasures which will last when the whole frame of this
universe shall be dissolved.
1. Some particulars that ought to make us reflect on death. Such as
the decay of the vegetable world. There seems to be a surprising resemblance
between the vegetable and animal systems. The Scriptures make frequent
allusions to this resemblance, e.g., the grass. Sleep is another thing
which ought to make us mindful of death. Death and sleep are equally common to
all men, to the poor, as well as to the rich. We ought never to indulge
ourselves in slumber till we have laid our hand on our breast, and in the most
serious manner asked ourselves whether we are prepared alike to sleep or die.
2. The decay of our bodies, by sickness or old age, ought to make us
reflect on our last change. The life of every man is uncertain; and the life of
the aged and infirm much more than that of others; they, therefore, in a
peculiar manner, ought to devote their meditations to this subject.
3. The death of others is another circumstance which ought to lead us
to reflect on our own. From attending to these circumstances, and improving the
feelings described, we may be enabled to appreciate the discoveries and embrace
the consolations of the Gospel, which alone can enable us to conquer the fear
of death, and to look forward with devout gratitude to that happy state where
sorrow and death shall be known no more. (W. Shiels.)
Frailty of life
Some things last long, and run adown the centuries; but what is
your life? Even garments bear some little wear and tear; but what is your life?
A delicate texture; no cobweb is a tithe as frail. It will fail before a touch,
a breath. Justinian, an Emperor of Rome, died by going into a room which had
been newly painted; Adrian, a pope, was strangled by a fly; a consul struck his
foot against his own threshold, his foot mortified, so that he died thereby.
There are a thousand gates to death; and, though some seem to be narrow
wickets, many souls have passed through them. Men have been choked by a grape
stone, killed by a tile falling from the roof of a house, poisoned by a drop,
carried off by a whiff of foul air. I know not what there is too little to slay
the greatest king. It is a marvel that man lives at all. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 3-4
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
On the corruption of human nature
The disobedience of our first parents involved their posterity,
and entailed a depravity of nature upon their descendants; which depravity,
though it is not a sin in us, till the will closes with it, and deliberately
consents to it; yet is certainly sinful in itself, and therefore is styled
original sin. Adam was formed in the image of God, in righteousness and true
holiness; but it is plain that we who are born with strong propensions to vice
are not created in righteousness and true holiness. It is clear that we are
fallen from our original and primitive state of innocence. Far be it from me to
vilify human nature, as if it were totally bad, without any remains or traces
of its primitive greatness. But no creature could come originally from God’s
hand but what was perfect in its kind; no rational creature can be perfect in
his kind, in whom there is a strong propension to vice, that is, to what is
unreasonable, and a great irregularity of the appetites and affections. There
is a latent stock of corruption in us, though sometimes unsuspected by us,
which often discovers itself as soon as there are suitable objects to call it
forth. We see the wisest of men, in their unguarded hours, betrayed into
unaccountable follies. Reason was originally given us to govern the passions in
all cases. It does not now regulate and govern them in all cases; it is
certain, therefore, that we are in a fallen, disordered state. If men proceed
to action while their passions are warm, they do not see things justly, and
therefore are apt to act too hastily; if they stay till their passions are
cool, they are apt not to act at all. Moreover, we do not love or hate, rejoice
or grieve, hope or fear, so far as is consistent with reason, and no further.
We love the things of this world beyond the proportion of good which is in
them. The love of virtue and heavenly happiness does not keep pace with the
worth of the objects beloved. The truth is that ever since the fall, the body
clogs the native energy of the soul, and pins it down to this low, ignoble
sphere. Into what can this universal depravation, which prevails everywhere
among the sons of men, be resolved, but into an universal cause, the inborn
corruption of nature, and an original taint, derived from our first parents?
Can it be resolved into education? If mankind were in a state of integrity and
primitive uprightness, there could scarce be, one would think, so much evil in
the world as there really is. Man was originally formed for the knowledge and
worship of God only; yet in all countries men are immersed in idolatry and
superstition. Man was formed for loving his neighbour as himself; yet the world
is generally inclined to the ill-natured side. Again, we were designed for an
exact knowledge of ourselves; and yet we see ourselves through a flattering
glass, in the fairest and brightest light. Lastly, we were formed for the
attainment of beneficial truth; yet there are not many certain truths,
demonstrable from intrinsic evidences, from the abstract nature of the thing;
though reason can prove several, by the help of external evidences. Setting
revelation aside, mankind would have reason to wish that they did not know so
much as they do, or that they knew a great deal more . . . It is one thing to
say that God was, or could be, the author of evil; and another to say that when
evil was introduced by man, He did not work a miracle to prevent the natural
consequences of it; but suffered it for the sake of bringing a greater good out
of it; and that, by redemption, He has advanced man to much superior happiness
than he could have had any title to, if he had continued in a state of
innocence. This is the scriptural solution of the difficulty. What remains but
that we strive to recover that happiness, by our humility and meekness, which
our first parents lost by pride? The consideration and sense of unworthiness
will dispose a man to accept the offers of salvation by Jesus Christ, and make
him endeavour to fulfil the terms of it. (J. Seed, M. A.)
Out of nothing comes nothing
Job had a deep sense of the need of being clean before God, and
indeed he was clean in heart and band beyond his fellows. But he saw that he
could not of himself produce holiness in his own nature, and, therefore, he
asked this question, and answered it in the negative without a moment’s
hesitation. The best of men are as incapable as the worst of men of bringing
out from human nature that which is not there.
I. Matters of
impossibility in nature.
1. Innocent children from fallen parents.
2. A holy nature from the depraved nature of any one individual.
3. Pure acts front an impure heart.
4. Perfect acts from imperfect men.
5. Heavenly life from nature’s moral death.
II. Subjects for
practical consideration for everyone.
1. That we must be clean to be accepted.
2. That our fallen nature is essentially unclean.
3. That this does not deliver us from our responsibility: we are none
the less hound to be clean because our nature inclines us to be unclean; a man
who is a rogue to the core of his heart is not thereby delivered from the
obligation to be honest.
4. That we cannot do the needful work of cleansing by our own
strength. Depravity cannot make itself desirous to be right with God.
Corruption cannot make itself fit to speak with God. Unholiness cannot make
itself meet to dwell with God.
5. That it will be well for us to look to the Strong for strength, to
the Righteous One for righteousness, to the Creating Spirit for new creation.
Jehovah brought all things out of nothing, light out of darkness, and order out
of confusion; and it is to such a Worker as He that we must look for salvation
from our fallen state.
III. Provisions to
meet the case.
1. The fitness of the Gospel for sinners. “When we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” The Gospel contemplates
doing that for us which we cannot attempt for ourselves,
2. The cleansing power of the blood.
3. The renewing work of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost would not
regenerate us if we could regenerate ourselves.
4. The omnipotence of God in spiritual creation, resurrection,
quickening, preservation, and perfecting. Application--Despair of drawing any
good out of the dry well of the creature. Have hope for the utmost cleansing,
since God has become the worker of it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 10
But man dieth . . . and where is he?
Am I to live forever
I. The belief
indicated that man’s nature is two fold. There are two distinct processes ever
going on within our frame. We may lose our physical organs, but the soul may
think, wish, or purpose, as energetically as ever. The brain is the organ of
the mind; but this does not warrant our saying that the brain and the mind are
of the same material, or that they are only different sides of that material
thing. If there are manifestations in our constitution which matter cannot give
account of, it would be absurd to follow that up by saying that man goes out of
life altogether when he dies and wastes away. We should rather believe that as
our nature is two fold, that part which is spiritual may survive that which is
material.
II. A doubt
expressed as to what becomes of the man when he dies. Death tells us nothing.
There is no evidence in it of what becomes of the man. Death fails to prove
anything as to the survival of the soul. Yet the belief has been general, that
those who have passed away are still somewhere. Why should men have believed
that the soul still had a place? Every sense was against it.
III. The grounds on
which the conviction is built that man lives after death. I go behind the
Bible, and look at the action of our own nature.
1. The indestructibility of force or energy. When once a force has
begun to be in operation that force continues. It is never blotted out.
2. The incompleteness of man’s life here. God is a teacher who sets
us a task which we cannot prepare in school.
3. The best affections which distinguish this life speak of
continuance beyond this present state.
4. When man dieth, we forecast a judgment for the deeds done in the
body. It may be, indeed, it will be, that the judgment shall not be such as we
pass upon one another. We look upon the outward appearance, God looks on the
heart. We are to be judged. What are we to be judged for? (D. G.
Watt, M. A.)
“Where is he?”
The certainty of the general truth referred to in our text, “Man
dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost.” And then we shall take
up the concluding inquiry, “And where is he?” Now, the words translated “man”
are different. There are two different words to express man in the original.
The first properly means a mighty man: the second is Adam, man of the earth;
implying that the mighty man dieth and wasteth away,--yea, man because he is of
earth giveth up the ghost. It is quite unnecessary to attempt any proof of the
solemn truth that man dieth. You all know that you must die. Yet how often does
a man’s conduct give a denial to his conviction. Hence it is needful for the
ministers of the Gospel frequently to bring forward truths which are familiar
to our minds, but which on that very account are apt to be little regarded. We
are not unwilling to feel that others must die, but we are indisposed to bring
the same conclusion home to ourselves; and yet it is the law of our being. “It
is appointed unto men once to die.” The first breath we draw contains the germ
of life and of destruction. The stem of human nature has never yet put forth a
flower without a canker at the bud, or a worm at its heart. Why is this? “By
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned.” It is of the greatest importance for us all
to know that through the infinite merits of our gracious Redeemer the power of
death has been broken and subdued, and the sting of death which is sin has been
extracted, and thus may death become not an enemy but a welcome friend to
introduce us to new, to holy, to immortal life. There are a thousand different
ways by which mortals are hurried hence the lingering disease, the rapid fever,
the devouring flames, the devastating tempest. But now our text suggests to us an
important inquiry, “And where is he?” You must at once see that this is a
question of the last importance to you and to me. We ought to be able to answer
it. What has become of him? A short time since he was here in health and
vigour, but where is he now? Where shall we seek for information on this
interesting point? Shall we turn to some of our modern philosophers? Alas, they
will afford but poor comfort! They will probably answer, “Why, he is no more;
he is as though he had never been.” And do all the boasted discoveries of the
present age which refuse to believe in the annihilation of matter, tend to
raise our hopes no higher than annihilation for the soul? Shall we ask the
Romanist, “Where is he?” We shall be told he is in a state of purgatory, from whence,
after having endured a sufficient degree of fiery punishment and after a
sufficient number of masses have been said on his behalf, he will be delivered
and received into heaven. Truly it may be said of all such, “miserable
comforters are ye all.” Revelation alone can cherish and support in us a hope
of glory hereafter. It replies to our inquiry thus, “The dust shall return to
the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.”
Accordingly we are exhorted to “fear not them which kill the body, but are not
able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell.” Now these passages are sufficient to show that the body and soul
in man are distinct, the one from the other, and that while the one is in the
grave mingling its dust with the clods of the valley, the other is in eternity,
in happiness or misery. We therefore now ask your attention to the Word of God
for an answer to the inquiry, “Where is he?” And here we must observe that
however different individuals may appear to their fellow men, yet the
Scriptures divide all mankind into two classes only, those who serve God, and
those who serve Him not. Hence the reply given to the inquiry will have
distinct reference to one or other of these classes. With respect to the
question as relating to the righteous, “Where is he?” the Bible comforts us
with the cheering answer, that absent from the body he is present with the
Lord. “For we know,” says the apostle, “that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that
whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” In accordance
with this representation was our Lord’s promise to the penitent thief, “Today
shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” “Where are the righteous?” In that happy
place with the spirits of just men made perfect, waiting for the glorious time
when the whole redeemed family shall be gathered in to celebrate the marriage
supper of the Lamb. “I go to prepare a place for you,” said the Saviour, “and I
will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am there ye may be
also.” “So shall we ever be with the Lord.” But then there is another class--the
wicked, the impenitent. Where is he? The Scriptures afford a sad, though not
less faithful answer. They inform us that “the wicked is driven away in his
wickedness,”--that “their condemnation slumbereth not.” In order that we may
bring the subject practically home to ourselves, let me put the question in a
slightly altered form. Where are you now? What is your relation to God, and
what preparation are you making for the period of death and judgment? We ask
those who have never broken off their sins by true repentance and faith in
Christ, where are you? Why, you are simply exposed to the vengeance of God’s
law, which you know you have broken a thousand times. If you die as you have
lived, God’s enemies--you must be condemned. You know that the Word of God says,
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is death.” The Judge
says, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” But I put the question,
next, to those who seem to have got a step in advance,--who have heard the call
to repentance, and are striving to forsake those sins which before had dominion
over them. Where are you? It is a common deceit of Satan, when he sees that the
sinner is really alarmed at his state and begins to cry to God for mercy, to
persuade him that his altered life must needs be pleasing to God, and that his
good deeds will certainly merit heaven for him. This is a delusion which I
believe to be far more common than is supposed. People seem to think that by a
moral life they are doing God service, forgetting that repentance is not the
condition of our salvation, but faith. “He that believeth not the Son shall not
see life,” said our blessed Lord. “The wrath of God abideth on him.” “He that
believeth not is condemned already.” “Oh, but,” says one, “are we not to repent?”
Assuredly! Repentance and a life of piety will be sure to be the necessary
result of faith in Jesus as our Saviour. But, then, repentance can never undo a
single sin you have committed, or pay the penalty of God’s broken law. But come
with me to a death bed or two, and we will put the question there, “Where is
he?” A death bed is a detector of the heart. “Men may live fools, but fools
they cannot die.” No; the scene is then changed. The infidel then drops his
mask. The hypocrite who through life has deceived himself and his fellow
creatures, trembles as he draws near the valley of the shadow of death. Now,
behold that pale emaciated wretch. That is the notorious infidel Thomas Paine.
Where is he? He is dying, a victim of profligacy and of brandy. He is horrorstruck
to be left alone for a minute. He dares not let those who are waiting upon him
be out of his sight. He exclaims incessantly so as to alarm all in the house,
“O Lord, help me. Lord Jesus, help me.” He confesses to one who had burned his
infidel Age of Reason, that he wished that all who had read it had been
as wise; and he added, “If ever the devil had an agent on earth, I have been
that one.” And when the terror of death came over this most unhappy man, he
exclaimed, “I think I can say what they make Jesus Christ to have said, ‘My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’” In that state of mind he died, a
stranger to penitence, in all the horrors of an accusing conscience. Infidelity
has no support for its deluded followers on a death bed. The apostle when
contemplating his end said, “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ,
which is far better. I have fought the 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; and not to
me only, but unto all them that love His appearing.” This blessed experience is
as much the inheritance of Christians now as it was in the apostle’s time, for
there is the same Saviour, and the same sure word of promise on which to rely.
The Rev. Holden Stuart when smitten with a sickness unto death, said to
his medical attendant, “Doctor, don’t be afraid to tell me the truth, for the
day of my death will be the happiest day of my life.” Someone who had great
experience of human nature, once remarked, “Tell me how a man has lived, and I
will tell you how he will die.” (W. Windle.)
Where are the dead
Man was originally formed to be a representative of God’s
moral perfections--His wisdom, goodness, holiness, and truth. By the apostasy
of our first parents the scene is changed, and holiness and happiness must now
be sought after “in fairer worlds on high.” Death is said to be of three
kinds--natural, spiritual, eternal.
I. A most solemn
and humiliating declaration. It cannot be questioned. What lessons may be
deduced from it?
1. It is a very affecting truth.
2. Here is an instructive lesson--man should be humble.
3. Learn also the value of time.
4. Learn the nature of sin, the infinite evil, and the awful
consequences of it.
5. God will most surely execute the judgments which He threatens in
His most Holy Word.
II. A most
momentous inquiry. It relates not to the body, but to the soul, to the man
himself. The soul is still in existence, still thinks and feels. Guided by the
light of Scripture, we may safely find an answer to the solemn inquiry, “Where
is he?” For the very moment the soul bids farewell to this world he enters the
world of spirits, enters upon a state of everlasting happiness or woe. (John
Vaughan, LL. D.)
The great question
I. The solemn
scene which is before us.
1. Man giveth up the ghost, not by an option, but by an obligation;
not by a deed at will, but by the stern and just necessity of law. The
surrender of life in the blessed Jesus was an option. But man gives up the
ghost, and there is a Divine will in that surrender, a surrender which is
resistless when that will makes it so. Death is just the absence of life--and
what a mysterious thing is life! I do not stop to show that man has a ghost, an
immaterial and immortal spirit. One’s own consciousness contradicts the
materialist, and the Bible is in harmony with what one observes in nature, and
human consciousness teaches.
2. The manner of the surrender is uncertain. Though its occurrence is
mysterious, its actual occurrence is certain. There is but one mode of entering
life, but there are a thousand methods of leaving it.
II. The inquiry of
anxious affection when the scene is over. “Where is he?”
1. Death brings a change of condition, never a change of character.
2. Though death is a change of condition, it is not a change of
companionship. The same style of company it is a pleasure to him to keep on
earth, a man must expect to keep in eternity. (C. J. P. Eyre, A. M.)
Man is a dying creature
1. This is spoken of man twice in the text. In the original
two different words are used, one meaning the strong man, and the other the
weak man. In the grave they meet together.
2. Man is a dying creature. He dies daily, some or other going off
every day.
1. See how vain man is.
2. How foolish they are who waste any part of their short lives upon
their lusts.
The state of the dead
The stage of human existence which intervenes between death and
the resurrection is naturally regarded by us with great curiosity and
solicitude. On this subject nature is silent, and revelation does but whisper
faintly and vaguely. We are able to form a much more distinct conception of the
heavenly state than of that which immediately precedes it. The final condition
of man is much more analogous to his present state than that which intervenes
between the two. At death we enter upon a disembodied state of being, a state
of life purely spiritual and immaterial. Of this we have no knowledge from
experience or observation; and we can form no clear and satisfactory conception
of it. We are so accustomed to the use of material organs and instruments, that
we cannot understand how we can do without them. Incorporeal life seems to us
impotent, cheerless, naked, unreal. The souls of men after death remain
conscious, still percipient and active.
1. We seem warranted in regarding the interval between death and the
resurrection as a period of repose. It is the sleeping time of humanity. The
repose that awaits us there will be all the more welcome and delightful from
contrast with the turmoil and vexation of the life that precedes it.
2. The intermediate state will be a condition of progress. Progress
is the law of life, and we cannot reasonably suppose that its operation will be
suspended during that long period which is to elapse between death and the
resurrection.
3. To the clearer vision of spirit, purged from fleshly films and
earthly obstructions, will truth unfold itself with increased clearness,
certainty, and power.
4. The separate state will be a condition of hope. It is a season of
waiting, the vestibule only of a more glorious state to which it is
introductory. But there is nothing in this waiting that is wearisome or
tedious. I have spoken only of the holy dead, of those who “sleep in Jesus.”
The subject--
The momentous event
Men generally live as though they should never die.
I. The solemn
statement. “Man dieth, and giveth up the ghost.”
1. An event peculiarly affecting. The removal of man from society;
from all the ties of kindred and friendship. Dissolution of the union between
body and soul.
2. An event absolutely and universally certain. The seeds of death
are in our nature.
3. It is an event to which we are liable every moment. We live on the
borders of the grave, on the margin of eternity.
4. An event irreparable in its effects. Its melancholy results no
power can repair.
5. An event which demands our solemn consideration. We should
consider its certainty, its possible nearness, its awful nature.
II. The important
interrogation. “Where is he?” Apply the question to--
1. The infidel.
2. The profane.
3. The worldling.
4. The afflicted Christian.
Learn--
Immortality of the soul
The people of France once wrote over the gates of their burial
places, “Death is an eternal sleep,” but this was only when the nation had run
mad. The ordinary mode of proving the immortality of the soul is simple enough.
1. It is argued from the nature of the soul itself--especially from
its immateriality. The nature of God seems also to favour the idea that He who
made the soul capable of such vast improvement, and such constant advances
towards perfection, would never suffer it to perish.
2. Belief in man’s immortality is universal. No race of savages can
be found, so debased and blind, as not to have some glimmerings of this truth.
3. We claim immortality as the heritage of man, because, on any other
supposition, all the analogies of nature would be violated.
4. Man must be immortal, because this is indispensable to explain
certain inequalities of happiness and misery on earth--inequalities which a
just God would never allow, unless it was His good pleasure to make them right.
Man is generally called a rational being; but he hardly deserves the name,
while attempting to undermine our faith in that consoling which alone renders
life worth having, and robs death of its terrors. (John N. Norton.)
The mystery of death
This is one of Job’s discontented and querulous utterances. It is
tinged, too, with all that indistinctness of view which is characteristic of
the eider dispensation. Job expresses the general feeling in a somewhat
exaggerated form. He speaks as if the hour of dissolution were the hour of
extinction. Then he craves for himself that oblivion of anguish which he thinks
is only to be obtained in the solitude and silence of the grave. The words of
the text express a very natural feeling, of which we have all had more or less
experience. “Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” “Gone,” say some, “into
absolute nothingness. The individual perishes.” “Gone,” say others, “into final
felicity. All lives, whatever they have been, lead to one bourne, and that the
bourne of happiness.” These are daydreams, and dangerous daydreams too.
Christianity knows nothing about them. She tells us that when life is over, we
pass into a conscious but a fixed and unalterable condition. Gone, we say, to
reap what he has sown. The life we are living here below is a seed. Eternity is
only the development of this puny, petty life of ours. The Divine laws are
immutable. Every seed bringeth forth after its kind. We are all of us
gravitating towards a certain centre. We move to join our own companions. Gone
to give account of himself before God. Human life is like a stage; there are
many actors and many parts. When the play is ended, the question will be about
the manner of playing it. Men will be seen, not in their circumstances but in
themselves. An hour will come to us when all the world will seem absolutely
nothing, and when Christ, and interest in Christ, will seem to be everything. (Gordon
Calthrop, M. A.)
An anxious query answered
After all, this is a question. Reason and revelation leave it
such. The speculations of the ancients, where Catholic sentiments prevailed and
the voice of poetry, which is but the plaint of philosophy, leave it a
question. It is obscure, spectral, vaporous and ghostly as an apparition, the
figure of a restless, undeveloped being, beyond our knowledge, crude, cloudy,
vague. “Where is he?” There runs a yearning through our nature, as the autumn
breeze steals through the trees. It is the question. Its intensity is
proportioned to its obscurity. “Where is he?” Other data are needed. We may
ask, as we do in reference to a stranger of stately form or commanding voice,
whom we meet on the sidewalk, “Who is he?” The question may be of eager
interest and concern, of sympathy or of opposition. Or we may say of man, “What
is he?” and institute a metaphysical analysis into the nature of matter and
mind; then push the query, What is man, and what am I?” All these problems
depend on the disclosure of the ultimate destiny of man. “Where is he at last?”
Now we may mistake the shadow for the substance, a ship in the distance for a
cloud, a meteor for a star. Walking in the edge of a wood, looking out upon the
water, I may see a forest of masts, and for an instant take them for dry trees,
until I see those tall, quivering masts move and the vessels floated out upon
the bosom of the bay. Human life cannot be distinctly defined until we find out
all there is of a man. We want facts. Oftentimes we answer one question by
asking another. So let us turn to history and seek a famous or infamous man, a
Cyrus or a Caligula, a Washington or a Robespierre. Each may now be but a heap
of ashes, but what was the real distinction all the way through the careers of
these men? What is love, and what is honour? We cannot answer until we get the
data. Notice, then, two things, the unsettled element, and the point of
solution where light breaks in.
1. The unsolved question, “Where is he?” You have lost a child.
Whither has he gone? You do not say that you have lost a treasure until you
have gone to the place where you feel sure it is, and do not find it. You are
bereaved because you are bewildered. You were talking to a friend by your side.
Unexpectedly he vanished without your knowledge, and you find yourself talking
to vacancy. The mother bends over and peers into the vacant cradle, takes up a
little shoe, a toy, a treasure, and says, “He was here, he ought to be here, he
must be here! Where is he?” “Not here,” is all the answer that nature gives
her. She is bewildered. The same query touches scepticism. Though there be an
intellectual, logical assent to the doctrine of immortality, there is a
difficulty in entertaining the idea. We cannot see the spirit or its passage
upwards. We enter the chamber of death. We see that still body, white and limp;
the garments it wore, the medicines administered, and the objects it once
beheld. We look out and see that the sky is just as blue as ever, and the tramp
of hunting feet is heard, as usual, in the street. We cry aloud, “Ho! have ye
seen a spirit pass?” “Not here,” comes back again. Where, where is he? This is
the unsettled element.
2. Here is the point where light breaks in upon the bewildered soul.
It is found in the revelation of a flesh form and a spirit form revealed in
Christ, the risen one. Science tells us of material elements, unseen by natural
vision, globules of ether, and crystals of light to be detected by instruments
prepared by the optician. The microscope reveals atoms that the unaided eye
never could find. So the New Testament reveals what nature and science cannot
make manifest. Dissolution is not annihilation. We read, “In Him was life.” He
came, He descended, and ascended again. When a candle goes out, where goes the
light? Christ went out and back, to and fro, as you show a child the way by
going into and out of a door. He came forth from God, and His first life was a
glorious disclosure; but we must not forget His second life after His death,
burial, and resurrection. He gave up the ghost, and He lay in the tomb; then
stood up, walked and talked with the disciples, a human being. He showed the
fact that because He lives we shall live also. “I will that they whom Thou hast
given Me be with Me, where I am. Let not your heart be troubled. I go to
prepare a place for you.” Now light, refluent and radiant, breaks upon our way.
He is not here, but risen, and “this same Jesus” shall return again. I may ask
a mother, “Where are your children?” She may say that they are at school, or at
play, or somewhere on the premises. They are not lost, though she may not
exactly locate them. Or, “Where is your husband? He went out awhile ago,” or,
“The children went out with him; their father took them from home early.” So
with our dear departed. Out of sight they are not out of mind; not out of your
mind, of course, and,, you are not out of their mind, nor out of their sight, I
think. They are “somewhere about the premises,” the many-mansioned universe of
God, expanding, radiant everywhere. It is one abode. (Hugh S. Carpenter, D.
D.)
The query of the ages
This interrogatory has Sounded down all the centuries, and thrills
today every thoughtful heart. Hence, if Job uttered these words in a moment of
doubt, it was because he sat in the twilight hour of revelation. Hence, also,
we must seek our answer to the question from Jesus, rather than from Job, from
the full and final revelation of the New Testament, rather than from the types
and shadows of the Old.
I. He is somewhere.
Death is not annihilation.
1. Jesus taught man’s existence after death so often and in such
emphatic terms that it became an essential in Christian doctrine. In His words
to the Sadducees, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, when speaking to
Mary and Martha, when comforting His disciples who were mourning His near
departure, in His last prayer with and for them--everywhere He clearly implied
that man continues to exist somewhere after death.
2. To this revelation of life and immortality our hearts gladly
assent.
3. Reason, likewise, adds its sanction. Thus we believe the dead are
somewhere, they have not ceased to be.
II. But where? This
is the emphatic word.
1. Where surroundings correspond with character. In this life man
finds the earth prepared for his occupancy, as a house that has been erected,
furnished, heated, lighted. Believing in the universality and continuity of
law, we expect the same provision and adaptation hereafter. It is the “law of
environment” of the scientist, the “Divine providence” of the Christian.
Revelation makes this expectation a certainty, The righteous enter a kingdom
“prepared for them from the foundation of the world”; the wicked depart to a
place “prepared for the devil and his angels.”
2. Where the law of spiritual gravitation carries him. In the United
States Mint are scales constructed with an ingenuity and delicacy that are
wonderful. In them all coins are finally tested. Each one is weighed by itself.
From the balance every coin glides into one of several openings, according to
its weight; if it is too light, into this one; if too heavy, into that; if it
is right, into the third.
III. Where justice
and mercy unite to place him. Justice and mercy unite to determine the
destinies of both wicked and righteous. Redemption manifests both; so does
retribution. Conclusion--It is not so much “where,” as “what”; for the “what”
determines the “where.” We are ourselves determining the “what,” in our
acceptance or rejection of Christ. (Byron A. Woods.)
A four-fold view of man alter death
1. Man is still on earth, as to his influence. The full amount of
good or evil which anyone effects will not be ascertained till the end of the
world.
2. Man is in the grave, as to his body. In this respect, all things
come alike to all. As the saint, so is the sinner.
3. He is in eternity, as to his soul. Man consists of two parts-of
soul and of body. At death these for a season separate. The body returns to its
native dust; the soul returns to God, who gave it.
4. He is in heaven or hell, as to his state. What a solemn thought is
this! (C. Clayton, M. A.)
The shortness and vanity of human life
1. Man is subject to decay, though he suffer neither outward violence
nor internal injury. In the midst of life we are in death.
2. Numbers die by accident--suicide, violence, intemperance.
3. The mortality of the human race is universal.
4. Human life is so short and uncertain that it is invariably
compared to those things that are most subject to change.
5. What a specimen we have of the ravages of death since the time of
Adam.
6. Death is attended with painful circumstances. “He giveth up the
ghost.”
1. This expression implies that after man has died and wasted away,
the soul still remains in a separate state. This is one of those truths that
even reason itself teaches.
2. That the soul remains in a separate state is certain, from
Scripture passages and facts. Such as Samuel’s appearance to Saul. Moses and
Elias at the Transfiguration.
At the resurrection of Christ many of the dead arose and appeared.
“And where is he?”
1. This is a question very frequently and very naturally asked, when
those are missing whom we constantly saw or heard speak of, or with whom we
were wont to converse.
2. The affecting answer is, “They have died and wasted away--they have
given up the ghost.” What is become of the soul? We only know that the final
destiny of man depends upon his state and character at the hour of death, It is
true that neither the righteous nor the wicked enjoy or suffer their happiness
or misery until after the resurrection. The intermediate space affords ample
time for reflection.
3. But what will be the subject of their reflection?
Verse 12
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised
out of their sleep.
The sleep of death
1. Death is like sleep in its outward appearance. This likeness
should remind us, when we lie down to sleep, of that death which sleep
resembles. It should teach us to look upon it without dismay.
2. Sleep and death are both a refuge from the ills and cares of this
life, and a rest from its labour.
3. In both the soul is conscious still. The soul never sleeps, and
hence the phenomena of dreams.
4. Each is followed by an awakening. The consideration that you must
shortly “sleep in the dust,” and you know not how soon, should constrain you to
seek for the pardon of your sins, and the removal of your iniquity, ere it be
too late. (G. Cole.)
Verse 14
If a man die, shall he live again?
The one question of humanity, and its many answers
I. The one
question.
1. It has always been asked. In all periods of history it has been
proposed; time has not diminished its interest; it will always spring naturally
from man’s heart.
2. It is asked everywhere. It is the question of all nations and of
all conditions of men. It is universal--an eminently human question.
3. It arises in varied circumstances. The brevity and the
vicissitudes of life, the sufferings of the good, and the prosperity of the
wicked; premature deaths, bereavement, and the expectation of our own
dissolution suggest it.
4. It is asked with different feelings. With despair. The atheist.
With hope and desire. “To be or not to be? that is the question.” “Whence comes
this pleasing hope, this fond desire, this longing after immortality?” With
terror. The murderer, the tyrant, the impenitent, the backslider. It is asked
in triumph, “Art Thou not from everlasting to everlasting, O God, mine Holy
One?”
II. The many
answers. There are three different answers.
1. The negative, or that of atheism. “There is no God, and there can
be no immortality.” This is an assertion without proof. Who can prove it?
2. The neutral, or that of secularism. “We do not know, but it
matters not.” However, it does matter. Then we cannot help feeling interested
in it.
3. The affirmative, or that of Christianity. Most men have answered
yes. But the affirmative responders have greatly varied in tone and import. The
answer of Christianity alone is full and assuring.
The human lien on the immortal life
It is a real trouble to the most of us to imagine ourselves out of
the body, but still the same man or woman. This touch of trouble is entirely
natural, because we are in the body and belong to the life that now is, and
find that in proportion to the wealth of our human life is this deep loyalty to
the things one can touch and see. I do not think this trouble is met by the
perpetual exhortation to consider these conditions of our human life as so many
incumbrances we ought to shake off, to treat this nature God gives us as if it
were in quarantine; a place to be done with the sooner the better, so that we
may attain the fair pleasures of the everlasting rest. Such a feeling may come
to be natural through a perpetual brooding over the meanness and poverty of the
best there is for us down here if we take that turn; or to those who have had a
sore fight, and are quite worn out; or who have drained the world of all its
pleasant things, and would toss it away like the skin of an orange. Or it may
seem natural to some who have been trained from their childhood to fix their
whole heart on the world to come, and so think of this as a stepping stone, and
no more, between the eternities. But the men who have talked in this strain
were out of sorts with the world, or had got down with it; or else they were
men who did not practise what they preached. Neither is this trouble met by the
suggestion men make, out of a certain despair one thinks, that there may be
infinite blessing through our passing again into the infinite life, losing our
identity in that mystery out of which we came, forgetting all about it for
evermore, and becoming one with God. No one thing in this universe can be of a
deeper moment to a whole man than his own proper personal life. You may talk to
him until doomsday about being lost in the infinite, but he clings to himself
as the true factor. To me the solution of this problem lies where it has always
lain,--in the Gospels, and in our power to catch their noble meanings, and make
the truth they tell our own. To feel the powers of the world to come we must
come close to this Christ who has brought life and immortality to light. This
is what those can rest on who trust in these old, simple Gospels, and believe
in Jesus Christ as the most human being the world has ever known, and therefore
the most Divine. That this change, when it comes, will not wrest us out of the
sweet verities of our own existence, and land us utter strangers in a life so
separate from this we love that we had better never been born than encounter
such a sad frustration. The solution of this question of the immortal life does
not lie, as it seems to me, in metaphysics, in evolution, or even in the
ascertained verities of philosophy. It lies where it has always lain, in the
truth as it is in Jesus, who assures us that we cannot love what is worthy the
love of these human hearts to no purpose. So let us take this to our hearts--that
it is all right, and right in the line of the life we have to live, drawn here,
if we will but make it as noble and good as we can. (Robert Collyer, D. D.)
Resignation to the Divine will
I. We have the
prospect of a change. Many changes are incidental to human beings, but there
are three which stand out with prominence above the rest. One extraordinary
change occurs when human beings become rational. A change more momentous occurs
when human beings become religious. Above all, the great consummation is
reserved for the time when human beings become immortal. Then will the term of
our minority expire, and we shall receive our best inheritance. Is it, however,
merely the soul of a believer in Jesus Christ that enters the kingdom? Must its
ancient partner--the body, lie always in the dust, or roam in a separate and
less splendid province of the Divine empire?
II. The influence
of this prospect.
1. The prospect of our change may be viewed in connection with the
current of our thoughts.
2. In connection with our estimate of all earthly good.
3. In connection with our individual exertions and supplications.
4. In connection with all our intervening pains and distresses.
5. In connection with all that is grand and joyful. (J. Hughes.)
The true argument for immortality
I. Reason fails to
answer. So men say there is no positive proof; “but wait,” says science, “I
have unravelled mysteries before”; so the anxious question.
II. Science
answers--
1. The body dies, but the soul lives.
2. In nature is the law of co-relation--incompleteness completed. But
we are conscious that soul has not reached highest perfection; but, says
science, See how nature supplies her creatures’ demands.
III. A voice
familiar falls upon our hearts. “I give eternal life.” “I am the Life.” Yes, in
the testimony of Jesus Christ is the mystery of being made clear. Science can
give nothing so positive. Therefore, finally--
1. What is your responsibility as an immortal being?
2. How are you meeting that responsibility? (Homiletic Monthly.)
The two questions about death
I. Of this
truth we have hints in nature.
1. The soul’s longing is a promise and prophecy of immortality. The
bird’s wing and fish’s fin prophesy air and water; the eye and ear, light and
sound. If man’s hope has no object it is the single exception in nature.
2. Force is never lost. It is invisible and indestructible. It passes
from body to body, changes its form and mode of manifestation, but never lost
or even lessened. No energy is ever lost.
3. Life, the grandest force, is therefore indestructible. Even
thought cannot die; how, then, the thinker himself? Death is dissolution,
decay. What is there in mind to dissolve or decay?
4. Metamorphosis in nature hints and illustrates life as surviving
changes of form and mode of existence.
II. Hints in the
word of God.
1. Man’s creation, Made of dust. Living soul inbreathed. Death
penalty inflicted on the body; but soul never said to die in same sense. (Luke 15:1-32, where death is alienation
of son from father; Romans 8:1-39, where carnal-mindedness is
death.)
2. Man’s death as described in Ecclesiastes 12:1-14. Dust returning to
the earth. Spirit unto God. Plain reference to the story of creation. The
breath is given up, but does not die, and symbolises the Spirit.
3. This truth is inwrought into the whole structure of the
Scriptures. The blood of Abel represented his life that was vocal even after he
was dead. (Comp. Revelation 6:9, where the souls or lives
of martyrs cry unto God.) The great incentive to righteousness in
both testaments is union with God here, merging into such union perfected
yonder, as illustrated in Enoch and Elijah.
4. Immortality is assumed. (Matthew 22:23, when Christ confronts the
Sadducees.) He teaches that souls in heaven live under new and
unearthly conditions; and so God is the God of the living, not the dead.
III. But there is
distinct teaching on this subject. Examples--The Transfiguration, where Moses
represents saints who have died, and Elijah saints that pass into glory without
death, but both equally alive. The words to the penitent thief, “Today with Me
in paradise.” Stephen’s dying vision and exclamation, “Receive my spirit.” Paul
(Philippians 1:23-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6; 2 Corinthians 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-16; 1 Corinthians 3:1-23), where a
future life is shown to be necessary to complete the awards of this life.
(Comp. Luke 16:1-31., the parable of rich man
and Lazarus.) (Arthur T. Pierson, D. D.)
The immortality of the soul
Though the doctrine of the soul’s immortality is peculiar to
Christianity, yet it has engaged the thoughts and attention of the wisest men
in all times. Prior to the advent of Christ, the doctrine was but dimly known
even to the wisest of mankind, whether Jew or Gentile. Our present faith rests
upon the Word of God. Death is not an eternal sleep, man shall live again.
1. The death of the soul cannot be reconciled with the justice of
God. Justice in this life holds but an ill-balanced scale. Vice is seldom
punished as it deserves, and rarer still does virtue meet its due reward. If
death is an eternal sleep, and man’s life ends with the tomb, how shall we
reconcile his present condition with the justice of God? This question presents
an argument for the immortality of the soul which philosophers and sceptics
cannot answer, a moral proof which almost partakes of the nature of
demonstration.
2. The death of the soul cannot be reconciled with the wisdom of God.
In the providence of God nothing happens without an end, without a reason. The
human mind does not act without a purpose or end, however wrong or weak that
end may be. If this be true of the finite mind of man, imperfect as it is, how
much more is it true of the infinite mind of God, as powerful to execute as it
is perfect to conceive. Man is capable of infinite improvement. Though man’s
mind is constantly progressing, it never wholly matures. We never say his
destiny is fulfilled. How, then, can we reconcile man’s history and condition
with the wisdom of God?
3. The death of the soul cannot be reconciled with the goodness of
God. The desire for another life is an universal one, bounded by no
geographical lines, limited by no clime or colour. Man is shocked at the very
idea of annihilation. If death is an eternal sleep, why should man fear to die,
why heed the reproaches of conscience? Did a God of goodness plant this desire
in the heart of man merely to mock him with a phantom? Did He create hopes and
longings which could never be realised? It needs not to reply. (G. F.
Cushman, D. D.)
When a man dies
Do they live in other lands, or has the grave closed over them
forever?
I. The heathen
answer; or the light of reason on this subject. The heathen looked forward to
the future with grave misgivings. Even the most enlightened could do little
more than form conjectures. In the absence of positive information, they based
their arguments on the principles of reason. They felt, as we all feel, a
natural desire for immortality. This universal instinct receives confirmation
in many ways.
1. By the analogy of nature. All nature dies to live again.
2. By the anomalies of existence.
II. The Jewish
answer. Here we pass from darkness into twilight. The Jews had the first faint
streaks of Divine revelation. Their information, confined as it was to
predictions and promises, was imperfect and unintelligible to the great mass of
the people on whose conduct the doctrine exercised little or no practical
influence. Such obscurity was in keeping with the temporary and progressive
character of their dispensation.
III. The Christian
answer. Here we come into daylight. In the light of the Gospel, the question of
the text presents no difficulty. The Christian replies, in the full assurance
of faith, “Yes, he shall live again.” This is true of the soul, but what of the
body? Modern science is apt to run away with a mistaken impression of what is
meant by the resurrection. St. Paul meets the modern objection by his analogy
of the seed. We are not left in uncertainty as to what takes place when a man
dies. After death, the judgment. The human race will gather at the call of the
last trumpet. All will live again after the long sleep of the tomb. (D.
Merson, M. A. , B. D.)
Does death end all
This, it need not be said, is not an hypothetical inquiry as to
what may be in this life, as if it was a possible thing that a man might not
die; for a little before, he said of man in relation to the law of his
appointed mortality, “his days are determined, the number of his months are
with Thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass” (verse 5). The
inquiry has reference to what shall be, or shall not be, after death. And what,
it has been asked, was Job’s own view? Directly opposite opinions have been
entertained in regard to it. One writer of considerable note says, “The answer which
Job’s consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give is, No, there
is no life after death. It is, however, no less a craving of his heart that
gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought--a desirable
possibility--which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all
present suffering, ‘all the days of my warfare’ (of my appointed time) ‘would I
wait until my change came.’” Farther on he says “even Job is without any
superior knowledge respecting the future life. He denies a resurrection and
eternal life, not as one who has a knowledge of them, and will not however know
anything about them, but he really knows nothing of them: our earthly life
seems to him to flow on into the darkness of Sheol, and onward beyond Sheol man
has no further existence.” Entertaining such views, it is not at all to be
wondered at, that in these words Job is viewed as asserting his belief that
death is the extinction of being, and that for man there is no waking and no
rising for evermore (verses 7-12). Others have entertained a very different
opinion as to the answer which Job would have given to the question, “If a man
die, shall he live again?” Crushed as Job was by his afflictions, both in body
and in mind, I do not think that he entertained such a cheerless view of death,
and of a future state. Possibly they mistake Job’s hope and prospects for the
future, not less than his three friends did his character and the probable
design of his sufferings, who do not know, or who are unable to perceive, that
it was his hope of a future life, and of complete vindication, implying honour
and happiness in a future state, which almost alone sustained him under his
unusual load of troubles. There are several arguments that might be urged to
show that Job believed in a future state, both of rewards and of punishments,
or generally, of a life beyond the grave. First, Job’s sacrifices, when he was
afraid that his children had sinned in their feasting, show that he both knew
the evil of sin, and had faith in the only atoning sacrifice of a Redeemer.
Second, Job showed that he knew of, and believed in a future state of
retribution and in the last judgment, when he said, “Be ye afraid of the sword;
for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a
judgment” (Job 19:29). And again, when he said, “The
wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, they shall be brought forth to
the day of wrath” (Job 21:30). Third, Job’s words cannot be
explained in any consistency with his aspirations, unless we admit that he
believed in the resurrection of his body, when he said, “I know that my
Redeemer liveth,” etc. In the context preceding that inquiry, “If a man die,
shall he live again?” we readily admit that Job asserts the incontrovertible
truth that when a man dies, he lives no more at all again in this world, when
he says, “But man dieth, and giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” Yet at the
same time we maintain that as Enoch the seventh from Adam was enabled to speak
of, “the Lord coming with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon
all,” so might Job be enabled by the same spirit of inspiration, to use words
which expressed his belief in the resurrection of the dead at the dissolution
of all things, and that probably he did so when he said, “Man lieth down, and
riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised
out of sleep” (verse 12). What has been said indicates what must be our
ultimate conclusion in respect of the inquiry, “If a man die, shall he live
again?” But there are some things which would suggest a negative answer to the
inquiry. As for example--
1. The structure and development of man’s body do not give us reason
to think that if a man dies he shall live again. There are many expressions in
Scripture which are fitted to remind us of the frailty of our bodies. Thus it
is declared “that all flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the
flower of grass.” So in like manner, our bodies are not formed of the harder
substances in nature, such as stone and iron, but they consist of flesh, and
blood, and bones, which are perishable in their own nature. They are also not
only very susceptible of injury, but are very liable to be crushed, or
destroyed by accident or by disease. There is not in our bodies any
self-sustaining energy of power. We need food, and clothes, and sleep, to
nourish and refresh them, and to repair their wasted energies; but all these
suffice only for a short time. The gradual development of man’s body also,
through infancy and manhood, to old age, with its sure and unavoidable decay,
seems to indicate a completed existence, which being fulfilled can have no
continuance.
2. Observation and experience generally, say, No, in answer to this
question, or that if a man die he shall not live again. Temporal death is the
cessation of life in the present state of being. And who is there, that upon
looking at the lifeless frame of one who is dead, at the motionless limbs that
were once so active, and at the pale countenance once so full of intelligence
and expression, but now so ghastly and so changed, could from anything that
appears, entertain the slightest, hope that such an one shall ever live again?
But personal observation in regard to this matter is confirmed by the general
experience of mankind, from age to age. As a matter of fact, if a man dies he
does not live again. None of those also whom death has gathered during all the
ages that are past, are to be found restored to life again as mingling, with
the inhabitants of this world, for “from that bourne no traveller returns.”
3. The original cause and nature of death afford no reason to think
that if a man die he shall live again. There is no information to be obtained
from the light of nature as to the original cause and origin of death, although
reason may arrive at the conclusion that it may be, and indeed must be, a penal
evil. It is the Word of God alone, that is our only sure guide and instructor
in regard to the original cause of death, and the circumstances and manner in
which it entered into our world. “By one man,” it is said, “sin entered into
the world, and death by sin; and so death hath passed upon all men, for that
all have sinned.” Again we are told that “the wages of sin is death.” It is
then manifest from the Word of God, that death is the penalty of sin, of man’s
disobedience to the only Righteous Lawgiver, and of his rebellion against his
Creator and King. An attentive consideration of death, might lead us, to the
conclusion that it is and must be a penal evil inflicted upon our race. Man is
dying from the moment of his birth. Does not “every circumstance bespeak the
wrath of God against the work of His hands? He destroys it as if it were
loathsome in His sight. This is not the chastisement of a father, but the
vengeance of a judge.” The original cause therefore, and the penal nature of
death, do not afford ground to think that if a man die he shall live again.
4. The testimony of nature is not equal, and therefore while there is
a possibility there is no certainty that if a man die he shall live again. It
must be granted that in nature there are many deaths, and resurrections, which
are very closely connected together. In the light of God’s Word, we may view
some of them at least as emblems of the resurrection of our bodies. But the
simple occurrence of these conveys of itself no certainty to us that if a man
die he shall live again.
5. The powers and faculties of the soul render it not improbable that
if a man die he shall live again. Man is constituted in his present state of
being, of a body and of a soul. These mutually act upon each other, but they
have distinct properties. Man is capable of the knowledge of God, and of His
will, or of moral and religious truth and duty. He can entertain the conception
of glory, honour, and immortality, in a higher and future state of being. Man
has a conscience, which can be presently actuated in the discharge of the
duties he owes to himself, and to his fellow men, and above all to God, by
conceptions of God, and of what is right and wrong towards Him. Conscience can
be presently filled with the dread of His wrath, or tranquillised by assurances
of His favour, based upon grounds which are rational and not upon the
imagination or fancy. It is probable, therefore, that though the body dies, the
soul must live forever, for all these powers would be useless if the soul were
at death to “lie down in everlasting darkness, and mingle with the clods of the
valley.”
6. The Word of God gives us the most explicit assurance of the future
existence of the soul.
7. That the Word of God declares to us not only the immortality of
the soul, but the certainty of the resurrection of the body. (Original
Secession Magazine.)
Annihilation in death
In the opinion of the pantheists, the individual is only a
transitory manifestation of the collective life of humanity; he appears for a
moment like the waves on the ocean’s surface, and then he vanishes, and one
thing alone survives, humanity! There is, consequently, no eternity but that of
the species. Annihilation! See that ancient doctrine which seduced the Hindoo
race and hilled it into a secular sleep, see it now extending its gloomy veil
over us! At the very moment when we are sending missionaries to preach
resurrection and life to the nations of the East, we ourselves are being
enveloped, as it were, in the very error which lost them. Annihilation! We
often hear it proclaimed with singular enthusiasm. Men tell us, “Lay down your
pride, give up your selfish hopes; individuals pass away, but humanity remains:
labour, therefore, for humanity; your afflictions, your sufferings form part of
the universal harmony. Tomorrow you shall disappear, but humanity shall keep on
progressing; your tears, your sacrifices contribute to its greatness. That is
enough to inspire you with a generous ambition; besides, annihilation is sweet
for whoever has suffered.” Notwithstanding, these doctrines would fail to
affect the masses if they did not appeal to instincts now everywhere awakened;
I mean, to those complex desires for justice and immediate enjoyment, for
reparation and vengeance which stir the suffering classes so deeply. It is in the
name of the present interests of humanity that men combat all hope of a future
life. “Tell us no more, they say, of a world beyond. Too long has mankind been
wrapped in enervating and ecstatic contemplation. Too long it has wandered in
mystical dreams. Too long, under the artful direction of priests, it has sought
the invisible kingdom of God, whilst from its grasp was being wrenched the
kingdom of earth which is its true domain. The hour of its manhood has at
length struck for it; it must now take possession of the earth. Enslaving faith
must now give way to emancipating science. When has science entered upon that
era of conquests which have veritably enfranchised humanity? From the hour when
it has firmly resolved to free itself from the dominion of all mystery, to
consider all things as phenomena to be solved. When has man begun to struggle
victoriously against oppression? From the hour when, renouncing the idea of an
uncertain recourse to future justice, he was revindicated his rights already
upon earth. This task must be achieved. The invisible world must be left to
those who preach it, and all our attention must be centred on the present.
Equality in happiness upon earth must be revindicated more and more strongly.
Away, then, with those who speak to us of future life, for whether they know it
or not, they stand in the way of progress and of the emancipation of nations!”
You have all heard such language, and you have, perhaps, seen it received with
enthusiastic applause. Who would dare to affirm that the idea of a future life
has never been placed at the service of inequality? Recall to mind the days
when the Church with its innumerable privileges, possessing immense portions of
territory, exempt from the taxes under which the masses groaned, comforted the
poorer classes with the prospect of heavenly joys and compensations. I denounce
and repudiate this iniquity; but let none trace it back to the Gospel, for the
Gospel is innocent of it. Ah, if it were true indeed that the Gospel had been
opposed to justice and equality, explain to me how, notwithstanding the
manifold abuses of the Church, it happens that it is in the midst of the
Christian nations that the idea of justice is so living and ardent? By
proclaiming the complete triumph of justice in the world to come, Christianity
has prepared the advent of justice in this life. Do not, therefore, set these
two teachings in opposition to one another, for the one calls for the other,
for they complete each other by an indissoluble bond of solidarity. And yet, in
another respect, annihilation attracts us. If it be true that all human beings
yearn after life, is it not equally true that life weighs heavily upon us at
times; and is it not the privilege and the sorrow of the noblest minds to feel
most painfully the weight of this burden? Men sneer at the idea of a future
life. Again, do you know why? Ah! here I come upon the hidden and unavowed, but
most powerful of all reasons. They scoff at it and deny it because they fear
the meeting with the holy God. I see that those who endeavour to believe in it
do not give it its real name. They recoil from annihilation, and when they come
in presence of death, they borrow our language and use it as a brilliant mantle
to cover the nakedness of their system. They too speak of immortality, but this
immortality, where do they place it? Some place it in the memory of men, and
with ofttimes stirring eloquence they lay before us this memory preserved as a
sacred thing and becoming a worship destined to replace that of the heathen gods.
A man of genius, the founder of positive philosophy, Auguste Comte, has made of
this idea a veritable religion.
1. We live in the memory of others! And pray are they many, those
whose deeds have escaped oblivion? There are but few who are called to accomplish
glorious actions; the life of the great majority is composed of small,
insignificant, humble, yet most necessary duties. The great mass of humanity is
sacrificed to the privileged few, and inequality abides forever. If only these
favoured beings all deserved this honour! What justice, great God, is the
justice of men! The day will come when, in the words of Scripture, these last
in the order of human admiration shall be the first elect of Divine glory. So
much for this eternity of memory.
2. Another more elevated, more worthy, is placed before us--the
eternity of our actions. Men tell us, “We pass away, but our deeds remain; we
bye on in those good actions which have contributed to the advancement of
humanity; we live on in the truths which we have boldly proclaimed without fear
of man, and which we thus hand down to future generations to be translated into
noble deeds. This eternity of our works is most truly eternal life.” We who are
Christians, will not deny this solidarity, this action of the individual upon
the whole, this spiritual posterity which we all leave after us; we believe it,
moreover, to be most clearly expressed in the Gospel. Howbeit, I question the
truth of this grand thought if the future life be denied. I grant that many of
our actions are profitable for the whole and stand as stones in the universal
edifice. On the other hand, how many are there, of our afflictions in
particular, which find no explanation here below, and which remain forever
fruitless if we look only to their earthly consequences. What shall you say to
that afflicted one who has been lying for years upon a bed of torture? We
Christians, we tell them that they are known of God, that not one sorrow is
left unnoticed by Him who is love and who sees their life; we tell them that
their sufferings have a still unexplained but certain end of which eternity
shall reveal the secret. But if the Lord be not there, if no eye has seen their
silent sacrifice, what right have you to tell them that their works shall live
after them? That is not all. We shall live again in our works, say you; and the
wicked, what of them? Is that the eternity you reserve for them? If you mean by
this that, though dead, their iniquities remain and continue to pollute the
earth, ah! we know this only too well. Now when you tell me that the wicked are
punished by the survivance of their actions, are you well aware of what you
affirm? You affirm that this man who has died happy and blest is punished in
the victims he has smitten, in the innocent ones whom he has dishonoured. These
souls upon which his crimes and vices shall long and heavily weigh, will feel
that he survives in his works, they will bear the fatal consequences of the
iniquities of which he has only tasted the fruit; and you would teach them that
this is God’s chastisement upon him, and that eternal justice finds sufficient
satisfaction in this monstrous iniquity? This, then, is what the theory of the
eternity of actions leads to! No wonder that the most serious of our
adversaries take no pains to defend it, and prefer passing the question of
eternity under silence. They tell us, “What cares the upright man for the
consequences of his actions! in his actions he looks neither to heaven nor to
earth: the approbation of his conscience is all he seeks.” Conscience is
sufficient! Proud words these, which our modern Stoics have inherited from
their Roman ancestors. Do they mean that they only do that which is truly good,
who do it without calculation and without the interested attraction of reward?
Do they mean that the noblest deed becomes vile if prompted by a mercenary
motive? If so, they are right; but the Gospel has said this long since.
Conscience is sufficient! Ah! if by the approbation of this conscience was
meant the approbation of God Himself, whose voice conscience is, then I would
understand this affirmation, without, however, approving it fully; but that is
not the meaning attached to it. What is meant is simply this: man applying into
the law to himself and constituting himself, his own judge; man approving and
blessing himself. Well! I affirm that this is false, because man, not being his
own creator, cannot be self-sufficient. Well! are we mistaken when we rise from
our conscience to Him who has made it, and when we invoke God as our aid and
witness? No; conscience is not sufficient; we need something more, we call for
the reparation which this conscience proclaims. Conscience is the prophet of
justice; but it must not utter its prophecies in vain. It tells us that eternal
felicity is attached to good, and suffering to evil. This belief is not merely
a response to interested desires, it is the expression of that eternal law
which Christians call the faithfulness of God. Moreover, have you reflected on
the other side of the question? You say conscience is sufficient. Will you dare
assert that it suffices for the guilty? Reality shows us conscience becoming
gradually more and more hardened as sin is indulged in, and more and more
incapable of pronouncing the verdict we expect of it. You speak of leaving the
guilty wretch face to face with his conscience; but he knows how to bribe this
judge, he knows how to silence its voice, he knows that the best thing he can
do to stifle and bewilder it completely is to degrade himself more and more
deeply. You will not admit the punishment which Christianity holds in reserve
for the sinner, and you replace it by a gradual debasement. Which of you two
respects humanity most? I have pointed to the consequences of all the theories
which affirm the annihilation of the individual soul. After conscience I would
interrogate the human heart, and show how the notion of annihilation little
answers to that infinite yearning after love which lies at the depths of our
being. But is it needful to insist on this point? Do not these two words, love
and annihilation, placed in opposition to one another, form a distressing and
ridiculous contrast? Does not the heart, when it is not deformed by sophisms,
protest against death? (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Immortality and nature
It is a strange fact that the human mind has always held to the
immortality of the soul, and yet has always doubted it; always believing, but
always haunted by doubt. Yet this throws no discredit upon the truth. Were the
belief not true, the doubt would long since have vanquished it, for nothing but
truth can endure constant questioning. This truth takes up and sets forth the
antagonism found in man’s own nature, as a moral being put under material
conditions, a mind shut up in a body. The consciousness of mind and moral
nature is always asserting immortality; the sense of our bodily conditions is
always suggesting its impossibility. It is the same thing that has always
showed itself in philosophy; idealism denying the existence of matter, and
materialism denying the reality of spirit. But the true philosophy of the human
mind is both idealistic and materialistic. Nearly all doubt or denial of
immortality comes from the prevalence of a materialistic philosophy; nearly
always from some undue pressure of the external world. Great sinners very
seldom question immortality. Sin is an irritant of the moral nature, keeping it
quick, and so long as the moral nature has a voice, it asserts a future life.
Just now the doubt is haunting us with unusual persistence. Certain phases of
science stand face to face with immortality in apparent opposition. The
doctrine of continuity or evolution in its extreme form, by including
everything in the one category of matter, seems to render future existence
highly improbable. But more than this, there is an atmosphere, engendered by a
common habit of thought, adverse to belief. There is a power of the air that
sways us, without reason or choice. Science is rapidly changing its spirit and
attitude. It is revealing more and more the infinite possibilities of nature.
True science admits that some things may be true that it cannot verify by
result, or by any test that it can use. Evolution does not account for the
beginning of life, for the plan of my life, for the potency that works in
matter; for the facts of consciousness, for moral freedom and consequent
personality. In considering immortality, it is quite safe to put science aside
with all its theories of the continuity of force, and the evolution of physical
life, and inwrought potentiality and the like. We are what we are, moral
beings, with personality, freedom, conscience, and moral sense; and because we
are what we are, there is reason to hope for immortal life. In any attempt to
prove immortality, aside from the Scriptures, we must rely almost wholly upon
reasons that render it probable. Our consciousness of personality and moral
freedom declare it possible, but other considerations render it also probable
and morally certain. Let us allow no sense of weakness to invest the word
probability. Many of our soundest convictions are based on aggregated
probabilities. Indeed, all matters pertaining to the future, even the sunrise,
are matters of probability. Give some of the grounds for believing that the
soul of man is immortal.
1. The main current of human opinion sets strongly and steadily
towards belief in immortality.
2. The master minds have been strongest in their affirmations of it.
3. The longing of the soul for life, and its horror at the thought of
extinction.
4. The action of the mind in thought begets a sense of a continuous
life. One who has learned to think finds an endless task before him. Man
reaches the bounds of nothing.
5. A parallel argument is found in the nature of love. It cannot
tolerate the thought of its own end.
6. There are in man latent powers, and others half revealed, for
which human life offers no adequate explanation.
7. The imagination carries with it a plain intimation of a larger
sphere than the present. It is difficult to conceive why this power of
broadening our actual realm is given to us, if it has not some warrant in fact.
8. The same course of thought applies to the moral nature. It has
been claimed by some that they could have made a better universe . . . The step
from instinct to freedom and conscience, is a step from time to eternity.
Conscience is not truly correlated to human life. The ethical implies the
eternal. Turn from human nature to the Divine nature.
We shall find a like, but immeasurably clearer group of
intimations. Assuming the theistic conception of God as infinite and perfect in
character, this conception is thrown into confusion if there is no immortality
for man.
1. There is failure in the higher purposes of God respecting the
race; good ends are indicated, but not reached. Man was made for happiness, but
the race is not happy.
2. The fact that justice is not done upon the earth involves us in
the same confusion. The slighting of love can be endured, but that right should
go forever undone is that against which the soul, by its constitution, must
forever protest. The sentiment of righteousness underlies all else in man and
in God. But justice is not done upon the earth, and is never done, if there be
no hereafter.
3. Man is less perfect than the rest of creation, and, relatively to
himself, is less perfect in his higher than in his lower faculties.
4. As love is the strongest proof of immortality on the manward side
of the argument, so is it on the Godward side. The probabilities might be
greatly multiplied. If stated in full, they would exhaust the whole nature of
God and man. (Theodore Munger.)
Is there a future life
There is scarcely a religion known to us of which belief in a
future life does not form part of its creed. The most notable exception is that
of Buddhism. Our natural instincts are against the denial of immortality.
Immortality is believed in, altogether apart from the revelation of it in the
Christian Gospel, by civilised and savage races alike. At the most this amounts
to no more than a probability; but probabilities count for something. The two
chief causes of unbelief are bad morals and bad philosophy. By bad morals I
mean such a way of living the life that now is as either not to want the
doctrine of a future life to be true, or not to keep in activity those higher
elements of our nature to which the doctrine more particularly appeals.
Sincerely and practically to believe that we are immortal, we must more or less
feel ourselves immortal. But this feeling of immortality will seldom visit the
bosom of the man who does not honestly try to live on earth the life of heaven.
Spiritual things are not likely to be discerned by the animal man. The
disbelief also springs from bad philosophy. Many who are living right lives,
have no faith in immortality as Christians believe in it. All the immortality
they look for is to live in hearts they leave behind them, “in minds made
better by their presence.” They are agnostics or materialists. Against this
unbelief we set the assertion of the Christian Gospel that man is destined to a
life beyond the grave. The future life is not in the nature of things a matter
of present experience. It is almost entirely a matter of direct revelation from
God. We must accept it because it is an essential part of the Christian faith.
There are, however, some considerations which render the truth of a future life
eminently reasonable.
1. The fact of human personality. The most impressive of the works of
God is the soul of man. A soul--a self! Is it possible to exhaust the meaning
of those mysterious terms? Our physical frames are ever changing, yet our
personalities are preserved. Is the one change we call death going to destroy
us? The very suggestion is absurd.
2. A future life is demanded by our feeling of the symmetry of
things. The extinction, the utter extinction of one single human soul would
shake my belief in God to its foundations.
3. Our conscience demands a future life. To speak as though good men
enjoyed here the fulness of reward, and bad men suffered here the fulness of
penalty, is not accurate. There are moral inequalities, moral inconsistencies,
which need a future life for their removal and redress. Thus, when Christianity
comes to us with its magnificent revelation of immortality it finds us already
prepared, on such grounds as we have been just noticing, to welcome the
revelation, because it accords with some of the deepest convictions both of our
heads and of our hearts. The witness without is confirmed by the witness
within. Still, it is not on our reason, nor on our feelings that the Christian
revelation of a future life is based. It is on the “resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead.” All the teaching of Christianity on the question is
pivoted there. (Henry Varley, B. A.)
The resurrection
I. The direct
teachings of the Bible. The predictions of resurrection in the Old Testament
partake of the general character of prophecy, containing much that could not be
understood even by the prophets themselves. God, who spoke unto the fathers by
prophets, has spoken unto us by Christ. And Christ knew what He Himself said.
The disciples preached, through Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. As the
Lord Jesus was raised up, so should all His followers be. He was the first
fruits of them that slept. The Bible teaches the doctrine of the resurrection
by the instances which it records.
II. The indirect
teachings of the Bible. There is one truth which is involved in almost every
principle of morality which the Bible sanctions, that fully confirms the idea
of the resurrection of the body--the future and eternal existence of man. Man
will live hereafter, and live forever. The living soul the infinite spirit, is
the real man; but from the earliest period of time to the present, personality
has been ascribed alike to soul and body, though, in strictness of speech, neither
has any personal existence. A proper humanity supposes the union of both body
and spirit. That man is the heir of an eternal existence corresponding to his
present existence in the union of spirit and body, appears from the doctrine of
the eternal humanity of Christ. We believe that, at the last day, the Almighty
will raise the bodies of the dead, reunite them with the spirits which formerly
animated them, and so, once more, make man a living soul. Deal with the
objection, that death involves decomposition. In what consists personal
identity? The identity of the body is not to be found in the aggregate of its
particles, nor in any precise arrangement of them. Identity cannot be ascribed
to a mode of being, only to being itself. Identity does not consist in gross
materiality. With what fearful interest does the doctrine of the resurrection
invest the cause of the sensualist. But we have in this doctrine a ground of
hope, as well as of fear. (J. King Lord.)
Nature and immortality
Man’s mind is something essentially different from his body, and
that, therefore, the death of the body does not imply the destruction of the
mind. There are those who are materialists. They hold that there is nothing in
existence but matter. Mind they regard as a function of the brain. If this were
so, some serious consequences would follow.
1. Man would then be only a machine. There would be no specific
difference between him and the brutes. The brain certainly is the organ of the
mind; but physical science has left unexplained the nature and origin of our
mental and moral being. There is yet a great chasm between dead and living
matter. Scientists cannot prove that dead matter can originate life. In
consciousness there is nothing common with matter. A thought cannot be weighed
and measured; nor can love; nor can our power of will. What has materialism to
say to conscience? Materialism cannot account for man’s mental, moral, and
religious nature. Mind is not secreted by the brain, but is an entity distinct
from it, and immaterial. This does not prove the soul immortal, but it turns
aside one argument of those who would prove that the soul is not immortal.
2. In the moral government of the world there are such inequalities
that there must be a future state of conscious existence in which these
inequalities will be rectified. Do we see in the world an absolutely perfect
system of rewards and punishments? Does every man receive in this life his
deserts? It is true that the way of transgressors is hard, and that godliness
is profitable for the life that now is. It is inseparable from any proper
conception of God, that His righteousness rules the world. We may ,be sure that
He will complete His plan; and in His perfected work He will vindicate His
righteousness, and show that all His ways are equal.
3. The soul’s capacities and aspirations are such as point to
immortality. The lower animals are adapted to the place they occupy. Death
rounds off their life, and is the natural termination of it, there is no
indication of capacity for a higher life. It is otherwise with man. Look at
man’s power of gathering knowledge. There is no limit to man’s power of
acquiring, if only he had life. There is an indication of man’s immortality in
his natural and ineradicable yearning after it. That a man may desire some
blessing is no proof that he is destined to obtain it; but in this case you
must consider how this desire is inwrought into the very nerve and fibre of our
spiritual being. We shrink appalled at the very thought of annihilation. God
has made this desire of immortality part and parcel of our being. It is born
with us, and grows with us. Then also, man is the only creature on earth that
has risen to the knowledge of God, and has a nature leading to the worship of
God. Nay, God is the want of the human soul. If man’s conscious existence is to
terminate with death, I can see no reason for these high endowments which lead
him to know and worship God.
4. In the workings of the conscience we have prophetic
fore-shadowings of immortality. Look at the prophetic action of conscience. It
urges us to prepare for certain eventualities in the future. Conscience urges
us to shun the wrong and to do the right, that it may be well with us
hereafter. Take two classes of men--those who are upheld by their conscience, and
those who are tormented by their conscience. We analyse their feelings and
convictions, and find that those take hold on eternity, and look forward to
judgment. The man who meets death to keep his conscience unstained, is impelled
by a high moral instinct, which needs an eternal future to approve its wisdom
and to vindicate its sacrifices. But when conscience is violated, the anguish
it causes also points to the future. Conscience distinctly foreshadows a future
life of conscious being.
5. The universality of the belief in immortality is an evidence of
its truth. Among barbarous and civilised nations, everywhere, is found this
belief in a future state of conscious existence. Bring these different
arguments together. What is it that Jesus has done? Made known a future
existence not known before? Nay; but brightened, or made clear what was
imperfectly understood, and shown that only through Him can be obtained a
glorious immortality. (A. Oliver, B. A.)
Shall we live again
The question is the question of one who doubts. In Job’s days men
could not pierce the darkness of the grave. Hence the gloomy views men had of
death. There is much in the visible aspect of death to lead to the saddest
conclusion.
1. The resurrection is not impossible. Can anything be too hard for
Him who made us? If God gave us life, He can restore us to life.
2. Resurrection is to be expected--it is in keeping with the instinct
implanted in us by our Maker. Man has everywhere a yearning after immortality.
Consider the place man holds here ca earth amongst God’s creatures. He alone is
a responsible creature. But reward and punishment are not always meted out
according to a man’s doings at present. While this is the case, does it not
seem a denial of God’s justice to say that this life is all? Then we have God’s
Word of promise for it, that “though a man die, he shall live again.” And we
have the resurrection of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, for our example. This it
is that gives us the victory over our doubts and fears. This is the rock on which
we build our hope of rising again. If these bodies of ours are appointed to
immortality, does it need a preacher to enforce the necessity of a pure, and
sober, and godly conversation? Look at the strong support and comfort which
belief in a resurrection can give the heart. (R. D. B. Rawnsley, M. A.)
Life beyond the grave
Faith in a life beyond the grave is the real, though often
unrecognised basis of all stable peace and happiness for us. Without this
underlying belief our present existence can have no real coherence, purpose, or
meaning. Faith in a future life is the unseen foundation of all that is fairest
and noblest in humanity. Even the joy and careless vivacity of the unreflecting
seem to me to be ultimately based on the rational and thoughtful faith of
deeper souls. Beneath the superficial happiness of trivial natures lies stratum
after stratum of profound human thought, extending far down towards the very
core of the universe. Ordinary mundane happiness really depends on convictions
which its owners do not themselves gain, or even hold consciously. The deeper
spirits of our race are often in gravest bewilderment and grief, and their
sorrow even now threatens the continuance of man’s ordinary satisfactions. It
really seems as if, even though in reality there should be no future life, we
must invent one, in order to make this life tolerable. Hence, perhaps, the
fantastic doctrine of immortality taught by the positivists. The best service a
thoughtful spirit can now render is to face the haunting spectre of modern
life, doubt of a future existence, to grapple honestly with all besetting
difficulties, to seek to know the very actual truth. Sorrowful indeed must ever
be this lonely quest of the venturesome pilgrim soul. Nor must it expect much
sympathy from man. But the resolute inquirer may still find some comfort from
God. I do not think that Christianity is committed to any particular theory as
to the natural immortality of the finite soul, or as to its absolute
independence of matter in any form. The Christian view is, that the life of the
finite soul is entirely dependent upon the uncreated and undying life of God.
Ours is a derived, and not a natural immortality. I do not think that St. Paul
held at all Bishop Butler’s doctrine of the absolute independence of the
spiritual or mental principle within us. The apostle’s views were nearer to
those favoured by modern science. Butler scarcely thought a body a real
necessity at all; St. Paul yearned after a “spiritual body.” I am glad to
think, that, if I live beyond the grave, it is not necessary that I should be a
mere ghost, or else a grossly material being as I am on earth. Mill argues that
the idea of extinction is “not really or naturally terrible” from the fact that
it is held out as a reward in the Buddhist creed. He here entirely ignores the
fact that the deep pessimism, which makes the Buddhist hate a future life of
consciousness, also makes him hate the present life. Curiously enough, in
Mill’s essay, the misery of the present life is regarded as inducing men to
dislike and disbelieve in a future life, and also as disposing them to demand
it and believe in it. Mill teaches that if man’s life on earth were more
satisfactory, he would probably cease to care for another existence. On the
whole, considering John Stuart Mill’s nature and early training, he came as
near to the great Theistic faith as we could reasonably expect. I think we
shall find that, on the whole, our position today is a somewhat stronger one
than that occupied by the defenders of immortality in earlier days, though we
may have to encounter some new obstacles to belief. We must admit that the
merely physical phenomena of death point to annihilation. The difficulty of
conceiving that our individuality will survive the shock of separation from its
organism, probably arises from our ignorance, and might be no difficulty if we
had fuller knowledge. To a very great extent, science now heals the wounds
which it inflicted on the human spirit in earlier days. The highest science
does not tell us that a future life is impossible for us; it only says that it
cannot guarantee it to us; it leaves us quite free to consult our moral and
spiritual nature. We Christians can still believe in a future existence on
grounds derived from reason. I see no grounds for disbelieving in a future
life, if the moral arguments in its favour are cogent and conclusive. One
strong moral argument is the unsatisfactory nature of our present life. This is
a very real argument, if we believe in a benevolent God. Another argument is
derived from the fact that God’s moral government is only incipient here on
earth. The inchoate condition of many of our highest faculties seems also to
suggest faith in a continuance, and development of life beyond the grave.
Progressiveness is the distinguishing mark of man. The glorious instinct of
worship seems also to vindicate for us a reasonable hope of a grander life in
God’s nearer presence. Our present moral nature is full of suggestions of a
future life. The affections of men plead most eloquently of all for a future
life. God has set eternity in our hearts, though our heads may question it. The
deepest human love is saturated with faith in immortality. It cannot even speak
at all without implying the eternal hope. The loftiest affections, being born
of God, are accredited prophets of true religion. (A. Cranford, M. A.)
Our immortality God’s will
The common arguments for the immortality of man are irrelevant. We
are not immortal, because we wish to be so, or think we are so, or because
immortality befitteth us as lords of the creation, or because we love life, and
the thought of annihilation is disagreeable to us, or because there is within
us a craving after endless existence. All these arguments, though powerless
with those old pagans of whom we have been speaking, are frequently adduced by
such as have the Gospel in their hands, as if they were all powerful. But the
Gospel, as it needeth them not, ignoreth them. One of the pagans, and he
agreeing with others, would tell us that “whatever beginneth, endeth”
(Panaetius). And another (Epicurus) that “mind ceases with dissolution.” Hence
we, as we had a beginning, despite all our reasonings to the contrary, beside
or beyond the Gospel, might cease to be. We may not like the thought, it is
hard, cheerless, chilling; but if it put us into our right place before
God,--if it serve to check that pride of immortality, which is the purest
hindrance to preparation for it,--let us not disregard the truth, that we, as
we began to be, like all other things might, were it God’s will, cease to be .
. . But God hath willed it otherwise. If with Job we ask, “If a man die, shall
he live again?” the reply is direct, he shall. And why? Not because we, having
a better insight into what is called Natural Theology and the laws of life, and
being more mindful of the dignity of our nature than the men of old, are better
able to reason ourselves into a belief of this truth. No; our immortality doth
not depend upon natural arguments, or upon sensuous predilections. We are immortal
because God hath told us so. It is His will. And as if to bring down our pride,
the immortality of the soul hath been testified unto us by the resurrection of
the body. The proof of the one is in the other. The Gospel of Christ knoweth
nothing of the immortality of the soul apart from the immortality of the whole
man. And if we regard the one to the neglect of the other, we do but endanger
the blessedness of both. We have begun to exist, but not for this reason, but
because it is God’s decree, and Jesus Christ hath been raised from the dead,
and hath ascended into heaven in our nature, we shall exist forever. This is
the solemn thought, which should never be long absent from our minds. We live,
and bye we must. The destruction of the present order of the globe will affect
our being no more than the fall of a raindrop, or a shooting star. Too dreadful
is the truth of our immortality, even though the hope of saints should render
it lovely, to permit it to make us proud. The gift may raise us beyond the brutes,
but if its alternative he the hopeless land, it will sink us below them. (Alfred
Bowen Evans.)
Yes and no
I. We answer the
question first with a “No.” He shall not live again here; he shall not again
mingle with his fellows, and repeat the life which death has brought to a
close.
1. Shall he bye for himself? No; if he hath lived and died a sinner,
that sinful life of his shall never be repeated. Let the cup be sweet; it is
the last time thou shalt ever drink it. Once thou shalt insult high heaven, but
not twice. The long suffering of God shall wait for thee through thy life of
provocations; but thou shalt not be born again into this world; thou shalt not
a second time defile its air with blasphemies, nor blot its beauties with
impiety. Thou shalt not live again to forget the God who hath daily loaded thee
with mercies. If you die you shall not live again to stifle the voice of your
conscience, and to quench the Spirit of God. Solemnly let us say it, awful as
it appears, it is well that the sinner should not live again in this world.
“Oh!” you will say, when you are dying, “if I could but live again, I would not
sin as I once did.” Unless you had a new heart and a right spirit, if you could
live again, you would live as you did before. In the case of the child of God,
it is the same, so far as he himself is concerned, when he dies he shall not
live again. No more shall he bitterly repent of sin; no more lament the plague
of his own heart, and tremble under a sense of deserved wrath. The battle is
once fought: it is not to be repeated.
2. Shall he live for others? No. The sinner shall not live to do
damage to others. If a man die, he shall not live again to scatter hemlock
seed, and sow sin in furrows. What, bring back that thief to train others to
his evil deeds? Bring back that self-righteous man who was always speaking
against the Gospel, and striving to prejudice other men’s minds against Gospel
light? No. no. And now, let me remind you that it is the same with the saint,
“If a man die, shall he live again?” No. This is our season to pray for our
fellow men, and it is a season which shall never return. Hasten to work while
it is called today; gird up your loins and run the heavenly race, for the sun
is setting never to rise again upon this land.
II. “If a man die
shall he live again?” Yes, yes, what he shall. He does not die like a dog; he
shall live again; not here, but in another and a better or a more terrible
land. The soul, we know, never dies. The body itself shall live again. This
much cometh to all men through Christ, that all men have a resurrection. But
more than that. They shall all live again in the eternal state; either forever
glorified with God in Christ, blessed with the holy angels, forever shut in
from all danger and alarm; or in that place appointed for banished spirits who
have shut themselves out from God, and now find that God has shut them out from
Him. Ye shall live again; let no one tempt you to believe the contrary. And
hark thee, sinner; let me hold thee by the hand a moment; thy sins shall live
again. They are not dead. Thou hast forgotten them, but God has not. And thy
conscience shall live. It is not often alive now. It is quiet, almost as quiet
as the dead in the grave. But it shall soon awaken. Remember that your victims
shall live again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Belief in immortality
The great Roman orator, Cicero, said, “Yes, oh yes! But if I err
in believing that the soul of man is immortal I willingly err, nor while I live
would I have the delightful error extorted from me; and if after death I shall
feel nothing, as some philosophers think, I am not afraid that some dead
philosopher shall laugh at me for my mistake.” Socrates declared, “I believe a
future life is needed to avenge the wrongs of this present life. In the future
life justice shall be administered to us, and those who have done their duty
here in that future life shall find their chief delight in seeking after
wisdom.” Yes, the soul is in exile. Like the homing pigeon released, it hurries
back to the bosom of the Father. Man is not satisfied with his humanity! As one
writer has put it, our race is homesick. (Homiletic Review.)
All the days of my
appointed time will I wait, till my change come.--
The resuscitation and its time appointed
We are informed of Columbus, that visions of the mighty continent
he was afterwards to reveal rose upon his mind long before he set out on the
voyage which conducted him thither. He was convinced that such a continent
existed, and he burned with an ardent desire to explore its hidden wonders. We
are told that he wandered often by the shores of the mighty ocean, or climbed
aloft some rocky steep, that he might gaze over the world of waters. There must
be a western continent; and who would not brave the dangers of the deep, if,
haply, the enterprise would terminate in so wonderful a discovery? The
discoveries of Columbus, however wondrous the exhibition there made of human
sagacity and perseverance, did, after all, relate but to a portion of this
fallen world; a world in which the great discoverer himself could be permitted
to go to the grave neglected, impoverished, persecuted. But every man who has
his station on the shores of the ocean of eternity, must ere long embark on its
heaving waters, prosecute for himself the dangerous navigation, and occupy a
place in the mysterious world beyond. In that region of mystery there are
employments, sufferings, joys. Tremendous are the results which ensue from
crossing that ocean of eternity. Oh, well, therefore, may we stand on our
Atlantic cliff, straining our eyeballs over the deep, as the shades of evening
are coming on; listening to the roar of the waters, if haply we may gather
thence some intelligence regarding the distant world. What shall be my destiny
yonder?
I. Job evidently
lived in the hope of a coming resurrection. He speaks of a tree cut down, yet,
under the influence of heat and moisture, sprouting again; and expresses his
wonder that man, when “he dieth and giveth up the ghost,” should be utterly
“wasted away” and become a nonentity. He speaks of rivers and pools of water
drying up by the heats of summer; but he leaves the impression that he did not
forget that the returning rains would restore them to their former state. He
prays that God would “hide him in the grave,” and there “keep him in secret”
until His wrath was past, when, at a time appointed, he would be remembered and
restored. “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.”
Is this, as if he had said, the destiny of man, the order of God’s providence
in dealing with him, first to die and then to revive? Must the seeds of death
be purged out of his body in the grave? if so, then I need not fear death; I
may rather welcome it with joy, looking forward into the future with
confidence, waiting with patience for the resurrection day, and “knowing that
my Redeemer liveth.” It becomes us, in these latter times, to dwell with
special interest on the doctrine of a resurrection. It is a fact that we have
been born; it is a fact that we shall die; and it is another fact, just as
certain, that we shall rise again from our graves. God is able to do it, and
has issued the promise. Oh, wonderful exhibition to be thereby afforded of
Jehovah’s might! So have I seen one of our Scottish mountains invested with its
wintry mantle of snow, and incrusted on all sides with thick-ribbed ice. Not a
green leaf or tiniest flower broke the uniformity of the snowy waste. What
desolation, dreariness, and death! Who would suppose that underneath that icy
covering, life, and warmth, and beauty, were lying entombed, awaiting their
glorious resurrection! Yet so it is. The months of winter passed away, the snow
and ice disappeared, the streamlets flowed and sparkled again in the sunshine,
and the whole landscape, once so chill and dreary, was lighted up with a
thousand sights of loveliness and joy. The winter too of the grave has its
returning spring, and while faith points the finger to the glorious epoch, hope
fills the soul with an earnest of future gladness. “If a man die, shall he live
again?” Thus saith the Lord, “Rejoice”; “I am the resurrection and the life; he
that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
II. Job was
evidently convinced that the years of his life were fixed and numbered. He
speaks, you perceive, of a “time appointed.” And this idea is repeatedly
suggested elsewhere, when we find him declaring that the Almighty has “numbered
his steps,” “determined his days and the number of his months,” and caused him
to “fulfil his days like a hireling.” These expressions not only imply, but in
distinct terms affirm, the sovereignty of God in fixing the duration of human
life. Every individual man lives his “appointed time,” and not one moment
longer. There are many other utterances of Scripture which make the same
affirmation. The Royal Preacher tells us that there is “a time to be born, and
a time to die,” as if the two grand limits, at least, of human existence, were
positively fixed by Divine decree. The Psalmist speaks of the “measure of his
days,” and compares it to “an handbreadth”; expressions which are not only
indicative of the shortness of human life, but also of its precise and actual
amount. The Apostle Paul speaks of “finishing his course,” and of a “race being
set before us”; terms borrowed from the measured racecourse in the gymnastic
games of the ancient Greeks, which, as fully as language can express it, affirm
the doctrine we have just announced. And, indeed, the same doctrine flows, as a
necessary consequence, from all we know of the perfections of God. If it be a
truth that Almighty God determines in every case the duration of human life,
and fixes the hour and circumstances of our dissolution, we ought to give Him
credit for the exercise of supreme wisdom in this part of His procedure. No
life is either prolonged or shortened without good cause. We ought to reflect
that permanent or even lengthened existence in this world is not the end for
which we were created. This world is the great seed bed or nursery for those
souls who are destined to occupy diverse places and perform different functions
hereafter. Our residence, accordingly, in this world, is not an end, but a
means; and as the Almighty has ordained that this shall be the case, we may
rest assured that not a single removal occurs, from the visible into the
spiritual, but in the exercise of supreme wisdom. The time during which the
spirit of every man must be submitted to the influences of this world, and the
special influences to which it is submitted, are things of Divine appointment;
and not merely the glory of God, but the welfare of all creation, is
contemplated in every such appointment. It is incumbent on us, accordingly,
habitually to feel and to act upon the truth of the Patriarch’s saying: There
is a time appointed for us all. We may not know the hour of our departure from
this sublunary scene; the season, the place, and the circumstances of our
dissolution may not be revealed to any created intelligence. But all is known
to God, and is matter of previous arrangement and ordination. Moreover, the eternal
interests of the whole universe are therein consulted. The Judge of all the
earth is doing what is wise, and good, and right. Let us, accordingly, cherish
the spirit of contentment and submission; filling the place assigned us with
meekness, humility, and faith; prosecuting the duties before us with
perseverance and godly zeal; holding ourselves in readiness, whensoever the
summons reaches us, to arise and go hence.
III. Job formed a
resolution to wait with patience the evolution of the Divine purposes. “All the
days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” He might have to
endure for a season; but the vindication of his character, and the eternal
re-establishment of his happiness, were future events, as certain of occurring
as the rise of tomorrow’s sun, or the budding of the flowers of the ensuing
spring. What he felt called upon to do was to exercise patience in waiting for
them. The trial, though severe and of long duration, would some time or other
come to an end; the distress, though protracted, would not last forever; the
eternal weight of glory which was approaching would far more than
counterbalance the sufferings by which it was preceded. Oh, how different this
from the faith and hope of the world! History has recorded the deathbed
incidents and sayings of one of the infidel leaders of the great French
Revolution. “Sprinkle me,” said Mirabeau, as he was dying--“sprinkle me with
odours, crown me with flowers; for I am sinking into eternal sleep.” Oh, what a
contrast!--the dying infidel on the one hand, the agonised patriarch on the
other! The former had no God in whom he could trust; no Saviour to whom to
resort when heart and flesh were fainting; no hope but the eternal sleep of
annihilation. Peace he had none, nor the hope of it. And yet he was a dying
man, and felt it. The roar of the dark waters was in his ears, and all he hoped
for and desired was to be swallowed up in them, and be no more. And is this all
that Reason, the boasted deity of French Atheism, can suggest to encounter the
King of Terrors, the destiny of the grave?--a few drops of perfume, that
speedily will exhale, and leave this poor clay tabernacle putrifying and
noisome!--a chaplet of flowers, which ere tomorrow will be withering, and mock
the brow it has been gathered to adorn! Poor preparation this for the soul’s
entrance into the presence chamber of Almighty God!--miserable comfort, when
the heart-strings are bursting! See, however, yonder sorely distressed
patriarch. Accumulated sorrows are wringing his spirit with anguish. He has
lost all that the world values,--wealth, children, health, and even the good
opinion and sympathy of his friends. He is a predestined heir of glory; his
name is in the book of life. He is a saint amid all his sorrows; and God loves
him, though bodily and mental anguish are making of him a prey. Oh, for the
faith and hope of the servant of God! (J. Cochrane, M. A.)
The triumph of patience
Job makes use of the fact, that human life is so short and so
sorrowful, as an argument why God should let him alone, and not chasten him.
Life, he seems to say, is short enough without being cut shorter, and sorrowful
enough Without being embittered by God’s judgments. What Job seems to mean is,
that when we once die, we cannot resume our earthly life. There is much that is
solemn in this truth. There are many things on earth which we can do a second
time; if done imperfectly the first time, a failure is not altogether fatal.
But we can only die once. If our short life is wasted, and we die unprepared, we
cannot make up for lost opportunities--cannot come back to die again. It is
easy to see what Job means by his “appointed time,” and also by the “change”
for which he waited. But in applying these words to ourselves, we may take a
wider range; for there is an appointed time to many different events and
periods of human life, as well as to life itself; and corresponding to each of
these there is a change, for which the true Christian ought to wait.
1. There are seasons of special temptation and conflict in the
Christian life. But temptation endured, is a great furtherance to the spiritual
life.
2. It is a law in God’s kingdom that we must have trouble. There is
sin in our hearts, and where there is sin, there must be chastisement sooner or
later. It is well, therefore, to make up our minds that we shall be tried, so
that, when it comes, we may not count it a strange thing. Some trials we may be
spared, if we live near to God. But some trials we shall still need. How much
there is to comfort us under them, if only we are Christ’s. (George Wagner.)
Life a warfare
First, let us hear the warning, “If a man die, shall he live
again?” The lives of other men,--their blindness to the changes and decay in
themselves which are so evident to their fellows,--the experience of our own
hearts, above all, which have so lightly retained many strong impressions, may
make us feel the necessity of this caution. We shall indeed live forever. Our
souls cannot lose their consciousness. But a deathless eternity will offer no
period similar to this life on the earth. There will be no new trial, no new
place of conflict with evil, no time to seek the Lord, and to do good to our
own souls. In this consists the true value, and inestimable importance of life;
it is the one time of probation for an external judgment; it is the time to fit
ourselves “for the inheritance of the saints in light.” We are able in some
respect to see that the allowing to those who waste the present life a second
trial upon earth, would have produced incalculable evil. Even as it is, with
death and judgment in view, how many live carelessly. If men knew that after
death comes the entrance into a further period of preparation, repentance would
be far more rare, and the number of those who are treading the narrow way heavenward
greatly diminished. In the ease supposed, those who revived from death would
enter on their second time of trial, not with a childish proneness to evil, but
with hearts inured to sensuality, and we may say, inflexibly hardened in
disobedience. Would not the amendment of sinners, and the constancy of the
godly then become well-nigh impossible? These considerations may teach us that
it is a method at once necessary, righteous, and merciful, by which “it is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” This is the hour
in which God hath appointed you, not to wrath, but to obtain salvation by Him;
to be fellow workers with Him in accomplishing your renovation. If we consider
our ways, how much is there to correct and amend! How much remains for the
Spirit of God yet to work in us Such reflections may prepare us to adopt Job’s
resolution, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change
come.” The word rendered “appointed time” has in the original a peculiar
signification. It almost always signifies “an army,” as in the expression,
“Lord God of Sabaoth,” or “Lord God of hosts.” The word warfare is the same as
the word Job employs; so we may read, “All the days of my warfare I will wait
till my change come.” With great propriety Job might speak of himself as
enduring a great fight of afflictions. But to each of us this word “warfare” is
most significant. The term impresses on us the duty of self-denial. Without
forgetfulness of things behind, without submission and prompt obedience to the
general’s command, no soldier, however excellent might be his personal
qualities, however high his courage, would be of any service to the army he had
joined, but rather an incumbrance. How much more does this renunciation of our
own will and pleasure become us, who follow such a Leader! Our warfare is an
especial act of faith; for it is a spiritual combat. Our enemies do not show
themselves. He who has made any real efforts to live a godly life, knows that
“the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.” This figure of our warfare
represents to us, above all, the necessity of patience. “All the days of my
warfare will I wait.”. . .To him who is emulating the resolve of Job, there is
not only caution, but abundant comfort in his reflection that if a man die, he
will not live again any such life as the present. Human life is the day in
which we are to rejoice and labour. (M. Biggs, M. A.)
The advantages of religious resignation
Job grounded his resignation on the principle, that though God was
pleased to make so severe a trial of his virtues and innocence, He would, in
His due time, restore him to his former prosperity here, or reward him with
inconceivable happiness hereafter.
I. In what
latitude we are to understand Job’s notion of an appointed time. As fixed for
the period of human life. The period of our lives is not peremptorily
determined by God; but every particular person has it in his option to prolong
or shorten it, according to his good or bad conduct. God’s foreknowledge hath,
in itself, no influence at all upon the things foreknown; nor is it
inconsistent with the freedom of man’s will; nor doth it determine our choice.
Length of life depends very much on the regularity or irregularity of conduct.
Even common observation furnishes us with the fatal consequences that
inseparably attend intemperance and lust. Religion and virtue naturally conduce
to the lengthening of life, by affording us the advantage of fixed rules of
conduct.
II. It is our
indispensable duty to wait, with patience, all the days of this appointed time.
Our disappointments and calamities are under the inspection and at the disposal
of wise providence, and therefore they ought to be endured without the least
discontent or complaint. A consciousness of acting in concert with the supreme
governor of the universe, cannot fail affecting a human mind with the liveliest
transports of joy and tranquillity.
III. Rules to settle
in our mind this great duty of resignation.
1. Keep a firm belief that the universe is under the superintendence
of an all-powerful Being, whose justice will finally distribute rewards and
punishments according to our virtues and vices.
2. An effectual restraint must be laid upon our impatience and
fretfulness.
3. Keep confident that afterward joy will spring up.
4. The inward tranquillity of mind, that proceeds from a
consciousness of fidelity in our duty, is inexpressible. (W. Adey.)
Good men wait for the day of their death
Mutability cleaves to all mankind from the cradle to the grave.
I. Death is an
appointed change. It was in consequence of man’s first offence that a sentence
of mortality was passed upon the whole human race. It was then appointed to all
men once to die. Many allow that God has appointed death to all men; but deny
that He has appointed the time, or place, or means, of any particular person’s
death. But it seems difficult to conceive how it was possible for God to
appoint death to every individual, without appointing the time, the place, and
the means of his death.
II. What is implied
in the Godly man’s waiting for their appointed change.
1. The habitual expectation of their dying hour. Waiting always
carries the idea of expectation.
2. An habitual contemplation, as well as expectation of death.
3. That they view themselves prepared for their great and last
change.
4. That they desire the time to come for them to leave the world. We
wait for what we desire, not what we dread.
III. They have good
reasons for this waiting all the days of their appointed time, till their
change come.
1. Because it will put them into a state of perfect holiness.
2. And into a state of perfect knowledge.
3. And into a state of perfect and perpetual rest.
4. It will not only free them from all evil, but put them into
possession of all good. Improvement--
Waiting for death
We are all, like Job, mortal; like him, we may be assailed by
severe afflictions, and tempted to wish impatiently for death; but we ought,
like him, to check these impatient wishes, and resolve to wait till our change
comes.
I. Consider death
as a change. The word is impressive and full of meaning. It strongly intimates
Job’s belief in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of
existence. Though death is not the extinction of our being, it is a change.
1. It is the commencement of a great change in our bodies.
2. In our mode of existence. Until death, our spirits are clothed
with a body, but after death they exist in a disembodied state, the state of
separate spirits. This change will be accompanied by a corresponding change in
our mode of perception. Then we shall see without eyes, hear without ears, and
feel without touch.
3. In the objects of perception we shall in effect experience a
change of place. Death removes us from one world to another. We shall then most
clearly, constantly, and forever, perceive God, the Father of spirits, and of
the spiritual world.
4. In our employments, and in the mode of spending our existence.
5. In our state and situation. This world is a world of trial. While
we remain in it, we are in a state of probation. Our days are days of grace.
6. A great change with respect to happiness and misery.
II. The appointed
time allotted to each of us on earth, at the expiration of which the change
will take place. The number of our months is with God; He sets us bounds which
we cannot pass. We must allow that God has set to every man an appointed time,
or deny the providential government of the universe.
III. What is implied
in waiting the days of our appointed time?
1. Waiting till God shall see fit to release us, without voluntarily
hastening our death, either in a direct or indirect manner.
2. An habitual expectation of it. No man can be said to wait for an
event which he does not expect, nor can we be properly said to wait all our
days for death, unless we live in habitual expectation of it.
3. Habitual care to preserve and maintain such a frame of mind as we
should wish to be in when it arrives. Whatever preparation is necessary, the
good man will take care to make.
4. Waiting for our change may be justly considered as implying some
degree of desire for it.
Some reasons why we should wait for it in a right manner.
1. The perfect reasonableness of so doing. Consider the certainty and
importance of death.
2. The command of Christ, with its attending promises and
threatenings. Stand, says he, with your loins girt about, and your lamps
trimmed. Be ye like servants who wait for their Lord, that when He cometh ye
may open to Him immediately; for ye know not at what hour the Son of Man
cometh. Blessed is that servant whom He shall find so doing. (E. Payson, D.
D.)
The Christian waiting for his final change
There is much holy feeling in these quiet words.
I. A change which
is coming. Job had already experienced many and great changes: yet he speaks
here as one waiting for a change, just as though he had hitherto never
experienced a single vicissitude. He means death.
1. To the righteous, death is a change of worlds.
2. A change of society. Man’s social feelings will doubtless follow
him to heaven.
3. We ourselves shall be changed by death. This is needful to give us
the full enjoyment of our change of worlds and society. Our souls will be
changed. They will be enlarged, strengthened, and, above all, purified. Our
bodies as well as our souls will be changed ultimately. Change will take place in
our outward condition and circumstances as well as in our ourselves.
II. The duty of the
people of God with reference to this change. The text says they must wait for
it. This waiting is the highest and holiest frame of mind into which Divine
grace can bring us with reference to our future change. It is a great thing to
be kept living in the constant thought and expectation of it. This waiting is a
triumph over, not merely the worldly-mindedness of the human heart, but the
fear and unbelief of the human heart. It seems a high attainment to feel a
desire for death; the desire which is a longing to be with Christ. This frame
of mind, even when attained, often in deep trouble gives way. Let me call on
you to cultivate this patient, waiting disposition. It is good for its own
sake. It is good as it redounds to God’s honour. It is good in its influence on
the whole Christian character. It is only for a little while that we can need
this grace. (C. Bradley.)
A coming change
Here we have reflected before us the character of the true
Christian, who will not even in the lowest depths of adversity, throw aside his
confidence in God, knowing that afflictions come not forth of the ground, but
of him without whom not a sparrow falleth thither.
I. The question
proposed. “If a man die, shall he live again?” The truth of a resurrection may
be impressed on us by analogy from nature, and by word of revelation. The same
power that bids the earth bring forth abundantly for the use of man, shall
hereafter cause the sea, death, and hell, to deliver up the dead which are in
them. Revelation would seem to enforce what creation would silently invite us
to contemplate.
II. The chance to
which allusion is made. It is one class of persons, and one only, of whom it
may be said, that they will wait till their change come--those who have put on
the Lord Jesus while here, and who are continually longing and looking for His
glorious appearing. It is to be a glorious change. It will introduce us into
glory; that glory we can here know but in part, for its fulness shall be
revealed hereafter. Another distinguishing feature in its character is that of
its being unchangeable. For He that shall bring this to pass is Himself without
variableness, or shadow of turning; and they who shall be fashioned like unto
Christ’s glorious body shall be so likewise; age shall roll on after age in
rapid succession, and signs of decay shall not make their appearance on these
glorified bodies, but they shall ever be the same, and their years shall not
fail. (E. Jones.)
Awaiting God’s time to die
In their moments of despair, even good men have desired to be in
the grave, but like Job, when they have returned to calmness and confidence in
God, each has said, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my
change come.” No good man will ever deliberately wish merely to die. The true
servants of God will never dishonour Him by proclaiming that the task He set
them is so intolerable that it were better to be as the clods of the valley
than engaged in its performance. The true soldiers of Christ, who have been
placed by Him in positions of especial difficulty, danger or hardship, that
they may peculiarly distinguish themselves, and win for Him peculiar glory,
will never long merely for the ending of the campaign. Victory, not ease, will
be the supreme object of their desire. They will hate the wish to desert their
post, just as they would actually to desert. Until the captain of their
salvation summons them to Himself, they will cheerfully endure hardships. Even
those of Christ’s followers to whom life seems one prolonged furnace of
affliction, will never forget that God placed them in it, and that His eye is
upon them as a refiner and purifier of silver. Not one of them would wish to
have the fire quenched before their Heavenly Father Himself sees fit to do so.
(R. A. Bertram.)
Death a great change
What a transition it was for Paul--from the slippery deck of a
foundering ship to the calm presence of Jesus. What a transition it was for the
martyr Latimer--from the stake to the throne. What a transition it was for
Robert Hall--from agony to glory. What a transition it was for Richard
Baxter--from the dropsy to the “saints everlasting rest.” And what a transition
it will be for you--from a world of sorrow to a world of joy. John Hollard,
when dying, said, “What means this brightness in the room? Have you lighted the
candles?” “No,” they said; “we have not lighted any candles.” “Then,” said he,
“welcome heaven”; the light already beaming upon his pillow. (T. De Witt
Talmage.)
The last change
The patriarch may be referring to the resurrection of the body
from the state of the dead; or to the change which takes place at death.
I. Death to a good
man is a change as to the soul itself. A man may be called a good man, compared
with many around him; yet the difference is vast between what he now is and
what he shall become, when death shall transfer his soul from earth to heaven.
II. It will also be
a change in regard to the soul’s habitation. The soul’s habitation, in the life
that now is, is not very convenient for its enjoyment. An apostle calls this
tabernacle “a vile body,” vile relatively, vile morally, and vile mortally.
III. Death to a good
man is a change as to human intercourse. The very best of men in this world are
imperfect. The Christian has not only here to do with men who are good, though
imperfect, but with men who make no profession of religion at all; with the
openly profane, and with insincere professors. From all such relations a good
man is delivered when his connection with time terminates. His glorified spirit
is then introduced into that high and holy place where there are no imperfect
or wicked men. Its companions now are the spirits of just men made perfect.
IV. It is a change
also as to the good man’s intercourse with God. In this world such intercourse
is often interrupted. To no interruption or privation is the soul of a good man
subjected after death. The soul will be prepared to dwell in God’s immediate
presence. The change indicated takes place at an appointed time. The change
which takes place in death is one for which all good men wait. All good men
wait for death by preparing for it. (Thomas Adam.)
Our life, our work, our change
I. First, let us
observe the aspect under which Job regarded this mortal life. He calls it an
“appointed time,” or, as the Hebrew has it, “a warfare.”
1. Observe that Job styles our life a time. Blessed be God, that this
present state is not an eternity! What though its conflicts may seem long, they
must have an end. The winter may drag its weary length along, but the spring is
hard upon its heels. Let us then, my brethren, judge immortal judgment; let us
not weigh our troubles in the ill-adjusted scales of this poor human life, but
let us use the shekel of eternity.
2. Job also calls our life an “appointed” time. Ye know who appointed
your days. You did not appoint them for yourself, and therefore you can have no
regrets about the appointment. Neither did Satan appoint it, for the keys of
hell and of death do not hang at his girdle. To the Almighty God belong the
issues from death.
3. You will observe also that Job very wisely speaks of the “days” of
our appointed time. It is a prudent thing to forbear the burden of life as a
whole, and learn to bear it in the parcels into which Providence has divided
it. I must not fail to remind you of the Hebrew: “All the days of my warfare
will I wait.” Life is indeed a “warfare”; and just as a man enlists in our army
for a term of years, and then his service runs out, and he is free, so every believer
is enlisted in the service of life, to serve God till his enlistment is over,
and we sleep in death. Taking these thoughts together as Job’s view of mortal
life, what then? Why, it is but once, as we have already said--we shall serve
our God on earth in striving after His glory but once. Let us carry out the
engagements of our enlistment honourably. There are no battles to be fought,
and no victories to be won in heaven.
II. Job’s view of
our work while on earth is that we are to wait. “All the days of my appointed
time will I wait.” The word “wait” is very full of teaching.
1. In the first place, the Christian life should be one of waiting;
that is, setting loose by all earthly things.
2. A second meaning of the text, however, is this: we must wait
expecting to be gone--expecting daily and hourly to be summoned by our Lord.
The proper and healthy estate of a Christian is to be anticipating the hour of
his departure as near at hand.
3. Waiting means enduring with patience.
4. Serving is also another kind of waiting. He would not be a servant
sometimes, and then skulk home in idleness at another season, as if his term of
service were ended.
5. Moreover, to close this aspect of Christian life, we should be
desirous to be called home.
III. Now comes Job’s
estimate of the future. It is expressed in this word, “Till my change come.”
1. Let it be observed that, in a certain sense, death and
resurrection are not a change to a Christian they are not a change as to his
identity. The same man who lives here will live forever. There will be no
difference in the Christian’s object in life when he gets to heaven. He lives
to serve God here: he will live for the same end and aim there. And the
Christian will not experience a very great change as to his companions. Here on
earth the excellent of the earth are all his delight; Christ Jesus, his Elder
Brother, abides with him; the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is resident within
him; he communes with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
2. To the Christian it will be a change of place.
3. Specially will it be a change to the Christian as to that which
will be within him. No body of this death to hamper him; no infirmities to
cramp him; no wandering thoughts to disturb his devotion; no birds to come down
upon the sacrifice, needing to be driven away. Right well, good patriarch,
didst thou use the term, for it is the greatest of all changes. Perhaps to you
it will be a sudden change. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 15
Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee.
God calling in death
Mr. Moody used to say, “Some day you will read in the papers that
Dwight L. Moody is dead. Don’t you believe it. When they say I am dead, I shalt
be more alive than I ever was before.” Now, it is very easy to say that when
one is well and strong, but the last hours Mr. Moody had on earth he lay
looking death right in the eye without a quiver. Early in the morning of his
last day on earth, before daylight, his son Will, who was keeping watch beside
his bed, heard him whispering something, and leaning over the bed, caught the
words, “Earth is receding, heaven is opening, God is calling!” Will was
disturbed, and called the other members of the family into the room. “No, no, father,”
he said; “not so bad as that.” His father opened his eyes, and, seeing the
family gathered round, said, “I have been within the gates. I have seen the
children’s faces”--those of his two grandchildren who had died during the
summer and spring. In a little while he sank into unconsciousness again, but
again became conscious, and opened his eyes and said, “Is this death? This is
not bad. There is no valley. This is bliss!--this is sweet!--this is glorious!”
Then his daughter, with breaking heart, said, “Father, don’t leave us!” “Oh,”
he replied, “Emma, I am not going to throw my life away. If God wants me to
live, I will live; but if God is calling me, I must up and off!” A little while
later, someone tried to arouse him; but he said faintly, “God is calling me;
don’t call me back. This is my Coronation Day; I have long looked for it!” And
so he went up for his coronation! (A. R. Torrey, D. D.)
Thou wilt have a desire to
the work of Thine hands.--
Confidence in the Creator
The Book of Job seems to me the most daring of poems; from a
position of the most vantageless realism it assaults the very citadel of the
ideal. Job is the instance type of humanity in the depths of its misery. Seated
in the heart of a leaden despair Job cries aloud to the might unseen, scarce
known, which yet he regards as the God of his life. But no more than that of a
slave is his cry. Before the Judge he asserts his innocence, and will not
grovel--knowing, indeed, that to bear himself so would be to insult the holy.
He feels he has not deserved such suffering, and will neither tell nor listen
to lies for God. Prometheus is more stoutly patient than Job. Prometheus has to
do with a tyrant whom he despises. Job is the more troubled, because it is He
who is at the head and the heart, who is the beginning and the end of things,
that has laid His hand upon him. He cannot, will not, believe Him a tyrant. He
dares not think God unjust; but not, therefore, can he allow that he has done
anything to merit the treatment he is receiving at His hands. Hence is he of
necessity in profoundest perplexity, for how can the two things be reconciled?
The thought has not yet come to him, that that which it would be unfair to lay
upon him as punishment, may yet be laid upon him as a favour. Had Job been Calvinist
or Lutheran the Book of Job would have been very different. His perplexity
would then have been--how God, being just, could require of a man more than he
could do, and punish him as if his sin were that of a perfect being, who chose
to do the evil of which he knew all the enormity. From a soul whose very
consciousness is contradiction, we must not look for logic; misery is rarely
logical; it is itself a discord. Feeling as if God had wronged him, Job yearns
for the sight of God, strains into His presence, longs to stand face to face
with Him. He would confront the One. Look closer at Job’s way of thinking and
speaking about God, and directly to God. Such words are pleasing in the ear of
the Father of spirits. He is not a God to accept the flattery which declares
Him above obligation to His creatures. Job is confident of receiving justice.
God speaks not a word of rebuke to Job for the freedom of his speech. The
grandeur of the poem is that Job pleads his cause with God against all the
remonstrance of religious authority, recognising no one but God, and justified
therein. And the grandest of all is this, that he implies, if he does not
actually say, that God owes something to His creature. This is the beginning of
the greatest discovery of all--that God owes Himself to the creature He has
made in His image, for so He has made him incapable of living without Him. It
is not easy at first to see wherein God gives Job any answer. I cannot find
that He offers him the least explanation of wily He has so afflicted him. He
justifies him in his words. The answers are addressed to Job himself, not to
his intellect; to the revealing, Godlike imagination in the man, and to no
logical faculty whatever. The argument implied, not expressed, in the poems
seems to be this--that Job, seeing God so far before him in power, and His
works so far beyond his understanding, ought to have reasoned that He who could
work so grandly beyond his understanding, must certainly use wisdom in things
that touched him nearer, though they came no nearer his understanding. The true
child, the righteous man, will trust absolutely, against all appearances, the
God who has created in him the love of righteousness. God does not tell Job why
He had afflicted him; He rouses his child heart to trust. (George Macdonald,
D. D.)
The believer’s confidence
It would seem as if in using these words Job had reference to the
resurrection of the body. We may regard them, in a more general way, as an
assertion of the patriarch’s confidence in God; of his assurance that he should
be kept unto everlasting life. Believers are invariably witnesses that the more
cause a man has to be full of hope and of confidence, the more diligent will he
be in the use of appointed means of grace. The privileges of true religion have
no tendency to the generating presumption. The man who has the strongest
scriptural warrant for feeling sure of heaven is always the man who is striving
most earnestly for the attainment of heaven. Never venture to appropriate to
yourselves the rich assurances which are found in the Bible, unless you have
good reason to believe that you are growing in hatred of sin, and in strivings
after holiness. Fear not to take to yourselves all the promises made by God to
His Church, so long as it is your honest desire, and your hearty endeavour, to
become more conformed to the image of your Saviour.
1. The language of confidence. “Thou wilt call, and I will answer
thee.” Remember in how many ways God calls. Job’s words indicate great
confidence of final salvation. We should greatly rejoice to know that you had
all been able to cast away doubt and suspicion, and to feel yourselves
“begotten again to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled.” But we do dread
your resting your assurance on insufficient grounds. These are two great
features of genuine piety--the not being content with present acquirements, and
the resting for the future on the assistances of God.
2. Job strengthens himself in the persuasion that God will have “a
desire to the work of His hands.” Amid all the reasons which Job might have
urged why God should watch over him, he selects that of his being the work of
God’s hands. There is, however, a second creation more marvellous, more
indicative of Divine love, than the first; and on this, probably, it was that
Job’s thoughts were turned. The human soul was formed originally in the image
of God, but lost that image through the transgression of Adam. So marvellous is
its restoration, so far beyond all power but the Divine, that it is spoken of
as actually a new creation, when reimpressed with the forfeited features. (Henry
Melvill, B. D.)
The rights of creation
Such a chapter as this does not stand by any means alone in the
Old Testament. Nature then, as now, lent but ugly dreams to the inquirer after
immortality. For one hint from nature, which tells in favour of immortality,
you may find a hundred from the same quarter which tell against it. In his
search for a solid ground upon which to build some hope, however scanty, for
the unknown future beyond death, the writer is driven at last to the simplest
and most solid ground of all--the fact of creation, and what is involved in
creation. Every chapter of his work is pervaded with the feeling of mystery,
vastness, and awe, whenever he speaks of God. But he holds firmly by his faith
in a Creator, whose creature--made in His likeness--he himself is. His argument
is this--“The creature simply as a creature, by virtue of creation, has a Claim
upon the Creator, which the Creator will be the first to avow.” It may, perhaps,
sound bold to speak thus of creation, as giving a title to the Creator’s care.
If the Creator were an unfaithful, an unrighteous Creator, there would indeed
be no limit to the power of dealing with, and disposing of His creatures. It is
our happiness to know that might is not right with Him; that the Almighty is
also the All-righteous and the All-merciful. Every created thing or person has
certain rights and claims as towards the Creator. These rights and claims are
determined by his or its capacities. Man is capable of knowing and doing his
Creator’s wilt He who is capable of fellowship with God will never be suffered
by the Creator to perish in death. We are in the hands of a Father, a Creator,
who knows what He would do with us, knows what we are capable of, knows what He
created us for; and who assuredly will not leave us until He hath done that
which He hath spoken to us of. Job’s confidence in God was justified to the
uttermost. (D. J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Verse 16
For Thou numberest my steps.
God compassing our paths
Some people think this idea is oppressive. They shrink from it. It
contracts their being, and depresses their energy. You have seen a ripe apple
that has been kept in the storeroom all the winter until all its juices have
evaporated, and its skin becomes dry and wrinkled, and it has shrunk in size to
a fourth of what it was. Take that withered, wizened apple, and place it under
the bell glass of an air pump, and as you withdraw the air that presses on it
from the outside, the air within itself causes it to expand, smooths out its
wrinkles, and makes it once more the plump, fresh apple it was when newly
plucked. A similar effect, they suppose, would be produced upon their being
were the oppressive compassing by God removed. They would move more easily
under their own indulgent eye than they could under the strict eye of God’s
righteousness. But this is a vain expectation. A heavier burden would press
upon them than the compassing of their path by God. The apple swells
mechanically only with its own internal gas, and not with the fresh juices of
life. It is empty and without substance. And so is the life from which the
conscious pressure of God upon it is removed. To be without God in the world is
to be without hope. There may be the appearance of living, but the soul is
dead. (Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)
Verse 17
My transgression is sealed up in a bag.
Memory
The figure here employed to denote the certainty of a future
investigation into all the secret transactions of a man’s life is drawn from
the peculiar manner in which payments, for convenience sake, were sometimes
made by oriental merchants. A certain sum of money, or weight of gold, having
been securely sown up in a bag, the seal of the banker was impressed upon it,
and it passed current from hand to hand without being opened to be counted or
weighed for the purpose of ascertaining the exact sum to be contained in it
when it was first put into circulation. This custom is used to teach the
doctrine of a day of account with every individual soul. The bag must at last
be unsealed and unsewn, that the contents hidden from the eye may be made
manifest. Look upon yourselves during the time of your trial upon earth, as
though the secrets of your life, the life of your soul before God, all the busy
multifarious emotions of your existence, were “sealed up,” and, as it were,
“sewn” within yourself, as money in the bag; preserved there by the memory, and
by the memory also to be produced, at a set time, for inspection and judgment.
The memory is a wonderful faculty of the mind; where consciousness exists,
there also the memory; it dies not with the body, but is active in the soul
when emancipated from the flesh. Its instrument is the brain. The memory, which
is the power of retaining what we have once grasped, and of recalling it at
pleasure, makes the brain the seat of its operations, its busy workshop, its
mechanical centre, where it sets all the wheels and intricate motions of the
machinery of the intellect. Though our several faculties act upon the physical
system, yet they reside essentially in the soul. If this be the relation
between matter and spirit, between body and soul, we can understand their joint
action, while we are able to distinguish the agent from the instrument, the
cower from the machine, the soul from the body. Take an individual, and analyse
the working of his memory upon his spiritual history. (G. Roberts.)
The waters wear the
stones.
Silent action of rain
The most conspicuous agent employed (in the disintegration
of rocks) is rain. Rain is not chemically pure, but always contains some
proportion of oxygen and carbonic acid absorbed from the atmosphere; and after
it reaches the ground organic acids are derived by it from the decaying
vegetable and animal matter with which soils are more or less impregnated.
Armed with such chemical agents, it attacks the various minerals of which rocks
are composed, and thus, sooner or later, these minerals break up . . . In all
regions where rain falls the result of this chemical action is conspicuous;
soluble rocks are everywhere dissolving, while partially soluble rocks are
becoming rotten and disintegrated. In limestone areas it can be shown that
sometimes hundreds of feet of rock have thus been gradually and silently
removed from the surface of the land. And the great depth now and again
attained by rotted rock testifies likewise to the destructive action of rain
water percolating from the surface. (Dr. Geikie’s “Earth
Sculpture.”)
Verse 18-19
And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought.
The law of nature and of life
If the patriarch of Uz could listen to all the criticism of his
commentators, his patience would be more severely tried than by his
contemporaries.
1. Job intentionally uttered a solemn truth. He speaks of the changes
to which human life is subjected--great and sudden revolutions and changes--and
the changes that result from the slow and silent operation of trivial causes.
2. Job unconsciously stated a great fact. There are laws by which all
changes and convulsions in nature are regulated. There is in nature a provision
against the waste which appears to follow change. The things which grow out of
the dust owe their beauty or fruitfulness to the soil, which is constantly
being renewed. There is no soil so miraculously prolific as sorrow,--the seed
sown there will bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Life seems
to have its birth in death. There is one great change produced directly by
Divine agency. It is indispensable that we should experience this.
3. Our days have a definite end. If life is so brief, make the most
of it, use all its opportunities, seek to be prepared for death. (H. J.
Bevis.)
Verse 20
Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
Man’s mittimus
I. The change. The
human countenance an instructive book. All its changes are not of God’s
working, or ordering. The sharp lines of greed, the curves of pride, the flush
of sensuality, etc. These are the brands of sin and Satan; sin ploughs furrows
as well as time.
1. There is the change made by time. From infancy to age the face is
continually undergoing alteration. Smoothness gives place to wrinkles;
freshness to the worn, wan hue of age. The mirror is a solemn teacher.
2. The change made by care. Job’s friends did not recognise him;
sorrow dims the eye; anxiety makes its woe mark on features. Nehemiah before
the king. Hezekiah.
3. The change by sickness. Pain prints the proofs of its presence
there; in sunken eye and snowy pallor, sickness sets its seal upon the face.
4. The change by death. Death is a sculptor who carves his own image
in the white marble of the dying frame.
5. The change by grace. The influence of religion on the countenance.
The surface of a lake, when overspread with clouds or reflecting the shining of
the sun. Who does not know some dear and saintly face, with little of earth and
much of heaven in it, waiting at the Beautiful Gate until God opens the temple
door for them, and they pass into the glory that excelleth? Stephen’s face
before the Jewish council.
6. The change in glory. Resurrection glory. “We shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is.” But the change of grace, and the change in
glory are only consequent on a “change of heart.”
II. The sending.
1. Who sends him? “Thou.” In God’s hands are the issues of life. When
He says, “Go,” none may resist His mandate. Man’s folly in using life, ay,
wasting it as though it were his own, and at his own disposal. “O spare me,
that I may recover strength,” etc.
2. From what is he sent? From probation. Now is the day of salvation,
only now. From possessions. We brought nothing into the world, and it is
certain, etc. From privileges. Prayer, Word, Sanctuary, Sabbaths, etc. From
pleasures. Rejoice, O young man, in the days, etc. From mercies. That flower
does not bloom beyond the river. Let the Christian remember also that he is
sent from--
3. Whither is he sent? “He giveth up the ghost, and where is he?”
4. Where is he sent? “If the goodman of the house had known,” etc. (J.
Jackson Wray.)
Verse 22
But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him
shall mourn.
Physical sensation after death
Was it not the opinion of the ancient Jews that the soul retained
somewhat of the sensation of the flesh until the body had entirely dissolved?
It would not be strange if such were the fact, considering the proximity of the
Jews to the Egyptians; since the Egyptians held the notion that the continuance
of the soul’s existence depended upon the preservation of the bodily organism,
a notion which led to the embalming and secure burial of the corpse. Tacitus
distinctly ascribes this notion to the Jews as its originators. There are also
some Old Testament texts which at first glance seem to convey such a belief, e.g.,
verse 22, speaking of a man as dead, it adds, “But his flesh upon him shall
have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn”; and Isaiah 66:24, “They shall go forth, and
look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against. Me; for
their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched.” Dillman and
others regard these texts as proving that the Jews held to the doctrine of
physical consciousness in the grave. Delitzsch regards the pain of the soul as
merely sentimental, “The process of the corruption of the body casts painful
reflections into the departed soul.” Professor Davidson admits thus much to
have been the Jewish notion. “There are two ideas expressed--
──《The Biblical Illustrator》