What Faith Makes of Death
2 Peter i. 11, 14, 15
Ad entrance ministered abandantly. Shortly I miut pnt off this my tabemAd*. My decease.” 2 Peter i. 11, 14, 16.
We are all mourners here this morning. A life of practical godliness, of bright Christian service, and, latterly, of wonderfully brave endurance, has come at last to the end to which we slowly learned to know it must come. The loving wife, who was a helper and a counsellor as well, the staunch loyal friend, the diligent worker, with her open hand, her frank cordiality, her clear insight, her resolute will, has passed from our sight, but never from our love nor our memory. The empty place in the home can only be filled by Him that has made it empty, and we all pray that He may be near. Every member of this congregation must feel that a strong stay has gone. A wider circle, for whom I may presume to speak, mourns the loss of a dear friend; a far wider one, covering the whole country, offers through my lips this morning affectionate and earnest sympathy to the stricken hearts here to-day.
DeliTered At MyrtlA-itreet Ohspel, LlTarpool, (on oooMlon of the daath of Mrt, Btowell Brown.)
Butj dear brethren, the pulpit is not the place for personal eulogium, and I think I shall best discharge my duty if I try to turn our common sorrow to account by setting before you some general considerations drawn from these three fragments, which I have ventured to isolate from their connection because they have a certain unity as being all euphemisms for one thing. The Bible very seldom speaks of death by its own ugly name. It rather chooses to use expressions which veil its pain and its terror; and so does common speech. But the reason in the two cases is exactly opposite. The Bible will not call death “death” because it is not a bit afraid of it; the world will not call death “death” because it is so mnoh afraid of it.
The Christian view has robbed it of all its pain and its terror. It has limited its power to the mere outside of the man, and the conviction that death can no more touch me than a sword can hack a sunbeam, reduces it to insignificance. These thoughts are brought out in these fragmentary words which I ask you to consider now. I think you will see that they lend us some very valuable and gladdening thoughts as to the aspect in which Christian faith should regard the act of death.
I have ventured to alter their order for the sake of bringing together the two which are most closely connected.
I. — I ask you, then, to look with me first, at that representation of death as putting off the tabernacle.
“Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle* even as our Lord Christ hath showed.” There is, of course a reference here to the warning which the Apostle received from his Lord, “signifying what death he should die.” He had learned that in his old age he should be seized and bound, and led “whither he would not.” In all probability the language of our verse would be more accurately represented if we read for “shortly” suddenly; — the
ApoBtle’s anticipation not being somnch that his dissolution was impending as that his death when it came would b« sudden, — that is to say — violent. And therefore he seeks to warn and prepare his brethren beforehand.
The expressions seem to blend the two figures, that of a tabernacle — or tent — and that of a vesture. As the Apostle Paul, in like manner, blends the same two ideas when he talks of being “clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,” and unclothed from “our earthly house of this tabernacle.”
To such small dimensions has Christian faith dwindled down the ugly thing, death. It has come to be nothing more than a change of vesture, a change of dwelling.
Now what lies in that metaphor? Three things that I touch upon for a moment. First of all the rigid limitation of the region within which death has any power at all. It affects a man’s vesture, his dwelling-place, something that belongs to him, something that wraps him, but nothing that is himself. This enemy may seem to come in and capture the whole fortress, but it is only the outworks that are thrown down; the citadel stands. The organ is one thing, the player on it is another; and whatever befalls that has nothing to do with what touches him. Instead of an all-mastering conqueror, then, as sense tells us that death is, and as a great deal of modern science is telling us that death is, it is only a powder that touches the fringe and circumference, the wrappage and investiture of my being, and has nothing to do with that being itself. The “foolish senses” may declare that death is lord because they “see no motion in the dead.” But in spite of sense and anatomist’s scalpels, orianisation is not life. Mind and conscience, will and love, are something more than functions of the brain; and no scalpel can ever cut into self. I live, and may live — and blessed be God I I can say — shall live, apart altogether from this bodily organisation. Whatever befals it is only like changing a dress or removing into another house. The man is untouched.
Another thing implied in this figure, and, indeed, in all three metaphors of our text — is that life runs on unbroken and the same through and after death.
If the Apostle be right in his conviction that the change only affects the circumference, then of course that follows naturally. Unbroken and the same I The gulf looks deep and black to us on this side, but, depend upon it, it looks a mere chink which a step can cross, when seen from the other. Like some of those rivers that disappear in a subterranean tunnel, and then emerge into the light again, the life that sinks out of sight in the dark valley of the shadow of death will come up into a brighter sunshine beyond the mountains, and it will be running in the same direction that it followed when it was lost to mortal eye. For just as the dying Stephen knew his Master again, when he saw Him standing in the glory, we should know our dear ones after they had passed through this change, for all the sweetness and all the love would be there still, and nothing would be gone but the weakness that encompassed them, and the imperfection that sometimes masked their true beauty.
The same in direction, the same in essence, uninterrupted through the midst of the darkness, the life goes on. A man is the same whatever dress he wears. Though we know that much will be changed, and that new powers may come, and old wants and weaknesses fall away with new environment, still the essential self will be unchanged, and the life will run on without a break, and with scarcely a deflection. There is no magic in the act of death which changes the set of a character, or the tendencies and desires of a nature. As you die so you live, and you live in your death and after your death the same man and woman thai you were when the blow f elL
So, my brother if yoa need it, take the warning that lies in this truth, and see to it that the right character is begun to be formed here, for if it be not, there is no power in death to change its direction.
The last idea that is here in this first of our metaphors is that of a step in advance. “I must put off this my tabernacle.” Yes 1 in order that instead of the nomad tent — the ragged canvas — I may put on the building, the permanent house; in order that, instead of the “vesture of decay,” I may put on the fine linen, clean and white. which is the righteousness of saints, and the body which is a fit organ for the perfected spirit.
True I that does not come at once, but still the stripping off of the one is the preparation for the investiture with the other; and there is advance in the change. Death is as truly a step forward in a life’s history as birth is. Though the full “redemption” of the body be not yet received by them who sleep in Jesus, they wait in peace. They are blessed, conscious, lapped in the rest of God, and surely taaght by Him Who knows all things, all that it would gladden or help them to know of us whom they surely love still. They dwell out of the body, but they dwell in the Lord — and He will be to them their means of communication with the outer universe, eyes to the blind and hearing to the deaf.
Of course the process of divesting goes on at different rates. Elijah had his chariot of fire, Elisha is not less favoured when he falls sick of the lingering sickness wherewith he should die. The one has larger means of ministering than the other, and up to the last moment may teach lessons and give impulses. Some have the privilege given them like our dear friend of putting off the garments slowly, and teaching, as she did, lessons of brave patience, and of how to bear pain and weariness with undimnied sr)irit and unflagging interest in others, iSM WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH.
which those who learned them will keep as precious memories. But however the end comes, whether the wind rises and beats upon the house, and it falls in one sudden ruin, or whether it is slowly unroofed and dismantled until it is no longer habitable, let us thank God that we know for our dear ones and for ourselves, that whatever becomes of the clay hovel the tenant is safe, and has gone to live in a fair house in a” distant City glorious.’*
II. — And now we may turn to the remaining two metaphors here, which have a more close connection with each other, and yet are capable of being dealt with separately. Death is further spoken of as a departure.
“I will endeavour,” says the Apostle, “that ye may be able after my decease.” The word for “decease” here is a very unusual one, as, no doubt, many of you know. It is employed with reference to death only twice in the New Testament, once in the text and once in the account of our Lord’s Transfiguration, where Moses and Ellas are represented as speaking with Him “of the decease that He should accomplish at Jerusalem.” You may observe that immediately after the last of my texts, the Apostle begins to speak about that Transfiguration, and makes definite reference to what he had heard there; so that it is at all events possible that he selects the unusual word with some reference to, or some remembrance of, its use upon that occasion in the narrative of one of the Evangelists. Again, it is the word which has been transferred into English as Exodus, and may possibly be here employed with some allusion to the departure of the children of Israel from the land of bondage. Now, looking at these three points, the literal meaning of this word, its employment in reference to the deliverance from Egypt, and its employment in reference to the death of Christ, we gather from them valuable consideration!.
This aspect of death shows it to us as seen from this ■ide. Like the former, it minimiees its imjjortance by making it merely a change of place — another stage in a journey. We have had many changes already; only this is the last stage, the last day*s march, and it takes us home. But yet the sad thoughts of separation and withdrawal are here. These show us the saddest aspect of death, which no reflection and no consolations of religion will ever make less sad. Death, the separator, is, and must always be, an unwelcome messenger. He comes and lays his bony hand upon us, and unties the closest embraces, and draws us away from all the habitudes and associations of our lives, and bans us into a lonely land.
But even in this aspect there is alleviation if we will think about this departure in connection with the two uses of the word which I have mentioned.
A change of place, yes! an Exod us from bondage, as true a deliverance from captivity as that old Exodus was. Life has its chains and limitations, which are largely due to the bodily life hemming in and shackling the spirit. It is a prison house, though it be full of God’s goodness. We cannot but feel that, even in health and much more in sickness, the bondage of flesh and sense, of habits rooted in the body, and of wants which it feels, weighs heavily upon us. By one swift stroke of Death’s hammer the fetters are struck off. Death is a Liberator, in the profoundest sense; the Moses that leads the bondmen into a desert it may be, but to liberty and towards their own land, to their rest. It is the angel who comes in the night to God’s prisoned servant, striking the fetters from his limbs, and leading him through the iron gate into the city. And so we do not need to shiver and fear for ourselves or to mourn for our dear ones, if they have passed out of the bondage of “corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” Death is a departm-e which is an emancipation.
Again, it is a departure which is conformed to ChrlBt’s decease,” and is guided and companioned by Him.
Ah! There you touch the deepest source of all comfort and all strength.
“We can go through no darker roomi
Than He has gone before.”
And the memory of His presence is comfort and light. What would it be, for instance, to a man stumbling in the polar regions, amidst eternal ice and trackless wastes, to come across the footprints of a man? What would it be if he found out that they were the footprints of his own brother? And you and I have a Brother’s steps to tread in when we take that last weary journey from which flesh and sense shrink and fail.
Nor have we only the memory of a past companionship, but, blessed be God! the reality of a present Friend. When all other ties snap, that holds. There is an awful solitude in death into which no human affection can find its way. It comes and wraps a man in a cloud, through which love and sympathy cannot pass, but its thickest and mistiest folds are not too dense for Christ to enter. We may fear when we enter into the cloud; and when our dear ones go into it we may wring our hands in sorrow that our help avails so little, but be sure they have found, and shall find, Christ in the heart of it, and He will say to us, “When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the floods, they shall not overwhelm thee.” The departure is not all pain if we travel in the company of Jesus Christ.
III. — The last aspect of these metaphors is that one contained in the words of our first text, “An entrance ministered abundantly.” The going out is a going in; the journey has two ends, only the two ends are so very near each other that the same act is described by the two terms. Looked at from this side it is a going out; looked at from the other side it is a coming in.
WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEIATH. 3o7
“There is but a step betwixt me and /»/<?.” One moment, whilst we are saying, “Is he gone?” is enough to lead the dying into the presence chamber of the Kins?. To awake is the work of a moment. We but open our eyes, and the realm of dreams falls to pieces and we see realities. One step crosses the frontier.
If I had time I might dwell upon the thought which is plainly taught us in this last of our texts, of the close connection and entire correspondence between the abundance of the entrance and the character of the life. “So an entrance says my text, “shall be ministered,” and that “so” carries you back to the forcible exhortations in the early part of the chapter. The connection between keeping them and the abundance of “the entrance” is still more emphasised when we know that the same word in a different form occurs in the precept — ^’Add to your faith “and in the promise” An entrance shall be ministered.’’ Which is to say, in other words, if we take care to provide that our faith is enriched and increased with these graces and excellencies of Christian character, then, and then only, shall the abundant entrance be ours.
No question whatever, then, but that there is distinctly laid down here the principle that it is not all the same what sort of a Christian a Christian man or woman may be, but that the kind of Christian they are will tell in the kind of entrance they have in the Heaven above.
The smallest faith that unites a man’s heart with Jesus Christ makes him capable of receiving so much of salvation as is contained in the bare entrance into the Kingdom; but every degree of faith’s increase, and every degree of faith’s enrichment makes him more capable of receiving more of God in Christ, and he will get all he can hold. So every deed here on earth of Christian conduct, and evpry grace here on earth of Christian character, has its issue and its representative in a new influx of the glory and a more intimate possession of the bliss, and a more abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom.
S “We all enter at the same gate, but we are set at the banqueting table in due order. We all pass into the same Kingdom, but some of us may at once advance further into the land. Be sure, then, of this, that as our faith is enriched by conduct and character, so our Heaven will be enlarged with raptures and brilliancies.
So, when we see a life of which Christian faith has been the underlying motive, and in which many graces of the Christian character have been plainly manifested, passing from amongst us, let not our love look only at the empty place on eai-th, but let our faith rise to the thought of the filled place in Heaven. Let us not look down to grave, but up to the skies. Let us not dwell on the de parture, but on the abundant entrance. Let us not only remember, but also hope. And as love and faith, memory and hope, follow our friend as she passes “within the Teil,” let U8 thank God that we are sure —
**8he, when the bridegroom with his feastfol friendi PssseB to bliss, at the mid hour of night Has gained her entrance.”
My friends I This day’s services speak to each of you. Cannot you hear the” great Voice saying. Come up hither 1 *’ Is your life rooted in Jesus Christ? Have you given your life’s service to Him? Is this world a fleeting show to you because He is the reality that you love and trust? Is it so?
If it is, you may be always confident, iife will be full of power for work and gladness. A present Christ will comfort you concerning your dear ones gone; and when it comes to your turn to go, all the grim features of Death will be softened down into solemn beauty, and he, as God’s messenger, will lead you for a moment into the wilderness, and there speak to your heart, and “so an entrance shall be ministered abundantly unto you into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
May it be so with us all! Amen 1