The Life of the World to Come
My Father’s house on high,
Home of my soul, how near,
At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye,
Thy golden gates appear!
I hear at morn and even,
At noon and midnight hour,
The choral harmonies of Heaven
Earth’s Babel tongues o’erpower.
Then, then I feel that He,
Remembered or forgot,
The Lord, is never far from me,
Though I perceive Him not.
MONTGOMERY
NOTHING is less possible than to picture Heaven, if to picture means to divine and to describe the promised state of bliss, not in symbol but in the letter. A little thought will soon convince us how vain is the attempt to realize, in the sense of a prospective description, a life and sphere where, for one great thing, there is no end; where, in the Master’s mighty words, * they cannot die any more.’ Almost as Luke soon as we begin to imagine, to shape into 36. defining figure, the process of endless life, its occupations, its intercourse, its joys, does not a fear of fatigue, however faint and distant, set in? To sing and to strike the harp for ever, to contemplate for ever — the words are beautiful as symbols for realities past our present conception. But taken as they stand, to be explained in terms of experience, they almost inevitably bewilder. We may be tempted to sympathize with the gentle scepticism of the old Christian woman in The Harvester, who never could be happy about * those foundations’ of the City in the skies, for what did they stand on?
On the other hand, how terrible would be the thought that the heavenly bliss could possibly have an end! It would be a sorrowful escape from the fear of an immortal weariness to be told that the heavenly nations, like the earthly, would fade like the grass at last. And the result of the two opposite thoughts is just this, that we do wisely to set aside all elaborated imaginations of Heaven. But all the more let the soul apply itself to these glorious intimations in the Book of Hope which point to the essentials of the blessed life.
i. Remember then first, what may lift from the tired mind all fear that there it will be tired. Remember that the heart and soul of the heavenly life, as we have seen, is this: ‘We shall ever be with the Lord.’ In Virgil’s great poem we have a strangely beautiful picture of the pagan paradise, the Elysian fields. We see bards, heroes, priests, human benefactors, enjoying an interminable leisure and pleasure, amidst the groves, lawns, and streams of their green underworld. But one momentous thing is entirely lacking in the scene. There is no central Presence, holy, living, life-giving. And I for one can never read the incomparable Latin without a haunting sense of impending satiety. Our Christian Heaven will not be so. * I will come again, and receive you unto myself ‘; ‘Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me x where I am, that they may behold my glory’; ‘They shall walk with me in **V^ white ‘; ‘The Lamb... shall feed them, xiii 4. and shall lead them ‘; c They shall see His face.’
ii. Recognition, and reunion, and companionship will be vivid experiences of Heaven. We have seen sure tokens that they will be present in the intermediate state. All the more certain is it that in the complete life, in the perfect consummation, we shall know, and love, and converse, with an unspeakable intimacy of delight. We have already recalled with what an exalted joy of friendship St. Paul anticipates his personal reunion at the Coming, in the life of consummation, with his dear Thessalonians. In one passage he links together the Coming and the Meeting, face to face, heart to heart, in one
2 Thess. deep breath of expectation: ‘We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him.’ Again he speaks, in words cited already, words quite meaningless without the certainty of individual welcomes and the embraces which clasp i Thess. long-known friends: ‘What is our hope, “• I9 or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, at His coming? ’
Such recognition, such individual and immortal loving, lies in the very nature of our hope of bodily resurrection. What do we know each other by here? By the expression of the soul, through the body which it animates and fills. Well, the body of the resurrection is a concrete i Cor. reality. It is indeed ’ a spiritual body,’ xv- 44 made for the perfect possession and wielding of the spirit. But it will be itself material, though glorified. As such, it will be an absolutely responsive vehicle for the self-expression of the blessed personality. We shall know each other there, through the body, not less but more, in all the depths and treasures of the individual character — that character which will grow always ’ from glory to glory ’ on the individual lines laid, so to speak, this side the grave. Yes, a hundred times be it said; they whom we love will be their dear selves there, knowing us, for ever. * If I did not love you there,’ said a deeply-taught young Christian, dying, * I should be someone else.’ * As is the heavenly One, such are they i Cor. xv. also that are heavenly.’ The Lord was un- 48 speakably Himself, and not another, in the body of His resurrection. ‘It is I myself.’ L^ When He returns out of the heaven of xxiv- 39 heavens He will still be ‘this same Jesus.’ Acts i. u In this also let us remember that * we shall i John be like Him; for we shall see Him.’ m< 2 So let us settle and make secure our hope of a recognition unspeakably happy, by ’ that intensely real and practical force in human life,’ in Francis Paget’s words,
* the power of Christ’s Resurrection.’
iii. Then, assuredly, the heavenly life will be a life occupied, serviceable, selfdevoted to the commands of God. There the human will will be more free than ever; only, like the supreme free will of God, it will eternally settle itself upon perfect good. It will be determined immovably from within, in a secure ‘necessity of holiness’ — which does but mean the perfect freedom of a being which sees all truth perfectly, and is perfectly attuned to it in all things.
A generous serviceableness is the very salt of existence here. It must be likewise, in absolute measure, there. The three great expressions of that all-happy life will be Love, Praise, Service. Love will be the very breath of the saints; love, which goes always out from self to find its bliss in the good of another; love, which will eternally rejoice to give joy to the Shepherd who sought and found His wanderer, and then to give joy to all and each who share with the sinless lover the life of love. Praise will be the native language of the very being of the saints, the voice of a joy which looks out from self, with an unspeakable content, upon the excellences of others; delighting above all in the supreme Excellence of the all-satisfying God, and then in the excellences, the holy glory and beauty, of the blessed lives around. That praise will be an eternal song, loud with the harps and viols of spiritual jubilation, pulsating through the whole existence of the redeemed. The music, I do not doubt, will ever and again find loud expression in ’ such concord as is in Heaven,’ the choral counterpart of our terrestrial anthems, sounds such as those which entranced the midnight upon the field of Bethlehem. But the whole life, motion, action, will be music; one melody of self-forgetting praise, one deep flow of harmony beneath the melody, the movements of a spirit one with the will of God. And Service will be the unending occupation of the blessed, in all the progress and acquisitions of their life. For surely in Heaven they will still advance and attain for ever, finding always more to win, in the light of God. But never, nevermore, will the gain be sought for self. It will be for the King always, and for other lives in Him.
What can be the works and responsibilities of Heaven? What is intended by the * authority over cities,’ in the parable where the faithful servants who have done well are rewarded, not with workless ease, but with charge and power? I dare to think that, as the holy angels found it no loss to their bliss to visit Peter in the dungeon or Paul in the tornado, so the immortals of our race may have wonderful work to do, full of the exalted joy of sacrifice, in dark places of the universe. But this is no more than a reverent venture of thought. Only it is certain that never, to all the endless ages, will the bliss of Heaven be wasted on oneself-regarding aim. The happy spirit must always and with rejoicing go out from itself. It must spend itself, and give itself, for ever. For ever it is ’ not its own.’
A great Christian preacher, Edward Irving, in a sermon on the Heavenly Happiness, speaks nobly thus: —
‘I hope that in Heaven the instability of virtue will be removed, and that there may be no more talk about the golden mean, but that the heart may drink deep and not be intoxicated with its affections, the head think on and not be wearied with its cogitations. And I hope that there will be no narrowness of means, no penury, no want; and that benevolence will be no more racked with inability to bestow.’
All this will be the movement of a life lived always, whatever may be its outgoings and activities, in one most holy spiritual locality. Like Gabriel, wherever, to whomsoever, each blessed human being is ’ sent,’ Luke i. 19 he will yet say, ‘I stand in the presence Rev. vii. of God.” They are before the throne of
God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.’
‘And God shall wipe away all tears Rev. vii. from their eyes.’ Let us close our con- I7 templation with that dear promise. My friend, sorely bereaved, famishing for a beloved presence, you to whom earth and heaven seem overcast with one cold cloud since your sorrow struck you, ’ be not afraid; only believe.’ Your beloved one — his is no wasted life. He has gone already, not into nothing, but to the ‘land of pure delight,’ to the Presence, to the face of Christ. He is ready for you there when you too go. And he shall come again, brought back with joy, in the bright train of the returning King.
* Wherefore let us comfort one another.’ i Thess.
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