The Dead in Christ (Continued)

The dead IN Christ.” — i Thess. iv. 16. “Them also which sleep in Jesus.” — i Thess. iv. 14.

ET us pursue these thoughts a little further. “The dead m Christ” — “Asleep in Jesus.” Yes, so thoroughly has Jesus conquered death by His own dying, that He is said, in the Apostle’s emphatic words, to have “abolished death.” He has flooded the dark valley with light for His departing people. He has converted its gloomy rolling mists into golden clouds, opening vistas into Paradise.

“For them the silver ladder shall be set,
Their Saviour shall receive their latest breath;
They travel to a fadeless coronet,
Up through the Gate of death.”

Matthew Henry well calls death “a parenthesis in the believer’s history.” Being already IN Christ, their removal implies not really a change of state, but only a change of locality, — a glorious step in the law of endless development — the presence and love of Christ

A. A. Proctor.

now enjoyed by faith, then enjoyed by sight in full beatific vision and fruition. The prayer of Stephen is the death-song of every true saint: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” “I myself cannot die,” to quote again from the records of the same saintly life as in the preceding meditation, — “I live in Christ; — and though at His call I may enter on a new and untried state of being, I shall but part with my earthly tenement, ’ as a bird escaped from the snare of the fowler, to rejoice in my deliverance from a cumbrous body, that clogs the free and full exercise of all my powers. As the husk of the chrysalis I shall cast it aside, and rise out of it to soar above the dark clouds and mists of earth into the pure and serene atmosphere of heaven, where dwell only those who are holy and heavenly — the perfected spirits of the redeemed.”

Those who have been in Rome will remember that the Via Sacra (the highway for the ancient laurelwreathed conquerors leading to the Capitol, with the Temple of Jupiter crowning its summit) is not very far distant from the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, of which we have already frequently spoken. Death, to believers, is the true Via Sacra, with its triumphal arch conducting to the heavenly Temple, and to the presence of the enthroned King, who is Himself the crown and consummation of their bliss: from His lips to receive the welcome of the fulfilled promise — “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne” (Rev. iii. 2i).

(i.) Then, as regards our own departure. If “IN Christ: — “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Voltaire, in one of his letters, says, “I hate life, and yet I am afraid to die.” Contrast this with the Christian’s experience, as interpreted by St. Paal: “Whether we wake or sleep,” whether we continue on earth, or fall asleep on our death-pillow, “we shall live together with Him” (i Thess. V. lo). In Christ and with Christ; this is, in brief, the history of the believer’s limitless future. The Bible picture of heaven is not merely the negative one, of deliverance from the ills of life, the ending of the long-drawn sigh and wail of humanity; but it is the positive enjoyment of .the Redeemer’s Presence. Here is the morning which follows the night of earth: “What time I awake, I am still with Thee!” We have lately quoted Luther’s words of solace over his loved child ;-^appropriate was the closing prayer at his own deathbed — “0 heavenly Father, .though I must resign my body, and be borne away from this life, I know that I shall be with Thee for ever 1”

When the many thousands of Israel crossed of old the Jordan — the waters standing up. as a wall on either side, and they marched dry-shod through the channel — every eye was directed to the sacred symbol preceding them. So of the Great Antitype it may be said, as His people pass through the darksome river of which the other has ever been the type, “Behold, the Ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan” (Jos. iii. 11). It was the reflected glory of Jesus (in Christ), which caused the face of the doomed protomartyr to appear to those who looked steadfastly on him, “as it had been the face of an angel” (Acts vi. 15). “Blessed are the dead which die IN THE Lord” (Rev. xiv. 13).

(2.) As regards departed friends: — “Weep not!” He, or she, “is not dead, but sleepeth” (Matt. ix. 24). He, or she, is not dead, but liveth! God “giveth His beloved sleep “: — not the slumber spoken of by the Poet —

“Sleep the sleep that knows no waking,”

but that which is to precede and usher in the everlasting morning. It was with the prospect of that glorious day-dawn and of a joyous reunion, that the learned and loving Neander uttered the touching words as he composed himself on his dying pillow, — “Good-night! “The first of our motto- verses forms but one clause in a sentence of joyous consolation to mourners, which has this most blissful ending — “And so shall we (“we” — a little word, but implying and involving the assured hope of blissful restoration to those we mourn), “ever be with the Lord.”

“Not here, — God be thanked, no — not here; living and not dead yonder, with the Master! We are far too much the creatures of sense; and the accompaniments of dissolution and departure fill up our hearts and our eyes. Think them all away, believe them all away, love them all away. Stand in the light of Christ’s life, and Christ’s death, and Christ’s rising, till you feel” Thou art a shadow, not a substance; no real thing at all.” Yes, a shadow; and where a shadow falls, there must be sunlight above to cast it. Look up, then, above the shadow Death, above the sin and separation from God, of which it is the shadow! Look up to the unsetting light of the Eternal Life on the throne of the universe, and see bathed in it the living dead, in Christ.”

“The Living Dead in Christ!” — It conveys the tender rebuke to the disconsolate Believer, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” The elevating thought plucks the sting from death and robs the grave of its victory. It tells of a meeting-place, where these “loved and lost” shall be loved never to be lost again, but permitted to exult in ties which defy dissolution. The mourners of the first ages had no monopoly of the lines they delighted so fondly to trace — “In Jesu Christo obdormivit.”

Dr. Maclaren’s Sermons, p. 103.

2 In Jesus Christ he fell asleep.” From their bearing on the theme of this volume and of this chapter, the author may be forgiven quoting the following, he has written elsewhere. The familiar Scottish pronunciation of the verb is retained: —

Oh precious tale of triumph this,
And martyr-blood shed to achieve it!
Of suffering past — of present bliss — “In Jesu Christo obdormivit.”

Of cherished dead be mine the trust,
Thrice-blessed solace to believe it!
That I can utter o’er their dust — “In Jesu Christo obdormivit.”

Sad were indeed this world to me,

With thoughts of loved ones called to leave it.

But for that angel’s lullaby —

“In Jesu Christo obdormivit.”

Now to the silent grave I bring
My immortelle, and interweave it
“With God’s own golden lettering — “In Jesu Christo obdormivit.”

Since the preceding chapters were finished, I have been reminded, in the pages of Boldetti, of the following well-known and touching inscription from the cemetery of Calixtus, probably of date the middle of the third century. It is a lengthened one, but thus it begins: — “Alexander MORTVVS NON EST, SED VIVIT SUPER ASTRA. In ChRISTO.” {Alexayider is not dead, but lives beyond the stars. In Christ.)

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