Death

“The body without the spirit is dead.” — J as. ii. 26.

What is death? Can any man define it? Does inspiration tell us what it is? Yes; in the words now before us we have the simplest, the shortest, the most explicit definition in the world; death is the body without the spirit. It is a wonderful explanation, marked off distinctly from all other explanations. It is not said that to die is to have the life of the body extinguished; no, the life is not extinguished, it is away; there is something absent, the body is iviihout the spirit. It is not said that to die is to have the spirit without the body, in other words, that the spirit without the body is dead; no, the spirit cannot die, whether in the body or out of the body. Do not believe in the sleep of the soul; the soul never sleeps. Even in the watches of the night it is the body and not the soul that slumbers. The sleep of death is like the sleep of life; it belongs to the weary frame, not to the living spirit.

Thou who art weeping disconsolately over thy dead, there are words which have need to be uttered to thee, “He is not here, He is risen.” Thou say est, “He is dead,” yet it is not so; death applies not to the spirit, and the spirit is the man. It is only the body that can die; it is the body without the spirit that is dead. Bethink thee, what mean these words, “Though He were dead, yet shall He live”? They mean that what thou callest death is not the contradiction of life. “I know that He shall rise again in the resurrection,” says the weeping Martha at the grave of Bethany; yea, but, says the Master, thou expectest too little, for he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die at all. Martha thought that the life of the body was extinguished until that day when it should be revivified; she did not know*that death was itself only the flight of the spirit. But thou shouldst know that, thou the child of resurrection, the recipient of the dawn. Wherefore art thou hovering ever near the spot where the dust reposes? Why seekest thou the living among the dead? Wherefore dost thou measure thy nearness to the departed by thy nearness to the cemetery? What communion has the cemetery with life, what intercourse has the spirit with death If the departed should meet thee, it will not be in the graveyard; it will be in those moments when thou art furthest from the graveyard. Not from out the tombstone shall their voices come, but through the thoughts that make thee forget the tombstone; not from the symbols that are memories of death, but through the hopes that tell of immortality. In those moments in which heaven is opened and the ladder is revealed stretching from earth to sky; in those hours in which thine own spirit is caught up to meet its Lord in the air; in those days when from the top of Nebo faith has beatific glimpses of the promised land; in those seasons of summer warmth in which love lifts up her voice and sings, lt 0 death, where is thy sting! 0 grave, where is thy victory!” thou mayest picture, if thou wilt, the communion of those ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto them who shall be heirs of salvation.