Transformation at Death
“This is the rest whcrevith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing’’’’ —
“I2EC sljall be djangcti.” — i Cor. xv. 52.
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Another glimpse, beneath the pahiitrees, of the distant horizon, bringing with it a restful and tranquillising assurance. How many are led, from time to time, to disquiet themselves with the inward musing — the soliloquy of no feigned humility, — ‘How can we, with all our wretched frailties and shortcomings, our memories of guilt and backsliding — with some, it may be, the remembrance of scarlet and crimson stains — dream of admission into the world of unsullied purity, undimmed and undefiled by the intrusion of one unhallowed thought? How can we, ragged, sin-stricken, woe-worn, desert travellers, be fitted for the angel-life and angel-service of the Heavenly Canaan? ’
I answer. — A glorious change will pass on your now partially renovated spirits, at death. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him.” These, at present, drooping, lagging, “unmeet” souls, will, by a transforming process which we cannot now venture to imagine or comprehend, be made fit for the holy presence and enjoyment of a holy God.
Go to the garden, from which winter has just been removing its icy mantle — and over which the first breath of genial spring has been passing. Watch on the gravelwalk or nestling on the rockery, that repulsive insect; — you half wonder how God, the infinite Architect, in the plenitude of His skill, could not have devised something more beauteous than this little mass of inert life! But bend your steps to that same sunny nook when the balmy zephyrs of a July morning are wafted by. What see you now? That forbidding chrysalis has unlocked its secret; — that tiny prison-house has sent forth a joyous captive, radiant with beauty. See it with spangled body and golden wings, revelling amid the luscious sweets and the play of sunshine — each flower opening its cup and making it welcome to its daintiest treasures. What a feeble image of the transformed, metamorphosed spirit, in that hour when, life’s winter’s storms all past, it bursts its prison-bars — “leaves its encumbering clay;” and, gifted with angel-wings, soars aloft to summer in the bliss of the beatific presence! “O thou of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt?” “God will perfect that which concerneth you.” In that last solemn moment — “in the twinkling of an eye” — He will fit you, by “the working of His mighty power,” for taking your place among the spirits of the just made perfect, and for being one of the rejoicing multitude who are “without fault before the throne.” Bunyan represents Mr. Feeble-mind and Mr. Ready-to-halt, after all their timorous thoughts, as safe at last. He describes the post as sounding his horn at their chamber doors. “I am come to thee,” says the postman, addressing the latter — “I am come to thee from Christ, whom thou hast followed on crutches. He expects thee at His table to sup with Him in His kingdom;” and then He pictures him, on reaching the brink of the river, as throwing away his crutches. So will it be with many of God’s true people, who are indulging needless apprehensions, “because of the oppression of the enemy.” If fearful now, the day is coming, the day of the great gathering of souls, when, like the pilgrim Hebrews of old, you will stand triumphant on the farther shore, exulting in the truth of your Heavenly Father’s assurance, which you may at present be so slow to credit — “Your enemies whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” You may now be wailing, in notes of sadness, your weakness and feebleness. Like some captive bird, you may fancy that your wings are disabled, your energies paralysed, your song silenced. But not so. In God’s own time the cage will be opened, and on new-born wings of faith and love, you will go singing to the gate of Paradise, and catch up the melody of kindred song wafted from its groves of bliss!
Paul’s spiritual experience, as that of many, was reflected figuratively in one of the most memorable incidents of his human life. For successive days and nights he was buffeted with winds and waves and darkness on the sea of Adria, “Neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away” (Acts xxvii. 20). But what is his closing entry in that record of imminent peril? “They escaped all safe to land “(ver. 44).” O wretched man that I am! “— breathes out in another place” that strong swimmer in his agony,” as he is breasting the moral and spiritual current which threatens to bear him down — “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But knowing that his, at last, will be sure deliverance and triumph, the accents of faith are heard loud above surge and cataract —” I thank God, through Jesus Christ our
Lord” (Rom. vii. 24, 25). As if He said, ‘He will deliver me; He will save me. He will “change this vile body and fashion it like unto His own glorious body.” He will change this vile soul and transform it into His own image from glory to glory. The storm of the stormiest life will then be changed into a calm! ’
“After tired tossing,
Fighting with foam;
After waves dashing,
Haven and home.
“After wound-fever,
Heahng and balm;
After winds warring,
Quiet and cahn.
“After hard rowing,
Resting the hand;
After long sowing,
Reaping the land.
“After dark dungeon.
The hill-top free;
After earth, heaven —
What will it be?”
“When the shaded pilgrim land
Fades before my closing eye,
Then revealed on either hand
Heaven’s own scenery shall lie.
Then the veil of flesh shall fall,
Now concealing, darkening all.
“When upon my wearied ear
Earth’s last echoes faintly die;
Then shall angel harps draw near,
All the chorus of the sky.
Long-hushed voices blend again.
Sweetly in that welcome strain.
“Here were sweet and varied tones,
Bird, and breeze, and fountain’s fall,
Yet creations travail-groans
Ever sadly sighed through all;
There no discord jars the air,
Harmony is perfect there.
*’ Here devotion’s healing balm
Often came to soothe my breast,
Hours of deep and holy calm.
Earnests of eternal rest. — rut the bliss was here unknown
Which shall there be all my own.”
“then are they glad because they be quiet; so he eringeth them unto their desired haven.”