The Practice of Immortality

Early everybody believes in immortality, although not everyone is enthusiastic over the subject. Not long since, when a distinguished man was asked if he be-Heved in personal immortahty, he is said to have answered: “Yes, I cannot help believing in it. Everything points to it. But I do not want it.” He does not accept the Christian faith, and yet he believes that man is immortal. But the belief has no comfort for him. He does not want to live forever. Immortality, however, is not merely continuance of life forever — that alone might give no joy. Some lives have been so sad here that the thought of living ten thousand years in the same way would be intolerable. There is a story of one who prayed that he might never die, but forgot to pray that he might not grow old. His was granted, and he lived on century after century, becoming more and more feeble continually, all the infirmities of age increasing in their burdensomeness until he prayed to die. Mere prolonged life would not be a blessing. We must die to attain an immortality of blessedness. “This corruptible must put on incorruption.... Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” But immortality ought to have a meaning for us now while we are in this world. We say we are immortal — how then should an immortal man or woman live here and now? We have the answer suggested in one of St. Paul’s epistles. The writer is speaking of Christ’s resurrection, and he says that believers are risen too, in Christ. Then he adds, “If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is.” That is, you are risen with Christ. You have not gone to heaven with him yet. He has left you here for a while. You have a work to do in this world for him, and there is also a work to

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be done in you before you will be ready for heaven. But you are to remember that you are now risen with Chnst, and are now living the resurrection life. What sort of a life ought that to be? The question is not, “What sort of a life will you live when you get to heaven?” but “What kind of a life should you live right here, right now, in the present world?”

When Jesus was speaking of eternal life which those who believed should enter into, he said, “He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life.” He did not say, “He will have eternal life when he enters heaven,” but he “hath it,” that is, from the moment he believes. He is not to wait till he reaches heaven before he begins to live his eternal life. He is on the earth yet and cannot get away from his earthly relations. He must take up his tasks, he must do his duties — having eternal life does not release him from these. He is to practice eternal life now and continually. If you die to-morrow, being a child of God, [249]

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you will enter at once upon the heavenly life. We do not know just what the heavenly life is, but we do know that it is loving, unselfish, holy, without sin. It is joyous. It is contented. We cannot -think of anyone in heaven being unhappy, discontented, fretful. Nobody there grumbles, complains, is a murmurer. Nobody in heaven ever worries. “When you die and go to heaven, you will begin at once to live as other people in heaven live. You will find it easy to fall into the heavenly habits. Heaven is a holy place. Nobody sins there, nobody lies, nobody gets angry, nobody does a mean thing, nobody speaks evil of another. If 3’ou die to-night and go to heaven, you will begin to live to-morrow morning the heavenly life. But if you do not die to-night, but stay in this world longer, living the eternal life will mean that you shall rise to-morrow morning and live that life here, wherever you may be, and live it just as you would do if you had died and lived how in heaven. In the story of our Lord’s last night with his dis- [250]

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ciples, we have this remarkable statement, “Knowing that he came forth from God, and goeth unto God, he took a towel and girded himself and began to wash the disciples’ feet.” He knew the glorious being he was, that he was the Son of God, divine, and yet, with this consciousness fully in his mind, he performed the lowliest service for his disciples that any man could do for others.

You know that you are risen with Christ, that you are immortal, that you have eternal life; now what are fit things for one to do who knows that there is such glory, such splendor in his life? First of all, no service of love is beneath him. His life should be devoted to the sweetest, most helpful ministries of kindness that his hand can find to do. John the Baptist, in the gloom of his dungeon at Machasrus, began to wonder if after all Jesus was the Messiah, and sent some of his disciples to ask him. When the men came, Jesus did not enter upon a set programme to show his deity — he just went on with his everyday work of kindness and then told the [251]

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men to go back to their master and tell him what they had seen and heard — the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good tidings preached unto them. These were the truest and best evidences of Messiahship. That is the way the man who knew he was the Son of God lived his common days.

For another thing, Jesus, knowing his divine glory, did not separate himself from other people to show that he was not an ordinary man. He did not live in a way that would demonstrate to the world his divine character in unearthly ways. He took his place among workingmen. He was a carpenter, and for eighteen years wrought at his lowly trade. It scarcely seems to us quite fitting that the Son of God should be a carpenter, but there was nothing undivine in that. It left no dishonor on him, and indeed it made his glory all the more radiant. In all his earthly life we see in Jesus his divine life. He was always practicing immortality, living eternal life. This [252 ]

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suggests to us how we may live the heavenly life here. We may not do it in any strained or unnatural efforts at holiness or heavenliness, but by doing the will of God in the simplest way, which will always mean the common tasks and duties of the days as they come to us. The heavenliest life we can live here will be the one that will best fulfill our common duties in our natural relationships.

“Do to-day the nearest duty.
Our work counts for more than talk.
Three things are great:
Conscience, and will and courage to
Fidfill the duties they create.”

We, too, may live the resurrection, life in the shop, at a trade, in the kitchen, in any lowly work or calling. Doing the will of God wherever we may be is the immortal life. The Apocryphal Gospels are a number of stories about Jesus written by men who thought that a divine being never should do anything natural or common. So they in- [ 253] ness, to our offices and shops and farms. We are to live the immortal life wherever we go.

Perhaps we ought to think more of the glory of our lives. We do not think half enough of ourselves — of our greatness, of the glory of our being, of the divineness of our destiny. It is not self-conceit in which we are deficient — there is enough of that hateful thing in the most of us — not self-conceit, but selfhonoring, self-reverencing. Not many of us honor and reverence ourselves as we should do. Perhaps the greatness of our being is not often enough impressed upon us. We are not accustomed to think of the splendor of our nature. We were made in the image of God. The old Psalm says that “Man was made only a little lower than the angels.” The Revised Version changes this, however, and makes it read, “but little lower than God.” Jesus said that a man is worth more than this whole great world, and that anyone, even the lowliest, would make a bad bargain if he sold himself for the whole world. [256]

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Now what are you doing with this glorious life of yours? The beloved disciple in one of his letters says, “Beloved, now are* we children of God.” That is the first glory. That surely is great glory. But there is more of the honor. It is not yet made manifest clearly and fully what we shall be — the future is veiled in mystery — but “we shall be like him” — that is the final glory We shall be like Christ in our heavenly life. Then the writer tells us how we should live in this world if this is to be our future distinction. “Every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” It is pitiful how men throw away their crowns. Made only a little lower than God, children of God, destined to be like Christ at length, they yield to appetite, lust, and passion, and debase themselves in the dust. With this glory set before us, we should keep ourselves pure and our lives white, and should strive even here to reach up to the honor that is prepared for us.

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“Lord, wheJi I look on high,
Clouds only meet my sight;
Fears deepen with the night,
But yet it is thy sky.
Help me to trust thee, then, I pray.
Wait in the dark and tearfully obey.