The Reunion
The family has been all along a scattered one. Not only has it been scattered along the ages but it has been dispersed over every land. Children of the dispersion” might well be the name of its members. They have no continuing city nay, no city at all that they can call their own; sure of nothing here beyond their bread and raiment; no where able to reckon upon a certain dwelling, yet having always the promise of it some where.
Besides this scattering, arising from their being thus called out of every kindred and nation, there are others more bitter. There is the scattering which persecution makes. when it drives them from city to city. There is the scattering which adversity makes, when happy circles are broken up, and their fragments sent far asunder. There is the scattering which oftentimes jealousy and contention and selfish rivalry produce, even among the saints. There is the scattering which bereavement makes, when strong ties are broken, and warm love spilt like water on the ground; when fellowship is rent asunder, and living sympathies chilled by death, and tears of choking anguish are all the relief of loneliness and sorrow.
As Israel was scattered among the na* tions, so have the saints been; not indeed like Israel, because of the wrath of God against them, but still scattered every where. The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other,” (Deut. xxviii. 64,) were God’s words to Israel, and the no
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church feels how truly they suit her con« dition as a scattered flock.
In primitive times, and often since that in days of trouble and persecution, it was truly and literally a scattering, just as when the autumn wind shakes down and tosses the ripe leaves to and fro. But in our day it is not so much a scattering, as a simple dwelling asunder, — -by the calling out of every nation the few that make up the little flock. It is a gathering out, but not a gathering together. It is one family, yet the members know not, see not each other in the flesh. They are drawn by the Father’s hand, and according to the Father’s purpose, out of kingdoms and families wide asunder. They have no local centre, either of interest, or of residence, or of government; no common home, no common meeting-place, save that which faith gives them now in their Head above, or that which hope assures them of in the world to come, where they shall come together, face to face, as one household, gathered under one roof, and seated around one table.
This separation and apparent disunion is not natural or congenial. For there is a hidden magnetic virtue which unconsciously and irresistibly draws them towards each other. Separation is the present law of the kingdom, but this only because election is the law of the dispensation. There is an affinity among the members which neither time nor distance can destroy. There is a love kindled they know not how, kept alive they know not how, but strong and unquenchable, the love of kin, the love of brotherhood:
No distance breaks the tie of blood,
Brothers are brothers evermore. —
And they feel this. Knit by the ties of a strange and unearthly union, they have a conscious feeling of oneness which nothing
h 2
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can shake. Deep hidden in each other’s heart of hearts/.’ they cannot consent to be perpetually asunder, but eagerly anticipate the day of promised union.
But there is another kind of separation which they have had to endure. Death has torn them from each other. From Abel downward there has been one long scene of bereavement. The griefs of parting make up the greatest amount of earthly suffering among the children of men. And from these griefs the saints have not been exempted. Bitter have been the farewells that have been spoken on earth, — around the death-bed, or in the prison, or on the sea-shore, or on the homethreshold, or in the city of strangers, — the farewells of men who knew that they should no more meet till the grave gave up its trust. Death has been the great scatterer, and the tomb has been the great receiver of the fragments.
Our night of weeping has taken much of its gloom and sadness from these tendings asunder. The pain of parting, in the case of the saints, has much to alleviate it, but still the bitterness is there. We feel that we must separate, and though it be only for a while, still our hearts bleed with the wound.
But there is reunion. And one of the joys of the morning is this reunion among the saints. During the night they had been scattered, in the morning they are gathered together. In the wilderness they have been separated, but in the kingdom they shall meet. During this age they have been like the drops of the fitful showery in the age to come they shall be like the dew of Hermon, the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, one radiant company, alighting upon the holy hills, and bringing with them refreshment to a weary earth. Then shall fully be answered the prayer of the Lord, That they all may be one; as thou. Father, art
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in me and I in thee, that they also may he one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.’^ (John xvii. 21 — 23.)
I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.” (Matt. xxvi. 31.) Such is our present position — a smitten Shepherd and a scattered flock! But the day is at hand when he that scattered shall gather,” and there shall be a gloHJied Shepherd and a gathered flock; not merely one flock, one fold, and one Shepherd, but one flock gathered into the one fold around the one Shepherd, the scattering ceased, the wandering at an end, the famine exchanged for the green pastures, the danger forgotten, and the devouring lion bound. Then shall fully come to pass the prophecy regarding the issues of the Surety’s death, that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” (John xi. 52.) Then what is written of Israel shall, in a higher sense, be fulfilled in the church: Behold, I, even I,
will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.” And as the ingathering of Israel is to be a blessing diffusing itself on every side, so is the reunion of
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the scattered church to be to the world; so that we may use Israel’s promise here also: I will make them and the places
round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.” (Ezek. xxxiv. 11 — 26.)
This reunion is when the Lord returns. When the Head appears, then the members come together. They have always been united, — for just as the Godhead was still united to the manhood of Christ, even when his body was in the tomb, so the oneness between the members, both with each other and with their Head, has been always kept unbroken. But when he comes, this union is fully felt, realized, seen, manifested. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.” (Col. hi. 4.)
This reunion is at the resurrection of the just.” Then every remaining particle of separation is removed, — soul and body meet, — both perfect; no trace of this vile body,” or this dust-cleaving soul. The corruptible has gone, and the incorruptible has come. Our reunion shall be in incorruption; hands that shall never grow palsied clasping each other, and renewing broken companionships, — eyes that shall never dim gazing on each other with purer love.
This reunion is in the cloud of glory, in which the Lord comes again. When he went up from Olivet, this cloud received him, and fain would his disciples have gone up along with him. But into that glorious pavilion, — his tabernacle, — shall they yet ascend; there to meet with him, and to embrace each other, coming together into that mysterious dwelling-place, from the four winds of heaven, out of every kindred, and nation, and tongue, and people.”
This reunion is the marriage- day, and that cloud-curtained pavilion the Bride-THE REUNION.
groom’s chamber. There the bride is now seen as one. And there she realizes her own oneness in a way unimagined before. There too the marriage-feast is spread, and the bride takes her place of honour at the marriage-table, — glorious within,” as well as without, — not, like the harlot-bride, decked with purple, and scarlet, and gold, and gems (Rev. xvii. 4; xviii. 16); but
arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.” (xix. 8.)
It is to this reunion, and to the honours that shall then be given to the whole church at once, that the apostle refers, when he says, that they (the Old Testament saints, to whom the promises came) without us should not be made perfect.” (Heb. xi. 39, 40.) Thus he intimates that the actual possession of the thing promised has not yet been given. It is deferred until the Lord come, in order that no age, nor section, nor individuals of the church should be perfectly blest and glorified before the rest; for all must be raised up together all caught up together, all crowned together, seeing they are one body, — one bride.* He points to the day of the Lord as the day of our common introduction into the inheritance, — the day of our common re-entrance into Eden, — the day when, as one vast multitude of all kindreds, we shall enter in through the gates into the city; — ’ the day of our common crowning, our common triumph. For it is to be one crowning, one enthroning, one festival, one triumph, one entrance for the whole church, from the beginning. The members are not crowned alone, nor in fragments, nor in sections; but in one glorious hour they receive their everlasting crowns, and take their seats, side by side, with their Lord,
* The words, “God having provided the better thing for us,” form a parenthesis, and are thrown in for the purpose of showing’ that the ‘‘ good things to come,’’* that is, the inheritance, belong to us, as much as to ancient saints, who got the promise.
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and with each other, in simultaneous gladness, upon the long-expected throne.
The preparations for this union have long been making. They began with us individually, when first the scattered fragments of our souls were brought together by the Holy Ghost at our conversion. Before that, our hearts were divided;” and this was our special sin. (Hos. x. 2.) But then they were united,”- — at least in some measure, though still calling for the unceasing prayer, Unite my heart to fear thy name.” (Psa. lxxxvi. 11.)* It was first the inner man that came under the power of sin and was broken into parts; then the outer man followed. Both were
* The reader will call to mind Augustine’s remarkable statement to this effect, concerning himself, though he does not refer to either of the above passages. Speaking of God as his delight, dulcedo non fallax, dulcedo felix et secura,” he adds, “colligens me a dispersione in qua frustratim discissus sum; dum ab uno te aver* sus, in multa evanui.” — C’owyesstows, Book II. chap. i. §1. created whole in every sense of that word and both have ceased to he whole in any sense of it. When restoration begins it begins with the reunion of the inner man, and in the resurrection passes on to the outer, bringing together the two restored parts. It was the individual that first was subjected to sin, and then the mass. So it is the individual that is first restored. And this is the process that is now going on under the almighty, vivifying, uniting energy of the Holy Spirit. But the reunion is not complete till oneness is brought back to the mass, to the body, — till all those members that have been singly restored, be brought together, and so the body made whole.
It is for this we wait until the Lord come. For as it was the first Adam that broke creation into fragments, so it is the second Adam that is to restore creation in all its parts and regions, and make it one again. The good and the evil then are
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parted for ever but the good and the good are brought into perfect oneness, — -a oneness so complete, so abiding, as more than to compensate for brokenness and separation here.
The soul and the body come together and form one glorified man. The ten thousand members of the church come together and form one glorified church. The scattered stones come together and form one living temple. The bride and the Bridegroom meet. Here it has been one Lord, one faith, one baptism; there it shall be one body, one bride, one vine, one temple, one family, one city, one kingdom.
The broken fruitfulness, the fitful inconstancy, of the cursed earth shall pass into the unbroken beauty of the new creation. The discord of the troubled elements shall be laid, and harmony return. The warring animals shall lie down in peace.
Then shall heaven and earth come together into one. That which we call distance is annihilated and the curtain drawn by sin is withdrawn from between the upper and the lower glory and the fields of a paradise that was never lost are brought into happy neighbourhood with the fields of paradise regained; God’s purpose developing itself in the oneness of a two-fold glory, — the rulers and the ruled, — the risen and the unrisen, the celestial and the terrestrial, — the glory that is in the heaven above, the glory that is in the earth beneath; for
there are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.”
Such scenes we need to dwell upon, that as our tribulations abound, so also our consolations may abound. Our wounds here are long in healing. Bereavements keep the heart long bleeding. Melancthon, with a tender simplicity so like himself, refers to his feelings when his child was taken
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from him by death. He wept as he recalled the past. It pierced his soul to remember the time, when once, as he sat weeping, his little one with its little napkin wiped the tears from his cheeks.*
Recollections like these haunt us through life, ever and anon newly brought up by passing scenes. Some summer morning’s sun recalls, with stinging freshness, the hour when that same sun streamed in through our window upon a dying infant’s cradle, as if to bring out all the beauty of the parting smile, and engrave it upon our hearts for ever. Or it is a funeral scene that comes up to memory, — a funeral scene that had but a few days before been a bridal one, — and never on earth can we forget the outburst of our grief, when we saw the bridal flowers laid upon the new-made tomb. Or some wintry noon recalls the time and the scene when we laid a parent’s
Memini cum infantula mihi lachrymas a- genisdetergeret suo indusiolo, quo erat induta mane; hie gestus penetravit in animum meum. dust within its resting-place and left it to sleep in winter’s grave of snows. These memories haunt us, pierce us, and make us feel what a desolate place this is, and what an infinitely desirable thing it would be to meet these lost ones again, where the meeting shall be eternal.
Hence the tidings of this reunion in the many mansions are like home-greetings. They relieve the smitten heart. They bid us be of good cheer, for the separation is but brief, and the meeting to which we look forward will he the happiest ever enjoyed. The time of sorrowful recollections will soon pass, and no remembrance remain but that which will make our joy to overflow.
Every thing connected with this reunion is fitted to enhance its blessedness. To meet again any where, or any how, or at any time, would be blessed; how much more at such a time, in such circumstances, and in such a home! The dark past lies
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behind us like a prison from which we have come forth, or like a wreck from which we have escaped in safety and landed in a quiet haven. We meet where separation is an impossibility, where distance no more tries fidelity, or pains the spirit, or mars the joy of loving. We meet in a kingdom. We meet at a marriage -table. We meet in the prepared city,” the New Jerusalem. We meet under the shadow of the tree of life, and on the banks of the river of life. We meet to keep festival and sing the songs of triumph. It was blessed to meet here for a day; how much more to meet in the kingdom for ever! It was blessed to meet, even with parting full in view; how much more so when no such cloud overhangs our future I It was blessed to meet in the wilderness and the land of graves; how much more in paradise, and in the land where death enters not 1 It was blessed to meet in the night,” — though chill and dark; how much more in the morning, when light has risen and the troubled sky is cleared, and joy is spreading itself around us like a new atmosphere, from which every element of sorrow has disappeared!