The Life of the Waiting Soul Part 1

The Life of the Waiting Soul.

by R. E.Sanderson.

PREFACE.

These Addresses were delivered in Chichester Cathedral, and subsequently, with slight alterations, at Hastings. They would not have been printed but at the urgent request of very many who heard them preached. It should be remembered that they are not a theological treatise, but a course of plain words addressed to an ordinary congregation. It seemed desirable to awaken interest in a subject which has dropped out of English Christian thought, and almost out of people's knowledge. The Addresses are an attempt to explain what can be known about the Intermediate Life. There is nothing new in them. If there were, probably what is new would not be true.

The doctrines of so-called "Universalism" and "Conditional Immortality"

are not touched upon. They do not belong to the period which is covered by the Intermediate State. Moreover, I doubt whether we can ever regard those doctrines as anything more than speculations invented to answer modern and possibly ephemeral objections.

How much I have unconsciously been indebted to those who have dealt with this subject more fully, I hardly know. One reads and remembers, and reproduces in preaching, often without thought of the sources from which material has been drawn. I gratefully acknowledge in the notes what I know to be debts incurred. I can only express my regret if any have been overlooked.

R. E. S.

_Easter_, 1896.

I.

"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep."--1 THESS. IV. 13.

There are moments in the lives of every one of us, when the mind is irresistibly drawn on to wonder what our own personal future shall be, as soon as life is over and death has overtaken us. We cannot help the speculation. However bound by present duties and absorbed in present interests, often, in quiet hours, in times of solitude or bereavement, or under the sense of failing hopes or failing health, in seasons of sorrow or of sickness, the mood takes hold of us; and it may be, we know not why, our eyes turn with an anxious and a wistful look towards that inevitable end which is surely coming upon us.

At such moments we ask ourselves, what will my lot be when the hand of death touches me--even _me_; when all the light of life goes out, all thought of this world's cares, all pleasant joys and hopes and desires of time sink down and fade into the chill gloom and shadow of the unknown?

Such questionings, brought close home to our very selves, cannot but fill us with very anxious fears and misgivings, as we either look back upon the past, or think upon what chiefly possesses our minds and thoughts now. Indeed, many of us cannot bear this forward glance, and refuse to face it. We would fain brush the thought aside, and with some hasty utterance of vague trust, of shadowy self-comforting hope that G.o.d will be merciful, we turn sharply round and give ourselves again to the calls of the life which is about us.

In this way, we Christians, we children of G.o.d, heirs of life and immortality, learn to be terrified at death, which, as we are taught to believe, ushers us into life; learn to a.s.sociate it with trembling doubt and shuddering dismay. But is this dread of death nothing else than the natural instinctive shrinking, which the warmth of life feels at the touch of its cold hand? Or is it not rather, in the case of most of us, due to some false imaginations with which religion itself--that form, at least, of religion which to-day encompa.s.ses us--has for many years possessed and imbued the minds of men? Indeed, I believe it to be so.

The Christianity of to-day has too commonly accepted two untruths, which yet it holds as truths.

1. One of them is this: That death ushers the soul immediately and finally into the supreme condition which awaits the souls of men; so that, at death, the souls of good men pa.s.s at once into heaven, while the souls of bad men pa.s.s at once into h.e.l.l; in other words, that the final and irrevocable severance between the just and the unjust takes place at death. Believing this, men have lost all faith in an Intermediate State between death and the Day of Judgment. That intervening sojourn of the soul has virtually dropped out of recognition in the popular Christianity of the day, and is quite ignored. If you walk through any resting place of the bodies of the dead, into your own churchyards and cemeteries, you will, not seldom, find inscriptions upon tombs, which express the confident a.s.surance that one, whose death is recorded, has already pa.s.sed into heaven; that another has now become an angel of Light, or is singing the praises of G.o.d before the throne, is, in short, in the full present enjoyment of consummate and final bliss. Thus it is that the Intermediate State between death and the final condition of happiness in heaven, which can only follow the Day of the Resurrection, is quite forgotten and overlooked.

2. And the second untruth, which is closely connected with the first, is this: That there are but two cla.s.ses of those who pa.s.s hence and are no more seen; cla.s.ses sharply distinguished, clearly outlined,--on the one hand, of those who at death go straight to heaven, and, on the other, of those who at death go straight to the place of final torment. If then these are the only two clearly marked and sharply defined alternatives, it follows that, whensoever we dare not be sure of any one soul at death that it was good enough certainly for heaven, there is nothing for it but to fear that the worse doom awaits it and that it is lost. For if it is not, at the moment of death, pure enough or good enough for heaven, into which there "shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie," {5} that soul, according to this false belief, is lost. Yet, in fact, what do we see within us and around us, as we honestly look into our own lives, and upon the lives both of the best and of the worst among us? We see this, and we are convinced that we are not mistaken, that even among the most marked extremes of good men and evil men, few even of the best are so free from stain or fault as, at death, to be certainly fit for heaven, and few so vile and degraded as not to have still some good in them. And between these two extremes there are mult.i.tudes of mixed characters, in part good and in part bad. Among these, of whom we know that they are full of worth yet full of imperfections too, we count so many who are most dear to us, many the companions of our lives, our kindred, and acquaintances, and cherished friends, whose failings and whose virtues we know so well, of mixed and imperfect character, too frail for heaven, too good, too lovable for h.e.l.l, partly good and partly not good, strong and also weak, marred with inconsistencies, and often for these very inconsistencies the more dear to us, of whom, so truly have we loved and even honoured them, it seems almost like an outrage upon their memory to bring ourselves to think that there was just so much of evil in them and just so little good, as would suffice to turn the balance against them and thus fix, at the moment of their death, their final doom.

What are we to think of such as these? Of some we perhaps say within ourselves, "Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemis.h.!.+ A little more of strength and purpose against that fault! If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin!

Oh! but for this or that which marred the fair and well rounded character! But for this we should have been full of hope: there was so much on the better side, that we should have been full of trust, and even of confidence. But, now, what are we to think? If only there were some fit and fair proportion to be thought of, duly measured out, of reward and punishment, a mixed destiny for a mixed character, partly good and partly evil for those who in this life were in part good and in part were evil! But these two awful and sharp alternatives, either reward or punishment, these two separate issues, heaven or h.e.l.l, and if not heaven then necessarily and inevitably h.e.l.l! What shall we think? We dare not think. In the Bible we are encouraged to believe that we shall receive the due reward of our deeds, whether they be good or whether they be evil. {8} But how shall any receive in heaven the due reward of evil deeds done on earth? and how, in h.e.l.l, shall any wretched soul receive in any truth the due rewards of good deeds done on earth? Yet in each, there was some good even in the worst, and some evil even in the best."

We see then what follows upon this false belief, that at death an instant judgment a.s.signs finally the destiny of all men, to men of every degree of wickedness, without distinction, h.e.l.l; and one final and absolute Heaven to men of every varying measure of goodness. Surely there is a great perplexity in this. No wonder if such beliefs lead men to dread the thought of death, of their own death, of the death of their friends.

No mere physical repulsion makes us shrink, but rather the uncertainty and doubt of what may follow,

"The dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will,"

and makes us Christian men and women turn to find relief from these bewildering fears by plunging deeply into the waters of life's amus.e.m.e.nts and ambitions. It is the uncertainty of things, wearing to some the aspect of caprice, which leads to recklessness, and sometimes to defiance.

I believe, from my heart, that Holy Scripture rightly understood solves these confusing riddles. I believe that a more sound and Scriptural grasp of what will be the future of each of us after death, the restoration of a right belief in an Intermediate State, will go far to correct these unworthy and most un-Christian fears. But it is said, at times, that nothing can be really known about this Intermediate State, that all that can be a.s.serted of it is mere guess and vain conjecture, and even that it betrays a too curious intrusion into things unseen to speculate about the condition of souls after death. Yes! if we only speculate, but not surely if we seek humbly to find out what the Bible has taught us. S. Paul did not think it a too presumptuous intrusion into things beyond the reach of our knowledge to make this enquiry. "I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep." He would rather that the Thessalonians should know all that can be known, to their edification. And something can be known, or he would not have written this. And to know it will be to our edification also. Certainly to ignore what can be known has led, as we have seen, to loss and offence in these days. Therefore I propose to try and set before you not idle speculations indeed, but what has been actually revealed in Holy Scripture, or may be drawn from it about the Intermediate State. It is upon Holy Scripture that we must depend for our learning. At least I shall make no attempt to build arguments upon any other foundation than Holy Scripture. But let us, in G.o.d'S Name, get out of Holy Scripture all that can, according to the proportion of the faith, be deduced from it.

It is as perilous, not to say as undutiful towards G.o.d, the Revealer, to neglect what He has for our sakes revealed, as it would be to invent speculations of our own about that which He has not revealed.

The unseen world is not easy to apprehend, and to our matter-of-fact English mind and temper is especially difficult. Yet, with the awful future in our mind, which awaits not only those who are very dear to ourselves, but ourselves also, we must be dull indeed, if we have no concern for it. Then if sober questioning may reveal more clearly to us what Holy Scripture can tell us of things that shall befall each of us, we may hope to gain fresh confidence, and to renew our trust in Him Who launched us into time, that we may live with Him in eternity through Jesus Christ our Lord.

II.

"Jesus said unto him, Verily I say onto thee, To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise."

--S. LUKE XXIII. 43.

If we should ask what happens to the soul of a good man when he dies, the answer would probably be that he has gone to heaven. Of a little child it would be said at his death, that he has become an angel in heaven. But this would be quite untrue, because it contradicts the Bible. The Bible teaches that there will at the end of the world be a day when all the dead shall rise and stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, to be judged for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good, or whether they be evil. But if a good man's soul goes straight to heaven at death, without waiting for the Day of Judgment, he practically has no Day of Judgment at all. He escapes it. The Bible also teaches that before the Day of Judgment there will be a general Resurrection of all, both of the just and of the unjust. {14} But how can one who is already in heaven, while his body lies in the grave of corruption,--how can he, being already glorified and even now beholding the vision of G.o.d, to any intelligible purpose, or for any conceivable end, take part in the general Resurrection? Why should he, as it were, come away from heaven and rise from the dead, in order to be judged?

Thus the popular belief, that the souls of the righteous pa.s.s straight to heaven, and the souls of the wicked go straight to h.e.l.l, is against the plain teaching of the Bible. But the Bible not only contradicts this popular and careless fancy. It a.s.serts what is directly contrary to it: it a.s.serts positively, I mean, that there is an age-long period between death and the final state of happiness or misery, during which period the soul is separate from the body and remains separate. We are, according to the Bible, destined to undergo three great changes in the mode and nature of our existence. In the first period, while we are here in this our life on earth, the soul and spirit are united to a material and tangible body of flesh and blood, suited to our life here. The second stage begins at death, the name we give to the separation which then takes place between this material fabric of the body and the incorporeal part of us; and then the soul and spirit dwell disembodied for a time.

There follows at the Resurrection the third period, when the soul and spirit are reunited with the body, but with the body now so spiritualized and refined as to suit the heavenly existence. The second of these two periods, coming between the first and the third, is therefore fitly called the intermediate or middle state, the state in which the disembodied soul dwells apart from its material tenement. {15}

What has the Bible then to say about this Intermediate State? I will not ask you to listen to the comments or interpretations of the early Christian writers, although, of course, very great respect is due to what they say. I will only beg of you to pay common attention to what the Bible itself says.

Now, first, I will point to the words which our Lord spoke from the Cross, just before His Death, to the thief who was also slowly dying at His side. "To-day," He said, "shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." So then within a few hours,--it was then not yet mid-day--they were both to be in Paradise. They both died before sunset, and at their death both entered Paradise. Their dead bodies were left behind upon the Cross.

What then entered Paradise? Not their bodies, but the spiritual or incorporeal part of them. Was Paradise then another name for heaven? It cannot be; our Lord did not go to heaven until the day of His Ascension, forty-three days after His death. For, after His Resurrection, He said to S. Mary Magdalene, "I am _not yet_ ascended to My Father." {17} With His risen body, united again to His human soul and spirit, He went to Heaven, His whole human nature now being, by His Resurrection, again completely one. But into Paradise only part of His human nature pa.s.sed, the spiritual part of it, along with the spiritual part of the thief's human nature. Our Lord's soul and spirit came back, as we know, from Paradise on the third day. The soul and spirit of the thief remain there still. So then this is what our Lord Himself teaches us as to the state of the disembodied spirit, that at death a just man's spirit does _not_ go to heaven, but into a sphere of life which is called Paradise.

But, if this be so, why, it may be asked, did not our Lord speak in plainer and more definite language? Such a truth, it may be urged, a truth which so much concerns us, ought not to depend upon a single text.

I do not propose to ask you to be content with an inference from a single text. But it may be that our Lord did not say more than this about the great truth with which we are dealing for this reason, that the disciples whom He gathered round Him, being Jews, perfectly well knew what He meant by Paradise. This single reference, therefore, is enough to show that what was a common and prevalent belief among the Jews was a true belief,--a belief which our Lord not only recognized, but by recognizing established and sanctioned. But if we are once clear on this point, we shall find the belief more plainly set forth by our Lord in another place. What then is the belief that we have learned from this single pa.s.sage? We have learned this, that the human spirit of our Lord, and the spirit of the dying thief did not pa.s.s at death to heaven, though if any spirit should ever be fit to pa.s.s at death to heaven His spirit was fit, but to a state which He called Paradise.

Now, there was another expression used in the ordinary Jewish language of the day for the state to which the blessed dead pa.s.sed at death. They were spoken of as at rest "in Abraham's bosom." Of a very holy man they would say, "This day he rests in Abraham's bosom." So that in the minds of the Jews and therefore of the disciples the term "Paradise" meant exactly the same thing as "Abraham's bosom." We have learned what "Paradise" meant. Therefore now we know what "resting in Abraham's bosom" meant. It meant the Intermediate State. {19} The scene then in the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, which follows the deaths of the two men, belongs not to the final state of happiness and misery at all, but to the Intermediate State. The joy is the joy of the Intermediate State. The suffering, which is in such strong contrast to the joy as to be divided from it by a deep gulf, so that the joy cannot be tinged with the misery, nor the misery relieved by the joy,--this suffering also is the suffering of the Intermediate State.

The reality then of the Intermediate State is confirmed by our Lord in this narrative. Now observe the weight of this testimony. If the Jews were wrong in believing that the spirits of the just pa.s.sed into Paradise or into Abraham's bosom our Lord would never have uttered words twice over which sanctioned their mistake. We may observe further from these two pa.s.sages that the Intermediate State has two parts or conditions.

There are those in it who suffer, and there are those who rejoice. At death, the spirits of those whose lives have been evil pa.s.s to suffering and anguish, as we read of the rich man that "in Hades he lifted up his eyes being in torments"; and the spirits of the faithful pa.s.s to rest and joy. But between these two representatives in the narrative, the one of the evil, the other of the good, there are the mult.i.tudes who are neither very good nor very evil, so varied in the indeterminate tokens of good and evil which marked their lives on earth, that it would seem to be impossible for us to know on which side of "the great gulf" their position ought to be. But if the extremes enter the Intermediate State, and there is room for them in it, is it to be supposed that there is no room for those who are between the extremes? Rather do we learn that the spirits of all go thither, not only of the faithful and of the wicked, but of the wavering and uncertain also, of those who were weak and fell, of those who, with unsteady and tottering steps, sometimes rising, often falling, now obeying, now rebelling, now believing, now doubting, now walking in the light, now plunged in darkness, at one time treading firmly the ground of the narrow path, and then at times wandering into the quagmires and mora.s.ses of sin and l.u.s.t, pa.s.sed through the pilgrimage of life, and, at length, when their allotted span was completed, were a.s.signed to the place which awaited them, to the place which was their own and was fitted for them.

We have seen what conclusions must be drawn from the express language of our Lord Himself. Let us now examine the evidence afforded by His Apostles, in the Epistles and in the book of the Revelation. But first I would ask you to consider what, according to the Bible, is the chief feature in the conception of the happiness and glory of Heaven, what is its essential nature. Is it not this, that being the dwelling place of G.o.d Himself, the glory and happiness of Heaven will consist in the Presence itself of G.o.d, and therefore in the vision of G.o.d? As a great writer has said, "It must be remarked by everybody that the glory of the future state is always put before us not as an inner consciousness or mental communion simply, not as an absorption into ourselves within, but as a great spectacle without us, the spectacle of a great visible manifestation of G.o.d. It is a sight, a picture, a representation, that const.i.tutes the heavenly state, not mere thought and contemplation. The glorified saint of Scripture is especially a beholder; he gazes, he looks, he fixes his eyes upon something before him; he does not merely ruminate within, but his whole mind is carried out towards and upon a great representation. And thus Heaven specially appears in Scripture as the sphere of perfected sight, where the faculty is raised and exalted to its highest act, and the happiness of existence culminates in vision."

{23} If this be so, all the most entrancing spectacles and scenes of earth shall appear dim and coa.r.s.e and uncouth in comparison with the sight on which the ravished gaze of eternity shall be fastened. For then shall our eyes see "The King in His Beauty." {24a} They shall see G.o.d, see Him face to face,--G.o.d! No higher conception of happiness is set before the heart of man, which ever craves for heaven and for perfection, than G.o.d Himself, the sight of G.o.d, the Presence of G.o.d, the Knowledge of G.o.d. "In Thy Presence is the fulness of joy." {24b} But we must not lose sight of the effect which this vision of G.o.d produces upon those who gaze. To see Him is to become like Him. "Then," says S. John, "we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." {24c} "We all," says S.

Paul, "with open face, beholding, as in a gla.s.s, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." This is what seeing G.o.d will do.

When, then, shall this vision be granted? At death to any? No! but only at the Second Coming of Christ. All the great writers of the Epistles speak, as with one voice, of this. What says S. Peter? "When the chief Shepherd _shall appear_, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away." {25a} Not therefore at death, but at Christ's Second Coming and appearance. What does S. John say? "We know that _when He shall appear_, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." {25b} Not therefore until that time. What again does the great S. Paul say? "When Christ, Who is our life, _shall appear_, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." {25c} Again to S. Timothy he writes, "There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord _the righteous Judge_, shall give to me _at that day_: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved _His appearing_." {25d} There can be no doubt what S.

Paul means by "That Day." It is the day when "the Righteous Judge" on His Judgment throne shall award the crowns to those who have fought the good fight and kept the faith. This is the frequent meaning of the expressions, "That day," "The day of the Lord," in the New Testament. "We know it," says Dr. Liddon, "by a more familiar name given it on three occasions by our Lord Himself, and on three at least by His Apostles after Him: it is the Day of Judgment." {26} S. Paul, therefore, when he says, "There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord will give me on that day," does not expect that crown until the Day of Judgment.

These are a few out of many like pa.s.sages, all showing that heaven is not reached at death, but only after the Day of Judgment. From all which it is clear that the Apostles had in their minds the firm a.s.surance that there was to be a waiting time, how long they knew not, or how short they knew not, during which the spirit without the body would dwell in expectation. If it were otherwise, if at death the spirit pa.s.ses into the light which no man can approach unto, into the Presence of G.o.d and beholds the Beatific Vision, which, as we saw, const.i.tutes the consummation of happiness and perfection in heaven, I would ask, how it can be conceived that our Lord would have called Lazarus back from that supreme happiness, which eye hath never seen nor ear ever heard, nor heart of man ever conceived,--called him back to mingle in the griefs and sorrows, the pains and failures, the doubts and fears, the mists and confusions of this earthly life. Was this the act of Him Who loved Lazarus? Was there no other way of consoling the living sisters, than by so great a loss to the vanished brother? Was it not to call him from life to death, rather than from death to life?

One more pa.s.sage must be quoted, the force of which cannot well be missed. In the sixth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, S. John describes the vision which he saw at the opening of the fifth seal. He saw, he said, "under the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of G.o.d,--and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?--And it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little while, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren . . . should be fulfilled." {28} Plainly these souls were not in heaven, for they bemoaned the long delay, and were bidden to wait for awhile until some great fulfilment. Where then could they be, if not on earth, nor yet in heaven? They must have been in the Middle State between the two, these martyred souls, in Paradise. But they are not spoken of as in Paradise, or in Abraham's bosom, but as "under the Altar." Where was this? The Jews spoke of departed souls not only as in Paradise, and in Abraham's bosom, but also as "under the throne of Glory." By all these expressions they meant the same thing. S. John, however, uses a different expression in describing the Intermediate State, yet one so similar as to lead us to think that in the change he subst.i.tutes a Christian formula for the Jewish, giving it a Christian shape. As "the throne of Glory" was a.s.sociated with the Presence of G.o.d in the mind of a devout Jew, so the Altar would be as naturally a.s.sociated with the Presence of G.o.d in the mind of a devout Christian.

What, therefore, the "Throne of G.o.d" was to the Jew, that "the Altar of G.o.d" would be to a Christian. For the Altar was to Christian thought the Throne of G.o.d. There, at the Christian Altar was commemorated the one great sacrifice to which all former sacrifices had pointed, and in which they were all fulfilled. There the communion of Saints was, as in no other way on earth, realized. There, as by one simultaneous vibration thrilling through the saintly dead, and the living communicants, the spiritual bond unites together in one unbroken living Communion, those of the Church expectant who are departed in the true faith of Christ's Holy Name, and those of us who are still striving in the Church militant on earth to perfect our probation. These souls "under the Altar" were still waiting, and their waiting wearied them. "How long?" they cried. They were not in the flesh, their bodies had been slain. They were absent from the body and present with the Lord, with Christ, as the crucified thief is still with Christ, in Paradise.

The consummation for them is yet to come. They are waiting for it. It is postponed. G.o.d'S work on earth is yet uncompleted. The number of the elect is not yet made up. The Second Coming of Christ is yet delayed.

All things are not yet ready. A little while longer must they wait, that they without us may not be made perfect.