The Gospel of the Hereafter Part 14

"Oh, for a nearer insight into Heaven, More knowledge of the glory and the joy, Which there unto the happy souls is given, Their intercourse, their worship, their employ."

We do not know a great deal about it.

The Bible is given to help us to live rightly in this world, not to satisfy curiosity about the other world. But yet some glimpses of the blessed life have come to us, for our teaching.

The first thing to learn is that the chief joy of Heaven shall consist in that of which we can only dream in this life, of which we can have but a partial glimpse even in the Hades or Paradise Life--_the Beatific Vision_, the clear vision and knowledge of G.o.d. All this life and all the Paradise life are fitting and training and preparing us for this consummation.

Wise theologians of old divided the happiness of Heaven into "_Essential_" and "_Accidental_." By _essential_ they meant the happiness which the soul derives immediately from G.o.d's presence, from the Beatific Vision. By _accidental_ they meant the additional happiness which comes from creatures, from meeting with friends, from the joyous occupations and all the delights of ever-widening knowledge.

But the Presence of G.o.d, the Vision of G.o.d, is the essential thing which gives light and joy to all the others. Without that Vision of G.o.d all would be dark as this beautiful world would be without the sun.

Without that joy of G.o.d's presence all other joys would be spoiled, just as the gifts of this life would be without the central gift of health.

That is the central thought about Heaven in the Bible, the central thought of G.o.d's n.o.blest saints of old, aye, and the central thought of some of the n.o.blest amongst ourselves to-day.

Does it seem unreal, unnatural, to some of us? I can well believe it.

Few of us love G.o.d well enough yet to desire Him above all things.

Most of us, I fear, if we would honestly confess it, think more of the joy of meeting our dear ones than of the joy of being with G.o.d. But G.o.d is very gentle with us. "He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are but dust." He will gradually train us here and hereafter, and one day we, too, shall love Him above all things. Oh! I do think that to know the tender patience of Christ's love as we shall know it then, to know G.o.d as He is, with all the false notions about Him swept away, will make it impossible to withhold our love from Him. And if even our poor love for each other on earth is such a happiness think what joy may come from dwelling in that unutterable Love of G.o.d.

III. THE LIFE IN HEAVEN

What can we know further about the life in Heaven, about what the old theologians called the _secondary_ or _accidental_ joys as compared with the supreme joy of the Beatific Vision?

We know, first, _There shall be no sin there_. It shall be a pure and innocent life. All who on earth have been loving, and pure, and n.o.ble, and brave, and self-sacrificing, shall be there. All who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ from the defilements of sin, and strengthened by the power of Christ against the enticements of sin, shall be there. There shall be no drunkenness nor impurity there, nor hatred, nor emulation, nor ill temper, nor selfishness, nor meanness.

Ah! it is worth hoping for. We poor strugglers who hate ourselves and are so dissatisfied with ourselves, who look from afar at the lovely ideals rising within us, who think sorrowfully of all which we might have been and have not been--let us keep up heart. One day the ideal shall become the real. One day we shall have all these things for which G.o.d has put the craving in our hearts to-day. We shall have no sin there. We shall desire only and do only what is good. We shall be there what we have only seemed or wished to be here--honest, true, n.o.ble, sincere, genuine to the very centre of our being.

No sin there.

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And that will make it easier to understand the second fact revealed to us. _No sorrow there_. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. There shall be no more curse ... no pain, nor sorrow, nor crying, and G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That is not hard to believe. Sin is the chief cause of our sorrow on earth.

If there be no sin there; if all are pure and unselfish and generous and true, and if G.o.d wipes away all tears that come from causes other than sin, it is easily understood.

But let us not degrade this thought or make it selfish or unreal. One often hears the sneer or the doubt about the happiness of Heaven while any exist who have lost their Heaven. We do not know the answer now.

But we shall know it then. And we must be absolutely certain that the answer lies not in the direction of selfish indifference. The higher any soul on earth grows in love the less can it escape unselfish sorrow for others. Must it not be so in that land too? Surely the Highest Himself must have more pain than any one else for the self-caused misery of men. If there be joy in His presence over one that repenteth must there not be pain over one that repenteth not? We can only say in our deep ignorance that until the day when all evil shall have vanished there are surely higher things in G.o.d's plan for His redeemed than selfish happiness and content. There is the blessedness that comes of sympathy with Him in the pain which is the underside of the Eternal Love.

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No sin in Heaven. No sorrow in Heaven. What else do we certainly know? _That the essence of the Heaven life will be love_. The giving of oneself for the service of others. The going out of oneself in sympathy with others. There at last will be realized St. Paul's glorious ideal. There it can be said of every man, He suffereth long and is kind; envieth not; vaunteth not himself; is not puffed up; seeketh not his own; behaveth not uncourteously. He is like the eternal G.o.d Himself, who beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things (1 Cor. xiii. 4-7).

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We may well believe _that there will be no dead level of attainment_, no dead level of perfection and joy. That would seem to us very uninteresting. If we may judge from G.o.d's dealings here and from the many texts of Scripture, there will be an infinite variety of attainment, of positions, of character. "In the Father's house there are many mansions." Our Lord a.s.sumes that we would expect that from our experience here. "If it were not so, I would have told you." I suppose there will be little ones there needing to be taught and weak ones needing to be helped; strong leaders sitting at His right hand in His Kingdom, and poor backward ones who never expected to get into it at all.

And so surely we may believe, too, will there be _varieties of character and temperament_. We shall not lose our ident.i.ty and our peculiar characteristics by going to Heaven, by being lifted to a higher spiritual condition. Just as a careless man does not lose his ident.i.ty by conversion, by rising to a higher spiritual state on earth, so we may well believe when we die and pa.s.s into the life of the waiting souls, and again when at Christ's coming we pa.s.s into the higher Heaven we shall remain the same men and women as we were before and yet become very different men and women. Our lives will not be broken in two, but transfigured. We shall not lose our ident.i.ty; we shall still be ourselves; we shall preserve the traits of character that individualize us; but all these personal traits and characteristics will be suffused and glorified by the lifting up of our motive and aim. As far as we can judge, there will be a delightful, infinite variety in the Heaven-life.

What else? There shall be _work in Heaven_. The gift of G.o.d is eternal _life_ and that life surely means activity. We are told "His servants shall serve Him." We are told of the man who increased the talents or the pounds to five or ten that he was to be used for glorious work according as he had fitted himself--"Lord, thy talent hath gained five talents, ten talents." What was the reply? "You are now to go and rest for all eternity." Not a bit of it. "Be thou ruler over five cities, over ten cities; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." I know some men who are now retired after a very busy active life of work, and they hate the idleness, they are sick of it. No wonder the conventional Heaven does not appeal to them. Ah, that is not G.o.d's Heaven. "They rest from their labours." Yes; but that word "labours" means painful strain. In eternal, untiring youth and strength we shall be occupied in doing His blessed will in helping and blessing the wide universe that He has made. Who can tell what glorious ministrations, what infinite activities, what endless growth and progress, and lifting up of brethren, G.o.d has in store for us through all eternity. Thank G.o.d for the thought of that joyous work of never-tiring youth and vigour; work of men proudly rejoicing in their strength, helping the weak ones, teaching the ignorant aye! perhaps for the very best of us going out with Christ into the outer darkness to seek that which is lost until He find it. For even that is not shut out beyond the bounds of possibility in the impenetrable mystery of the Hereafter. Do you know Whittier's beautiful poem of the old monk who had spent his whole life in hard and menial work for the rescue and help of others? And when he is dying his confessor tells him work is over, "Thou shalt sit down and have endless prayers, and wear a golden crown for ever and ever in Heaven." "Ah," he says, "I'm a stupid old man. I'm dull at prayers. I can't keep awake, but I love my fellow men. I could be good to the worst of them. I could not bear to sit amongst the lazy saints and turn a deaf ear to the sore complaints of those that suffer. I don't want your idle Heaven. I want still to work for others." The confessor in anger left him, and in the night came the voice of his Lord--

"Tender and most compa.s.sionate. Never fear, For Heaven is love, as G.o.d Himself is love; Thy work below shall be thy work above." [1]

Be sure that the repose of Heaven will be no idling in flowery meadows or sitting for ever in a big temple at worship, as the poor, weary little children are sometimes told after a long sermon in church. No, "there is no temple in Heaven," we are told--no Church. Because all life is such a glad serving and rejoicing in G.o.d that men need no special times and places for doing it.

IV. SHALL WE KNOW ONE ANOTHER IN HEAVEN?

What else can we learn? Shall we know one another? Does any one really doubt it who believes in G.o.d at all? What sort of Heaven would it be otherwise? What sort of comfort would there be if we did not know one another? Oh, this beggarly faith, that G.o.d has to put up with, that treats the Father above as it would treat a man of doubtful character. "I must have His definite texts. I must have His written pledges, else I will not believe any good thing in His dealing." That is our way. We talk very piously about our belief in G.o.d's love, but we are afraid to infer anything, to argue anything from the infinitude of that love. No, we must have G.o.d's bond signed and sealed. I do believe that one reason why we have not more of direct answers about the mysteries of the future life is because G.o.d thought that no such answer should be necessary--that His love, if one would only believe in it, is a sufficient answer to them all.

There is less need of discussing the subject here, since we have already dealt with the question of Recognition in the Intermediate Life (Part I, Chapter VII). If even in that imperfect state "absent from the body" we saw reason to hope for recognition, think how that hope rises to certainty in the great perfect life of Heaven where "I" shall be again "in the body" the glorious perfect spiritual body.

As I have pointed out the Bible gives only pa.s.sing hints on the subject. But it comforts the mourners with the thought of meeting those whom Christ will bring with Him. What would be the good of meeting if they should not know them? St. Paul expects to meet his converts and present them before Christ. How could he do so if he did not know them? Our Lord depicts Dives and Lazarus even in the lower Hades life as knowing each other. He says to the dying thief as they went within the veil, "To-day shalt thou be with Me." What could it mean except they should know each other within?

But surely the Bible does not need to say it. It is one of those things that we may a.s.sume with certainty. We know that Heaven would scarce be Heaven at all if we were to be but solitary isolated spirits amongst a crowd of others whom we did not know or love. We know that the next world and this world come from the same G.o.d who is the same always. We know that in this world He has bound us up in groups, knowing and loving and sympathizing with each other. Unless His method utterly changes He must do the same hereafter. And we have seen what a prophecy of recognition lies deep in the very fibres of that nature which G.o.d has implanted in us. If we shall not know one another, why is there this undying memory of departed ones, the aching void that is never filled on earth? The lower animals lose their young and in a few days forget them. But the poor, human mother never forgets. When her head is bowed with age, when she has forgotten nearly all else on earth, you can bring the tears into her eyes by mentioning the child that died in her arms forty years ago. Did G.o.d implant that divine love in her only to disappoint it? G.o.d forbid! A thousand times, no.

In that world the mother shall meet her child, and the lonely widow shall meet her husband, and they shall learn fully the love of G.o.d in that rapturous meeting with Christ's benediction resting on them.

I know there are further questions rising in our hearts. Will our dear ones remember us? Will they, in all the years of progress, have grown too good and great for fellowship with us? There is no specific answer save what we can infer from the boundless goodness and kindness of G.o.d.

Since He does not forget us we may be sure they will not forget us.

Since His superior greatness and holiness does not put Him beyond our reach, we may be sure that theirs will not--their growth will be mainly a growth of love which will only bring them closer to us for ever and ever.

V. HOW DO MEN ENTER HEAVEN?

We have asked, What is meant by Heaven? What can be known of the details of life in Heaven? And now I close this book with the solemn question for us all: How shall we enter Heaven? If you have followed me thus far the answer is easy. Though there is a special place which shall be Heaven, yet, if Heaven means a state of mind rather than a place of residence, if Heaven means to be something rather than to go somewhere, though it means to go somewhere, too, then the answer is easy. We enter Heaven by a spiritual, not by a natural act. We begin Heaven here on earth, not by taking a journey to the sun or the planets, not by taking a journey from this world up through the air, but by taking a journey from a bad state of mind to a good state of mind; from that state of mind which is enmity against G.o.d, to that of humble, loyal, loving obedience to Christ. It is not so much that we have to go to Heaven. We have to do that, too. But Heaven has to come to us first. Heaven has to begin in ourselves. "The beginning of Heaven is not at that hour when the eye grows dim and the sound of friendly voices becomes silent in death, but at that hour when G.o.d draws near and the eyes of the spiritual understanding are opened, and the soul sees how beautiful Christ is, how hateful sin is; the hour when self-will is crucified, and the G.o.d-will is born in the resolutions of a new heart." Then Heaven has begun, the Heaven that will continue after our death.

Do we believe that this is the right way to think of Heaven? For if so it is a serious question for us all. What about my hopes of entering Heaven? If Heaven consists of character rather than possessions, of a state of mind rather than a place of residence, if, in fine, Heaven has to begin on earth, what of our hopes of entering Heaven? Is it not pitiful to hear people talk lightly about going to Heaven, whose lives on earth have not any trace of the love and purity and n.o.bleness and self-sacrifice of which Heaven shall entirely consist hereafter? To see men with the carnal notions about Heaven as a place of external glory and beauty and jasper and emerald, where, after they have misused their time on earth, they shall fly away like swallows to an eternal summer. Why, what should they do in Heaven? They would be miserable there even if they could get there. They would be entirely out of their element, like a fish sent to live on the gra.s.s of a lovely meadow. Those who shall enjoy the Heaven hereafter are they whose Heaven has begun before. They who may hope to do the work of G.o.d hereafter are those who are humbly trying to do that will on earth.

These shall inherit the everlasting Kingdom. Unto which blessed Kingdom may He vouchsafe to bring us all! Amen.

[1] Whittier, "The Brother of Mercy."