Hebrews 12:18-24 For you are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to blackness, and darkness, and tempest,… The whole chapter shows that this is the nature of a picture motive. It is an influence rather than a knowledge. And yet how shall one feel influence except through the reason, or through knowledge? But it is the way of the highest instruction to enter through the imagination, and come to the reason in that way. That is the genius, certainly, of the New Testament, in its description of the life above — the life that is to come. It never defines. It seeks not so much to impart knowledge to the reader, as we should call it in this life, as to produce in his mind certain states of feeling. Unskilled men writing, without inspiration, of the new city beyond, of the great afterlife, would have fallen into the mistake of attempting to give in revealed distinctness and accuracy things which by the very terms of our existence we cannot comprehend accurately and distinctly. Not so the inspired teachers. They poetised heaven; they dramatised the future; they gave to man conceptions through his imagination — and not aimlessly, but because through the imagination the sympathies of our nature, hope, joy, trust, aspiration, and the rest, could all be reached. What men need is to be stirred up, and then to be quieted. Intensity and quietude are harmonious in the higher spiritual life. What we want is some motive that will propel us along the sphere of our present life. We do not so much need to know what is to be the daily bread, converse, and activities of the other life; but we do need to know that there is One who has promised us personal sensibility and personal identity there, and that we shall know and be known, love and be loved. We do need to know that heaven is more than a compensation for earth. We do need to know that our being here contributes to immortality, glory, all that belongs to the act of rising into a pure spiritual form and condition where that which is Divine remains and continues in activity. To this Revelation and all the Pauline teachings tend. To this the writings of the unknown author of the Book of Hebrews tend. They give us an inside revelation which reveals nothing. "Well," say men, "what kind of a revelation is that?" When the poor wayfarer from old plantation life, hiding himself by day, and then beginning to live at night, pursued his weary way toward the north, he had but one guide and that was the polar star. That star said nothing to him. It shed no warmth on him. He did not know its contents. He knew nothing about it. But it was a star that, when he looked upon it, directed him to where liberty was. From that bright point in the far north he gathered zeal, so that in the darkness, through forest, through fen, across streams, over mountains, pressed by adversaries, with hounds baying on his track, he sped on his way. It was the inspiration of that star that supported him, though it revealed nothing to him but this: "You will be free." So there is no real description of the future life given to us in the New Testament except this: It is more grand than anything that you can conceive. It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive it. Nor can man's capacity compass it and take it all in. Nevertheless, what there is in human notions that inspires us with a sense of grandeur we apply to it. Now, the imagination teaches men in such a way that if you accept the description of heaven simply as a picture or vision, it is full of inspiration and hope. When you say that it shall be glorious, it is a good deal; but the moment you attempt to tell what the glory is, it is nothing at all. To say "we shall reign," is a good deal; but to undertake to tell what reigning is spoils the whole thing. "I love you" fills the soul and makes it vibrate like a harp, but undertake to explain what the love is, and it is turned to ashes at once. Nevertheless, the emotion is real, and the highest and most potent of our feelings are those which do not suffer themselves to be touched. The most glorious things in us are silent, and will not submit to rude handling, dwelling as they do in the centre of the ineffable. How much greater, better, and more untranslatable by mortal knowledge than physical existence is the realm of love! It is all right if you do not want to know what it is and how it works; but the moment you undertake to philosophise about it, its character is changed. The realm of purity is glorious so long as you do not attempt to analyse it; but you may as well bid it good-bye if you commence to reason about it. There are, then, some lessons to be derived from this. Having thrown off the peril of misinterpretation, there are certain great truths that we may deduce from it without resorting to the curiosity-monger's process — without attempting to anatomise heaven and deal with it scientifically. There are certain elements that it was meant we should derive from the pictures of it, and that, if we consider them aright, may be of exceeding great comfort to us in our Christian life. If it be true that we are to live again; if it be true that we are living here that we may go forward and live in a higher state, then the grandeur of the life that now is out of sight. You cannot tell by the earlier condition of things what their later states are to be. You cannot tell by the bud what the inflorescence is to be. You cannot tell by the flower what the fruit is to be. We cannot understand human life by looking at what it has yet come to under the influence of physical economy. In this life many are discouraged; but let a man maintain integrity under all circumstances and in all conditions, let him always and everywhere act with simplicity and fidelity, let him ally himself to those great qualities which God has revealed to be the centre-current of the universe, and all will be well with him. Love works no ill to one's neighbour; God's law is love; "Thou shalt love" is the command; and let a man conform himself to that central law of the universe, and then let death plant him, and we will run the risk of his coming up in the other life. And that ought to be a consolation to a man who in this world is poor and inconspicuous, and, as helpless amid the sweep of human affairs as a last year's leaf on the current of the Amazon. There are multitudes of such men, to whom a view like that which I have been presenting should carry not only comfort, but a great deal of instruction. Consider another fact in this connection — namely, that in this life the things which make the most ado are not the things which are the most important. There is nothing on earth noisier than a storm beating on the shore, and yet what does it do? It is bred in the desert sea. It lashes itself into a useless rage. It thunders in the heavens, and shakes the earth, and comes pouring down, and is broken into a million globules on the immovable rocks. By-and-by its wrath ceases, it smooths its blow, and the sea is tranquil again. What has happened? Nothing. Not a single thing has been done. A man's life goes thundering on, and the things which are most in the eyes of men are often of the least possible importance. The rage of nations, the march of armies, the rise of inconspicuous tribes to power, and their deliquescence and fading away again — these things seem great to men; but they come and go, and the earth is no whit changed, and men are no whir changed. So the things which are actually worth chronicling, and which are being chronicled, for ever and for ever, are the things which no man hears or sees. This great empty scroll above our heads is God's workshop, and He is writing there the history of time and the world. The scroll itself shall shrivel and depart; but the things that are written on that scroll shall never change. A man is not what he seems. This life is not what it appears to be. That which men call nothing — the great invisible realm — is the power which was declared by the apostle to be real. It is the things which are not that bring to naught the things that are. There is dominion in imagination, or in faith, to the man that knows how to avail himself of it. I remark, also, that if these views of the other life,. of the invisible, uninterpreted, and uninterpretable life, of the life of joy and power and grandeur which is to come — but which we cannot define any more closely than this — if these views be true, then how beautiful are the conceptions which are in the nature of comfort to men in the decays that take place in this state of existence! I have always been very much struck by that illustration of Paul's which is contained in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians. He is speaking about the act of dying. And that which is true of the mere act of death is just as true of every other relation that terminates, or of any other composition which is analysed and goes back to its elements again. He says there are two sides to this matter. You cannot stand in the time-world and see what you will see in the world to come. You only see corruption, you only see dishonour, you only see weakness in the natural body. But then there is another side. There is the way in which God sees things, and there is the way in which the heavenly host see them. But what is to be seen on that side? Why, incorruption, glory, power, a spiritual body. If you look up at the bottom of the coffin from the earth side it is all sad and solemn. If you look down upon the coffin from the Divine side it is all radiant, triumphant, joyful. Those that I have known, whose virtues I have dwelt upon, and whose nature has shed great beauty in life, I love to follow, step by step, as they go down toward death. My faith rejoices in their advance till their voices fail out of my ear, and till their faces are hidden from me, because they have gone to live in Zion and before God: Wherefore comfort one another with words: Strengthen each other by the way. Sing and rejoice, knowing that, bright as is any experience here, it is but a twilight experience till the day shall dawn and the sun shall arise upon your souls. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, |
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