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,… What an announcement! For the manner in which this passage is introduced sufficiently shows that it is designed to impart encouragement and solace, to awaken spiritual-mindedness and hope. And yet there is something which seems to mock us, which may excite our consternation, depress our zeal. "Ye are come to the spirits of just men made perfect." Know we not otherwise? The link between ourselves and those whom we loved is broken. Does it not seem to trifle with us, when we are "bereaved indeed," to tell us that we are come to them from whom we are so hopelessly and irreparably torn? "Ye are come to the spirits of just men made perfect." Our natural apprehensiveness is thus excited by the appeal. Creatures of flesh and blood, nothing seems so strongly to fasten upon our instinctive fear as spiritual contact and communication. Who would wish to behold the dearest friend whom he had ever loved, returning a spirit from the region of spirits, with their manner and mystery? What nerve could encounter the interview? What fondest heart could endure the shadowy embrace? And do we not shrink when we are bidden to approach this ghostly band? "Ye are come to the spirits of just men made perfect." Our ardour is depressed. Our sympathy is checked. Our imitation is debarred. Little fellowship can we claim with their refined essences, their unalloyed purity and bliss- they subsist beyond the range of our ideas and susceptibilities. But the purpose of the Holy Ghost in these words must stand: that purpose can only be tender, consolatory, assuring. And is it not most kind and cheering to inform and certify us, that they, who are thus departed, are not lost? That, rescued from the burden of this flesh and delivered from the hazard of this world, they expatiate in the freedom of a nature ethereal and incorruptible? And is it not animating and triumphant for us to perceive, in their release, the pledge and model of our exaltation, when our spirits shall throw off their oppressions, and shall attain to yonder state of immaterial being? Come, then, to these spirits — endeavour to conceive of them, to catch their fervours, to reciprocate their joys, to respond their strains! I. "WHO ARE THEY? WHENCE CAME THEY?" They are not the natives of heaven. They have no proper birthright in it. They belong to a very different sphere. They are men. They have been prepared, while on the "earth which was given to them," for their present abode. They have been brought hither by an act utterly independent of their original constitution. It is a state altogether strange and new. They constitute the just. Only the just can be in a condition of safety and favour, only the just can be endued with a nature of sanctity and love. Theirs is a true sense of right, of duty, the firm habit of fidelity. II. THESE "JUST MEN" ARE NOT ANY LONGER IN OUR PRESENT SPHERE, OR KIND, OF EXISTENCE. We are summoned to meditate them in a new condition. The image of the earth is effaced. They are no more seen in a compound nature. They are "spirits." All beside is left in the grave. Nothing material cleaves to them. But it is the higher essence — the intellect the consciousness — the self — which this disembodiment must suppose. How may this state of spiritualism be conceived? It is described as subsisting in intimate union with the Saviour. It is to " depart and to be with Christ." It is to "be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." He "receives" them. This is the great distinctiveness of their present condition. Their inward nature, drawn forth from the outward, is in a relationship; in an access to the Blessed Redeemer far different from any enjoyment of His presence, or communion with His person, known on earth. In addition to this immediate presence of the Redeemer-God, that light in which they see light, the light of the Lamb -the spirits of just men are "made perfect." This is a discovery of their state which greatly explains itself. This spirit is matured in its powers and consummated in its joys. According to its capacities it is complete. All its true aims are unfolded. It is wrought out into its fullest development. It is a condition of pure spiritualism. Certain facts suggest themselves as the necessary accompaniments of such a condition. 1. The consciousness must be very distinct. The self revolves upon its own centre, ever substantiating what it really is, ever enjoying its proper exercises of understanding and emotion. This "hidden man" lives in his own light. Nothing is attached to the spirit which can divert this concentrated impression. 2. The inward life must be very strong. The whole soul, all that is within it, is absorbed in that deep and holy sense. 3. The intellectual faculty must be very clear. It still " follows on to know the Lord," it still "follows hard after God." 4. The meditative abstraction must be very intent. 5. The adoring gratitude must be very earnest. 6. Its awaiting aspiration must be very glad. The disembodied saint ascertains the future stage to which it constantly approaches, which is the last of all, and which is only wanted to complete his entire being. He understands its nature. He is assured of its certainty. Oh, the transition, the passage of the spirit, escaped from earth, released from mortality, to this glorious state! Spirit! — which hast long walked in darkness, brooded in sorrow, pined in weariness — spirit! which wast long tossed with tempest, harassed by hostility, vexed with care — spirit! which didst long groan within thyself — spirit! long bound to sense and chained to infirmity spirit! long lacerated and bruised with inward wounds — spirit! the shadow of whose guilt hitherto lay upon thee though forgiven, the effort of whose depravity until now struggled in thee though subdued — Christian soul depart! Go forth to rest and home! III. THESE SEPARATED SPIRITS ARE REPRESENTED TO US AS IN A STATE OF EXALTED ADVANCEMENT, DEPENDING UPON THEIR DISEMBODIMENT. This doctrine of immediate happiness was not entirely concealed from the ancient saints. Their language occasionally leads us to think that they had some conception of it (Psalm 16:10; Psalm 73:24; Psalm 49:15; Isaiah 57:2). Christ was the Conqueror. "He spoiled principalities and powers." Of Him it was declared that He should "swallow up death in victory." He ascends! He is "received up into glory!" There are not only the angels and the chariots in their thousands of thousands — there is another train! All holy spirits follow Him who had appeared a spirit to them in their place of keeping. They now forsake that place for "things above." And, therefore, it is said in the text: "Ye are come to the spirits of just men made perfect." But this is asserted as a privilege unknown before. It arises from the new covenant in contradistinction from the old. It is explained: "God having provided some better things for us" (than for those who died before the rising of Christ) "that they without us" (without living until our time and under our dispensation) "should not be made perfect." But they are now made perfect, in common with us. This "perfection " is bestowed upon all past, as well as for all future, time, and "ye are come to the spirits of just men made perfect!" 1. The spirits of just men will be made perfect in holiness. 2. Such spirits are raised to the perfection of wisdom. 3. These souls of the departed are perfectly secure. 4. A fulness of beatitude must be contained in their perfection.They can know no want: yet are they full of holy desires, ever waking only to be satisfied, ever longing only to be fulfilled. The vessel at each moment overflows: but at every moment it also is enlarged. There are pleasures for evermore. The source of all is in the Infinite Plenitude. The river of life proceedeth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. IV. THERE ARE RELATIONS WHICH UNITE THE JUST ON EARTH, AND THE SPIRITS OF THE JUST IN HEAVEN, NOTWITHSTANDING THE DISPARITY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE CONDITIONS. Certain affinities may be discovered between mind and mind in this world, which are not restricted to personal intercourse, which operate as in defiance of the laws of space. And the announcement of the text is but the enlargement of such mental affinities. It is not said that we shall come to the spirits of just men made perfect, but that we are. 1. There is unity. To impress this upon our minds the Church is shadowed by various figures, all of which have respect to its indivisibility. It is a city, a corporate community, but all, who are enrolled in it, partake of common immunities, and are "fellow-citizens with the saints." It is a household. It is a household of faith and of God. They of this household are all they who are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. "Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." Its distribution in these different abodes affects not its identity. It shall find even in heaven many mansions. It is a body. "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." This, then, is no fiction nor ideal. It is based on our union with Christ. We are all one in Him. We are joined to the Lord, and are one spirit. It is, therefore, declared to have been the design of God in redemption, to bind, in communion and identification, all His people, however scattered abroad on earth, or however raised to the glories of a higher existence. "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him." "And having made peace through the blood of his Cross, by Him to reconcile," or to unite, "all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." These are the links which separation cannot weaken, and which death cannot dissolve. 2. There is resemblance. Heaven is doubtless a place. But we must rather conceive of it as a state of mind. The heaven of perfect spirits must be chiefly this. This state of mind — far transcending all present attainment of knowledge, sanctity, and joy — consists not in estrangement and extreme. It is not alien from what is now experienced. There is no principle, no companionship, no employment, no rapture, of that region, but has in the Christian on earth its foretaste and counterpart. He "hath the Father and the Son." "The Spirit dwelleth in Him." "He hath eternal life." He is a "partaker of the glory that shall be revealed." The heaven which he enters and enjoys is but the expansion of principles and emotions he long has known. He has been changed already into the image of the Divine glory, "from glory to glory." He wanted but this consummation. The last of dying triumph, and the first of empyrean rapture, may thus easily and naturally blend: and in the yearnings of a kindred mind, we now come to the spirits of just men made perfect. Do we not know it? Have we not found it? Are now our affections set on things above? Does not the holy city come down from God out of heaven? Is not our conversation in heaven? 3. There is endearment. A holy affinity unites us to the spirits of just men made perfect. They are the Church of the first-born: they are our elder brethren. Our desire is to them. Are they weaned from us? Are we forgotten? Is all sympathy withdrawn? Hearts grow not selfish in heaven. Spirits made perfect can abandon no love which it was ever their right to form, their duty to maintain, their benefit to exercise: their perfection is the pledge that each holy attachment is raised to that perfection. 4. There is appropriation. We already have obtained a portion in heaven. "Joint-heirs with Christ Jesus," He has claimed it for us. He is our Forerunner. "He has for us entered." He "now appears in the presence of God for us." We "come to the spirits of just men made perfect," for they inhabit our country, they dwell ill our home. They have preceded us, but "things to come are ours," and their title is no surer than our own. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.) 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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