^ In some of the cathedrals of Europe, on Christmas Eve, two small lights, typifying the Divine and the human nature, are gradually made to approach one another until they meet and blend, forming a bright flame. Thus, in Christ, we have the light of two worlds thrown upon human destiny. Death, as the extinction of being, cannot be associated with Him ; He is life — its fulness and perfection, and perfect life must be stronger than death. The whole bearing of Christ towards death, and His treatment of it, was as one superior to it, and as having no part or lot in it. He will indeed bow His head and cease to breathe in obedience to the physical laws of the humanity He shares, but already He enters the gates of Paradise, not alone but leading a penitent child of humanity by the hand. And, in order that we may know He simply changed worlds. He comes back and shows Himself alive ; for He is not here in the world simply to assert truth, but to enact it.^
^ When Livingstone asked the natives in Central Africa as to what became of their noble river, they, having no idea of the sea, replied, " It is lost in the sands." We know another wonderful river, the river of human life which rushes through these metro- politan streets, spreads far and wide, and flows on through ages
' T. E. Ruth. - T. T. Hunger, The Freedom of Faith, 268.
68 LIFE BEYOND DEATH
the mystic river whose bubbles are cities, whose music is language, whose jewels are thoughts, whose shells are histories. What becomes of this river of life ? Saj'-s scepticism sadly, " The clergy- man, the undertaker, and the sexton see the last of it in the sands." But we can never be content with such a solution, which is no solution. The Lord Jesus alone enables us to give a bright inter- pretation to the dark problem. He has brought life and immor- tality to light. He has put into our lips the great cry, " The sea ! The sea ! " Beyond the sands of time we behold gleams of the great bright ocean of eternity, and through the mist comes the music of many waters. Our Lord was manifest in the flesh, He died, was buried, and rose again that He "might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." We take our harp from the willow. Our mourners are musicians, our graves are filled with flowers, our epitaphs are hallelujahs.^
3. Our future life is secure in Christ. Linked to Him we cannot perish. Christians believe in their own resurrection, because they believe in the resurrection of Christ. But faith does not depend upon — it does not originate in nor is it maintained by — the resurrection of Christ, simply as a historical fact. The resurrection of Jesus is not simply a fact outside of «s, guaranteeing in some mysterious way our resurrection in some remote future. It is a present power in the believer. He can say with St. Paul — Christ liveth in me — the risen Christ — the Conqueror of Death — and a part, therefore, is ensured to me in His life and immortality. This is the great idea of the New Testament whenever the future life is in view. It is indeed very variously expressed. Sometimes it is Christ in tts, the hope of glory. Sometimes it is especially connected with the possession, or rather the indwelling, of the Holy Spirit. " If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you." It is easy to see that the religious attitude here is precisely what it was in the Old Testament, though, as the revelation is fuller, the faith which apprehends it, and the hope which grows out of it, are richer. Just as union with God guaranteed to the Psalmist a life that would never end, so union with the risen Saviour guaranteed to the Apostles, and guarantees to us, the resurrection triumph over death.
^ W. L. Watkinson, The Education of the Heart, 25.
JOB XIV. 14 69
^ "March llth^ 1870. — I have been astounded by a most influential member of the Church saying to me, ' What is it to me whether Christ worked miracles or rose from the dead ! We have got the right idea of God through Him. It is enough, that can never perish ! ' And this truth is like a flower that has grown from a dunghill of lies and myths ! Good Lord, deliver me from such conclusions ! If the battle has come, let it ; but before God I will fight it with those only, be they few or many, who believe in a risen, living Saviour. This revelation of the influence of surface criticism has thrown me back immensely upon all who hold fast by an objective revelation. Nothing can possibly move me from Jesus Christ, the living Saviour, the Divine Saviour, the Atoning Saviour, whatever be the philosophy of that atonement." ^
^ The ancients fabled that Orpheus the god of music was drowned, and his lyre lost in the sea; hence water is musical. What the Greeks meant by this legend it is impossible to say ; but perhaps they intended it to signify that the secret of harmony has perished from the world. Be that as it may, when the Son of God plunged into this gulf of dark despair, He recovered more than the lost lyre of Orpheus : He gave us again the secret of spiritual and eternal music, whatever may be the confusions and discords of earth and time.^