lOo PREPARATION AND RECEPTION
He will come again!
Sometime He will surely stand once more On the earth which His own hand hath made- Only never as before, Weary, lonely, and in pain. As the Lamb on whom our sin was laid — Stretching out His hands in vain, All the day, To a people gone astray.
He will come again!
O, the word
Which our joyful ears have heard
Cannot fail, nor pass away.
He hath spoken ! It shall be !
Our expectant eyes shall see
Him for whom we watch and wait.
Coming soon to claim
All whose trust is in His name —
For the hour is growing late;
Time wears on,
And the little while is almost gone.
He will come again !
In the hope our hearts grow strong —
Strong to bear the watching and the strain
Of the time between —
Strong to bear His cross — to undertake,
For His sake,
All the burdens of the day —
All the roughness of the way —
Beaching out toward the things unseen^
Finding not our rest below —
Counting all the joys of earth,
All things here.
Sometime dear,
Of but little worth,
Since we know
That at His appearing we shall see
All the glory, and the light —
Hidden now from human sight —
Of the risen One,
And, beholding, in His likeness be,
While eternal ages run.^
» E. H. Divall, A Believer's Rest, 68.
ST. JOHN XIV. 2, 3 loi
2. The Beception. — One of the best tests of the truth and reality and vigour of our Christian life lies in this, that when we anticipate the great life to come, however far speculation may- endeavour to trace its course in the province of that mysterious land, we return to this thought, which satisfies completely all the deepest and best desires of our hearts, — that where Christ is, we are to be also. But there is a personal delight in these words of Christ's : His joy would be incomplete if we were not with Him in the Father's house. It would diminish our gladness, our antici- pation of supreme bliss, if we did not know that our presence with Him would heighten His own happiness. He is not so absorbed in the splendours of His Eternal Throne, or in the great tasks which belong to Him as the Lord of the heaven and the earth, as to be indifferent to the affection that binds Him to us and to God. Nor is He so absorbed even in the blessedness of His eternal fellowship with the Father. If on the one side of His nature He is eternally one with God, on the other side of His nature He is eternally one with us ; and fellowship with us, in the perfection of our righteousness and the perfection of our blessedness, is as necessary to the heavenly glory of Christ as His fellowship with the Father Himself. The joy that was set before Him when He endured the Cross, despising the shame, was this, — that He might redeem us from sin ; and knowing as only He knows the blessedness of living in the eternal love of God, He wanted us in our measure to know that blessedness likewise.
Heaven is the Father's house, where we shall be young again, the ideal home life here revived and sanctified, where friend will meet with friend, where the many mansions will extend their ample hospitality to people of every kindred and tongue and nation; yet even this is not the chief feature of that life to come. Its chief feature is the fellowship not of friend with friend, but of all with Christ — " That where I am, there ye may be also." The Father's house is not a perfect place to Christ until He gathers into its mansions all those for whom He died. Not until He has His loved ones beside Him where He is, and has made them what He is, will He be satisfied. That is heaven, — to be with Christ, to see Him as He is, to be as He is. " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not 3'et appear what we
102 PREPARATION AND RECEPTION
shall be ; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is."
^ The Tannese called Heaven by the name Aneai ; and we afterwards discovered that this was the name of the highest and most beautifully situated village on the island. Their best bit of Earth was to them the symbol and type of Heaven ; their Canaan, too, was a kind of prophecy of another country, even a heavenly Canaan. The fact that they had an Aneai, a promised land, opened their minds naturally to our idea of the promised land of the future, the Aneai of the Gospel hope and faith.^
^ I used to think of heaven and its golden streets and pearly gates, and it was the place I thought of ; but as I grew older and my loved ones passed on before, my thoughts of heaven changed altogether. I no longer think of the place, but of the great com- pany I shall meet there, of my Poly, boys who have gone home, of the mother who loves me none the less because "her love has been made perfect in her Saviour's presence. I believe that when our opening eyes first pierce the mysteries of that land beyond the river, our first feeling will be a deep inward sensation of being at home ; the surroundings that are so often antagonistic to our better nature will be gone : there will be no more sea.^