Christ, cannot, therefore, mean being in hades. condition different from, and higher far than this. we will now proceed to inquire. It means a state and a Being with Christ, then, according to the natural force of the words, and according to what is expressly stated of them in other places where this phrase occurs, not only signifies that they are then alive, but it also signifies a great deal more. It signifies that they are in the immediate presence and company of Christ, and that they see Him as He is : it signifies that they are at God's right hand, for it is there that their Saviour is it signifies that they are in a state of glory, and have obtained the full reward of their faith and patience. All this is necessarily included in the phrase, "being with Christ." All this, and not some lesser minor meaning, we must take as the meaning of the word, and from this full meaning draw our inference, whatever that inference is to be. And all this, let us remember, is asserted to be the condition of all believers during the entire state of death up to resurrection. That we are not putting an overstrained sense upon the words, will be seen from a few quotations which we will now make from writers who differ wholly from our view. That the intermediate state is not a state of death, but a state of life for the redeemed, lies, of course, at the foundation of all the great things which are affirmed of this condition. To teach this is one of the grand awowed objects of Spiritualism, which, on this phase of the question, differs in no material respect from the ordinary view of the great majority of professing Christians. Thus, in a Spiritualist paper, "The Medium," March 22, 1872, one of the departed is made to speak thus at a seance: "I have only been in the spirit-world a short time. Ever since my entrance I have had a strong yearning desire to send a word of comfort to my bereaved husband, to assure him that death is life; that I still live. It was not I whom he buried; only my form." What the deluded Spiritualist utters in those dark scenes where men pretend to hold intercourse with the dead, the Christian poet sings in his immortal verse. Speaking of the departed, Tennyson says: 66 They do not die Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to us, although they change; With gather'd power, yet the same, Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil."-In Memoriam. What the Spiritualist and the poet teach, John Wesley repeats in his vigorous prose. "What am I?" he asks. "Unquestionably I am something distinct from my body. It seems evident that my body is not necessarily included therein. For when my body dies, I shall not die; I shall exist as really as I did before (Sermons cxiv). And so Dr. Candlish teaches: "Death," he says, "in this view is not really death; it is a step in the march of that life which knows no end Millennial Kingdom." By Rev. A. Brown, p. 67). (“The It would follow, as a matter of course, that those who teach thus that the departed are truly living, should also insist as a necessary inference that they are not really buried at all. The speech of the Spiritualist medium already quoted, "It was not I whom he buried, only my form," is often repeated. The Apocryphal work entitled, "The Consummation of Thomas the Apostle," only expresses the sentiment of hundreds of writers who call themselves orthodox. He thus describes his martyrdom, burial, and subsequent vision to two Christians who visited the tomb: "And when Thomas had prayed, he said to the soldiers: come and finish the work of him that sent you. And the four struck him at once, and killed him. And all the brethren wept, and wrapped him up in beautiful shawls, and many linen cloths, and laid him in the tomb in which of old the kings used to be buried. And Syphor and Juzanes did not go to the city, but spent the whole day there, and waited during the night. And Thomas appeared to them and said: I am not there; why do you sit watching? For I have gone up, and received the things I hoped for." But the common view of the intermediate state, founded upon the opinion that "being with Christ," in Phil. i. 23, speaks of the condition of death goes, and must needs go much farther than supposing them to be alive; and, therefore, not in their graves. It describes them as seeing Christ and being with Him in heaven. With this sentiment, the hymnbooks in most common use are thoroughly saturated, and, we hesitate not to say, are poisoned. Thus, one of the most beautiful hymns in "Hymns Ancient and Modern," 2nd Edition, No. 262, describes the yet future condition of the redeemed as already enjoyed by them: "How bright those glorious spirits shine, How came they to the blissful seats Now with triumphal palms they stand And serve the God they love amidst Another hymn from this collection, No. 323, describes the believer as seeing the face of God during his state of death: "Jerusalem on high My song and city is; When shall I be Considering the condition of death to be such, it follows, as a matter of course, that the dead attain in it an amount of knowledge far exceeding that of the most learned upon the earth. These latter are, in fact, but children to those who have, in popular estimation, passed into the true world of life and knowledge. Tennyson thus speaks of his lost friend: "The great Intelligences fair That range above our mortal state, And show'd him in the fountain fresh All knowledge that the sons of flesh Shall gather in the cycled times."—In Memoriam, lxxxv. Speaking of a dead child, Mrs. Browning says: "She has seen the mystery hid Under Pharaoh's pyramid." Victor Hugo, in his speech over the grave of Madame Paul Meurice, says, "Life is a problem; death is the solution." ... II. Of those who are not in the grave but are alive, who see God and Christ in heaven, and rejoice in a knowledge that would to us appear unlimited, the upholders of the ordinary view of death also affirm that they have during it obtained the reward of their faith and patience while upon the earth, and have entered upon their condition of glory. The condition of the saints when raised in glory, as depicted in various parts of Scripture, is in no way superior to that which is affirmed of believers in the state of death in the following hymn; which would, indeed, be a grand and true description of the resurrection state, but is a most false account of the state of death: "Hark! the sound of holy voices Chanting at the crystal sea, Alleluia, Lord to Thee! Multitude, which none can number, Now they reign in heavenly glory, Love and bliss they taste for ever, Of the blessed Trinity." Hymns Ancient and Modern, 2nd Ed. No. 378. In another of its hymns, the same collection describes the condition of departed believers similarly, and introduces-very naturally, and most properly from their view-the idea of the intercession of heavenly saints for those on earth: "Made co-heirs with Christ in glory, His celestial bliss they share ; May they now before Him bending Help us onward by their prayer."-No. 379. Another of these hymns speaks thus of the dead: "Who are these like stars appearing, These before God's throne who stand? Alleluia, hark, they sing, Praising loud their heavenly King."- No. 255. Charles Wesley, in his hymns, is not behind the collection known as "Hymns Ancient and Modern," and in such extensive use in the Church P of England. Indeed he sometimes seems to go beyond the strongest of their statements. In the following, he seems to teach that the resurrection, of which St. Paul speaks in 1 Cor. xv., takes place during the state of death. Speaking of the dead, he says: 66 'Subject then to no decay, Heavenly bodies they put on, And brighter than the sun."—No. 721. And of the glory of death, he thus speaks in another of his hymns : Our friend is restored But speaks by his death to our echoing hearts : Follow after, he cries, As he mounts to the skies, To the blissful enjoyments that never shall end."-No. 732. The Apocryphal "Acts of Philip," speaks in exact conformity with these hymns. After describing the death of the apostle, it tells us that, "There was straightway a voice out of the heavens: Philip the apostle has been crowned with an incorruptible crown by Jesus Christ, the Judge of the contest." We have thus seen, both from the natural force of the expression "to be with Christ," and from the general consent of our opponents, that the idea that the departed "are with the Lord" in the intermediate state signifies that they then see God and His Son, and are with the angels in heaven, and are possessed of an amount of knowledge altogether beyond what they were possessed of here, and have received the reward of their faith and obedience in the earthly life, and are crowned with the crown of life, and are placed in the state of glory; let us now proceed as briefly as we can to see whether such a description of believers in the intermediate state is at all compatible with what Scripture teaches; not in one or two passages, but in numerous passages everywhere found throughout its pages. And here perhaps it will be well to note, before our examination of Scripture, that this glorious view of the believer in the intermediate state which we have spoken of, and which must needs be true if, in that state, they are "with Christ," is utterly rejected as unscriptural and untrue by very many writers of the highest character, and who do not by any means agree with us in our view of the unconscious state of the dead. Many of those who are commonly called "orthodox" reject, just as much as we, the idea of the dead conveyed by the expression "being with Christ." While they hold that the departed are in a condition of life, they reject the idea of the glory of that condition. It is quite plain that at the very basis of this view of the condition of the departed must lie the belief that they are with Christ where He now is, i.e., in heaven. Without now examining into the opinions of modern divines, many of whom, possessed of the highest authority, we could quote as of our opinion, let us see what view was taken generally in the early Church of the opinion that the departed were, during the intermediate state, in a glorious condition and in heaven. (To be continued.) HENRY CONSTable. I 219 WHO ARE "THE SEALED" ONES? HAVE been much pained by Mr. N. Starkey's paper in the February issue of the RAINBOW on the sealing of the 144,000 (Rev. vii., xiv). I have followed him with interest and profit in his different papers, and feel thankful for the measure of truth which he has been enabled to give us through your paper. "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," is the advice (not to say command) which I endeavour to follow, weighing each doubtful sentence in the balance of the sanctuary, and accepting or rejecting accordingly. That glorious Book of Revelation has been a study of mine for nearly thirty years, and during that time I have gone through a good deal of the literature of the different schools on its teachings. I have also been privileged for some twenty years to speak frequently in public on its precious themes. In the first place, I am surprised that Mr. Starkey contradicts himself. In the January number he says, in proof that he is a Futurist, I contend that the vision shown to John in Patmos, as recorded in Rev. iv. and v., has not yet been fulfilled, that the tenth verse of chapter v. shows it to be post-resurrection and pre-millennial; that the elders are seen sitting clothed and crowned, but have not yet begun their reign on earth. Therefore, the book is still untaken, and hence not one of its seals yet broken." Now to all this I say, as a Futurist, Amen! (though allowing the Preterist view may be so far a correct one, when used typically.) But in the paper of February, after quoting three or four passages from Paul's Epistles to the Churches, he says, "Only in the light of these Scriptures (and such as these I take him to mean) can we understand who are the tribes of the children of Israel in Rev. vii. 4." Here our difference of thought commences. To a Futurist what possible connection can these quotations from the Epistles have with chaps. iv. v. or vii. of Revelation? I can see how they suit the Preterist when so used, but Mr. S. has puzzled me much by so using them as a Futurist. I had always thought that those to and of whom the apostle wrote in the passages quoted, would be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, as Jesus promised in Luke xxi. 36 (at least all found watching unto prayer, and, therefore, worthy), before the facts of the seventh chapter of Revelation come into view at all, or even the matters of the fourth and fifth chapters; and I shall fall back upon our brother's own quotations from these chapters in proof of it. I think, as believers in conditional immortality, we are shut up to the conclusion that the Church and body of Christ are still upon the earth, or under it; part awake, part asleep, but all waiting till He shall fulfil to us His exceeding great and precious promise, "I will come again and receive you unto myself." And 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17, gives us the details of this removal and reception. But after this, where is she to whom the promise was made? Yes, where but with Him who said, "That where I am there ye may be also ;" or, as in John xvii. 24, where the same yearning over us, as the objects of His love, is expressed to the Father Himself: "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with me where I am, that they may behold My glory." |