Meditations on the Bible heaven

Front matter

Sosa

S ees a

SBR

Introduction

THE chapters cgmposing this volume are simply a reproduction, with slight alterations, of a series of articles recently published in the Independent of New York City, and prepared when the author was passing through the deepest sorrow of his life. The dear wife with whom he had happily lived for more than half a century had just gone to her final rest in Heaven. Loving her when living, and not less when dead, and having the fullest confidence in the reality and soundness of her Christian character, he determined specially to study the Bible in regard to that glorious Heaven which it reveals, and which, as he felt assured, had become the eternal home of the best friend he ever had in this world, and, through the knowledge thus gained, to form his ideas of the lamented dead as existing in the spirit-realm. -

The study brought comfort to one stricken heart ; and, hoping that a similar effect would

8 Introduction.

be produced in other hearts suffering from a like experience, the author concluded to give the results of the study in the columns of the Independent. As the articles appeared from time to time, he received letters from various parts of the country, expressing the satisfaction with which they had been read, and suggesting that, when completed, they should be republished asa book. They are now submitted to the Christian public, substantially as they were when first published.

The reader should bear in mind that each article, as originally published, was distinct and separate, and was constructed to tell its own story, independently of every other. The author did not assume that the reader of any one article would read the whole series, or more than that one; and hence he sought to make each article as complete and perfect as possible for its own purpose, within the limits allowable in a religious newspaper. This explains the unavoidable repetition of ideas which occurs in some of the chapters of this volume.

The author makes no claim to elaborate and learned exegesis. He had an entirely different end in view. What and all he attempts in the

Introduction. 9

Second Part—from which the title of the book is taken—is, in a series of meditations, to state what the Bible, upon a natural and common-sense construction of its language, says about the Heaven to which it so often refers, and which, as their future and eternal home, it so abundantly pledges to those who are ‘‘ the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”’ Heaven, to one who studies it in the light of this Book, and is content to rest there until celestial experience shall make him wiser, is an exceedingly attractive theme. The Christian hopes, after death, to dwell there forever ; and he surely should not deny to himself, while here, the spiritual luxury of knowing all he can about that Heaven. God has “‘ brought life and immortality to light’? in His Word; and it becomes the Christian to seek all the light that God has seen fit to give. He should not be ignorant by his own fault.

The Heaven thus revealed is presented to us in human language, appropriated by inspiration for this purpose ; and this language is in many forms of description. Each form, considered relatively to human thought, has some special reason for its use; and when all these

10 Introduction.

forms are collected together in one aggregate, then, and only then, have we before our minds what God has been pleased to reveal in regard to Heaven. Then, and only then, do we really see the Bible Heaven. Though but part of the whole reality is thus brought within the domain of our present knowledge, that part makes Heaven superlatively desirable.

The elementary ideas of the heavenly life which one gathers from the study of the Word of God are these: 1. Mental existence after death, as opposed to extinction or destruction by that event. 2. The endless continuance of that existence, as opposed to any limitation of time. 38. The permanent retention of the soul’s” essential individuality and personality. 4. Actual residence in Heaven as a place of abode. 5. Residence there, after the resurrection, in what Paul calls the ‘‘ spiritual body,”’ fashioned like unto the ‘‘ glorious body’’ of Christ. 6. A heavenly community or society, consisting in redeemed sinners of the human race and the holy angels. 7 The existence and operation of the government of God among and upon the members of this society. 8. Theactivity of our mental powers, and of the affections of the

Introduction. 11 heart, in the form of devout and holy exercises toward God, and of love toward the inhabitants of Heaven. 9. Exemption from all the miseries incident to our present existence. 10. Great enlargement of knowledge beyond that of the present life. 11. Sinless perfection of moral character. 12. Complete and perfect happiness. 138. The personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in His ‘‘ glorious body,”’ as the Mediator between God and men, as the Head of the Church, and as the ‘‘ High Priest of our profession.’? 14. The heavenly state as related to, and the gracious reward of, Christian virtue on earth, and as the expression of God’s approval and good pleasure toward those who in this world possessed this virtue.

_ These ideas, considered as elements of the Heaven made known in the Bible, underlie the language used in that Book, and are, moreover, such ideas as we can receive and appreciate on earth. It is not true that we are, while in this world, doomed to absolute ignorance of the heavenly world. The truth is far otherwise. Using the Bible as the guide of thought, and accepting the information there given, we know, or may know, more things about Heaven than a by Introduction.

astronomers, by the aid of the telescope, ever did, or ever will, know about those shining spots that appear on our evening sky. The Biblical revelation of Heaven is greater in quantity, and far more important in quality, than the information supplied by the telescope in respect to the starry worlds. The former is the simpler medium of knowledge ; and, being given upon the authority of God, it is more reliable in its source.

SAMUEL T. SPEAR.

BRrooxktyn, N. Y., July 1, 1886.

Norz.—After the foregoing paragraphs were printed, and just before the whole volume passed into the binder’s hands, the author was called to the experience of a new and added sorrow. His dearly beloved and only daughter—the wife of Mr. John P. Scrymser—who, upon the death of her mother, at once assumed the duties of his housekeeper, who in feeble health did her utmost to minister to his wants, to whom every line of this volume was read, and by whom most valuable suggestions and criticisms were made, was summoned by the providence of God to her heavenly home. Her intellectual and spiritual character made her companionship a sweet boon to him in many an otherwise desolate and lonely hour. Her personal attentions were constant, and ever loaded with the ministrations of the tenderest affection, She did ‘‘ what she could.”” No one but the author himself can know how much he needed her presence; and no one else can know how faithfully she served her afflicted father in his declining years. But she also is gone—a blessing once had, but now forever lost in this world. Another jewel has been set in the diadem of heavenly glory, Her death has added another charm to the celestial life, and given to the author another reason to say with the apostle: ‘‘ But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

To the memory of this loving and lovely daughter, and to that of the dear wife who preceded her in death, the author dedicates these pages, hoping that, when it shall please God to call him hence, he may meet them in the building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

SAMUEL T. SPEAR.

BRooKLyn, N. Y., October 7, 1886.

PeAsty beds PRELIMINARY MEDITATIONS.

Chapter I

THE phrase ‘‘common sense,”’ taken in its most comprehensive import, means those ideas and beliefs which, being common to the race, characterize it in all ages and countries. All men, so far as these ideas and beliefs are concerned, think essentially the same things, in the same way, and under the government of the same mental laws. However much they may differ in their acquirements, they are patterned after the same general model;. and, hence, the study of one man, in the essential elements of his humanity, is the study of these elements in all men.

‘‘ Religious common sense’? embraces the ideas and beliefs which men naturally have in regard to God and themselves, considered in their relations to each other, and in the duties, the hopes and fears which grow out of these relations. Speculating atheists and infidels may, on paper, sneer at this sense, as a mere delusion, and attempt to laugh it out of this world ; yet the effort always has been, and always will be, a total failure. Religious common sense is anchored in human nature, and has its basis in the very structure of our mental and moral being. It passes from generation to generation with the facility, the certainty, and uniformity of a universal and indestructible fact. The stars are not steadier in their course than the continuance and descent of this sense. There is not the slightest danger that mankind, asa whole, will ever become a race of atheists.

The fundamental affirmation of this sense, found, in some form, and to some extent, wherever man is found, we have in the doctrine of a Supreme Being, oneor more, distinct from nature, invested with the attributes of personality, and greatly superiorto men. The human mind is so constructed that, upon being placed in such a world as this, and here moved to action by its excitants to thought, the doctrine of God is the natural outgrowth of that action. Whether the idea be innate and intuitive, or the result of rational processes, or both combined, is a matter of no consequence in relation to the question of its existence. Positive and absolute atheism, if real anywhere, is not the natural condition of the human mind.

The Bible, though a revelation from God and of God, never attempts formally to prove His existence. It assumes that ‘‘the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,” and on this ground declares that even the heathen, who are limited to the light of nature for their knowledge of God, ‘‘ are without excuse’ for their gross idolatries, and the corruption of their practical lives. What the Bible does is to explain God, especially in His moral attributes, as disclosed in the Gospel of Christ, and thereby correct the misapprehensions and errors of men in regard to Him. It dismisses the atheist by saying: ‘‘ The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.’’ The Bible wastes no time in formal argument with such fools.

The idea of God, as we find it in the world’s sense, exists there in a group of ideas which define Him to human thought. He is the Maker, Supporter, and Governor of this world, at the head of all things, as the original, the infinite, and all-presiding Mind. All things are what they are because He has so made them. The order of nature is His appointment. The power and wisdom that salute human observation are His power and wisdom. The goodness and mercy, the justice and judgment, which sweep over the field of existence, are an expression of His attributes. The relations between © Him and men are, on their part, those of dependence and subjection to His law. He concerns Himself with men and with what they do, and can be pleased and also displeased with their conduct. They are not so small as to escape His notice, and He is not so far off that He cannot reach them with His power. Things do not move as they do without His observation or without His regulation. There is nothing in the universe stronger than His arm, and nothing more penetrating than His eye. Millions of men conspiring to dethrone Him would not make the slightest impression upon His supremacy. One blow from Him would crush them all. He is a God of powers, purposes, activities, and relations to menand things. He handles thunderbolts. The forces of nature are simply implements in His hands, and always obedient to His will.

This natural current of thought and feeling in regard to God has rolled on from age to age, carrying on its bosom numerous perversions and errors, yet always more or less carrying these elements of the world’s sense of God. All lands show their presence. They go where man goes, and live where he lives, uniting themselves with all conditions of human existence. That existence never sinks below them, and never rises above them. Society cannot outgrow them, and civilization cannot displace them. They have a permanent domicile on earth and amongmen. God Himself, in human thought, is the great Factor in this world’s affairs. The world cannot detach itself from Him, and He will not detach Himself from it.

Man, by reason of this natural sense of God, supplies in himself the basis for the impressive appeals which the Bible makes to him. He does not need to be re-made and re-endowed before God can speak to him. He is fitted by the constitution of his nature and the results thereof to hear a special message from God, and to feel its force. Badly as that nature has been damaged by sin, and great as may be the errors in regard to God which have crept into the world, still men have not become brutes, and certainly not granite rocks, and have not gone so far from God as to be beyond the reach of revelation. There is always left a residuum of ideas and susceptibilities upon which a revelation can operate, and which, indeed, is the indispensable condition of its reception.

Nothing can exceed the vividness with which the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm sets before us the idea of God’s omniscience and omnipresence, and of His direct contact with human affairs. Let us read the words:

‘*O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising ; Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ; it is high; I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in Hell; behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day ; the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.”’

This wonderful description of God fits right into the religious sense of man, anywhere, everywhere, in every age, and to that sense proves itself. We naturally and easily believe that God must be as great and marvellous a being as He is here described to be. We see no extravagance in the picture, and no occasion to doubt or dispute its truth. The language is not too brilliant for the reality.

And so, when the Bible says that ‘‘in the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth,’’ and thus traces all existence but His own to His creating power; or when it says that ‘‘in Him we live, and move, and have our being ;’’ or when it represents Him as the great Ruler over this world and all its affairs; or when it commands us to love and obey God— yes, when that Book thus speaks to us, it simply puts into language thoughts that men, from the natural operation of their own minds, are prepared to receive as true.

Human nature hasan ear to hear, and a mind to accept, what the Bible says about God ; and, for the most part, that nature needs no other proof than that of the thing said. The sense of justice in man fits him to receive and understand the idea of justice in God. The spiritual elements that constitute the essential nature of the former, furnish the condition for apprehending like elements in the latter. Our consciousness of our own personality enables us to conceive of God’s personality.

The works of nature, all of which are in the Bible traced to God, illustrate, emphasize, and enforce what that Book says about Him. There are many respects in which we could not understand the Book at all, if we had no knowledge of these works. The order of nature supplies many impressive analogies to that order which is revealed in the Bible. The God of the Bible and the God of nature thus appear to be the same being, possessing the same attributes, and holding the same relations to men. We see nothing in the latter to create any revulsion of thought against the former.

Nature and the Bible, as to what they teach in respect to that great Being, who: is alike the source of both, move, to some extent, on parallel lines ; and, so far as they do so, their relation to each other is not one of antagonism, but rather of coincidence and harmony. The world’s sense of God, as given by nature without a revelation, makes it a world to which a revelation can be addressed, and by which it can be received.

Moreover, in respect to the subject of religion as a system of beliefs to be practised, what is called the supernatural is, to the common sense of the race, really the natural. Wesearch history in vain for a religious system that has stamped itself upon the faith and practice of men, operating upon them as a controlling power of comfort and hope, organizing itself into their personal and social life by forms, usages, and modes of worship, and at the same time professedly based on the authority and discoveries of unaided human reason. Philosophies in abundance have been the products of such reason, but religious systems never.

All the idolatries of antiquity claimed to be supernatural in their origin; and the same is true of all the forms of modern heathenism. Such is the assumed character of Mohammedanism and Mormonism.

The religion of the Bible purports to have come into this world as a supernatural revelation from God through the agency of prophets and apostles, and especially Jesus Christ. These agents appeared before men, not as philosophers giving their opinions on the basis of merely natural reason, but as divinely appointed and divinely authenticated messengers through whom God Himself spake to man. ‘‘Thus saith the Lord” is their constant and universal claim, and hence the thing said is referred to as being the Word of God.

Whether the religion of the Bible is a supernatural revelation from God, is a fair question for reason to determine ; but the mere fact that it claims to be such is, in the general judgment of the race, anything but an objection to it. - Those who make this claim an objection are themselves at war with reason as embodied in and expressed by the common sense of mankind. The truth is that, in religion, the supernatural is, according to this sense, really the natural. Itis what men want as the indispensable condition of a religious system.

Something /vom God, impressed with His authority, in which He speaks to man and invites man to speak to Him, and not merely something about God upon the authority of mere reason, is the only form in which religious ideas can be addressed to the human mind with controlling and comforting power. The world wants an oracular God—one that speaks by His own authority, and stamps that authority upon the thing said. This may be very foolish in the estimate of those philosophers who glory in their own reason; yet such is the reason of the race, and such it has been in all ages.

So, also, in respect to the great problem of human existence after and beyond death—a problem that has always been before the world, and always will be, for the same reasons, and under the same general aspects—the natural sense of the race is, and ever has been, that the death of the body is succeeded by a continuous mental life, in which each person retains his own essential identity, and in which it will somehow be good or ill with him, according to the moral characteristics that marked him while here, and with which he retired from this earthly scene. This connects the two lives together, not simply in the order of time, but also in that of a moral sequence.

We see this in the hopes and fears which men naturally have when thinking of the great future. Conscious virtue sings in death, and sin is pierced with the sharp sting of horror. The human soul is instinctively a prophet in respect to its ownfuture. It has an inner voice which, though a whisper, is in effect a thundernote. No one, in reasoning about the dead, ever imagined that their vices here would be of any advantage to them hereafter ; and no one thinks hopefully of the dead who does not connect that hope with their assumed virtues. It is the law of our nature thus to think and thus _ to reason.

The doctrine of the Bible is that God is not mocked ; that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap; that he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; that he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting ; and that God will hereafter render to every one according to the deeds done in the body, whether the rendering be in the form of eternal life, or in that of ‘* indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish.’’ On this point the Bible speaks most explicitly, without disguise, and without reservation ; and, in so speaking, it simply utters a thought which, so far as the principle is concerned, exists in the bosom of the race.

Immortality as a fact, and in that immortality retribution as a propriety, rank among the most universal thoughts of mankind. No religious system ever existed on earth from which these ideas were wholly absent. The Bible says that moral order will rule in the final disposition of human affairs; and the natural sense of the race says that it ought to rule, and expects that it will, and is hence prepared to receive and credit what the Bible says on this point.

Paul reasoned with Felix upon righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come; and that. voluptuous and sensual governor, being a man, and having the faculties and sensibilities of a man, trembled as a man. His official dignity did not, and could not, save the man from the commotion within him. That commotion shook the body of the man in spite of himself. Any man, having his character, and having these themes brought home to his inmost soul, will also tremble. The truth which naturally exists in man, and the truth which the Bible gives to him, when they coalesce in the same consciousness, and mutually support and affirm each other, make a sharp sword that pierces the soul to its profoundest depths. No one is stronger than this truth, and no one can keep up his courage in defiance of it. If we are guilty in the sight of our own eyes, and, because we are guilty, tremble, as did Felix, how then shall we stand before God, who is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things ?

Infidels and so-called freethinkers may, in certain moods of mind, sneer at all religion, and, in so doing, sneer at the religious common sense of the race. They may treat with contempt all ideas involving the doctrine of God and their relations and duties to Him, involving the question of a supernatural revelation from Him, and involving the fact and the issues of a future life. But, sooner or later—if not in this world, then in the next-—they will find out that this is a great mistake. Unfortunately for the success of their experiment, they happen to be men, made like all other men, subject to the same, general necessities, conditioned by the same laws, and really wanting the same reliefs.

Religious ideas are not destroyed by being sneered at and ignored, any more than God is annihilated by being forgotten. They can stand any amount of sneering, and yet survive. The elements in human nature which cannot be alienated, and which form the basis of these ideas, live, and will live, whether heeded or unheeded ; and nothing is needed but the presence of the proper circumstances to quicken these elements into action. The truth lives, and the day of its power will surely come in every man’s experience. We cannot avoid this result, and yet retain the nature with which God has endowed us. One glance at God in the world of spirits and on the judgment throne will seal the lips of any caviller. One hour’s experience in that world will bring the most defiant infidelity to its senses.

No-greater question was ever asked than that of the Philippian jailer: *‘ What must I do to be saved ?’ No truer answer was ever given than that which fell from the lips of Paul: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou > shalt be saved.’? Jesus Christ is not a superfluity, and the salvation offered by God through Him is not a superfluity, with which we can dispense without damage. Salvation in some form and by some hand—such a salvation as will put God and man into harmony, and guarantee to the latter the favor of the former—is the profoundest necessity of the race. The universal consciousness of sin, connected with the fearful looking for of judgment as the natural result thereof, makes salvation the one ~ great want of man.

Christ, in His person, His offices, and work, alike on earth and in Heaven, is this salvation. ‘* There is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”’ Christ is the one way, the sufficient way, the only way, the divine way of going to Heaven ; and if we reject this way, and die in such rejection, then we shall not go there. So saith the Word of God, and so it willbe. Our treatment of Christ is hence a matter just as vital to us as our own salvation. Faith in Him and obedi-

_ Leligious Common Sense. 27 ence to His Gospel mean eternal life. The rejection of Him means eternal death. ‘‘ He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” These are the words of Christ Himself ; and if we disregard them, then good were it for us if we had never ‘been born.

Chapter II. The Religious Authority

THE great questions of life relate to the existence, the character, government, and providence of God, and to man considered as the creature of His power and subject to His law. What one shall eat and drink, and wherewithal he shall be clothed, where and how long he shall live, what shall be his position among men, whether he shall die rich or poor, Known or unknown to fame—all these matters are of but trifling importance, when compared with - the questions that relate to God and what man is in his relation to God, and what awaits him when he retires from this earthly scene.

Who is God? What are His attributes ? What are His feelings toward the human race ? Has He established a moral government over men, and if so, what are His requirements? Is there forgiveness with God for sinners, and if so, In what way may it be secured? What is man as the subject of His law, and what are his duties to God? What is death to man? Is there any future for him beyond death, and if

The Religious Authority. 29 so, how long will it last, what will be his condition in that future, and what are the causes that will determine that condition ?

These are the supreme questions, and so appear to every one who properly considers them. There are none greater, and no others so great. They are of the deepest interest to every one, and confront all men with an imperative summons to thought. They have challenged thought in every age and country. They concern our practice. Itis not immaterial whether they be answered or not.

The judgment of the race is, and ever has been, that mere reason exercising itself upon the field of nature, without any special help from God, is not adequate to the solution of these questions. Conclusive evidence of this judgment we have in the fact that no religious system has ever existed among men, and asserted its ascendency over them, professedly based on the authority of mere reason. All the religions of antiquity, and all those of modern times, have alike claimed to be supernatural in their source, and have been so accepted, so far as accepted at all. These religions, upon their own showing, originally came into this world and spread themselves among men, not as the discoveries of reason, but as revelations from God through agents of His own selection and endowment.