IN the mysteries of Patmos “pure and shining fine linen” is not intended as woven material by measure, to be taken actually, really, but as symbol taken from material life, was meant to set forth in glowing beauty a spiritual quality.
That clean fine linen means the clean fine garment of the soul. So it even reads, for it follows at once: “This fine linen is the righteousnesses of saints” (Rev. 19, 8). Something wherewith meanwhile the emphasis does not fall upon the fact of justification, but on the fruit, on the outcome, on the result of it in “now being forever rid of all guilt and sin.”
You know, indeed, that the angels of God, which fell, are not susceptible of justification, and that those angels of God which continued faithful to their God, need no justification, and yet in Rev. 15, 6 we do not find it written of redeemed sinners, but of seven angels before God’s throne: “They, came out of the temple clothed in pure and white (shining) linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.”
Even as Jesus Himself had said of those who have blessedly fallen asleep: “They are as the angels of God in heaven,” so they are likewise as the angels of God in their garment of light; which symbolizes and indicates, that, leaving us, and through the gate of death entering heaven, they leave behind them in this world, everything that is sin or to which sin cleaves, in order from now on, immune from all sin, to fulfill their blessed entrance into the Father-house.
Here is the mystery. How is this shaking off of sin done? In what way is this “dying unto sin” to be explained? What takes place, is a cutting of the tie, of the rootlets which held our heart in fellowship with sin; but how is the cutting through of that tie and of those rootlets to be understood?
It is mostly passed by with a glance. With the statement of the fact one deems to have done enough.
And until a short time ago this seemed to be so. No one of us doubted, but that until the latest breath the soul was held fast by those rootlets; and no one doubted also but that in heaven every tie that bound us to sin was unthinkable. Thus dying unto sin was bound to take place in ictu mortis, i.e., in the very moment of dying.
Yet also at this point from the ethical side doubt entered in. Mention began to be made of a preaching to conversion after death. Even voices were raised, to renew the use of the sacraments after death. So it was accepted, that also through death sin went with us.
Something over against which the perfectionist held, that one dies unto sin, or at least could die unto sin, long before his call to the better world.
So the “dying unto sin” at the last breath came to be pushed from two sides. And the question, what that “dying unto sin” in dying really is, thereby pressed itself upon us with the more stress.
THE answer to this question nearest at hand, most ready, most commonly given seeks that dying unto sin in the separation of the body. And it can not be denied, that Paul’s exclamation: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” seems to favor this short and simple answer.
Such saying seeks the seat of sin in the flesh. And since death separates the soul from the body, and changes the body once so strongly stimulated to sin into a helpless corpse, it seems of itself to be explained, that the separated soul, which itself is indeed pure spirit, is forever dead unto sin.
Especially they, whose heart was most open to sensual sin, say with their whole heart yea and amen to this. Their body, their flesh and blood, have all their lifelong played with them the rôle of temptress. By that sin Satan entered every time into their soul. In their best moments they have hated and cursed their own flesh and blood. And now forever to be rid of the body, and be pure spirit with God, that indeed must separate sin from them and them from sin. And, therefore, this short saying is enough for them, further thought they have none.
And yet, this can not be true.
For confess, does not the source of sin lie in Satan? Has it not come to us from Satan? Is not Satan pure spirit by creation, never to be anything else than spirit? And does not this show, that you also, when presently you have become pure spirit, by itself and nothing more, can very well yet in your heart be open to sin?
Moreover, as man you are not destined, after your death to remain without body unto the end.
The promise indeed reads, that “the hour cometh, when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth” (John 5, 28), and also, that “Christ shall then change our humiliated body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3, 21).
Were now the body your enemy, with what anxious forebodings must the idea fill you, that presently that body returns? And how in that case everything within you should compel you to desire, that you might endlessly remain simple spirit, sheer, pure spirit.
THUS evil should have to hide not in your body as such, but in your sinful body.
But a sinful body, what else is this than taking the body again in connection with your in sin pending soul?
OR would you say, that the sinfulness of the body hides in the humiliated body? But do you not know, that your Savior has taken that same humiliated flesh and blood, and that in spite of this He has known no sin?
Is not, moreover, sin from its very nature something spiritual? And when you seek sin in the sinful body, do you not then make something material of it? The antidote indeed with respect to material evil lies in medicine, but for spiritual evil in grace. The Manichean, who in his foolishness denied this, sought the antidote against sin therefore in herbs and plants. At that viewpoint altogether correct. But this can not be your viewpoint. You do not eat against sin, but you pray against sin. And also, when mention is made of the eating of the Son of man and of the drinking of His blood, you do not understand this Capernaum-like of the eating with the mouth, but of an eating with the mouth of faith.
And also, you well know other sins save voluptuousness, drunkenness and vanity. Is there no pride and ambition, and defiance, and envy, and hatred, and anger, and unmercifulness, and unbelief, and flouting the love of the Father? And when all these terrible sins do not cleave in the flesh but drive their root fibers deep down in the spirit, what then avails it by itself, whether you are already rid of your flesh and blood?
There is one sin that can not be forgiven, the deliberate and conscious slander of the Holy Ghost. Is this a sin of the senses, or is not this most dreadful sin a purely spiritual sin, altogether outside of the body? How then can dying unto sin ever be taken as the mere separation from the flesh, when the spirit, when the soul, when your inner man, remained as it was when you died?
Confess, when Jesus came in touch with sensual sin with man or woman, did He not always drop the balsam of His Divine compassion into the wound, even in the case of the woman taken in adultery? And on the other hand is not His woe unto you! directed against those who were haughty of heart, and against those who imagined themselves just, who Pharisee-like took their stand against Him? And hypocricy, is that sin of the body, or is it sin of the soul?
THERE is still something else.
They who talk about this deep mystery of dying, are full-grown, mostly men and women of years, if not aged and full of days. But dying is the same for all, and by far the most die away from this life, before they have reached this advanced time of life. Thousands upon thousands die in the cradle and even before they were put in the cradle.
What temptation of the senses has an infant of a few days or weeks known? What sin has such a fading and early disappearing baby committed in flesh and blood? And what difference does it make to such a little creature dying in its early hour of being that its little soul is separated from its still altogether undeveloped little body, and for such a wight how could that be the dying unto sin?
Also in this you feel, that this dying unto sin must have a far deeper significance. No, it can not be a dying unto our conscious sins, a dying unto our committed sins, a dying unto those actual sins, which held us captive. In that case “dying unto sin” could only be possible with those who are older of days.
It must be not a dying unto these sins, but unto sin as power, as poison, as venom of soul.
It must be the lifting out of our whole being from the sphere of sin.
It can not be the loosening of the tie between soul and body, which presently is laid again.
It must be grace. An act of almighty grace. A grace that consummates our sanctification.
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