HE who fell asleep in Jesus, while the history of this world was still in process, is not yet arrived, has not reached yet his final destiny, is still in expectation of things to come, and for him the entrance upon the consummated rest still tarries.
When the fifth seal was opened (Rev. 6, 10) John saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and they cried with a loud voice: How long, O Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood? And it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season.
He who departed in peace, is truly in heaven, but every tie to this world is therefore not yet broken. Here also it applies: “That they without us should not be made perfect” (Hebr. 11, 40).
Everything waits for “the manifestation of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8, 18-22), and that does not come, until the history of this world is ended. The church, which already now triumphs above, remains partner in a common lot with the church still militant on earth.
Continuance of earthly relationship with our dead there is not. These relationships were for this world, and they who fell asleep are in heaven as “angels of God.” But what remains is the spiritual relationship, the brotherhood in Christ. No more our child, our father, our husband, our wife, but fellow-child of God, our brother, our sister in Christ.
When you take the perfectness of those who are asleep in Christ in the absolute, consummated sense, it remains with the Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus, yea, come quickly.
But although that middle state must be counted with, this takes nothing away from the great fact, that here becoming, there being dominates, and that the law of life above excludes all change, and rests in a perfectness, which neither decreases nor increases.
At once in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus held it before His disciples: Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.
To render the sinner perfect in Christ Jesus, is the end and aim of the Gospel.
Hence they are said to be, in heart and essence, already here “perfect” and “holy.”
By one offering all we together are eternally perfect.
And that perfectness will not only be the mark of our being and once also of our manner of existence, but that perfectness shall also be the mark of our consciousness, of our knowledge, of our visualization.
Here on earth the most highly gifted believer knows only in part. But he who fell asleep in Jesus, though here he were ever so limited in his knowledge, has there a perfected knowledge. Also his knowledge is no more earthly, but Divine.
Here peering after the image in the mirror, there seeing face to face.
Here knowing in part, there knowing, as we are known of God.
What that mirror is, to which the holy apostle refers, is clear. Here we never see God Himself, but He, the Eternal, reflects Himself for us in His creation. “Both His eternal power and divinity are clearly seen and understood from the creatures.” He reflects Himself for us in His direction of this world’s course. They are “the works of God” which we should observe. He reflects Himself for us in our own rational consciousness. In His common grace. In the revelation of His holy Word. In what He did to our own soul.
This is the knowledge of God, granted us here. But whatever heights it may attain, this knowledge is always derived, imperfect knowledge, “knowledge in part.” And even if to us personally, as to Paul, visions and prophecies had been granted, of all this knowledge it is ever the rule, that it shall be brought to nought.
The imperfection, which cleaves to all this our knowledge of God, is not merely that it is incomplete. Also in its kind it is imperfect. Therefore it is not supplemented, but it passes away, and then an altogether other kind comes in the place of it: direct knowledge, immediate knowledge, knowledge which is not learned, but from things addresses our being itself. A knowledge which is always and in every particular perfect.
This, however, does not exclude the relation with what we know here. It is and remains knowledge of the same reality. But the sort of knowledge shall be wholly different like the difference between looking upon the portrait (which is the mirror image), and rejoicing in the sight of the living object of your love in full reality.
The apostle compares this with what a man feels regarding his representations as a child. That was then true to him, he then lived therein, he could not imagine it otherwise. But now, having become a man, he laughs at his childish representations. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor, 13, 11).
And so it is also with him who fell asleep in Jesus. To him, to her came the perfectness, and all that was in part, was done away.
FROM this it appears anew, that for him who fell asleep in Jesus, there is no more becoming, but pure being. Here wax and increase, there an eternal being in perfectnesses.
For think, one can not wax and increase, without increasing one’s knowledge. When you increase your knowledge to-day, your knowledge yesterday was knowledge in part. Thus he who deems that with our dead there is a going on in development, an increase in holiness, a growth in grace, transfers thereby at the same time “the knowing in part” into eternity. And this the apostolic word forbids. For is it not true, that a knowledge which gradually still increases and continues to increase, bears the mark of the imperfect and never can be perfect?
All this is—something which can not be indicated with sufficient emphasis—a carrying across of earthly relations into the eternal. Doing, as though on the other side of the grave it were merely the continuation of our life here.
The school, the high school on the other side of the grave. Here meditate and ponder, yonder meditate and ponder. Here investigate and study, yonder investigate and study. And so also in heaven the wise man and the innocent child. The pride and haughtiness of scholars carried over into eternity.
And that very pride of our knowledge even with the most gifted thinker must be buried in the grave.
When the most learned professor loses a young child, which child belongs to the redeemed of the Lord, all the knowledge and learning of that clever father signifies nothing, nothing by the side of the perfected knowledge upon which the child entered.
Then the grave at once reverses the relation between the father and that child.
Before that dying, he the wise man, and that little child the innocent wight. After that dying, he the simple spectator in the mirror, and his little one knowing God perfectly.
IN the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be, is, (apart from the more or less correct interpretation of Eccl. 11, 3) the significant expression of the all-dominating, deeply-serious, soul-penetrating thought, that there is no conversion after death.
Also in this the same is implied again: After death no more becoming, or change, but an entering upon eternal being, unchangeably to abide therein. The Sabbath. The eternal rest.
That in the moment of dying something can yet take place between the soul and God, of which nothing may be observed by those who stand around the dying-bed, has always been maintained. And every one who takes God’s compassions large, heartily concurs with this. But when the stroke is fallen, there is a decision forever.
A more comprehensive, a better knowledge of the Gospel, of one’s own sins, and of the fruit of Christ’s offering, can then no more be added as new part to the old knowledge. Preaching of salvation goes by parts, and therefore belongs to this dispensation. In the perfectness it is an understanding of the eternal Redemption work with the clearness of the opened eye of the soul. But this very opening of the eye of the soul must come before dying. They, whose eye of soul remained closed even in dying, will mourn eternally.
Then one can never more become, what one is not. And what one is he continues to be unto all eternity.
Thus one great change, not after dying, but in dying itself: the action of God’s grace, which transposes from the temporal into the eternal.
Then the nettle, which here still braided itself around the heart of God’s child, and so often caused pain, is by God’s grace forever removed, and the soul is only holy.
Then unfold at once the still closed flower buds, which in this cold atmosphere could not unfold themselves, and exhale eternally fragrance for God.
At once also, the look of the soul is then turned away from the dull image in the mirror, and turned toward the reality itself of God’s holinesses.
Did not already the Psalmist sing of old: “I will behold thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness?” (16, 15).
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