BOTH in devout-emotional conversation, and in Holy Scripture, there is much said of “the other side of the grave.” But the content of “conversation” and “Scripture” is so different. In conversation it goes all too readily about the man who died or will die. In Scripture everything moves about the central point in Christ.
This is not asserted absolutely. In conversation undoubtedly the Mediator also is mentioned, and in Scripture they among us who died or are facing death. But in conversation as a rule man stands more in the foreground, in Scripture more the Christ of God.
Perhaps one might even say more sharply, that thus the epitaph of Scripture differs. In circles of the Reformed one is sober at the tomb, and among faithful confessors of the Savior at large more Scriptural. But when one enters the larger circles, and makes a study of epitaphs in cemeteries of large cities, it is noteworthy, how little is chiseled therein of the “Conqueror of death and grave,” and how almost solely of the person, who went away or of the person who remained behind.
In conversation and at the tomb, to mention just this one thing, one can safely say, that the pathetic question of “seeing again” appears very strongly in the fore, while in Holy Scripture there is almost no mention of this at all. And to this “seeing again” all sorts of other questions attach themselves: Do our dead know anything of us? Do they still pray for us? Are they conscious of it, when we on earth are engaged with them? Can they still do anything for us, or we for them? Or is the tie, that once bound us together, cut through, and have we nothing more to do with them, or they with us?
He who touches this sort of subject, especially with the gentler sex, is very certain of an hearing. Spiritism is for the most part sprung from it. And, though the man who is beyond all this, may play his game of heartless scorn with such questions, it remains true, that at our graves all such questions are with, oh, so great difficulty dismissed.
It is so human!
And yet, Holy Scripture does not encourage it. She does not feed the tendency, which is evident in this. Altogether not in the New Covenant, and only very rarely in the Old. Something which is the more noteworthy with Israel, because Israel became of age in Egypt, where the ceremonial of the grave, more than with any other nation, formed not merely a part, no, but the rich activity of life.
Care for the grave, with the people among which Israel from a group of tribes became a nation, very far exceeded care for the house in which during life one lived.
ONLY once has Jesus pertinently expressed Himself regarding a question which touches the “seeing again.” It concerned the woman, who in Livirate marriage had successively had seven brothers to husband, and of whom Jesus was asked: In the resurrection of the dead, to whom shall she then really be bound as wife?
But also then Jesus so little fed the hope of the seeing again, that He rather dismissed every idea, as though after death such an earthly tie of love were yet valid. In “Lazarus and the rich man” Jesus truly portrays an immediate recognition of each other after both had died, but here also the former tie is dropped, and the relation rather reversed.
Also in apostolic writings you find literally no word regarding that “seeing again,” and this notwithstanding the fact that particularly Paul treats repeatedly and extensively, of what is to follow after death. And what is most striking, is, that also in Revelation, in which the delights of eternal life are painted in vivid colorings, among the joys which shall eternally refresh God’s child, with no single intimation of “seeing again” is mention made. “Seeing again” now taken of course in that tender sense, in which the word is current, as resuming again and continuing the intimate tie of love which held bound husband and wife, mother and child, friend and friend.
Of this you find nothing.
A blank, from which you are not to infer, that therefore there will be no recognition and no meeting again. This is nowhere stated. But a noteworthy silence, which should not be explained from oversight or forgetting, and admonishes us definitely, in our thought of the other side of the grave, to give our dead whom we loved, the second place, and to put to the fore, what in Scripture ever occupies the same: your tie, not to our dead, but your tie to Jesus.
Only think of the man, whose father was awaiting burial, and who first wanted to bury his father, and who of Jesus was given the rejoinder: “Let the dead bury their dead, you, preach the kingdom of God.”
Not only here, but to beyond the grave, it applies: “He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.”
IF therefore to the Holy Apostle every representation of heavenly delight concentrates itself in this: “And so shall we ever be with the Lord,”—yet also this being with Jesus should not be taken too sensually.
It will not be a gathering of ourselves group-wise around Jesus, as the five thousand on the shore of the Galilean lake, neither an intimate being together like that of the disciples in Jerusalem’s upper room.
That “being ever with Jesus” is said of all the blessed. How then can the multitude of millions and millions elect, a company which no one can number, not a single hour, but ever, i.e., from eternity to eternity, in such a wise be with Jesus? No, the innumerableness of the multitudes, and the endlessness of the being together, exclude this.
If then by reason of this we do not deny the personal relation—for it expressly states: “be with Jesus,” and also “that we shall see Him as He is,”—yet it suffers no doubt, that here we have to go back to the organic relation between Jesus and those who belong to Him, to the being incorporated in His mystical Body, to the being one plant with Him in the root of life.
Of this indeed the Scripture is full.
He the Vine and we the branches. He the Head and we the members of His Body. He the good Shepherd and we the sheep of His pasture. He the Bridegroom and all His church together the Bride. The spirit of Resurrection, which triumphed in Him, penetrating all the body of His believers. He our King and we His people. He our High Priest and we the tribes that go up to the holy Zion. He our heavenly Captain and we the soldiers, who assemble ourselves under His holy banner. He the second Adam and we the people of His holy generation. And to bring all this out in its deep organic significance: We all one plant with Him Who on Patmos called Himself “the root of David.”
THUS back and underneath our personal relation to Jesus, as center of our longing and the best friend of our heart, lies the life-tie, the organic life-unity with the Son of man.
The vine, the plant has a root, and from that root springs the trunk and stems, and on those stems or branches bud the twigs, and on those twigs you see the leaves appear, and between that foliage yellows and ripens the fruit. But though there extends ever so great a distance between the uppermost twig and the root, yet all nourishing life-sap is never come to that uppermost twig otherwise than from the root. Kill that root, and every branch and twig, every leaf and flower withers.
So depends our life upon the life of Jesus.
The finest fibers of our existence run out upon Jesus. Taken ourselves loose apart from Him for but one moment, all our life withers and wilts. From Him all life comes to us, and never otherwise than in Him can we save our life.
This is already so here, and naturally goes through far more strongly in eternity. To think ourselves in eternity for one moment alongside of or over against Jesus, is absurd. It will be one magnificent Cedartree on Lebanon, and on the branches of that Cedartree every redeemed one of the ten thousand leaves. But that whole Cedartree standing on his root, from that root sucking up life, to that root fastened by every fiber of life. And so shall we ever be with Jesus.
This applies in the image of the plant (Rom. 6, 5) and holds equally true in the image of the one Body. The life of the Body, and of every member of that Body, depends upon the life of the Head, is led, directed, governed and moved by the Head. Only by the consciousness of the Head every member of the Body feels its own life.
It is the richest, it is the most absolute unity thinkable. Only in and by reason of and through the Head every member in the Body has its reason of existence.
ALREADY at Baptism we therefore speak of a “being incorporated in Christ,” and from this springs later on our personal, our conscious, our Jesus knowing faith, and through that faith we give ourselves and we give others account of our personal conversion to Jesus.
From that unity of ground of life springs our relation to Jesus, but it becomes personal, and so unfolds the love for Jesus, and comes the mysticism of the intimate living together with Jesus in our soul.
Also again the: “ever be with Jesus,” but now in another, mystic conscious, higher known way. And also that mysticism shall eternally go on. We shall see Him as He is, and in the Lamb shall our rejoicings be. Ever and for all simultaneously by means of fellowship, which here we can surmise, which the inventions of science indicate from afar, but which only eternity shall reveal unto us.
And provided this stands in the fore, then yea, comes also the “seeing again” to its turn. For everything that is one plant, has also mutual fellowship: everything that belongs to one body, stands also mutually in relationship of life.
But then it is a finding back each other, not to go sailing upon the dancing waters of sentimentality, but, far higher, far more seriously, in the fellowship of saints!
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