ARE you able, after the mortal remains of your dead are lowered in the grave, to do yet anything for him, for her who went from you?
The impulse toward this is especially strong in the early days of mourning. So strong, that not infrequently one gets the impression, as though the love of many goes out more warmly toward their dead, than toward the yet living, which God has committed to their care.
With this the first reference is not to the grave-cult. Veneration of the grave is something by itself; something which does not aim so much to do anything for the dead, as much more to seek satisfaction and quieting for one’s own sorrow. That in this also all sorts of psychological stimuli can coöperate, shows already the “building of the graves of the prophets,” but yet the grave-cult owes its origin mainly to sentiment. The necessity of having to separate, and yet the inability to separate, and now, as a last resort, in the feeling and in the utterance of the emotions to cling to the grave.
Altogether different on the other hand is the inclination of love in him, who still wants to do something for the good of his dead.
This impulse of love, especially in circles of the Reformation, has generally been too coldly and too severely criticized. Only let not he, who stands outside our circle, in his turn condemn too harshly this Reformed coldness!
Everything here depends upon the supremely serious question, whether we can add anything to the eternal happiness of our beloved, after they have died.
In a twofold sense this has been deemed possible. On one hand by belief in a Purgatory. On the other hand by accepting the possibility of Conversion after death.
The Purgatory-doctrine rests upon the opinion, that the believer truly obtains forgiveness, but that he also himself must yet perform temporal penance, and that, if he did not do this in full during his lifetime, he must do so after his death. Moreover, that the prayers and good works of those who are still alive, can benefit those who have died and are now in purgatory. And finally, that the offering of the Mass has atoning power not alone for the living, but also for the dead.
This can not be our confession. We confess the offering of Christ as a perfect offering. Jesus is the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. Justified by faith, we have peace with God. And in dying the Holy Ghost works the grace of entire sanctification. Thus this impulse can not drive us. But can it not therefore be understood, that they who so think and confess, are impelled by love for their dead, to shorten their suffering on the other side of the grave and to alleviate it?
And the case is the same with them, who hold out Conversion after death as a possibility. A child, a husband whom one loved, a friend, to whom one was attached, dies without having come to Jesus. Imagine, that such an one also after dying, in eternity, could still convert himself. Confess, that God’s grace must help him do it. Also, that your prayer can move the heart of the eternal Compassionate One to bring it to effect. And can it be otherwise, than that that mother for her child, that wife for her husband, that friend for his friend will glady offer any sacrifice, to favor their conversion, and therewith their eternal blessedness?
With this also we can not agree. Here, not on the other side of the grave, falls the decision. What you are in your last moment, you eternally remain. But were it otherwise, could we, after their death, be of help to our dead, who die without Jesus, there would be no love in us, if we did not render it.
The holy apostle recognizes this so fully, that he is not impatient, even with those who had themselves baptized for the dead (1 Cor. 15, 29), but rather appeals to their firm faith in the resurrection of the dead.1
SHALL we call it a lack, that, for the sake of our confession, this demonstration of love is foreign to us?
There is no cause for this. Even less yet when you observe, how this demonstration of love for the dead frequently leads to the neglect of love for the living. He who deems, that after the death of his child, he can yet further its conversion, so readily refrains from urging his child to conversion during its lifetime. And likewise he who thinks that after his death he can perfect his purification, is readily inclined to make light of the seriousness of sanctification in this life.
The more absolute the line of demarcation between this and the life eternal remains, and the more unchangeable the decision, which takes place in dying, the more intense the seriousness becomes, which reveals itself on this side of the grave.
The abuse, to which the other principle has led, we do not even approach. Money has here also played its evil game. For money the Mass, and the Mass the means of salvation for our dead. The materialism that here entered is well known. Yet we raise no objection here. We here consider only the noble side of it for so far as it expresses the longing, of doing if possible anything yet for the blessedness of our dead.
But though for us this falls away altogether, because the decision at death is irrevocable, and in the dying of those who fell asleep in Jesus the grace of sanctification is made perfect,—still this yet remains: Can also we not do anything for our dead? If not in behalf of their salvation, yet perhaps something in behalf of themselves.
And this question is not always treated with sufficient tenderness.
WE should not forget our dead. After their departure they should be alive in our memory. The place, which they occupy in our heart, must not too speedily be taken by all sorts of other concerns. The poet sang of “The empty chair,”—why did he not sing also of the empty place in our heart?
And yet, in our days, and in our circles, that forgetting is sometimes so rapid. The apostle speaks of those who “are widows indeed,” and now, does not deep widow-sorrow become more and more rare? One speaks much of “orphans,” but almost only in the sense of their bereavement, their forsakenness, their helplessness; all too little of the loss sustained by their heart. So many “orphans” do not know the mourning of the orphaned heart.
What the Psalmist sings of the dead: “Their place knoweth them no more,” and which with him refers to much later and to long after their dying, now so frequently takes place within the year after their death.
And that forgetting argues against love, against devotion, against tenderness of heart. True, we observe no “all souls,” but there are those, for whom an intentional remembrance of their dead would be no superfluous wealth.
And not forgetting is not enough. There can frequently much good be done yet for our dead. To defend their honor and good name over against disparagement and slander. To bring to a finish for them a work they had begun. To continue labor in their spirit, that the influence, they exerted, may work after effect. Also to pay off for them a debt they left unpaid. Alms which they dispensed, to dispense, as though they were still alive. To remove bitternesses, which as tares had sprung up between them and their environment. To keep in honor their name and their remembrance. What we would wish to have done for us after our death, all this, and nothing less, to do for our dead. Thus, in life and in death, after the rule of holy love: What ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.
THERE is also a thinking of our dead, which is still something else than not forgetting them.
Not forgetting refers to their former life here; it is missing them every time anew in our earthly life. Imagining how it would be, in case they were still here.
But thinking of our dead, means: living along with them in the condition in which they now are. No more as persons which once were, but as redeemed, as now they live, up yonder, with the Savior. Not to invite appearances, or to invoke visions. The life of fellowship in that sense is not to be continued after their death. But we can engage ourselves with them, and bring them before our mind in their saved state. Rejoice in the delight which they taste. Feel oneself small alongside of the high position, to which they have attained. Not thuswise to repress mourning, but, for their sakes, from sorrow revive in the joy of their salvation.
Not that we should pray for them. There is nothing more to pray for in their behalf. They have everything. Still to pray for them would be, as though they still lacked something, which by the aid of our prayer ought yet to come to them.
But it is something altogether different, that they might and must live in our prayers.
Your prayer is not merely an asking and a supplication. It is also a lifting up of the soul in worship. A lifting up of the heart above, from the haziness of this somber life to the sunny brightness of God’s blessed heaven. As Scripture calls it, having “walks among those that are with God.”
In our prayer we do not look up to an empty heaven; but to an heaven with all the thousands of God’s angels. To a heaven with the Cherubim and Seraphim, to a heaven with the assembly of the just made perfect. To the Zion above with God, where God appears shining in His beauty.
And there our sanctified representation also finds them back, who once with us here served the Lord, and are now asleep in Jesus.
So we think of them before the throne of glory. So their image looms up before us and in us, when the eye of our soul loses itself in the spiritual view of the heaven of heavens.
Therein is the continuance of the life of fellowship of soul; but then of a life of fellowship, from which everything earthly fell away.
A life of fellowship which utters its holy perceptions before God alone, and receives its corresponding perceptions from God alone and in His fellowship.
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Footnotes
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With interpretation of this passage we do not detain ourselves. To postpone Baptism until one’s death, was common at the time. It was thought that in Baptism all sins previous thereto, were taken away. Hence the postponement. A postponement which frequently led to total omission, when death overtook one. In which case, it is said, some one else had himself baptized in behalf of the departed, thinking that this baptism was valid in his behalf. We express no opinion here. We refer to this merely to show, that Paul, making mention of this custom, limits himself, to the consideration of the motive behind it. ↩