WITH what will happen with us after our death, even though it has become evident that we are immortal, the busy world does not concern itself. For so far as there was development in the thought of our age regarding what follows after dying, doubt first gained the day, then unbelief and then an ever more definite denial. In the broad circles of scholars it is now said to be accepted as final, that dying is nothing more than a sinking back in the nothing from which we sprang.
And as regards the great multitudes of honest, noble burghers, who have a horror of everything that savors of “the pious,” but yet would think it dreadful, if one had no more “God and immortality,” and who for this reason, when there is a corpse in the house awaiting burial and later on at the grave, are still anxious to hear of “God,”—no clarifying of ideas could take place with them, and no development with respect to this, because neither thinking nor speaking about eternal things belongs to their manner of life.
Only among confessing Christians in this age it came to a more finished image of our representation. Especially the defenders of a thousand years’ kingdom have contributed the impetus to this. And though it did not take hold of all confessors, yet it may gratefully be acknowledged, that a quiet understanding awoke again of much that is to come long after dying, not only in the Judgment, but also in the realm of Glory, that will be ushered in after the day of Judgment.
So distinction is made again between the condition of those who fall asleep in Jesus, from the hour of their dying until the return of Jesus, and between that altogether different condition, which is to be born when the dead shall rise from their graves, and the Judgment ensues, and after this Judgment the full Glory shall unfold itself.
And to this for long years one had become unused.
After dying it was thought that the soul was in full blessedness; and when there was full blessedness, what more could be desired.
Once the world would come to an end. This was understood. And then there would come a day of Judgment, but that day of Judgment concerned the godless, not the souls already blessed. And after that day of Judgment the life of full blessedness in the Father-house for the souls of the redeemed would go on in heaven, just as immediately after dying it had already begun.
Everything Scripture reveals regarding the Return of Jesus, regarding the Resurrection of the dead, regarding the day of Judgment and of what comes after, had lost its grip upon the heart. All this indeed would take place in this way, but for those who had fallen asleep in Jesus, it would have no significance.
For them it would ever be the full blessed life of the soul in heaven, and as to what was to happen with the body, and what was to become of this earth, gave them no concern.
This was indeed contradictory, yet it was so. In overspirituality interest centered upon the soul, and upon what was to happen with the soul. And this remained full blessed, but forever separated from the body, in the Father-house with God.
YOU know what formerly was taught of the “sleep of the soul,” a representation against which Calvin wrote one of his first treatises.
The hour would come in which all that were in the graves would hear the voice of Jesus, and would come forth, they who had done good to the resurrection of life, and they who had done evil to the resurrection of damnation.
So they who had fallen asleep rested in the grave, until the day of Resurrection, only at the end of the world to wake up again from the grave. The soul, so it was imagined, could until that day not be in any other condition, than that which is best represented by thinking of our condition in sleep. Then the body has no count. We hear nothing, we see nothing, we scarcely move, and the soul is withdrawn in itself. The soul then is indeed busy, but only in her dreams. All clear consciousness is wanting and no action goes out from it. She does no labor, she makes no effort, she knows of nothing, she wills nothing, she does nothing.
And that was called “soul-sleep.” An unconscious and blank condition. According to one this condition would last forever, according to another it would only be broken, when the voice of Jesus would sound across the graves.
With that representation of a “sleep of the soul” appeal was also made to Holy Writ. Did not the Psalmist continually make his prayer for deliverance from death, on the ground that in death there is no remembrance? So, to cite a single instance, David in Psalm 6 prays: “Return, O Lord, deliver my soul, i.e., my life, save me (from death) for thy mercies’ sake, for in death there is no remembrance of thee, and who shall praise thee in the grave?”
Utterances, which are cursorily read with little thought, but which nevertheless stand written, and are every time again repeated.
THAT herewith in the Psalm no doubt about immortality can be intended, as many now make it appear, is already sufficiently evident from what the same David sang in Psalm 16: “Thou wilt not abandon my soul in the grave (hell). Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt make known to me the path of life. Fullness of joy is in thy presence, pleasures are in thy right hand for evermore.” Also from what he confessed at the end of Psalm 17, that “the people of the world have their portion in this life,” but that he knew he would awake, and then would behold God’s face in righteousness, eternally to satisfy himself with God’s image. And no less finally from what Asaph confessed in Psalm 73: “I shall then continually be with Thee. Thou hast taken hold of my right hand and thou wilt lead me by thy counsel, and afterward take me up into glory.”
But that other: “In death there is no remembrance of thee, who shall praise thee in the grave?” stands also written, and the question is, what is to be understood by this.
Insight into this depends altogether and solely upon the recognition of God’s ordinance in our Creation.
This ordinance is antagonized by him, who contents himself with the simple life of the soul after death, and, satisfied with this, is not homesick after something else and something more.
That ordinance over man is, not that we should exist purely spiritually as angels, but that, herein excelling angels, we should have a two-sided existence, on one side spiritual and hidden, but also on the other side physical and outward.
Only when we exist after that ordinance, we exist to the full as man. And a man who exists only after the soul, and lacks the body, and hence also has no visible world around him, is halved and as such maimed. From being twofold he is become onefold. He misses his other part. And this is just what was effected by death; dying did this. Reason why by the Resurrection of the body alone death is altogether vanquished again. And reason also why with angels, whether with those that fell, whether with those that remained standing, there can be no mention of death and of dying in that sense.
IF this be so, you will also understand, that as man you stand before God in a twofold service. From one side you have to love your God, to honor and to serve Him in the spiritual hiddenness of the life of your soul. But also from the other side you have to confess Him, to praise and to serve Him before the eyes and ears of others, and thus in the external. Not as though this were done by your body, but in this way, that to this end the soul can not be deprived of the body as instrument. The dumb, blind and deaf experience this in a most painful manner already in this life. The dumb lack the voice to confess and to praise, the deaf do not hear the jubilation of saints.
In this respect he who descends into the grave, undergoes a maiming. He separates temporarily from his body. In this sense he becomes dumb, blind and deaf. He has a spiritual world, like that of angels, in which he exists spiritually after the manner of angels. But he is without his human instrument. He is without his external world. What he is no more able to do is to confess God, praise and serve Him after the fullness of his human personality, after soul and body both.
Of this, the children of our age, and also most believers, have little feeling. Feeling to the full on the part of our human personality with respect to this is too much weakened. We are too deeply sunken in our one-sided Spiritualism. God’s creation-ordinance over our being as man does not appeal to us with respect to this with sufficient strength. But a man like David, who had this sense clearly and strongly, to the full was consumed with homesickness at the thought, and therefore he mourned: Who, O Lord, shall praise Thee in the grave?
And this has also a significance for us.
If you dwell onesidedly in the mere life of the soul, then, once you are dead, both the return of Jesus, the resurrection of the flesh, and the new world which then comes, are without significance to you. Then you attach nothing to them. After these your heart has no more homesickness. Then you do not realize, how thereby alone your full blessedness as man shall be consummated.
When on the other hand that homesickness is alive in your heart again, the knowledge that after death you will find your place prepared in the Father-house truly comforts you, but this does not end things for you. Then the eye of your soul looks further and further, toward that youngest day to come, that illustrious day, when, having become man again to the full after soul and body both, you will love your God, honor, praise, confess and serve Him, both spiritually in the hiddenness of the soul, and outwardly in that new world, which only then discovers itself to you.
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