Happy, thrice happy, are they who have thus walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and found it a path that leads to everlasting life. Happy are they who have writhed awhile in the fierce fire of God, and have had burned out of them the chaff, and the dross, and all which offends and makes them vain and light, yet makes them dull, and drags them down at the same time; till only the pure gold of God’s righteousness is left, seven times tried in the fire, incorruptible, precious in the sight of God and man. Such need not regret, will not regret, all that they have gone through. It has made them brave, sober, patient. It has given them
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
and so shaped them into the likeness of
Christ, who was made perfect by suffering; and though He were a Son, yet in the days of His flesh made strong supplication, and crying with tears to His Father, and was heard in that He feared; and so, though He died on the Cross and descended into Hell, yet triumphed over Death and Hell by dying and descending, and conquered them by submitting to them.
Good News of God—Sermons.
VI. OUT OF THE DEEP OF DEATH.
My heart is disquieted within me, and the fear of death has fallen upon me.—Ps. iv. 4.
My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart.—Ps. lxiii. 25.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.—Ps. xxiii. 4.
Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.—Ps. cxvi. 8.
What will become of us after we die? What will the next world be like? What is heaven like? Shall I be able to enjoy it? Shall I be a man there, or only a ghost, a spirit without a body?
To this St. Paul answers, that Christ, the Son of God, after that He was manifested in the flesh, was received up into glory. He does not tell us what heaven is like, for though he had been caught up into the third heaven, yet what he saw there was unspeakable. Neither does he
tell us what the next life will be like; all he says is, the Man Christ Jesus, who walked this earth like other men, was received up into glory, and He did not leave His man’s mind, His man’s heart, even His man’s body behind Him. He carried up into heaven with Him His whole manhood, spirit, soul, and body, even to the print of the nails in His hands, and in His most holy feet, and the wound of the spear in His most holy side. That is enough for us; because the Man Christ Jesus is in heaven, we, as men, may ascend to heaven. Where He is we shall be. And what He is, in as far as He is Man, we shall be. And this we do know, that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.