The State of the Blessed Dead

by Henry Alford

First, then, it disproves the idea of the spirit passing at death into a state of unconsciousness, from which it is to wake only at the great day of the resurrection. If it is to be with Christ, this cannot be. Christ is in no such state of unconsciousness; He has entered into His rest, and is waiting till all things shall be put under His feet; and it would be a mere delusion to say of the blessed dead, that they shall be with Christ, if they were to be virtually annihilated during this time that Christ is waiting for His kingdom. Besides, how then would the Lord’s promise to the thief be fulfilled? What consolation would it have been to him, what answer to his prayer, to be remembered when Jesus came in His kingdom, if these words implied that he should be unconsciously sleeping while the Lord was enjoying his triumph? Therefore we may safely say, that the so-called “sleep of the soul,” from the act of death till the resurrection, has no foundation in that which is revealed to us.

It is perfectly true, that the state of the departed is described to us as “sleeping in Jesus,” or rather, for the words are a misrendering, a having fallen asleep through, or by means of Jesus. But our texts are enough to show us, that we must not take such an expression for more than it really implies. Sleeping, or falling asleep, was a name current among Jews and Christians, and even among the best of the heathens, for death, implying its peace and rest, implying also that it should be followed by a waking: but apparently with no intent to convey any idea of unconsciousness. It is a term used with reference to us, as well as to the dead. To us, they are as if they were asleep: removed from us in consciousness, as in presence. The idea also of taking rest tended to make this term appropriate. But it must not be used to prove that to which it evidently had no reference.

The spirit, then, of the departed does not pass into unconsciousness. What more do we know of it? It is with Jesus.

We have now to consider what this implies. And in doing so we shall have further to make certain that which we think we have already proved. For first, it clearly implies more than a mere expression of safe-keeping, or reserve for a future state of blessedness. “The righteous souls are in the hand of God, and there shall no harm happen to them.” This is one thing: but to be with Christ is another. We might again appeal to the spirit of the promise made to the penitent thief, in order to show this: we might remind you that in the other text, St. Paul is comparing the two states—life in the midst of his children in the faith, and death; and he says, “I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better:” better than being with you, my Philippians.

So that more must be meant than mere safe keeping in the Redeemer’s hands. We may surely say, that nothing less than conscious existence in the presence of Christ can be intended. And if that is intended, then very much more is intended also, than those words at first seem to imply. Remember the contrast which this same Apostle elsewhere draws. “We know,” he says, “that while we are present in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by appearance: we are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.” That is, if we follow out the thought, this present state of dwelling in our home the body is a state of severance from the Lord; but there is a better state, into which we shall be introduced when this house of the body is pulled down: and from the context in that place we may add, much as we wish to be clothed upon with our new and glorious body which is from heaven, yet even short of that, we have learned to prefer being simply unclothed from the body, because thus we shall be present with the Lord.

So that we may safely assume thus much, my brethren: that the moment a Christian’s spirit is released from the body, it does enter into the presence of our Blessed Lord and Saviour, in a way of which it knows nothing here: a way which, compared to all that its previous faith could know of Him, is like presence of friends compared to absence.

Now let us take another remarkable passage of Holy Writ bearing on this same matter. St. John, in his first Epistle says, “Beloved, now are we children of God, and it never yet was manifested what we shall be; but if it should be manifested, we know that we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He is:” for this is the more accurate rendering of the words: meaning, if any one could come back, or come down, to us, and tell us what our future state is to be, the information could amount for us now only to this, that we shall be like Him, like Christ; because we shall see Him as He is. And in treating these words at considerable length last year, I pressed it on you that this concluding sentence might bear two meanings: either, we shall be like Him, because in order to see Him as He is, we must be like Him; or, we shall be like Him, because the sight of Him as He is will change us into His perfect likeness. For, our present purpose, or indeed for any purpose, it matters little which of these meanings we take. At any rate, we have gained this knowledge from St. John’s words, that the sight of the Blessed Lord which will be enjoyed by the Christian’s spirit on its release from the body, will be accompanied by being also perfectly like Him.

Now, here, my brethren, are the elements of an immediate change, blessed and joyous beyond our conception. Let us spend the rest of our time to-day in dwelling upon it.

And I will not now insist on the deliverance of the spirit from the infirmity, or pain, or decay of the body; because this is not so in all cases. Many a Christian’s spirit is set free from a body in perfect vigour and health. Let us take nothing but what is common to all who believe in and serve the Lord. Now what is our present state with reference to Him whom all Christians love? It is, absence. And it is absence aggravated in a way that earthly absence never is. For not only have we never seen Him, which is a case perfectly imaginable in earthly relations, but also, which hardly is, we have no absolute proof of His existence, nor of His mind towards us. Even as far as this, is matter of faith and not of appearance. We have no token, no communication, from Him. I suppose there hardly ever was a Christian yet, living under the present dispensation, entirely dependent upon his faith, who has not at some time or other had the dreadful thought cross his mind—overborne by his faith, but still not wholly extinguished, “What if it should not be true after all?” And much and successfully as we may contend with these misgivings of unbelief, yet that frame of mind which is represented by them, that wavering, fitful, unsteady faith, ever accompanies us. The distress arising from it is known to every one who has the Christian life in him. Only those never doubt who have never believed: for doubt is of the very essence of belief. But some poor souls are utterly cast down by the fact of its existence—shrink from these half-doubting fits as of themselves deadly sin, and are in continual terror about their soul’s safety on this account: others, of stronger minds, regard them truly as inevitable accompaniments of present human weakness, but of course struggle with them, and evermore yearn to be rid of them.

Now if what we have been saying be true,—and I have endeavoured not to go beyond the soberest inferences from the plain language of Scripture,—if so much be true, then the moment of departure from the body puts an end for ever to this imperfect, struggling, fitful state of faith and doubt. The spirit that is but a moment gone, that has left that well-known, familiar tabernacle of the body a sudden wreck of inanimate matter, that spirit is with the Lord. All doubt, all misgiving, is at an end. Every wave raised by this world’s storms, this world’s currents of interest, this world’s rocks and shallows, is suddenly laid, and there is a great calm. Certainty, for doubt—the sight of the Lord, for the conflict of assurance and misgiving—the face of Christ, for the mere faith in Christ—these have succeeded, because the departed spirit is “with the Lord”—companying with Him.