But the crown and consummation of the whole is, that godliness is not merely the Director, the Ornament, or the Joy of this life; it is the prelude to the Life that is to come.
What are to be our employments in heaven? How shall we be sustained? How perceive, or feel, or rejoice? Shall we recognise in glory those whom we loved on earth?—or is the Alpha and the Omega of faith, the Alpha and the Omega of fruition? These, and a thousand other questions, are raised by the curious mind; but the most that we can say in reply is, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” There will be praise in glory. There will be following the Lamb. There will be satisfaction with God’s likeness. There will be the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. But after all, the mind, while in the body, is exhausted by the effort to comprehend what we shall be: it falls back fatigued upon the words of him who once lay on the Redeemer’s bosom, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”
THE MILLENNIUM.[T-16]
THE MILLENNIUM.[T-16] And yet there is a sense or a measure in which we can understand heaven.—In our day we hear much of the Millennium. Churches are divided on the subject. Brother differs from brother; and it is difficult indeed, definitely to fix “what saith the Lord” regarding it. But connected with the millennium there is one subject, concerning which we may speak with perfect decision on the undoubted authority of God. As the whole is composed of its parts, the blessedness of the millennial state can be composed only of the blessedness of individual souls. Now, would I introduce that blessed era as far as I am concerned? Then let me make sure that Christ is already personally reigning in me. Would I see the kingdom of God set up in our groaning world; and would I like to fix a day for its commencement? Then let me this day make it sure that the king of glory is on the throne of my heart, that “Christ is in me the hope of glory.”—Whatever the millennium is to be, or whensoever it is to begin, it can, at the most, consist only of Christ’s personal reign. Now, he should be reigning at this hour in me. Be that, through grace, accomplished, and we are in preparation for the millennial glory; though the bright visions of some were turned into realities to-morrow, we should be found meet to enter on the joy of our Lord. “The millennium will never come,” said Harlan Page, “till Christians are more awake to duty.”
HEAVEN.
HEAVEN. And so of the eternal state. Does Christ reign in any soul now? Then, beyond the grave, that reign perfected will be heaven. Is Christ stamping on us now the image of the Eternal, and restoring what the fall ruined or effaced? Then that restoration completed will be heaven. Is Christ on earth showing us the Father? Then beyond the grave, we shall be eternally restored to the Father’s favour; and that is heaven, for his favour is life, and his loving-kindness better than life. Our joy on earth—our religion—when it is a fruit of the Spirit, is at once a preparative and a prelude to the joys of heaven. They are the same in kind, and differ only in degree. He that is holy in a measure now, will be holy in perfection at last. He that loves the Saviour in a measure now, will love him in perfection beyond the grave; here we see the bud, on high we shall partake of the ripe and mellow fruit—all according to the words, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”
Let us try to find some one who is ignorant of the great processes of nature; one of the untutored savages who still hover near the margin which separates the rational from merely animal nature. Let him be ignorant, for example, of the processes of vegetation. With the one hand show him an acorn—a thing so small that it can scarcely serve even for an infant’s toy; with the other, show him some majestic oak, beneath whose ample shade the beasts of the field and the birds of the air find a common shelter. Then tell that degraded one, that that majestic tree was once enveloped in such a little seed—how incredulous, or how amazed, would that “Stoic of the woods” appear!
THE BUD—THE BLOSSOM—THE FRUIT.
THE BUD—
THE BLOSSOM—
THE FRUIT. And the same thing happens in regard to the coming eternity. Godliness is the germ, of which eternal glory is the majestic result. Grace is the bud, of which heaven is the ample fruitage. Like the darkling savage, we may be unable to comprehend the process by which the one passes into the other. But our ability is not the measure of God’s. The one does pass into the other; grace does pass into glory; and he is wise, he only is wise, who makes it his business on earth to tend that germ, or screen it from all that would crush or destroy it. He is wise who places it often in the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness, or under the influence of Him who assures us that he will refresh it like the dew. The delicate exotic will not otherwise grow; and for want of such tending, ten thousand times ten thousand let it wither, and pine, and perish.