What Jesus Says About Life's
Destiny
...because I live, ye shall live also.
John 14:9
So perplexing and painful is the subject of death that many people do not like to think about it. In a recent survey of University students, the question was asked, "If you had a fatal illness, would you desire your doctor to tell you the facts of your condition?" It is interesting to note that over fifty percent of the students questioned replied, "No, I would not like to know my condition. I would prefer to be kept in ignorance about it." They did not want to face the fact of death.
It is strange that an age which boasts of its enlightenment, glories in its emotional maturity, and is so devoted to objective reality should flee like a little child from this towering event which dominates the whole of life from its beginning. When at last death is faced in the decease of a loved one or friend, it is covered over with sentimentality, buried in flowers, and tucked away behind cemetery walls. We do not want to think about it, and even those familiar with a form of religion may be found evading it.
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"What will happen to you after you die?" asked F.B. Meyer of his church warden one day. The man replied, quoting the catechism, "I shall immediately depart into everlasting felicity and bliss," but, he added, "I wish you would not trouble me with such unpleasant subjects." Perhaps it is not so strange that we should shrink away from death. Death — implacable, merciless, relentless — is the last enemy. It comes with measured tread to meet us on the roadway of time, to snatch us out of the land of the living. It defies human plans and purposes. It brings human ambitions to the dust. It shatters human affections. It steals into every home and robs it of loved ones. It breaks eventually, into every life, bringing grief and sorrow. It reaches out its icy hand to stop every living pulse and still the breath of every living thing. Is there an answer anywhere to the problem of death and life's ultimate destiny?
Money cannot buy it off. It slips into the mansions of the rich as easily as it moves into the cottages of the poor. Prestige or power cannot command it. Joseph Stalin, I suppose, was the most powerful political figure of the twentieth century. Literally millions of people were under his absolute control, and yet, before death, he was as helpless as an infant.
Education and human wisdom have no confident answer. Science has no solution to this problem. It merely affirms that the law of death is as binding as the law of life. No engineer with a slide rule has been able to solve the equation of life and death. No research chemist has run from his laboratory with an exultant shout, "I have the answer to death!" No atomic scientist has been able to apply the power of nuclear physics to the realm of death and blast away the walls of the tomb. Science has mastered the art of mass killing, but it has not learned how to kill death itself. Medicine has wonderfully
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prolonged life and given it vitality and health, but it, too, must bow before this last relentless enemy.
Sir William Osler, late professor of medicine at Oxford University, speaks for the scientific mind. "Whether across death's threshold we step from life to life or whether we go whence we shall not return, even to the land of darkness, the scientist cannot tell. Nor is this strange. Science is organized knowledge and knowledge is of the things we see. Now the things that are seen are temporal. But of the things that are unseen, science knows nothing and has, at present, no means of knowing anything."
The most brilliant minds often go down into abysmal defeat before the irrationality of death. The contribution of Professor and Madame Curie, the co-discoverers of radium, will be recorded as one of the monumental achievements of this age. On April 19, 1906, Professor Curie was run down by a carriage and instantly killed. The chapter in The Life of Madame Curie which describes her wild grief is one of the most tragic and poignant in modern literature. She clung to the body. She kissed the face of the corpse again and again. She wrote in her diary every day to the one who had gone. Among the entries we find these words, "Your coffin was closed and I could see you no more. They came to get you, a sad company. We saw you go down into the deep hole. Then the dreadful procession of people that wanted to take us away. Jack and I resisted. We wanted to see everything to the end. They filled the grave and put flowers on it. Everything is over. Pierre is sleeping in his last sleep beneath the earth. It is the end of everything, everything, everything!" No, science, as such, does not have the answer. The answer must come from the other side, God's side.
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We turn to Jesus Christ who alone gives us light on death's darkness. He affirms three tremendous truths about life's destiny. He teaches first that death is not the end of existence. He lifts life out of the flat perspective of three score years and ten and places it in the context of reality. He puts a new dimension to life — infinity. The body will one day be laid aside, but the essential personality will live forever. Jesus saw life penetrating two worlds, the world of man and the world of God; the world of time and the world of eternity. He saw this vividly because He Himself was in both worlds. Human personality, therefore, is of incalculable worth. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?... (Mat. 16:26).
He viewed our existence on earth as probational and preparatory. It was a preparation for that which was larger and greater and for which we were originally fashioned. Beyond this life, He said, there is a higher service to be rendered. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord" (Mat. 25:21). On the other side rewards will be received. "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal" (Mat. 6:20). On the other side there will be fuller fellowship with Himself. He said that He would drink the wine anew with His disciples in the Kingdom "...until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom" (Mat. 26:29). There will be the joy of the Father's House and the glory of the Father's face on the other side.
The Saducees, the rationalists of Jesus' day, rejected the idea of a resurrection. They came to the Master with a ques-
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tion. "Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
"Jesus answered and said unto them. Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mat. 22:25-32). Yes, He plainly teaches that death is not the end of existence.
Now a second truth — physical death is not the most serious thing that can happen to a person. "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Mat. 10:28). To be separated from the life of God, to exist on and on, a conscious being apart from the light and the love of the One for whom we are made, is the worst thing that can happen to a person. Even a casual reading of the gospels will make it clear that Jesus came to seek and to save those that are lost, not just for an earthly span of years, but for an eternity.
But supremely Jesus teaches that death has been defeated. The New Testament from beginning to end rings with an exultant note of victory. It is sounded from every believer. Jesus Christ has conquered sin and evil. He has overcome death and the grave. His victory is shared with men. He has invaded the dark domain of death, tracked it down to its lair,
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gripped it in His nail-pierced hands, and by His life, death, and resurrection, He has subdued its strength, broken its back, and openly displayed His conquest.
No words of the Master assert more boldly His authority over death than those He speaks to Martha at the tomb of her brother, Lazarus. Calmly, with complete confidence, He speaks to the sorrowing sister, "Thy brother shall rise again" (John 11:23). She replies, "...I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:24). Our Lord then discloses, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die..." (John 11:25, 26). Understand what He is saying. I am the life. To know Me, to put your faith in Me, to be in relationship with Me is to share My kind of life which never dies, in which death is simply an incident and not an accident, a doorway and not a decease. Death for the believer is just the beginning. It is not the flickering out of a candle in a dark night. It is the dawning of a new day, the day of God. It is not being imprisoned in the dark walls of a tomb. It is the breaking out of the chrysalis of mortality into a richer, fuller, and more glorious life in God. Death for the Christian is a commencement, a coronation, a consummation of all that life holds and of that purpose which was in the mind of the Heavenly Father for His children before time began. This is the good news of the Risen Lord which Easter proclaims to us. He longs to make it real in our experience.
How may we be sure that His teaching is true? Granted that it is a glorious hope, is there any real ground for believing it? My own conviction is that it is true because Jesus Christ says it is true. I do not know how you feel about Christ, but I have
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absolute faith in His word. Of all who have ever lived, He supremely merits my confidence. I do not believe that He would lie to me. I cannot conceive of His being deceived on this point. Wherever His teaching touches life, it is true, the truest truth we know. When He touches this tremendous question, I believe we can rest upon His word. In 1867, when Michael Farraday, the famous scientist, was on his deathbed, a friend bent over and asked, "Sir, what are your speculations now?" And Farraday, visibly moved, gathered his ebbing strength and replied, "What are my speculations? I have no speculations, sir. I am resting on a certainty. I know Whom I have believed." The more I know Jesus Christ, the more I am confident that I rest on certainty.
I believe Christ has defeated death because of His own resurrection from the dead. When Tallyrand was struggling for the reconstruction of Europe after the Napoleonic wars, a young man came to him with great enthusiasm and said, "Sir, what Europe needs is a new religion that will be suited for this new day." Tallyrand listened as the young man went on to tell of his ideas. Then he replied. "My young man, if you feel it is the time for a new religion, go out in the highways and byways and begin to elucidate your principles; only be sure that you incorporate them perfectly in your own conduct. Then when you have done that, lay down your life for the people and after you are buried three days, return from the dead and share that victory with your followers. When you have done that, we will be ready to listen to a new religion." Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection and the life." On the third day He arose from the dead and verified His authority to speak in terms of victory over death.
The late Dr. Robert E. Speer has this to say about the resur-
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rection. "I believe there is no fact in history better attested than our Lord's Resurrection. It rests upon evidences stronger than any evidence we have of any other event, as strong as the evidence of what took place on July 4th, 1776. I believe we can rest as securely on the evidences of the Resurrection as we can on the evidences that there was a Declaration of Independence. You say, 'But we have the document here and now.' I say, 'We have a living Christ now.' You say, 'Men saw it signed.' I say, 'Men saw Him rise.' You say, 'There is a nation living whose existence testifies to the Declaration of Independence.' I say, 'There is a Kingdom of Christ in existence that bears witness to the fact that something lifted it out of death when He hung on the cross. It was saved by nothing less than His rising again from the dead.' You say, 'The historic evidence does not satisfy everyone.' I say, 'It convinces all who would be convinced if they were to see Him risen with their own eyes.' "
Then I believe Christ has won the victory over death because He demonstrates it in life today. Ever since that first Easter morning when the grief-burdened disciples and followers were encountered by the risen Lord, He has been meeting men and women and sharing His life with them. He does a work in the world today which could not be done by mere memories or hallowed associations. Julius Caesar, for example, is not quickening men into new life today. Martin Luther, great as he was, is not taking men, dead in trespasses and sins, making them clean and giving to them a new life that overcomes evil. But Jesus is doing that. He is taking the drunkard and the profligate, the one in bondage to selfishness and sin, and He is renewing them within, purifying their consciences, and imparting power to be clean and useful in society. He is
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taking weak people who haven't enough strength of passion to do great wrong, and He is giving them courage to make their lives count for man and God. He is taking good people and making them better, humbling their pride, filling them with a selfless love, giving to them an unshakable hope. He is taking empty and broken lives, aimless and wandering, giving them meaning and significance and sending them out on an eternal mission. He is coming to the lonely and sorrowing with His comfort and companionship, giving them the most precious reality the human heart can desire, that of His Presence.
I recently received a letter from a missionary in Korea. In it he enclosed the greetings of some Korean Christian lepers. "My dear American Christian brothers: We lepers received your kind Christmas presents with deep gratitude. Though outcast and forsaken by our fellowmen because of our incurable disease, we still cherish one bright hope — that through Christ, when relieved from our bodily burden, we shall in pure spirit and body, see our Saviour face to face. Our bodies are cursed and worldly hopes cut off, but we labor for the imperishable, everlasting life that is shining clean and pure through our broken earthenware." Yes, I know Jesus Christ has won the victory over death because He shines clean and pure today in the broken earthenware of the lives of His followers.
I know this because He verifies it in the personal experience of His followers. Thomas, the disciple, stoutly refused to believe what others told him about Christ's resurrection from the dead. "...But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe"
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(John 20:25). I have to have evidence. Jesus did not deny him nor rebuke him. He appeared to him and said, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing" (John 20:27).
I believe that Jesus Christ will manifest His living presence to anyone who really wants to know Him, anyone who is really willing to walk His way of life and acknowledge Him to be the true Lord. Hudson Taylor once said, "No one can talk aloud to Jesus Christ for five minutes, desiring to know Him and to do His will without having something happen." Jesus Christ will verify Himself.
A well-known journalist tells of listening to a Russian lecturer in Moscow who attacked the Christian faith for ninety minutes and proved to his own satisfaction, at least, that faith in God was a dying survival of Capitalism. When he finished, he invited discussion. A young village priest stepped forward and asked permission to speak, "Not more than five minutes," the speaker replied. "I shall not be so long," replied the priest. He ascended the platform and addressed the audience. "Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen!" As one man, the audience replied, "He is risen indeed!" — the familiar response of Russian believers. "I have finished," said the priest. "I have nothing more to say."
To the problem of death and life's destiny we say, "Jesus Christ is risen." Nothing more need be said.
