Some Preliminary Considerations
LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. No. 1.
Some Preliminary Considerations.
WHO does not long for life, for continued existence? The past of life may have been blackened. Its years may have been weary dragging ones, fruitful only in seemingly unrequited toil. They may have been gay, heartless, careless years, knowing only the pleasures that pall. They may have been years of evil, filled with sinning and wickedness and remorse. They may have been years of repeated failures, in which seeming defeat was followed only by greater defeat. Yet, notwithstanding all this, “hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and mankind longs for a continuance of conscious existence, expecting something better. Even the majority of those who attempt, in moments of insanity, to end existence, but are rescued, are nearly always grateful that life is still spared, and a miserable existence prolonged, in the wish, the “chance”—sometimes the hope—that it will issue in something better. Satan understands this human longing for life. It was he who said, “Yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” Job 2:4. And the whole history of the race demonstrates its truth. Man will use life recklessly when he seems to have it in abundance; but when its tenure is threatened, he will spend time and labor and fortune and oftentimes even honor for a few more years of existence. All things else without life are nothing. “For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?” Matt. 16:26, R.V. And yet mere existence here is not life as God designed man should possess it. It is not life even according to man’s ideal. The enemy of all righteousness, knowing the worth of life, knowing how man clings even to its semblance, has perverted it; and sinful, sinning man knows only its perversion. There is even more difference between true life and the life known by the majority of mankind than there is between the living, growing, healthful, flowering, fruit-bearing tree and the dying tree; between the living, flowing fountain of pure, sparkling water and the poisoned, murky stream or stagnant pool, with its swarming germs and miasma of death; between the caroling, happy, living songster and the bird with drooping wings. Life, true life is all that is desirable. It is eternal; but its perversion ends in death. Who does not long for the former? But may he obtain it and possess it? If so, where is its source? How may it be obtained? How may it be held forever? It is needless to say that man has not found it here. Long and weary and hopeless has been the quest of the fountain of eternal youth. The end of each long search is marked by the grave of the seeker. Men have sought it in occupation, in food, in drink, in chemicals; but over the quest of each is written Failure. The secret of life has been as elusive as that of the Holy Grail. Ponce de Leon stands as type of them all, who, in search of the fountain of perpetual youth, found his grave in the island of Cuba. In all that man can of himself do, the problem of eternity is yet unsolved. But is the quest hopeless?—Not at all. The boon of life may be found if sought at its fountain-head; and the Guide-book to the Fountain is the Bible—the Word of God. “The words that I speak unto you,” says its Author, “they are spirit and they are life.” “God offers,” says Emerson, “to every mind its choice.” He has offered it from the beginning. Infinite Wisdom does not ask us to devise the way of life; the way is prepared from of old. Infinite Power does not require of us the might to conquer life; the strength, nay, more, the life, will be given. But Infinite Love demands that the choice shall be left with us. Around every accountable human soul God has placed a circle sacred to that soul,—the circle of free choice. Infinite Power will not enter to compel the choice. Infinite Love will permit none other power to enter without the consent of the soul to whom that sacred inclosure belongs. God made man a complete, reasoning being, an individual, an ego; and none in the universe respects that individuality as does the omnipotent, omniscient God, that conferred the possession. The privilege of choice of principles is a right belonging to every man, inalienable except with man’s consent. It has always been man’s right and privilege; and the Lord was not stating a new truth, one only at that time and to that nation applicable, when He declared: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; to love the Lord thy God, to obey His voice, and to cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days.” Deut. 30:19, 20, R.V. Choice compelled can not produce or foster love. Love can not compel; love can not be compelled save by love, which compels not. Love, beneficent, self-sacrificing love, begets in its object love in return; and the love begotten by love compels the receiver. The soul forced to do, or to outwardly do, that which it does not choose to do, performs an empty task. It is lacking in all that constitutes true service. Its labor may be in a palace; its task to sit upon a throne and receive the homage of thousands; but its days of greatest splendor are joyless and irksome, because they are not of choice. On the other hand, if the choice be free, the labor may be humble, the task onerous, the place uninviting—among the dead and dying, perhaps—yet the heart is filled with joy; the man is working out his own choice. God desires the happiness of His creatures; He knows that happiness depends on choice; and, therefore, He has placed upon poor mortal man the awful responsibility of choosing. This choice involves God’s character as well as the character of man. It is necessary, therefore, to examine what revelations God has for us in His Holy Word upon the great subject of life and immortality.