By J.H. Garrison
THESE are other problems of which Christ is the only solution which must be omitted from the present treatment. Among these is Christ the Only Interpretation of Nature and the Universe. It would not be proper, however, to close without at least a brief consideration of how Christ answers one of the most vital questions of the human heart, namely, that in relation to the life hereafter.
Is there life beyond the grave? Is there in man a spirit which death does not and cannot destroy? Is there any ground for the fond hope that after the dissolution of this our mortal frame we shall continue our conscious personal existence in another sphere, where life shall have unending progress, and where we shall realize the high ideals which elude us here? May we indulge the hope that on some fairer shore we may renew the associations with friends and loved ones which have been severed by death? When our earthly homes are broken up by the grim destroyer, may we feel a certainty that there is a home beyond, upon which the shadow of death can never fall? If "the earthly house of this., tabernacle be dissolved," may we look forward to "a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens"?
These are questions which strike their roots into the very center of our being. They affect not only our future but our present well-being. How can we live the life that now is with proper dignity and with the necessary inspiration for the self-denials imposed by life's tasks, if we cannot answer these questions with an undoubting affirmative? Reason, philosophy and science may all suggest the possibility and even the probability of the life beyond, but only Jesus Christ has spoken the word of certainty and authority on this question, and followed it with a demonstration so convincing as to lift it forever out of the region of speculation into the realm of assured faith.
The teaching of Jesus is so permeated with the spirit and atmosphere of the life which is eternal, and his whole religion is so completely based upon the reality of the spiritual world and of his continued existence and activity therein, that it would seem invidious to quote any one word of his on this subject, as affording more certainty than another. And yet it seems appropriate here to recall what he said about the life hereafter in that same discourse to his disciples uttered on the night of the Last Supper in the upper chamber, in which he declared himself to be "the way, the truth and the life." His disciples were greatly troubled and perplexed by his statement that he was going away. "Let not your heart be troubled," he said; "believe in God, believe also in me." How could their belief in Jesus comfort their hearts when he was about to be taken away from them? Hear the words which follow: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." (John 14:1-30) We cannot conceive of words more comforting, more assuring, than these in the presence of the great mystery of death and of what lies beyond. We lay great stress on the words we have italicized. In them Jesus, realizing the need of certainty on our part on a matter of such vital moment, pledges his own veracity and candor to the truth of the life beyond. It is as if he had said: "If there were no Father's house with its many apartments beyond what men call death, I would have frankly told you so. I would not deceive you by holding out hopes which can never be realized." Like unto this word is that other of his "Because I live ye shall live also." In that blessed logic lies the certainty of our life hereafter.
But that men might have something more demonstrable than the truth of any word, Jesus himself submitted to death, going the way which we shall all go, into that narrow chamber where the great and the small alike find a resting place; but unlike all the generations of men who had preceded him into that chamber, he came out of it at the appointed time on the immortal side and entered upon that life of which he had given assurance to his disciples. During a period of forty days he appeared to many chosen witnesses and at one time to a company of above five hundred brethren, most of whom were living when Paul wrote his first letter to the church at Corinth. When he had thoroughly convinced his disciples by "many infallible proofs," of his identity and of the reality of his resurrection, one day, out on the slope of Olivet, in the presence of his disciples, and under the clear shining of the Syrian sun, he was lifted up, with his hands spread out in parting benediction until he was lost to their vision. They stood gazing into the heavens until an angel announced to them that just as surely as he had departed he would come again. Pentecost with its glorious manifestations, and the whole history of the church with its widening activities have added confirmation to these indisputable proofs of the risen. Christ, and of the reality of the life hereafter. So that when we "sigh for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still," we find our comfort in the words and deeds of him "who conquered death and brought life and immortality to light in the gospel."
There is, then, life beyond the experience of death. There is the Father's house with its many apartments. There we shall meet the truest and noblest souls of all time. There will be room and opportunity for eternal progress. There the fondest hopes of this life will come to fruition, and the goal of all our earthly struggles will be realized. Of all this we have the divinest assurance through Christ--in what he was, what he taught, and what he did, and is doing in the world today. To him be glory and honor and dominion and power, now and forevermore!
