========================================================================
  WRITINGS OF B W JOHNSON
  by B.W. Johnson
========================================================================

A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by B.W. Johnson,
compiled for study and devotional reading.

  Chapters: 13

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. 01.01.     Appendix - 1-Dr. Philip Schaff on the Resurrection
    2. 01.02.     Appendix - 2-Some peculiarities of John's Gospel
    3. 01.03.     Appendix - 3-Commentaries and Standards on the Birth of Water and Spirit
    4. 01.04.     Appendix - 4-Chronological Table of the Life of Christ
    5. 01.05.     Appendix - 5-The Analysis of John - THE ANALYSIS OF JOHN.
    6. 02.0.1. Christ and the Future Life
    7. 02.0.2.     Table of Contents
    8. 02.0.3.     Biographical Sketch of B.W. Johnson by J.H. Garrison
    9. 02.01.     The Hope of the Ancient World
   10. 02.02.     Life and Immortality Brought to Light
   11. 02.03.     The Basis of Our Hope
   12. 02.04.     The Hope of the Saints
   13. 02.05.     Heaven

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 1: 01.01.     APPENDIX - 1-DR. PHILIP SCHAFF ON THE RESURRECTION
========================================================================

DR. PHILIP SCHAFF ON THE RESURRECTION. The resurrection of Christ from the dead
is reported by the four Gospels, taught in the Epistles, believed throughout
Christendom, and celebrated on every "Lord’s Day," as an historical fact, as the
crowning miracle and divine seal of his whole work, as the foundation of the
hopes of believers, as the pledge of their own future resurrection. It is
represented in the New Testament both as an act of the Almighty Father who
raised his Son from the dead, and as an act of Christ himself, who had the power
to lay down his life and to take it again. The ascension was the proper
conclusion of the resurrection: the risen life of our Lord, who is "the
Resurrection and the Life," could not end in another death on earth, but must
continue in eternal glory in heaven. Hence, St. Paul says, "Christ being raised
from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For the death
that he died he died unto sin once; but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto
God." The Christian church rests on the resurrection of its Founder. Without
this fact the church could never have been born, or if born, it would soon have
died a natural death. The miracle of the resurrection and the existence of
Christianity are so closely connected that they must stand or fall together. If
Christ was raised from the dead, then all his other miracles are sure, and our
faith is impregnable; if he was not raised, he died in vain, and our faith is
vain. It was only his resurrection that made his death available for our
atonement, justification and salvation; without the resurrection, his death
would be the grave of our hopes; we should be still unredeemed and under the
power of our sins. A gospel of a dead Savior would be a contradiction and
wretched delusion. This is the reasoning of St. Paul, and its force is
irresistible. The resurrection of Christ is therefore emphatically a test
question upon which depends the truth or falsehood of the Christian religion. It
is either the greatest miracle or the greatest delusion which history records.

Christ had predicted both his crucifixion and his resurrection, but the former
was a stumbling-block to the disciples, the latter a mystery which they could
not understand till after the event. They no doubt expected that he would soon
establish his Messianic kingdom on earth, Hence their utter disappointment and
downheartedness after the crucifixion. The treason of one of their own number,
the triumph of hierarchy, the fickleness of the people, the death and burial of
the beloved Master, had in a few hours rudely blasted their Messianic hopes and
exposed them to the contempt and ridicule of their enemies. For two days they
were trembling on the brink of despair. But on the third day, behold, the same
disciples underwent a complete revolution from despondency to hope, from
timidity to courage, from doubt to faith, and began to proclaim the gospel of
the resurrection in the face of an unbelieving world and at the peril of their
lives. This revolution was not isolated, but general among them; it was not the
result of an easy credulity, but brought about in spite of doubt and hesitation;
it was not superficial and momentary, but radical and lasting; it affected not
only the apostles, but the whole history of the world. It reached even the
leader of the persecution, Saul of Tarsus, one of the clearest and strongest
intellects, and converted him into the most devoted and faithful champion of
this very gospel to the hour of his martyrdom. This is a fact patent to every
reader of the closing chapters of the Gospels, and is freely admitted even by
the most advanced skeptics. The question now rises whether this inner revolution
in the life of the disciples, with its incalculable effect upon the fortunes of
mankind, can be rationally explained without a corresponding outward revolution
in the history of Christ; in other words, whether the professed faith of the
disciples in the risen Christ was true and real, or a hypocritical lie, or an
honest self-delusion.

There are four possible theories which have been tried again and again, and
defended with as much learning and ingenuity as can be summoned to their aid.
Historical questions are not like mathematical problems. No argument in favor of
the resurrection will avail with those critics who start with the philosophical
assumption that miracles are impossible, and still less with those who deny not
only the resurrection of the body, but even the immortality of the soul. But
facts are stubborn, and if a critical hypothesis can be proven to be
psychologically and historically impossible and unreasonable, the result is
fatal to the philosophy which underlies the critical hypothesis. It is not the
business of the historian to construct a history from preconceived notions and
to adjust it to his own liking, but to reproduce it from the best evidence and
to let it speak for itself.

1. THE HISTORICAL VIEW, presented by the Gospels and believed in the Christian
church of every denomination and sect. The resurrection of Christ was an actual
though miraculous event, in harmony with his previous history and character, and
in fulfilment of his own prediction. It was a re-animation of the dead body of
Jesus by a return of his soul from the spirit-world, and a rising of body and
soul from the grave to a new life, which, after repeated manifestations to
believers during a short period of forty days, entered into glory by the
ascension to heaven. The object of the manifestations was not only to convince
the apostles personally of the resurrection, but to make them witnesses of the
resurrection and heralds of salvation to all the world.

Truth compels us to admit that there are serious difficulties in harmonizing the
accounts of the evangelists, and in forming a consistent conception of the
nature of Christ’s resurrection-body, hovering as it were between heaven and
earth, and oscillating for forty days between a natural and a supernatural
state, of a body clothed with flesh and blood and bearing the wound-prints, and
yet so spiritual as to appear and disappear through closed doors and to ascend
visibly to heaven. But these difficulties are not so great as those which are
created by a denial of the fact itself. The former can be measurably solved, the
latter cannot. We do not know all the details and circumstances which might
enable us to clearly trace the order of events, But among all the variations the
great central fact of the resurrection itself and its principal features "stand
out all the more sure." The period or forty days in the nature of the case the
most mysterious in the life of Christ, and transcends all ordinary Christian
experience. The Christophanies resemble in some respects the Theophanies of the
Old Testament, which were granted only to few believers, yet for the general
benefit. At all events the fact of the resurrection furnishes the only key for
the solution of the psychological problem of the sudden, radical and permanent
change in the mind and conduct of the disciples; it is the necessary link in the
chain which connects their history before and after that event. Their faith in
the resurrection was too clear, too strong, too steady, too effective to be
explained in any other way. They showed the strength and boldness of their
conviction by soon returning to Jerusalem, the post of danger, and founding
there, in the very face of the hostile Sanhedrim, the mother-church of
Christendom.

2. THE THEORY OF FRAUD. The apostles stole and hid the body of Jesus, and
deceived the world. This infamous lie carries its refutation on its face: for if
the Roman soldiers who watched the grave at the express request of the priests
and Pharisees, were asleep, they could not see the thieves, nor would they have
proclaimed their military crime; if they, or only some of them, were awake, they
would have prevented the theft. As to the disciples, they were too timid and
desponding at the time to venture on such a daring act, and too honest to cheat
the world. And finally a self-invented falsehood could not give them the courage
and constancy of faith for the proclamation of the resurrection at the peril of
their lives. The whole theory is a wicked absurdity, and insult to the common
sense and honor to mankind.

3. THE SWOON THEORY. The physical life of Jesus was not extinct, but only
exhausted, and was restored by the tender care of his friends and disciples, or
(as some absurdly add) by his own medical skill; and after a brief period he
quietly died a natural death.

Josephus, Valerius Maximus, psychological and medical authorities have been
searched and appealed to for examples of such apparent resurrections from a
trance or asphyxy, especially on the third day, which is supposed to be a
turning-point for life or putrefaction. But besides insuperable physical
difficulties--as the wounds and loss of blood from the very heart pierced by the
spear of the Roman soldier--this theory utterly fails to account for the moral
effect. A brief sickly existence of Jesus in need of medical care, and
terminating in his natural death and final burial, without even the glory of
martyrdom which attended the crucifixion, far from restoring the faith of the
apostles, would have only in the end deepened their gloom and driven them to
utter despair.

4. THE VN-THEORY. Christ rose merely in the imagination of his friends, who
mistook a subjective vision or dream for actual reality, and were thereby
encouraged to proclaim their faith in the resurrection at the risk of death.
Their wish was father to the belief, their belief was father to the fact, and
the belief, once started, spread with the power of a religious epidemic from
person to person and from place to place. The Christian society wrought the
miracle by its intense love for Christ. Accordingly the resurrection does not
belong to the history of Christ at all, but to the inner life of his disciples.
It is merely the embodiment of their reviving faith. This hypothesis was
invented by a heathen adversary in the second century and soon buried out of
sight, but rose to new life in the nineteenth, and spread with epidemical
rapidity among skeptical critics in Germany, France, Holland and England. The
advocates of this hypothesis appeal first and chiefly to the vision of St. Paul
on the way to Damascus, which occurred several years later, and is nevertheless
put on a level with the former appearances to the older apostles (1 Corinthians
15:8); next to supposed analogies in the history of religious enthusiasm and
mysticism, such as the individual visions of St. Francis of Assisi, the Maid of
Orleans, St. Theresa (who believed that she had seen Jesus in person with the
eyes of the soul more distinctly than she could have seen him with the eyes of
the body), Swedenborg, even Mohammed, and the collective visions of the
Montanists in Asia Minor, the Camisards in France, the spectral resurrections of
the martyred Thomas a Becket of Canterbury and Savonarola of Florence in the
excited imagination of their admirers, and the apparition of the Immaculate
Virgin at Lourdes.

Nobody will deny that the subjective fancies and impressions are often mistaken
for objective realities. But, with the exception of the case of St. Paul which
we shall consider in its proper place, and which turns out to be, even according
to the admission of the leaders of skeptical criticism, a powerful argument
against the mythical or visionary theory--these supposed analogies are entirely
irrelevant; for, not to speak of other differences, they were isolated and
passing phenomena which left no mark on history; while the faith in the
resurrection of Christ has revolutionized the whole world. It must therefore be
treated on its own merits as an altogether unique case.

(a) The first insuperable argument against the visionary nature, and in favor of
the objective reality, of the resurrection is the empty tomb of Christ. If he
did not rise, his body must either have been removed, or remained in the tomb.
If removed by the disciples, they were guilty of a deliberate falsehood in
preaching the resurrection, and then the vision-hypothesis gives way to the
exploded theory of fraud. If removed by the enemies, then these enemies had the
best evidence against the resurrection, and would not have failed to produce it
and thus to expose the baselessness of the vision. The same is true, of course,
if the body had remained in the tomb. The murderers of Christ would certainly
not have missed such an opportunity to destroy the very foundation of the hated
sect. To escape this difficulty, Strauss removes the origin of the illusion away
off to Galilee, whither the disciples fled; but this does not help the matter,
for they returned in a few weeks to Jerusalem, where they were all assembled on
the day of Pentecost. This argument is fatal even to the highest form of the
vision hypothesis, which admits a spiritual manifestation of Christ from heaven,
but denies the resurrection of the body.

(b) If Christ did not really rise, then the words which he spake to Mary
Magdalene, to the disciples of Emmaus, to doubting Thomas, to Peter on the lake
of Tiberias, to all the disciples on Mount Olivet, were likewise pious fictions.
But who can believe that words of such dignity and majesty, so befitting the
solemn moment of the departure to the throne of glory, as the commandment to
preach the gospel to every creature, to baptize the nations in the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the promise to be with his disciples
always to the end of the world--a promise abundantly verified in the daily
experience of the church--could proceed from dreamy and self-deluded enthusiasts
or crazy fanatics any more than the Sermon on the Mount or the Sacerdotal
Prayer! And who, with any spark of historical sense, can suppose that Jesus
never instituted baptism, which has been performed in his name ever since the
day of Pentecost, and which, like the celebration of the Lords Supper, bears
testimony to him every day as the sunlight does to the sun!

(c) If the visions of the resurrection were the product of an excited
imagination, it is unaccountable that they should suddenly have ceased on the
fortieth day (Acts 1:15), and not have occurred to any of the disciples
afterwards, with the single exception of Paul, who expressly represents his
vision of Christ as "the last." Even on the day of Pentecost Christ did not
appear to them, but, according to his promise, "the other Paraclete" descended
upon them; and Stephen, saw Christ in heaven, not on earth.

(d) The chief objection to the vision-hypothesis is its intrinsic impossibility.
It makes the most exorbitant claim upon our credulity. It requires us to believe
that many persons, singly and collectively, at different times, and in different
places, from Jerusalem to Damascus, had the same vision and dreamed the same
dream; that the women at the open sepulcher early in the morning, Peter and John
soon afterwards, the two disciples journeying to Emmaus on the afternoon of the
resurrection day, the assembled apostles on the evening in the absence of
Thomas, and again on the next Lord’s day in the presence of the skeptical
Thomas, seven apostles at the lake of Tiberias, on one occasion five hundred
brethren at once, most of whom were still alive when Paul reported the fact,
then James, the brother of the Lord, who formerly did not believe in him, again
all the apostles on Mount Olivet at the ascension, and at last the clear-headed,
strong-minded persecutor on the way to Damascus--that all these men and women on
these different occasions vainly imagined they saw and heard the self-same Jesus
in bodily shape and form; and that they were by this baseless vision raised all
at once from the deepest gloom in which the crucifixion of their Lord had left
them, to the boldest faith and strongest hope which impelled them to proclaim
the gospel of the resurrection from Jerusalem to Rome to the end of their lives!
And this illusion of the early disciples created the greatest revolution not
only in their own views and conduct, but among Jews and Gentiles and in the
subsequent history of mankind! This illusion we are expected to believe, by the
unbelievers, gave birth to the most real and most mighty of all facts, the
Christian Church which has lasted these eighteen hundred years and is now spread
all over the civilized world, embracing more members than ever and exercising
more moral power than all the kingdoms and all other religions combined! The
vision-hypothesis, instead of getting rid of the miracle, only shifts it from
fact to fiction; it makes an empty delusion more powerful than the truth, or
turns all history itself at last into a delusion. Before we can reason the
resurrection of Christ out of history we must reason the apostles, and
Christianity itself out of existence. We must either admit the miracle, or
frankly confess that we stand here before an inexplicable mystery.--Schaff’s
History of the Christian Church.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 2: 01.02.     APPENDIX - 2-SOME PECULIARITIES OF JOHN'S GOSPEL
========================================================================

SOME PECULIARITIES OF JOHN’S GOSPEL.

These have already been partly indicated in what has been said concerning its
character, in the introduction, but there are a few features not yet noticed
that can be most appropriately considered in an appendix.

1. John is the only one of the Evangelists who observes the chronological order
of the events in the ministry of Christ. The earlier Gospels have been very
appropriately styled "Synoptical," nor are they careful in their synopsis to
regard the order of events. They might be called memoranda, or "Memorabilia" of
Christ, while John writes a systematic treatise with a definite object in view.
Since they take no note of time, if we were left to them alone, we could not be
certain that the Savior’s ministry continued for more than a year, whereas John
gives us data from whence we learn that it continued more than three. While he
selects events, miracles and discourses, here and there, we may always be
assured that they occur in the order of time. Thus the miracle of the water
turned into wine is the "beginning of miracles;" the healing of the nobleman’s
son is the "second miracle that Jesus did" in Galilee.

2. The Synoptical Gospels confine themselves mostly to the Galilean ministry of
our Lord. If John had never written we would only have references that would
lead us to wonder, "How often" the Lord "would have gathered your children
(those of Jerusalem) together, and ye would not." But from John we learn of
earnest and long continued work in the city of Jerusalem and Judea, sojourns of
many months at the time, and such revelations of himself as left "no cloke for
their sin." We trace right in Jerusalem, the heart of Judaism, the inception,
development and culmination of the hatred of Christ, beginning at the first
Passover after the Savior began his ministry, growing with each succeeding visit
and the accompanying typical miracle, and at last, after the resurrection of
Lazarus, crystalizing into the official resolve of the Sanhedrim to put him to
death.

3. A difference in the style of the Savior’s discourses, as reported by John and
the other Evangelists, has been detected. It can hardly be supposed that any of
the writers have reported verbatim. If that were true there would be no
difference in their reports, but we find while there is a general agreement of
the thought and often of the language, it is by no means true that the words are
always the same. No believer doubts that the Spirit brought all things to
remembrance, but not so as to make the writers machines. Their memories were
strengthened, made accurate, and then they related what they remembered in their
own words and style. While John has preserved to us the thoughts of Jesus, and
in great part his very words, there can be no doubt but that his record is
shaped by his own qualities of mind. It would be only natural that the style of
report should change somewhat with the reporter, even if the substance of all
the reports should be the same.

4. There is not a real parable in the whole of the Fourth Gospel, a fact partly
accounted for by the principle that parables were delivered to unbelievers in
the hope that thus a seed of truth might be received that would afterwards bring
forth fruit, while the longest discourses of John are to the disciples, to whom
Christ did not speak in parables. Nor does he give the sermon on the Mount, the
Prayer taught the disciples, nor an account of the institution of the Lord’s
Supper, or of Christian Baptism, or of the Ascension of our Lord. At the same
time he presents the spiritual significance of both baptism (chapter III.) and
of the Supper (chapter VI.); nor does he give a list of the Twelve, though he
often alludes to them; nor mention the prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem,
probably because it had fallen before he wrote; nor use the word "church,"
though he alludes to it under other designations. These differences, as well as
others that might be noted, show that John wrote at a later date, and while not
aiming to supply a supplemental Gospel, was not careful to state facts that
could be clearly understood from what had been already written by the other
Evangelists. Nor should we fail to note that he does not give a single instance
of the Savior casting out demons, a fact easily explained when we bear in mind
that the miracles narrated were chosen bemuse of their bearing on the object
before the writer’s mind. It has been inferred from this by some that John did
not believe in demoniac possession, although it is plainly recognized by him on
several occasions. We might just as well draw an argument from the fact that
John gives no account of the healing of a leper, or of causing the dumb to
speak.

5. Nor will any one study this "Crown of the Gospels" to the best purpose who
loses sight of the fact that it was written for a specific purpose which the
author himself has declared. Whatever heresies he may have sought to correct his
great aim was to create faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (John
20:31). The proposition that he sought to establish had two parts: (1) That he
is the Christ of whom the Jewish prophets had spoken, and (2) That he is the Son
of God, or God manifest in the flesh. This proposition is before him from
beginning to end, and his selections from the words and acts of Christ all look
toward the establishment of this double proposition. In support of it he arrays,
(1) The witness of John; (2) The witness of the Jewish Scriptures; (3) The
witness of seven typical miracles of Christ; (4) The witness of the Father; (5)
The witness of his own words, words of him "who spake as never man spake;" (6)
The witness of apostles, himself and others to his resurrection from the dead.
Then he closes the direct record with these words: "Many other signs truly did
Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But
these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God; and that believing you might have life through his name."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: 01.03.     APPENDIX - 3-COMMENTARIES AND STANDARDS ON THE BIRTH OF WATER AND SPIRIT
========================================================================

COMMENTARIES AND STANDARDS ON THE BIRTH OF WATER AND SPIRIT.

Inasmuch as there is some tendency, in the interest of a modern view of baptism,
to reject the interpretation that the church, in all ages, has placed on John
3:5, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God," I have taken pains to collate the views of a large number of
authorities upon the meaning to be attached to the phrase, "Birth of water." I
have quoted, in each instance, the words bearing on that feature.

Except he experience the great inward change of the Spirit, and be baptized
(wherever baptism can be had) as the outward sign and means of it.--Wesley’s
Notes.

Governing ourselves by the cardinal canon, that we are to understand Christ as
Christ expected his auditor to understand him, it cannot be difficult to
understand this declaration. . . . Nicodemus would then have certainly
understood by Christ’s expression, "born of water," a reference to
baptism.--Lyman Abbott’s Commentary on John.

Water signifies the baptism of John with Jesus Christ; by omitting this baptism,
the colleagues of Nicodemus despised the counsel of God.--The Critical English
Testament.

John himself declared that his baptism was incomplete,--it was only with water.
One was coming who should baptize with the Holy Ghost. That declaration of his
is the key to the understanding of this verse. Baptism, complete, with water and
the Spirit, is the admission into the kingdom of God.--Alford’s Greek Testament.
The preposition used (ek--out of), recalls the phrase "baptize,"--plunge--in
water, in Spirit .. Hence all interpretations which treat the term water as here
simply figurative and descriptive of the cleansing power of the Spirit are
essentially defective, as they are opposed to all ancient tradition.--Canon
Westcott in the Bible Commentary. The reference of the expression to baptism
(especially according to Titus 3:5) certainly is clear.--Olshausen’s Commentary.
The mention of water was intended to assist Nicodemus in understanding the
phrase, and to indicate its reference to baptism.--Tholuck. This regeneration,
which our church in so many places ascribes to baptism, is more than being
admitted into the church. ... This is grounded on the plain words of our Lord in
John 3:5. By water, then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated
or born again; whence it is called by the apostle, the washing of
Regeneration.--Doctrinal Tracts, M. E. Church Edition of 1825. The efficacy of
baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; "Except a
man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
John 3:5.--Westminster Confession of Faith, Art. Baptism.

Forasmuch as our Savior Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God
except he be regenerated and born anew of Water and of the Holy Ghost; I beseech
you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his
bounteous goodness he will grant to these persons that which by nature they
cannot have; that they may be baptized with Water and the Holy Ghost, and
received into Christ’s Holy Church, and be made lively members of the
same.--Book of Common Prayer, Art. Baptism.

"John said: I baptize with water; the One coming after baptizes with Spirit; but
Christ says: The baptism of both is necessary. One must be born of water and the
Spirit."--International Revision Commentary, Edited by Dr. Schaff. As really,
then, as salvation comprehends two facts, pardon and regeneration, so really did
Jesus sum in two words, Water and Spirit, the whole of salvation, and
consequently, man’s entrance into the kingdom.--Godet.

Then Jesus to explain his former meaning, answered, Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, and again repeat it, that unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, or in plain terms, whoever would become
a member of it must not only be baptized, but as ever he desires to share in its
spiritual and eternal blessings, he must experience the renewing and sanctifying
influences of the Holy Spirit on his soul.--Family Expositor by Dr. Philip
Doddridge. That our Lord here speaks of baptismal regeneration, the whole
Christian Church from the beginning hath always taught, and that with very good
reason, for, 1st. Though water is sometimes put to signify or represent the
purifying operations of the Holy Spirit, yet to be born of water is a phrase
never used in Scripture for being born of the Spirit; but very properly it is
used of that baptism which is the laver of regeneration and was by all the
ancients called paligenesia or regeneration. See Titus 3:5.--Commentary on New
Testament by Dr. Daniel Whitby.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: 01.04.     APPENDIX - 4-CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST
========================================================================

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST [FROM ANDREWS.]

Annunciation to Zacharias.

October,

6

B.C.

Annunciation to Mary.

April,

5

"

Mary visits Elizabeth, and remains three months.

April-June,

5

"

Birth of John the Baptist.

June,

5

"

Jesus Born at Bethlehem.

December,

5

"

The angel and the shepherds.

"

5

"

Presentation of Jesus.

February,

4

"

Coming of the Magi.

"

4

"

Flight of Jesus into Egypt.

"

4

"

Return to Nazareth and sojourn there.

May,

4

"

Jesus, at twelve years of age, attends the Passover.

April,

8

A. D.

John the Baptist begins his labors.

Summer,

26

"

Baptism of Jesus.

January,

27

"

Jesus tempted in the Wilderness.

Jan.-Feb.,

27

"

Deputation of priests and Levites to the Baptist.

February,

27

"

Jesus returns to Galilee.

"

27

"

Wedding at Cana of Galilee.

"

27

"

First Passover of Jesus’ ministry; cleansing of Temple.

April,

27

"

Jesus begins to baptize (by his disciples).

May,

27

"

Jesus departs into Galilee, through Samaria.

December,

27

"

A few weeks spent by Jesus in retirement.

Jan.-Apr.,

28

"

The Baptist Imprisoned.

March,

28

"

The second Passover; healing of impotent man.

April,

28

"

Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee.

April-May,

28

"

Calling of the four disciples, and healings at Capernaum.

"

28

"

First circuit in Galilee: healing of the leper.

May,

28

"

Return to Capernaum, and healing of the paralytic.

Summer,

28

"

Plucking the corn, and healing the man with withered hand.

"

28

"

Choice of apostles, and Sermon on the Mount.

"

28

"

Healing of centurion’s servant at Capernaum.

"

28

"

Journey to Nain, and raising of the widow’s son.

"

28

"

Message to Jesus of the Baptist.

"

28

"

Jesus anointed by the woman, a sinner.

Autumn,

28

"

Healing at Capernaum of the blind and dumb possessed; charge of the Pharisees
that He cast out devils by Beelzebub.

"

28

"

Teaching in Parables, and stilling of the tempest.

"

28

"

Healing of demoniacs in Gergessa, and return to Capernaum.

"

28

"

Matthew’s feast, healing of woman with issue of blood, and raising of Jairus’
daughter.

"

28

"

Healing of two blind men, and a dumb possessed; Pharisees Blaspheme.

"

28

"

Second visit to Nazareth; sending of the twelve.

Winter,

29

"

Death of the Baptist; Jesus returns to Capernaum.

"

29

"

Crossing of the Sea, and feeding of the five thousand; return to Capernaum.

Spring,

29

"

Discourse at Capernaum respecting the bread of life.

April,

29

"

Jesus visits the coasts of Tyre and Sidon; heals the daughter of the
Syro-Phoenician woman; visits the region of Decapolis; heals one with an
impediment in his speech; feeds the 4,000.

Summer,

29

"

Jesus returns to Capernaum; is tempted by the Pharisees; reproves their
hypocrisy; again crosses the sea; heals blind man at Bethsaida.

"

29

"

Peter’s confession that he is the Christ: the transfiguration.

"

29

"

Healing of lunatic child.

"

29

"

Jesus journeys through Galilee, teaching the disciples; at Capernaum pays the
tribute money; goes up to the feast of tabernacles.

Autumn,

29

"

He teaches in the temple; efforts to arrest him.

October,

29

"

An adulteress is brought before him; attempt to stone him; healing of a man
blind from birth; return to Galilee.

"

29

"

Final departure from Galilee; is rejected at Samaria; sending of the seventy.

November,

29

"

Jesus is attended by great multitudes; parable of the good Samaritan.

"

29

"

Healing of a dumb possessed man; renewed blasphemy of the Pharisees; dining with
a Pharisee, Jesus rebukes hypocrisy; parable of the rich fool.

Nov.-Dec.,

29

"

Jesus is told of the murder of the Galileans by Pilate; parable of the fig-tree;
healing of a woman eighteen years sick.

"

29

"

Feast of Dedication; visit to Mary and Martha: the Jews at Jerusalem attempt to
stone him; he goes beyond Jordan.

December,

29

"

Jesus dines with a Pharisee, and heals a man with dropsy; parables of the great
supper, of the lost sheep, of the lost piece of silver, of the unjust steward,
of the rich man and Lazarus.

"

29

"

Resurrection of Lazarus; counsel of the Jews to put him to death; he retires to
Ephraim.

Jan.-Feb.,

30

"

Sojourn in Ephraim till Passover at hand; journeys on the border of Samaria and
Galilee; healing of ten lepers; parables of the unjust judge, and of Pharisee
and publican; teaching respecting divorce; blessing of children; the young
ruler, and parable of laborers in the vineyard.

Feb.-Mar.,

30

"

Jesus again announces his death; ambition of James and John.

March,

30

"

Healing of blind men at Jericho; Zaccheus; parable of the pounds; departure to
Bethany.

"

30

"

Supper at Bethany and anointing of Jesus by Mary.

Sat., Apr. 1,

30

"

Entry into Jerusalem; visit to the temple, and return to Bethany.

Sun., " 2.

30

"

Cursing of the fig-tree; second purification of the temple; return to Bethany.

Mon., " 3.

30

"

Teaching in the temple; parables of the two sons; of the wicked husbandmen; of
the king’s son; attempts of his enemies to entangle him; the poor widow; the
Greeks who desire to see him; a voice heard from heaven, departure from the
temple to the Mount of Olives; discourse respecting the end of the world; return
to Bethany; agreement of Judas with the priests to betray him..

Tues, " 4,

30

"

Jesus seeks retirement at Bethany.

Wed., " 5,

30

"

Sending of Peter and John to prepare the Passover; the paschal supper.

Thurs. " 6,

30

"

Events at paschal supper.

Thur. eve., Apr. 6,

30

"

After supper Jesus foretells the denials of Peter, speaks of the coming of the
Comforter, and ends with prayer.

Thur. eve., Apr. 6,

30

"

Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Thur. eve., Apr. 6,

30

"

Jesus is given Into the hands of Judas.

Thur. mid-n’t, Apr. 6,

30

"

Jesus is led to the house of Annas, and thence to the palace of Caiaphas; is
condemned for blasphemy.

Fri. 1-5 A.M. Apr. 7,

30

"

Mockeries of his enemies: he is brought the second time before the council, and
thence taken before Pilate.

Fri. 5-6 A.M., Apr. 7,

30

"

Charge of sedition; Pilate attempts to release him, but is forced to scourge him
and give him up to be crucified.

Fri. 6-9 A.M. Apr. 7,

30

"

Jesus is crucified at Golgotha.

Fri. 9-12 A.M. Apr. 7,

30

"

Upon the cross is reviled by his enemies; commends his mother to John; darkness
covers the land; he dies; the earth shakes, and rocks are rent.

Fri. 12 M., 3 P.M., Apr. 7,

30

"

His body taken down and given to Joseph, and laid in his sepulchre.

Fri. 3-6 P.M., Apr. 7,

30

"

Resurrection of Jesus, and appearance to Mary Magdalene.

Sun. A.M., Apr. 9,

30

"

Appearance to the two disciples at Emmaus; to Peter and to the eleven at
Jerusalem.

Sun. P.M., Apr. 9,

30

"

Appearance to the apostles and Thomas.

Sun. Apr. 16,

30

"

Appearance to seven disciples at Sea of Tiberias, and to 500 at mountain in
Galilee.

Apr.-May,

30

"

Final appearance to the disciples at Jerusalem, and ascension to heaven.

Thur., May 18,

30

"


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 01.05.     APPENDIX - 5-THE ANALYSIS OF JOHN - THE ANALYSIS OF JOHN.
========================================================================

The plan of John is much more systematic, clear and simple than those of the
other three Evangelists. It will be a help in a connected study of this part of
Holy Scripture to have an analysis. I am indebted to Dr. Schaff for the outlines
of the following plan, though I have modified and condensed the view he gives in
his History of the Apostolic Church. I have marked by a star those sections
which are not found in the other Gospels.

*I. THE PROLOGUE. John 1:1-18.

(1) The Word in Relation to God. John 1:1-2. (2) The Word in Relation to the
World. John 1:3-5. (3) The Word in Relation to John the Baptist and the Jews.
John 1:6-13. (4) The Word Made Flesh. John 1:14-18.

II. MANIFESTATION OF THE WORD IN LIFE AND WORK. John 1:19-51, John 2:1-25, John
3:1-36, John 4:1-54, John 5:1-47, John 6:1-71, John 7:1-53, John 8:1-59, John
9:1-41, John 10:1-42, John 11:1-57, John 12:1-50.

*(1) John bearing witness of and pointing to the Lamb of God. John 1:19-37. *(2)
Gathering of the First Disciples. John 1:38-51. *(3) The First Miracle. John
2:1-11. First sojourn in Capernaum. John 2:12. First Passover at Jerusalem. John
2:13. *(4) First Cleansing of the Temple. John 2:14-25. *(5) Conversation with
Nicodemus and the New Birth. John 3:1-21. *(6) Labors of Christ in Judea. The
Testimony of John the Baptist. John 3:22-36. *(7) Labors in Samaria. At Jacob’s
Well. The Samaritan Woman. John 4:1-42. (8) Public Teaching in Galilee. John
4:43-45. Compare Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:14. *(9) Nobleman’s Son at
Capernaum Healed. John 4:46-54. *(10) Second Journey to Jerusalem to a Feast
supposed to be the Passover; The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda. John 5:1-18.
The Beginning of the Enmity of the Jews that finally led to the Crucifixion. The
discourse of Christ on his Relation to the Father. John 5:19-47. *(11) The
Feeding of the Five Thousand and the Stilling of the Tempest. John 6:1-21. *(12)
The discourse on the Bread of Life. John 6:22-71. *(13) Third Visit to
Jerusalem, at the Feast of Tabernacles. The Discourse at the Temple. The
Increase of Hostility. Attempt to Seize the Lord. John 7:1-52. *(14) The Woman
taken in Adultery. John 7:53, John 8:1-11. *(15) Discourse on the Light of the
World. The Children of God and the Children of the Evil One. Attempt to Stone
Jesus. John 8:12-59. *(16) The Healing of the Man Born Blind, on a Sabbath; His
Testimony of the Pharisees. John 9:1-41. *(17) The Good Shepherd, the Sheepfold
and the Sheep. John 10:1-21. *(18) Discourse at the Feast of Dedication in
Solomon’s Porch. John 10:22-39. *(19) Departure to the Country beyond the
Jordan. John 10:40-42. *(20) The Resurrection of Lazarus at Bethany, and its
effect in increasing the Enmity of the Jews. The Counsel of Caiaphas. John
11:1-53. *(21) Jesus retires to Ephraim. John 11:54-57. (22) The Anointing by
Mary at Bethany at the Feast. John 12:1-8. (23) The Counsel of the Chief
Priests. John 12:9-11. (24) The Entry into Jerusalem as a King. John 12:12-19.
Compare Matthew 21:1-17, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:29-44. *(25) The Visit of the
Greeks to Jesus. Discourse on the Grain of Wheat that must die to bear Fruit.
The Voice from Heaven. John 12:20-50.

It will be observed that, thus far, most of the matter is peculiar to John. The
same is true of the discourses to the disciples which now follow.

III. CHRIST MANIFESTED TO HIS DISCIPLES. The time is during the last Passover
week. The place is Jerusalem. John 13:1-38, John 14:1-31, John 15:1-27, John
16:1-33, John 17:1-26.

*(1) Jesus washes the feet of his Disciples at the Passover Meal. John 13:1-20.
(2) He Announces the Traitor and Judas departs. John 13:21-30. *(3) The New
Commandment of Love. (The Lord’s Supper supposed to be Instituted.) John
13:31-35. (4) Peter’s Denial Predicted. John 13:36-38. *(5) The Farewell
Discourses to the Disciples. The House of Many Mansions. The Father in the Son.
The Conditions of Enjoying the Divine Presence. Promise of Answer to Prayer.
Benediction of Peace. John 14:1-33. *(6) The Promise of the Comforter. The Work
of the Spirit. John 15:1-27. *(7) The True Vine and the Branches. The Spirit and
the World. John 16:1-33. *(8) The Prayer for the Apostles; for Believers in all
ages; for the Unity of the Church. John 17:1-26.

IV. CHRIST LIFTED UP; ON THE CROSS. FROM THE TOMB. John 18:1-40, John 19:1-42,
John 20:1-31.

(1) Passage of the Kedron and the Betrayal. John 18:1-11. (2) Jesus before the
High Priest. John 18:12-24. (3) Peter’s Denial. John 18:15-27. (4) Jesus before
Pilate the Roman Governor. John 18:28-40, John 19:1-16. (5) The Crucifixion.
John 19:17-37. (6) The Burial of Christ. John 18:38-42. (7) The Resurrection.
Mary Magdalene, John and Peter at the empty tomb. John 20:1-10. (8) Christ
appears to Mary Magdalene on the first Lord’s day. John 20:11-18. *(9) Christ
appears to the Apostles. Thomas not present. John 20:19-23. *(10) Christ appears
to all the Apostles, Thomas included, on the second Lord’s day. John 20:26-29.
*(11) The object of John’s Gospel. Written in order to cause men to believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. John 20:30-31.

* THE APPENDIX AND EPILOGUE. John 21:1-25.

While the other Gospels allude to the appearance of the risen Lord in Galilee
the incidents of this chapter are narrated only by John.

(1) Christ appears to Seven Disciples on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The
third time he had revealed himself to his Apostles. John 21:1-14. (2) The
Dialogue with Simon Peter. His Restoration. John 21:15-22. (3) The intimation
concerning John tarrying until he came. John 21:21-23. (4) The attestation to
the authorship of the Gospel. John 21:24-25. An examination of the stars
prefixed to the sections peculiar to John will show how far his history is
independent of the other Gospels. Up to the beginning of the eighteenth chapter
only five incidents are named, I believe, which are narrated by the other
writers. The accounts of the trial, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and
appearances, are more nearly parallel, but the last chapter is, again, entirely
new matter. These facts serve to show how much of the Savior’s words and life
would have been lost to the world if the Fourth Gospel had never been written.
They also demonstrate the infinite resources from whence the Gospel historians
drew their accounts; resources so vast, that after three historians wrote the
life of the Redeemer, a fourth was still able to write another history, in full
harmony with what was already written, but composed almost entirely of new
matter, not less important or interesting than what had already been narrated.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: 02.0.1. CHRIST AND THE FUTURE LIFE
========================================================================

Christ and the Future Life B. W. Johnson (1891) Originally appeared in: THE OLD
FAITH RESTATED BEING A RESTATEMENT, BY REPRESENTATIVE MEN, OF THE FUNDAMENTAL
TRUTHS AND ESSENTIAL DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY AS HELD AND ADVOCATED BY THE
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST IN THE LIGHT OF EXPERIENCE AND OF BIBLICAL RESEARCH.

EDITED BY J. H. GARRISON, A. M., Author of "Heavenward Way," "Alone With God,"
etc., and Editor of The Christian-Evangelist.

ST. LOUIS: CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.

COPYRIGHTED BY CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1891.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: 02.0.2.     TABLE OF CONTENTS
========================================================================

Table of Contents

Biographical Sketch of B. W. Johnson by J. H. Garrison

Christ and the Future Life

The Hope of the Ancient World.

Life and Immortality Brought to Light.

The Basis of Our Hope.

The Hope of the Saints.

Heaven.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: 02.0.3.     BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF B.W. JOHNSON BY J.H. GARRISON
========================================================================

Biographical Sketch of B.W. Johnson by J.H. Garrison

B. W. JOHNSON.

BARTON W. JOHNSON was born in 1833, in a log cabin on a clearing in Tazewell
County, Illinois. His ancestry, on both sides, is of stock which had settled in
this country before the Revolution; his father’s parents were South Carolinians;
his mother was born in Tennessee. His early education was such as could be
obtained in a backwoods school, on a farm, and from the few books he could buy
or borrow. In his eighteenth year he commenced to study at Walnut Grove Academy,
now Eureka College, where he attended for two years. Then, after teaching for
one year, he went to Bethany College in 1854. At that time the college was
presided over by Alexander Campbell, aided by such professors as R. Milligan, W.
K. Pendleton, R. Richardson, and others of less note. In 1856 he graduated in a
class of twenty-seven, the honors of which were divided between him and W. A.
Hall, of Tennessee. In the fall of 1856, be engaged in a school in Bloomington,
Ill., preaching on Sundays in the vicinity. The next year he took a position in
Eureka College, where he remained in all seven years, two years as its
president. In 1863, he acted as corresponding and financial secretary of the
American Missionary Society, and was re-elected to that position at the
convention of 1864, but he declined to continue, having accepted the chair of
mathematics in Bethany College. Here he remained two years, until after the
death of Alexander Campbell, when he returned to the west. After a pastoral
charge at Lincoln, Ill., he accepted the presidency of Oskaloosa College, in
connection with the care of the Church at Oskaloosa. A failure of health
compelled him to cease teaching two years later, but he continued to preach for
the congregation for four more years. In the meantime, THE EVANGELIST, long
published as a monthly, had assumed a weekly form, and he became its editor. For
about sixteen years he has been engaged in editorial work; on THE EVANGELIST, in
Oskaloosa and Chicago, and subsequently on the CHRISTIAN-EVANGELIST in St.
Louis. In the meantime he has written several books which have had a wide
circulation: The Vision of the Ages, Commentary on John, The People’s Testament,
in two octavo volumes, and the successive volumes of the Christian Lesson
Commentary, from 1886 to the present time. In the summer of 1858 he was united
in marriage to Miss Sarah S. Allen, of Bloomington, Ill., who has made him a
devoted and self-sacrificing companion. Three children, all living, have been
borne to the marriage. In his Bible studies he had been made to feel the need of
a personal knowledge of the places mentioned in the Bible, of the people,
manners and scenes of the east; and hence, in the summer of 1889 he crossed the
Atlantic. During his absence of between four and five months, he visited Great
Britain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey in Asia, Palestine and
Egypt. The enforced absence from his desk was of great advantage to his health,,
which had become somewhat impaired by his arduous labors. If his life is spared,
additional volumes will in due time appear from his pen, which are already in
preparation. [398-B]


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: 02.01.     THE HOPE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
========================================================================

THE HOPE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. When the curtain rises in the drama of humanity,
one of the first scenes revealed is the discussion of the riddle of human life.
What is man? Is he a worm, or is he a god? When he dies, does he "surrender his
individual being and go to mix with the elements, to be a brother to the rock
and to the clod which the rude swain treads upon?" Is he dust and does he return
to dust, or has he a divine and deathless spark which shall survive the
dissolution of the body, the grave, and even the wreck of worlds?

Probably no one of the mysteries of which our anxious souls ask the solution has
had so painful and absorbing an interest as that question of the ages: "If a man
die, shall he live again?" When the first parents stood over the bruised body of
their slain second born, they confronted the great problem, and it is hardly
indulging the imagination to suppose that the heart of the great mother
suggested to her a hope, even while her tears were falling over the sad fate, of
her son. Since that first funeral and first grave of the world, there has been a
battle between human hopes and fears. On the one hand, to outward appearances
the grave seemed to end all. The last breath is succeeded by the death pallor,
dissolution, and the disappearance from human sight, apparently forever. As far
as the ken of the senses can go, they have seemed to say that man died and
perished as the worm, or, as the brute. Where are the millions of the fathers of
our race? Where are the storied heroes of the past? Where are the pious and the
good who served the world so well that it will not let their memories die? On
the other hand, there has always and everywhere been some kind of intimation,
whether from without or within, from nature or from revelation, which has filled
the world with a vague hope. This was shown when the old patriarchs so carefully
carried their dead, even from afar, to the cave of Machpelah in the Promised
Land. The afflicted sage of the Land of Uz, in the midst of his sorrows, cried
out in exultation as his soul caught a glimpse of the future life. When the
Egyptians brought their dead to the embalmer, spared no art to render the
lifeless body imperishable, laid it away in rock hewn tombs and sealed it up
from the destroying hand of time, they did it in the hope of a final reunion of
the soul and body. The great sages of southern Asia attempted to solve the
problem by the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. The soul which left a
dying body entered into some other body, whether of man or beast, and lived
again. The Greek myths and poets painted the Elysian Fields and Tartarus as the
homes of disembodied spirits; the Sagas of northern Europe pictured Walhalla as
the abode of departed heroes; the American Indians sent theirs to the Happy
Hunting Grounds; the Chinese worship their ancestors as living and divine.
Indeed, wherever men have been found, as soon as their language and life is
understood, it is found that in some form, however vague and imperfect, their
thought has been colored by an intimation of immortality. So general is the
diffusion of this hope that Cicero in his Tusculan Disputations makes the
argument that a universal belief can only be accounted for by referring it to a
divine intuition, and hence, that the belief in a future life is due to God’s
voice in the human soul whispering to it that the grave does not end all.

Yet we always come away dissatisfied after endeavoring to silence our fears, and
to give our hopes a basis of certainty, by listening to the arguments drawn from
human philosophy. The death of the old year, the suspended life of the winter
season, and the resurrection of the spring whisper a hope. The transformations
of the worm after its burial in the chrysalis to a glorious winged life seem
like a corroboration. The fact that the noblest minds are often found in those
"whose bodily presence is contemptible," in feeble and diseased earthly prison
houses, shows that the life, is something distinct from matter. The fact that we
often observe the mind in a slowly dying body as vigorous as ever until the
moment of separation seems to teach the same lesson. Then, too, the personal
consciousness of every man declares to him that the body is only the clay
tenement in which he, the Ego, dwells. I speak of "’my arm," "my head," "my
body," and contemplate them all as my servants. I do not regard them as Me, but
as Mine. But there is something, the Ego, that is myself, and it is impossible
to think of myself apart from this. This self is one, a unit. I am therefore
conscious of an existence of which the body is one of the possessions and the
dwelling place. Why, if this something is not the body, may it not change its
home as we change dwellings, and take another dwelling such as pleaseth Him who
made both body and spirit?

Then again, to pursue this line of thought a little farther, free will is a
matter of consciousness. We know that we weigh motives and exercise choice. We
know that we are free moral agents. But matter is subject to immutable laws.
Matter can never exercise choice, and hence is not a moral agent. Mr. Darwin
says that "free will is a mystery insoluble to the naturalist." If matter cannot
will, and we can, it follows that there is something dwelling in our bodies, the
Ego, which is not matter. The life itself, that which constitutes our personal
identity, must then be immaterial and spiritual since it is not subject to the
laws of matter. Hence, the dissolution of the body does not necessarily end its
existence. And there is yet another argument which has carried weight. The
lesson of God’s great world is that where he has created wants he has also
furnished the means of supplying those wants. There are mutual correspondences.
There is air for the lungs; light for the eye; sounds for the ear. The body
hungers and thirsts and God furnishes the harvest and the crystal stream. He has
given to every species what it needs in its environment. But shall we say that
the great Heavenly Father has provided the means of supplying every sense, every
lower want, and yet has utterly denied the intense longing planted in every soul
for life? "All that a man hath will he give for life;" ease, property, comfort,
home. The whole soul cries for life.

"It is life whereof our nerves are scant, Thee, O life, not death for which we
pant, More life, fuller life, is what we want."

Nay, all nature declares that He who has answered every lower want of our being,
would not close his ears to the universal, never ceasing, agonizing cry of his
children for life. Who will say that when millions of hands are outstretched to
God as they cry for life that the Heavenly Father thrusts them back and pushes
all his weeping children into hopeless graves!

These arguments are noted, not in order to exhaust this source, but to indicate
the kind of evidences which nature provides. Yet, in spite of all, the natural
world has left man with his doubts, his hopes and his fears. If there was a
Cicero who could argue immortality from an eternal hope, there was also a Cæsar
who could declare in his speech in the Senate on the fate of the Cataline
Conspirators that death is an eternal sleep. If there was a Socrates who could
insist, as he received the hemlock, on the immortality of the soul, there was
also a Cebes who could dispute the fact of future, existence with the dying
philosopher. If there were Platonists who declared that the soul was deathless,
there were also Epicureans who claimed that in this life was our only hope, and
hence that it was the part of wisdom to give full rein to pleasure, because
to-morrow we die. If there were Pharisees who believed in a future world, there
were also Sadducees who denied that there was angel, spirit, or the resurrection
of the dead. Cato, when all hope of the Republic had been crushed out by Cæsar’s
legions, might read in his last hours Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the
soul, but its pages furnished no prospect which stayed his hand, when, in
despair, he turned the dagger upon his heart.

Indeed there was little in the vision of immortality vouchsafed before Christ
came that could fill men with joyous hope. The poets could touch their harps to
sing of the beauties of the Elysian Fields, but the departed heroes who made
them their eternal abodes were empty shades who looked back with longing on the
real joys of the earthly life. Socrates, the greatest saint of the pagan world,
could, in the moment of departure, speak words of consolation to his weeping
friends, but in the same breath he declared that whether the change would better
his condition he could not tell. Death was a departure from the known to the
unknown; a leap into an unexplored abyss awful in its silence and mystery. Even
when Plato and Cicero exhausted their powers, all that they wrought was to
convince their countrymen of the deathless existence of the soul. They had no
power to reveal a heaven that would brighten their lives with the radiance of an
eternal hope. That was reserved for Him who is the Resurrection and the Life.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: 02.02.     LIFE AND IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT
========================================================================

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT.

We have just seen how feeble and glimmering was the light of eternal hope in the
pre-Christian world; too faint and uncertain to be a strong power and
consolation when the great horror of darkness came down upon the dying soul. Men
might submit themselves to the inevitable decree with philosophic resignation,
but there was no glorious hope in death. The sublimest height of the old-world
faith was reached when the Psalmist could exclaim, "Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." There was no voice in all
the ancient world except that of a, prophet who caught a glimpse of a brighter
morning and put in words the hope of a better age, which could cry in triumphant
exultation, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory now?"

It was a new era which dawned upon the world’s hopes when the Man of Calvary
entered upon his work. A new key-note is at once discovered in history, when we
open the pages of the New Testament. "He hath abolished death, and hath brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel." From some cause, the old
fears have passed away, and the world is stepping to the music inspired by a new
hope. The first martyr of the church, in the crisis of his fate, has a vision of
the opened heavens and the Risen Lord, and dies with prayers upon his lips for
his murderers. The mightiest apostle of the new religion, in the midst of a life
of "weariness and painfulness," of want, suffering and ceaseless persecution and
peril of death, could exclaim: "Our light affliction which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. . . . For we
know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a
building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." And when
his weary course was run to the end, out of the depths of his Roman prison he
could look serenely at the scaffold and the headman’s axe prepared for him, and
speak with radiant hope of the "crown of righteousness" which would soon, rest
upon his immortal brow. If I had to choose a single sentence which would
compress within its limits the attitude of the new dispensation with reference
to death and a future life, it would be that of the voice from heaven, "Blessed
are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that
they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." From that time
onward saints could be found who cheerfully accepted the crown of martyrdom, and
rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer somewhat for a Savior who had
filled their souls with glorious hope. Nor is it difficult to account for this
blessed hope which had been begotten in human hearts. The one all-sufficient
explanation is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The world had other great religious
teachers before the Man of Nazareth, such as Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster and
Confucius, but never had a teacher, Jew or Gentile, inspired or uninspired,
appeared upon the earth who had dared to take upon his lips other than the
timid, hesitating, lisping words of mortal man. It was a new era when one in the
flesh, as the Son of Man, could declare in language only fitting for Divine
lips, "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE." Never before had there been One
walking among mortals who could claim the high prerogative of holding the keys
of death and Hades, and the power to deliver man from their dominion. Never
before had prophet or sage spoken such mighty words as, "The hour is coming in
which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and
shall come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life, and
they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation;" "He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die;" "I am the Bread of Life;" "I am the Way, the Truth and
the Life;" "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."

Such Godlike words might possibly have been held to be the wild ravings of a
crazy enthusiast had they not been spoken by one who was Godlike in every
feature, in life, in teachings, in death, and in the mighty transforming power
he has wrought in the history of our race. "Never did man speak like this man."
"He speaks as one who has authority, not as the scribes." Never has the earth
seen a teacher of such equipoise, seemingly such a master of every subject;
never at a loss, never confused, never mistaken, apparently in possession of the
keys of all knowledge, and familiar with every mystery. "In him was no darkness
at all," and to him all, whether past, present or future, in this world or the
world to come, was clear as the sunlight of heaven. It would be utterly
impossible that a character so peerless in the judgment of all the world,
unbelieving as well as believing, should speak wild and foolish words on the
subject of death and future existence. It is contrary to all the probabilities
that one who had analyzed the human heart and life as had never been done before
by mortal man, one who has been demonstrated by the wisdom and experience of
eighteen centuries, to have spoken calm, deliberate, unerring truth on
ninety-nine subjects out of the hundred, should have indulged in idle, vain,
blasphemous and false boastings on the hundredth theme. Is it conceivable that
the lips, which the universal judgment of man declares to be the lips of
embodied truth, were defiled by falsehood when they declared to man the words of
Eternal Hope!

There is another aspect in which Christ and the Gospel differ from all other
teachers and their systems. There has been no founder of any other religion who,
while still a living teacher, staked his religion upon his triumph over death,
and from whose tomb a church sprang into existence, and into power, buoyant with
the hope of immortality demonstrated by his own resurrection from the dead.
Judaism left Moses sleeping in the lonely sepulcher of Mount Nebo. No Chinese or
Buddhist Bible tells how the stone was rolled away from the sepulcher of
Confucius or Gautama, and how they rose again to cheer their despairing
disciples by their presence and by the promise of a like victory over the grave.
As far as the dim legends of Zoroaster tell us, when he died he went to the same
"towers of silence" as all his followers. The Mohammedan, borrowing a hope from
Christianity, believes that his Prophet is in Paradise, but has never dared to
affirm that he has been seen by mortal vision since his body was placed in the
tomb at Mecca. And in more recent times, though Mormonism adores the murdered
Joseph Smith as a saint, a prophet and a martyr, as well as the founder of their
faith, they have never risked the proclamation of his resurrection from the
dead. In contrast with all other religions of humanity, Christianity bounded
into existence big with the hope of immortality, and pointed to the empty tomb
and to the Risen Lord as the demonstration of its hope. Peter, a craven while
his Lord was in the hands of his enemies, has now been transformed by some new
element into a hero, and fifty days after the tragedy of the cross, declares to
the men who had crucified his Master, "Him . . whom ye have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain, God hath raised up. . . . Whereof we all are
witnesses;" and the Twelve who fled in terror when their leader was seized, "all
witness with great power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." The burden of
every sermon was the resurrection of the Savior, and eternal life. So it was in
the first sermon; so it was again in the discourse at the Beautiful Gate. The
one thing that turned upon the church the rage of the Sadducean rulers was that
"they were grieved that the apostles taught the people, and preached through
Jesus the resurrection from the dead." Indeed, the gospel, which in its mighty
workings wrought out a church whose progress could not be stayed by sword or
fagot, or by all the might of Sanhedrim or Cæsar, was the gospel of a Risen
Lord. That was the "old Jerusalem gospel," and it was no less the gospel which
wrought out the transformation of the Gentile world. "I delivered unto you,"
writes the greatest of the apostles to a Gentile church which he had founded,
"first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the
third day according to the Scriptures." The faith of Christianity that "Christ
is the Resurrection and the Life, and that he rose from the tomb as the first
fruits of them that slept," is a full explanation of the new hope, joy and
inspiration which came into human life from the tomb of our Lord.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: 02.03.     THE BASIS OF OUR HOPE
========================================================================

THE BASIS OF OUR HOPE.

Future existence is not future life in the full and blessed sense in which the
phrase is used by our Savior. Even the wicked may exist "where the worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched." Nor is existence here on earth recognized by
him as life. In him was life, and in him The Life walked and moved in a world
that was lying dead in trespasses and sins, which he invited to him in order
that he might have life. Those who received him were born to a new life received
from him, and henceforth were moved by the power of an eternal hope. For them
eternal life had begun, and what we call death was only a transit to a higher
stage of its existence in which all the ills of "this present evil world" were
left behind.

Hence the intimations of nature that the spirit of man survives the passage of
death fall short, when we seek proof from these sources of the blissful
immortality which is the promised inheritance of the Christian. If I were asked
for the basis on which our hope of a happy state in the eternal world rests, and
was required to give the answer in a single word, that word would be CHRIST.
Upon him hang all our hopes. In him all proofs center. He is the Light that
illumines not only this world, but which casts its rays through the gloom that
gathers around the mysteries of death, and reveals a Better Land. To me the
future is not hopeless death, nor even a shadowy and uncertain a existence, but
a joyous and inspiring hope, because I believe with all my heart that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God. It is he "who hath abolished death, and hath brought
life and immortality to light." When the stone was rolled from the door of the
sepulcher in which the body was lain it was rolled from the hopes of humanity,
and when he came forth living it was not only a triumph over death, but the
beginning of a new era, the birth of a new world.

I shall not take space to discuss the proofs of the resurrection of the
crucified Lord. They have been ably considered in other portions of the series
to which I am only contributing a part. It is sufficient now to quote the
testimony of Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, Regius Professor of History in the
University of Oxford, and himself the author of a number of valuable historical
works, who declares: "I have been used for many years to study the history of
other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written
about them; and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved
by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the mind of a fair inquirer,
than that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

"Why should it be thought incredible that one should rise from the dead?"
Indeed, this is far less incredible than to believe that the church which rose
out of the tomb of Christ, based upon faith in his resurrection, was based upon
a delusion; that the suffering martyrs, who gave up all that the world values,
and endured every trial and sorrow that causes the world to shrink and shudder,
were either deceived by the conviction that they had seen the Risen Lord, or
were deceivers; and that Saul of Tarsus, the bitterest of persecutors, was
transformed into the saintly Paul, the apostle, the apostle of prisons, stripes,
weariness, painfulness, hunger, cold and nakedness, by an optical illusion! The
resurrection of Jesus Christ must be accepted as a historical fact, unless we
plant ourselves upon the dictum of Hume, accepted by Huxley, that "no testimony
can prove a miracle."

Yet, if the resurrection of Jesus stood alone it would not furnish an
impregnable basis for our hope. If the voice of Jesus had remained silent
concerning the wonders of the divine love, and there had no promise of eternal
life for man fallen from his lips, we would still be left in doubt concerning
our future. Indeed, the resurrection did not take place, primarily, in order to
demonstrate that we should live beyond the tomb. It was the primary purpose of
the resurrection to demonstrate that the crucified Jesus was the Christ, the Son
of God. The Sanhedrim condemned him to death for blasphemy because, in reply to
their own question, he had affirmed his high claims. When they had nailed him to
the cross, Sanhedrists, populace, and Roman soldiers, all taunted him with his
inability to prove that he was the Christ by coming down. And when the lifeless
body was sealed in the tomb, they felt that the demonstration was complete, that
he was either a deluded fanatic or an impostor. So it would have been had the
tomb held him. Had he seen corruption, the lot of mortality, his very name would
have been forgotten. But he had affirmed, "On this rock," the rock of the
fundamental truth that he is the Christ, the Son of God, "I will build my
church, and the gates of Hades (the great unseen world of death) shall not
prevail against it." The Jewish nation declared that these gates should prevail,
and that question between the words of Christ and the Sanhedrim was at issue
during the three days that the stone closed the door of the sepulcher, and of
human hopes. But on that glad Sunday morning the stone was rolled away! The
sepulcher was empty! The Lord is risen indeed! The accounts of the women were
not idle tales. Simon hath seen him! Nay, all have seen him but the skeptical
Thomas. Nay, one week later, Thomas, convinced, exclaims, "My Lord and my God!"
Five hundred disciples see him at once, and last of all, as one born out of due
time, the raging persecutor sees him on the way to Damascus. Then on Pentecost,
a mighty power descends on the little band of saints, and as Israel gathered in
wonder, Peter declared to the men of Judea and Jerusalem that "Him whom ye have
taken, and with wicked hands crucified and slain, God hath raised, having loosed
the pangs of death, because it was not possible that he be holden of it. . . .
This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. . . . . God hath
made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." The gates
of Hades did not prevail against this grand truth, the foundation of the church.
The resurrection demonstrates that Jesus, the condemned, the crucified, is both
Lord and Christ. But if Lord and Christ, the seal of the living God is placed
upon every word that has fallen from his tongue. When he, in the flesh, uttered
those words in which Omnipotence seemed to speak with human lips, "I am the
Resurrection and the Life;" "I am come that ye may have life, and have it more
abundantly;" "Because I live, ye shall live also;" "He that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die;" "They that are in their graves shall hear the voice of
the Son of Man, and they that hear shall live;" and when he declared that in the
last day he should say to his followers, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you;" when he uttered these and many other words
equally gracious, it was the voice of him who holds the Keys of Life, of Death
and Hades, which spoke. When he, whom the resurrection demonstrates to be the
"Brightness of the Father’s glory," speaks, we who have heard him have heard the
voice of the Father, whose offspring we are. And we know that if we have
fellowship with his life and death that we shall have the fellowship of his
resurrection also. He is Life; he is Immortality. Because he lives we shall live
also.

Yet one more sweet thought full of hope comes from the demonstration that Jesus
came into the world to show us, not only the Father’s will, but the Father
Himself. In him we behold how the Father loves us. We hear it in his words. He
tells us that if we want a definition of God, it is comprehended in the one word
LOVE. Yet love will never let what is loved die if it can have its will. He who
loves a flower or a singing bird, is saddened if it dies. A mother’s love would
hold back her child as it is drawn towards the gates of death, and would even
give her own life that it might live. Love would always dower the loved one with
life. Hence, when we look up to the great God, and know as we see his face that
we are gazing upon the depths of an utterable love, then there comes to us the
unfaltering conviction that the Omnipotent Father is not deaf to his children’s
cry, will not thrust back the hands extended in supplication, and that even of
his own will, because love is not death, but life, he will dower them with
immortality and eternal peace.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: 02.04.     THE HOPE OF THE SAINTS
========================================================================

THE HOPE OF THE SAINTS. When the risen Lord finally bade adieu to his disciples
on the eastern, slope of the Mount of Olives and disappeared behind the curtain
of the clouds, he left behind him a great and inspiring hope. That hope not only
changed the lives of the disciples who had followed him on the earth, but has
changed the current of human history. It was that which made the saints of the
apostolic age disdain threats, trials, hardships, poverty, prisons, scourgings,
sword and fagot, and move steadily onward in the work of imparting to the world
their own blessed hope. It was the assurance of a glorious immortality bestowed
by Christ, and in fellowship with Christ, that led those who turned away from
Judaism or Paganism to the gospel to seek to purify themselves even as he is
pure. When the philosophical historian seeks to account for the wonderful change
that gradually shows itself in the moral condition of the world, he cannot fail
to recognize the new hope as one of the most powerful factors. Pliny, in the
closing years of the first century, takes note of the fact that this hope had
disarmed the persecuting power of imperial Rome of all its terrors. What cared
the saint for the flames of martyrdom when he felt a firm assurance that they
were only another chariot of fire which would carry him, like the Tishbite, up
to heaven and to God?

What was the nature of this hope which has been such an inspiration to mankind?
When the Lord was about to go away from the earth he assured his disciples that
he was going in order to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house, and
that he would return to take them to himself that they might dwell there with
him. There seems good reason for believing, notwithstanding the positive
statements of the Savior, that the time of his second personal coming was known
only to the Father, that the early church was in expectation of his speedy
appearance once more upon the earth. Yet they soon realized the fulfillment of
the promise in their own experiences. He came to Stephen when he was suffering a
martyr’s death, and the dying saint was permitted to look up and see the heavens
opened and the Lord standing ready to receive him. So he came to James, the
brother of John, when he was killed by the sword of Herod. So he came to
apostles, saints and martyrs, and they obeyed the summons in the joyful
expectation that what men call death is a deliverance, a great gain, a release
from bondage, the passage to eternal honors. The first fact that I wish to lay
emphasis upon is, that they regarded death as an immediate deliverance. There
was no thought of a sleep of ages upon ages before the eternal awakening. There
is no hint of a long period of unconsciousness which lasts until the final
trumpet of the archangel. There was no cloud across the heaven of their hope
which suggested years or centuries of purgatorial suffering. On the other hand,
the saints closed their eyes on the scenes of earth with the belief that they
would at once open them in the brightness of that country which needs no sun. To
the penitent sufferer by his side the dying Savior said, "To-day shalt thou be
with me in Paradise." As the martyred Stephen was suffering his death wounds, he
saw the heavens already opened to receive him. The apostle Paul declares that if
the earthly body is dissolved, there is ready another body, "a building of God,
a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," and declares that "we
groan" while clothed in the flesh for the heavenly clothing which our spirits
shall wear when the earthly garments of the flesh shall be laid aside. In the
same connection (2 Corinthians 5:1-21) he says that to dwell in the body is to
be absent from the Lord, and he declares that he would "rather be absent from
the body, and to be present with the Lord." And again, in writing to the
Philippians, he declares that for him to die would be gain; yet for him to
continue to live in the flesh is of advantage to the churches; hence he "is in a
strait between two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is
better." In the Pauline theology death is simply the departure of the spirit
from the body. In the case of the Christian, the earthly tabernacle is
dissolved, he departs from it; he then receives a new body fitted to his new
sphere of existence; a spiritual body, a "building of God;" to depart from the
body is to "be with Christ," or to listen to his call and go to dwell with him,
and such a departure is "gain," "better" than to remain "in the flesh." This
theology harmonizes fully with the facts stated in three of the gospels and
alluded to by both Peter and John, that two of the Old Testament saints came
back from their immortal homes to stand with Christ on the Mount of
Transfiguration and to converse with him over his approaching suffering. It is
in full harmony with the picture drawn of the future life by the Savior himself,
in which he portrays all of the earthly actors in the parable of the Rich Man
and Lazarus as existing consciously in the future world, and Abraham and Lazarus
as enjoying the bliss of Paradise. The New Testament hope of immortality,
inspired by the gospel of Jesus Christ, is a hope of an immediate passage
through the darkness of death to the light of eternal day; of a deliverance from
the pangs of the dying body to eternal bliss; of ending the journey of life by
passing through the gates of that eternal city which has been sought by the
saintly pilgrims of all the ages.

"But some will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they
come?" Surely not, as Mohammedans believe, with the bones, flesh and blood of
the earthly body, even to the point that where limbs are amputated here, they
are lost to the body forever. Certainly not, as Talmage has so vividly
described, with the old body formed again by its scattered members being drawn
together, from wherever they have been dissolved, back again, into the original
earthly form. Rather, in the vigorous language of the great apostle: "Thou fool,
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. . . Thou sowest not that
body which shall be. . . God giveth it a body as hath pleased him." Observe
closely the apostle’s statements. The seed is planted and dissolved but lives
again, not as a seed but as a stalk, or plant. It lives again in an entirely new
form. To every kind of life is given the kind of body needed; to the bird a body
suited to the air; to the fish a body suited to the water; to the beasts bodies
suited to their sphere; to the stars a glory that is their own; to everything,
everywhere, a glory and a form suited to its state.

"So also in the resurrection of the dead." On earth there was a body adapted to
earthly condition. At death that earthly body was "sown" or planted in the
earth. "It is sown in corruption," or subject, to corruption. "It is raised in
incorruption. . . It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." Our
earthly bodies, like that of the earthly Adam, are of earth; the new body, "the
house not made with hands," is in the image of the heavenly man, the glorified
body of Jesus Christ, for "as we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall
we also bear the image of the heavenly." Then, to silence forever those who
expect a sensual heaven in which they shall abide in the flesh eternally, he
exclaims, "Now, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." This, in its
connection, can only have one meaning. Flesh and blood bodies, bodies made of
corruptible earthly materials, are not compatible with a home in the world of
redeemed and glorified spirits. The soul’s tenement, if it have one, must be
adapted to the new conditions of being. Are we then denied a body in the future
state? By no means. I may not be able to understand the nature of that body,
because I have never seen such an existence, but I can accept the statements of
the word of God and believe that it is exactly fitted to the happy sphere of
glorified existence. It "is a building of God," it is made "as it hath pleased
him," it is "a spiritual body," it is "incorruptible," it is "immortal," it is
after the image of the heavenly man, and "our vile bodies are changed into the
likeness of his glorified body." In order to comprehend what this means do not
look at the Lord when he was here in the form of a servant, but look at him as
seen in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, and as revealed to John on
Patmos, shining with eternal splendors. What material of the old tabernacle may
be used by the Lord in building the new form is unknown, but it is known that he
does not use its flesh and blood. Hence, because these immortal bodies are freed
from their earthly dross and from all the ills to which the present dwelling
places of our souls are incident, there can never be in our eternal home "any
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain;
for the former things are passed away."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: 02.05.     HEAVEN
========================================================================

HEAVEN. The existence of sinless man began in Paradise; the existence of man,
after life’s journey is over, if he has chosen his lot with the children of God,
is in Paradise. "To him that overcometh," says Christ, "I will give to eat of
the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." Paul, caught up
into the third heaven, whether in the body or out of it he could not tell, calls
it Paradise. The paradise of the infancy of our race is described as a garden,
which is, indeed, the meaning of the term itself; the future home of the
redeemed is pictured forth by the symbol of a city; the city for-which the
ancient saints were seeking; a city which hath eternal foundations; a city of
which God is the builder. The earthly Jerusalem was for a thousand years the
center of the worship of God’s people on the earth, and in contrast with it the
blessed home above is styled the Heavenly, and the New Jerusalem. The teachers
of the various religions which have been accepted by men have been wont to
describe in detail the future home of those who are so happy as to gain their
heaven. The Greeks portrayed the Elysian Fields in their richest strains; the
savage Germans and Scandinavians painted eternal banquets in the halls of Odin,
where mighty warriors quaffed liquors from drinking cups made of, the skulls of
slaughtered enemies. The Mohammedan heaven is a gigantic harem where the
followers of the Prophet are surrounded by groups of beautiful Houris, and dwell
forever among green trees, shady groves and sparkling fountains. The American
Indian expected to go with his favorite dog and gun to the Happy Hunting
grounds, where he would find abundance of game, and chase it forever. So each
race has been wont to paint its heaven in the colors of earth, tinting it with
those things which it loved best in the present life. On the other hand, the
Scriptures are content to assure us of a heavenly home, a home prepared by the
Savior, a blessed abode which trouble and pain can never enter, a home provided
by the love of a Heavenly Father, and for some reason have failed to give us
detailed descriptions. It is true that our poets have transferred into their
songs the things that enter into their conceptions of a beautiful home, and we
sing in our songs of "the green fields of Eden," "the fields that are eternally
fair," "the glittering strand," "its gardens and pleasant greens," etc., but
these pretty thoughts have been drawn from the imagination of the poets rather
than from the word of God. The paucity of details is due, I suppose, not to the
unwillingness of our Heavenly Father to inform us, but to the limitations of our
understanding. We can only understand what we have not seen by comparison. When
we read or hear of a country we have not seen, a picture is impressed upon our
minds by the words, and that picture is made of ideas drawn from things we have
seen. Its mountains, lakes, rivers, animals, vegetation are all represented by
images drawn from things within the bounds of our experience. The more enlarged
our experience is, the better we can understand. Some things the child cannot
understand, which will be clear to it when it becomes a man. Some things the
savage cannot comprehend which are clear to the enlightened. Our state in
heaven, heaven itself, our life, employments and enjoyments there, differ
entirely from life and enjoyments in the flesh, and since there is nothing
within our present knowledge that we can make a standard of comparison, it is
impossible for us to have clear and correct conceptions. If we now picture
heaven, that picture is made up of earthly scenery, tinted in earthly colors.

Yet there are certain general features we can understand. Some persons have
turned to the Book of Revelation and hung over its sublime imagery, as if these
were literal descriptions of our eternal home; but we must remember that this is
a book of symbols, and that this fact will not permit a strict adherence to the
letter in seeking the meaning of its glowing visions. Revelation does not aim to
teach us, as some have thought, that the ceaseless employment of heaven is
eternal singing or praising, but that it is an abode of rapturous joy of which
song and praise are the natural expressions. Nor are we to conclude that the
heavenly city is literally paved with gold and fenced in with jasper walls and
pearly gates, but that it is a splendid and glorious home beyond anything that
mortal eye has ever seen. The seer of Patmos sees sweeping before the eyes of
his soul visions of unearthly beauty though drawn in earthly colors, and blessed
is he that reads and understands their real signification. In addition to these
apparent descriptions, we rejoice in the thought that our own Lord and Savior
arose from earth, ascended to heaven, and assured us that he was going in order
to prepare a place for us in the Father’s House. That place will be prepared by
the hands of Love, and those hands are Omnipotent. We are therefore assured that
it will lack no beauty, no comfort, no blessing, no good thing that God’s great
universe can supply. With a few condensed thoughts which might be expanded into
a volume, I must bring this article to a close. The first is, that no place can
be heaven to any being who does not take heaven to it in his soul. Heaven is a
state, as well as a place. No man can be happy unless he has the elements of
happiness within. Some carry hell with them wherever they go. Heaven was a hell
to Milton’s Satan; heaven would be hell to the sinner steeped in sin, hating God
and righteousness. In order to have an eternal heaven, we must have the love of
heaven, of God and heavenly things, planted in our souls while below. In the
second place, we gain some idea of the bliss of heaven by the eternal absence of
the things that distress us here. These frail bodies of ours are often bundles
of pain so severe that we sigh for release. There are those who are upon the
rack day and night, and life is a long-drawn agony. How sweet the thought to
these tired and weary ones; to all whose bodies are aching, whether it be from
the burdens of toil or disease, to think of a home near at hand, where there is
no pain any more, where strong crying and tears are unheard and unseen forever!
These aching bodies of flesh and blood and nerve shall be exchanged for
spiritual, incorruptible, undying bodies which will never get out of repair, and
hence will never suffer pain. And this fact also excludes another of the dark
shadows which clouds our earthly life. With such bodies there will be no death
in the eternal home, no funerals, no broken circles, no bereaved hearts, no
mourners, none of that great sorrow that cometh sooner or later to every earthly
household, and the dread of whose coming always casts a gloom.

Then, again, the curse of this present world is sin. Sin unsheathes the sword,
devastates a country with war, burns cities, turns brutal soldiery upon wives
and daughters, opens the saloon, the gambling den, and the brothel, beggars
millions of our race, poisons with slander, cheats, robs, murders, and indeed
perpetuates every wrong that fills the world with wretchedness. Who hath not
felt its bitter sting! Who hath not known the sorrow of unmerited wrong! Who
hath not traced his greatest misery to the presence of sin in this world! In
view of this sad experience of our race there is no statement concerning the
heavenly city which contains sweeter comfort than the assurance that "there
shall no sin enter there." "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that
defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they which
are written in the Lamb’s book of life." Not in the holy city, but "without, are
dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers and idolaters, and
whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." Never in that blessed abode shall the
righteous soul be grieved by the sight of impurity or wrong; never shall the
saint endure the sting of an angry, spiteful or slanderous tongue. There shall
no shadow fall upon the spirit, no penalty for broken law, nor shall there "be
any more curse," because the defiling touch of sin shall never stain that pure
and holy home of the redeemed. There will be no discord in heaven, but union and
peace forevermore.

I shall not draw upon my imagination for the employments of the happy dwellers.
They will not be idle, nor will their employments be useless. They have on earth
worked the work of God, and they will work it still; their earthly life has been
a continual growth in divine knowledge, and heaven will not bring that growth to
its end. If there be work forever for the angels, surely there will be work for
God’s redeemed children. But one of the most delightful prospects of heaven is
the blessed company that shall gather in the holy, happy land. Socrates, in the
Phaedo, is made to speak of the worthies beyond, whom he expects to see when he
passes through the gates of which the hemlock was to be the key. And what a holy
and happy reunion will be ours on the celestial shores! Not only will we be
greeted by our own sainted dead, the loved ones whom regretful memory still
keeps near us, but also by the grand heroes of whom the world was not worthy,
who have laid themselves upon the altar of humanity. In that heavenly society we
will meet Judson, and Luther, and Savonarola, and the mighty host of sufferers,
male and female, who loved not their own lives; the ever glorious Paul, and the
other members of that immortal band of apostles, evangelists and martyrs who put
in motion the new forces that changed the world; the sweet and blessed women who
told the first news of the Risen Lord; and there, too, will "gather many from
the east and the west who will sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, and Isaac
and Jacob," and the rest of the men of God of the infant world.

"There the saints of all ages in harmony meet, Their Savior and brethren
transported to greet; While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, And the
smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul." When the day comes for the parting
of the nations of men, will it be found that your name, dear reader, is recorded
in the Book of Life?


========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-b-w-johnson/
========================================================================