prophet are no less true to the Church:
long night of weeping, was experienced by us as so comforting and so gladdening. It was this light of the Lamb that led us through the dark valley and shadow of death, so that we feared no evil. It is this light of the Lamb that greets us in the resurrection-morning when we awake and go up to meet our Lord in the air. It is this same light of the Lamb—the rich but mellowed sunshine of incarnate love—that shall hereafter compass us about in all its holy beauty;—a light which, though coming from the throne, reminds us of the cross—a light which, from the very turrets of the New Jerusalem, will, by its peculiar hue, carry us back irresistibly to Bethlehem, and Gethsemane, and Golgotha.
7. It is light for eternity.—Though spoken to Israel, these words of the prophet are no less true to the Church:
"The sun shall be no more thy light by day;
Neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee;
But Jehovah shall be unto thee an EVERLASTING LIGHT,
And thy God thy glory.
Thy sun shall no more go down;
Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself;
For Jehovah shall be thine EVERLASTING LIGHT,
And the days of thy mourning shall be ended."
This is no mere general promise of "light," as if it had been simply said, "Thou shalt have light for ever, and no shadow shall ever pass over thee again." The special point of the promise is, that this everlasting light is to be Jehovah himself. He shed light around us here, and he is to be our light for ever. It is not, Jehovah shall give thee light, but Jehovah shall be thy light for ever. The Lord God is
our SUN (Ps. 84:11). This Sun is an unsetting one. Once risen, it shall never go down; nor shall it be clouded or eclipsed; nor shall any other sun succeed it. The same Sun that rises on us in the morning of glory shall continue in its undimmed brightness during the ages of ages. It shall be our light for eternity; and with such an everlasting light as this, what a day will that be which is preparing to arise! The reflected gleams of it that struck through our heavy night of tribulation were much; the full burst of it at the joyous dawn will be yet more; but the prolonged radiance, diffusing everywhere eternal noon, and giving to all the blessed assurance of perpetuation for ever, shall be unspeakably more. What, in that day, shall we think of our three-score and ten years' sojourn in the tents of Kedar—our "little while" of warfare and weariness below?
O heirs of the kingdom—children of the world to come—keep in mind your hope! Look through yon cloud that overshadows your dwelling. Eternal day lies there. It is no mere "silver lining" that may vanish and leave the mass as dark as before. It is the skirt of the endless day. That day—that eternity of light—is yours. It does not become you to faint or to despond. For the joy set before you, learn to endure the cross. Forget the things that are behind, reach forth to those that are before, press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Take no counsel with flesh and blood. Grudge not the toil. Complain not of the length of the way. The night is far spent, the DAY is at hand.
O men of earth—children of this present evil world—what a future lies before you! An eternal night! The blackness of darkness for ever! How will you endure it? Will the carnal joys you are now living on, make up for the sorrow that is coming? Will a lifetime's mirth make up for the endless mourning? "Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness" (Jer. 13:16). "While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light" (John 12:36).
CHAPTER VI
THE LOVE OF THE AGES TO COME
LOVING and being loved;—this is joy. Loving God and being loved by God;—this is joy in its fulness. There is not merely the "casting out of fear," and the consequent removal of "torment" (1 John 4:18), but there is the impartation of perfect gladness.
To love Him who is infinitely loveable cannot but be joy; for he who loves only where he ought to love, shall have neither disappointment nor self-reproach. But to be loved by this infinitely loveable One is yet fuller and deeper joy. Blessed as it is to love him, it is more blessed to be loved by him.
It is the love of GODHEAD that is our heritage,—for GOD is love. The Father is love; the Son is love; the Holy Spirit is love. This threefold love of the Triune God rests upon us in all its largeness, and is shed abroad in our hearts in all its fulness. "The lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage."
It is through the Son that this Godhead-love gets vent to itself. He is at once its manifestation and its channel. It is he who reveals it, and it is he who brings it to us: hence it is called "the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:39). He did not produce that love, but he drew it out. He did not by his blood-shedding turn Godheadhatred into Godhead-love. It is nowhere written, "God loved the world because his Son gave himself a ransom for it;" but it is written, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." The gift was meant to prove and pledge this love; but specially was it intended as the means for getting vent to this love in a righteous way.
Christ's death was not to alter the Father's character, and to empty his bosom of anger and vengeance, which were bent on tormenting us; it was to alter the relations of law, so that that which would previously have been impossible, because unrighteous, became not only righteous and possible, but most glorifying to God and to his law. His death, as "the just for the unjust," did not create love in God towards us, but it made the outflow of that love legal, and righteous, and honouring, which otherwise would have been illegal, unrighteous, and dishonouring.
But without dwelling on the past eternity of this love, or on the righteous way in which it has flowed down to us, through the propitiation of the Substitute, let us look at this love itself,—taking it either as the love of the Father or as the love of the Son.
It was on the love of Christ that the early Church so strongly leaned. It is to this love that we find the apostle Paul so continually turning. This was his soul's true resting-place and refuge. It was under the branches of this palm-tree that he found a shadow from the heat. This was the deep well out of which he drank his endless consolation. He needed no other. To be "able to comprehend with all saints the breadth and length, the height and depth," of this love, was his aim; and to "know that love which passeth knowledge," was the sum of his prayers.
This love is our refuge too—our true and quiet home. The knowledge of this love is perfect peace. We sit down and let this love breathe freely into us, and straightway all is calm. Each storm has gone to rest; each gust has died away. Love beyond all loves, in greatness, in freeness, and in efficacy! Gifted with strange power of soothing, and healing, and comforting! He who has possession of this love has got hold of a hidden spell, mighty to charm away all heaviness of heart, all bitterness of soul. What can withstand it?
In this love are all the loves of earth gathered up and centred. It is a father's love, yet far beyond the love of earthly father. It is a brother's
love, yet passing far above it. It is a bridegroom's love, as the Song of Solomon shews us, but tenderer than the love of mortal bridegroom. It is a husband's love, yet truer and more faithful than the love of the truest and the most faithful husband upon earth. It is a love without beginning and without end,—a love without any intermingling selfishness, or jealousy, or coldness, or forgetfulness, or weariness,— a love without intermission,—a love without fickleness,—a love without decay.
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Rom. 8:35.) What can untwine our mutual embracings here or hereafter? Separation is an impossibility from the first moment that we apprehended him, or rather "were apprehended of him,"—from the time that we knew him, or rather were known of him. That love is imperishable and unquenchable. The hold which we have of it, or rather which it has of us, is inseparable. Nothing can tear us asunder. Imagine all that can breed coldness or dislike—all that can lower one in the estimation of another, or tend to produce separation, or to extinguish affection,— not one of these singly, nor all of them together, can affect this love, or make it flow less freely. No time, nor change, nor adversity of circumstances, can make it less warm or less true. It is love that can survive all coldness, all fickleness in us. It is love which no meanness of earthly birth, nor poverty of condition, nor calamity of lot, can cool or lessen. It is love that can triumph over "tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword." These things cannot sunder us from a love like this; it remains the same in spite of all. They neither alter the current of this divine affection, nor diminish its volume. Rather do they augment it, and bring it down to us in fuller, swifter, mightier flow. They draw still closer around us the everlasting arms of love. Instead of tearing us from the embrace of Him who loves us, they twine and clasp it still more firmly round us, making us feel that separation is one of the greatest of all impossibilities.
This challenge of the apostle—"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"—rests itself on certain well-known facts which he had just