Week 43 Sunday
Week 43 Sunday
The Way and Immortality
Job 13:13; 19:25-26; John 11:25-26; 1 Timothy 4:8
When we die, do we live again? Open the question of religion in club or school or forum, and one of the first questions that will arise will be this, “Is there immortality?” So we ask, is the Way the way everlasting, or does it end in a dead end—at death?
First, our answer must be this: If the Way does not reach out beyond death, but ends abruptly at death, then it would make no essential difference in my allegiance to the Way. For up to death it is a better way to live. If the Way has no future, nevertheless it has a present; it works out better now. A group of Latin American intellectuals, very skeptical, asked, “Isn’t Christianity a reward morality, a promise of future life in heaven if you obey it now?” I replied, “Wipe out the idea of a future life, and I would take the Christian way as the way life approves now. It works better, so I cling to it.” They replied. “Now we are satisfied.”
Someone asked an old saint what would happen to her if, when she got to the gates of Paradise, they should refuse her admission. She replied, “I’d shout all around the walls and rejoice over the wonderful time I’ve had coming up this far.” She uttered a profound truth. Someone put it this way, “Now that I am a Christian, I feel much better when I feel bad than I did before when I felt good.” So immortality or no immortality, the Christian way is the sensible way to live now. There is more joy to the square inch in Christ than there is to the square mile outside. Inside of Christ, there is life—now. Outside of him, there is death—now. So Christians are not particularly worried about life after death, since we have life before death.
The story is told that someone came to Emerson quite upset, “Oh, Mr. Emerson, they tell us the world is coming to an end. What shall we do?” “Oh, that’s all right,” said Emerson, “we can get along quite well without it.” He had a world of his own—within. The Christian way has a way now, and it is the way where life is adequate, victorious, effective, and happy now—apart from immortality.
O Christ, I thank you that in this betting of my life on you, I can’t lose. For if there is no future, I win now. I win, for I’ve found in you Life. What can lesser life do to Life? I am immortal even if there is no immortality. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am immortal until my work is done, but as I have eternal work to do, I am eternally immortal.
Week 43 Monday
Why We Can Believe in Immortality
2 Timothy 1:10; 1 Peter 1:3-5
We saw yesterday that the Way is a better way now, even if there is no immortality. The Christian way is not dependent for its validity on an event at the end of life, but upon the reality of the facts of life now. But I hasten to say that I do believe in immortality.
(1) If there is no life after death, then what is the alternative? The alternative is unthinkable: Life comes to an abrupt end, even when life is often at its best and finest. What kind of universe would this be if it could approve of that? The universe seems to have meaning, value, and purpose, but does it reverse all that process of meaning, value, and purpose at its highest point—in the life and character of humanity? Does it all suddenly turn meaningless, valueless, and purposeless at that highest point of existence, by snuffing it all out at death? If so, the processes of the universe end in an anticlimax, and worse, they end in immorality. By what moral outlook could it be justified to let a person attain a character through struggle and discipline and then at the end wipe out the results by death? The universe would be not only a disappointment; it would be positively immoral. The essence of the universe would not be morality but mockery.
(2) If there is no immortality, then present morality lacks eternal support and is thereby weakened. Truth by its nature is universal. There is no such thing as a local truth. Truth by its nature is also eternal, for if it isn’t valid everywhere, for all time, it isn’t valid anywhere at any time. To make morality valid for a brief period, but to give it no eternal support, is to weaken morality now. And that is exactly what happens. When a future life is not believed in, present life becomes cheapened, and its moralities undermined. Life becomes, “Eat, drink, and be merry—if you can—for tomorrow we die.” At one of our Round Table Conferences in Singapore, a Chinese person said, “I am trying to live by Confucian ethics, but when it comes to death, it is all black—I can’t see anything.” While the ship on which he was traveling neared Australia, he jumped overboard. There was nothing else to do! No eternal meaning—no meaning now.
O Christ, I know that there is something so immortal in you—and hence in me, for I am in you—that these things are impossible not to believe. I know that you are my Eternal Verity and my Eternal Validity. I thank you, thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The life I live in you has the feel of an Eternal Validity upon it.
Week 43 Tuesday
Further Reasons for Immortality
Isaiah 26:19; Revelation 1:12-18
(3) In the universe, there is a conservation of energy. Is there no conservation of values? They tell us that no energy is lost; it is only transmuted into other forms. If the universe is careful about conserving energy, is it careless about the conservation of value? Especially the most valuable thing in the universe—moral character? Then the universe is not only bad; it is stupid. If, at the end, I should find that there is no future life, I would look the universe straight in the face and say, “I thought better of you. I thought you made sense. Now I see you make nonsense. I’m sorry. You’ve let me down. In this hour of dissolution, I’m better than you are. I thought morality had eternal significance. It doesn’t. But I thought thoughts higher than you sustain, so I’m superior to you. You are insignificant—not I.”
A lad in Vancouver said to his father, “Stanley Jones is happy, and he has something to be happy about.” True. But suppose at the heart of that happiness the worm of a question about immortality were eating? Wouldn’t the happiness become happiness with a doubt at its center? For ultimately, you can rejoice only in that which has ultimate significance. Emily Dickinson sings:
The Only News I know
Is Bulletins all Day
From Immortality.*
(4) Those who believe in and realize immortality now live better than those who do not. I say “believe in and realize immortality” because it is not enough to believe; you must partake of eternal life now to make it a reality. Otherwise, it is a superstition with no effect on life. “I want to belong to the church so, if I should die drunk, I would have a chance through purgatory of getting to heaven,” said a young woman, and said it seriously. She didn’t believe in immortality; she believed in immorality and practiced it. But those who really believe in and experience immortal life have life heightened, cleansed, dignified, and value-imbued.
O living Christ, I know that you are the center of all my values, the center of my life. Can this life within me die? It seems immortal; it seems that death is impossible to it. So I rest in glad assurance—forever. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “The crown of a good life awaits me!” (2 Tim. 4:8 Moffatt). Can the crown of a good life be eternal nothingness?
*Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leete Hampson, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1937).
Week 43 Wednesday
The Best Man That Ever Lived Believed
John 10:27-29; 12:24-25
We come now to our crowning reason for believing in immortality:
(5) The best Man who ever lived on this planet believed in it, practiced it, demonstrated it, and proclaimed it. Jesus was so right in everything. There isn’t a thing he uttered that is not valid for today. There isn’t an attitude he took that isn’t the highest attitude now. There isn’t an act of his that is not now a universal norm. He touched life in all its phases, and everywhere he touched it he rang true, more, he rang Truth. When he touched this matter of immortality, was he wrong? Right every other place, the ages being witness, was he wrong here—here where it really counts? If so, then it casts a shadow on all he said and did, a very dark shadow too; none of it is eternally real. That would be a fatal shadow.
Instead, he throws a light, an eternal light, upon everything he said and did, and the light is this: goodness has eternal meaning and cannot die. That makes every virtue, all goodness, all morality stand up straight, the Light of Eternal Meaning upon their brows. It does more, it makes goodness sing and dance and shout—it is deathless. Morality becomes joyous. It has a song in its heart and a deathless message on its lips.
For it is founded, not on a belief, but upon a demonstration: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Jesus not only proclaimed life after death; he demonstrated life after death. Without that demonstration, belief in immortality might be strong; this makes it sure. Did he rise from the dead? The answer is that if he didn’t, then he ought to have done so or the whole account would come out wrong. Two things take us all—sin and death. Jesus rose above sin; would he rise above death? The account says so. It fits his life. He conquered everything in life; would he conquer humanity’s last enemy, death? With that enemy unconquered, there is the shadow of final defeat upon everything. With that enemy met and conquered, then the boards are swept. Everything has been mastered. The Way is the way, everywhere for everything.
O Christ, had you stalled at the last ditch, had you been beaten at the barrier of death, then we would be stalled—eternally stalled with you. But now we go over the barrier with you, all barriers with you. Nothing can stop us now. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I live in a resurrected Christ. Since he cannot die, neither can 1.
Week 43 Thursday
Why We Believe in Jesus’ Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:12-22
Four things make me believe in the resurrection of Jesus:
(1) The life of Jesus. This claim is not made concerning an ordinary man. This Man has been the most influential person in all history—influential for good, yea, for redemption. Wherever life gets into touch with him, really into touch with him, it is lifted, changed, saved. There is an extraordinary life here. That extraordinary life makes it possible for me to believe in his extraordinary rising. We do not discuss resurrection by itself; we discuss the resurrection of Jesus. Would such a Man as this rise in such a manner as this? Everything within me says yes. He carries the resurrection; the resurrection doesn’t carry him. I believe in it because of him.
(2) The fact of the empty tomb. Within a few days after his death, the disciples were charging the leaders of Jerusalem with his death and doing it publicly. Why couldn’t these leaders walk straight to the tomb and point out the body of Jesus? It would have settled everything for them. They didn’t. Why? If the weak answer is reiterated that the disciples stole the body while the soldiers slept, then the answer is simple. How could they have done it without somebody seeing them, or without somebody giving them away? There were those who proved faithless; wouldn’t they divulge the awful secret of the theft and justify their relapse? No whisper has ever come down through the ages of such divulging. Besides, do these disciples look like people who hold a guilty secret, who proclaim a vast hoax, who live on a lie? Do they look like body snatchers? Their hangdog faces would have shown it; the guilty secret would have eaten out their message. That message would have fallen dead upon the ears of the world, as all lies do. But these people, on the contrary, are radiant and irresistible. They laugh their way through persecution, sing their way through prisons, and smile their way through death. For what? A hoax? Well, hoaxes don’t produce hallelujahs, nor does body snatching produce transformed lives. Like produces like.
O living Christ, you who are true in every word, every deed, do you foist upon us a lie? If so, nothing is true—nothing. But you are Truth; everything within cries out that it is so. And you are risen; everything good says so. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I cannot be alive in someone who is dead. I am alive in Someone who is alive!
Week 43 Friday
What Produced the New Testament Church?
1 Corinthians 15:35-49
The next fact that makes me believe in the resurrection of Jesus: (3) The fact of the New Testament Church. It arose immediately after the death and resurrection of Jesus. It didn’t emerge after long years, giving time for myths to grow up, upon which the movement could live precariously. It arose at once. At one moment the disciples were timid believers “behind closed doors because they were afraid” (John 20:19 CEB), clinging pathetically to a blasted hope, a hope that had been blasted by his death. The next moment they were irresistible apostles, out from behind closed doors, facing the Sanhedrin and crowds from all over that ancient world, and proclaiming with joy—an amazing, irrepressible joy—that Jesus had arisen and that he was Lord and Savior. They did it with such power and assurance that the multitudes who had witnessed his death saw in these people his resurrection.
What could have produced that church? A dead Christ? It would have been an effect all out of harmony with the cause. After the battle of Waterloo (1815), the news was signaled, “Wellington defeated . . .” A mist came over at that point. England plunged into sadness. Then the mists arose, and the full message came, “Wellington defeated Napoleon.” Sadness turned to joy. The news was signaled from a hill called Calvary, “Jesus defeated . . . ,” and the mists came over for three days—the saddest days of human history. Then on Easter morning, the mists cleared, and the world got the full message, “Jesus defeated death.” And the world has never been the same since. Nor has death been the same since. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Cor 15:55 KJV). Earth’s blackest day and earth’s brightest day are only three days apart. But those three days divide the ages. On one side, doubt and despair; on the other, hope and happiness.
We rose in an airplane outside Balboa, Canal Zone, in the darkness, and blinds were over the windows lest we see military secrets. We were shut in, blind to what was going on outside. And then the blinds were taken down, and lo, a marvelous sunrise, white clouds tinted pink and red. The world started in the dark after the crucifixion, shut in to the fact of death’s triumph; and then the third day took down the blinds, and lo—the Sunrise! He is risen!
O Christ, I thank you for the victory—the victory you brought when from the dead you arose. That victory is mine. Help me to live by it and for it. I am grateful to my depths—grateful forever. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Resurrection is inherent—in the seed, in Jesus, in me.
Week 43 Saturday
Is Jesus Alive Now?
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
We come to our last reason for believing in the resurrection: (4) Jesus is alive now. Two irreligious young men were discussing the resurrection, telling each other why it was impossible to accept the doctrine. An old man whom they knew to be a Christian went by, so they asked him, “Tell us why you believe that Jesus rose again.” “Well,” said the old man, “one reason is that I was talking with him this morning.”
Those who expose themselves to Christ by surrender and obedience know him to be alive—he lives within them. The historical has become the experimental. This fact of the living Christ is the best-corroborated fact in history. In every clime, in every age, among all peoples, the experience is the same: Christ—alive, redeeming, joy-producing, love-creating—moves straight into the hearts of people everywhere as a present fact. We do not merely remember Jesus; we realize him.
Heaven for us is thus no longer future; it is here and now. Therefore it will be hereafter, for we take heaven with us, in us, as we go. There is no feverish setting the house in order as we go. We await heaven, because we have heaven. A daughter asked if she should read the Bible to her dying Scots father. The old saint replied, “Na, na, lassie, I thatched my house before the storm began.”
When you have Christ, you have immortality. “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). He is the initial life—the “resurrection,” and the sustained life—the “life.”
Will we know one another in the immortal world? The answer: Will we be less intelligent then than we are now? Know one another? We shall know one another perfectly, love one another deeply, and enjoy one another wholly. Now the barriers of a decaying flesh separate us; then we can love without those barriers. While there will be no flesh, there will be form, an immortal body. Your love for your loved one is immortal, and will be immortally embodied in everlasting fellowship.
O Christ, I thank you that you “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). We know this is true, for in you we know that there cannot be death. It is all so deathless. And so sure—as sure as you are. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19).