Section 1132
I. I shall consider the phrase by which death is signified, to depart; and I observe
1st, The word used αναλυσαι, has the signification of a dissolution or loosening, and is by some rendered, to be dissolved, to be loosened, and to loose; and may be used by the apostle,
1. In reference to the solution, resolution, or analysis of a compound being, into its parts; and such a being is man, he is composed of spirit and matter, of soul and body; these are the two integral, essential and consistent parts of man, and are very different in their original formation; the body was first formed out of the dust of the earth, the soul was breathed into it by the Lord; in their continual production, the body is by natural generation, is born of the flesh; the soul is created by God, and infused into the body. Hence one of the epithets of Jehovah is, that formeth the spirit of man within him: (Zechariah 12:1) in their nature, the body is material, and consists of flesh, blood and bones, of arteries, veins and sinews; the soul is immaterial, and possesses such powers and faculties, we call the understanding, will and affections; the body is mortal and dies, the soul is immortal and never dies.
Now between these two there is a nexus or bond of union by which they make one composition, one being, one individual person, which is denominated sometimes from one part and sometimes from another; when from the body, man is said to be of the earth, earthly; and when from the soul, he is said to be ψυχικος, an animal, a souly man; when from the former, he is called a mortal man; and when from the latter, a rational intelligent being; these two parts, though so widely different in their nature, are closely united together; of this union God is the author, and what he has joined together no man ought to put asunder; but what is the band of this union, what it is that ties and keeps body and soul together; what are the bands and ligaments by which they are fastened to each other, none can tell, nor account for it; how it is the spirit and matter should operate upon one another: and by the way, this may serve to abate the pride, vanity, and insolence of some objectors to mysteries in the gospel, and the mysterious union of the three persons in the Godhead, and to the mysterious union of the two natures, divine and human, in the Son of God: let them first sit down and try whether they can give an account of the union of their own souls and bodies, and tell us what that is that unites them together; and then let them go on to object to the above, and other mysteries of the christian religion. But to return;
Death now is the dissolution of this composition, a separation of soul and body, a disunion of these two parts, a loosening of the bond of union between them; hence the apostle James says, that the body without the spirit, (James 2:26) χωρις, separate from it, is dead; death is no other than an untying of the knot or band, a dissolving of the union that holds soul and body together, nor can it dissolve any other. As it could not dissolve the hypostatical or personal union of the two natures in Christ, divine and human, only the union that was between his soul and body; so it cannot dissolve the union between the person of a believer and God, Father, Son and Spirit; the bond of which is everlasting love: death cannot separate from the love of God, nor from the love of Christ, or disunite him and his people; for then when they depart they could not be with him as the words of our text suggest, nor from the spirit who dwells in the mortal bodies of the saints, and by whom they will be quickened.
2. The word in the text may be used in allusion to the loosening of the stakes and cords of tabernacles or tents when taken down; with respect to which the apostle says, for we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, (2 Corinthians 5:1) καταλυη, a word akin to that in the text. The body is compared to a tabernacle, the human nature of Christ is called a tabernacle: and the apostle (2 Peter 1:13, 14) Peter speaks of his body under the same metaphor, and which is used by other authors; [5354] the reference may be to the tents or tabernacles of travelers and soldiers, who carry them with them, and pitch them, and take them down, as is convenient for them; and which is the case and condition of the people of God in this life, whose state is a pilgrimage and a warfare; and their bodies are the tents they dwell in, which are pitched for a while, and then taken down; so that this simile denotes the short continuance of the saints here; there is no abiding for them, here they have no continuing city; this is not their rest, it is polluted: now death is a dissolving of this tabernacle, a loosing of its silver cord, an unpinning its several parts, and a removing of it elsewhere; as Hezekiah the royal saint said, mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherds tent: (Isaiah 38:12) and as Peter calls it, it is a putting off this tabernacle, as a man puts off his clothes; and it may be observed, that the apostle Paul uses the simile of unclothing, at the same time he speaks of the dissolution of the tabernacle of the body, 2 Corinthians 5:1, 4.
3. The allusion may be as some [5355] think, to sailors loosing the ship, and departing from one port to another: so we read of loosing from one place, and failing by another; and departing in a ship, Acts 13:13, and 27:13, 21, 28:11. The port from whence we loose at death, and launch into the ocean of eternity, is this world, which some leave with great reluctance, and others with great cheerfulness; as it is with sailors who have been long at a port, used to it and delighted with it, and the accommodations they find there, do not care to set sail and go from it; so it is with many who are glued to this world, and have their affections let on the things of it, who are taken and delighted with what is in it, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; they do not choose to quit it and go into an eternal world: but as others, who know it is their interest to be gone, make all necessary preparations for their voyage, and are in readiness to depart at a proper and convenient time, so such who are crucified to the world and that to them, and know that their true riches, pleasure, profit and honor, lie elsewhere, are willing to loose from hence, and go where it is most for their interest and happiness. The port or haven men are bound unto at death, and to which their course is steered and directed, is either heaven or hell, either they go to Abraham’s bosom with Lazarus, and to paradise with the penitent thief, or to hell with the rich man, who, as soon as he died, lift up his eyes there in flames of fire, in everlasting torment. Death is the ship or boat in which men are wafted over from the shore of this world to the banks of another; angels are the pilots to good men, who convey them over the swellings of Jordan, and bring them to their desired haven, to Canaan’s land: devils are the pilots and convoy of others, who carry them over the black lake to regions of darkness. The heathens had some such like notions of death and of a future state, and expressed their ideas in such like language as this. Who is it almost that has not heard of the Elisian fields, which have their name from a word, of which this in our text is compounded, [5356] the seat of the souls of good men after death? and of the Stygian lake, and of old Charon and his boat, the ferryman of hell?
2dly, The word here used also signifies to return; and so it is rendered in Luke 12:36, and by the Vulgate Latin version here, and by others, and which agrees with the account the wise man gives of death; who says, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it: (Ecc. 7:7) the body, which was first formed out of the dust of the earth, at death returns to its original; whereby the divine sentence passed on fallen man is verified, dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return: (Genesis 3:19) and the spirit or soul, which God is the father and maker of, returns to him who gave it; it being, by him, to be judged for the things done in its body, and to be sent by him to its proper place and state, either of eternal bliss or endless woe: death is the reversion, or returning of the parts of man, when separated by it, to their original from whence they came.
3dly, We render it to depart, as many others do; it was usual with the [5357] Jews to express death by a departure; and the apostle uses the same way of speaking, in conformity to his countrymen: so our Lord’s death is called a departing out of the world, and a leaving of it and going to the Father, John 13:1 and 16:28..And the apostle Paul calls the time of his death the time of his departure, 2 Timothy 4:7, which he speaks of with pleasure. Some go out of this world willingly and cheerfully, and are desirous of it, as the apostle was here; others are chased out of it, driven away in their wickedness, as a beast out of a pasture where it ought not to be, Job 18:18.
It is an usual way of speaking with us, when we would signify that anyone is dead, to say he has departed this life; there is the life that now is, the life we live in the flesh, and there is the life to come; the present life is a transitory one, it is, as James says, even a vapor that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away: (James 4:14) death is a departing this life; and when a good man departs out of it, he enters into another, even into eternal life.
When a man dies, he departs from his relations, friends and acquaintance, and they see him no more; the place where he lived, and the men of it, know him no more; he returns no more to this present world, into this frail mortal state: his friends shall go to him, but he shall not return to them, as David said of his child; and at the resurrection-morn there will be a glorious meeting of the saints, when they shall come together, both living and raised ones, and shall never part more, but shall be together forever with Christ.
Death is, as it were, no other with the saints, than a departing or removing from one house to another, from the earthly house of this tabernacle, the body, to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens: from houses of clay which have their foundation in the dust, to everlasting habitations, to those mansions of joy and bliss, which are in Christ’s Father’s house.
Now all this may serve to make death easy and familiar to us, and take off from the terror which it naturally induceth; it is but like going from one house to another, and that a better, an house in heaven; from one city to another, and that a better, a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is the great God; from one country to another, and that a better, even an heavenly one. So Job speaks of death in such language as this, and to such a purpose, to render it more agreeable to him; if I wait, the grave is my house: I have made my bed in the darkness: I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister, Job 17:13, 14.
And from this account of death, it may be observed, that it is not an annihilation of man; it is an analysis of human nature, a separation and disunion of its parts, soul and body, but neither of them cease to be; the soul exists in a separate state, either of happiness or misery; and the body is reduced to dust, yet not to nothing: though it is crumbled into ten thousand atoms and more, yet it is still in being; though it is, like a tabernacle, taken down, and its parts separated, yet these are carefully laid up to be put together in a more beautiful form and order; though man at death looses from one shore and port, he is presently at another; and though he goes out of one world, he is in another; though he is not here, he is elsewhere: it is said of some, that they were not, as Enoch and Rachel’s children, Genesis 5:24, Jeremiah 31:15, but the meaning is, not that they were not in being, but that they were not on earth; they were taken from thence, and were with God. I proceed,