October 19

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." 1 Thessalonians 4:13.

It is a magnificent and expressive image this by which Christianity presents to the bereaved mind the departure of brethren in Christ. They are not dead, they are asleep. The question instantly arises—What is it which, in the experience of the believer, has so materially changed the aspect of death? What is it that invests this solemn, this fearful crisis of our being with so softened and mitigated a character? What is it that throws around the pillow of the expiring saint an air of repose so sacred, so peaceful, and serene? The ATONEMENT of the Son of God alone supplies the answer. The influence of His death, and the power of His resurrection, have changed, in the case of all believers in Christ, the entire character and aspect of death. The Savior, by dying, conquered death. Plucking his pale crown from his brow, hurling him from his towering throne, snapping in twain his proud scepter, and with His own blood washing away the venom of his dart. Lo! Death is no more the "king of terrors" to those who believe. Entering within his gloomy palace—there slumbering awhile—then returning victorious the "Resurrection and the Life"—henceforward to the Christian to depart is not to die, but—to sleep!

And what is that sleep? No unconsciousness of the soul is it! No intermediate state of dreamy insensibility—of cold, silent torpidity of spirit, waiting the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God to dissolve its slumber. The believer sleeps; but it is the sleep of the body, and not of the soul. "Absent from the body," in the full, unclouded, unimpaired consciousness, intelligence, and joyousness of the spirit, he is "present with the Lord." Death to him is but a change of place; not of state. As the natural sleep of the body is not the extinction, nor even the momentary suspension, of the soul's intellectual faculties—for who has not experienced that some of the profoundest thoughts and most sublime soarings of the imagination have been those which have played around the pillow of midnight slumber, like gleams of summer lightning upon the lurid night?—so, in like manner, when death has sealed in profound unconsciousness the material senses, the immaterial and the immortal is expatiating amid the glories and the wonders of the spiritual world, as it springs from star to star and from sun to sun—and thus sleep becomes the gentle and expressive emblem of the Christian's death. They "sleep in Jesus," who is the "Resurrection and the Life;" how, then, can it be possible that the soul is unconscious, since it is in union—personal, changeless union—with Him who, in His office as Mediator, has said, "Because I live, you shall live also"?

The death-sleep of the believer is a season of complete bodily and mental repose. How precious is this prospect to the child of God! lighting up even the grim visage of the last foe with a smile of pleasantness. We naturally attach the idea of rest to sleep. What a rest remains even in the grave for the people of God! "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest." Who so wearied as the believer in Jesus? With him the world is a toilsome desert—life a scene of conflict and of trial—the travel to heaven a pilgrimage arduous, self-denying, and lonely. We have to contend with principalities and powers, to conflict with foes visible and invisible, to subdue indwelling sin, and repel outward temptation. Then there are the "many afflictions" which belong to the "righteous," the trials peculiar and sore with which the Lord in love tries His people. In the midst of all this, and superadded as an element of weariness yet more potent, there is often the drooping of faith, the chill of love, the obscured evidences, the beclouded hope, the withdrawment of the Divine presence, the suspension of the sensible comforts and consolations of the Holy Spirit; all conspiring to make this a weary land.

Thus the soul of the believer is frequently cast down within him because of the way. But "the sleep of a laboring man is sweet;" and such is the sleep in Jesus of the believer, the Christian laborer. In view of this truth, how chastened and cheered should be our sorrow when visiting the graves of the holy dead. Not a wavelet disturbs their calm repose. No painful sufferings, no convulsive throes, no affrighting dreams; no mental wanderings, no confused sounds, no fantastic fancies disturb their peaceful slumber. The world is rushing on, as before, in turmoil, sin, and conflict—the war-cry, the martial music, the sigh of sorrow, and the wail of agony are heard—but not a spent echo mars their placid rest. The body reposes in the tomb, the soul in the Paradise of God, and over their graves is heard a voice, saying, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them."