1 John 3:2-3

THE MYSTERY OF THE FUTURE

‘And it doth not yet appear what we shall be.’

1 John 3:2

Much is known of the past, but what is to be revealed in the future who can tell? Study makes us familiar with the ages that are gone. We know what happened in past centuries, last year, yesterday; but to-morrow, next year, and the years, if any, that are to come, are veiled, even to the wisest and best, in obscurity. And if this is true of this life, how much more limited must man’s knowledge be of the life beyond the grave? God has revealed just enough to stimulate our hope and awaken our faith, and no more. We are alike ignorant of the beginning and the end. Men have asked, ‘Whence are we?’ and ‘Whither are we going?’ and just as often have they been compelled to leave the problem unsolved. Man’s powers are limited. God has set bounds to his reason and his actions.

I. These limitations are not without their comfort, as a moment’s thought will show.—Man’s ignorance implies a Being wiser than himself. Man’s capacity for goodness implies One absolutely good—and Christianity calls upon him to trust and love and obey that One wiser and better than himself. And there is no such rest and comfort as to trust and lean upon such another; to feel that there is a limit to our responsibility; that it is ours to do our best, and to leave the rest to Him; that obedience is the only key to knowledge; to remember that the faith and liberty of the gospel are not excuses for idleness and ignorance. The man of faith and obedience knows more of God, and does more for God, than those who waste time in idle speculations about Him and the future of mankind—‘If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.’ What we want is more of that restful calm of the man who, after having done all that lay in his power to cleanse and defend Christ’s Church, said, ‘I tell God He must take care of His own Church, for I cannot do it for Him.’ It is this spirit which should mark our attitude towards the future life. To be content with what God has revealed, and to leave the rest in His hands—to cast the burden of the future upon the Lord, ‘and wait patiently for Him.’ We feel sure it is the only way to ensure rest and peace.

II. How the glorification of humanity will be brought about, we know little, if anything.—The secret process by which man is to be transformed into the image of the Risen Christ, belongs, not to knowledge, but to faith. The same power which enabled our Crucified Redeemer to burst His cerements and rise triumphant over death will be sufficient to cause ‘this corruptible to put on incorruption, and this mortal to put on immortality.’ But how this mighty change is to be brought about we know not. It is ours to believe and to trust. And it is sometimes a hard lesson to learn. When we stand by the graveside of one of our beloved dead, it is not easy to believe that the soul, now departed, leaving the form cold and motionless, and upon which the canker of decay had already made headway, will be rehabilitated with a glorified spiritualised body, similar to that now committed to the ground. Reason says it is impossible; but faith grounded upon human instinct, and supported by what Jesus has taught and done, triumphs over reason, and gives us a ‘sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.’

III. All our belief and hope for the future centre in Christ.—Without Him the future is a blank. ‘If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.’ If our ignorance of the future is sometimes unbearable with all that Christ has declared and revealed to us, what must have been the disappointed feelings and baffled hopes of those ancient, yet deep thinkers, who tried to fathom the depths of this mystery, in vain. They felt after something beyond their reason, and refused to abandon it, when reason was against them. The risen Christ is an answer to that yearning, and fills up all the blanks which were left in all the forms of ancient faith. Christ has transformed a possibility into a certainty.

IV. Let us ask ourselves if this hope, this ‘sure and certain hope’ of a glorious Resurrection, is ours.—Remember we can have no rest and comfort in the thought of the future, ‘until death is swallowed up in victory.’ When that victory is gained, through our Lord Jesus Christ, then death and the grave are robbed of their awfulness. The river of death is a narrow stream, separating us from a land of light and love. A land, following the figurative language of St. John, where hunger and thirst are not known, where there is no sickness and no death; where those ‘who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,’ are ‘before the Throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple.’ ‘For the Lamb Which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’

Rev. C. Rhodes Hall.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

‘THE FUTURE ALL UNKNOWN’

So far from depressing us, the unknown character of the future life awakens lofty and joyous expectation.

I. It proclaims its grandeur.—It is unknown because too great and wonderful to be grasped by our thought. God’s heaven is grander and more wonderful than all our poor human dreams.

II. It proclaims its freedom from the great features of the present life.—The future cannot be judged from present appearances, and therefore in it sin, and sorrow, and pain, and death can have no place.

III. It leaves us free for present duty.—Our restless, prying curiosity is repressed by this statement. The great work of life is to realise our Divine sonship, and to live a life in harmony with it.

IV. It presents Christ Himself to us as the centre and reality of the future life.—All is vague and speculative apart from Christ.

Illustration

‘What is that heaven our God bestows,

No prophet yet, nor angel knows;

Was never yet created eye

Could see across eternity;

Not seraph’s wing, for ever soaring,

Can pass the flight of souls adoring,

That nearer still, and nearer grow

To their unapproached Lord, once made for them so low.’