Luke 20:38

ALIVE UNTO GOD

‘He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him.’

Luke 20:38

Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob live; but life, as we hold human life, is the union of body and soul: therefore there is a union of the soul and body even of the departed: therefore they must be joined together again, ‘for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him.’ If these things are so, let us see some of the consequences.

I. And first, as regards the body.—The relation of the body to the soul, and of the soul to the body, subsists through the interval between death and the resurrection. Can we suppose that the spirit, in the intermediate state, does not affect and desire its own body? St. Paul leads us on to that thought. He did not rest in, he did not like the idea of, unclothed spirit, ‘Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon,’ i.e. with the old body renovated, and no longer, as now, burdensome. And this is one of the reasons why the disembodied spirit longs for the Second Advent, that it may have its body back, for the sake of the integrity of its being, for service, for the perfect image of the Man Christ Jesus, and for the glory of the Father. Do not, therefore, adopt too loosely what is very common, the idea of a mortal body, and an immortal soul. Is the body, in its strictest sense, mortal? Do not disparage the body.

II. But as respects the spirit.—Surely it cannot be that energies are dormant, that existence is torpid, and all things in abeyance, and life as if it were no life after we die, till the day of Christ. For then, could it indeed be said of souls in such a state, we ‘live unto Him’? We say it of the body indeed, though it be asleep, because of its relations to an animated soul. But would it be true if the soul also slept that long sleep? Are they not rather living in a very ecstasy of being and of joy, if they ‘live unto Him’? And to think of that life of theirs, may it not help us to live indeed an earnest, and a busy, and a holy, and a happy life? To think of them dead, is not it to sadden, to hinder, and to deaden us? But to think of them living, and so living, is not it to gladden and animate us? And shall I not do anything the better, when I remember that they are doing it too?

III. And what is our unity with those who are gone a little way out of our sight?—Is it not ourselves also to live to Him? Are we not then indeed one, when we have one focus, and when we point our life to one and the same mark? Nearer than we to the fountain of life, they doubtless drink in more of its living waters, and that makes their glory. But farther down the same stream we are drinking, and that is our grace. And the grace and the glory are one and the same river of life.

Therefore, whatever presses us closer to Jesus, draws us nearer to them. To live in Him, from Him, with Him, to Him, this is our fellowship, ‘for all live unto Him.’