Daniel 12:2

Some to everlasting life, and some to shame.

Unto Life or Death--Which?

Death is not annihilation; the grave is not the end of man. Two facts are indisputable among those who receive the Scriptures.

1. The fact of a general resurrection anterior to the Judgment Day.

2. The righteous will be raised to life eternal; the wicked to “damnation.” The point in the lesson we would enforce--and it is a tremendous point in the matter of personal interest--is embraced in one word “which?” One or the other of these experiences lie before each and every child of Adam. Do what we will, and neglect what we will, we shall have a part in this resurrection; we shall “hear the voice of the Son of God” then, whether we hear it now or not; and we “shall live,” and “come forth” either to be caught up into Heaven, or be banished to hell! In that hour of infinite power and display there will be no place of retreat, no possible concealment of evasion. In the dazzling light of the resurrection day it will be made clear as the noonday sun that there are but two characters, two ways, two destinies in God’s universe, and that an eternal “gulf” divides them, and on whichsoever side of that abyss we find ourselves then and there, there we shall remain as long as the throne of the Almighty endures. “Which?” O my soul! “Which?” (J. M. Sherwood, D.D.)

The Resurrection and its Consequences

I. THE GENERAL RESURRECTION. “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” The word “many,” in view of other Scriptures, must he understood as meaning “all,” or “the many,” the whole collective body of mankind. Our corrupted bodies may, to all human appearance, be lost among their kindred dust; but God hath declared that “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” The churchyard that surrounds us is filled with earth that once had breath and life. It seems, when you walk among the graves, as if eternal night had closed over them; as if they would never he seen or heard of again. But wait awhile. Their night will have an end. Death itself must at last be swallowed up in victory. If we should inquire no further, this grand promise of fire resurrection might seem to he a doctrine of unmixed comfort and satisfaction. But Consider:

II. THE CERTAIN AND IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES OF THE GENERAL RESURRECTION. The final issue is, everlasting life to some; shame and everlasting contempt to others.

1. Some shall awake to everlasting life. What is that life? Does it merely mean that their bodies will revive, and never die again? That cannot be the exclusive meaning of the word Life. It is the life of which St. Paul speaks, “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” Everlasting life is not first begun when the Christian wakes from the grave; it begins here upon earth. The Holy Ghost, who is “the Lord and Giver of life,” implants it in the heart of every believer at his conversion. Heaven is but a completion of that state into which a Christian is first brought while here below. All mankind are by nature dead--“dead in trespasses and sins.” When the heart is softened and humbled, the spirit becomes broken and contrite, and the will subdued and compliant, you are passing from death unto life. You become, by faith, united to Jesus Christ, as the branch is united to the vine, and in consequence of this blessed union you partake of the nature of the tree on which you are engrafted. Being a branch in Him, bring forth good fruit.

2. Some shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt. These words describe the end of the wicked and ungodly. But this description does not give, by any means, a full account of their future misery. The wicked man rises from the grave, and the first objects which be meets are shame and everlasting contempt. These are the consequences of the resurrection to him. Even in this life, sinners are extremely anxious to escape the shame which naturally attends upon transgression. In this, by the help of Satan, they partly succeed. But, how will they appear when, at the resurrection, they awake up from their long sleep? Then the secrets of all hearts will be revealed, and that by One who has seen your life from the beginning to the end. The shame of the wicked will be still further increased by a clear discovery of the mercies which they might have obtained by a penitent faith in Christ. Men pretend that true piety could have no effect but to make them miserable. But when that eternal day shall dawn, the truth will burst upon them at once, and they will learn that “godliness is great again; having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” And he will awake to “everlasting contempt.” Nothing but an assurance of God’s favour and love can fully reconcile a man to the contempt and sneers of the world. Is the contempt of an avenging Judge the whole of what sinners must look for in that day? No; the saints of God will also unite with Him in condemning His enemies. (J. Jowett, MA.)

Eternal Life

Describe the familiar picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica. It depicts two beings aspiring in heart and soul after eternal life, and thinking for a moment that they have hold upon it. These two human beings--outward bound, as they say; bent on a voyage, preparing to cross the sea, to reach an earthly home, and, meanwhile, preparing for another voyage, across that other sea, whose further shore no living human being has ever seen--how does this illustrate our own position on the road to eternal life? We all are preparing to cross the sea. All who have realised the voyage that is to be, begin to ask themselves what there is on the other side. Treat these two points of Scripture.

1. There is eternal life. There is no distinction between the two words, eternal and everlasting; the original word that each of them translates is exactly the same. The text in Daniel is the first in the Bible in which the words “everlasting life” occur. There are only three other passages in the Old Testament where the same meaning, if not quite the same words, is to be found. That is all, so far as I can find, that the Old Testament contains about everlasting life. In the New Testament, everlasting life is everywhere. It is the whole purport of the Gospel to make it possible for human beings to reach “life eternal.” That was the good news for them.

2. What is eternal life? “To know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Christ is the life eternal, the spring and source of it to others, the essence and substance of it in Himself. How is it obtained? “He that believeth on the Son hath life eternal.” The gift is spoken of in the present tense. As soon as the water that Christ gives reaches a human heart, in it the spring of living water bursts forth and flows. Eternal lifo begins here. It consists in the union of the soul through Christ with God. A life in union with God--the selfish will submitted to His will--loving the things that He loves--hating the things that He hates--this wrought by faith in Christ, and the spirit that He has sent--this is what I imagine to be eternal life according to the Scripture idea. (Canon Rawstorne, M.A.)

Moral Distinctions Emphasised at the Resurrection

Men will be sorted yonder. Gravitation will come into play undisturbed; and the pebbles will be ranged according to their weights on the great shore where the sea has cast them up, as they are upon Chesil beach down there in the English Channel, and many another coast besides; all the big ones together and sized off to the smaller ones, regularly and steadily laid out. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Resurrection--the Embodiment of Mind

There be two principles at work in the resurrection of the dead. The glorified body is not the physical outcome of the material body here; but is the issue and manifestation, in visible form, of the perfect and Christ-like spirit. Some shall rise to glory and immortality, some to shame and everlasting contempt. If we are to stand at the last, with the body of our humiliation changed into a body of glory, we must begin by being changed in the spirit of our mind. As the mind is, so will the body be one day.

Future Permanence of Character

You and I write out our lives as if on one of those manifold writers which you use. A thin, filmy sheet here, a bit of black paper below it; but the writing goes through upon the next page. And when the blackness that divides the two worlds is swept away there the history of each life, written by ourselves, remains legible in eternity. (A. Maclaren.)