This is strikingly ill.u.s.trated by the following extract, guaranteed as authentic, from a private diary:--"I remember, when I was a student, visiting a dying man. He had been in the university with me, but a few years ahead; and, at the close of a brilliant career in college, he was appointed to a professorship of philosophy in a colonial university.
But, after a very few years, he fell into bad health; and he came home to Scotland to die. It was a summer Sunday afternoon when I called to see him, and it happened that I was able to offer him a drive. His great frame was with difficulty got into the open carriage; but then he lay back comfortably and was able to enjoy the fresh air. Two other friends were with him that day--college companions, who had come out from the city to visit him. On the way back they dropped into the rear, and I was alone beside him, when he began to talk with appreciation of their friendship and kindness. "But," he said, "do you know what they have been doing all day?" I could not guess. "Well,"
he said, "they have been reading to me _Sartor Resartus_; and oh! I am awfully tired of it." Then, turning on me his large eyes, he began to repeat, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief;"
and then he added with great earnestness, "There is nothing else of any use to me now." I had not opened the subject at all: perhaps I was afraid to introduce it to one whom I felt to be so much my superior; but I need not say how overjoyed I was to obtain such a glimpse into the very depths of a great, true mind." _Sartor Resartus_ is one of the best of books; there are few to be so heartily recommended. Yet there are moments in life--and those immediately before death are among them--when even such a book may be felt to be irrelevant, and, indeed, no book is appropriate except the one which contains the words of eternal life.
It is worth noting from which portion of the Old Testament Jesus fetched the word on which He stayed up His soul in this supreme moment.
The quotation is from the thirty-first Psalm. The other great word uttered on the cross to which I have already alluded was also taken from one of the Psalms--the twenty-second. This is undoubtedly the most precious of all the books of the Old Testament. It is a book penned as with the life-blood of its authors; it is the record of humanity"s profoundest sorrows and sublimest ecstasies; it is the most perfect expression which has ever been given to experience; it has been the _vade-mec.u.m_ of all the saints; and to know and love it is one of the best signs of spirituality.
Jesus knew where to go in the Bible for the language that suited Him; for He had been a diligent student of it all His days. He heard it in the home of His childhood; He listened to it in the synagogue; probably He got the use of the synagogue rolls and hung over it in secret. He knew it through and through. Therefore, when He became a preacher, His language was saturated with it, and in controversy, by the apt use of it, He could put to shame those who were its professional students.
But in His private life likewise He employed it in every exigency. He fought with it the enemy in the wilderness and overcame him; and now, in the supreme need of a dying hour, it stood Him in good stead. It is to those who, like Jesus, have hidden G.o.d"s Word in their hearts that it is a present help in every time of need; and, if we wish to stay ourselves upon it in dying, we ought to make it the man of our counsel in living.
It is worth observing in what manner Jesus made this quotation from the Psalter: He added something at the beginning and He omitted something at the close. At the beginning He added, "Father." This is not in the psalm. It could not have been. In the Old Testament the individual had not begun yet to address G.o.d by this name, though G.o.d was called the Father of the nation as a whole. The new consciousness of G.o.d which Christ introduced into the world is embodied in this word, and, by prefixing it to the citation, He gave the verse a new colouring. We may, then, do this with the Old Testament: we may put New-Testament meaning into it. Indeed, in connection with this very verse we have a still more remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the same treatment. Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity, was in many respects very like his Master, and in his martyrdom closely imitated Him. Thus on the field of death he repeated Christ"s prayer for His enemies--"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Also, he imitated this final word, but he put it in a new form, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;" that is, he addressed to Christ the dying prayer which Christ Himself addressed to the Father.[2] The other alteration which Jesus made was the omission of the words, "for Thou hast redeemed me." It would not have been fitting for Him to employ them. But we will not omit them; and if, like Stephen, we address the prayer to Christ, how much richer and more pathetic are the words to us than they were even to him who first penned them.
III.
It was about His spirit that the dying Saviour prayed.
Dying persons are sometimes much taken up with their bodies. Their pain and trouble may occasion this, and the prescriptions of the physician may require close attention. Some display a peculiar anxiety even about what is to happen to the body after the life has left it, giving the minutest instructions as to their own obsequies. Not infrequently the minds of the dying are painfully occupied with their worldly affairs: they have their property to dispose of, and they are distracted with anxieties about their families. The example of Jesus shows that it is not wrong to bestow attention on these things even on a deathbed; for His fifth word, "I thirst," had reference to His own bodily necessities; and, whilst hanging on the cross, He made provision for His mother"s future comfort. But His supreme concern was His spirit; to the interests of which He devoted His final prayer.
What is the spirit? It is the finest, highest, sacredest part of our being. In modern and ordinary language we call it the soul, when we speak of man as composed of body and soul; but in the language of Scripture it is distinguished even from the soul as the most lofty and exquisite part of the inner man. It is to the rest of our nature what the flower is to the plant or what the pearl is to the sh.e.l.l. It is that within us which is specially allied to G.o.d and eternity. It is also, however, that which sin seeks to corrupt and our spiritual enemies seek to destroy. No doubt these are specially active in the article of death; it is their last chance; and fain would they seize the spirit as it parts from the body and, dragging it down, rob it of its destiny. Jesus knew that He was launching out into eternity; and, plucking His spirit away from these hostile hands which were eager to seize it, He placed it in the hands of G.o.d. There it was safe. Strong and secure are the hands of the Eternal. They are soft and loving too.
With what a pa.s.sion of tenderness must they have received the spirit of Jesus. "I have covered thee," said G.o.d to His servant in an ancient prophecy, "in the shadow of My hand;" and now Jesus, escaping from all the enemies, visible and invisible, by whom He was beset, sought the fulfilment of this prophecy.
This is the art of dying; but is it not also the art of living? The spirit of every son of Adam is threatened by dangers at death; but it is threatened with them also in life. As has been said, it is our flower and our pearl; but the flower may be crushed and the pearl may be lost long before death arrives. "The flesh l.u.s.teth against the spirit." So does the world. Temptation a.s.sails it, sin denies it. No better prayer, therefore, could be offered by a living man, morning by morning, than this of the dying Saviour. Happy is he who can say, in reference to his spirit, "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day."
IV.
This last word of the expiring Saviour revealed His view of death.
The word used by Jesus in commending His spirit to G.o.d implies that He was giving it away in the hope of finding it again. He was making a deposit in a safe place, to which, after the crisis of death was over, He would come and recover it. Such is the force of the word, as is easily seen in the quotation just made from St. Paul, where he says that he knows that G.o.d will keep that which he has committed to Him--using the same word as Jesus--"against that day." [3] Which day?
Obviously some point in the future when he could appear and claim from G.o.d that which he had entrusted to Him. Such a date was also in Christ"s eye when He said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Death is a disruption of the parts of which human nature is composed. One part--the spirit--was going away to G.o.d; another was in the hands of men, who were wreaking on it their wicked will; and it was on its way to the house appointed for all living. But Jesus was looking forward to a reunion of the separated parts, when they would again find each other, and the integrity of the personal life be restored.
The most momentous question which the dying can ask, or which the living can ask in the prospect of death, is, "If a man die, shall he live again?" does he all die? and does he die forever? There is a terrible doubt in the human heart that it may be so; and there have never been wanting teachers who have turned this doubt into a dogma.
They hold that mind is only a form or a function of matter, and that, therefore, in the dissolution of the bodily materials, man dissolves and mixes with the material universe. Others, while holding fast the distinction between mind and matter, have taught that, as the body returns to the dust, the mind returns to the ocean of being, in which its personality is lost, as the drop is in the sea, and there can be no reunion. There is, however, something high and sacred within us that rebels against these doctrines; and the best teachers of the race have encouraged us to hope for something better. Still, their a.s.surances have been hesitating and their own faith obscure. It is to Christ we have to go: He has the words of eternal life. He spoke on this subject without hesitation or obscurity; and His dying word proves that He believed for Himself what He taught to others. Not only, however, has He by His teaching brought life and immortality to light: He is Himself the guarantee of the doctrine; for He is our immortal life. Because we are united to Him we know we can never perish; nothing, not even death, can separate us from His love; "Because I live," He has said, "ye shall live also."
It may be that in a very literal sense we have in the study of this sentence been learning the art of dying: these may be our own dying words. They have been the dying words of many. When John Huss was being led to execution, there was stuck on his head a paper cap, scrawled over with pictures of devils, to whom the wretched priests by whom he was surrounded consigned his soul; but again and again he cried, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." These were also the last words of Polycarp, of Jerome of Prague, of Luther, of Melanchthon, and of many others. Who could wish his spirit to be carried away to G.o.d in a more glorious vehicle? But, whether or not we may use this prayer in death, let us diligently make use of it in life.
Close not the book without breathing, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
[1] "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."
[2] The first business of the interpreter of Scripture is to find out precisely what every verse or paragraph meant at the time and place where it was written; and there is endless profit in the exact determination of this original application. But, whilst the interpreter"s task begins, it does not end with this. The Bible is a book for every generation; and the deduction of the message which it is intended to convey to the present day is as truly the task of the interpreter. There is a species of exegesis, sometimes arrogating to itself the sole t.i.tle to be considered scientific, by which the garden of Scripture is trans.m.u.ted into an herbarium of withered specimens.
[3] Christ"s word is _parat.i.themai_, and St. Paul"s, 2 Tim. i. 12, _ten paratheken mou_, according to the best reading.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SIGNS
There are indications that to some of those who took part in the crucifixion of Christ His death presented hardly anything to distinguish it from an ordinary execution; and there were others who were anxious to believe that it had no features which were extraordinary. But G.o.d did not leave His Son altogether without witness. The end of the Saviour"s sufferings was accompanied by certain signs, which showed the interest excited by them in the world unseen.
I.
The first sign was the rending of the veil of the temple. This was a heavy curtain covering the entrance to the Holy Place or the entrance to the Holy of Holies--most probably the latter. Both entrances were thus protected, and Josephus gives the following description of one of the curtains, which will probably convey a fair idea of either; five ells high and sixteen broad, of Babylonian texture, and wonderfully st.i.tched of blue, white, scarlet and purple--representing the universe in its four elements--scarlet standing for fire and blue for air by their colours, and the white linen for earth and the purple for sea on account of their derivation, the one, from the flax of the earth and the other from the sh.e.l.lfish of the sea.
The fact that the rent proceeded from top to bottom was considered to indicate that it was made by the finger of G.o.d; but whether any physical means may have been employed we cannot tell. Some have thought of the earthquake, which took place at the same moment, as being connected with it through the loosening of a beam or some similar accident.[1]
At critical moments in history, when the minds of men are charged with excitement, even slight accidents may a.s.sume remarkable significance.[2] Such incidents occur at turning-points of the life even of individuals.[3] They derive their significance from the emotion with which the minds of observers happen at the time to be filled. No doubt the rending of the temple veil might appear to some a pure accident, while in the minds of others it crystallised a hundred surging thoughts. But we must ascribe to it a higher dignity and a divine intention.
Like the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness, it had a double face--one of judgment and another of mercy.
It betokened the desecration of the shrine and the exodus of the Deity from the temple whose day of opportunity and usefulness was over. And it is curious to note how at the time not only the Christian but even the Jewish mind was big with this thought. There is a Jewish legend in Josephus, which is referred to also by the Roman historian Tacitus, that at the Pa.s.sover some years after this the east door of the inner court of the temple, which was so heavy that twenty men were required to close it, and was, besides, at the moment strongly locked and barred, suddenly at midnight flew open; and, the following Pentecost, the priests whose duty it was to guard the court by night, heard first a rushing noise as of hurrying feet and then a loud cry, as of many voices, saying, "Let us depart from hence."
Nor was it only in Palestine that in that age the air was charged with the impression that a turning-point in history had been reached, and that the ancient world was pa.s.sing away. Plutarch[4] heard a singular story of one Epitherses from the rhetorician Aemilia.n.u.s, who had it from the man"s father. On a certain occasion this Epitherses happened to be a pa.s.senger on board a ship which got becalmed among the Echinades. As it stood near one of the islands, suddenly there came from the sh.o.r.e a voice, loud and clear, calling Thamus, the pilot, an Egyptian, by his name. Twice he kept silence; but, when the call came the third time, he replied; whereupon the voice cried still louder, "When you come to the Paludes, proclaim that the great Pan is dead."
Pan being the G.o.d of nature in that ancient world, all who heard were terrified, and they debated whether or not they should obey the command. At last it was agreed that if, when they came to the Paludes, it was windy, they were not to obey, but, if calm, they would. It turned out to be calm; and, accordingly, the pilot, standing on the prow of the vessel, shouted out the words; whereupon the air was filled, not with an echo, but the loud groaning of a great mult.i.tude mingled with surprise.[5] The pilot was called before the Emperor Tiberius, who strictly enquired into the truth of the incident.
Such was the meaning of the rending of the veil on its dark side: it denoted that the reign of the G.o.ds was over and that Jerusalem was no longer to be the place where men ought to worship. But it had at the same time a bright side; and this was the side for the sake of which the incident was treasured by the friends of Jesus. It meant, as St.
Paul says, that the wall between Jew and Gentile had been broken down.
It meant, as is set forth in the n.o.ble argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the system of ceremonies and intermediaries by which under the Old Testament the worshipper might approach G.o.d and yet was kept at a distance from Him had been swept away. The heart of G.o.d is now fully revealed, and it is a heart of love; and, at the same time, the heart of man, liberated by the sacrifice of Christ from the conscience of sin, as it could never be by the offering of bulls and goats, can joyfully venture into the divine presence and go out and in with the freedom of a child. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil--that is to say, His flesh--and having a High Priest over the house of G.o.d, let us draw near with a true heart in full a.s.surance of faith." [6]
II.
The second sign was the resurrection of certain of the dead--"The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many."
Whether or not the rending of the veil in the temple was connected with the earthquake, there is no doubt that this second sign was. The graves in Palestine were caves in the rocks, the mouths of which were closed with great stones. Some of these stones were shaken from their places by the earthquake; and the bodies themselves, which lay on shelves or stood upright in niches, may have been disturbed. But in some of them a greater disturbance occurred: besides the external shaking there took place within them a motion of the life-giving breath of G.o.d.
In the minds of many devout scholars this miracle has excited suspicion on several accounts. They say it is contrary to the teaching of Scripture elsewhere, according to which Christ was the firstfruits of them that slept. If these dead bodies were reanimated at the moment of this earthquake, they, and not He, were the firstfruits. To this it is answered that St. Matthew is careful to note that they came out of their graves "after His resurrection"; so that St. Matthew still agrees with St. Paul in making Christ the first to rise. But, then, it is asked, in what condition were they between their reanimation and their resurrection? The Evangelist appears to state that they rose from death to life at the moment of the earthquake, but did not emerge from the tomb till the third day afterwards, when Christ had risen. Is this credible? or is it an apocryphal marvel, which has been interpolated in the text of St. Matthew? The other Evangelists, while, along with St.
Matthew, narrating the rending of the veil, do not touch on this incident at all. The whole representation, it is argued, lacks the sobriety which is characteristic of the authentic miracles of the Gospels and broadly separates them from the ecclesiastical miracles, about which there is generally an air of triviality and grotesqueness.
On the other hand, there is no indication in the oldest and best ma.n.u.scripts of St. Matthew that this is an interpolation; and many of the acutest minds have felt this trait to be thoroughly congruous and suitable to its place. If, they contend, He who had just died on Calvary was what He gave Himself out and we believe Him to be, His death must have excited the profoundest commotion in the kingdoms of the dead. The world of living men and women was insensible to the character of the event which was taking place before its eyes; but the world unseen was agitated as it never had been before and never was to be again. It was not unnatural, but the reverse, that some of the dead, in their excitement and eagerness, should even press back over the boundaries of the other world, in order to be in the world where Christ was. The question where they were or what they were doing between their reanimation and resurrection is a triviality not worth considering. At all events, they rose after their Lord; and was it not appropriate that when, after the forty days, He ascended to heaven, there to be received by rejoicing angels and archangels, He should not only appear in the flesh, but be accompanied by specimens of what His resurrection power was ultimately to do for all believers? If it be asked who the favoured saints were to whom this blessed priority was vouchsafed, we cannot tell. The dust, however, was not far away of many whom the Lord might delight to honour--patriarchs, like Abraham; kings, like David; prophets, like Isaiah.
But the true significance of this sign is not dependent on such speculations. Even if it should ever be discovered, as it is not in the least likely to be, that this story was interpolated in St.
Matthew, and we should be driven to the conclusion that it was invented by the excited fancy of the primitive Christians, even then we should have to ask what caused them to invent it. And the only possible answer would be, that it was the force of the conviction burning within them that by His death and resurrection Christ had opened the gates of death to all the saints. This was the glorious faith which was begotten by the experiences of those never-to-be-forgotten days, whether the sight of these resurrected saints played any part or not in maturing it; and it is now the faith of the Church and the faith of mankind.
This may well be called the rending of another veil. If in the ancient world there was a veil on the face of G.o.d, there was a veil likewise on the face of eternity.[7] The home of the soul was hidden from the children of men. They vaguely surmised it, indeed; they could never believe that they were wholly dust. But, apart from Christ, the speculations even of the wisest as to the other world are hardly more correct or certain than might be the speculations of infants in the womb as to the condition of this world.[8] Christ, on the contrary, always spoke of the world invisible with the freedom and confidence of one to whom it was native and well known; and His resurrection and ascension afford the most authentic glimpses into the realm of immortality which the world has ever received.
In this sign, indeed, it is with the death and not with the resurrection that this authentication is connected. But the resurrection of Christ is allied in the most intimate manner with His death. It was the public recognition of His righteousness. Since, however, He died not for Himself alone, but as a public person, His mystical body has the same right to resurrection, and in due time it will be made manifest that, He having discharged every claim on their behalf, death has now no right to detain them.
III.
The first sign was in the physical world; the second was in the underworld of the dead; but the third was in the common world of living men. This was the acknowledgment of Christ by the centurion who superintended His crucifixion.