WHEN people wish to declare their conviction of the certain occurrence of an event, it is not unusual to hear them say—" Such and such will happen as sure as death!'" Indeed, I overheard this expression in the train the other day; and immediately my thoughts began to work upon it.
Now, my reader, let me say, at the out start, that death is not sure after all! I mean, in plain language, that all will not die. It may be that many, who are now living around you, and performing, like yourself, the daily duties of life—men of like passion—subject to the same cares and sorrows as the rest, may never close their eyes in death; never be laid in the coffin; never be buried in the tomb. Death is not sure to the believer, and by death I mean the dissolution of the body—the natural separation of spirit and body seen on all hands constantly.
More of this presently, but, first, let me say that death is the doom of the unbeliever. To him death is sure—" It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment." Death is, therefore, God's appointment; and escape from it is, to the unbeliever, impossible. It is the wages of sin; so we read in Rom. 6 and, just as though sin were personified, so it is viewed as a paymaster, whose payment is death.
Clearly, then, he who is still in the service of sin must receive its payment; and such is the condition of every unbeliever. Death is due to him because of sin; and more, much more than death, yet death is the sinner's inevitable doom. He may well say, "As sure as death.”
And your death, my unbelieving reader, is sure! Can you think of it happily? Can you bear the idea of bidding an eternal farewell to all that now engages you—to friends, business, country, home, health—all? and of taking a leap in the dark?
Can you bear the thought of the coffin, and the tomb, the judgment seat and its awful verdict? The day will come for you to leave your darling sins, and your money, and your earthly all. The knife of divorce will rudely sever you from all your sordid selfish pleasures, and you will die! God has appointed you to death, and then to judgment. Man, woman, child, think! Oh, think! Oh! that they were wise. Are not the temporizing, procrastinating ways of people really appalling? This love of sin and the world; this terrible unbelief is ruining souls. Be awakened at once to your state if you are still unconverted.
We read of some who made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell—and who, no doubt, prided themselves on the bargain; but what said the answer of God? “Judgment will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet... and your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand." We read of another, a rich man, who thus daringly soliloquized with himself—"Soul," said he, “thou past much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease.”
But God said unto him, “Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.," What short work does God make of all such covenants! The greatest fool on earth is the man who lives without God.
A dying infidel said, “I would give ₤10,000 if it could be proved to me there was no hell.”
But let us return. You may have noticed that in the passage quoted we do not read that it is appointed unto all men—but only unto men—once to die; and this because it is elsewhere written: "We shall not all sleep" (1 Cor. 15.). Hence contradiction is avoided. Death and judgment are the natural doom of men— yet not of all men—of sinners as such, yet not of all who are, in one sense, sinners. They have escaped the doom of sin, and therefore its wages. "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Observe the diving liberation; the glorious equipoise of the "as" and "so” in this passage. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many "—this counterbalances that. The work of Christ, as substitute, meets and outweighs the guilt of those who, by grace, trust in Him.
“The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." How simple, but, oh! how worthy of God!
Then, if sin be met, what of death? it is annulled! Christ “hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1); and further, the believer" is passed from death unto life "—and further, death is ours.” All things are yours life or death, things present or things to come” (1 Cor. 3). Hence the peon of victory,—" O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory? ... Thanks be unto God who giveth, us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is the relation of the Christian to death.
But have not all died since these words were written by the Apostles. No, they have “fallen asleep," their bodies have been" put off "— they have become absent from the body and present with the Lord; but, if Christians, they have not died. Death has no further claim upon them. Redemption has place them in life. "He that hath the Son hath life.'
“We have passed from death unto life," and so perfect is the work of the cross that whey the Lord comes again, " We shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye-the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
Hence, the Christian is waiting for—not death but—the coming of the Lord. Death is no necessity. "We look," said the apostle Paul” for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body and fashion it like unto His glorious body." Such is the proper Christian hope, not death, but the coming of the Lord in person, to take us where He is.
The aphorism "sure as death" is, therefore, faulty. But the coming of the Lord is more destructive of the hopes of the unbeliever, than the prospect of death itself. Death may be distant, and in all probability lingering.
Hence there is time for repentance-a deathbed repentance will do! But when the Lord comes all will be over “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." The ready will be secured; the unready excluded. Not one moment for repentance then! Oh! sinner, be in time. “At such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." J. W. S.