The Life of the Waiting Soul in the Intermediate State | Page 5

so much concerns us, ought not to depend upon a single
text. I do not propose to ask you to be content with an inference from a
single text. But it may be that our Lord did not say more than this about
the great truth with which we are dealing for this reason, that the
disciples whom He gathered round Him, being Jews, perfectly well
knew what He meant by Paradise. This single reference, therefore, is

enough to show that what was a common and prevalent belief among
the Jews was a true belief,--a belief which our Lord not only recognized,
but by recognizing established and sanctioned. But if we are once clear
on this point, we shall find the belief more plainly set forth by our Lord
in another place. What then is the belief that we have learned from this
single passage? We have learned this, that the human spirit of our Lord,
and the spirit of the dying thief did not pass at death to heaven, though
if any spirit should ever be fit to pass at death to heaven His spirit was
fit, but to a state which He called Paradise.
Now, there was another expression used in the ordinary Jewish
language of the day for the state to which the blessed dead passed at
death. They were spoken of as at rest "in Abraham's bosom." Of a very
holy man they would say, "This day he rests in Abraham's bosom." So
that in the minds of the Jews and therefore of the disciples the term
"Paradise" meant exactly the same thing as "Abraham's bosom." We
have learned what "Paradise" meant. Therefore now we know what
"resting in Abraham's bosom" meant. It meant the Intermediate State.
{19} The scene then in the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus,
which follows the deaths of the two men, belongs not to the final state
of happiness and misery at all, but to the Intermediate State. The joy is
the joy of the Intermediate State. The suffering, which is in such strong
contrast to the joy as to be divided from it by a deep gulf, so that the
joy cannot be tinged with the misery, nor the misery relieved by the
joy,--this suffering also is the suffering of the Intermediate State.
The reality then of the Intermediate State is confirmed by our Lord in
this narrative. Now observe the weight of this testimony. If the Jews
were wrong in believing that the spirits of the just passed into Paradise
or into Abraham's bosom our Lord would never have uttered words
twice over which sanctioned their mistake. We may observe further
from these two passages that the Intermediate State has two parts or
conditions. There are those in it who suffer, and there are those who
rejoice. At death, the spirits of those whose lives have been evil pass to
suffering and anguish, as we read of the rich man that "in Hades he
lifted up his eyes being in torments"; and the spirits of the faithful pass
to rest and joy. But between these two representatives in the narrative,

the one of the evil, the other of the good, there are the multitudes who
are neither very good nor very evil, so varied in the indeterminate
tokens of good and evil which marked their lives on earth, that it would
seem to be impossible for us to know on which side of "the great gulf"
their position ought to be. But if the extremes enter the Intermediate
State, and there is room for them in it, is it to be supposed that there is
no room for those who are between the extremes? Rather do we learn
that the spirits of all go thither, not only of the faithful and of the
wicked, but of the wavering and uncertain also, of those who were
weak and fell, of those who, with unsteady and tottering steps,
sometimes rising, often falling, now obeying, now rebelling, now
believing, now doubting, now walking in the light, now plunged in
darkness, at one time treading firmly the ground of the narrow path,
and then at times wandering into the quagmires and morasses of sin and
lust, passed through the pilgrimage of life, and, at length, when their
allotted span was completed, were assigned to the place which awaited
them, to the place which was their own and was fitted for them.
We have seen what conclusions must be drawn from the express
language of our Lord Himself. Let us now examine the evidence
afforded by His Apostles, in the Epistles and in the book of the
Revelation. But first I would ask you to consider what, according to the
Bible, is the chief feature in the conception of the happiness and glory
of