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

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 Heaven, what is its essential nature. Is it not this, that being the dwelling place of GOD Himself, the glory and happiness of Heaven will consist in the Presence itself of GOD, and therefore in the vision of GOD? As