Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

All the days of our appointed time will we wait, till our change come. He shall call for us, and we will answer Him. O tender Father! keep our hearts well filled with the blessed hope of that which so surely awaits us.

It is a weary way, and I am faint:

I pant for purer air and fresher springs:
O Father! take me home; there is a taint,
A shadow on earth's purest, brightest things.
This world is but a wilderness

To me:

There is no rest, my God,

Apart from thee !

CHAPTER XI.

The Beatific Vision.

Here will be oculi bibuli, thirsty eyes; a soul ready to drink in glory at the eye. If vision be by intromission, what attractive eyes are here, drawing in glory, feeding upon glory! If by extramission, what piercing, darting eyes, sending forth the soul at every look to embrace the glorious object!

HOWE.

THERE is an element of heavenly felicity revealed in the Scriptures, which has been expressed in theological language by the words-"beatific vision." The word beatific does not only mean to be blessed or happy, but it has the reflex meaning to make blessed or to make happy-beatus, blessed, and facio, I make.

This beatitude is something objective or external to the saint, and which has power in itself to stream felicity upon him; not something merely which affords happiness to the saint according to his capacity to receive it, but which has the power to enlarge that capacity, and filling the desire which it itself enlarges. It is not merely representative-not merely reflective— but communicative.

The Old Testament dispensation represented Heaven

to our hopes-the New Testament dispensation reflects and partly communicates it to our faith-the heavenly dispensation, being the substance of what is represented and reflected, communicates it to us. In this world, heaven dawns in the saints; there, the saints will be in heaven. The light of the sun is light still, even when reflected upon us from the moon, but it has lost its warmth, and its keen, life-imparting power; so the bliss of heaven in the saints, in this life, is heavenly, but not so immediate and direct, not so inwardly vivid and bliss-imparting. God and the Lamb and the ever blessed spirit, the triune source and centre of heavenly joy, will emerge from behind those intervening media through which we were wont to contemplate them as in a glass darkly, and arise in full-orbed splendor upon the sainted soul. "I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it." Rev. xxi. 22-24. We shall be prepared to enjoy this glorious vision when once we dwell, with sanctified souls, in glorified bodies.

This direct beatific interview with God, the deepest source of heavenly bliss, is variously set forth in the Scriptures. Thus, "In my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness." "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." "For now we see through a glass darkly (enigmatically); but then face

to face now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." "It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." "And they shall see his face."

From these passages we may learn what is included in the Beatific Vision.

I. It is to see God.

Though this expression, "see God," is, in its deepest sense, figurative, and has, as such, reference to a spiritual perception of Him, yet we need not hesitate to say that it includes also the literal. Our glorification in Heaven involves also the glorification of the body; and we have no reason to think, from anything said in scripture, that the organs of sense in the body will be abolished and destroyed. The salvation of the Scriptures, is a salvation of all that has not been introduced by sin. The senses, and of course sight, as one of them, belonged to the original constitution of man; he had them in his state of primeval holiness, and they were a part of that which God pronounced "very good." As man was in his holy state, so shall he be, substantially, when he is redeemed.

Neither have we any reason to doubt that Heaven, as a place, and not merely as a state, will present objects to the sight of saints. That God himself, in some way unknown to us now, will manifest himself to our visive powers in Heaven, no scripture prevents us from believing. "There shall no man see me and live," teaches only that while the saint lives in the flesh, he cannot endure the glorious sight; hence it has been a general belief that if any one should see

God he would die. This does not at all teach that such sight may not be endured in glorified bodies, and in a glorified state. The expression of the Apostle as applied to God: "who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto: whom no man hath seen, nor can see"-can only mean, to be consistent with other passages, that no man can approach him while in his mortal state; and that no man can see him out of Christ, who is the manifested God. No other interpretation of these passages would preserve their harmony with those which declare that we shall " see him as he is," see him "face to face;" and especially with the strong language of Job, where he speaks plainly of the life after the resurrection: "In my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another."

We do not, therefore, exclude from our idea of the Beatific Vision all sensible manifestations of God's glory, even though we admit that the deepest idea involved in the expression, to "see God," is that of a spiritual perception. Some sensible manifestations of Himself, far more immediate and glorious than any the saint ever enjoys in this life, will dawn out upon him from that excellent glory with which the Great God clothes Himself as with a garment in that celestial place which is His special habitation.

II. To enjoy the Beatific Vision is to "see His face."

By this expression we do not understand merely seeing God in His general manifestations, but in His central, most prominent, and most peculiarly gracious character. The face is the noblest and brightest fea

« ÎnapoiContinuă »