The Life of the Waiting Soul in the Intermediate State | Page 3

a mixed character, partly good and
partly evil for those who in this life were in part good and in part were
evil! But these two awful and sharp alternatives, either reward or
punishment, these two separate issues, heaven or hell, and if not heaven
then necessarily and inevitably hell! What shall we think? We dare not
think. In the Bible we are encouraged to believe that we shall receive
the due reward of our deeds, whether they be good or whether they be
evil. {8} But how shall any receive in heaven the due reward of evil
deeds done on earth? and how, in hell, shall any wretched soul receive
in any truth the due rewards of good deeds done on earth? Yet in each,
there was some good even in the worst, and some evil even in the best."
We see then what follows upon this false belief, that at death an instant
judgment assigns finally the destiny of all men, to men of every degree
of wickedness, without distinction, Hell; and one final and absolute
Heaven to men of every varying measure of goodness. Surely there is a
great perplexity in this. No wonder if such beliefs lead men to dread the
thought of death, of their own death, of the death of their friends. No
mere physical repulsion makes us shrink, but rather the uncertainty and
doubt of what may follow,
"The dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country, from
whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will,"
and makes us Christian men and women turn to find relief from these
bewildering fears by plunging deeply into the waters of life's
amusements and ambitions. It is the uncertainty of things, wearing to
some the aspect of caprice, which leads to recklessness, and sometimes
to defiance.
I believe, from my heart, that Holy Scripture rightly understood solves
these confusing riddles. I believe that a more sound and Scriptural
grasp of what will be the future of each of us after death, the restoration
of a right belief in an Intermediate State, will go far to correct these
unworthy and most un-Christian fears. But it is said, at times, that
nothing can be really known about this Intermediate State, that all that
can be asserted of it is mere guess and vain conjecture, and even that it
betrays a too curious intrusion into things unseen to speculate about the

condition of souls after death. Yes! if we only speculate, but not surely
if we seek humbly to find out what the Bible has taught us. S. Paul did
not think it a too presumptuous intrusion into things beyond the reach
of our knowledge to make this enquiry. "I would not have you to be
ignorant concerning them which are asleep." He would rather that the
Thessalonians should know all that can be known, to their edification.
And something can be known, or he would not have written this. And
to know it will be to our edification also. Certainly to ignore what can
be known has led, as we have seen, to loss and offence in these days.
Therefore I propose to try and set before you not idle speculations
indeed, but what has been actually revealed in Holy Scripture, or may
be drawn from it about the Intermediate State. It is upon Holy Scripture
that we must depend for our learning. At least I shall make no attempt
to build arguments upon any other foundation than Holy Scripture. But
let us, in GOD'S Name, get out of Holy Scripture all that can, according
to the proportion of the faith, be deduced from it. It is as perilous, not to
say as undutiful towards GOD, the Revealer, to neglect what He has for
our sakes revealed, as it would be to invent speculations of our own
about that which He has not revealed.
The unseen world is not easy to apprehend, and to our matter-of-fact
English mind and temper is especially difficult. Yet, with the awful
future in our mind, which awaits not only those who are very dear to
ourselves, but ourselves also, we must be dull indeed, if we have no
concern for it. Then if sober questioning may reveal more clearly to us
what Holy Scripture can tell us of things that shall befall each of us, we
may hope to gain fresh confidence, and to renew our trust in Him Who
launched us into time, that we may live with Him in eternity through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

II.
"Jesus said unto him, Verily I say onto thee, To-day shall thou be with
Me in Paradise."
--S. LUKE XXIII. 43.

If we should ask what happens to the soul of a good man when he dies,
the answer would probably be that he has