THE QUESTION AS TO LIFE
"If a man die, shall he live?"—Job 14:14
"He that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live."—JOHN 11:25
These words of Job occur in the first cycle of his controversy with his friends, and are part of his answer to Zophar. Zophar had bluntly reaffirmed the view expressed by Eliphaz and Bildad that Job's suffering must have issued from his own sin. The answer of Job was a lengthy one, occupying in our arrangement, chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. His mood is clearly revealed in the way in which he began his answer, with a note of satire in the midst of his pain and misery and loneliness and darkness. He said:
"No doubt but ye are the people, And wisdom will die with you."
He then declared his determination to appeal from them to God. Completely dismissing them, all the rest of his answer is of the nature of such an appeal; and right in the midst of it these words occur. They are essentially parenthetical. That is to say we might leave them out, and yet not interfere with the main line of his argument. It was a great outburst, evidently out of some deep consciousness, creating a wistful wonder. It came out of the essential fact of his spiritual nature:
"If a man die, shall he live?"
Continuing, he said in effect that if he were sure that were so, he could bear up under all the trial. That is what he meant when he said:
"All the days of my warfare, would I wait, Till my release should come."
Evidently, although he asked the question, he had no confidence that the answer would be in the affirmative. This is revealed in the fact that he at once relapsed into language dolorous and full of despair:
"But now Thou numberest my steps; Dost Thou not watch over my sin? My transgression is sealed up in a bag, And Thou fasteneth up mine iniquity.
And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought,
And the rock is removed out of its place; The waters wear the stones;
The overflowings thereof wash away the dust of the earth."
and so forth. Out of the midst then of that dark and mysterious outlook, came the cry:
"If a man die, shall he live?"
It was only a suggestion, which for a passing moment at least cast a gleam of light through the gloom in which he was living. As we have said, the gleam was almost immediately overwhelmed with the gloom, but it had shined forth. It was a question of agonized humanity out of the midst of mystery. It was only a question, but what a question!
There was no answer to that question until we hear a voice speaking in the neighborhood of Bethany on a dark and stormy day, another day of sorrow and mystery. The words uttered by that voice were not in the nature of a question, casting a gleam of light, but a great affirmation, creating the break of the day of perfect light. "He that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live."
Job's consciousness of human life, based upon the experience of the hour, was expressed in these words:
"Man that is born of a woman
Is of few days, and full of trouble.
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down;
He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not."
And as later he said:
"For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again."
Thus Job declared that as he saw things, in the darkness of his experience, there was more hope for a tree than for a man. The tree cut down, sprouts again. Though there is an appearance of death, the scent of water will cause the tender branch to bud out of the old root, for life is still there.
"But man dieth, and wasteth away;
Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?"
This is a great poetic interpretation of massed human thinking. We are all given thus to think of life, even though it may be we have never put the thinking into words as Job did. When he uttered these words, he was in such circumstances as made him careless of anything merely conventional. He was baring his soul. He was expressing what he felt. Of course he was viewing his life on the side of the physical. Yet as he did so, there was a sudden recognition that he was more than dust. He realized that dying meant giving up the spirit. Looking out into the dark void he said:
"Yea, man giveth up the spirit, and where is he? . . .
So man lieth down and riseth not;
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,
Nor be roused out of their sleep."
Then he cried:
"If a man die, shall he live?"
I repeat, that is the common human outlook. It is what men are saying today, so far as the sense of the meaning of death is concerned.
Often, also, in the midst of such thinking, Job's question arises. Unfortunately, too often it would seem as though men do not ask that question. They continue, too largely without giving any attention to the spiritual fact. They go on eating and drinking, living wholly on the plane of the physical. Job, however, was now stripped of all earthly supports, and was facing the nakedness of his own being. When men get there, they are almost coerced into Job's question in some form. After all, what is life? Is it worthwhile? It began beautifully, like a flower opening, but it is soon to be cut off.
We need carefully to observe the real meaning of Job's question. In our translations we have introduced a word "again." This is not what Job asked. It was not a question as to whether a dead man should come back to life ; but whether a man dead so far as the physical is concerned, still lives. If a man dies, if the flower is cut off, is that man still alive? The question has not to do with a possible return to life, but is concerned with the idea of the continuity of life beyond what men call death.
All this might be put in another form. Job suddenly said within himself, is life after all something more than the present experience of it? Can it be that what we call death is only a change? If a man die, is he still living?
The question in itself is a revelation of the consciousness of the need for more time and space for the realization of life than the span of earthly life can afford. In effect Job said, if I could be sure that this life was not all, that the thing called death is but a process through which man passes, then the present, however full of suffering, would be bearable. I could stand up against all the bludgeoning of fate. I could bear anything if I thought I should still live, when men said I was dead.
This was the cry of a human being for more time and space for the interpretation of life. It was only a question, a sob, a sigh; only a suggestion; and the gleam faded, and Job passed back into the gloom.
That is the constant cry of humanity. Max Muller long ago said that if we only listened carefully enough we could hear universally:
"A groaning of the spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing after the Infinite."
Max Muller said that that was religion. Personally I should say that it demonstrates the capacity for religion. All that was condensed in Job's question. Confronting death, he asked his question. The view of death was and is a dark one. In spite of much that has been said, there is no bright view of death. The New Testament never refers to death in that way. It distinctly calls it an enemy. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (1 Cor. 15:26)
It is perfectly true that the answer of Jesus has transfigured the sackcloth. We may address death triumphantly as Bishop Taylor did:
"Death, the old serpent's son,
Thou hadst a sting once, like thy sire,
That carried hell and ever-burning fire;
But those black days are done;
Thy foolish spite buried thy sting
In the profound and wide
Wound of our Savior’s side;
And now thou art become a tame and harmless thing;
A thing we dare not fear,
Since we hear
That our triumphant God, to punish thee
For the affront thou didst Him on the tree
Hath snatched the keys of hell out of thy hand,
And made thee stand
A porter at the gate of life, thy mortal enemy."
To say that, however, is somewhat to run ahead of the argument of our article to the second part thereof. To return for a moment to this outlook on death, man does not want to die, because he is conscious that his life is so big that it cannot find full interpretation in the brief span of its earthly course. In the realm of investigation, the student, the scholar who for perhaps fifty years and more has pursued some line of investigation, and has by no means reached finality, passes away. He passes when he is more fitted for work than he has ever been before. Nothing is completed. In olden time, and perhaps still in many of our cemeteries, they erected over the dust of some departed being as a monument, a broken column. These are very suggestive as indicating the fact of the incompleteness of life. It is true that often across the broken-off apex; a garland of flowers was carved: That, too, was full of beautiful suggestiveness. Job, when he asked his question, saw the broken column with no garland of flowers. For a moment he wistfully wondered, is this all? This prosperity merging into poverty, this anguish and agony of unsolved problems, and of his friends' utter misunderstanding; is this indeed the end?
"If a man die, shall he live?"
Are there other dimensions? Is there still more time and space?
Now the question arises, is there an answer to that question? Certainly there is none in the Book of Job. When shortly God came to deal with Job, He uttered no explanation of his pain, did not answer any question that had been asked. What He did was to make His own glory pass before the man; and it is significant that when He did so, Job had no other question to ask. He became willing to postpone them.
We should not be warranted in saying that there was no positive conviction in the souls of any of these Old Testament men of the fact of immortality. But it may be affirmed that in the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures nothing is to be found that definitely and finally proves it. There are gleams, suggestions, implicates, and deductions, all the way through; but nothing authoritative. The answer to Job's question came with full and final authority in Jesus. This is what Paul meant when writing to Timothy he said, clustering the titles of our Lord into a great order, "Our Savior Jesus Christ abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (2 Tim. 1:10) In passing we may remind ourselves that the word "immortality" has been rendered more accurately by our revisers "incorruption." In his first letter to Timothy Paul declared that "God . . . only hath immortality," (1 Tim. 6:16) being the word athanasia, which means eternal deathlessness. Here he declared that Jesus brought life and aphtharsia to light. Aphtharsia merely refers to a quality of life which lacks any element tending to decay or corruption. Further let it be noted that Paul does not say that our Lord through the Gospel created life and incorruption; but that He brought them to light. That is, He brought into clear visibility facts that were in existence. He brought the full and final answer to Job's question. We may put the thing quite bluntly thus. Job said, "If a man die, shall he live?" Said Jesus, Yes, "he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live."
Let us pause for a moment to look at the circumstances under which these words of our Lord were uttered. Lazarus was dead. The great human question applied to him would be, Where is he? Does he still live? Those standing around were gazing at a dead body, and if they attempted to peer into the gloom there was no ray of light. It was then that Jesus said to Martha in John 11:23, "Thy brother shall rise again." When with honesty she declared her belief in resurrection, He added, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and added, "he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live." These words then did not refer to resurrection, although that also had been declared. They affirmed his continued life beyond what men look upon as death.
Then we are halted by the words, "He that believeth on Me," and find ourselves confronted by a situation which compels us to recognize that the Speaker was more than Man. This was the very language of God. The man who lives his life in fellowship with God never dies. To Job, or those in his case, the affirmation declares that there is more room than can be found in the dust-heap where they scrape themselves with broken chard for very agony.
There is more time than the turning sand-glass indicates.
We are living in the full light of this revelation, and to live there is to be assured that all physical death is incidental. Necessarily this fact has many applications. To begin with one, which perhaps is of minor importance, it at least implicates the fact of the recognition of our loved ones in the-Life that lies beyond. How constantly people are asking questions in that realm. Many voice their wonder by asking, “Do you expect to know your loved ones in heaven?" My answer to that question is, "My dear one, do you expect I shall be a bigger fool in heaven than here?" I answer that question that way because I believe that beyond death is life, and intelligent life.
In the realm of conscious personality this word of Jesus emphasizes the greatness of being, the splendor of individuality. To exist is magnificent, so magnificent that it is impossible to put the measurement of seventy years upon life. The real meaning of life lies out beyond that. There is to be ample time and space for the complete interpretation and realization of what God meant when He gave us being. That puts an entirely different complexion upon the days that, hurrying on, bear us towards the end of the earthly pilgrimage. The now is ever leading to the then. Every passing hour is linked with the undying ages.
Of course, that gives utmost value to these passing days. We may not, indeed, we cannot, see their full meaning as they pass. It is impossible to know the reason of today's experiences. The ultimate meaning of life lies out beyond what men call death. It was this conception that inspired Frances Ridley Havergal when she sang:
"Light after darkness,
Gain after loss,
Gain after loss,
Strength after weakness,
Crown after cross;
Sweet after bitter,
Hope after fears,
Home after wandering,
Praise after tears."
Out of darkness light will come; out of the loss of time the gain of eternity; out of the weakness of the hour the strength that abides; out of the cross is coming the crown; out of the bitter comes the sweet; fear ends in hope that never dies; all wandering is leading Home; and tears, encircled by the rainbow of love, will produce the praise that surrounds the rainbow-girdled Throne.
Yes, if a man dies, he lives, if he believes in Him through Whom God is revealed, and by Whom man passes into fellowship with God. D. L. Moody once said: "Some fine morning you will see in the newspapers, D. L. Moody is dead. Don't you believe it. I shall be more alive that morning than ever before!"
Perfection finished. Eternity ahead in a body and mind described by Paul in 1 Cor. 15.
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