Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 14:14

If a man die, shall he live [again]? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

If a man die, shall he live again? – This is a sudden transition in the thought. He had unconsciously worked himself up almost to the belief that man might live again even on the earth. He had asked to be hid somewhere – even in the grave – until the wrath of God should be overpast, and then that God would remember him, and bring him forth again to life. Here he checks himself. It cannot be, he says, that man will live again on the earth. The hope is visionary and vain, and I will endure what is appointed for me, until some change shall come. The question here shall he live again? is a strong form of expressing negation. He will not live again on the earth. Any hope of that kind is, therefore, vain, and I will wait until the change come – whatever that may be.

All the days of my appointed time – tsaba’y – my warfare; my enlistment; my hard service. See the notes at Job 7:1.

Will I wait – I will endure with patience my trials. I will not seek to cut short the time of my service.

Till my change come – What this should be, he does not seem to know. It might be relief from sufferings, or it might be happiness in some future state. At all events, this state of things could not last always, and under his heavy pressure of wo, he concluded to sit down and quietly wait for any change. He was certain of one thing – that life was to be passed over but once – that man could not go over the journey again – that he could not return to the earth and go over his youth or his age again. Grotius, and after him Rosenmuller and Noyes, here quotes a sentiment similar to this from Euripides, in Supplicibus, verses 1080ff.

,

, . . .

Oimoi ti de brotoisin ouk estin tode,

Neous dis einai, kai gerontas au palin; etc.

The whole passage is thus elegantly translated by Grotius:

Proh fata! cur non est datum mortalibus

Duplici juventa, duplici senio frui?

Intra penates siquid habet incommode,

Fas seriore corrigi sententia;

Hoc vita non permittit: at qui bis foret

Juvenis senexque, siquid erratum foret

Priore, id emendaret in cursu altero.

The thought here expressed cannot but occur to every reflecting mind. There is no one who has not felt that he could correct the errors and follies of his life, if he were permitted to live it over again. But there is a good reason why it should not be so. What a world would this be if man knew that he might return and repair the evils of his course by living it over again! How securely in sin would he live! How little would he be restrained! How little concerned to be prepared for the life to come! God has, therefore, wisely and kindly put this out of the question; and there is scarcely any safeguard of virtue more firm than this fact. We may also observe that the feelings here expressed by Job are the appropriate expressions of a pious heart. Man should wait patiently in trial until his change comes. To the friend of God those sorrows will be brief. A change will soon come – the last change – and a change for the better. Beyond that, there shall be no change; none will be desirable or desired. For that time we should patiently wait, and all the sorrows which may intervene before that comes, we should patiently bear.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Job 14:14

If a man die, shall he live again?

The one question of humanity, and its many answers

I. The one question.

1. It has always been asked. In all periods of history it has been proposed; time has not diminished its interest; it will always spring naturally from mans heart.

2. It is asked everywhere. It is the question of all nations and of all conditions of men. It is universal–an eminently human question.

3. It arises in varied circumstances. The brevity and the vicissitudes of life, the sufferings of the good, and the prosperity of the wicked; premature deaths, bereavement, and the expectation of our own dissolution suggest it.

4. It is asked with different feelings. With despair. The atheist. With hope and desire. To be or not to be? that is the question. Whence comes this pleasing hope, this fond desire, this longing after immortality? With terror. The murderer, the tyrant, the impenitent, the backslider. It is asked in triumph, Art Thou not from everlasting to everlasting, O God, mine Holy One?

II. The many answers. There are three different answers.

1. The negative, or that of atheism. There is no God, and there can be no immortality. This is an assertion without proof. Who can prove it?

2. The neutral, or that of secularism. We do not know, but it matters not. However, it does matter. Then we cannot help feeling interested in it.

3. The affirmative, or that of Christianity. Most men have answered yes. But the affirmative responders have greatly varied in tone and import. The answer of Christianity alone is full and assuring.

(1) It is calm and dignified. I am the resurrection and the life.

(2) It proclaims a complete immortality. According to it, the whole of man is to be perpetuated and perfected in eternity. We shall be like Him. There is a spiritual body.

(3) It is practical. We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

(4) It is holy in its influence. He that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure. (Richard Hancock.)

The human lien on the immortal life

It is a real trouble to the most of us to imagine ourselves out of the body, but still the same man or woman. This touch of trouble is entirely natural, because we are in the body and belong to the life that now is, and find that in proportion to the wealth of our human life is this deep loyalty to the things one can touch and see. I do not think this trouble is met by the perpetual exhortation to consider these conditions of our human life as so many incumbrances we ought to shake off, to treat this nature God gives us as if it were in quarantine; a place to be done with the sooner the better, so that we may attain the fair pleasures of the everlasting rest. Such a feeling may come to be natural through a perpetual brooding over the meanness and poverty of the best there is for us down here if we take that turn; or to those who have had a sore fight, and are quite worn out; or who have drained the world of all its pleasant things, and would toss it away like the skin of an orange. Or it may seem natural to some who have been trained from their childhood to fix their whole heart on the world to come, and so think of this as a stepping stone, and no more, between the eternities. But the men who have talked in this strain were out of sorts with the world, or had got down with it; or else they were men who did not practise what they preached. Neither is this trouble met by the suggestion men make, out of a certain despair one thinks, that there may be infinite blessing through our passing again into the infinite life, losing our identity in that mystery out of which we came, forgetting all about it for evermore, and becoming one with God. No one thing in this universe can be of a deeper moment to a whole man than his own proper personal life. You may talk to him until doomsday about being lost in the infinite, but he clings to himself as the true factor. To me the solution of this problem lies where it has always lain,–in the Gospels, and in our power to catch their noble meanings, and make the truth they tell our own. To feel the powers of the world to come we must come close to this Christ who has brought life and immortality to light. This is what those can rest on who trust in these old, simple Gospels, and believe in Jesus Christ as the most human being the world has ever known, and therefore the most Divine. That this change, when it comes, will not wrest us out of the sweet verities of our own existence, and land us utter strangers in a life so separate from this we love that we had better never been born than encounter such a sad frustration. The solution of this question of the immortal life does not lie, as it seems to me, in metaphysics, in evolution, or even in the ascertained verities of philosophy. It lies where it has always lain, in the truth as it is in Jesus, who assures us that we cannot love what is worthy the love of these human hearts to no purpose. So let us take this to our hearts–that it is all right, and right in the line of the life we have to live, drawn here, if we will but make it as noble and good as we can. (Robert Collyer, D. D.)

Resignation to the Divine will

I. We have the prospect of a change. Many changes are incidental to human beings, but there are three which stand out with prominence above the rest. One extraordinary change occurs when human beings become rational. A change more momentous occurs when human beings become religious. Above all, the great consummation is reserved for the time when human beings become immortal. Then will the term of our minority expire, and we shall receive our best inheritance. Is it, however, merely the soul of a believer in Jesus Christ that enters the kingdom? Must its ancient partner–the body, lie always in the dust, or roam in a separate and less splendid province of the Divine empire?

II. The influence of this prospect.

1. The prospect of our change may be viewed in connection with the current of our thoughts.

2. In connection with our estimate of all earthly good.

3. In connection with our individual exertions and supplications.

4. In connection with all our intervening pains and distresses.

5. In connection with all that is grand and joyful. (J. Hughes.)

The true argument for immortality

I. Reason fails to answer. So men say there is no positive proof; but wait, says science, I have unravelled mysteries before; so the anxious question.

II. Science answers–

1. The body dies, but the soul lives.

(1) Body prepared for soul, not soul for body.

(2) But soul has longings, hopes; can science satisfy these?

2. In nature is the law of co-relation–incompleteness completed. But we are conscious that soul has not reached highest perfection; but, says science, See how nature supplies her creatures demands.

(1) But can nature satisfy longing for unending being? No. Sciences testimony does not fully satisfy. Her speculations are but born of the finite. We seek the sure foundation–the true argument for immortality. Whence can it come?

III. A voice familiar falls upon our hearts. I give eternal life. I am the Life. Yes, in the testimony of Jesus Christ is the mystery of being made clear. Science can give nothing so positive. Therefore, finally–

1. What is your responsibility as an immortal being?

2. How are you meeting that responsibility? (Homiletic Monthly.)

The two questions about death

I. Of this truth we have hints in nature.

1. The souls longing is a promise and prophecy of immortality. The birds wing and fishs fin prophesy air and water; the eye and ear, light and sound. If mans hope has no object it is the single exception in nature.

2. Force is never lost. It is invisible and indestructible. It passes from body to body, changes its form and mode of manifestation, but never lost or even lessened. No energy is ever lost.

3. Life, the grandest force, is therefore indestructible. Even thought cannot die; how, then, the thinker himself? Death is dissolution, decay. What is there in mind to dissolve or decay?

4. Metamorphosis in nature hints and illustrates life as surviving changes of form and mode of existence.

II. Hints in the word of God.

1. Mans creation, Made of dust. Living soul inbreathed. Death penalty inflicted on the body; but soul never said to die in same sense. (Luk 15:1-32, where death is alienation of son from father; Rom 8:1-39, where carnal-mindedness is death.)

2. Mans death as described in Ecc 12:1-14. Dust returning to the earth. Spirit unto God. Plain reference to the story of creation. The breath is given up, but does not die, and symbolises the Spirit.

3. This truth is inwrought into the whole structure of the Scriptures. The blood of Abel represented his life that was vocal even after he was dead. (Comp. Rev 6:9, where the souls or lives of martyrs cry unto God.) The great incentive to righteousness in both testaments is union with God here, merging into such union perfected yonder, as illustrated in Enoch and Elijah.

4. Immortality is assumed. (Mat 22:23, when Christ confronts the Sadducees.) He teaches that souls in heaven live under new and unearthly conditions; and so God is the God of the living, not the dead.

III. But there is distinct teaching on this subject. Examples–The Transfiguration, where Moses represents saints who have died, and Elijah saints that pass into glory without death, but both equally alive. The words to the penitent thief, Today with Me in paradise. Stephens dying vision and exclamation, Receive my spirit. Paul (Php 1:23-24; 2Co 5:6; 2Co 5:9; 1Th 4:14-16; 1Co 3:1-23), where a future life is shown to be necessary to complete the awards of this life. (Comp. Luk 16:1-31., the parable of rich man and Lazarus.) (Arthur T. Pierson, D. D.)

The immortality of the soul

Though the doctrine of the souls immortality is peculiar to Christianity, yet it has engaged the thoughts and attention of the wisest men in all times. Prior to the advent of Christ, the doctrine was but dimly known even to the wisest of mankind, whether Jew or Gentile. Our present faith rests upon the Word of God. Death is not an eternal sleep, man shall live again.

1. The death of the soul cannot be reconciled with the justice of God. Justice in this life holds but an ill-balanced scale. Vice is seldom punished as it deserves, and rarer still does virtue meet its due reward. If death is an eternal sleep, and mans life ends with the tomb, how shall we reconcile his present condition with the justice of God? This question presents an argument for the immortality of the soul which philosophers and sceptics cannot answer, a moral proof which almost partakes of the nature of demonstration.

2. The death of the soul cannot be reconciled with the wisdom of God. In the providence of God nothing happens without an end, without a reason. The human mind does not act without a purpose or end, however wrong or weak that end may be. If this be true of the finite mind of man, imperfect as it is, how much more is it true of the infinite mind of God, as powerful to execute as it is perfect to conceive. Man is capable of infinite improvement. Though mans mind is constantly progressing, it never wholly matures. We never say his destiny is fulfilled. How, then, can we reconcile mans history and condition with the wisdom of God?

3. The death of the soul cannot be reconciled with the goodness of God. The desire for another life is an universal one, bounded by no geographical lines, limited by no clime or colour. Man is shocked at the very idea of annihilation. If death is an eternal sleep, why should man fear to die, why heed the reproaches of conscience? Did a God of goodness plant this desire in the heart of man merely to mock him with a phantom? Did He create hopes and longings which could never be realised? It needs not to reply. (G. F. Cushman, D. D.)

When a man dies

Do they live in other lands, or has the grave closed over them forever?

I. The heathen answer; or the light of reason on this subject. The heathen looked forward to the future with grave misgivings. Even the most enlightened could do little more than form conjectures. In the absence of positive information, they based their arguments on the principles of reason. They felt, as we all feel, a natural desire for immortality. This universal instinct receives confirmation in many ways.

1. By the analogy of nature. All nature dies to live again.

2. By the anomalies of existence.

(1) Social irregularities.

(2) Unsatisfactory surroundings,

(3) Early deaths. In the light of nature, we can only say that a future life is a possibility.

II. The Jewish answer. Here we pass from darkness into twilight. The Jews had the first faint streaks of Divine revelation. Their information, confined as it was to predictions and promises, was imperfect and unintelligible to the great mass of the people on whose conduct the doctrine exercised little or no practical influence. Such obscurity was in keeping with the temporary and progressive character of their dispensation.

III. The Christian answer. Here we come into daylight. In the light of the Gospel, the question of the text presents no difficulty. The Christian replies, in the full assurance of faith, Yes, he shall live again. This is true of the soul, but what of the body? Modern science is apt to run away with a mistaken impression of what is meant by the resurrection. St. Paul meets the modern objection by his analogy of the seed. We are not left in uncertainty as to what takes place when a man dies. After death, the judgment. The human race will gather at the call of the last trumpet. All will live again after the long sleep of the tomb. (D. Merson, M. A. , B. D.)

Does death end all

This, it need not be said, is not an hypothetical inquiry as to what may be in this life, as if it was a possible thing that a man might not die; for a little before, he said of man in relation to the law of his appointed mortality, his days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass (verse 5). The inquiry has reference to what shall be, or shall not be, after death. And what, it has been asked, was Jobs own view? Directly opposite opinions have been entertained in regard to it. One writer of considerable note says, The answer which Jobs consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give is, No, there is no life after death. It is, however, no less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought–a desirable possibility–which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering, all the days of my warfare (of my appointed time) would I wait until my change came. Farther on he says even Job is without any superior knowledge respecting the future life. He denies a resurrection and eternal life, not as one who has a knowledge of them, and will not however know anything about them, but he really knows nothing of them: our earthly life seems to him to flow on into the darkness of Sheol, and onward beyond Sheol man has no further existence. Entertaining such views, it is not at all to be wondered at, that in these words Job is viewed as asserting his belief that death is the extinction of being, and that for man there is no waking and no rising for evermore (verses 7-12). Others have entertained a very different opinion as to the answer which Job would have given to the question, If a man die, shall he live again? Crushed as Job was by his afflictions, both in body and in mind, I do not think that he entertained such a cheerless view of death, and of a future state. Possibly they mistake Jobs hope and prospects for the future, not less than his three friends did his character and the probable design of his sufferings, who do not know, or who are unable to perceive, that it was his hope of a future life, and of complete vindication, implying honour and happiness in a future state, which almost alone sustained him under his unusual load of troubles. There are several arguments that might be urged to show that Job believed in a future state, both of rewards and of punishments, or generally, of a life beyond the grave. First, Jobs sacrifices, when he was afraid that his children had sinned in their feasting, show that he both knew the evil of sin, and had faith in the only atoning sacrifice of a Redeemer. Second, Job showed that he knew of, and believed in a future state of retribution and in the last judgment, when he said, Be ye afraid of the sword; for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment (Job 19:29). And again, when he said, The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath (Job 21:30). Third, Jobs words cannot be explained in any consistency with his aspirations, unless we admit that he believed in the resurrection of his body, when he said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, etc. In the context preceding that inquiry, If a man die, shall he live again? we readily admit that Job asserts the incontrovertible truth that when a man dies, he lives no more at all again in this world, when he says, But man dieth, and giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Yet at the same time we maintain that as Enoch the seventh from Adam was enabled to speak of, the Lord coming with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon all, so might Job be enabled by the same spirit of inspiration, to use words which expressed his belief in the resurrection of the dead at the dissolution of all things, and that probably he did so when he said, Man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of sleep (verse 12). What has been said indicates what must be our ultimate conclusion in respect of the inquiry, If a man die, shall he live again? But there are some things which would suggest a negative answer to the inquiry. As for example–

1. The structure and development of mans body do not give us reason to think that if a man dies he shall live again. There are many expressions in Scripture which are fitted to remind us of the frailty of our bodies. Thus it is declared that all flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of grass. So in like manner, our bodies are not formed of the harder substances in nature, such as stone and iron, but they consist of flesh, and blood, and bones, which are perishable in their own nature. They are also not only very susceptible of injury, but are very liable to be crushed, or destroyed by accident or by disease. There is not in our bodies any self-sustaining energy of power. We need food, and clothes, and sleep, to nourish and refresh them, and to repair their wasted energies; but all these suffice only for a short time. The gradual development of mans body also, through infancy and manhood, to old age, with its sure and unavoidable decay, seems to indicate a completed existence, which being fulfilled can have no continuance.

2. Observation and experience generally, say, No, in answer to this question, or that if a man die he shall not live again. Temporal death is the cessation of life in the present state of being. And who is there, that upon looking at the lifeless frame of one who is dead, at the motionless limbs that were once so active, and at the pale countenance once so full of intelligence and expression, but now so ghastly and so changed, could from anything that appears, entertain the slightest, hope that such an one shall ever live again? But personal observation in regard to this matter is confirmed by the general experience of mankind, from age to age. As a matter of fact, if a man dies he does not live again. None of those also whom death has gathered during all the ages that are past, are to be found restored to life again as mingling, with the inhabitants of this world, for from that bourne no traveller returns.

3. The original cause and nature of death afford no reason to think that if a man die he shall live again. There is no information to be obtained from the light of nature as to the original cause and origin of death, although reason may arrive at the conclusion that it may be, and indeed must be, a penal evil. It is the Word of God alone, that is our only sure guide and instructor in regard to the original cause of death, and the circumstances and manner in which it entered into our world. By one man, it is said, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Again we are told that the wages of sin is death. It is then manifest from the Word of God, that death is the penalty of sin, of mans disobedience to the only Righteous Lawgiver, and of his rebellion against his Creator and King. An attentive consideration of death, might lead us, to the conclusion that it is and must be a penal evil inflicted upon our race. Man is dying from the moment of his birth. Does not every circumstance bespeak the wrath of God against the work of His hands? He destroys it as if it were loathsome in His sight. This is not the chastisement of a father, but the vengeance of a judge. The original cause therefore, and the penal nature of death, do not afford ground to think that if a man die he shall live again.

4. The testimony of nature is not equal, and therefore while there is a possibility there is no certainty that if a man die he shall live again. It must be granted that in nature there are many deaths, and resurrections, which are very closely connected together. In the light of Gods Word, we may view some of them at least as emblems of the resurrection of our bodies. But the simple occurrence of these conveys of itself no certainty to us that if a man die he shall live again.

5. The powers and faculties of the soul render it not improbable that if a man die he shall live again. Man is constituted in his present state of being, of a body and of a soul. These mutually act upon each other, but they have distinct properties. Man is capable of the knowledge of God, and of His will, or of moral and religious truth and duty. He can entertain the conception of glory, honour, and immortality, in a higher and future state of being. Man has a conscience, which can be presently actuated in the discharge of the duties he owes to himself, and to his fellow men, and above all to God, by conceptions of God, and of what is right and wrong towards Him. Conscience can be presently filled with the dread of His wrath, or tranquillised by assurances of His favour, based upon grounds which are rational and not upon the imagination or fancy. It is probable, therefore, that though the body dies, the soul must live forever, for all these powers would be useless if the soul were at death to lie down in everlasting darkness, and mingle with the clods of the valley.

6. The Word of God gives us the most explicit assurance of the future existence of the soul.

7. That the Word of God declares to us not only the immortality of the soul, but the certainty of the resurrection of the body. (Original Secession Magazine.)

Annihilation in death

In the opinion of the pantheists, the individual is only a transitory manifestation of the collective life of humanity; he appears for a moment like the waves on the oceans surface, and then he vanishes, and one thing alone survives, humanity! There is, consequently, no eternity but that of the species. Annihilation! See that ancient doctrine which seduced the Hindoo race and hilled it into a secular sleep, see it now extending its gloomy veil over us! At the very moment when we are sending missionaries to preach resurrection and life to the nations of the East, we ourselves are being enveloped, as it were, in the very error which lost them. Annihilation! We often hear it proclaimed with singular enthusiasm. Men tell us, Lay down your pride, give up your selfish hopes; individuals pass away, but humanity remains: labour, therefore, for humanity; your afflictions, your sufferings form part of the universal harmony. Tomorrow you shall disappear, but humanity shall keep on progressing; your tears, your sacrifices contribute to its greatness. That is enough to inspire you with a generous ambition; besides, annihilation is sweet for whoever has suffered. Notwithstanding, these doctrines would fail to affect the masses if they did not appeal to instincts now everywhere awakened; I mean, to those complex desires for justice and immediate enjoyment, for reparation and vengeance which stir the suffering classes so deeply. It is in the name of the present interests of humanity that men combat all hope of a future life. Tell us no more, they say, of a world beyond. Too long has mankind been wrapped in enervating and ecstatic contemplation. Too long it has wandered in mystical dreams. Too long, under the artful direction of priests, it has sought the invisible kingdom of God, whilst from its grasp was being wrenched the kingdom of earth which is its true domain. The hour of its manhood has at length struck for it; it must now take possession of the earth. Enslaving faith must now give way to emancipating science. When has science entered upon that era of conquests which have veritably enfranchised humanity? From the hour when it has firmly resolved to free itself from the dominion of all mystery, to consider all things as phenomena to be solved. When has man begun to struggle victoriously against oppression? From the hour when, renouncing the idea of an uncertain recourse to future justice, he was revindicated his rights already upon earth. This task must be achieved. The invisible world must be left to those who preach it, and all our attention must be centred on the present. Equality in happiness upon earth must be revindicated more and more strongly. Away, then, with those who speak to us of future life, for whether they know it or not, they stand in the way of progress and of the emancipation of nations! You have all heard such language, and you have, perhaps, seen it received with enthusiastic applause. Who would dare to affirm that the idea of a future life has never been placed at the service of inequality? Recall to mind the days when the Church with its innumerable privileges, possessing immense portions of territory, exempt from the taxes under which the masses groaned, comforted the poorer classes with the prospect of heavenly joys and compensations. I denounce and repudiate this iniquity; but let none trace it back to the Gospel, for the Gospel is innocent of it. Ah, if it were true indeed that the Gospel had been opposed to justice and equality, explain to me how, notwithstanding the manifold abuses of the Church, it happens that it is in the midst of the Christian nations that the idea of justice is so living and ardent? By proclaiming the complete triumph of justice in the world to come, Christianity has prepared the advent of justice in this life. Do not, therefore, set these two teachings in opposition to one another, for the one calls for the other, for they complete each other by an indissoluble bond of solidarity. And yet, in another respect, annihilation attracts us. If it be true that all human beings yearn after life, is it not equally true that life weighs heavily upon us at times; and is it not the privilege and the sorrow of the noblest minds to feel most painfully the weight of this burden? Men sneer at the idea of a future life. Again, do you know why? Ah! here I come upon the hidden and unavowed, but most powerful of all reasons. They scoff at it and deny it because they fear the meeting with the holy God. I see that those who endeavour to believe in it do not give it its real name. They recoil from annihilation, and when they come in presence of death, they borrow our language and use it as a brilliant mantle to cover the nakedness of their system. They too speak of immortality, but this immortality, where do they place it? Some place it in the memory of men, and with ofttimes stirring eloquence they lay before us this memory preserved as a sacred thing and becoming a worship destined to replace that of the heathen gods. A man of genius, the founder of positive philosophy, Auguste Comte, has made of this idea a veritable religion.

1. We live in the memory of others! And pray are they many, those whose deeds have escaped oblivion? There are but few who are called to accomplish glorious actions; the life of the great majority is composed of small, insignificant, humble, yet most necessary duties. The great mass of humanity is sacrificed to the privileged few, and inequality abides forever. If only these favoured beings all deserved this honour! What justice, great God, is the justice of men! The day will come when, in the words of Scripture, these last in the order of human admiration shall be the first elect of Divine glory. So much for this eternity of memory.

2. Another more elevated, more worthy, is placed before us–the eternity of our actions. Men tell us, We pass away, but our deeds remain; we bye on in those good actions which have contributed to the advancement of humanity; we live on in the truths which we have boldly proclaimed without fear of man, and which we thus hand down to future generations to be translated into noble deeds. This eternity of our works is most truly eternal life. We who are Christians, will not deny this solidarity, this action of the individual upon the whole, this spiritual posterity which we all leave after us; we believe it, moreover, to be most clearly expressed in the Gospel. Howbeit, I question the truth of this grand thought if the future life be denied. I grant that many of our actions are profitable for the whole and stand as stones in the universal edifice. On the other hand, how many are there, of our afflictions in particular, which find no explanation here below, and which remain forever fruitless if we look only to their earthly consequences. What shall you say to that afflicted one who has been lying for years upon a bed of torture? We Christians, we tell them that they are known of God, that not one sorrow is left unnoticed by Him who is love and who sees their life; we tell them that their sufferings have a still unexplained but certain end of which eternity shall reveal the secret. But if the Lord be not there, if no eye has seen their silent sacrifice, what right have you to tell them that their works shall live after them? That is not all. We shall live again in our works, say you; and the wicked, what of them? Is that the eternity you reserve for them? If you mean by this that, though dead, their iniquities remain and continue to pollute the earth, ah! we know this only too well. Now when you tell me that the wicked are punished by the survivance of their actions, are you well aware of what you affirm? You affirm that this man who has died happy and blest is punished in the victims he has smitten, in the innocent ones whom he has dishonoured. These souls upon which his crimes and vices shall long and heavily weigh, will feel that he survives in his works, they will bear the fatal consequences of the iniquities of which he has only tasted the fruit; and you would teach them that this is Gods chastisement upon him, and that eternal justice finds sufficient satisfaction in this monstrous iniquity? This, then, is what the theory of the eternity of actions leads to! No wonder that the most serious of our adversaries take no pains to defend it, and prefer passing the question of eternity under silence. They tell us, What cares the upright man for the consequences of his actions! in his actions he looks neither to heaven nor to earth: the approbation of his conscience is all he seeks. Conscience is sufficient! Proud words these, which our modern Stoics have inherited from their Roman ancestors. Do they mean that they only do that which is truly good, who do it without calculation and without the interested attraction of reward? Do they mean that the noblest deed becomes vile if prompted by a mercenary motive? If so, they are right; but the Gospel has said this long since. Conscience is sufficient! Ah! if by the approbation of this conscience was meant the approbation of God Himself, whose voice conscience is, then I would understand this affirmation, without, however, approving it fully; but that is not the meaning attached to it. What is meant is simply this: man applying into the law to himself and constituting himself, his own judge; man approving and blessing himself. Well! I affirm that this is false, because man, not being his own creator, cannot be self-sufficient. Well! are we mistaken when we rise from our conscience to Him who has made it, and when we invoke God as our aid and witness? No; conscience is not sufficient; we need something more, we call for the reparation which this conscience proclaims. Conscience is the prophet of justice; but it must not utter its prophecies in vain. It tells us that eternal felicity is attached to good, and suffering to evil. This belief is not merely a response to interested desires, it is the expression of that eternal law which Christians call the faithfulness of God. Moreover, have you reflected on the other side of the question? You say conscience is sufficient. Will you dare assert that it suffices for the guilty? Reality shows us conscience becoming gradually more and more hardened as sin is indulged in, and more and more incapable of pronouncing the verdict we expect of it. You speak of leaving the guilty wretch face to face with his conscience; but he knows how to bribe this judge, he knows how to silence its voice, he knows that the best thing he can do to stifle and bewilder it completely is to degrade himself more and more deeply. You will not admit the punishment which Christianity holds in reserve for the sinner, and you replace it by a gradual debasement. Which of you two respects humanity most? I have pointed to the consequences of all the theories which affirm the annihilation of the individual soul. After conscience I would interrogate the human heart, and show how the notion of annihilation little answers to that infinite yearning after love which lies at the depths of our being. But is it needful to insist on this point? Do not these two words, love and annihilation, placed in opposition to one another, form a distressing and ridiculous contrast? Does not the heart, when it is not deformed by sophisms, protest against death? (E. Bersier, D. D.)

Immortality and nature

It is a strange fact that the human mind has always held to the immortality of the soul, and yet has always doubted it; always believing, but always haunted by doubt. Yet this throws no discredit upon the truth. Were the belief not true, the doubt would long since have vanquished it, for nothing but truth can endure constant questioning. This truth takes up and sets forth the antagonism found in mans own nature, as a moral being put under material conditions, a mind shut up in a body. The consciousness of mind and moral nature is always asserting immortality; the sense of our bodily conditions is always suggesting its impossibility. It is the same thing that has always showed itself in philosophy; idealism denying the existence of matter, and materialism denying the reality of spirit. But the true philosophy of the human mind is both idealistic and materialistic. Nearly all doubt or denial of immortality comes from the prevalence of a materialistic philosophy; nearly always from some undue pressure of the external world. Great sinners very seldom question immortality. Sin is an irritant of the moral nature, keeping it quick, and so long as the moral nature has a voice, it asserts a future life. Just now the doubt is haunting us with unusual persistence. Certain phases of science stand face to face with immortality in apparent opposition. The doctrine of continuity or evolution in its extreme form, by including everything in the one category of matter, seems to render future existence highly improbable. But more than this, there is an atmosphere, engendered by a common habit of thought, adverse to belief. There is a power of the air that sways us, without reason or choice. Science is rapidly changing its spirit and attitude. It is revealing more and more the infinite possibilities of nature. True science admits that some things may be true that it cannot verify by result, or by any test that it can use. Evolution does not account for the beginning of life, for the plan of my life, for the potency that works in matter; for the facts of consciousness, for moral freedom and consequent personality. In considering immortality, it is quite safe to put science aside with all its theories of the continuity of force, and the evolution of physical life, and inwrought potentiality and the like. We are what we are, moral beings, with personality, freedom, conscience, and moral sense; and because we are what we are, there is reason to hope for immortal life. In any attempt to prove immortality, aside from the Scriptures, we must rely almost wholly upon reasons that render it probable. Our consciousness of personality and moral freedom declare it possible, but other considerations render it also probable and morally certain. Let us allow no sense of weakness to invest the word probability. Many of our soundest convictions are based on aggregated probabilities. Indeed, all matters pertaining to the future, even the sunrise, are matters of probability. Give some of the grounds for believing that the soul of man is immortal.

1. The main current of human opinion sets strongly and steadily towards belief in immortality.

2. The master minds have been strongest in their affirmations of it.

3. The longing of the soul for life, and its horror at the thought of extinction.

4. The action of the mind in thought begets a sense of a continuous life. One who has learned to think finds an endless task before him. Man reaches the bounds of nothing.

5. A parallel argument is found in the nature of love. It cannot tolerate the thought of its own end.

6. There are in man latent powers, and others half revealed, for which human life offers no adequate explanation.

7. The imagination carries with it a plain intimation of a larger sphere than the present. It is difficult to conceive why this power of broadening our actual realm is given to us, if it has not some warrant in fact.

8. The same course of thought applies to the moral nature. It has been claimed by some that they could have made a better universe . . . The step from instinct to freedom and conscience, is a step from time to eternity. Conscience is not truly correlated to human life. The ethical implies the eternal. Turn from human nature to the Divine nature.

We shall find a like, but immeasurably clearer group of intimations. Assuming the theistic conception of God as infinite and perfect in character, this conception is thrown into confusion if there is no immortality for man.

1. There is failure in the higher purposes of God respecting the race; good ends are indicated, but not reached. Man was made for happiness, but the race is not happy.

2. The fact that justice is not done upon the earth involves us in the same confusion. The slighting of love can be endured, but that right should go forever undone is that against which the soul, by its constitution, must forever protest. The sentiment of righteousness underlies all else in man and in God. But justice is not done upon the earth, and is never done, if there be no hereafter.

3. Man is less perfect than the rest of creation, and, relatively to himself, is less perfect in his higher than in his lower faculties.

4. As love is the strongest proof of immortality on the manward side of the argument, so is it on the Godward side. The probabilities might be greatly multiplied. If stated in full, they would exhaust the whole nature of God and man. (Theodore Munger.)

Is there a future life

There is scarcely a religion known to us of which belief in a future life does not form part of its creed. The most notable exception is that of Buddhism. Our natural instincts are against the denial of immortality. Immortality is believed in, altogether apart from the revelation of it in the Christian Gospel, by civilised and savage races alike. At the most this amounts to no more than a probability; but probabilities count for something. The two chief causes of unbelief are bad morals and bad philosophy. By bad morals I mean such a way of living the life that now is as either not to want the doctrine of a future life to be true, or not to keep in activity those higher elements of our nature to which the doctrine more particularly appeals. Sincerely and practically to believe that we are immortal, we must more or less feel ourselves immortal. But this feeling of immortality will seldom visit the bosom of the man who does not honestly try to live on earth the life of heaven. Spiritual things are not likely to be discerned by the animal man. The disbelief also springs from bad philosophy. Many who are living right lives, have no faith in immortality as Christians believe in it. All the immortality they look for is to live in hearts they leave behind them, in minds made better by their presence. They are agnostics or materialists. Against this unbelief we set the assertion of the Christian Gospel that man is destined to a life beyond the grave. The future life is not in the nature of things a matter of present experience. It is almost entirely a matter of direct revelation from God. We must accept it because it is an essential part of the Christian faith. There are, however, some considerations which render the truth of a future life eminently reasonable.

1. The fact of human personality. The most impressive of the works of God is the soul of man. A soul–a self! Is it possible to exhaust the meaning of those mysterious terms? Our physical frames are ever changing, yet our personalities are preserved. Is the one change we call death going to destroy us? The very suggestion is absurd.

2. A future life is demanded by our feeling of the symmetry of things. The extinction, the utter extinction of one single human soul would shake my belief in God to its foundations.

3. Our conscience demands a future life. To speak as though good men enjoyed here the fulness of reward, and bad men suffered here the fulness of penalty, is not accurate. There are moral inequalities, moral inconsistencies, which need a future life for their removal and redress. Thus, when Christianity comes to us with its magnificent revelation of immortality it finds us already prepared, on such grounds as we have been just noticing, to welcome the revelation, because it accords with some of the deepest convictions both of our heads and of our hearts. The witness without is confirmed by the witness within. Still, it is not on our reason, nor on our feelings that the Christian revelation of a future life is based. It is on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. All the teaching of Christianity on the question is pivoted there. (Henry Varley, B. A.)

The resurrection

I. The direct teachings of the Bible. The predictions of resurrection in the Old Testament partake of the general character of prophecy, containing much that could not be understood even by the prophets themselves. God, who spoke unto the fathers by prophets, has spoken unto us by Christ. And Christ knew what He Himself said. The disciples preached, through Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. As the Lord Jesus was raised up, so should all His followers be. He was the first fruits of them that slept. The Bible teaches the doctrine of the resurrection by the instances which it records.

II. The indirect teachings of the Bible. There is one truth which is involved in almost every principle of morality which the Bible sanctions, that fully confirms the idea of the resurrection of the body–the future and eternal existence of man. Man will live hereafter, and live forever. The living soul the infinite spirit, is the real man; but from the earliest period of time to the present, personality has been ascribed alike to soul and body, though, in strictness of speech, neither has any personal existence. A proper humanity supposes the union of both body and spirit. That man is the heir of an eternal existence corresponding to his present existence in the union of spirit and body, appears from the doctrine of the eternal humanity of Christ. We believe that, at the last day, the Almighty will raise the bodies of the dead, reunite them with the spirits which formerly animated them, and so, once more, make man a living soul. Deal with the objection, that death involves decomposition. In what consists personal identity? The identity of the body is not to be found in the aggregate of its particles, nor in any precise arrangement of them. Identity cannot be ascribed to a mode of being, only to being itself. Identity does not consist in gross materiality. With what fearful interest does the doctrine of the resurrection invest the cause of the sensualist. But we have in this doctrine a ground of hope, as well as of fear. (J. King Lord.)

Nature and immortality

Mans mind is something essentially different from his body, and that, therefore, the death of the body does not imply the destruction of the mind. There are those who are materialists. They hold that there is nothing in existence but matter. Mind they regard as a function of the brain. If this were so, some serious consequences would follow.

1. Man would then be only a machine. There would be no specific difference between him and the brutes. The brain certainly is the organ of the mind; but physical science has left unexplained the nature and origin of our mental and moral being. There is yet a great chasm between dead and living matter. Scientists cannot prove that dead matter can originate life. In consciousness there is nothing common with matter. A thought cannot be weighed and measured; nor can love; nor can our power of will. What has materialism to say to conscience? Materialism cannot account for mans mental, moral, and religious nature. Mind is not secreted by the brain, but is an entity distinct from it, and immaterial. This does not prove the soul immortal, but it turns aside one argument of those who would prove that the soul is not immortal.

2. In the moral government of the world there are such inequalities that there must be a future state of conscious existence in which these inequalities will be rectified. Do we see in the world an absolutely perfect system of rewards and punishments? Does every man receive in this life his deserts? It is true that the way of transgressors is hard, and that godliness is profitable for the life that now is. It is inseparable from any proper conception of God, that His righteousness rules the world. We may ,be sure that He will complete His plan; and in His perfected work He will vindicate His righteousness, and show that all His ways are equal.

3. The souls capacities and aspirations are such as point to immortality. The lower animals are adapted to the place they occupy. Death rounds off their life, and is the natural termination of it, there is no indication of capacity for a higher life. It is otherwise with man. Look at mans power of gathering knowledge. There is no limit to mans power of acquiring, if only he had life. There is an indication of mans immortality in his natural and ineradicable yearning after it. That a man may desire some blessing is no proof that he is destined to obtain it; but in this case you must consider how this desire is inwrought into the very nerve and fibre of our spiritual being. We shrink appalled at the very thought of annihilation. God has made this desire of immortality part and parcel of our being. It is born with us, and grows with us. Then also, man is the only creature on earth that has risen to the knowledge of God, and has a nature leading to the worship of God. Nay, God is the want of the human soul. If mans conscious existence is to terminate with death, I can see no reason for these high endowments which lead him to know and worship God.

4. In the workings of the conscience we have prophetic fore-shadowings of immortality. Look at the prophetic action of conscience. It urges us to prepare for certain eventualities in the future. Conscience urges us to shun the wrong and to do the right, that it may be well with us hereafter. Take two classes of men–those who are upheld by their conscience, and those who are tormented by their conscience. We analyse their feelings and convictions, and find that those take hold on eternity, and look forward to judgment. The man who meets death to keep his conscience unstained, is impelled by a high moral instinct, which needs an eternal future to approve its wisdom and to vindicate its sacrifices. But when conscience is violated, the anguish it causes also points to the future. Conscience distinctly foreshadows a future life of conscious being.

5. The universality of the belief in immortality is an evidence of its truth. Among barbarous and civilised nations, everywhere, is found this belief in a future state of conscious existence. Bring these different arguments together. What is it that Jesus has done? Made known a future existence not known before? Nay; but brightened, or made clear what was imperfectly understood, and shown that only through Him can be obtained a glorious immortality. (A. Oliver, B. A.)

Shall we live again

The question is the question of one who doubts. In Jobs days men could not pierce the darkness of the grave. Hence the gloomy views men had of death. There is much in the visible aspect of death to lead to the saddest conclusion.

1. The resurrection is not impossible. Can anything be too hard for Him who made us? If God gave us life, He can restore us to life.

2. Resurrection is to be expected–it is in keeping with the instinct implanted in us by our Maker. Man has everywhere a yearning after immortality. Consider the place man holds here ca earth amongst Gods creatures. He alone is a responsible creature. But reward and punishment are not always meted out according to a mans doings at present. While this is the case, does it not seem a denial of Gods justice to say that this life is all? Then we have Gods Word of promise for it, that though a man die, he shall live again. And we have the resurrection of Gods own Son, Jesus Christ, for our example. This it is that gives us the victory over our doubts and fears. This is the rock on which we build our hope of rising again. If these bodies of ours are appointed to immortality, does it need a preacher to enforce the necessity of a pure, and sober, and godly conversation? Look at the strong support and comfort which belief in a resurrection can give the heart. (R. D. B. Rawnsley, M. A.)

Life beyond the grave

Faith in a life beyond the grave is the real, though often unrecognised basis of all stable peace and happiness for us. Without this underlying belief our present existence can have no real coherence, purpose, or meaning. Faith in a future life is the unseen foundation of all that is fairest and noblest in humanity. Even the joy and careless vivacity of the unreflecting seem to me to be ultimately based on the rational and thoughtful faith of deeper souls. Beneath the superficial happiness of trivial natures lies stratum after stratum of profound human thought, extending far down towards the very core of the universe. Ordinary mundane happiness really depends on convictions which its owners do not themselves gain, or even hold consciously. The deeper spirits of our race are often in gravest bewilderment and grief, and their sorrow even now threatens the continuance of mans ordinary satisfactions. It really seems as if, even though in reality there should be no future life, we must invent one, in order to make this life tolerable. Hence, perhaps, the fantastic doctrine of immortality taught by the positivists. The best service a thoughtful spirit can now render is to face the haunting spectre of modern life, doubt of a future existence, to grapple honestly with all besetting difficulties, to seek to know the very actual truth. Sorrowful indeed must ever be this lonely quest of the venturesome pilgrim soul. Nor must it expect much sympathy from man. But the resolute inquirer may still find some comfort from God. I do not think that Christianity is committed to any particular theory as to the natural immortality of the finite soul, or as to its absolute independence of matter in any form. The Christian view is, that the life of the finite soul is entirely dependent upon the uncreated and undying life of God. Ours is a derived, and not a natural immortality. I do not think that St. Paul held at all Bishop Butlers doctrine of the absolute independence of the spiritual or mental principle within us. The apostles views were nearer to those favoured by modern science. Butler scarcely thought a body a real necessity at all; St. Paul yearned after a spiritual body. I am glad to think, that, if I live beyond the grave, it is not necessary that I should be a mere ghost, or else a grossly material being as I am on earth. Mill argues that the idea of extinction is not really or naturally terrible from the fact that it is held out as a reward in the Buddhist creed. He here entirely ignores the fact that the deep pessimism, which makes the Buddhist hate a future life of consciousness, also makes him hate the present life. Curiously enough, in Mills essay, the misery of the present life is regarded as inducing men to dislike and disbelieve in a future life, and also as disposing them to demand it and believe in it. Mill teaches that if mans life on earth were more satisfactory, he would probably cease to care for another existence. On the whole, considering John Stuart Mills nature and early training, he came as near to the great Theistic faith as we could reasonably expect. I think we shall find that, on the whole, our position today is a somewhat stronger one than that occupied by the defenders of immortality in earlier days, though we may have to encounter some new obstacles to belief. We must admit that the merely physical phenomena of death point to annihilation. The difficulty of conceiving that our individuality will survive the shock of separation from its organism, probably arises from our ignorance, and might be no difficulty if we had fuller knowledge. To a very great extent, science now heals the wounds which it inflicted on the human spirit in earlier days. The highest science does not tell us that a future life is impossible for us; it only says that it cannot guarantee it to us; it leaves us quite free to consult our moral and spiritual nature. We Christians can still believe in a future existence on grounds derived from reason. I see no grounds for disbelieving in a future life, if the moral arguments in its favour are cogent and conclusive. One strong moral argument is the unsatisfactory nature of our present life. This is a very real argument, if we believe in a benevolent God. Another argument is derived from the fact that Gods moral government is only incipient here on earth. The inchoate condition of many of our highest faculties seems also to suggest faith in a continuance, and development of life beyond the grave. Progressiveness is the distinguishing mark of man. The glorious instinct of worship seems also to vindicate for us a reasonable hope of a grander life in Gods nearer presence. Our present moral nature is full of suggestions of a future life. The affections of men plead most eloquently of all for a future life. God has set eternity in our hearts, though our heads may question it. The deepest human love is saturated with faith in immortality. It cannot even speak at all without implying the eternal hope. The loftiest affections, being born of God, are accredited prophets of true religion. (A. Cranford, M. A.)

Our immortality Gods will

The common arguments for the immortality of man are irrelevant. We are not immortal, because we wish to be so, or think we are so, or because immortality befitteth us as lords of the creation, or because we love life, and the thought of annihilation is disagreeable to us, or because there is within us a craving after endless existence. All these arguments, though powerless with those old pagans of whom we have been speaking, are frequently adduced by such as have the Gospel in their hands, as if they were all powerful. But the Gospel, as it needeth them not, ignoreth them. One of the pagans, and he agreeing with others, would tell us that whatever beginneth, endeth (Panaetius). And another (Epicurus) that mind ceases with dissolution. Hence we, as we had a beginning, despite all our reasonings to the contrary, beside or beyond the Gospel, might cease to be. We may not like the thought, it is hard, cheerless, chilling; but if it put us into our right place before God,–if it serve to check that pride of immortality, which is the purest hindrance to preparation for it,–let us not disregard the truth, that we, as we began to be, like all other things might, were it Gods will, cease to be . . . But God hath willed it otherwise. If with Job we ask, If a man die, shall he live again? the reply is direct, he shall. And why? Not because we, having a better insight into what is called Natural Theology and the laws of life, and being more mindful of the dignity of our nature than the men of old, are better able to reason ourselves into a belief of this truth. No; our immortality doth not depend upon natural arguments, or upon sensuous predilections. We are immortal because God hath told us so. It is His will. And as if to bring down our pride, the immortality of the soul hath been testified unto us by the resurrection of the body. The proof of the one is in the other. The Gospel of Christ knoweth nothing of the immortality of the soul apart from the immortality of the whole man. And if we regard the one to the neglect of the other, we do but endanger the blessedness of both. We have begun to exist, but not for this reason, but because it is Gods decree, and Jesus Christ hath been raised from the dead, and hath ascended into heaven in our nature, we shall exist forever. This is the solemn thought, which should never be long absent from our minds. We live, and bye we must. The destruction of the present order of the globe will affect our being no more than the fall of a raindrop, or a shooting star. Too dreadful is the truth of our immortality, even though the hope of saints should render it lovely, to permit it to make us proud. The gift may raise us beyond the brutes, but if its alternative he the hopeless land, it will sink us below them. (Alfred Bowen Evans.)

Yes and no

I. We answer the question first with a No. He shall not live again here; he shall not again mingle with his fellows, and repeat the life which death has brought to a close.

1. Shall he bye for himself? No; if he hath lived and died a sinner, that sinful life of his shall never be repeated. Let the cup be sweet; it is the last time thou shalt ever drink it. Once thou shalt insult high heaven, but not twice. The long suffering of God shall wait for thee through thy life of provocations; but thou shalt not be born again into this world; thou shalt not a second time defile its air with blasphemies, nor blot its beauties with impiety. Thou shalt not live again to forget the God who hath daily loaded thee with mercies. If you die you shall not live again to stifle the voice of your conscience, and to quench the Spirit of God. Solemnly let us say it, awful as it appears, it is well that the sinner should not live again in this world. Oh! you will say, when you are dying, if I could but live again, I would not sin as I once did. Unless you had a new heart and a right spirit, if you could live again, you would live as you did before. In the case of the child of God, it is the same, so far as he himself is concerned, when he dies he shall not live again. No more shall he bitterly repent of sin; no more lament the plague of his own heart, and tremble under a sense of deserved wrath. The battle is once fought: it is not to be repeated.

2. Shall he live for others? No. The sinner shall not live to do damage to others. If a man die, he shall not live again to scatter hemlock seed, and sow sin in furrows. What, bring back that thief to train others to his evil deeds? Bring back that self-righteous man who was always speaking against the Gospel, and striving to prejudice other mens minds against Gospel light? No. no. And now, let me remind you that it is the same with the saint, If a man die, shall he live again? No. This is our season to pray for our fellow men, and it is a season which shall never return. Hasten to work while it is called today; gird up your loins and run the heavenly race, for the sun is setting never to rise again upon this land.

II. If a man die shall he live again? Yes, yes, what he shall. He does not die like a dog; he shall live again; not here, but in another and a better or a more terrible land. The soul, we know, never dies. The body itself shall live again. This much cometh to all men through Christ, that all men have a resurrection. But more than that. They shall all live again in the eternal state; either forever glorified with God in Christ, blessed with the holy angels, forever shut in from all danger and alarm; or in that place appointed for banished spirits who have shut themselves out from God, and now find that God has shut them out from Him. Ye shall live again; let no one tempt you to believe the contrary. And hark thee, sinner; let me hold thee by the hand a moment; thy sins shall live again. They are not dead. Thou hast forgotten them, but God has not. And thy conscience shall live. It is not often alive now. It is quiet, almost as quiet as the dead in the grave. But it shall soon awaken. Remember that your victims shall live again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Belief in immortality

The great Roman orator, Cicero, said, Yes, oh yes! But if I err in believing that the soul of man is immortal I willingly err, nor while I live would I have the delightful error extorted from me; and if after death I shall feel nothing, as some philosophers think, I am not afraid that some dead philosopher shall laugh at me for my mistake. Socrates declared, I believe a future life is needed to avenge the wrongs of this present life. In the future life justice shall be administered to us, and those who have done their duty here in that future life shall find their chief delight in seeking after wisdom. Yes, the soul is in exile. Like the homing pigeon released, it hurries back to the bosom of the Father. Man is not satisfied with his humanity! As one writer has put it, our race is homesick. (Homiletic Review.)

All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.—

The resuscitation and its time appointed

We are informed of Columbus, that visions of the mighty continent he was afterwards to reveal rose upon his mind long before he set out on the voyage which conducted him thither. He was convinced that such a continent existed, and he burned with an ardent desire to explore its hidden wonders. We are told that he wandered often by the shores of the mighty ocean, or climbed aloft some rocky steep, that he might gaze over the world of waters. There must be a western continent; and who would not brave the dangers of the deep, if, haply, the enterprise would terminate in so wonderful a discovery? The discoveries of Columbus, however wondrous the exhibition there made of human sagacity and perseverance, did, after all, relate but to a portion of this fallen world; a world in which the great discoverer himself could be permitted to go to the grave neglected, impoverished, persecuted. But every man who has his station on the shores of the ocean of eternity, must ere long embark on its heaving waters, prosecute for himself the dangerous navigation, and occupy a place in the mysterious world beyond. In that region of mystery there are employments, sufferings, joys. Tremendous are the results which ensue from crossing that ocean of eternity. Oh, well, therefore, may we stand on our Atlantic cliff, straining our eyeballs over the deep, as the shades of evening are coming on; listening to the roar of the waters, if haply we may gather thence some intelligence regarding the distant world. What shall be my destiny yonder?

I. Job evidently lived in the hope of a coming resurrection. He speaks of a tree cut down, yet, under the influence of heat and moisture, sprouting again; and expresses his wonder that man, when he dieth and giveth up the ghost, should be utterly wasted away and become a nonentity. He speaks of rivers and pools of water drying up by the heats of summer; but he leaves the impression that he did not forget that the returning rains would restore them to their former state. He prays that God would hide him in the grave, and there keep him in secret until His wrath was past, when, at a time appointed, he would be remembered and restored. All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Is this, as if he had said, the destiny of man, the order of Gods providence in dealing with him, first to die and then to revive? Must the seeds of death be purged out of his body in the grave? if so, then I need not fear death; I may rather welcome it with joy, looking forward into the future with confidence, waiting with patience for the resurrection day, and knowing that my Redeemer liveth. It becomes us, in these latter times, to dwell with special interest on the doctrine of a resurrection. It is a fact that we have been born; it is a fact that we shall die; and it is another fact, just as certain, that we shall rise again from our graves. God is able to do it, and has issued the promise. Oh, wonderful exhibition to be thereby afforded of Jehovahs might! So have I seen one of our Scottish mountains invested with its wintry mantle of snow, and incrusted on all sides with thick-ribbed ice. Not a green leaf or tiniest flower broke the uniformity of the snowy waste. What desolation, dreariness, and death! Who would suppose that underneath that icy covering, life, and warmth, and beauty, were lying entombed, awaiting their glorious resurrection! Yet so it is. The months of winter passed away, the snow and ice disappeared, the streamlets flowed and sparkled again in the sunshine, and the whole landscape, once so chill and dreary, was lighted up with a thousand sights of loveliness and joy. The winter too of the grave has its returning spring, and while faith points the finger to the glorious epoch, hope fills the soul with an earnest of future gladness. If a man die, shall he live again? Thus saith the Lord, Rejoice; I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

II. Job was evidently convinced that the years of his life were fixed and numbered. He speaks, you perceive, of a time appointed. And this idea is repeatedly suggested elsewhere, when we find him declaring that the Almighty has numbered his steps, determined his days and the number of his months, and caused him to fulfil his days like a hireling. These expressions not only imply, but in distinct terms affirm, the sovereignty of God in fixing the duration of human life. Every individual man lives his appointed time, and not one moment longer. There are many other utterances of Scripture which make the same affirmation. The Royal Preacher tells us that there is a time to be born, and a time to die, as if the two grand limits, at least, of human existence, were positively fixed by Divine decree. The Psalmist speaks of the measure of his days, and compares it to an handbreadth; expressions which are not only indicative of the shortness of human life, but also of its precise and actual amount. The Apostle Paul speaks of finishing his course, and of a race being set before us; terms borrowed from the measured racecourse in the gymnastic games of the ancient Greeks, which, as fully as language can express it, affirm the doctrine we have just announced. And, indeed, the same doctrine flows, as a necessary consequence, from all we know of the perfections of God. If it be a truth that Almighty God determines in every case the duration of human life, and fixes the hour and circumstances of our dissolution, we ought to give Him credit for the exercise of supreme wisdom in this part of His procedure. No life is either prolonged or shortened without good cause. We ought to reflect that permanent or even lengthened existence in this world is not the end for which we were created. This world is the great seed bed or nursery for those souls who are destined to occupy diverse places and perform different functions hereafter. Our residence, accordingly, in this world, is not an end, but a means; and as the Almighty has ordained that this shall be the case, we may rest assured that not a single removal occurs, from the visible into the spiritual, but in the exercise of supreme wisdom. The time during which the spirit of every man must be submitted to the influences of this world, and the special influences to which it is submitted, are things of Divine appointment; and not merely the glory of God, but the welfare of all creation, is contemplated in every such appointment. It is incumbent on us, accordingly, habitually to feel and to act upon the truth of the Patriarchs saying: There is a time appointed for us all. We may not know the hour of our departure from this sublunary scene; the season, the place, and the circumstances of our dissolution may not be revealed to any created intelligence. But all is known to God, and is matter of previous arrangement and ordination. Moreover, the eternal interests of the whole universe are therein consulted. The Judge of all the earth is doing what is wise, and good, and right. Let us, accordingly, cherish the spirit of contentment and submission; filling the place assigned us with meekness, humility, and faith; prosecuting the duties before us with perseverance and godly zeal; holding ourselves in readiness, whensoever the summons reaches us, to arise and go hence.

III. Job formed a resolution to wait with patience the evolution of the Divine purposes. All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. He might have to endure for a season; but the vindication of his character, and the eternal re-establishment of his happiness, were future events, as certain of occurring as the rise of tomorrows sun, or the budding of the flowers of the ensuing spring. What he felt called upon to do was to exercise patience in waiting for them. The trial, though severe and of long duration, would some time or other come to an end; the distress, though protracted, would not last forever; the eternal weight of glory which was approaching would far more than counterbalance the sufferings by which it was preceded. Oh, how different this from the faith and hope of the world! History has recorded the deathbed incidents and sayings of one of the infidel leaders of the great French Revolution. Sprinkle me, said Mirabeau, as he was dying–sprinkle me with odours, crown me with flowers; for I am sinking into eternal sleep. Oh, what a contrast!–the dying infidel on the one hand, the agonised patriarch on the other! The former had no God in whom he could trust; no Saviour to whom to resort when heart and flesh were fainting; no hope but the eternal sleep of annihilation. Peace he had none, nor the hope of it. And yet he was a dying man, and felt it. The roar of the dark waters was in his ears, and all he hoped for and desired was to be swallowed up in them, and be no more. And is this all that Reason, the boasted deity of French Atheism, can suggest to encounter the King of Terrors, the destiny of the grave?–a few drops of perfume, that speedily will exhale, and leave this poor clay tabernacle putrifying and noisome!–a chaplet of flowers, which ere tomorrow will be withering, and mock the brow it has been gathered to adorn! Poor preparation this for the souls entrance into the presence chamber of Almighty God!–miserable comfort, when the heart-strings are bursting! See, however, yonder sorely distressed patriarch. Accumulated sorrows are wringing his spirit with anguish. He has lost all that the world values,–wealth, children, health, and even the good opinion and sympathy of his friends. He is a predestined heir of glory; his name is in the book of life. He is a saint amid all his sorrows; and God loves him, though bodily and mental anguish are making of him a prey. Oh, for the faith and hope of the servant of God! (J. Cochrane, M. A.)

The triumph of patience

Job makes use of the fact, that human life is so short and so sorrowful, as an argument why God should let him alone, and not chasten him. Life, he seems to say, is short enough without being cut shorter, and sorrowful enough Without being embittered by Gods judgments. What Job seems to mean is, that when we once die, we cannot resume our earthly life. There is much that is solemn in this truth. There are many things on earth which we can do a second time; if done imperfectly the first time, a failure is not altogether fatal. But we can only die once. If our short life is wasted, and we die unprepared, we cannot make up for lost opportunities–cannot come back to die again. It is easy to see what Job means by his appointed time, and also by the change for which he waited. But in applying these words to ourselves, we may take a wider range; for there is an appointed time to many different events and periods of human life, as well as to life itself; and corresponding to each of these there is a change, for which the true Christian ought to wait.

1. There are seasons of special temptation and conflict in the Christian life. But temptation endured, is a great furtherance to the spiritual life.

2. It is a law in Gods kingdom that we must have trouble. There is sin in our hearts, and where there is sin, there must be chastisement sooner or later. It is well, therefore, to make up our minds that we shall be tried, so that, when it comes, we may not count it a strange thing. Some trials we may be spared, if we live near to God. But some trials we shall still need. How much there is to comfort us under them, if only we are Christs. (George Wagner.)

Life a warfare

First, let us hear the warning, If a man die, shall he live again? The lives of other men,–their blindness to the changes and decay in themselves which are so evident to their fellows,–the experience of our own hearts, above all, which have so lightly retained many strong impressions, may make us feel the necessity of this caution. We shall indeed live forever. Our souls cannot lose their consciousness. But a deathless eternity will offer no period similar to this life on the earth. There will be no new trial, no new place of conflict with evil, no time to seek the Lord, and to do good to our own souls. In this consists the true value, and inestimable importance of life; it is the one time of probation for an external judgment; it is the time to fit ourselves for the inheritance of the saints in light. We are able in some respect to see that the allowing to those who waste the present life a second trial upon earth, would have produced incalculable evil. Even as it is, with death and judgment in view, how many live carelessly. If men knew that after death comes the entrance into a further period of preparation, repentance would be far more rare, and the number of those who are treading the narrow way heavenward greatly diminished. In the ease supposed, those who revived from death would enter on their second time of trial, not with a childish proneness to evil, but with hearts inured to sensuality, and we may say, inflexibly hardened in disobedience. Would not the amendment of sinners, and the constancy of the godly then become well-nigh impossible? These considerations may teach us that it is a method at once necessary, righteous, and merciful, by which it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. This is the hour in which God hath appointed you, not to wrath, but to obtain salvation by Him; to be fellow workers with Him in accomplishing your renovation. If we consider our ways, how much is there to correct and amend! How much remains for the Spirit of God yet to work in us Such reflections may prepare us to adopt Jobs resolution, All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come. The word rendered appointed time has in the original a peculiar signification. It almost always signifies an army, as in the expression, Lord God of Sabaoth, or Lord God of hosts. The word warfare is the same as the word Job employs; so we may read, All the days of my warfare I will wait till my change come. With great propriety Job might speak of himself as enduring a great fight of afflictions. But to each of us this word warfare is most significant. The term impresses on us the duty of self-denial. Without forgetfulness of things behind, without submission and prompt obedience to the generals command, no soldier, however excellent might be his personal qualities, however high his courage, would be of any service to the army he had joined, but rather an incumbrance. How much more does this renunciation of our own will and pleasure become us, who follow such a Leader! Our warfare is an especial act of faith; for it is a spiritual combat. Our enemies do not show themselves. He who has made any real efforts to live a godly life, knows that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. This figure of our warfare represents to us, above all, the necessity of patience. All the days of my warfare will I wait.. . .To him who is emulating the resolve of Job, there is not only caution, but abundant comfort in his reflection that if a man die, he will not live again any such life as the present. Human life is the day in which we are to rejoice and labour. (M. Biggs, M. A.)

The advantages of religious resignation

Job grounded his resignation on the principle, that though God was pleased to make so severe a trial of his virtues and innocence, He would, in His due time, restore him to his former prosperity here, or reward him with inconceivable happiness hereafter.

I. In what latitude we are to understand Jobs notion of an appointed time. As fixed for the period of human life. The period of our lives is not peremptorily determined by God; but every particular person has it in his option to prolong or shorten it, according to his good or bad conduct. Gods foreknowledge hath, in itself, no influence at all upon the things foreknown; nor is it inconsistent with the freedom of mans will; nor doth it determine our choice. Length of life depends very much on the regularity or irregularity of conduct. Even common observation furnishes us with the fatal consequences that inseparably attend intemperance and lust. Religion and virtue naturally conduce to the lengthening of life, by affording us the advantage of fixed rules of conduct.

II. It is our indispensable duty to wait, with patience, all the days of this appointed time. Our disappointments and calamities are under the inspection and at the disposal of wise providence, and therefore they ought to be endured without the least discontent or complaint. A consciousness of acting in concert with the supreme governor of the universe, cannot fail affecting a human mind with the liveliest transports of joy and tranquillity.

III. Rules to settle in our mind this great duty of resignation.

1. Keep a firm belief that the universe is under the superintendence of an all-powerful Being, whose justice will finally distribute rewards and punishments according to our virtues and vices.

2. An effectual restraint must be laid upon our impatience and fretfulness.

3. Keep confident that afterward joy will spring up.

4. The inward tranquillity of mind, that proceeds from a consciousness of fidelity in our duty, is inexpressible. (W. Adey.)

Good men wait for the day of their death

Mutability cleaves to all mankind from the cradle to the grave.

I. Death is an appointed change. It was in consequence of mans first offence that a sentence of mortality was passed upon the whole human race. It was then appointed to all men once to die. Many allow that God has appointed death to all men; but deny that He has appointed the time, or place, or means, of any particular persons death. But it seems difficult to conceive how it was possible for God to appoint death to every individual, without appointing the time, the place, and the means of his death.

II. What is implied in the Godly mans waiting for their appointed change.

1. The habitual expectation of their dying hour. Waiting always carries the idea of expectation.

2. An habitual contemplation, as well as expectation of death.

3. That they view themselves prepared for their great and last change.

4. That they desire the time to come for them to leave the world. We wait for what we desire, not what we dread.

III. They have good reasons for this waiting all the days of their appointed time, till their change come.

1. Because it will put them into a state of perfect holiness.

2. And into a state of perfect knowledge.

3. And into a state of perfect and perpetual rest.

4. It will not only free them from all evil, but put them into possession of all good. Improvement–

(1) It must argue great imperfection in Christians, not to hope and wait for the day of their decease.

(2) It is of great importance to make their calling and election sure, because without this they cannot properly wait for the day of death.

(3) If good men do thus wait, then they derive a happiness from their religion to which sinners are strangers. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Waiting for death

We are all, like Job, mortal; like him, we may be assailed by severe afflictions, and tempted to wish impatiently for death; but we ought, like him, to check these impatient wishes, and resolve to wait till our change comes.

I. Consider death as a change. The word is impressive and full of meaning. It strongly intimates Jobs belief in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of existence. Though death is not the extinction of our being, it is a change.

1. It is the commencement of a great change in our bodies.

2. In our mode of existence. Until death, our spirits are clothed with a body, but after death they exist in a disembodied state, the state of separate spirits. This change will be accompanied by a corresponding change in our mode of perception. Then we shall see without eyes, hear without ears, and feel without touch.

3. In the objects of perception we shall in effect experience a change of place. Death removes us from one world to another. We shall then most clearly, constantly, and forever, perceive God, the Father of spirits, and of the spiritual world.

4. In our employments, and in the mode of spending our existence.

5. In our state and situation. This world is a world of trial. While we remain in it, we are in a state of probation. Our days are days of grace.

6. A great change with respect to happiness and misery.

II. The appointed time allotted to each of us on earth, at the expiration of which the change will take place. The number of our months is with God; He sets us bounds which we cannot pass. We must allow that God has set to every man an appointed time, or deny the providential government of the universe.

III. What is implied in waiting the days of our appointed time?

1. Waiting till God shall see fit to release us, without voluntarily hastening our death, either in a direct or indirect manner.

2. An habitual expectation of it. No man can be said to wait for an event which he does not expect, nor can we be properly said to wait all our days for death, unless we live in habitual expectation of it.

3. Habitual care to preserve and maintain such a frame of mind as we should wish to be in when it arrives. Whatever preparation is necessary, the good man will take care to make.

4. Waiting for our change may be justly considered as implying some degree of desire for it.

Some reasons why we should wait for it in a right manner.

1. The perfect reasonableness of so doing. Consider the certainty and importance of death.

2. The command of Christ, with its attending promises and threatenings. Stand, says he, with your loins girt about, and your lamps trimmed. Be ye like servants who wait for their Lord, that when He cometh ye may open to Him immediately; for ye know not at what hour the Son of Man cometh. Blessed is that servant whom He shall find so doing. (E. Payson, D. D.)

The Christian waiting for his final change

There is much holy feeling in these quiet words.

I. A change which is coming. Job had already experienced many and great changes: yet he speaks here as one waiting for a change, just as though he had hitherto never experienced a single vicissitude. He means death.

1. To the righteous, death is a change of worlds.

2. A change of society. Mans social feelings will doubtless follow him to heaven.

3. We ourselves shall be changed by death. This is needful to give us the full enjoyment of our change of worlds and society. Our souls will be changed. They will be enlarged, strengthened, and, above all, purified. Our bodies as well as our souls will be changed ultimately. Change will take place in our outward condition and circumstances as well as in our ourselves.

II. The duty of the people of God with reference to this change. The text says they must wait for it. This waiting is the highest and holiest frame of mind into which Divine grace can bring us with reference to our future change. It is a great thing to be kept living in the constant thought and expectation of it. This waiting is a triumph over, not merely the worldly-mindedness of the human heart, but the fear and unbelief of the human heart. It seems a high attainment to feel a desire for death; the desire which is a longing to be with Christ. This frame of mind, even when attained, often in deep trouble gives way. Let me call on you to cultivate this patient, waiting disposition. It is good for its own sake. It is good as it redounds to Gods honour. It is good in its influence on the whole Christian character. It is only for a little while that we can need this grace. (C. Bradley.)

A coming change

Here we have reflected before us the character of the true Christian, who will not even in the lowest depths of adversity, throw aside his confidence in God, knowing that afflictions come not forth of the ground, but of him without whom not a sparrow falleth thither.

I. The question proposed. If a man die, shall he live again? The truth of a resurrection may be impressed on us by analogy from nature, and by word of revelation. The same power that bids the earth bring forth abundantly for the use of man, shall hereafter cause the sea, death, and hell, to deliver up the dead which are in them. Revelation would seem to enforce what creation would silently invite us to contemplate.

II. The chance to which allusion is made. It is one class of persons, and one only, of whom it may be said, that they will wait till their change come–those who have put on the Lord Jesus while here, and who are continually longing and looking for His glorious appearing. It is to be a glorious change. It will introduce us into glory; that glory we can here know but in part, for its fulness shall be revealed hereafter. Another distinguishing feature in its character is that of its being unchangeable. For He that shall bring this to pass is Himself without variableness, or shadow of turning; and they who shall be fashioned like unto Christs glorious body shall be so likewise; age shall roll on after age in rapid succession, and signs of decay shall not make their appearance on these glorified bodies, but they shall ever be the same, and their years shall not fail. (E. Jones.)

Awaiting Gods time to die

In their moments of despair, even good men have desired to be in the grave, but like Job, when they have returned to calmness and confidence in God, each has said, All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. No good man will ever deliberately wish merely to die. The true servants of God will never dishonour Him by proclaiming that the task He set them is so intolerable that it were better to be as the clods of the valley than engaged in its performance. The true soldiers of Christ, who have been placed by Him in positions of especial difficulty, danger or hardship, that they may peculiarly distinguish themselves, and win for Him peculiar glory, will never long merely for the ending of the campaign. Victory, not ease, will be the supreme object of their desire. They will hate the wish to desert their post, just as they would actually to desert. Until the captain of their salvation summons them to Himself, they will cheerfully endure hardships. Even those of Christs followers to whom life seems one prolonged furnace of affliction, will never forget that God placed them in it, and that His eye is upon them as a refiner and purifier of silver. Not one of them would wish to have the fire quenched before their Heavenly Father Himself sees fit to do so. (R. A. Bertram.)

Death a great change

What a transition it was for Paul–from the slippery deck of a foundering ship to the calm presence of Jesus. What a transition it was for the martyr Latimer–from the stake to the throne. What a transition it was for Robert Hall–from agony to glory. What a transition it was for Richard Baxter–from the dropsy to the saints everlasting rest. And what a transition it will be for you–from a world of sorrow to a world of joy. John Hollard, when dying, said, What means this brightness in the room? Have you lighted the candles? No, they said; we have not lighted any candles. Then, said he, welcome heaven; the light already beaming upon his pillow. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

The last change

The patriarch may be referring to the resurrection of the body from the state of the dead; or to the change which takes place at death.

I. Death to a good man is a change as to the soul itself. A man may be called a good man, compared with many around him; yet the difference is vast between what he now is and what he shall become, when death shall transfer his soul from earth to heaven.

II. It will also be a change in regard to the souls habitation. The souls habitation, in the life that now is, is not very convenient for its enjoyment. An apostle calls this tabernacle a vile body, vile relatively, vile morally, and vile mortally.

III. Death to a good man is a change as to human intercourse. The very best of men in this world are imperfect. The Christian has not only here to do with men who are good, though imperfect, but with men who make no profession of religion at all; with the openly profane, and with insincere professors. From all such relations a good man is delivered when his connection with time terminates. His glorified spirit is then introduced into that high and holy place where there are no imperfect or wicked men. Its companions now are the spirits of just men made perfect.

IV. It is a change also as to the good mans intercourse with God. In this world such intercourse is often interrupted. To no interruption or privation is the soul of a good man subjected after death. The soul will be prepared to dwell in Gods immediate presence. The change indicated takes place at an appointed time. The change which takes place in death is one for which all good men wait. All good men wait for death by preparing for it. (Thomas Adam.)

Our life, our work, our change

I. First, let us observe the aspect under which Job regarded this mortal life. He calls it an appointed time, or, as the Hebrew has it, a warfare.

1. Observe that Job styles our life a time. Blessed be God, that this present state is not an eternity! What though its conflicts may seem long, they must have an end. The winter may drag its weary length along, but the spring is hard upon its heels. Let us then, my brethren, judge immortal judgment; let us not weigh our troubles in the ill-adjusted scales of this poor human life, but let us use the shekel of eternity.

2. Job also calls our life an appointed time. Ye know who appointed your days. You did not appoint them for yourself, and therefore you can have no regrets about the appointment. Neither did Satan appoint it, for the keys of hell and of death do not hang at his girdle. To the Almighty God belong the issues from death.

3. You will observe also that Job very wisely speaks of the days of our appointed time. It is a prudent thing to forbear the burden of life as a whole, and learn to bear it in the parcels into which Providence has divided it. I must not fail to remind you of the Hebrew: All the days of my warfare will I wait. Life is indeed a warfare; and just as a man enlists in our army for a term of years, and then his service runs out, and he is free, so every believer is enlisted in the service of life, to serve God till his enlistment is over, and we sleep in death. Taking these thoughts together as Jobs view of mortal life, what then? Why, it is but once, as we have already said–we shall serve our God on earth in striving after His glory but once. Let us carry out the engagements of our enlistment honourably. There are no battles to be fought, and no victories to be won in heaven.

II. Jobs view of our work while on earth is that we are to wait. All the days of my appointed time will I wait. The word wait is very full of teaching.

1. In the first place, the Christian life should be one of waiting; that is, setting loose by all earthly things.

2. A second meaning of the text, however, is this: we must wait expecting to be gone–expecting daily and hourly to be summoned by our Lord. The proper and healthy estate of a Christian is to be anticipating the hour of his departure as near at hand.

3. Waiting means enduring with patience.

4. Serving is also another kind of waiting. He would not be a servant sometimes, and then skulk home in idleness at another season, as if his term of service were ended.

5. Moreover, to close this aspect of Christian life, we should be desirous to be called home.

III. Now comes Jobs estimate of the future. It is expressed in this word, Till my change come.

1. Let it be observed that, in a certain sense, death and resurrection are not a change to a Christian they are not a change as to his identity. The same man who lives here will live forever. There will be no difference in the Christians object in life when he gets to heaven. He lives to serve God here: he will live for the same end and aim there. And the Christian will not experience a very great change as to his companions. Here on earth the excellent of the earth are all his delight; Christ Jesus, his Elder Brother, abides with him; the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is resident within him; he communes with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

2. To the Christian it will be a change of place.

3. Specially will it be a change to the Christian as to that which will be within him. No body of this death to hamper him; no infirmities to cramp him; no wandering thoughts to disturb his devotion; no birds to come down upon the sacrifice, needing to be driven away. Right well, good patriarch, didst thou use the term, for it is the greatest of all changes. Perhaps to you it will be a sudden change. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. If a man die, shall he live again?] The Chaldee translates, If a wicked man die, can he ever live again? or, he can never live again. The Syriac and Arabic thus: “If a man die, shall he revive? Yea, all the days of his youth he awaits till his old age come.” The Septuagint: “If a man die, shall he live, having accomplished the days of his life? I will endure till I live again.” Here is no doubt, but a strong persuasion, of the certainty of the general resurrection.

All the days of my appointed time] tsebai, “of my warfare;” see on Job 7:1. Will I await till chaliphathi, my renovation, come. This word is used to denote the springing again of grass, Ps 90:5-6, after it had once withered, which is in itself a very expressive emblem of the resurrection.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Shall he live again? i.e. he shall not, namely, in this world, as was said before. The affirmative question is equivalent to an absolute denial, as Gen 18:17; Psa 46:7; Jer 5:9, and every where.

Seeing death puts an end to all mens hopes of any comfortable being here, because man once dead never returns to life, I will therefore wait on God, and hope for his favour whilst I live, and it is possible to enjoy it, and will continue waiting from time to time

until my change come, i.e. either,

1. Death, the great and last change; which is expressed by the root of this word, Job 10:17. Or,

2. The change of my condition for the better, which you upon your terms encourage me to expect, and which I yet trust in God I shall enjoy; for this word properly signifies vicissitudes or changes in ones condition; and this seems to suit best with the following verse. And this change, or a comfortable life here, Job so heartily wisheth, not only from that love of life and comfort which is naturally implanted in all men, good and bad, and is not forbidden by God, which also was stronger in those Old Testament saints, when the discoveries of Gods grace to sinners, and of eternal life, were much darker than now they are; but also because this would be an effectual vindication of his own integrity and good name, and of the honour of religion, both which did suffer some eclipse from Jobs extreme calamities, as is evident from the discourses of his friends.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

14. shall he live?The answerimplied is, There is a hope that he shall, though not in thepresent order of life, as is shown by the words following. Jobhad denied (Job 14:10-12)that man shall live again in this present world. But hoping for a”set time,” when God shall remember and raise him out ofthe hiding-place of the grave (Job14:13), he declares himself willing to “wait all the days ofhis appointed time” of continuance in the grave, however longand hard that may be.

appointed timeliterally,”warfare, hard service”; imlying the hardship ofbeing shut out from the realms of life, light, and God for the timehe shall be in the grave (Job 7:1).

changemy release, as asoldier at his post released from duty by the relieving guard (see onJob 10:17) [UMBREITand GESENIUS], butelsewhere GESENIUSexplains it, “renovation,” as of plants in spring (Job14:7), but this does not accord so well with the metaphor in”appointed time” or “warfare.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

If a man die,…. This is said not as if it was a matter of doubt, he had before asserted it; as sure as men have sinned, so sure shall they die; nothing is more certain than death, it is appointed by God, and is sure; but taking it for granted, the experience of all men, and the instances of persons of every age, rank, and condition, testifying to it; the Targum restrains it to wicked men,

“if a wicked man die:”

shall he live [again]? no, he shall not live in this earth, and in the place where he was, doing the same business he once did; that is, he shall not live here; ordinarily speaking, the instances are very rare and few; two or three instances there have been under the Old Testament, and a few under the New; but this is far from being a general and usual case, and never through the strength of nature, or of a man’s self, but by the mighty power of God: or it may be answered to affirmatively, he shall live again at the general resurrection, at the last day, when all shall come out of their graves, and there will be a general resurrection of the just, and of the unjust; some will live miserably, in inexpressible and eternal torments, and wish to die, but cannot, their life will be a kind of death, even the second death; others will live comfortably and happily an endless life of joy and pleasure with God; Father, Son and Spirit, angels and glorified saints: hence, in the faith of this is the following resolution,

all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come; there is an appointed time for man on earth when he shall be born, how long he shall live, and when he shall die, see Job 7:1; or “of my warfare” d for the life of man, especially of a good man, is a state of warfare with many enemies, sin, Satan, and the world; at the end of which there will be a “change”; for not a change of outward circumstances in this life is meant; for though there was such a change befell Job, yet he was, especially at this time, in no expectation of it; and though his friends suggested it to him, upon his repentance and reformation, he had no hope of it, but often expresses the contrary: but either a change at death is meant; the Targum calls it a change of life, a change of this life for another; death makes a great change in the body of a man, in his place here, in his relations and connections with men, in his company, condition, and circumstances: or else the change at the resurrection, when this vile body will be changed, and made like unto Christ’s; when it will become an incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual body, which is now corruptible, dishonourable, weak, and natural; and, till one or other of these should come, Job is determined to wait, to live in the constant expectation of death, and to be in a readiness and preparation for it; in the mean while to bear afflictions patiently, and not show such marks of impatience as he had done, nor desire to die before God’s time, but, whenever that should come, quietly and cheerfully resign himself into the hands of God; or this may respect the frame and business of the soul in a separate state after death, and before the resurrection, believing, hoping, and waiting for the resurrection of the body, and its union to it, see Ps 16:10.

d “quibus nunc milito”, V. L. “militiae maae”, Montanus, Tigurine version, Drusius, Codurcus, Michaelis, Schultens.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(14) If a man die, shall he live again?Why ask the question if it were absolutely certain that he would not? All the days of my warfarei.e., as long as I liveI will hope, till my change or transition from life to death comes, that Thou shalt call and I shall answer Thee, that Thou wilt long for the work of Thine hands.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

14. Shall he live? That which follows is equivalent to an affirmative answer to this momentous question, since Job is emboldened, to wait or hope ( yahhal) till his change or reviviscence shall come. “Upon closer reflection it is clear to him that the wish of the preceding verse comprehends within itself a renewal of life from the dead. Also he asks himself, ‘If man dies, lives he again?’ and without giving himself an answer, he proceeds to take pleasure in the thought, and, full of ecstasy, to set before himself the consequences that follow ‘all the days,’” etc. (Dillmann.) Even Renan makes here an important admission; “Job floats,” he says, “between despair and confidence. Sometimes he is struck with the fact that man is never restored to life, ( ressuscite;) sometimes he thinks that God could well recall him to life, and compares himself in sheol ( l’enfer) to a soldier on duty who waits till he may be relieved.” If a man die the strong man, the being of might, (geber,) shall he live? If such a being as man die! (A proper emphasis of the question gives the aroma of hope.) The Chinese philosopher Confucius evaded a similar question. “I venture to ask about death,” said Ke Loo. He was answered, “While you do not know life, how can you know about death?” ( Analects, xi, sec. 11.)

Appointed time , warfare. Compare Job 7:1. “The miserable state of the shades in sheol is compared to the hard service of soldiers on guard.” Gesenius.

My change . This wondrous word hhalipha is sometimes used for the relief of a guard or the release of a sentinel from his post. Some change from, or in, the estate of death is plainly indicated by the use of this word. In the seventh verse it designated the reviviscence of a tree, and it is strongly presumable that it is used here for renewal of life, whether in the military sense of relief from a darksome post, or in the sense of reanimation. With consummate skill Job may have blended the two in a mixed metaphor, a rhetorical form common with the Apostle Paul. The Septuagint reads it, “I will wait till I am made again.” Though mingled with gloom, the thought is a sublime one: The dead, the righteous dead, in their dismal abode, await a coming One who shall bring deliverance. Job’s spirit already pierces through the darkness of sheol, and descries the day-spring of hope. The lineaments may not be distinct, yet even here he catches a glimpse of “THE LAST” of Him who shall stand upon the dust. Job 19:25.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 14:14. My appointed time My appointed service. My station, or my warfare, as some render it: , zebaai. The word is commonly used in a military sense, either for an army, or a state of warfare; but it is likewise used in a religious sense, if I may so term it. The angels which attend the throne of God are called his zaba, his host; and it is with respect to these that he is so often called the God and Lord of Hosts: zebaoth. The Levites, who attended the service of the tabernacle, are said to wait to do their office in this phrase. See Num 4:23. The word is used remarkably by the Prophet Isa 40:2 either to express the state of the Jews in the captivity of Babylon, waiting for the promised deliverance; or rather, the state of the faithful, who expected a much more glorious redemption under the Messiah: Cry unto her, that her warfare ( zaba,) is accomplished. If Job had the same notion of a separate state which Isaiah seems here to have, either of the captivity of the Jews, under which they were to remain for a certain season, as a state brought upon them by their sins, till the day of their deliverance came; or of the state of the faithful, waiting with hope and patience for the redemption of the Messiah; we see how aptly he uses the word zebaai. The idea which the word conveys, is that of a post or station given him by God to maintain, till released from it and called to a better state; as if he had said, “Whatever station or condition God shall please to appoint me, either here, or in sheol, the intermediate state, I shall still wait in earnest expectation of the future renovation and resurrection.” Peters.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 465
THE CHANGE THAT TAKES PLACE AT DEATH

Job 14:14. All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

IS there not an appointed time to man upon earth [Note: Job 7:1.]? Yes, there is: the time for every mans entrance into the world, and the time for his continuance in it, are fixed by Almighty God, from whose hand we come, and by whose hand alone we are upheld. Successive generations arise, and are swept away, like the foliage, which by revolving seasons is produced and destroyed. But in this the illustration fails: for there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet, through the scent of water, it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant: but man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not, till the heavens be no more [Note: ver. 712.]. The change at death is complete: and, therefore, whether a man be elated with joys or depressed with sorrows, it becomes him to look forward to that period, when all present things shall have passed away, and an eternity, an unalterable eternity, shall commence. In the prospect of this period, Job consoled himself under his accumulated sorrows; and determined to wait with patience all the days of his appointed time, till this change should come.

It will be profitable to consider,

I.

What is that change that awaits us all

The voice of inspiration tells us, It is appointed unto men once to die; and after that the judgment. Now, the change that takes place in death is,

1.

Great

[That which passes upon the body we can in some measure appreciate; because we see before our eyes the frame, which but lately exhibited the loveliest evidences of creative wisdom, despoiled of all its powers, and reduced to the lowest state of degradation and deformity.
But who can estimate the change which death produces on the soul? Who can form any adequate idea of its views and feelings in a disembodied state? Respecting it we know little more than that it exists: of the mode of its existence, or the nature of its operations, or the extent of its powers, we have no means of judging. That it is in a state of inconceivable happiness or misery, indeed, we have no doubt: but all beyond that is mere conjecture. This, however, sufficiently warrants us to affirm, that the change which takes place in death is great.

It is also,]

2.

Momentous

[It is a transition, not only from the use of means to the absence of all means, but from a state of probation to a state of retribution. Here we can read the word of God, and hear it from Gods appointed ministers. Here we can draw nigh to God in prayer, and implore mercy at his hands, and plead his great and precious promises, and flee for refuge to the hope that is set before us. In our present state there is a cloud of witnesses, surveying all our motions, and, with affectionate solicitude, panting for our success [Note: Heb 12:1.]. God himself is watching over us, and saying, How shall I give thee up [Note: Hos 11:8.]? Wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be [Note: Jer 13:27.]? But the very instant that the soul departs from the body, its state is fixed; all opportunities of promoting its welfare are terminated [Note: Ecc 9:10.]; and a sentence of happiness or misery is awarded to it, according to what it has done in the body during the period of its existence here.

The awfulness of this change is yet further increased by the consideration of its being,]

3.

Permanent

[True it is, indeed, that the body shall undergo a further change; because it will be raised again, to participate the lot which had been previously assigned to the soul. But, from the instant of its dissolution, its doom was fixed; and to all eternity will it remain an heir of happiness or woe. Conceive now the soul and body exalted to the throne of God, to enjoy all his blessedness and glory; or cast down to hell, to endure all the terrors of his wrath! Conceive its state irreversibly and unalterably fixed, so that, when millions of ages shall have rolled on, it shall be no nearer a termination than at its commencement! In what a view does this exhibit the change that shall take place at death! Truly, this is a subject which deserves the deepest consideration, and which, above all others, ought to operate with the greatest force upon our minds.]
Let us consider,

II.

Our duty in reference to it

We should continually look forward to that change, and wait for it in a state,

1.

Of patient expectation

[When trouble comes upon us, we are apt to feel impatience, and are ready, like Elijah, to pray that God would take away our life. Many, alas! proceed even to the extremity of terminating their lives by suicide: and I cannot but think that the act of suicide would be still more common, if the dread of an hereafter did not operate to produce a submission to present ills, as, upon the whole, a preferable alternative. But we should bear in mind, that the number of our days is determined of the Lord; that they are continually drawing to a close; that, in a little time, our afflictions, how great soever they may at present be, will come to a close; and, consequently, like persons waiting for the morning, we should submit with patience to the evils of the night.]

2.

Of diligent preparation

[The present is the only time for securing happiness in the eternal world. Now, therefore, every hour should be improved for that end. Whatever talents have been committed to us, we should employ them so as to give a good account of them at last. If we have but one talent, we should not hide it in a napkin, but turn it to the best account that we are able; that so our Divine Master may, at his coming, receive his own with usury.]

Let this subject teach us,
1.

The folly of ambition

[What if we possessed all that the world could give? We might speedily, like Job, be dispossessed of all, or be rendered incapable of enjoying it. At all events, the instant our change comes, we must resign it all, and go naked out of the world, even as naked as we came into it. Who, that reflects on this, does not see that vanity is inscribed on all created good?]

2.

The wisdom of true piety

[Piety is that which alone will profit us in the eternal world: and the effects of that remain unchangeable for evermore. Know, then, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do thereafter: the praise of it endureth for ever.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live [again]? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Ver. 14. If a man die, shall he live again? ] This he speaketh in way of admiration at that glorious work of the resurrection. See the like question Job 15:11 Gen 3:1 ; Gen 17:17 . So the apostle, Rom 8:30-31 , having spoken of those glorious things, predestination, vocation, justification, glorification, concludeth in these words, “What shall we say then?” We cannot tell what to say to these things, so much are we amazed at the greatness of God’s goodness in them. Surely, as they have a lovely scarlet blush of Christ’s blood upon them, so they are rayed upon with a beam of divine love, to them that are in Christ. We read of that godly and learned Scotch divine, Mr John Knox, that a little before his death he got up out of his bed, and being asked by his friends, why, being so sick, he would offer to rise, and not rather take his rest? he answered, that he had all the last night been taken up in the meditation of the resurrection, and that he would now go up into the pulpit, that he might impart to others the comforts which thereby himself had received. And surely if he had been able to have done as he desired, I know not what text fitter for his purpose he could have taken, than these words of Job, “If a man die, shall he live again?” He shall without question; and those that deny it or doubt it (as the Sadducees of old, and some brain sick people of late), they err, not knowing the Scriptures (this among the rest), which are express for it, and the power of God, Mat 22:29 , being herein worse than devils, which believe it and tremble, worse than some heathens, who held there would be a resurrection, as Zoroastes, Theopompus, Plato, &c., worse than Turks, who at this day confess and wait for a resurrection of the body at such a time as the fearful trumpet (which they call Soor) shall be sounded by Mahomet, say they, at the command of the great God of the judgment.

All the days of mine appointed time (or warfare) will I wait, till my change come] i.e. Till my death, (Pro 31:8 , men appointed to die are called in the original children of change) or till the resurrection come, when we shall all be changed, 1Co 15:51 , our vile bodies shall be changed and conformed to Christ’s most glorious body (the standard), Phi 3:21 , in beauty, agility, impassibility, and other angelical perfections. When I awake, saith David, sc. at that general resurrection, I shall be full of thine image, Psa 17:15 . I shall be brought from the jaws of death to the joys of eternal life, where are riches without rust, pleasures without pain, &c. Three glimpses of this glorious change were seen: 1. In Moses’ face. 2. In Christ’s transfiguration. 3. In Stephen’s countenance when he stood before the council. Such change as this is well worth waiting for: what would not a man do? what would he not suffer, with those noble professors, Heb 11:33-40 , to obtain a better resurrection? I would swim through a sea of brimstone, saith one, that I might come to heaven at last. The stone will fall down to come to its own place, though it break itself in twenty pieces: so we, that we may get to our centre, which is upwards, &c. Sursum cursum nostrum dirigamus; et minantem, imminentem, et exterminantem mortem attendamus: ne simul, cum corporis fractura, animae iacturam faciamus. Let us wait and wish every one for himself, as he once did:

Mi sine nocte diem, vitam sine morte, quietem

Det sine fine, dies, vita, quiesque Deus.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job

JOB’S QUESTION, JESUS’ ANSWER

Job 14:14 . – Joh 11:25 – Joh 11:26 .

Job’s question waited long for an answer. Weary centuries rolled away; but at last the doubting, almost despairing, cry put into the mouth of the man of sorrows of the Old Testament is answered by the Man of Sorrows of the New. The answer in words is this second text which may almost be supposed to allude to the ancient question. The answer, in fact, is the resurrection of Christ. Apart from this answer there is none.

So we may take these two texts to help us to grasp more clearly and feel more profoundly what the world owes to that great fact which we are naturally led to think of to-day.

I. The ancient and ever returning question.

The Book of Job is probably a late part of the Old Testament. It deals with problems which indicate some advance in religious thought. Solemn and magnificent, and for the most part sad; it is like a Titan struggling with large problems, and seldom attaining to positive conclusions in which the heart or the head can rest in peace. Here all Job’s mind is clouded with a doubt. He has just given utterance to an intense longing for a life beyond the grave. His abode in Sheol is thought of as in some sense a breach in the continuity of his consciousness, but even that would be tolerable, if only he could be sure that, after many days, God would remember him. Then that longing gives way before the torturing question of the text, which dashes aside the tremulous hope with its insistent interrogation. It is not denial, but it is a doubt which palsies hope. But though he has no certainty, he cannot part with the possibility, and so goes on to imagine how blessed it would be if his longing were fulfilled. He thinks that such a renewed life would be like the ‘release’ of a sentry who had long stood on guard; he thinks of it as his swift, joyous ‘answer’ to God’s summons, which would draw him out from the sad crowd of pale shadows and bring him back to warmth and reality. His hope takes a more daring flight still, and he thinks of God as yearning for His creature, as His creature yearns for Him, and having ‘a desire to the work of His hands,’ as if His heaven would be incomplete without His servant. But the rapture and the vision pass, and the rest of the chapter is all clouded over, and the devout hope loses its light. Once again it gathers brightness in the twenty-first chapter, where the possibility flashes out starlike, that ‘after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God.’

These fluctuations of hope and doubt reveal to us the attitude of devout souls in Israel at a late era of the national life. And if they show us their high-water mark, we need not suppose that similar souls outside the Old Testament circle had solid certainty where these had but a variable hope. We know how large a development the doctrine of a future life had in Assyria and in Egypt, and I suppose we are entitled to say that men have always had the idea of a future. They have always had the thought, sometimes as a fear, sometimes as a hope, but never as a certainty. It has lacked not only certainty but distinctness. It has lacked solidity also, the power to hold its own and sustain itself against the weighty pressure of intrusive things seen and temporal.

But we need not go to the ends of the earth or to past generations for examples of a doubting, superficial hold of the truth that man lives through death and after it. We have only to look around us, and, alas! we have only to look within us. This age is asking the question again, and answering it in many tones, sometimes of indifferent disregard, sometimes flaunting a stark negative without reasoned foundation, sometimes with affirmatives with as little reason as these negatives. The modern world is caught in the rush and whirl of life, has its own sorrows to front, its own battles to fight, and large sections of it have never come as near an answer to Job’s question as Job did.

II. Christ’s all-sufficing answer.

He gave it there, by the grave of Lazarus, to that weeping sister, but He spoke these great words of calm assurance to all the world. One cannot but note the difference between His attitude in the presence of the great Mystery and that of all other teachers. How calmly, certainly, and confidently He speaks!

Mark that Jesus, even at that hour of agony, turns Martha’s thoughts to Himself. What He is is the all-important thing for her to know. If she understands Him, life and death will have no insoluble problems nor any hopelessness for her. ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’ She had risen in her grief to a lofty height in believing that ‘even now’-at this moment when help is vain and hope is dead-’whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee,’ but Jesus offers to her a loftier conception of Him when He lays a sovereign hand on resurrection and life, and discloses that both inhere in Him, and from Him flow to all who shall possess them. He claims to have in Himself the fountain of life, in all possible senses of the word, as well as in the special sense relevant at that sad hour. Further, He tells Martha that by faith in Him any and all may possess that life. And then He majestically goes on to declare that the life which He gives is immune from, and untouched by, death. The believer shall live though he dies, the living believer shall never die. It is clear that, in these two great statements, to die is used in two different meanings, referring in the former case to the physical fact, and in the latter carrying a heavier weight of significance, namely the pregnant sense which it usually has in this Gospel, of separation from God and consequently from the true life of the soul. Physical death is not the termination of human life. The grim fact touches only the surface life, and has nothing to do with the essential, personal being. He that believes on Jesus, and he only, truly lives, and his union with Jesus secures his possession of that eternal life, which victoriously persists through the apparent, superficial change which men call death. Nothing dies but the death which surrounds the faithful soul. For it to die is to live more fully, more triumphantly, more blessedly. So though the act of physical death remains, its whole character is changed. Hence the New Testament euphemisms for death are much more than euphemisms. Men christen it by names which drape its ugliness, because they fear it so much, but Faith can play with Leviathan, because it fears it not at all. Hence such names as ‘sleep,’ ‘exodus,’ are tokens of the victory won for all believers by Jesus. He will show Martha the hope for all His followers which begins to dawn even in the calling of her brother back from the grip of death. And He shows us the great truth that His being the ‘Life’ necessarily involved His being also the ‘Resurrection,’ for His life-communicating work could not be accomplished till His all-quickening vitality had flowed over into, and flooded with its own conquering tides, not only the spirit which believes but its humble companion, the soul, and its yet humbler, the body. A bodily life is essential to perfect manhood, and Jesus will not stay His hand till every believer is full-summed in all his powers, and is perfect in body, soul, and spirit, after the image of Him who redeemed Him.

III. The pledge for the truth of the answer.

The words of Jesus are only words. These precious words, spoken to that one weeping sister in a little Jewish village, and which have brought hope to millions ever since, are as baseless as all the other dreams and longings of the heart, unless Jesus confirms them by fact. If He did not rise from the dead, they are but another of the noble, exalted, but futile delusions of which the world has many others. If Christ be not risen, His words of consolation are swelling words of emptiness; His whole claims are ended, and the age-old question which Job asked is unanswered still, and will always remain unanswered. If Christ be not risen, the hopeless colloquy between Jehovah and the prophet sums up all that can be said of the future life: ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord God, Thou knowest!’

But Christ’s resurrection is a fact which, taken in connection with His words while on earth, endorses these and establishes His claims to be the Declarer of the name of God, the Saviour of the world. It gives us demonstration of the continuity of life through and after death. Taken along with His ascension, which is but, so to speak, the prolongation of the point into a line, it declares that a glorified body and an abode in a heavenly home are waiting for all who by faith become here partakers in Jesus and are quickened by sharing in His life.

So in despite of sense and doubt and fear, notwithstanding teachers who, like the supercilious philosophers on Mars Hill, mock when they hear of a resurrection from the dead, we should rejoice in the great light which has shined into the region of the shadow of death, we should clasp His divine and most faithful answer to that old, despairing question, as the anchor of our souls, and lift up our hearts in thanksgiving in the triumphant challenge, ‘O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

shall . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.

live again: i.e. in resurrection. Compare Joh 11:25, Joh 11:26.

appointed time = service, or warfare.

change = improvement. Hebrew. halaph = a. change for the better. See note on Lev 27:10.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Life beyond Death

If a man die, shall he live?Job 14:14.

Job has just given utterance to an intense longing for a life beyond the grave. His abode in Sheol is thought of as in some sense a breach in the continuity of his consciousness, but even that would be tolerable, if only he could be sure that, after many days, God would remember him. Then that longing gives way before the torturing question of the text, which dashes aside the tremulous hope with its insistent interrogation. It is not denial, but it is a doubt which palsies hope. But though he has no certainty, he cannot part with the possibility, and so goes on to imagine how blessed it would be if his longing were fulfilled. He thinks that such a renewed life would be like the release of a sentry who had long stood on guard; he thinks of it as his swift, joyous answer to Gods summons, which would draw him out from the sad crowd of pale shadows and bring him back to warmth and reality. His hope takes a more daring flight still, and he thinks of God as yearning for His creature, as His creature yearns for Him, and having a desire to the work of his hands, as if His heaven would be incomplete without His servant. But the rapture and the vision pass, and the rest of the chapter is all clouded over, and the devout hope loses its light. Once again it gathers brightness in the nineteenth chapter, where the possibility flashes out starlike, that after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God.

When standing in the shadows, the words of Ingersoll seem none too melancholy: Life is a narrow vale between the mountain peaks of two eternities. The skies give back no sound. We cry aloud and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. Such were the great infidels words at his brothers open grave. O, how many anguished hearts, like his, have cried up into the skies and for answer caught only the echo of their own lamentation! In the narrow vale how many pilgrims have lost their way! Against those unyielding peaks how many souls have bruised and broken their wings! Earths most fevered search and bitterest agonies are in that ancient phrase: If a man die, shall he live again?1 [Note: G. C. Peck, Ringing Questions, 35.]

In a sad poem, entitled The Great Misgiving, William Watson voices modern unsettlement and belief on this question. Writing there of our life as a feast at which we have banqueted, he asks why the worms should not have their feast too upon us, once we are done with it all. In soul-withering doubt, he estimates that it is impossible to know, when we have done with this life, whether we shall pass into the ampler day with its heavenly light, or whether we shall slip into new prospects, or fall sheera blinded thing! His closing words, sounding like the shutting of the iron gate of a prison-house on mans soul, areThere is, O grave, thy hourly victory; and there, O death, thy sting!2 [Note: P. Wilson, The Great Salvation, 265.]

Though bleak winds blow and earth grows drear,

When autumns golden days depart,

We scan the skies

With fearless eyes,

For winter brings no blight to him

Who holds the summer in his heart.

Though deaths chill shadows hover near,

And billows wild about us roll,

In faiths sweet calm

We lift our psalm,

For death no terror wears for him

Who mirrors heaven in his soul.3 [Note: Mary B. Sleight.]

The answers to Jobs question may be reduced to three, according as the inquirers are guided by Reason, the Old Testament Scriptures, or the Revelation in Christ.

I.

The Answer of Reason

The greatest philosophers of Greece speculated on the nature and destiny of man. They felt there was something Divine in human nature, as well as something which seemed to them to be only of the earth. The mortality of the body they could not deny, nor did they wish to do so. They conceived of it not as the necessary expression and organ of the soul, but as a burden, a prison, a tomb; it was their one hope and desire that mans immortal part might one day be delivered from it. The Greek philosophers, too, as well as the great poets, rose above that moral neutrality which characterizes the instinctive faith in mans survival. They saw rewards and punishments in the once undistinguishing future. Heroic men were admitted to some kind of blessed existence in Elysian fields; while the conspicuously badgiants, tyrants, lawless profligateswere tormented in some kind of hell. Such ideas, however, were confined to a limited circle; they did not interest themselves in the common people; and however much we may admire the nobleness of the poets and philosophers of Greece, it is not to them, any more than to the priests of Egypt, that the world is indebted for the hope of immortality.

1. The foundation of a belief in a future life is embedded in human nature. In the transient course of things there is yet an intimation of that which is not transient. The grass that fades has yet in the folded and falling leaves of its flower that perishes the intimation of a beauty that does not fade. The treasures that are frayed by the moth and worn by the rust are not as those in which love and faith and hope abide. There is a will that in its purpose does not yield to mortal wrong. There is a joy that is not of emulation. There is a freedom that is other than the mere struggle for existence in physical relations, and is not determined in its source or end by these finite conditions.

I have heard that the mortar in the walls of Sancta Sophia, at Constantinople, still retains some traces of the perfume with which it was mixed when built a thousand years ago. But let us make the figure complete. Suppose the fragrance of a rose had the same property in relation to the rose that the spirit has in relation to the body. What if the fragrance controlled the rose? What if it were endowed with such a superior nature as to be able to disseminate a rich, rare, and wondrous perfume even though the rose were faded, and fallen, and broken, and dead? What if the odour had a consciousness of its own, apart from the flower, able to say as the rose falls to fragments, I am an odour still! Would we not regard it as somewhat less likely that such a fragrance could perish for evercould be diffused into nothing?1 [Note: C. C. Albertson, Death and Afterwards, 41.]

Huxleys consciousness of the difficulties involved in his views on life and destiny caused him to advocate a resolute front against the prospect of future nothingness. We are grown men, and must play the man

Strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

He admits that a ray of light may perchance steal in upon the dreadful gloom:

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.

The natures that will find comfort in this scanty outlook are few indeed, and later teachers of the evolution school have revolted against its dismal predictions. Mr. Fiske says, For my own part, I believe in the immortality of the soul, not in the sense in which I accept the demonstrable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of Gods work. Le Conte is more emphatic still. He holds that, without spiritimmortalitythis increasingly beautiful cosmos, which has run its ageless course with manifest purpose and value, would be precisely as though it had never beenan idiot tale signifying and portending blank nothingness.2 [Note: S. Parkes Cadman, Charles Darwin and other English Thinkers, 76.]

2. The instinct of immortality is reinforced by mans innate sense of justice. He feels that something is needed to complete this life elsewhere. Immortality has been named the great prophecy of reasona phrase which is in itself an argument. We cannot look into ourselves without finding it. The belief is a part of the contents of human nature: take it away, and its most unifying bond is broken; it has no longer an order or a relation; the higher faculties are without function: eyes, but nothing to see; hands, but nothing to lay hold of; feet, but no path to tread; wings, but no air to uphold them, and no heaven to fly into.

I do not know that there is anything in nature (unless indeed it be the reputed blotting out of suns in the stellar heavens) which can be compared in wastefulness with the extinction of great minds: their gathered resources, their matured skill, their luminous insight, their unfailing tact, are not like instincts that can be handed down; they are absolutely personal and inalienable, grand conditions of future power unavailable for the race, and perfect for an ulterior growth of the individual. If that growth is not to be, the most brilliant genius bursts and vanishes as a firework in the night. A mind of balanced and finished faculties is a production at once of infinite delicacy and of most enduring constitution; lodged in a fast-perishing organism, it is like a perfect set of astronomical instruments, misplaced in an observatory shaken by earthquakes or caving in with decay. The lenses are true, the mirrors without a speck, the movements smooth, the micrometers exact: what shall the Master do but save the precious system, refined with so much care, and build for it a new house that shall be founded on a rock?1 [Note: James Martineau.]

Kant, the great moralist, based his demonstration of the doctrine of immortality on the demands of the conscience. Conscience bids us aim at perfection. But perfection is not reached upon the earth. If the earth be all, if death ends everything, then we are overweighted in our moral nature. Conscience needs an enduring arena for its operation. Conscience demands immortality.

The facts of life confirm the hope

That in a world of larger scope

What here is faithfully begun

Will be completed, not undone.2 [Note: T. E. Ruth.]

If no atom of matter is ever lost, no unit of force ever wastedif nothing is destroyed, although all is changedwill the Father fail to preserve the gift of immortality in His children? Every true gift of God preaches this sublime truth. We have felt sometimes, when we have listened to beautiful music, that it must be an echo from those choirs invisible of which our great composers have often dreamed. And as of music, so of poetry; for the real poet is by nature a seer and a prophet, and his noblest lines are full of the consciousness of the Eternal. He takes his illumination from

The light that never was on sea or land.

Whichever way we look, into whatever realm of life we enter, the immortal truth is seen shining more and more brightly unto the perfect day. Life, not deathrestoration, not ruingrowth, not decay,these are our rich inheritance and possession.1 [Note: Henry White.]

For love, and beauty, and delight,

There is no death, nor change; their might

Exceeds our organs, which endure

No light, being themselves obscure.2 [Note: Shelley.]

3. There is in every soul a crystal skylight opening out toward the upper realms; but if we do not keep it clean the vision of those realms will grow dim until it is obscured from us altogether. Sincerely and practically to believe that we are immortal, we must more or less feel ourselves immortal; but this feeling of immortality will seldom visit the bosom of the man who does not honestly try to live on earth the life of heaven. Emerson has truly said that from a low type of moral life a slaughter-house style of thinking invariably resultsa style of thinking, that is, which butchers mens fairest ideals and noblest hopes, because it cannot realize how fair and noble they are. Spiritual things are not likely to be discerned by the animal man.

It is the hardest thing in the world for a child to believe that the dead are no more. Wordsworth has shown us this with beautiful simplicity, in his poem of the little cottage-girl, to whom the sister and the brother lying in the churchyard were as really alive and pleased with the songs she sang to them, as were the two who dwelt at Conway and the two who had gone to sea.

Whatever crazy sorrow saith,

No life that breathes with human breath

Has ever truly longed for death.

Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,

Oh, life, not death, for which we pant,

More life, and fuller, that I want.3 [Note: Tennyson, Two Voices.]

II.

The Answer of the Old Testament

1. In the Old Testament a great forward step is taken. We feel that we have left the twilight for the dawn. Among heathen races faith in immortality rested on conceptions of mans nature, in the Old Testament it rests on Gods character. He is the Eternal Righteousness, and His faith is pledged to man whom He calls to live in fellowship with Himself. All things may seem to be against a man; his friends may desert him, circumstances may accuse him; but if he is righteous, God cannot desert him, and if he must die under a cloud, even death will not prevent his vindication. His Eedeemer lives, and one day he shall again see God. And to see God is to have life, in the only sense which is adequate to the Bible use of the word.

It is quite true to say that Israel had hardly any ideas about the future, and shrank in horror from those it had; but Israel had God, and that was everything. Israel knew that there was One only, the living and true God, from everlasting to everlasting, infinite in goodness and truth; Israel knew that God had made man in His own image, capable of communion with Him, and only blessed in such communion; to Israel, to see good was all one with to see God; with God was the fountain of life, in Gods light His people saw light. This faith in God was greater than Israel knew; it could not be explored and exhausted in a day; it had treasures stored up in it that only centuries of experience could disclose, and among them was the hope of immortality. The believing nation of Israel, like Bunyans pilgrim, unconsciously carried the key of promise in its bosom, even when it was in the dungeon of Giant Despair.1 [Note: J. Denney, The Way Everlasting, 182.]

Oh, little bulb uncouth,

Ragged and rusty brown,

Have you some dew of youth?

Have you a crimson gown?

Plant me and see

What I shall be,

Gods fine surprise

Before your eyes!

A body wearing out,

A crumbling house of clay!

Oh, agony of doubt

And darkness and dismay!

Trust God and see

What I shall be,

His best surprise

Before your eyes!

2. The Old Testament revelation is at the best hazy. The descriptions given of Sheol are numerous and depressing. Man existed in it, but did not live. He had no communion there either with the living God or with living men. It was a pale transcript of life, but not life in reality. It was a realm of darkness, dust, and endless silence, unbroken by the vision of God or the voice of praise. The best men shrank from it with horror. The feeling with which they regarded it will be sufficiently illustrated by these lines from the Psalm of Hezekiah: I said, in the noontide of my days I shall go into the gates of Sheol. I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of nothingness, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

It goes without saying that Jobs most far-reaching and comprehensive declaration falls unspeakably short of that abolition of death, and bringing of life and immortality to light, accomplished by the gospel of Christ; but what it lacks in fulness and breadth, it gains in the burning intensity and glow out of which it springs, and the sublime motives which urge and impel him, not only to speak, but also to covet a monumental and immortal pulpit for his words. His sayings form a window through which we look into his soul; a lit lamp by whose clear ray we see the workings of his mind, and enter into partnership, not only with his ideas, but with himself, as those ideas are born in his soul, and take their place in his life.1 [Note: J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, 318.]

III.

The Answer of Christ

1. When Christ entered on His ministry of teaching, He found certain doctrines existing in Jewish theology; they were either imperfect or germinal truths. He found a doctrine of God, partial in conception; He perfected it by revealing the Divine Fatherhood. He found a doctrine of sin and righteousness turning upon external conduct; He transferred it to the heart and spirit. He found a doctrine of judgment as a single future event; He made it present and on-going. He found a doctrine of reward and punishment, the main feature of which was a place in the under and upper worlds where pleasure was imparted and pain inflicted; He transferred it to the soul, and made the pleasure and pain to proceed from within the man, and to depend upon his character. He found a doctrine of immortality, held as mere future existence; He transformed the doctrine, even if He did not supplant it, by calling it life, and connecting it with character. His treatment of this doctrine was not so much corrective, as accretive. He accepts immortality, but He adds to it character. He puts in abeyance the element of time or continuance, and substitutes quality or character as its main feature. Hence He never uses any word corresponding to immortality (which is a mere negationunmortal), but always speaks of life. The continuance of existence is merely an incident, in His mind, to the fact of life. It follows inevitably, but is not the main feature of the truth.

A little child whose angel still beholds the face of the Father, does not repine over the past, or sigh for the future. The very law of innocence and perfection, whether in child or angel or God or perfect man, tends to exclude the sense of time. Continuance becomes a mere incident; the main and absorbing thought is quality of life. When Christ speaks of eternal life, He does not mean future endless existence; this may be involved, but it is an inference or secondary thought; He means instead fulness or perfection of life. That it will go on for ever is a matter of course, out it is not the important feature of the truth.1 [Note: T. T. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, 265.]

Dr. Young of Kelly (the famous chemist who first extracted paraffin oil from shale) died on 13th May 1883. On the Sunday following his funeral, Dr. Robertson preached at the evening service in Skelmorlie United Presbyterian Church, Dr. Goold of Edinburgh preaching in the forenoon. Mr. Boyd, the minister of the church, writes: In the course of his sermon Dr. Goold insisted strongly that the doctrine of immortality is taught in the Old Testament, and quoted a number of passages in support of his position. Dr. Robertson had arranged to preach in the evening from the text, Christ hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, and the psalms, hymns, and anthem had been chosen with this text in view. But after the forenoon service he came to me in anxiety and said, I must change my subject; if I preach the sermon I intended, Dr. Goold will think I am controverting his teaching. All afternoon he was restless, evidently thinking over other sermons, but unable to fix on one. When the hour of evening service had come he told me that he was still undecided. I replied, Keep to your subject, the choir cannot now change the hymns. He consented to do so. It was evident that he had taken the position that immortality was not clearly taught in the Old Testament. With great tact he succeeded in avoiding the appearance of contradiction between him and the morning preacher, by saying in well-chosen words, which I cannot reproduce, something to this effect: Doubtless there are references to the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament, as was so well put before you in the forenoon. But just as he whose death we are this day remembering with sorrow found embedded in the caverns of the earth the dark substance by which he has illuminated the homes of rich and poor in many lands, so did Christ bring to light the doctrine of a future life. The shale was in the earth long before, but it was Dr. Young who revealed its illuminating power. Even so the doctrine of immortality, embedded in Old Testament passages, was practically unrevealed until He came who brought life and immortality to light.

I can give you no idea of the beautiful touches by which Dr. Robertson wrought out the thought I have only indicated; but so skilfully was it done that I think no one in the church ever dreamt of anything but completest harmony between the two preachers.1 [Note: Dr. James Brown, in Life of W. B. Robertson of Irvine, 428.]

2. Christ put the copestone on the doctrine of immortality by illustrating it in His own person. He could point to Himself as the living embodiment of His teaching. He came and entered into the living stream of our life. He was linked on to the past; human experience moulded His human character; He goes to the marriage feast; He meets sin, and disease, and death and sorrow; He is buffeted by the waves of this troubled world; He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And then, as He passed through death, sin and sorrow have no power to leave their marks upon His nature; He corresponds now to all that is spiritual, peaceful, heavenly in human nature. He dwells with the spirit of man, and passes out of our sight ever to live to make intercession for us. So it has been, so it is with each of us. God puts each individual soul into this wide-reaching life, whose tides sweep by us out of a past lost in the mists of history, and which eddy away into eternity. We are attached as it were to this great life and we never can cease to be, or lose our personality. To this life we correspond as natural bodies; to the life hereafter we shall correspond as spiritual bodies. And so we draw life from our surroundings.

Christ makes poetry of the suggestions we see in the world. The demands we see in human nature He sets to Divine music. We know simply the letters of the alphabet of life; some lofty souls can see certain notes of music. He arranges the letters and the notes in such marvellous melody that the angels burst into anthems, and the singers by the crystal sea sing a new song, and the earth hears the echo of heavens triumph. Death is abolished. In Christ immortality is revealed. He was dead, and behold, He is alive for evermore. Because He lives, we shall live also. His resurrection involves ours. Our continuity is implied in His. We cannot die while He lives.1 [Note: T. E. Ruth.]

In some of the cathedrals of Europe, on Christmas Eve, two small lights, typifying the Divine and the human nature, are gradually made to approach one another until they meet and blend, forming a bright flame. Thus, in Christ, we have the light of two worlds thrown upon human destiny. Death, as the extinction of being, cannot be associated with Him; He is lifeits fulness and perfection, and perfect life must be stronger than death. The whole bearing of Christ towards death, and His treatment of it, was as one superior to it, and as having no part or lot in it. He will indeed bow His head and cease to breathe in obedience to the physical laws of the humanity He shares, but already He enters the gates of Paradise, not alone but leading a penitent child of humanity by the hand. And, in order that we may know He simply changed worlds, He comes back and shows Himself alive; for He is not here in the world simply to assert truth, but to enact it.2 [Note: T. T. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, 268.]

When Livingstone asked the natives in Central Africa as to what became of their noble river, they, having no idea of the sea, replied, It is lost in the sands. We know another wonderful river, the river of human life which rushes through these metropolitan streets, spreads far and wide, and flows on through agesthe mystic river whose bubbles are cities, whose music is language, whose jewels are thoughts, whose shells are histories. What becomes of this river of life? Says scepticism sadly, The clergyman, the undertaker, and the sexton see the last of it in the sands. But we can never be content with such a solution, which is no solution. The Lord Jesus alone enables us to give a bright interpretation to the dark problem. He has brought life and immortality to light. He has put into our lips the great cry, The sea! The sea! Beyond the sands of time we behold gleams of the great bright ocean of eternity, and through the mist comes the music of many waters. Our Lord was manifest in the flesh, He died, was buried, and rose again that He might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. We take our harp from the willow. Our mourners are musicians, our graves are filled with flowers, our epitaphs are hallelujahs.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Education of the Heart, 25.]

3. Our future life is secure in Christ. Linked to Him we cannot perish. Christians believe in their own resurrection, because they believe in the resurrection of Christ. But faith does not depend uponit does not originate in nor is it maintained bythe resurrection of Christ, simply as a historical fact. The resurrection of Jesus is not simply a fact outside of us, guaranteeing in some mysterious way our resurrection in some remote future. It is a present power in the believer. He can say with St. PaulChrist liveth in methe risen Christthe Conqueror of Deathand a part, therefore, is ensured to me in His life and immortality. This is the great idea of the New Testament whenever the future life is in view. It is indeed very variously expressed. Sometimes it is Christ in us, the hope of glory. Sometimes it is especially connected with the possession, or rather the indwelling, of the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you. It is easy to see that the religious attitude here is precisely what it was in the Old Testament, though, as the revelation is fuller, the faith which apprehends it, and the hope which grows out of it, are richer. Just as union with God guaranteed to the Psalmist a life that would never end, so union with the risen Saviour guaranteed to the Apostles, and guarantees to us, the resurrection triumph over death.

March 11th, 1870.I have been astounded by a most influential member of the Church saying to me, What is it to me whether Christ worked miracles or rose from the dead! We have got the right idea of God through Him. It is enough, that can never perish! And this truth is like a flower that has grown from a dunghill of lies and myths! Good Lord, deliver me from such conclusions! If the battle has come, let it; but before God I will fight it with those only, be they few or many, who believe in a risen, living Saviour. This revelation of the influence of surface criticism has thrown me back immensely upon all who hold fast by an objective revelation. Nothing can possibly move me from Jesus Christ, the living Saviour, the Divine Saviour, the Atoning Saviour, whatever be the philosophy of that atonement.1 [Note: Memoir of Norman Macleod, ii. 321.]

The ancients fabled that Orpheus the god of music was drowned, and his lyre lost in the sea; hence water is musical. What the Greeks meant by this legend it is impossible to say; but perhaps they intended it to signify that the secret of harmony has perished from the world. Be that as it may, when the Son of God plunged into this gulf of dark despair, He recovered more than the lost lyre of Orpheus: He gave us again the secret of spiritual and eternal music, whatever may be the confusions and discords of earth and time.2 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Education of the Heart 26.]

Literature

Albertson (C. C.), Death and Afterwards, 31.

Barton (G. A.), Christian Teaching in the Old Testament, 209.

Campbell (R. J.), City Temple Sermons, 161.

Cooper (T. J.), Loves Unveiling, 105.

Denney (J.), The Way Everlasting, 175.

Jerdan (C.), Pastures of Tender Grass, 408.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Esther, Job, 43

Munger (T. T.), The Freedom of Faith, 237.

Newton (J.), The Problem of Personality, 116.

Peek (G. C.), Ringing Questions, 31.

Wilson (P.), The Great Salvation, 263.

The Christian World Pulpit, xlii. 105 (Varley); xlvii. 259 (Fielding); lxxi. 249 (Ruth).

The Church of England Pulpit, lxii. 251 (Synnott).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

shall he live: Job 19:25, Job 19:26, Eze 37:1-14, Mat 22:29-32, Joh 5:28, Joh 5:29, Act 26:8, 1Co 15:42-44, 1Th 4:14-16, Rev 20:13

all the days: Job 14:5, Job 7:1, Job 42:16, Psa 27:14, Psa 40:1, Psa 40:2, Lam 3:25, Lam 3:26, Jam 5:7, Jam 5:8

will I wait: Job 13:15, 1Co 15:51, 1Co 15:52, Phi 3:21

Reciprocal: Gen 47:29 – must die 1Sa 26:10 – his day 2Sa 14:14 – as water 2Sa 19:34 – How long have I to live Job 4:20 – they perish Job 14:7 – that it will sprout Job 14:20 – changest Job 16:22 – a few years Job 17:13 – If I wait Psa 16:9 – my flesh Ecc 2:3 – all Ecc 3:2 – and a time Dan 5:26 – God Luk 7:14 – Young

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job 14:14. If a man die, shall he live again? He shall not in this world, but he shall in another and better; and, therefore, all the days of my appointed time will I wait Hebrew, , tsebai, of my warfare, namely, with my spiritual enemies, or of my service and suffering, or of the station and place God has assigned me. The idea which the word conveys is partly, at least, that of a post or station given a man by God to maintain, till he be released from it, and called to a better state; as if Job had said, Whatever station or condition God shall please to appoint me, either here or in the intermediate state, I shall still wait in earnest expectation for the future renovation and resurrection; here evidently intended by the change which he expected to come. I must insist upon it, says Mr. Peters. that Job, in this verse, declares very clearly his hope of a future resurrection. I know it is a common opinion, that by the change here mentioned, is meant the change of death; but the sense above given suits best with the context, as also with the Hebrew word , chalipah, which properly signifies a change for the better, a renewal. Houbigant renders the beginning of this verse, For though a man die, yet he shall revive again; and, therefore, I will wait, &c, observing, in agreement with Mr. Peters, that nothing can be so absurd as to suppose the words contain any doubt of a future life.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

14:14 If a man die, shall he live [again]? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till {g} my change come.

(g) Meaning, to the day of the resurrection when he would be changed and renewed.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

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