It must be so—Plato, thou reason’st well!—
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
So said Joseph Addison, and indeed Plato did reason impressively on the theme of immortality, the survival of the invisible entity that was housed by the physical temple. The inward man would outlast the outer man.
The “immortality of the soul” is not only an ancient idea; it is also found in the ages that came after Plato. Charles Darwin, who had much to say about man’s physical being, wrote to a friend: “Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of the world will not appear so dreadful.”
That eloquent agnostic, Robert G. Ingersoll, standing over a dead friend’s coffin, while contending that immortality was a “dream,” admitted that it was an inescapable dream, that it was “like a sea that ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the sands and rocks of time and fate.” It was “not born of any creed, nor of any book, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and will continue to ebb and flow beneath mists and clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death.”
Many of us have been caught in Wordsworth’s haunting web of poetry:
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.
But these voices that refer to immortality speak from without the framework of reference found in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Among Hebrew writers, even when the ships sail in from “that immortal sea,” not many sail out upon it again. Immortality is not an Old Testament word. Some of the Hebrew scribes, to be sure, lift curtains on man’s existence beyond death; but few manage to sound the haunting theme clearly. At times questions stand out for all to see, dark and unanswered—“If a man die, shall he live again?”
Immortality is there, of course, in the old books, if often only like a candle glimmering before the sun comes up. Even one of the most pessimistic Hebrew scribes sounds almost Platonic in his poetry: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Eccles. 12:7).
Among the long-ago nomads of the Lord immortality is a little lantern flickering over a long dark night, gleaming momentarily as a firefly glowing; but the glowings are not numerous, and they are sometimes far apart. A prophet in Israel who was also something of a renegade cried, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” (Num. 23:10b). Commendable as his wish is, only voicelessness lies beyond that “last end.” In the Old Testament the trumpets do not ring brightly beyond the gulf of the tomb.
We must wait until we come to the New Testament to discover immortality appearing full orbed. It comes to men in the person of Jesus Christ. True, he never used the word as the philosophers of the world used it; nor did any of the Gospel writers. But the fact of it is there in the Gospels, and as more than a bright theme. It is embodied hope. Immortality walks on scuffed shoes, shines in a Man’s look—“… the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
Yet even the appearing of him who “came forth from the Father” was not enough to make the picture entirely clear. This Man from God’s bosom had to grapple with the old enemy that had made men so concerned with the idea of immortality. That enemy was death. Life had to overcome death, and do it with one awful, definite, heart-shaking act!
We have said that “immortality” is not an Old Testament word. It is scarcely a New Testament word! Therein is another word—and perhaps Plato would not have known what to do with it. It is the word “life.” It speaks of a forever-something, something given as a gift from Someone who alone has the power to give it: “… the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see; to whom be honor and power everlasting …” (1 Tim. 6:15, 16).
Writers of the New Testament story never seem disturbed over the lack of “immortality” in the old religion, the religion with which theirs must be forever associated. It was God’s way. God had waited, and so had man; and then Dawn burst almost blindingly upon the world. The act of the Eternal, it came by “the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10).
This is not that Greek thing. It is not that immortality pictured by a lily-seed bursting under mud and pushing forth a victorious white bloom. Something else is here—and who blames the supernaturalist for reaching for his bugle?
Here we have a plundered tomb. We are confronted by a resurrection. A crack shows in the grave. Vast vistas appear beyond the crack. We are looking out on everlasting deathlessness—but no! We are looking out on the eternal aliveness that is in God!
The New Testament immortality is bound up with an act of heaven, an act as definite as cosmic creation. It is God’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Immortality is a fact embodied in him who walked out of the sepulcher, while the sepulcher stood open-mouthed as if in a silent cry of confession that Christ is the Lord of life.
“That immortal sea” surged, mysterious but gloriously visible, before those men who were “in Christ.” In him they heard the singing waves break on the earthly beach.
Henceforth no Christian should be idle on that beach, before the shouting glory of that sea. The Story must be published! Believers must hurry to the “inland souls” with the Good News. Mankind must be summoned aboard the Homebound ship. Immortality, as a mere deduction, is dull when compared with this trumpet of the Resurrection!
Immortality in the New Testament is not confined to a distant future. It has a voice saying, “Today is the day of salvation.” The immortal sea is sunbright and calling; but it calls men to face an open tomb beyond a naked cross, and to join with the primitive Church in its double-cry: “Christ the Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!”
Immortality is not something we wait for. It is here, now, in Christ. God has made good his pledge with a resurrection. In Christ he has “abolished death, and … brought life and immortality to light.…”
“Heaven lies about us in our infancy,” Wordsworth sang. Indeed it lies about us and lives in us all our days—when we walk with him who is the Truth, girded by his grace, led by his Spirit. Christians are men who have their immortality, not in heaven only, but also in their hearts.
God’S Sword Thrusts
Concerned about my standing before God, I sought forgiveness and felt sure God must have heard and answered. Yet for three years afterwards I became increasingly doubtful about my salvation. The transaction seemed so intangible, and I kept on repeating the prayer to try to get some assurance.
Then on a spring morning, feeling the old ache for a sure word, I picked up a rarely used Bible and flicking over the pages alighted on a portion of Colossians. I had no recollection of having read it before. My eye fell on the words, “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, [He] took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Col. 2:14). My heart leaped in the spring sunshine. My spirit at last had found its rest. To this day the words have an undimmed radiance for me.—FRANK R. FINCH, London, England.
Lon Woodrum is conference evangelist in the Evangelical United Brethren Church and resides in Hastings, Michigan. He is the author of a number of novels, devotional books, and volumes of inspirational poetry.
