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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 59. The True Answer
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The True Answer
What is the true answer? Is there an authoritative answer? Yes, there is. There is an authoritative Book. And it gives the one authoritative answer. It is the one source of reliable information. For we must have here not opinion, nor theory, nor wish. The thing is too serious. We must know authoritatively, if that's possible. Happily it is possible. The Book of God gives clear positive answer.
Let me at once give the Book's answer in a single sentence. Then we'll turn to the Book for its own specific statements. And the startling thing to note is this, that it doesn't agree directly with any one of these four answers. Though its answer comes to be practically the same in effect as one of them.
The Book's answer is this. Yes and no: so far as the character of God's love is concerned there is another chance, that seemingly never runs out; so far as a man's decision is concerned there is no other chance. And man's decision is the decisive thing there, as here. That seems undoubtedly to be the Book's own authoritative answer.
Now turn and look into the Book, for its detailed teachings. And the first question, that comes up for its answer is this: Is death the dividing line of opportunity? Life is opportunity. When does that opportunity close? At death? Certainly death is a radical turning-point. When is the final decision rendered?
Listen to this word of Jesus: "If thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is good for thee to enter into life (that is, the life beyond) maimed, rather than having two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire."
And then follows the emphasis of a repetition twice over, with variations of "foot" and "eye". And then this terrific underscoring, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (Mar_9:42-48). Quite plainly our Lord teaches here that death is the decision time. It is the dividing line of opportunity. Life is opportunity; death is the close of opportunity.
Then there is another very decisive and explicit passage. It is the story of the rich man and the poor beggar in the Sixteenth of Luke (Luk_16:19-31). That story is taken up rather fully in the third of these talks, "The Others." Clearly here death is the settlement time. At death each case is closed. And it is settled on its merits as it stands at that point. The award decided upon begins at the turning-point of death.
Yet on the other hand, there's something else. This is not all the Scripture teaching. We want to be careful to get all, and then strike the balance. There is the striking passage in First Peter. There are two bits here that connect and run together. First comes this, speaking of Christ, "being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, that aforetime were disobedient, when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, and so on (1Pe_3:18-20; 1Pe_4:6).
Note a few things about this passage. These spirits clearly were of men, human spirits, who had been disobedient to God's voice during their life on the earth, while Noah was building the ark. They had been swept away in the great cataclysm of the flood. And they are spoken of in the spirit world as being "in prison!' This is the only place that that phrase is used for punishment in the next world (See however Jud_1:6).
Now, it plainly says that Jesus went and preached to them. The word preached is that commonly used for preaching the Gospel. The plain inference of the connection is that while Jesus' body lay in Joseph's tomb, His spirit went on this gracious errand of mercy. He preached the message of the Father's love, and of His own sacrifice on Calvary, just made, The first preaching of the Calvary message was by the Calvary Man.
Then Peter picks up this thread again, a few lines further down. "For unto this end was the Gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed according to men who are still in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."
Here is stated the purpose of the preaching. It was with a view to the coming time of judgment. It was to insure perfect fairness in the judging. There was to be full fair opportunity in order to a fair impartial judgment. The supposition at once is that these had not had that full opportunity essential to a fair just judgment in their cases. In the race-wide sweep of the terrible flood catastrophe that came, they had not had that fair chance.
And, at first flush, it would seem at once that these did have another chance for their salvation, after death. But a moment's thinking quickly indicates that it was not another. It was apparently their first opportunity. The whole swing of the connection makes that seem quite clear. It was the exquisite fairness of God giving them a chance which seemingly they had not had.
And, note further please, very keenly, this is the only passage of the sort in the whole Book of God. It stands out as the solitary lonely exception. This is immensely suggestive and significant. Thousands of passages, literally, urging right choice, and urging it now; one, just one, speaking by inference of a possible opportunity in the future life.
And the reference is incidental. For the main thing Peter is talking about is God's fairness in judgment. Teachers and educators will be keen to note the teaching principle here. Incessant repetition makes the essential thing stand out. The incidental drops practically out of view under the continued emphasis on the main point.
The Bible is an intensely practical book. It is a model in practical psychology, as well as in applied pedagogy. It is aiming continually at an immediate practical impression that shall influence one's decisions and life. It doesn't tell all the truth. It does tell all we need to know for right decision. And its whole insistent plea is this: Choose; choose the only right; choose it now, now.