The Blessedness of the Dead in Christ
John Cairns, D. D. Revelation 14:12-13 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.… I. Our first question, then, is — "How is this heavenly blessedness ATTESTED?" We all profess to believe in heaven. How do we know that there is such a place and such a state? If we cannot give a good answer, the Apostle John could. "Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord!" "Mere enthusiasm!" you say, "the wish was father to the thought. He only dreamt in that lonely isle, and turned the vision into a reality!" A strange delusion surely that could give visions, so coherent, so far-reaching, so sublime! Could he have written all this, even had he wished it, without inspiration from God? And consider what had gone before in the history of the apostle. He had lived amidst wonders, which he could not but believe, and of which he had been a great part himself. He had kept company with One who professed to come down from heaven, and who had opened His mouth to describe it. Had we lived all that this Galilean fisherman lived through, should we have doubted? But this testimony, thus of an outward kind, has next an inward voucher to its own authenticity. It bears the stamp of the heaven, whence it professes to come. It is, you say, only a dream. Did ever mortal man, outside of the Word of God, dream thus of the heavenly blessedness? Here is not the Greek or Roman heaven, such as we have in its brightest form in the sixth book of the AEneid of Virgil; for this is a heaven of eating and drinking, of running and wrestling, of expatiating in green fields, and basking in the sunshine. This is not the old Scandinavian or Teutonic heaven of eternal battles and immortal drunkenness. Here is not the Mohammedan heaven of feasting and sensual pleasure. Now, we see what kind of a heaven is congenial to men's natural fancy, and how different the heaven of the Bible would have been, had it been the creation of man. Here is a heaven of holiness and purity; of likeness to God, and fellowship with Christ, of eternal contemplation, worship, and praise! Did this dream, then, come out of the human mind and heart? Nor is this all the evidence that we have for the existence of heaven. The Spirit says, "Yea!" in a manner, if possible, more emphatic. It is not only in books that we read of heaven, even in that Book, which is above all. There is a testimony in living Epistles, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. This is our third evidence of there being a heavenly world, what may be called the evidence from Christian character. Had you been in company with the Apostle John, you would have said, Here is heaven begun! Suppose that this man still somewhere survive, and that there are others of the like character, who equally outlast the stroke of death, and meet in the same region, where they can reveal their character to each other, would there not be already many of the elements of heaven? And to crown all, let us suppose that it is the region whither Christ in soul and body is gone; and what would be wanting to make heaven essentially complete? As coals when thrown together and kindled make a fire, so must saints after death, in all the warmth of their love, when together with each other and with their Lord, awake the blessedness of heaven. We see the prophecy of this, in the renewed character and happy intercourse of Christians in the Church below. Let these then be reasons to us for the existence of this "land of pure delight"; and whoever may neglect it, whoever may discredit it, let us not be disobedient to the heavenly vision, but labour to enter into this rest! II. This leads now to our second topic, raised by the second question — "HOW IS THIS HEAVENLY BLESSEDNESS GAINED?" It clearly lays down two things as needful to the inheritance of the skies. The one is faith; and the other is holy obedience. 1. Faith, then, is needful to give a title to the heavenly blessedness: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." Faith is necessary to secure union to the Lord. Men simply as men are not savingly united to the Lord; and therefore cannot die blessed in Him. This is a connection that needs to be acquired; and to those to whom the gospel comes, it is acquired by faith in Christ (John 1:12; Galatians 3:26; Romans 8:1; John 8:24; John 14:5; 1 Corinthians 1:80). 2. The second point as to the means by which the heavenly blessedness is gained is the necessity of holy obedience. Beautifully has it been said, that the good works of Christians do not go before them to open heaven, but they must follow after, to make it a place of blessedness; for the spirit of heaven is the spirit that brings forth good works below; and thus "without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." III. We now come to our third question — HOW IS THIS HEAVENLY BLESSEDNESS TO BE ENJOYED? The answer is, "They rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." 1. There is, first, the rest of the worker. It is not sloth, torpor, or inactivity. God forbid. That would be no heaven to an Elijah, a Paul, a Luther, a Wesley, and many more. But it is rest; rest the most pure, refreshing, and exalted. Who that knows anything of Christian labour in its highest forms — the labour of the Christian parent, who travails as in birth till Christ be formed in the hearts of all His children; the labour of the teacher, who regards the welfare of the soul as inseparable from the growth of the mind, but will appreciate this delightful and soul-soothing prospect of rest! No more out amidst the billows, toiling in rowing for that the wind is contrary, but at last in smooth water, and with the ripple breaking on the shore! No more down in the mine, with the hard and painful routine of grimy toil amidst darkness, and fire-damp, and rocky hindrances at every turn, but aloft in the pure air, the soiled raiment laid aside for the Sabbath dress, and the song and melody of the sanctuary filling each weary sense! The rest spoken of in this text is a "Sabbatism"; the keeping of an endless Sabbath, with its holy calm for ever unbroken, as fresh as when, in its virgin beauty, it first dawned upon the emancipated spirit, recalling Eden with its dews and flowers, but without trail of the serpent upon them, since for the redeemed all the sanctities of that higher paradise are over-arched and guarded by the "rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald," 2. But the second element of blessedness, and one which in the case of the Christian worker, is more positive, is the continued influence of the work. "Their works do follow them." It is delightful to think of the perpetuity of all goodness. It is not too much to say that a truly good action, an action done from true love to it, and from a regard to the will and glory of God in it, lasts for ever. You are tempted to give an angry look. The memory of Christ restrains you; and you give a kind and loving one; and that glance — though sent forth in a moment of time, will be fixed as in a picture to all eternity. Nor are these influences for good that we have all received only to be traced back to persons of position and prominence in the true Church of God. The humblest have wrought with them. The history of the Church in regard to the influence of its members can only be written in the world of immortality; and what secrets of domestic, of congregational, and even of world-wide Christian import shall then be unveiled, where there is no fear of jealousy or misunderstanding being aroused, or of sensitive delicacy being offended. Much of the blessedness of heaven will arise from these disclosures, and from the endless bonds which they shall seal! In the light of these undying soul-relationships the labour of the way shall be forgotten. Such is the perpetuity of moral influence, and of its final disclosure, for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, nor hid that shall not be known! And with all the other following of the good works of the righteous, let us not forget its influence upon themselves; for what are we but what our works make us? What on earth or what in heaven? We live in the atmosphere of our own actions, and if we have lived to God and to Christ, the work tells upon ourselves, more than upon all besides; and the spirit that prompted it is in us a well of water springing up into everlasting life! If these things be so, let us not mourn the dead that "die in the Lord." Shall we mourn rest, freedom, blessedness? How can any of us be satisfied till we seek and obtain, through union to Christ, the comfortable hope that we are in the Lord, and that through His grace, our works, with all their failures and shortcomings, are so wrought in Him as to leave a memorial of the right kind behind! (John Cairns, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. WEB: Here is the patience of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."