9. A Question

“Immortality is the state of deathlessness.

The first death in Eden was separation from God, eternal life in the New Testament is re-union with God in Christ, the overcoming of the spiritual tragedy of man’s first sin.

Immortality is a negative word, but its results are positive. That which has been subject to death puts on that which death cannot touch. It is a putting on and not a putting off, it is addition not subtraction. We lose nothing worth keeping, we receive the transcendent gift of immortality. Immortality is superior to mortality; it is the unspeakable boon for which the heart of the believer yearns.

…when I try to envisage the Lord as the centre of heaven I find that thrones and crowns are utterly inadequate to satisfy my soul. Our feeble minds cannot conceive of precedence except in pride, or of sovereignty except in dominion. But He reigns because He is eternally the King-Servant of all; He is first because He is also the last. Let us dismiss from our minds the crudity of sovereignty as we see it on the earth, let us think of it as we see it in the noble humility with which our Lord was sustained at the Cross and in His Resurrection. …when I try to envisage the Lord as the centre of heaven I find that thrones and crowns are utterly inadequate to satisfy my soul. I think He will be the centre of heaven as mother is the centre of the home. And when this idea grips my soul I long to be there.

I trust that, of His mercy, I shall be. Will you?”