We notice again--where the inheritance is situated--"in the light."
There are several possible ways of connecting that clause with the
preceding. But without discussing these, it may be enough to point out
that the most satisfactory seems to be to regard it as specifying the
region in which the inheritance lies. It lies in a realm where purity
and knowledge and gladness dwell undimmed and unbounded by an envious
ring of darkness. For these three are the triple rays into which,
according to the Biblical use of the figure, that white beam may be
resolved.
From this there follows that it is capable of being possessed only by
_saints_. There is no merit or desert which makes men worthy of the
inheritance, but there is a congruity, or correspondence between
character and the inheritance. If we rightly understand what the
essential elements of "heaven" are, we shall have no difficulty in
seeing that the possession of it is utterly incompatible with anything
but holiness. The vulgar ideas of what heaven is, hinder people from
seeing how to get there. They dwell upon the mere outside of the thing,
they take symbols for realities and accidents for essentials, and so it
appears an arbitrary arrangement that a man must have faith in Christ to
enter heaven. If it be a kingdom of light, then only souls that love the
light can go thither, and until owls and bats rejoice in the sunshine,
there will be no way of being fit for the inheritance which is light,
but by ourselves being "light in the Lord." Light itself is a torture to
diseased eyes. Turn up any stone by the roadside and we see how
unwelcome light is to crawling creatures that have lived in the darkness
till they have come to love it.
Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a soul possess God, and find
its heaven in possessing Him? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and
loving Him. The old question, "Who shall stand in the Holy Place?" is
not answered in the gospel by reducing the conditions, or negativing the
old reply. The common sense of every conscience answers, and
Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, "He that hath clean hands
and a pure heart."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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