LOVE’S COMMUNICATIONS
C. A. Coates
I read these words to call attention to the blessed fact that communications of love are given in the disembodied state. It is not only that the spirit of the saint rests in conditions of love, but communications of love continue. The body is not necessary for these receptions, these communications of love, for Paul speaks of a time when he was not conscious of being in the body. That is to say, the body has nothing to do with the matter. He was caught up to paradise and heard unspeakable things, and such were divine communications.
Beloved brethren, how sweet it is to think of it. We know how the Lord delighted to make communications of His love while down here, and how He continued to do so after His resurrection, but the words we have read carry us into the region of paradise, and we find “a man in Christ” there.
How one loves to think of our sister there in that blessed order of manhood—“a man in Christ” no longer.in mixed conditions and trammelled with an earthly vessel. Now she is free from all that, but still competent—blessed be God!—to receive communications from Him, and such communications as our ears have never heard, those of paradise that cannot be uttered in this lower world.
How wonderful to depart and be with Christ, which is very much better, and also to have communications of love continue as never before. How I love to think of it! So in the disembodied state not only do spiritual affections remain, but there will be for our spirits occupation with divine communications, spoken and heard in that holy scene. How it enlarges the thought of being with Christ. So whatever the interval, be it long or short, our spirits will then not only have the consciousness of love, but love’s communications also.
Jottings of a word at the burial of a sister at Exeter in 1938.
(The above connects interestingly with a word in the December 1978 issue, ‘Communications of Love Continue’, and with extracts from earlier ministry in that issue—Ed.)