DIVINE COMMUNICATIONS
[p. 29] DIVINE COMMUNICATIONS
I read these few lines to call attention to the blessed fact that communications of love do not cease in the disembodied state. It is not only that the Spirit rests in the consciousness of love, but communications of love continue. The body is not necessary for the reception of these communications, for Paul at a time when he was unconscious of the body — he could not even say whether he was in the body, or out of the body, that is, the body had nothing to do with this matter — was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable things said. Words are definite communications.
Beloved brethren, how sweet it is to think of it. We know how the Lord loved to make communications of His love to His loved ones, and now there is a continuation.
But the words we have read carry us into the region of paradise. We find a man in Christ there. Oh! how we love to think of our sister there in this blessed order of manhood — a man in Christ. No longer in mixed conditions, trammelled with the earthen vessel, free from all that, but still competent, blessed be God, to receive communications from God, and such communications as our ears have never heard, because communications of paradise cannot be uttered in this lower world. How good to depart and be with Christ which is very much better. But not only to be near to Christ, but to have communications of His own love, continued and continued as never known here. I love to think of it — in the disembodied state, not only do spiritual affections remain but as occupied with divine communications spoken and heard in that divine scene, how it enlarges the thought of “being with Christ”. So whatever the interval, long or short — with some centuries, and some only a short time — not only consciousness of love, but communications of love. May our hearts be greatly comforted by this.
A Word given at a Burial