Things Temporal and Things Eternal.
I. There is a truth which we all know equally well whether we are learned or ignorant, old or young; we are all equally well assured of the truth that the things which we see are temporal only for a time and fast passing away. And yet, though we know it so well, our heavenly Father seems to take great pains to remind us of it constantly, as if it were of very great consequence that we should be continually thinking of it, and as if we were very likely, practically, to forget it. All the changes in us and about us are the voice of God; and when He speaks, infinitely important is it that we should listen to His voice; but there is another way in which He speaks to us more distinctly than this, i.e.,the Bible. We that are alive live more among the dead than among the living. When we read a book and think of the person who wrote it as a friend, and ask for him, it is very likely we shall find that he is now among the dead and not among the living. When we talk of acquaintances and others, how often do we find, as it were accidentally, that they are now among the dead and not among the living. And indeed, with all persons who have lived any time in the world, and who are at all given to reflection, their affections and their thoughts are more among the dead than the living.
II. Nature does not declare to us that the things which are not seen are eternal, but when God has made everything to preach aloud to us such warnings about everything here slipping away from under our feet, we might conclude that there was something coming on, something of great consequence. What it will be to wake from the grave and to find ourselves in one of these states, for good or evil, this must be a thought of which we can have no adequate conception. But we may form some faint idea of it from things temporal. For a sailor to find after a very dangerous voyage that he is indeed safe upon shore or for a soldier to find that the battle is over and that he is safe for persons to find after a state of very great danger that they are saved, we may tell what their feelings are; and this may give us some idea of what it will be to wake in eternity and to find that we are safe, that we shall never again be separated from Jesus Christ.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times"vol. ii., p. 1.
The Seen and the Unseen.
I. The things which are not seen: what are they? Doubtless they are in part those moral and spiritual truths and virtues which are obscured or crowded out of view in the present life of most of us, but which are nevertheless beautiful and enduring realities: they are justice, charity, truth, sanctity. We see an approximation to these things in the lives of God's servants on earth, but we do not see the perfect and abstract qualities themselves: they lie beyond the sphere of sense; they are perfectly seen, and seen only, as attributes of the Most Holy and the Self-Existent. The things which are not seen: we do not see (1) God, (2) the angels, (3) the souls of the departed. That which meets the eye of sense is here only for a season; it will pass away. That which meets the eye of the soul illuminated by faith is known to belong to another order of existence. It will last for ever. It is this quality of eternity, of enduring, of unlimited existence, which makes the Christian look so intently on the things which are not seen.
II. This truth as to the relative importance of the seen and the unseen, if it be really held, will affect our lives in not a few ways. It will, for instance, govern the disposal of our income. If we look only at the things which are seen, we shall spend it mainly upon ourselves, reserving, perhaps, some portion for objects of a public character, what is creditable or popular to support. If we look mainly at the things which are not seen, we shall spend at least one-tenth, probably more, upon some agencies that will bring the eternal world, and all that prepares people for it, home to our fellow-creatures. In days of prosperity a Christian's prayer should constantly be: "Oh turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity, and quicken me in Thy way."
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiv., p. 387.
If the things which are seen are temporal,
I. The good things seen are not enough for us.
II. The grievous things seen should not make the Christian faint.
III. In nothing seen ought a man to find either his hell or his heaven.
Two duties spring from this truth. (1) The duty of moderation in our use and enjoyment of all things seen. (2) The duty of seeking a heritage and portion in that which is unseen and eternal.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Sermons,1st series, p. 83.
For and by things temporal are given things eternal. There is a great deal said about looking away from the things of time to the things of eternity; and Paul is credited with this idea on the score of the language of the text. Whether he would accept the credit is more doubtful. It certainly is no conception of his, that we are to ignore the temporal and go clear of it, in order to being fixed in the eternal. Indeed this kind of prescription, so constantly reiterated and soaked in, as it were, by a long dull-minded usage, is really about the most noxious drug that Christian living has ever had put in its way. How can we think in real earnest that such a world as this was made just to be looked away from? And if we try to do it, tearing our mind away from the visible and the temporal, and requiring it to see only the invisible and eternal, how certainly do we find the air too thin to support our flighty endeavour, and drop away shortly on the ground, held down to it, after all, by temporal weights and visibilities we cannot escape. And just here I imagine is the reason, in great part, of that inability to realise or give a sound existence to spiritual things of which so many complain: they misconceive the problem. It is not to literally look away from temporal things in order to see the eternal, but it is to see the temporal in the eternal, or through it and by means of it. By not looking at the temporal things, Paul means simply not fastening our mind to them or upon them as the end of our pursuit.
I. There is a fixed relation between the temporal and the eternal, such that we shall best realise the eternal by rightly using the temporal. We shall best conceive the true point here by observing the manner of the Apostle himself, for it was one of the remarkable things about him as a Christian that he was so completely under the power, so sublimely invigorated by the magnitudes of the world to come; longing for it, wishing himself in it, and carrying the sense of it with him into the hearts of all who heard his preaching. Things temporal he saw, and a great deal more penetratingly than any mere worldly mind could; saw far enough into them to discover their unsolidity and their transitory and ephemeral consequence, and to apprehend just so much the more distinctly the solid and eternal verities represented by them. Things and worlds are passing shadows all that pass away. The durable and strong, the real continent, the solid lasting place is beyond. But the present things are good for the passage, good for signs, good as shadows. So he tramps on through them, cheering his confidence by them, having them as reminders, and renewing day by day his outward man by what of the more solid and glorious future is so impressively represented and so solidly set forth in them. He does not refuse to see with his eyes what God puts before his eyes.
II. We have eternals garnered up in us all, in our very intelligence; immortal affinities which, if we forget or suppress, are still in us; great underlaid convictions also, ready to burst up in us and utter even ringing pronouncements; and besides there is an inevitable and sure summons always close at hand, as we know, and ready for its hour. Consent that you are dying and that time is falling away, and your soul will arrive at the conviction of God's eternity and of things beyond this life very soon. Nay, she will hear voices of eternity crying out in her own deep nature, and commanding her on to a future more solid and reliable than any mere temporalities can afford.
H. Bushnell, Sermons on Living Subjects,p. 268.
The Invisible World.
I. We are in a world of spirits, as well as in a world of sense, and we hold communion with it and take part in it, though we are not conscious of doing so. If this seems strange to any one, let him reflect that we are undeniably taking part in a third world, which we do indeed see, but about which we do not know more than about the angelic hosts the world of brute animals. Can anything be more marvellous or startling, unless we were used to it, than that we should have a race of beings about us whom we do but see, and as little know their state, or can describe their interests or their destiny, as we can tell of the inhabitants of the sun and moon? It is indeed a very overpowering thought, when we get to fix our minds upon it, that we familiarly use I may say, hold intercourse with creatures who are as much strangers to us, as mysterious as if they were the fabulous, unearthly beings, more powerful than man and yet his slaves, which Eastern superstitions have invented. Is it not plain to our senses that there is a world inferior to us in the scale of beings, with which we are connected without understanding what it is? and is it difficult for faith to admit the word of Scripture concerning our connection with a world superior to us?
II. The world of spirits, then, though unseen, is present, not future, not distant. It is not above the sky; it is not beyond the grave: it is now and here; the kingdom of God is among us. Men think they are ends of this world, and may do as they will. They think this earth their property and its movements in their power, whereas it has other ends beside them, and is the scene of a higher conflict than they are capable of conceiving. It contains Christ's little ones whom they despise, and His angels whom they disbelieve; and these at length shall take possession of it and be manifested. We are looking for the coming of the day of God, when all this outward world, fair though it be, shall perish; when the heavens shall be burnt and the earth melt away. We can bear the loss, for we know it will be but the removing of a veil. We know that to remove the world which is seen, will be the manifestation of the world which is not seen. We know that what we see is as a screen hiding from us God and Christ and His saints and angels. And we earnestly desire and pray for the dissolution of all that we see, from our longing after that which we do not see.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iv., p. 200.
References: 2 Corinthians 4:18. J. Leckie, Sermons at Ibrox,p. 350; W. J. Knox-Little, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 351; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons,p. 169; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiii., No. 1380; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 29; T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross,p. 357; H. P. Liddon, Advent Sermons,vol. ii., p. 225; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 387; Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 204; Ibid.,vol. xxiii., p. 266; W. G. Horder, Ibid.,vol. xxviii., p. 115; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 50; F. W. Farrar, Everyday Christian Life,p. 70; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times"vol. viii., p. 131; vol. ix., p. 213; J. R. Illingworth, Sermons,p. 32; Saturday Evening,pp. 95, 102. 2 Corinthians 5:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1719; C. Moore, Church of England Pulpit,vol. x., p. 411; J. B. Heard, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 150; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,10th series, p. 135. 2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Corinthians 5:2. Church of England Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 77. 2 Corinthians 5:1-4. Preacher's Lantern,vol. i., p. 533. 2 Corinthians 5:1-5. Homilist,3rd series, vol. iii., p. 33.