“Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit: in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.”

—1 Peter iii. 18, 19, 20 (R.V.)

So far we have considered the case of those who die in the favour of God, and, though as yet unfit for the vision of God in Heaven itself, are nevertheless capable of becoming so in the course of the Intermediate Life.

What, however, must be said of those who in life had light and knowledge of God and of His will, and yet hardened themselves against God; who were free, and in the exercise of their freedom rejected God? Of these unhappy souls, if there is no yielding of their will to God in the Intermediate Life, if, and so far as, they have absolutely made themselves by the fixedness of their choice incapable of yielding, if after death they still hate God and set the whole force of their determination against Him,—one can only fear that even God Himself cannot help them. On the supposition that the prerogative of free will, once for all given to man, must be respected by God, we are driven to the belief that God cannot force the will. It is not that God changes towards them. It is not necessary to suppose that He is even punishing them. He may still be in Himself all that He is to all, full of love towards them, full of pity, full of mercy. “His mercy is over all His works.” He can no more cease to be a Father to every man than He can cease to be God. He hates nothing that He has made. But if the very knowledge and thought of God’s longsuffering patience serves only to harden and to exasperate, if it only stirs in the lost soul deeper pangs of inexorable hatred, then,—man being man and God being God,—what can God do? It is they who reject God, not God Who is rejecting them. It is they who spurn Him, not He Who chastises them. He does not banish them from His Presence: it is they who banish Him from their presence. And if this defiance against God survives and lasts, if, as ages pass, it becomes more resolutely inveterate and set, what power can stop it, what love can soften it? And if it is never to be pacified, and never yields, what shall hinder it from going on up to and beyond the Day of Judgment? It may be said that such utter determination is a moral impossibility, that no will of man could finally defy and resist the love of God. If that be so, well! But on the assumption that it is not impossible, the inference which has been drawn is inevitable.

But there are others who in life have never heard of Christ, the millions of heathen in all ages and all lands since the world began, of whom it may truly be said that they never had a chance of salvation. To these may be added many who have indeed fallen in with Christianity, but with a Christianity of such a sort, presented to them in such a way, in such a form, and under such circumstances as almost naturally to create in their minds a really honest doubt and distrust of it. What shall be said of these honest unbelievers, and, scarcely through their own fault, blind? As to these, let us ask whether the doctrine of the Intermediate State can help to give us some better hope.

In the text, [72] we are told that Christ was put to death upon the Cross in the flesh, but was quickened in His human Spirit, that is to say, that after His human Spirit left His Body it was still quick or alive. We know, from the Gospel of S. Luke, whither His human Spirit went. It went to Paradise. S. Peter now tells us what His Spirit did there. He tells us that it preached unto other spirits, and he names the spirits of those who for 120 years, while Noah was building the ark, were disobedient. They had rejected Noah, “the preacher of righteousness” [73] as S. Peter calls him; and now a greater Preacher went to preach to them. Further, we are told, that they were “in prison.” The word should rather be rendered “in safe keeping,” that is to say, still waiting, under God’s care, for this visit of Christ’s human Spirit, when He should preach to them. Why the spirits of these men, who lived before the flood, are singled out for special mention, is a question that does not really bear upon the point which we have in hand. And we had better keep to that point, and not be tempted to digress. What then follows from this? Two things are clear,—first, that from as far back as the days before the flood, that is to say, from the very beginning of human life on earth, souls in the Intermediate State had been waiting in safe keeping all these many thousand years; and, secondly, that the disembodied soul of our Lord Jesus Christ visited them there and preached to them. Assuming that these souls had repented, however late, before they died, still we learn that something more than repentance was needful to them. In this case, it is clear that instruction was given to them. It would not have been given if it had not been necessary. And what instruction? Christ “proclaimed,” we are told, to them. What did He proclaim? Surely the good news of the Gospel, [74] which He had been proclaiming on earth by the voice of the Apostles. What else did He make known than the mystery of His Incarnation and the Atonement which He had wrought out upon the Cross, in bearing the sins of men, and their sins, too, who had so long been waiting in the Intermediate State, to hear it to their salvation? S. Peter, therefore, in another place, says, “For this cause,” that is, because Christ will Himself be the Judge of the living and the dead,—“for this cause was the Gospel preached even to the dead.” [75]

Here, then, we have a set of facts which throw light upon some of the dark places of that unknown and unseen land, the Intermediate State. If we do justice to our Bibles we must regard these as facts, whether we can fully explain them or not. Scriptural facts they certainly are. What, then, can we learn from them? First, we seem to learn this,—that some provision is made in the Intermediate State for the salvation of those souls who in this life never heard of Christ, never had a chance, as we say, of salvation. And when we think of it, does it not seem to belong to God’s eternal justice that souls should not be condemned for that which they could not help? Every human soul must have had a chance of knowing Christ, before it can justly be punished for the consequences of not knowing Him. Countless millions in all ages, since the world began, in our own land, and in other lands, have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ in life. It is not so with us. With them it is and has been so. Christ preached to those who in safe keeping had been waiting long. Then is it not possible for such as those in all ages to receive the teaching in the Intermediate Life which they never received in this? Why should Christ preach to those and not to these?

This hope helps to solve that harassing enigma which perplexes and oppresses so many of us,—I mean, as to the condition and future destiny of the heathen, and the outcast, and the blind, and the ignorant. There, in that stillness of the disembodied life, souls may be taught and trained to know what they never could know in this life on earth, the wonders and the blessings of the life in Christ.

And, besides, do we not at least learn this from Christ’s preaching to these souls, that intercourse and communication is possible in the life after death, and will take place? And this suggests another aspect of the work in that life, besides the work of progressive cleansing and perfecting. The souls of the faithful rest from their labours. Yes! but they have also a work to do which can only be done then, the work of the soul’s purification. The work, however, which they can do for others is better than that which can be done for themselves. What can they do for the souls of others? Can they not do what Christ’s human spirit did? Here on earth men are charged, not only with the care of their own souls, but with the care of the souls of others also. And why should they not be ambassadors for Christ there, if Christ’s work has to be done there? Here on earth He uses imperfect men to proclaim His Gospel. There, in that after life, if His Gospel is to be proclaimed to those that never heard it in this life, why should He not employ souls also, not yet perfected, upon the same happy task?

And may not this charge, laid on ministering souls in the Intermediate Life, help to solve another mystery—the mystery of many an early and, as we might think, untimely death? How often do we see a life cut short at the very climax of its best powers, in the very midst of its noblest service! All the earlier days had been directed, and had contributed to the perfection of the instrument, and then, just when its work was doing, came the sudden end. Was it not so to our Blessed Lord Himself? May it not be said with due reverence that, if only His human life on earth had been prolonged, His teaching, and His miracles, and His sinlessness, and His love must have swayed and melted the hearts of men, even of those who so long and so stubbornly withstood Him? We might so think. But, just when His young life was at its prime of human excellence, He died, and His human Spirit passed to preach salvation to souls in the spirit land. So are souls, it may be, taken from us at the summit of their ripeness, but only to be transferred to another scene, and to be employed upon other work. Their labours change, but their works indeed do follow with them to that land where other souls of those who knew not Christ here may learn to know Him there, and knowing Him may choose Him, and choosing Him may be His and He theirs even to the end.