Theodore Christlieb[1]
Supposing
that eternity should show us that we were mistaken in our scriptural and
Christian view of God, what harm would it have done to us? In this life, none
at all. For our faith in the holy, personal and living God has proved to us a
constant source of moral strength, and an enduring impulse to all that is good.
Which of us would deny that, as often as we rose from our knees, or had been
otherwise absorbed in the divine faith, we felt more capable and willing to do
all that was good, more disinclined to all evil--more strong, more pure, and
more divine? Nor could we hardly suffer harm in another life. For if we found
no living, personal God there, our own personal existence would be at an end,
and we could not even become conscious of our deception. But supposing, on the
other hand, that we nourish our doubts, adopt a non-biblical conception of God,
and then in another world find all that realized which here we had denied, what
would have been our gain even in this life? Were our doubts able to inspire us
with strength to do or to suffer? Did they not rather, in the depths of our
soul, make us timid and undecided? Did they not exercise a paralyzing influence
on our spiritual and moral life? For this life we should gain nothing; but for
the other life, when we have to meet the disregarded and dishonoured God, the
Eternal King who is a consuming fire, how then?
"Give
me great thoughts!" cried Herder (the German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary
critic) on his death bed (in 1803). Yes; in death we all need great thoughts.
This at least you will not deny. The greatest minds, princes in the realm of
thought, grasp after them in their dying hour, and cling to them as a support
amidst the great shipwreck in which the entire visible world is sinking before
their eyes. But the greatest of all thoughts is God; the eternal, personal,
holy God who is love. And in such moments He is the only great and enduring
thought. All others vanish and dissolve before Him. Woe be to him who at that crisis
lacks the eternal support of this thought; who only grasps it in earnest when
he himself is being grasped by it!
See this
exemplified in the case of a skeptic of the first rank during the last century,
who was equaled by few in his persistent and life-long opposition to
Christianity, by none in the needless floods of biting satire with which he
deluged all scriptural belief; who gradually sank from Deism to Atheism, till
at length he worshipped "the will of his sacred majesty, Chance:" I
mean Voltaire.
"All things considered," Voltaire writes to a lady who was in fear of
death, "I am of opinion that one ought never to think of death. This
thought is of no use whatever, save to embitter life. Death is a mere nothing.
Those people who solemnly proclaim it are enemies of the human race; one must
endeavour always to keep them off. Death is as like to sleep as one drop of
water (is) to another. It is merely the idea that we shall not wake up again
which gives us pain."
But when
death, this despicable nothing, approached the man who thought that by his
writings he had steeled himself, and half Europe besides, against the fear of
another world, how did Voltaire show himself? A reliable informant, Voltaire's
own physician, writes to a friend as follows: "When I compare the death of
a religious man, which is like the close of a beautiful day, with that of
Voltaire, I see the difference between bright, serene weather and black
thunderstorm. It was my lot that this man should die under my hands. Often did
I tell him the truth, but, unhappily for him, I was the only person who did so.
"Yes, my friend," he would often say to me, "you are the only
one who has given me good advice. Had I but followed it, I should not be in the
horrible condition in which I now am. I have swallowed nothing but smoke; I
have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my head. You can do
nothing more for me. Send me a mad-doctor (psychiatrist)! Have compassion on
me, I am mad! I cannot think of it without shuddering." As soon as Voltaire
saw that all the means which he had employed to increase his strength had just
the opposite effect, death was constantly before his eyes. From this moment
madness took possession of his soul. think of the ravings of Orestes (who in
Greek literature had killed his mother and her lover in revenge for the murder
of his father. Orestes was plagued by spirits that nearly drove him mad). He
expired under the torments of the furies (spirits)."[2]
Thus dies
an apostle of unbelief! Worshipped by half the world, yet helpless and
despairing; stupefied by the incense clouds of flattery, yet raving mad;
beforehand mocking at death, now so convulsively clinging to life that he
actually offers great sums of money (100 francs- which would be equivalent to
around $2,000 today) for every minute of its prolongation; beforehand
luxuriating in the sensation of having gained all his wishes, and triumphing
over everything, now exclaiming in horror, "Nothing more can help
me!"
Compare with such an one a witness for God and for Christ, e.g. a St Paul, as he sees death approaching. See Paul then; not enveloped in clouds of incense, nor overwhelmed with marks of honour, but bearing his body the scars of many wounds inflicted on him by the hatred of the world, the marks which he has received in the services of the Lord Jesus; in chains and degradation, under sentence of death, yet free and strong, quiet and joyful; not clinging to this poor life, but "forgetting the things that are behind, and pressing forward;"[3] not in a condition of horrible agony, but desiring to depart and to be with Christ[4]; looking backward in sweet peace on the past, and forward with blessed hope to the future. Hear his words in the Second Epistle to Timothy, his last legacy to the Church: "I am ready to be offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness;"[5] not begging for help, but offering help to the world; witnessing for Christ till his last breath, and sealing his testimony with his blood; --thus it is that an apostle of faith dies!" ...
Choose you, therefore, this day whom ye will serve;...but as for me, and my
house, we will serve the Lord."[6]
[1] 1833-1889. German preacher and
professor of pastoral theology. Born in Württemberg and educated at Stuttgart
and Tübingen, he held a tutorship in Montpellier followed by two German
curacies, then worked in Islington, London (1858-65) as minister to the local
German population. In 1865 he became pastor at Friedrichaften where he
influenced members of the German royal family. From 1868 to the end of his life
he held the chair of pastoral theology at Bonn, where he taught many
generations of theological students, upheld conservative views against German
biblical critics despite much opposition, and organized missionary work. At Bonn
he influenced Prince William (later the emperor) in the latter's student days
(1877-80). Christlieb's fine and often original sermons still make stimulating
reading. From pages 282-284 of book entitled Modern Doubt and Christian Belief published in 1874. https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/theodor-christlieb
[2] Bungener, Voltaire et son temps; Voltaire
and His Time; 1851.
[3] Philippians 3:13-14
[4] Philippians 1:23
[5] 2 Timothy 4:6-8a.
[6] Joshua 24:15
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