The antidote to death.
"Thou wilt not leave," etc. More than thirty generations of believers read and sang this psalm, pondered and prayed over it, and drew, no doubt, sweet though vague comfort from this verse, before the hidden glory of its meaning was disclosed. The temple built by David's son was laid in ashes. The Scriptures were carried with the captives to Babylon, and brought back. A second and at last a third temple arose on Mount Moriah. Empires arose and fell. Above one thousand years rolled away. At last, one summer morning, when the Feast of Pentecost had returned in its yearly round, and Jerusalem was filled with gladness, the time arrived for putting the key into the lock. The same Spirit who inspired the prophecy, interpreted it. "Peter, standing up with the eleven," etc. (Acts 2:14, Acts 2:25-32).
I. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, IN ITS TWO MOST FEARFUL ASPECTS.
1. The separation of the soul. "My soul in hell," or "to hell." The Revisers here (and elsewhere) have given the Hebrew word Sheol, because the English word "hell" has come to be applied exclusively to the state of the lost. Thanks to the gospel, we have no word by which to translate this Hebrew word, because we have no corresponding idea. Often it is translated "grave;" but only figuratively—it never means a literal sepulchre. It is the world, place, or state of departed spirits, good or bad, happy or unhappy (in Greek, Hades). It is this view of death—the parting, rending asunder of spirit and body, which Solomon describes (Ecclesiastes 12:7). It is this which appals. We see the deserted house of clay; but where is the tenant? Gone, as if into nothingness and eternal silence.
2. The corruption of the body. The other view of death increases our distress. Death may come gently, as though but a deeper sleep; even with a solemn, sad beauty of its own. But the beauty death brings, it hastens to destroy. Just because that sleeping form is so dear, we must hasten to hide it out of sight. Cover it with green turf and flowers. Let not thought pierce the secrets of the grave. Nothing is plainer than that God meant death to be terrible. It is something wholly different to man from what it is to the lower animals. God knew we should love sin, and think it beautiful. So when he tells us "the wages of sin is death," it is as though he said, "Look at what death does to the body; that is the image of what sin does to the soul!" Whither shall we turn? The answer gleams forth in that word "not." "Thou wilt not leave," etc. Here is—
II. THE ANTIDOTE TO THE TERROR OF DEATH IN THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. (Acts 2:31, Acts 2:32.) So St. Paul at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:34-37). We are not now concerned with any reference these words may have to David himself. Modern critics are intensely anxious always to find a precise occasion for every psalm (after the manner of Horace's odes), though such a rule would be wholly misleading if applied to modern poetry. But suppose it so. What concerns us is the glorious event to which the Apostles Peter and Paul apply these words as a prophecy. "Now is Christ risen from the dead; Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
1. Christ's resurrection proves the fact of immortality; q.d. that death, which destroys the bodily life, does not touch the spirit, the self. "Behold," he said, "it is I myself "—not a spectre, a phantom. "This same Jesus," said the angels (Luke 24:39; Acts 1:11). The doctrine or belief of immortality was common to Jews and Gentiles. The Egyptians based their religion on it. The Greeks had their Elysium and Tartarus. So other nations. What was wanted was not doctrine, but proof. No proof so entirely decisive as this—that One should publicly die, and be buried, and rise from the dead. The value of the resurrection of Christ's body lay in the proof thus given, that, though his body died, he lived. Death, then, does not end us. Hence the only way in which denial of immortality can now be maintained is by denying the resurrection of Jesus. For its reality there is not only
2. Christ's resurrection is the assurance. As he has been one with us in death, we are to be one with him in life. His resurrection is the seal both of his power and of his faithfulness; and both are pledged (John 10:28-30; John 14:19). True, this flesh must "see corruption;" this "earthly house be dissolved." But for the humblest believer, as much as for an apostle, "to depart," is" to be with Christ;" "Absent from the body, at home with the Lord" (Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8). And the body is to be "raised incorruptible;" not fleshly, but spiritual (Philippians 3:20, Philippians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 15:50-53; John 5:28, John 5:29; John 6:39). Because he lives, where he lives, as he lives, we shall live also.
CONCLUSION. All this turns on one simple, infinitely significant question—Are we his?