Page:Angelic Life in the Spiritual World, as revealed by the Sacred Scriptures.djvu/13

Rh We find the answer in the recognition of Moses and Elias, in the Mount of Transfiguration, by Peter, James, and John—a recognition, be it noted, independent of personal fore-knowledge. The apostles then knew as they were known. Similarly, the rich man in the parable recognized, after death, not Lazarus only, but also Abraham (Matt. xvii. 3; Luke xvi. 23).

Are married pairs, who have tenderly loved each other here, reunited in the Spiritual World?

It is said in Gen. v. 1, 2, "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." Creation is a spiritual work, for "God is a Spirit" (John iv. 24). "Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created" (Ps, civ. 30). The distinctions of sex, being created by God, are spiritual; therefore ineradicable. Jesus said, "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, . . . . Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matt. xix. 4, 6). Thus the sacred Scriptures reveal that marriage is a law of Divine Order; that when two are really united, no merely natural separation—such as that caused by the death of the body—can keep them apart. Removal from this world dissolves no spiritual tie. Though here some may not meet with their true partner, though the degraded ideas of the Sadducees have no realization there, the Divine word shall not fail: two have been created for each other; and in the Spiritual World, if not here, they who seek shall find.

But I should like to point out that the answer which the Lord gave to the Sadducees is one of the parables by which He spake. As the question of Nicodemus (John iii. 4) sprang from a merely corporeal idea respecting birth, but was answered on the corresponding spiritual plane of thought, that, viz,, of regeneration; so