For the Christian these two words stand for opposites—Eventide: the gradual fading out of the natural life; Eothen (a Greek word signifying “early dawn”): the dawn of a better and brighter day than any known on earth. Eventide carries with it the many memories of life: for the Christian not one single day failing of God’s “goodness and mercy.” Eothen bids us anticipate that we “shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Ps. 23:6). We do well to be more occupied, not with the bodily failings of the natural life, but with the anticipation of the new coming life in all its fullness and blessedness.
As a matter of fact for the Christian the dawn of a better day has already begun. He has an “inward man,” the beginning of the new creation, that is “renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The “outward man,” the “natural man,” perishes day by day, the incoming not fully corresponding with the outgoing, and consequently decay setting in, slowly at first, but with a quickened speed as life draws to a close.
How blessed for our latter days is the comfort that we are in the hand of the Good Shepherd, who gives us eternal life, and the promise that no one can pluck us out of His hand. Not only so, we are also in the Father’s hand, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. I remember a Christian lady, whose great desire was that when she should come to die, she might pass away, clasping the hand of a Christian friend. How utterly poor that would be compared to our privilege of being in the hand of the Son and of the Father. If we could clasp all the hands of all the saints of all time when dying, that would be infinitely short of what is our comfort for every day of our earthly pilgrimage to the very last moment of life.
The “inward man” is surely connected with eternal life, the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That life would not be eternal, if the output, to use the figure, were not fully answered by the renewal. It is a strange spectacle, a frail body, decay setting in manifestly, but along with it an “inward man,” knowing no decay, the possession of eternal life, the aged pilgrim knowing more and more by long experience the blessedness of that life. How wonderfully well off we are.
But is there no happiness connected with the word, Eventide? Most manifestly very much! We read, “And even to your old age I AM HE; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you” (Isa. 46:4). To be carried by One, who introduces Himself as “I AM HE,” leaves nothing to be desired. Alas! some of us are as foolish as the woman, who was bearing a big burden, and a kind neighbour gave her a lift in his cart. She insisted upon placing the big burden on her lap, so as not to give the horse the task of carrying it. The cart was carrying both her and her burden, and she did not realise it. We read, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Let us cast our care upon Him, and leave it with Him, and not carry it away again.
In one of the psalms we are reminded that the earth and all its works will one day perish. We read, “They shall perish,” but immediately we read the truly comforting words, “But Thou art the Same” (Ps. 102:27). Things change with us. He changes not—I AM HE, what stability! It is said that the whole universe is in constant motion, sun, moon and stars, but there is absolutely eternal rest and quiet at the centre of everything, even God Himself, and only there.
But in this world of sin we echo this hymn-writer’s words:
“Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou, who changes not, abide with me.”
This our Lord promises to do. He never will fail us.
The New Testament tells us that in the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour who died for us on the cross, who has risen triumphant from the dead, and has ascended to glory, we have a great High Priest, who has passed into the heavens. In the days of His holy Manhood on earth He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Thus we have a sympathising, succouring High Priest, who furnishes us with a throne of grace, where we may obtain mercy and find help in time of need. Every day of our pilgrimage we are in need, and He ever stands ready to render us timely help.
I have a book in my little library with the title, Eothen, which gives a wonderful account of a journey on camel-back across the Arabian desert. The traveller started at Gaza, having for his objective Cairo. He was so struck in the desert with the sudden end of night when the sun began to bring in the early dawn, lighting everything up with a wonderful charm, that he called his book, Eothen. But when we Christians speak of our spiritual Eothen, words fail to describe the glory of that which is to be ours.
There are two accounts of the glory of that place. We read of a new heaven and a new earth. The Apostle John in a vision saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. And what is the description of this place, God’s dwelling place with men? It is largely negatively described. We are told in Revelation 21 of the things that are not there—no tears, no death, no sorrow, no crying, no pain. The untoward things that accompany a world, into which sin has entered, will have no place there. What a glorious contrast to a creation that “groans and travails in pain” (Rom. 8:22).
But there is another description in Scripture of a positive nature. For fourteen years the Apostle Paul kept the secret of his having been translated to the third heaven. The first heaven, the atmospheric heaven, is that which belongs to this earth in which men can breathe and live; the second heaven, the vast expanse beyond the atmospheric heaven, the stellar heaven, where it is impossible for men to live; the third heaven, the dwelling place of God. A messenger of Satan to buffet Paul, to humiliate him, was given in the goodness of God to keep his flesh from being puffed up.
The Corinthian saints, however, were questioning his apostleship, and, to our eternal blessing, Paul was led of the Lord to reveal his experience. It is the one and only peep into heaven we know in the Scriptures. Paul tells us that he heard things not lawful to repeat on earth, revelations that our present bodies of humiliation cannot stand, revelations surpassingly wonderful, but one day the blessedness of all this will be ours when the Dawn comes. It may come to us one by one, as death takes one and another away, or it may come for us all in the moment that the Lord shall shout the summoning shout, and call us to the Father’s house forever.
Whether we look backward on past mercies and deliverances, or forward to the glorious future that awaits each believer, we may well praise and worship God, the Giver of all good.