Ezekiel 8:12 Then said he to me, Son of man, have you seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark… It is pleasant to remember those happy incidents of departed hours, those ever fresh and verdant spots in the desert of life, on which the eye always loves to linger, that it may be for a time refreshed. It is pleasant to recall the features, the tones, the acts of some cherished companions of our earlier days, whose voice shall no more be heard on earth. What a dreary blank were life without it! Many, however, are content with this, and are fully satisfied if they succeed in reproducing the past exactly as in the past it was. Others, however, desire to soar far beyond the mere power of recollecting, and aim at such a rearrangement of the treasures of experience as to produce results far more beautiful than eye has ever seen on earth. They let a fertile and gorgeous imagination so brood over the waters of memory as to call forth a grandeur incomparably greater than the materials from which it has been produced. We might have been so made by our Creator as to have had no such faculty, and thus have been compelled to think the past without alteration of any kind. In His abounding love, however, He has endowed us with the power of using the world of nature merely as materials with which to build another world, with even brighter tints and lovelier forms than those around us. He has enriched us with a creative fancy that can burnish, as with brightest gold, the gloomiest scenes of life; people the hovel with kingly guests, and bring to the martyr's side such celestial visitants as shall transform his dungeon gloom into more than palatial splendour. The religious importance of the imagination is evidenced by the fact that the one Book from which our religious knowledge is obtained is from first to last saturated, as it were, with the most daring flights of fancy, and the boldest figures of imagery. On its every page there lie profusely scattered the fable, the parable, the allegory, the apostrophe, the metaphor. It has laid all nature under tribute, and borrowed pictures from the glittering dew drop, the graceful lily, and the blushing rose. "It weaves garlands for the bleeding brow of Immanuel, the flowers of which have been culled from the gardens of an universe." The instant you divorce religion from imagination you reduce the former to a series of abstract propositions which might enlighten the minds of a few, but would warm the hearts of fewer still. Could the affirmations of a rigid logic ever enable us to grasp Him that is invisible, fling the burdens of our lives on His sympathy, or take us to His side with our every sorrow? We may describe Deity as the Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Absolute, the Infinite, the Unconditioned; and the cultured understanding would assent to the truth of our description. But to the mass of men the words would be utterly unintelligible, and awake no emotion within their breasts. When, however, definition gives place to imagery, and He is pictured to us in familiar forms, all is changed; we now fondly cling to that from which previously we shrank. As we read of Him speaking in loving or, in warning tones, listening to every cry of need, pitying us as a father pitieth his children, holding our soul in life, we go boldly to the throne of grace; bowing, not before a vague product of speculative thought, but before a Father whom we can love and know. Christ, Himself, knowing well how little the majority of men care to use their reason, when the use will not yield them profitable return in terms of bodily comfort, — knowing that to the best even, when we do unfold her pinions and attempt an upward flight, we soon weary with the effort, and find ourselves unable, by her aid alone, to soar beyond the cool zone of thought, passes reason by, and, when appealing to our feelings, speaks of Himself as "The Bread of Life," "The Light of the world," "The True Vine," "The Door into the one true fold." All this presents ideas to the stricken heart that are equally beautiful and equally powerful on young and old, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. Thus He takes the feeblest by the hand and leads them to heights that philosophy and logic never could have climbed. But as the richest soil grows the rankest weeds, so the noblest powers, when perverted and corrupted, work the direst mischief. Of none is this more true than of the imagination. When we darken the chambers of our imagery, and, drawing the curtain of night before the pictures of the Lord, make it the home of idols, saying, "The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth," imagination aids most effectually the conspiracy against the truth, and bolsters the soul amid its cherished lies. It is no mere baseless fancy this vision of Ezekiel, it is a sadly real fact. Who has not some idols in the heart's chamber, and who views them in their actual deformity and folly? If it were possible to tear from the idols of the world every vestige of those spurious attributes with which a vicious imagination has invested them, that they may look like gods, and thus show them as they are in all their real distorted ugliness, the votaries would surely shrink from them in horror and detestation. But there are other evils wrought by this fallen angel within the chamber of our imagery. We know that according to the prevailing habit of our mind, so will be the pictures mostly drawn by us. The voluptuary is ever picturing to himself fresh indulgences, which again in their turn urge him on to their gratification. Thus, therefore, vice vitiates the imagination, and vitiated imagination plunges into deeper vice. That which was given to lighten the chamber of the heart, being thus abused, darkens it into deeper vice. That which was given to lighten the chamber of the heart, being thus abused, darkens it into deeper night. But this faculty further shows its dangerous power in the production of startlingly vivid, but perilously false, pictures of God Himself. How sad is the fact that so many are basing their eternities on a figment of their own fancy, on a creature of their own wild imagination, on a deity not found either in reason or in revelation. May the Light of the world brighten the chambers of their imagery before it be too late forever! But although it may not play thus falsely with the soul, but depict scenes that are faithful to the fact, still evil sometimes flows from this very circumstance. The scenes thus realised may be so full of love, or beauty, or of pathos, that the soul dwelling fondly on the incident may flow into a sort of harmony with it, come to delight in the contemplation, and if the incidents be religious, rest contented with a religion that consists in imagination only. Such, as they read the story of the Cross, will feel as though it were being enacted before their eyes; and they will love to stand and gaze tearfully at the Christ as He raises His head to pray for pardon on His enemies; or they will flash with anger as they see the heartless soldier strike His crown of thorns; and while they gaze with pity, and sigh for suffering so undeserved, will readily persuade themselves that they are disciples of the Master. Does not all this show they are religious? Does it not prove that their sympathies are with Christ and heaven? Does it not demonstrate their interest in the things that concern their salvation? No. It manifests nothing more than this, that they are sensitive to the sublimity of moral heroism, the pleasures of unending joy, the beauties of harmonious sounds. It is right to image our Saviour on the Cross as distinctly as possible, but only that we may rise from the contemplation with firmer resolve to tread in His footsteps. It is not by graceful genuflexions before the cross, aesthetic musings on its thrilling pathos, or sentimental tenderness over its wondrous self-sacrifice, but by talking it up on our own shoulders and following the crucified One that we can become His disciples. If imagination, consequently, no matter how high, or pure, or true, be made an end, it must hinder, even if it does not stop us in our Christian course, for God gave it only as a means to an end beyond itself. A means whereby we may more keenly become impressed with our own defects and sin and guilt; more profoundly view our own hopeless plight; and then, that the hopeless may become the hopeful, more thrillingly behold our Father's character and love, our Christ's great atonement, and the Holy Spirit's eager rushing to our rescue. Imagination — a means to an end. So it is. But although the means be such as God alone could devise or bestow, still, after all, how poor is it compared with the end for which it exists! Eye, ear, and heart may do much, when trained by the Spirit of God, to construct our future home, but "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." (J. M'Cann, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth. |
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