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Title: The state of the dead and the destiny of the wicked

Author: Uriah Smith

Release Date: March 22, 2017 [EBook #54373]

Language: English

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Questions of such absorbing interest to the human race as “The State of the Dead,” and “The Destiny of the Wicked,” should command the candid attention of all serious and thoughtful men. The Bible alone can answer the inquiries of the human mind on these important subjects; and if the Bible is the full and complete revelation which it claims to be, we must believe that it has answered them. What that answer is, the following pages undertake to show.

On the questions here discussed there is at the present time a daily-increasing agitation in the theological world. The frequency with which these topics come to the surface in the religious papers of the land, is evidence of this. Not only in this country, but in England and Germany, the views of Bible students on these points are in a state of transition. The doctrine that there is no eternal life out of Christ, and that consequently the punishment of the wicked is not to be eternal misery, is now able to present an array of adherents so strong in numbers, so cultivated in intellect, and so correct at heart, that many of its opponents are changing their base of operations toward it, and taking steps looking not only to a toleration of its existence, but to a compromise with its claims.

In adding another book to the many which have been written on this subject, the object has been to give in a ivconcise manner a more general view of the teaching of the word of God, the ultimate source of authority, on this question, than has heretofore been presented. A chapter on the Claims of Philosophy is appended to the Biblical argument, more to answer the queries of those who attach importance to such considerations, than because they are entitled to any real weight in the determination of this controversy.

The interest that has of late years arisen on the subject of the state of the dead, is timely. Spiritualism, with its foul embrace and pestilential breath, is seeking to spread its pollutions over all the land; and it appeals to the popular views of the condition of man in death as a foundation for its claims. The teaching of the Bible on this point is the most effectual antidote to that unhallowed delusion. Before the true light on the intermediate state, and the destiny of the wicked, not only spiritualism with its foul brood flees away, but purgatory, saint worship, universalism, and a host of other errors all go down.

In this period of agitation and transition, let no man blindly commit himself to predetermined views, but hold himself ready to follow truth always and everywhere. Let him hold his sympathies entirely at its disposal. This is the course of safety; for truth has angels, Christ and God upon its side; and though it had but one adherent on the earth, it would triumph all the same. So while truth can receive no detriment from the combined opposition of all the world, its adherents, few in number though they may be, will secure in the end an everlasting gain.

Battle Creek, May 2, 1873.

Gradually the mind awakes to the mystery of life. Excepting only the first pair, every adult member of the human race has come up through the helplessness of infancy and the limited acquirements of childhood. All have reached their full capacity to think and do, only by the slow development of their mental and physical powers. Without either counsel or co-operation of our own, we find ourselves on the plane of human existence, subject to all the conditions of the race, and hastening forward to its destiny, whatever it may be.

A retinue of mysterious inquiries throng our steps. Whence came this order of things? Who ordained this arrangement? For what purpose are we here? What is our nature? What are our obligations? And whither are we bound? Life, what a mystery! Having commenced, will it ever end? Once we did not exist; are we destined to that condition again? Death we see 6everywhere around us. Its victims are silent, cold, and still. They give no outward evidence of retaining any of those faculties, mental, emotional, or physical, which distinguished them when living. Is death the end of all these? And is death the extinction of the race? These are questions which have ever excited in the human mind an intensity of thought, and a strength of feeling, which no other subjects can produce.

To these questions, so well-defined, so definite in their demands, and of such all-absorbing interest, where shall we look for an answer? Have we any means within our reach by which to solve these problems? We look abroad upon the earth and admire its multiplied forms of life and beauty; we mark the revolving seasons and the uniform and beneficent operations of nature; we look to the heavenly bodies and behold their glory, and the regularity of their mighty motions--do these answer our questions? They tell us something, but not all. They tell us of the great Creator and upholder of all things; for, as the apostle says, “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” They tell us upon whom our existence depends and to whom we are amenable.

But this only intensifies our anxiety a thousand 7fold. For now we want to know upon what conditions his favor is suspended. What must we do to meet his requirements? How may we secure his approbation? He surely is a being who will reward virtue and punish sin. Sometime our deeds must be compared with his requirements, and sentence be rendered in accordance therewith. How will this affect our future existence? Deriving it from him, does he suspend its continuance on our obedience? or has he made us self-existent beings, so that we must live forever, if not in his favor, then the conscious recipients of his wrath?

With what intense anxiety the mind turns to the future. What is to be the issue of this mysterious problem of life? Who can tell? Nature is silent. We appeal to those who are entering the dark valley. But who can reveal the mysteries of those hidden regions till he has explored them? and the “curtain of the tent into which they enter, never outward swings.” Sternly the grave closes its heavy portals against every attempt to catch a glimpse of the unknown beyond. Science proves itself a fool on this momentous question. The imagination breaks down; and the human mind, unaided, sinks into a melancholy, but well-grounded, despair.

God must tell us, or we can never know what lies beyond this state of existence, till we experience it for ourselves. He who has placed us 8here, must himself make known to us his purposes and his will, or we are forever in the dark. Of this, all reverent and thoughtful minds are well assured.

Professor Stuart, in his “Exegetical Essays on Several Words Relating to Future Punishment,” says:--

H. H. Dobney, Baptist minister, of England (Future Punishment, p. 107), says:--

And what information have they been able to give us, who have either been ignorant of divine revelation, or, having the light, have turned their backs upon it? Listen to a little of what they have told us, which sufficiently indicates the character of the knowledge they possessed.

Socrates, when about to drink the fatal hemlock, said:--

Cicero, after recounting the various opinions of philosophers on this subject, levels all their systems to the ground by this ingenuous confession:--

Seneca, reviewing the arguments of the ancients on this subject, said:--

And the skeptic Hobbs, when death was forcing him from this state of existence, could only exclaim, with dread uncertainty, “I am taking a leap in the dark!”--dying words not calculated to inspire any great degree of comfort and assurance in the hearts of those who are inclined to follow in his steps.

10With a full sense of our need, we turn, then, to the revelation which God has given us in his word. Will this answer our inquiries? It is not a revelation if it does not; for this must be the very object of a revelation. Logicians tell us that there is “an antecedent probability in favor of a divine revelation, arising from the nature of the Deity and the moral condition of man.” On the same ground, there must be an equal probability that, if we are immortal, never-dying beings, that revelation will plainly tell us so.

To the Bible alone, we look for correct views on the important subjects of the character of God, the nature of life and death, the resurrection, Heaven, and hell. But our views upon all these, must be, to a great extent, governed by our views of the nature and destiny of man. On this subject, therefore, the teachings of the Bible must, of consistency, be sufficiently clear and full.

Prominent upon the pages of inspiration, we see pointed out the great distinction which God has put between right and wrong, the rewards he has promised to virtue, and the punishment he has threatened against sin; we find it revealed that but few, comparatively, will be saved, while the great majority of our race will be lost; and as the means by which the perdition of ungodly men is accomplished, we find described in fearfully ominous terms, a lake of fire burning with brimstone, intense and unquenchable.

11How these facts intensify the importance of the question, Are all men immortal? Are these wicked immortal? Is their portion an eternity of incomprehensible, conscious torture, and unutterable woe? Have they in their nature a principle so tenacious of life that the severest implements of destruction with which the Almighty can assail it, an eternity of his intensest devouring fire can make no inroads upon its inviolate vitality? Fearful questions!--questions in reference to which it cannot be that the word of God will leave us in darkness, or perplex us with doubt, or deceive us with falsehood.

In commending the reader to the word of God on this great theme, it is unnecessary to suggest to any candid mind the spirit in which we should present our inquiries. Prejudice or passion should not come within the sacred precincts of such an investigation. If God has plainly revealed that all the finally impenitent of our race are doomed to an eternity of conscious misery, we must accept that fact, however hard it may be to find any correspondence between the magnitude of the guilt and the infinitude of the punishment, and however hard it may be to reconcile such treatment with the character of a God who has declared himself to be “Love.” If, on the other hand, the record shows that God’s government can be vindicated, sin meet its just deserts, and at the same time such disposition be finally 12made of the lost, as to relieve the universe from the horrid spectacle of a hell forever burning, filled with sensitive beings, frenzied with fire and flame, and blaspheming in their ever-strengthening agony--can any one be the less ready to accept this fact, or hesitate, on this account, to join in the ascription, “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints”?

In turning to the Bible, our only source of information on this question, to learn whether or not man is immortal, the first and most natural step in the inquiry is to ascertain what use the Bible makes of the terms “immortal” and “immortality.” How frequently does it use them? To whom does it apply them? Of whom does it make immortality an attribute? Does it affirm it of man or any part of him?

Should we, without opening the Bible, endeavor to form an opinion of its teachings from the current phraseology of modern theology, we should conclude it to be full of declarations in the most explicit terms that man is in possession of an immortal soul and deathless spirit; for the 13popular religious literature of to-day, which claims to be a true reflection of the declarations of God’s word, is full of these expressions. Glibly they fall from the lips of the religious teacher. Broadcast they go forth from the religious press. Into orthodox sermons and prayers they enter as essential elements. They are appealed to as the all-prolific source of comfort and consolation in case of those who mourn the loss of friends by death. We are told that they are not dead; for “there is no death; what seems so is transition;” they have only changed to another state of being, only gone before; for the soul is immortal, the spirit never dying; and it cannot for a moment cease its conscious existence.

This is all right provided the Bible warrants such declarations. But it is far from safe to conclude without examination that the Bible does warrant them; for whoever has read church history knows that it is little more than a record of the unceasing attempts of the great enemy of all truth to corrupt the practices of the professors of Christianity, and to pervert and obscure the simple teachings of God’s word with the absurdities and mysticisms of heathen mythology. It has been only by the utmost vigilance that any Christian institution has been preserved, or any Christian doctrine saved, free from some of the corruptions of the great systems of false religion which have always held by far the greater portion 14of our race in their chains of darkness and superstition. And if we arraign the creeds of the six hundred Protestant sects, as containing many unscriptural dogmas, it is only what every one of them does, in reference to the other five hundred and ninety-nine.

To the law, then, and to the testimony. What say the Scriptures on the subject of immortality?

Fact 1. The terms “immortal” and “immortality” are not found in the Old Testament, either in our English version or in the original Hebrew. There is, however, one expression, in Gen. 3:4, which is, perhaps, equivalent in meaning, and was spoken in reference to the human race; namely, “Thou shalt not surely die.” But unfortunately for believers in natural immortality, this declaration came from one whom no person would like to acknowledge as the author of his creed. It is what the devil said to Eve, the terrible deception by means of which he accomplished her fall, and so “brought death into the world and all our woe.” But does not the New Testament supply this seemingly unpardonable omission of the Old, by many times affirming that all men have immortality?

Remembering the many times you have heard and read from Biblical expositors that you were in possession of an immortal soul, how many times do you think that declaration is made in the New Testament? One hundred times? Fifty? Thirty? 15Twenty? Ten? No. Five? No. Twice? No. Once? NO! Does not the New Testament then apply the term immortal to anything? Yes; and this brings us to

Fact 2. The term immortal is used but once in the New Testament, in the English version, and is then applied to God. The following is the passage: 1 Tim. 1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

The original word, however, αφθαρτος (aphthartos) from which immortal is here translated, occurs in six other instances in the New Testament, in every one of which it is rendered incorruptible. The word is defined by Greenfield, “Incorruptible, immortal, imperishable, undying, enduring.”

It is used, first, to describe God, in Rom. 1:23, “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”

It is used in 1 Cor. 9:25, to describe the heavenly crown of the overcomer: “And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”

It is used in 1 Cor. 15:52, to describe the immortal bodies of the redeemed: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 16be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

It is used in 1 Tim. 1:17, to describe God as already quoted.

It is used in 1 Pet. 1:4, to describe the inheritance reserved in Heaven for the overcomer: “To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you.”

It is used in 1 Pet. 1:23, to describe the principle by which regeneration is wrought in us: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

It is used in 1 Pet. 3:4, to describe the heavenly adorning which we are to labor to secure: “But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”

And these are all the instances of its use. In no one of them is it applied to man or any part of him, as a natural possession. But does not the last text affirm that man is in possession of a deathless spirit? The words “incorruptible” and “spirit” both occur, it is true, in the same verse; but they do not stand together, another noun and its adjectives coming in between them; they are not in the same case, incorruptible being in the dative, and spirit, in the genitive; they are not of the same gender, incorruptible being masculine 17or feminine, and spirit, neuter. What is it which is in the sight of God of great price? The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. What is the nature of this ornament? It is not destructible like the laurel wreath, the rich apparel, the gold and gems with which the unsanctified man seeks to adorn himself; but it is incorruptible, a disposition molded by the Spirit of God, some of the fruit of that heavenly tree which God values. Does man by nature possess this incorruptible ornament, this meek and quiet spirit? No; for we are exhorted to procure and adopt this instead of the other. This, and this only, the text affirms. To say that this text proves that man is in possession of a deathless spirit, is no more consistent nor logical than it would be to say that Paul declares that man has an immortal soul, because in his first epistle to Timothy (1:17), he uses the word immortal, and in his first epistle to the Thessalonians (5:23), he uses the word soul. The argument would be the same in both cases.

Fact 3. The word “immortality” occurs but five times in the New Testament, in our English version. The following are the instances:--

In Rom. 2:7, it is set forth as something for which we are to seek by patient continuance in well-doing: “To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God will render] eternal life.”

In 1 Cor. 15:53, 54, it is twice used to describe 18what this mortal must put on before we can inherit the kingdom of God: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

In 1 Tim. 6:16, it is applied to God, and the sweeping declaration is made that he alone has it: “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.”

In 2 Tim. 1:10, we are told from what source we receive the true light concerning it, which forever cuts off the claim that reason or science can demonstrate it, or that the oracles of heathenism can make it known to us: “But now is made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

How has Christ brought life and immortality to light? Answer: By abolishing death. There could have been no life nor immortality without this; for the race were hopelessly doomed to death through sin. Then by what means and for whom has he abolished death? Answer: By dying for man and rising again, a victor over 19death; and he has wrought this work only for those who will accept of it through him; for all who reject his proffered aid will meet at last the same fate that would have been the lot of all, had Christ never undertaken in our behalf. Thus through the gospel, the good news of salvation through him, he has brought to light the fact, not that all men are by nature already in possession of immortality, but that a way is opened whereby we may at last gain possession of this inestimable boon.

As with the word immortal, so with immortality: the original from which it comes, occurs a few more times than it is so translated in the English version. There are two words translated immortality. These are ἀθανασία (athanasia) and ἀφθαρσία (aphtharsia). The former is defined by Greenfield and Robinson simply “immortality,” and is so translated in every instance. It occurs three times, in 1 Cor. 15:53, 54; 1 Tim. 6:16, as noticed above. The latter is defined, by the same authorities, “incorruptibility, incorruptness; by implication, immortality.” In addition to the instances above cited, it occurs in the following passages; in all eight times:--

1 Cor. 15:42: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.” In verses 50, 53 and 54, of the same chapter, it is that incorruption which 20corruption [our present mortal condition] does not inherit, and which this corruptible must put on before we can enter into the kingdom of God. In Eph. 6:24, it is used to describe the love we should bear to Christ, and in Titus 2:7, the quality of the doctrine we should hold, in both which instances it is translated “sincerity.”

We now have before us all the testimony of the Bible relative to immortality. So far from being applied to man, the term is used as in Rom. 1:23, to point out the contrast between God and man. God is incorruptible or immortal. Man is corruptible or mortal. But if the real man, the essential being, consists of an undecaying soul, a deathless spirit, he, too, is incorruptible, and this contrast could not be drawn. It is placed before us as an object of hope for which we are to seek: declarations which would be a fraud and deception if we already have it. It is used to distinguish between heavenly and eternal objects, and those that are earthly and decaying. In view of these facts, no candid mind can dissent from the following

Conclusion: So far as its use of the terms “immortal” and “immortality” is concerned, the Bible contains no proof that man is in possession of an undying nature.

If man is immortal, we should naturally suppose that the Bible would make known so weighty a truth in some of the instances where it has had occasion to use the words immortal and immortality. Where else could it more properly be revealed? And the fact that its use of those terms affords no proof that man is in possession of this great attribute, but rather that it belongs to God alone, should cause a person to receive with great allowance the positive assertions of popular theology on this question. Nevertheless it is supposed that there are other sources from which proof can be drawn that man has a hold on life equal with that of Jehovah himself; so that he will live as long as God exists.

The first of these is the opening testimony of the Bible concerning man, which asserts that he was to be made in the image of God. Gen. 1:26, 27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

22The first impulse of a person unacquainted with this controversy would be to ask in astonishment what this has to do with the immortality of man; nor would his astonishment be in any wise diminished when he heard the reply that as God is immortal, man, made in his image, must be immortal also. Has God, then, no other attribute but immortality, that we must confine it to this? Is not God omnipotent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omnipresent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omniscient? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God independent and self-existent? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God infallible? Yes. Is man? No. Then why single out the one attribute of immortality, and make the likeness of man to God consist wholly in this? In the form of a syllogism the popular argument stands thus:--

Major Premise: God is immortal. 1 Tim. 1:17.

Minor Premise: Man is created in the image of God. Gen. 1:27.

Conclusion: Therefore man is immortal.

This is easily quashed by another equally good, thus:--

1. God is omnipotent.

2. Man is made in the image of God.

3. Therefore man is omnipotent.

This conclusion, by being brought within the cognizance of our senses, becomes more obviously, 23though it is not more essentially, absurd. It shows either that the argument for immortality drawn from the image of God, is unqualified assumption, or that puny and finite man is clothed with all the attributes of the deity.

In what respect, then, is man in the image of his Maker? A universal rule of interpretation, applying to Bible language as well as any other, is to allow every word its most obvious and literal import, unless some plain reason exists for giving it a mystical or figurative meaning. The plain and literal definition of image is, as given by Webster, “An imitation, representation or similitude of any person or thing, sculptured, drawn, painted, or otherwise made perceptible to the sight; a visible presentation; a copy; a likeness; an effigy.” We have italicized a portion of this definition as containing an essential idea. An image must be something that is visible to the eye. How can we conceive of an image of anything that is not perceptible to the sight, and which we cannot take cognizance of by any of the senses? Even an image formed in the mind must be conceived of as having some sort of outward shape or form. In this sense, of having outward form, the word is used in each of the thirty-one times of its occurrence elsewhere in the Old Testament.

The second time the word image is used, it is used to show the relation existing between son 24and father, and is a good comment on the relation which Gen. 1:26, 27, asserts to exist between man and God. Gen. 5:3: “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.” No one would think of referring this to anything but physical resemblance. Now put the two passages together. Moses first asserts that God made man in his own image, after his likeness, and a few chapters farther on asserts that this same man begat a son in his own likeness, after his image. And, while all must admit that this latter refers to bodily form or physical shape, the theological schools tell us that the former, from the same writer, and with no intimation that it is used in any other sense, must refer solely to the attribute of immortality. Is not this taking unwarrantable liberty with the inspired testimony? There is no room for any other conclusion than that just as a son is, in outward appearance, the image of his father, so man possesses, not the nature and attributes of God in all their perfection, but a likeness or image of him in his physical form.

It may be said that the word image is used in a different sense in the New Testament, as, for example, in Col. 3:9, 10: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image 25of him that created him.” Let it ever be borne in mind that the point which popular theology has to prove is that man is immortal because in the image of God. This text is against that view; for that which is here said to be in the image of Him that created him, is not the natural man himself, but the new man which is put on, implying that the image had been destroyed, and could be restored only in Christ. If, therefore, it meant immortality as used by Moses, this text would show that that immortality was not absolute, but contingent, and, having been lost by the race, can be regained only through Christ.

Eph. 4:24, shows how this new man is created: “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Nothing is said about immortality even in connection with the new man.

Again: The word here translated image (ἐικων) is defined by Greenfield, as meaning by metonymy, “an exemplar, model, pattern, standard, Col. 3:10.” No such definition as this is given by Gesenius to the word in Genesis. So, though this Greek word may here have this sense, it affords no evidence that the Hebrew word in Gen. 1:26, 27, can refer to anything else but the outward form.

The same reasoning will apply to 1 Cor. 15:49, where the “image of the heavenly,” which is promised to the righteous, is something which 26is not in possession of the natural man, but will be attained through the resurrection: “we shall bear the image of the heavenly.” It cannot therefore refer to the image stamped upon man at his creation, unless it be admitted that that image, with all its included privileges, has been lost by the human race--an admission fatal to the hypothesis of the believers in the natural immortality of man.

In 1 Cor. 11:7, we read that man, as contrasted with the woman, is “the image and glory of God.” To make the expression “image of God” here mean immortality, is to confine it to man, and rob the better part of the human race of this high prerogative.

In Gen. 9:6, we read: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man.” Substituting what the image is here claimed to mean, we should have this very singular reading: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for he made him immortal, and his life cannot be taken.” Evidently the reference in all such passages is, not only to “the human face divine,” but to the whole physical frame, which, in comparison with all other forms of animated existence, is upright and godlike.

But here the mystical interpretation of our current theology has thrown up what is considered an insuperable objection to this view; for 27how can man be physically in the image of God, when God is not a person, is without form, and has neither body nor parts? In reply, we ask, Where does the Bible say that God is a formless, impersonal being, having neither body nor parts? Does it not say that he is a spirit? John 4:24. Yes; and we inquire again, Does it not say that the angels are spirits? Heb. 1:7, 14. And are not the angels, saying nothing of those instances in which they have appeared to men in bodily form, and always in human shape (Gen. 18:1-8, 16-22; 32:24; Hos. 12:4; Num. 22:31; Judges 13:6, 13; Luke 1:11, 13, 28, 29; Acts 12:7-9; &c., &c.), always spoken of as beings having bodily form? A spirit, or spiritual being, as God is, in the highest sense, so far from not having a bodily form, must possess it, as the instrumentality for the manifestation of his powers. 1 Cor. 15:44.

Again, it is urged that God is omnipresent; and how can this be, if he is a person? Answer: He has a representative, his Holy Spirit, by which he is ever present and ever felt in all his universe. “Whither shall I go,” asks David, “from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” Ps. 139:7. And John saw standing before the throne of God seven Spirits, which are declared to be “the seven Spirits of God,” and which are “sent“sent forth into all the earth.” Rev. 4:5; 5:6.

28We now invite the attention of the reader to a little of the evidence that may be presented to show that God is a person, and so that man, though of course in an imperfect and finite degree, may be an image, or likeness of him, as to his bodily form.

1. God has made visible to mortal eyes parts of his person. Moses saw the God of Israel. Ex. 33:21-23. An immaterial being, if such a thing can be conceived of, without body or parts, cannot be seen with mortal eyes. To say that God assumed a body and shape for this occasion, places the common view in a worse light still; for it is virtually charging upon God a double deception: first, giving Moses to understand that he was a being with body and parts, and, secondly, under the promise of showing himself, showing him something that was not himself. And he told Moses that he would put his hand over him as he passed by, and then take it away, that he might see his back parts, but not his face. Has he hands? has he back parts? has he a face? If not, why try to convey ideas by means of language?

Again, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders, saw the God of Israel. Ex. 24:9-11. “And there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.” Has he feet? Or is the record that these persons saw them, a fabrication? No man, to be sure, has seen his 29face, nor could he do it and live, as God has declared. Ex. 33:20; John 1:18.

2. Christ, as manifested among men, is declared to be the image of God, and in his form. Christ showed, after his resurrection, that his immortal, though not then glorified, body, had flesh and bones. Luke 24:29. Bodily he ascended into Heaven where none can presume to deny him a local habitation. Acts 1:9-11; Eph. 1:20; Heb. 8:1. But Paul, speaking of this same Jesus, says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.” Col. 1:15. Here the antithesis expressed is between God who is invisible, and his image in the person of Christ which was visible. It follows, therefore, that what of Christ the disciples could see, which was his bodily form, was the image, to give them an idea of God, whom they could not see.

Again: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Phil. 2:5, 6. It remains to be told how Christ could be in the form of God, and yet God have no form.

Once more: “God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his 30glory, and the express image of his person,” &c. Heb. 1:1-3. This testimony is conclusive. It is an inspired declaration that God has a personal form; and to give an idea of what that form is, it declares that Christ, just as we conceive of him as ascended up bodily on high, is the express image thereof.

The evidence already presented shows that there is no necessity for making the image of God in which man was created to consist of anything else but bodily form. But to whatever else persons may be inclined to apply it, Paul in his testimony to the Romans, forever destroys the possibility of making it apply to immortality. He says, Rom. 1:22, 23: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” The word here rendered uncorruptible is the same word that is translated immortal and applied to God in 1 Tim. 1:17. Now if God by making man in his imagehis image stamped him with immortality, man is just as incorruptible as God himself. But Paul says that he is not so; that while God is uncorruptible or immortal, man is corruptible or mortal. The image of God does not therefore, confer immortality.

Gen. 1:27, states, in general terms, the form in which man was created, as contrasted with other orders of animal life. In Gen. 2:7, the process is described by which this creation was accomplished. Finding no proof in the former passage that man was put in possession of immortality (see preceding chapter) we turn to the latter text to examine the claims based upon that. The verse reads: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul.”

Here the advocates of man’s natural immortality endeavor to make a strong stand, as it is very proper they should do; for certainly if in that inspired record which describes the building up of man, the putting together of the different parts or constituent elements of which he is composed, there is no testimony that he was clothed with immortality, and no hook furnished upon which an argument for such an attribute can be hung, their whole system is shaken to its very foundation.

The claim based upon this passage is that man is composed of two parts: the body formed of the dust of the ground, and an immortal soul placed 32therein by God’s breathing into the nostrils of that dust-formed body the breath of life. We will let two representative men speak on this point, and state the popular view. Thomas Scott, D. D., on Gen. 2:7, says:--

Adam Clarke, LL. D., on Gen. 2:7, says:--

Critics speak of this expression in a different manner from theologians; for whereas the latter make it confer immortality, and raise man in this respect to the same plane with his Maker, the former speak of it as suggestive of man’s frail nature, and his precarious tenure of life itself. Thus Dr. Conant says:--

And in a note on Isa. 2:22, where the prophet says, “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?” he adds:--

To the same intent the psalmist speaks, Ps. 146:3, 4: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”

But let us examine the claim that the “breath of life” which God breathed into man conferred upon him the attribute of immortality. There was nothing naturally immortal, certainly, in the dust of which Adam was composed. Whatever of immortality he had, therefore, after receiving the breath of life, must have existed in that breath in itself considered. Hence, it must follow that the “breath of life” confers immortality upon any creature to which it is given. Will our friends accept this issue? If not, they abandon the argument; for certainly it can confer no more upon man than upon any other being. And if they do accept it, we will introduce to them a class of immortal associates not very flattering to their vanity nor to their argument; for Moses applies the very same expression to all the lower orders of the animal creation.

In Gen. 7:15, we read: “And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.” It must be evident to every one, at a glance, that the whole animal creation, including man, is comprehended 34in the phrase “all flesh.” But verses 21 and 22 contain stronger expressions still: “And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the face of the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.”

Here the different orders of animals are named, and man is expressly mentioned with them; and all alike are said to have had in their nostrils the breath of life. It matters not that we are not told in the case of the lower animals how this breath was conferred, as in the case of man; for the immortality, if there is any in this matter, must reside, as we have seen, in the breath itself, not in the manner of its bestowal; and here it is affirmed that all creatures possess it; and of the animals, it is declared, as well as of man, that it resides in their nostrils.

It is objected that in Gen. 2:7, the “breath of life” as applied to man is plural, “breath of lives” (see Clarke), meaning both animal life, and that immortality which is the subject of our investigation. But, we reply, it is the same form in Gen. 7:22, where it is applied to all animals; and if the reader will look at the margin of this latter text he will see that the expression is stronger still, “the breath of the spirit of life” or of lives.

The language which Solomon uses respecting 35both men and beasts strongly expresses their common mortality: “For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man [in this respect] hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Eccl. 3:19, 20.

Thus the advocates of natural immortality by appealing to Moses’ record respecting the breath of life, are crushed beneath the weight of their own arguments; for if “the breath of life” proves immortality for man, it must prove the same for every creature to which it is given. The Bible affirms that all orders of the animal creation that live upon the land, possess it. Hence our opponents are bound to concede the immortality of birds, beasts, bugs, beetles, and every creeping thing. We are sometimes accused of bringing man down by our argument to a level with the beast. What better is this argument of our friends which brings beasts and reptiles up to a level with man? We deny the charge that we are doing the one, and shall be pardoned for declining to do the other.

Finding no immortality for man in the breath of life which God breathed into man’s nostrils at the commencement of his mysterious existence, it remains to inquire if it resides in the “living soul,” which man, as the result of that action, immediately became. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7.

On this point also it is proper to let the representatives of the popular view define their position. Prof. H. Mattison, on the verse just quoted, says:--

Dr. Clarke, on Gen. 2:7, says:--

To the same end see the reasonings of Landis, Clark (D. W.), and others. Aware of the importance to their system of maintaining this interpretation, they very consistently rally to its support the flower of their strength. It is the redan of their works, and they cannot be blamed for being unwilling to surrender it without a decisive struggle. For if there is nothing in the inspired record of the formation of man, that record which undertakes to give us a correct view of his nature, to show that he is endowed with immortality, their system is not only shaken to its foundation, but even the foundation itself is swept entirely away.

The vital point, to which they bend all their energies, is somehow to show that a distinct entity, an intelligent part, an immortal soul, was brought near to that body as it lay there perfect in its organization, and thrust therein, which immediately began through the eyes of that body to see, through its ears to hear, through its lips to speak, and through its nerves to feel. Query: Was this soul capable of performing all these functions before it entered the body? If it was, why thrust it within this prison house? If it was not, will it be capable of performing them after it leaves the body?

38Heavy drafts are made on rhetoric in favor of this superadded soul. Figures of beauty are summoned to lend to the argument their aid. An avalanche of flowers is thrown upon it, to adorn its strength, or perchance to hide its weakness. But when we search for the logic, we find it a chain of sand. Right at the critical point, the argument fails to connect; and so after all their expenditure of effort, after all their lofty flights, and sweating toil, their conclusion comes out--blank assumption. Why? Because they are endeavoring to reach a result which they are dependent upon the text to establish, but which the text directly contradicts. The record does not say that God formed a body, and put therein a superadded soul, to use that body as an instrument; but he formed man of the dust. That which was formed of the dust was the man himself, not simply an instrument for the man to use when he should be put therein. Adam was just as essentially a man before the breath of life was imparted, as after that event. This was the difference: before, he was a dead man; afterward, a living one. The organs were all there ready for their proper action. It only needed the vitalizing principle of the breath of life to set them in motion. That came, and the lungs began to expand, the heart to beat, the blood to flow, and the limbs to move; then was exhibited all the phenomena of physical action; then, too, the 39brain began to act, and there was exhibited all the phenomena of mental action, perception, thought, memory, will, &c.

The engine is an engine before the motive power is applied. The bolts, bars, pistons, cranks, shafts, and wheels, are all there. The parts designed to move are ready for action. But all is silent and still. Apply the steam, and it springs, as it were, into a thing of life, and gives forth all its marvelous exhibitions of celerity and power.

So with man. When the breath of life was imparted, which, as we have seen was given in common to all the animal creation, that simply was applied which set the machine in motion. No separate and independent organization was added, but a change took place in the man himself. The man became something, or reached a condition which before he had not attained. The verb “became” is defined by Webster, “to pass from one state to another; to enter into some state or condition, by a change from another state or condition, or by assuming or receiving new properties or qualities, additional matter or a new character.” And Gen. 2:7, is then cited as an illustration of this definition. But it will be seen that none of these will fit the popular idea of the superadded soul; for that is not held to be simply a change in Adam’s condition, or a new property or quality of his being, or an addition 40of matter, or a new character; but a separate and independent entity, capable, without the body, of a higher existence than with it. The boy becomes a man; the acorn, an oak; the egg, an eagle; the chrysalis, a butterfly; but the capabilities of the change all inhere in the object which experiences it. A superadded, independent soul could not have been put into man, and be said to have become that soul. Yet it is said of Adam, that he, on receiving the breath of life, became a living soul. An engine is put into a ship, and by its power propels it over the face of the deep; but the ship, by receiving the engine, does not become the engine, nor the engine the ship. No sophistry, even from the darkest depths of its alchemy, can bring up and attach to the word “become” a definition which will make it mean, as applied to any body, the addition of a distinct and separate organization to that body.

To the inquiry of Prof. Mattison, “If he was ‘a soul’ before, then how could he become such by the last act of creation,” it may be replied, The antithesis is not based upon the word soul, but upon the word living. This will become evident by trying to read the passage without this word: “And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a soul.” That is not it. He became a living soul. He was a soul before, but not a living soul. To thus speak 41of a dead soul, may provoke from some a sneer; nevertheless, the Hebrews so used the terms. See Num. 6:6: “He shall come at no dead body,” on which Cruden says, “in Hebrew, dead soul.”

Kitto, in his Relig. Encyclopedia, under the term Adam, says:--

The “abundant argument from both philosophy and the Scriptures” for man’s immortal spirit, may be more difficult to find than many suppose. But this admission that nothing of the kind is implied in this passage, is a gratifying triumph of fair and candid criticism over what has been almost universally believed and taught.

But we are not left to our own reasoning on this point; for inspiration itself has given us a comment upon the passage in question; and certainly it is safe to let one inspired writer explain the words of another.

42Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:44, and onward, is contrasting the first Adam with the second, and our present state with the future. He says: “There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Here Paul refers directly to the facts recorded in Gen. 2:7. In verse 47, he tells us the nature of this man that was made a living soul: “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from Heaven.” In verse 49, he says, “And as we have borne the image of the earthy,” have been, like Adam, living souls, “we shall also bear the image of the heavenly,” when our bodies are fashioned like unto his glorious body. Phil. 3:21. In verses 50 and 53, he tells us why it is necessary that this should be done, and how it will be accomplished: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Putting these declarations all together, what do we have? We have a very explicit statement that this first man, this living soul which Adam was made, was of the earth, earthy, did not bear the image of the heavenly in its freedom from a decaying nature, did not possess that incorruption without which we cannot inherit the kingdom of 43God, but was wholly mortal and corruptible. Would people allow these plain and weighty words of the apostle their true meaning upon this question, it would not only summarily arrest all controversy over the particular text under consideration, but leave small ground, at least from the teachings of the Scriptures, to argue for the natural immortality of man.

But the terms “living soul” like the breath of life, are applied to all orders of the animate creation, to beasts and reptiles, as well as to man. The Hebrew words are nephesh chaiyah; and these words are in the very first chapter of Genesis four times applied to the lower orders of animals: Gen. 1:20, 21, 24, 30. On Gen. 1:21, Dr. A. Clarke offers this comment:--

This is a valuable comment on the meaning of these words. He would have greatly enhanced the utility of that information, if he had told us that the same words are applied to man in Gen. 2:7.

Prof. Bush, in his notes on this latter text, says:--

And there is nothing in the term “living” to imply that the life with which Adam was then endowed would continue forever; for these living souls are said to die. Rev. 16:3: “And every living soul died in the sea.” Whether this means men navigating its surface or the animals living in its waters, it is equally to the point as showing that that which is designated by the terms “living soul,” whatever it is, is subject to death.

Staggered by the fact (and unable to conceal it) that the terms “living soul” are applied to all animals, the advocates of man’s immortality then undertake to make the word “became” the pivot of their argument. Man “became” a living soul, but it is not said of the beasts that they became such; hence this must denote the addition of something to man which the animals did not receive. And in their anxiety to make this appear, they surreptitiously insert the idea that 45the animal life of man is derived from the dust of the ground, and that something of a higher nature was imparted to man by the breath of life which was breathed into him, and the living soul which he became. Thus Mr. Landis, in his work, “The Immortality of the Soul,”^[A] p. 141, says: “Hence something was to be added to the mere animal life derived from the dust of the ground.” Now Mr. L. ought to know, and knowing, ought to have the candor to admit, that no life at all is derived from the dust of the ground. All the life that Adam had was imparted by the breath of life which God breathed into his nostrils, which breath all breathing animals, no matter how they obtained it, possessed as well as he.

No emphasis can be attached to the word “became:” for everything that is called a living soul must by some process have become such. “Whatever was or is first became what it was or is.”

Take the case of Eve. She was formed of a rib of Adam, made of pre-existent matter. It is not said of her that God breathed into her nostrils the breath of life, or that she became a living soul; yet no one claims that her nature was essentially different from that of Adam with 46whom she was associated, as a fitting companion.

And it will be further seen that this word “became” can have no value in the argument, unless the absurd principle be first set up as truth, that whatever becomes anything must forever remain what it has become.

Defenders of the popular view, by such reasoning reduce their argument to its last degree of attenuation; but here its assumption becomes so transparent that it has no longer power to mislead, and needs no further reply.

The discussion of Gen. 2:7 (as in the preceding chapter), brings directly before us for solution the question, What is meant by the terms soul and spirit, as applied to man? Some believers in unconditional immortality point triumphantly to the fact that the terms soul and spirit are used in reference to the human race, as though that settled the question, and placed an insuperable embargo upon all further discussion. This arises simply from their not looking into this matter with sufficient thoroughness to see that all we question in the case is the popular definition that is given to these terms. We do not 47deny that man has a soul and spirit; we only say that if our friends will show that the Bible anywhere attaches to them the meaning with which modern theology has invested them, they will supply what has thus far been a perpetual lack, and forever settle this controversy.

What do theologians tell us these terms signify? Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, says: “Soul, that vital, immaterial, active substance or principle in man whereby he perceives, remembers, reasons, and wills.” On spirit, he says: “An incorporeal being or intelligence; in which sense God is said to be a spirit, as are the angels and the human soul.” On man, he says: “The constituent and essential parts of man created by God are two: body and soul. The one was made out of dust; the other was breathed into him.” This soul, he further says, “is a spiritual substance;” and then, apparently feeling not exactly safe in calling that a substance which he claims to be immaterial, he bewilders it by saying “subsistence,” and then adds, “immaterial, immortal.”

This position strikes us as considerably open to criticism. On this definition of “soul,” how can we deny it to the lower animals? for they “perceive, remember, reason, and will.” And, if spirit means the “human soul,” the question arises, Has man two immortal elements in his nature? for the Bible applies both terms to him 48at the same time. Paul, to the Thessalonians, says: “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Does Paul here use tautology, by applying to man two terms meaning the same thing? That would be a serious charge against his inspiration. Then has man two immortal parts, soul and spirit both? This would evidently be overdoing the matter; for, where one is enough, two are a burden. And further, on this hypothesis, would these two immortal parts exist hereafter as two independent and separate beings?

This idea being preposterous, one question more remains: Which of these two is the immortal part? Is it the soul or the spirit? It cannot be both; and it matters not to us which is the one chosen. But we want to know what the decision is between the two. If they say that what we call the soul is the immortal part, then they give up such texts as Eccl. 12:7: “The spirit shall return to God who gave it;” and Luke 23:46, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit,” &c. On the other hand, if they claim that it is the spirit which is the immortal part, then they give up such texts as Gen. 35:18: “And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died);” and 1 Kings 17:21, “Let this child’s soul come into him again.”

And, further, if the body and soul are both 49essential parts of man, as Mr. B. affirms, how can either exist as a distinct, conscious, and perfect being without the other?

Foreseeing these difficulties, Smith, in his Bible Dictionary, distinguishes between soul and spirit thus: “Soul (Heb. nephesh, Gr. ψυχὴ). One of three parts of which man was anciently believed to consist. The term ψυχὴ, is sometimes used to denote the vital principle, sometimes the sentient principle, or seat of the senses, desires, affections, appetites, passions. In the latter sense, it is distinguished from πνευμα [pneuma], the higher rational nature. This distinction appears in the Septuagint, and sometimes in the New Testament. 1 Thess. 5:23.” Then he quotes Olshausen on 1 Thess. 5:23, as saying: “For whilst the ψυχὴ [soul] denotes the lower region of the spiritual man,--comprises, therefore, the powers to which analogous ones are found in animal life also, as understanding, appetitive faculty, memory, fancy,--the πνευμα [pneuma] includes those capacities which constitute the true human life.”

So it seems that, according to these expositors, while the Hebrew nephesh, and Greek psuche, usually translated soul, denote powers common to all animal life, the Hebrew ruach, and the corresponding Greek pneuma, signify the higher powers, and consequently that part which is supposed to be immortal.

50Now let us inquire what meaning the sacred writers attach to these terms. As already stated, the original words from which soul and spirit are translated, are, for soul, nephesh in the Hebrew, and psuche in the Greek, and for spirit, ruach in the Hebrew, and pneuma in the Greek. To these no one is at liberty to attach any arbitrary meaning. We must determine their signification by the sense in which they are used in the sacred record; and whoever goes beyond that, does violence to the word of God.

The word nephesh occurs 745 times in the Old Testament, and is translated by the term soul about 473 times. In every instance in the Old Testament where the word soul occurs, it is from nephesh, with the exception of Job 30:15, where it comes from n’dee-vah, and Isa. 57:16, where it is from n’shah-mah. But the mere use of the word soul determines nothing; for it cannot be claimed to signify an immortal part, until we somewhere find immortality affirmed of it.

Besides the word soul, nephesh, is translated life and lives, as in Gen. 1:20, 30, in all 118 times. It is translated person, as in Gen. 14:21, in all 29 times. It is translated mind, as in Gen. 23:8, in all 15 times. It is translated heart, as in Ex. 23:9, in all 15 times. It is translated body, or dead body, as in Num. 6:6, in all 11 times. It is translated will, as in Ps. 27:12, in all 4 times. It is translated appetite, as in Prov. 23:2, twice; 51lust, as in Ps. 78:18, twice; thing, as in Lev. 11:10, twice.

Besides the foregoing, it is rendered by the various pronouns, and by the words, breath, beast, fish, creature, ghost, pleasure, desire, &c., in all forty-three different ways. Nephesh is never rendered spirit.

This soul (nephesh) is represented as in danger of the grave, Ps. 49:14, 15; 89:88; Job 33:18, 20, 22; Isa. 38:17. It is also spoken of as liable to be destroyed, killed, &c., Gen. 17:14; Ex. 31:14; Josh. 10:30, 32, 35, 37, 39, &c.

Parkhurst, author of a Greek and a Hebrew Lexicon, says:--

Gesenius, the standard Hebrew lexicographer, defines nephesh as follows:--

The word soul in the New Testament comes invariably from the Greek ψυχή (psuche); which word occurs 105 times. It is translated soul 58 times; life, 40 times; mind, 3 times; heart, twice; us, once; and you, once.

Spirit in the Old Testament is from two Hebrew words n’shah-mah and ruach.

The former occurs 24 times. It is 17 times rendered breath, 3 times, blast, twice, spirit, once, soul, and once, inspiration. It is defined by Gesenius, “Breath, spirit, spoken of the breath of God, i. e., a) the wind, b) the breath, breathing of his anger. 2. Breath, life of man and beasts. 3. The mind, the intellect. 4. Concr. living thing, animals.”

The latter, ruach, occurs 442 times. Spirit in every instance in the Old Testament is from this word, except Job 26:4, and Prov. 20:27; where it is from n’shah-mah. Besides spirit it is translated wind 97 times, breath, 28 times, smell, 8 times, mind, 6 times, blast, 4 times; also anger, courage, smell, air, &c., in all sixteen different ways.

53Spirit in the New Testament is from the Greek, πνεῦμα (pneuma) in every instance. The original word occurs 385 times, and besides spirit is rendered ghost 92 times, wind, once, and life, once. Parkhurst in his Greek Lexicon, says: “It may be worth remarking that the leading sense of the old English word ghost is breath; ... that ghost is evidently of the same root with gust of wind; and that both these words are plain derivatives from the Hebrew, to move with violence; whence also gush, &c.”

Pneuma is defined by Robinson in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, to mean, primarily, “1. A breathing, breath, breath of air, air in motion. 2. The spirit of man, i. e., the vital spirit, life, soul, the principle of life residing in the breath breathed into men from God, and again returning to God.”

We now have before us the use and definitions of the words from which soul and spirit are translated. From the facts presented we learn that a large variety of meanings attaches to them; and that we are at liberty wherever they occur to give them that definition which the sense of the context requires. But when a certain meaning is attached to either of these words in one place, it is not saying that it has the same meaning in every other place.

By a dishonorable perversion on this point some have tried to hold up to ridicule the advocates 54of the view we here defend. Thus, when we read in Gen. 2:7, that Adam became a living soul, the sense demands, and the meaning of the word soul will warrant, that we then apply it to the whole person; Adam, as a complete being, was a living soul. But when we read in Gen. 35:18, “And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, for she died,” we give the word, according to another of its definitions, a more limited signification, and apply it, with Parkhurst, to the breath of life.

But some have met us here in this manner: “Materialists tell us that soul means the whole man, then let us see how it will read in Gen. 35:18; ‘And it came to pass as the whole man was in departing; for she died.’” Or they will say, “Materialists tell us that soul means the breath; then let us try it in Gen. 2:7: ‘And Adam became a living breath.’”

Such a course, while it is no credit to their mental acumen, is utterly disastrous to all their claims of candor and honesty in their treatment of this important subject. While we are not at liberty to go beyond the latitude of meaning which is attached to the words soul and spirit, we are at liberty to use whatever definition the circumstances of the case require, varying of course in different passages. But in the whole list of definitions, and in the entire use of the words, we find nothing answering to that immaterial, 55independent, immortal part, capable of a conscious, intelligent, active existence out of the body as well as in, of which the popular religious teachers of the day endeavor to make these words the vehicle.

And now we would commend to the attention of the reader another stupendous fact, the bearing of which he cannot fail to appreciate. We want to know if this soul, or spirit, is immortal. The Hebrew and Greek words from which they are translated, occur in the Bible, as we have seen, seventeen hundred times. Surely, once at least in that long list we shall be told that the soul is immortal, if this is its high prerogative. Seventeen hundred times we inquire if the soul is once said to be immortal, or the spirit deathless. And the invariable and overwhelming response we meet is, Not Once! Nowhere, though used so many hundred times, is the soul said to be undying in its nature, or the spirit deathless. Strange and unaccountable fact, if immortality is an inseparable attribute of the soul and spirit!

An attempt is sometimes made to parry the force of this fact by saying that the immortality of the soul, like that of God, is taken for granted. We reply, The immortality of God is not taken for granted. Although this might be taken for granted if anything could be so taken, yet it is directly asserted that God is immortal. Let now the advocates of the soul’s natural immortality 56produce one text where it is said to have immortality, as God is said to have it, 1 Tim. 6:16, or where it is said to be immortal, as God is said to be, 1 Tim. 1:17, and the question is settled. But this cannot be done; and the ignoble shift of the taken-for-granted argument falls dead to the floor.

Ecclesiastes 12:7: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.” It is natural for men to appeal first and most directly to those sources from which they expect the most efficient help. So the advocates of man’s natural immortality, when put to the task of showing what scriptures they regard as containing proof of their position, almost invariably make their first appeal to the text here quoted.

In the examination of this text, and all others of a like nature, let it ever be remembered that the question at issue is, Has man in his nature a constituent element, which is an independent entity, and which, when the body dies, keeps right on in uninterrupted consciousness, being capable of exercising in a still higher degree out 57of the body the functions of intelligence and activity which it manifested through the body, and destined, whether a subject of God’s favor, or of his threatened and merited wrath, to live so long as God himself exists.

Does this text assert anything of this kind? Does it state that from which even such an inference can be drawn? We invite the reader to go with us, while we endeavor to consider carefully what the text really teaches. Our opponents appeal to it as direct testimony. Let us see how far we can go with them.

1. Solomon, under a series of beautiful figures, speaks in Eccl. 12:1-7, of the lying down of man in death. Granted.

2. Dust, or the body, and spirit are spoken of as two distinct things. Granted.

3. At death, the spirit leaves the body. Granted.

4. The spirit is disposed of in a different manner from the body. Granted.

5. This spirit returns to God, and is therefore conscious, after the dissolution of the body. Not granted. Where is the proof of this? Here our paths begin to diverge from each other. But how could it return to God if it was not conscious? Answer: In the manner Job describes. “If he [God] set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again to dust.” Job 34:14, 15. This text speaks of 58God’s gathering to himself the “breath” of man; something which no one supposes to be capable of a separate conscious existence. Over against this proposition we are compelled to mark, Assumption.

6. This spirit is therefore to exist forever. This conclusion also we fail to see, either expressed, or even in the remotest manner, implied. Thus the vital points in the evidence are wholly assumed.

But if the spirit here does not mean what it is popularly supposed to mean, what is its signification? What is it that returns to God? It will be noticed that it is something which God “gave” to man. And Solomon introduces it in a familiar manner, as if alluding to something already recorded and well understood. He makes evident reference to the creation of man in the beginning. His body was formed of the dust; and in addition to this, what did God do for man or give unto him? He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This is the only spirit that is distinctly spoken of as having been given by God to man. No one claims that this, like the body, was from the dust, or returns to dust; but it does not therefore follow that it is conscious or immortal.

Landis, p. 133, falls into this wrong method of reasoning. He says:--

The breath of life is distinct from the body, and did not come from the dust of the ground; but to say that it can exist in a conscious state independent of the body, and that it must live forever, is groundless assumption.

If spirit here means “the breath of life,” how, or in what sense, does it return to God? Landis, p. 150, thus falsely treats this point also: “How can the air we breathe,” he asks, “return to God?” Between the breath of life as imparted to man by God, vitalizing the animal frame, and air considered simply as an element, we apprehend there is a broad distinction. Solomon is showing the dissolution of man by tracing back the steps taken in his formation. The breath of life was breathed into Adam in the beginning; by which he became a living soul. That is withdrawn from man, and as a consequence he becomes inanimate. Then the body, deprived of its vitalizing principle, having been formed of the dust, goes back to dust again.

That the breath of life came from God to man, none will deny. Do they ask how it returns to him? Tell us how it came from him, and we will tell how it returns. In the same sense in which God gave it to man, in that sense it returns to him. That is all there is of it. The explanation 60is perfectly simple, because one division of the problem is comprehended just as easily as the other. It is an easy thing to turn off with a flippant sneer an explanation which if allowed to stand, takes the very breath of life out of a cherished theory.

But there is a grave objection lying against the popular exposition of this text, which must not pass unnoticed. It is involved in the question, What was the state or condition of this spirit before God gave it to man? Was it an independent, conscious, and intelligent being, before it was put into Adam, as it is claimed that it was after Adam got through with it, and it returned to God? Solomon evidently designs to state respecting all the elements of which man is composed, as is expressly stated of the body, that they resume the original condition in which they were, before they came together to form the component parts of man. We know it is argued that the expression respecting the body, that it returns to the dust “as it was,” is good ground for an inference that the spirit returns not as it was. Every principle of logic requires the very opposite conclusion. For, having set the mind upon that idea of sameness of condition, and then referring us to the source from whence the spirit came, and stating that it goes back to that source, the language is as good as an affirmation that it goes back to its original condition also, and must 61be so understood unless an express affirmation is made to the contrary. The question is therefore pertinent, Was this spirit before it came into man, a conscious being, as it is claimed to be after it leaves him? In other words, have we all had a conscious pre-existence? Is the mystery of our Lord’s incarnation repeated in every member of the human race? Yes! if popular theologians rightly explain this text. And the more daring or reckless spirits among them, seeing the logical sequence of their reasoning, boldly avow this position.

Mr. Landis (to whom we make occasional reference as an exponent of the popular theory) recoils at the idea of pre-existence, and claims (p. 147) that the spirit does not return as it was, but acquires “a moral character, and so is changed from what it was when first created and given to man”! Oh! then, when Adam’s body was formed of the dust of the ground a spirit was created (from what?) and put into it. Where did he learn this? To what new revelation has he had access to become acquainted with so remarkable a fact? Or whence derives he his authority to manufacture statements of this kind? His soul swells with indignation over some whom he styles materialists, and whom he accuses of manufacturing scripture. Thou that sayest a man should not, dost thou? Nothing is said of the “creation of a spirit” in connection with the 62formation of Adam’s body. The body having been formed, God, by an agency, not created for the purpose, but already existing with himself, endowed it with life, and Adam became a living soul.

Having thus artfully introduced the idea that the spirit was created for the occasion, Mr. L. takes up this reasoning which shows that if the spirit is conscious after leaving the body, it must have been before it entered it, and, applying to it a term doubtless suggested by his own feelings in view of the assumptions to which he was himself obliged to resort, calls it silly. Nevertheless here is the rock on which their exposition of this text inevitably and hopelessly founders.

There is another consideration not without its bearing on this question. The words, “And the spirit shall return to God who gave it,” are spoken promiscuously of all mankind. They apply alike to the righteous and wicked. If the spirit survives the death of the body, the spirits of the righteous would, as a natural consequence, ascend to God, in whose presence they are promised fullness of joy. But do the spirits of the wicked go to God also? For what purpose? The immediate destination usually assigned to them is the lake of fire. Is it said that they first go to God to be judged? Then we ask, Where does the Bible once affirm that a person is judged when he dies? On the contrary, the Scriptures 63invariably place the Judgment in the future, and assert in the most explicit terms that God has appointed a day for that purpose. Acts 17:31.

Thus the Bible doctrine of the Judgment is directly contradicted by this view. According to the Scriptures no man has yet received his final judgment; yet, according to the view under examination, the spirits of all who have ever died, good and bad, righteous and wicked, have gone to God. For what purpose have the spirits of the wicked gone to him? Are they there still? Does God so deal with rebels against his government--give them Heaven from one to six thousand years, more or less, and hell afterward? Away with a view which introduces such inconsistencies into God’s dealings with his creatures.

How infinitely preferable that view which alone the record warrants; that is, that the spirit that returns to God who gave it is the breath of life, that agency by which God vivifies and sustains these physical frames; since this, so far as the record goes, is just what God did give to man in the beginning, since the definition of the term sustains such an application, since this spirit, without doing violence to either thought or language, can return to God in the same sense in which it came from him, and, above all, since this view harmonizes all the record, and avoids those inconsistencies and contradictions in which we find ourselves inevitably involved 64the very moment we undertake to make the spirit mean a separate entity, conscious in death and immortal in its nature.

In a search for testimony relative to the nature of man, with the purpose of ascertaining whether or not he is immortal, those texts first demand attention which are claimed as proof that he is above and beyond the power of death. Zech. 12:1, is introduced as positive testimony on this side of the question:

“The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens and layeth the foundations of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.”

With an immense flourish this text is introduced by Mr. Landis, p. 152; and with an air of triumph he adds that materialists are in the habit of passing it in silence. We think we can answer for them that they have seen in it nothing to answer, and hence have declined to spend their time beating the air. As to the nature of the spirit which God forms in man, its characteristics and attributes, this text affirms nothing. 65Above all, respecting the main inquiry, Is this spirit immortal? the text is entirely silent. Why then is it introduced? Because it contains the word spirit. But, as has been shown (chapter vi), nothing is proved by the mere use of the words soul and spirit, till some affirmation can be found in the Scriptures that these terms signify an independent entity, which has the power of uninterrupted consciousness, and the endowment of immortality. For men to take these terms and give them definitions and clothe them with attributes which are the offspring of pagan philosophy, or figments of their own imagination, and then claim that because the Bible uses these terms it sustains their views, is to us, at least, a very unsatisfactory method of settling this question. But, from the persistency with which it is followed by those of the opposite view, one might conclude that it is the only way they have of sustaining their position.

God formeth the spirit of man within him. So the text asserts. The word, form, is in the Septuagint, plasso. The definition of this word, as given by Liddell and Scott, is, “To form, mould, shape, Lat. fingere, strictly used of the artist who works in soft substances, such as earth, clay, wax.” The word, then, signifies giving shape and form to something already in existence; for the artist does not create his clay, wax, &c., but only changes its form. The second 66definition seems, however, to be more applicable to the case in hand. Thus, “II. generally, to bring into shape or form, πλ. τὴν ψυχὴν τὸ σῶμα, to mould and form the mind or body by care, diet, and exercise.” Thus God makes man the crown of creation by forming in him (through a superior organization of the brain) an intellectual or mental nature, and we can still further form or mold it, by care and cultivation. There is nothing here to favor the idea of the creation of a separate immaterial and immortal entity, and its insertion into the human frame.

This text is illustrated by Job 32:8: “But there is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding;” not “giveth it [the spirit] understanding,” as we heard an immaterialist in debate not long since read it; but “giveth them [the men] understanding.” That is, men are endowed with a superior mental organization; and by means of that God gives them understanding.

Since, however, Zech. 12:1, is used by immaterialists, to prove that souls are specially created, it raises the question, which may as well be considered in this connection as any other, whence the spirit, whatever it is, is derived. In the text under consideration, the present tense is evidently used for the past; and hence it might be read, “The burden of the word of the Lord ... which stretched forth the heavens, and 67laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him.” If now this means the creation of an immortal entity to be added to man, called his spirit, it applies only to the first man, the man formed at the creation of the world. The question then remains, How do all succeeding members of the human race, how do we, get an immortal spirit? Is it by a special act of creation on the part of God, or is it by generation from father to son? Has God, for every member of the human race since Adam, by special act created a soul or spirit? They who say he has, contradict Gen. 2:2, which declares that all God’s work of creation, so far as it pertains to this world, was finished in the first week of time. If this testimony is true, it is certain that God has not been at work ever since creating human souls as fast as bodies were brought into existence to need them, the greater part of the time thousands of them every day.

Has God thus made himself the servant of the human race, to wait upon their will, caprice, and passions? for how many of the inhabitants of this earth are the offspring of the foulest iniquity and the most unbridled lust! Does God hold himself in readiness to create souls which must come from his hand immaculate and pure, to be thrust into such vile tenements, at the bidding of godless lust? The reader will pardon the irreverence of the question, for the sake of an exposure 68of the absurdity of that theory which prompts it.

But if we say that the soul is transmitted with the body, then what becomes of its incorruptibility and immortality? for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” John 3:6. And Peter says (1 Pet. 1:23-25): “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth forever.”

There could hardly be a plainer testimony that man as a whole is mortal and perishable. He is born of corruptible seed. But more than this, it is added, “All flesh is as grass.” Should it be said that this means simply the body, we reply that the term flesh is frequently used in the New Testament to signify the whole man. Thus, Rom. 3:20: “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” Paul does not here talk about the justification of bones, sinews, nerves and muscles; he refers to the whole responsible man. In the same sense the term is used in many other passages. But Peter himself, in the passage just quoted, cuts off its application exclusively to the body; for after saying that “all flesh is as grass,” he continues, “and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.” The 69glory of man must include all that there is noble and exalted about his nature. If the soul is the highest and most godlike part of man, it is included in this glory; but lo! it is all like the flower of the grass, transitory and perishable.

The word mortal, which means liable to death, occurs five times in our English version, and in every instance is used to describe the nature of the real man. Rom. 6:12; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:53, 54; 2 Cor. 4:11. It occurs in the original in one other instance (2 Cor. 5:4) where it is rendered “mortality.”

The texts usually relied on to prove that souls are immediately created are Eccl. 12:7; Isa. 57:16; Zech. 12:1. The first of these was examined in the last chapter. The word translated “form” in the last of these passages, as shown in this present chapter, is not a word that signifies to create, but only to put into form, mold, and fashion. Isa. 57:16, speaks of the souls which God has made. But there are numerous other texts, as Job 10:8-11; Isa. 44:2; 64:8; Jer. 1:5, &c., which speak in the same manner of the body. But if such expressions can be used with respect to the body, produced by the natural process of generation, the same expression with reference to the soul contains no proof that that is not also transmitted with the body.

God said to our first parents, and the commission was repeated to Noah after the flood, “Be 70fruitful and multiply.” Multiply what? Themselves, of course. Did that mean that they should multiply bodies, and God would multiply souls to fit them? Nothing of the kind; but they were to multiply beings having all the characteristics, endowments, and attributes of themselves. So Adam, Gen. 5:3, “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.” This son was like Adam in all respects, having all the natures that Adam possessed; and that which was begotten by Adam was called Seth. But according to the doctrine of creationism, Adam begat only a body, and God created a soul, which is the real man, and called his name Seth, and put it into that body. Neither this text nor any other gives countenance to any such absurdity.

Some prominent theologians, both ancient and modern, have adopted the doctrine of traduction as opposed to that of creationism, believing the latter to be contrary to philosophy and revelation, but the former to be in harmony with both. In Wesley’s Journal, Vol. v., p. 10, is found the following entry:--

The testimony of Richard Watson (Institutes, pp. 362, 3) is equally explicit. He says:--

The evidence is thus rendered conclusive from both reason and Scripture, that the soul is transmitted through the process of generation with the body. What then, we ask again, becomes of its immortality? For “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and mortality cannot generate itself to a higher plane and beget immortality. This is not saying that mind is matter; for the results of organization are not to be confounded with the matter of which the organization is composed.

With these words Solomon introduces, in Eccl. 3:21, a very important question respecting the spirit of man. He says: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” Deeming this a good foundation, the advocates of natural immortality proceed to build thereon. They take it to be, first, a positive declaration that the spirit of man does go up, and the spirit of the beast downward to the earth. Then the superstructure is easily erected: Thus, Solomon must have believed that man had a spirit capable of a separate and conscious existence in death; and this spirit, in the hour of dissolution, ascends up on high, and goes into the presence of God. It therefore survives the stroke of death, and is consequently immortal.

Here they rest their argument; but we would like to have them proceed; for the text speaks of the spirit of the beast, which must also be disposed of. If the spirit of man, because it separates from him and goes up, is conscious, is not the spirit of the beast, because it separates from it and goes down, conscious also? There is nothing in the man’s spirit going up which can 73by any means show it to be conscious, any more than there is in the spirit of the beast going down, to show it to be conscious. But, if the spirit of the beast survives the stroke of death, it has just as much immortality as that of man. This line of argument, therefore, proves too much, and must be abandoned.

But is not the word spirit as applied to the beast a different word in the original from the one translated spirit and applied to man? No; they are both from the same original word; and that word is ruach, the word from which spirit is translated in the Old Testament in every instance with two exceptions. The beast has the same spirit that man has.

Landis (p. 146) feels the weight of the stunning blow which this fact gives to the popular view, and endeavors to parry its force by the following desperate resort: He says that Solomon is here describing the state of doubt and perplexity through which he had formerly passed; and, to use Mr. L.’s own words, “in this perplexity he attributes to both man and beast a ruach.” But he says that Solomon got over this state of doubt and uncertainty, and “never again attributed a ruach to beasts.” What we regard as the Bible view of man’s nature is not unfrequently denominated infidelity by the popular theologians of the present day; but it strikes us as rather a bold position to go back and accuse the sacred 74writers of laboring under a spirit of infidelity when they penned these sentiments.

But if we take Solomon’s words to be a declaration that the spirit of man does go up, his question, even then, would imply a strong affirmation that we are ignorant of its essential qualities. Who knoweth this spirit? Who can tell its nature? Who can describe its inherent characteristics? Who can tell how long it shall continue to exist? On these vital points, the text is entirely silent, granting all that is claimed for it.

But, further, if this text asserts that the spirit of man goes up to God, it will be noticed that it is spoken promiscuously of all mankind. Then the same queries would arise respecting the spirits of the wicked, for what purpose they go to God, and the same objections would lie against that view that were stated in the examination of Eccl. 12:7, in chapter vii.

To arrive, however, at the correct meaning of Eccl. 3:21, a brief examination of the context is necessary. In verse 18, Solomon expresses a desire that the sons of men may see that they themselves are beasts. Not that he intended to be understood that man is in no respect superior to a beast; for no one, inspired or not, above the level of an idiot, would make such an assertion, in view of man’s more perfect organization, his reasoning faculties, and, above all, his future 75prospects, if righteous. He simply means, as plainly expressed in the next verse, that in one respect, namely, their dissolution in death, man possesses no superiority over the other orders of animated existence. “For,” he says, “that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth [here is the point of similarity], so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath [ruach, the same word that is rendered spirit in verse 21]; so that a man [in this respect] hath no pre-eminence above a beast. All go unto one place [is that place Heaven? and is this a declaration that all, men and beasts alike, go there?] all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

Thus definite and positive is the teaching of Solomon that in respect to their life here upon earth, and their condition in death, men and beasts are exactly alike; and now can we suppose that, after having thus clearly expressed his views of this matter, he proceeds in the very next sentence to contradict it all, and assert that in death there is a difference between men and beasts, that men do have a pre-eminence, that all do not go to one place, that the spirit of man goes up conscious to God, and the spirit of the beast goes down to perish in the earth? This would be to make the wisest man that ever lived, the most stupid reasoner that ever put pen to paper.

76How, then, is his language in verse 21 to be understood? Answer: Understand it as a question whether the spirit of man goes up, and the spirit of the beast down, as some asserted in opposition to the views which he taught. John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, so translates it: “Who knoweth the spirit of man [an sursum ascendat] whether it goeth upward?” &c. The Douay Bible renders the passage thus: “Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?” The Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Chaldee Paraphrase, the Syriac, and the German of Luther, give the same reading.

This puts the matter in quite a different light, and saves Solomon from self-contradiction; but, alas for the immaterialist! it completely overturns the structure of immortality built thereon.

The notion prevailed in the heathen world that man’s spirit ascended up to be with the gods, but the spirit of the beast went down to the earth. It was the old lesson taught by that unreliable character. in Eden, “Ye shall not surely die,” but “ye shall be as gods.” Solomon contradicts this by stating the truth in the case, that death reduces man and beast alike to one common condition. Then he asks, Who knows that the opposite heathen doctrine is true, that the spirit of man goes up, and that of the beast down? He had declared that they all went to one place, in 77accordance with God’s original sentence, “Thou shalt surely die;” now he calls for evidence, if there be any, to show that the opposite doctrine is true. Thus he smites to the ground this pagan notion by putting it to the proof of its claims, for which no proof exists.

There is another class of expressions respecting the word spirit, which properly come under consideration at this point. The first is Ps. 31:5, where David says: “Into thine hand I commit my spirit.” Our Lord used similar language, perhaps borrowed from this expression of David, when, expiring on the cross, he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Luke 23:46. And Stephen, the martyr, in the same line of thought, put up this expiring prayer: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Acts 7:59. What was it which David and our Lord wished to commit into the hands of God, and Stephen, into the hands of Christ? A conscious entity it is claimed, the living and immortal part of man; for nothing less could properly be committed to God. Thus Mr. Landis (p. 131) asks: “What was it then? The mere life which passed into nonentity at death? And can any one suppose they would have commended to God a nonentity? This would be a shameless trifling with sacred things.” But David, on one occasion (1 Sam. 26:24), prayed that his life might be much set by, or be precious, in the eyes of the Lord. 78That which is precious in his sight, it seems might very properly be commended to his keeping, especially when passing, for his sake, out of our immediate control. And in the very psalm (31) in which he commits his spirit to God, he does it in view of the fact that his enemies had “devised to take away his life.” Verse 13.

It is a fact that the same or similar acts are spoken of frequently as done in reference to the life that are said to be done in reference to the spirit. Can a person commit his spirit to God? So he can commit to him the preservation of his life. Thus David says, Ps. 64:1: “Preserve my life.” What! Mr. Landis would exclaim, preserve a nonentity? Jonah prayed (4:3), “O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me.” Christ says, John 10:15: “I lay down my life for the sheep;” and in John 13:38, he asks Peter, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?”

Thus our life is something that we can commit to another for safe keeping; it can be taken away from us; we can give it up, or lay it down. Is it, therefore, a distinct entity, conscious in death? If it is not, then equivalent expressions applied to the spirit do not prove that to be conscious in death and immortal; for they prove the same in the one case as in the other; and whatever they fail to prove in the one case, they fail to prove also in the other.

But if the spirit, as is claimed, lives right along 79after death, just as conscious as before, and a hundred-fold more active, capable, intelligent, and free, where would be the propriety of committing it to God in the hour of death, any more than at any point during its earthly existence? There would be none whatever. Entering upon that permanent higher life, it would be much more capable of caring for itself than in this earthly condition. The expression bears upon its very face evidence that those who used it desired to commit something into the care of their Maker which was about to pass out of their possession; to commit something into his hands for safe keeping until they should be brought back from the state of unconsciousness and inactivity into which they were then falling. And what was that? It was what they were then losing, namely, their life, their pneuma, which Robinson defines as meaning, among other things, “The principle of life residing in the breath, breathed into man from God, and again returning to God.” And when the life is thus given up to God by his people, where is it? “Hid with Christ in God.” Col. 3:3. AndGod.” Col. 3:3. And when will the believer receive it again? “When“When Christ who is our life shall appear.” Verse 4. Then Stephen will receive from his Lord that which while dying he besought him to receive. Then they who for Christ’s sake have lost their life (not merely their bodies while their life continued right on) will have that life restored to them again.

With a great show of confidence, either pretended or real, the advocates of man’s immortality bring forward this text in proof of their position. That portion of the forgoing quotation upon which they hang their theory is the expression, “the spirits of just men made perfect,” which they take to be both a declaration and proof thereof, that the spirits of men are released by death, and thereupon are made perfect or glorified in the presence of God in Heaven. A little further examination of the language will, we think, show that such an assertion is not made in the text and that even such an inference cannot justly be drawn.

That Paul is here contrasting the blessings and privileges enjoyed by believers under the gospel dispensation with those possessed by the Jews 81under the former dispensation, will probably not be questioned on either side. Ye are not come to the mount that might be touched [Mount Sinai] and the sound of a trumpet, &c., that is, to that system of types and ceremonies instituted through Moses at Sinai, of which an outward priesthood were the ministers, and Old Jerusalem the representative city; but ye are come to Mount Zion, to the New Jerusalem, to Jesus, and to his better sacrifice. These things to which we are come are the superior blessings of the gospel, over what was enjoyed under the former dispensation. But where or how does the fact come in, as one of these blessings, that man has a spirit which is conscious in death, and is made perfect by the dissolution of the body? It will be seen that if this be a fact, it is brought in, at best, only incidentally. There is no proof of it in the expression, “spirits of just men made perfect,” in itself considered; for they could be made perfect at some future time, without supposing them conscious from death to the resurrection. The only proof that can here be found, then, lies in the fact that we are said to have come to these spirits. This is supposed to prove that they must be spirits out of the body, and that they must also be conscious. Then we inquire, How do we come to the spirits of just men made perfect, and what is meant by the expression?

It is not difficult to determine how we come to 82all the other objects mentioned by Paul in the three verses quoted; but how we come to the spirits of just men made perfect, according to the popular view of that expression, is not so clear. If we mistake not, the common view will have to be modified, or the explanation remain ungiven.

Let us see: “Ye are come [or, putting it in the first person, since Paul brings these to view as present blessings all through the gospel dispensation, we are come] unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” That is, we in this dispensation no longer look to Old Jerusalem as the center of our worship, but we look above, to the New Jerusalem, where the sanctuary and Priest of this dispensation are. In this sense we are come to them.

“And to an innumerable company of angels.” Angels are the assistants of our Lord in his work, who now mediates for his people individually. Dan. 7:10. They are sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. Heb. 1:14. They are therefore more intimately concerned in the believer’s welfare in this dispensation than in the old. We have thus come to their presence and ministration.

“To the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven.” That is, we have now come to the time when believers 83of whatever nationality, whose names are recorded in the Lamb’s book of life in Heaven, constitute a general assembly, or compose one church. We do not now look to Jewish genealogies to find the people of God, but we look to the record in Heaven. And God now takes his people into covenant relation with himself as individuals, and not as a nation. Thus we are come in this dispensation to the general assembly, the church of the firstborn.

“And to God the Judge of all.” Directly, through the mediation of his Son, we draw near to God. Passing over for a time the expression under discussion, the spirits of just men made perfect, we read on:--

“And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.” We now come to Jesus, the real mediator, instead of to the typical priesthood of the former dispensation.

“And to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” That is, there is now ministered for us the blood of Jesus, the better sacrifice, which takes away from us sin in fact, instead of the blood of beasts, which took it away only in figure.

It can readily be seen how we come to all these things under this dispensation; how these are all privileges and blessings under the gospel, beyond what was enjoyed in the former dispensation. But now, if the spirits of just men made perfect 84mean disembodied spirits in the popular sense, how do we come to these as a gospel blessing? This is what we would like to have our friends tell us. In what respect is our relation to our dead friends, the supposed spirits of the departed, changed by the gospel? If there is any sense in which we may be said to have come to these, we would like to know it.

But again, when do we come into closest contact with a man’s spirit? Is it when that spirit is disembodied, and has gone far away to dwell in the presence of God, and is to have no more to do forever with anything that is done under the sun? Eccl. 9:6. Is it not rather when the spirit of a man through the eyes of that man looks upon us, through his mouth speaks to us, and through his hands handles us? Outside the hell-doomed hosts of spiritualists, will any one say that we enjoy more intimate relations with a spirit when it is out of the body than we do while it is in the body? A consideration of this point must convince any one that the idea of coming to the spirits of just men made perfect cannot possibly be applied to spirits out of the body.

It will be noticed further that the text does not speak of spirits made perfect, but of men made perfect. The Greek (και πνεύμασι δικαίων τετελειωμένων) shows that the participle, “made perfect,” agrees with “the just,” or “just men,” and 85not with “spirits.” When, then, we inquire, are men made perfect? There is a certain sense in which they are made perfect in this life through the justification of the blood of Christ, and sanctification of his Spirit; and they are made perfect in an absolute sense, as in Heb. 11:40, when they experience the final glorification, and their vile bodies are made like unto Christ’s most glorious body. Phil. 3:21.

If it is said that the text refers to this latter perfection, then it is placed beyond the resurrection, and affords no proof of a conscious disembodied spirit. If it refers to the former, then it applies to persons still in this state, and not in death. To one or the other it must refer; and apply it which way we may, it does not bring to view a spirit conscious in death. Therefore it fails entirely to prove the point in favor of which our friends produce it.

In harmony with the context, we apply it to the present state, to men in this life, to a blessing peculiar to the gospel, to the justification and sanctification which the believer now enjoys through Christ. And in this sense we see how we come to it, as to all the other things mentioned by Paul. We come to the enjoyment of this blessing ourselves, and to communion and fellowship with those who are also in possession of it.

86Finally, to show that this not a view devised to meet any exigency of our position, we will bring to its support a name which with all will have great weight, and with many will be final authority. Dr. Adam Clarke, on this passage, says:--

The reader is also referred to Dr. C.’s note at the end of Heb. 12.

The advocates of natural immortality are not long in finding their way to this passage. Here, it is claimed, are spirits brought to view, out of the body; for they were the spirits of the antediluvians: and they were conscious and intelligent; for they could listen to the preaching of Christ, who, by his conscious spirit, while his body lay in the grave, went and preached to them.

Let us see just what conclusions the popular interpretation of this passage involves, that we may test their claims by the Scriptures. 1. The spirits were the spirits of wicked men; for they were disobedient in the days of Noah, and perished in the flood. 2. They were consequently in their place of punishment, the place to which popular theology assigns all such spirits immediately on their passing from this state of existence. 3. The spirit of Christ went into hell to preach 88to them. These are the facts that are to be cleared of improbabilities, and harmonized with the Scriptures, before the passage can be made available for the popular view.

But the bare suggestion of so singular a transaction as Christ’s going to preach to these spirits, immediately gives rise to the query for what purpose Christ should take pains to go down into hell, to preach to damned spirits there; and what message he could possibly bear to them. The day of their probation was past; they could not be helped by any gospel message; then why preach to them? Would Christ go to taunt them by describing before them blessings which they could never receive, or raising in their bosoms hopes of a release from damnation, which he never designed to grant?

These considerations fall like a mighty avalanche across the way of the common interpretation. The thought is felt to be almost an insuperable objection, and many are the shifts devised to get around it. One thinks that the word preached does not necessarily mean to preach the gospel, notwithstanding almost every instance of the use of the word in the New Testament describes the preaching of the gospel by Christ or his apostles; but that Christ went there to announce to them that his sufferings had been accomplished, and the prophecies concerning him fulfilled. But what object could there be 89in that? How would that affect their condition? Was it to add poignancy to their pain by rendering their misery doubly sure? And were there not devils enough in hell to perform that work, without making it necessary that Christ should perform such a ghostly task, and that, too, right between those points of time when he laid down his life for our sins and was raised again for our justification?

Another thinks these were the spirits of such as repented during the forty days’ rain of the flood; that they were with the saved in Paradise, a department of the under world where the spirits of the good are kept (the elysium, in fact, of ancient heathen mythology), but that they “still felt uneasy on account of having perished [that is, lost their bodies] under a divine judgment,” and “were now assured by Jesus that their repentance had been accepted.”

Such resorts show the desperate extremities to which the popular exposition of this passage is driven.

Others frankly acknowledge that they cannot tell what, nor for what purpose, Christ preached to the lost in hell. So Landis, p. 236. But he says it makes no difference if we cannot tell what he preached nor why he preached, since we have the assurance that he did go there and preach. Profound conclusion! Would it not be better, since we have the assurance that he preached, 90to conclude that he preached at a time when preaching could benefit them, rather than at a time when we know that it could not profit them, and there could be no occasion for it whatever?

The whole issue thus turns on the question, When was this work of preaching performed? Some will say, “While they were in prison, and that means the state of death, and shows that the dead are conscious and can be preached to.” Then, we reply, the dead also can be benefited by preaching, and led to repentance; and the doctrine of purgatory springs in full blossom into our creed.

But does the text affirm that the preaching was done to these spirits while they were in prison? May it not be that the preaching was done at some previous time to persons who were, when Peter wrote, in prison, or, if you please, in a state of death? So it would be true that the spirits were in prison when Peter makes mention of them, and yet the preaching might have been done to them at a former period, while they were still in the flesh and could be benefited by it. This is the view taken of the passage by Dr. Clarke. He says:--

Thus he places Christ’s going and preaching by his Spirit in the days of Noah, and not during the time his body lay in the grave.

91Again, he says:--

The preaching was certainly to the antediluvians. But why should Christ single out that class to preach to, about twenty-four hundred years afterward, in hell? The whole idea is forced, unnatural, and absurd. The preaching that was given to them was through Noah, who, by the power of the Holy Ghost (1 Pet. 1:12), delivered to them the message of warning. Let this be the preaching referred to, and all is harmonious and clear; and this interpretation the construction of the original demands; for the word rendered in our version, “were disobedient,” is simply the aorist participle; and the dependent sentence, “when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah,” limits the verb “preached” rather than the participle. The whole passage might be translated thus: “In which also, having gone to the spirits in prison, he preached to the then disobedient ones, when once [or at the time when] the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.”

92But how were they in prison? In the same sense in which persons in error and darkness are said to be in prison. Isa. 42:7: “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” Also Isa. 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Christ himself declared, Luke 4:18-21, that this scripture was fulfilled in his mission to those here on earth who sat in darkness and error, and under the dominion of sin. So the antediluvians were shut up under the sentence of condemnation. Their days were limited to a hundred and twenty years; and their only way of escape from impending destruction was through the preaching of Noah.

So much with reference to the spirits to whom the preaching was given. Now we affirm further that Christ’s spirit did not go anywhere to preach to anybody, while he lay in the grave. If Christ’s spirit, the real being, the divine part, did survive the death of the cross, then

1. We have only a human offering for our sacrifice; and the claim of the spiritualists is true that the blood of Christ is no more than that of any man.

932. Then Christ did not pour out his soul unto death and make it an offering for sin, as the prophet declared that he would, Isa. 53:10, 12; and his soul was not sorrowful even unto death, as he himself affirmed. Matt. 26:38.

3. The text says Christ was quickened by the Spirit; and between his death and quickening no action is affirmed of him; and hence any such affirmation on the part of man is assumption. There can be no doubt but the quickening here brought to view was his resurrection. The Greek word is a very strong one, ζωοποιέω, to impart life, to make alive. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit. Landis, p. 232, labors hard to turn this word from its natural meaning and make it signify, not giving life, but continuing alive. It is impossible to regard this as anything less than unmitigated sophistry. The verb is a regular active verb. In the passive voice it expresses an action received. Christ did not continue alive, but was made alive by the Spirit. Then he was for a time dead. How long? From the cross to the resurrection. Rom. 1:4. So he says himself in Rev. 1:18, I am he that liveth and was dead. Yet men will stand up, and for the purpose of sustaining a pet theory, rob the world’s Offering of all its virtue, and nullify the whole plan of salvation, by declaring that Christ never was dead.

94The word quicken is the same that is used in Rom. 8:11: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” God brought again our Lord from the dead by the Holy Spirit; and by the same Spirit are his followers to be raised up at the last day. But that Christ went anywhere in spirit, or did any action between his death and quickening, is what the Scriptures nowhere affirm, and no man has a right to claim.

Mr. Landis, p. 235, argues that this preaching could not have been in the days of Noah, because the events narrated took place this side the death of Christ. Why did he not say this side the resurrection of Christ? Oh! that would spoil it all. But the record shows upon its very face that if it refers to a time subsequent to Christ’s death, it was also subsequent to his resurrection; for if events are here stated in chronological order, the resurrection of Christ as well as his death comes before his preaching. Thus, 1. He was put to death in the flesh. 2. Was quickened by the Spirit, which was his resurrection, as no man with any show of reason can dispute; and 3. Went and preached to the spirits in prison. So the preaching does not come in, on this ground, till after Christ was made alive from the dead.

Some people seem to treat the Scriptures as if 95they were given to man that he might exercise his inventive powers in trying to get around them. But no inventive power that the human mind has yet developed will enable a man, let him plan, contrive, devise, and arrange, as he may, to fix this preaching of Christ between his death and resurrection. If he could fix it there, what would it prove? The man of sin would rise up and bless him from his papal throne, for proving his darling purgatory. Such a position may do for Mormons, Mohammedans, Pagans, and Papists; but let no Protestant try to defend it, and not hang his head for shame. Mr. Landis says that “Mr. Dobney and the rest of the fraternity conveniently forget that there is any such passage [as 1 Pet. 3:19] in the word of God.” But we cannot help thinking that it would have been well for him, and saved a pitiful display of distorted logic, if he had been prudent enough to forget it too.

THE WORD SPIRIT IN OTHER TEXTS.

There are a few other texts which contain the word spirit an explanation of which may be properly introduced at this point:--

Luke 24:39: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” These are the words of Christ as on one occasion he met with his disciples after his resurrection; 96and as he then possessed a spiritual body which is given by the resurrection, it is claimed that his words prove the existence of spirits utterly disembodied in the popular sense. But we inquire, What did the disciples suppose they saw? Verse 37 states: “They supposed they had seen a spirit;” and on this verse Greenfield puts in the margin the word phantasma instead of pneuma, and marks it as a reading adopted by Griesbach. They supposed they had seen a phantom, apparition, specter. This exactly corresponds with their action when on another occasion Christ came to them walking on the sea, Matt. 14:26; Mark 6:49, and they were affrighted and cried out, supposing it was a spirit, where the Greek uses phantom in both instances. The Bible nowhere countenances the idea that phantoms or specters have any real existence; but the imagination and superstition of the human mind have ever been prolific in such conceptions. The disciples were of course familiar with the popular notions on this question; and when the Saviour suddenly appeared in their midst, coming in without lifting the latch, or making any visible opening, as spiritual bodies are able to do, their first idea was the superstitious one of an apparition or specter, and they were affrighted.

Now when Jesus, to allay their fears, told them that a spirit had not flesh and bones as he had, 97he evidently used the word spirit in the sense of the idea which they then had in their minds, namely, that of a phantom; and though the word pneuma is used, which in its very great variety of meanings may be employed, perhaps, to express such a conception, we are not to understand that the word cannot be used to describe bodies like that which Christ then possessed. He was not such a spirit as they supposed; for a pneuma, such as they then conceived of, in the sense of a phantom, had not flesh and bones as he had. Bloomfield, on verse 37, says:--

Acts 23:8: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both.” Paul declared himself in verse 6 to be a Pharisee; and in telling what they believed, in verse 8, it is claimed that Paul plainly ranged himself on the side of those who believe in the separate conscious existence of the spirit of man. But does this text say that the Pharisees believed any such thing? Three terms are used in expressing what the Sadducees did not believe, “resurrection, angel, and spirit.” But when the faith of the Pharisees is stated, these three are reduced to two: “The Pharisees confess both.” Both means only two, not three. Now what two of the three terms before employed 98unite to express one branch of the faith of the Pharisees? The word angel could not be one; for angels are a distinct race of beings from the human family. Then we have left, resurrection and spirit. The Pharisees believed in angels and in the resurrection of the human race. Then all the spirit they believed in, as pertaining to man, according to this testimony, is what is connected with the resurrection; and that, of course, is the spiritual body with which we are then endowed. “It is sown,” says this same apostle, “a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” 1 Cor. 15:44. That the term spirit is applied to those beings which possess a spiritual body is evident from Heb. 1:7, which reads, “Who maketh his angels spirits.” Angels are personal beings, but their bodies are spiritual bodies, invisible, under ordinary circumstances, to mortal eyes. Hence they are called spirits. So of God, John 4:24: “God is a Spirit;” that is, a spiritual being; not an impersonal one, as much in one place as another.

1 Cor. 5:5: “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Although this text is quoted to prove the separate conscious existence of a part of man between death and the resurrection, the reader cannot fail to notice that the time when the spirit is saved is in the day of the Lord Jesus, 99when the resurrection takes place. This text proves nothing, therefore, respecting the condition of the spirit previous to that time; and, so far as our present purpose is concerned, we might dismiss it with this remark; but a word or two more may serve to free the text still further from difficulty. What is meant by delivering the person to Satan? and what is the destruction of the flesh? Satan is the God of this world; and if any man is a friend of the world, he is on the side of Satan and an enemy of God. The church is the body of Christ, and belongs to him. A person committing the deeds spoken of in this chapter must be separated from that body, and given back to the world. He is thus delivered unto Satan. This is for the destruction of the flesh. The flesh is often used to mean the carnal mind. Gal. 5:19-21. The spiritually-minded man has crucified, or destroyed, the flesh. Now, a person who desires eternal life, when he finds himself set aside from the church, and placed back in the world, the kingdom of Satan, on account of his having the carnal mind, understands that to gain eternal life he must then put away the carnal mind, or crucify and destroy the flesh. If he does this, he becomes spiritually minded, joined again to the body of Christ, and the old man, the flesh, being destroyed, he, as a spiritually-minded man, will be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Spirit we understand to 100be used in contrast with the flesh, the one denoting a person in a carnal state, the other, in a spiritual. To deal with a person as the apostle here directs, set him aside from the church till he sees, and repents of, his sins, is often the only way to save him. In the day of the Lord Jesus, a person is saved by having his body fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body, not destroyed. Phil. 3:21. The destruction spoken of in the text cannot therefore be the literal destruction of the body in contrast with the disembodied spirit.

We have now examined all those passages in which the word spirit is used in such a manner as to furnish what is claimed to be evidence of its uninterrupted consciousness after the death of the body. We have found them all easily explainable in harmony with other positive and literal declarations of the Scriptures that the dead know not any thing, that when a man’s breath goeth forth and he returneth to his earth, his very thoughts perish, and that there is no 101wisdom nor knowledge nor device in the grave to which we go. And so far the unity of the Bible system of truth on this point is unimpaired, and the harmony of the testimony of the Scriptures is maintained.

We will now examine those scriptures in which the term soul is supposed to be used in a manner to favor the popular view. The first of these is Gen. 35:18: “And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died), that she called his name Benoni.” This is adduced as evidence that the soul departs when the body dies, and lives on in an active, conscious condition.

Luther Lee remarks on this passage:--

We may offset this assertion of Luther Lee’s with the following criticism from Prof. Bush:--

102The Hebrew word here translated soul is nephesh, rendered in the Septuagint by psuche; and it is unnecessary to remind those who have read the chapter on Soul and Spirit that these words mean something besides body and brains. They often signify that which can be said to leave the body, as we shall presently see, rendering entirely uncalled for the supposition of an immaterial spirit which Mr. Lee makes such haste to adopt.

What then did depart, and what is the plain, simple import of the declaration? We call the reader’s attention again to the criticism of Parkhurst, the lexicographer, on this passage:--

Thus, while Mr. Parkhurst admits that Gen. 35:18, is the fairest instance that can be found where nephesh could be supposed to mean the spiritual part of man, yet he will not so far hazard his reputation, as a scholar and critic as to give it that meaning in this or any other instance, declaring that here it may most properly be rendered “breath.” And this is in harmony with the 103account of man’s creation, where it is seen that the imparting of the breath of life is what made Adam a living soul; and the loss of that breath, of course, reduces man again to a state of death.

1 Kings 17:21, 22: “And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.” In the light of the foregoing criticism on Gen. 35:18, this text scarcely needs a passing remark. The same principle of interpretation applies to this as to the former. But one can hardly read such passages as this without noticing how at variance they read with the popular view. The child, as a whole, is the object with which the text deals. The child was dead. Something called the soul, which the child is spoken of as having in possession, had gone from him, which caused his death. This element, not the child itself, but what belonged to the child, as a living being, came into him again, and the child revived.

But according to the immaterialist view, this passage should not so read at all. For that makes the soul to be the child proper; and the passage should read something like this: “And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the child came and took possession of his body again, and the body revived.” This is the popular view. Mark the chasm between it and the Scripture record.

104Verse 17 tells what had left the child, and what it was therefore necessary for the child to recover before he could live again. “His sickness was so sore,” says the record, “that there was no breath left in him.” That was the trouble: the breath of life was gone from the child. And when Elijah comes to pray for his restoration, he asks, in the most natural manner possible, that the very thing that had left the child, and thereby caused his death, might come into him again, and cause him to live; and that was simply what verse 17 states, the breath of life.

Thus in neither of these passages do we find any evidence of the existence of an immaterial, immortal soul, which so confidently claims the throne of honor in the temple of modern orthodoxy.

Luke records the same sentiment in these words:--

The estimate which immaterialists put upon these texts is thus expressed by Mr. Landis, p. 181: “This text [Matt, 10:28] therefore must continue to stand as the testimony of the Son of God in favor of the soul’s immortality, and his solemn condemnation of the soul-ruining errors of the annihilation and Sadducean doctrine.”

We reply: Mr. L. evidently applies the argument to a wrong issue; for whatever it may teach concerning the intermediate state, it is most positively against the doctrine of eternal misery, and the consequent immortality of the soul. It teaches that God can destroy the soul in hell; and there is no force in our Lord’s warning unless we understand it to affirm that he will thus destroy the souls of the wicked. We never could with any propriety be warned to fear a person because 106he could do that which he never designed to do, and never would do. We are to fear the civil magistrate to such a degree, at least, as not to offend against the laws, because he has power to put those laws into execution, and visit upon us merited punishment; but our fear is to rest not simply upon the fact that he has power to do this, but upon the certainty that he will do it if we are guilty of crime. Otherwise there could be no cause of fear, and no ground for any exhortation to fear.

Now we are to fear God, that is, fear to disobey him, because he is able to destroy body and soul in hell; and what is necessarily implied in this? It is implied that he certainly will do this in the cases of all those who do not fear him enough to comply with his requirements. So the text is a direct affirmation that the wicked will be destroyed, both soul and body in hell.

The next inquiry is, What is the meaning of the word, destroy? We answer that, take the word, soul, to mean what we will, the word, destroy, here has the same meaning and the same force as applied to the soul, that the word kill has as applied to the body in the sentence before. Whatever killing does to the body, destroying does to the soul. Don’t fear men because they cannot kill the soul as they kill the body; but fear God because he can and will kill the soul (if wicked) just as men kill the body. 107This is the only consistent interpretation of the language. But all well understand what it does to the body to kill it. It deprives it of all its functions and powers of life and activity. It does the same to the soul to destroy it, supposing the soul to be what is popularly supposed. The word here rendered destroy is ἀπολλύω (appolluo), and is defined by Greenfield, “to destroy, to kill, to put to death,” &c.

Having seen that the text affirms in the most positive manner the destruction of soul and body, or the complete cessation of existence, for all the wicked, in hell, we now inquire whether it teaches a conscious existence for the soul in the intermediate state? This must be, it is claimed, because man cannot kill it. But the killing which God inflicts, according to the popular view, is torment in the flames of hell, and that commences immediately upon the death of the body. Let us then see what the Scriptures testify concerning the receptacle of the dead and the place of punishment.

The word, hell, in our English version is from three different Greek words. These words are ἅδης (hades), γεέννα (ge-enna), and ταρταρόω (tartaro-o, a verb signifying to thrust down to tartarus). These all designate different places; and the following full list of the instances of their occurrence in the New Testament, will show their use.

108Hades occurs in the following passages:--

Ge-enna signifies Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, in which fires were kept constantly burning to consume the bodies of malefactors and the rubbish which was brought from the city and cast therein. It is found in the following places:--

Tartaro-o is used only in the following text:

109“God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.” 2 Pet. 2:4.

From these references it will be seen that hades is the place of the dead whether righteous or wicked, from which they are brought only by a resurrection. Rev. 20:13. On the contrary, Gehenna is the place into which the wicked are to be cast alive with all their members, to be destroyed soul and body. These places, therefore, are not to be confounded together.

Now the punishment against which the text warns us, is not a punishment in hades, the state or place of the dead, but in Gehenna, which is not inflicted till after the resurrection. Therefore we affirm that the text contains no evidence whatever of the condition of man in death, but passes over the entire period from the death of the body to the resurrection. And this is further evident from the record in Luke: “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell.”

Luke does not use the term, soul, at all; yet he expresses the same sentiment as Matthew. Man can kill the body or destroy this present life; but he can accomplish no destruction beyond that. But God can not only kill the body, or destroy the present life, but he can cast into Gehenna, or 110destroy the life that we have beyond the resurrection. These two things alone the text has in view. And now when we remember that psuche, the word here rendered, soul, often means life, either the present or future, and is forty times in the New Testament so rendered, the text is freed from all difficulty. The word, kill, to be sure is not such as would naturally be used in connection with life; but the word, destroy, which is among the definitions of the original word, apokteino, can be appropriately used with life. Thus, fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to destroy the future life; but rather fear him who is able to destroy the body and put an end to all future life in hell. And it is worthy of notice that the destruction in hell here threatened is not inflicted upon a person without his body. Nothing is said about God’s destroying the soul alone; but it is at some point beyond this life, when the person again has a body: which is not till after the resurrection.

Another declaration from the lips of our Lord, found in Matt. 16:25, 26, will throw some light on our present subject: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” The word soul should here be rendered life. Dr. Clarke, on verse 26, 111says: “On what authority many here translate the word psuche in the 25th verse, life, and in this verse, soul, I know not, but am certain it means life in both places.”

But let us take the expressions, “soul” and “to lose the soul,” in the popular sense, and what should we have? Whosoever will save his soul (to save the soul meaning to save it from hell) shall lose it (that is shall go into hell torments): but whosoever will lose his soul (suffer eternal misery) for my sake, shall find it (shall be saved in Heaven). This makes utter nonsense of the passage, and so is a sufficient condemnation of the view which makes such an interpretation necessary.

The passage simply refers to the present and future life. Thus, whosoever will save his life, that is, will deny Christ and his gospel for the sake of avoiding persecution, or of preserving his present life, he shall lose it in the world to come, when God shall destroy both soul and body in Gehenna; but he who shall lose his present life if need be, for the sake of Christ and his cause, shall find it in the world to come, when eternal life is given to all the overcomers.

Here the life is spoken of as something which can be lost and found again. Between the losing and finding no one can claim that it maintains a conscious existence. And what is meant by finding it? Simply that God will bestow it upon us 112in the future beyond the resurrection. So what is meant by the expression that man cannot kill it? Simply the same thing, that God will, in the resurrection, endow us with life again, a life which is beyond the power of man.

The life of all men is in the hands of God. The body was formed of the dust, but the life was imparted by God. Man, by sin, has made this present life a temporary one. But through the plan of salvation, by which the human race was placed upon a second probation, after Adam’s fall, with the privilege of still gaining eternal life, a future life is decreed for all; for there shall be a resurrection of the just and unjust. With the righteous, this life will be eternal; for they have secured the forgiveness of all their sins through Jesus Christ; but with the wicked, it will soon end in the second death; for they have thrown away their golden privilege, and clung to their sins, the wages of which is death. Man may hasten the close of this present temporary life, may cut it short by killing the body, for some years before it would close in the natural course of events; but that future life, which in the purpose of God is as sure as his own throne, they cannot touch.

The exhortation is to those who are striving to serve God, and who thereby are liable to lose their present lives at the hands of wicked men for the truth’s sake. Fear them not, though with the bloody arm of persecution they may deprive 113you of the present life; for the life which is to come they cannot reach.

And the warning is to the wicked that unless they fear God more than men, and are governed by his glory more than by worldly considerations, he will bring their existence to an utter end in the fire Gehenna.

The text, therefore, so far from proving the existence in man of an independent, death-surviving, conscious entity called the immortal soul, speaks only of the present and future life, and, passing over the entire period between death and the resurrection, then promises the righteous a life which man cannot destroy, and affirms that the wicked shall utterly cease to be in the second death.

In Rev. 6:9-11, is another instance where the word, soul, is used in a manner which many take to be proof that there is in man a separate entity, conscious in death, and capable in a disembodied state of performing all the acts, and exercising all the emotions, which pertain to this life. The verses referred to read:--

On the hypothesis of the popular view, what conclusions must we draw from this testimony?

1. It is assumed that these souls were in Heaven; then the altar under which John saw them must have been the altar of incense, as that is the only altar brought to view in Heaven. Rev. 8:3. But the altar spoken of in the text is evidently the altar of sacrifice upon which they were slain. Therefore to represent them as under the altar of incense, which was never used for sacrifice, is both incongruous and unscriptural.

2. We must conclude that they were in a state of confinement, shut up under the altar--not a condition we would naturally associate with the perfection of heavenly bliss.

3. Solomon says of the dead, that their love, their hatred, and their envy, is now perished. Eccl. 9:6. But that makes no difference; for here are the souls of the holy martyrs still smarting with resentment against their persecutors, and calling for vengeance upon their devoted heads. Is this altogether consistent? Would 115not the superlative bliss of Heaven swallow up all resentment against those who had done them this good though they meant them harm, and lead them to bless rather than curse the hand that had hastened them thither?

But further, the same view which puts these souls into Heaven, puts the souls of the wicked, at the termination of this mortal life, into the lake of fire, where they are racked with unutterable and unceasing anguish, in full view of all the heavenly host. In proof of this, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is strenuously urged. But is it so? If it is not, then the popular exposition of that parable must be abandoned. But that supposed stronghold will not readily be surrendered, so it is proper to look at the bearing it has upon the case before us.

According, then, to the orthodox view, the persecutors of these souls were even then, or certainly soon would be, enveloped in the flames of hell, right before their eyes, every fiber of their being quivering with a keenness of torture which no language can express, and of which no mind can adequately conceive.

Here they were, their agony full in view of these souls of the martyrs, and their piercing shrieks of infinite and hopeless woe ringing in their ears; for the rich man and Abraham, you know, could converse together across the gulf. And was not the sight of all this woe enough to 116glut the most insatiate vengeance? Is there a fiend in hell who could manifest the malevolence of planning and praying for greater vengeance than this? Yet these souls are represented, even under these circumstances, as calling upon God to avenge their blood on their persecutors, and saying “How long?” as if chiding the tardy movements of Providence, in commencing, or intensifying, their torments. Such is the character which the common view attributes to these holy martyrs, and such the spirit with which it clothes a system of religion the chief injunction of which is to forgive, and the chief law of which is mercy. Does it find indorsement in any breast in which there remains a drop of even the milk of human kindness?

4. These souls pray that their blood may be avenged--an article which the uncompounded, invisible, and immaterial soul, as generally understood, is not supposed to possess.

These are some of the difficulties we meet, some of the camels we have to swallow, in taking down the popular view.

But it is urged that these souls must be conscious; for they cry to God. How easily our expositors forget that language has any literal use, when they wish it to be figurative, or that it is ever used as a figure, when they wish it to be literal. There is supposed to be such a figure of speech as personification, in which, under certain 117conditions, life, action, and intelligence, are attributed to inanimate objects. Thus the blood of Abel is said to have cried to God from the ground. Gen. 4:9, 10. The stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber answered it. Hab. 2:11. The hire of the laborers, kept back by fraud, cried; and the cry entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. James 5:4. So these souls could cry, in the same sense, and yet be no more conscious than Abel’s blood, the stone, the beam, or the laborer’s hire.

So incongruous is the popular view that Albert Barnes makes haste to set himself right on the record as follows:--

But it is said that white robes were given them; hence it is further urged that they must be conscious. But this no more follows than it 118does from the fact that they cried. How was it? They had gone down to the grave in the most ignominious manner. Their lives had been misrepresented, their reputations tarnished, their names defamed, their motives maligned, and their graves covered with shame and reproach, as containing the dishonored dust of the most vile and despicable characters. Thus the church of Rome, which then molded the sentiments of the principal nations of the earth, spared no pains to make her victims an abhorring unto all flesh.

But the Reformation commences its work. It soon begins to be seen that the Romish church is the corrupt and disreputable party, and those against whom it vents its rage are the good, the pure, and the true. The work goes on among the most enlightened nations, the reputation of the church going down, and that of the martyrs coming up, until the corruptions of the papal abomination are fully exposed, and that huge system of iniquity stands before the world in all its naked deformity, while the martyrs are vindicated from all the aspersions under which that Antichristian church had sought to bury them. Then it was seen that they had suffered, not for being vile and criminal, but “for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.” Then their praises were sung, their virtues admired, their fortitude applauded, their names honored, 119and their memory cherished. And thus it is even to this day. White robes have thus been given unto every one of them.

The whole trouble on such passages as this we conceive to arise from the theological definition of the word soul: From that definition, one is led to suppose that this text speaks of an immaterial, invisible, immortal essence in man, which soars into its coveted freedom on the death of its hindrance and clog, the mortal body. No instance of the occurrence of the word in the original Hebrew or Greek will sustain such a definition. It oftenest means life; and is not unfrequently rendered, person. It applies to the dead as well as to the living, as may be seen by reference to Gen. 2:7, where the word, “living,” need not have been expressed were life an inseparable attribute of the soul; and to Num. 19:13, where the Hebrew Concordance reads, “dead soul.”

The reader is also referred to the previous chapter on Soul and Spirit. From the definitions there given, it is evident that the word soul may mean, and the context requires that it here should mean, simply the martyrs, those who had been slain; the expression, “the souls of them,” being used to designate the whole person. They were represented to John as having been slain upon the altar of papal sacrifice on this earth, and lying dead beneath it. So Dr. Clarke, on this passage, says, “The altar is upon earth, not 120in Heaven.” They certainly were not alive when John saw them under the fifth seal; for he again brings to view the same company in almost the same language, and assures us that the first time they live after their martyrdom is at the resurrection of the just. Rev. 20:4-6. Lying there, victims of papal blood-thirstiness and oppression, the great wrong, of which their sacrifice was the evidence, called upon God for vengeance. They cried, or their blood cried, even as Abel’s blood cried to God from the ground.

Thus another stronghold of the immortality of the soul must be surrendered to a harmonious interpretation, and the plain teaching, of the word of God.

The pleasing doctrine that man can never die, though unfortunate in its parentage, is very tenacious of its life. In treating this subject in previous chapters, we have found that the record of man’s creation brings to view no immortal element as entering into his being; that the Bible, in its use of the terms immortal and immortality, never employs them to express an attribute inherent in man’s nature; that no description 121of soul and spirit, and no signification of the original words, will sustain the present popular definition of these terms; that the soul and spirit, though spoken of in the Bible, in the aggregate, seventeen hundred times, are never once said to be immortal or never-dying; and that no text in which these words are supposed to be employed in such a manner as to show that they signify an ever-conscious, immortal principle, can possibly be interpreted to sustain such a doctrine.

Yet the dogma of natural immortality, very reluctantly yields the ground. To a twentieth proof text it will cling even the more tenaciously, if the preceding nineteen are all swept away. Besides the texts already noticed, there are a few other passages behind which it seeks refuge; and with alacrity we follow it into all its hiding-places, confident that in no passage in all the Bible can it find a shelter, but that into every one which it claims as its own, it has entered, not by right of possession, but as an intruder and a usurper.

Behind the obituaries of the patriarchs it seeks to shield itself. It is claimed, for instance, that the death of Abraham is recorded in such a manner as to show that his conscious existence did not cease with his earthly life. We might justly insist on their going farther back and taking the recorded close of the lives of the antediluvian 122patriarchs as the basis of their argument. One of these, Enoch, was translated to Heaven without seeing death; and all the others, according to popular belief, went to Heaven just as effectually, through death. But how different is their record. Of Enoch it is said that he “was not; for God took him;” while of the others it is said, And they “died.” Surely these two records do not mean the same thing, and Enoch, whom God took, and who is consequently alive in Heaven, must be, judging from the record, in a different condition from those who died.

But to return to the case of Abraham. The record of his death reads: “Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” On this verse, Landis, p. 130, thus remarks:--

To show how gratuitous, not to say preposterous, is this conclusion, we raise a query on two points: 1. Does the expression, “gathered to his people,” denote that he went to dwell in conscious intercourse with them? 2. Were his 123ancestors such righteous persons that they went to Heaven when they died? In answering these queries, the last shall be the first. It is a significant fact that Abraham had to be separated from his kindred and his father’s house, in order that God might make him a special subject of his providence. And in Josh. 24:2, we are plainly told that his ancestors were idolaters; for they served other gods. Such being their character, death would send them, according to the popular view, to the regions of the damned. At the time, then, of Abraham’s death, they were writhing amid the lurid waves of the lake of fire. And when Abraham was gathered to them, if it was in the sense which the theology of our day teaches, he, too, was consigned to the flames of hell! Oh! to what absurdities will men suffer themselves to be led blindfold by a petted theory. God had said to Abram, Gen. 15:15: “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” Was this the consoling promise that he should go to hell in peace in a good old age? And is the record of his death an assertion that he has his place among the damned!? Yes! if the immaterialist theory be correct. Children of Abraham, arise! and with one mouth vindicate your “righteous father” from the foul aspersion. Renounce a theory as far from Heaven-born which compels you thus to look upon the “father of the faithful.”

124Does, then, the expression, “gathered to his people,” mean his personal, conscious intercourse with them? If man has an immortal soul which lives in death, it does; and if it does, Abraham is in hell. There is no way of avoiding this conclusion, except by repudiating the idea that man has such a soul, and denying his conscious happiness or misery while in a state of death.

But how, then, could he be gathered to his people? Answer: He could go into the grave into which they had gone, into the state of death, in which they were held. Jacob said, when mourning for Joseph whom he supposed dead: “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” Not that he expected to go into the same locality, or the same grave; for he did not suppose that his son, being, as he then thought, devoured by wild beasts, was in the grave literally at all; but by the grave he evidently meant a state of death; and as his son had been violently deprived of life, he too would go down mourning into the state of death; and this he calls going unto his son. In Acts 13:36, Paul, speaking of David, says that he “was laid unto his fathers.” This all must acknowledge to be the exact equivalent of being “gathered to his people;” then the apostle goes on and adds, “and saw corruption.” That which was laid unto his fathers, or was gathered to his people, saw corruption. Men may labor, if they choose, 125to refer it to the immortal soul; but in that way they do it a very doubtful favor; for the success of their argument is the destruction of their theory; and the soul is shown to be something which is perishable and corruptible in its nature.

The peaceful death of our father Abraham furnishes no proof of an immortal soul in man, and from his hallowed resting-place no arguments for such a dogma can be drawn.

Another text may properly be considered in this connection:--

On the authority of this text it is claimed that something flies away when our strength is cut off in death; that that something is the immortal soul, and that if it flies away, it is therefore conscious; and if it thus survives the stroke of death, it is therefore immortal: rather a numerous array of conclusions, and rather weighty ones, to be drawn from the three words, “we fly away.” Let us look at David’s argument. The reason given why our strength is labor and sorrow, is because it is soon cut off and we fly away. If, now, our flying away means the going away of a conscious soul, into Heaven, for instance, if we are righteous, his argument stands thus: “Yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it 126is soon cut off, and we go to Heaven.” Singular reasoning, this! But his argument is all consistent if by flying away he means that we go into the grave, where Solomon assures us that there is no work, wisdom, knowledge, nor device. Let us not abuse the psalmist’s reasoning.

The text plainly tells us what flies away; namely, we fly away. We is a personal pronoun and includes the whole person. According to Buck’s assertion that man is composed of two essential elements, soul and body, the man is not complete without them both; and the pronoun, we, could not be used to express either of them separately. The text does not intimate any separation; it does not say that the soul flies away, or the spirit flies away; but we, in our undivided personality, fly away. To what place does the body, an essential part of the we, fly? To the grave, and there only.

This is confirmed by Eccl. 9:3: “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil; and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” Had this text read, “And after that they go away,” it would have been exactly parallel to Ps. 90:10; for no essential difference can be claimed between going and flying. But here it is expressly told where we go: we go to the grave. What is omitted in Ps. 90:10, is here supplied.

We may also add that the Hebrew word gooph, 127rendered “fly away,” signifies, according to Gesenius, “First, to cover, spec. with wings, feathers, as birds cover their young. Second, to fly, properly of birds. Third, to cover over, wrap in darkness. Fourth, to overcome with darkness, to faint, to faint away.”

The idea is plainly this: Though our days be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we sink away, go to the grave, and are wrapped in the darkness of death. Viewed thus, David’s language is consistent, and his reasoning harmonious; but his language we pervert and his logic we destroy, the moment we try to make his words prove the separation from the body, of a conscious soul at death.

In all arguments for the continued life and consciousness of the dead, 1 Sam. 28:3-20, usually holds a conspicuous place. In examining this scripture, we will look at (1) the narrative, (2) the claim that is based upon it, (3) the character of the actors in the incident, (4) the facts to be considered, and (5) the conclusions to be drawn.

1281. The narrative. Samuel was a prophet of God in Israel from 1112 to 1058 before Christ. Saul was king of Israel from 1096 to 1056 before Christ. Samuel anointed Saul to his office as king, and from time to time communicated instruction to him from the Lord as his counselor and adviser. At the time when the incident recorded in 1 Sam. 28:3-20, occurred, Samuel was dead. There was war between the Israelites and the Philistines. The Philistines pressed hard upon Israel. They gathered their forces together in Shunem, and Saul, assembling all Israel to oppose them, pitched in Gilboa. Dismayed at the mighty array of the Philistine host, Saul’s heart sunk within him, and he was sore afraid. In anxiety and trembling, he cast about him for help. He sought the Lord, but the Lord answered him not. No dream was given, no token by Urim appeared, no prophet had a word from the mouth of the Lord to meet the circumstances of his deep distress. He thought of his old-time friend, the prophet Samuel, to whom he had so often gone, and who had so often directed his steps in times of doubt and danger. But Samuel was dead, and how could he consult him?

There was in the land a class of people who claimed to have power to communicate with the dead. This work, called necromancy (a “pretended communication with the dead”--Webster), had been strictly forbidden by the Lord, 129Lev. 19:31; 20:27; Deut. 18:9-12, &c. And Saul in obedience to the command of the Lord, Ex. 22:18, had cut off, so far as they could be found, all persons of that class out of the land. Yet a few, controlled wholly by the devil, still practiced, with caution and secrecy, their hellish orgies.

Whether Saul had ever believed in the reality of this work, or not, we are not informed. But it is certain that in his present extremity, his belief gave way to the pretensions of these necromancers, and the evil thought took possession of him that he could consult in this way with the prophet Samuel. So he inquired for a woman that had a familiar spirit, and was told of one at Endor.

Disguising himself, in order that the woman, knowing Saul’s decree against witchcraft, might not fear to communicate for him, and going secretly by night, he sought the woman. The woman being assured that no evil was intended and no punishment should happen to her, asked whom she should bring up. Saul answered, Bring me up Samuel. And when she saw the object which her conjuration had evoked, she cried out with fear, and said to her royal guest, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. He told her to fear not, but tell what she saw. She answered, An old man, covered with a mantle. 130“And Saul perceived,” says the narrative, “that it was Samuel.”

Samuel asked Saul why he had disquieted him to bring him up; and Saul answered, that he might make known what he should do; for the Philistines made war upon him, and God was departed from him, and he was sore distressed. Samuel then asked him why he came to him since God had departed from him, and had become his enemy. Then he proceeded to tell him that the kingdom was rent out of his hand because he had failed to obey the Lord; that the Philistines should triumph in the battle, and that on the morrow he and his sons should die. This was the finishing stroke to the already breaking heart of Saul, and, utterly overwhelmed with his calamities, he fell senseless to the earth.

Such are the essential facts brought to view in the narrative. Let us now look at what is claimed from them.

2. The claim. This can be expressed in few words. It is claimed that Samuel actually appeared on this occasion, and that therefore the dead are conscious, or that there is a spirit in man that lives on in consciousness when the body dies; and, therefore again, the soul is immortal.

The validity of this claim rests very much on the question whether the transaction here recorded was wrought by the power of God or by 131the devil. If by God, then the representation was a true one; if by the devil, we may look for deception; for he commenced his work by becoming the father of all the lies in the world,world, and continues it by assiduously circulating them.them. We will therefore consider,

3. The character of the actors. These actors were, first, the woman that had a familiar spirit; and familiar spirits are spirits of devils. Compare together Num. 25:1-3; Ps. 106:28; and 1 Cor. 10:20. This work of dealing with familiar spirits, God had declared to be an abomination to him, he had expressly forbidden it, and sentenced to death all who practiced it.

The other chief actor in this scene was Saul. And what was his condition at this time? He had so long lived in violation of divine instruction that God had departed from him, and answered him no more by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets, which were the ways he had himself appointed to communicate with his people. Query: Would the Lord refuse to communicate with him in ways of his own appointing, and then come to him by means the use of which he had expressly forbidden? We see then that neither of the actors in this scene were persons through whom, or for whom, we should expect the Lord to work. We will therefore notice further,

4. The facts to be considered.

132a. The wonders wrought on this occasion were all accomplished by the familiar spirit with whom this woman consorted. There were two things for this spirit to do: (1) Either to bring up in reality the dead person that was called for, or (2) to counterfeit the dead man so perfectly that those who were conversing with the familiar spirit would believe that they were conversing with their dead friend.

b. That it was not Samuel, but the familiar spirit personating Samuel, that appeared, is evident from the fact that this supposed Samuel, before holding any communication with Saul, put the woman on her guard, telling her that her guest was none other than Saul himself. This is shown by the fact that the woman, as soon as she saw him, cried out with fear, not because Samuel really appeared contrary to her expectations, as some have supposed; for she did not cry out, “Samuel has come, indeed!” but because of what the appearance told her, for she immediately turned to Saul and said, “Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.” This would not be the work of the real Samuel, to put the woman on her guard, to aid her in her unholy work of incantation.

c. According to the claim based on this transaction, it was Samuel’s immortal soul that appeared on this occasion, but its appearance was, according to the description of the woman, an old 133man covered with a mantle. Do immortal souls go about in this way, in the form of old men covered with mantles? This renders it still more evident that it was the familiar spirit, imitating Samuel as he appeared while here upon earth.

d. Saul did not see Samuel at all. But does it not read that “Saul perceived that it was Samuel”? Yes; but perceived how? Not by the sight of his eyes, but from the woman’s description. The words “saw,” as applied to the woman, verse 12, and “perceive,” as applied to Saul, verse 14, are in the Septuagint different words. The woman actually saw the appearance before her; and here the word (eido) εἴδω is used, which signifies, according to Liddell and Scott, “to see, behold, look at;” but when it is said that Saul perceived, the word is (gignosco) γιγνώσκω, which signifies, according to the same authority, “to know, perceive, gain knowledge of, observe, mark, be aware of, see into, understand,” by an operation of the mind. In harmony with this view, is Saul’s language to the woman, “What sawest thou?” and “What form is he of?” If any should say that Saul might have seen all that the woman saw if he had not been prostrate upon the ground, it is sufficient to reply that it was not till after he asked these questions that he “stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.” Verse 14. If Samuel had actually been present, Saul could have seen him as well as the woman.

134e. The appearance which the woman saw came up out of the earth. Was that Samuel’s immortal soul? Are these souls in the earth? We supposed they were in the heavenly glories of the world above.

f. Is it said that, as the form came up out of the earth, Samuel had a resurrection. Then the conscious-soul theory is abandoned. But if this was a resurrection of Samuel, how could he come up out of the ground here at Endor, near the sea of Galilee, when he was buried in distant Ramah, verse 3, near Jerusalem? And if the old man was raised from the dead, what became of him? Did he go through the pains of a second dissolution, and enter the grave again? If so, well might he complain to Saul for disquieting him to bring him up.

g. This pretended Samuel told Saul that he and his sons would be with him the following day. Verse 19. If he was an immortal spirit in glory, how could Saul, whom God had rejected for his sins, go to be with him there?

h. Another sacred writer mentions this event in Saul’s life, and assigns it as one of the two reasons why he was given up by the Lord to die. 1 Chron. 10:13.

5. Conclusions. What conclusions are inevitable from the foregoing facts? It is first of all evident that Samuel was not present on that occasion either as an immortal spirit from the third 135Heaven, or as one resurrected from the dead. For

a. It is not consistent to suppose that God, having refused to answer Saul’s petitions in any legitimate way, would have respect to them when presented through this forbidden channel.

b. It is inconsistent to suppose that an immortal soul from glory would come up out of the earth, as did the form which the woman evoked with her hellish incantations.

c. It is inconsistent to suppose that Samuel was resurrected bodily here in Endor, when he was buried in Ramah.

d. If he was raised, it must have been by God or the devil. But the devil cannot raise the dead, and it is evident that God would not, at least in answer to these agencies, the use of which he had forbidden under pain of death. God would not thus raise up his servant to talk with Saul on the devil’s own ground.

e. It is incredible that such a man as Samuel, who held witchcraft as such a heinous sin, 1 Sam. 15:23, should first hold friendly converse with this abandoned woman in the midst of her incantations, and put her on her guard, before delivering his message to Saul.

f. It is the boldest assumption to suppose that any one, through this agency of the devil, would have power to summon at will any immortal soul from glory, or to raise any one from the dead, or that this woman, through her hellish incantations, 136would have power to behold the holy Samuel, while Saul could see nothing.

But is it not said that the woman saw Samuel? Yes; and here is the only seeming difficulty in all the narrative. We find these four expressions: “The woman saw Samuel;” verse 12; “And Samuel said to Saul;” verse 15; “Then said Samuel;” verse 16; and, “because of the words of Samuel.” Verse 20. And how could it be so written, it is asked, if Samuel was not there, and the woman did not see him, and he did not say the things here recorded?

Answer. This is easily explained by a very common law of language. Consider the circumstances. The woman stood ready to bring up any one that might be called for. She believed, of course, that they actually came, just as mediums now-a-days believe the forms they see are those of their departed friends. Samuel was called for, and this mantled old man appeared. She supposed it was Samuel; and Saul supposed it was Samuel; and then, according to the general law of the language of appearance, the narrative proceeds according to their supposition. When it says Samuel, it only means that form that appeared, which they supposed to be Samuel.

Secondly, the conclusion is apparent that this was only a manifestation of ancient necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft, or spiritualism; a wholesale deception palmed off upon his dupes by the devil 137in disguise. Between the ancient and modern there is this difference: Then he had to pretend to bring up the dead from the ground; for the people then believed that the dead were in the lower regions of the earth: now he brings them down from the upper spheres; for the prevailing belief now is that those regions are populous with the conscious spirits of the departed.

Let no one then appeal to the workings of the witch of Endor to prove the immortality of the soul, unless he is prepared to claim openly that the Bible is a fiction, that ancient necromancy was a divine practice, and that modern spiritualism with all its godless blasphemies and its reeking corruptions is the only reliable oracle of truth and purity.

When our Lord was transfigured, on a high mountain of Galilee, before Peter and James and John, there appeared with him two other glorified personages, talking with him. These, the inspired narrator says, were Moses and Elias, as the disciples understood them to be. Luke 9:30-33.

With what pleasure does the immaterialist 138meet with an account of any manifestation or action on the part of those who have long been dead; it has so specious an appearance of sustaining his views, or at least of furnishing him ground for an argument; for, says he, the person was dead, and this manifestation was by his conscious spirit or immortal soul.

So far as the case of Elias is concerned, as he appeared at the transfiguration, it affords that theory no benefit; for he, being translated, never saw death, and so could appear in the body with which he ascended. This is conceded by all; and for this reason his case is never put in as a witness on this question, except by those who are so unfamiliar with the record as to suppose that he, too, once died, and here appeared as a disembodied spirit.

But with Moses the case is different; for we have in the Bible a plain account of his death and burial; yet here he appeared on the mount, alive, active, and conscious; for he talked with Christ. And so with an air of triumph, perhaps sincere, Landis asks (p. 181), “What then have our opponents to say to this argument? for they must meet it or renounce their theory.”

Were we Sadducees, denying the resurrection, and any future life beyond the grave, this case would lie as an insuperable barrier across our pathway; but so long as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is taught in the Bible, the 139incident is not necessarily against those who deny the existence of any such thing as a conscious, disembodied human spirit, since the presence of Moses on the mount can be accounted for otherwise than through such a medium.

This scene was either a representation, made to pass before the minds of the disciples, or it was a reality as it appeared. The view that it was merely a representation receives some countenance from the fact that it is called a vision. “Tell the vision to no man,” said Christ; and, while the word, vision, is sometimes applied to real appearances, as in Luke 24:43, it also is taken to represent things that do not yet exist, as in John’s vision of the new heavens and new earth. Again, Luke says that they (Moses and Elias) “appeared in glory.” Our Lord himself has not yet attained unto the full measure of glory that is to result to him from his work of redemption, 1 Pet. 1:11; Isa. 53:11; and it may well be doubted likewise if any of his followers have reached their full state of glory. If, then, the expression quoted from Luke refers to the future perfected glory of the redeemed, we have another evidence that this was only a representation, like John’s visions of future scenes of bliss, and not then a reality. But, if this was only a vision, no argument can be drawn from it for the intermediate existence of the soul; for, in 140that case, Moses and Elias need not have been even immaterially present.

But let us consider it a reality. Then the presence of Moses can be accounted for by supposing his resurrection from the dead. Against this hypothesis our opponents have nothing to offer but their own assertions; and they seem determined to make up in the amount of this commodity what it lacks in conclusiveness. Thus Landis says, “Moses had died and was buried, and as his body had never been raised from the dead, he of course appeared as a disembodied spirit.” And Luther Lee says, “So far as Moses is concerned, the argument is conclusive.” But against these authorities, we bring forth another on the other side, as weighty, at least, as both of them together. Dr. Adam Clarke says, on the same passage, “The body of Moses was probably raised again, as a pledge of the resurrection.”

Before presenting an argument to show that Moses was raised, let us look at one consideration which proves beyond a peradventure that what appeared on the mount was not Moses’ disembodied spirit. It will be admitted by all that the transfiguration was for the purpose of presenting in miniature the future kingdom of God, the kingdom of glory. Andrews (Life of our Lord, p. 321) says: “The Lord was pleased to show certain of the apostles, by a momentary 141transfiguration of his person, the supernatural character of his kingdom, and into what new and higher conditions of being both he and they must be brought ere it could come.... They saw in the ineffable glory of his person, and the brightness around them, a foreshadowing of the kingdom of God as it should come with power; and were for a moment ’eye-witnesses of his majesty.’ 2 Pet. 1:16.”

Who are to be the subjects in this heavenly kingdom? Ans. Those who are translated at Christ’s coming, and the righteous dead who are raised from their graves at that time. Will there be any disembodied spirits there? None; for the theory is that at the resurrection, which precedes the setting up of this kingdom, the disembodied spirits again take possession of their reanimated bodies. Of this kingdom, the transfiguration was a representation. There was Christ, the glorified king; there was Elias, the representative of those who are to be translated; and there was Moses; but, if it was simply his disembodied soul, then there was a representation of something that will not exist in the kingdom of God at all; and the representation was an imperfect one, and so an utter failure. But if Moses was there in a body raised from the dead, then the scene was harmonious and consistent, he representing, as Dr. Clarke supposes, the righteous dead who are to be raised, and Elias, the living who are to be translated.

142The question now turns upon the resurrection of Moses from the dead; and if scriptural evidence can be shown that Moses was thus raised, this passage immediately changes sides in this controversy. That Moses was raised, we think is to be necessarily inferred from Jude 9: “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” It will be noticed that this dispute was about the body of Moses. Michael (Christ, John 5:27-29; 1 Thess. 4:16) and the devil, each claimed, it appears, the right to do something with his body.

Some have endeavored to reconcile Jude’s testimony with the non-resurrection of Moses, by claiming that the devil wished to make known to the children of Israel the place of Moses’ burial, in order to lead them into idolatry; and that the contention between him and Michael had reference to this. But such a conjecture cannot be entertained, as in this case the contention would have been about the grave of Moses, rather than about his body.

But this dispute did have reference solely to the body of Moses. Then we inquire further what the devil has to do with the bodies of men. He is said to have the power of death; hence the grave is his dominion, and whoever enters there he claims as his lawful prey. On the 143other hand, Christ is the Life-giver, whose prerogative it is to bring men out from under the power of death. The most natural conclusion, therefore, is, that the dispute took place on this very point; that it had reference to the bringing back to life of that dead body, which the devil would naturally wish to keep, and claim the right to keep, in his own power. But Christ rebuked the adversary, and rescued his victim from his grasp. This is the necessary inference from this passage, and, as such, is entitled to weight in this argument.

The chief objection to this view, is this: If Moses was raised so many years before the resurrection of Christ, how can Christ be called the first-fruits of them that slept, as in 1 Cor. 15:20, 23? how can he be said to be the first that should rise from the dead, as in Acts 26:23? or be called the first-begotten, and first-begotten of the dead, as in Heb. 1:6, and Rev. 1:5? or the first-born among many brethren, the first-born of every creature, and the first-born from the dead, as in Rom. 8:29, and Col. 1:15, 18?

In answering these queries, we first call attention to an important fact: Several individuals, of whom we have explicit account, were raised to life before the resurrection of Christ. The following cases may be cited: (1) The widow’s son, 1 Kings 17, (2) the son of the Shunammite, 2 Kings 4, (3) the son of the widow of Nain, 144Luke 7:14, (4) the ruler’s daughter, Luke 8:40, 55, and (5) the resurrection of Lazarus.

These instances cannot be disposed of by making a distinction between a resurrection to mortality and one to immortality; for where does the Bible make any such distinction? or where does it give even an intimation of anything of the kind? Christ, in sending word to John of the results of his work, told the disciples to tell him, among other things, that the dead were raised up. And when the wicked are restored to life, it is called a resurrection, no less so than the restoration of the righteous. See John 5:29; Acts 24:15; Rev. 20:5. But the wicked are not raised to immortality; therefore in the matter of being raised from the dead, the Bible recognizes no distinction on account of the different conditions to which the different classes are raised. Hence the cases referred to above were resurrections from the dead just as really as though they had been raised to immortality; and the distinction which some attempt to make is thus shown to be wholly gratuitous, and is excluded from the controversy.

The objection now lies just as much against the cases of those of whose resurrection we have the most explicit account, as against that of Moses; and the question next to be met is, Can those passages which declare that a number of the dead were raised before the resurrection of 145Christ, and those which speak of Christ as the first to be raised, be shown to be free from contradiction?

It will be noticed that the objection, so far as the words, first-fruits, first-begotten, and first-born, are concerned, rests wholly upon the supposition that these words denote exclusively priority in time. It instantly vanishes before the fact that these words are not confined to this meaning.

Christ is called the first-fruits in 1 Cor. 15, solely in reference to his being the antitype of the wave-sheaf, and in contrast with the great harvest that will take place at his second coming. This word is used in different senses, as we learn from Jas. 1:18, and Rev. 14:4, where it cannot have reference to antecedence in time. This is all that need be said on this word.

The word rendered first-begotten and first-born is πρωτοτοκος (prototokos). This word is defined by Robinson thus: “Properly the first-born of father or mother;” and, as the first-born was entitled to certain prerogatives and privileges over the rest of the family, the word takes another meaning, namely, “first-born, the same as the first, the chief, one highly distinguished and pre-eminent. So of Christ, the beloved Son of God. Col. 1:15.” Greenfield’s definition is similar. This word is used in the same sense in the Septuagint. In Ex. 4:22, Israel is called 146the first-born; and in Jer. 31:9, Ephraim is called the first-born; but, in point of time, Esau was before Israel, and Manasseh before Ephraim. Their being called the first-born must therefore be owing to the rank, dignity, and station, to which they had attained.

And hence the conclusion is not without foundation that these words, when applied to Christ, denote the pre-eminent rank and station which he holds in the great work, rather than the order of time in which his resurrection occurred, a point to which no importance whatever can be attached. All hinges upon Christ, and all is accomplished by his power, and by virtue of his resurrection. He stands out foremost and pre-eminent in all these displays, whether they take place before or after his advent to this world.

The expression in Acts 27:23, presents apparently the greatest difficulty of any. The verse reads: “That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.” As it stands in our common version it is difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that a number were raised from the dead previous to the resurrection of Christ as already noticed, and we are led to wonder why Paul, knowing of all these cases, should make such a statement. But, if we mistake not, 147the original presents a different idea. In Greenfield’s Testament, the text stands thus:--

We call the attention of those familiar with the Greek to this passage, and submit that it can be properly rendered as follows: “That Christ was to suffer, [and] that first from the resurrection of the dead he was to show light to the people and to the Gentiles.”

Bloomfield, in his note on this verse, says that the words “may be rendered, either ‘after the resurrection from the dead,’ or ‘by the resurrection;’ but the latter is preferable.” And Wakefield translates it thus: “That the Christ would suffer death, and would be the first to proclaim salvation to this people and to the Gentiles by a resurrection from the dead.”

This is in accordance with what the same apostle declared to Timothy (1 Tim. 1:10), that Christ brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And viewed in this light, the text is freed from all difficulty. It simply teaches that Christ would be the first to demonstrate before the people, by a resurrection from the dead, future life and immortality for the redeemed.

The resurrection of Lazarus, and other similar cases, though they might show that the power of death could be so far broken as to give us a new 148lease of mortal life, shed no light on our existence beyond this mortal state. And the resurrection of Moses, supposing him to have been raised, was not a public demonstration designed to show the people the path to a future life. So far as we have any account, no one knew that he had been raised till he appeared upon the mount of transfiguration. Christ was the first one to show to the world, by his rising from the dead, the great light of life and immortality beyond the grave.

Thus the last seeming objection against the idea that Moses had a resurrection is taken away; while in its favor we have his appearance on the mount, and the language of Jude, which can be explained on no other ground.

Let us then take that view which a consistent regard for scriptural harmony demands, though another supposed strong column on which rests the dogma of the immortality of the soul, goes down before it with a crash to the very dust.

Yes, says the immaterialist, for he taught that God, who declares himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is not the God of the dead, but of the living; therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are living; but they are living as immaterial, disembodied immortal spirits; for their bodies are in the grave.

The occasion on which these words were spoken is described in Matt. 22:23-32. To understand the words of Christ, we must understand fully the point at issue, and what his words were designed to prove; and to do this, we must look carefully at the narrative:--

What, then, was the point at issue between Christ and the Sadducees? See verse 23: “The same day, came to him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection, and asked him,” &c. The Sadducees professed to believe the writings of Moses, but denied the resurrection. Christ also believed the writings of Moses, but taught the resurrection. Here, then, was a fair issue between them. They hear him teaching the resurrection; and to object their faith to his, they refer to the law of Moses concerning marriage, and then state a familiar fact; viz., that seven brothers, one after another, all had one woman, and all died. Now arises a problem very difficult to their minds, no doubt. How will this matter be arranged in the resurrection which you teach? Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection? Let it be noticed that the controversy between Christ and the Sadducees had no respect whatever to an intermediate state, nor does their query or Christ’s answer have any reference to such a state. They do not inquire whose wife she is now, or which of the men’s immortal souls claims her immortal soul in the spirit world; but, Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection (a future event)? Christ tells them that they err, 151not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. And then, to defend himself and condemn them out of their own mouth, he proceeds to prove--what? a conscious intermediate state? No; but the resurrection, from the writings of Moses. “But as touching the resurrection from the dead,” says he [as touching the dead that they rise, says Mark; and that the dead are raised, says Luke], “have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

Let us now show that this quotation did prove the resurrection, and our argument on this passage is closed. That, Moses by this language, did teach the resurrection of the dead, we think is easily evident. Thus, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were dead; but God is not the God of the dead (or those who are irrecoverably and eternally dead, as the Sadducees believed them to be), but he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What, therefore, shall we logically and scripturally conclude from this fact? Why, simply that they shall live again, or have a resurrection from the dead. In this view of the subject, Christ reasoned well, proved the point he aimed to prove, confounded the Sadducees, and gained the applause of the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection.

152But grant for a moment that the language means what is popularly claimed for it, and what becomes of Christ’s reputation as a reasoner, and a teacher of wisdom sent from God? He set out to prove the resurrection; but when he closes his argument, lo, wonderful to tell! he has proved that all men are alive, and, therefore, there is no need of a resurrection! He neither meets the query of the Sadducees, nor defends himself, but quite the reverse. Believe that our Lord would reason thus, ye who can!

If any should admit that a resurrection is proved by the language, but claim from it that such resurrection takes place at death, a theory not uncommon at the present time, we reply that they thereby abandon the conscious-state theory, and affirm the existence of those who have died, on another ground, viz., a resurrection. But, further, this is equally foreign from what Christ set out to prove; for he had reference to an event which was then future to the seven brethren and the woman that died. They asked him, saying, “In the resurrection, therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them,” &c. And Jesus answered and said, “When they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in Heaven.” Mark 12:23-25. Again, in Luke’s account, Jesus says, “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection 153from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Luke 20:35. Thus we see that a future event is everywhere referred to, and if he in reality proved that an event had already taken place, which he designed to show would take place in the future, it speaks no better for his reasoning or his wisdom than the former supposition.

Why God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though they are yet dead, we learn from Heb. 11:16. It is not because they are now alive, but because in God’s purpose who speaks of things that are not, as though they were, they are to live, and “he hath prepared for them a city.” “Wherefore“Wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city,” into possession of which they will of course come in the future.

In view of these facts, our friends should be careful lest they expose themselves to the rebuke Christ gave to the Sadducees: “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures;” for this instance, like all others, when properly understood, so far from sustaining their position, becomes an irrefragable evidence of the resurrection of the dead, and a future life, but affirms nothing whatever for consciousness in death.

The hoary fable that every man has in his own nature an immaterial, ever-conscious, never-dying principle, vaulting from the gloomy regions of heathen mythology over into the precincts of Christianity, and claiming the positive authority of Christ and his apostles, instead of the uncertain speculations of Socrates and Plato, conceives that it finds a secure intrenchment in Luke 16:19-31, or the record concerning the rich man and Lazarus.

Into this record, as into the strongest of strongholds, it enters with every demonstration of confidence; and from its supposed impregnable walls, it hurls mockery and defiance against all opposing views, as the infatuated subjects of Belshazzar defied the soldiers of Cyrus from the walls of Babylon.

We venture to approach, at least to reconnoiter. We venture further, from the record itself, even to lay siege to it, and dig a trench about it, which, if we mistake not, will soon effectually reduce it, and all the arguments for immortality it is supposed to contain.

The first fact to which we call the attention of 155the reader is that Christ, as the result of this narrative or parable, or whatever it may be, refers us to Moses and the prophets for light and information respecting the place and condition of the dead. In the record, the rich man is represented as requesting that Lazarus might be sent to his brethren on earth, lest they should come into the same place of torment. How would he prevent them? By carrying back to them information respecting the state that follows this life; by telling how it fared with the covetous rich man who had enjoyed his good things in this life, and inducing them to live such a life here as to avoid the condition into which he had fallen.

And what was Abraham’s answer? “They have Moses and the prophets.... If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” That is to say, Moses and the prophets had given them just as positive information respecting the condition into which man passes from this life, as could be given them by one who should repass the portals of the grave and rise from the dead.

The significance of this declaration should not be overlooked. It throws us right back upon the records of Moses and the prophets for information upon that subject respecting which the incident here related is claimed to be full and sufficient testimony.

156We therefore inquire what Moses and the prophets have taught us respecting the place where the scene here depicted is represented to have taken place. What place was this? Answer, Hades; for this is the word from which hell is translated in verse 23. In hell, hades, the rich man lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham and Lazarus afar off, though still within sight and speaking distance. The New Testament was written in Greek, while Moses and the prophets wrote in Hebrew. What is the Hebrew word answering to the Greek hades? Answer, Sheol. These are the equivalent terms in the two languages. All that a Hebrew writer meant by sheol, a Greek writer meant by hades, and vice versa. The question, then, is simply this: What have Moses and the prophets taught us respecting sheol, and the condition of those who enter therein?

Meaning of hades and sheol. These words denote the common receptacle of the dead, both righteous and wicked. The righteous dead are there; for at the resurrection they raise the victorious shout, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave [Gr. hades], where is thy victory?” 1 Cor. 15:55. And the wicked dead are there; for at the resurrection to damnation it is said that death and hell [Gr. hades] deliver them up. Rev. 20:13. That the hades of the New Testament is the sheol of the Old, Ps. 16, and Acts 2:27, bear testimony. Thus Ps. 16:10, says, “Thou 157wilt not leave my soul in hell [Heb. sheol];” and the New Testament, as above, makes a direct quotation of this passage by saying, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades.”

Use of the word sheol. This word occurs in the Old Testament sixty-five times. It is rendered hell and grave each thirty-one times, and pit three times. With our Lord’s special indorsement of what is there written concerning it, we may look with interest at the facts brought out by the testimony of Moses and the prophets.

All alike go there. Thus Jacob says, “I will go down into sheol [to use the original word in place of the English rendering], unto my son mourning.” Gen. 37:35. Korah and his company went down into sheol. Num. 16:30, 33. All mankind go there. Ps. 89:48.

What goes into sheol. Sheol receives the whole man bodily at death. Jacob expected to go down with his gray hairs to sheol. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, went into sheol bodily. The soul of the Saviour left sheol at his resurrection. Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, 31. David, when restored from dangerous sickness, testified that his soul was saved from going into sheol. Ps. 30:2, 3.

The duration of its dominion. Those who go down into sheol must remain there till their resurrection. At the second coming of Christ, 158all the righteous are delivered from sheol. All the living wicked are then turned into sheol, and for one thousand years it holds them in its dread embrace. Then it gives them up, and judgment is executed upon them. Rev. 20:11-15.

Location of sheol. It is in the earth beneath. It embraces the interior of the earth as the region of the dead, and the place of every grave. Eze. 32:18-32. It is always spoken of as beneath, in the interior of the earth, or in the nether parts of the earth. See Num. 16:30, 33; Isa. 5:14; 14:9-20; Eze. 31:15-18; 32:18-32. Referring to the fires now preying upon the interior parts of the earth, and which shall at last cause the earth to melt with fervent heat, the Lord, through Moses, says: “For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest sheol, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundation of the mountains.” Deut. 32:22. Jonah went down into sheol when he descended into the depths of the waters, where none but dead men had ever been. Jonah 1:2.

Condition of the righteous in sheol. They do not praise the Lord there. David so testifies: “In death there is no remembrance of thee; in sheol who shall give thee thanks?” Ps. 6:5. Hezekiah uttered the same great truth, when he was delivered from death in answer to prayer: “I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go 159to the gates of sheol; I am deprived of the residue of my years.... Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back. For sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” Isa. 38:10-19; Ps. 115:17; 146:1-4.

Condition of the wicked in sheol. They are still and silent there. David, in a prayer indited by the Spirit of God, says: “Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in sheol.” Ps. 31:17. In 1 Sam. 2:9, we read that the wicked shall be silent in darkness.

General character of sheol. It is a place of silence, secresy, sleep, rest, darkness, corruption, and worms. Job says: “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep. Oh! that thou wouldst hide me in sheol, that thou wouldst keep me secret till thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me. If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.” Job 14:12-15. Again he says: 160“If I wait, sheol is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. And where is now my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of sheol, when our rest together is in the dust.”dust.” Job. 17:13-16; 4:11-19; Ps. 88:10-12.

There is no knowledge in sheol. This fact is plainly stated by Solomon through the Spirit of inspiration: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in sheol whither thou goest.”goest.” Eccl. 9:4-6, 10. When man goes in there his very thoughts perish. Ps. 146:4.

Such are the great facts concerning sheol, or hades, revealed to us in the books of “Moses and the prophets.” Their statements are literal, plain, explicit, and unequivocal. In opposition to all these, can it be maintained that in sheol and hades there is consciousness, wisdom, device, knowledge, happiness, and misery, as is popularly claimed on the authority of this record about the rich man and Lazarus? If not, and if sheol is such a place of silence, darkness, inactivity, and unconsciousness, as they declare, can the use of such language as is employed respecting the rich man and Lazarus in this very place be accounted for?

The previous chapter left us with the problem on our hands whether it were better to try to overthrow all that Moses and the prophets have written respecting sheol and the condition of those who enter therein, for the purpose of sustaining the common view of the rich man and Lazarus, or to try to account for the use of the language used in that narrative, in harmony with what Moses and the prophets have said respecting that place.

In the first place, we cannot set aside what Moses and the prophets have written; for Christ, in the very case under consideration, indorses them and refers us to them for instruction. How, then, can we account for the fact that the rich man is represented as conscious, intelligent, and active, in hades, when Moses and the prophets have taught us that hades is a place of darkness and silence, without knowledge, wisdom, or device? If the record of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable, the use of such language is at once accounted for; for if it is a parable, the language is allegorical; and in allegory, life and action are often attributed to inanimate objects, 162for the sake of enforcing or illustrating some particular truth.

Some notable instances of this style of writing are furnished us in the Old Testament. In Judges 9:7-15, the trees are represented as going forth to anoint a king over them; and they appealed to the olive tree and the fig tree and the vine, and received answers from them in which they declined to leave their stations of usefulness to be promoted over them. Finally, they appealed to the bramble; and the bramble accepted the trust. Now this representation was not designed to teach that trees ordain civil government, walk about, and converse together; but it was to illustrate the folly of the men of Shechem in electing Abimelech king. Again, in 2 Kings 14:9, we read that the king of Israel sent to the king of Judah, saying, “The thistle in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife.” This is not to teach that thistles and cedars have sons and daughters who unite in marriage, but to illustrate the contempt which the king of Israel felt for the proposition which the king of Judah made to him.

Landis, p. 188, claims that it makes no difference whether the case of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable or not, since a parable should not be so worded as to convey a wrong impression to the mind, which this would do, if the 163soul is not conscious in death. We reply, It makes all the difference in the world; for if it is a parable, the life and action attributed to the inanimate inhabitants of hades, is not to teach anything respecting their real condition, any more than the life and action attributed to the trees and brambles in the cases referred to, is designed to teach what their condition is; but this intelligence and action are attributed to these inanimate objects, to illustrate some great truth which the speaker wished to enforce.

In the case of the rich man and Lazarus, what was the object in view? Answer: To rebuke the Pharisees for their covetousness (“And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things; and they derided him.” Verse 14); to show to them, since they thought that riches in this life was a mark of the divine favor and would secure God’s blessing in the next, that if they gave themselves up to the sensual enjoyment of their riches, neglecting and oppressing the poor, they would, in the future, meet God’s wrath instead of his favor; and that the poor, whom they despised and oppressed, might attain to that very state of felicity, set forth under the figure of Abraham’s bosom, of which they thought themselves so sure.

That this is a parable seems abundantly evident: 1. It stands in connection with a long list of parables. The preceding chapter, Luke 16415, contains three. This chapter opens with the parable of the unjust steward; and there is no intimation of a change from parable to literal narration in this case. 2. It is said that this cannot be a parable, because it is introduced by a direct assertion. “There was a certain rich man,” &c. But others which are parables are introduced in exactly the same manner. Thus verse 1, “There was a certain rich man which had a steward,” &c. And chapter 15:11: “A certain man had two sons,” &c. 3. The prophets, to whom we are referred, speak of the dead in sheol, in the nether parts of the earth, as conversing together, taunting each other, weeping bitterly, refusing to be comforted, &c., representations exactly similar to those made in the case of the rich man and Lazarus, and full as striking, but which no one can regard as setting forth the actual condition of the dead.

Thus in Isa. 14:9-20, it is represented that when the king of Babylon is overthrown, he goes down into sheol, and the DEAD (for there are no others in its dark domain) are stirred up to meet him. The kings that had been destroyed by the king of Babylon, are represented as having thrones in sheol beneath, and when the king of Babylon joins them in their dark abode, they rise up from their thrones, and mock him with feigned obeisance, as in life they had rendered him real homage. And they say, “Art thou become 165weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” No one can suppose that they literally act or speak thus. But all this is a striking figure to represent that death would reduce the king of Babylon to the same level with his subjects and prisoners.

Again in Eze. 31:15-18, and 32:17-32, Pharaoh and his host, slain in battle with the king of Babylon, are set forth in the same manner. The strong among the mighty are represented as speaking to him out of the midst of sheol, as he enters therein. And this sheol, in “the nether parts of the earth,” full of graves and of the dead, is contrasted with the land of the living. These victims of slaughter went down to sheol with their weapons of war; and their swords they “laid under their heads;” and when Pharaoh, lying among them, saw the multitude of his enemies that were slain also, he was comforted at the sight.

Another case, perhaps still more remarkable, is that of Rachel. Jer. 31:15-17; Matt. 2:17, 18; Gen. 25:17-20. Long ages after Rachel had died, and entered into sheol, a dreadful slaughter took place among her posterity. Thereupon she is represented as breaking forth into lamentation and bitter weeping, and refusing to be comforted because her children were not. And the Lord says to her, “Refrain thy voice from weeping, 166and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord.”

No one can suppose that Rachel literally wept at the murder of her children nearly 2000 years after her death, nor that the slaughtered Egyptians put their swords under their heads as they were lying in sheol, and conversed together in the nether parts of the earth, some being comforted, and others ashamed; nor that the kings overthrown by the king of Babylon rose up from their sepulchral thrones in mock solemnity, and taunted him with becoming weak as they.

But these were all figures to set forth great and salutary truths. May not our Lord then, for once, be permitted for a like purpose to use a like figure, so largely employed by the prophets, and so well known to his hearers, by personifying persons in hades to perform actions which were not there literally to occur? We have certainly as good reason to suppose that Rachel, the Egyptians, and the king of Babylon, were real personages, and their descent into sheol and the accompanying circumstance as related by the prophets, veritable history, as to suppose that Dives was a real character, and his torment in hades, and his conversation with Abraham, a real transaction.

Those who held in their hands the Old-Testament scriptures were perfectly familiar with such figures. There the “trees of the field” converse 167and “clap their hands,” the “floods” lift up their “voice,” the hills and mountains “sing,” stones from the wall “cry out,” and beams “answer,” the blood of Abel finds a “voice,” and “cries out from the ground,” and dead men rejoice over the fall of their rivals, slain by the sword. In a volume abounding with such figures, cannot for once a rich man, representing a class of living persons, be endowed in hades with life and speech? must this one figure of personification be singled out from all others, as a rigidly literal narrative, and be made to sustain the weight of the most terrific doctrine of which the mind of man can conceive?

Sufficient evidence has been produced to show that this is a parable. And now we invite the attention of the reader to the testimony of two eminent authors respecting the use which should be made of parables.

Dr. Clarke (note on Matt. 5:26) says:--

And Trench, in his work on parables, lays down this very important rule:--

But some persist that this is not a parable, but a literal narrative; and not to seem captious, we will consider it in this light. If this is veritable history, all the particulars must be taken literally. Then the wicked, tormented in the flames of hell, are within sight and speaking distance of the saved in Heaven. In other words, Heaven is but the shore of hell, and on that shore the redeemed can sit and watch the damned in their fearful contortions of agony for which there is no name, and listen to their entreaties for relief and their shrieks of fathomless despair, to an extent, it would seem, sufficient to satisfy the fiercest vengeance and the most implacable revenge. If this be so, our friends must certainly abandon the argument they build on Rev. 6:9, 10, where they have it that the souls of the martyrs, disembodied and conscious, cry to God to visit vengeance upon their persecutors. If they were where they could look over into the fiery gulf, and behold their persecutors vainly battling 169with its flaming billows, or if not already there, destined in a few short years to be plunged therein, let no one say of the holy martyrs that they would, under such circumstances, cry impatiently to God to hasten or intensify his vengeance. The arguments based on the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, and Rev. 6:9, 10, must, one or the other of them, be given up; for they devour each other. Let the advocates of the popular theory look to this.

The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. Let it be noted that the persons themselves, as a whole, are spoken of, not any of their essential elements, or immaterial appendages. Nothing is said of the soul of either the rich man or Lazarus. As we are now considering this as a literal transaction, a question vital to the argument is, When do the angels bear those who have died, as persons (for there is nothing anywhere said about the angels’ carrying their souls), into Abraham’s bosom, or the state of the blessed? Such scriptures as Matt. 24:30, 31; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17, answer this question very explicitly: “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” When? At the second advent of the Son of man in majesty and glory; for then it is that the voice of the archangel, 170ringing through the long galleries of hades, shall wake the righteous dead from their silent slumbers, and angels bear them upward on wings of light, to be forever with the Lord.

The rich man dies, and is buried; and his next experience is the suffering of torment in consuming flame. How long after his burial he finds himself in this torment, we are not directly informed. But he has bodily organs; for he has eyes to see, and a tongue to be cooled; but these the dead are not usually considered to possess till the resurrection. This drives Landis, p. 191, to the unusual admission that the soul retains the human form, with its corresponding organs, hands, feet, eyes, tongue, &c. Again, the rich man sees Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom; but, as we have already seen, Lazarus is not literally borne there by the angels till the resurrection.

As a literal transaction, the scene is inevitably located, by the concurrent testimony of all Scripture, beyond the resurrection. How, then, it can be said to transpire in hades, we leave those to decide who believe that it is a literal transaction. Certain it is that no such scenes can really occur in hades, if the representations of that place given us by Moses and the prophets are correct; while analogous scenes will really take place beyond the resurrection: there the righteous are rewarded, and the wicked punished in devouring fire; there the Lord told the impenitent 171Jews that they should see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and they themselves thrust out, and that then there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Luke 13:28.

One view, only, maintains harmony between this and other portions of the sacred writings; and that is the one which is here, imperfectly it may be, but yet sincerely, advocated: that Christ, following the example of the prophets, uses the figure of personification, and anticipates, as transpiring in the grave, scenes which substantially occur beyond the resurrection; and that the object of the parable was to rebuke the Pharisees for their covetousness by indicating the fate that awaited a life of avarice and oppression here, however sumptuous that life might be.

That it does not teach the existence of conscious souls between death and the resurrection, is forever settled by the fact that Lazarus could return only by a resurrection from the dead. When the rich man requested that Lazarus might be sent to warn his brethren, Abraham replied that they had Moses and the prophets, and if they would not hear them, they would not “be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” The conversation did not therefore relate to the coming back of the immortal soul of Lazarus; and indeed no mention is made of any such thing in the whole transaction.

172Therefore, interpret it as we may, it cannot be reasonably or scripturally used to prove the entrance of man’s naked, unclothed spirit into bliss or woe at the hour of death.

According to Luke’s account of the crucifixion of our Saviour, Luke 23:27-46, one of the two malefactors who were crucified with him, said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” Verses 42, 43. This, says the immaterialist, “must ever stand as a clear announcement of the uninterrupted immortality of the soul.” (Landis, p. 211.) The “clear announcement” is made out in this manner: Christ and the thief, it is claimed, both died that day; they both went to paradise that day; and their condition while there was, of course, one of consciousness and intelligence.

There is one fact which stands somewhat in the way of this clear announcement; and that is, that Christ did not go to paradise that day. In answer to the popular view, we first set forth 173this unqualified proposition, and undertake its proof; and if this shall prove to be well grounded, the doctrine of annihilation will be found in a degree true; for the claims usually built on the scripture above quoted are utterly and forever annihilated by this fact.

In entering upon the argument to show that Christ did not go to paradise that day, we first inquire what paradise is and where it is. The word occurs but three times in the English version of the Scriptures, all in the New Testament; two besides the verse under consideration; but these are amply sufficient to define and locate it.

First, Paul in 2 Cor. 12:2, says: “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth), such an one caught up to the third Heaven.” In verse 4, he affirms that the place to which this man was caught up was paradise. This establishes the fact that paradise is in the third Heaven.

Again, in Rev. 2:7, we read the promise which the Saviour gives to the overcomers; and he says: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” This establishes another equally important fact, that paradise is where the tree of life now is. Now, if the Scriptures anywhere give us any further information respecting the place where the tree of 174life is to be found, we have still further testimony respecting paradise.

In Rev. 21 and 22, we have a description of the New Jerusalem, the holy city which is above. In chap. 22:1, 2, we read: “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it [the city], and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month.” By this testimony, we learn that the tree of life, which grows in the midst of the paradise of God, is in the holy city, fast by the river of life, which proceeds from the throne of God. Nothing could be more explicit than this. We have now found the paradise of the New Testament. It is in the third Heaven, where the tree of life is, and where God maintains his residence and his throne. Whoever, therefore, goes into paradise, goes into the presence of God. If the Saviour went there on the day of his crucifixion, with the impenitent thief, he went into the presence of his Father.

Now let us reverently listen to the words of the Lord and believe what he says, while he himself testifies whether he went to paradise on the day of his crucifixion, or not. On the morning of his resurrection, the third day after his crucifixion, he said to Mary, who was about to embrace 175his feet, in accordance with the ancient custom of deference or worship, “Touch me not; FOR I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY FATHER.” The third day, remember, from the crucifixion, and not ascended into paradise yet!

Struck into a state of bewilderment by this stunning fact, Landis, pp. 209, 211, clutches wildly for some supports by which to rear again his prostrate structure. He feigns to find evidence in John 16:16, that Jesus told his disciples that at death he would go to his Father: a scripture which very evidently has reference, not to his death, but to his bodily ascension, forty days after his resurrection. Then, referring to the fact that the word “ascend” is from anabaino, he says: “Now every tyro knows that in composition ana has very frequently [?] the force of again. Baino alone means simply to ascend; ana adds a shade of meaning.”

It is frequently the case that writers try to drive others into an admission of their statements by representing that they will appear very ignorant and stupid to deny them. But Mr. L., not being a tyro, doubtless understands that nearly every statement in this criticism is false in itself considered, and every one of them wholly so, as applied to the case in hand. Ana, in composition with baino, does not have the force of again. In neither Liddell and Scott, Robinson, Greenfield, nor Parkhurst, is there any such definition 176as “ascended again” given to anabaino. Baino alone does not mean “to ascend.” No such definition is given to it in the standard authorities here named. It means simply to go, without any reference to the direction; other words, either in composition with it, or in the context, signifying whether this motion is up or down, forward or backward, over or under, &c. In no one of the eighty-one instances of the use of the word in the New Testament, is it translated “ascend again.” And finally, those texts which Mr. L. quotes as containing the word again, as Matt. 3:16, which he quotes, “Christ went up again, or returned,” and Matt. 5:1, which he quotes, “He went up again into a mountain,” the word, again, is not expressed in the English nor implied in the Greek. In only one instance is the word again used with anabaino; that is Gal. 2:1, where Paul says, “I went up again to Jerusalem;” but here the word again is from another word (palin), and anabaino is translated simply “went up.”

Rarely do we meet with an instance of more reckless desperation in the line of criticism. And what is the object of it? It is to have us understand that when Christ says, “I am not yet ascended to my Father,” he means to say, I am not yet ascended again to my Father. And from this he would have us further draw the lucid inference that Christ had ascended once, that is, in 177his disembodied spirit, between his death and resurrection, and now tells Mary not to touch him because he has not ascended again! It would be difficult to conceive of a more unnecessary and far-fetched inference. And that men will seriously contend for such a view, shows the orbless obstinacy with which they will cling to preconceived notions, though they have only the most groundless trifles to sustain them, rather than surrender them for more consistent views. Nothing can be more evident than that Christ, when he said, “I am not yet ascended to my Father,” affirmed in the most direct manner that since his advent into this world, he had not, up to that time, ascended to his Father.

Rather than thus summarily lose the argument that the thief was still conscious in death, and that the soul is therefore (?) immortal, another attempt is made to adjust the matter thus: Although Christ did not go to his Father, he nevertheless went to paradise, which is not where the Father dwells, but the intermediate resting place of departed souls. Do we then understand them? We found them, a little while ago, arguing from Eccl. 12:7, that the disembodied spirit did return to God; which they claimed to be proof positive that the soul is immortal; and thought it would puzzle the annihilationists not a little. Do they now give this up, and admit that the soul or spirit does not go to God, but only into some intermediate 178place, called paradise? It matters not to us which position they take, only we wish to know which one it is. We cannot hold our peace and allow them to take one position on one text and another on another, to avoid the embarrassments into which their theory plunges at every turn.

That paradise is no intermediate state, a halfway house between the grave and the resurrection, we have fully shown; for we have the positive statements of the Scriptures to show that paradise is in the third Heaven, where God sits upon his throne; and Christ told Mary, the third day after his crucifixion, in so many words, that he had not yet ascended there.

The popular interpretation of Christ’s language to the thief thus utterly failing, we are thrown back upon the text for some other explanation of the phraseology there used: “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

There are but two probable ways in which this language can be interpreted: One is, to let the phrase, “to-day,” refer to the time to which the thief had reference in his request. He said, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” He looked forward to the day when Christ should come into his kingdom. And if the “to-day” in Christ’s answer refers to this time, then the sense would be, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day, 179or this day, the day to which you refer, when I come into my kingdom, thou shalt be with me in paradise.” The word, to-day, is from the Greek, σήμερον (semeron); and all the definitions we find of it would seem to confine it to present time, excluding an application of it to the future. This interpretation, therefore, we think cannot be urged.

The other, and only remaining method of interpreting the passage, is to place the comma after “to-day,” making to-day an adverb qualifying say. The sense would then be, Verily I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me in paradise, at that period in the future when I shall come in my kingdom.

This method of punctuation, if it is allowable, clears the subject of all difficulty. Let us then candidly consider what objections can be urged against it.

As to the punctuation itself, we all know that that is not the work of inspiration, and withal that it is of recent origin, the comma in its present form not having been invented till the year A. D. 1790. It is therefore allowable to change this in any manner that the sense of the passage, the context, or even other portions of the Scriptures may demand. And in support of this punctuation, we have the example of some Greek manuscripts, which, according to Griesbach, place the comma after “to-day” in this declaration.

180But the objector accuses us of making sad nonsense of the text by this change; and he asks, in bitter irony, “Didn’t the thief know it was that day, without Christ’s telling him?” Very true, as a matter of fact; but let the objector beware lest his sarcasm fall upon the Scriptures themselves; for such very expressions do occur therein. See Zech. 9:12: “Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope: even to-day do I declare that I will render double unto thee.” Transposing this sentence, without altering the sense, we have phraseology similar to that of Luke 23:43; namely, “I declare unto you even to-day, I will render double unto thee.” The events threatened here were to take place in the future, when the Lord should bend Judah, &c. See context. So the phrase, “to-day,” could not qualify the “rendering double,” &c., but only the declaration.

Here, then, is an expression exactly parallel with that in Luke, and the same irony is applicable; thus, “Did not the prisoners of hope know it was that day when the declaration was made to them?” But let our opponents now discard their unworthy weapon; for here it is leveled against the words of Inspiration itself.

But when we take into consideration the circumstances of the case, we see a force and propriety in the Saviour’s making his declaration emphatically upon that day. He had been 181preaching the advent of the kingdom of Heaven to listening multitudes. A kingdom, he had promised to his followers. But the powers of death and darkness had apparently triumphed, and were crushing into the very grave both his prospects and his promises. He who was expected to be the king of the coming kingdom, stretched upon the shameful cross, was expiring in ignominy and reproach; his disciples were scattered; and where now was the prospect of that kingdom which had been preached and promised? But amid the supernatural influences at work upon that memorable day, a ray of divine illumination may have flashed in upon the soul of the poor thief, traveling the same road of death beside his Lord. A conviction of the truthfulness of his claims as the Messiah, the Son of God, may have entered into his mind, and a desire have sprung up in his heart to trust his lot in his hands, leading him to put up a humble and sincere petition, Lord, in mercy remember me when the days of thy triumph and glory shall come. Yes, says the suffering Saviour, in the hearing of the mocking multitude, I say unto thee, to-day--to-day, in this hour of my darkness and agony--to-day, when the fatal cross is apparently giving the lie to all my pretensions--to-day, a day of forlorn prospects and withered hopes, so far as human eyes can see--verily, to-day, I say unto thee, thou shalt be with 182me in paradise, when my kingdom shall be established in triumph and glory.

Thus, there is a divine force and beauty in these words of our Lord, as uttered on that occasion. How like a sun at midnight would they have broken in upon the gloom that enshrouded the sorrowing hearts of the disciples, had they fathomed their import. For who had occasion to sink in despair, if not He upon whom all depended, and that, too, when expiring under the agonies of the cross. But lo! no cloud of gloom is sufficient to fix its shadows upon his serene brow. His divine foresight, riding calmly over the events of the present, fixes itself upon that coming period of glory, when he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. There, in the hour of his deepest humility, he points them to the joys of paradise.

Thus, by a simple removal of the comma one word forward, the stone of stumbling is taken out of this text, by making it harmonize with other Scriptures; and thus, the promise, by having reference to something in the future, and not to anything to be performed on that day, contains no affirmation of consciousness in death.

Another passage, supposed to teach the separate conscious existence of the soul, is found in 2 Cor. 5:8: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather, to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” On the acknowledged principle that it is illogical to endeavor to build any great doctrine upon an isolated passage, without taking into consideration the general tenor of the context, if not also other writings from the same author, let us look at some of the statements which Paul has made in this connection.

In verse 1 of this chapter, Paul introduces an earthly house and a heavenly house, and says, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” He states our condition while in the earthly house. Verse 2: “In this we groan,” verse 4, “being burdened.” He tells what we desire in this state. Verse 2. “Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven [verse 3]: if so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked.” In verse 4, Paul repeats all these facts in order to state 184the result of the work which he desired: “For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon.” Now he states the result of being clothed upon with the house from Heaven which he so earnestly desired: “But clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” Then he states that the condition he had in view is that for which God in the beginning designed the human race: “Now he that has wrought us for the self-same thing is God.” That is, God designed that we should ultimately reach that condition which he here designates as being clothed upon with our house from Heaven. Then he states what assurance we have in this life that we shall eventually attain to this condition: “who also hath given unto us the earnest [assurance, pledge, token] of the Spirit.” That is, the Spirit dwelling in our hearts, is the assurance or pledge we have that we shall finally receive the desire of our hearts, and be clothed upon with our house from Heaven. In verse 6, he states this to be the ground of his confidence, although while “we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” And then after incidentally stating the secret of the Christian’s course in this life, “we walk by faith, not by sight,” he penned the text quoted at the commencement of this chapter, stating that he was willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

185We now have before us quite fully, the subject upon which Paul is here treating. A thought now as to the meaning of the terms he employs. What does he mean by the earthly house and the heavenly house? by being clothed and unclothed? by mortality being swallowed up of life? and by being absent from the body and present with the Lord?

What he calls in verse 1, “our earthly house,” he designates in verse 6, as being “at home in the body.” The chief characteristic of this house is that it may be dissolved, or is mortal. This earthly house is therefore our mortal body, or what is essentially the same thing, this present mortal condition. The house from Heaven is eternal or immortal. This, therefore, by parity of reasoning, is the immortal body or the state of immortality which awaits the redeemed beyond the resurrection.

Paul, in Rom. 8:22, 23, speaks very plainly of these two conditions: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” None can fail to see the parallel between this passage in Romans, and that portion of 2 Cor. 5, now under consideration. To the Corinthians, Paul says, that in 186our earthly house we groan, being burdened; to the Romans, that we groan within ourselves, or in this mortal body; to the Corinthians, that while in this state we have the earnest of the Spirit; to the Romans, that we have the first-fruits of the Spirit, which is the same thing, the pledge, assurance, or earnest; to the Corinthians, that we desire to be clothed upon with our house from Heaven; to the Romans, that we wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. The ultimate object in view in both cases, as a matter of hope and desire, is the redeemed or eternal state; but in the one case it is being “clothed upon with our house from Heaven,” and in the other, it is “the redemption of our body.” These two expressions, therefore, denote one and the same thing.

Returning to a consideration of the meaning of the terms which Paul uses, we inquire what is meant by being unclothed. And the evident answer is, The dissolution of our earthly house, or the falling of our mortal body in death. The state of death, then, is that condition in which we are unclothed. And the being clothed upon, is being released from this state, when mortality is swallowed up of life, and we are taken into the presence of the Lord. Then Paul states a conclusion very apparent from his premises, that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, and adds that he is willing rather 187to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.

The only verse in which consciousness in death can even be supposed to be intimated, is the 8th verse, which speaks of our being absent from the body and present with the Lord. But even here it will be seen that the whole question turns on the time when we enter the presence of the Lord. Is it immediately on the dissolution of our earthly house? This the text does not inform us; but on this the preceding verses are very explicit, as we shall presently see.

Let us now look at a few considerations which show that it is impossible to harmonize the popular view of consciousness in death, with the statements which the apostle here makes. It is claimed that the house which we have eternal in the Heavens is the immortal soul with which we immediately enter into Heaven when the earthly house is dissolved. Granting that this is so, let us go forward a little and mark the difficulty in which this view is involved. The time comes when the mortal body is raised from the dead and made immortal. In these redeemed bodies we are to live in the kingdom of God to all eternity. This is finally our eternal house. But when we take possession of this, what becomes of our house that we occupied between death and the resurrection? If we pass from our mortal bodies at death immediately into a spiritual 188body prepared for us, which is the house we have in Heaven, and in which we live till the resurrection, when our natural bodies are redeemed, and we take possession of them, it necessarily follows that we vacate that second house which we had occupied in Heaven. Then what becomes of that house? Moreover this view introduces something before us of which Paul has made no mention; for here we have three houses, but Paul’s language allows of only two; and one of these three houses, on the view before us, has to be abandoned, to go to ruin, when we take possession of our redeemed bodies. All this is unscriptural and absurd. Such a view is an impossibility.

Again, Paul affirms in verse 5 that God hath wrought us for this self-same thing, that is, created man for such a state of being as we shall enjoy, when clothed upon with our house from Heaven. Is this condition the separate existence of an immortal soul? No; for if man had never sinned, he would have reached that state without seeing death, and the idea of an immortal soul would never have had an existence. The whole doctrine is the offspring of sin, for it is the result of the fall. It is the second falsehood which the devil found necessary to sustain his first one, “Ye shall not surely die.” For when all that is outward, tangible, and visible of man does fall in death, his untruth would be very apparent 189unless he could make them believe that there is an invisible medium through which they still continue to live. Paul, therefore, in the scripture under notice, does not have any reference to an intermediate state.

He further says that we have through the Spirit an earnest, or pledge, that this condition, which is set forth as the chief object of desire, will finally be reached, and we shall be clothed with our house from Heaven. But what is the Holy Spirit in our hearts an earnest or pledge of? What does it signify that we have a measure of the Holy Spirit here? Is it a proof or assurance that we have immortal souls that will live when the body is dead? No, but that we shall be redeemed and made immortal. See Eph. 1:13, 14: “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” And in Rom. 8:11, Paul again says: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

These are the glorious promises of which the Holy Spirit in our hearts is a pledge and assurance: that these mortal bodies shall be quickened from the dead, even as Christ was raised 190up, and that we shall share in the inheritance, when the purchased possession shall be redeemed. It looks not to any intermediate state, but to the ultimate reward.

And finally, Paul forever bars his teaching against the entrance of the conscious state dogma, by saying that when we are clothed upon with our house from Heaven, mortality is swallowed up of life. How can mortality be swallowed up of life? It can be only by having a principle of life come upon it which shall overpower and absorb it. Mortality can be swallowed up only by immortality or eternal life. Is this the passing of the soul from the mortal body at the hour of death? Let us look at it. What is there about man, according to the common view, which is mortal? The body. And what is immortal? The soul. At death, the body, that part which is mortal, does not become immortal, but loses all its life, and goes into the grave to crumble back to dust. And the soul, which was immortal before, is no more than immortal afterward. Is there any swallowing up of mortality by life here? Just the reverse. Mortality, or the mortal part, is swallowed up by death. There is not so much life afterward as before; for after death, the soul only lives, while the body, which was alive before, is now dead.

But Paul, before penning this language in 2 Cor. 5, had already told the Corinthians when 191mortality would be swallowed up of life, and how it would be accomplished; so he knew when he penned this portion of his second epistle that they would understand it perfectly. See the 15th chapter of his first epistle, verses 51-55: “Behold I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?victory?”

In verse 50, he says: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” Corruption does not inherit, or possess, incorruption. Mortality does not possess immortality. The mortal body does not inclose an immortal principle, which it has power to hold within its grasp, till that grasp is rendered nerveless by the stroke of death, and the soul flies away in glad release. But this mortal, all that there is about man that is mortal, must put on, must be itself invested with, immortality, and 192this corruptible, all about us that is perishable, must itself become incorruptible; then it will not be this corruptible flesh and blood, and then it can inherit the kingdom of God, and start off bold and vigorous on its race of endless life; and outside of this change, and independent of this grand investiture of our mortal nature with immortality, there is no eternal life for any of the race. And when this is accomplished, then death is swallowed up in victory; then we are clothed upon with our house from Heaven; then mortality is swallowed up of life. But this is not at death, but at the last trump, when the Lord appears in glory, and the dead are raised, and the righteous living are changed in the twinkling of an eye. How can the religious world stumble in a path so plain!

But if the heavenly house is our future immortal body, it may be asked how Paul can say, as he does in 2 Cor. 5:1, “We have [present tense] a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We have this in the same sense that we have, at the present time, eternal life. And John tells us how this is: It is by faith, or by promise, not by actual possession. 1 John 5:11: “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life.” God hath given it to us; and on the strength of this promise we have it. But where is it now? “And this life is”--in us? No, but--“in his 193Son.” And when he, the Son, who is our life, shall appear, we shall be clothed upon with our heavenly house, and appear with him in glory. Col. 3:4.

Again, it may be asked how Paul can speak of two houses, as though we moved from one into the other, if it is only a change of condition from mortal to immortality. He illustrates this in the figure he takes to represent conversion. Eph. 4:22-24: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Here the simple change of heart, the change of the disposition, from sin to holiness, is spoken of as putting off one man and putting on another. With even greater propriety, may the change from mortal to immortality be spoken of as removing from an earthly, perishable house, to an immortal, heavenly one.

The terms Paul uses to describe the two states, are clearly defined. On the one side it is an earthly house, groaning with burdens, mortality, absent from the Lord. On the other, it is clothed upon with our house from Heaven, mortality swallowed up of life, present with the Lord. He did not desire to be unclothed, which, as already noticed, signifies the condition of death; but he did desire to be present with the Lord; therefore 194in death he would have us understand that the Christian is not present with the Lord.

From all this, we can only conclude that when he says he is willing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord, he means to be understood that he is willing that this burdened, groaning, mortal state should end, and the promised glorious and eternal day begin. And being confident, through the presence of the Spirit of God in his heart, that when this change should be wrought, he would have a glorious part therein, he was more than willing it should come. It was but the breathing again of that prayer which has arisen like a continual sigh from the heart of the church through all her weary pilgrimage, “Thy kingdom come; yea, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly;” not, “Let our immortal souls,” which they did not suppose they possessed, “enter a conscious state in death” in which they did not believe.

It is confidently asserted that Paul believed a man could exist independently of the body from certain expressions which he uses in 2 Cor. 12: 2-4:--

By the man whom he knew, it is generally supposed that the apostle means himself, and the language he uses is a record of his own experience. Paul was taken to the third Heaven, to paradise, and heard words which it is not possible for a man to utter; but whether it was in his body, or out, he did not know.

This instance, then, furnishes no example of a spirit actually existing in a conscious condition outside of the body, even if this is what is meant by the expression, “out of the body;” for Paul assures us that he did not know that he was in that condition. Yet it is claimed that it has all the force of an actual example; for such a condition 196is recognized as possible. It is very readily admitted that such a condition is recognized, as is expressed by the terms, “out of the body;” but that this means an immaterial spirit, an immortal soul, the real, intelligent man, speeding away through the universe even to the third Heaven, there to hear unspeakable words, and gather up heavenly information, and return at will to resume its abode in the, for a time, deserted body, should not be too hastily inferred from this passage.

Of what is the apostle speaking? He says, in verse 1: “It is not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago,” &c., as previously quoted. His subject, then, is the visions and revelations he had received from the Lord; and the language from verse 2 to verse 4 is the record of one such remarkable revelation, perhaps the most remarkable one he had ever experienced. He was given a view of paradise, and heard unspeakable words. And so real and clear and vivid was the view, that he did not know but that he was transported bodily into that place. If not in this manner, the view was given in the ordinary course of vision, that is, by having the scene presented before the mind by the power of the Holy Ghost.

All must concede that only these two conditions 197are brought to view, either his transportation bodily to paradise, or the ordinary condition of being in vision. If he went bodily to paradise, the instance has no bearing of course on the question of consciousness in death. And if it was an ordinary vision, how does this prove consciousness in death? The question is reduced to this one point; and the answer turns on the definition given to the expression, “out of the body.” Did Paul mean by it, what modern expositors wish us to understand by it? Paul meant by it, simply being in vision; the expositors aforesaid mean by it, the going out of the immortal spirit from the body, and its existence for a time in a separate conscious intelligent condition independent of the body. But let us look a little further, and see what this condition is. According to the common view, the separation of the soul from the body is death. This is what death is defined to mean. There can be no such thing as the separation of soul and body, and death not result. And the return of the soul to again inhabit the body, is a resurrection from the dead. This is what is claimed in the case of Rachel, whose soul departed, and she died, Gen. 35:18, and the widow’s son whom Elijah raised, whose soul came into him again, and he revived. 1 Kings 17:22.

But does any one suppose that Paul meant to say that he did not know but that he died and had a resurrection? That is what he did say, if the words, “out of the body,” mean what some 198would have us understand by them. His soul went off to paradise, and his body lay here, we know not how long, a corpse upon the earth! And when his soul returned, he had a resurrection from the dead! A necessary conclusion so preposterous, must be sufficient to convince any one that Paul, by the expression, “out of the body,” does not mean a state of death. He simply means that he was in vision, a state in which the mind, controlled for the time by the Holy Ghost, is made to take cognizance of distant or future scenes, and the person seems to himself to be really and bodily present, viewing the scenes, and listening to the words that are spoken, before him. Dreams, which all have experienced, are doubtless good illustrations of how this can be, and the case of John, in the Revelation, furnishes a notable example; for he was carried forward far into the future, and seemed to be present and taking part in scenes that did not then exist, and at which he could not really have been present, even in his supposed immaterial immortal soul.

Paul, then, had no reference whatever to a state of death in 2 Cor. 12:2-4. To suppose him to refer to that, according to the immaterialist view, runs us into the greatest absurdity. Hence his language affords no proof that there is a soul in man which can live on in a conscious intelligent state, while the mortal body crumbles back to dust.

When will all men come to agree respecting the state of the dead? When will the question whether the dead are alive, conscious, active, and intelligent, or whether they rest in the grave in unconsciousness and inactivity, cease to be a vexed question? When shall it be decided whether the shout of triumph which the ransomed are to raise, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” is the celebration of a real victory, or only an unnecessary and useless transaction, as it must be if the grave holds not the real man, but only the shell, the mortal body, which is generally considered an incumbrance and a clog? Never will this question be decided till men shall be willing to follow the Scriptures, instead of trying to compel the Scriptures to follow them; never, while they put the figurative for the literal, and the literal for the figurative, mistake sound for sense, and rest on the possible construction of an isolated text, instead of, and in opposition to, the general tenor of the teaching of the inspired writers.

Paul has told us often enough, and it would seem explicitly enough, when the Christian goes to be with his Lord. It is at the redemption of 200the body. Rom. 8:23. It is in the day of the Lord Jesus. 1 Cor. 5:5. It is at the last trump. 1 Cor. 15:51-55. It is when we are clothed upon with our house from Heaven. 2 Cor. 5:4. It is when Christ our life shall appear. Col. 3:4. It is when the Lord descends from Heaven with a shout, and the dead are raised. 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. It is at the coming of the Lord. 2 Thess. 2:1. It is to be at “that day,” an expression by which Paul frequently designates the day of Christ’s appearing. 2 Tim. 4:7, 8.

Yet Paul, in one instance, without stopping to explain, uses the expression, “to depart and to be with Christ;” whereupon his words are seized by religious teachers as unanswerable evidence that at death the spirit enters at once into the presence of its Redeemer. The passage is found in Phil. 1:21-24, and reads as follows:--

Willing to go with our friends as far as we can in their interpretation of any passage, we raise no issue here on the word depart. Paul probably means by it the same as in 2 Tim. 4:6, where he says, “The time of my departure is at hand,” referring to his approaching death. Then 201Paul, immediately on dying, was to be with Christ. Not so fast. The very point intended to be proved has, in such a conclusion, to be assumed. Paul had in view two conditions: this present state, and the future state. Between these two he was in a strait. The cause of God on earth, the interests of the church, stirring to its very depths his large and sympathetic heart, drew him here; his own desires drew him to the future state of victory and rest. And so evenly balanced were the influences drawing him in either direction, that he hardly knew upon which course he would decide, were it left to him as a matter of choice. Nevertheless, he said that it was more needful for the church that he remain here, to give them still the benefit of his counsel and his labors.

The state or condition to which he looked forward was one which he greatly desired. About four years before he wrote these words to the Philippians, he had written to the Corinthians, telling them what he did desire, and what he did not desire, in reference to the future. Said he, “Not that we would be unclothed.” 2 Cor. 5:4. By being unclothed, he meant the state of death, from the cessation of mortal life to the resurrection. This he did not desire; but he immediately adds what he did desire, namely, to be “clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life;” and when this is done, all that 202is mortal of us is made immortal, the dead are raised, and the body is redeemed. Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:52, 53.

In writing to the Corinthians, he thus stated that the object of his desire was to be clothed upon, and have mortality swallowed up of life; to the Philippians he stated that the object of his desire was to be with Christ. These expressions, then, mean the same thing. Therefore, in Phil. 1:23, Paul passes over the state of death, the unclothed state, just as he had done to the Corinthians; for he would not tell the Corinthians that he did not desire a certain state, and four years after write to the Philippians that he did desire it. Paul did not thus contradict himself.

But this intermediate state is the disputed territory in this controversy; the condition of the dead therein is the very point in question: and on this the text before us is entirely silent.

This is the vulnerable point in the popular argument on this text. It is assumed that the being with Christ takes place immediately on the departure. But, while the text asserts nothing of this kind, multitudes of other texts affirm that the point when we gain immortality and the presence of Christ, is a point in the future beyond the resurrection. And, unless some necessary connection can be shown between the departing and the being with Christ, and the hosts 203of texts which make our entrance into Christ’s presence a future event can be harmonized therewith, any attempt to prove consciousness in death from this text is an utter failure.

Landis seems to feel the weakness of his side in this respect, and spends the strength of his argument, pp. 224-229, in trying to make the inference appear necessary that the being with Christ must be immediate on the departure. He would have us think it utterly absurd and nonsensical to suppose a moment to elapse between the two events.

Let us then see if there is anything in Paul’s language which contradicts the idea that a period of utter unconsciousness, of greater or less length, intervenes between death and our entrance into the future life. In the first place, if the unconsciousness is absolute, as we suppose, the space passed over in the individual’s experience is an utter blank. There is not the least perception, with such person, of the lapse of a moment of time. When consciousness returns, the line of thought is taken up at the very point where it ceased, without the consciousness of a moment’s interruption. This fact is often proved by actual experience. Persons have been known to become utterly unconscious by a fracture of the skull, and a portion of it being depressed upon the brain, suspending its action. Perhaps when the accident happened they were in the act of issuing 204an order, or giving directions to those about them. They have lain unconscious for months, and then been relieved by a surgical operation; and when the brain began again to act, and consciousness returned, they have immediately spoken and completed the sentence they were in the act of uttering when they were struck down, months before. This shows that to these persons there was no consciousness of any time intervening, more than what passes between the words of a sentence which we are speaking. It was all the same to them as if they had at once completed the sentence they commenced to utter, instead of having weeks and months of unconsciousness thrown in between the words of which that sentence was composed.

So with the dead. They are not aware of the lapse of a moment of time between their death and the resurrection. A wink of the eye shuts out for an instant the sight of all objects, but it is so instantaneous that we do not perceive any interruption of the rays of vision. Six thousand years in the grave to a dead man is no more than a wink of the eye to the living. To them, consciousness, our only means of measuring time, is gone; and it will seem to them when they awake that absolutely none has elapsed. When Abel awakes from the dead, it will seem to him, until his attention is attracted by the new scenes of immortality to which he will be raised, that he 205is rising up from the murderous blows of Cain, under which he had seemingly just fallen. And to Stephen, who died beholding the exaltation of Christ in Heaven, it will be the same as if he had, without a moment’s interruption, entered into his glorious presence. And when Paul himself shall be raised, it will seem to him that the stroke of the executioner was his translation to glory.

Such being the indisputable evidence of facts upon this point, we ask how a person, understanding this matter, would speak of the future life, if he expected to obtain it in the kingdom of God? Would he speak of passing long ages in the grave before he reached it? He might, if he designed to state, for any one’s instruction, the actual facts in the case; but if he was speaking simply of his own experience, it would not be proper for him to mention the intervening time, because he would not be conscious of any such time, and it would not seem to him on awaking to life again that any such period had elapsed.

Accordingly, Bishop Law lays down this general principle on this question:--

206John Crellius says:--

Dr. Priestly says:--

So in harmony with this reference to our Lord’s teaching is the language used by Paul in 1 Thess. 4:16, 17, that we here refer to it again: “For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

As Christ taught that the time when his people were to be with him again was at his second coming, so Paul here teaches. We call attention to the word so, in the last sentence of the quotation. So means in this way, in this manner, by 207this means. “So,” in this manner, by this means, “shall we ever be with the Lord.” When Paul, as he does here, describes without any limitations, the way and means by which we go to be with the Lord, he precludes every other means. He the same as says there is no other means by which we can be with the Lord, and if there is any other means of gaining this end, this language is not true. If we go to be with the Lord, by means of our immortal spirit, when we die, we do not go to be with him by means of the visible coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the change of the living, and Paul’s language is a stupendous falsehood. There is no possible way of avoiding this conclusion, except by claiming that the descent of the Lord from Heaven, the mighty shout, the voice of the archangel, the sounding of the great trump of God, the resurrection of the dead, and the change of the living, all take place when a person dies--a position too absurd to be seriously refuted, and almost too ridiculous to be even stated.

Shall we then take the position that Paul taught the Philippians that a person went by his immortal spirit immediately at death to be with the Lord, when he had plainly told the Thessalonians that this was to be brought about in altogether a different manner, and by altogether different means? No one who would have venerated that holy apostle when alive, or who has 208any decent regard for his memory now that he is dead, will accuse him of so teaching.

Why, then, does he say that he has a desire to depart, that is, to die? Because he well understood that his life of suffering, of toil, and trial here was to terminate by death; and if the church could spare him, he would gladly have it come, not only to release him from his almost unbearable burdens, but because he knew further that all the intervening space between his death and the return of his Lord would seem to him to be instantly annihilated, and the glories of the eternal world, through his resurrection from the dead, would instantly open upon his view.

It is objected again that Paul was very foolish to express such a desire if he was not to be with his Lord till the resurrection; for, in that case, he would be with him no sooner if he died than he would if he did not die. Those who make this objection, either cannot have fully considered this subject, or they utterly fail to comprehend it. They have no difficulty in seeing how Paul would be with Christ sooner by dying, provided his spirit, when he died, immediately entered into his presence; but they cannot see how it would be so when the time between his death and the coming of Christ is to him an utter blank, and then without the consciousness on his part, that a single instant has elapsed, he is ushered into the presence of his Redeemer. Remember that 209Paul’s consciousness was his only means of measuring time; and if he had died just as he wrote these words to the Philippians, it would have been to him an entrance into Christ’s presence just as much sooner as what time elapsed between the penning of that sentence and the day of his death. None can fail to see this point, if they will consider it in the light of the fact we have here tried so fully to set forth, that the dead have no perceptions of passing time.

In the light of the foregoing reasoning, let us read and paraphrase this famous passage to the Philippians:--

Who can say, bearing in mind the language Paul frequently uses in his other epistles, that this is not a just paraphrase of his language here. The only objection against it is, that, so rendered, 210it does not support the conscious-state dogma. But it makes a harmony in all that Paul has taught on the subject; and is it not far more desirable to maintain the harmony of the sacred writings, than to try to make them defend a dogma which involves them in a fatal contradiction?

REMAINING TEXTS CONSIDERED.

We have now examined all the principal texts of the Scriptures which are supposed to have a bearing on the question of the intermediate state. A few others of minor importance are occasionally urged in favor of the popular view, and as such are entitled to a passing notice. We give them in consecutive order as follows:--

It is claimed that death cannot separate us from the love of God; but, as God cannot exercise his love toward any but a rational and conscious creature, therefore the soul must be alive after death. (Immortality of the Soul, by Luther Lee, p. 111.) To what far-fetched and abortive reasoning will wrong theories lead intelligent men. We owe the reader an apology for noticing this passage at all. We should not here introduce it, were it not used as an objection to the view we advocate; and we should not believe 211it could ever be urged as an objection, had we not actually seen it. The reasoning of the apostle has to be completely inverted before any argument (may we be pardoned the misnomer) can be manufactured out of it for the conscious-state theory. For it is of our love to God, through Christ, and not of his to us, that the apostle speaks. It has reference, also, wholly to this life. Thus he says, verse 35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” That is, shall these things which we have to endure in this life on account of our profession of the gospel and our love for Christ, quench that love in any wise? Shall we compromise the gospel, and alienate ourselves from the love of Christ, who has done so much for us, and through whom we hope for so much (see the whole chapter), to avoid a little persecution, peril, and distress? The separation from the love of Christ by death, of which he speaks, is the same as the separation by persecution, &c.; but tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword, do not necessarily kill us; they have respect to this life; the separation, therefore, is something which takes place here--simply an alienation of our hearts from him. And shall all these things, he asks--nay, more, shall even the prospect of death on account of our profession of Christ, prevent our loving and 212following him? No! is the implied and emphatic answer.

Such we believe to be the view which any one must take of this passage, who does not find himself under the unfortunateunfortunate necessity of making out a case.

But looking at this scripture from the objector’s stand-point, the singular inquiry at once forces itself upon us, Can the immortal soul in its disembodied state suffer tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword!?

Is this inward man the immortal soul? We answer, No; but the new man which we put on, Christ formed within the hope of glory. See Col. 3:9, 10; Eph. 4:22, 24; 3:16, 17; Col. 1:27.

Yes, says the objector, bring them from Heaven; so they must now be with him there in a conscious state. Not quite so fast. The text speaks of those who sleep in Jesus. Do you believe those who have gone to Heaven are asleep? We always supposed that Heaven was a place of unceasing activity, and of uninterrupted joy. And, again, are all these persons going to be brought 213from Heaven asleep! What a theological incongruity! But, from what place are they brought, if not from Heaven? The same place, we answer, from which God brought our Lord Jesus Christ. And what place was that? See Heb. 13:20: “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,” &c. We may then read the text in Thessalonians, as follows: “For if we believe that Jesus died and God brought him from the dead, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him from the dead.” Simply this the text affirms, and nothing more. It is a glorious pledge of the resurrection, and so far diametrically opposed to the conscious-state theory.

It is claimed that the departure here referred to is death, with which we agree. We take no exceptions to the remark so often made, “Departed this life,” &c. ButBut as Paul does not here intimate that his departure was to be to Heaven, or even to any conscious intermediate state, we have no right to infer this.

It is here claimed that the “I” that speaks, and the “my” that is in possession of a tabernacle, is Peter’s soul, the man proper, and 214the tabernacle, is the body which he was going to lay off. That Peter here has reference to death, we doubt not; but it was to be as the Lord Jesus Christ had showed him. How had he shown him it would be? See John 21:18, 19: “But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.” Here we are shown that the “thou” and the “he,” claimed on 1 Pet. 1:14, to be Peter’s soul, the man proper, was going to die, and by death, glorify God. And Peter himself says in the next verse, “Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.” Here, then, the same “my,” Peter’s soul, the man proper, recollect, which in the verse before is in the possessive case, and governed by tabernacle, is again in the possessive case, and governed by decease, or death! Yes, Peter himself was going to die. We find no proof of a double entity here.

This phraseology is well illustrated by Job 7:21, which shows that the man proper, the “I,” sleeps in the dust: “And why dost Thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.”

This testimony shows that the unjust do not enter into a place of punishment at death, but are reserved to the day of Judgment. Where are they reserved? Answer. In the general receptacle of the dead, the grave. See Job 21:30.

By this first resurrection a portion of the dead are restored to life, consciousness, and activity, while it is said of those whose condition is not affected by this resurrection, that they lived not for a thousand years. This proves that up to the time of this resurrection, all the dead were in a condition just the opposite of life--a condition in which it might be said of them that they “lived not.” And this, mark, is spoken of the whole conscious being, not of the body merely. No language could more positively show that in death the whole person is in a state just the opposite of life.

216This text is supposed to prove that one of the old prophets came to John as an angel, showing that the dead exist in a conscious state. But it does not so teach. The angel simply stated that he was John’s fellow-servant, and the fellow-servant of John’s brethren, the prophets, and the fellow-servant of them which keep the sayings of this book. The being of whom they were all worshipers together was the great God. Therefore, says the angel, do not worship me, since I am only a worshiper with you at the throne of God; but worship God. This angel had doubtless been sent to the ancient prophets to reveal things to them, as he had now come to John. Such we believe to be the legitimate teaching of this scripture, the last that is found in the book of God supposed to teach a conscious state.

The inquirer into the nature of man, and his condition in death, must ever turn with the deepest interest to the record left us concerning the father of our race. In Adam we have an account of the origin of the human family, at once so simple and consistent that the jeers of skepticism fall harmless at its feet, and science, 217in comparison, only makes itself ridiculous, in trying to account for it in any other manner. And in the sentence pronounced upon him when he fell under the fearful guilt of transgression, we are shown to what condition death was designed to reduce the human family. In the creation and death of Adam, we have the account of the building up and the unbuilding of a human being; and this case, being the first and most illustrious, must furnish the precedent and establish the rule for the whole race.

Of the creation of Adam and the elements of which he was composed, we have already spoken. The record brings to view a formation made wholly of the dust of the ground. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” This body was endowed with a high and perfect organization, and was quickened into life by the breath which the Lord breathed into its nostrils. The body, before it was made alive, had no power to act; the breath which was breathed into it could not of itself act; but the body being quickened, the machinery set in motion by this vital principle, all the phenomena of physical life and mental action at once resulted.

The Author of this noblest of creative works, who must of necessity, as the ruler over all, require the creatures of his hand to obey him, and toward whom an exercise of love, and a voluntary and willing submission, can alone constitute 218obedience, placed the man whom he had formed, as was meet, upon a state of probation, to test his loyalty to his Maker. The scene of his trial was the beautiful garden in which was everything that was pleasant to the sight and good for food; and over all that adorned or enriched his Eden home, with one exception, he had unlimited control. The condition upon which he was to be tested is thus definitely expressed:--

Adam and Eve could not mistake the requirement of this law, nor fail to understand the intent of the penalty. And before Satan could cause his temptation to make any impression on the mind of Eve, he had to contradict this threatening, assuring her that they should not surely die. A question of veracity was thus raised between God and Satan; and strange to say, the theological world, in interpreting the penalty, have virtually, with the exception of a small minority, sided with Satan. This is seen in the interpretation which is commonly put on this penalty, making it consist of three divisions: 1. Alienation of the soul from God, the love of sin, and the hatred of holiness, called spiritual death. 2. The separation of soul and body, called temporal 219death. 3. Immediately after temporal death, the conscious torment of the soul in hell, which is to have no end, and is called eternal death. The Baptist Confession of Faith, Art. 5, says:--

Let us look at the different installments of this penalty, and see if they will harmonize with the language in which the original threatening is expressed: “Thou shalt surely die.” Adam incurred the penalty by sinning. After he had sinned, he was a sinner. But a state of sin is that state of alienation from God which the orthodox school make to be a part of the penalty of his transgression. In this they take as the punishment of sin that which was simply its result; and they make the sentence read, virtually, in this profoundly sensible manner: “In the day that thou sinnest, thou shalt surely be a sinner!”

Because he wickedly became a sinner, and brought himself into a state of alienation from God, the doom was pronounced upon him, “Thou shalt surely die.” Could this mean eternal death? If so, Adam never could have been released therefrom. But he is to be released from it; for “in Christ shall all be made alive.”

These two installments, then, spiritual and eternal death, utterly fail us, when brought to 220the test of the language in which the sentence is expressed: one is nonsense, and the other an impossibility.

Temporal death alone remains to be considered; but the interpretation which is given to this, completely nullifies the penalty, and makes Satan to have been correct when he said, “Thou shalt not surely die.” Temporal death is interpreted to mean the separation of the soul from the body, the body alone to die, but the soul, which is called the real, responsible man, to enter upon an enlarged and higher life. In this case, there is no death; and the sentence should have read, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt be freed from the clog of this mortal body, and enter upon a new and eternal life. So said Satan, “Ye shall be as gods;” and true to this assertion from the father of lies, the heathen have all along deified their dead men, and worshiped their departed heroes; and modern poets have sung, “There is no death; what seems so is transition.” If ever the skill of a deceiver and the gullibility of a victim were manifested in an unaccountable degree, it is in this fact, that right in the face and eyes of the pale throng that daily passes down through the gate of death, the devil can make men believe that after all his first lie was true, and there is no such thing as death.

From these considerations, it is evident that nothing will meet the demands of the sentence 221but the cessation of the life of the whole man. But that, says one, cannot be, for he was to die in the very day he ate of the forbidden fruit; but he did not literally die for nine hundred and thirty years. If this is an objection against the view we advocate, it is equally such against every other. Take the threefold penalty above noticed. If death spiritual, death temporal, and death eternal, was the penalty, how much was fulfilled on the day he sinned? Not death eternal, surely, and not death temporal, which did not take place for nine hundred and thirty years, but only death spiritual. But this was only the first installment of the penalty, and far less important than the other two. The most that the friends of this interpretation can say, therefore, is that the penalty begun on that very day to be fulfilled. But we can say as much with our view. “Dying, thou shalt die,” reads the margin; which some understand to mean, thou shalt inherit a mortal nature, and the process of decay shall commence. As soon as he sinned, he came under the sentence of death, and the work commenced. He bore up against the encroachments of dissolution for nine hundred and thirty years, and then the work was fully accomplished.

When God proceeded to pronounce sentence upon Adam, he gave us an authoritative interpretation of the penalty from which there is no appeal. Gen. 3:19: “In the sweat of thy face 222shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

The return to dust is here made a subsequent event, to be preceded by a period of wearing toil. And being finally overcome by the labors and ills of life, the person addressed was to return again to the dust from which he was taken. With Adam, this process commenced on the very day he transgressed, and the penalty threatened, which covered all this work from beginning to end, was executed in full when this process was fully completed in Adam’s death, nine hundred and thirty years thereafter.

Two things are connected together in the penalty affixed to Adam’s disobedience. These are the words, day and die: In the day thou eatest, thou shalt die. The dying, whatever view we take of it, must include temporal or literal death. But this was not accomplished on that very day. Therefore, to find a death which was inflicted on that literal day, a figurative sense is given to the word die, and it is claimed that a spiritual death was that day wrought upon Adam. But we inquire, If either of these terms, day or die, are to be taken figuratively, why not let the dying be literal, and the day be figurative, especially since the sentence which God pronounced upon Adam, when he came up for trial, shows that literal death, and that only, was intended in the penalty?

223The use of the word day in such a sense, meaning an indefinite period of time, is of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures. An instance in point occurs in 1 Kings 2:36-46. King Solomon bound Shimei by an oath to remain in Jerusalem, under the sentence that on the day he went out in any direction, he should be slain. After three years, two of his servants ran away to Gath, and he went after them. It was then told Solomon that Shimei had been to Gath and returned. Solomon sent for him, reminded him of the conditions on which his life was suspended, and the oath he had broken, and then commanded the executioner to put him to death.

Gath was some twenty-five miles from Jerusalem. That Shimei could go there and get his servants, return, be sent for by Solomon, and be tried and executed, all on the same day, is a supposition by no means probable, even if it is possible. Yet in his death the sentence was fulfilled, that on the day he went out he should be slain. Because on the very day he passed out of the city, the only condition that held back the execution of the sentence was removed, and he was virtually a dead man.

So with Adam. He was immediately cut off from the tree of life, his source of physical vitality. So much was executed on that very day. Death was then his inevitable portion, to be accomplished within the limits of that period covered by the word, day.

224We are very well aware of the method adopted to evade the conclusion which naturally follows from the language of the sentence in Gen. 3:19. This, it is claimed, was spoken only of the body, not of the soul. The poetry of Longfellow,

takes much better with most people than the plain language of inspiration itself.

To whom, then, or to what, was this sentence addressed, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”? Admitting that there is such a creature of the imagination as the popular, independent, immortal soul, was the language addressed to that or to the body? If there is such a soul as this, what does it constitute, on the authority of the friends of that theory, themselves? It is the real, responsible, intelligent man. Watson says, “It is the soul only which perceives pain or pleasure, which suffers or enjoys;” and D. D. Whedon says, “It is the soul that hears, feels, tastes, and smells, through its sensorial organs.” The sentence, then, would be addressed to that which could hear; the penalty would be pronounced upon that which could feel. The body, in the common view, is only an irresponsible instrument, the means by which the soul acts. It can, of itself, neither see, hear, feel, will, or act. Who then will have the hardihood to assert that God addressed his sentence to the 225irresponsible instrument, the body merely? This would be the same as for the judge in a criminal court to proceed deliberately to address the knife with which the murderer had taken the life of his victim, and pronounce sentence upon that, instead of the murderer himself. Away with a view which offers to the Majesty of Heaven the insult of representing that he acts in this way!

In the sentence, the personal pronoun, thy, is once, and the personal pronoun, thou, is five times, applied to the Adam whom God addressed. “In the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” When we address our fellowmen by the different personal pronouns of our language, what do we address? The conscious, intelligent, responsible man, that which sees, feels, hears, thinks, acts, and is morally accountable. But this, in popular parlance, is the soul; these pronouns must every time stand for the soul. The pronouns thy and thou, in Gen. 3:19, must then mean Adam’s soul. If they do not mean it here, how does the same pronoun, thou, in Luke 23:43, mean the thief’s soul, when Christ said to him, “This day shalt thou be with me in paradise”? or the I and my in 2 Pet. 1:14, refer to Peter’s soul, as we are told they do, when he says, “Knowing that shortly I 226must put off this my tabernacle.” Our friends must be consistent and uniform in their interpretations. If in these instances the pronouns do not refer to the soul, then these strong proof-texts, to which the immaterialist always appeals, are abandoned: if they do here refer to the soul, they must likewise in Gen. 3:19, refer to the soul. In that language, then, God addresses Adam’s soul; and we have the authority of Jehovah himself, the Creator of man, against whose sentence, and the sunlight of whose word, it does not become puny mortals to oppose their shallow dictums, and the rushlight of human reason, that man’s soul is wholly mortal, and that in the dissolution of death it goes back to dust again! There is no avoiding this conclusion; and it forever settles the question of man’s condition in death. It shows that the intermediate state must be one in which the conscious man has lost his consciousness, the intelligent man his intelligence, the responsible man his responsibility, and in which all the powers of his being, mental, emotional, and physical, have ceased to act.

No further argument need be introduced to show that the Adamic penalty was literal death, and that it reduced the whole man to a condition of unconsciousness and decay. But a few additional considerations will show that the popular view is cumbered with absurdities on every hand so plain that they should have proved their 227own antidote, and saved the doctors of theology from the preposterous definitions they have attached to death.

We have the authority of Paul for stating that through Christ we are released from all the penalty which the race has incurred through Adam’s transgression. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” If the death in which we are involved through Adam is death spiritual, temporal, and eternal, then all the race is redeemed from these through Christ, and Universalism is the result.

Again, Christ tasted death for every man. He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. That is, Christ died the same death for us which was introduced into the world by Adam’s sin. Was this death eternal? If so, the Saviour is gone, and the plan of salvation can never be carried into effect.

In Rom. 5:12-14, occurs this remarkable passage:--

In the first part of the verse Paul speaks of the death that came in by Adam’s sin, and then 228says that it reigned from Adam to Moses over them that had not sinned. From this language, accepting the popular interpretation of the Adamic penalty, we must come to the intolerable conclusion that personally sinless beings from Adam to Moses were consigned to eternal misery! From such a sentiment, every fiber of our humanity recoils with horror. We cannot stifle the feeling that it is an outrage upon the character of God, and therefore cannot be true. The death threatened Adam was literal death, not eternal life in misery.

To the view that the Adamic penalty was simply literal death, many eminent men have given their unqualified adhesion.

John Locke (Reasonableness of Christianity, s. 1,) says:--

Isaac Watts (Ruin and Recovery of Mankind, s. 3), though he was a believer in the immortality of the soul, has the candor to say:--

Dr. Taylor says:--

With two more considerations we close this chapter:--

1. Adam was on probation. Life and death were set before him. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” said God. The only promise of life he had in case of disobedience came from one whom it is not very flattering to the advocates of a natural immortality to call the first propounder and natural ally of their system. But had Adam been endowed with a natural immortality, it could not have been suspended on his obedience. But it was so suspended, as we learn from the first pages of revelation. It was, therefore, not absolute, but contingent. Immortal he might become by obedience to God; disobeying, he was to die. He did disobey, and was driven from the garden. “And now,” said God, “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever;”--therefore, the cherubim and flaming sword were placed to exclude forever his approach to 230the life-giving tree. Quite the reverse of an uncontingent immortality is certainly brought to view here. Adam could bequeath to his posterity no higher nature than he himself possessed. The stream, that commencing just outside the garden of Eden, has flowed down through the lapse of six thousand years, has certainly never risen higher than the fountain head; and we may be sure we possess no superior endowments in this respect to those of Adam.

2. The second consideration under this head is, the exhortations we have in the word of God to seek for immortality, if we would obtain it. “Seek the Lord, and ye shall live,” is his declaration to the house of Israel. Amos 5:4, 6. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:23. Gift to whom? To every man, irrespective of character? By no means; but gift through Christ, to them only who are his. Again, “To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality [God will render], eternal life.” Rom. 2:7. Varying the language of the apostle a little, we may here inquire, What a man hath, why doth he yet seek for? The propriety of seeking for that which we already have, is something in regard to which it yet remains that we be enlightened by the advocates of the dominant theology.

As clearly as the human race have been taught by the experience of six thousand years that death is their common lot, so clearly are we taught by the word of God, and by some notable exhibitions of divine power, that all who have gone into their graves shall come forth again to life.

The words in the New Testament which express this fact are anastasis, egersis, and exanastasis. The two latter occur but once each, the first in reference to the resurrection of Christ, in Matt. 27:53, the last in Phil. 3:11, where Paul expresses a desire to attain to a resurrection out from among the dead. Anastasis occurs forty-two times, being the word which is invariably used in the New Testament, with the exceptions just named, to express the resurrection. This word is defined by Robinson to mean, literally, a rising up, as of walls, of a suppliant, or from a seat. Specially in the New Testament, the resurrection of the body from death, the return of the dead body to life, as, first of individuals who have returned to life on earth, Heb. 11:35; secondly, of the future and general resurrection at the end of all things, John 11:24. It is often 232joined to the word, dead; as in the expression, the resurrection of the dead.

From these well-established meanings of the word it is evident that that which goes down will rise again. That which goes into the grave will come up again out of the grave. The rising again of the body is certainly assured by this word, and the manner in which it is used. This resurrection is a future event: “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.” John 5:28, 29. Paul said, when disputing with Tertullus before the governor, I “have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” Acts 24:15. And he tells us in chapter 26:7, that unto that promise the twelve tribes hope to come.

If, then, this is a firmly-established fact, that God is to make such a mighty manifestation of his power as to re-animate the scattered dust of those whom the grave has consumed from time’s earliest morn, there must be some cause for such an action. This great event has a tremendous bearing on the question of the intermediate state, and all views of that state must be adjusted to harmonize therewith. If any view is entertained which virtually renders such an event unnecessary, it must be shown that the resurrection as here defined is not taught in the word of 233God, or it must be admitted that the doctrine which nullifies it, is unscriptural.

The important inquiry now arises respecting the popular view, If the real being, the intelligent, responsible entity, ceases not its life and consciousness at death, but continues on in a more enlarged and perfect sphere of existence and activity, what need is there of the resurrection of the body? If the body is but a trammel, a clog to the operations of the soul, what need that it should come back and gather up its scattered particles from the silent tomb, and re-fetter itself with this material robe?

Wm. Tyndale, defending the doctrine of Martin Luther, that the dead sleep, addressed to his opponent the same pungent inquiry. He said:--

Andrew Carmichael (Theology of Scripture, vol. ii., p. 315) says:--

Dr. Muller (Ch. Doc. of Sin, p. 318) says:--

234We now propose to show that the resurrection is a prominent doctrine of the Bible; and if this can be established, it follows, upon the judgment of these eminent men, that the immortality of the soul cannot be true. We need not stop to notice that impalpable and groundless theory which makes the resurrection take place immediately at death, by supposing it to be the rising of the soul from the earthly house of this tabernacle, and its entering at once into its spiritual house, this to be inhabited, and the former, abandoned, forever. For in this case there is no resurrection; since the soul lives right on, and does not die at all. The resurrection which the Bible brings to view is a resurrection of the dead. It cannot be applied to anything that continuously lives, however many changes it may pass through. A person must go down into a state of death before he can be raised from the dead. Hence this theory is no resurrection at all, and so is at war with all the Bible says about the resurrection of the dead. Moreover, it is utterly impossible to harmonize this with the many references to the general resurrection at the end of the world.

We return to the Bible doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, the literal resurrection and resuscitation of our natural bodies, and affirm that the Bible makes this resurrection necessary, by representing the dead to be in such a condition that without this event they can have no future existence.

2351. Death is compared to sleep. There must, then, be some analogy between a state of sleep and a state of death, and this analogy must pertain to that which renders sleep a peculiar condition. Our condition in sleep differs from our condition when awake, simply in this, that when we are soundly asleep we are entirely unconscious. In this respect, then, death is like sleep; that is, the dead are unconscious. This figure is frequently used to represent the condition of the dead. Dan. 12:2: “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” Matt. 27:52: “Many bodies of the saints which slept arose.” Acts 7:60: After Stephen had beheld the vision of Christ and was stoned to death, the record says, he “fell asleep.” In 1 Cor. 15:20, Christ is called the first-fruits of them that slept; and in verse 57, Paul says, “We shall not all sleep.” Again Paul writes to the Thessalonians, 1 Thess. 4:13, 14, that he would not have them ignorant concerning them which are asleep. In verse 14, he speaks of them as asleep in Jesus, and explains what he means, in verse 16, by calling them “dead in Christ.” And the advocates of the conscious state cannot dispose of these expressions by saying that they apply to the body merely; for they do not hold that the consciousness which we have in life (which is what we lose in death) pertains to the body merely. Job plainly declares that they will not awake till the 236resurrection, at the last day. “Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” If, therefore, there is no resurrection, these dead are destined to sleep in unconsciousness forever.

2. The dead are in a condition as though they had not been. So Job testifies; for he affirms that if he could have died in earliest infancy, like a hidden, untimely birth, he would not have been; and in this respect he declared he would have been like kings, counsellors, and princes of the earth who built costly tombs in which to enshrine their bodies when dead. To that condition he applies the expression which has since been so often quoted, “There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.” Job 3:11-18. If, then, a person when dead is as though he had not been, without a resurrection to release him from this state, he will never be, or exist, again.

3. The dead have no knowledge. Speaking of the dead man, Job says (14:21), “His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, and he perceiveth it not of them.” Ps. 146:4. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts 237perish.” Solomon was inspired to speak to the same effect as his father David: Eccl. 9:5, 6: “For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.... Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” Verse 10: “There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest.” Evidence like this can neither be mistaken nor evaded. It is vain for the immaterialist to claim that it applies to the body in distinction from an immortal soul; for they do not hold that the thoughts (διαλογισμός, thought, reasoning,) which David says perish in death, belong to the body, but to the soul. And according to Solomon, that which knows when the man is living, does not know when he is dead. Without a resurrection, therefore, the dead will forever remain without knowledge.

4. The dead are not in Heaven nor in hell, but in the dust of the earth. Job 17:13-16: “If I wait, the grave is mine house.” In chap. 14:14, he said, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” The change referred to, must therefore be the resurrection, and he describes his condition till that time, in the following language: “I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother 238and my sister, ... when our rest together is in the dust.” Isa. 26:19: “Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs; and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Is it possible that the phraseology of this text can be misunderstood? It speaks of the living again of dead men, of the arising of dead bodies, and of the earth’s casting out the dead. And the command is addressed to them thus: “Awake and sing.” Who? Ye who are still conscious, basking in the bliss of Heaven and chanting the high praises of God? No; but, “Ye who dwell in dust;” ye who are in your graves. If the dead are conscious, Isaiah talked nonsense. If we believe his testimony we must look into the graves for the dead; and if there is no resurrection, there they will forever lie mingled with the clods of the valley.

5. The dead, even the most holy and righteous, have no remembrance of God, and cannot, while in that condition, render him any praise and thanksgiving. Ps. 6:5: “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” Ps. 115:17: “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.” Good King Hezekiah, when praising the Lord for adding to his days fifteen years, gives this as the reason why he thus rejoiced: Isa. 38:18, 19: “For the grave cannot praise 239thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” Modern doctors of divinity have Hezekiah in Heaven praising God. He declared that when he was dead he could not do this. Whose testimony is the more worthy of credit, that of the inspired king of Israel, or that of the theologians of subsequent ages of error and confusion? If we can believe Hezekiah, unless there is to be a resurrection, the righteous dead are never more to praise their Maker.

6. The dead, even the righteous, are not ascended to the Heavens. So Peter testifies respecting the patriarch David: Acts 2:29, 34, 35: “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. For David is not ascended into the Heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.” We call the especial attention of the reader to the whole argument presented by Peter, beginning with verse 24. Peter undertakes to prove from a prophecy recorded in the Psalms, the resurrection of Christ. He says, verse 31, “He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell [hades, the grave], neither did his flesh see corruption.” 240And how does he prove that David speaks of Christ, and not of himself? He proves it from the fact that David’s soul was left in hades and his flesh did see corruption; and his sepulcher was with them to that day. For David, he says, has not ascended into the Heavens. Now if David’s soul did live right on in consciousness; if it was not left in hades, no man can show that David, in that psalm, did not speak of himself instead of Christ; and then Peter’s argument for the resurrection of Christ would be entirely destroyed. But Peter, especially when speaking as he was on this occasion under the influence of the Holy Ghost, knew how to reason; and his argument entirely destroys the dogma of the immortality of the soul. But if David has not yet ascended into the Heavens, how is he ever to get there? There is no other way but by a resurrection of the dead. So he himself says, Ps. 17:15: “I shall be satisfied when I awake [from the sleep of death], with Thy likeness.”

7. And finally, Paul, in his masterly argument in 1 Cor. 15, states explicitly the conclusion which is necessary from every one of the texts which we have quoted, that if there is no resurrection, then all the dead, even those who have fallen asleep in Christ, are perished. Verses 16-18. “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith 241is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are PERISHED.”

As we read this testimony, we pause in utter amazement that any who profess to believe the Bible should cling with tenacity to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul which so directly contradicts it. If the souls of the dead live right on, are they perished? What! perished? and yet living in a larger sphere? Perished? and yet enjoying the attendant blessings of everlasting life in Heaven? Perished? and yet at God’s right hand where there is fullness of joy, and pleasures forevermore? Perish, amid the ruins of the heathen mythology from which it springs, that theory which thus lifts its dead men on high, contrary to the teachings of the word of God!

Paul speaks of the whole being. As in Adam we die, so in Christ shall we be made alive. Is it conceivable that Paul drops out of sight the real man, the soul which soars away to realms of light, and frames all this argument, and talks thus seriously about the cast-off shell, the body, merely? The idea is preposterous to the last degree.

After stating that if there is no resurrection we perish, he assures us that Christ is risen and that there is a resurrection for all; then he takes up the resurrection of those who sleep in Christ, and tells us when that resurrection shall be. It is to 242take place, not by the rising from this mortal coil of an ethereal, immaterial essence when we die, but it is to be at the great day when the last trump shall shatter this decrepid earth from center to circumference.

The testimony on this point is well summed up by Bishop Law, who speaks as follows:--

This representation is abundantly sustained by the Scriptures referred to; and by all these the great fact is inscribed in indelible characters over the portals of the dark valley, that our existence is not perpetuated by means of an immortal soul, but that without a resurrection from the dead, there is no future life.

But it is objected that, from our standpoint of the unconsciousness of the dead, a resurrection is impossible; for if a person ever ceases to exist as a conscious being, the re-organization of the matter of which he was composed would be a new creation, but not a resurrection. It is sufficient to say in reply that continued consciousness is not necessary to preserve identity of being. This is proved by nearly every member of the human family every day. Did the reader ever enjoy a period of sound, unconscious sleep? If so, when 243he awoke, how did he know that he was the same individual he was before? How does any one know, after a good night’s sleep, that he is the same person that retired to rest the night before? Simply because his organization is the same on awaking that it was when he became unconscious in sleep. Now suppose that during this period of unconsciousness, while the soul itself, if there is in man such a distinct entity as is claimed, is also unconscious, the body of a person could be cut up into innumerable fragments, the bones ground to powder, the flesh dissolved in acids, and the entire being, soul and all, destroyed. After remaining in this condition a little time, suppose all those particles could be put back again substantially as they were before, the general arrangement of the matter, especially of the brain, the organ of the mind being identically what it was; and then suppose that life could be imparted to it again, and the person be allowed to sleep on till morning; when he woke, would he be conscious of any break in the line of his existence? Any one must see that he would not. Being organized just as before, his mind would resume its consciousness just as if nothing had happened.

So with the dissolution of death. After its period of unconsciousness is passed over, in the resurrection the particles of the body are reunited, re-organized, and re-arranged, essentially 244as they were at the moment of death, and reanimated; then the line of life is taken up, and the current of thought resumed just where it was laid down in death, it matters not how many thousands of years before. This, the power of God can do; and to deny this is to “err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” In this way, we can have a true and proper resurrection, a living again of the whole person, as the Bible affirms. On the supposition of continued consciousness, this is impossible; for in this case the real man lives right on, the body, which the Bible makes of so much importance, being only the garment with which it was temporarily clothed; and in this case the resuscitation of the body would not and could not be the resurrection of the man. The popular view makes the Bible as inconsistent on the subject of man, as it would be for a historian to give the history of some celebrated man’s coat, and call it the history of the man himself.

Then it is further objected that if persons come up in the resurrection as they went down in death, we should have a motley group, bloated with dropsy, emaciated with consumption, scabbed, scarred, ulcered, maimed and deformed; which would be both unreasonable and disgusting. And this, it is claimed, is a necessary consequence from the view that the same matter is raised that went into the grave, and so far re-organized according 245to its previous arrangement as to constitute identity of being. But when we speak of the re-arrangement of the particles of the body, is it not evident to all that there are fortuitous and abnormal conditions which are not to be taken at all into the account? and that the essential and elemental parts are only to be understood? Who would imagine that the body might not differ in the resurrection from what it was before, as much at least as it differs at one period in its earthly history from its condition at another, and yet its identity be preserved? But we are sometimes in health, sometimes in sickness, sometimes in flesh, and sometimes wasted away, sometimes with diseased members, and sometimes entirely free from disease; and in all these changes we are conscious that we have the same body. Why? Because its essential elements remain, and its organization is continued. Whatever change can take place in our bodies during our earth life, and our identity be continued, changed to the same degree may be the body when raised from the dead, and yet it be the same body. But a missing member might be instantly replaced, a diseased limb healed, the consumptive restored to the bloom of health, or the body, swollen with dropsy, reduced to its natural size, and the individual still be conscious that he was the same person.

It is said still further by way of objection, that 246the matter of one body, after being decomposed by death, is absorbed and taken into other bodies, and becomes constituent parts of them; so that at the resurrection the same matter may have belonged to several different bodies, and cannot be restored to them all; therefore the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is unphilosophical.

If the reader will take the trouble to submit this objection to a little intelligent scrutiny, he will find it to grow rapidly and beautifully less, until finally it vanishes entirely away. Let us take the extremest case supposable: that of the cannibal who might possibly (though this would not naturally be the case), make an entire meal of human flesh. We cannot admit the statement of a certain minister who, in his zeal to make this objection appear very strong, claimed that a cannibal might have the whole body of his victim within his own at the same time. For this supposes that he would eat a whole man at one meal, and, further, that he would consume the viscera, skull, bones, brains, and all. But it is hardly supposable that, cannibals though they are, they have such an enormous capacity, or are such unpardonable eaters.

Nevertheless, let us suppose that a cannibal would, in process of time, consume an entire victim; what proportion could he use in this way? Not one-half, by weight. And what proportion of this would be taken up by the body and become 247incorporated with it? But a small fraction. And to what parts would this naturally go? To those grosser and unessential parts which most rapidly change, and demand the most constant supply. But while a few pounds of matter are supplied to the body, if that body maintains a uniform condition, an equal amount of matter has been thrown off. Thus it will be seen that at no one time is it possible for any material amount of one body to be a part of another. But if there was danger, in these rare cases, that an essential element of one body would become a constituent part of another, and so remain, could not the providence of God easily interpose to prevent this, by giving these particles another direction? Most assuredly it could. And this is not beneath His care who numbers all the hairs of our heads, and without whose notice not a sparrow falls to the ground. This objection not only betrays an utter lack of faith in God’s power and care in such matters, but philosophically considered, it amounts simply to a cavil.

It is the resurrection of the body of which the Bible treats. It knows no other. In 1 Cor. 15:35, 36, Paul asserts an obvious fact, that nothing can be quickened (revived or resuscitated, as from death, or an inanimate state--Webster,) except it first die. To talk of a quickening or making alive of that which does not die, or of a resurrection from the dead of that which does not 248go down into death, is richly deserving of the epithet which Paul there applies to it.

And what is it that shall be quickened in the resurrection? The holy and infallible word of God replies, This mortal body. Rom. 8:11: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Again, in verse 23, Paul says: “Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” And in 1 Cor. 15, Paul is as explicit as he well can be on this subject. Verse 44: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” What does he mean by the natural body, and by its being sown? He means the burial of our present bodies in the grave. So he says in verses 42, 43: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” What is sown? The natural body. Then what is raised? The very same thing. IT is sown; IT is raised; raised in incorruption, in glory, in power, a spiritual body. Raised in this manner, the natural body becomes a spiritual body. Why? Because the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ quickens, resuscitates, or makes 249it alive again, as Paul wrote to the Romans. Should it be said that there is a natural body and a spiritual body in existence at the same time, we answer that according to Paul, that is not so. He says, verse 46: “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.” In verse 49, he says we have borne the image of the earthly, and we shall bear, future, the image of the heavenly; and this will be when this mortal and corruptible, which is this mortal body, puts on incorruption, verses 52, 53, or is clothed upon with the house from Heaven. 2 Cor. 5.

To the Philippians, Paul testifies again on this point: “For our conversation is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” This language is explicit. A change is to be wrought in the vile, mortal or corruptible body of this present state, not a spiritual body released from it, which never sees death and needs no change; and the change that is promised is, that this body taken as it now is, is to be fashioned, changed over, into the likeness of Christ’s glorious, immortal body.

Having thus shown that a future resurrection is an event of the most absolute necessity, inasmuch as without it there is no future existence for the human race (a fact which entirely destroys 250at one blow the doctrine of the immortality of the soul), we now propose to notice the prominence given to this event in the sacred writings, and some of the plain declarations that it will surely take place.

1. The resurrection is the great event to which the sacred writers looked forward as the object of their hope. In the far distant ages a day rose to their view in which the dead came forth from their graves, and stood before God; and before the coming of that day, they did not expect eternal life.

So Job testifies: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job 19:25, 26.

David entertained the same satisfactory hope. “As for me,” he says, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.” Ps. 17:15.

Isaiah struck some thrilling notes on the same theme: “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Isa. 26:19.

It was the hope of Paul, that eminent apostle, through all his sufferings and toils. For this he could sacrifice any temporal good, and take up any cross. He assures us that he considered his 251afflictions, his troubles on every side, his perplexities, persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, and perils, but light afflictions; yea, he could utterly lose sight of them; and then he tells us why he could do it: it was in view of “the glory which shall be revealed in us,” “knowing,” says he, “that He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.” 2 Cor. 4:14. The assurance that he should be raised up at the last day, and be presented with the rest of the saints, when the Lord shall present to his Father a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, Eph. 5:27, sustained him under all his burdens. The resurrection was the staff of his hope. Again he says that he could count all things loss, if by any means he might attain to a resurrection (exanastasis) out from among the dead. Phil. 3:8-11.

We refer to one more passage which expresses as clearly as language can do it, the apostle’s hope. 2 Cor. 1:8, 9: “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” Paul here gives us to understand that he could not trust in himself because he was mortal. He must therefore put his trust in God; and he tells 252us why he does this: not because God had promised him any happiness as a disembodied soul; but because he was able and willing to raise him from the dead. Paul “kept back nothing that was profitable,” and did not shun “to declare all the counsel of God,” yet he never once endeavored to console himself or his brethren by any allusion to a disembodied state of existence, but passed over this as if it were not at all to be taken into the account, and fixed all his hope on the resurrection. Why this, if going to Heaven or hell at death, be a gospel doctrine?

2. The resurrection is the time to which prophets and apostles looked forward as the day of their reward. Should any one carefully search the Bible to ascertain the time which it designates as the time of reward to the righteous, and punishment to the wicked, he would find it to be not at death, but at the resurrection. Our Saviour clearly sets forth this fact in Luke 14:13, 14: “But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed,” not at death, but, “at the resurrection of the just.”

Mark also the language by which the Lord would restrain that voice of weeping which was heard in Ramah. When Herod sent forth and slew all the children in Bethlehem from two years old and under, in hopes thereby to put to 253death the infant Saviour, then was fulfilled, says Matthew, what was spoken by the prophet, “In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not.” But what said the Lord to Rachel? See the original prophecy, Jer. 31:15-17: “Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.” Not thus would the mourning Rachels of the 19th century be comforted by the professed shepherds of the flock of Christ. They would tell them, Refrain thy voice from weeping; for thy sons are now angel cherubs chanting their joyful anthems in their Heavenly Father’s home. But the Lord points the mourners in Ramah forward to the resurrection for their hope; and though till that time their children “were not,” or were out of existence, in the land of death, the great enemy of our race, yet, says the Lord, they shall come again from the land of the enemy, they shall return again to their own border, and thy work shall be rewarded; and he bids them refrain their voices from weeping, their eyes from tears, and their hearts from sorrow, in view of that glorious event.

254The apostles represent the day of Christ’s coming and the resurrection as the time when the saints will receive their crowns of glory. Says Peter, “And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” 1 Pet. 5:4. And Paul says that there is laid up for him a crown of righteousness, and not for him only, but for all those also that love his appearing, and which shall be given him in that day (the day of Christ’s appearing). These holy apostles were not expecting their crowns of reward sooner than this.

All this is utterly inconsistent with the idea of a conscious intermediate state, and rewards or punishments at death. But the word of God must stand, and the theories of men must bow to its authority.

In 1 Cor. 15:32, Paul further tells us when he expected to reap advantage or reward for all the dangers he incurred here in behalf of the truth: “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.” If without a resurrection he would receive no reward, it is evident that he expected his reward at that time, but not before. His language here is moreover a re-iteration of verse 18, that if there is no resurrection, they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

Our Lord testified that of all which the Father 255had given him he should lose nothing, but would raise it up at the last day. This language is also at once a positive declaration that the resurrection shall take place, and that without this event, all is lost. To the same effect is 1 Cor. 15:52, 53, “The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” Here is a plain announcement that the resurrection will take place; that the change mentioned will be wrought at that time; and that this change must take place or we cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Verse 50. Therefore, without a resurrection, none who have fallen in death will ever behold the kingdom of God.

3. The resurrection is made the basis of many of the comforting promises of Scripture. 1 Thess. 4:16, 17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” We have already referred to this passage in this chapter on the Resurrection. We quote it again to show that God designed that from these promises we should comfort ourselves and one another in that keenest of all our afflictions, and the darkest 256of all our hours, the hour of bereavement. For the apostle immediately adds, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” Is it to such facts as these, the second coming of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead, that the theology of our day appeals to alleviate the sorrow which the human heart will feel for the loss of departed loved ones? Here, if anywhere, and on this subject, if on any that the apostle has anywhere taken up, should come in the modern doctrine of uninterrupted consciousness in the intermediate state. But Paul was evidently against any such doctrine, and so denies it a place on the page of truth, but passes right over to the resurrection as the place where comfort is to be found for the mourners.

As the resurrection is inseparably connected with the second coming of Christ, the words of Christ in John 14:1-3, are equally in point on this question. When he was about to leave his sorrowing disciples, he told them that he was going to prepare a place for them; he informed them moreover of his design that they should ultimately be with himself. But how was this to be accomplished? Was it through death, by which a deathless spirit would be released to soar away to meet its Saviour? No; but, says he, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Should any say that this coming of the Saviour is at 257death, we reply that the disciples of our Lord did not so understand it. See John 21:22, 23. Jesus incidentally remarked concerning one of his followers, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me;” and the saying went immediately abroad among the disciples, on the strength of these words, that that disciple should not die.

The eminent and pious Joseph Alleine also testifies:--

Dr. Clarke, in his general remarks on 1 Cor. 15, says:--

We have seen how the grand doctrine of the future resurrection of the dead, demolishes with its ponderous weight the gossamer fabric of the immortality of the soul. There is another doctrine as scriptural and as prominent as the resurrection which opposes its impregnable battlements to the same anti-scriptural fable--a fable, weak, though encased in the coat of mail with which heathendom furnishes it, and not very imposing in appearance, though adorned with the gorgeous trappings of the mother of harlots. We refer to the doctrine of the future general Judgment.

This doctrine, and the theory of the conscious state of the dead, cannot exist together. There is an antagonism between them, irreconcilable, and irrepressible. If every man is judged at death, as he indeed must be, if an immortal soul survives the dissolution of the body, and enters at once into the happiness or misery of the eternal state, accordingly as its character has been good or bad, there is no occasion and no room for a general Judgment in the future; and if, on the other hand, there is to be such a future Judgment, 259it is proof positive that the other doctrine is not true.

We affirm, then, that the Scriptures clearly teach that there is to be a general Judgment in the future, at which time such awards shall be rendered to every one as shall accord with the record of his deeds. A passage in Hebrews may seem to some minds to afford proof that the Judgment follows immediately after death, and which may, consequently, demand a brief notice at this point. Heb. 9:27: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the Judgment.” The sentence does not end here, but is continued into the next verse: “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” From this it is evident that the death to which Paul refers is some death which illustrates the death of Christ as an offering for sin: As men die, and after this the Judgment, so (in like manner) Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. It is not then the common death of human beings to which the apostle refers; for there is nothing in this death to show how Christ died as an offering for sin.

This language occurs at the conclusion of an argument on the priesthood of Christ, as illustrated by the priesthood connected with the Jewish service. Under that dispensation there was a yearly round of service connected with the worldly sanctuary. On the day of atonement, 260when the sanctuary was to be cleansed, a goat was slain for all the people. Their life was imputed to it, and in it they in figure died. The blood of this goat, representing the forfeited lives of the people, was then ministered in the most holy place, which was a work of determination and decision in their cases, which the word here rendered judgment signifies. So Christ, the antitype, was once offered, and, if we avail ourselves of his intercession, his blood is accepted instead of our forfeited lives, and we shall stand acquitted in the real Judgment work in the sanctuary above, as Israel were acquitted when the same work was performed in figure in the worldly sanctuary of the former dispensation. This text, therefore, not referring to the end of individual mortal life, and its relation to future retribution, has no relevancy to the question under discussion.

We return to the proposition that a future general Judgment is appointed. Paul reasoned before Felix of a Judgment to come. Acts 24:25. But as it may be said that this was to be experienced when Felix died, we will introduce another text which not only speaks of this Judgment as future, but shows that it will pass simultaneously on the human race: Acts 17:31: “Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath 261given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead.” Here it is announced in plain terms that the Judgment of this world is future, that it is to take place at the time appointed, and that a day, or period, is set apart for this purpose.

Peter refers to the same day and says that the angels that sinned, and the unjust of our own race, are reserved unto it. 2 Pet. 2:4, 9. Again he says that this present earth is reserved unto fire, with which it shall be destroyed in that day. 2 Pet. 3:7-12. Jude says that the angels that kept not their first estate are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the great day. Jude 6. This is the day when Christ is represented as separating the good from the bad, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats, Matt. 25:31-34, and the time to which John looked forward when he said that he saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and they were judged out of those things written in the books.

The Judgment also stands in many lines of prophecy, not as something which has been going forward from the beginning, not as taking place as each member of the human family passes from the stage of mortal existence, but as the great event with which the probation of the human race is to end. Testimony on this point need not be multiplied. It cannot be denied that a day is 262coming in which sentence will be rendered at once upon all who have lived a life of probation in this world, a sentence which shall decide their condition for the eternity that lies beyond.

This fact being established, its bearing upon the question of consciousness in death, cannot be overlooked. For, if every human being at death passes at once into a state of reward or punishment, what occasion is there for a future general Judgment that a second decision may be rendered in their cases? Is it possible that a mistake was made in the former decision? possible that some are now writhing in the flames of hell, who should be basking in the bliss of Heaven? possible that some are taking their fill of happiness in the bowers of paradise, whose corrupt hearts and criminal life demand that they should have their place with fiends in the lowest hell? And if mistakes have once been made in the sentence rendered, may they not be made again? What assurance can we have that, though we may be entitled by thorough repentance to the happiness of Heaven, we may not be sentenced for all eternity to the damnation of hell? Is it possible that such foul blots of injustice stand upon the record of the government of Heaven? Yes, if the conscious-state theory be true! We arraign that theory face to face with this stupendous fact, and bid it behold its work. It destroys God’s omniscience! It charges him with imperfection! 263It accuses his government of mistakes which are worse than crimes! Is any theory, which is subject to such overwhelming imputations, worthy of a moment’s credence?

To avoid the foregoing fatal conclusions, is it said that sentence is not passed at death, but that the dead are held somewhere in a state of suspense, without being either rewarded or punished till the Judgment? Then we inquire how this can be harmonized with the invariable arguments which immaterialists use on this question? For is it not claimed that the spirit goes immediately to God to receive sentence from the hand of its Creator? Is it not claimed that the rich man was immediately after death in hell, in torment? Is it not claimed that the repentant thief was that very day with Christ in the joys of paradise? If these instances and arguments are abandoned, let it be so understood. If not, then no such after thought can be resorted to, to shield the conscious-state dogma from the charges above mentioned.

We close this argument with a paragraph from the candid pen of H. H. Dobney, Baptist minister of England. In Future Punishment, pp. 139, 140, he says:--

We have now examined the teaching of the Bible relative to man, in his creation, in his life, in his death, and in the intermediate state to his resurrection; and we have found its uniform and explicit testimony to be that he has no inherent, inalienable principle in his nature which is exempt from death; but that the only avenue to 265life beyond the grave is through the resurrection. We have found also that such a resurrection to a second life is decreed for all the race; and now the more momentous question, what the issue of that existence is to be, presents itself for solution.

Natural, or temporal, death, we die in Adam. This death visits all alike irrespective of character. The sincerest saint falls under its power, as inevitably as the most reckless sinner. This cannot be our final end; for it would not be in accordance with justice that our ultimate fate should hinge on a transaction, like the sin of Adam, for which we are not responsible. Every person must be the arbiter of his own destiny. To secure this, the redemption which intervenes through Christ, provides for all a release from the death entailed upon us by the Adamic transgression, in order that every person’s individual acts may constitute the record which shall determine his destiny beyond the grave. What is that destiny to be?

Our inquiry respects, not the future of the righteous, concerning which there is no material controversy, but that of the sinner. Is his fate an eternity of life in a devouring fire which is forever unable to devour him? an eternal approach of death which never really arrives?

Blinded by the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, two opposite conclusions are reached by those who connect this doctrine with two different 266classes of Scripture declarations. For one class, reading that the punishment of the sinner is to be eternal, and holding that man has an inherent immortality which can never be alienated, at once come to the terrible conclusion of an eternity of conscious suffering, an eternal hell as taught by Augustine. Another, connecting it with the declarations that God’s anger shall not always burn against the wicked, but that a time comes when every intelligence in the universe, in the plenitude of joy, is heard ascribing honor, and blessing, and praise to God, speedily reaches the conclusion of universal restoration as taught by Origen. And if the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be a scriptural doctrine, then the Scriptures are found supporting these two diametrically opposite conclusions.

We have seen that the Scriptures do not teach any such inherent immortality as is claimed for man; this, therefore, cannot fetter us in our investigation of this question. God can continue the existence of the wicked to all eternity after the resurrection, if he so chooses; but if so, the doctrine must rest on explicit statements of the Scriptures to that effect. Paul says plainly that the wages of sin is death; Rom. 6:23; and as we do not receive wages for the work of another, this must be a declaration of what will result to every individual for a course of sin; and before this can be made to mean eternal life in misery, 267the present constitution of language must be destroyed, and new definitions be given to established terms. We hold this declaration of Paul’s, on which we take our stand, to be the true ground between the errors above mentioned, and one which not only harmonizes all the Bible on this question, but which has abundance of positive testimony in its favor.

1. The future punishment, threatened to the wicked, is to be eternal in its duration. The establishment of this proposition, of course overthrows the universal restoration of Origen; and the nature of this punishment, involving a state of death, overthrows alike the restoration view of Origen, and the eternal hell of Augustine.

One “Thus saith the Lord,” is sufficient for the establishment of any doctrine. One such we offer in support of the proposition now before us. Speaking of the reprobate, Christ says, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment,” and immediately adds concerning the righteous, “but the righteous, into life eternal.” Here the same Greek word, aionios, is used to express the duration of these opposite states. If, as must be admitted, the word expresses unending duration in the case of the righteous, it must mean the same in that of the wicked.

To the same end we might refer to the words of Christ on two other occasions: John 3:36; Matt. 26:24. In the first of these passages he 268says: “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life;” that is, eternal life. But if, after a certain period of suffering, such persons are released from that state by a restoration to God’s favor, this declaration could not be true. In the second, he speaks of some of whom he says that it would be good for them if they had not been born. And this utterly precludes the idea that they should ever be released to enter the bliss of Heaven; for the first moment of such release would make amends for all past suffering; and throughout eternity they would praise God that they had been born.

The punishment of the wicked, alike with the reward of the righteous, is therefore to be eternal. Two unending conditions are held out to men, and between the two, they have the privilege in this life of choosing.

2. In what will the eternal state of the wicked consist? Before presenting an argument to show that it is death in the literal sense, it may be necessary to notice the few passages of Scripture which are put forth as evidence that it is eternal misery.

1. Daniel 12:2: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The shame spoken of in this text is coupled by the objector with the contempt, and claimed to be like that, everlasting; 269and if the shame, which is an emotion to be exercised by the individuals themselves, is to be eternal, they must be awakened to everlasting life and consciousness.

The fact that they are raised to shame proves indeed that they have a veritable resurrection to life and consciousness, and that this is no figure of speech which is applied to them. But the reader will notice that the shame is not said, like the contempt, to be everlasting. Contempt is not an emotion which they feel; they are not raised to the contempt of themselves; but it is an emotion felt by others toward them; and this does not imply the consciousness of those against whom it is directed; inasmuch as contempt may be felt for them as well after they have passed from the stage of consciousness as before. The Syriac sustains this idea. It reads, “Some to shame and the eternal contempt of their companions.” And thus it will be. Shame for their wickedness and corruption will burn into their very souls, so long as they have conscious being. And when they pass away, consumed for their iniquities, their loathsome characters and their guilty deeds, excite only contempt on the part of the righteous, unmodified and unabated, so long as they hold them in remembrance at all. The text, therefore, furnishes no proof of the eternal suffering of the wicked.

2. Matt. 25:41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, 270into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” What is here said to be everlasting? Wicked men? No. The devil? No. His angels? No. But only the fire. And how can the application of this term to the fire prove the indestructibility and eternal life of those who are cast therein? It may be answered, What propriety could there be in keeping up the fire everlastingly, if its victims were not to be eternally the objects of its power? And we reply, This word is sometimes used to denote the results and not the continuance of the process. Everlasting fire may not be fire which is everlastingly burning, but fire which produces results which are everlasting in their nature. The victims cast therein will be consumed, and if from that destruction they are never to be released, if that fiery work is never to be undone, it is to them an everlasting fire. This will appear more fully when we come to speak of the “eternal fire” through which God’s vengeance was visited on the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

There are several passages of scripture in which the same word, aionios, is unquestionably used in this sense. In Heb. 5:9, we read of “eternal salvation;” that is, a salvation which is eternal or everlasting in its results, not one which is forever going on, but never accomplished. In Heb. 6:2, Paul speaks of “eternal judgment;” not judgment which is eternally going forward, but 271one which, having once passed upon all men, Acts 17:31, is irreversible in its decisions, and eternal in its effects. In Heb. 9:12, he speaks in the same way of “eternal redemption,” not a redemption through which we are eternally approaching a redeemed state which we never reach, but a redemption which releases us for all eternity from the power of sin and death. It would be just as proper to speak of the saints as always redeeming, but never redeemed, as to to speak of the sinner as always consuming but never consumed, or always dying but never dead. This fire is prepared for the devil and his angels, and will be shared by all of the human race who choose to follow the devil in his accursed rebellion against the government of Heaven. It will be to them an everlasting fire; for once having plunged into its fiery vortex, there is no life, beyond. Other texts noticed in succeeding chapters.

This text is very commonly urged as an objection against the view that the destiny of the reprobate is an utter and eternal extinction of 272being; and it is one which has great apparent force. But the secret of this apparent strength lies in the fact that the term punishment is almost invariably supposed to be confined to conscious suffering, and that when any affliction is no longer taken cognizance of by the senses, it ceases to be a punishment at all. But if it can be shown from sound reason, and from the analogy of human penalties, that punishment is estimated by the loss involved, and not merely by the amount of pain inflicted, the objection vanishes at once, and will cease to hold back many devout and holy minds from adopting the view we here advocate.

On the duration of the punishment brought to view in the text, we take no issue. It is to be eternal; but what is to be its nature? The text says, Everlasting punishment; popular orthodoxy says, Unending misery; the Bible, we believe, says, Eternal death.

Is death punishment? If so, when a death is inflicted from which there is to be no release, that punishment is eternal or everlasting. Then the application of this scripture to the view we hold is very apparent. The heathen, to reconcile themselves to what they supposed to be their inevitable fate, used to argue that death was no evil. But when they looked forward into the endless future of which that death deprived them, they were obliged to reverse their former decision 273and acknowledge that death was an endless injury.--Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i., 47.

Why is the sentence of death in our courts of justice reckoned as the most severe and greatest punishment? It is not because the pain involved is greater; for the scourge, the rack, the pillory, and many kinds of minor punishment, inflict more pain upon the petty offender than decapitation or hanging inflicts upon the murderer. But it is reckoned the greatest because it is the most lasting; and its length is estimated by the life the person would have enjoyed, if it had not been inflicted. It has deprived him of every hour of that life he would have had but for this punishment; and hence the punishment is considered as co-existent with the period of his natural life.

Augustine says:--

The same reasoning applies to the future life as readily as to the present. By the terrible infliction of the second death, the sinner is deprived of all the bright and ceaseless years of everlasting life. The loss of every moment, hour, and year, of this life, is a punishment; and, as the life is eternal, the loss, or the punishment, is eternal also. “There is here no straining of 274argument to make out a case. The argument is one which man’s judgment has in every age approved as just.”

The original sustains the same idea. The word for punishment is kolasis; and this is defined, “a curtailing, a pruning.” The idea of cutting off is here prominent. The righteous go into everlasting life, but the wicked, into an everlasting state in which they are curtailed or cut off. Cut off from what? Not from happiness; for that is not the subject of discourse; but from life, as expressly stated in reference to the righteous. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And since the life given to man through Christ, is eternal life, it follows that the loss of it inflicted as a punishment, is eternal punishment.

The same objection is again stated in a little different form. As in the ages before our existence we suffered no punishment, so, it is claimed it will be no punishment to be reduced to that state again. To this, we reply, that those who never had an existence cannot, of course, be conceived of in relation to rewards and punishments at all. But when a person has once seen the light of life, when he has lived long enough to taste its sweets and appreciate its blessings, is it then no punishment to be deprived of it? Says Luther Lee (Immortality of the Soul, p. 128), “We maintain that the simple loss of existence 275cannot be a penalty or punishment in the circumstances of the sinner after the general resurrection.” And what are these circumstances? He comes up to the beloved city, and sees the people of God in the everlasting kingdom. He sees before them an eternity, not of life only, but of bliss and glory indescribable, while before himself is only the blackness of darkness forever. Then, says the Saviour, addressing a class of sinners, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. What is the cause of this wailing? It is not that they have to choose between annihilation or eternal torture. Had they this privilege, some might perhaps choose the former; others would not. But the cause of their woe is not that they are to receive a certain kind of punishment when they would prefer another, but because they have lost the life and blessedness which they now behold in possession of the righteous. The only conditions between which they can draw their cheerless comparisons are, the blessed and happy state of the righteous within the city of God, and their own hapless lot outside of its walls. And we may well infer from the nature of the case, as well as the Saviour’s language, that it is because they find themselves thus thrust out, that they lift up their voices in lamentation and woe. “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, 276when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out!”

The sinner then begins to see what he has lost; the sense of it, like a barbed arrow, pierces his soul; and the thought that the glorious inheritance before him might have been his but for his own self-willed and perverse career, sets the keenest edge upon every pang of remorse. And as he looks far away into eternity, to the utmost limit which the mind’s eye can reach, and gets a glimpse of the inconceivable blessedness and glory which he might have enjoyed but for his idol sin, the hopeless thought that all is lost will be sufficient to rend the hardest and most obdurate heart with unutterable agony. Say not then that loss of existence under such circumstances is no penalty or punishment.

But again: The Bible plainly teaches degrees of punishment; and how is this compatible, it is asked, with the idea of a mere state of death to which all alike will be reduced? Let us ask believers in eternal misery how they will maintain degrees in their system? They tell us the intensity of the pain endured will be in each case proportioned to the guilt of the sufferer. But how can this be? Are not the flames of hell equally severe in all parts? and will they not equally affect all the immaterial souls cast therein? But God can interpose, it is answered, to 277produce the effect desired. Very well, then, we reply, cannot he also interpose, if necessary, according to our view, and graduate the pain attendant upon the sinner’s being reduced to a state of death as the climax of his penalty? So, then, our view is equal with the common one in this respect, while it possesses a great advantage over it in another; for, while that has to find its degrees of punishment in intensity of pain alone, the duration in all cases being equal, ours may have not only degrees in pain, but in duration also; for, while some may perish in a short space of time, the weary sufferings of others may be long drawn out. But yet we apprehend that the bodily suffering will be but an unnoticed trifle compared with the mental agony, that keen anguish which will rack their souls as they get a view of their incomparable loss, each according to his capacity of appreciation. The youth who had but little more than reached the years of accountability and died, perhaps with just enough guilt upon him to debar him from Heaven, being less able to comprehend his situation and his loss, will of course feel it less. To him of older years, more capacity, and consequently a deeper experience in sin, the burden of his fate will be proportionately greater. While the man of giant intellect, and almost boundless comprehension, who thereby possessed greater influence for evil, and hence was the more guilty for devoting those 278powers to that evil, being able to understand his situation fully, comprehend his fate and realize his loss, will feel it most keenly of all. Into his soul indeed the iron will enter most intolerably deep. And thus, by an established law of mind, the sufferings of each may be most accurately adjusted to the magnitude of his guilt.

Then, says one, the sinner will long for death as a release from his evils, and experience a sense of relief when all is over. No, friend, not even this pitiful semblance of consolation is granted; for no such sense of relief will ever come. The words of another will best illustrate this point:--

Twice our Lord repeats this solemn sentence against the wicked, “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Verses 46, 48. These passages are relied on with as much assurance, perhaps, as any, to prove the eternal misery of the reprobate. If this language had never been used by any of the inspired writers of the Scriptures, till it was thus used in the New Testament, it might be urged with some degree of plausibility, as an expressive imagery of eternal torment. But, even in this case, it might be replied that fire, so far as we have any experience with it, or knowledge of its nature, invariably consumes that upon which it preys, and hence must be a symbol of complete destruction; and that the expression, as it occurs in Mark 9:44, can denote nothing less than the utter consumption of those who are cast into that fire.

But this expression was one which was well known and understood by those whom Christ was addressing. Isaiah and Jeremiah frequently 280use the figure of the undying worm and quenchless fire. In their familiar scriptures the people daily read these expressions. Let us see what idea they would derive from them. We turn to Jeremiah 17:27, and read:--

From this text we certainly can learn the meaning that was attached to the expression, “unquenchable fire,” by the Hebrew people. This fire was not to be quenched, therefore it was unquenchable. But it was to be kindled in the gates of Jerusalem, and devour the palaces thereof. It was therefore literal, natural, fire. But how could a fire of this kind, thus kindled, be supposed to be a fire that would burn eternally? They certainly would not so understand it. No more should we. Moreover, this threatening of the Lord by Jeremiah was fulfilled. 2 Chron. 36:19: “And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.” Verse 21. “To fulfill the word of the Lord by Jeremiah.” Thus Jerusalem was burned according to Jeremiah’s prediction that it should be consumed in unquenchable fire. But how long did that fire 281burn? Only till it had reduced to ashes the gates and palaces on which it preyed. Unquenchable fire is therefore simply a fire that is not quenched, or does not cease, till it has entirely consumed that which causes or supports it. Then it dies out of itself, because there is nothing more to burn. The expression does not mean a fire that must absolutely eternally burn, and that consequently all that is cast therein to feed the flame must forever be preserved by having the portion consumed immediately renewed.

To the wicked the threatened fire is unquenchable because it will not be quenched, or caused to cease, till it has entirely devoured them.

Ezekiel speaks of unquenchable fire in a similar manner.

Though this is doubtless figurative language, denoting sore calamities upon a certain land called the forest of the south field, it nevertheless 282furnishes an instance of how the expression, unquenchable fire, was then used and understood; for that generation many ages ago perished, and those judgments long since ceased to exist.

Isaiah not only speaks of the unquenchable fire, but he couples with it the undying worm, the same as the language in Mark:

This is undoubtedly the language from which the expression in Mark is borrowed; but a moment’s examination of it will show that the worm is not the remorse of a guilty conscience, but that, like the fire, it is something external to, and distinct from, the objects upon which it preys; and moreover that those upon whom it feeds are not the living, but the dead: it is the “carcasses” of the men that have transgressed against the Lord. In Isa. 14: 11, and 51: 8, the prophet again speaks of the worm as an agent of destruction, but it is always in connection with death. It is thus evident that the terms employed by our Lord in describing the doom of the wicked would convey to the minds of his hearers the very opposite of the idea of eternal life in misery.

There is other evidence, though no other is necessary, to show that the idea which would be 283conveyed, and which the language was designed to convey, to their minds, was that of complete extinction of being, an utter consumption by external elements of destruction. The word translated hell in the passage under consideration is ge-enna. It is better to enter into life maimed, than to go in full possession of all our members and faculties into ge-enna. Did those to whom Christ spoke know anything about this place, and what kind of a fate awaited those who were cast therein? A vivid picture of the place of torment to which our Lord refers was in constant operation before their eyes, near by Jerusalem.

Greenfield defines the word thus:--

Such was the fire of Gehenna; not a fire into which people were cast to be kept alive and tortured, but one into which they were cast to be consumed; not one which was designed to prey upon living beings, but upon the carcasses of animals and the dead bodies of malefactors. Hence we can see the consistency of associating the fire and the worm together. Whatever portion of the dead body the fire failed to consume, the worm would soon seize upon and devour. If 284a person had been condemned to be cast alive into this place, as the wicked will be cast into their Gehenna, what would have been his hope of escape? If the fire could have been speedily quenched before it had taken his life, and the worms which consumed what the fire left, could have been destroyed, he might have had some hope of coming out alive; but if this could not be done, he would know of a surety that his life would soon become extinct, and then even his lifeless remains would be utterly consumed by these agents of destruction.

This was the scene to which Christ pointed his hearers to represent the doom that awaits the wicked; that, as they gazed upon the work of complete destruction going on in the valley of Hinnom, the worms devouring what the flames spared, they might learn that in the future Gehenna which awaited them, no part of their being would be exempt from utter and complete destruction, one agent of death completing what another failed to accomplish.

As the definition of the word ge-enna throws great light on the meaning of this text, so the definition of another term used is equally to the point. The words for unquenchable fire are pur (long u) asbeston, and this word asbeston, primarily means simply unquenched, that is, not caused to cease by any external means: the idea of eternal is a theological definition which has 285been attached to it. Ancient writers used it in this sense. Homer, in the IlliadIlliad, xvi., 123, 294, speaks of the Trojans’ hurling “unquenchable fire” upon the Grecian ships, though but one of them was burnt by it. And Eusebius, who was a learned Greek, employs the same expression in two instances in recounting the martyrdom of Christians. Cronion and Julian, after being tortured in various ways, were consumed in an “unquenchable fire,” puri asbesto. The same is also said of Epimachus and Alexander. “The pur asbeston,” says Wetstein, “denotes such a fire as cannot be extinguishedextinguished before it has consumed and destroyed all.”

Such is the evident meaning of this passage, and the sense in which it must have been understood at that time. Yet commentators, eighteen hundred years this side of that time, presume to turn this whole representation upside down, and give to the terms a meaning exactly opposite from that which they were intended to convey. That sense alone can be the correct one in which they were first spoken; and concerning that there can be no question.

There is another text often urged to prove the eternal conscious misery of the wicked. It is one in which fire is mentioned as the instrument used for the punishment of the wicked; and this fire being called eternal, is understood in the same sense as the unquenchable fire of Mark 9:43. 286It may therefore properly be examined in this connection.

This text, when rightly understood, will, we think, like that in Mark 9, be found to convey just the opposite meaning from that popularly given to it. The first great error in the interpretation of this text, lies, as we view it, in a wrong application of the tense employed. It is claimed that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, having been destroyed, were committed to the flames of hell, where they are now (present tense) suffering the vengeance of that eternal fire. But a moment’s glance at the text will show that it is the example set forth, and not the suffering, that is in the present tense. There are other facts mentioned in the same tense with the suffering; thus, “giving themselves over to fornication,” “going after strange flesh,” “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” If one of these expressions denotes something that is now going on, the others also denote the same. If they are now suffering the fire, they are now giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh; for all these declarations are in the same construction. But no one will claim that the Sodomites are now taking the course here described; 287neither, then, can it be claimed that they are now suffering the pain of fire.

The sense of the passage appears to be very evidently this: That the Sodomites, giving themselves up to their wicked practices, and, as a consequence, suffering an eternal overthrow by fire rained down upon them from heaven, are thus set forth as an example to the ungodly of all coming ages, of the overthrow they will also experience if they follow the same course.

Peter speaks of the same event, as an example to the wicked, and tells what effect that fire had upon the cities of the plain. It did not preserve them in the midst of the fire in unceasing torture, but turned them into ashes. He says, 2 Pet. 2:6: “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” This language is too plain to need comment. How are the Sodomites made an example? By being overthrown and turned into ashes for their open and presumptuous sins. It is God saying to the wicked of all coming time, Behold, how your sins shall be visited unless you repent.

But those fires are not now burning. Seek out the site of those ancient and abandoned cities, and the brackish waters of the Dead Sea will be found rolling their sluggish waves over the spot where once they stood. Those fires are 288therefore called eternal, because their effects are eternal, or age-lasting. They never have recovered, nor will they ever recover while the world stands, from that terrible overthrow.

And thus this text is very much to the purpose on the question before us; for it declares that the punishment of Sodom is an exact pattern of the future punishment of the wicked; hence that punishment will not be eternal life in the fiery flame, but an utter consumption, even as Sodom was consumed, by its resistless vengeance.

The only remaining texts to be urged in favor of the eternal torment of the wicked, are two passages which are found in the book of Revelation. The first is Rev. 14:11: “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”

It is proper first to inquire of whom this is spoken. The question before us relates to the destiny of all the wicked. No text is therefore conclusive on this question, which speaks of only 289a certain class, or a limited number, of the wicked; for a particular class might for good reasons be set apart to a certain punishment, and that punishment be exceptional in their cases, and not such as awaits the whole race of the guilty. The passage just quoted speaks not of all the wicked, but only of a limited class--the worshipers of the beast and his image. The beast, according to evidence which no Protestant will be disposed to question, means the papal power; Rev. 13:1-10; and the image is to be formed, near the close of the career of that power. Rev. 13:14-18; 14:1-5. The text, therefore, embraces only comparatively a small portion of the wicked of the human race. The ancient world, with its teeming millions, and the present heathen world, knowing nothing of this power, are alike exempted from the punishment here brought to view. This text might therefore be set aside as inconclusive, since, even if it should be admitted to prove eternal torture for some, it does not for all.

But we claim that no text affirms eternal torment for a single conscious intelligence in all the universe, and hence undertake to show that this passage does not prove it in reference to even the limited class brought to view. The expression, “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever,” is the one upon which the doctrine of eternity of suffering is in this case suspended. 290But the same may be said of this expression that was said in last chapter in reference to the undying worm and the quenchless fire. It was not new in John’s day, but was borrowed from the Old Testament, and was one which was well understood at that time.

In Isa. 34:9, 10, the prophet, speaking of the land of Idumea, says: “And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day: the smoke thereof shall go up forever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.” But two applications can be made of this language. Either it refers to the literal land of Edom east and south of Judea, or it is a figure to represent the whole world in the day of final conflagration. In either case it is equally to the point. If the literal land of Idumea is meant, and the language has reference to the desolations which have fallen upon it, then certainly no eternity of duration is implied in the declaration that the smoke thereof shall go up forever. For all the predictions against the land of Idumea have long since been fulfilled, and the judgments have ceased. If it refers to the fires of the last day, when the elements melt with fervent heat, no eternity of duration is even then implied in the expression; for the earth is not to be forever 291destroyed by the purifying fires of the last day. It is to rise from its ashes, and a new earth come forth purified from all the stains of sin, and free from all the deformity of the curse, to be the everlasting abode of the righteous.

Here is an instance in which the word, forever, apply it in either of the only two ways possible, must denote a limited period. And here the Septuagint uses αἰων (aion) the same as is used in Rev. 14:11; and from this passage in Isaiah, the language in Revelation was probably borrowed. That the words αἰων and αἰωνιος sometimes denote a limited period, and not invariably one of eternal duration, will appear in the examination of the only remaining text that calls for consideration, namely, Rev. 20:10: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

The same limitation is apparent in this text that was observed in the preceding. It does not refer to all the wicked, but speaks only of the devil, the beast, and the false prophet. The lake of fire, the place and means of their torment, is again mentioned in verse 14; but there it is the symbol of complete and utter destruction. Death and Hades, it says, were cast into the lake of fire, and after this it is said, “There shall be no more death.” Rev. 21:4. Whatever, then, is 292cast into the lake of fire, after it has wrought its work of destruction upon them, no longer exists. This is the plain inference from what is here asserted respecting death. Then follows the testimony of verse 15, that “whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.” And this makes a final disposition of all who are not saved in the kingdom of Heaven.

There is nothing in the way of this application, unless the words “forever and ever” denote absolutely an eternity of duration. These words are translated in the New Testament from aion, and aionios, respecting which the following facts may be stated.

Aion is defined by different lexicographers as follows:--

Greenfield: “Duration, finite or infinite, unlimited duration, eternity; a period of duration past or future, time, age, lifetime; the world, universe.”

Schrevelius: “An age, a long period of time; indefinite duration; time, whether longer or shorter.”

Liddell and Scott: “A space or period of time, especially a lifetime, life, ævum; an age, a generation; long space of time, eternity; in plural, eis tous aionas ton aionon, unto ages of ages, forever and ever, N. T., Gal. 1:5.-3. later, a space of time clearly defined and marked out, an era, age, period of a dispensation: ho aion houtos, this present life, this world.”

293Parkhurst: “Always being. It denotes duration or continuance of time, but with great variety. I. Both in the singular and the plural it signifies eternity, whether past or to come. II. The duration of this world. III. The ages of the world. IV. This present life. V. The world to come. VI. An age, period, or periodical dispensation of divine providence. VII. Aiones seems, in Heb. 11:3, to denote the various revolutions and grand occurrences which have happened in this created system, including also the world itself. Comp. Heb. 1:2, and Macknight on both texts. Aion, in the LXX. generally answers to the Hebrew holam, which denotes time hidden from man, whether indefinite or definite, whether past or future.”

Robinson: “Duration, the course or flow of time in various relations as determined by the context, viz: (A) For human life, existence. (B) For time indefinite, a period of the world, the world, in Gr. writers, and also in Sept. and N. Testament. (C) For endless duration, perpetuity, eternity.... Sept. mostly for Heb. holam, ‘hidden time,’ duration, eternity.--Hence, in N. T. of long-continued time, indefinite duration, in accordance with Greek usage, but modified as to construction and extent by the example of the LXX., and the Rabbinic views.”

Schleusner gives as the first meaning of aion, “a definite and long-continued time,” i. e., a long-continued but still a definite period of time.

294Wahl has arranged the definitions of aion thus: “(1) Time, unlimited duration, ævum. (2) The universe, mundus. (3) An age, period of the world,” as the Jewish age, Christian age, &c. This reference to Schleusner and Wahl we find in Stuart on Future Punishment, pp. 91, 93.

Holam, the Hebrew word which corresponds to the Greek aion, is applied according to Gesenius to things which endure for a long time, for an indefinite period. It is applied to the Jewish priesthood, to the Mosaic ordinances, to the possession of the land of Canaan, to the hills and mountains, to the earth, to the time of service to be rendered by a slave, and to some other things of a like nature. Stuart, p. 72.

Cruden, in his Unabridged Concordance, under the word eternal, says:--

Dr. Clarke places in our hands a key to the interpretation of the words, “forever” and “forever and ever,” which is adapted to every instance of their use. According to his rule they are to be taken to mean as long as a thing, considering the 295surrounding circumstances, can exist. And he illustrates this in his closing remarks on 2 Kings 5, where, speaking of the curse of the leprosy pronounced upon Gehazi forever, he says:--

The word aionios is derived from aion, and its general meaning may be determined from the definitions given above to the latter word.

That these words are frequently applied to the existence of divine beings, and the future happiness of the saints, is true; and that in these cases they denote eternal duration is equally evident; yet, according to the definition of the words and the rule laid down by Dr. Clarke, that eternal duration could not be made out by the use of these words alone. They denote duration or continuance of time, the length of that duration 296being determined by the nature of the objects to which they are applied. When applied to things which we know from other declarations of the Scriptures are to have no end, they signify an eternity of being; but when applied to things which are to end, they are correspondingly limited in their meaning. That the existence of God and the future happiness of the righteous are to be absolutely eternal, we are abundantly assured by scriptures which make no use of the words in question. When applied to these they therefore signify a period of duration which is never to end. Just as plainly are we assured that the existence of the wicked is at last to cease in the second death; and when applied to this, the words aion and aionios must be limited accordingly in their signification. Overlooking this plain principle of interpretation, Prof. Stuart, p. 89, comes to this erroneous conclusion respecting these words, because they are applied alike to the sufferings of the lost and the happiness of the saved, that “we must either admit the endless misery of hell, or give up the endless happiness of Heaven.” We are under no such necessity. The words, aion and aionios, according to Dr. Clarke, cover the whole of the existence of the two classes in their respective spheres, and that only. The one is, after a season of suffering and anguish, to come to an end; the other is to go on in bliss to all eternity.

297So when it is said that the beast and the false prophet, and they who worship the beast and his image, are to be tormented day and night forever and ever, we must understand this expression to cover only the duration of their future existence beyond the grave. If we are anywhere given to understand by other scriptures and by other terms which are more rigid in their meaning, that this is to be eternal, the terms must here be so understood; if not, we have no warrant for so defining them here.

That the forever and ever, eis tous aionas ton aionon, of the suffering of the wicked, denotes a period of long duration, there is no question; and it may be much longer than any have been disposed to conceive who deny its eternity; yet it is to come to an end, not by their restoration to God’s favor, but by the extinction of that life which has in it no immortality, and because they have refused to accept of the life freely offered to them, which is to continue through ages without end.

We have now examined all the more prominent passages which are urged in favor of the eternal suffering of the lost. Though others may by some be brought forward to prove this doctrine, we may safely take the position that if it is not proved by those we have examined, it cannot be proved by any in all the Bible; for these use the 298strongest terms and are most explicit in their nature. And of these how many are there? Five in all. Those who have never before examined this subject, will perhaps be surprised to learn how small is the number of such texts. And should they take into the account every text which is thought to have even the slightest semblance of proving the immortality of the lost, it would not be calculated to abate that surprise to any great degree.

It now remains that we examine those texts, more in number, and more explicit in statement, which prove that the wicked shall be at last as though they had not been.

By this direct interrogation inspiration calls us face to face to the great question of the final destiny of the lost, not to leave us at last in perplexity and doubt, but to give us full information in reference thereto.

299By the foregoing examination of themes which have a bearing upon this question, we have been brought to a place where the way is all clear to listen unbiased to the direct testimony of the Bible on the point now before us. No immortality is anywhere affirmed of the soul, no eternal misery is anywhere threatened against the lost. What then is to be their fate? It is abundantly affirmed that they shall die.

The inquiry into the nature of the death threatened Adam, in chapter xxv., brought very clearly to view the fact that the penalty pronounced upon his sin reduced back to the dust the entire being, leaving no part conscious and active in the intermediate state. And the same penalty stands against sin now as at the beginning. For our personal sins, death is now threatened against us, as it was against him. This is the second death; and those who fall under this will be reduced to the same condition as that into which Adam was brought by death, with no promise nor possibility of ever being released therefrom.

Two deaths are here brought to view: First, the death common to this state of being, which all share alike, good and bad, which is called the first, or temporal, death; secondly, if a person 300dies this death in a state of sin, that is, with sins upon him of which he does not repent before he dies, for those sins that he has committed he shall die. Another death awaits him. The first death was not for his personal transgressions; for this is entailed upon all alike through Adam, both good and bad. But every one is to die for his own sins unless he repents. How is this to be brought about? He is to be raised from the first death and judged; and, if sins are then found upon him, for those sins he suffers the same penalty, death; and being thus reduced to death again, he will forever remain dead; for from this death there is no release nor redemption provided. This is the second death, and is the everlasting punishment in store for all the workers of iniquity.

Paul says, Rom. 6:23, “The wages of sin is death;” and James (1:15) corroborates this testimony, by saying, “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” In Rom. 2, Paul tells us of certain characters which are certainly deserving, if any can be, of eternal torture; but, in passing sentence upon them, he does not draw out before us a picture of unending conscious misery, a course for which he has the most appropriate occasion, if it be true, but only tells us, in accordance with reason as well as revelation, that they are worthy of death. But death is a state which can be reached only on a complete 301extinction of life. As long as there is any life about a man, he is not dead. “The death that never dies,” is a contradiction of terms. Nor can a person properly be said to be dying, unless he is tending to a state of death, which he will by and by reach. And yet the popular view of this subject is well expressed in the following language of Thomas Vincent:--

Again, the Lord says, speaking of a certain class of his enemies, “For yet a little while and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.” Isa. 10:25. This is conclusive testimony that all those with whom the Lord has occasion to be angry, as he is with all the wicked, Ps. 7:11, will be finally destroyed, and in that destruction his anger toward them will cease. Yet the majority of divines tell us that God’s “fiery indignation and incensed fury” toward them will never cease; that he will never literally destroy them, but will forever torment 302them, and keep them alive expressly that he may torment them. Says Benson:--

Thus the sinner is represented as being able to distance in sin the power of Omnipotence to punish. They go on accumulating loads of guilt in their rebellion against the divine government, while God, exerting all his divine attributes, follows tardily after, in fruitless efforts to make the terrors of his punishment adequate to the infinitude of their guilt. Oh, horrid picture of perverted imagination! Did we not believe its authors labored under the sincere conviction that they were doing God service, and did we not know that many good and estimable persons still defend the doctrine under an earnest, though mistaken, zeal for God, it would deserve to be styled the most arrant blasphemy.

This condition of the finally reprobate, so often and so distinctly defined as a state of death, is also set forth by very many other expressions, by every variety of phrase, in fact, which expresses, in the most complete and absolute manner, an utter loss of existence.

303Henry Constable, A. M., in his work on “The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment,” p. 12, says:--

The wicked shall be destroyed. “The Lord preserveth all them that love him; but all the wicked will he destroy.” Ps. 145:20. Here preservation is promised only to those who love God, and in opposition to this, destruction is threatened to the wicked. But human wisdom teaches us that God will preserve the wicked in hell--preserve them for the mere sake of torturing them. Mr. Benson again says:--

The wicked shall perish. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. A double enunciation of the truth is couched in this short text. It is that eternal life is to be obtained only through Christ, and that all who do not thus obtain it will eventually perish. John testifies further on the same point in his 1st epistle, 5:11: “And this is the record: that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” From which it follows, as a most natural consequence, that “he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Verse 12.

The wicked shall go to perdition. “We are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10:39. We either gain the salvation of our souls by a perseverance in faith, and obtain eternal life by a patient continuance in well-doing, Rom. 2:7, or we sink back into perdition, which, is defined to be utter ruin, or destruction.

“The wicked shall come to an end and be as though they had not been.” “For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou 305shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.” Ps. 37:10. If this testimony be true, there will be neither a sinner nor any place for a sinner, after God has executed upon them his just judgments. “They shall be as though they had not been.” Obad. 16.

The reader is requested to mark the significance of these texts. They are not figures, but plain enunciations of truth, demanding to be understood in the plainest and most literal manner. And though they are so abundant, and can be so easily produced, they are not to be passed over any more lightly on this account.

The wicked are compared to the most inflammable and perishable substances. Had the wicked been compared to the most durable substances with which we are acquainted in nature; had they been likened to the “everlasting hills,” the during rock, or the precious metals, gold and gems, the most incorruptible of all substances; such comparisons would not have been without their weight in giving us an idea of an eternity of existence; nor can we think they would have been overlooked by the other side. We therefore claim an equal significance on our side of the question for the fact that they are everywhere compared to just the opposite of the above-named substances--substances the most perishable and corruptible of any that exist. For no idea can be drawn from such comparisons 306at all compatible with the idea of eternal preservation in the midst of glowing and devouring fire.

Thus it is said of the wicked that they shall be dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel, Ps. 2:9, they shall be like the beasts that perish, Ps. 49:20, like the untimely fruit of a woman, Ps. 58:8, like a whirlwind that passeth away, Ps. 68:2; Prov. 10:25, like a waterless garden scorched by an eastern sun, Isa. 1:30, like garments consumed by the moth, Isa. 51:8, like the thistle down scattered by the whirlwind, Isa. 17:13, margin. They shall consume like the fat of lambs in the fire, Ps. 37:20, consume into smoke (ibid.), and ashes, Mal. 4:3, melt like wax, Ps. 68:2, burn like tow, Isa. 1:31, consume like thorns, Isa. 34:12, vanish away like exhausted waters, Ps. 58:7.

The illustrations which the New Testament uses to represent the destiny of the wicked are of exactly the same nature. They are likened to chaff, which is to be burned entirely up, Matt. 3:12, tares to be consumed, Matt. 13:40, withered branches to be burned, John 15:6, bad fish cast away to corruption, Matt. 13:47, 48, a house thrown down to its foundations, Luke 6:49, to the destruction of the old world by water, Luke 17:27, to the destruction of the Sodomites by fire, verse 29, 2 Pet. 2:5, 6, and to natural brute beasts, that perish in their own corruption. Verse 12.

307Such are the illustrations of the Scriptures on this subject. If the wicked are to be tormented forever, all these illustrations are not only unnatural, but false; for in that case they are not like the perishing beasts, the passing whirlwind, the moth-consumed garment, the burning fat, the vanishing smoke, or the melting wax; nor like chaff, tares, and withered branches, consumed and reduced to ashes. These all lose their form and substance, and become as though they had not been; but this the wicked never do, according to the popular view. There is an enormous contradiction somewhere. Is it between the writers of the Bible? or between uninspired men and the word of God? The trouble is not with the Bible; all is harmony there. The discrepancy arises from the creeds and theories of men.

The language of Moses and of Paul shows that an eternal existence of moral corruption and fiery torture is not the doom of the wicked. When Moses besought the Lord to forgive the sin of Israel, he said, “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” Ex. 32:32. This book must be the book of life, in which the names of the righteous are written. By being blotted out of this book, Moses evidently meant being devoted to the doom of sinners. If Israel could not be forgiven, he would 308himself perish with that unfaithful people. But no one can for a moment suppose that he wished throughout eternity for a life of sin, pain, and blasphemy, in hell. He only wished for an utter cessation of that life which, if his prayer could not be granted, would be an intolerable burden. And if this is what he meant by being blotted out of God’s book, it follows that this will be the doom of the ungodly; for the Lord answered, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.”

In a similar manner, Paul speaks concerning the same people: “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Rom. 9:3. We cannot suppose that Paul would desire a life of sin and moral corruption, such as that of the sinner in hell is said to be, even for the sake of his people. But he was willing to give up his life for them, and cease to exist, if thereby they might be saved.

To notice more particularly some of the scriptures in which a portion of the foregoing figures are found, their testimony may be summed up in the following final proposition:--

The wicked shall be consumed and devoured by fire. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness,” &c. “Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the 309chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust”! Isa. 5:20-24. Reader, have you ever seen fire devour stubble, or flame consume chaff? Then you have seen a figure of the destruction of the wicked. And let the advocate of eternal misery tell us, if such language does not denote the utter consumption of the wicked, what language would do it, if the doctrine were true. Let us know what language Inspiration should have used, had it wished to convey such an idea. Is it such as this? “But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.” Ps. 37:20. “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” The word here rendered devour, κατέφαγεν, says Stuart, is “intensive, to eat up, devour, so that it denotes utter excision.” In the light of this scripture, we can readily understand how it is that the wicked are to be recompensed in the earth. Prov. 11:31. Coming up in the second resurrection, at the end of the 1000 years of Rev. 20:5, they come up around the New Jerusalem, the beloved city, the abode of the saints, then descended from Heaven to earth, chap. 21:5, and then their fearful retribution overtakes them. It is then that they 310have their portion in those purifying fires that sweep over the earth, in which, according to Peter’s testimony, the elements of this great globe itself shall melt with fervent heat. 2 Pet. 3:10, 12. For it is at the day of Judgment (by which of course we must understand the execution of the Judgment) and perdition of ungodly men that this takes place. See verse 7. So, too, the righteous, as they go forth upon the new earth, verse 13, destined to be their eternal and glorious abode, will receive their recompense in the earth. Then will be fulfilled the word of the Lord by the prophet Malachi, which says, “For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” Mark the distinctness of this language. It does not say that the wicked shall be as ashes, nor does it introduce any comparison here whatever, but plainly states a plain fact, that they shall be ashes, under the soles of the saints’ feet. Not that the saints 311will literally walk on ashes, but the wicked, having been reduced to ashes, like all other sin-and-curse-polluted things, are incorporated into the substance of the new earth, which the saints are evermore to inhabit, as it emerges from the renovating fires of the last day.

Then will the universe be clean and pure. Then the stain of sin will all be wiped away forever; sinners, and the great enemy that deceived them (for he, too, shall be destroyed, Heb. 2:14), being rooted out of the land of the living. Its every scar now impressed upon the handiwork of God shall be effaced; and this unfortunate earth shall be re-adorned, as only God, omnipotent in power and omniscient in wisdom, is able to adorn it. And then will arise that glad anthem of universal Jubilee, in which shall join every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, ascribing blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. Rev. 5:13. There is no room here for a great receptacle of fiery torment, where an innumerable company of human beings shall burn and blaspheme and sin and suffer forever and ever. There is no room in this great song of joy for the discordant and hopeless wailing of the damned. There is no provision made for an eternal rebellion against the government of God, and eternal 312blasphemy against his holy name! No! only the loyal subjects of the great Captain of our salvation, only such as love immortal life, and seek for it, and prepare themselves for its inestimable blessings, shall ever enjoy the glorious boon; while those who put from themselves the word of God, and “judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life,” Acts 13:46, will be remanded back to the original elements from which they sprung; and strict Justice will write upon their unhonored and unlamented graves that they themselves were the arbiters of their own fate.

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” asked an eminent servant of God in the opening pages of revelation, Gen. 18:25; and when all is finished, the redeemed, looking over all God’s dealings with man, exclaim with fervent lips, “Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.” Rev. 15:3. It is objected that we should raise no question regarding the justness of the doom to which God may devote any portion of our race; because we are not able to judge of his ways. Of things with which we are imperfectly acquainted, or which are above our comprehension, 313this is undoubtedly true; but respecting our relation to God, the light in which he looks upon sin, and the disposition he will finally make of it, he says to us, “Come, let us reason.” We are never called upon to form an opinion or a decision in regard to things respecting which we are incapable of judging; but we are called upon to reverence God, as a God of love, wisdom, justice, and mercy. We must, therefore, be capable of judging of his character, his mercy, his love, his wisdom, and his justice. Are these characteristics displayed in his future dealings with the wicked, according to the view generally promulgated by the churches of the present day? The question to be decided is this: Is an eternity of torture so intense that the severest pain a person can suffer on earth is but a faint shadow of it, any just punishment for any conceivable amount of sin committed by the worst of men, during the brief period of our mortal life? What is our present life? Something for which we did not ask; something given us without our knowledge or consent; and, in the forcible language of another, “Can any abuse of this unasked-for gift justify the recompense of an existence spent in unending agony?”

Between the sins committed in this finite life, and the fiery torment of hell continued through numberless millions of ages, and then no nearer its end than when the first groan was uttered, 314there is a disproportion so infinite, that few attempt to rest that eternal misery on merely the sins of the present life; and they endeavor to vindicate God’s justice in the matter, or at least to apologize for his course, by saying that the sinner continues to sin, and that is the reason why he continues to suffer. The guilt of all the sins done in the body is soon expiated in the fiery flame; but then they must suffer for the sins committed after they left this mortal state, and commenced their life of agony in hell. And here they are represented as sinning faster than the inconceivable woe of hell can punish. It is affirmed of them, as quoted from Benson in the previous chapter, that “they must be perpetually swelling their enormous sums of guilt, and still running deeper, immensely deeper, in debt to divine and infinite justice. Hence, after the longest imaginable period, they will be so far from having discharged their debt that they will find more due than when they first began to suffer.”

In like manner Wm. Archer Butler, in his sermon on Future Punishment, says:--

Do the Scriptures anywhere thus speak? Do they not affirm, not once or twice, but over and 315over again, that the punishment of the future is for the sins of the present time? It is for the sins in which the sinner dies, not for what he commits after death, that he is to suffer future retribution. Eze. 18:26. The works for which we are to be brought into judgment (and for no others can we be punished) are the works of this present life. Eccl. 12:14. And Paul testifies, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” 2 Cor. 5:10. It is for the sins done by human beings in the body, in this present life, not for what they will commit as lost spirits in hell, that they are to answer at the judgment seat of Christ, and for which they are to receive a just retribution. And if everlasting misery is thought to be too much for this, we are not at liberty to throw in post-mortem sins to balance the excessive punishment. If eternal torment cannot be defended as a just punishment for the sins of this present life, it cannot be defended at all.

To illustrate: Suppose in an earthly tribunal the judge should sentence a criminal to a punishment altogether too severe for the crime of which he had been guilty, and then should endeavor to justify his course by saying that he gave the sentence because he knew that the criminal would deserve it by the sins he would 316commit after he went to jail! How long would such a judge be tolerated? Yet this is the very course attributed by learned doctors of divinity, to the Judge of all the earth, who has declared that he will do right.

On the supposition that eternal torture is to be inflicted as the penalty for a life of sin in this world, were man asked if God’s conduct in this respect was just, his own innate sense of justice, not yet wholly obliterated by the fall, would prompt him to a universal and determined, No! The framers of different religious systems have felt this, and seem to have searched sharply for some avenue of escape from the fearful wrong of this horrid theory. So Plato had his Acherusian lake from which at least some of the wretched sufferers in Tartarus, after a purgative process might issue forth again to the upper air. Augustine following Plato in his notion of an abode of unending pain for some, had also his purgatory from whence others might find a road to Heaven. Rome has only a purgatory, the fires of a finite period, for the millions within her communion. Origen conceived of a purgatory wider than Plato’s, Augustine’s, or Rome’s, from which all should at length be restored to the favor of God.

The churches of the Reformation have generally accepted of Augustine’s hell, but denied his purgatory. In the Protestant denominations, 317therefore, we have this doctrine in its most horrid aspects. And it is no marvel that many who have felt compelled by their creed to accept it, have shrunk from its advocacy, and have tacitly, if not openly, confessed that they could heartily wish it were a lie.

Saurin at the close of one of his sermons thus speaks:--

Albert Barnes, the well-known preacher and commentator, speaks on the same point as follows:--

Such is the effect of the doctrine of eternal misery with some, according to the confession of its own advocates. No one can say that such effects are either good or desirable. And why does it not have this effect upon more? We answer, it is because the lips only mechanically assent to what the heart and reason either will not try to realize, or else do not seriously believe. Says Bishop Newton:--

But the majority are affected by it far differently. Every better emotion of their nature revolts at the idea, and they will not accept it. They cannot believe that God is thus cruel, tyrannical, revengeful, implacable; the personification, in short, of every trait of character which, when seen in men here, we consider unmistakable marks of debasement and degradation; and believing the Bible and Christianity to be identified with such teaching as this, with equal promptness they too are rejected and cast away. But here we need not enlarge. Probably no one will read 319these lines under whose observation some case has not come of persons driven into skepticism, yes, driven and held there, by the popular doctrine of eternal misery--a doctrine which has been well described by a Christian writer, as “a theology that is confused, entangled, imperfect, and gloomy; a theology which, while it abundantly breeds infidelity among the educated classes, fails to spread through the body of the population, and but dimly, or only as a flickering candle enlightens the world.”--I. Taylor.

But how is it with the view we have tried to present? Quite the reverse, as our own observation proves. Instances have come under our immediate knowledge of persons who, when they saw the divine harmony of God’s system of government, as brought to view in his word, when they saw the just and reasonable disposition which the Bible declares that he will make of all those who will persist in rebellion against him,--a disposition in which justice and mercy so beautifully blend, have been able to take that Bible and say for the first time in their life they could believe it to be the book of God. And believing this, they have been led to turn their feet into its testimonies, and strive by obedience to its plain requirements to escape a doom which they could see to be just, and therefore knew to be certain. This has been the experience of many. Let, then, the impression no longer exist, and the assertion 320no more be made, that these views tend to irreligion and infidelity. Their fruits everywhere show just the reverse.

Can it then be wondered at that we should be solicitous to disabuse the minds of the people in this respect? Shall we not have a zeal for the Lord, and be untiring in our efforts to wipe off from the book and character of God the aspersions which are by this doctrine cast upon them? God represents himself to his creatures by the endearing name of Love; he declares that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy, long-suffering and slow to anger, not hasty to execute sentence against an evil work, not gratified in any manner by the death of the wicked, and not willing that any should perish; he declares that he delighteth in mercy, that he will not contend forever, neither be always wroth. And can it be that while thus representing himself to the inhabitants of earth, he was kindling fiery torture on multitudes of wretched beings in the dreary regions of hell, feeding their flame with his incensed fury, preserving and tormenting them in infinite indignation, exerting all his divine attributesattributes to make them as wretched as the capacity of their nature would admit, and maintaining a fixed purpose to do this through the endless ages of eternity! If not, “what a portentous error must it be!” How fearfully is his character 321misrepresented! What a bold and audacious libel is uttered against his holy name!

The root and trunk of all this, is the “taken-for-granted” position that the soul is immortal. But search through your Bible and see if you find it so. See if you will not rather be prepared to exclaim with the eminent commentator, Olshausen, that “the doctrine of the ‘immortality of the soul,’ and the name, are alike unknown to the entire Bible.” (Comment on 1 Cor. 15:19, 20.) See if you can find the death that never dies, and never-dying soul. If not, we ask you to reject the idea at once as a most dangerous and destructive error. Men are thus rejecting it. The leaven is working in the public mind. Men are growing suspicious of the truth of a declaration, first uttered by a not over-truthful character in Eden, perpetuated thence through heathenism, and at last through the medium of the mother of harlots, disseminated through all the veins and channels of Orthodoxy. But truth will work its way up, however deeply the rubbish may have been heaped upon it; and before the bright rising of its light, all antiquated superstitions and traditionary dogmas, will lie exposed in their native deformity.

After the Bible, what? When once the word of God pronounces upon a question, what further evidence is needed to sustain the position, or what evidence is strong enough to break its decision? What can human reason, science, and philosophy, do for a theory upon which the Scriptures have written “Ichabod”?

We have, in previous chapters, examined the teaching of the Bible on the whole subject of man’s creation, nature, death, intermediate state, and final doom. We have found that man was not created absolutely mortal or immortal, but relatively both: immortality was within his reach, and mortality lay as a danger in his path. He sinned and became absolutely mortal. Then death becomes an unconscious sleep in the grave, and his destiny beyond the tomb, if he does not secure through Christ, eternal life, is an utter loss of existence. But there are some who think that reason, science, and philosophy, are sufficient to disprove these conclusions; or, at least, that they are so strong that the Bible record must be made to harmonize with the claims drawn from these sources. But they forget that much that we call reason is in the sight of God “foolishness,” that 323there is a philosophy which the Bible pronounces “vain,” and some kinds of science which it says are “falsely so called.”

We are willing to grant philosophy the privilege of trying to substantiate its claims. It may boast like Goliah, but it will be found weaker than Belshazzar before the handwriting on the wall.

The soul immortal. It is claimed that the soul is immaterial, and cannot therefore be destroyed, and hence must be immortal. Luther Lee says:--

This claim is good if whatever is indestructible is immortal. But this is a manifest error. The elements of the human body are indestructible, but the body is not therefore immortal. It is subject to change, death, and decay. But if it is claimed that the soul, being immaterial, is without elements, then perhaps it might follow that it is indestructible; for that which is nothing can never be made less than nothing.

But if the soul of man, being immaterial, is thus proved to be immortal, what shall we say of the souls of the lower orders of animals? for they manifest the phenomena of mind as well as men. They remember, fear, imagine, compare, manifest gratitude, anger, sorrow, desire, &c. Bishop Warburton says:--

Whoever, therefore, affirms the immortality of man from the immateriality of his soul, is bound to affirm the same, not only of the nobler animals, but also of all the lower orders of the brute creation. Here, believers in natural immortality are crushed beneath the weight of their own arguments. If it be said that God can, if he choose, blot from existence the immaterial soul of the beetle and the titmouse, we reply, so can he that of man; and then its immortality is at an end, and the whole argument is abandoned.

“Matter cannot think.” This is the fundamental proposition on which the airy phantom of the immortality of the soul relies for its support. Since man does think, and matter cannot think, the mind or soul must be immaterial and immortal. It is one thing to make such an assertion; it is quite another thing to prove it; and the proof lies not within the power of man. That mind, like electricity, may be a property of matter, or result from material causes, Sidney Smith, in his Principles of Phrenology, 1838, very clearly states as follows:--

On the same point, Mr. W. G. Moncrieff says:--

We arraign this theory also before the majesty of the brute creation. What about the immaterial minds of the lower animals? Does matter think in their cases? or have they also immortal souls? Dogs, horses, monkeys, elephants, &c., have been taught to perform different acts, imitate various movements, and even to dance the same tune over and over again, to accompanying strains of music: acts which involve the exercise of memory, will, reason, and judgment.

The exercise of high mental powers is shown in the intelligence and sagacity of the horse and elephant, in the manifold cunning of the fox, in the beaver and bee, which construct their houses with such mechanical ingenuity, in the mules of the Andes, which thread with so sure a foot the gloomy gorges and craggy heightsheights of the mountains, and in the dogs of St. Bernard, as they rescue benighted and half-frozen travelers in the passes of the Alps. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, speaking of the sagacity of one of his dogs, says:--

John Locke, the distinguished writer on metaphysical questions, says:--

Pritchard, On the Vital Principle, says:--

H. H. Dobney, Future Punishment, p. 101, says:--

329Similar views are attributed to Coleridge and Cudworth.

Dalton, in his treatise on Human Physiology, p. 428, says:--

With these testimonies from such eminent witnesses, we leave the friends of the rational argument inextricably mixed up with the brute creation. The legitimate result of their theory is to confer immortality upon all orders of animated existence. We are sometimes accused of degrading man to the level of the brute. But if 330our friends of the other side elevate all brutes up to the level of man, how does that practically differ from what they accuse us of doing? The result is the same. If all come at last upon the same level, it matters not whether brutes come up or man goes down.

But our view is not open to this objection. While we deny that immortality is proved for either man or beast by any vital or mental powers which they may exhibit, our theory finds a superior position for man in his more refined mental and physical organization, whereby he becomes possessed of a higher mental and moral nature, and is the proper recipient of the hope of immortality.

Another fact on which it is supposed that an argument for immortality can be founded is,

The capacities of the soul. The mind of man, it is argued, by its wonderful achievements, and its lofty aspirations, shows itself capable of some higher and better state of being than we at present enjoy. And from this the conclusion is easy (if people will not stop to scan very critically the connection) that such a state of being inevitably awaits mankind, in which they are destined to live forever.

But this argument, which, stripped of its disguise, is simply an egotistical assertion, I am fit to be a god, and therefore I am a god, will be found to collapse under very slight pressure. Mr. 331J. Panton Ham describes it in fitting terms, when he speaks of it as follows:--

But all men cannot engineer the construction of a pyramid, nor construct a balloon, nor build an engine, much less accomplish the greater feat involved in their first invention. All men are not learned and skillful, and of such eminent capabilities. Is it not, in fact, almost an infinitely small proportion of the human race that has manifested those great powers on which this argument is based! And can the capacities of a few leading minds determine the destiny of the great mass of men who possess no such powers?

And if an argument may be based on the capacities of some, may not an equal and opposite argument be based on the incapacity of others? 332and in this case on which side would the weight of evidence lie? And as there is almost every conceivable gradation of intelligence, who will tell us whereabouts in this scale the infinite endowment of immortality is first perceptible? Looking at the human race, and the races immediately below, we behold a point where they seem to blend indistinguishably into each other. Will an utter lack of capacity be affirmed of the higher orders of the brute creation? And descending in the scale, where shall we stop? Where is the transition from immortality to mortality?

We have given, in the preceding portion of this chapter, extracts from eminent authors showing that brutes reason, that they exercise, to a degree, all the powers of the human mind, that they have a sense, to some extent, of right and wrong, and give evidence, of the same nature as man is able to give in reference to himself, that they possess just as immaterial a soul as he. And have we not all seen horses and dogs that gave evidence of possessing more good sense than some men? And in this graduated scale of animated existence, where is the dividing line between the mortal and the immortal? Will some one locate it? What degree of mental capacity is necessary to constitute an evidence of immortality? And here we leave this argument. It demands no further notice till its friends who 333base immortality on mental capacity will determine which class of their less fortunate brothers is so low as to be beyond its reach.

Universal belief and inborn desire. Men have universally believed in the immortality of the soul, it is claimed, and all men desire it; therefore, all men have it. Strange conclusion from strange premises. As to the first part of this argument, the universal belief, that appears not to be true, in fact. On this, a glance at a quotation or two must suffice. Whately (Essay 1 on a Future State) says:--

Leland, on the Advantages of Revelation, says:--

Touching the other portion of the argument, the universal and inborn desire, those who make use of it, to make it of any avail, are bound to supply and prove the suppressed premise, which 334is that all men have what they desire. The syllogism would then stand thus: 1. All men have what they desire. 2. All men desire immortality. Conclusion. Therefore, all men are immortal. This is a fair statement of the question; but are any presumptuous enough to take the ground that all men have what they desire? Is it true, in fact? Do not our every-day’s observations give it the unqualified lie? Men desire riches, but do all possess them? they desire health, but do all have it? they desire happiness here, but what an infinitely small portion of the race are really happy. To try to get over the matter by saying that these desires that men have may be gratified by their taking a right course, is an abandonment of the whole argument; for thus much we readily grant concerning immortality: all men may gratify their desires here by taking a right course; immortality also is suspended upon conditions, and those only will have it in whom those conditions are found to be scrupulously complied with.

But there is another fatal flaw in this argument in another respect; for it is not immortality in the abstract that is the object of this great desire among men, but happiness. And the very persons who contend for immortality because men desire it, hold that a great portion of the race will be forever miserable. But this is not what men desire; and not being what they desire, 335it follows that all will not obtain what they desire, and hence the argument built on desire is good for nothing on their own showing. It simply proves universal salvation, or that men will be forever happy because all men desire it, or it proves nothing.

The analogies of nature. The day shuts down in darkness, but is not forever lost; the morn returns again, and the bright sun comes forth rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. Nature is bound, cold and lifeless, in the icy chains of winter; but it is not lost in absolute death. Anon the spring approaches, and at its animating voice and warm breath, the pulse of life beats again through all her works; her cold cheek kindles with the glow of fresh vitality; and she comes forth adorned with new beauty, waking new songs of praise in every grove. The chrysalis, too, that lay apparently a dead worm, motionless and dry, soon wakes up to a higher life, and comes forth gloriously arrayed, like a “living blossom of the air,” sipping nectar from the choicest sweets of earth, and nestling in the bosom of its fairest flowers. And so, too, it is claimed of man, “that when the body shall drop as a withered calyx, the soul shall go forth like a winged seed.”--Horticultural Address, by E. H. Chapin.

Let us take care that here our judgments are not led captive by the fascinations of poetry, or 336the rhetorical beauties of which this argument is so eminently susceptible. Among the many instances of nature, we find only a few that furnish the analogies here presented. The chrysalis, so often referred to, after it has spent its brief day as a living butterfly, perishes and is heard of no more forever. So with all the higher order of brutes: they fall in death and make no more their appearance upon our path. The most, then, that can be drawn from this argument, is a faint foreshadowing, perhaps, of a future life. But here, let it be understood, there is no issue. We all agree that the race shall be called again to life. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Cor. 15:22. But the point at issue is, Are our souls immortal, and must this life be, to all our race, necessarily eternal? To prove that man will live again is one thing; to prove that that life will be eternal, is quite another.

The anomalies of the present state. How often do we here see the wicked spreading himself like a green bay tree, having more than heart could wish, while the righteous grope their way along, in trouble and want. The wicked are exalted, and the good are oppressed. This does not look like the arrangement of a God who is the patron of virtue and the enemy of vice. It is therefore argued that there will be another state in which all these wrongs shall be righted, virtue rewarded, 337and wickedness punished. Yes, we reply, there will. But, certainly, a space of time infinitely short of eternity would suffice to correct all the anomalies of this brief life, which so puzzle men here. This argument, like the former, may be a fair inference for a future state; it may portend to the ungodly a scene of retribution, but can prove nothing as to its duration.

Immortality assumed. We are told that the Bible assumes the immortality of the soul as a truth so evident that it is not necessary to expressly affirm it. This is why the doctrine has come to be so generally received against so explicit evidence against it. It has been taken for granted! Says Bishop Tillotson:--

“It is taken for granted” that immortality is an essential attribute of the soul, and that therefore for the Bible to affirm it would be mere tautology. But we reply, Is not immortality an essential attribute also of Jehovah? Yet the Bible has been tautological enough to plainly state this fact. And it would seem that it might have carried its “tautology” a little further, and told us as much, at least once, about the soul, if that too is immortal; for surely its immortality cannot be more essential than that of Jehovah.

Annihilation impossible. Nature everywhere revolts, we are told, against our doctrine of annihilation, 338and everywhere proves it false; for nothing ever has been, nor ever can be, annihilated. To which we reply, Very true; and here we would correct the impression which some seem to entertain, that we believe in any such annihilation of the wicked; or the annihilation of anything as matter. In reference to the wicked, we simply affirm that they will be annihilatedannihilated as living beings, the matter of which they are composed passing into other forms. The second definition of annihilate, according to Webster, is, “To destroy the form or the peculiar distinctive properties, so that the specific thing no longer exists; as, to annihilate a forest by cutting and carrying away the trees, though the timber may still exist; to annihilate a house by demolishing the structure.” Just so of the wicked: as conscious intelligent beings they are annihilated, being resolved into their original elements.

Evil tendency. Why promulgate the doctrine of the destruction of the wicked, it is asked, even if it be true? Will not evil rather than good result from it? Some, honestly no doubt, deprecate any agitation of this question; and we have even heard some, impelled either by their fears or their prejudices, go so far as to declare that “it will make more infidels than Tom Paine’s Age of Reason,” and that “no conversions to God will ever follow in the track of its blighting and soul-destroying influence.”

339It might be necessary first to inquire what idea these persons have of infidelity. Perhaps they apply that term to everything that is not in agreement with their own views. And if this is the standard by which they judge of this matter, their assertion may possibly be in part correct; for converts to this doctrine are multiplying at a rapid rate. But giving to infidelity its legitimate definition, we call upon all those who claim that this doctrine makes infidels, to give some proof of their assertion before they again repeat it. This matter can be easily tested. The friends and advocates of this doctrine are neither few nor obscure. Men from all the walks of life, public and private, are daily swelling the ranks; and if this doctrine makes infidels, the infidels of our day should be found among those who receive it. But do we find them there? If one solitary individual can be found who repudiates the Scriptures as the revealed will of God, because he has been made to believe that they do not teach eternal misery for the lost, we would be glad to see him, or even to learn of him. This is not what causes infidelity, it is what cures it. What do we find in the ranks of the friends of this doctrine? Not the criminal and vicious classes, not those who have thrown off all restraint, not rejecters of divine revelation; but we find those who were formerly skeptics rescued from their skepticism, and infidels recovered from their infidelity. 340We find multitudes who can now rest down with sweet assurance on the word of God, the perplexities with which they had been troubled respecting God’s dealings with his creatures all cleared from the mind, and whose feelings may be well expressed in the following language from Henry Constable, A. M.:--

These are among its general good effects. But there exists a special reason at the present time why men should be made acquainted with the true teachings of the Bible on this question. It is the only antidote against modern spiritualism, that master-piece of Satanic cunning and deception, and the climax of his corrupting work in the earth. In what horrid blasphemies has this 341delusion arrayed itself! To what corruption does it lead its votaries! How utterly it debauches the moral natures of all those who suffer themselves to receive its polluting touch! And notwithstanding it carries in its train all these terrible evils, how rapidly is it spreading through the land, and at what a fearful rate is it swelling the catalogue of its victims!

Why is this? It is because the way has long and thoroughly been prepared for it in the doctrine of the conscious state of the dead, and the immortality of the soul. This is its foundation, its life and spirit. Take away this, and it is robbed of its vitality. For if it be true, as the Bible declares, that when a man goes into the grave, his thoughts perish, his love and hatred and envy are no longer exercised, and he knows not anything, then whatever spirit comes to us from the unseen world, professing to be the spirit of a dead man, it comes with a lie in its mouth, and thus shows itself to be of the synagogue of Satan. This is the Ithuriel spear that transforms this lying system, which at its best showing is as low and ugly as the blotchiest toad that ever lived, into the real devil that it is. Then let this truth be spread abroad on all the wings of the wind, that in the hands of the people may be placed some safeguard against this ghastly embodiment of falsehood, pollution, and death.

With the truth clearly stated as to how God 342will deal with the sinner and finally dispose of sin, we can appeal with confidence to the calm reason and the better nature of every child of Adam. We can second the tender entreaty which God extends to every wayward soul, “Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?” “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn from his way and live.” Life and death are set before you. The Saviour bids you look unto him and live. Mercy entreats you to destroy not yourself. The spirit and the bride bid you come and partake of the water of life freely.

You can no longer take refuge from an awakened conscience under the idea that the threatenings of the Lord are not understood, and may not therefore be so terrific as supposed. The sinner’s doom is unmistakably declared; and in the justness of that sentence, however slightly you may now realize the heinousness and just desert of sin, your own reason can but heartily concur. Will you then plunge headlong to ruin? or will you turn and accept the immense gratuity of eternal life? Of course you do not mean to perish. We accuse you not of this. The shining form of Hope is dancing on before you in the path of life--hope that ere it is too late, ere the silver cord be loosed or ever the golden bowl be broken, you will make sure a treasure and inheritance in Heaven.

343We would impress upon your mind that this hope may deceive you. Ere you reach the delusive phantom, the earth may suddenly open beneath your feet, and Hades receive you to its fixed embrace. Ere you overtake the beckoning form, ere the good intention be carried out, ere you grasp the prize now held only by the uncertain tenure of good resolve, the glory of the coming Judge, descending through the parting and dissolving heavens, may suddenly burst upon your unprepared soul. Yes! the great voice from the temple of Heaven, crying, “It is finished!” may suddenly arrest you in the midst of your delaying and dallying career! The heavenly court of mercy may cease its sitting, ere you have made a friend of the great Advocate who alone can plead your cause!

“Procrastination is the thief of time.” It may be the thief of your eternal bliss. Its every moment is high-handed and insane presumption. Its path is a path of unseen and innumerable dangers. You have no lease of your life. The present state is one of exposure and peril. The shafts of death are flying thickly about you. Time is short and its sands are swiftly falling. The bliss of Heaven, or the blackness of darkness forever, will soon be yours. With the saved or lost you must soon take your position. There is no intermediate ground. Choose, then, we beseech you, the enduring portion. Choose for eternity, choose 344wisely, choose now. And may it be ours to join the great song of salvation at last, ascribing blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto Him who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb who poured out his soul an offering for sin, that whosoever would believe on him might not perish but have everlasting life.

The following is from “The Doctrine of a Future Life,” by W. R. Alger. He here discusses the “morality of the doctrine of a future life” on the strong hypothesis that there is to be no existence hereafter, and utterly disproves the conclusions which some would make the inevitable consequence of such a doctrine. The same objections are urged against the view we entertain that after the Judgment the sinner is to endure a punishment which reaches its climax in the loss of existence. With a hundred-fold more force the reasoning of Mr. Alger lies against these objections when urged in opposition to our view. We have in this life the great incentive to goodness and virtue, that is involved in the hope of immortality, seconded by the wonderful intervention of Christ in our behalf, which is calculated to arouse all the nobler sentiments of our being. If this will not win men from sin to a holy life, they would not be driven to it by threats of eternal torture. Mr. Alger says:--

• Alger, W. R., 264, 345
• Alleine, Jos., 257
• Andrews, S. J., 140
• Augustine, 273

• Baptist Confession, 219
• Barnes, A., 117, 317
• Benson, 302, 303
• Bloomfield, 97, 147
• Buck, Chas., 47
• Bush, Geo., 43, 101
• Butler, Wm. A., 314

• Carmichael, A., 233
• Chaldee Paraphrase, 76
• Chapin, E. H., 335
• Cicero, 9, 273
• Clarke, A., 32, 36, 43, 86, 90, 140, 167, 257, 295
• Conant, T. J., 32
• Constable, H., 303, 340
• Crellius, J., 206
• Cruden, 294

• Dalton, 328
• Dobney, H. H., 8, 263, 328
• Douay Bible, 76

• Eusebius, 285

• Gesenius, 51
• Greenfield, 283, 292

• Ham, J. P., 331
• Hobbs, 9
• Hogg, James, 327
• Homer, 285
• Hudson, C. F., 278

• Kitto, 41

• Landis, R. W., 45, 58, 59, 61, 64, 73, 77, 89, 94, 105, 122, 162, 170, 172, 175, 203
• Law, Bishop, 205, 242
• Lee, Luther, 101, 140, 210, 274, 323
• Leeland, 333
• Liddell & Scott, 292
• Locke, John, 228, 328
• Longfellow, 224
• Luther, 76

• Mattison, H., 36
• Moncrieff, W. G., 326
• Muller, Dr., 233

• Newton, Bp., 318

• Olshausen, 49, 321

• Parkhurst, 51, 53, 102, 293
• Priestly, Dr., 206
• Pritchard, 328

• Robinson, 53, 293

• Saurin, 317
• Scott, Thos., 32
• Schrevelius, 292
• Schleusner, 293
• Seneca, 9
• Septuagint, 76
• Socrates, 9
• Smith, Sidney, 324
• Smith, Wm., 49
• Stuart, Moses, 8, 296
• Syriac Version, 76

• Taylor, I., 319
• Taylor, Dr. J., 51, 229
• Tillotson, Bp., 337
• Trench, 167
• Tyndale, Wm., 233

• Vincent, Thos., 301

• Wahl, 294
• Wakefield, 147
• Warburton, Bp., 324
• Watson, 70
• Watts, Isaac, 228
• Wesley, 70
• Wetstein, 285
• Whately, R., 333
• Whedon, D. D., 224

• Abraham’s ancestors idolaters, 123
• Abel’s blood cried from the ground to God, 117
• Absent from the body, meaning of, 183
• Adam threatened with literal death, 228,
  • testimony of Locke, Watts, and Taylor, 228,
  • his condition in his creation, 229
• A dishonorable perversion, 53, 54
• Aion, meaning of, according to Greenfield, Schrevelius, Liddell and Scott, Parkhurst, Robinson, Schleusner, and Wahl, 292, 293
• Aionios, meaning of, 295
• Analogies of nature, 335
• Analogy between sleep and death, 235
• Anecdote of the reasoning powers of brutes, 327
• Annihilation impossible, 337
• Angels not the ancient prophets, 215
• An ancient case of modern spiritualism, 136
• Anastasis, meaning of, 231
• A clean universe at last, 311
• An illustration on future punishment, 315
• Anomalies of the present state, 336
• A spirit, or spiritual being, what, 27
• A spirit hath not flesh and bones, 95,
  • note by Bloomfield, 97
• A threefold death disproved, 219
• Attempt to understand the popular idea of a spirit, 326
• Athanasia, aphthartos, and aphtharsia, use and meaning of, 15, 19

• Bible views of future punishment produce the best effect, 319

• Can the soul be killed? 105
• Capacities of the soul, 330
• Christ the express image of God, 29, 30
• Christ, the first-fruits, first-begotten, and first-born, how, 143-145
• 364Christ first raised from the dead, exposition of Acts 26:23, 146
• Christ and the Sadducees 149
• Clarke on Gen. 2:7, 32,
  • on Heb. 12:22, 86,
  • his key to the words forever and ever, 295
• Comma, in its present form, when invented, 179
• Conant on Gen. 2:7; Isa. 2:22, 32
• Connection between our present and future being, testimony of Bishop Law, 205,
  • Crellius and Priestly, 206
• CriticismCriticism, a desperate case of, 176
• Cruden on the words eternal, everlasting, and forever, 294

• Day in Gen. 2:17, meaning of, 223
• Date of Samuel’s ministry, 128
• Date of Saul’s reign, 128
• Death a punishment, 272,
  • Augustine’s testimony, 273,
  • no relief to the sinner, 278
• Deeds done in the body only to be judged, 315
• David not ascended to Heaven, 239
• Departing and being with Christ, 199
• Death of Adam, the same that is threatened against the sinner, 299
• Departure and return of the soul, 100,
  • note by Luther Lee, 101,
  • by Prof. Bush, 101,
  • by Parkhurst, 102
• Destiny of the wicked: they shall be destroyed, 303,
  • shall perish, go to perdition, and be as though they had not been, 304,
  • their doom set forth in language that is not figurative, 305,
  • they are compared to the most inflammable substances, 305,
  • they shall be consumed and devoured by fire, 308

• Earthly house, what, 185
• Eternal torment threatened to no one, 289
• Eternal suffering not proportioned to the sins of a finite life, 313
• Eternal fire, Jude 7,
  • illustrated and explained, 286
• Everlasting fire, 270
• Everlasting punishment, 271
• Evil tendency of the doctrine of the destruction of the wicked, 338
• 365Expressions used to describe the final condition of the wicked, 303

• Future punishment eternal, 267,
  • it consists in death, 299

• Gathered to his people, meaning of, 120,
  • sees corruption, 124
• Ge-enna, the hell of Mark 9:43, 44,
  • meaning of, 283
• God not a God of the dead but of the living, meaning of, 153
• God’s dealings with his creatures, 312
• God a person, 28

• Hades and sheol, meaning of, 156,
  • use of the word sheol, 157,
  • who go there, and the duration of its dominion, 157,
  • its location, 158,
  • condition of the righteous there, 158,
  • general character of, 159,
  • no knowledge there, 160
• Hell, words so translated, 107
• Hinnom, valley of, a figure of the place of future punishment, 283
• Holam, Hebrew, corresponding to aion, defined by Gesenius, 294
• House from Heaven, what, 185

• Idumea, threatenings against, 290,
  • the language illustrates Rev. 14:11, 290
• Immortal and immortality, how often used in the Bible, 13-20
• Immortality assumed, 337
• Immaterial souls of brutes, 323,
  • the testimony of Bishop Warburton, 324
• Instinct not the only reasoning power possessed by brutes, 329
• In the body and out, 195
• Is Abraham in hell? 123

• Judgment, doctrine of, contradicted by the popular view, 63

• Katephagen, Rev. 20:9, defined by Stuart, 309
• Kolasis, Matt. 25:46, meaning of, 274

• Language of appearance, 136
• Lazarus carried to Abraham’s bosom, when? 169

• 366Matter cannot think, 324,
  • the proof rests with the skeptic, Sidney Smith’s testimony, 325,
  • W. G. Moncrieff’s testimony, 326
• Milton’s translation of Eccl. 3:21, 76
• Mind determined by sensation to belong to the lower animals, 328
• Moses and the prophets on the place and condition of the dead, 154
• Moses was raised from the dead, 142

• Nature sheds no light on the future state, 8
• Necromancy defined by Webster, 128
• Nephesh defined by Parkhurst, Taylor, and Gesenius, 51

• Origen’s restorationism, an enlarged purgatory, 316

• Parable, case of the rich man and Lazarus, a, 163,
  • how to be used, testimony of Clarke and Trench, 167
• Paradise, where situated, 173
• Paraphrase of Phil. 1:21-24, 209
• Paul’s departure, 213
• Personification used in the Bible, 117, 162
• Peter’s tabernacle, its putting off, 213
• Pharisees confess spirit, 97
• Plasso, definition of, 65
• Punctuation of Luke 23:43, 179
• Punishment for sins in hell not threatened, 314
• Punishment, degrees of, 276
• Purgatory, an invention to relieve the great wrong of conscious eternal misery, 316,
  • borrowed from Plato by Augustine, adopted by Rome, 316

• Reasons why the doctrine of future punishment should be agitated, 320
• Reformers adopted Augustine’s hell without his purgatory, 316
• Rebellion against God, not eternal, 311
• Resurrection proved by Christ, 151,
  • from what words translated, 231,
  • a prominent doctrine of the Bible, 234,
  • Clarke’s testimony, 257,
  • not impossible, 262,
  • objections against answered, 244-247,
  • 367object of the Christian’s hope, 250,
  • time of reward to the righteous, 252,
  • comfort of mourners, id.,
  • time when crowns of glory are to be given, 254,
  • basis of Scripture promises, 255,
  • inseparably connected with the coming of Christ, 256

• Samuel and the woman of Endor, 127
• Scott’s note on Gen. 2:7, 32
• Semeron, meaning of, 179
• Sense of right and wrong possessed to a degree by the lower animals, 328
• Separation from the love of God, 210
• Shame and everlasting contempt, Dan. 12:2, 268
• Sins in hell committed faster than God can punish, Benson, 302
• Sodom and Gomorrah turned into ashes by eternal fire, 287
• Soul and spirit, meaning of, 46,
  • times of their use in the Bible, 50-55
• Souls under the altar, 113,
  • note by Barnes, 117
• Spirit, how formed, 64,
  • returns to God, 56,
  • for what purpose? 62,
  • not conscious, 61,
  • committed to God, 77,
  • saved in the day of the Lord, 1 Cor. 5:5, 98
• Spirits of just men made perfect, 80,
  • spirits in prison, 87,
  • note by Clarke, 91
• State to which death reduces us, Law’s testimony, 242
• Tendency of the doctrine of eternal misery, testimony of Saurin and A. Barnes, 317,
  • it cannot be believed, testimony of Bp. Newton, 318

• The image of God, 21
• The breath of life, 31,
  • possessed by all animals, 33, 34
• The living soul, 36,
  • dead soul, 41,
  • applied to all orders of animals, 43
• The transfiguration, 137,
  • a miniature of the kingdom of God, 140,
  • no disembodied souls there, 141
• The rich man and Lazarus, 161
• The dead rise up to meet the king of Babylon and Pharaoh in sheol, 164, 165
• 368Thief on the cross, 172
• The inward man, what? 212
• The unjust reserved to Judgment, 215
• The death of Adam, 216,
  • his sentence, 218
• The dead as though they had not been, 236,
  • have no knowledge, id.,
  • not in Heaven nor hell, 237,
  • without a resurrection are perished, 240
• The Judgment a future event, 258,
  • objections answered, 259,
  • destroys the idea of the conscious-state theory, 262,
  • testimony of Dobney, 263
• The doctrine of the immortality of the soul leads to erroneous conclusions on future punishment, 266
• The wages of sin, 264
• The undying worm and quenchless fire, 279,
  • a figure borrowed from the Old Testament, 280,
  • testimony of Jeremiah, 280,
  • of David and Ezekiel, 281,
  • of Isaiah, 282
• The two deaths mentioned in Eze. 18:26, 299
• The wicked, how recompensed in the earth, 309
• The claims of philosophy, 322
• The soul immaterial, 323
• Them that sleep in Jesus brought with him, 212
• “Thou” and “thy,” meaning of in Gen. 3:19, 225
• Tormented forever and ever, Rev. 14:11, 288,
  • of whom spoken, 289
• Traduction vs. creationism, 69-71
• Trees represented as appointing a king over themselves, 162
• True spirit of inquiry, 11
• Tunes learned by birds, 328
• Tyndale’s pungent inquiry, 233

• Universal belief and inborn desire, 333
• Unquenchable fire, meaning of the word asbestos, 284

• Vincent’s description of hell, 301

• We fly away, Ps. 90:10, meaning of, 125-127
• White robes of Rev. 6:11, meaning of, 119
• Who knoweth? Eccl. 3:21, 72
• Word translated perceive, in 1 Sam. 28:14, 133

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