By the same Author
THE WAYS OF
PROVIDENCE
THE
VISIBLE HAND OF GOD
THIRTEEN
LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE
NAZARETH
REVISITED (Life of Christ)
THE
LAW OF MOSES
SEASONS
OF COMFORT
ROBERT
ROBERTS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
CHRISTENDOM
ASTRAY
POPULAR
CHRISTIANITY (BOTH IN
FAITH
AND PRACTICE), SHEWN TO BE
UNSCRIPTURAL;AND
THE TRUE
NATURE
OF THE ANCIENT APOSTOLIC
FAITH
EXHIBITED.
EIGHTEEN LECTURES
(Originally
Published as “TWELVE LECTURES
on
the true teaching of the Bible.”)
by
ROBERT
ROBERTS
LOGOS
PUBUCA11ONS
9
WEST BEACH ROAD, WEST BEACH,
SOUTH
AUSTRALIA 5024.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface 7
Foreword 11
LECTURE 1
The
Bible-What it is, and how to interpret it 15
LECTURE 2
Human
Nature Essentially Mortal, as proved by Nature
and Revelation 34
LECTURE 3
The Dead Unconscious till the Resurrection,
and consequent error of popular belief in heaven and hell 52
LECTURE 4
Immortality
a conditional gift to be bestowed at the Resurrection 88
LECTURE
5
Judgment
to come; the dispensation of Divine awards to
responsible classes at the return of
Christ 106
LECTURE 6
God,
Angels, Jesus Christ, and the Crucifixion 133
LECTURE 7
The Devil not a personal supernatural being,
but the scriptural personification of sin in its manifestations
among men 172
LECTURE 8
The Kingdom of God not yet in existence, but
to be established visibly on the earth at a future dayLECTURE 9
The Promises made to the Fathers (Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob), yet to be fulfilled in the setting up of the Kingdom of God
upon earth. 233
LECTURE 10
The
Kingdom of God the Final Instrumentality in the
great scheme of human redemption 254
LECTURE 11
Christ
the Future King of the World 271
LECTURE 12
The Covenant made with David to be realised in
the reestablishment of the Kingdom of Israel under Christ 286
LECTURE 13
The
Second Coming of Christ the only Christian Hope 308
LECTURE 14
The Hope of Israel, or, the Restoration of the
Jews, a part of the divine scheme, and an element of the
Gospel 323
LECTURE 15
Coming
troubles and the Second Advent 340
LECTURE 16
Times
and Signs: or the evidence that the end is near 351
LECTURE 17
The
Refuge from the Storm: or, “What must I do to be
Saved?” 397
LECTURE 18
The
Ways of Christendom inconsistent with the Commandments of Christ
417
PREFACE
To the Edition of
1884
THE
enlightened reader will bear with the seeming arrogance of the title. It is a
proposition-not an invective. The question proposed for consideration is a
question for critical investigation. Attention is invited to the evidence and
the argument. They are strictly within the logical sphere. They can be examined
and dismissed if found wanting. What the title affirms is that Christendom, the
ostensible repository of revealed truth, iS away from that truth.
In
reality the title goes further than this. By implication, it asserts certain
things to be the truth that are not accepted by Christendom. It offers the
proof of the doctrines that are according to truth, as the best demonstration
that Christendom is astray from those doctrines. The
Pg
8
peared
in the pages of the monthly Christadelphian during the past
Parallel
cases in ancient Bible times indicate the nature of the present dead.
Of
the exact date of the Lord’s appearing we have no information. We supreme
happiness of being included in their glorious number.
(The
author of “Christendom Astray” died in 1898.)
FOREWORD
“Christendom
Astray” was first published as “Twelve Lectures on the which stood against
philosophical arguments a century ago, is still mighty to stand against the
modern philosophical arguments advanced against the Bible today. The ground of
the contention has altered, but the principle is the same-human reasoning
exalting itself against Divine revelation.
In
a different category is Lecture 16 entitled “Times and Signs: or the evidence
that the end is near.” In this lecture, Robert Roberts wrote in 1862, after
reviewing certain chronological arguments:
if
this is so, there wants about forty-four years to complete the 6,000 years of
the great world-week, and therefore we are that number of years from the time
when the blessing of Abraham shall prevail o’er the whole world through Christ.
But we are not, therefore, that number of yearsfrom the advent. This may happen
within the next twelve months. The comin of Christ is one event; the setting up
of the kingdom another.”
His
anticipation of the return of Christ at that time, and the
Pg
12
establishment
of the Kingdom by 1906, was incorrect. The question becomes: “Should an error
of this nature be preserved in the present edition, or left out?” Who can
answer a question of this nature better than the author himself? In the Preface
to the Fifth Edition, Robert Roberts stated:
“The
prophetic-chronological conclusions of lecture 11(A) are allowed to appear
unaltered, although the state of facts in this year, 1869, would seem to
stultify them. The fact is that events have verified them, and brought us to
the era of the advent. A.D. 1866 has been signalised by epochal events
characteristic of the termination of the Little Horn period, though it has not
brought the consummation. The mistake was in expecting the occurrence of the
advent and resurrection immediately 1866 was attained . .
Robert
Roberts did not hesitate to retain a point on which he was open to challenge,
because he was well aware that a discerning mind would appreciate the general
argument advanced, and be able to press on in personal study.
The
lecture iii question is a valuable section of this book. It will give the
reader an insight into principles to be applied in order to understand the
prophecies of the Bible. It deals with the great time periods of the Bible. It
details much of the history of Europe essential to an understanding of the
development of prophecy through a period of nearly 2,000 years. It pinpoints
the position of the Catholic Church in Bible prophecy, in a clear and
forthright manner. Events are outlined concerning the last-days activities of
Turkey, Russia and the Jews, leading up to the personal return of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The
author of Christendom Astray was greatly assisted in his understanding of the
Bible by the writings of his predecessor, John Thomas. The study of the Bible
on the part of John Thomas revealed to him also that Christendom was astray
from the Scriptures. He set down the results of his research in a book entitled
Elpis Israel (or The Hope of Israel being “an exposition of the Kingdom of
God.” The book, which is a standard work of the Christadeiphians, expounds both
Bible doctrine and prophecy in a manner that reveals that the latter does
predict the future with certainty, and that when it is correctly expounded, can
be completely relied upon. Consider the following statements made in the year
1848:
Concerning
the Jews
“There
is. then, a partial and primary restoration of the Jews before the advent of
Christ, which is to serve as the nucleus, or
pg 13
basis,
of future operations in the restoration of the rest of the tribes after he has
appeared in the kingdom. The pre-adventual colonisation of Palestine will be on
purely political principles; and the Jewish ccrlonists will return in unbelief
of the Messiah-ship of Jesus, and of the truth as it is in him. They will
emigrate thither as agriculturists and traders, in the hope of ultimately
establishing their commonwealth, but more immediately of getting rich in silver
and gold by commerce with India, and in cattle and goods by their industry at
home under the efficient protection of the British power” (Elpis Israel, pp.
395/6-3rd. Edition, printed 1859).
This
statement, based upon Bible prophecy, has been remarkably fulfilled. A partial
restoration of Jewry has taken place, the nation of Israel has come into
existence, and Britain was a prime mover in accomplishing this.
Concerning Britain
“As I have said
elsewhere, the Lion-power will not interest itself in behalf of the subjects of
God’s kingdom, from pure generosity, piety towards God, or love of Israel; but
upon the principles which actuate all the governments of the world-upon those,
namely, of the lust of dominion, self-preservation, and self aggrandisement.
God, who rules the world, and marks out the bounds of habitation for the
nations, will make Britain a gainer by the transaction. He will bring her
rulers to see the desirableness of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba, which they will be
induced. by the force of circumstances, probably, to take possession of. They
will, however, before the battle of Armageddon, be compelled to retreat from
Egypt and Ethiopia . . .“ (p. 398).
Following
World War 1 (seventy years after the above statement was written) Britain was
granted a mandate over Palestine, and sponsored the establishment there of a
national home for the Jews. Since that time, and developing out of that
movement, the nation of Israel came into existence. It is all in fulfilment of
Bible prophecy, as the above writer clearly showed.
Concerning Russia
In the Preface to
the 3rd. Edition of Elpis Israel (p. 21), the author wrote:
“Russia’s
mission is to reduce all the nations of the Old World, save Britain and her
dependencies, into one imperial dominion represented in the book of Daniel by
the Image of Nebuchadnezzar. Licentiousness will again break loose, and in the
mele’e the Austro-Papal empire will succumb; the contest will end in the
discomfiture of the Continent and Russia, like a
pg
14mighty inundation, will overflow the nations, and dash her waves upon their
shores, from the Danish Belts to the Dardaneiles. Britain will rage, and shake
the world with her thunder; but, as in the days of Napoleon, her alliance will
be fatal to them that trust her, and only precipitate their fall.”
Again
(p. 13):
“When
Russia makes its grand move for the building up of its image-empire, then let
the reader know that the end of all things as at present constituted, is at
hand. The long expected, but stealthy advent of the King of Israel, will be on
the eve of becoming a fact; and salvation will be to those, who not only looked
for it, but have trimmed their lamps by believing the gospel of the kingdom
unto the obedience of faith, and the perfection thereof in ‘fruits meet for
repentance.’”
There
is much more in this book in similar vein, not only in regard to the nations
mentioned above, but the world in general; and the fulfilment of these
anticipations clearly reveals that the Bible is true, and its prophecies
certain of fulfilment.
Robert
Roberts made a mistake in setting a date for the establishment of the Kingdom
of God on earth, because the Bible clearly states: “of that day and that hour
knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but
the Father” (Mark xiii, 32). There are time periods set down in the Bible, but
they do not reveal that date, and the fact that Robert Roberts made a mistake
in regard to them only serves to underline the importance for every reader of
Christendom Astray to turn to the Bible himself for confirmation of the matters
set before him. Let him do this, and he will be led into all truth, and rejoice
in the knowledge of God’s plan of salvation, and His future purpose to send
back Jesus Christ to this earth, that he might establish therein the universal
Kingdom over which he will reign (Acts i, 11; Daniel ii, 44; Zechariab xiv, 9).
There is a “day appointed” for this glorious and wonderful event (Acts xvii,
31), and the signs of the times show that it is near at hand, for “at the set
time,” “when the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory” (Psalm
cii, 13, 16).
THE PUBLISHERS
Pg15
LECTURE 1
THE BIBLE - WHAT IT IS, AND HOW TO INTERPRET IT
“The
time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine They shall turn away their ears from the
truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (II Tim. iv, 3, 4).
“Of
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away
disciples after them” (Acts xx, 30).
“There
shall be false teachers among you ... and many shall follow their pernicious
ways, by reason of whom, the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (II Pet. ii,
1, 2).
“Try
the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out
into the world” (I John iv, D.
“Their
word will eat as doth a canker” (II Tim. ii, 17). “All nations deceived” (Rev.
xviii, 23).
“TO
THE LAW AND TO THE TESTIMONY: IF THEY SPEAK NOT ACCORDING TO THIS WORD, IT IS
BECAUSE THERE IS NO LIGHT IN THEM “ (Isaiah viii, 20).
THAT
CHRISTENDOM is astray from the system of doctrine and practice established by
the labours of the apostles in the first century, is recognized by men of very
different ways of thinking. The unbeliever asserts it without fear; the church
partisan admits it without shame, and all sorts of middle men are of opinion
that it would be a misfortune were it otherwise. The unbeliever, while himself
rejoicing in the fact, uses it as a reproach to those who profess to follow the
apostles whom he openly rejects: the churchman, while owning the apostles as
the foundation, regards it as the inevitable result of the spiritual
prerogative vested in
the
church,” that there should be further unfoldings of light and truth leading
away from the primitive form of things; and the moderate and indifferent class
accept it as a necessary and Welcome result of the advance of the times, with
which they think the original apostolic institution has become inconsistent
pg
16
Is
there not another meaning to the fact? To such as have confidence in the Bible
as a divine record, the quotations standing at the head of this chapter must
suggest a view of the present state of things very different from that
entertained by the common run of religious professors. Do not these quotations
require us to believe that it was in the apostolic foresight (a foresight
imparted to them by that presence of the Holy Spirit which Jesus before his
departure promised he would secure for them during his absence-John xiv, 17:
xvi, 13)-that the time coming was a time of departure from what they
preached-when men indulging in “fables” and walking in “pernicious ways,” would
wholly turn aside from the saving institutions of the gospel delivered by them,
and realise the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy as to the state of things upon earth
just before the manifestation of God’s glory at the appearing of Christ, viz.,
that “darkness should cover the earth and gross darkness the people”? (Isa. lx,
2). Such a view may bring lamentable conclusions, and be fruItful of personal
embarrassments in a state of society where a man cannot prosper unless he fall
down and worship the current “doxy.” But an earnest mind will not be debarred
by such considerations from the investigation of a momentous topic. “What is
the truth?” is the engrossing question of men of this type, and they follow
wherever the answer may lead them, even “to prison and death,” if that were
possible in our age.
We
propose this investigation in the following lectures. Such subjects have been
supposed to pertain exclusively to the clerical province. Obviously, it is not
a likely theme for a clergyman to discuss whether the whole system of
clericalism itself be not a departure from Bible truth. It is not one which he
is specially fitted to consider. And, in point of fact, it is more and more
generally conceded that questions of Bible truth are matters of
non-professional understanding and concern. Nothing but an untrammelled
individual knowledge of the Bible will satisfy the earnest curiosity that would
know what the truth is amid the intellectual turmoils, questionings and
collisions of modern times. If the Bible is God’s voice to every man that has
ears to hear (which it demonstrably is), it is for every man by himself, and
for himself, to seek to understand it, and to extend the benefit he may have
received.
Qualification
for this is not a question of “ordination”: it comes with enlightenment. And
not only qualification, but obligation comes with this enlightenment. As soon
as a man understands and believes the gospel, he is bound to lend himself
Pg
17
as
an instrument for its diffusion. The command is direct from the mouth of the
Lord Jesus himself: “Let him that heareth say, COME” (Rev. xxii, 17), the
example of the early Christians affords unmistakable illustration of the
meaning of the command (Acts viii, 1-4). Tradition clings to “holy orders.” Of
these we hear nothing in the Scripture. Apostolic teaching inculcates the
common-sense view that the truth of God is designed to make propagandists of
all who receive it.
The
subject of this afternoon’s lecture is the natural starting point of all
endeavours to ascertain what the Bible teaches. We want to know what the Bible
is in itself, and on what principles it is to be understood. On the first of
these points, we must take a good deal for granted. We shall assume throughout
these lectures that the Bible is a book of Divine authorship. Our present duty
is simply to look at the structure and character of the Bible as a book
appearing before us with a professedly divine character taken for granted.
Looking at it in this way, we first discover that the Bible consists in reality
of a number of books written at different times by different authors. It opens
with five, familiarly known as the “five books of Moses,” a history written by
Moses, of matters and transactions in which he performed a leading personal
part. This history occupies a position of first importance. It lays the basis
of all that follows. Commencing with an account of the creation and peopling of
the earth, it chiefly treats of the origin and experience of the Jewish nation,
of whom Moses says, “The Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto
Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth” (Deut. xiv, 2). The
five books also contain the laws (very elaborately stated), which God delivered
by the hand of Moses, for the constitution and guidance of the nation.
It
has become fashionable, under various learned sanctions, to question the
authenticity of these books, while admitting the possible genuineness of the
remaining portions of the Sacred Record. Without attempting to discuss the
question, we may remark that it is impossible to reconcile this attitude with
allegiance to Christ. You cannot reject Moses while accepting Christ. Christ
endorsed the writings of Moses. He said to the Jews by the mouth of Abraham in
parable: “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them; if they hear
not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose
from the dead” (Luke xvi, 29, 31). It is also recorded that when he appeared
incognito to two of his disciples after his resurrection,
beginning
at MOSES and all the prophets, he expounded unto
pg
18
them
in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke xxiv, 27). Further,
he said, “Had ye believed MOSES, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
But IF YE BELIEVE NOT HIS WRITINGS, HOW SHALL YE BELIEVE MY WORDS?” (John v,
46, 47).
If
Christ was divine, this sanction of the Pentateuch by him settles the question;
if the Pentateuch is a fiction, Christ was a deceiver, whether consciously or
otherwise. There is no middle ground. Moses and Christ stand or fall together.
The
next twelve books present the history of the Jews during a period of several
centuries, involving the development of the mind of God to the extent to which
that was unfolded in the message prophetically addressed to the people in their
several stages of their history. This gives them more than a historical value.
They exhibit and illustrate divine principles of action, while furnishing an
accurate account of the proceedings of a nation which was itself a monument of
divine work on the earth, and the repository of divine revelation.* The book of
Job is no exception as to divinity of character. It does not, however, pertain
to Israel nationally. It is a record of divine dealings with a Son of God, at a
time when that nation had no existence. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecciesiastes, and the
Song of Solomon, are the Inspired writings of two of Israel’s most illustrious
kings- writings in which natural genius is supplemented with preternatural
spirit-impulse, in consequence of which the writings 50 produced are
reflections of divine wisdom, and by no means of merely human origin. This is
proved by Christ’s declarations in the New Testament.
In
the books of the prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, we are presented with a most
important department of “Holy Writ.” In these seventeen books-respectively
bearing the names of the writers-we find recorded a multitudinous variety of
messages transmitted from the Deity to the “prophets,” for the correction and
enlightenment of Israel. These messages are valuable beyond all conception.
They contain information concerning God otherwise inaccessible, and
instructions as to acceptable character and conduct, otherwise unobtainable; in
addition to which they have a transcendent value from their disclosure of God’s
purpose in the future, in which we naturally have the highest interest, but of
which, naturally, we are in the greatest and most helpless ignorance.
Coming
to the New Testament, we are furnished in the first
See
the Visible Hand of God by the Lecturer
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19
four
books with a history which has no parallel in the range of literature. The
Messiah promised in the prophets, appointed of God to deliver our suffering
race from all the calamities in which it is involved, appears: and here are
recorded His doings and His sayings. What wonderful deeds! What wonderful
words! We are constrained in the reading to exclaim with the disciples on the
sea of Galilee: “What manner of man is this?” He entrusted his apostles with a
mission to the world at large. In the Acts of the Apostles we have made plain
to us in a practical way, what Christ intended them to do as affecting
ourselves. In the same book we have the proceedings of the primitive
Christians, written for our guidance as to the real import of the commandments
of Christ, and the real scope and nature of the work of Christ among men. The
remainder of the New Testament is made up of a series of epistles, addressed by
the inspired apostles to various Christian communities, after they had been
organised by the apostolic labours. These letters contain practical instruction
in regard to the character which Christians ought to cultivate, and in a
general and incidental way illustrate the higher aspects of the truth as it is
in Jesus. Without these epistles, we should not have been able to comprehend
the Christian system in its entirety. Their absence would have been a great
blank; and we in this remote age should hardly have been able to lay hold on
eternal life.
Such
is a scant outline of the book we call “the Bible.” Composed of many books, it
is yet one volume, complete and consistent with itself in all its parts,
presenting this singular literary spectacle, that while written by men in every
situation of life- from the king to the shepherd-and scattered over many
centuries in its composition, it is pervaded by absolute unity of spirit and
identity of principle. This is unaccountable on the hypothesis of a human
authorship. No similarly miscellaneous production is like it in this respect.
Heterogeneousness, and not uniformity, characterises any collection of human
writings of the ordinary sort, even if belonging to the same age. But here is a
book written by forty authors, living in different ages, without possible
concert or collusion, producing a book which in all its parts is pervaded by
one spirit, one doctrine, one design, and by an air of sublime authority which
is its peculiar characteristic. Such a book is a literary miracle. It is
impossible to account for its existence upon ordinary principles. The futile
attempts of various classes of unbelievers is evidence of this. On its own
principles it is accounted for God spoke to, and by, its authors
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20
“at sundry times and in divers manners.” This
is no mere profession on the part of the writers. It is shewn to be a true
profession not only of the character of the book and the fulfilment of its
prophecies, but by the fact that nearly all the writers sealed their testimony with
their own blood, after a life of submission to every kind of disadvantage-”
trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and
imprisonments; were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with
the sword, wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, in deserts and
mountains; in dens and caves of the earth
-being
destitute, afflicted, tormented” (Heb. xi, 36-38). To suppose the Bible to be
human is to raise insurmountable difficulties, and to do violence to every
reasonable probability. The only truly rational theory of the book is that
supplied by itself. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit” (II Peter i, 21). In this we find an explanation of the whole matter.
The presence of one supreme guiding mind, inspiring and controlling the
utterances of the authors, completely accounts for their agreement of teaching
throughout, and for the exalted nature of their doctrines: on any other
supposition the book is a riddle, which must ever puzzle and bewilder the mind
that earnestly faces all the facts of the case.
There
are, unfortunately, those who hold the book in contempt as a priestly
imposture. There are few who do so as the result of individual investigation.
It is the result of writings which are not careful about facts, or scrupulous
in the use they make of them. The result is lamentable to those deceived. They
reject the only book which can possibly be a revelation from the Deity, and
they throw away their only chance of immortality; for surely if there be a book
on earth that contains the revealed will of God, that book is the Jewish Bible;
and if there be a possibility of deliverance from the evils of this life-the
corruptibility of our physical organisation, the weakness of our moral powers,
the essential badness of a great portion of the race, the misconstruction of
the social fabric, the bad government of the world-that possibility is made
known to us in this book, and brought within our reach by it. By his rejection
of the Bible, the unbeliever sacrifices an immense present advantage. He
deprives himself of the consolations that come with the Bible’s declarations of
God’s love for man. He loses the comfort of its glorious promises, which have
such power to cheer the mind in distress. He cuts himself away from all the
moral heroism which they impart; he sacrifices the abiding
Pg
21
support
which they give; the soul-elevating teaching which they contain; the noble
affection they engender; the solace they afford in time of trouble; the
strength they give in the hour of temptation; the nobleness and interest which
they throw around a frittering mortal life. And what does he get in exchange?
Nothing, unless it be licence to feel himself his own master for a few mortal
years, to sink at last comfortless and despairing into the jaws of a
remorseless and eternal grave!
The
effect of the Bible is to make the man who studies it, better, happier and
wiser. It is vain for the leaders of unbelief to assert the contrary; all facts
are against them. To say that it is immoral in its tendencies, is to propound a
theory, and not to speak in harmony with the most palpable of facts. To declare
that it makes men unhappy, is to speak against the truth; the tormented
experience of the orthodox hallucinated is no argument to the contrary, when it
becomes manifest, as it will in the course of these lectures, that the Bible is
no ways responsible for these hallucinations. To parade the history of
unrighteous government and tyrannical priest-craft in support of such
propositions, is to betray either ignorance or shallowness or malice. Many are
deluded by such a line of argument, and have the misfortune, in many instances,
to become conscientiously impressed with the idea that the Bible is an
imposture. Such are objects of pity; in the majority of instances they are
hopelessly wedded to their view.
It
does not come within the scope of the present lecture to deal with the vexed
but settleable question of Bible authenticity. Sufficient now to remark that
the person who is not convinced by the moral evidence presented to his
understanding on a calm and independent study of the Holy Scriptures, in
conjunction with the historical evidences of the facts which constitute the
basis of its literary structure, is not likely to be altered in his persuasion
by elaborate argument. The plan of trying to show what it teaches, and thereby
commending it to every man’s sober judgment, will be found the most profitable.
Here it may be well to notice an aspect of the question not often taken into
account in the discussions which frequently take place on the subject.
The
modern tendency to disbelieve the Bible must be traceable to some cause. Where
shall we look for that cause? The moral inconsistency of professing Christians
has, no doubt, done something to shake the faith of many; the natural
lawlessness of the human mind is also an element in the various attempts to get
rid of a book which exalts the authority of God
Pg
22
over
the will of man; but is there not another fruitful source, of unbelief in the
doctrinal tenets of the very religion professed to be derived from the Bible
itself? The result of these lectures will be to show that in the course of
religious history there has been a great departure from the truth revealed by
the prophets and apostles, and that the religious systems of the present day
are an incongruous mixture of truth and error that tends, more than anything
else, to perplex and baffle the devout and intelligent mind, and to prepare the
way for scepticism. I)o you mean to say, asks the incredulous enquirer, that
the Bible has been studied by men of learning for eighteen centuries without
being understood? and that the thousands of clergymen and ministers set apart
for the very purpose of ministering in its holy things are all mistaken? A
moment’s reflection ought to induce moderation and patience in the
consideration of these questions. It will be admitted, as a matter of history,
that in the early ages, Christianity became so corrupted as to lose even the
form of sound doctrine-that for more than ten centuries, Roman Catholic
superstition was universal, and enshrouded the world in moral, intellectual,
and religious darkness, so gross as to procure for that period of the world’s
history the epithet of “the dark ages.” Here then is a long period unanimously
disposed of with a verdict in which all Protestants, at least, will agree,
viz., “Truth almost absent from the earth though the Bible was in the hands of
the teachers.” Recent centuries have witnessed the “ Reformation,” which has
given us liberty to exercise the God-given right of private judgment. This is
supposed to have also inaugurated an era of gospel light. About this there will
not be so much unanimity, when investigation takes place. Protestants are in
the habit of believing that the Reformation abolished all the errors of Rome,
and gave us the truth in its purity. Why should they hold this conclusion? Were
the reformers inspired? Were Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Wycliffe, and other
energetic men who brought about the change in question infallible? If they were
so, there is an end to the controversy: but no one Will take this position who
is competent to form an opinion of the subject. If the Reformers were not
inspired and infallible, is it not right and rational to set the Bible above
them, and to try their work by the only standard test which can be applied in
our day? Consider this question: Was it likely the Reformers should at once,
and in every particular. emancipate themselves from the spiritual bondage of
Romish tradition?
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23
Was
it to be expected that from the midst of great darkness there should instantly
come out the blaze of truth? Was it not more likely that their achievements in
the matter would only be partial, and that their new-born Reformation would be
swaddled ‘with many of the rags and tatters of the apostate church against
which they rebelled? History and Scripture show that this was the case-that
though it was a “glorious Reformation,” in the sense of liberating the human
intellect from priestly thraldorm, and establishing individual liberty in the
discussion and discernment of religious truth, it was a very partial
Reformation, so far as doctrinal rectification was concerned-that but a very
small part of the truth was brought to light, and that many of the greatest
heresies of the church of Rome were retained, and still continue to be the
groundwork of the Protestant Church.
Such
as it was, however, the Reformation became the basis of the religious systems
of Germany and England. Reformation doctrines were adopted and incorporated in
these systems and institutions, and boys, sent to college in youth, were
trained to advocate and expound them, and indoctrined by means of catechisms,
text books, treatises, and not by the study of the Scriptures themselves; and on
issuing forth to the full-blown dignities and responsibilities of theological
life, these boys, grown into men, had to remain true to what they had learnt at
the risk of all that is dear to men. It is not wonderful in such circumstances
that they did not get farther than the Lutheran Reformation The position was
not favourable to the exercise of independent judgment. Men so trained were
prone to acquiesce in what they were brought up to, from the mere force of
habit and interest, sanctioned and strengthened no doubt by the belief that it
was, and must of necessity be, true. And this is the position of the clergy of
the present day. The system is Unchanged. The pulpit continues to be an
institution for which a man must have a special training. With a continuance of
the system, we can understand how the religious teachers of the people may be
grievously in error, while possessing all the apparent advantages of superior
learning.
It
may be suggested that the extensive circulation of the Bible among the people
is a guarantee against serious mistake. it ought to be so; and would be so if
the people did not, with almost one accord, leave the Bible to their religious
leaders. The people are too much engrossed in the common occupations of life to
give the Bible the study which it requires. They do not,
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with
few exceptions, give it that common attention which, the commonest of common
sense would prescribe. They believe what they are taught if they believe at
all. They cannot tell you why they so believe. Everything is taken for granted.
Of course, there are exceptions; but the rule is to receive unquestioningly the
doctrines of early days. Sometimes it happens that a thoughtful reader comes
upon something which he has a difficulty in reconciling with received notions.
There are two ways in which the thing comes to nought. The clergyman or
minister is consulted; he gives a decided opinion, which, however arbitrary and
unsupported, is accepted as final. If the enquirer I is not satisfied, his
business or his “connection” with the
congregation
suggests to him the expediency of keeping silent on “untaught questions.” If,
on the other hand, he be of the reverential and truly conscientious type,
though unable to satisfy himself of the correctness of the explanation prescribed,
he thinks of the array of virtue and learning on the side of the suspected
doctrine, and concluding that his own judgment must be at fault, he thinks the
safest course is to receive the professional dictum; and so the difficulty is
hushed up, and what might prove the discovery of Scriptural truth is strangled
in the inception. Thus, you see, the great system of religious error is
protected from assault in the most effectual manner, and is consequently
perpetuated from day to day with effects that are lamentable in every way.
Through lack of the understanding that might be attained by the independent and
earnest study of the Scriptures, the Bible and science are supposed to be in
conflict, with the result of generating a practical unbelief, which is rising
like a tide threatening to sweep everything before it. The unconcerned are
becoming confirmed in their indifference, and the intelligent among devout
persons are growing uneasy with a feeling that their position is unsound at the
foundation. It is easy to prescribe a remedy-a something that would prove to be
a remedy if it could be generally applied; but it is hopeless to see any
effectual remedy, so far as the mass are concerned, apart from that
manifestation of divine power and wisdom that will take place at Christ’s
return. Nevertheless, the remedy is available in individual cases. Let
earnest-minded people throw aside tradition. Let them rise to a true sense ot
their individual responsibility. Let them emancipate themselves from the idea
that theoretical religion is the business of the pulpit. Let them realise that
it is their duty to go to the Bible for themselves. If they study diligently
and devotedly, they will make a
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25
startling
but not unwelcome discovery; they will discover something that will make them
astonished they ever regarded popular religion as the truth of God. They will
attain to what many an intelligent mind anxiously desires, but despairs of
obtaining; a foundation on which the highest and most searching exercise of
reason will be in harmony with the most fervent and childlike faith.
We
pass to the second part of the subject: “How to interpret the Bible.” We get an
introduction to this in the words of Paul to Timothy-” The Scriptures are able
to make thee wise unto salvation” (II Tim. iii, 15). Here we have apostolic
authority for the statement that the Scriptures “make wise.” How is this effect
produced? Obviously, by the communication of ideas to the mind. But how are
these ideas communicated? There is only one answer: by the language it employs.
Hence, it ought not to be a matter of difficulty to determine how the
Scriptures are to be interpreted. It ought to be easy to maintain that, with
certain qualifications, the Bible means what it says. And it is so. This
emphasis of a very simple and obvious truth may seem superfluous, but it is
rendered necessary by the prevalence of a theory which practically neutralises
this truth as applied to the Bible. By this theory, it is supposed and assumed
that the Bible is not to be understood by the ordinary rules of speech, but is
couched in language used in a non-natural sense, which has to be construed, and
rendered, and interpreted in a skilled manner. What we mean will be apparent,
if we suppose it were said to an orthodox friend, “The Bible, as a written
revelation from God, must be written in language capable of being understood by
those to whom it is sent.” To this abstract proposition there is no doubt he
would agree. But suppose his attention were directed to the following
statements of Scripture:
The
Lord God shall give unto him (Jesus) the throne of his father David” (Luke i,
32), “and he shall be ruler in Israel” (Micah v, 2), and “shall reign over them
in Mount Zion” (Micah iv, 7). For the same Jesus that ascended to heaven shall
come again in like manner as he ascended (Acts i, 11). “He shall have dominion
also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Yea, all
kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him” (Psa. lxxii, 8,
11.) for he shall come in the Clouds of heaven, and there shall be given unto
him a kingdom, glory and dominion, that all peoples, nations, and languages may
serve and obey him (Dan. vii, 13-14); and “the moon shall be confounded and the
sun ashamed when the Lord of
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Hosts
shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously”
(Isaiah xxiv, 23).
And
suppose, on the reading of these statements, the remark were made, “It seems
plain from this that Christ is coming to the earth again, and that on his return,
he will set aside all existing rule upon the earth and reign personally in
Jerusalem, as universal king,”-what would he say? it is not a matter of
surmise. The answer is supplied by thousands of cases of actual experience.
“Oh! no such thing!” is the instant response; “what the prophet says is
spiritual in its import. Jerusalem means the church, and the coming of Christ
again to reign means that the time is coming when he will be supreme in the
hearts and affections of men.”
This
is the method of treating the words of Scripture to which we have referred. It
cannot be justified on the plea that the Bible directs us so to understand its
words. There are, in fact, no formal instructions on the subject. The Bible
comes before us to tell us certain things, and it performs its office in a
direct and sensible way, going at once to its work without any scholastic
preliminaries, taking it for granted that certain words represent certain
ideas, and using those words in their current significance. The best evidence
of this is to be found in the correspondence between its terms, literally
understood and the events they relate to. The events which form the burden of
them are fortunately, in hundreds of cases, open to universal knowledge in such
a way that there can be no mistake about them, and themselves supply an
accessible easily-applied and recognisable standard for determining the bearing
of Scripture statements.
Take
a prophecy : -“I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into
desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours, and I will
bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein
shall
be astonished at it, and I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw
out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste”
(Lev. xxvi, 3 1-33). “And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a
byword among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee” (Deut. xxviii, 37).
There
is no dispute about the mode in which this has been fulfilled. The sublimest
spiritualisticism is bound to recognize the fact that the subject of these
words is the literal nation of Israel and their land, and that in fulfilment of
the prediction they contain, the real Israel were driven from their real, literal
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land,
which became really and literally desolate, as it is this day, and that Israel
has become a literal byword and a reproach throughout the earth. This being so,
on what principle are we to reject a literal construction of the following?- I
will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither
they
shall be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their
own land. And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of
Israel, and ONE KING shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two
nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all”
(Ezek. xxxvii, 21, 22).
It
is usual, with this and other similar predictions of a future restoration of
Israel and their reinstatement as a great people under the Messiah, to contend
that they mean the future glory and extension of the Church. That such an
understanding of them can be maintained in the face of the fulfilled prophecies
of Israel’s calamities will not he contended for by the reflecting mind.
Take
another instance : -“But thou, Bethlehem Ephrarah, though thou be little among
the
thousands
of Judah, yet Out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in
Israel” (Micah v, 2).
How
was this fulfilled? Turn to Matthew ii, 1:- Now Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judea, in the days of Herod
the
King.”
The
fulfilment of the prophecy was in exact accordance with a literal understanding
of the words employed, as every one is aware.
In
Zechariah, chap. ix, 9, we read:- “Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion; shout,
0 daughter of Jerusalem;
behold,
thy king cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation, lowly, and riding
upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”
It
is difficult to conjecture what the spiritualistic method of Interpretation
would have made of this as a still unfulfilled
prophecy.
That it would have expected the Messiah to condescend so far as to ride on the
literal creature mentioned in the Prophecy, is highly improbable in view of the
surprised incredulity with which the idea is received that Christ will sit upon
a real throne, and be personally present on earth during the coming age. All
conjecture is excluded by the fulfilment of the Prophecy in a way that compels
a literal interpretation,
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28
Matt.
xxi, 1-7-” Jesus sent two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over
against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her;
loose them and bring them unto me. . . And the disciples went and did as Jesus
commanded them, and brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their
clothes, and they set him thereon.
ALL
THIS WAS DONE THAT IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED WHICH WAS SPOKEN BY THE PROPHET,
SAYING, ETC.
The
event that fulfilled the prophecy was the event spoken of in the prophecy. So
it is with all fulfilled prophecies. They came to pass exactly as the terms of
the prediction, plainly and literally understood, would have led us to expect;
that is, a certain thing was plainly predicted, and that thing came to pass. Is
not this a rule for the understanding of unfulfilled prophecy?
But,
it will be asked, is there no such thing as figure in the Scriptures? Is there
no such thing as predicting events in language that will not bear a literal
construction, such as describing the Messiah as “a stone,” “a branch,” “a
shepherd, etc.? True, but this does not interfere with the literal
understanding of prophecy. It is a separate element in the case coexisting with
the other without destroying it. Metaphor is one thing; literal speech is another.
Both have their functions, and each is so distinct from the other, that
ordinary discrimination can recognise and separate them, though mixed in the
same sentence. This will be evident on a little reflection.
We
use metaphor in common speech without causing obscurity. We are never at a loss
to perceive the metaphor when it is employed, and to understand its meaning. We
never fall into the mistake of confounding the metaphorical with the literal.
The difference between them is too obvious for that. When we talk of tyrants “
trampling the rights of their subjects under their feet,” we mix the literal
with high metaphor; but no one is in danger of supposing that rights are
literal substances that can be crushed to pieces under the mechanical action of
the feet. When we say, “he carries a high head,” we do not mean a height that
can be measured by the pocket rule “a black look out” has nothing to do with
colour; “hard times” cannot be broken with a hammer; so with “over head and
ears in love,” “heart melting,” “corn dull,” “beans heavy,” “Oats brisk,” etc.
They are well-understood metaphors, beyond the danger of misconstruction; but
suppose we say, “The Polish nationalIty is to be restored.” “A new kingdom has
just been established in the interior of western Africa,” etc., we use a style
of language in which there is no metaphor. We speak plainly of
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literal
things, and instinctively understand them in a literal sense. Now with regard
to the Bible, it will be found that in the
main,
this is the character of its composition. As a revelation to human beings, it
is a- revelation in human language. It is not a revelation of words but of
ideas, and hence everything in its language is subordinated to the purpose of
imparting the ideas. The peculiarities of human speech are conformed to in the
various particulars already mentioned.
Metaphors,
for example, find illustration in the following : -A place of national
affliction is likened to an iron furnace.
Says
Moses in the 4th chapter of Deuteronomy, 20th verse:- “The Lord hath taken you,
and brought you forth out of the iron
furnace,
even out of Egypt.”
The
fact that Egypt is metaphorically spoken of as an “iron furnace,” does not
interfere with the fact that there is a hteral country of Egypt.
Nations
are said to occupy a position high or low, according to their political state.
Thus in Deuteronomy xxviii, 13, Moses says to Israel:- “The Lord shall make
thee the head and not the tail: and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt
not be beneath.”
So
Jesus says of Capernaum (Matt. xi, 23) : -“And thou, Capernaurn, which art
exalted unto heaven, shalt be
brought
down to hell.”
And
Jeremiah, lamenting the prostration of Judah, says (Lam. ii, 1):- “How hath the
Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from
heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel.”
Then
nations are likened to rivers and waters. In Isaiah viii, 7, we read : -“The
Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and
many,
even the King of Assyria, and all his glory.”
And
hence, in referring to the constant devastations to which Israel’s land has
been subject at the hands of invading armies, the words of the Spirit are,
“Whose land the rivers have spoiled” (Isaiah xviii, 2).
Instances
might be multiplied; but these are sufficient to illustrate the metaphorical
element in the language of the Scriptures. Metaphor there is, without doubt;
but this is a very
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different
thing from the gratuitous and undiscriminating rule of interpretation which, by
a process called “spiritualising, obliterates almost every original feature in
the face of Scripture, making the word of God of none effect.
There
is another style of divine communication which is neither literal nor
metaphorical, but which is yet sufficiently distinctive in its character to
prevent its being confounded with either; and also sufficiently definite and
intelligible to admit of exact comprehension. This style is the symbolic style,
which is largely employed in what may be called political prophecy. In this
case, events are represented in hieroglyph. A beast is put for an empire, horns
for kings, waters for people, rivers for nations, a woman for a governing city,
&c.; but there is In this style no more countenance to the spiritualisation
of orthodoxy than in the metaphorical. It is special in its character, can
always be identified where it occurs, and is always explicable on certain rules
supplied by the context. The literal is the basis; the elementary principles of
divine truth are communicated literally; its recondite aspects are elaborated
and illustrated metaphorically and symbolically. The one is the step to the
other. No one is able to understand the symbolical who is unacquainted with the
literal; and no one can understand the literal who goes to the Scriptures with
his eyes blinded by the veil which the “spiritualising” process has cast over
the eyes of the people. This must be got rid of first; the literal must be
recognised and studied as the alphabet of spiritual things, and the mind, established
on this immovable basis, will be prepared to ascend to the comprehension of
those deeper things of God which are concealed in enigmas, for the study of
those who delight to search out His mind.
There
remains one other important matter to be considered. Not long ago, on the
occasion of an address on a kindred subject, a person in the audience put
several questions. In answering them, the writer quoted from the prophets; but
was stopped by the remark, “Oh, but that’s in the Old Testament; we have nothing
to do with that; the New Testament is our standard; the Old has passed away.”
Now this sentiment is a common one with many religious people. It is an
erroneous idea, and has done great mischief. It has a slight basis of fact. The
“first covenant” dispensation of the law, or the old constitution of Israel,
has been abolished; but it is far from being true that what God communicated
through the prophets has been annulled. The New Testament itself shews this
clearly. As we have
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already
seen, Paul says, “The Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation “
(II Tim. iii, 15). Now it must be remembered that this could only apply to the
Old Testament. When Paul made the statement, the New Testament was not in
existence. Consider then the import of the statement-the Scriptures of the Old
Testament are able to make us WISE UNTO SALVATION. If this be true, how can it
be correct to speak of the Old Testament having been done away?
And
this statement of Paul’s is by no means the only one to this effect. Hear what
he said before Agrippa (Acts xxvi, 22): -“Having therefore obtained help of
God. I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying NONE
OTHER THINGS than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.”
Now,
if, in preaching the Christian faith, he said “none other things than those
which Moses and the prophets did say should come,” it is obvious that Moses and
the prophets must contain the subject-matter of that faith. This is undeniable.
It is borne out by the interesting incident narrated in Acts xvii, 11, where,
speaking of the inhabitants of Berea, to whom Paul preached, it says:- “These
were more noble than those in Thessalonica; . . . and searche4
the
Scriptures daily, whether those things were so; therefore, many of them
believed.”
If
the Bereans were satisfied by a searching of the Old Testament, which were the
only Scriptures in existence at the time of their search, that what Paul said
was true, is it not evident that what he said must in some form be contained in
the Old Testament? Does it not follow that the Old Testament furnishes a basis
for the things spoken by Paul? That Paul’s faith as a Christian laid hold of
the Old Testament, is evident from what he said before Felix the Roman Governor
: -
“After
the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things which are written in the law and in the prophets” (Acts xxiv, 14).
In
harmony with this individual attitude of Paul in the matter, we find that when
he went to Thessalonica, he entered the synagogue, and “three sabbath days
reasoned with them out of the Scriptures” (Acts xvii, 2), that is, out of Moses
and the prophets, for there were no other Scriptures for him to reason out of.
And when he called together the Jews at Rome, it is testsfied that “he
expounded and testified the kingdom of God,
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persuading
them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets,
from morning till evening” (Acts xxviii, 23).
The
same fact, that the Scriptures of the Old Testament are accessory to the
teaching of Christ and his apostles, is apparent in several other statements to
be found in the New Testament. Peter exhorts those to whom he wrote in his
second epistle, chapter 3, verse 2, to” be mindful of the words which were
spoken before by the holy prophets?” and in the 19th verse of the first chap.
of the same epistle, he says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy,
WHEREUNTO YE DO WELL THAT YE TAKE HEED.” Does not this settle the question?
Jesus puts this statement into the mouth of Abraham in a parable (Luke xvi, 29,
31):-
“They have Moses and the prophets; LET THEM
HEAR THEM; If the hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
And
it is recorded of him that during an interview with his disciples, after his
resurrection (Luke xxiv, 27), “Beginning at MOSES AND ALL THE PROPHETS, he
expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” If
the Saviour himself appealed to the Old Testament in exposition of the things
concerning him, and exhorted us to “hear Moses and the prophets,” what further
need of argument?
It
is obvious that those people fall into a great mistake who suppose that
Christianity is something distinct from the Old Testament. So far from
Christianity being distinct from the Old Testament, it will be found that
Christianity is rooted in the Old Testament. The Old Testament lays the
foundation of all that is involved in the New. The New Testament is simply an
appendage to the Old, valuable beyond all price, and indispensable in the most
absolute sense; but in itself, apart from the Old Testament, far from being
sufficient to give us that perfection of Christian knowledge which constitutes
a person “wise unto salvation.” The two combined form the complete revelation
of God to man, vouchsafed for his spiritual renovation in the present, and his
constitutional perfection in the future. Divided, they are each inefficacious
to “thoroughly furnish the man of God unto all good works.”
We
must request the reader to suspend his judgment on this point, and refrain from
thinking too harshly of an idea which, though probably opposed to his dearest
accustomed sentiments, is one that is sustained by the general teaching and
emphatic
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declaration
of the word of God, as will be shown in the succeeding lectures, to which, as a
whole, the conscientious dissentient is referred for an answer to his
objections.
Thus
we bring the subject of the present lecture to a conclusion
-“
The Bible: what it is, and how to interpret it.” It was necessary to go into
these details by way of preliminary to the investigation which shall be entered
into in subsequent lectures
-clearing
away errors and misconceptions, and laying a distinct and sure foundation for
what is to follow.
It
only now remains for us to bespeak your sympathy with the subjects, and your
patience with the necessarily somewhat dry and tedious process essential to
their thorough treatment. It is a vital question, and worthy of all the labour
which you can bestow upon it. We cannot be too particular in trying the
evidence upon which our faith relies. We ought not to be content to take it
second hand. We ought not in a day like this to simply accept what we have been
taught at home, in the church and chapel, without ever giving it a thought
whether it is right or wrong, or reckoning upon the awful consequences of
error.
Never
mind if others do not consider it their business to study the Bible. Remember
that the majority have always been in the wrong in all ages of the world. Look
not at your neighbours, think not of your friends in this matter. They are in
all probability like the world in general. They lack independence, and are
subservient to their worldly interest. They cannot afford to deviate from orthodox
sentiment and usage, and long conformity has deadened their power to judge of
the evidence. With all their church-goings and religious profession, the
anxiety of the majority of people centres in the present evil world. Act for
yourselves. Do as Peter told a Jewish assembly to do in Jerusalem : -“ Save
yourselves from this untoward generation.”
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LECTURE 2
HUMAN NATURE ESSENTIALLY MORTAL,
AS
PROVED BY “NATURE” AND
REVELATION.
IN
NOTHING will Christendom appear in the eyes of the Bible student further astray
than in the ordinary theological view as to the nature of man. We now ask what
the Bible teaches on the subject, and getting the Bible answer, we shall seek
to confirm that answer by an appeal to Nature-God’s other great witness. Our argument
may appear to savour of infidel tendencies, but we are confident this
appearance will disappear in the eyes of such as can discriminate between
intellectual caprice, and earnest conviction entertained for reasons that can
be stated. The proposition we have to maintain (and we bespeak your earnest
consideration of the evidence in support of it) will be astounding to you at
first. It is that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is an untrue
doctrine, which effectually prevents the believer of it from truly apprehending
the truth concerning the work and teaching of Christ.
Consider,
first, what the universal theory of the human constitution is. It is that in
his proper essential being, a man is a “spiritual” immaterial, and immortal
being, living in a material body composed of organs necessary for the
manifestation of his invisible and indestructible inner “self” in this external
and material world. This organic body is not regarded as essential to man’s
identity or existence. His proper self is understood to subsist in the
immaterial entity or divine spark called the soul or spirit. The organs
composing the body are looked upon as things which the man uses as a mechanic
uses his tools-the external agencies by which the behests of “the inner man” are
carried out. Mental qualities-such as reason, sentiment, disposition, &c.,
-are
set down as the attributes of the spiritual “essence” which is supposed to
constitute himself. The body is, of course, admitted
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35
to
have a material derivation “from the dust of the ground,” but the “essence” is
believed to have come from God Himself-to be, in fact, a part of the Deity-a
spark, or particle, scintillated from the divine nature, having intelligent
faculty and existence independently of the substantial organism with which it
is associated. In accordance with this view, death is not considered to affect
a man’s being. It is regarded simply as a demolition of the material organism,
which liberates the deathless, intangible man from the bondage of this “mortal
coil,” which having “shuffled off,” he wings his way to spiritual regions, for
eternal happiness or misery, according to “deeds done in the body.”
Now,
in opposition to this view, we shall show that, according to the Scriptures man
is destitute of immortality in every sense; that he is a creature of organised
substance subsisting in the life-power of God, which he shares in common with
every living thing under the sun; that he only holds this life on the short
average tenure of three-score years and ten, at the end of which he gives it up
to Him from whom he received it, and returns to the ground, whence he
originally came, and meanwhile ceases to exist. Such a proposition may well be
shocking to ordinary religious susceptibility; but it demands investigation. Our
business is to look at the proof. Evidence is the main thing with which we have
to deal, and that evidence is of two kinds as indicated- 1st, the testimony of
existing natural facts; and, 2nd, the declaration of the inspired word of God.
It
may seem inappropriate to take natural facts at all into account, in discussing
a question in which the Holy Scriptures are allowed to have authority. This
impression disappears when we remember that nearly all the arguments by which
the popular doctrine is supported, are derived from natural facts. We shall try
to show that all the arguments upon which it is founded are fallacious-natural
as well as Scriptural. However distasteful to purely sentimental minds such a
process may be, it is the only one by which searching minds can be satisfied.
We shall endeavour to show-lst, that the natural facts adduced in support of
the immortality of the soul do not in any way constitute proof of the doctrine;
and, 2nd, that certain natural facts exist which Overturn the doctrine. Then we
shall show that the testimony of Scripture is entirely inconsistent with the
popular doctrine, and teaches, in fact, as one of the first principles of
revealed truth, that man is mortal because of sin.
The
first argument usually employed by those who set themselves philosophically to
demonstrate the doctrine, is like this.
Pg
36They say that matter cannot think, and that as man thinks there must be an
immaterial essence in him that performs the thinking, and that, the essence
being immaterial, it must be indestructible and, therefore, immortal. This is
an old argument, and seemingly strong at first sight. Let us consider: ls it
quite correct to assume that matter cannot think? Of course, it is evident that
inanimate substances, such as wood, iron, are incapable of thought; but is
substance in every form and condition incapable of evolving mental power? To
assert this would require the asserter to be able in the first place to define
where the empire of what is called “matter” ends, and to prove that he was
familiar with every part of this empire. What are the boundaries dividing that
department of nature styled “matter,” from which the old metaphysicians have
distinguished as “mind “? Earth, stones, iron and wood would come into the
category of matter without a question, but what about smoke? It may be replied
that smoke is matter in diffusion: well, what about light and heat? Light and
heat can hardly be brought within any of the ordinary definitions of matter,
and yet they manifestly have a most intimate relation to matter in its most
tangible form. Nothing can exceed light in its subtlety and imponderability. Is
it within or without the empire of matter? It would puzzle the methodical
metaphysician to say. And if perplexed with light what would he do with
electricity, a power more uncontrollable than any force in nature-a principle
existing in everything, yet impalpable to the senses except in its
effects-invisible, immaterial, omnipotent in its operations, and essential to
the very existence of every form of matter? Is this part of the “matter” from
which the argument in question excludes the possibility of mental phenomena? If
so, what is that which is not matter? Some say “spirit” is not matter. In
truth, it may be found that spirit is the highest form of matter. Certainly
“spirit” as exhibited to us in the Scriptures possesses material power. The
Spirit came upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, “like a mighty rushing
wind,” and made the place where they were assembled shake, showing it to be capable
of mechanical momentum. Coming upon Samson, it energised his muscles to the
snapping of ropes, like thread (Judges xv, 14); and inhaled by the nostrils of
man and beast, it gives physical life (Psalm civ, 30).
It
is evident that there would be great difficulty in arriving at such a
definition of “matter” as would sustain the argument under consideration. It
is, in fact, only an arbitrary and, in
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37
modern
times, discredited system of thought that has created the distinctions implied
in the terms of metaphysics. Nature, that is universal existence, is one; it is
the incorporation of one primitive power; it is not made up of two antagonistic
and incompatible elements. God is the source of all. In Him everything exists;
out of Him everything is evolved. Different elements and substances are but
different forms of the same eternal essence or first cause-described in the
Bible as “spirit,” which God is; and in scientific language, by a diversity of
superficial terms. The word matter” only describes an aspect of creation, as
presented to finite sense; it does not touch the essence of the thing, though
intended so to do by the short-sighted, because unexperimental and unobservant,
system which invented it.
But
if difficult to fix the limits of unsentient matter, there is another
difficulty which is equally fatal to the argument, viz., the difficulty of
defining the process which is expressed by the word “think.” It would be
necessary to define this process before it would be legitimate to argue that
every form of matter is incapable of it; for unless defined, how could we say
when and where it was possible or not possible. To say that matter cannot think
is virtually to allege that the nature of thought is so and so, and the nature
of matter so and so, in consequence of which they have no mutual relation. We
have seen the impossibility of taking this ground with regard to “matter.” Who
shall define the modus operandi of thought? It can only be done in general
terms which destroy the argument now under review. Thought, in so far as it
relates to human experience, is a power developed by brain organisation, and
consists of impressions made upon that delicate organ through the medium of the
senses, and afterwards classified and arranged by that function pertaining in
different degrees to brain in human form, known as reason. This is matter of
experience. It cannot be set aside as a fact, whatever reservation may be
entertained as to the explanation of the fact. It is a fact that destroys the
metaphysical argument, since it shows us what the argument denies, viz., that
the matter of the brain electrically energised is capable of evolving thought.
The
whole argument in question is based on a fallacy. It assumes a knowledge of
“nature’s” capabilities impossible to man. Chemists can tell the number and
proportion of elementary gases which enter into any compound; but who
understands the essential nature of any one of those elements separately? The
more truly learned great minds become, the more diffident do they grow on this
subject. They hesitate to be certain about
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38
almost
anything in which the secrets of nature are involved. The progress of
biological investigation during the last century is eloquent on this subject.
None but the ignorant or the superficial would be so unwise as to draw the line
fixing the limit of the possible. What is nature? The sphere of omnipotence-the
arena of God’s operations. Shall we say that anything is impossible with God?
True, inanimate matter, such as iron or stone, cannot think; but we know,
experimentally, that there is such a thing as “ living matter,” and that living
matter is sentient, and thinking by virtue of its organisation, which is only
another phrase for its divine endowment. This is a matter of experience,
illustrated in degree in every department of the animal kingdom.
It
is argued that the possession of “ reason” is evidence of the existence of an
immortal and immaterial soul in man. The logic of this argument is difficult of
discovery. Reason is unquestionably a wonderful attribute and an
incomprehensible function of the mental machinery; but how can it be held to
prove the existence of a something beyond knowledge, since there can be no
known connection between that which is incomprehensible and that which is
unknown? To say that we have an indestructible soul, because we have reasonable
faculty, is to repeat the mistake of our forefathers of the last generation,
who referred the achievements of machinery to Satanic agency, because in their
ignorance they were unable to account for them in any other way. We may not be
able to understand how it is that reason is evolved by the organisation with
which God has endowed us, but we are compelled to recognise the self-evident
fact that it is so evolved.
Again,
it is argued that the power of the mind to “travel,” while the body remains
quiescent, is proof of its immaterial and, therefore, immortal nature. Let us
see. What is this “travelling” of the mind? Does the mind traverse actual space
and witness realities? A man has been in America, has seen many sights, and
returns home; occasionally he sees those sights over again; the impressions
made on the sensorium of the brain through the organs of sight and hearing,
while in America, are revived so distinctly that he can actually fancy himself
in the place he has left so many thousands of miles behind. Surely no one will
contend that each time this reverie comes upon him, his mind actually goes out
of his body, and transfers itself to the place thought of! If this is
contended, it ought also to be allowed that the man, when so spiritually
transferred, should witness what is actually transpiring in the country at the
time of his spiritual presence, and that, therefore, we might dispense with the
post and
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39
telegraph
as clumsy contrivances for getting the news compared with the facility and
despatch of soulography. But this will not he contended. As well might we say
that the places and persons we see in our dreams have a real existence. In both
cases, the phenomenon is the result of a process that takes place within the
brain. Memory treasures impressions received, and reproduces them as occasion
occurs-clear, calm and coherent, if the brain be in a healthy condition;
confused, disjointed, and aberrated, if the brain be disordered, whether in
sleep or out of it. In no case does reverie involve an actual transit of the
mind from one place to another; and hence the “travelling” argument falls to
the ground. if a man could go to China, while his body remained in Britain, and
see the country and people as they really are, there might be something worthy
of consideration, though even then it would not prove the immortality of the
soul, but only the wonderful power of the brain while a living instrument, in
acting at long distances through an electrical atmosphere.
The
power of dreaming is cited as another fact favourable to the popular doctrine;
but here again the argument fails; because dreaming is invariably connected
with the living brain. Beside, who ever dreams a sensible dream? Dreams, in
general, are a confused and illogical jumble of facts which have at one time or
other been stowed away in the storehouse of the brain; and if they prove
anything concerning a thinking spirit, independent of the body, they prove that
that spirit loses its power in exact proportion to its separation from the
assistance of the body; and that, therefore, without the body it would
presumably be powerless.
It
is next contended that the immateriality of man’s nature is proved by the fact
that though he may be deprived of a limb, he retains a consciousness of that
limb, sometimes even feeling pain in it. The argument is, that if the man is
conscious of a part of himself when the material organ of that part is wanting,
he will be conscious of his entire being when the whole body is wanting. This
looks plausible: but let us examine it. Why is a man conscious of an absent
member? Because the independent nerves of that member remain in the system from
the point of disseverment up to their place in the brain; so that although the
hand or foot may be absent, the brain goes on to feel as if they were present,
because the nerves that produce the sensation of their presence are still
active at the brain centre. But if, when you cut off a leg, you could also
remove the entire nerves of the leg from the point of amputation up to their
roots in the brain, and
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40
still
preserve a consciousness of the severed member, the argument would be deserving
of consideration.
The
most powerful natural argument in favour of the popular doctrine has yet to be
noticed. It is the one mainly relied upon by all its great advocates. It is
this: It is an ascertained fact in physiology that the substance of our bodies
undergoes an entire change every seven years-that is, there is a gradual process
of substitution going on, by which the atoms, one after another, are expelled
from the body as their vital qualities are worn out, and their place filled up
by new ones from the blood; so that at the end of the period mentioned, the
body is made up of entirely new substance. Yet, notwithstanding this constant
mutation of the material atoms of the body, and this periodical change of its
entire substance, memory and personal identity remain unaffected to the close
of life. An old man at eighty feels he is the same person he was at ten,
although at eighty he has not a single particle of the matter which composed
his body when a boy, and the argument is that the thinking faculty and power of
consciousness must be the attribute of some immaterial principle residing in
the body, but undergoing no change. Now this has all the appearance of
conclusiveness. However, let us look at it narrowly. The question to be
considered is-whether this fact of continuous identity amid atomic change, can
be explained in accordance with the view which regards the mind as a property
of living brain substance. The question is answered by this well-known fact,
that the qualities resulting from any organic combination of atoms are
transmissible to other atoms which may take their place as organic
constituents. An atom as it exists in food has no power of sensation; but let
it be assimilated by the blood and incorporated with any of the nerves, and it
possesses a sensitive power it formerly did not have. It becomes part of the
organisation, and feels whether in man or animal. Why? Because it takes up and
perpetuates the organic qualities which its predecessor has left behind. On
this principle, we find that the mark of a scar will be continued in the flesh
through life; and so also with discolourations of the skin, which exist in some
persons from congenital causes. This perpetuation of physical disfigurement
could not take place if it were not for the fact of the transmissibility of
corporate qualities to migratory corporate constituents. Now, if we apply this
principle to the brain, we have a complete solution of the apparent difficulty
on which the argument of the question is founded. Mind is the result of
impressions on the living brain, and personal identity of the sum of
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those
impressions. This definition may be scouted, but it will quietly commend itself
to honest reflection. It will not be questioned by the student of human nature,
though it may not be understood. Mental impression is a fact, though a mystery,
alike in men and animals; and facts are the things that wise men have to deal
with. It is impossible to explain, or even to comprehend, the process by which
thought is begotten in the tissues of the brain; but that the process takes
place will not be denied. We are conscious of the process, and feel the result
in the possession of separate individuality-the power of contemplating all
other persons and things objectively. Now, in order to perpetuate this result,
all that is necessary is to preserve the integrity of the organ evolving it.
This, of course, involves the introduction of fresh material into its
structure, but it does not imply an invasion of the process going on in it,
which the argument in question supposes; the process conquers the material, and
converts it to its own uses, and not the material the process. Who ever heard
of a man’s bone turning to wheat from the eating of flour? The nutritive
apparatus assimilates, which is in fact the answer to the argument. The new
material entering the brain is assimilated to its existing condition; and thus,
although the atoms come and go for a lifetime, the condition remains
substantially unaltered, like a fire kept up by fuel. If, then, we are asked
how a man at eighty feels himself to be the same person that he was at ten, though
his entire substance is changed, we reply, those brain impressions which enable
him to feel that he is himself, have been kept up all along, though modified by
the circumstances and conditions through which he has passed. The process of
change is so slow that the new atoms take on the organic qualities of the old,
as they are gradually incorporated with the brain, and sustain the general
result of the brain’s action in preserving its continuous function unimpaired.
If cases could be cited in which identity survived the destruction of the
brain, the case would stand differently; but as a fact, it is only to be found
in connection with a perpetuated brain organisation.
These
are the main “natural” arguments relied upon for proof of the current theological
conception of the immortality of the soul. It will be observed that none of
them is really logical. Each of them falls through when thoroughly looked into.
The natural argument on the other side of the question will be found to stand
in a very different position. At the very outset we are confronted with the
difficulty of conceiving how immateriality can inhere in a material
organisation. Cohesion and conglomer
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42
ation
require affinity as their first condition, but, in this case, affinity is
entirely wanting. What connection can exist between “matter” and the immaterial
principle of popular belief? They are not in the nature of things susceptible
of combination. Yet in the face of this difficulty, we find that the mind is
located in the body. It is not a loose ethereal thing, capable of detachment
from the material person. It is inexorably fixed in the bodily framework, and
never leaves it while life continues. If we enquire in what portion of the body
it is specially located, we instinctively answer that it is not located in the
hand, nor in the foot, nor in the stomach, nor in the heart, nor in any part of
the trunk. Our consciousness unerringly tells us that it is in the head. We
feel, as a matter of experience, whatever our theory may be, that the mind
cohabits with the substance of the brain.
Extending
our observation externally, we never discover mind without a corresponding
development of brain. Deficient brain is always found to manifest deficient
reason, and vice versa. Master minds in science and literature have larger and
deeply convoluted cerebrums. If the popular theory were correct, mind ought to
be exhibited independently of either quantity or quality of organisation.
Again,
if the mind were immaterial, its functions would be unaffected by the
conditions of the body. Thinking and feeling would never abate in vigour or
vivacity. We should always be serene and clear-headed-always ready for the
“study,” whatever might be the state of the bodily machinery; whereas we know
that the opposite is the case. Sickness or overwork will exhaust the mental
energies, and make the mind a blank. Languor and dullness of spirits are of
common experience. We can all testify to days of ennui, in which the mind has
refused to perform its office; and we can remember, too, the uneasy pillow when
horrible visions have scared us. This never happens in a good state of health,
but always when the material organisation is out of order. How is this? Does it
not tell against the theory which represents the mind as an immaterial,
incorruptible, imperishable thing? The mind is the offspring of the brain, and
is therefore affected by all its passing disorders.
Let
us carry the process further. Let the brain be injured, and we then perceive a
most signal refutation of the popular idea; the mind vanishes altogether. The
following extract illustrates:
-RICHM0ND
mentions the case of a woman whose brain was exposed in consequence of the
removal of a, considerable part of its bony covering by disease. He says, “I
repeatedly made a pressure on the brain, and
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each
time suspended all feeling and all intellect, which were immediately restored
when the pressure was withdrawn “. The same writer mentions another case. He
says, “There was a man who had to be trepanned, and who perceived his
intellectual faculties failing, and his existence drawing to a close, every
time the effused blood collected upon the brain so as to produce pressure “.
PROF.
CHAPMAN, in one of his letters, says, “1 saw an individual with his skull
perforated and the brain exposed, who was accustomed to submit his brain to be
experimented upon by pressure, and who was exhibited by the late Prof. Weston
to his class. His intellect and moral faculties disappeared on the application
of pressure to the brain. They were held under the thumb, as it were, and
restored at pleasure to their full activity by discontinuing the pressure “.
But
of all facts, the following related by SIR ASTLEY COOPER, in his surgical
lectures, is the most remarkable: “A man of the name of Jones received an
injury on his head while on board a vessel in the Mediterranean, which rendered
him insensible. The vessel soon after made for Gibraltar, where Jones was
placed in the hospital, and remained several months in the same insensible
state. He was carried on board the Dolphin frigate to Deptford, and from thence
was sent to St. Thomas’s Hospital, London. He lay constantly on his back, and
breathed with difficulty. When hungry or thirsty he moved his lips or tongue.
Mr. Ctyne, the surgeon, found a portion of the skull depressed, trepanned him,
and removed the depressed portion. Immediately after this operation, the motion
of his fingers, occasioned by the beating of the pulse, ceased, and in three
hours he sat up in bed, sensation and volition returned, and in four days he
got up out of his bed and conversed. The last thing he remembered was the
occurrence of taking a prize in the Mediterranean. From (lie moment of the
accident, thirteen months and a few days before, oblivion had come over him,
all recollection ceased. Yet, on removing a small portion of bone which pressed
upon the brain, he was restored to the full possession of the powers of his
mind and body
These
cases are not in accordance with the popular theory of the mind. Here is
suspension of mental action on the derangement of the material organisation.
Obviously, the mind is not the attribute of a principle existing independently
of that organisation. The facts show that thinking is dependent upon the action
of the brain, and cannot, therefore, be the action of an immaterial principle,
which could never be affected by any material condition.
There
are other difficulties. If the mind be a spark from God -if it be a part of the
Deity himself, transfused into material organisations (and this is the view
contended for by believers in the immortality of the soul) our faculties ought
to spring forth in full maturity at birth. Instead of that, as everybody knows,
a newborn babe has not a spark of intellect or a glimmer of consciousness.
According to the popular belief, it ought to possess both in full measure,
because of the immaterial thinking principle. No one can carry his memory back
to his birth. He can
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44
remember
when he was three years old, perhaps; only in a few cases can he recall an earlier
date. Yet, if the popular belief were correct, memory ought to be
contemporaneous with life from its very first moment.
Again;
if all men partake alike of this divine thinking essence, they ought to
manifest the same degree of intelligence, and show the same disposition.
Instead of that, there is infinite diversity among men. One man is shrewd and
another dull-one vicious and depraved, and another high-souled and virtuous-one
good and gentle, another harsh and inconsiderate, and soon. There ought to be uniformity
of manifestation if there be uniformity of power.
These
are so many natural obstacles in the way of the doctrine which constitutes the
very foundation of all popular religion. They disprove that man is an
immaterial entity, capable of disembodied existence. They show him to be a
compound-a creature of material organization-endowed with life from God, and
ennobled with qualities which constitute him “the image of God “; but
nevertheless mortal in constitution. Why so much opposition? All natural evidence
is in its favour. If there are mysteries in it, there is nonetheless
obviousness. Mystery is no ground of disbelief. This is shown by the universal
belief in the immortality of the soul. Surely this is “mysterious” enough. If
it comes to that, we are surrounded with mystery. We can only approximate to
truth; the how of any organic process is beyond comprehension; we can but note
fads, and bow in the presence of undeniable phenomena. Though we are unable to
understand the mode in which nerve communicates sensation, muscles generate
strength, blood supplies life, &c., we cannot deny that these agencies are
the proximate causes of the results developed, whether in man or animals. Why
should there be an exception in the case of thought? What we know of it, is all
connected with physical organization. We have no experience of human mind apart
from human brain. In fact, we have no experience of any human faculty apart
from its material manifestation; and in ordinary sensible thinking, the various
living powers of man are practically acknowledged to be the properties of the
numerous organs which collectively compose himself. If he sees, it is
recognised as the function of the eye to see; if he hears, that it is with the
ear, and that without these organs, he can neither see nor hear. In proportion
as these organs are perfectly formed, there is perfect sight or hearing. Why
should this principle not be applied to the mind? The parallel is complete. Man
thinks, and he has a
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brain
to think with; and in proportion as the brain is properly organised and
developed, he thinks well. If it be large, thore is power and scope of mind; if
small, there is mediocrity; if below par, there is intellectual deficiency, and
idiocy. These are facts apart from theory of any kind; and they prove the
connection of mind with living brain substance, however mysterious that
connection may be. Some say “No” to all this; “the brain is simply the medium
of the soul’s manifestation: deficiency of intellect and other mental irregularities
are the result of imperfection in the mediumship;” but this begs the question.
It assumes the very point at issue, viz., the existence of a thinking
abstraction to manifest itself. But even supposing we accept the explanation,
what does it avail for popular theory? If the soul cannot manifest
itself-cannot reason, cannot reflect, be conscious, love, hate, etc.-without a
material “medium,” what is its value as a thinking agent when without that
medium; that is, when the body is in the grave? The explanation, however,
cannot be accepted. It is the ingenious suggestion of a philosophy which is in
straits to preserve itself from confusion. How much wiser to recognise the fact
which presents itself to our actual experience, namely, that all our conscious,
as well as unconscious, powers as living beings are the result of a conjunction
between the life-power of God and the substance of our organisation, and do not
exist apart from that connection in which they are developed.
WHAT
THE SCRIPTURES SAY.
We
turn now to the Scriptures, whose voice is weightier than the fallible
deductions of philosophy. And what find we here? Here we find a complete
agreement with the natural facts in the case. First, and most astounding fact
of all (as it must appear to those who think the Bible teaches the immortality
of the soul), we do not find anywhere in the Bible those common phrases by
which the popular doctrine is expressed. “Never-dying soul,” “immortal soul,”
“immortality of the soul,” &c., so constantly on the lips of religious
teachers, are forms of speech which are not to be met with throughout the whole
of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. Anyone may quickly satisfy himself on
this point by reference to a concordance, if he be otherwise unacquainted with
the Scriptures. How are we to explain the fact? All the essential teachings of
Scripture are plain, unequivocal, and copious. The existence and creative power
of God-His purposes in regard to the future-the Messiahship of Jesus Christ
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-the
object of his mission to earth-the doctrine of the resurrection, etc., are all
enforced as plainly as language can enforce them; but of the doctrine of
immortality of the soul, there is not the slightest mention. This fact is
acknowledged by eminent theologians, but does not seem to suggest to their
minds the fictitiousness of the doctrine. They argue the other way, and
maintain (or at least suggest) that the reason of the Bible passing over in
silence the doctrine of human immortality is because it is so self-evident as
to require no enunciation. This is very unsatisfactory. It would be much more
appropriate to suggest the very opposite significance to the silence of the
Scriptures on the subject. If the immortality of the soul is to be believed
without sanction from revelation, on the mere assumption that it is
self-evident, may we not uphold any doctrine for which we have a prepossession?
A more rational course to pursue is surely to suspect a doctrine not divinely
inculcated, and subject it to the severest scrutiny. This is the course adopted
in the present lecture; and we shall find that the process will result in a
complete breakdown of the doctrine. The Bible is not silent on the question,
although it says nothing about the immortality of the soul. It supplies direct
and conclusive evidence of the absolute mortality of man.
Some,
however, may not be satisfied that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul
is not definitely broached in the sacred writings. Recalling to mind the
constant use of the word “soul,” they may be disposed to consider that it is
countenanced and endorsed in such a way as to render formal enunciation
superfluous. For the benefit of such, it will be well to look at the use made
of the word in the Scriptures, in order to see its meaning. First, let it be
remembered that in its original derivation the word “soul “simply means a
breathing creature, without any reference to its constitution, or the duration
of existence. This fact is strikingly illustrated in the renderings adopted by
our translators in the first few chapters of Genesis. As applied to Adam, it is
translated soul (Gen. ii, 7); as applied to beasts, birds, reptiles, and fish,
it is rendered “creature” and “thing” (Gen. i, 20, 21, 24, 28). The word is
employed to express various ideas arising out of respiring existence as its
fundamental significance. It is put for persons in the following : -“And Abram
took ... the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and
they
went forth to go into the land of Canaan;” that is, Abraham took all the
persons, etc. (Gen. xii, 5).
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Levy
a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle, one soul of
five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of
the sheep” (Num. xxxi, 28).
It
is also used to represent mind, disposition, life, etc.; and that which it
describes is spoken of as capable of hunger (Prov. xix, 15), of being satisfied
with food (Lam. ~, 11, 19), of touching a material object (Lev. v, 2), of going
into the grave (Job xxxiii, 22, 28), of coming out of it (Psalm xxx, 3), etc.
It is never spoken of as an immaterial, immortal, thinking entity. The original
word occurs in the Old Testament about 700 times, and in the New Testament
about 180 times; and among all the variety of its renderings, it is impossible to
discover anything approaching to the popular dogma. It is rendered “soul” 530
times; “life” or “living” 190 times; “person” 34 times; and “beasts and
creeping things” 28 times. It is also rendered “a man,” “a person,”
self,’’
“ they,” “ we,’’ “ him,” “ anyone,” “ breath,” “ heart,” “mind,” “appetite,”
“the body,” etc. In no instance has it the significance claimed for it by
professing Christians of modern times. It is never said to be immortal, but
always the reverse. It is not only represented as capable of death, but as
naturally liable to it. We find the Psalmist declaring in Psalm xxii, 29, “None
can keep alive his own soul;” and again, in Psalm lxxxix, 48, “What man is he
that liveth and shall not see death? Shall he deliver HIS SOUL from the hand of
the grave?” And in making an historical reference, he further says, “He spared
not THEIR SOUL from DEATH, but gave their life over to the pestilence” (Psalm
lxxviii, 50). Finally, Ezekiel declares (chap. xviii, 4), “The soul that
sinneth IT SHALL DIE.”
We
have to note another difference between scriptural and modern sentiment. We are
all familiar with the estimate put upon the value of the supposed immortal
soul. We frequently hear it exclaimed, “Oh! the value of one human soul!
Countless worlds cannot be placed in the balance with it!” Now we meet with
nothing of this sort in the Scriptures. The sentiment there is entirely the
contrary way. Take for instance this : -“WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? It is even a vapour
that appeareth for a little
time,
and then vanisheth away” (James iv, 14).
Or,
Psalm cxliv, 3, 4:- “Lord, what is man that Thou takest knowledge of him, and
the son of
man
that Thou makest account of him? Man is like to vanity; his days are as a
shadow that passeth away.
”
pg
48 “He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days
are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth
over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.”
And
more expressive than all, we read in Isaiah xl, 15-17- “Behold the nations are
as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as
the
small dust of the balance . . . All nations before him are AS NOTHING, and are
counted to him LESS THAN NOTHING, and vanity.”
And
in Daniel iv, 35 : -“All the inhabitants of the earth ARE REPUTED AS NOTHING.”
There
is only one passage that looks a little different from this.
It
is this:- “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his
own
soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark viii, 36, 37).
This
is frequently quoted in justification of the popular sentiment; but it will at
once be observed that the words do not describe, the absolute value of a man’s
life in creation, but simply its relative value to himself. They enforce the
common-sense principle that for a man to sacrifice his life in order to obtain
a thing which without life he can neither possess nor enjoy, would be to
perpetrate the lightest folly. Does any one insist that it means the “immortal
soul” of common belief? Then let him remember that the same word which is
translated “soul” in this passage is translated “life” in the one immediately
before* in which if we were to read it “immortal soul” the absurdity would at
once appear: -“For whosoever will save his immortal soul shall lose it, but
whosoever shall LOSE HIS IMMORTAL SOUL for my sake and the gospel’s the same
shall save it” (Mark viii, 35).
What
an awful paradox would this express in orthodox mouths. But regard the words in
the light in which we have already seen the Scriptures use it, and you perceive
beauty in the idea-preciousness in the promise. He who shrinks not from
sacrificing his life in this age, rather than deny Christ and forsake his
truth, will be rewarded with a more precious life at the
*
In the Revised Version life is substituted for soul in verse 37 as well.
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49
resurrection:
whereas he who renounces the truth to protect his poor mortal interests, will
be excluded from the blessings of the life to come.
We
get to the root of the matter in
Genesis, where we are furnished with an account of the creation of man. Here
the phraseology is not at all in agreement with the p opular view, but entirely coincides with the view advocated in this
lecture: -“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. ii,
7).
Here
we are informed that man was made from the ground, and that that which was
produced from the ground was the being called MAI’4. “But,” says an objector, “that
only means his body.” It is possible to say that it means anything we may
fancy. A statement of this kind is worth nothing. There is nothing in the
passage before us, nor anything else in the Scriptures, to indicate the popular
distinction between a man and his body. The substantial organisation is here
called man. True, he was without life before the inspiration of the breath of
life, yet he was man. The life was something super-added to give man living
existence. The life was not the man; it was the principle; it was something
outside of him, proceeding from a divine source, and infusing itself into the
wonderful mechanism prepared for its reception. “He breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and MAN BECAME a living soul.” This is frequently quoted in
proof of the common doctrine-or rather, misquoted, for it is generally given
“and breathed INTO HIM a living soul “; but it really establishes the contrary.
What became a “living soul “? The dust-formed being. If, therefore, the use of
the phrase “became a living soul,” prove the immortality and immateriality of
any part of man’s nature, it carries the proof to the body, for it was that
which became a “living soul.” But, of course, this would be absurd. The idea
expressed in the passage before us is simple and rational, viz., that the
previously inanimate being became a living being when vitalised, but not
necessarily immortal, for, though a living soul, it is not said that he became
an “ever-living” or “never-dying” soul, though doubtless he would have lived
had not sin brought death.
But,
whatever Adam may have been as originally constituted, the decree went forth
that he should cease to be-that he should return to the state of nothingness
from which he had been developed by creative power: that he should die: and
this consti
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tutes
the greatest disproof that could be brought forward of mans immortality in any
sense. It was said to Adam that in the day ate of the forbidden tree, he should
“surely DIE” (Gen, ii:17 )If there could be any doubt as to the meaning of
this, it at rest by the terms of the sentence passed upon him when he
disobeyed.
“Because thou hast eaten of the tree of which
I commanded t saying, Thou shalt not eat of it . . in the sweat of thy face s’
eat bread till Thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast 1 for dust THOU
art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. II:17-19)
To
say that this sentence merely relates to the body and not affect the being, is
to play with words. The personality expressed in the pronoun “thou” is here
distinctly al the physical organisation. “THOU art dust.” What could be more.
emphatic? “Thou shalt return to the dust.” This, of course utterly inapplicable
to the intangible principle which is supposed to constitute the soul, and
refers exclusively to man’s material nature.
Longfellow’s
view of the matter is that : -“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was
not spoken of the soul.”
Ergo,
it conclusively decides that to be a man’s constituent personality which
undergoes physical dissolution, or, at any the indispensable basis of it.
Abraham expresses this view: -~
“Behold
now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, am but dust and ashes” (Gen. xviii, 27).
This
is Abraham’s estimate of himself; some of his modern friends would have
corrected him. “Father Abraham, YOU :are mistaken; YOU are not dust and ashes;
it is only your body”
Abraham’s
unsophisticated view, however, is more reliable than “the (philosophical)
wisdom of this world,” which Paul pronounces to be “ foolishness with God” (I
Cor. iii, 19). Paul keeps company with Abraham: “I know that in me (that is, in
my flesh) dwelleth no good thing” (Romans VII: 18)
and
tells us in general to” Beware of philosophy and vain deceit which are
specially to be guarded against on this question. ~ James (chap. 1: 9, 10) adds
to this testimony : -“Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is
exalted; but the rich in that he is made low: because as the flower of the
grass he e shall pass away.”
Which
is something like a reiteration of Job’s words (chap. xiv, 1,2)
pg
51
“Man
that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble; he cometh forth like
a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not.
Then
comes the words of Solomon, the wisest of all men : -“I said (or wished) in
mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest
them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts; 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
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” (Eccles, iii, 18-20).
The
hasty believer in the popular doctrine gets impatient with this statement: “No
pre-eminence above a beast.” At first, he imagines it proceeds from a less
authoritative pen than Solomon’s; he stigmatises it as detestable; but there it
stands, in unmistakable emphasis, as a sweeping condemnation in the very Bible
itself, of the flattering dogma which exalts human nature to equality with
Deity.
Thus
do the Scriptures combine with nature in pronouncing man to be a creature of
frailty and mortality, who, though bearing the image of God, and towering far
above all other creatures In his his intellectual might, and in the grandeur of
his moral nature, and in his racial relation to futurity, is yet labouring
under a curse which hastens him to an appointed end in the grave.
It
is of the highest importance that this truth should be recognised. It is
impossible to discern the scheme of Bible truth while holding fundamental error
on the nature of man. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul will be found
to be the great error of the age-the mighty delusion which overspreads all
people like a veil-the great obstruction to the progress of true Christianity!
This will be manifest to the reader of the succeeding lectures. Words truly
fail to describe the mischief the doctrine has done. It has rendered the Bible
unintelligible, and promoted unbelief by making the Bible responsible for a
doctrine with which its historic and moral features are inconsistent. It has
taken away the Vitality of religion by destroying its meaning, and investing
the subject with a mystery that does not belong to it. It has ropbbed it of its
vigour, and reduced it to an effeminate thing, disowned and unpractised by men
of robust mind, and heeded only y by the sentimental and romantic. Fling it to
the moles and o the bats, and humbly accept the evidence of fact, and the
‘testimony of God’s infallible word.
Pg 52
LECUTRE 3
THE DEAD UNCONSCIOUS TILL THE RESURRECTION, AND
CONSEQUENT
ERROR
OF POPULAR BELIEF IN HEAVEN AND HELL
IF
CHRISTENDOM is astray on the nature of man, it naturally follows that it is
astray on the state of the dead, its theory of which occupies so large a place
in the theology of the day. We now look at this subject in the light of facts
and the testimony of Scripture.
Death
is the greatest fact in human experience, considered in its relation to the
individual. Its occurrence is universal and inevitable: its gloomy shadow,
sooner or later, darkens every house. Who has not felt its iron hand? Who has
not beheld the loved one chilled and stiffened by its desolating blast? The
blooming child with all its prattling innocence and winning ways: the companion
of youth, rosy, and healthful, and gay; the cherished wife, the devoted
husband, the tried and trusty friend; which of them has not been torn from our
side by the terrible hand of this ruthless and indiscriminating enemy? One day
we have seen them with bright eye, beaming countenance, supple frame, and have
heard the words of friendship and intelligence drop from their living lips; the
next we look upon them stretched on the bier-still, cold, motionless, ghastly,
dead!
What
shall we say to these things? Death brings grief to the living. It overwhelms
them with a sorrow that refuses consolation.
It
is not for ourselves that we mourn; news of life would bring gladness, even if
friends were far distant, and intercourse impossible. No, it is for the dead
our hearts are pained. Let us consider the bearing of this upon the popular
theology of the day. If death be merely a change of state, and not a
destruction of being, why all this heartbreaking for those who have gone? It
cannot be on account of the uncertainties “beyond the grave,”
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53
because
our grief is quite as poignant for those who are believed to have “gone to
heaven,” as for those about whom doubts may be entertained. Tears flow quite as
fast for the good as for the bad, and, perhaps, a little faster. There is
something inconsistent with the popular theory here. If our friends are really
gone to “glory,” we ought to feel as thankful as we do when they are promoted to
honour “ here below “; but we do not; and why? The evidence will justify the
answer. Because the strength of natural instinct can never be overcome by
theological fiction. Men will never practically believe the occurrence of death
to be the commencement of life, when they see it to be the extinction of all
they ever knew or felt of life.
If
the dead are not dead, but “gone before “; if they are “praising God among the
ransomed above,” they are alive, and, therefore, they have merely changed a
place of “temporal” for a place of eternal abode. They have simply shifted out
of the body from earth to heaven, or to hell, as the case may be. The word
“death,” in its original meaning, has, therefore, no application to man. It has
lost its meaning as popularly employed. It is no longer the antithesis of
“life.” It no longer means the cessation of living existence (its radical
signification), but simply means a change of habitation. “A man die? No,
impossible! He may go out of the body, but he CANNOT DIE.” This is the popular
sentiment-the dictum of the world’s wisdom-the tenacious belief of the
religious world.
We
shall enquire if there is anything in the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, or
in the testimony of nature to warrant this belief. And we shall find that there
is not only an entire absence of warrant for it, but great evidence to show
that death invades a man’s being and robs him of existence, and that
consequently in death he is as totally unconscious as though he had never
lived. Let the reader suspend his judgment. He will find that the sequel will
justify this answer, appalling as it may at first appear.
First, let us consider, fo r a moment, the primary idea expressed by the
word death. It is the opposite of life. We know life as a matter of positive
experience. The idea of death is derived from this experience. Death is the
word that describes its interruption, or negation, or stopping. Whether life is
used literally or figuratively; whether it is affirmed of a creature or an
institution, death is the opposite of the life so spoken of. It means the
absence or departure of the life. In order, therefore, to understand death in
relation to our present enquiry, we must have a definite conception of life. We
cannot understand life in a meta-
Pg
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physical
sense; hut this is no bar to our investigation; for the difficulty in this
sense is neither greater nor less than in the case of the animals, and in the
case of the animals people profess to find no difficulty in reconciling the
mystery of life with the occurrence of actual death.
Throwing
metaphysics aside, we need but ask ourselves, what is life as known
experimentally? It is the answer of literal truth to say that it is the
aggregate result of the organic processes transpiring within the human
structure-in respiration, circulation of the blood, digestion, etc. The lungs,
the heart, and the stomach conspire to generate and sustain vitality, and to
impart activity to the various faculties of which we are composed. Apart from
this busy organism, life is unmanifested, whether as regards man or beast.
Shock the brain, and insensibility ensues; take away the air, and you produce
suffocation; cut off the supply of food, and starvation ensues with fatal
effect. These facts, which everybody knows, prove that life depends on the
organism. They show that human life, with its mysterious phenomena of thought
and feeling, is the evolution of the complicated machinery of which we are so
“fearfully and wonderfully made.” That machinery, in full and harmonious
action, is a sufficient explanation of the life we now live. In it and by it we
exist.
Now,
whatever prejudice the reader may feel against this presentation of the matter,
he cannot evade recognising this, that there it’s a time when we did not exist. This important
fact shows the possibility of non-existence in relation to man. The question
is. shall this state of non-existence again supervene? And this is a simple
question of experience, on which, alas! experience speaks but too plainly.
Since human existence depends on material organic function, non-existence
ensues upon the interruption of that function. By experience we know that this
interruption does take place, and that man dies in consequence. Death comes to
him and undoes what birth did for him. The one gave him existence; the other
takes it away. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” is realised in
every man’s experience. In the course of nature, his being vanishes from
creation, and all his qualities submerge in death for the simple reason that
the organism that develops them then stops its working.
These
are the facts of the case from a natural point of view. But when we look into
the Scriptures it is astonishing how much stronger the case becomes. When the
Scriptures speak about the death of anyone, they do not employ the phraseology
of the
Pg
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modern
religionist. They do not say of the righteous that they have “gone to their
reward,” or “gone to their last account,” or that they have “winged their
flight to a better world “; or of the wicked, that they are “gone to appear
before the bar of God, to answer for their misdeeds.” The language is
expressive of a contrary doctrine. The death of Abraham, the father of the
faithful, is thus recorded
And
Abraham gave imp the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of
years, and was gathered to his people” (Gen. xxv, 8).
So
also in the case of Isaac: -And Isaac gave up i/ic ghost amid died, and was
gathered unto his
people”
(Gen. xxxv, 29).
So
of Jacob:- And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he
gathered
up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his
people “ (Gen. xlix, 33).
Of
Joseph it is simply said : -‘So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years
old, and they
embalmed
him, and lie was put in a coffin in Egypt” (Gen. I, 26).
So
in the case of Moses:- “So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there, in the
land of Moab,
according
to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley, in the land of Moab,
over against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day”
(Deut. xxxiv, 5, 6).
And
so we shall find it in the case of Joshua (Jos. xxiv, 29), Samuel (1 Sam. xxv,
1), David (I Kings ii, 1, 2, 10; Acts ii, 29, 34); Solomon (I Kings xi, 43),
and all others whose death is recorded in the Scriptures. They are never said
to have gone away anywhere, but are always spoken of as dying, giving up their
life, and returning to the ground. The same style of language is adopted by
Paul when he speaks of the generation of the righteous dead. He says (Heb xi,
13):- These all died in faith, NOT HAVING RECEIVED THE PROMISES, but
having
seen them afar off”
If
Jesus spake of the death of Lazarus, he recognised the fact in its plainest
sense (John xi, 11-14): -“He (Jesus) saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth; but I go
that
I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he
shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death, but they
pg
56
thought
he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly,
LAZARUS is DEAD.”
When
Luke records the death of Stephen (Acts vii, 60), he does not indulge in any of
the high-flown death-bed rapture so prevalent in modern religious literature.
He simply says, “He fell asleep.” Or when Paul has occasion to refer to
deceased Christians, he does not speak of them as “standing before the throne
of God!” The words he employs are in keeping with those already quoted (I
Thess, iv, 13):
“I
would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are
ASLEEP,
that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope.”
There are no exceptions to these
cases in Bible narrative. All Bible allusion to the subject of death is as
unlike modern sentiment as it is possible to conceive. The Bible speaks of
death as the ending of life, and never as the commencement of another state.
Not once does it tell us of a dead man having gone to heaven. Not once, except
by an allowable poetical figure (Isa. xiv, 4) or for purposes of parable (Luke
xvi, 19-3 1), are the dead represented as conscious. They are always pictured
in language that accords with experience-always spoken of as in the land of
darkness, and silence, and unconsciousness. Solomon says : -Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might: for there
is
no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, IN THE GRAVE, whither thou
goes! “ (Eccles. ix, 10).
Job,
in the anguish of accumulated calamity, cursed the day of his birth, and wished
he had died when an infant; and mark what he says would have been the
consequence:
“ For
now should I have lain still and beetz quiet; I should have slept; then had I
been at rest with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate
places [tombs] for themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their
houses with silver, or as an hidden untimely birth I HAD NOT BEEN, as infants
which never saw the light: there the wicked cease from troubling, and there the
weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of
the oppressor; the small and great are there, and the servant is free from his
master” (Job iii, 13-19).
He
also makes the following statement, which with the one just quoted, ought to be
well considered by those who believe that babies go to heaven when they die :
-(Chapter x, 18)-” Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the
womb?
0, that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me; I should have been AS
THOUGH I HAD NOT BEEN.”
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57
David
incidentally alludes to the state of the dead in the following impressive words
(Psa. lxxxviii, 5, 10-12):- “Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in
the grave, whom thou
rememberest
no more; and they are cut off from Thy hand.” “Wilt thou show wonders to the
dead? Shall the dead arise and praise
Thee?
Shall Thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or Thy faithfulness in
destruction? Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark, and Thy righteousness in
the land of forgetfulness?”
These
questions are answered in a short but emphatic statement, which occurs in the
115th Psalm, verse 17:- “The DEAD praise NOT the Lord, neither ANY that go down
into silence.”
And
the Psalmist gives pathetic expression to his own view of man’s evanescent
nature, in the following words, which have a direct bearing on the state of the
dead : -(Psa. xxxix, 5, 12, 13)-” Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand-
breadth,
and mine age is as nothing before Thee. Verily every man at his best state is
altogether vanity. . . . Hear my prayer, 0 Lord, and give ear
unto
my cry; hold not Thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with Thee, and a
sojourner, as all my fathers were. 0, spare me, that I may recover strength,
before I go hence, and BE NO MORE.”
He
says in Psalm clxvi, 2, “ While I live will I praise the Lord, I will sing
praises unto my GOD WHILE I HAVE ANY BEING”; clearly implying that in David’s
view, his being would cease with the occurrence of death.
In
addition to these general indications of the destructive nature of death as a
deprivation of being, there are other statements in the Scriptures which
specifically deny that the dead have any consciousness. For instance:- “The
living know that they shall die; but THE DEAD KNOW NOT ANYTHING, neither have
they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten; •also their love,
and their hatred, and their envy is now PERISHED, neither have they any more a
portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun” (Eccies. ix, 5, 6).
How
often we hear the remark concerning the dead, “Ah, well! He knows all now!”
What shall we say about it? If Solomon’s words have any meaning, the remark is
the very opposite of true. What can be more explicit? “The dead know not
anything.” It would certainly be a wonderful feat of exegesis that should make
this mean “The dead know everything.” How common again, to believe that after
death, the dead will love and serve God with greater devotion in heaven,
because freed from the clog of this mortal body; or curse Him with hotter
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hatred
in hell, for the same reason; that, in fact, their love will be perfected, and
their hate intensified; in the very face of Solomon’s declaration to the
contrary. “Their love and their hatred, and their envy are now perished.” David
is equally decisive on this point. He says (Psa. cxlvi, 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 flint very
day
HIS THOUGHTS PERISH.”
Again
(Psalm vi, 5):- In death THERE IS NO REMEMBRANCE OF THEE: in the grave who
shall
give
thee thanks?”
Hezekiah,
king of Israel, gives similar testimony. He had been “sick, nigh unto death,”
and on his recovery, he indited a song of praise to God, in which he gave the
following reason for thanksgiving : -“For the grave 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” (Isa. xxxviii, 18, 19).
This
array of Scripture testimony must be conclusive with those with whom Scripture
authority carries weight. If there is anything decisive in the verdict of
Scripture, the state of the dead ought no longer to be a debatable question.
The Bible settles it against all philosophical speculation. It teaches that
death is a total eclipse of being-a complete obliteration of our conscious
selves from God’s universe. This will do no violence to the feelings of those
who are governed by wisdom of the type inculcated in the Scriptures. Such will
but bow in the presence of God’s appointment, whatever it is. They would do
this if the appointment were harder to receive than it is in this case. Instead
of being hard to receive, it accords with our experience and our instincts. And
still better, it frees all Bible doctrine from obscurity.
It
establishes the doctrine of the resurrection on the firm foundation of
necessity; for in this view, a future life is only attainable by resurrection;
whereas, in the popular view, future life is a natural growth from the present,
affected neither one way nor the other by the “resurrection of the body.” In fact
it is difficult to see any use for resurrection at all if we accept the popular
idea; for if a man “goes to his reward” at death, and enjoys all the felicity
of heaven of which his nature is capable, it seems incongruous that, after a
certain time, he should be compelled to leave the celestial regions, and rejoin
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his
body on earth, when without that body he is supposed to have so much more
capability of enjoyment. The resurrection seems out of place in such a system;
and accordingly we find that, now-a-days, many are abandoning it, and vainly
trying to explain away the New Testament doctrine of physical resurrection
altogether, in favour of the Swedenborgian theory of spiritual resuscitation.
We
have cited many Scriptures in proof of the reality of death, and the consequent
unconsciousness of those who are dead. Those Scriptures are not ambiguous. They
are clear, plain, and intelligible. Now, suppose the positive declarations they
make were propounded in the form of interrogations, to any modern religious
teacher, or to any of the intelligent among his flock, would their answers be
at all in harmony with those declarations’? Let us see. Suppose we enquire, “Do
the dead know anything “? what would the answer be? “Oh, yes, they know a great
deal more than the living.” Or let us ask, “When a nian goes to the grave, do
his thoughts perish”? The answer would instantly be, in the words of a
“reverend” gentleman, in a funeral sermon, “Oh no, we rejoice to know that
death, though it may close our mortal history, is not the termination of our
existence-it is not even the suspension of consclous,iess.” Or again, Is there
any remembrance of God in death’? “Oh yes, the righteous dead know Him more
perfectly, and love Him more fully than they did when on earth.” Do the dead
praise the Lord’? “Certainly; if they are redeemed; they join in the song of
Moses and thei Lamb before the throne.” Do babies that die pass away as though
they had never been born? “No! perish the thought! They go to heaven and become
angels in the presence of God.”
Thus,
in every instance, popular belief, in reference to the dead, is exactly
contrary to the explicit statements of Scripture. It is a belief entirely
destitute of foundation. It is opposed to all truth-natural and revealed. In
the last lecture, an endeavour was made to expose the fallacy of the “natural”
arguments on which it is founded. We shall now look at a few of the Scriptural
reasons that are generally put forward in its behalf. Those reasons are based
upon certain passages that occur mostly in the New Testament; and of these
passages it has to be remarked, to commence with, that, although they do bear
on the face of them some apparent countenance to popular belief, not one of
them affirms that belief. The evidence they are supposed to contain is purely
inferential. That is, they make certain statements
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which
are supposed to imply the doctrine sought to be proved, but they do not
proclaim the doctrine itself. Now, it is important to note this general fact to
commence with. It is something to know that there is not a single promise of
heaven at death in the whole Bible, and not a single declaration that man has
an immortal soul; and that all the supposed evidence contained in the Bible in
favour of these doctrines, is so decidedly ambiguous, as to be open to
disputation as to its meaning. It is important, because the testimony in favour
of the opposite view (the one set forth in the present lecture), is so clear
and explicit that it cannot be set aside without the grossest violation of the
fundamental laws of the language. This consideration suggests an important
principle of Scriptural interpretation, viz., that plain testimony ought to
guide us in the understanding of what may be obscure. We ought to procure our
fundamental principles from teaching that cannot be misunderstood, and
harmonise all difficulties therewith. It is unwise to found a dogma on a
passage, which, from its vagueness, is susceptible of two interpretations,
especially if that dogma is in opposition to the unmistakable declarations of
the Word of God elsewhere.
Let
us for a moment apply this principle to the Scriptures cited by those who set
themselves to justify the popular theory.
The
first is the answer of Christ to the thief on the Cross (as set out in the
Authorised Version), “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke xxiii,
43). This is thought to establish the common idea at once; but let us see. The
pith of the argument turns upon the date of its fulfilment. Now Jesus was not
in paradise in the popular sense, that day; for we find him saying to Mary
after his resurrection, “Touch me not, for I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY FATHER”
(John xx, 17). Jesus was not in heaven during at least three days after his
promise to the thief. Where had he been? The answer is in the grave. Ay. but
his soul, asks one, where had it been? Let Peter answer (Acts ii, 31). “His
soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption.” He, or “his
soul,” which is equivalent to “himself,” was in the grave, or “hell” (for the
words are in most cases synonymous in scriptural use, as we shall see by and
by), awaiting the interference of the Father from above to deliver him from the
bonds of death. The conclusion is, that Christ’s promise to the thief is of no
avail whatever as a proof of the heaven-going consciousness of the dead,
inasmuch as it was not fulfilled in the sense in which we would require to view
it before it could constitute such proof.
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Has
it been fulfilled at all? Let us consider the question of the thief. It was
quite clear that his mind was not fixed on the idea of going to heaven. He did
not say, “Lord, remember me, now that thou art about to go into thy kingdom,”
but “Lord, remember me, wizen thou comest into Thy kingdom.” He had a coming in
his eye-not a going; and he looked upon it as a future event, and his desire
was to be remembered when that future event should he accomplished-” when thou
comest into thy kingdom.” We shall say something about this “coming” hereafter.
Meanwhile it is sufficient to direct attention to the general fact, as
furnishing a clue to the meaning of Christ’s answer. There is good ground for
the contention of those who say that Christ’s answer is most properly read with
the comma after “today “-“ I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me in
paradise.” But in either case, the words are devoid of the meaning attached to
them by those who quote them to support the popular idea.
The
account of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke xvi, 19-31) is the principal
stronghold of the popular belief. It is brought forward with great confidence
on every occasion on which the popular belief is assailed. A little
consideration, however, will reveal its unsuitability to the purpose for which
it is used. We must first realise, if we can, the nature of the passage of
Scripture in question. It is either a literal narrative or a parable. If it is
a literal narrative-that is, an account of things that actually happened, given
by Christ as a guide to our conception of the “disembodied “ state-then it is
perfectly legitimate to bring it forward in confutation of the view advanced in
this lecture. But in that case it would not only upset that view. but it would
upset the popular view also, and establish the view that was entertained by the
Pharisees, to whom the parable was addressed; for it will be found on
investigation that it is the tradition of the Pharisees that forms the basis of
the parable; a tradition which clashes with the popular theory of the
death-state in many particulars.
Look
at the incidents of the parable: see how incompatible they are with the popular
theory. The rich man lifts up his eyes, being in torment, and sees Abraham afar
oft, and Lazarus in his bosom; and cries, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me,
and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my
tongue.” Does popular theology allow of the wicked in hell seeing the righteous
in heaven? or admit of the possibility of conversation passing between the
occupants of the two
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places?
And has the popular immortal soul, finger-tips, tongue, and, other material
members, on which water would have a cooling effect? Abraham denied the rich
man’s request, adding as a supplementary reason, “Between us and you there is a
great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to YOU CANNOT.” (Is
a “gulf” any obstacle to the transit of an immaterial soul?) The rich man asked
Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brethren, to testify to them lest they
should come to the same place of torment; Abraham answered, “If they hear not
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one ROSE FROM THE
DEAD.” (What need, according to the popular view, for a rising from the dead,
since a spirit commissioned from the “ vastly deep” would have been sufficient
to communicate the warning?) The whole narrative has an air of tangibility
about it which is inconsistent with the common view of the state of the dead.
Besides, think of heaven and hell being within sight of each other, and of
conversation passing between the two places! If we insist upon the story as a
literal narrative, we are committed to all these particulars, which are so
thoroughly at variance with the popular theory.
Is
it a literal narrative? Even orthodox believers talk of it as a parable, which
it doubtless is. As a parable, it has nothing to do with the question in
dispute one way or other. It was addressed to the Pharisees to enforce the
lesson that in due time the mighty and rich would be brought down, and the poor
exalted; and that if men would not be led by the testimony of Moses and the
prophets, miracles (even the raising of the dead) would fail to move them. The
parable has no reference to the particular view of the death-state which its
literal outlines reflect; it bears entirely on the lesson which it was used to
convey. A parable does not teach itself; it teaches something else than itself,
else it were no parable. But it may be urged that all parables have their
foundation in fact. So they have, but they ,do not necessarily exhibit things
that are possible. Parables in which trees speak, and a thistle goes in quest
of matrimonial alliances, and corpses rise out of their tombs and address other
corpses newly arrived, will be found in the Scriptures (Judges ix, 8; II Kings
xiv, 9; Isaiah xiv, 9, 11). The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is founded
on fact but not necessarily on a literal possibility. That the dead should
speak was necessary for the purpose of the parable, and it would not surprise
the Pharisees to whom it was addressed. For, in fact, it embodies their belief.
This is apparent from the
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treatise
on “Hades,” by Josephus (himself a Pharisee), which will be found at the close
of his compiled works, and in which the reader will find a recognition of the
existence of “Abraham s bosom,” and the fiery lake in “AN UNFINISHED PART OF
THE WORLD.” He will find the belief of the Pharisees (reflected in the parable
of Jesus) a very different thing from popular belief in heaven beyond the
skies, and hell as an abyss in the black and dizzy parts of the universe. A
perusal of it will convince him of the wide dissimilarity of the Jewish theory
embodied in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, from the commonly received
doctrine of going to heaven and hell.
It
may be asked, Why did Christ parabolically employ a belief that was fictitious,
and thus give it his apparent sanction? The answer is that Christ was not using
it with any reference to itself, but for the purpose of being able to introduce
a dead man’s testimony. He wanted to impress upon them the lesson conveyed in
the concluding words of Abraham, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead “; and in no more
forcible way could he have done this, than by framing a parable based upon
their own theory of the death-state, which admitted of the
consciousness
of the dead, and, therefore, their capability to speak on the subject he wanted
to introduce. This did not involve his sanction of the theory, any more than
his allusion to Beelzebub carried with it a sanction of the reality of that God
of the heathen (Matt. xii, 27).
When
Christ had occasion to speak plainly, and for himself, of the dead, his words
were in accordance with the truth. Witness the case of Lazarus: “Then said he
unto them plainly (indicating that ‘sleep’ is not ‘plain’ and literal), Lazarus
is DEAD” (John xi, 14-25); “He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live,” that is, by resurrection, for he had said just before, “I am
THE RESURRECTION and the life “; “The hour is coming in which ALL THAT ARE IN
THE GRAVES shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good
unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the
resurrection of condemnation” John v, 28, 29). It is in these plain words of
Christ that we are to seek for Christ’s real ideal on the subject of the dead,
and not in a parabolic discourse, addressed to his enemies for the purpose of
confusion and condemnation and not of instruction.
It
would be strange indeed if so important a doctrine as the heaven-and-hell
consciousness of the dead should have to
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depend
upon a parable! Those who insist upon the parable for this purpose have to be
asked what are we to do with all the testimony already advanced in proof of the
reality of death? Are we to make a parable paramount and throw away plain
testimony? Are we to twist and violate what is clear to make it agree with what
we think is meant by that which is admittedly obscure? Is not the opposite
rather the course of true wisdom, determining and solving that which is
uncertain by that which is unmistakable? If it may be urged, as it has been
urged, that it was unlike Christ to perpetuate delusion, and withhold the truth
on such an important question as that involved in the parable used, it is
sufficient to cite the following in reply : -“And the disciples came and said
unto him, Why speakest thou unto
them
in parables? lie answered and said unto them, Because it is given you to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them IT IS NOT GIVEN. For
whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but
whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Therefore
speak I to them in parables (Malt. xiii, 10-13). “Unto you it is given to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables, that SEEING
THEY MIGHT NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND” (Luke viii, 10).
The
next Scriptural argument in favour of the popular theory is generally advanced
with an air of great confidence. “Didn’t John, in the Isle of Patmos,” says the
triumphant questioner, “see the redeemed of every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation, standing before the throne of God, and giving glory? Who
are these, if the righteous don’t go to heaven at death”? This argument is
generally felt to be overwhelming.
Stay,
friend; turn to the first verse of the fourth chapter of Revelation, and see
what you find there: ‘I heard a voice as it were of a trumpet talking with me,
which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee THINGS WHICH MUST BE
HEREAFTER.’ The sights which John witnessed were representations of things
which were to be at a future time, and, therefore, when he saw a great
multitude praising God, he beheld the assembly of the resurrected as they will
appear at the second advent.”
Next
comes Stephen’s dying prayer-(Acts vii, 59)-” Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
This is understood to mean that Stephen expected the Lord to receive his
immortal soul. That this cannot be the meaning becomes manifest on a
consideration of the Scripture doctrine of “spirit.” Stephen’s pneuma, spirit
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or
breath, was not himself; it was merely the principle or energy that give him
life, as it gives all other men and animals life. This principle does not
constitute the man or the ammal. It is necessary to give them existence, but it
does not belong to them, except during the short term of their existence.
Stephen’s spirit was not Stephen, though essential to his existence. The
individual Stephen consisted of that combination of power and organism
Scripturally defined as “body and soul and spirit.” His spirit as an
abstraction was God’s and proceeded from Him, as have done the spirits of all
flesh. Thus we read in Job xxxiii, 4, “The spirit of God hath made me, and the
breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” Hence it is said
--(Job
Xxxiv, 14, 15)-” 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 unto dust.” The spirit is indispensable as
the basis of a living man, consisting of bodily organism. It is the life
principle of all living creatures. When this life principle, emanating from
God, is withdrawn, it reverts to its original proprietorship, and the created
being disappears. This is the idea expressed in Solomon’s words (EccI. xii, 7),
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return
unto God, WHO GAVE IT.”
But,
it may be asked, why should Stephen be anxious about his spirit in this sense?
Well, it must be remembered that Stephen looked forward to a renewing of life
at the resurrection. This was his hope. He hoped to get his life back.
Consequently, when he came to die, he confided it to the keeping of the Saviour
till that day, and, as the narrative adds, “He fell asleep.” If Stephen’s
personality, expressed in the pronoun ‘he’ appertained to Stephen’s spirit, and
not to the bodily Stephen, then this statement would prove that the spirit fell
asleep; and this is just what those who quote this passage deny.
We
next come to the words of Paul, in H Corinthians v, 8, “We are confident, I
say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the
Lord.” This seems at first sight to express the popular idea; but let us
consider it. Orthodox people understand that by this, Paul meant to express the
desire to depart from his body and go to Christ in heaven. If this was the
“absence from the body” that Paul desired, the passage would doubtless stand as
an orthodox proof: but was this the “absence from the body” that Paul desired?
The context answers the question by defining precisely the idea that was before
Paul’s mind. It was not disembodiment, as the
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orthodox
idea required : for he says in verse 4 of the same chapter, “Not that we would
be unclothed, but CLO[HED UPON (with our house which is front heaven) that
MORTALITY ought be SWALLOWED up of life.” What Paul desired was deliverance
from the cumbrance of an imperfect sinful body, and the attainment of the
incorruptible body of the resurrection, for, says he (v, 4):--
“We
that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened (v. 2)
earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon wit/i OUR HOUSE which is from heaven.’’
Or,
as lie expresses it in Romans viii. 23:- We ourselves groan within ourselves,
wait for the adoption, to Wit, THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODY .”
Now,
when does the redemption of the body take place? Not at death, for at death the
body undergoes the very opposite of a process of “ redemption.” It goes into
bondage and destruction. It breaks up in the ground in corruption; not till the
resurrection at the coming of the Lord, is it raised to incorrup tion. Not till
then does “ presence with the Lord “ take place. The testimony is : -The Lord
himself s/tall 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 who 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 WITI-I THE
LORD” (I Thess. iv, 16, 17).
This
“ absence from the (corruptible) body” is synonymous. in the passage quoted,
with “presence with the Lord,” since flesh and blood will, in the case of the
accepted, then be merged in the spirit-nature with which the saints are to be
invested. Says Paul, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (I
Cor. xv, 50). This being the case, he might well desire to be absent from flesh
and blood. But this was not enough: it was necessary to add his desire to be
present with the Lord, for all who are absent from the body will not attain to
the honour of incorruptible existence in his presence. Many will be absent from
the body for ever, and nothing else; that is, they will be without body-without
existence-swallowed up in the second death: only those who are accepted will
“be absent from the body, and PRESENT with the Lord” in the glory of the
spirit-nature.
We
must next look at the 23rd verse of the first chapter to Philippians-” I am in
a strait betwixt two, having a desire to
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depart
and to be with Christ, which is far better.” As in the last case, this also
seems, on its face, to give expression to the idea that popular theology
imputes to Paul. In reality, however, it does not do what it appears to do. The
words do not teach that Paul would be with Christ as soon as he departed. It
would require to be shown from other parts of God’s word that a man was with
Christ the moment he “departed,” before the passage could be pressed into that
service. As it stands, it merely expresses a certain sequence of events,
without indicating whether there is any actual interval between the events or
not. Depart, first; then be with Christ, but whether immediately after
departing, or a time after departing, there is nothing in the expression to
tell. If we understand that depart means to die, then the question to settle
is, what is provided in the Christian system as the means of introducing a dead
person to Christ? The answer which all investigation will yield to this
question is, Resurrection. It might seem as if two things so far apart could
not be brought together as they are in Paul’s language; but it must be
remembered that the thing is described from the point of view of the person
dying. Now, if the dead, “know not anything,” which the Scriptures declare
(Eccles. ix, 5), it follows that departing and being with Christ would, to
those dying, appear instantly sequential events, and, therefore, perfectly
natural to be concatenated in the way Paul does here.
Paul
invariably points to Christ’s return as the time of being made present with
Christ. As instanced in I Thess. iv, 17, already quoted, after describing the
coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the transformation of the
living, lie says, “So shall we EVER be with the Lord.” Again in 2 Corinth. iv,
14, he says, “He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by
Jesus, and shall present us WITH YOU.” Again John says (I Epistle iii, 2), “
When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” For
this reason Paul tells us in the very epistle in which the disputed words are
found, that he was striving “if by any means he might attain to the
resurrection of the dead” (Phil. iii, 11). In no case does he speak of presence
with the Lord occurring till that event.
Assuming
this to be settled, we have to harmonise this understanding of the text with
the necessity of the context. If it be asked in what sense death would be a
“gain” to Paul, the answer is furnished in the words of Christ: “Whosoever will
lose his life for my sake, shall find it.” Paul was about to be be
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headed;
this was the death he refers to in the context. Consequently, he would, in a
special way, stand related to the words of Christ, “Be thou faithful unto
death, and 1 will give thee a crown of life” (Rev. ii, 10). The question as to
when this crown would be given is settled by Paul’s declaration in II Timothy
iv, 8:
Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
Judge, shall give me AT THAT DAY (Christ’s appearing and kingdom, see 1st
verse), and not to me only but unto ALL THEM also that love, his appearing.” It
was gain to die, also, because Paul would thus be freed from all the privations
and persecutions enumerated in II Cor. xi, 23-28, and would peaceably “ sleep “
in Christ.
There
are arguments advanced on Scriptural grounds in favour of the immortality of
the soul which do not quite come within the category of “passages” quoted, but
are rather in the nature of deductions from scriptural principles. It may be of
advantage to look at some of these before passing on.
“There
is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”-This is quoted to prove the eternal
torment of the wicked. It surely requires no argument to show that it fails
entirely in this purpose. The statement is true, irrespective of any theory
that may be held as to the destiny of the wicked. While the wicked are in
existence, either in this life or after resurrection, there is no peace for
them. It is impossible there could be peace for them, especially looking
forward to the time when they shall be the objects of God’s judicial and
all-devouring vengeance. But this does not prove (as it is quoted to prove)
that they are immortal Such an idea is utterly precluded by the testimonies
quoted.
The
appearance of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. xvii, 3).
As regards Elias, it is testified that he did not see death, but was
translated-bodily taken away (II Kings ii, 11). His appearance would,
therefore, be no proof of the existence of disembodied spirits. As to Moses, if
he were bodily present, he must have been raised from the dead beforehand. That
he was bodily apparent is evident from the fact of the disciples-mortal men-seeing
and recognizing him. But it is an open question whether either Moses or Elias
were actually present. The testimony is that the things seen were “a vision”
(Matt. xvii, 9). Now from Acts xii, 9, we learn that a vision is the opposite
of reality-that is, something seen after the manner of a dream-a something
apparently real, but in reality only exhibited visionally to the beholder. The
audibility of the voices settles nothing one way or the other, because in
vision, as in a
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dream,
voices may be heard that have no existence, except in the aural nerves of the
seer. In dreams the illusion is the result of functional disorder; in vision,
it is the result of the will-energy of the Deity, acting upon the hearing
organization of the trance-wrapt seer (vide Acts x, 13; also the song of the
Apocalyptic living creature, and the voice of “souls under the altar “).
Neither does the presence of Jesus (an actual personage) as one of the three,
contribute much to a solution, because there would be no anomaly in causing
Moses and Elias to visionally appear to Jesus, and in association with Jesus.
It is probable Moses and Elias were really present, but the use of the word
“vision” unhinges the matter a little. In no case can the transfiguration be
construed into a proof of the immortality of the soul. It was doubtless a
pictorial illustration of the kingdom, in so far as it represented Jesus in his
consummated power and glory, exalted over the law (represented by Moses) and
the prophets (represented by Elijah), and, therefore, elevated to the position
to which the prophets point forward, when, as the head of the nation of Israel
and the whole earth, he will cause to be fulfilled the prediction of Moses and
the command of the heavenly voice:-” Him shall ye hear in all things “; “Hear
ye him.”
“God
is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. xxii, 32). If the
orthodox believer took a logical view of this statement, he would perceive that
instead of proving the immortality of the soul, it indirectly establishes the
contrary. It recognises the existence of a class of human beings who are not
“living,” but “dead.” Who are they? According to the popular theory, there are
no “dead” in relation to the human race at all; every human being lives for
ever. It cannot be suggested that it means “dead” in the moral sense, because
this is expressly excluded by the subject of which Jesus is speaking-the
resurrection of the dead bodies from the ground (v. 31).
The
Sadducees denied the resurrection. Jesus proved the resurrection by quoting
from Moses the words of Jehovah, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob.” How did Jesus deduce the resurrection from this formula?
By maintaining that God was not the God of those who were dead in the sense of
being done with (see Psalm xlix, 19-20). From God calling Himself the God of
three men who were dead, Jesus argued that God intended to raise them; for “God
calleth those things which be not (but are to be) AS THOUGH THEY WERE” (Rom.
iv, 17). The Sadducees saw the point of the argument, and were put to silence.
But
if, as is usually contended, the meaning of “God is not the God of the dead,
but of the living,” be. that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive, Christ’s
argument for the resurrection of the dead is destroyed. For how could it prove
the purpose of God to raise Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assert that they were
alive? •The very argument requires that they shall be dead at some time, in
order to be the subjects of resurrection. Thus it is that the fact of their
being dead at a time when God calls Himself their God, yields the conclusion
that God purposes their resurrection. But take away the fact of their being
dead, which orthodox theology does by saying they were immortal, and could not
die, and you take away all the point of Christ’s argument. Looked at the other
way, the argument is irresistible, and explains to us how the Sadducees were
silenced.
“Their
angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. xviii,
10). Whose angels? The angels of
“the
little ones -which believe “ (Matt. xviii, 6). It is customary to synonomise
“spirits “ with “angels,” and to make it out that “their angels” means the
“little ones” themselves; but this is a liberty so entirely at variance both with
the sense and philology of the case, as to be undeserving of reply. The “little
ones “ are those who “receive the kingdom of God as a little chtld,” and “their
angels” are the angels of God who supervise their interests. “The angel of the
Lord encampeth round about them that fear him” (Psa. xxxiv, 7). “Are they (the
angels) not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall
be heirs of salvation”? (Heb. i, 14). This fact is a good reason why we should
“take heed that we despise not one of these little ones “; but adopt the
popular version of the matter, and the reason vanishes. “Take heed that ye
despise not one of these little ones, for their redeemed spirits are in
heaven.” This would involve a paradox. Yet without it, the proof for immortal-soulism
which some see in it, is nowhere to be found.
“In the way of righteousness is
life, and in the pathway thereof there is NO DEATH” (Prov. xii, 28). This is
sometimes quoted to prove that as regards the righteous at any rate there is no
such thing as even momentary extinction of being. If the passage prove this,
the converse is established also, that in the way of unrighteousness is death,
and in the pathway thereof NO LIFE. The terms of an affirmative proposition
have the same value in a negative. Hence, if this passage prove the literal
immortality of the righteous, it proves the literal mortality of the wicked,
which is more than those who use this argument are prepared to accept.
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The
passage bears out the proposition that the Bible is against the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul.
Fear
not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matt. x, 28).
This is the orthodox advocate’s great triumph. He feels here he has a foothold,
and he recites the passage with an emphasis entirely absent from his other
efforts. He generally snatches his triumph too early, however. He begins
comment before finishing the verse. He exultantly enquires why this passage has
not been quoted, and so on. If asked to go on with the verse and not leave it
half finished, he is not at all enthusiastic in his compliance. However, he
goes on if somewhat reluctantly, and stumbles over the concluding sentence,
“but rather fear him that is able to
DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY in hell.’’
Instantly
perceiving the disaster which this elaboration of Christ’s exhortation brings
upon his theory of imperishable and immortal-soulism, he suggests that “
destroy “ in this instance means “ afflict,” “ torment.” But there is no ground
for this. In fact, a more unwarrantable suggestion was never hazarded by a
theorist in straits. In all the instances in which appollumi-the word
translated “ destroy.” is used, it is impossible to discover the slightest
approach to the idea of affliction or torment, We append all the New Testament
instances in which it is used:-” The Young child to destroy him “ (Matt. ii,
13): “might destroy him ‘‘ (Matt. xii, 14; Mark iii, 6; xi, 18); “ Will
miserably destroy those wicked men” (Matt. xxi. 41); “Destroyed those murderers
“ (Matt. xxii, 7); “Persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and
destroy Jesus “ (Matt. xxvii, 20); “Art thou come to destroy” (Mark i, 24; Luke
iv, 34); “Into the waters to destroy him” (Mark ix, 22); “And destroy the
husbandman” (Mark xii, 9; Luke xx, 16); “To save life or destroy” (Luke vi, 9):
“Not come to destroy men’s lives” (Luke ix, 56); “The flood came and destroyed
them all “(Luke xvii, 27, 29); “Of the people sought to destroy him” (Luke xix,
47); “To steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John x, 10); “Destroy not him
with thy meat” (Rom. xiv, 15); “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise” (I Cor.
i, 19); “Were destroyed of serpents” (I Cor. x, 9); “And were destroyed of the
destroyer (I Cor. x, 10); “Cast down but not destroyed” (II Cor. iv, 9); “Is
able to save, and to destroy” (Jas. iv, 12); “Afterward destroyed them that
believed not” (Jude 5).
In
all these cases “destroy” has a very different meaning from “afflict” or
“torment.” The reader has only to substitute either
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of
these words for “destroy” in any of the passages to see how utterly out of
place such a paraphrase of the word would be. If “destroy” in every other case
has its natural meaning, why should an exceptional meaning be claimed for it in
Matthew x! No reason can be given beyond the one already hinted at, viz., the
necessities of the orthodox believer’s theory. This is no sound reason at all,
and, therefore, we put it aside, and enquire what Jesus meant by exhorting his
disciples to “Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’
We
reply, that “life,” in the abstract, which is the equivalent of the word
translated “soul “-the Revisers of the New Testament being witnesses (for they
have substituted “life” for soul in Matt. xvi, 25, 26)-life in the abstract is
indestructible. But life is not the man, nor of any use to him if it is not
given to him. It is God’s purpose to give life back to those who obey Him, and
to give it back immortally. This constitutes the essence of the statement we
are considering. Arising out of this, there comes the special view that life in
relation to those who are Christ’s, cannot be touched by mortal man, however
they may treat the body. ~ this life, Paul says, “IT is HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD”
(Col. in, 3) “and when Christ WHO IS OUR LIFE, shall appear, then shall we
appear with him in glory” (v. 4). This life is the
treasure
in the heavens, which faileth not,” spoken of by Jesus and said by Peter to be
“reserved in heaven.” Now when men kill the saints, they only terminate their
mortal existence. They do not touch that real life of theirs, which is related
to the eternal future, and which has it foundation in their connection with
Christ in the heavens. This is in Christ’s keeping and can be touched by no
man. We are not to fear those who can only demolish the corruptible body, and
cannot do anything to prevent the coming bestowal of immortality by
resurrection. We are to fear him who hath power to destroy BOTH BODY AND SOUL
(LIFE) in Gehenna; that is, in the coming retribution by destructive
fire-manifestation, which will utterly consume the ungodly from the presence of
the Lord. We are to fear God, who has the power to annihilate from the
universe, and who will use the power on all such as are unworthy. We are not to
fear those who can at best only hasten the dissolution to which we are
Adamically liable.
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ERRONEOUSNESS OF POPULAR BELIEF IN
HEAVEN AND HELL
This
follows as a conclusion from what has gone before. If the dead are really
dead-in the absolute sense contended for in this lecture-of course they cannot
have gone to any state of reward or punishment, because they are not alive to
go.
We
might well leave the matter in this position, as an inevitable conclusion from
the premises established; but its grave importance justifies us in carrying the
matter further. The belief in question is not only erroneous in supposing that
the dead go to such places as the popular heaven or hell, immediately after death,
but, in thinking that they ever go there at any time.
According
to the religious teaching of the present day, the place of final reward is a
region beyond the stars-remote from the farthest limit of God’s universe,
“beyond the realms of time and space.” The ideas entertained concerning the
nature of this place are very vague. So far as they take shape, whether in
picture or in discourse, they take their cue from the earth. Hence, “The plains
of Heaven.” In these “plains” the inhabitants are generally represented as
singing a perpetual song of praise. The numbers are supposed to be constantly
recruited by arrivals from the earth “below.” A man dies, and according to
orthodox idea, the liberated soul flies with inconceivable rapidity to the
realms above, safely installed in which, bereaved friends console themselves
with the idea that the dead are “not lost, but gone before.” Friends think of
them as better off in that “happy land, far, far, away,” than they were in this
vale of tears.
Doubtless
if it was true, that they were gone to a happy land, the contemplation of their
state would be consoling. Whether true or not, it must strike every reflecting
mind as an exceedingly discordant element in the case that the righteous after
enjoying years of celestial felicity, should have to leave the abode of their
bliss, on the arrival of the day of judgment, come down to earth, re-enter
their bodies for arraignment at the bar of eternal judgment. What is this
judgment, “according to what they have done,” for? It seems natural to suppose
that admission into heaven in the first instance is proof of the fitness and
acceptance of those admitted. Why, then, the trial afterwards? Judgment in such
a case seems a mockery. The same remark applies to those who are supposed to have
gone to the place of woe.
What
is the escape from this distracting inconsistency? It is to be found in the
recognition of the unfounded character of the whole heaven-going idea of
popular religion. This going to
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heaven
is a purely gratuitous speculation. There is not a single promise throughout
the whole of the Scriptures to warrant a man in hoping for it. There are,
doubtless, phrases which, to a mind previously indoctrined with the idea, seem
to afford countenance to it, such, for instance, as that used by Peter (1st
Epistle, chap. i, v. 4): “An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you “: of which also we have an
illustration in the words of Christ (Matt. v, 12):
“For
great is your reward in heaven “; and more particularly in his exhortation to
“Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”
But
the countenance which these phrases seemingly afford to the popular idea,
disappears entirely when we realise they express an aspect of the Christian
hope, viz.: its present aspect. God S salvation is not now on earth; indeed, it
is not yet an accomplished fact anywhere, except in the person of Christ. It
merely exists in the divine mind as a purpose, and, in detail, that purpose is
specially related to those whom Jehovah fore-knowingly contemplates as the “
saved,” who are said to be “written in the book,” that is, inscribed in the
book of His remembrance (Malachi iii, 16). Therefore the only localisation of
reward, at present, is in heaven, to which the eye instinctively turns as the
source of its promised manifestation. This is especially the case when it is
taken into account that Jesus, the pledge of that reward, yea, the very germ
thereof, is in heaven. In his being there, who is our life, the undefiled
inheritance at present iS there; for it exists in him in purpose, in guarantee,
and in germ. Jt has no other kind of existence anywhere else at present; but it
is only in heaven in “ reserve “; “reserved in heaven,” in Peter’s phrase. When
a thing is “reserved,” it implies that when it is wanted, it will be brought
forth. And thus it is that Peter speaks in the very same chapter. He says the
salvation that is reserved in heaven is a “salvation that is to be brought unto
you at the revelation of Jesus Christ “ (I Peter i, 13). We shall see in future
lectures that it is not bestowed upon any until its manifestation at “the
appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ,” of whom it is said that “His reward is
WITH HIM” (Rev. xxii, 12; Isaiah xl, 10).
The
phrases in question indicate in a general way that “Salvation conieth from the
Lord “; and, the Lord being in heaven, it cometh from heaven; and, being yet
unmanifested, can properly be said to be at present in heaven. But, on the
specific
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question
of whether men go to heaven or not, the evidence is conclusive, as showing that
no son of Adam’s race is offered entrance to the holy and inaccessible
precincts of the residence of the Deity. “God dwelleth in light which no man
can approach unto” (I Tim. vi, 16). The emphatic declaration of Christ is, “No
man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son
of Man which is in heaven” (John iii, 13).
Agreeably
to this declaration, we have no record in the Scriptures of anyone having
entered heaven. Elijah was removed from the earth; so was Enoch; but Christ’s
statement forbids us to suppose that they were conducted to the “heaven of
heavens” which “is the Lord’s.” The statement that they went “into heaven” does
not necessarily imply that they went to the abode of the Most High. “Heaven” is
used in a general sense as designating the firmament over our heads, which we
know is a wide expanse, while “the heaven of heavens” points to the region
inhabited by Deity. If it be asked, Where are they? The answer is, No one
knows; because there is no testimony on the subject beyond that of Christ’s,
which proves that they did not go to the heaven of which he was speaking.
And
especially is it true that there is no record in the Scriptures of any dead man
having gone to heaven. The record is the other way-that the dead are in their
graves, knowing nothing, feeling nothing, being nothing, awaiting that call
from oblivion which is promised by resurrection. Of David it is specifically
declared that he has not attained to the sky translation which in funeral
sermons is affirmed of every righteous soul. And David, remember, was “a man
after God’s own heart,” and certain, therefore, of admission into heaven at
death, if anybody were. Peter says : -“Men and brethren, let me freely speak
unto you of the patriarch
David,
that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day . .
. FOR DAVID IS NOT ASCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS” (Acts ii, 29, 34).
This
is emphatic enough. If you say Peter is speaking of David’s body, then it
proves that Peter recognised David’s body as David, and the departed life as
the property of God taken back again. Again, let Paul speak of the “great cloud
of witnesses,” who have passed away-the faithful saints of old times, who are
supposed to be before the throne of God, “inheriting the promises,” and he
tells us: -
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76
“These all died in faith, NOT HAVING RECEIVED
THE PROMISES, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them and
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth” (Heb. xi, 13).
And
in the same chapter, verses 39-40, he repeats : -“These all having obtained a
good report through faith, received not the promise. God having provided some
better thing for us, that they without us SHOULD NOT BE MADE PERFECT.”
Let
us now consult those cases in which consolation is administered in the
Scriptures in reference to the dead. You know the doctrines which are enforced
with such peculiar urgency by the religious teachers of the present day, when
they have to discourse of the departed, such as in the funeral sermons, by way
of “improving the occasion.” You will find a great contrast to these in Scriptural
cases of consolation concerning the dead. When Martha told Jesus that Lazarus
was dead, he did not tell her he was better where he was. He said (John xi,
23), “Thy brother shall rise again.”
When
death had removed some of the Thessalonian believers, the survivors, who had
evidently calculated upon their living until the coming of the Lord, were
filled with sorrow. In this condition, Paul writes to comfort them. Suppose a
minister of the present day had had the duty to perform, what would have been his
language? “You must rejoice, my friends, for those who are dead, for they are
gone to glory. They are delivered from the trials and vexatjons of this life,
and are promoted to a felicity they could never experience in this vale of
tears. It is selfish of you to grieve; you ought rather to be glad that they
have reached the haven of eternal rest.”
But
what says Paul? Does he tell them their friends are happy in heaven? This was
the time to say so if it were true, but no; his words are:- “I would not have
you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who
are
asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others who have no hope. For •tf we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus wilt God
bring with him. (When?) For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that
we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent (or
precede) them who are asleep: For the
Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God and
the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shalt
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. Wherefore comfort one another with these
words” (I Thess. iv, 13-18).
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The
second coming of Christ and the resurrection are the events to which Paul
directs their minds for consolation. If it be true that the righteous go to
their reward immediately after death, Paul would certainly have suggested such
a consolation, instead of referring to the remote, and (in the orthodox view)
comparatively unattractive event of the resurrection. The fact that he does not
do so, is circumstantial proof that it is not true.
The
earth we inhabit is the destined arena in which Jehovah’s great salvation will
be manifested. Here, subsequently to the resurrection, will the reward be
conferred and enjoyed. There is no point more clearly established than this by
the specific language of Scripture testimony. Old and New Testaments agree.
Solomon declares, “Behold the righteous shall be recompensed IN THE EARTH “
(Prov. xi, 31).
Christ
says : -“Blessed are the meek; for they shall INHERIT THE EARTH” (Matt. v, 5).
In
Psalm xxxvii, 9-11, the Spirit speaking through David, says : -“Evildoers shall
be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they
shall
INHERIT THE EARTH. For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea thou
shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall
inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”
Some
corroboration is to be drawn from the following promise to Christ, of which his
people are fellowheirs with him : -“I will give thee the heathen for thine
inheritance, and the UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH for thy possession” (Psa. ii,
8).
In
celebrating the approaching possession of this great inheritance, the redeemed
are represented as singing : -“Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by
thy blood out of
every
kindred, and tongue, and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings
and priests, and we shall reign ON THE EARTH” (Rev. v, 9, 10).
And
the end of the present dispensation is announced in these words : -“The
kingdoms of THIS WORLD are become the kingdoms of our Lord
and
of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. xi, 15).
Finally,
the angel of the Most High God, in announcing to Daniel, the prophet, the same
consummation of things, says : -
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“The kingdom and dominion, and the greatness
of the kingdom UNDER the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the
saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all
dominons shall serve and obey him” (Dan. vii, 27).
Without
going into the particular question involved in these passages of Scripture,
which will be considered afterwards, it iS sufficient to remark that they
unmistakably prove that it is on the earth that we are to look for the
development of that divine programme of events, so clearly indicated in the
Scriptures of truth, which is to result in “glory to God in the highest, and ON
EARTH peace, goodwill toward men.”
DESTINY
OF THE WICKED
If
we seek for information on this question at the religious systems, we shall be
told of an unfathomable abyss of fire, filled with malignant spirits of horrid
shape, in which are reserved the most exquisite torments for those who have
been displeasing to God in their mortal state. In the foreground of the lurid
picture, we shall see cursing fiends mocking the damned; men and women wringing
their hands in eternal despair; and stretching away ort all sides, and down to
the deepest depth, a weltering ocean of blackness, fire, and horrible
confusion. We shall be told that God, in His eternal counsels of wisdom and
mercy, has decreed this awful triumph of Devilry!
Do
we believe it? There are certain elementary truths, that, by an almost
intuitive logic, exclude the possibility of its being true. If God is the
merciful Being of order, and justice, and harmony, exhibited in the Scriptures,
how is it possible that, with all His foreknowledge and omnipotence, He can
permit nine-tenths of the human race to come into existence with no other
destiny than to be tortured? The Calvanistic theory has, of course, its answer,
but its answer is mere words; it does not touch, or alter, or even soften the
difficulty; the difficulty-the dreadful difficulty-remains to agonise the
believing mind that really grasps what the popular idea of hell-torments means.
The effect on the majority of reflecting minds is disastrous, in a too easy
revolt against the Scriptures.
Rather
than believe such a doctrine, most men reject the Bible altogether, and even
dispense with God from their creed, and take refuge in the calm, if cheerless,
doctrines of Rationalism.
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This
is what many are driven to, in unfortunate ignorance of the fact that the Bible
is not responsible for the doctrine. It is a pagan fiction. It ought to be
known, for the comfort of all who have been perplexed with the awful dogma, and
who have yet hesitated to renounce it, in fear of being also compelled to cast
aside the Word of God, that it is as thoroughly unscriptural as it is
distressingly dreadful.
The
whole teaching of the Bible in regard to the destiny of the wicked is summed up
in four words from the 37th Psalm, verse 20,” The wicked shall PERISH.” Paul
gives the explanation of this in Rom. vi, 23: “The wages of sin is DEATH.”
Death, the extinction of being, is the pre-determined issue of a sinful course.
“He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption” (Gal. vi, 8).
That reaping corruption is equivalent to death, is evident from Rom. viii, 13:
“If ye live after the flesh ye shall Di1~.” Corruption results in death, so
that the one is equal to the other.
The
righteous die, as well as the wicked; therefore, it is argued, there must be
some other than physical death. The answer is that the death that all men die
is not a judicial death-not the final death to be dealt to those who are
responsible to judgment. Ordinary death but closes a man’s mortal career. There
is a SECOND death-final and destructive. The unjust are to be brought forth, at
Christ’s appearing, for judicial arraignment, and their sentence is, that,
after the infliction of such punishment as may be merited, they shall, a second
time, by violent and divinely-wielded agency, be destroyed in death. To this
Jesus refers, when he says, “He that loses his life for my sake and the
gospel’s, the same shall save it; but he that (in the present life) saveth his
life, shall (at the resurrection) LOSE it”(in the second death). All the
phraseology of Scripture is in agreement on this subject.
We
read in Malachi iv, 1:- “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.”
Again,
in II Thess. i, 9 : -“They shall be punished with EVERLASTING Destruction from
the
presence
of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”
The
Spirit of God by Solomon in the Proverbs uses the following language:-
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“As
the whirlwind passeth SO IS THE WICKED NO MORE; but the righteous is an
everlasting foundation” (Prov. x, 25).
And
again, Prov. ii, 22:- “The wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the
transgressors shall be rooted out of it.”
Zophar
gives the following emphatic testimony : -“Knowest thou not this of old-since
man was placed upon earth- that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the
joy of the hypocrite but for a moment? Though his excellency mount up to the
heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet HE SHALL PERISH FOR EVER, LIKE
HIS OWN DUNG. They that have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away
as a dream, and shall not be found, yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of
the night” (Job, xx, 4-8).
David
employs the following graphic figure to the same purport : -“The wicked shall
perish. The enemies of the Lord shall be as the
fat
of lambs. They shall consume: into smoke shall they consume away” (Psa. xxxvii,
20).
And
we read in Ps. xlix, 6-20: -“They that trust in their wealth and boast
themselves in the multitude
of
their riches. . . their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for
ever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They call their lands after
their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour, abideth not:
he
is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly: yet their
posterity approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; DEATH
SHALL FEED ON THEM; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the
morning . . . He shall go to the generation of his fathers, THEY SHALL NEVER
SEE LIGHT. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts
that perish.”
Of
their final state we read in Isaiah xxvi, 14:- “They are dead, they shall not
live; they are deceased, they shall not
rise;
therefore, hast thou visited and DESTROYED them, and made all their ‘memory to
perish.”
The
teaching of these testimonies is self- elucidatory; it is expressed with a
clearness of language that leaves no room for comment. It is the doctrine
expressed by Solomon when he says:
“the
name of the wicked shall rot” (Prov. x, 7). The wicked, who are an offence to
God, and an affliction to themselves, and of no use to any one, will ultimately
be consigned to oblivion, in which their very name will be forgotten. They do
not escape punishment; but of this, and of those passages which seem to favour
the popular doctrine, we shall treat in the next lecture.
It
may seem to the reader that the word “hell” as employed
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in
the Bible, presents an obstacle to the views advanced in this lecture. If the
Greek word so translated carried with it the idea represented to the popular
mind in its short, pithy Saxon form, the popular view would be capable of
demonstration, for the word is frequent enough in the Bible, and is used in
connection with the destiny of the wicked. But the original word does not carry
with it the idea popularly associated with the word “hell.” The original word
has no affinity with its modern use. One does not require to be a scholar to
see this. A due familiarity with the English Bible will carry conviction on the
point, though conviction is undoubtedly strengthened by a knowledge of the original
Greek and Hebrew. What, for instance, has the orthodox believer to say to the
following: -“And they (Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude), shall not lie
with
the
mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are GONE DOWN TO HELL WITH
THEIR WEAPONS OF WAR; and they have laid their swords under their heads” (Ezek.
xxxii, 27).
It
is but necessary to ask if men’s immortal souls take swords and guns with them
when they “go to hell “? This may sound irreverent, but it shows the bearing of
the passage. The hell of the Bible is a place to which military accoutrements
may accompany the wearer. The nature and locality of this hell may be gathered
from a statement only five verses before the passage quoted. “Asshur is there
and all her company; his graves are about him, all of them slain, fallen by the
sword, whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round
about HER GRAVE.” The references point to the Eastern mode of sepulture, in
which a pit or cave was used for burial-the bodies of the dead being deposited
in niches cut in the wall. As a mark of military honour, soldiers were buried
with their weapons, their swords being laid under their heads. They went down
to
“HELL with their weapons of war.”
It
will be seen that hell is synonymous with the grave. This is proved, so far at
least as the Old Testament is concerned.
The,
original word is sheol, which, in the abstract, means nothing more than a
concealed or covered place. It is, therefore, an appropriate designation for
the grave, in which a man is for ever concealed from view. Every use of the
word hell in the Old Testament, will fall under this general explanation. As
regards the New Testament, there is the same simplicity and absence of
difficulty. The original word is, of course, different, being Greek instead of
Hebrew; it is in nearly all cases, hades. That hades is equal to the Hebrew
word sheol is shown by
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its
employment as an equivalent for it in the Septuagint (Greek) translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures; and also in its use by the writers of the New Testament when
they quote verses from the Old Testament where sheol in the Hebrew. For
instance, in David’s prophecy of the resurrection of Christ, cited by Peter on
the day of Pentecost ( “Thou wilt not
leave my soul in hell” a.v.), the word in Hebrew is sheol, and in Greek hades.
In this instance, hell simply and literally means the grave, in view of which,
we see the point of Peter’s argument. Understood as the orthodox hell, there is
no point in it at all; for the resurrection of the body has no point of
connection with the escape of a so-called immortal soul from the abyss of
popular superstition. A similar consideration arises upon I Cor. xv, 55; “0
grave (hades), where is thy victory?” This is the exclamation of the righteous
in reference to resurrection, as anyone may see on consulting the context. Our
translators, perceiving this, instead of rendering hades by “hell,” have given
us the more suitable word “grave “; but if hades may be translated “grave”
here, it may, of course, be translated so anywhere else.
There
is another word translated hell, which does not mean the grave, but which at
the same time affords as little countenance to, orthodox belief as hades. That
word is Gehenna. It occurs in the following passages: Matt. v, 22, 29, 30; x,
28; xviii, 9; Xxiii, 15, 33; Mark ix, 43, 45, 47; Luke xii, 5; Jas. iii, 6. The
word ought not to be translated at all. It is a proper name, and like all other
proper names, should only have been transliterated. It is a Greek compound
signifying the valley of the Son of Hinnom. Calmet in his Bible Dictionary,
defining it, has the following : -“GEHENNA or Gehennom, or Valley of Hennom, or
Valley of the Son of Hennom (see Josh. xv, 8; II Kings xxiii, 10), a valley
adjacent to Jerusalem, through which the southern limits of the tribe of
Benjamin passed.”
The
valley was used in ancient times for the worship of Moloch, in which Israel,
lamentably misguided, offered their children to the heathen god of that name.
Josiah, in his zeal against idolatry, gave the valley over to pollution, and
appointed it as a repository of the filth of the city. It became the receptacle
of rubbish in general, and received the carcases of men and beasts. To consume
the rubbish and prevent pestilence, fires were kept perpetually burning in it.
In the days of Jesus it was the highest mark of ignominy that the council of
the Jews
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could
inflict, to order a man to be buried in Gehenna. In one of Jeremiah’s
prophecies of Jewish restoration, the obliteration of this valley of dishonour
is predicted in the following words:
“And
the whole valley of the DEAD BODIES, and of the ASHES, and all the fields unto
the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall
be holy unto the Lord” (Jer. xxxi, 40).
This
is the Gehenna to which the rejected are to be given over at the judgment. That
it should be translated “hell,” and thus made to favour popular delusion, is
simply due to the opinion of the translators that ancient Gehenna was a type of
the hell of their creed. There is no true ground for this assumption. It is the
assumption upon which Calmet’s remarks are based, notwithstanding his knowledge
of the subject. He was of the orthodox school, and makes the common orthodox
mistake of begging the question to begin with. Let the orthodox hell be proved
first before Gehenna is used in the argument. If it is a type of anything, it
must be interpreted as a type rather of the judgment revealed, than of one
imagined. And the orthodox “hell” is mere imagination, based on Pagan
speculations on futurity.
The
judgment revealed is indeed related to the locality of Gehenna, and is one that
will take the same form as regards circumstance and result. “They (who come to
worship at Jerusalem in the future age, Is. lxvi, 20-23) shall go forth and
look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me; for their
worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an
abhorring unto all flesh” (v. 24). The reader will observe a similarity between
these words and the words of Christ in Mark ix, 44-48, “Where their worm dieth
not and the fire is not quenched.”
These
words are frequently quoted in support of eternal torments, but they really
disprove them. In the first place, the undying worm and the unquenchable fire
must be admitted to be symbolical expressions. The worm is an agent of
corruption, ending in death. Fire is a means to the same end, but by a more
summary process. When, therefore, they are said to be unarrestable in their action,
it must be taken to indicate that destruction will be accomplished without
remedy. The expression cannot mean immortal worms or absolutely
inextinguishable fire.
A
limited sense to an apparently absolute expression is frequently exemplified
throughout the Scriptures. In Jer. vii, 20,
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Jehovah
says, His anger should be poured out upon Jerusalem. and should “burn and
should not be quenched.” He says also in Jer. xvii, 27, “I will kindle a fire
in the gates of Jerusalem, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, and it
shall not be quenched.” This does not mean that the fire with reference to
itself should never go out, but that in relation to the object of its
operation, it should not be quenched till the operation was accomplished A fire
was kindled in Jerusalem, and only went out when Jerusalem was burned to the
ground. So also God’s anger burned against Israel, until it burnt them out of
the land, driving them out of His sight; but Isaiah speaks of a time when God’s
anger will cease in the destruction of the enemy (chap. x, 25).
The same principle is illustrated in
the 21st chapter of Ezekiel, verses 3, 4, 5, where Jehovah states that his
sword will go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, and shall no more
return. It is not necessary to say that in the consummation of God’s purpose,
His loving kindness will triumph over ,all exhibitions of anger, which have for
their object the extirpation of evil. In the absolute sense, therefore, His
sword of vengeance will return to its sheath, but not in the sense of failing
to accomplish its purpose. So that the worm that preys upon the wicked will
disappear when the last enemy, death, is destroyed, and the fire that consumes
their corrupt remains will die with the fuel it feeds on; but in relation to the
wicked themselves, the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. The
expressions were borrowed from Gehenna, where the flame was fed, and the worm
sustained, by the putrid accumulations of the valley.
The statement in Matt. xxv, 46 is
more apparently in favour of the popular doctrine, but not more really so when
examined. ‘These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous
into life eternal.” Even taken as it stands in the English version, this does
not define the nature of the punishment which is to fall on the wicked, but
only affirms its perpetuity. ,The nature of it is elsewhere described as death
and destruction. Why should this be called “aionion” (translated
“everlasting”)? Aionjon is the adjective form of alon,age, and expresses the
idea of belonging to the age. Understood in this way, the statement only proves
that at the resurrection, the wicked will be punished with the punishment
characteristically pertaining to the age of Christ’s advent, which Paul
declares to be “everlasting DESTRUCTION from the presence of the Lord and from
the glory of His power” (II Thess. i, 9). The righteous
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receive
the life related to the same dispensation-a life which Paul declares to be
immortality (I Cor. xv, 53).
It
is usual to quote, in support of the eternal torments, a statement from the
Apocalypse, “They shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev.
xiv, 11; XX, 10). On the face of it, this form of speech does lend countenance
to the popular idea, but we must not be satisfied with looking on the face of
it in this instance, because the statement forms part of a symbolical vision,
which has to be construed mystically in harmony with the principle of
interpretation supplied in the vision. If Apocalyptic torment “for ever and ever”
is literal, then the beast, the woman with the golden cup, the lamb with the
seven horns and seven eyes, are literal also. Is the orthodox believer prepared
for this? Surely, Christ is not in the shape or a seven-horned lamb, or a man
with a sword in his mouth; surely, the false Church is not a literal
prostitute, or the Church’s persecutor a literal wild boar of the woods. If
these are symbolical, the things affirmed of them are symbolical also, and
torment (or judicial infliction, for this is the idea of basanizo, the Greek
word), “for ever and ever” is the symbol of the complete and restless, and
final triumph of God’s destroying judgment over the things represented.
Failing
Scriptural evidence, the orthodox believer takes refuge among “the ancient Egyptians,
the Persians, Phoenicians, Scythians, Druids, Assyrians, R`omans, Greeks,
etc.,” and among “the wisest and most celebrated philosophers on record.” All
these people-the superstitious and dark-minded heathen of every land, the
founders of the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God-all these
believed in the immortality of the soul, and, therefore, the immortality of the
soul is true!
Logic
extraordinary! One would think that the opinion of the ignorant and
superstitious in favour of the immortality of the soul would be rather against,
than for, the likelihood of its being true. The Bible does not rate our
ancestors very highly as regards their views and ways in religious things. Paul
speaks of the period prior to the preaching of the Gospel (and referring to
Gentile nations), as “the times of this IGNORANCE.” (Acts xvii, 30). Of the
wisdom which men had educed for themselves through the reasonings of “the
wisest and most celebrated philosophers,” he says, “Hath not God made FOOLISH
the wisdom of this world?” “The wisdom of this world is FOOLISHNESS with God “
(I Cor. i, 20: iii, 19). Wise men will prefer being on Paul’s side.
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The
orthodox believer glories in the wisdom of ancient philosophy and paganism,
which Paul pronounces foolishness. What can we do but stand with Paul? Paul
says that immortality was brought to light by Christ in the Gospel (II Tim. i,
10). If 5O~ how can we believe in the version of it put forward by the “wisest
and most celebrated philosophers,” centuries before Christ appeared, and whose
wisdom Paul, speaking by the Spirit, pronounces “foolishness “? Either Christ
brought the truth of the matter to light, or he did not. If he did, the
doctrines before his time were darkness; if the doctrines before his time (rejoiced
in by the orthodox believer) were not darkness, but light, then Christ did not
bring the truth to light in the Gospel, for in that case it was brought to
light before the gospel was preached,
But
many who were once orthodox are losing their orthodoxy, and are beginning to
see that the teaching of the Bible is one thing and popular religion another.
The following extract, from a work published in America “The Theology of the
Bible, (by Judge Halsted), will illustrate this : -“The Rev. Dr. Theodore Clapp,
in his autobiography, says
he
had preached at New Orleans, a zealous sermon for endless punishment; that
after the sermon, Judge W., who, says he, was an eminent scholar, and had
studied for the ministry, but relinquished his purpose, because he could not
find the doctrine of endless punishment and kindred dogmas, asked him to make
out a list of texts in the Hebrew or Greek on which he relied for the doctrine.
The doctor then gives a detailed account of his studies in search of texts to
give to the judge; that he began with the Old Testament in the Hebrew; and
prosecuted his study during that and the succeeding year; and yet he was unable
to find therein so much as an allusion to any suffering after death; that, in
the dictionary of the Hebrew language, he could not discern a word signifying
hell, or a place of punishment in a future state; that he could not find a
single text, in any form or phraseology, which holds out threats of retribution
beyond the grave; that to his utter astonishment it turned out that orthodox
critics of the greatest celebrity were perfectly familiar with these facts;
that he was compelled to confess to the judge that he could not produce any
Hebrew text; but that still he was sanguine that the New Testament would
furnish what he had sought for without success in Moses and the prophets; that
he prosecuted his study of the Greek of the New Testament eight years; that the
result was that he could not name a portion of it,
pg
87
from
the first verse in Matthew to the last of Revelation, which, fairly
interpreted, affirms that a portion of mankind will be eternally miserable. The
doctor concludes by saying it is an important, most instructive fact, that he
was brought into his present state of mind (the repudiation of the dogma) by
the Bible only-a state of mind running counter to all the prejudices of his
early life, of parental precept, of school, theological seminary, and
professional caste.”
Yes,
the Bible and the seminaries are at variance on this important subject. The
seminaries light up the future of the wicked with a lurid horror, which the
worthy of mankind even now feel to be a great drawback from the satisfaction of
the prospects ot the righteous. How can there be perfect joy and gladness with
the knowledge that fierce Despair reigns among tormented millions in another
place? The Bible gives us a glorious future, unmarred by such a blot. It
exhibits a future free from evil-a future of glory and everlasting joy to the
righteous, and of oblivion to all the unworthy of mankind-a future in which the
wisdom of God combines the glory of His name with the highest happiness of the
whole surviving human race.
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LECTURE 4
IMMORTALITY A
CONDITIONAL GIFT TO BE BESTOWED AT THE RESURRECTION
IF
HUMAN nature be essentially mortal, and if death in relation to it be the
destruction of all its manifested powers, what is the true relation of a future
life to our perishing race? Many jump to the conclusion that the position taken
in the two previous lectures involves a denial of future retribution, and even
the rejection of the existence of God. That this is a great mistake will
presently be made apparent. The view of man’s mortality certainly leads to a
modification of popular views, but not with the effect stated. And the
modification it leads to is borne out by the testimony of the Bible with an
explicitness that removes all difficulty from the path of a devout mind,
There
is a natural aspiration for immortality in the human breast. The lowest forms
of human nature, such as idiots, and barbarous races, may be destitute of it,
but where human nature has developed to anything like its natural standard,
there is a craving after the perfect and unending. We seem mentally constituted
for them. Death comes as an unnatural event in our experience. We dislike it;
we dread it; we long for immortality; we aspire to live for ever,
It
is customary to argue from our desire for immortality that we are actually
immortal. This is the principal argument used by Plato, who may be said to be
the father of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The argument is
universally employed by believers in the immortality of the soul to the present
day. It is astonishing that its logic should pass unquestioned. It would
readily appear absurd in the case of any other instinct or desire. A hungry
man, for example, desires food; is this a proof he has had his dinner? The
argument turns the other way. If we desire a thing, our desire is evidence that
we are yet
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without
the object of desire; for, as Paul says, “What a man seeth, why doth he yet
hope for”? If we experience a longing for immortality, it is a proof we are
destitute of it.
The
existence of such a desire, however, proves a great deal in its place. It
proves immortality as a possibility in the economy of the universe. No instinct
or desire exists in nature without a corresponding object on which it acts. Are
we hungry? There is food to be eaten, Are we curious? There are things to be
seen and known. Have we benevolence? There is benefit to be conferred, need to
be supplied, and suffering to be alleviated. Have we conscience? There is right
and wrong. Have we marvellous-ness? There is incomprehensibility in heaven
above and earth beneath. Have we veneration? There is God to adore. And so on,
with every feeling throughout sentient nature. On this principle, the
spontaneous craving for immortality and perfection proves the existence of the
conditions desired, and the possibility of their attainment; and though we may
be ignorant as Hottentots of the “where,” “when,” “how,” etc., relating to
them, there remains the strong natural presumption that the condition thus
desired cannot be altogether a dream, though at present beyond our reach,
Still,
we must use proper discrimination in the application of the argument. It does
not prove the necessary attainment of immortality by any. The existence of a
desire is no guarantee of its gratification, A man of great alimentive capacity
may be in circumstance where food cannot be obtained. He may be shut up in a
Hartley colliery, with death as the consequence. His alimentiveness points to
food as its proper object, but does not insure possession of it; that is a
question of proper circumstance. The logical deduction from this longing for
immortality is, that as it is inconceivable that an instinct could exist which
it was impossible to gratify, immortality and perfection must be attainable
conditions; but that the gratification of a desire being dependent upon proper
relative circumstances, it all depends upon the nature of the circumstances
governing the possession of immortality as to whether immortality will be
attained or not, This cuts between the orthodox believer and the infidel,
refuting the immortal soulism of the one, and demolishing the irrational belief
of the other.
What
is immortality? We can best comprehend a thing by contrast. We know something
of mortality, from which the idea of im (not) mortality comes. The word
“mortality” comes from the Latin root “men’s,” death, and signifies
deathfulness. To say
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of
anything that it is mortal, is to affirm that it is limited in its power to
continue in life, owing to inherent tendency to dissolution. We say of man that
he is mortal; and he is so. We behold him daily perishing. He comes into
existence as an organised being, inheriting and exhibiting all the qualities of
the stock from which he is derived. We see him go out of existence as regularly
as we see him come into it. The death list is the universal corollary of the
birth list, No man of woman born is exempt from the law of death; however
superior to his fellows he may be, however lofty the genius, however far-seeing
the intellect, however genial the friendship, however lovely the general
character, the hand of death stays not; the end must come; the law of sin and
death working in his members takes his life at last, and he sinks to the
oblivion from which he emerged. This is the mortality of actual experience,
whatever theory people may entertain on the subject.
Popular
theory says that the mortality of common experience is related to condition,
not to being; that it changes a man’s place
of
existence, but does not touch the fact of his existence. Let us consider this a
moment. It is a manifest truth that life in the abstract is indestructible; but
are we to say that, therefore, a living being is indestructible? If so, it
would prove the immortality of beasts, for they certainly live, as really as
man, though, their nature is inferior, Life is not a thinking individual power
in its abstract condition, unless we take the sum total of all life as it
exists in God, “the fountain of life.” Subordinately to Him, the power or
capacity of individual manifestation exists in the vast ocean of life-power
that subsists in the Great Eternal Fountain: but it is latent there, and can only
be developed by what men have been pleased to call “ organisation.”
The
thing may seem a mystery; but certainly it is not more a mystery than the
metaphysical view which attempts to explain a mystery by a greater mystery
still. Mystery or no mystery, it is the teaching of experience and the
declaration of the word
God.
“They have all one breath” (or spirit-the same word) is Solomon’s statement
concerning men and animals (Eccies. iii. 19). Moses is equally decisive.
Speaking of the flood, he says (Gen. vii, 23), “And every living substance was
destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both MAN, and cattle, and the
creeping things.” Again (Gen. vii, 21, 22), “And all flesh died that moved upon
the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping
thing. . . and every man; ALL in whose nostrils was the breath of life. . .
died.” Here man is categorised
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with
animals, as belonging to the same class of existence-being a creature of
“living substance” inhaling the universal “breath of life” shared by ALL. “The
spfrit of God is in my nostrils,” says Job (chap. xxvii, 3). “Cease ye from man
whose breath is in his nostrils,” is the command of inspiration in Isaiah ii,
22. God “gathering unto Himself HIS spirit and HIS breath,” is Zophar’s
description of death in Job xxxiv, 14. Mark, the “spirit” is spoken of as the
Almighty’s; and man-the substance creature
-as
the possessor of spirit; but philosophy has inverted this order of ideas. It
has made the spirit into the possessor, and the body the thing possessed; and
has opened the door for the concomitant doctrines of disembodied sky-kingdom
rewards, hell punishments, etc., etc.
The
theory falls to the ground on the reception of the simple doctrine of the
Scriptures that “God formed MAN of the dust” (Gen. ii, 7); that “the first man
is of the earth, earthy,” and that, “As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy” (I Cor. xv, 47, 48); that the life that is in him is God’s and
returns to God when the man dies (Eccles. xii, 7). The opposite doctrine, which
is but the offspring of human speculation, and not the teaching of the
Scriptures-for whoever read of “immortal souls” in the Bible?-is a delusion
which binds the understanding of all who labour under it, giving rise to many
gratuitous difficulties as to God’s moral government of the world, and
preventing a proper apprehension of the doctrines of Christianity, which have
for their very foundation the truth that man is an evanescent form of conscious
life, to whom the day of death is appointed because of sin,
How
comes it to pass that man, having strong instinctive desires for immortality
and perfection, shall be found in a state so much the reverse, in all respects?
There is an explanation. This explanation “nature” refuses to furnish. The
condition of man as a natural accident is an impenetrable mystery. Nature
establishes the strictest correspondence between instinct and condition in the
case of every other species throughout her wide domain, but she refuses this
happiness-producing adaptation in the case of her noblest production-man,
leaving him to the wretchedness of disappointed noble aspiration. It is
impossible to account for this fact on natural principles. Unaided by
revelation, human condition and destiny must ever remain an insoluble enigma.
Turning
to the Bible, the mystery is explained. We are taken away back to the origin of
our species. We are shown Adam and
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Eve,
our first parents, in primeval innocence, the happy occupants of a paradise of
heavenly planting. We need not be frightened away from the contemplation of
this picture by Darwirnsm. The evolution of species is not only an
undemonstrated, but an undemonstrable scientific guess. Nay, more; it is an
untenable and self-stultifying hypothesis. Though many scientific men endorse
it, many other scientific men reject it altogether, on scientific grounds.
Professor Owen, for example-a name great in science-is in the front rank of the
rejectors of Darwinism
There
is a short way of disposing of antagonistic speculation. If Christ is true, so
is the Mosaic presentation of Adam in the garden of Eden; for Christ endorsed
the Mosaic writings; and the ,New Testament, in more places than one, ties Adam
and Christ together as the two poles in the divine scheme (I Cor. xv, 20-21;
Rom, v, 12-20), It is no childish relapse, therefore (though it is so esteemed
in many quarters), that goes back for information on a problem of human
condition to the episode of Eden. Let us go thither a moment; we behold Adam
and Eve pursuing the pleasant occupation of dressers of that magnificent garden
of a thousand hues, spreading itself below the warming rays of an Asiatic sun.
We contemplate them spending their days in the sweetness of innocence, and
drinking in, with virgin faculty, the pure delights of nature, When we think
of, what follows, we are taught the lesson that man exists not for him
self
alone-that mere sensuous enjoyment is not the supreme object of existence-_that
there are higher actions of the mind, more serious responsibilities, more
exalted obligations, which exercise alone can wake us up to-that God is the
highest, and demands the absolute submission of our wills and affections to Him
as the essential condition of our happiness and His pleasure.
Adam
is prohibited from touching a certain tree in the midst of the garden, not
because the tree was intrinsically bad, or that there was any sin in the act
itself apart from interdict, but because such a prohibition was, in the
circumstances, the simplest and most convenient mode of educating him in regard
to his relations to the Almighty. “Where no law is, there is no transgression,”
says Paul. So long as the tree was free from prohibition, Adam was at liberty
to use it as freely as the others; but, the prohibition having been enjoined, it
became unlawful for him to touch it. How long Adam continued to obey, we are
not informed; but we know that in the course of time he infringed the divine
enactment
pg 93
“When the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her, and he did ear” (Gen. iii, 6).
The
consequence of this act was most calamitous : -“Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten
of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed
is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bnng forth to thee, and thou shalt eat
the herb of the field, 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” (Gen. iii~
17-19),
Here
is an explanation of the present exceptional condition of the human race. Adam,
originally created with ,a view to possible immortality, was doomed to return
to his original nothingness, and there then commenced in him that process of
physical decay which terminates all in death. Having all sprung from Adam, we
have, of course, inherited the death-tending qualities of his nature, because
the clean cannot come out of the unclean (Job xiv, 47), On this principle,
death has passed upon all men through Adam; and so we find ourselves mortal.
It
is no uncommon thing nowadays to jest upon the subject, and to mockingly
enquire why God did not prevent this result. It is useless to attempt an answer
to those who are guilty of this folly, because they are not in a frame of mind
to appreciate it. The very question evinces a flippancy of thought and, in most
cases, a shallowness of moral nature which it is hopeless to deal with. To
answer is like throwing pearls before swine; they are certain to “turn again
and rend.” The deep-thinking and the devout will have no difficulty in
perceiving that the occurrence 9~ such a bitter chapter in human history was
incidental to the investiture of man with the God-like prerogative of free
agency; and, further, that its occurrence was foreseen by the Almighty, and
intended by Him to be the basis on which He should establish the triumph of
eternal benevolence and eternal wisdom.
It
requires no very profound discernment to see that the introduction of evil will
lead to ultimate results, so perfectly glorious
as to
show the infinite wisdom and mercy of God in permitting
After
the occurrence of the transgression, and the passing of the sentence consequent
upon it, a precaution was taken for the purpose expressed in these words, taken
from the 3rd chap. of Genesis (verses 22 and 23) : -
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“And now, lest he (Adam) put forth his hand,
and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever: therefore the
Lord God sent him forth from the garden
of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Let
those who believe in the natural immortality of man ponder the import of these
words. What necessity would there have been for preventing Adam from eating of
the tree of life “lest he eat and live for ever,” if he were already and
essentially immortal? Adam being mortal, the precaution was a merciful one; for
had Adam, in his fallen and unhappy state, become invested in immortality, the
earth would have become peopled with undying sinful men, who in the course of
ages would have multiplied and overcrowded the globe, and developed a scene of
indescribable confusion and misery. But this terrible calamity was averted.
Adam was excluded from access to the other tree, which, under a provisional
arrangement, had been endowed with life-giving virtue; and so continued mortal:
and his descendants, innumerable, sin-stricken, and wretched, are mercifully
swept away, generation after generation, like grass before the mower.
It
is easy here to realise how unfounded are the popular hopes of salvation based
on “being good,” as they phrase it. Adam by one offence, and that, too, an
offence inspired by the good motive, as men would say, of doing himself good,
viz., that he might become wise, and be as the Elohim-by one offence, came
under sentence of death, If one offence was fatal in the case of Adam, how can
his descendants, laden with sins, hope to escape by any amount of poor
goodness? No, no! men must be forgiven and justified before they can be saved:
and how they are to attain to this state may be learnt in the teachings of the
Apostles-apart from which there is “no hope” (Eph. ii, 12).
As
it is from the Scriptures alone that we derive any rational account of the
present mortal and afflicted condition of mankind, so are they the only source
of information concerning our future destiny. Job asks, “If a man die, shall he
live again”? This is the question which it is the special function of the Bible
to answer, From no other source can we procure an answer. If we speculate upon
it as a philosophical problem, we grope in the dark. There is no process in
nature from which we can reason on the subject. There is no real parallel to
resurrection. A seed deposited in the ground springs again, and renews its
existence by the law of its nature. The power to spring again is part of itself.
Not so with man, To use the words of Job (chap. xiv, 7-10):-
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“There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down,
that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the
ground, yet through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth boughs like
a plant.
But
man dieth and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and
WHERE
IS HE?”
Where
is he? The answer is a simple one; he is nowhere. The dust has returned to the
earth as it was, and his life-spirit has returned to God who gave it: and
though both dust and life continue to exist as separate elements, the man who
resulted from their organic combination has ceased to be; and if he ever “live
again,” it will be the result of a fresh effort on the part of Almighty power.
That
he will live again, is one of the blessed teachings of the Word of God. “Since
by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of tile dead” (11 Cor. xv,
21). It was the peculiar mission of Christ to bring this truth to light. He
proclaimed himself the “Resurrection and the Life” (John xi, 25), adding, “He
that believeth in me, though he were dead, YET SHALL HE LIVE.” He came, not
simply to re-infuse spiritual vigour into the deadened moral natures of men,
but to open a way of deliverance from the physical law of death which is
sweeping them into the grave, and keeping them there. He came, in fact, to
raise the bodies of men-which are the men themselves-from the pit of corruption,
and to endow them, if accepted, with incorruptibility and immortality. Paul
says: -“ He will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His
glorious body” (Philip. iii, 21). This is connected with the resurrection, for
Jesus himself says, “This is the Father’s will, which hath sent me, that of all
which He bath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at
the last day” (John vi, 39). Thus, life and immortality are said to have been
“brought to light by Jesus Christ, through the Gospel “ (TI Tim. j, 10). In
fact, this very aim of the sacrificial work of Christ, as the Saviour of the
world from sin, and as the reconciler of the world to God, from whom all men
have gone astray, was to offer men everlasting life, This will appear from the
following citations from the New Testament: -
“I
am come that they might have LIFE, and that they might have it
more
abundantly” (John x, 10).
“God
sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might LIVE
through
him” (I John iv, 9).
“Ye
will not come to me, that ye might have LIFE” (John v, 40).
I
am the resurrection and the LIFE” (John xi, 25).
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“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 iii, 16).
“Thou
(the Father) hast given him (the Son) power over all flesh, that he should give
ETERNAL LIFE to as many as Thou hast given him (John xvii, 2).
“My
sheep hear my voice . . . . I give unto them ETERNAL LIFE; and they shall never
perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John x, 27, 28).
This
is the record, that God hath given to us ETERNAL LIFE, and this LIFE is in His
Son” (I John v, 11).
“This
is the promise that He hath promised us, even ETERNAL LIFE” (I John ii, 25).
“The
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is ETERNAL LIFE through Jesus Christ
our Lord” (Romans vi, 23).
“That
being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of
ETERNAL LIFE” (Titus iii, 7).
“Keep
yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto ETERNAL LIFE” (Jude 21).
There
is one obvious reflection on the reading of these passages; if immortality be
the natural attribute of every son of Adam from the very moment he breathes,
there is little meaning in testimonies which, one and all, speak of immortality
as a future contingency, a thing to be sought for, a reward, a thing to be
given, a thing brought to light through the gospel, etc. There is complete
obscurity in such language if immortality be a natural and present possession.
How can a man be promised that which is already his own? The divine promise is
that God will award eternal life to those who seek for glory, honour, and
immortality. This is the strongest proof that human nature knows nothing of
immortality at present.
What
is this immortality? Modern talk on the subject would lead us to suppose it was
a mental quality, like conscience, or benevolence-a thing of spiritual
condition-an essence which is itself without reference to time or space. As
death has come to have an artificial theological significance, so immortality
itself, the promised gift of God through Jesus Christ, has been frittered away
into a metaphysical conception-beyond the comprehension, as it has been placed
beyond the practical interest of mankind. Bringing commonsense and Scripture
teaching to bear on this point, we find that im-mortality is the opposite of
mortality. The one being deathfulness in relation to being, as such, the other
is deathlessness in the same relation. Both are terms definitive of duration
rather than of quality, of life, although quality is implied in both cases. A
mortal is a creature
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of
terminable existence; an immortal, one so constituted that his life is endless.
Yet the terminability of the one, and the endlessness of the other, are the
result of the established conditions of their natures respectively. Man is
mortal, because his organism tends to decay. If that organism could go on
working from year to year, without deterioration or liability to disorder, he
would be immortal, apart from violence, because life would be constantly
sustained and manifested. But it is not so as we know to our sorrow; his nature
contains within it the seeds of corruption, and hence it runs down to unavertable
dissolution. The finest constitution will succumb at last to the gradual
exhaustion going on from year to year. To be immortal. we require to be
incorruptible in substance; because that which is incorruptible cannot decay;
and an incorruptible living organism will live for ever. Hence the immortality
of the New Testament is a promise of resurrection to incorruptible bodily
existence.
“It
is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour,
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” (I Cor. xv, 42.44).
Again
(Phil. iii, 20, 21):- “Jesus Christ ... shall change our vile body, that it may
be fashioned
like
unto his glorious body.”
To
obtain immortality, is to be transformed from our present weak, frail,
corruptible condition of body, into a perfect, incorruptible, powerful
condition, in which we shall no more be the subjects of weakness, pain, sorrow,
and death, but shall be like the Lord Jesus Christ in his present exalted state
of existence.
This
transformation occurs at the return of Jesus Christ from heaven, as is evident
from the following testimonies : -“Jesus Christ shall judge the quick and the
dead at HIS APPEARING AND HIS KINGDOM” (II Tim. iv, 1).
“But
every man in his own order (of resurrection): Christ the first-fruits;
afterward they that are Christ’s AT HIS COMING” (I Cor. xv, 23).
“Your
life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
THEN shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Col. iii, 3, 4).
“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 in-corruption, 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 EROUGHT TO PASS THE SAYING
THAT IS
WRITTEN,
Death is swallowed up in victory” (I Cor. xv, 5 1-54).
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From
the last testimony, taken along with one from the 4th chapter of I Thess.,
previously quoted, we learn that the faithful in Christ Jesus who are in the
land of the living at the second advent of their Lord and Saviour, will -(after
they have been judged)-undergo an immediate transformation into the
incorruptible nature of the spiritual body, without going through the process
of death. Hence the statement “we shall not all sleep.” So that some perhaps
now living, like Enoch and Elijah, will be exceptions to the general rule of
mortality, and shall not taste of death.
As
to the nature of the resurrected body, we find in one of the passages quoted
from Paul’s epistles, the words, “It is raised a spiritual body.” Some think
this means a gaseous, shadowy, spectral body, that a man could drive his hand
through. On the contrary, the righteous in the perfected state will be as real
and corporeal as mortal men in the present life. We learn this in the most
unmistakable manner. Look at the following statements : -“He shall change our
vile body, that it may be fashioned LIKE UNTO HIS OWN GLORIOUS BODY” (Phil.
lii, 21). “We know that when Christ shall appear, we shall be LIKE HIM; for we
shall see him as he is” (I John iii, 2). Here is a starting point:
Christ
is the pattern after which his people are to be fashioned. If, therefore, we
would learn knowledge in regard to the nature of the righteous in the future
state, we must contemplate the nature of Christ subsequent to his resurrection.
We are enabled to do this, because Christ appeared to his disciples after his
resurrection, and had several interviews with them. We find him aiming to give
evidence to his disciples of his reality, when they were terrified by his
sudden appearance, thinking him an illusion before their eyes.
He
said:- “Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
Behold
my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for
a
spirit (Pneuma, apparition) hath not FLESH AND BONES, AS YE SEE ME HAVE. And
when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they
yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto
them,
Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb; and he took it and did eat before them” (Luke xxiv, 38-43).
Here
is positive proof that Christ was as real and corporeal after his resurrection
as he was before. The body that was laid in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea was
the body that afterwards arose and appeared as “the same Jesus “-“ I myself “
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to
the disciples, who handled him, and who ate with him. This is proof that the
righteous in the resurrection will be as tangible and bodily as he was then,
seeing that they are to be “fashioned like unto his glorious body.”
It
is suggested that Christ’s nature was transformed into intangible essence after
his ascension; but there is nothing to support such a suggestion. The
supposition is simply gratuitous and undeserving of consideration. It is
excluded by the evidence of Christ’s reality and identity after his ascension.
Even if this were not so, the suggestion would be without standing ground.
Since there is no statement to the effect that Christ ceased to be bodily after
his ascension, the only rational alternative would be to assume that no such
change took place, and that Christ remained, and continues to be the same real
though glorified personage who exhibited his hands and feet to his assembled
disciples. But the fact of his bodily continuance is borne out in the statement
made by the angels to the disciples, just after the ascension:
“Why
stand ye gazing up into heaven? THIS SAME Jesus, which is taken up from you
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven”
(Acts i, 11).
What
would the disciples understand by “this same Jesus “? Would they not think of
the blessed Saviour, who, a few days before, had eaten bread in their sight,
and said to them, a “spirit (or phantasm) hath not flesh and bones AS YE SEE ME
HAVE “? Undoubtedly; and they would look forward to the time of his
re-appearance, with the prints of the nails in his hands, and the mark of the
wound in his side, which it is evident, from Zech, xiii, 6, will be the subject
of anxious and interesting curiosity to Jewish beholders at his coming.
Therefore, the proof remains that the righteous in the resurrected state will
be substantial as their Lord and Master, instead of the bodiless entities
generally imagined.
Though
not less real than mortal man, the glorified saints will possess a different
kind of nature. They are, in the present state, “natural bodies,” but then,
they will be “spiritual bodies,” Here is the destinction. Natural or animal
bodies are sustained in life by the blood, as saith the Scriptures in Leviticus
xvii, 14, “The life of all flesh is the blood thereof.” The blood is the medium
of animal vitality, with which it becomes charged by the action of the air on
the lungs. The life principle or
spirit”
is thus applied only in an indirect manner. The blood is
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proximately
the life-giving agent: bodies sustained by it are simply blood bodies. Their
life is not inherent: it is dependent on a complex function which is easily
interfered with. It is applied by a process so delicate as to be easily marred
by external influences and accidental circumstances. Therefore, life is
uncertain, and constant health and vigour almost impossible. Our constitutions
are easily impaired, and we are liable to be afflicted with distressing
infirmities and pains which easily become dangerous: hence the lucrative
profession which is accredited with the skill to “cure” unfortunate humanity.
Ah. they cannot “cure.” The disease is too deep for their skill. It is in the
constitution: it is in the blood; it is deep-grained and incurable. All that
the doctor can do is to patch a humanlyunmendable mortality.
The
Lord Jesus Christ is the only true physician. He offers us resurrection to
spirit-body existence. He promises to fashion us like unto his own glorious
body. He undertakes that though we may be afflicted with all the pains that
flesh is heir to in this present life, yea, disfigured by all the distortions
of disease; though we may die loathsome deaths and be laid in the grave a mass
of festering corruption, we shall be raised to a pure and incorruptible state,
in which our bodies shall be “spiritual bodies “; not because ethereal, which
is not their characteristic, but because directly energised by the spirit of
God, and filled in every atom with the concentrated inextinguishable life-power
of God himself. This is the testimony of Christ (John iii, 6): “That which is
born of Spirit is SPIRIT.” He had said, “that which is born of the flesh is
flesh.” Mortal men and women are born of the flesh; therefore, they are but
flesh-a wind that passeth away and cometh not again; but let a man be “born of
the spirit,” and he is no longer the frail and perishable offspring of Adam.
His corruptible has put on incorruptibility. He is an invincible, all-powerful,
immortal son of God. “They are the children of God,” says Jesus, speaking of
the resurrection which is unto life, “BEING the
children of the resurrection.”
Paul
says (Rom. viii, 11), “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies BY HIS SPIRIT
that dwelleth in you.” Here is a second birth to be effected by the spirit of
God; and on the principle laid down by Christ, all who are the subjects of this
operation of the spirit upon their mortal bodies, will be “born of the spirit,”
and will, therefore, be
spirit”
in nature or “spiritual” bodies-bodies sustained in life by the direct
operation of the spirit of life, without the inter-
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101
mediate
agency of the blood-immortal, bloodless embodiments of the spirit of life in
flesh and bones, like the Lord Jesus; not pale and ghastly as a human body
would be without blood, but beautiful with the electrical radiance of the
Spirit which can show colour otherwise than by blood, as witness the jasper and
the ruby, and the rainbow. Living by the thorough permeation of the life-spirit
in the substance of their natures, they will be glorious and powerful, “pure as
the gem, strong as adamant, and incorruptible as gold,” glorious in the sense
of physical luminosity, as exemplified in the Lord Jesus when he shone with the
lustre of the sun on the mount of transfiguration, and, according as it is
Written : -“They that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament, and
they
that turn many to righteousness as the
Stars for ever and ever” (Dan. xii, 3).
Powerful,
in the sense of being vigorous and inexhaustible in the power of the faculties,
as it is written : -:‘ The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends
of the earth,
fainteth
not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding. He giveth
power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even
the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but
they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up
with wings as eagles; they shall run and
not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. xl, 28-31).
Incorruptible
in the sense of being undecaying and imperishable in nature, and therefore
entirely free from any liability to pain or disease. In this perfect condition,
the righteous will have a boundless eternity before them-everlasting joy upon
their heads; no more dullness of mind; no more fretting and heart-failing at
the afflictions of mortal life; no more sorrow, no more growing old; no more
passing away; but all perfection, harmony unbroken, love unquenchable, joy
unspeakable, and full of glory. This will be the happy state of the righteous;
this the consummation of that blessed promise, “He will swallow up death in
victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.” (Isa. xxv,
8).
This
precious life and immortality, brought to life by Jesus
Christ
through the gospel, is not to be indiscriminately bestowed.
All
men will not attain to it; only a few will be counted worthy.
The
precious gift is freely offered to all; but it is conditional. It
is
not to be given to the faithless and the impure. Perfection of character must
precede perfection of nature. Moral fitness is the
Indispensable
pre-requisite, and God is the judge and the pre
pg
102
scriber
of the peculiar moral fitness necessary in the case. This is proved by the
following passages -“To them who by patient
continuance in well doing seek for
glory, honour and immortality, eternal life” (Rom. ii, 7).
“If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments” (Matt. xix, 17).
“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John vi, 53).
“He that believeth on the
Son hath
everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life” (John
iii, 36).
“These
are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life
through his name” (John xx, 31).
“Go
ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He 1/lot believeth and is baptised shall
be saved” (Mark xvi, 15, 16).
“He that heareth my word,
and believetth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation” (John v, 24).
“He that believer/i in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live” (John xi, 25).
I
will give unto him that is athirst of
the fountain of the water of life freely” (Rev. xxi, 6).
These
testimonies give the deathblow to Universalism. They predicate salvation upon
conditions which exclude the majority of mankind. They restrict it to a class
which has always been small among men, and effectually disprove the mistaken
theory of benevolence which proclaims the “ universal restoration” of every
human being. This may represent Christianity as a very “narrow” affair, but no
narrower than its divinely-intended scope. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is
the way “; this is its characteristic, and not without wisdom. The development
of an approved family from the sons of men is its object. The world’s vast populations
are merely incidental to this plan. They come, and they go; and, as flesh, they
profit nothing. They come from nothing, and go whence they came. It is only the
theory of universal human immortality that gives rise to the idea of universal
human salvation. When human nature is looked upon at its true standard of
vanity, the difficulty vanishes.
Those
who are excluded from eternal life are divided into two classes-ist, those who
hear the word, and reject it; and .2nd, those whom circumstances preclude from
hearing it at all-such as the pagans of ancient times, and the natives of
barbarous countries. The second class includes a third, viz., those whose
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misfortunes
prevent them from believing, even if they hear the word, such as idiots, and
very young children. The fate of the first class (those who hear the word, and
reject it) is plainly stated. They are to be reserved for punishment:-
He
that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words . . . the word that I have spoken,
the same shall judge him in the last day” (John xii, 48). ‘He that believeth
not shall be damned” (Mark xvi, 16).
The
punishment is inflicted at the resurrection, as Jesus says:
“They
that have done evil (shall come forth) unto
the resurrection of damnation.” This “resurrection of damnation,” however,
is not a resurrection to unending life, or to hell fire in the popular
acceptation. It is a resurrection to judicially administered shame and
corruption. They shall of the flesh, to which they have sown, reap corruption
(Gal. vi, 8), which ends in the triumph of the worm and fire over their
being-that is, in death. They rise to the shame and confusion of a divine and
frowning rejection, in which “few stripes” or “many stripes” are inflicted,
according to desert-differences in the duration and intensity of suffering as
justice may demand, after which the wicked are finally engulfed in the “second
death,” which obliterates their wretched existence from God’s creation. Being
of no use, they are put out of the way, and disappear for ever, “where the
wicked cease from troubling.”
This
must have been evident from the numerous testimonies quoted in the last
lecture. A paganised theology delights in assigning them to endless existence
of torment. This idea is based upon certain obscure New Testament expressions
which are supposed to countenance it, but which, when properly understood, have
no such terrible significance. “Unquenchable fire” is of those expressions; it
seems to imply the eternal conscious existence of the wicked, but reflection will
show it involves the Opposite. If the fire is not quenched, there is no escape
from consumption This phrase is used
in this sense in Jer. xvii, 27, Ezek. xx, 47, and other places. The same is
true of “worm dieth not.” Herod’s worms died not, and the consequence was that
HE died (Acts xii, 23). If they had
died, he would have recovered.
“Everlasting punishment” is affirmed of the wicked; but this does not teach
eternal torment. Aionian translated
“everlasting,” does not necessarily import unending perpetuity. Of aion, age, from which it is derived,
Parkhurst observes, “It denotes duration or continuance of time, but with great variety.” Aionian, therefore,
means age-pertaining, without fixing duration,
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which
is determinable by the scope of that of which it is affirmed. In the case
before us, it is spoken of the punishment of the wicked. As we know, from other
parts of Scripture, that the punishment of the age of retribution terminates in
death, we are enabled to see the “aion” of the punishment is only co-extensive
with the duration of that punishment.
Some
imagine that the application of this principle to the phrase “eternal life”
destroys the hope of immortality, by making it a thing of possible
terminability. If there were nothing beyond the phrase “eternal (aionian) life,” we should have
uncertain
foundation for the hope of endless life. We should in that case simply be
informed that there was an age-pertaining life-a life pertaining to the coming
age of God’s intervention in human affairs, but should not, by the phrase,
receive any information as to the nature of that life or the extent of its
duration. But the case stands not in this uncertain state. We are explicitly
informed by other testimonies, that while aionian
punishment ends in death, the life to be conferred in that same aion is inextinguishable. “They which
shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world . . . neither marry nor are
given in marriage; NEITHER CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE, for they are equal unto the
angels’ (Luke xx. 35-36). “There
shall be NO MORE DEATH” (Rev. xxi, 4). “They shall never perish” (John x, 28). “He will swallow up death in victory” (Isaiah xxv, 8). “This mortal must put
On IMMORTALITY “(I Cor. xv, 53). If immortality had an end, it would not be
immortality. Aionian life is unending
life. We know this, not from the use of the word aionian, which would tell us nothing on the subject, but from
testimonies like those quoted.
The
second class of those who do not attain to life, are those who, never having
seen the light, have never rejected it, and for that reason cannot be liable to
the judgment that awaits those who have. What is to be done with them? It is
common to suppose they will be among the saved. Who can entertain such a
supposition in view of the fact that they are sinners, and already excluded
from life? Besides, if darkness and unenlightenment be a passport into the
kingdom of God, why did Jesus send Paul
to
turn the Gentiles from darkness to
light. . . THAT THEY MAY RECEIVE - . . INHERITANCE among them which are
sanctified”? (Acts xxvi, 18). If salvation in barbarism is certain, it would be
better to let men remain in ignorance than imperil their eternal destiny by the
responsibilities of knowledge. We must remember that the very circumstances
that preclude the class in question from being rejectors of the Messiah, also
prevent them from
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accepting
him in whom alone is hope and life. They have none of the responsibilities of
the rejectors of the gospel, but they have also none of the privileges of its
enlightened and obedient believers. What, then, is to become of them? Paul
answers the question in Romans ii, 12:.- “As many as have sinned without law
shall also perish without law.” Paganism,
heathenism, idiocy, and infantile incapability are amenable to no law.
Therefore, resurrection does not take place in their case. Death has passed
upon them under the only law they were ever related to, viz., the law of Adam;
and they sleep, never to be disturbed. Their position is described in the
following passage from Isaiah xxvi, 14:- “They are dead, they SHALL NOT LIVE;
they are deceased, they SHALL..NOT RISE; therefore hast thou visited and
DESTROYED them, and made all their MEMORY
TO PERISH.”
A
similar declaration is made in Jeremiah li, 57,
in regard to the aristocracy of Babylon, who belonged to the identical
class of whom we are speaking : -I will make drunk her princes and her wise
men, her captains and her
rulers,
and her mighty men, and they shall sleep A
PERPETUAL SLEEP, and not wake, saith
the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts.”
God
is just, and in this His justice is made manifest. He could not punish them
with justice, and He could not reward them with Justice; therefore He puts them
aside.
This
completes the sum of what has to be advanced in reference to the conditional
nature of immortality, as a gift to be bestowed at the resurrection. The
proposition is plain, and the evidence conclusive. May it be the happy lot of
all who read these pages to inherit the glorious gift.
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LECTURE 5
JUDGMENT TO COME; THE
DISPENSATION
OF DMNE AWARDS TO
RESPONSIBLE
CLASSES AT THE RETURN
OF
CHRIST
AN
EXAMINATION of the Bible will show that Christendom is astray on nothing more
than on the subject of judgment to come. The common idea of “judgment to come,”
is that at a certain time popularly known as the “last day,” God will bring
every human being to individual account-that heaven will be emptied and hell emptied, of their countless myriads
of souls, which will be reunited to their former bodies (resurrected to receive
them) and added to earth’s living population and brought to judgment.
There
is no exception to this rule in orthodox minds. It does not seem to strike them
as a strange thing that there should be a judgment day for anyone, if every
case is settled at the occurence of death. Neither does it appear to them any
difficulty that the manifestly irresponsible classes of mankind should be
brought to judgment. “Heathens,” pagans, barbarians of the lowest type, human
brutes of all sorts, idiots, infants-everyone-absolutely every human soul that
has ever had a being, in what condition soever it may have existed-according to
current theology, will be resuscitated, and brought to account.
That
there are difficulties-great and insuperable-in the way of such an idea, can be
attested by the agonising efforts of many a thoughtful mind. That the idea
itself is thoroughly unscriptural we propose now to show.
We
have in reality done so in previous lectures. But the matter is deserving of a
closer and more systematic consideration. We have quoted statements that
declare the non-resurrection of those who, being unenlightened, are
non-responsible. Further evidence is found in David’s description of the
position occupied by the class in question (Psalm xlix, 6-20) : -106
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107
“They that trust in their wealth, and boast
themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means
redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him (for the redemption of
their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever); that he should still live for
ever, and not see corruption. For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool
and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward
thought is, that their houses shall continue f or ever, and their dwelling places
to all generations . . . nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. This
their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their sayings. LIKE SHEEP
THEY ARE LAID IN THE GRAVE; death shall
feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.
(You that fear my name . . . shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under 1/ic soles of your feet-Mal. iv, 3). And their beauty shall consume in
the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of
the grave; for he shall receive me. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich,
when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dieth he shall carry
nothing away
-his
glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived, he blessed his soul:
and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself, he shall go to the generation of his fathers; THEY SHALL NEVER SEE
LIGHT-if. Man that is in honour and
undersran4eth not, IS LIKE THE BEASTS THAT PERISH.”
This
is reasonable. It would be unreasonable to bring the brutish of mankind to
individual account. Judgment has its basis in responsibility, and
responsibility is a question of circumstances and capacity. Human beings in a
state of barbarism may have the latent capacity to be responsible; but this
does not make them responsible for the simple reason that the capacity is
latent. The actual condition of mind which gives the ground of responsibility
does not exist. This is the case with children. They possess reason and moral
capacity in the germ, but because these qualities are not developed, by
universal law they are held not responsible in human matters Is God less just
than man?
Human
responsibility to the Deity primarily arises from human capacity to discern
good and evil, and power to act upon discernment Beasts are not accountable
either to man or God, because they are destitute of the power to discriminate
or choose. They act under the power of blind impulse. Idiots are in the same
category of irresponsible agents in the degree of their incapacity, and many
men not considered idiots are little better as regards their power of acting
from rational choice.
The
nature and extent of human amenability to a future account can only be
apprehended in view of the relations subsisting between God and man, as
disclosed in the history presented to us in the Scriptures. Apart from this,
all is speculation, theory, and uncertainty Philosophy is at fault, because it
disregards the record. Accept the record, and all is simple and
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intelligible.
The progenitor of the race was made amenable to consequences placed within the
jurisdiction of his will in a certain matter. Disobedience occurred and the law
came into force:
Adam
and all his posterity came under the power of the law of sin and death, which
was destined in their generations to sweep them away like the grass of the
earth. Had God intended no further dealings with the race, responsibility would
have ended here. The grave-penalty would have closed the account; and human
life, if indeed it had continued on the face of the earth in the absence of
divine interposition, would have been the unredeemed tale of sorrow, which it
is in the experience of all who are “without God and without hope in the
world,” unburdened, it may be, with the responsibilities but unalleviated by
the hopes and affections with which the day-spring from on high hath visited
us, and lightened this place of darkness.
But,
in His great mercy, Jehovah conceived intentions of benevolence which He is
working out in His own wise way. He did not-in haste and blunder, as our
short-sighted philosophers insist His goodness ought to have prompted Him to
do-at once and summarily, and without condition, reprieve the sentenced
culprit. This would have been to violate those deep-laid principles of law
which guide all the Deity’s operations, “in nature” and in “grace,” and
preserve the conditions of harmony throughout the universe. It would have been
to perform a work not of mercy, but of destruction, confusion, and anarchy. The
method of benevolence conceived in the divine mind was intended to work
beneficence toward man conformably with the law that had constituted him a
death-stricken sinner, a law which involves glory to God in the highest” as
well as “goodwill toward men.”
This
intention necessitated those successive dispensations of His will which the
world has witnessed in times past, and which have rescued both human existence
and human responsibility from the bottomless profound to which the law of Eden
consigned them. The enunciation of His purpose in promise and prediction, and
the declaration of His law in precept and statute, reopened relations between
God and man, and revived the moral responsibility which otherwise would have
perished, it is, however, a divine
principle that this result is limited to those who come within the actual
sphere of operations.
“Where
no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom. iv, 15).
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“If ye were blind (that is, ignorant), ye should have no sin” (John ix,
41).
“The
times of this ignorance God winked at”
(Acts xvii, 30).
“Man
that is in honour and understandeth not, IS
LIKE THE BEASTS THAT PERISH” (Psa. xlix, 20).
“This is the (ground of) condemnation, that light is come into
the world, and men loved darkness rather than light” (John in, 19).
Hence,
in the absence of light-that is, when men are in a state of ignorance-they are
not amenable to condemnation; God “winks at” their doings (Acts xvii, 30), just
as He winks at the actions of the brutes of the field. Barbarous nations are in
this condition. They are without light and without law, and Paul’s declaration
on the subject is in harmony with the general principles enunciated in the
Scriptures quoted : - “ As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law” (Rom. ii. 12). If
from him to whom much is given, much is required (Luke xii. 48), it follows
that from him to whom nothing is given, nothing shall be required, and from him
to whom little is given, little is required in all the area over which the judgment
operates.
This
principle of absolute equity in the matter of responsibility is exemplified in
the words of Jesus : - “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin” (John xv, 22).
“That servant which knew his lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did
according to his will, shall be beaten with many
stripes; but he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes’? (Luke xii,
47). “He that REJECTETH me, and
receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that 1 have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last
day” (John xii, 48).
The
operation of these principles Is illustrated in the history of human
experience. From Adam to Noah, there was but a little light. The promise of a
seed, by the side of the woman, to crush out the serpent principle of
disobedience and its results, was almost the only star that shone in the
darkness of that time. Prophetic glimpses of the coming interference in its
ultimate shape, such as those vouchsafed to Enoch (Jude 14), and the precepts
of Noah, the preacher of righteousness, through whom the Anointing Spirit
promulgated the divine principles to those who were disobedient (I Peter iii,
18-20), added a little to the light of these times, but, apparently, not more
than was sufficient to confer a title of resurrection on those who laid hold on
it by faith. So far as we have any information, few became responsible to a
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resurrection
to condemnation in pre-Noachic times. Human wickedness, culminating in
universal corruption, was visited with the almost total destruction of the
species by a flood, which may be regarded as having been a winding-up of all
judicial questions arising out of the preceding period, so far as condemnation
is concerned, and, therefore, as precluding from resurrection to judgment those
who were the subjects of it.
On
this point, however, positive ground cannot be taken. Since resurrection unto
life will take place in several cases belonging to that dispensation, it is not
improbable that resurrection to condemnation may also take place among those
who were obnoxiously related to that which gave the others their title,
including the class specified in Enoch’s prophecy-” the ungodly,” who were
guilty of “ungodly deeds” and “hard speeches” against Jehovah, and who must,
therefore, have possessed the amount of knowledge necessary to constitute a
basis of responsibility. This must remain an open question, not because the
principle upon which judgment will be administered is obscure, but because we
have not a sufficient amount of information as to the facts of the time in
question to enable us accurately to apply the principle.
The
principle itself, that responsibility Godward, is only created by contact with
divine law in a tangible and authorised form, holds good in every form of human
relation to the Almighty. Noah’s immediate family were within the pale of the
divine cognition, and responsibility in reference to another life may arise out
of that; but their descendants wandered far out of the way of righteousness and
understanding, sinking below moral responsibility, degenerating to the level of
the beast, and establishing those “times of ignorance “throughout the world
which we have Paul’s authority for saying were “winked at.”
In
the call of Abraham, the member of an idolatrous family, but who possessed the
latent disposition to be faithful, God arrested the tendency to repeat the
universal corruption of antediluvian times. The germ of a more direct
responsibility was planted among men by his election, and by the bestowal of
promises upon him which had ultimate reference to the whole of the race.
Abraham individually, while constituted a man of privilege, was also
constituted a man of responsibility. Abram, the idolater, was his own-his own
to live, like the insect of the moment his own to die and disappear like the
vapour. Abraham, the called of God, was no longer his own, but bought with the
price of God’s promise. He entered upon a higher relation
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of
being. He was exalted to a higher destiny, and had imposed upon him Godward
obligations, unknown to his former condition. Success or failure in the
ordering of his life, was of much greater moment than before. Faith and
obedience would constitute him the heir of the world, and the subject of
resurrection to immortality: unbelief would make him obnoxious to a severer and
farther-reaching displeasure than fell upon Adam.
In
this respect, the children of Abraham by faith, that is, those who walk in the
steps of the faith which Abraham had being yet uncircumcised (Rom. iv, 12),
who, being Christ’s, are Abraham’s seed (Gal. iii, 29) through believing the
gospel, and being baptised into Christ, are like their father. By nature
children of wrath, even as others, they were in the days of their ignorance
“without God and without hope in the world” (Eph. ii, 12), “strangers from the
covenants of promise” (ibid), “alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them” (Eph. iv, 18), living without law, and destined, as
the result of that condition, to perish without law in Adam; inheriting death
without resurrection death without remedy; having neither the privileges nor
the responsibilities of a divine relationship.
When
called from darkness to light, by the preaching of the gospel, whether they
submit to that gospel or refuse submission, they are “not their own.” They
neither live nor die to themselves as formerly. They have passed into a special
relationship to. Deity, in which their lives, good or evil, come under divine
supervision, and form the basis of a future accountability, unknown in their
state of darkness, at which God winked.
The
law of faith established by the promises made to Abraham, Constituted a centre,
around which responsibilities of this description developed themselves. All who
acquired Abraham’s faith came under Abraham’s responsibilities. Doubtless, many
entered this position in the course of the Mosaic ages. The law was added
because of transgression (Gal. iii, 19), and the purpose of its addition is
indicated in its being styled a
schoolmaster. Its mission was to teach the
first lessons of Jehovah’s supremacy and holiness. It was not designed as a
system through which men might acquire deliverance from Adamic bondage. Its
purpose was purely preliminary and provisional, having reference to that result
in its ultimate bearings, but not intended directly to develop it.
Paul
s comment on it is as follows: “If there had been a law given which could have
given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Gal, iii, 21).
It was impossible life could Come by a law which required moral infallibility
on the part of
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human
nature. For this reason, the law, though “holy, and just, and good” (Rom. vii,
12), was “weak through the flesh,” and though “ordained to life,” Paul found it
(from this cause) “to be unto death” (verse 10). The consequence was, that “all
the world stood guilty before God “; and in that moral relation to the Deity,
they were precluded from boasting, that is to say, precluded from attaining to
eternal life on a principle which would have left it open to them to think, and
to say, that their life was their own by right as against the Deity.
Prospectively considered, this was a mighty triumph of divine wisdom; for had
immortal existence been attainable by self-acquired title, room would have been
left for the admission of an element in the relations of God and man which
would have disturbed the perfect harmony that will exist where God is
absolutely supreme, both in law and benevolence, and man is in the position of
a love-saved brand from the burning.
The
law of righteousness by faith is the principle on which men are saved-that is,
saving righteousness is recognised or imputed by God where He is honoured by
faith being exercised in what He has promised. This law came into operation
with Abraham. Actually, it had its origin in Eden, for we read of Abel that by
faith (the substance of things hoped for), he offered an acceptable sacrifice
(Heb. xi, 4). The prediction of the woman’s serpent-destroying seed formed a
pivot on which faith could work even then, and doubtless was the subject-matter
of the faith which saved Abel, Enoch, and Noah; but the full and official
initiation of the law of faith, as the rule of salvation, occurred in the
history of Abraham. This law was the basis of resurrectional responsibility.
The
Mosaic law was national. Its rewards and penalties were confined to the
conditions of mortal life. It took no cognisance of, and made no provision for,
life beyond the natural term of human existence. In its ceremonial forms and
observances, it symbolised the truth in relation to Christ and his mission, but
in its proximate bearing upon the nation, it subserved no spiritual purpose
beyond the continual enforcement of the schoolmaster lesson of Jehovah’s
supremacy and greatness. In this, however, it established the greatest of first
principles, and laid a foundation on which the Abrahamic law of faith could
have its perfect work.
Out
of the law, as a national code, it does not appear any resurrectional
responsibility arose. Yet, concurrently with its jurisdiction, it is evident
that a dispensation of God’s mind, having reference to resurrection, was in
force. Undoubtedly this
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was
subordinate, and occupied the place of an undercurrent; but, its existence is
unquestionable, else how are “Abraham, Isaac. and Jacob, and all the prophets,”
to appear in the Kingdom of God? If it be recognised that God’s purpose from
the beginning had reference to the mission of the Christ as “The Resurrection
and the Life,” there will be no difficulty in apprehending this conclusion.
Obscurely it may be, but really it must be, that resurrectional responsibility
was contemplated in all Jehovah did through His servants, from righteous Abel
to faithful Paul. Jesus has shown us that the very designation assumed by the
Deity in converse with Moses at the bush, though apparently used for the simple
purpose of historical identification, expresses the doctrine of resurrection in
relation at any rate to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God called Himself the God
of men that were dead; therefore, reasoned
Jesus-and that convincingly, for the Sadducees were put to silence-He intends
to raise them from the dead.
If
so great a conclusion can warrantably be deduced from so apparently slim a
foundation, what may we not legitimately infer from the promise of a country to
them they never possessed, and the assurance of the universal blessing of
mankind in connection with them, which has never yet been realised! ‘What but
the conclusion affirmed by Paul that they “died in faith, not having received the promises,” and, therefore, that they must
rise from the dead to realise them? With this general argument in view, it is
easy to recognise resurrectional responsibility in many expressions which a
forced method of explanation alone can apply to the judgment of the present
limited experience (Psalm xxxvii, whole of the chapter: xlix, 14: lviii, 10:
lxii, 12; Prov. xi, 18-31; Ecclesiastes iii, 17: v, 8: xi, 9: xii, 14; Isaiah
iii, 10: xxvi, 19-21: xxxv, 4: lxvi, 4,5,
14; Malachi iii, 16-18:
iv,
1-3, etc.).
Jewish
responsibility was greater than that of the cast-off descendants of the
rejected groundling of Eden, because their relation to Deity was special,
direct, and privileged. The responsibility originating in natural constitution,
was supplemented by the obligations imposed by divine election, and arising out
of tue national contract entered into at Sinai, to be obedient to all that the
Deity required (Ex. xxiv, 3, 7). This is recognised in the Words of Jehovah by
Amos, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; THEREFORE I will punish you for all your iniquities (Amos
iii, 2). The national sufferings of the Jews, in dispersion and privation, are
evidently (both on. the face of the
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testimony,
and on a consideration of the moral bearing of the case) a full discharge of
the responsibility arising from national election.
A
responsibility lying in degree between that of the Jews and the outlying
Gentiles, attached itself to those nations that were in contact with the Jewish
people. This is evident on many pages of the prophets. Take, for instance, the
words addressed to the king of Tyre:- “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of
God; .. . thou wast upon the
holy
mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the ‘stones of
fire’ , . . Because thai Tyrus hath said
against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people; she
is turned unto me; I shall be replenished now she is laid waste. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, 0 Tyrus, and
will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves
to come Up” (Ezek. xxviii, 13-14: xxvi, 2-3).
Take,
also, similar words addressed to Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia : -To AMMON: “Because thou hast said, AHA, against my sanctuary when
it was profaned, and against the land of
Israel when it was desolate, and against the house of Judah when they went into
captivity, Behold therefore, I will
deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession,” etc. (Ezek. xxv,
3-4).
To
MOAB: “Because thai Moab and Seir do say,
Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen, therefore, . . . I will execute
judgments upon Moab” (Ezek. xxv, 8-11).
To
EDOM: “Because that Edom hath dealt
against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended
and revenged himself upon them, therefore, thus said the Lord God, I will
stretch out mine hand upon Edom,” etc. (Ezek. xxv, 12-13).
To
PHILISTIA: “Because the Phitistines have
dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to
destroy it for the old hatred, THEREFORE thus saith the Lord God, I will
stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines,” etc. (Ezek. xxv, 15-16).
In
these cases, it does not appear that God intends to mete out individual
judgment by resurrection from the dead. It requires a high state of privilege
before such can with justice be done. The majority of mankind, particularly in
the rude and barbarous times that required the schoolmaster lessons of the
Mosaic law, were in circumstances of pure misfortune. Born under condemnation
in Adam, and left to the poor resources of the natural mind, which in all its
history has never originated anything noble apart from the ideas set in motion
by “revelation,” they were as unable to elevate themselves above the level
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on
which they stood as any tribe of animals. How just and merciful it was then, of
the Deity to “wink at” “the times of this ignorance” (Acts xvii, 30), which
alienated from the life of God (Eph. iv, 18), and allow flesh, under such
circumstances, to pass away like the flower of the field, that the place
thereof might know it no more (Psa. ciii, 15,
16).
On
the supposition that every human being is an immortal soul, such a line of
action would, of course, be excluded, and the circumstances of the early
“dispensations” would be altogether inexplicable. An immortal soul, in the
times of antiquity, would be worth as much as one now; and if it be wise and
kind to save immortal souls now, there would seem a strange absence of wisdom
and beneficence in the arrangement, which in these early ages, put salvation
beyond their reach, and made their doom to hell-fire inevitable by the lack of
those means of knowledge which are in our day accessible.
If,
to get out of this difficulty, it be suggested that man, in such a plight, will
in mercy be permitted to enter heaven, we are instantly compelled to question
the value of our own privileges. nay, to doubt and deny the wisdom of the
gospel, which, on such a theory, is not only necessary to salvation but a
positive hindrance to it; since by its responsibilities, it imperils a
salvation which, in its absence, would be certain. We should also be compelled
to deny the testimony of Scripture, that man having no understanding is like
the beasts that perish, and that life and immortality have been brought to
light by Christ through the
Gospel.
But
we are not now dealing with the monster fiction of Christendom. We leave the
immortality of the soul out of the account, and deal with the question of
judgment in the light of the fact that mankind is perishing under the law of
sin and death, and, ~n Adam, has no more to do with a future state than the
decaying vegetation which, year by year, chokes the forests, and passes away
with the winter The endeavour is to realise, in the light of reason and
Scripture testimony, the varying shades of responsibility created by the
dealings of the Almighty with a race already exiled from life and favour under
the law of Eden.
We
have seen that resurrectional responsibility was limited to those who were
related to the word of the God., of Israel The Promises and precepts
conferred privilege and imposed responsibility having reference to
resurrection. They formed a basis for that awakening from the dust to
everlasting life, and shame and everlasting contempt, foretold to Daniel, and
implied in many
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parts
of the writings of Job, David, and Solomon. The extent to which they operate,
it is neither possible nor important for us to determine. ‘The law of
resurrectional responsibly operates much more vividly upon our own times, and
it is the relation of this law to ourselves that we are more especially
concerned to elucidate.
It
was left for him who proclaimed himself the “Resurrection and the Life” to
define clearly the relation of judgment to the great scheme of which he was the
pivot and the means. He appears before us as the solution of the great
difficulty which must have haunted the minds of the faithful men of ancient times,
in reference to the declaration that “God shall judge the righteous and the
wicked” (Eccles. ili, 17). He exhibits in himself the method by which the
arbitration of the unapproachable and immeasurable Deity is to be brought to
bear upon mortal and finite man. The “Word made flesh” proclaims himself the
instrument and vehicle of divine judgment. He tells us that “the Father hat/i committed ALL JUDGMENT
unto the Son” (John v, 22), and that
as no man can come to the Father but by him, so no one will be judged by the
Father but in the light of the word which operates through him (John xii, 48).
It
is highly important that this fact should be distinctly recognised, because it
is part of the truth concerning Jesus, which forms a prominent feature in the
proclamation of the gospel. This is evident from these testimonies: 1st, that
in which Paul comprehends the doctrine of eternal (aionian) judgment among first principles (Heb. vi, 1,v); 2nd, the
declaration of Peter: “He commanded us to
PREACH UNTO THE PEOPLE and to testify
that it is he which was ordained of God to be THE JUDGE OF QUICK AND DEAD ‘
(Acts x, 42); 3rd, the statement of Paul that there is a
day
when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my (Paul’s) gospel”
(Rom. ii, 16). These general evidences are strengthened by the following
testimonies, which we submit in detail on account of the importance of clear
and Scriptural views on the subject : -“He that rejecteth me and receiveth not
my words, hath one that
judgeth
him; the word that I have spoken, the
same shall judge him in
the last day” (John xii, 48).
“As
many as have sinned in the law shall be judged
by the law” (Rom. ii, 12).
“Every
man’s work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it
shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort
it is” (I Cor. iii, 13).
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“The Father who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man’s work” (I
Pet. i, 17).
“The
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render
to every man according to his deeds . . . in
the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom. ii,
5, 6, 16).
“We
shall all stand before the judgment seat
of Christ ... Every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom.
xiv, 10, 12).
“Judge
nothing before the time, until the Lord
come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will
make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (I Cor. iv, 5).
“ We must all appear before the judgment-seat
of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according
to that he hath done, whether good or bad” (II Cor. v, 10).
“The Lord Jesus Christ shall
judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom” (II Tim. iv, 1).
“It
is appointed unto men once to die, but after this (that is when the death-state
ends in resurrection) the judgment” (Heb.
ix, 27).
“Who
shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead “ (I
Pet. iv, 5).
“That
we may have boldness in the day of
judgment” (I John iv, 17).
“The
time of the dead that they should be
judged” (Rev. xi, 18).
The
proposition that judgment is one of the prerogatives and functions of the
Messiah, thus stands upon a very broad Scriptural foundation, not merely as a
fact, but as a constituent of the truth as it is in Jesus. The bearing of the
fact is apparent in connection with the mission of the Messiah, as related to
our particular dispensation. This is briefly defined by Paul to be to purify
unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus ii, 14), and by
James, “to take out of the Gentiles a people for His name.” The mode of
accomplishing this work is the Preaching of the Gospel. An invitation has gone
out to the ends of the earth, for people of any “kindred, nation, people, or
tongue” to become servants of the Messiah, and heirs of the kingdom which God
has promised to them that love Him.
Over
the whole period of the times of the Gentiles the number of these who respond
to His call is considerable; but all who are thus called are not chosen (Matt.
xxii, 14), because many who accept the word preached are not influenced by it
to “present their bodies living sacrifices, holy and acceptable.” As in the
case of the Israelites under Moses, “the word preached does not
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profit
them, not being mixed with faith” in
all who hear it (Heb. iv., 2). The soil being bad, the seed produces no result
of any consequence. The net of the kingdom (Matt. xiii, 47) submerged (by
preaching) in the ocean of “peoples and multitudes, and. nations, and tongues,”
encloses bad fish as well as good. The. propagation of the gospel results not
only in rejectors, but in:
servants,
and not only faithful servants, but unfaithful also.
Not
only so, but there are different degrees of merit among those who are faithful.
Some sow bountifully, others sparingly. Some bring forth fruit thirty fold, and
some a hundred fold. No man can assess the degrees. None of the servants can
say, “This shall be accepted much, and that little, and the other not at all.”
In this matter, they are commanded to “judge not” (Matt. vii, 1), and indeed
they cannot do it; though, if censoriously inclined, I they may attempt it, and
sin. There are secrets unknown (good and evil), which require to be known most
accurately, before a Just judgment can be given. “Man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (I Sam., xvi 7).
Here,
then, is a great community, living and dead, every member related to the rest
by the closest of ties, and yet each sustaining a problematical relation to the
finality upon which they have set their hearts-the attainment of immortality,
and the inheriting of God’s kingdom; each having a right to the promised
blessing, so far as the judgment of the rest is concerned, and yet each so
situated with reference to God, that unfaithfulness will bring his damnation,
though all his comrades approve.
When
and by what means is this endless variety of causes to be adjusted? When and
how is there to be a settlement of the account still open between the Deity and
His servants? which to a man is simply inextricable, and impossible if
extricated? Has God made any provision by which this superhuman task shall be
accomplished? _this balancing of good and evil in the infinite diversity of
millions of “quick and dead “?-this determination of the minute shades of merit
and demerit, attaching to the responsible dead and living of a hundred
generations?-this rewarding, in just ratio, of unknown and forgotten deeds of
constancy and mercy?-this exposure and retribution of evil thoughts, hidden
malice, hard speeches, and deeds of darkness? Has He arranged for such a
scrutiny of the affairs of His people as shall result in the separation of the
evil from the good, the reward of the righteous, and the punishment of the
wicked among them?
The
answer sometimes given to this question is true in the
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fact
upon which it is built, but wrong in the construction of the fact. It is said
that “the Lord knoweth them that are His,” and that, therefore, there is no
necessity for a judgment; that “He discerneth the thoughts and intents of the
heart,” and “needeth not that any should tell Him what is in man.” This is
true, and marks the difference between the “ judgment seat of Christ” and a
human judicature which makes inquisition for
the purpose of ascertaining the facts. But when this truth is made the
means of displacing the necessity for the revealed purpose of judging the quick
and the dead, it is applied with an illogical and pernicious result. It is
illogical, because it by no means follows that the Deity’s omniscient
perceptions are not to have official
expression, especially when, as in this case, those perceptions affect the
standing of those who are the subjects of them, and determine in the expression of them, their
destiny.
In
all transactions between man and the Deity, there is an invariable
accommodation on the part of the latter to the necessities and finite
apprehensions of the former. Why did Jehovah allow a faithless generation of Israelites
to escape from Egypt under Moses, and go through the miraculous experiences of
the desert, and finally pronounce condemnation on them, instead of acting on
His knowledge, and summarily destroying them in a night, like the Assyrians,
without warning or explanation? Because He was anxious to bring down to human
apprehension the methods of His moral procedure, which He could only do by
acting on human modes and processes. Why did He allow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
to lurk in the camp for a season, and trouble the congregation by attempting a
rebellion against Moses and Aaron, instead of acting upon His omniscience, and
weeding them out at the beginning of the journey, and so save the nation from
turbulence Because such a mode of procedure, instead of Illustrating and
justifying the ways of God to man, would have wrapped them in mystery, and
clothed them with the appearance of caprice and injustice.
Why
did He so long forbear with the Jews in their obstinacy, foreknowing their
ultimate rejection of all His messengers and His OWN Son? Why did Jesus, who
discerned “spirits,” tolerate Judas till he convicted himself by betraying his
master? Why did the Spirit suffer Ananias and Sapphira to come into the
Presence of the apostles, and go through the formality of hearing
their
Own condemnation, before their mendacity was punished death? In fact, why do
things happen at all as they do? Why
i
not the Deity frame the terrestrial economy of things on such
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a
basis that obedience and not disobedience should have been the law? The whole
history of divine procedure, in relation to human affairs, shows that divine
omniscience is never all9wed for a moment to forestall or displace the natural
order of events, but rather sets up and enforces the law by which everything
has its full and logical course, before the culminating consequence is reached.
To
say that because God knows the righteous from the wicked, He will not bring
them to the formality of a judgment, is to reason against every operation of
the Deity on record. It is true the Deity knows; but is it not necessary that
the righteous and the wicked themselves should know? How shall the righteous
know themselves approved, and the wicked condemned, and the Deity be justified
in the eyes of both, without the declaration of what He knows?
The
conclusion is also pernicious, because it evolves the rejection of one of the
doctrines which are defined as the first principles of the doctrines of the
Christ. We have quoted testimony sufficient to show that the doctrine of the
judgment of the living and dead by Christ is part and parcel of the
gospel-proclamation about Him. We further submit, on the strength
of
considerations already passed in review, that logically viewed, it is a natural
and necessary part of the glad tidings. It is one of the finest sources of
relief which the truth affords, the knowledge that the disputes,
misunderstandings, and wrongs of the present maladministration of things, are
destined, in the purpose of God, to come before an infallible tribunal, at
which every man shall have praise or condemnation, according to the nature of
the disclosure.
It
is gladdening to know that there lies between this corrupt state of things and
the perfection of the kingdom of God, an ordeal which will prevent the entrance
of” anything that defileth,” which, as fire, will try every man’s work, and
thin down, by a process of purification, the crowd of those who do no more than
say “Lord, Lord!” It is comforting to know that wrongful suffering will then be
avenged, that secret faithfulness will then be openly acknowledged, that
unappreciated worth will be recognised, and that evil doing, unpunished,
unsuspected, and unknown, will be held up for execration, in the face of so
august an assembly as that of the Elohim, presided over by the Lion of the
tribe of Judah. This is part of the glad tidings concerning Jesus Christ.
In
these remarks, we assume that the object and effect of the
pg121
judgment
is to mete out to every man who is summoned to it, according to his deeds, WHETHER GOOD OR BAD. This is apparent from
the testimony quoted to prove that judgment will be executed by the Son of Man
at his coming. We append further and more specific evidence on this point :
-“Many will say to me in that day, Lord,
Lord ... And then will I
profess
unto them, I never knew you: DEPART FROM ME, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. vii,
22-23).
“Every
idle (evil) word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. xii, 36).
“The
Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to
his works” (Matt. xvi, 27).
“Every
one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. xiv,12).
“Whose
fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His
wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”
(Matt. iii, 12).
“Behold,
I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to
give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. xxii, 12).
“The
work of a man shall He render unto him, and cause every man to find according
to his ways” (Job xxxiv, 11).
“Doth
not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth
not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?”
(Prov. xxiv, l2-See also Psa. lxii, 12).
“I
the Lord search the heart; I try the reins, even to give every man according to
his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. xvii, 10).
Another
important evidence of the conclusion to which these testimonies lead us, is to
be found in the parables of Christ, in many of which he illustrates the
relation between himself and his servants in connection with his departure from
the earth. In all of these, he presents the fact that at his return he will
“take account” of them, and deal with them according to their individual
deserts Thus, in the parable of the nobleman (Luke xix, 15), It came to pass
that when he was returned, having
received the kingdom, he commanded these
servants to be called unto him to whom he had given the money, THAT HE
MIGHT KNOW HOW MUCH EVERY MAN HAD GAINED BY TRADING.” Those servants are given
as three in number, and, doubtless, represent the several classes of which the
bulk of Christ’s professing servants are
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122
composed.
The first gives a satisfactory account of himself, having increased five
talents to ten, and receives jurisdiction over ten cities. The second has made
two talents into four, and entitles himself to meritorious recognition, and the
allotment of four cities. The third, who, though less privileged, might have
stood equally well, had he turned his single talent into two, justifies his
indolence on the plea that he dreaded a service where more was expected than
was given in the first instance. This man, who stands for the unfaithful, is
rejected. The decree is, “Take the talent from him, and give it unto him that
hath ten talents.
Cast
ye the UNPROFITABLE SERVANT into outer darkness” (Matt. xxv, 28-30). Here the
unprofitable servant figures in the judgment of the king’s household, at his
return, as well as the approved.
In
Matt. xxii, 1-14, we have another parable in which the same feature is
introduced. A certain king issues invitations to his son’s marriage, but the
parties invited make various excuses for not coming. The king then orders a
general invitation to all and sundry whom his servants may find on the
highways, and his servants execute the orders, and “gather as many as they
found, bad and good.” The king then
comes in to see the guests, and “saw
there a man which had not on a wedding garment,” whom he ordered to be “bound hand and foot, and taken away.” This
shows that the judgment to be carried out by Jesus at the time of reckoning has
the practical effect of “severing the
wicked from amongst the just.” To the same purport is the parable of which
the latter italicised words are an explanation. “The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when
it was full, they drew to the shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into
vessels, but cast the bad away” (Matt.
xiii, 47, 48). Also the following: “The Son of Man is as a man taking a far
journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every
man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore . . . lest
coming suddenly, he find you sleeping” (Mark
xiii. 34, 36).
Further,
“Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves
like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return . . . Blessed are
those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching . . . But, and
if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin
to beat the men-servants and maidens, and to eat and to drink and to be
drunken, the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for
him, and in an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion
Pg
123
with the an believers” (Luke xii, 35-37, 45, 46). The parable of the ten
virgins enforces the same fact, viz., the unworthy portion of his servants will
be publicly and officially rejected at the time the others are acknowledged.
This
is in harmony with the reason of the thing, as well as with the numerous
testimonies already cited from the apostolic writings. Many are called, but
only few out of the many are “chosen.” When should the choice take place, but
at the time represented in these parables, viz., “When the lord of those
servants cometh” to develop the state of things with reference to which the choice
is to be made? (Matt. xxv, 19). The present is not a time for dividing the
wicked from the righteous. Both go to the grave, and “rest together in the
dust,” and their merits and demerits would sleep for ever with them in the
silence of the tomb, were it not for the awaking voice that calls the just and
unjust, at the appointed time, from the oblivion of hades, to give an account before the “judgment-seat of Christ.” Now
is not the time for Jesus to execute judgment. He is a priest over his own
house. The great question of account is left over till he returns. “He shall judge the quick and the dead AT
HIS APPEARING AND HIS KINGDOM.” He shall open the dread book of God’s
remembrance, wherein are indelibly recorded the thoughts and transactions of
those who shall come to judgment, and the dead shall be judged out of those
things that are written in the hook.
Shall
the wicked be absent at such a moment? The suggestion is precluded by the
testimony and by the sense of the thing. A mockery of a judgment-seat it would
be if its operations were confined to the allotment of rewards to the accepted.
To judge, in the executive sense, is to enforce the division of good from evil.
This is the function of Jesus in relation to His servants at His Coming. True,
says the suggester, but it will only be the living wicked that he will reject;
the dead wicked will sleep on to another period Is it so, then, that the
accident of death a day before the advent will shut off a wicked man from the
jurisdiction of the Judge of the quick and
dead? Is it so that Jesus will only judge the living and not the dead at his appearing? Is it so that he is not “lord
both of the dead and living?” (Rom.
xiv, 9). The answer is self-evident; life or death makes no difference in our
relationship to the judgment-seat. The Son of Man has power to call from the
dead at his will, and, therefore, virtually, the dead are as much amenable to
his judicature as those who may happen to be in the flesh when he is revealed.
Pg
124
The
constituted servants of Christ-by belief of the gospel:
and
baptism-are candidates for the kingdom to be manifested at the appearing of
Christ, which is to exist thereafter a thousand years; and it is meet that they
should be arraigned in his presence to have it decided, as between them and
him, when the time comes to enter the kingdom, which of all the number are
worthy of the honour sought. This, it is declared, in the testimonies quoted,
he will do. To do otherwise-to leave over the underserving of them for
adjudication at a subsequent period, would both violate the fitness of things,
and contravene the express declarations which we have quoted on the subject.
Jesus has declared that he will confess or deny men in the presence of the
angels at his coming, according to the position taken by them in his absence
(Luke ix, 26; Matt. x, 32, 33). Does not this necessitate their presence on the
occasion? Where would be the shame of a denial if the one denied were not there
to witness his own disgrace? Some will be “ashamed before him at his coming” (I John ii, 28). Daniel
says that at that time “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some
to shame and everlasting contempt.” This agrees with Paul’s statement that
“indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish,” shall be the lot of every
soul of man that is contentious and disobedient to the truth, “in the day when God shall Judge the secrets of
men by Christ Jesus” (Rom. ii, 8, 9, 16); and with his exhortation in
another place, to “judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to light the hidden things of
darkness” (I Cor. iv, 5).
With
the general conclusion before us, that the judgment-seat is the appointed
tribunal for determining the great question Of
individual
desert, in relation to the dispensation of God’s favour in Christ, we come to
the minor but involved question of the nature and position of the dead, during
the interval elapsing between their emergence from the death-state and their
adjudication by the judge. The object of that adjudication is defined by Paul
in the following words: “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ,
that every one may receive in body according to that we have done, WHETHER
GOOD OR BAD” (II Cor. v, l0) What shall those “receive in body,” who have in
the sense of those words, “done good”? and what, those who have “done bad’ ?
Paul, in another place, answers these questions. He says God “will render to
every man according to his deeds: to them
who by patient continuance in well doing (he will render) ETERNAL
pg
125
LIFE.
But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, indignation and
wrath, tribulation and anguish . . . in
the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom. ii,
6-9, 16). The same fact he announces in more specific terms to the Galatians
(vi, 7, 8), “Be not deceived; for God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap. He
that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap LIFE EVERLASTING.”
Paul
does not mention the judgment in this testimony; but it is evident that it
relates to the judgment, since life everlasting is not “reaped “ in the present
state of existence, and “corruption” befalls all alike, without reference to
the “sowing.” It is evident that the results of the present life are to be
dispensed at the judgment-seat. Paul, indeed, expressly declares it in the
words already quoted, “that we may receive,” etc. This is reasonable, and
befitting of the Deity, who is “a God of order” to the utmost exactitude in all
things.
If
this be so, does it not follow that prior to the judgment-seat, both classes of
those subject to judgment .occupy the neutral position they hold in the present
life, commingling indiscriminately, awaiting the tribunal, none knowing who is
who? Is it not evident that the judgment-seat forms the great natural boundary
line between probation and exaltation: the great crisis for determining the
standing of the many who have been “called “:the time for that disclosure of
divine secrets, which results in the severing of the wicked from among the
just, and the rejection and the, condemnation of the one, and the acceptance
and glorification of the other? If so, it follows that up to the appearance of
the dead before Christ to give an account, these questions are undecided so far
as their effect in relation to them is concerned, They are, of course, known to
the divine mind, as we have already had occasion to consider, but not declared
or enforced, Christ, as the judge of the quick and dead, is entrusted with that
very office.
What
is the conclusion from these Scriptural premises? There is only one: that the
dead assembled for judgment are men and
women in the flesh recovered from the grave, reproduced, and made to STAND
AGAIN” (anastasis) in the presence of
their Lord and Judge, to have it determined whether they are worthy of
receiving ,the “hidden manna” of eternal life, for which they are all
candidates, or deserving of reconsignment to corruption and death, under the
special solemn circumstance of rejection by
Pg
126
him
who is “altogether lovely.” Thus, those who are alive when the Lord comes, and
those who emerge from the grave at that period, will be on a footing of perfect
equality. They will all be gathered together into the one Great Presence, for
the one great dread purpose of inquisition. Not until they hear the spoken
words of the King will they know how it is to fare with them., All depends upon
the “account.” This can only be accurately estimated by the Judge. A righteous
man will tremble and underrate his position; on the other hand, “the wicked”
may venture with coolness and effrontery before that august tribunal, to
recount with complacence and confidence the list of their claims to the
Messiah’s consideration : -“ Have we not prophesied [preached] in thy name, and
in thy name done many wonderful works?”
It
is evident from three things-from the reason of the thing from Christ’s
parables, and Paul’s and Peter’s statements-that the judgment will be no dumb
show, no wholesale indiscriminate division of classes, but will be an
individual reckoning “Everyone of us shall give account of himself to God”
(Rom. xiv, 12). It might naturally be fancied that persons before the
judgment-seat would simply be paralysed and rendered powerless to utter their
minds: but it must be remembered that the power is then and there present that
touched Daniel, and made him stand on his feet, when he was felled to the earth
by the terrors of angelic presence; and, doubtless, this power will be put
forth to enable all calmly, clearly, and with deliberation to manifest
themselves as they are. Enswathed by the human spirit “mesmerically” applied,
this result can now be partially achieved; how much more when the power of the
Highest sustains, Will those who are acted upon by it, feel isolated from all
perturbing influences, and be enabled to concentrate their minds upon the
solemn task they have to perform.
The
idea that the righteous dead will spring into being in a state of incorruption,
and that the living faithful will be instantaneously transformed, in their
scattered places throughout the earth, and changed into the spiritual nature
before appearing in the presence of Christ (though apparently countenanced by
testimonies which are superficially construed by those who read them) is an
error of a serious complexion, since it practically sets aside the New
Testament doctrine of the judgment (itself a first principle), and tends to
destroy the sense of responsibility an circumspection induced by a recognition
of the fact that we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, that we
may receive
Pg 127
In
body according to that we have done, whether good or bad. To profess a belief
in the judgment while holding this view, is only to retain a form of words out
of deference to New Testament phraseology while having lost that which is
represented by the words. If the dead are to awake to incorruptibility or
death, according to their deserts, Jesus is robbed of his honour as judge, and
the judgment-seat is robbed of its utility and its terror. If the living are to
be subject to immortalisation, say in their own houses, before Christ
pronounces them blessed, is the judgment-seat not a mere empty form? If (worse
than all) the wicked are not to be there to hear and receive their doom, it is
no judgment at all, but a mere muster of the chosen; no terror at all, but a
ceremony divested of every element of anxiety, since to have a part in it,
according to this theory, is to be safe beyond miscarriage; no rendering to every man according to his deeds,
whether good or bad; but a mere
bestowal of gifts and honours upon the King’s assorted friends. Yet this is the
mistaken view which many are led to entertain by a superficial reading of
certain parts of the apostolic testimony. We shall consider those passages in
detail.
I
Thess. iv, 16. The Dead in Christ SHALL
RISE FIRST.-On this it is contended that the accepted will come forth from the
grave first; but a reference to the context will show that the comparison
implied in these words, is between the
dead righteous and the living
righteous, and not between the righteous dead and the wicked dead. The
Thessalonians were apparently mourning the death of some of their number in a
way that indicated a fear on their part that the deceased had lost something by
dying. Paul assures them that this was a mistake. “We which are alive and
remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (or go before) them which
are asleep. 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 (or second) we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up,” etc. Paul simply means to teach
that the dead are restored to life and perfected before the living enter upon
the inheritance, and that, therefore, the dead lose nothing by dying.
“Wherefore,” says he, “comfort one another with these words.”
“Blessed and holy is he that
bath part in the first resurrection; of such the second death hath no power” (Rev. xx, 6). It is
pg
128
argued
upon this that none of the wicked can be raised at C time. The question turns
upon the words “have part in the resurrection,” What is it “to have part in the first resurrection” The word
translated “part” is meros, and this
is defined Parkhurst to mean “a piece, part, portion, fellowship, lot,” hence,
to have part in the first resurrection, is to have “a piece part, portion,
fellowship, or lot,” at the coming of Christ. ~J merely come forth is not to
have a portion in the resurrection C takes place. There will be many at the
judgment-seat who be dismissed without a “piece, part, portion, lot, or f The
King will refuse to own them. On such the second death hath power, but on those
who attain to the condition of thins that John witnessed and described as “the
first resurrection,’ viz., a living and reigning with Christ a thousand years”
the second death hath no power.” As Jesus says, “Neither can die any more, for they are equal unto the angels.”
“They who shall be accounted
worthy to obtain that v and the RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, neither marry nor a..., given in marriage,” etc. (Luke xx, 35). On the strength of this it is
contended that the unworthy will not come out of the grave at the time the
worthy come forth to “obtain that world.” The argument is based on a
misconstruction of the verse. “The resurrection from the dead” is something
more than the act of rising from the grave. “Resurrection” involves the act of
rising from the dust, but comprehends more than this in many parts of the New
Testament. For instance, the Sadducees asked Jesus, “IN THE RESURRECTION whose
wife shall she be?” (Matt. xxii, 28)-’ that is, in the state to which the dead will rise. How would the question read
if construed “whose wife shall she be in the act of rising from the grave”?
Again, “IN THE RESURRECTION they neither
marry nor are given in marriage” (Malt xxii, 30)-’ is, in the state to which the dead rise. Again,
“they that have d good (shall come forth) unto
the resurrection of life, and they t have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation “; that
ii one class come out of the grave to one resurrection-state,
and t other to another resurrection-state.
It is testified that r preached Jesus and the resurrection (Acts xvii, 18).
This c~ not mean that Paul simply preached the act of rising from ti grave. The
mere act of rising from the grave is not necessarily -. good thing. Lazarus and
the son of the widow of Nain rose from the grave, but not to the resurrection
(state) preached by Paul They merely received a renewal of mortal life. The
wicked C certain class will rise from the grave, but the act of rising will not
pg
129
be
to them a gladsome event, but the contrary: they would prefer to be left in the
oblivion of the tomb. Everything depends upon THE STATE. to which the rising
from the grave is the introduction. Paul preached the resurrection-state of incorruption and immortality. To this
state, the dead have to rise. The mere act of rising is not the resurrection.
It is involved in it; it is a part, but as employed in the Scriptures, it
requires the state after coming out of the grave to be added, before the idea
expressed by the word resurrection is complete.
Another
illustration of this is to be found in a passage on which the opponents of this
idea rely: “/ saw thrones, and they sat
upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which
had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark
upon their foreheads or in their hands, and
they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the
dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. THIS (what? The
state of things that John witnessed-the reigning of the accepted for a thousand
years)-THIS IS THE FIRST RESURRECTION” (Rev. xx, 4, 5). There is no mention of the act of coming out of the grave. John
merely sees certain persons who had been dead, occupying a certain position
with Christ; and, describing the scene as a whole, he calls it THE FIRST
RESURRECTION. Evidently the word resurrection cannot here be restricted to the
act of rising from the grave. Many will have a part in this “first
resurrection” who will never go into the grave at all, viz., “those who are
alive and remain.” “Resurrection” here broadly covers a state and a time to
which the persons seen are introduced by rising from the death-state, whether
in that state they are below the sod, or walking above it in mortality. But
both living and dead will have to appear before the judgment-seat, before they
take the position in which John saw them, and when they appear at the
judgment-seat they will have companions whom they will never see again, for to
some, Christ will “say unto them in that day. . . I never knew you: depart from
me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. vii, 22. 23). Such will be “ASHAMED before
him at his coming” (I John ii. 28;
Dan, xii, 2).
A
principle obstacle is found in the words, “The rest of the dead lived not again
until the thousand years were finished.” This is made an obstacle by assuming
that it applies to the unfaithful servants of Christ. This assumption is
evidently a mistake, because the vision of John comprehended only the
resurrection of
pg 130
the
just, who “lived and reigned with Christ.
//////BEGIN HERE
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN EDITIED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL 1899 EDITION///ALL
HIGHLIGHTED IN YELLOW
NOTE
Complete
copy of pages 108-111 original 1899 Edition are at the end of the book, and
included is a word for word compareson.
A
principal obstacle is found in the words “The rest of the dead lived not again
till the thousand years were finished.” This is made art obstacle by assuming that
it applies to the unfaithful servants of Christ.
This
assumption is evidently a mistake, because at the time when that is developed
which John styles the “first resurrection,” viz., a living and reigning with
Christ, the judgment which disposes of the unfaithful and rewards the worthy is
past. The “rest of the dead” cannot apply to the unfaithful persons amenable to
the judgment seat of Christ, inasmuch as if raised at that time, their
resurrection and condemnation are accomplished facts at the time when these
words are used. If they apply to a
specific class, it is a class not amenable to the judgment which Christ brings
to bear on his household, and a class undealt with till the close of the
thousand years. Possibly, it may refer to men like Nero, and others great in
wickedness, who are unpunished in the present life, and who, though outside of
specific law to God, have acquired a degree of moral responsibility by external
contact with divine things. Rejectors of the Word, who do not come under the law
to Christ by belief and obedience may be reserved till the close of the
thousand years. It does not seem reasonable that those who put away the counsel
of God from themselves should be passed over without judgment, and yet, since
they do not become constituents of the household of faith, their resurrection,
at the time when account is taken of that household, would seem
inappropriate. May they not be dealt
with at the end? ON the other hand, the
language under consideration may have a
more general meaning than this, viz, that is to be no further resurrection of
dead people till the end of the thousand years
pg
109
that
though power to raise the dead is upon the earth for a thousand years, it is
not to be exercised till the close of that period. In that case it may only be
intended to teach that the dead, or mortal population of the earth, left over
after the advent, and, therefore, a remainder, or “the rest” divided from this
dispensation by the advent, and related entirely to the dispensation of the kingdom,
will not be dealt with till the close of the kingdom, when those who live and
die under the reign of Christ will rise again
”
All that the passage really proves is, that there is to be no more resurrection
Of dead people after Christ has come till the end of the thousand years.
/////
We
cannot be certain whether its bearing is retrospective or prospective, whether
it relates to people actually in death when the saints begin to reign, or to
the dead comprehensively, of whom a remainder will exist during all the
thousand years. This much is
certain
(This
much is certain)
It is certain that it is not intended to
teach, and, as we have seen, does not teach, that there will be no resurrection
of unjust at the coming of Christ. No one part of the Scriptures can violate
the unequivocal testimony of other parts. To admit of the common interpretation
of Rev. xx, 6, would be to abandon the New Testament doctrine of judgment with
which the Scriptures (the New Testament more particularly) teem in an emphatic form..
But
the greatest stumbling-block with those who deny the judgment of the saints consists of Paul’s statements on the
subject of resurrection in I Cor. xv: So
also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, 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. . . . The dead shall
he raised incorruptible” (verses 42-44, 52). Restricting these words to the
mere act of emergence from the ground, they naturally seem an express
affirmation, that the body is incorruptible, spiritual, and immortal from the
first moment of its restoration; and that, therefore, judgment is anticipated
and superseded by this silent proclamation of acceptance, and that nothing lies
between those thus rising incorruptible and perfected salvation, but a joyous
reunion with the Lord.
The
mistake consists in construing Paul’s words too narrowly, and reading them as
if he were dealing with the dramatic incidents of the resurrection, instead of
the state of existence to which the act of resurrection leads. Paul is not
discussing the scientific aspect of the subject. He is not defining the process
by which a dead man ascends from the depths of corruption to the nature of the
angels; the literal details are foreign to the subject before his mind. He is
dealing with the broad question propounded by the objector; first, how-as a
question of possibility-are the dead raised? and second, for or to (“ with” not being in the original) what
body do they come?
/////
The
first point he disposes of by an appeal to a phenomenon, which exemplifies the
power of resurrection organically exerted; and the
Pg
110 CHRISTENDOM
ASTRAY {
LECT. V.
second
he meets by challenging attention to the fact that there is a great diversity
of power and glory in the universe of God, and that dead people, in a future
state, need not necessarily, therefore,
be the corruptible flesh and blood they are in mundane life. This being so,
raise”
must be taken in its widest sense, including, of necessity, the act by which
the dead first resume bodily form and consciousness, but, at the same time,
covering the whole process, whatever it
may be, which leads to incorruption. It could not he that Paul intended to
exclude any part of the process. It is doubtful if the question of process was
at all present to his mind. This is suggested by the entire absence of allusion
either to the judgment or the unfaithful. It was the broad question he looked
at, viz., the position of those
destined to be accepted, in relation to the two facts, that they are to see
corruption, and that God intends to promote them, in a renewed existence, to an
incorruptible and immortal state. Paul affirms that as there is a difference of
nature in different orders of being, and a difference between heavenly and
earthly glory, so there is a difference between the present and the future
constitution of the saints, because the present is the earthly and the future
the heavenly; the present the animal and the future the spiritual. The
characteristics of the present state-of’ which death is but the conclusion-are
corruption, dishonour, weakness, and naturally: from this the body will emerge
at the resurrection, in incorruption, glory, power, and spirituality. This is
true, without at all involving the conclusion that at the precise moment
existence is resurrectionally renewed, the saints will be in possession of
these qualities. The resurrection, as a complete transaction, inclusive of the
judgment seat of Christ, will, in the case of the righteous, ultimate in
incorruption, glory, power, and immortality. In a sense, they will attain to
these on emerging from the ground, since they will never return to corruption;
but actually, they will he in the neutral state, to be determined for good or
evil by judgment. Paul, however, does not take this into account. He is not
treating of details. He overleaps every item in the programme, and looks
broadly at the fact that the destiny of the righteous, by resurrection, is the
swallowing up of death in the victory of immortality.
The
word “raised” is used elliptically, or as an act covering details not
expressed, in Matt. iii. 9; Luke i. 69; and Acts xiii. 22. 23. That Paul is
dealing with his subject elliptically is evident from other parts of the
chapter. He introduces .Adam and Christ in proof of his proposition that “there
is a natural body and a spiritual body.’
resume
pg 130
He
introduces Adam and Christ in proof of his proposition that “there is a natural
body and a spiritual body.” He quotes the record of Moses with reference to
Adam in proof of the existence of a natural body. “The first man, Adam, was
made a living soul” (or natural body). His proof of the second lies in this:
“the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit.” Now supposing a person, ignorant of the history of Christ, were to
receive his impressions of Christ’s history from this statement-supposing he
had no other source of information-would he not come to the
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conclusion
that “the last Adam” was a spiritual body from the first moment of his
existence? Would he ever conclude from it that “the last Adam” was first a
helpless babe at Bethlehem, clad in the flesh-and-blood-nature of his mother;
then a boy, submissive to his parents; then a carpenter, helping in the
workshop to earn a livelihood for the family; then anointed with the Holy
Spirit and power, going about doing good, and performing works “which none
other man did,” and that, finally, he was abandoned of the power of God, and crucified through weakness, even the
weakness of frail human nature? Would the uninformed and the superficial reader
of Paul’s allusion to the last Adam learn from it that not only the first Adam,
but the last Adam also, was a natural body for thirty-three-and-a-half years,
and that he only became a life-giving spirit, by the power of God, in his
resurrection?
By
no means. All these facts, so familiar to us, are elliptically compressed into
the words “was made.” A process with so many striking features is expressed in
a way which, if there were no other information, would conceal it. If this is
the case with reference to Christ-if we are at liberty to believe against the
appearance of things in I Cor. xv that Christ was first a living soul and then
a quickening spirit, why need there be a greater difficulty in reference to his
people, whose re-awakening in the flesh and appearance at the judgment-seat is
kept out of sight, in a phrase which its use in other cases admits to the
possibility of covering the whole ground?
Coincidentally
and elliptically speaking, “the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we-the
living-shall be changed.” Both
events
will occur at the advent. This is true, speaking broadly of the subject, without
reference to details; but it is not, therefore, untrue that both classes will
“appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive in body according to
what they have done, whether good or bad” (II Cor. v, 10). A general statement
of truth cannot exclude the involved particulars, though it may appear to do
so.
The
course of true wisdom is, not to set one part of the Word against another part,
but to harmonize apparent conflict, by giving effect to all details, and
finding a place for these in all general forms of the same truth. This course
is not taken by those who, on the strength of the chapter discussed, would deny
that the dead come forth to judgment with reference to their candidature for
immortality. On the contrary, they put Paul herein conflict with Paul
elsewhere. They erect his general and elliptical declarations on the subject of
the resurrection, as
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132
barriers
to his own particular statements in other places, and those of Christ and his
apostles generally.
In
opposition to this course, we have endeavoured to find, in I Cor. xv, a place
for all these features; a place unseen by the unacquainted reader, but
detectable by those having Paul’s general teaching in view. Paul is in harmony
with himself. The resurrection includes all that is divinely associated with
it. The upshot is incorruption, glory, power, and spirituality of nature, but
these are only reached through the tribunal which will “make manifest the
counsels of the heart.” Prior to this, the future is a sealed book, except in
so far as it is reflected in a man’s conscience. The judgment will settle all,
separating the chaff from the wheat, and determining who are the saints, in
deed and in truth, and who the unprofitable servants, who have had but a name
to live, and are dead.
We
commend to the serious consideration of every one interested, the sobering fact
that there is a day appointed when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ
Jesus, justifying the righteous and condemning the wicked. It is a fact that
will encourage, strengthen, and sustain every person who, having been
enlightened and joined to the brotherhood of Christ, is working with a single
eye, as seeing him who is invisible; and it is a fact that, vividly realised,
will correct and purify those who, in a similar position, may be suffering
themselves to be diverted from the path of truth and duty by considerations of
a temporal nature. The record exhibited at the judgment-seat is written now in
the lives of those who will appear there. The one will be an exact reflex of
the other. A faithful stewardship sustained now will be honoured then with
praise, recognition, and promotion:
while
an opposite course will bring exposure, shame, condemnation, and death. “The
wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the promotion of fools.”
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LECTURE 6
GOD, ANGELS, JESUS CHRIST, AND THE
CRUCIFICION
WITH
REVERENCE, we approach the subjects proposed for consideration in the present
lecture.
That
Christendom is astray in its conceptions of God will, unhappily, be but too
evident. That we must possess Scriptural knowledge of the subject will also be
evident. The “knowledge of God” is an essential feature of Christian
attainment, according to the apostolic standard. Those “who know not God” are among those whom
vengeance is to overtake (II Thess. l~ 8). Knowledge of God is the basis of
sonship to God. Without it, we cannot enter the divine family. How can we love
and serve a being whom we do not know? Knowledge
is the foundation of all. It is the rock upon which everlasting life itself is
built. “This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, THE ONLY TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent”
(John xvii, 3).
Where
shall we find this knowledge? We cannot find it where we please. It is to be
found only where God has placed it. It is to be found in the Scriptures. We
cannot get it anywhere else. Nature tells us something. The consummate wisdom
of all her arrangements-the ineffable skill displayed in the construction of
even the smallest animalcule, show us the presence, in the universe, of a
supreme designing and perfect intelligence, but nature can do no more. It can
tell us God is, because He must be, but it can tell us nothing of His being,
His character, His purpose, His will with regard to man, or His object in forming
the universe. Speculations on these points only lead to the monstrosities of
ancient and modern heathenism.
That
a revelation of Himself has come from the Creator of all things will excite the
highest admiration and gratitude in every mind that is enabled to realise what
this stupendous privilege means. Peace now and life everlasting for the endless
ages coming
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is
easily spoken of: but who can measure the wealth of wellbeing involved in the
words? This wealth comes with the~ knowledge God has given us: and the
knowiedge he has given us comes to us through the Bible, and through no other
medium-ship in our day.
But
we are in a peculiar position with regard to this knowledge. It no longer
shines before us in its pristine simplicity and glory. Along with almost every
other item of divine truth, it has been covered up in the most dangerous way by
the organised Apostasy from original truth, which obtained ascendancy in
Christendom very early in the Christian era. The Apostasy does not professedly
deny the God revealed in the Bible. On the contrary, it makes an ostentatious
profession of belief in Him. It holds up the Bible in its hand and declares it
to be the source of its faith-that the God of Israel is its God. In this way,
the impression is made universally that the God of popular religion is the God
of the Bible, so that in reading the Bible, people do not read critically on
the subject, but necessarily and as a matter of course, recognise the popular
God in the phrases by which the Bible designates the God of Israel. If the case
were otherwise- if popular theology in words denied the God of the Jews, and
asserted its own conceptions in opposition to Hebrew revelation, there would be
a greater likelihood that people would come to a knowledge of what God has
truly revealed concerning Himself, because they would be prepared to sit down
clear-headedly, discriminatingly, and independently to ascertain what the Deity
of Hebrew revelation is. As it is, people are misled, and find the greatest
difficulty in rousing themselves to an apprehension of the difference between
the orthodox God and the Bible Deity, and the importance of discerning it.
Popular
theology says that God is three eternal elements, all equally increate and
self-sustaining, and all equally powerful, each equally personal and distinct
from the other, and yet all forming a complete single personal unity. There is,
say they,
God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,” each very God,” each without
a beginning, each omnipotent and separate from the other, and yet all ONE.
If
we ask why one of these elements should be called the Father, not having
preceded or given existence to the others; and why another should be called the
Son, not having been brought into existence by the Father, but co-eternal with
Him; and why the third should be called the Holy Ghost (or Spirit), since both
“God the Father,” and “God the Son” are holy and
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spiritual,
we are not met with an explanation. Popular theology contents itself with
saying that the truth is so-that there are three in one and one in three: that
as to how such a thing can be. it cannot say, as it is a great mystery.
Mystery
indeed! There are mysteries enough in creation- things, that is, that are
inscrutable to the human intellect, such as the ultimate nature of light and
life; but Trinitarianism propounds-not a mystery, but a contradiction-a
stultification- an impossibility. It professes to convey an idea, and no sooner
expresses it than it withdraws it, and contradicts it. It says there is one
God, yet not one but three, and that the three are not three but one. It is a
mere juggle of words, a bewilderment and confusion to the mind, all the more
dangerous, because the theory for which it is an apology, employs in some
measure the language of the Bible, which talks to us of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
We
will look at the Bible representation of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” We
shall find that representation in accord with a rational conception of things,
enlightening the understanding as well as satisfying the heart-agreeing with
experience, as well as revealing something beyond actual observation. We shall
find it to supply that consistent and intelligible information of the First
Cause of all things which the intellect of the noblest creature He has formed
in this sublunary creation craves, and information of a character such as would
be expected to come from such a source.
To
begin with “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. iii, 14), as God is
apostolically described, who was made known to Israel by the angels, revealed
through the prophets, and manifested in Jesus. The first thing revealed about
Him is His absolute unity. He is declared to be ONE. This is one of the most
conspicuous features of what is revealed on the subject. We submit a few
illustrations of the testimony : - Moses to Israel (Deut. vi, 4):- “Hear, 0
Israel, the Lord our God is ONE Lord.”
Jesus
to one of the Scribes (Mark xii, 29):- “Jesus answered him, The first of all
the commandments, is, Hear, 0
Israel,
the Lord our God is ONE Lord.”
Paul
to the Corinthian believers (I Cor. viii, 6):- “To us there is but ONE GOD, the Father, of whom are all things,
and we in Him.”
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“There
is ONE GOD and Father of ALL, who is
ABOVE ALL, and through all, and in you all.”
Paul
to Timothy (I Tim. ii, 5):- “There is ONE GOD, and one mediator between God and
men, the
man
Christ Jesus.”
With
these statements agree the Almighty’s declarations of Himself, of which the
following are examples : -“I am God, and THERE iS NONE ELSE ... and there is
none like me,
declaring
the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet
done” (Isa. xlvi, 9, 10).
“I
am the Lord, and there is none else: THERE
IS NO GOD BESIDE ME” (Isa. xlv, 5).
“Thus
saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts: 1 am the first and I am the last, AND
BESIDE ME THERE IS NO GOD . . . Is there a God beside Me? Yea, there is no God;
I know not any “ (Isa. xliv, 6, 8).
The
only statement in the New Testament that amounts to a plain inculcation of the
Trinitarian view, is unanimously renounced by Bible critics as a spurious
interpolation upon the original text. On this ground is has been omitted
altogether from the Revised Version of the New Testament. It is in the 7th
verse of the 5th chapter of I John: “For there are three that bear record in
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and
these three are one: and there are three that bear witness in earth, the
spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.” The
interpolation is enclosed in brackets. The verse reads intelligibly without the
interpolation, and affirms a fact patent to the early believers. The
interpolation bears its condemnation on its face; for it would confine the
presence of
Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit “-that is, God in every form according to
Trinitarianism-to heaven, and thus upset the Scriptural and obvious fact that
the Spirit is everywhere, and that God’s presence, by it, fills the universe.
This
text is not contained in any Greek MS. which was written earlier than the fifth
century. It is not cited by any of the
Greek
ecclesiastical writers, not by any of the earlier Latin fathers, even when the
subjects upon which they treat would naturally have led them to appeal to its
authority. It is, therefore, evidently spurious, and was first cited, though
not as it now reads, by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of no credit, in
the
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latter
end of the fifth century; but by whom forged is of no great moment, as its
design must be obvious to all.” Such is a statement of the grounds upon which
the passage has been omitted from the Revised Version.
The
revelation of the Deity’s unity, set forth in the testimonies quoted, agrees
with the one great induction of modern science. Nature is seen to be under one law and one control throughout its
immeasurable fields. There is no jar, no conflict; the power that constitutes,
sustains, and regulates all is seen to be ONE. Cold freezes and heat dissolves
in all countries alike. The light that discloses the face of the earth,
irradiates the moon and illuminates the distant planets. The power that draws
the moon in circular journey round the earth, impels the earth around the sun,
and drags even that stupendous and glorious body, with all its attendant
planets, in a vast cycle, with the rest of starry creation, around AN UNKNOWN
CENTRE; that is, a centre distinctly indicated in the motion of the stellar
universe, but whose locality cannot even approximately be determined on account
of the vastness of the motion, and the impossibility of obtaining data for
calculation in the compass of a human lifetime.
The
suggestion that this Unknown Centre is the source of all power is in
significant harmony with what the Scriptures reveal concerning God. There is a
source-there must be a source-and this source must be a centre, because all
power is manifested at centres. The earth draws every object on it to its
centre, and pulls the moon round it as well. The earth in its turn is attracted
towards the sun and drawn around it; and the sun itself with the whole
framework of creation is drawn round A CENTRE. These are facts in the economy
of things, and they are therefore divine facts, because the economy of things
is the handiwork of God.
The
testimonies quoted say that all things are OUT OF the Father. But where is THE
FATHER? Does His name not imply that He is THE SOURCE? And, being the Source,
is He not the Centre of creation? Some shrink from the suggestion that Deity
has a located existence. Why should they? The Scriptures expressly teach the
located existence of Deity. We submit the evidence: Paul says in I Tim. vi, 16.
God dwells “IN THE LIGHT which no man can approach unto.” Here is
a localisation of the person of the Creator. If God were on earth in the same
sense in which He dwells in LIGHT UNAPPROACHABLE, what could Paul mean by
saying that man cannot approach? If God dwells in UNAPPROACHABLE LIGHT, He must
have an existence there, which
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is
not manifested in this mundane sphere. This is borne out by Solomon’s words:
“God is IN HEAVEN, thou upon earth” (Ecciesiastes v, 2);
“therefore let thy words be few.” Jesus inculcates the same view in the prayer
which he taught his disciples: “Our Father which
art IN HEAVEN.” So does David, in Psalm cii, 19, 20: “He (the Lord) hath
looked down from THE HEIGHT of His
sanctuary; from HEAVEN did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning
of the prisoner.” And again, in Psa. cxv, 16: “The HEAVEN, even the HEAVENS,
are the Lord’s; but the earth hath He
given to the children of men.” Solomon in the prayer by which he dedicated the
temple to God (recorded in the 8th chapter of I Kings), made frequent use of
this expression: “Hear Thou IN HEAVEN Thy
dwelling place.” It is impossible to mistake the tenor of these
testimonies: they plainly mean that the Father of all is a person who exists in
the central
HEAVEN
OF HEAVENS” as He exists nowhere else. By His Spirit in immensely-filling
diffusion, He is everywhere present in the sense of holding and knowing, and
being conscious of creation to its utmost bounds; but in His proper person,
all-glorious, beyond human power to conceive, He dwells in heaven.
Consider
the ascension of our Lord, after his resurrection, and mark its tendency in
this direction. Luke says (chap. xxiv, 51),
He
was parted from them, and carried up into
HEAVEN,” and Mark reiterates the statement: “He was received up INTO
HEAVEN, and sat opt the right hand of
God” (Mark xvi, 19). These statements can only be understood on the principle
that the Deity has a personal manifested existence in “THE HEAVENS.” What part
of the wide heavens this honoured spot may occupy, we cannot and need not know.
Probably it is that great undiscovered astronomical centre to which allusion
has already been made.
There
is great and invincible repugnance to this evidently Scriptural and reasonable,
and beautiful view of the matter. It is the popular habit, where serious views
of God are entertained at all, to conceive of Him as a principle or energy in
universal diffusion-without corporeal nucleus, without local habitation,
without
body or parts.” There is no ground for this popular predilection, except such
as philosophy may be supposed to furnish. Philosophy is a poor guide in the
matter. Philosophy, after all, is only human thought. It can have little weight
in a matter confessedly beyond human ken. The question is, What is revealed? We
need not be concerned if what is revealed is contrary to philosophical
conceptions of the matter. Philosophi-
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cal
conceptions are just as likely to be wrong as right. Paul warns believers
against the danger of being spoiled through philosophy (Col. ii, 8). Philosophy
or no philosophy, the Scriptures quoted plainly teach that the Father is a
tangible person, in whom all the powers of the Universe converge.
There
is other evidence in the occurrences at Mount Sinai. There Moses had
intercourse with the Deity. We will not say that the Being with whom he had
this intercourse was actually THE ETERNAL ONE, because it is evident, from what
Stephen and Paul teach, that it was an angelic manifestation (Acts vii, 38, 53;
Heb. ii, 2); and because Christ declares no man hath seen God at any time (John
i, 18). Yet it is affirmed that to Moses it was a similitude of Jehovah (Num.
xii, 8). It was, therefore, a manifestation
of the Deity; and, if so, it illustrated the reality of the Deity; for the
Deity must be higher, greater, and more real than His subordinate
manifestations. The testimony is as follows : -“The Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I
COME UNTO THEE IN A THICK CLOUD,
that
the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. . . . Be
ready against the third day: for the third day THE LORD WILL COME DOWN in the sight of all the people upon Mount
Sinai
And
it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were THUNDERS AND
LIGHTNINGS, and a thick cloud upon the
Mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people
that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the
camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the Mount.
And Mount Sinai was
altogether on a smoke, BECAUSE THE LORD DESCENDED UPON IT IN FIRE, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole
mount quaked greatly. . . . And God spake all the~ words (the ten
commandments) . . . And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings,
and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw
it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, ‘Speak thou with
us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die’. . . . And the
people stood afar off, and Moses drew
near unto the thick darkness, WHERE GOD W~. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven,” etc. (Ex. xix, 9, 11,
16-18: xx, 1, 18-22).
Further
on this subject, we have the following in
Ex.
xxiv, 1, 2, 9-12, 15-18:- “And He
(Jehovah) said unto Moses, come up unto the Lord, thou,
and
Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and Worship ye
afar off. And Moses alone shall come near
the Lord; but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with
him. . . Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders
of Israel, AND THEY SAW THE GOD OF ISRAEL. And there was under
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140
His
feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of
heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid
not His hand; also they saw God, and did eat and drink. And the Lord said unto
Moses. Come up to Me into the Mount, and be there, and I will give thee tables
of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest
teach them. .. . And Moses went up into the Mount, and a cloud covered the
Mount. And th9 glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered
it six days. And the seventh day He called unto Moses out of the midst of the
cloud; and the sight of the glory of the
Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the Mount in the eyes of the
children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him
up into the Mount; and Moses was in the Mount forty days and forty nights.”
All
subsequent reference to these things is founded on the idea that they are
related to a real person and presence. Thus we read in Numbers xii, 8:- “With
(Moses) will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not
in
dark speeches, and the SIMILTUDE of the
Lord shall he behold.”
Again
(Exodus xxxiii, 11):- “And the Lord spake unto Moses FACE TO FACE, as ci man speaketh
unto his friend.”
Again
(Deut. xxxiv, 10):- “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto
Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”
Now,
though the manifestation witnessed in these cases was a manifestation through
angelic mediumship, yet the manifestation speaks to us of a Being higher and
more real than that manifestation. It helps the mind to climb to some
conception (though necessarily superficial and inadequate) of Him “who maketh
His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire” (Psa. civ, 4)-who is “light,
and in whom is no darkness at all” (I John i, 5)-who “inhabiteth eternity”
(Isa. lvii, l5)-who is a “consuming fire” (Heb. xii, 29)-whom no man hath seen,
nor (on account of our grossness and weakness of nature) can see; who only bath
immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto (I Tim. vi,
16)-who is of purer eyes than to behold the iniquity of the children of men
(Hab. i. 13)-the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the
earth, who fainteth not, neither is weary, and there is no searching of His
understanding (Isa. xl, 28).
Who
hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with a
span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the
mountains in scales,
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and
the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being His
counsellor, hath taught Him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed Him
and taught Him in the path of
judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?
. . . All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted to Him less
than nothing, and vanity. To whom, then, will ye liken God? or what likeness
will ye compare unto Him?” (Isa. xl, 12-18). Who can, by searching, find out
God? (Job xi, 7). Behold, God is great, and we know Him not; neither can the
number of His years be searched out (Job xxxvi, 26). His eyes are upon the ways
of man, and He seeth all his goings.
The
testimony before us is, that God is the only underived and self-sustaining
existence in the universe. All other forms of life are but incorporations of
the life which is in Him-so many subdivisions of the stream which issues from
the great fountainhead. The following statements affirm this view : -“The King
of kings, and Lord of lords, who ONLY hath
immortality,
dwelling
in the light which no man can approach unto” (I Tim. vi, 15, “IN HIM we live, and
move, and HAVE OUR BEING” (Acts xvii,
28). “For out of Him (ex autou), and through Him, and to Him
ARE ALL THINGS” (Rom. xi, 36).“To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom ARE ALL THINGS” (I Cor. viii,
6).
Popular
theology teaches that God made all things “out of nothing.” This is evidently
one of many errors that have long passed current as truth. It has proved an
unfortunate error; for it has brought physical science into needless collision
with the Bible. Physical science has compelled men to accept it as an axiomatic
truth that “out of nothing, nothing can come,” and having been led to believe
that the Bible teaches that all things have been made out of nothing, they have
dismissed the Bible as out of the question on that ground alone. They have
taken refuge by preference in various theories that have recognised the eternity
of material force in some form or other.
The
Bible teaches that all things have been made out of God-not out of nothing. It
teaches, as the passages quoted show, that God, as the antecedent, eternal
power of the universe, has elaborated all things out of Himself. “Spirit,”
irradiating from Him, has, under the fiat of His will, been embodied in the
vast material creation which we behold. That Spirit now constitutes
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the
substratum of all existence-the very essence and first cause of everything. All
things are “in God,” because embraced in that mighty effluence which radiating
from Himself, fills all space, and constitutes the basis of all existence. In
this way God is omnipresent~ His consciousness is en rapport with all creation by reason of the universal prevalence
of His Spirit, which is one with His personal Spirit-substance, in the way that
light is one with the body of the sun. The idea of God’s omniscience is too
high for us to readily grasp, but we see it illustrated on a small scale in the
fact that the human brain in certain sensitive states is conscious of
everything within the radius of its own nervous effluence. Though located in
the heavens, the Creator, by His universal Spirit, knows everything; and His
infinite capacity of mind enables Him to deal with everything, contemplatively
or executively, as the case may require.
THE
SPIRIT
So
much at this time concerning THE FATHER-the Root and the Rock of creation. We
next introduce the subject of “the Spirit “ for investigation.
We
have had to say much of this in speaking of the Father, but it calls for
separate consideration. The Spirit is much spoken of throughout the whole
course of Scripture. We are introduced to it as early as the first chapter of
Genesis, and only part from its company in the last chapter of Revelation. We
get a key to the subject in the fact testified, that the Father is “spirit” in
His personal substance (“ God is spirit “-John iv, 24), and that the Spirit in
its diffusion has to do with the Father, for He styles it “My spirit” (Gen. vi, 3). Nehemiah says, Thou “testifiedst against
them (our fathers) by THY SPIRIT in Thy
prophets” (Nehem. ix, 30). The Father and the Spirit are one. Yet there is
a distinction between the Father and the Spirit as to the form in which they are
presented to our apprehension. Of the former, as we have seen, it is testified
that He dwells “in heaven-in unapproachable light,” and is therefore, located;
while of the latter, it is declared that it is everywhere alike.
“Whither
shall I go from Thy spirit? or
whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If
I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell (or the
grave, or unseen place), behold, Thou art there; if I take the wmgs of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
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143
even
there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me; if I say,
Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day. The
darkness and the light are both alike to Thee” (Psa. cxxxix, 7-12).
But,
in addition to its universality of diffusion, the Spirit is also presented in
the aspect of an agency used by the Father in the accomplishment of His
designs. Thus, in speaking of the origin of the various tribes of living
creatures that inhabit the earth, David says, “Thou sendest forth THY SPIRIT, they are created: and Thou renewest
the face of the earth” (Psa. civ, 30). Again, “By His spirit He hath garnished the heavens” (Job xxvi, 13).
Again, “The spirit of God bath made
me; and the breath of the Almighty hath
given me life” (chap. xxxiii, 4). “The
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen. i. 2). Also, how
frequently throughout the history of Israel we read the words that the “Spirit
of God came upon” this and that prophet, when anything wonderful was
accomplished (e.g., Jud. xv, 14). All
prophecy and revelation were communicated in the same way. “Thou testifiedst .
. . by Thy spirit in Thy prophets”
(Nehem. ix. 30). “1 am full of power by
the spirit of the Lord” (Micah iii, 8). “Holy men of God spake
~ they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (II Pet. i, 21).
It
will occur to every reflecting mind that if this spirit is an actual element in
universal creation, its presence ought to be detected in the course of the
extensive and relentless researches now and for many years going on into the
secrets of nature, in the laboratory of the experimental chemist. It may shock
the Current theological mind to suggest so intimate a relation between the
Deity and His works. But the higher forms of intelligence cannot exclude the
perception that if God has evolved the material universe out of His own energy,
and sustains and controls it by His power, that energy cannot be a nullity, but
must be an actually present force in the economy of things.
Now,
it is a fact that in our day, there has been discovered a subtle, unanalysable,
incomprehensible principle, which, though inscrutable in its essence, is found
to be at the basis of all the phenomena of nature-itself eluding the test of
chemistry or the deductions of philosophy. Scientists have called it
ELECTRICITY. This is everywhere, and is the foundation of all organisation, ill
fact, of all substance, whether organised or unorganised. MATTER in every form
is but a combination of grosser elements held together by electricity.
Electricity governs the laws of an animal’s
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144
life
and a planet’s motion-omnipotent under the hand of intelligence to destroy or
build up.
What
is this? The name “Electricity “ tells nothing; that really means “amber-icity”
(electron being the Greek word for
amber), and was adopted as the name of the inscrutable element from the
circumstance that its existence was first discovered from the friction of
amber. Could a better name be devised than what the Scriptures have given
it-SPIRIT? it is one of the highest proofs of the truth of Jewish revelation,
that its disclosure of the Deity in His relation to the universe coincides with
the facts brought to light by the researches of the human intellect in the
field of nature.
The
employment of this element in accomplishing the designs of intelligence, is
illustrated in the facts of animal magnetism, mesmerism, biology, table
rapping, clairvoyance, and “spiritualism.” In these sciences and systems-(some
of them ignorantly made the basis of pretensions to divine prescience and
authority)
-men
make use of the divine “ruach” which
they naturally possess, to accomplish results which cannot be developed apart
from the action of willpower. Though animals have the same spirit, they lack
the intelligence to use it in this form. They use it all up in the mere process
of existence. Men having intelligence, find this wonderful agent at their
command to a limited degree. One man can influence another by it. Inanimate
objects can be moved. Distant facts and occurrences can, in a high state of
nervous susceptibility, be perceived by it. Unopened letters can be read; and
numberless other prodigies accomplished, made familiar by science and the facts
of “spiritualism “-a false and absurd system, based upon misunderstood facts of
nature.
We
are thus enabled to comprehend the relation assigned in the Scriptures to this
universal, invisible agent, in the operations of Deity. If a human being, who
is but the faint image of the divine, can in certain stages, have his powers of
cognition extended beyond his material person by the action of spirit, it is
easy to conceive that the Deity’s observation and presence are as universal and
infinite as spirit itself. If a human being can move a needle, lift a table,
and compel another to act without the intervention of material instrumentality,
by the employment of this invisible fluid as the medium of his will, what
difficulty
is
there in understanding the Deity, who is infinite, doing anything He may will
to do, and communicating a revelation of Himself to chosen men in the way
recorded in the Scriptures?
Spirit
concentrated under the Almighty’s will, becomes Holy
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145
Spirit,
as distinct from spirit in its free, spontaneous form. In the one, we are in
the domain of fixed law; in the other, God is in communion with us for words of
wisdom or works of power, independently of fixed law. It is given to but few to
experience this form of the Spirit’s manifestation. It is given to none in the
present day. The apostles were the recipients of it on the day of Pentecost.
Its power was real and felt. Its influx was accompanied with the sound of a
mighty wind, that shook the material fabric of the building in which they were
assembled. Its results were manifest, God’s hand was -upon the apostles, and
they were endowed with powers above natural law. Their faculties were
preternaturally exercised. They were enabled by the Spirit to speak fluently in
languages they had never learnt; not in unknown tongues, but words which were
identified by the bystanders as the current languages of the time. These
bystanders were Jews and proselytes from the various countries of the globe,
assembled to keep the feast of Pentecost at Jerusalem. When they heard the
apostles, they said : -“Are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear
we every
man
IN OUR OWN TONGUE wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and
the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and
strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them
speak in our tongues the wonderful
works of God” (Acts ii, 7-11).
By
the same power, the apostles were instructed in things they did not know
naturally, according to the promise of Christ.
When
he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will
guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever
he shall hear, that shall he speak, and
he shall show you things to come ‘ (John xvi, 13). It also endowed them
with miraculous power, evinced in the instantaneous cure of disease, the
raising of the dead, and other wonderful works. The Spirit was the medium,
instrumentality, or power by which these things were done. it was a reality, a
palpably present something pervading the persons of the apostles. Thus, from
the body of Paul “were brought unto the sick, handkerchiefs, or aprons, and the
diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them” (Acts xix,
11, 12). The healing spirit-power in Paul could be Conveyed in conducting
media, and brought medically to bear on the afflicted Thus, also the shadow of
Peter crossing the sick was efficacious for cure (Acts v, 15). The same peculiarity is apparent in the case of Jesus, to whom
the Spirit was given
pg146
without
measure (John ~ 34). When a certain afflicted woman in a crowd came stealthily
behind him and touched the hem of his garment, that she might receive benefit,
Jesus “perceived that virtue had gone out
of him “ (Luke viii, 46; Matt. xiv. 35,
36).
These
miraculous powers were necessary to qualify the apostles for the performance of
the work they had to do. That work was to bear witness to the resurrection of
Christ (Acts i, 22), as the basis of the truth built upon that fact. Now, how
could they have done this with any effect if their testimony had not been
miraculously confirmed? How could they have obtained credence to the naturally
incredible announcement that a man publicly exe. cuted by the Romans, had been
secretly raised from the dead, unless their words had been confirmed by the
power alleged to be on their side? It is true the apostles were witnesses, in a
natural sense, of the fact that Christ was alive, and would have steadily
maintained their testimony to the fact, even if God had not worked with them,
but how could the work of getting many to believe their testimony have been
accomplished? The earnest protestation of belief on the part of the apostles,
though it might have influenced a few, could not have produced that widespread
conviction which was necessary to the creation of the Body of Christ.
The effusion of the Holy Spirit did this. By the manifestation of supernatural powers, it bore witness to the truth of what the apostles declared. It is sai