Table of Contents

Contents, Preface and Introduction — Forms of Denial of Eternal Punishment

ContentsPreface to Second EditionPreface to First EditionIntroduction. — Forms of Denial of Eternal PunishmentPart 1. Man as he is1 Is the Body All? 2 Man a Triune Being3 The Spirit of God4 The Spirit of Man5 The Soul6 Functions and Relationships of Soul and Spirit7 Soul and Self 8 The Fall 9 Man's Relationship to GodPart 2. Death and the Intermediate State10 Death11 Consciousness after Death. — 1.12 Consciousness after Death — 2.13 Objections from the Old Testament14 Sheol, Hades, and ParadisePart 3. The Eternal Issues15 The Authority and Use of Scripture.16 Immortality: Is it Conditional?17 Eternal Life: What is it?18 The First Sentence19 Destruction and its Kindred Terms — The Old Testament20 The New Testament Terms21 A Further Survey of the Scripture Terms22 The Provisional Character of Death23 The Ministry of Death24 The Purification and Blessing of the Earth25 Old Testament Shadows26 The Ages of Eternity. — The Question Stated 27 The New Testament Solution of the Question28 The N

** P. 94.}

1 - Is the body all?

2 - Man a Triune Being

3 - The Spirit of God

4 - The Spirit of Man

5 - The Soul

6 - Functions and Relationships of Soul and Spirit

7 - Soul and Self

8 - The Fall

9 - Man's Relationship to God

10 - Death

11 - Consciousness After Death 1

12 - Consciousness After Death 2

13 - Objections from the Old Testament

14 - Sheol, Hades and Paradise

15 - The Authority and Use of Scripture

16 - Immortality: is it Conditional?

17 - Eternal Life: what is it?

18 - The First Sentence

19 - Destruction, and its Kindred Terms. - The Old Testament

20 - Destruction, and its Kindred Terms. - The New Testament

21 - A Further Survey of the Scripture Terms

22 - The Provisional Character of Death

23 - The Ministry of Death

24 - The Purification and Blessing of the Earth

25 - Old Testament Shadows

26 - The Ages of Eternity: - The Question Stated

27 - The New Testament Solution of the Question

28 - The New Testament Scriptures as to the Judgment of the World

29 - The Resurrection of Judgment

30 - Judgment: when and what?

31 - The Doom of Satan

32 - Gehenna

33 - The Apocalyptic Visions - 1

34 - The apocalyptic visions - 2

35 - The Apocalyptic Visions — 3

36 - "Everlasting Punishment" in Matthew 25

37 - "The Gospel of Hope"

38 - Annihilist - Restorationism. - Mr. Dunn's Theory

39 - "The restitution of all things."- Mr. Jukes

40 - "The restitution of all things"- Canon Farrar

41 - Mr. Birks' View

42 - The Ethical Question

43 - Last Words with Annihilationists

44 - Last Words with Restorationists

Appendix - Annihilationism

Appendix - Annihilo–Restorationism

Appendix - The Andover Theology, Swedenborgianism

F. W. Grant - Facts and Theories as to a Future State

Frederick W Grant

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With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett (contact@stempublishing.com) (2011)

Contents, Preface and Introduction — Forms of Denial of Eternal Punishment

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

The scripture doctrine considered with reference to current denials of eternal punishment

by F. W. Grant.

"And this is love, that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, that, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it." 2 John 6.

Contents

Preface to Second Edition

Preface to First Edition

Introduction. — Forms of Denial of Eternal Punishment

Part 1. Man as he is

1 Is the Body All?

2 Man a Triune Being

3 The Spirit of God

4 The Spirit of Man

5 The Soul

6 Functions and Relationships of Soul and Spirit

7 Soul and Self

8 The Fall

9 Man's Relationship to God

Part 2. Death and the Intermediate State

10 Death

11 Consciousness after Death. — 1.

12 Consciousness after Death — 2.

13 Objections from the Old Testament

14 Sheol, Hades, and Paradise

Part 3. The Eternal Issues

15 The Authority and Use of Scripture.

16 Immortality: Is it Conditional?

17 Eternal Life: What is it?

18 The First Sentence

19 Destruction and its Kindred Terms — The Old Testament

20 The New Testament Terms

21 A Further Survey of the Scripture Terms

22 The Provisional Character of Death

23 The Ministry of Death

24 The Purification and Blessing of the Earth

25 Old Testament Shadows

26 The Ages of Eternity. — The Question Stated

27 The New Testament Solution of the Question

28 The New Testament Scriptures as to the Judgment of the World

29 The Resurrection of Judgment

30 Judgment: When and What?

31 The Doom of Satan

32 Gehenna

33 The Apocalyptic Visions — 1.

34 The Apocalyptic Visions — 2.

35 The Apocalyptic Visions — 3.

36 "Everlasting Punishment" in Matt. 25.

37 "The Gospel of Hope."

38 Annihilist - Restorationism. — Mr. Dunn's Theory.

39 "The Restitution of all Things." — Mr Jukes

40 "The Restitution of All Things." — Canon Farrar.

41 Mr. Birks' View

42 The Ethical Question

43 Last Words with Annihilationists

44 Last Words with Restorationists

Appendix.

Annihilationism

1 Edward White: "Life in Christ."

2 J. H. Pettingell "The Theological Trilemma."

3  W. R. Hart: "Eternal Purpose"

4  Seventh-Day Adventism

Annihilo-Restorationism

1. L. C. Baker: "The Fire of God's Anger"

2. C. T. Russell: "Overcomers"

The Andover Theology

The Incarnation

Atonement

Eschatology

Swedenborgianism

A Note on Swedenborgianism

Preface to the Second Edition (1889.)

A new edition being called for, I have sought to make it as complete as possible; and the book having been stereotyped, the new matter has been put in the shape of an appendix. This has had its advantage, however, in allowing some systems of unbelief which have only lately obtained prominence, and have received, so far as I am aware, little or no examination, to be more thoroughly investigated, — a thing demanded by the fact of their doctrines being disseminated over the face of the country with a zeal worthy of a better cause. May the Lord grant in mercy that the answers furnished to these, though still brief, may be used of Him to preserve some from the flood of error, ever rising higher. The testimony to this is decisive. The fact can surprise no one who is intelligent as to the Scripture-witness to the apostasy of the last days. Mr. Spurgeon's "Down-grade" papers in The Sword and Trowel are well known, and his withdrawal from the Baptist Union

gives emphasis to his statements as to the decline of orthodoxy upon the subject of eternal punishment along with other fundamental truths. Seven years before, a lecture by Mr. Edward White traces the spread of the doctrine of Conditional Immortality over the world, and names as its adherents many of the most noted writers and thinkers in all the Protestant denominations. Among these appears the name of Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple, London, who shortly after Mr. Spurgeon's letters, announced in Boston that "not one leading Congregational minister in England, as far as he knew, preached now the eternal retribution of sin in the world to come, but rather a gospel of hope." While quite recently Dr. Hannay, secretary of the Congregational Union, is reported as saying that "in England, the doctrine of Eternal Torment was practically dead, the doctrine of Conditional Immortality stationary, and perhaps declining, while that theory of the future life known as the 'larger hope' was being widely accepted."

This must be taken, of course, with qualification. That such statements can be made, however, shows but too well the drift. If here in America the same things cannot be yet said, the tendency is still in the same direction. There is need, and urgent need, for that which meets it.

No argument known to me, of the least importance, has been omitted from the present volume; while a full index of texts and another of subjects will give any one who consults its pages the means of ready reference to the whole contents. To the Lord's grace and blessing it is now commended.

Preface

The present work is the development of one published some years ago, and now out of print, but which took up only a portion of the subject here considered, and at much less length. The rapid spread of the views in question, their variety and their importance, render a prolonged and patient examination of them absolutely necessary. The question has become one of the leading questions of the day, and nothing short of an extended appeal to Scripture will satisfy the need of those entangled by the error, or of those who may be in danger of becoming entangled.

For others also, quite outside of these, the careful examination of Scripture upon a subject of such deep interest will be found very far from unprofitable. Truth as a whole is so connected in its various parts, that we cannot apprehend any one of these more fully, without this leading us to a fuller apprehension of many other points in which kindred truths touch this. While the perfection and profundity of the word of God will more and more be realized as its ability is proved to satisfy the real need of the soul and meet the natural thoughts and questions of the mind.

Scripture thus proved will be its own best evidence as a Divine revelation. No doubt there is abundance of external witness to its truth; but the surest of all is its own direct testimony to man's heart and conscience. Without Scripture he is an enigma which his own wit cannot explain: he knows not from whence he came or whither he is going; he knows neither himself nor God. With Scripture, "light is come into the world;" and what makes all things manifest needs not, although it everywhere finds, a testimony outside itself. Truth speaks for itself — "commends itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God" — although the true it is who alone will hear it.

In the following pages, then, the doctrine of Scripture is what is first examined, not merely negatively an answer sought to certain views. The statement of the truth is the only proper answer to the error. This the writer has sought everywhere to keep in mind, while yet endeavoring to meet whatever has been advanced on the other side as fully as possible. Especial attention has naturally been given to certain writers who are most prominently identified with the theory of annihilation on the one hand, or of universal salvation in its various modifications upon the other; and they are allowed to speak for the most part in their own words, and at sufficient length to ensure that there shall be no doubt or mistake as to the views they hold. Among these, Mr. Constable has challenged criticism of his arguments, and to him I have naturally sought the more fully to reply. To the arguments of Mr. Roberts also, the present leader of the Christadelphian body, who has printed an extended examination of my original volume, "Life and Immortality," I have necessarily devoted considerable space.

May the Lord in His pity and love to souls, for whom He has died, be pleased to use these pages for the blessing of many, and to His own glory!

Introduction — Forms of the Denial of Eternal Punishment

In entering upon a subject like the present, it will be desirable in the first place to get as clear a view as possible of what is involved, the questions it is proposed to answer. The denial of eternal punishment has two main forms, that of annihilationism, or, as some prefer to call it now, "conditional immortality," and that of the final restoration and salvation of all men. Of these two there are again several modifications, and even (contradictory of one another as they may seem) amalgamations. Each of these we must briefly notice.

1.

Annihilationism is at the present moment very widely spread, and there are perhaps few Christians who have not in some shape or other already met with it. It is a dish dressed up by skillful hands to suit very different tastes. From Dr. Leask and the various writers in the "Rainbow" to the editor and contributors to the Christadelphian; from Mr. Morris, late of Philadelphia, to Miles Grant and the Adventists of various grades, it is found in association with very distinct and very opposite systems of doctrine, from Trinitarianism down to the lowest depths of Socinian and materialistic infidelity. But, on this very account, it will be well to look at it, not only in itself but in its associations, to lead the minds of those who, meeting it in more decent form, may be in danger from its plausible sophistries, to apprehend what it naturally connects itself with and prepares the way for; and, moreover, to arouse the minds of Christians in general to a sense of the practical bearing and results of an evil which is spreading rapidly, and lifting up its head in unlooked for places.

This may be my justification, if I should lead my readers into the examination of points which for the Christian may be deemed unnecessary, and speak too of things which rightly shock his sensibilities as such. Moreover; I do it because upon any point whatever, where Scripture is appealed to, it is due to those whose minds might be injuriously affected by the mere seeming to decline such an appeal. My desire is, God helping me, to meet the honest need of minds unexercised in the subtleties presented to them, too often with a skill which, alas, shows in whose hands these poor annihilationists are unwitting instruments. And if, in so doing, the very foundations of our faith should have to be examined (and they can sustain no harm by it), it may at least (I repeat) serve to convince my readers of what is brought in question by a false system, which is helping to ripen fast the predicted evil of the later days.

To come now to the point in hand. We have a number of steps to take before we reach the lowest level of so-called Christadelphianism. Materialism is indeed its inevitable tendency; yet a large number of those now holding it are by no means materialists, as Edw. White, Heard, Maude, Morris, Dobney, etc. On the other hand, Mr. Constable is the leader of a very pronounced materialistic section of this school (which we may call the Trinitarian school of annihilationism), and with whom, though differing in many ways, General Goodwyn finds his place. The "Adventist" school, on the other hand, with some exceptions, are not only materialistic but anti-Trinitarian also: to these belong Hudson, Hastings* and Miles Grant. Christadelphianism is all this and more, a system in which no element of real Christianity remains behind. They have rightly, therefore, given up the name of Christian.

{*Messrs. Hudson and Hastings are to some extent exceptions.}

The psychological question is that upon which these writers differ most among themselves. Some believe in a true trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, as Mr. Heard; some are dichotomists, believing the spirit to be super-added in the case of the regenerate, as Morris of Philadelphia; most are, as already said, materialists wholly. I shall notice briefly the main distinctions on these points.

1. And first as to the spirit of man. Mr. Heard in his "Tripartite Nature of Man" maintains its substantive existence in all men, as that which implies "God-consciousness," which the brute has not. In the unconverted it is deadened and inert, but quickened by the Spirit of God when we are born again. With him, as to the latter part of this, Mr. White agrees, although he can speak of "the royal qualities of spirit, whatever they may be" (!) in a queen-bee, "which incite or enable her to take the lead in migrations or swarmings," (!!) so that for him it can scarcely imply what it does for Mr. Heard, and its possession or not by man would seem to be of very small account.* He allows it to be, however, in him "of a superior order, as 'the candle of the Lord;' he has more wisdom than the beasts of the field; nevertheless he shares spirit with all animated natures."**

{*Life in Christ, p. 18.

** P. 94.}

Mr. Morris, on the other hand, believes that the new nature communicated in regeneration is alone "spirit" in the proper sense. The word is used as to the unregenerate only for the "motions and emotions of the soul." In Ecc. 12: 7 he thinks ruach should rather be "breath," or if not, "it may be used to signify the motion of the soul in passing away and passing into the custody of God!"*

{*What is Man pp. 18, 19.}

Passing downwards towards the naked materialism in which this doctrine ends, we find General Goodwyn also maintaining the addition of the spirit to man in regeneration only.*

{*In his "Holokleria."}

Mr. Constable's doctrine, gravitating evidently towards "Christadelphianism," is that the "spirit" (ruach, or neshamah) in man is the Spirit of God, yet it is identified by him also with the "breath of life;" the cause of animation to the body.* God withdraws this at death, and the man breaks up and dissolves away. This view Mr. Warleigh (whom Mr. White styles "an able and resolute thinker") has adopted, differing only in this — that in the case of Christian believers, the Spirit, which he describes as the Spirit of God, becomes according to him a distinct individual spirit of the man separable from the soul; and he thinks that this "Spirit," with all the attributes of an individual mind, survives in paradise till the resurrection, when it rejoins soul and body at the Lord's coming.**

{*In his treatise on "Hades."

**Quoted from "Life in Christ," p. 298, n.}

Not many degrees below this comes the materialism of a certain class of Adventists, who may be fitly represented by the editor of the "World's Crisis," Miles Grant, of Boston, Mass. He denies that the spirit is other than the breath in man, and that it is "the thinking accountable part, or that it ever did or ever will think.* And this leads him to the denial of the personality of the Spirit of God also. He says:** "2. The word spirit is used to denote an influence proceeding from a being. Hence we read of the Comforter or Holy Spirit, that it proceedeth from the Father.' In mesmeric operations there is a spirit proceeding from the operator to his subject, by means of which he controls him. All men and animals exert this influence more or less."

{*Spirit in Man, pp. 81, 32

*Ib. p. 1.}

All Adventist annihilationists are not as gross as this. Messrs. Hudson and Hastings, for instance, are not materialists to this extent evidently, although in the same boat with those that are. Messrs. Ellis and Read, in a book which has gone through at least six editions, on the other hand, are as out-spoken as Miles Grant. They lay down these propositions.*

{* Bible vs. Tradition, pp. 13, 84-87.}

"First, we shall prove from the Bible the corporeal being and mortality of the soul, and the nature of the spirit of man, which spirit, not being a living entity, is neither mortal nor immortal.

"Ruach (spirit) is derived from ruah, 'to blow,' and nesme,* 'to breathe' (!) primarily signifies 'wind, air, breath'; but it is sometimes used to signify a principle, having some relation to electricity, diffused through universal space, a principle that stimulates the organs of men and animals into activity, and which is used by the animals themselves to control their voluntary motions. . . . This principle, being the principle of life in all creatures, is in the hands of God and controlled by Him, hence in Him we live and move and have our being; and God is the God of the spirits of all flesh; when God taketh away His Spirit and His breath — i.e., God's Spirit and God's breath — then man returneth to his earth and his thoughts perish."

{*There is evidently a lapse here. They mean neshamah is from nesme, as they put it.}

From this it is scarcely a step down to Christadelphianism, the system of the late Dr. Thomas and his followers. Their views have been little, if at all, noticed by any who have taken in hand to reply to annihilationist doctrine;* yet there is reason to believe they are spreading, not only in the United States, but also in Britain, where indeed, their first originator had birth. The system is acknowledged in the title page of a book that lies before me, by Mr. Roberts of Birmingham, England, their present leader, to be "opposed to the doctrines of all the names and denominations of Christendom." They adopt professedly an Old Testament basis, and deny almost all that is distinctive in the New: the deity of the Son, the personality of the Spirit, a personal devil, and the heavenly portion of the saints. To quote from Mr. Roberts' book,** they believe that "the Father is eternal and underived, the Son has his origin in the creative fiat of the Almighty as Adam had; the Holy Ghost is the focalization of His will power, by means of His 'free Spirit,' which fills heaven and earth." They believe in "a Lamb of God, guileless from his paternity, and yet inheriting the human sin-nature of his mother." But, being free from actual sin, "He could meet all the claims of God's law upon that nature, and yet triumph over its operation by a resurrection from the dead." God "raised Him from the dead to a glorious existence, even to equality with Himself." "And now life is deposited in Him for our acceptance, on condition of our allying ourselves to Him, yea, on condition of our entry into Him." "Baptism in water is the ceremony by which believing men and women are united with Christ, and constituted heirs of the life everlasting, which He, as one of us, has purchased."

{*Mr. Clemance has put forth a reply, but from the standpoint of semi-Universalism.

**Twelve Lectures, pp. 130, 140, 145.}

In this, its suited home, annihilation flourishes. "Spirit" is, according to Dr. Thomas, an element of the atmosphere, existing ordinarily combined with nitrogen and oxygen. "These three together, the nitrogen, oxygen, and electricity, constitute the breath and spirit of lives of all God's living souls."*

{* Elpis Israel, p. 30.}

Mr. Roberts asks: —

"What is that which is not matter? It will not do to say 'spirit,' if we are to take our notions of spirit from the Bible, for the Spirit came upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost like a mighty rushing wind, and made the place shake, showing it* to be capable of mechanical momentum, and therefore as much on the list of material forces as light, heat and electricity. Coming upon Samson, it energized his muscles to the snapping of ropes like thread; and, inhaled by the nostrils of man and beast, it gives physical life. "**

{*Or the place?

**Twelve Lectures, p. 31}

The questions as to the spirit are, therefore, its being or not an actual living entity in man; its functions; and, connected with this, the personality of the Spirit of God.

2. As to the soul there is still considerable variety of doctrine. Messrs. White, Heard, Morris, Maude and others believe very much according to common orthodoxy of the soul, and of its survival too. Mr. Hudson also* admits its immateriality, although he supposes it to be "dependent on embodiment for the purposes of active existence." Mr. Dobney recognizes the probability of the soul being in nature distinct from the body, but denies "a purely disembodied condition."**

{* Debt and Grace, p. 250.

** Scripture Doctrine of Future Punishment, pp. 93, 141.}

Ordinarily, for common materialism, the soul is the animal "life," as with Mr. Constable* down to Miles Grant.** It is a view which has the merit of simplicity at least, and a partial foundation in Scripture also; but in this application, as in so many others, a mere partial truth may be an absolute falsehood.

{*Hades.

**The Soul.}

General Goodwyn differs from this, and his view seems peculiarly his own. The soul for him is "that combination of parts of the inner man, which is the seat of the mind and affections, and, having the breath of life, gives action to the outer members of the body."* That is, the soul is apparently the lungs and heart and their connections!

{*Truth and Tradition.}

A fourth and a final view (very near akin to Goodwyn's) is common to Messrs. Ellis and Read, and the Christadelphians alike. With these soul and body are one. "A living soul" with Dr. Thomas is "a living, natural or animal body."* "The word soul," says Roberts, "simply means a breathing creature." "That which it describes is spoken of as capable of hunger (Prov. 19: 15); of being satisfied with food (Lam.1: 11-19); of touching a material object (Lev. 5: 2); of going into the grave (Job 33: 22-28); of coming out of it (Ps. 30: 3), etc. It is never spoken of as an immaterial, immortal, thinking entity. . . It is not only represented as capable of death, but as naturally liable to it," etc.**

{* Elpis Israel, p. 21.

** Twelve Lectures, pp. 39, 40.}

The questions as to the soul are sufficiently plain in these quotations.

3. As to the future state of the wicked, these writers have the merit of almost complete harmony. The wicked are to be "burnt up," to be "extinct," "destroyed utterly" in this sense of it, "blotted out of existence," etc. The whole vocabulary of Scripture terms they appeal to as affirming this. "Eternal life" is eternal existence, and this alone the righteous have. "Immortality" is conditional to those that seek for it by patient continuance in well-doing. The rest, with the devil (for those that believe in one) will finally — it may be after protracted torment in the lake of fire — perish and come to an end. Evil will be extinguished, and suffering be over forever; the whole universe left free from its incubus, and the restitution of all things be at length effected.

These writers differ as to certain points, however. Some affirm the resurrection of all men; some even deny it as to any of the wicked: but these must be excepted of course from the number of those just spoken of. This denial of any real retribution seems spreading, and from a writer among annihilationists themselves has come forth a book against it.

The followers of Thomas believe in a partial resurrection from which infants, idiots, and the heathen are excluded; and new birth for them is entry into the resurrection state.

Other differences scarcely require to be put forth in an introduction. We must now turn to the opposite views of those who believe in or hope for universal salvation.

2.

The Restorationist views are more uniform, and will require a much briefer notice here. Those who hold them are divided into two main schools of thought. The first is that of the large Universalist denomination, almost identified with the Unitarian denial of Christ and of atonement. With these we shall have little to do as far as the Scriptural inquiry is concerned, as they have virtually given up Scripture, wherever it would interfere at least with entire freedom of thought. The ethical question is the question of main interest and concern with them, and there we may have to do with them.

The second school is mainly a German importation, where it can boast the names of .Bengel and Neander, of Tholuck and Olshausen. Through Maurice and others it has grown into notoriety in England, and Dr. Farrar's well-known sermons in Westminster Abbey, now published under the title of" Eternal Hope," have put them before the masses in a way to attract almost universal attention. His book has little in it that is original, however, being in large part a reproduction of one by Mr. Cox, of Nottingham, in which the three words "damnation," "hell" and "everlasting" are challenged as mistranslations in the same way as they are by Canon Farrar. A third book, from which Mr. Cox himself confessedly got much, is that of Mr. Jukes, more broadly heterodox than either, even to denying in the Swedenborgian manner the resurrection of the dead.* Atonement is also set aside by his work on restitution; an unsaved man in Gehenna becomes his own sin-offering,** and rises up to God, while as to every one saved, he is saved by present death and judgment,*** not Christ's bearing these for him. These statements Messrs. Cox and Farrar do not indeed reproduce, but the thought of atonement is not in their books,§ and it is fair to infer that it is not in their minds. Saintly souls for Dr. F. their saintliness secures; but for sinners, nay the poor in spirit, praying, striving, agonizing to get nearer to the light, there may be no remedy but aeonian fire.¶ True, it is the fire of God's love, though in Gehenna, but Christ did not die that they might have that.

{*Mr. White is my authority for this (Life in Christ, p. 330).

** Restitution of all Things, p. 127.

***See pp. 72-74.

§Comp. Salvator Mundi, pp. 156-158. And again, 169: "The historical cross of Christ is simply a disclosure within the bounds of time and space of the eternal passion of the unchangeable God; it is simply the supreme manifestation of that redeeming love which always suffers in our sufferings, and is forever at work for our salvation from them."

¶See "Eternal Hope," p. 86, etc.}

These three books, "Eternal Hope," "Salvator Mundi,"* "The Restitution of All Things," may be fairly taken as representative of this rising school. Of these Canon Farrar will not allow himself to be classed as a Universalist.** Two or three difficult passages stand in his way, although these may only "represent the ignorance of a dark age," so that he may still indulge a "hope" for all. It is a hope that may make ashamed, no doubt; but he can at least indulge it. When Scripture is so elastic, there are few hopes we cannot.

{*I have quoted little directly from Mr. Cox's book, its arguments being really met in meeting those of Mr. Jukes, his master, or of Canon Farrar, his disciple, both better known.

**Mr. Clemance also refuses the term.}

The principal texts urged by writers of this school have to do with the doctrine of the "restitution of all things," which is a Scripture phrase, clipped* to look broader, and represent a theory of the restitution of the universe. They urge God's being the Saviour of all, and His will that all men should be saved. Eternal fire is not really eternal, and is purgatorial, not penal nor simply retributive. The phrases for eternity are mostly reduplicative expressions, as "ages," or "ages of ages," and which speak of periods however long, yet finite, and in which, according to Messrs. Jukes and Cox, redemptive processes are continually going on.

{*In Acts 3: 21, it is literally "all things of which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets." This is not the universe at all. See chapter 25 of this book.}

They all unite of course in opposing the doctrine of a fixed state after death, and find in the everlasting mercy of God a hope, if not quite definite, of all receiving mercy.

3.

There is a third school of opinion upon these points, which is in its main thought a revival of the views of certain rabbins, and which unites the ideas of annihilation and restoration. The founder is a Mr. Henry Dunn, and he is finding followers among former leaders of pure annihilationism. Mr. Blain, at eighty years of age, has recalled his "Death not Life," to replace it by another entitled "Hope for our Race," in which he advocates Mr. Dunn's theory. From it I learn that Mr. Dobney has also given in his adhesion, and that Mr. Hudson accepted these views before his death. Mr. Storrs also, writer of the "Six Sermons," is at present advocating them in a paper entitled "The Bible Examiner."

Mr. Dunn advocates (quite rightly) the pre-millennial coming of the Lord, but wrongly connects this with a general resurrection; after which Christ will be again presented to the wicked by the elect church, and then received by almost all. For those remaining obstinate there is the lake of fire and annihilation.

A recent tract, now being circulated in the United States, modifies this statement by confining the number of those evangelized to those who had not heard the gospel in their former life on earth, and adds the conjecture (startlingly suggestive in view of Matt. 24: 26) that Christ may already be upon earth now, and only be waiting the moment to manifest Himself to His people.

4.

In conclusion I need only allude to Mr. Birks' view, which I have examined at some length in a separate chapter. He does not deny eternal punishment, but he does reduce it to the minimum; and his views have found an expositor and popular poet in the author of "Yesterday, Today, and Forever," as the Restorationists have found theirs in the present poet laureate.

Thus serious, and thus multiform, are the questions raised. They cannot be for many really met without patient, protracted examination of the whole subject from the stand-point of Scripture; which, if it be God's word, is finally authoritative; if it be something less than this we are at sea and in darkness, without rudder and without compass,

Blessed be God, amid the multitude of conflicting statements, one assurance may be the stay and comfort of our souls: "He that will do God's will, shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."

1 - Is the body all?

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 1. Man as he is

Chapter 1.

Is the body all?

In the language of absolute materialism the body is the whole man. It may need breath or "spirit" (in the Thomasite sense) to make it capable of fulfilling its functions, but in materialistic language, thought, reason, mind, are properties pertaining to "brain in human form." Dr. Thomas gravely adduces Rom. 8: 6, where he translates to phronema tes sarkos the "thinking of the flesh," as an irrefragable proof that the "flesh is the thinking substance," i.e., the brain; which, in another place, he adds, the apostle "terms the fleshy tablet of the heart." (!)* I only quote this now as evidencing how thoroughly with them the body is all** The man, they say, was such before the breath of life was breathed into him. "Dust thou art" expresses what he is in his whole being. Says Mr. Constable, "God formed man of the dust of the ground. Here we have the figure as it lay lifeless and thoughtless; and yet this figure was man. We cannot dispute this, for God tells us so Himself. It was man, before he could think, or feel, or breathe."$ To this being of course the inspiration of the breath of life gives life. "Soul" with Mr. Constable, as with most of similar views, is "life"; with Dr. Thomas and his party it is sometimes that, sometimes the breathing frame; i.e., of course the body. Spirit is either the breath of life itself; or a principle contained in it, a kind of vitalizing energy. The man himself is the body — the dust that lies in the grave. Spirit and soul "may again be disassociated from man; man may return to his old condition ere he had them at all, and the dead body they have left is then the man, the person, the self."§ "Where," is Mr. Blain's emphatic challenge, "where does the book of nature or the book of God tell what soul or man is made of except in the earth-wide and heaven-broad declaration, Dust thou art'?"¶

{* "Elpis Israel," p. 80.

** Roberts objects that it is not defined whether a living body is meant or not. "If so," he says, "we admit the charge of holding that the (living) body is the whole man, and are wondering what objection Mr. Grant himself can have to this view for, even with his immortal soul theory, he cannot avoid regarding the living body as the whole man, since the living body contains (!) that which his theory teaches him to regard as the principal part of man."

So that, if the house contains the man, the man and the house are all one with Mr. Roberts! Even this is not quite the full statement, as witness Mr. Constable's language further on. But Mr. R. may put in "living" if he please: a living body is still not the spirit nor the soul.

$ Hades, p. 2.

§ Ib., p. 5.

¶ Death not Life, 12th ed., p. 42.}

Confidence so assured ought to be well founded. The answer is easy, that they are only quoting one side of Scripture, with their eyes shut to all that is inconsistent with their theory. Mr. Constable, for instance, thus represents and characterizes "the current opinion of Christendom." "Man is with them a soul, which may or may not inhabit the body, but which, whether inhabiting the body or not inhabiting it, is the true and proper man. This opinion we believe to be the very foundation stone of an amazing amount of false doctrine. This false philosophy regarding human nature has tainted the theology of centuries."*

{* Hades, p. 4.}

Now, how is it possible that Mr. Constable has never seen that this "current opinion of Christendom," which he is opposing, is the statement of Scripture, no less than is his own? that, if there are on the one side passages such as those he quotes, Which seem to make the body all, there are many on the other side that would equally seem to make the body nothing? Thus we read: "The life that I now live in the flesh" (Gal. 2: 20); "If I live in the flesh" (Phil. 1: 22); "Whilst we are at home in the body" (2 Cor. 5: 6); "Willing rather to be absent from the body" (ver. 8); ("Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell" (12: 3); "As being yourselves also in the body" (Heb. 13: 3) "In my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19: 26); "Knowing that I must put off this my tabernacle" (2 Peter 1: 14).

Now I ask Mr. Constable, is not here the very language he objects to, the foundation stone (as being Scripture) not of error but of truth? I accept his view that such expressions are indeed the fundamental opposite of his opinions. On the materialistic supposition the language used in these passages never could have arisen. It is not a question of the interpretation of any special text, but of the use of words which contradict at the outset the whole materialistic philosophy. Men have sought to evade it by interpreting the phrase "in the body" to mean "in this body," as if it were in contrast with the glorious body of the resurrection. But the fact that they have to change the expression, in order to make it suit them, is a clear evidence that it does not suit them as it is. For in the resurrection man will still be "in the body," though it be raised glorious as it will; and in point of fact, it is to the resurrection body that in the passage just quoted Job refers: "In my flesh shall I see God." They may perhaps quote against this, that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;" but it will not avail them; for the Lord's own expression as to His own body in resurrection is, that He had "flesh and bones," (Luke 24: 39) though not "flesh and blood," and it is the combination of the two of which the text cited speaks. (1 Cor. 15: 50.) And the Lord was raised from the dead, the "first fruits" and pattern of our resurrection from the beginning, not raised and changed afterwards, even as they that sleep in Him, are "raised (1 Cor. 15: 43) in glory." There is no escape from the plain speaking of the passage in Job, that to that which is "raised in glory" he refers. And this alone is positive proof that "in the flesh" or "in the body" does not, as a phrase, speak of a present corruptible body in contrast with an incorruptible one.

And there are other texts which would still stand in the way of their establishment of this position, if the passage in Job were gone. For when the apostle says of his vision of the third heaven, that he could not tell whether he was "in the body or out of the body," no words are needed to assure us that here there was no question of the resurrection body. For it was not when he was up in the third heaven, that he did not know if he were "out of the body;" had it been so, there might have been some kind of doubt as to whether he might not have fancied, in the entrancement of the vision, that the resurrection had already come. But his words are precise and prohibit absolutely such a supposition. He could not, at the time he wrote, question whether he had been clothed with the resurrection body, and again lost it on his return to earth. Yet here "in the body" and "out of the body" are just as much in contrast as "at home in the body" and "absent from the body" in 2 Cor. 5: 6-8. And as "out of the body" cannot in this case mean "in the resurrection state," so "in the body" cannot mean, as they would make it, "in this corruptible state."*

{*To all this Mr. Roberts demurs upon the warrant, as he represents it, of Rom. 7: 1, 2 Cor. 1: 8, and a list of passages of the class already adduced by Messrs. Constable and Blain. He takes "my flesh" in the first passage to mean "my body," and argues thereupon that Paul calls his "flesh" himself, and moreover attributes sin to it, and not to his soul! He does not see that in ver. 25 the apostle opposes the "mind" to the "flesh," and identifies himself with the former in opposition to the latter. If, as with Mr. Roberts, the "mind" is only the working of the flesh, no such distinction is possible. The apostle's words are thus conclusively against him.

Hopeless indeed would be man's condition if the flesh and the body were but one, and "they that are in the body could not please God" (see Rom. 8: 8); and strange enough what the apostle affirms of Christians, that they are "not in the flesh." The whole use of the language here is foreign to materialistic speech. As to the Scripture doctrine of the flesh we shall have to speak of it hereafter.

As to 2 Cor. 1: 8, we may easily admit that Paul identifies himself with the body there, without in the least invalidating the testimony of the texts which use an opposite style, Nor does Paul "look here to resurrection for hope," but to the God of resurrection, and gets present deliverance. On the other hand, the belief in the immortality of the soul does not in the least set aside the hope of resurrection. As we may by and by see, it secures it.

As to Mr. R.'s list of texts, no Christian has any difficulty with them at all. But think of quoting "my DECEASE" (2 Peter 1: 15), literally, my exodus" or "departure," to support a materialistic purpose! Think of supposing "I was unknown by fate," or "whatever a man soweth, that shall HE reap," or "avenged the blood of HIS SERVANTS," with all the emphasis that italics and small capitals can give, will convict immortal soulists by their bare citation!

He then comes to the passages which he has to meet. In Gal. 2: 20, he takes the apostle as expressing present existence in contrast with the "life that is to come." But that is not the question. Why such an expression as "in the flesh" at all, if he were nought but flesh? "Absence from the body," again, cannot be resurrection by any possibility whatever. So as to Job, how else could Job see God, in Mr. R.'s way of thinking, except indeed, as he says in another case, he dreamed of Him? And that will scarce do here.

How decisive these passages really are against him Mr. R. shows by styling them "the inevitable FICTIONS of mortal speech." But why inevitable? Could not materialism indeed dispense with them? And why "fictions," if after all they convey his meaning?}

Roberts suggests that "without the body" means that "the things were seen as in a dream." But how is even a dream "without the body," as he phrases it? The apostle puts it still more forcibly, "out of the body." Nor has he any doubt of being actually caught away to Paradise, a place that for Mr. Roberts has no present existence; it is the renewed earth, in his belief. Did Mr. Roberts ever (with his theory of thinking flesh, moreover) even dream without the body, and then awake, and be ignorant ever after, whether or not he had been carried bodily to a place which he knew had no existence?

The terms then abide in all their simplicity, full of the meaning which from their simplicity they possess. Nay, if the comments of Annihilationists were just, their force would be little affected. For, be it in contrast with a resurrection body or not (as certainly in these last places it is not), still the man himself is looked at as "IN the body;" not the soul is in it, or the spirit is in it merely, but the MAN. That which lies in the body (and that is the force of the expression in 2 Cor. 5: 6)* is the man. So much so that the body is looked at as the "tabernacle" (2 Peter 1: 14), which the man "puts off. "

{*The word used is endemeo, "to live at or in a place" (Liddell and Scott). Mr. Roberts' comment is: "All that constitutes our individuality" [what is this according to him?] "dwells in the body of our humiliation; but the destiny of the saint is to have this corruptible clothed upon with a subduing energy, that will change it from flesh and blood nature into spirit nature." In no place is it said that we are clothed with an "energy"; but Mr. R. wanted something to clothe, and he could hardly clothe one body with another body. not know whether he was in it or not, at the time he saw them. Plainly, therefore, he supposes he might be a conscious, intelligent witness of unutterable things while "out of the body."}

We have not yet inquired who or what the inhabitant of the body is. Be it spirit or soul, or both together, the phraseology of Scripture in these texts asserts that the body has such an inhabitant. And this language it is that Mr. Constable accuses (under another name, no doubt) as being "the very foundation stone" of the doctrine he opposes. Scripture, then, he is witness to himself, lays thus the foundation of the immortality of the soul. Paul sees visions, and has so little thought that the body is all, that he does

We are prepared, then, to answer Mr. Blain's confident inquiry, if at least we may take for granted that that which Paul thought might be "out of the body" is not "dust." If it be, it is at any rate dust which is not the body, and which can exist consciously in separation from it.

The question is thus a long way toward settlement. If it be still asked, What about the texts which, on their side, Annihilationists lay stress upon? Is not "dust thou art" Scripture? And is it not equally written that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground"? and that "devout men carried Stephen" — not his body merely — "to his burial"?

I answer, it is just as plain that in these texts man is identified with his body, as he is in the former ones with his spirit or his soul. It would be wrong to argue exclusively from either class of passages: as wrong to say man is all soul, upon the authority of one, as to say he is all body, upon the authority of the other. This last is the vitiating error of Mr. Constable's whole argument. Neither body, nor soul, nor spirit, is the man exclusively, but "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thess. 5: 23) make up the man; insomuch that he may be, and is, identified with either, according to the line of thought which is in the mind of the speaker; his identification with the body, which man sees and touches, being in general the language of sense, while faith identifies him with the unseen "spirit."* Our poor Annihilationists see and confess what sense recognizes, and are blind to the other. It is a sad evidence of their condition.

{*Mr. Roberts' attempts to answer this are strange enough, and need no very long examination. He asserts that faith is nothing but "belief of promise," and has to do only with the future! So that one could not "by faith understand that the worlds were made," or "believe that God is"!

Then he will have it that the spirit is recognized by sense, as much as the body, because "spirit" is sometimes used for "anger" in Scripture, and it does not require faith to note that a man is angry! As the spirit with Mr. R. is electricity, it is rather a wonder he did not propose to insulate a person, and demonstrate his "spirit" still more satisfactorily.

Then he thinks that "faith cometh by [the sense of] hearing" helps his case; but how, he does not make clear, as it is no question of how it comes at all. Mr. R. surely must allow that the human spirit (in our view of it at least) is a thing unseen, and faith is the "evidence of things unseen." This is the ground of the statement he objects to.}

Of the Lord Jesus Himself, I read in the account of His burial, "there laid they Jesus," and that Joseph "took Him down, and wrapped Him in the linen, and laid Him in the sepulchre" (John 19: 42; Mark 15: 46). Is this, therefore, conclusive that the Lord was "all body," as similar words about Stephen would seem to be to some, that he was? Take some of Mr. Constable's emphatic statements, which he does not hesitate to apply* to the Lord Himself. He contends that the common opinion leads to "the absurdity of supposing that death has converted one person into two. In life there was but one Abraham, in death there are two! . . In life there was but one Christ; during the three days of His death there were two! . . . One Christ was in Joseph's tomb; another Christ was preaching to spirits in prison, or otherwise busily occupied"! Which of these Christs is the true one for him he does not leave doubtful. The "Bible persists in calling the body when dead the man. It says that Abraham and Jacob and David . . . are in the grave, and it never says that they are in heaven, or anywhere else but in the grace." Of necessity, then, this must be the conclusion: If spirit is but the impersonal breath of life, and soul but the life resultant, then, when these had departed, there was nothing of Christ but what was laid in the grave. It may be said, of course, that the words apply only to the humanity of the Lord, and not to His divinity. This argument for Mr. Constable will not hold. The Lord, divine and human, was in life but one person. Death could not divide the one Person into two! The PERSON, Mr. Constable says, is the body that lay in the tomb: Deity, soul and spirit go for nothing. The Lord was in the grave and nowhere else! Dare Mr. Constable abide by his own conclusions?

{*Hades, p. 7.}

All have not formulated the doctrine as completely. His logical consistency has carried him where, we may hope, many will hesitate to follow. But as to the consistency there can be no question. Just as simply and as surely as "David" or "Stephen" is said to denote the whole personality of David or of Stephen, so (after the same mode of interpretation) must "Christ" and "the Lord" denote the whole personality of Christ. Now, let me ask, was there a true and personal Christ who survived death, or not? If so, "the Lord," in the whole force of that expression, did not lie in Joseph's tomb; the words are only an example of the language of sense which applies to the material part which we see and touch, and we are manifestly precluded from carrying them further. Now, if the Lord lay in the grave, and yet the higher part did not lie there, so (plainly) might David, or Stephen, or Moses, lie in the grave, and yet have another and higher part of them which did not lie there.

Thomasism, with its fearless self-consistency in error, and shameless denial of the glory of His Person, does not shrink from the extreme result. The One who, walking on earth, could yet say, "The Son of man who is in heaven," they are strangers to. But I would ask even them, if their horrible thoughts were true, how He who had "power to lay down His life," had (after having laid it down) "power to take it again." If the dead are nothing, and know nothing, as they teach, how could a dead body have power to take its life back? (John 10: 18).* How could He say "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up? He spake of the temple of His body."** Here it is scarcely possible even to equivocate. For it was one who spake of His own body, who said He would raise it up. They cannot say it was the Father speaking of "His own body," and therefore their constant manoeuvre fails them here. If Jesus, then, raised up His own body, there must have been One not buried in that tomb of Joseph, One surviving death, to raise it up. Death is not, then, extinction, for Jesus truly "died." That "the Lord lay" in Joseph's tomb is truth, but not the whole truth. Insisted on as such, it becomes fatal and soul-destroying error.

{* Roberts contends that here "the word translated 'power' is exousia, which carries with it not so much the idea of physical power as power in the sense of authority." Labein  he translates "receive" instead of "take."

It is true exousia is "power delegated, authority." It adds to the thought of power that of right. It is the word used in Matt. 10: 1; Mark 2: 10; 3: 15; 6: 7; Luke 4: 32; 10: 19; 12: 5; John 19: 10, etc., in all which it is quite impossible to exclude the idea of competency to perform whatever there was authority for. You could not clothe a mere corpse with "authority." It would be mockery. And, therefore, labein, must be "take" and not "receive."

** John 2: 19-22.}

The language of Scripture, then (as Mr. Constable is witness), lays the foundation stone of the soul's immortality in its assertion that the man dwells in the body, and this is not denied by its speaking elsewhere as if the body were the man. From its own point of view, each of these things is true.

2 - Man a Triune Being

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 2.

Man a Triune Being

We are now prepared for the question, What is this part of man which dwells in the body? Or, What is the physical constitution of man as defined by the Scriptures?

The answer from 1 Thess. 5: 23, is, that he is "spirit and soul and body": "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The prayer is, manifestly, for the sanctification of the whole man to God, and to emphasize it, as it were, it is, that man is divided into his three constituent parts, and the sanctification of the whole man is interpreted to be the preservation blameless before God of "spirit, soul and body."

Of course this is denied on the part of those who hold that the body is the whole man; but it is also denied by many others who are far enough from holding their views. It is a point, therefore, which must be seriously weighed, and as satisfactorily as possible decided, before we are entitled to take it as a settled thing.

The objections of Annihilationists need not detain us very long, as few indeed seem to have looked at the text in question. The comment of Ellis and Read upon it is a remarkable specimen of their style of reasoning, as well as (apparently) of how little they are themselves convinced by it. "This cannot mean," they say, "that man has two ghosts. Perhaps it may mean your disposition, and life, and person, the whole compound nature of man, for spirit sometimes means person."* I should think, as they have evidently translated "spirit" as "disposition" already, that according to their interpretation, body ought to mean "person," and also, that it would be in far better accordance with their views. But they can scarcely expect others to be satisfied with what evidently fails to satisfy themselves, for they add, in defiance of all criticism: "And 1 Thess. 5: 23 may also have been a little amended by some officious copyist"! (p. 21). But even so, they are not yet satisfied, and, having in the meanwhile forgotten that "spirit" means person, they further add: "And the spiritual nature, be it remembered, does not naturally belong to man, but is super-induced as a subsequent and peculiar development in the cases of those who have submitted themselves to Christ" (p. 22).

{* Bible vs. Tradition, p. 21, 22.}

Mr. Roberts, disavowing "the uncertain and contradictory statements" of Ellis and Read, tries to paraphrase the three words in the text by "body," "life" and "mind." In this statement of his, "life" and "mind" answer, respectively, to soul and spirit. But that they are not equivalents, according to his view, is evident. We have but too lately been listening to his theories of thinking flesh, to be able to accept his identification of the mind with the spirit. Truly, as these may be identified, his views do not identify them. His own words in this connection are: "Thought is a power developed by brain organization, and consists of impressions made upon that delicate organ through the medium of the senses, and afterwards classified and arranged by a function pertaining in different degrees to brain in human form, known as reason." Plainly, then, with him mind is only a power inherent in the flesh, though spirit be needed to give vitality to the brain, just as it would be for the muscles. It is "the flesh that thinks," as he quotes with approbation further on.

So, also, is "life" with him not the equivalent of "soul." Of course he often has to interpret it so, but he is inconsistent with himself in doing this. "Soul," again, is for Dr. Thomas and himself but "body"; and the body cannot be the life of the body. Soul is the body's life, and, therefore, in a secondary sense, is used for it in Scripture. In Dr. Thomas' theory, no basis is left for the secondary meaning. The life is with him simply the result of the ruach or breath of life upon the body. It is not a third constituent that could be set side by side with the body and the spirit.

There is then no "combination of body, soul and spirit as constituting the whole man" in Mr. Roberts' system, anxious as he is to be apostolic in doctrine, and have it appear so. Combination of body and spirit for him make the living soul, and the combination of these two cannot become a third principle along with these. There is no third constituent this way, and even one of these is only "an element of the atmosphere."* These are the three things, then, that the apostle prays may be sanctified or preserved blameless, the body, the breath of life, and the vitality produced by it!** It is plain then that Thomasism and the apostolic statement do not agree.

{* Elpis Israel, p. 30.

** "In this sense," says Mr. R., "we stand as stoutly as Mr. Grant by 1 Thess. 5: 23." and awhile afterwards adds, "Mr. Grant is guilty of treating as a scientific analysis of human nature the fervent Hyperbolism of an apostolic benediction"! Why stand stoutly by a mere exaggerated expression?}

With the last sentence quoted from Ellis and Read Mr. Morris is in near agreement. He also interprets "spirit" here of a new and spiritual nature. Of John 3: 6 he says, "'That which is born of the flesh' is a child, constituted of soul and body; but 'that which is born of the Spirit' is a new and spiritual constituent of personal being. He who is born of the Spirit is constituted of a 'spirit and soul and body.'"*

{*What is Man, p. 57.}

I shall be obliged to reserve to another chapter the consideration of what "spirit" is, and whether his proposition, that it is never applied to man as such "in a substantive sense," is warranted by Scripture usage. That the new nature of the children of God is "spirit," according to our Lord's words, is what none can with appearance of truth. deny; but, upon the face of what he says himself, his explanation of the text in this way is thoroughly inconsistent and untrue. For the "flesh," he says, in the words of the Lord, John 3: 6, is "the whole natural man, and the entire offspring of the natural man, soul and body" (p. 37). The apostle then puts down this soul and body, of which nothing good can come, side by side with the new and spiritual nature, which (still according to Mr. Morris' citation of Gal. 5: 17, 22-25) it lusts against, and is contrary to, — praying that they may be sanctified together! If this be his deliberate doctrine I cannot tell. It is the doctrine of his follower, Mr. Graff,* who has only carried out his views to their necessary conclusion. Whether or no, I would refer him to Rom. 8: 6-8 for his answer, that "the mind of the flesh** is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed CAN BE," and that is why "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Even the one who in the seventh chapter could say, "with the mind I myself serve the law of God," had to add, "but with the flesh the law of sin," and if soul and body have this character, poor hope would there be of their being "preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!"

{* In "Graybeard's Lay Sermons."

** In the margin "minding," phronema.}

The grossness of this mistake lies in its materialism. Even Mr. Morris, little as he would like to be identified with this, cannot see in the "flesh" anything less material than the body, although perhaps in connection with the soul, which he allows to be in it. All is referred to man's physical constitution, but with this glaring inconsistency with Scripture, that, whereas the word of God condemns the flesh, with its utter evil, to hopeless destruction, Mr. Morris' doctrine puts the old nature along side of the new, to be sanctified.

Now, in the text as to which I have been speaking, 1 Thess. 5: 23, it is plain by the terms "soul" and "body," which are used, that the physical constitution of man is spoken of; and it must be equally plain that "spirit," therefore, also refers to his physical constitution. The very pains which Ellis and Read have taken in their interpretation to blot out all thought of the body in the passage, is a proof of it. It would have been an incongruous jumble, indeed, to have said "disposition, and life, and body;" and they felt it. Body in Scripture in such a sentence requires "soul" as its natural antithesis. "Body and life" make no sense, for the sanctification of the body and its vitality (which life here must mean) is scarcely such. And if, according to Dr. Thomas, it is the "flesh that thinks," and the brain is the fleshy tablet of the heart, let the body be sanctified, and all is done. And it will not avail to say that the body needs spirit and soul to make it capable of sanctification, for that still leaves it true that the body is the only part that can be sanctified, and there would be no sense in talking of the sanctification of the mere agency in giving it life.

But still — and this is the only question we need further ask at present — may not the "spirit" here refer to the new and spiritual nature, which, confessedly, the child of God has? I answer that, as far as this passage is concerned, the fact that the apostle prays for the sanctification of the spirit, is proof positive that the new nature is not meant.* For the Scripture doctrine is that, inasmuch as "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, BECAUSE he is born of God." I am well aware that I touch here upon ground not familiar to many a Christian; nor can I do more than touch upon it either. I would only say that the one born of God is here looked at simply in his character as so born. The flesh is not seen, being, indeed, in the believer, but as a foreign thing: "Sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7: 17), in that sense, not myself. The new nature owns no brotherhood with it. As born of God the believer does not sin — cannot. The new nature thus, as proceeding from God, is altogether according to God. He could not communicate a half-evil thing: "that which is born of the spirit is spirit" — partakes, i.e., of the nature of Him from whom it came. Mr. Morris himself says of it most truly "All the moral qualities of it answer to the moral perfections of God." If so, sin cannot come from it, because it is of God; and, as born of God, we cannot sin. Therefore you cannot talk of sanctifying it. It is of God: therefore already wholly good.

{* The new nature is "spirit," but never called the spirit."}

And "spirit" is not here the "motion" of the soul, as Mr. Morris elsewhere strangely defines it, for the soul is mentioned apart, and there would be no sense in speaking of the sanctifying of the soul and of its motions. Sanctify it, and its motions will be sanctified.

We return then with confidence to our first conclusion: "Spirit and soul and body" are the man. The ample confirmation of this by every part of Scripture will come out as we now take up in detail these constituent parts.

3 - The Spirit of God

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 3.

The Spirit of God

The word which stands for "spirit" in the Old Testament is ruach, in the New Testament, pneuma. They are words precisely of the same significance. Both are derived from words which mean "to breathe."* and in their primary sense therefore signify "breath," or what is a kindred thought, air in motion, "wind." From this as the type of viewless activity, its meaning of "spirit" is most evidently and easily derived. The comparison between the two is what the Lord makes in John 3: 8, where the same word pneuma is both "wind" and "spirit": "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Here manifestly the thought is of invisible activity beyond control; the effects are manifest, the power which produces them unseen and uncontrollable. In the formation of language, where that which can be conceived of only gets its name from that which is recognized by the senses, what more simple than that pneuma, originally breath or wind, should give its name to the power that, omnipresent in its activity, acts unseen and uncontrolled? Hence "God is Spirit,"** and the third Person of the Trinity, whom Scripture represents as the immediate mover, both in creation and in new creation, is pre-eminently the "Spirit of God."

{* The verb ruach is not used in the Old Testament, except in the Hiphil or causative form, and in this form it signifies "to smell." How this is really the same as to "cause to breathe" is plain on a moment's consideration. pneuo occurs seven times in the New Testament, in every place to represent the blowing of wind.

** In the "Personal Recollections" of Charlotte Elizabeth occurs a well-known and touching illustration of the connection of thought. A poor dumb boy, in whom she was interested, and whom she had been seeking to impress with the fact of the being of God, told her that he had been looking everywhere for God, but could not find Him. "There was 'God, No'!" She took up a pair of bellows, and blew a puff at his hand, which was red with cold on a winter's day. He showed signs of displeasure, told her it made his hands cold, while she, looking at the pipe of the bellows, told him she could see nothing, "there was 'wind, no'!" "He opened his eyes very wide, stared at me, and panted, a deep crimson suffused his whole face, and a soul, a real soul, shone in his strangely altered countenance, while he triumphantly repeated, 'God like wind! God like wind!'"

To all this, indeed, on behalf of materialism, Mr. Roberts has made sundry objections, the answer to which need not detain us long. He tells us: "A substantive derived from a verb draws its meaning from the act expressed by the verb. Ruach is ruach because it is the thing ruached, so to speak, and not because the act of ruaching is invisible." But that has to do with the primary meaning of words only, and not with the secondary, of which alone we are speaking. "Breath" is the thing breathed, no doubt, but if I speak of "a breath of air," I do not speak of anything breathed. I apply the word "breath" in a secondary sense, to something which in some way it resembles. This secondary sense has nothing to do with the derivation of the word at all, as a "breath of air" is not a thing breathed forth, but only compared to that which is. John 3: 8 shows us, for pneuma, the real ground of comparison between its primary and secondary meanings: an illustration which Mr. Roberts silently passes by, in order that he may be able to speak of this view of the matter as an "opinion having no deeper foundation than the ingenuity of those who have given birth to the speculation."

Meanwhile, he himself puts forth what is really that, that "the power which gives life was itself in the first instance spirited (breathed forth) from the Eternal Source of life and light." To this, moreover, we answer by bringing forward the passage which Mr. R. rightly foresees will be against him — "God is a Spirit." (John 4: 24.) Who breathed forth, then, this Spirit which God is? Was God Himself an emanation from something else? Mr. R. anticipates this objection, and tries to provide for it by telling us that "spirit" "comes by association with subsequent manifestation, to stand in its New Testament use as the synonym of the Divine nature; but this by association merely, and not by philological derivation." But how, then, is he so sure that there is "philological derivation" in the former case? This is evidently a second conjecture, to uphold the previous one, and as baseless as the former. For, with so-called Christadelphianism, as is well known, the theory is, that while "spirit" is a thing "spirited forth" from God, out of this spirit all things were made. How strange and contradictory to take, then, what is, so to speak, the raw material of all creation, and to confound with that God's very nature — creation and Creator being so identified as one!

Materialism has thus not shrunk from assailing, along with the Godhead of the Son, the Personality of the Holy Ghost. And this is not confined even to the followers of Dr. Thomas. The interpretation of "spirit" adopted by Ellis and Read, borrowed, it would seem, by or from the former, tends directly the same way. Miles Grant, as we have seen, makes it a mere influence. But Dr. Thomas it is who has formulated the doctrine, as before seen. According to him, the Spirit of God is electricity, or, combined with nitrogen and oxygen, the atmosphere, which Job calls the "breath of God." According to Mr. Roberts, his follower, it is proved by the shaking of the house on the day of Pentecost, and the energizing of Samson's muscles, when it came on him, to be "as much on the list of material forces as light, heat or electricity"! The doctrine is developed in full in his fifth lecture, that God is a material being, surrounded by a kind of electrical atmosphere, so dazzling and consuming in His immediate presence, as to be called "light unapproachable," but which, attenuated by degrees, is the material out of which He creates all things, and by which He becomes cognizant of everything, and executes His purpose in the whole domain of the universe. This is the roach, the principle of life in the nostrils of all flesh, which the foolish animals "use all up" in the mere process of existence, but which wiser man can use to move tables, read unopened letters, and even (when in a high state of nervous susceptibility) to perceive distant facts and occurrences! "When concentrated under the Almighty's will," it "becomes holy spirit, as distinct from spirit in its free, spontaneous form;" in which way apostles received it, but "it is given to none in the present day." In "evolving a new man" in people, "the Spirit has no participation except in the shape of the written word. The present days are barren days, as regards the Spirit's direct operations."*

{* Twelve Lectures, pp. 110-125.}

All this is but the legitimate fruit of materialistic teaching. It is essential to its self-consistency that the Personality of the Spirit of God be denied. Once get rid of Him as a Person, put Him upon the list of material forces — let it be electricity or anything else you please — and plainly you have at once reduced the spirit of man also to something just as unintelligent, and as well suited to the purpose they desire to accomplish. The statement I have given from Mr. Roberts' book may not seem to need reply, nor anything but its simple utterance, to condemn it sufficiently. Nevertheless I shall answer it; for in these days of wide-spread infidelity, God alone knows in what unlooked-for places the answer may be needed. Nor does the gross folly which marks it all hinder its reception. Man has no wisdom apart from the word of truth, and, once astray from that, the apostolic declaration is fulfilled, "professing to be wise, they became fools." How like, too, to what is now occupying us, that which he goes on to say! — "and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into AN IMAGE MADE LIKE TO CORRUPTIBLE MAN!" (Rom. 1: 22, 23).

Scripture disowns this system in all its parts. In Scripture the Spirit of God is a Person, divine and intelligent in the things of God. Just as, "what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."* (1 Cor. 2: 11).

{* Mr. Roberts objects against this: — "There is a parallel: 1. Man, and the spirit of man; 2. God, and the Spirit of God. Now, does Mr. Grant mean to contend that the spirit of man is one person, knowing the things of man, another person? Surely not. Yet this is what his view would require, if he is right in maintaining that the Spirit of God is one person, knowing the things of God, another person."

Mr. Grant's view requires nothing of the sort. The "things of man" are just human things, as "the things of God" are divine things. It is not a question of another person in either case. But if the Spirit of God knows divine things, then He is conscious and intelligent; and so is the spirit of man in human things.

And I know not what argues personality more than consciousness and intelligence. Does Mr. Roberts? Of course this infers the personality of the spirit of man, and this is obnoxious to him; but the passage before us does plainly intimate that the essence of personality in man is in his spirit. This is a very important point, which will come up again in its own place.}

This is as different from Mr. Grant's "influence" or Mr. Roberts' "medium," through which the Deity receives impressions (much as the human ear sound through the atmosphere), but itself as unconscious as the atmosphere — of which, indeed, according to Thomas, it forms part — as can well be conceived. "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (ver. 10). Not God searches by the Spirit, as Mr. R. would have it, but the Spirit itself searches and knows. Moreover, again, "He who searcheth the hearts," i.e., God, "knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit," which, living and active, "ITSELF maketh intercession for us" "according to God" (Rom. 8: 26, 27).

If this is not the announcement of an intelligent Person, words cannot convey the idea of one. Yet Mr. Roberts will have it that it is all what he is fond of calling "the inevitable fictions of human speech." Of the passages from Corinthians he says: "This describes the apostolic experience of the Spirit," which, "to THEIR SENSATIONS, as we may say, was separately from themselves an Enlightener, Penetrator, Comforter, Witness, and therefore described in language that reads as if these functions were personally separate from the Father."*

{* Man Mortal, p. 29.}

So then it does read as if the Spirit of God were a person! The truth is, after all, too strong for the theory. But then this is merely a description, according to the human sensation! Is it true, then, that to their human sensations the Spirit of God was not only separate from themselves, but from the Father also? How did the "sensation" differ from what it would have been had the Father spoken apart from this? Could they not help describing it by misleading words? Mr. Roberts himself can and does describe it differently. Why not the apostles? The words do read as if the Spirit of God were a Person, our adversaries themselves being judges; and they speak not merely of inspired knowledge, but of the competency of the Spirit to reveal. And then is further added (ver. 12), "Now we have received the Spirit" — this Spirit so competent in knowledge — "that we might know." Their knowledge is distinguished from the Spirit's knowledge; and the doctrine is complete that theirs proceeds from their reception of One, who had it in His own power to impart His to them.

The argument that the Spirit of God is in the nostrils, and so a mere principle of life in all living, because Job 27: 3, in the common version, speaks so, I can only say is worthy of men who, when they choose, can quote Greek and Hebrew abundantly, but who are pleased to ignore in this case the fact that one of the commonest renderings of ruach, is breath; and that the expression refers to Gen. 2: 7,* where the word for "breath of life" is a word which is never applied to the Spirit of God at all. And, moreover, so far is Scripture from asserting that the Spirit of God is in all men, that it speaks of Christians expressly as those "who have received the Spirit which is of God."

{* Roberts allows this, and yet thinks it "looks as much like a manoeuvre as possible," and spends a full page in proving (what no one will deny) that the ruach Eloah of Job, and the nishmath chayim of Genesis are "doctrinally identical." How is it he does not see that this is the very thing which Mr. Grant (as he thinks, so dogmatically) asserts? The real question is, can the "breath of God in the nostrils," which Job speaks of, be the same as that Spirit of God, who (to quote the same book) made man (Job 33: 4)? To assert this because it is the same word ruach, in each case, is equivalent to asserting that in John 3: 8, because the same word pneuma is used for "wind" and "spirit," therefore to be born of the Spirit is to be born of the wind!

He goes on: "But Mr. Grant is mistaken if he supposes that this verse in Job is the only support to the doctrine that the Spirit of God is the means of universal life. The statements quoted four or five sentences back (Ps. 36: 9; Acts 17: 25; Job 12: 10) indirectly (and not so very indirectly) show the same thing. In addition, we have to consider such passages as these: 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence?' (Ps. 139: 7). What conclusion can we come to from this, but that the universal presence of God, who personally dwells in heaven, is the universal Spirit, invisible power or energy radiated from the Father, and therefore called Spirit, or that which is breathed? Again, 'the Spirit of God hath made me: the breath of the Almighty hath given me life' (Job 33: 4). Again, 'Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created' (Ps. 104: 30). Hence, 'in Him (by the Spirit) we live, and move, and have our being' (Acts 17: 28). Hence, if He gather to Himself His SPIRIT (ruach) and His breath (nishmath) ALL FLESH shall perish together, and man shall turn again to his dust, (Job 34: 14)."

Here we have the strength of Mr. Roberts' doctrine. How plain it is his, and that he goes to Scripture, as so many do, just to find "support" to it! What an inference, that if one cannot go from the Spirit, nor flee from the presence of God, that therefore "Spirit" and "presence" must be just the same thing! and, moreover, this must be an "irradiated energy breathed from the Father"! The trouble with Mr. Roberts is, that he is so absolute a materialist, that with him even God Himself must be material, and there must either be a material presence or none! To others than himself, it will appear that Mr. R. had better give us the grounds of such a conclusion from Scripture, rather than assume them. Similarly we all believe that the Spirit of God has made us, and the breath of the Almighty given us life. Does that prove that the Spirit of God is only breath? And if so, how?

Again, in what way does God send forth His Spirit when He creates, according to Mr. R.? To us it looks very much like the doctrine of a living, personal agent, in which we believe.

So as to Acts 17: 28, the materialism is all his own.

In the last passage, allowing his reading of it (which some accept), God's Spirit need not surely be impersonal, because the maintainer of life in all created existences, nor is it identified with the spirit of man.

This is, then, the total result of the appeal to Scripture as to this so weighty a point to be established, and in face of Scriptures, which (it is owned) do read as if the Spirit of God were a distinct person in the Godhead. With Mr. Roberts the Spirit is the material of creation; in Scripture the Creator, as indeed he owns: thoughts which are contradictory of each other, as long as Creator and creature are distinct in more than name.}

The proof is indeed abundant and decisive as to this, which is alone (spite of Mr. Roberts' protest) subversive of their whole theory. For it is no work of the Spirit that is in question, as he would make it, but the reception of the Spirit Himself. Nor was (as he affirms) the teaching of the Spirit ever called the Spirit. The Lord's words indeed were "spirit," but not the Spirit of God; and "the Spirit is truth" surely, characteristically, just as is the Lord Jesus (John. 14: 6); but in neither case does that destroy personality. All the way through Scripture we find language which defies accommodation to this lowest depth of materialism. If I begin with Genesis (Gen. 41: 38) I find Joseph spoken of as a "man in whom [distinctively] the Spirit of God is." In Jude 19, some, even of professing Christians are described as "sensual, having not the Spirit." So I find in Gal. 4: 6, that "because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father!" [Was this merely "truth" that God sent into their hearts? and were they sons before they had received it?] And again, "Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you;" and then it is added, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. 8: 9). Solemn utterance, indeed, for men who have to confess that they have no "Holy Spirit": for only by the Holy Ghost given to us is "the love of God shed abroad in our hearts" (Rom. 5: 5); and "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14: 17). If that be withdrawn, there is no more "communion of the Holy Ghost" (2 Cor. 13: 14); no more "sealing" to the day of redemption (Eph. 4: 30); no more "renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3: 5). Sad work indeed, if this be true! and barren days indeed! But what an account for men to give of themselves, that they have no communion, no renewing, no sealing, no peace, no joy, no love of God in their hearts! They have pronounced their condemnation with their own lips, when they say that the only Spirit of God they know is one subject to men's wills, and "used up" by animals "in the mere process of existence."

Yet Mr. Roberts allows that this (impersonal!) Spirit "was a teacher, more particularly in the apostolic era, when it was bestowed on all who believed the word, enabling them to work miracles, speak with tongues, understand mysteries, according as the Spirit WILLED"! How strange an impersonality is this! creating, teaching, searching, willing, hearing, knowing, and yet not a person! Of course this language must be understood as mere, strangely contradictory, human speech. Scripture seems to say this. We must believe it to mean something that it never even seems to say!

4 - The Spirit of Man

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 4.

The Spirit of Man

The second application of the word "spirit" is to angelic beings, and that whether "holy" or "unclean."

The application of the word in this way is again denied by Thomasism as to the latter class, but this is scarcely the place to examine what they say on this head. It will suffice for our present purpose that there are spirits whose existence as separate personalities cannot be denied. And if this be so, there is no reason, at least beforehand, why man's spirit also should not be an individuality, a real and living entity, though in him united to a body which is of dust.*

{* Roberts asserts that the angels are "visible, glorious, incorruptible, corporeal beings," man's spirit being the opposite of all this. But —

1. The simple question is as to the existence of individual "spirits," which is acknowledged. Difference of condition can in nowise alter the argument from this.

2. The visibility of the human spirit seems much on a par with that of angels. Neither is ordinarily seen (compare 2 Kings 6: 17). Both have been.

3. How man's spirit is "decaying," Mr. R. must explain.

4. Corporeality is not proved for angels by examples in which God (as in Gen. 18 and 32), or angel appeared as men. This is not manifestation of angelic natures, but the assumption of human form by these. There may be mystery in this, no doubt. We soon touch the bounds of our knowledge, that is all.}

And this is the third application of the word to which we must now devote particular attention.

A cloud of dust is here endeavored to be raised by the assertion of the wonderful variety of meanings given to the word. Yet, if we take the language of our common English version as a guide, and refer to the passages in which it relates to man, we find, as the translation of the Old Testament Hebrew word, but five words used: "breath," "spirit," "anger," "courage," "mind." And of the New Testament Greek word corresponding to it nothing but "ghost" or "spirit" (which everybody knows to be intended for the same thing) and once "life," wrongly, in Rev. 13: 15, where it ought to be rather "breath." This looks more like uniformity in the matter, and a common idea running throughout, than some would wish to have us suppose. Of course I do not mean to deny that there are various secondary applications of the word "spirit" itself. This concerns us the less because there is no doubt of the primary meaning of the English word. But surely the greater the variety of meaning, the more needful to look for the key (which must be somewhere), the possession of which will enable us to find harmony in these various uses of the word instead of discord.

The fact is, that the only key to this hidden harmony is in an application of the word which these writers almost to a man reject, viz., to a real intelligent entity* in the compound nature of man, of all men as such, "the spirit of man, which is in him," placed at the head of, as well as in connection with, his other constituent parts by the apostle, where he speaks to the Thessalonians of the sanctification of their "whole spirit and soul and body." Let us take up the proofs of this, examining them carefully as the importance of the subject demands, and submit the separate points to be examined, one by one, to the test which Annihilationists themselves appeal to — the judgment of the inspired word.

{* Mr. Roberts tries to show this cannot be the key by inserting "intelligent entity" in place of "spirit" in such passages as 1 Kings 10: 5, "There was no more intelligent entity in her," etc. This may do to raise a laugh, but it is in fact mere childish absurdity. There would be no secondary meanings at all, if the primary one could be inserted instead of them.

How the key above mentioned does "fit the lock all round," will be seen afterward, chap. 6. That Mr. Roberts' key does not may be easily seen by the meanings assigned to "spirit" in various connections by himself and his leader, Dr. Thomas. In p. 23 of "Man Mortal," he defines it as "mind"; p. 30, "breath of life"; p. 54, "abstract energy"; p. 66, "life"; p. 67, "conscience"; while Dr. Thomas says that "spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3) means "bodies."

On the other hand, the body is thus, for Dr. Thomas, body, and soul, and spirit.}

Now it is but quoting Scripture to speak of the "spirit of man which is in him" (1 Cor. 2: 11), and of the "spirits of men" (Heb. 12: 23). And observe, before we pass on, one fact here. Scripture says "the spirit of man." It does not say "the spirit" but "the spirits of men." Annihilationists tell us (or many of them) that "spirit" is a universal principle of life, lent to man indeed in common with the beast, but forming no real part of himself, like the air he breathes, and in which Dr. Thomas says it is contained. Now, if this be so, we might as well talk about the breaths of men as of their spirits. Yet every one would perceive the incongruity of the former expression. We say "the breath of men," just because it is one common breath they all breathe, but it is NOT one common spirit they all have, and therefore we speak of their "spirits," because each has his own, and it is a separate entity in each one.*

{* This is with Mr. Roberts another of those "inevitable fictions" in which he so largely deals. The spirits of men are with him not separate entities, but only "inevitably conceived" of as such. "Just as there is primarily but one life, the self-existing life of the Eternal Father, and yet we talk of the lives of the creatures He has brought into being"! Is it then only "inevitably conceived" that the lives of His creatures are separate from His own? Are they not actually separate existences?

Again he says, "As reasonable would it be for Mr. Grant to say that because we have separate 'fleshes,' therefore it is not one common flesh we all have." Does not Mr. R. confound flesh and body somewhat? Have we separate "fleshes"? The argument and the English are alike new. Separate bodies we have, and not one common body. One common flesh we have, and therefore not separate fleshes.}

Mr. Constable's identification of it with the "breath of life" is therefore not possible. His view is only in point of fact Thomasism on a somewhat higher plane, as he makes the breath of life and the Spirit of God also identical, quoting the very same passages for it as we have already considered with reference to Mr. Roberts. He adduces also Bishop Horsley's opinion, that no one "who compares Gen. 2: 7 and Ecc. 12: 7, can doubt that the 'breath of life' which God 'breathes into the nostrils' of man in the Book of Genesis is the very same thing with the 'spirit which God gave' in the Book of Ecclesiastes." To which it is enough to answer that we doubt. Neither Horsley nor himself give any proof of this from the passages in question, and the subject will come up hereafter. But in the next place Mr. Constable avails himself of "Hebrew parallelism" to the full extent that Mr. Roberts does. "All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils," (Job 27: 3.) he thinks conclusive. It may be doubtless for those who know no personal Spirit of God; and it seems as if Mr. Constable had got as low as this. The answer has been already given, and to it we need only now refer. Similarly Job 34: 14 has been considered; but how he can quote "his spirit and his breath" to show that the two are one is hard to understand. The contrary would seem self-evident.

Hebrew parallelism is again made to do duty in interpreting Isaiah 42: 5, Isaiah 57: 16. Mr. Constable would have it that parallelism consists in merely using synonymous expressions in the "parallel" sentences. This is a false and unworthy conception of it, which would reduce it to mere tautology. It is not so, as every verse in which it is used bears witness. How unworthy a repetition would it be to make Isaiah say, as Mr. C. would: "He that giveth breath to the people upon it, and breath (spirit) to them that walk therein."* Yet these are proofs, he considers, that establish the identity of the breath of life with the Spirit.

{*I reserve the quotation of Isaiah 57: 16, until we come to consider the word found there — neshama.}

Now Scripture speaks of the spirit of man being not only, as we have seen, a separate entity in each individual, which the breath of life is not, but (as the breath of life clearly is not) a thing formed within him (Zech. 12: 1): "The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him." Thus, along with the formation of the heavens and the earth, as of equal importance with these (the body being moreover passed over in the matter) there is put by the inspired writer this formation of the spirit of man. And this is the complete upsetting of the materialistic theory. The spirit of man is formed within him. It is a separate entity then in each individual man, not (like the breath of life) a common principle shared by all.*

{* Roberts admits indeed here "a common spirit distributed according to the will of the Creator, and formed into the spirits of men." But he has rendered this impossible in his view of things, by telling us that the very existence of separate spirits is only "inevitably conceived," but not a real thing. Does he mean to tell us that God "formed" the "common spirit" he speaks of into the "inevitable conception" of a distinct thing?

This constant use of language which is merely fictitious marks his argument throughout. What is it but the deception of one by whom he is himself, alas, duped, and in whose hands he is the unhappy instrument in deceiving others?}

Moreover the possession of a spirit by the beast is not asserted in Scripture, except in one passage by the writer of Ecclesiastes (Ecc. 3: 19-21): "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 (roach); so that a man hath no pre-eminence over a beast, for all is vanity. All go unto one place: all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?"

This passage has been seized upon by materialists of course, and is constantly put forth as the stronghold of their doctrine. They quote verse 19 triumphantly. "Words cannot be stronger than this," says Mr. Constable. "The preacher tells us not only that man and beast both have spirit, but that the spirit of both is one and the same. He is here evidently comparing them in what they had of the highest kind, and nothing could be higher than the possession of that spirit which the Psalms and other Scriptures tell us was indeed nothing less than the Spirit of God Himself. Yet in this he tells us that 'man hath no pre-eminence above a beast.'"*

{*Hades, p. 19.}

This is bold enough indeed: Mr. Constable has the merit of speaking out his thoughts. In his very highest attribute, it seems then, man has NO pre-eminence above a beast. Mind, conscience, responsibility, moral qualities, either he has not, or the beast has, or else these are, after all, inferior things, "not of the highest kind." "Man being in honor and understanding not, is like the beasts that perish," says the Psalmist. Mr. Constable adds that he has no pre-eminence over them anyhow, and as for "beasts that perish," why, one and all perish alike: when the breath leaves them they but lie down in the dust, being alike but dust.

The argument proves too much, and so proves nothing. If Mr. Constable had but weighed the verse before, which he omits, he might have found reason to question his conclusion. The whole passage is what, Solomon tells us, he "said in his heart" at a certain time (ver. 18). It is not divine revelation, but human doubt: the questioning of man's mind when speculating upon the mystery of existence: "who knoweth the spirit of man"? etc. It is the language of a man who had "given his heart to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven;" who had "said in his heart" (Ecc. 2: 1), "Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth," and who had "sought in his heart to give himself to wine," and "to lay hold on folly, that he might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under heaven all the days of their life" (ver. 3). This is no Spirit-taught man. In no such path does the Spirit of God lead; and the result is that, searching out by human wisdom, the grave into which all go is an impenetrable mystery: men die as the beast dies, they have one breath, one ruach, they go to the dust alike; as to what is beyond, no mere human knowledge can penetrate it: who knoweth the ruach of man that goeth upward, or the ruach of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? That word, ruach, with its various meaning of breath or spirit, suits well the doubtful questioning of the passage. But this is the uncertainty of mere human knowledge. The Spirit of God could not doubt or question. It is by the Spirit, surely, that we are given this history of human searching after wisdom and after good; but the lesson is, that by human searching he could attain neither the one nor the other. Listen to Solomon's own exposition of this as he comes out into the light: As thou KNOWEST NOT what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all" (Ecc. 11: 5). But he has something to say now about his former thoughts: for he says finally and conclusively, that the spirit of man does not "go downward to the earth": "Then shalt the dust return to the earth as it was, but the spirit shall return to God who gave it."

The objection is raised as to this by Mr. Roberts, that it ignores the fact of Solomon's God-given wisdom. But it is just the point of Ecclesiastes to show how the wisdom of the wisest failed here, as in the book of Job the perfection of human goodness. The perfect man has to own his vileness before God, and the wisest men the incompetence of mere human wisdom.

For Solomon's wisdom was self-evidently of that kind which fitted him for the kingly office which he filled, and for which he sought it (2 Chron. 1: 9, 10). It is compared with that of other kings, and with the wisdom of the East, and of Egypt, though it surpassed all these. He was the naturalist of his day; his proverbs a storehouse of practical wisdom for the path on earth. But he is not the sweet psalmist of Israel, and his numerous songs are mostly forgotten. The Song of Songs is an allegory, and he was evidently in it the unconscious singer of spiritual things of which he knew but little. Who could compare him with David for spiritual insight? And who but must lament his manifest departure from the path in which his father walked? that departure which, if it be admitted (as it must be) spite of Solomon's wisdom, so simply accounts for the book of Ecclesiastes being not the record of a path in which the Spirit of God LED, however much He might make the one who walked there the preacher of the vanity of a world which he had ransacked in vain for satisfaction.

Now, beside this manifestly exceptional passage in Ecclesiastes, there are none that assert or imply the beast's possession of a spirit. The passages quoted from elsewhere by Mr. Constable are plainly inadequate. The "breath of life" in Gen. 6: 17 is not the spirit, as a comparison with 7: 22 may show. Nor is it in Ps. 104: 29. He contends, indeed, that if ruach in verse 29 is translated "breath," it must be equally so in verse 30: "Thou sendest forth Thy breath (ruach); they are created." But here the "sending forth" necessitates the other rendering. Were it breath, however, in both places, how would it prove Mr. Constable's point? God forms the spirit in man: He does not form the breath of life in him.*

{* Gen. 7: 22 (marg.), quoted by Annihilationists as proving "spirit" to belong to beasts, is a mere mistake. The same phrase is found in 2 Sam. 22: 16, and is there translated "The blast of the breath," where again it is referred to the nostrils: "the blast of the breath of his nostrils." It is the action of the breath upon the nostrils, so strongly marked in states of excitement and fear, which is strikingly referred to in the passage in Genesis: "All in whose nostrils was the breathing of the breath of life . . . died."

As for Num. 16: 22, it refers, from the context, to man simply: as e.g. in Matt. 24: 22, "Except those days should be shortened no flesh should be saved" (Gen. 6: 12), "All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Ps. 65: 2), "Thou that hearest prayer, to Thee shall all flesh come," etc.}

I return, then, with confidence to my former position that, so far from the spirit of man being a principle of life held in common with the beast, the Spirit of God NEVER asserts the beast's possession of it. There is complete and absolute silence as to such a thing. And the silence of Scripture is authoritative against the materialistic assumption. For their whole theory as to this they are indebted to the endeavor to "search out by wisdom" (apart from the Spirit, which they deny) the works of God.

And I need hardly say, that before these few Scripture facts, Mr. Morris' theory of the spirit in man, that it is the new nature in the believer, or the "motions and emotions of the soul" in men at large — equally breaks down. Zech. 12: 1 will not bend to either supposition. It speaks definitely of the spirit of man, not of the believer, and says God formed it, not surely the motions or emotions of the soul! Beside which, to this "spirit of man, which is in him," the apostle (in 1 Cor. 2: 11) refers all human knowledge: "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in him?" Could we say, the "motions" or "emotions" of the soul know?

According to Mr. Constable the beast must "know the things of a man" (and be wiser than man, who does not know the things of a beast); for he has the same spirit, and NO pre-eminence over a beast as to that!

My object, so far, has been but to establish the doctrine of the distinct existence of the spirit as a separate entity in man. The various uses of the word, and the relationship of the spirit to the soul, will come up more naturally after we have examined in a similar manner the Scripture doctrine of the soul itself.

Note. — A claim is sometimes set up for n'shamah, as being the representative of the spirit of man proper rather than ruach. It is the word used in Gen. 2: 7 for "breath of life," also in Gen. 7: 22 and 2 Sam. 22: 16, referred to in the last note. It is really, as there implied, the ruach, in action, and may be in that way referred to ruach, in either sense of "breath" or "spirit." It is never the strict equivalent of ruach; certainly never of a higher character. The Spirit of God is never n'shamah. It is rather the "breathing," "inspiration," "blast," as in Gen. 2: 7; 2 Sam. 22: 16; Job 4: 9; Job 32: 8; Job 33: 4; Job 37: 10; Ps. 18: 15; Isa. 30: 33. As to man, it is expressive of his being a breathing creature, as in Deut. 20: 16; Joshua 10: 40; Joshua 11: 11, 14; 1 Kings 15: 29; Ps. 150: 6; and should be translated similarly, and not by "souls" in a passage referred to by Mr. Constable, Isa. 57: 16. It should be "breathing" or "breath" in Gen. 7: 22; 1 Kings 17: 17; Job 26: 4; Job 27: 3; Job 34: 14; Isa. 2: 22; Isa. 42: 5; Dan. 5: 23; Dan. 10: 17. There is but one passage beside these in Scripture, and this seems the only undoubted reference to the action of the higher ruach, or real spirit of man: here our version translates it "spirit," yet that it is expressive of the action, rather than the being of the spirit, we may see in the passage itself, Prov. 20: 27.

5 - The Soul

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 5.

The Soul

The Hebrew word for "soul" is nephesh, the equivalent of which in Greek is psuche. A fact significant enough in view of what has already come before us when speaking of the word for spirit, is that both nephesh and psuche are, equally with ruach and pneuma, derived from words which signify "to breathe." The same idea of viewless activity enters into them. Even Dr. Thomas tells us that nephesh is from the verb to breathe, although with the characteristic dishonesty which marks all that he says upon the subject, he gives its primary meaning as "creature." "Nephesh," he says, "signifies creature, also life, soul, or breathing-frame, from the verb to breathe." "To return then to the philology of our subject, I remark that by a metonomy, or figure of speech whereby the container is put for the thing contained, and vice versa, nephesh, breathing-frame, is put for neshemet ruach chayim, which, when in motion, the frame respires. Hence nephesh signifies life, also breath and soul."* One would think, from the admitted derivation of the word from the verb to breathe, that the metonomy, if such there be, would be all the other way, and that the primary meaning would be "breath," and so life or soul. In point of fact, nephesh is only once suggested as breath in the margin of Job 11: 20, and without necessity, and for "life" only as the principle or source of life — a meaning easily derived from the soul being strictly that source of life to the body. So that "soul" (in the common acceptation of the word) is properly the primary Scriptural meaning, and the other meanings are derived from it.

{* Elpis Israel, pp. 27-29.}

Dr. Thomas, on the other hand, stoutly contends that soul and body are one. "Now if it be asked, what do the Scriptures define a living soul to be? — the answer is, a living natural, or animal body."* But I would ask Dr. Thomas or any other who takes the position, if he could understand such an expression as "everything wherein there was a living body?" You find in Gen. 1: 30, "everything wherein there was a living soul." Now if the soul be in the body, it cannot be the body, and the fact that it is called a "living" soul precludes the possibility of translating it "life," as materialists love to do. A "living life" would make no sense;** a "living breath" would be no better; and the passage shuts us up to the necessity of allowing that something is alive within the "breathing-frame" which Dr. Thomas speaks of, so that the soul and it are distinct from each other.

{* Ibid., p. 27.

** Miles Grant does not see the difference between "living a life" and a "life living." "We often hear the expression, 'We should live a life of virtue '; so, in the passages under consideration, it would be correct to say, 'and my life shall live'" (The Soul, p. 13). This is a notable specimen of discernment or the want of it. If I can talk of "giving a gift," I can therefore talk of a gift giving; and if I can speak of thinking a thought, I can equally speak of a thought thinking!}

Dr. Thomas thinks he has Scripture for his identification of soul and body. Let him speak for himself. "Writing about body the apostle says, 'There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.' (1 Cor. 15: 44.) But he does not content himself with simply declaring this truth; he goes further, and proves it by quoting the words of Moses, saying, 'For it is written, the first man Adam was made into a living soul,' and then adds, the last Adam into a spirit giving life.' . . The proof of the apostle's proposition, that there is a natural body as distinct from a spiritual body lies in the testimony that Adam was made into a living soul, showing that he considered a natural or animal body and a living soul as one and the same thing. If he did not, then there was no proof in the quotation of what he had affirmed."*

{* Elpis Israel, p. 28.}

Dr. Thomas had here to misquote Scripture in order to get his argument, such as it is even then. The apostle does not say "for," but "and." He is not proving his statement by the passage produced. Why should he undertake to prove that Adam had a natural body . He is showing, rather, how the difference between the first and last Adams, these heads of the human race, naturally or spiritually, illustrates the difference between the natural and the spiritual states, and confirms there being such a difference between what we are now and what we shall be. "Paul quotes the declaration of Moses," says Mr. Roberts, "to prove the existence of the natural body"! This writer has told us that the spirit of man is very easily seen; now he wants proof of the existence of the body!*

{*His treatment of all this in "Man Mortal" needs little notice, save to illustrate the hopeless difficulty of his position. He invokes Dr. T.'s metonomy to account for Gen. 1: 30, but wisely refrains from applying it to the case in hand. I have already shown that no meaning given by them to soul will account for it: living body, living creature, living life, living breath — none of them will do here. The metonomy cannot sustain so great a burden.

He admits that there may be "something alive" in the body, as you may call the red heat of a fire "something alive" within the coal! This is his "inevitable fiction," of course again, and it does, indeed, with him seem "inevitable."

To all his blunders as to my meaning, I must refer my readers to my book itself for a reply. Mr. R. often seems to have written his comments before he was fairly possessed of the meaning of what he writes about.}

Now, note that it is even of "the beast of the earth," and from that down to every creeping thing of which this is said. It is not said that the beast has a spirit; it is said that it has a soul. So much so, that all the lower animals are called "souls," just as much as men are. This is to be observed, for it is in itself an answer to the materialistic theories of organization of the most complete kind. It cuts off at once all those arguments as to the faculties of the brutes, their display of attachment, etc., which men ground so much upon. Scripture leads us to account for these, not by reason of their organization, but their possession of a "living soul," as even in man, while it refers the understanding of all human things (1 Cor. 2: 11) to the spirit which only man possesses — his sensual faculties,* appetites, nay, his affections, etc., are ascribed to the "living soul" — a soul so distinct from the life of the body, that they that "kill the body" cannot "kill the soul" (Matt. 10: 28).

{*For a very good account from the side of science of the difference between man and brute, I would refer to Mivart's "Lessons from Nature," chap. 7. (Appleton & Co.)}

Mr. Constable will perceive, therefore, that we are one with him as to the fact that man and beast are alike possessed of living souls. We do not disguise the truth as to this, but contend for it. When he proceeds from this to infer that "the simple and proper meaning of the Hebrew word nephesh, when applied to the lower creatures, is life, animal life,"* he goes beyond the record. Gen. 1: 30 applies expressly to the lower creatures, and how can we say, "everything wherein there is a living life"? The only other meaning he ascribes to it, when applied to man, is "person" (p. 36), and "wherein there is a living person" will scarcely do either.

{* Hades, p. 34.}

Gen. Goodwyn has still another definition: "The soul, as distinguished from the mere body or soul-tabernacle, may be considered as that combination of parts of the inner man, which is the seat of the mind and affections, and having the breath of life gives action to the outer members of the body. When the spirit, the animating principle, is withdrawn, the man, soul and body, ceases to exist, dies." His Scripture for this seems to be Gen. 2: 7, "where Adam is said to have become a living soul. His inner organs received life, or breath of existence and action."*

{* Truth and Tradition.}

Thus the inner organs of the body seem with him to be the soul, the outer only, the soul-tabernacle or body. It would be well to attempt something in the way of proof of so startling a proposition as that the lungs and other parts not defined are not the body! "In the body," "out of the body," "absent from the body," "putting off the tabernacle," would certainly have a new significance in this way. But I think it scarcely needful to pursue this further.

Man has, then, a living soul; nay, he is one. How he became so Gen. 2: 7 informs us: "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." Now, upon the most cursory glance at this, it is evident that something more took place in man's creation than in the creation of the brute. It is plain that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and that He did not into the brute's. Roberts, indeed, contends that Ps. 104: 25-30 supplies what is omitted in Genesis. He obtains this by means of the old confusion between God's Spirit and the breath of life. Nor does any one deny that "God giveth unto all life and breath and all things." The question is why was the gift given in this especial way to man alone? "No matter," says Mr. R., "if they all have it." But the point is, did God come in in this special way to give merely the same gift after all? The language is phenomenal, as Old Testament language largely is, and that makes one only the more to ask, is this breathing of God not a form of expression pointing to the communication of something from Himself, and more akin to Himself, than is implied in water or earth simply producing?

Surely it is so. For although what is communicated may not be yet fully shown — and it is quite the character of an initial revelation, that it should not be — it is plain that man has a link here with God Himself which the beast has not.

And this is not by a higher bodily organization. His body has been before perfected. It is by the way he receives life. Now, if the breath of life alone were communicated (and every beast has it as much), there is no real difference answering to this difference of communication: the phenomenal language has no corresponding meaning. But thus it is that man — only dust before — becomes a living soul. And that purports that he is now characterized, as we have seen before in the beast, by something now living within that man who was just now but dust. He is a living soul not by the completion of his bodily organization, but by the addition of a new constituent of being. He is now not a mere body, nor a body instinct even with the breath of life: he is become a "living soul."*

{*Mr. Morris' gloss that nephesh chayah means a "vigorous soul" will be repudiated by any scholar. In a secondary sense chayah is used for revival and recovery, but its simple ordinary established meaning is "living." It is in contrast with hayah, "to be," as the being of a stone, for instance, is distinct from the life of an animal.}

Still, why is man called a living soul, a title which is his in common with all the animate creation, rather than a "living spirit," which would distinguish him from them? The answer would seem to be that the point of contrast is not with the lower animals, but with the class of God's creatures to which as a moral being man belongs. The angels are spirits, never souls. The distinction between them and man, "made a little lower than the angels," is thus that man is a soul. That which links him with the inferior creatures, is that which distinguishes him from pure "spirits," such as angels are.*

{* Because he has this in common with the beasts, Mr. R. must not conclude that it is inferred that man's soul is just what the beast's is. If "all flesh is not the same flesh" even, why need all souls be the same

And if God speaks of His "soul," condescending as He does to our familiar human speech, He is never called a soul as He is a spirit.}

The fact here manifest, that the soul is thus put for the whole man himself; as what characterizes him, or gives him his place among God's rational creatures, serves to explain many passages which would otherwise present difficulty. We have in our ordinary language similar uses of the word "soul," which certainly have not grown up from a materialistic idea of it. Thus we talk of "so many souls on board a ship," "every soul was lost," and no one is deceived by it. There are, however, other renderings of the word nephesh, and other uses of soul, which we shall look at in their place. As usual, the deniers of the Scripture doctrine make a great display of various meanings given to the word. Says Miles Grant,* "Nephesh, the word rendered soul, is translated in forty-four different ways in the common English Bible. We now propose to give all these variations, and quote the texts that contain them."

{*The Soul, what is it? p. 20.}

Now I would say that nothing is more common than various renderings of the same word in our ordinary translation. Good as it is, and in most cases giving the sense with sufficient accuracy, it often varies from literal exactness. With all this variation there is far less difference than would at first sight appear. Mr. Grant himself reduces these meanings essentially to four, "creature, person, life and desire." "Soul," of course, disappears out of this catalogue, although it is the translation of nephesh 475 times out of 752. And we are, therefore, to translate Gen. 1: 30, "everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is a living creature," or "wherein there is a living person," or "wherein there is a living life," or "wherein there is a living desire." Choose which you will, reader, so that you give no currency to the supposition of an immaterial soul in man!

Mr. Grant has very ingeniously given in his book all the variations from the ordinary meaning of the word nephesh, but he has only given select specimens of passages which retain that meaning. I will supply the deficiency, and present him and my readers with a few of those omitted passages:

Gen. 42: 21: When we saw the anguish of his soul.

Num. 21: 4: The soul of the people was much discouraged

Deut. 11: 18: Ye shall lay up these my words in your soul.

1 Sam. 18: 1: The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.

1 Sam. 30: 6: The soul of all the people was grieved.

2 Sam. 5: 8: The blind that are hated of David's soul.

Job 14: 22: The soul within him shall mourn.

Job 23: 13: What his soul desireth, even that he doeth.

Ps. 13: 2: How long shall I take counsel in my soul.

Ps. 106: 15: He sent leanness into their soul.

Ps. 107: 26: Their soul is melted because of trouble.

Ps. 119: 20: My soul breaketh for the longing it hath.

Isa. 10: 18: And shall consume from the soul even to the flesh.

Isa. 53: 11: The travail of his soul.

Micah 6: 7: The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.

Now, in these examples, the soul is distinguished from both body and flesh. It longs, it grieves, it hates, it loves. It is indeed a living thing, as Gen. 1: 30 declares.

Take, again, the New Testament equivalent of nephesh — psuche:

Matt. 10: 28: Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.

Matt. 11: 29: Ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Matt. 12: 18: In whom my soul is well pleased.

Matt. 26: 38: My soul is exceeding sorrowful.

Luke 1: 46: My soul doth magnify the Lord.

John 12: 27: Now is my soul troubled.

Acts 2: 27: Thou will not leave my soul in hell (hades).

Acts 14: 22: Confirming the souls of the disciples.

How impossible would it be to translate with Mr. Constable "life" or "person" in these passages; or "body" or "life" with Dr. Thomas and his followers; or "inner organs" with Goodwyn; or "creature, person, life or desire" with Miles Grant! Take, for instance, the very first example, and try upon it any or all of these various renderings. Is it not plain that not one of them will make even the smallest sense?

Mr. Constable has indeed done his best to defend his position, but he owns that he takes the expression in its "less obvious sense," and one to which he is compelled, as he thinks, by "the general doctrine [of Scripture] upon this subject." The latter assertion is surely incorrect, and a little examination will show us that the sense he gives it is not merely the "less obvious," but impossible.

He allows that if soul here be life, "man can and does destroy" it. But he argues "it is a momentary death: what he has for the time extinguished is reserved by God to shine through all eternity: it is not therefore, in God's eye or mind, lost, destroyed or perished."

This will not answer, however. For it is plain that the Lord contrasts killing the body here with destruction of body and soul in hell. Now man can only kill even the body for a season: he cannot prevent the resurrection even of that. What he can do as to the body he can do just as much (or as little) to the life, and therefore there would be no ground for the distinction between the one and the other which the passage manifestly makes. The Lord says, man can kill the body, not the soul. Mr. Constable says he can kill the soul (or life) also, but only for awhile; and that is equally true of the body. According to Mr. C. it should have been "Fear not them which kill neither body nor life." This is not a "less obvious," but an impossible sense.

But again, how could one even talk of "killing the life"? much more of "killing the body and the life"? What is killing the body but destroying its life? I must plead ignorance as to killing the body and the life being different things at all. Nay, further, since "killing" is already "taking life," I must confess I fail to see how you can talk of taking the life of life or "killing life."

Thus, then, without the need of considering the passages with which he has sought to prop up his argument (passages which will be examined, however, in another place), we may safely assure ourselves that the Lord speaks of a true soul in man which man cannot kill even for a moment. They can, for a moment, the body, but God will raise it up. Not even for a moment can they kill the soul.

The dilemma has been attempted to be avoided in another way. Says Miles Grant: "We think it does not mean this present soul or life, for the reason that the destruction threatened is not in this life, but in the world to come. Man can and does take this life."

Therefore "soul" has to be rendered the "life to come." But this it never means: the life to come, or life eternal, is zoe, never psuche. So much so that Goodwyn says: "Wherever the word psuche is found it is in direct contrast with zoe, and used to express the natural life or soul capable of being destroyed, put to death, or perishing." This is, of course, as to the latter part of it, merely his own view, and in flat denial of the passage before us; for how, if it be the natural life, merely, can man, who kills the body, not kill it? But the "life to come" it is not. Psuche, in a secondary sense, is "life," because the soul is (in effect) life to the body. This natural life man does and can take; so that psuche here must be (spite of the protest of materialism) that which lies back of the life itself — the veritable soul, which is out of man's reach altogether.

Roberts attempts an argument, however, from John 12: 25: "The man losing his life in this world for Christ's sake, is said to save it. When? When the Son of man comes (Matt. 16: 25-27). If he is to save his psuche then, surely it is now a psuche or life to come." Now the Lord's words are that "he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." How could a man keep his life to come unto life to come! It is his present life he in some way* keeps, not merely for ever, but to life eternal. By and by we shall look more closely into what "life eternal" is, and shall then find it is not mere eternal existence, but far more. His human life will enter this new condition. But that shows the distinction between the two, and that it is this human life the Lord speaks of in the passage. As I have said, Scripture expresses these two things by different terms: it is always eternal zoe, never psuche; and Mr. Roberts cannot deny it.

{*In what way will be better considered further on.}

But to give up here is to give up all as to the soul's immortality, and it is no wonder, therefore, they hesitate. The doctrine they denounce finds in this verse as literal expression as need be. If it be Platonic, Scripture is then Platonic; or rather, Plato is thus far Scriptural.

6 - Functions and Relationships of Soul and Spirit

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 6.

Functions and Relationships of Soul and Spirit

With these facts before us, the way is prepared for us to see a new and beautiful harmony in the Scripture teaching as to soul and spirit. That these are quite distinct from one another, though so nearly related, the word of God bears abundant witness. "Your whole spirit and soul and body," and "piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," are passages sufficiently plain. But the question naturally arises, How, then, are they distinguished, and what are their relationships to one another? In the answer to this which the inspired writings furnish, we find also the fullest confirmation of the fact of the existence of these two separate* entities in the compound nature of man.

{*Not separate or separable in Mr. Roberts' sense, as if ever disjoined from one another.}

"Spirit and soul and body," which I have taken as the key to the discovery of man's nature, gives us, I believe, very clearly the order of relationship. The soul is here the connecting link between the spirit and the body. The spirit is the higher part. Hence, although it be true that "the body without the spirit is dead" (James 2: 26), yet the spirit is never looked at as the life of the body. The word for "life," as we have seen, is psuche or nephesh, in its secondary or derived meaning.

And to soul or spirit, not merely the moral qualities, but also the senses, and the emotional and intellectual faculties are ascribed. Striking fact for materialists, the brain (to which they ascribe everything) is not so much as once mentioned from Genesis to Revelation. Nor has the head, which contains the brain, any mental or moral faculties ascribed to it. "Visions of the head" are mentioned (Dan. 4: 10, etc.), plainly because the eyes are in it. But no mental or moral qualities, no faculties beside, are ever attributed to it.

I do not say this as doubting the result of men's researches in this respect. But, as fully allowing that the brain is the instrument of the intellect, it makes only the more striking the way in which the Spirit of God goes back of the mere fleshy organ to that of which it is merely the organ. Still more so, because feelings and faculties are attributed figuratively to the heart, the belly, the bowels, the kidneys (reins), the womb, and the flesh in general, but never to the head. Look at the remarks of Roberts* before cited, and see how the wisdom of God meets the insane folly of would-be philosophers. He who foreknew all these self-sufficient speculations, has poured contempt upon them by utter silence; while, except the figurative language alluded to, all the faculties of man are attributed to what their science of course cannot detect, the unseen soul or spirit. They may correct the Word indeed, and they are bold enough to do so, by their more perfect knowledge but there stands the fact, let them meet it how they can.

{*He reminds me that the eye sees, and the ear hears, and the flesh is pained, which does not perceptibly affect the argument. That he should further appeal to 1 Chron. 12: 32, Job 32: 8, and Prov. 30: 2, as attributing "understanding to the whole mechanism of man as made of dust," is hopelessly unintelligible, except as he might hope that no one would read for himself the texts in question.}

But moreover in proclaiming these attributes or functions of the spirit and the soul, there is no looseness of language, much less confusion. The mental faculties, emotions, sensual appetites, etc., are ascribed to soul or to spirit with the utmost exactness and the most unvarying harmony. It is to this point that I would call most earnest and special attention. We shall find in every case that intelligence and judgment belong to the spirit; the affections, desires, appetites, etc., to the soul. I place before my readers the passages, or all the varieties of them, upon which the judgment may be formed.

And first, with regard to spirit (roach or pneuma)

Gen. 41: 8: (Pharaoh's) spirit was troubled.

Judges 8: 3: Their spirit was abated towards him.

Ps. 106: 33: They provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly.

Prov. 14: 29: He that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.

Isa. 29: 24: They that erred in spirit shall come to understanding.

Ezek. 1: 21: The spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

Mark 8: 12: He sighed deeply in his spirit.

Acts 17: 16: His spirit was stirred within him.

1 Cor. 2: 11: What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him.

Rendered in our version, "mind":

Prov. 29: 11: A fool uttereth all his mind.

Ezek. 11: 5: I know the things that come into your mind.

Ezek. 20: 32: That which cometh into your mind.

Dan. 5: 20: His mind hardened in pride.

"Understanding": Isa. 11: 4.

"Courage": Joshua 2: 11.

Now here it will require no lengthened examination to see that the spirit is presented in Scripture as the seat of the mind or understanding, as we have just seen it to be sometimes even translated. The passage from 1 Cor. 2: 11, is indeed the most positive assertion of it that can well be: "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" Here the spirit of man in the man is that part of him to which all intelligence is referred. Hence we may know what to think of the knowledge or honesty displayed in such a statement as the following from one of Miles Grant's writings: "In all the 400 passages in the Old, and the 385 in the New Testament, where these words occur, we do not find one that teaches that when this spirit or breath is in man, it is the thinking, accountable part, or that it ever did or ever will think. Why is the Bible wholly silent on this point? Why are we not taught somewhere that the ruach or pneuma is the real man?"* Mr. Grant of course adopts the usual confusion of the breath of life with the spirit of man, and I do not mean to assert by any means, that the breath of life is the "real man." But to his latter question I do most positively and distinctly answer that the Bible does teach that the spirit of man is the conscious thinking part, and that his not seeing it is only due to his own blindness, not to its not being there. It says most definitely and distinctly, that the "man" which knows the "things of a man" is "the spirit of man, which is IN him." There is no escape from its plain speaking. It speaks so plainly indeed that Mr. Grant has seen it best to ignore its testimony in his pamphlet just referred to and it is his silence that is to be remarked, and not the silence of the Scriptures.

{* Spirit in Man, pp. 31, 32.}

This "spirit of man," then, cannot be with Mr. Grant either an "influence" or "a state of feeling," or the "atmosphere or breath of life." It cannot be Mr. Morris' new nature (or else all unconverted men are born idiots), or "motions and emotions of the soul." No, it is simply what the words declare, a conscious intelligent existence in the man, and that to which all his intelligence of human things is due. "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the SPIRIT OF MAN which is IN him?"

Passages which also identify the spirit as the seat of the mind or understanding, I have already quoted. It needs not to examine them here, except to show how other uses of the word are derived from this one. Thus, in Joshua 2: 11, and Joshua 5: 1, it is used for "courage," the connection of which with "presence of mind" is familiar to all. And in Judges 8: 3, it is used for "anger," which is again the judgment of the mind, true or false, upon what presents itself to it as evil, Another use of the word, which also we have in English, for the prevailing temper or disposition, as "a meek and quiet spirit," a "spirit of pride," etc., seems derived from the fact of the spirit being in man the higher part, and the rightful governor of the man — what, in short, characterizes him.

Now let us gather, in a similar way, some passages as to the soul, and the difference will be at once apparent.

Thus it is the seat of the affections:

Gen. 34: 8: The soul of my son longeth for your daughter.

1 Sam. 18: 1: The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.

Ps. 42: 1: So panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Ps. 63: 1: O God, my soul thirsteth for Thee.

Ps. 84: 2: My soul longeth for the courts of the Lord.

Ps. 119: 20: My soul breaketh for the longing it hath.

Cant. 1: 7: O Thou whom my soul loveth.

Isaiah 26: 9: With my soul have I desired thee in the night.

Luke 2: 35: A sword shall pierce through thine own soul.

Heb. 10: 38: My soul shall have no pleasure in him.

As it loves, so it hates:

Lev. 26: 15: If your soul abhor my judgments.

2 Sam. 5: 8: The blind, that are hated of David's soul.

Zech. 11: 8: My soul loathed them.

It compassionates:

Judges 10: 16: His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

Job 30: 25: Was not my soul grieved for the poor?

Ezek. 24: 21: What your soul pitieth shall fall by the sword.

It is the seat of lusts:

Job 23: 13: What his soul desireth, even that he doeth.

Ps. 10: 3: The wicked boasteth of his soul's desire.

1 Peter 2: 11: Fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

Of the appetites, even, of the body:

Ps. 107: 18: Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat.

Prov. 19: 15: An idle soul shall suffer hunger.

Prov. 25: 25: As cold waters to a thirsty soul.

Prov. 27: 7: The full soul loatheth a honeycomb.

Isaiah 29: 8: His soul hath appetite.

Lam. 1: 11: Meat to relieve the soul.

Luke 12: 19: Soul . . take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

So its derived meanings are:

"Appetite" Prov. 23: 2, Ecc. 6: 7.

"Pleasure": Deut. 23: 24, Ps. 105: 22, Jer, 34: 16.

"Desire": Jer. 44: 14, Micah 7: 3, Hab. 2: 5.

"Mind," in the sense of will or intention, not of the understanding: 1 Sam. 2: 35, 2 Kings 9: 15.

A slight examination of these passages will serve to demonstrate the truth of my former assertion as to the soul's place and functions. It is here seen plainly as the link between the spirit and the body: that which is indeed the life of the latter. The sense of "life" so often given to it in Scripture is plainly a meaning derived from this very fact. In all this the difference between soul and spirit is preserved in the most marked way, and the most thorough consistency maintained everywhere throughout the Bible.

Still objection has been taken to this statement. Mr. Roberts has even ventured the assertion that, on the contrary, "spirit" and "soul" are "used interchangeably in the most indiscriminate manner." He instances Luke 1: 46, 47: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." But he does not tell us how this shows their indiscriminate use. "My soul doth magnify" may well express how fully its longings are satisfied; while "my spirit hath rejoiced" only shows that there is a joy of the mind as well. And so there is: and both heart and mind thus testify the complete way in which the knowledge of a Saviour-God meets both, and unites man's whole being in praise. There is so little opposition here to the view above given, that it alone gives fulness and definiteness to what in Mr. Roberts' hands becomes a poor and unmeaning tautology.

He goes on: "But the fact can be shown from the very passages which Mr. Grant has quoted: for instance, out of nine quoted to show that the spirit is the seat of the mind or understanding as contrasted with the soul as the seat of hate, love, lust, appetite, etc., six have to do with emotion, such as anger, fear," etc. . . . "A not very close examination shows them to teach that the spirit, in addition to understanding, has to do with trouble, anger, provocation, hastiness, sorrow and excitement, and is, therefore, not the higher entity of Mr. Grant's theory, having only to do with the exercise of reason."

But Mr. Roberts plainly does not apprehend the theory. He shows it by inferring from it "two surviving personalities, when the body has mouldered to dust." Spirit, soul and body are during life but one "personality," and certainly death does not make more than one. At death the body drops, for the time being, out of this triunity. Spirit and soul, on the other hand, are never sundered. In life or in death the mysterious links of connection are preserved, and if (in Mr. R.'s wording of it), the spirit is the thinker, and the soul the feeler, these are not independent of each other, two personalities, but one. The knowledge of the spirit becomes the portion of the soul; the affections of the soul the possession of the spirit. This interdependence may find illustration in one of the texts quoted above, and which Mr. R. lays hold of as against the view: — "He sighed deeply in his spirit." Now "sighing" is a bodily, not a mental phenomenon at all. The language does not more confound soul and spirit than it does body and spirit, if rigidly (and unnaturally) construed. But it was mental trouble that produced the sigh, His spirit discerning the moral character of the expressed desire to see a sign from heaven. Pharaoh's spirit was in like manner troubled: in his case because he could not interpret his dream. In these cases, suppose the spirit was mind, why could we not speak of trouble of mind? In each case, the mind or spirit which discerns the things of a man is rightly named as the seat of the trouble. The soul in Pharaoh's case, soul and body in the Lord's, might be involved; but the expressions are perfectly appropriate, and the distinction between soul and spirit gives them a real significance, which for materialism does not exist.

So I have shown above how the spirit is connected with "anger" (as in Judges 8: 3). Ps. 106: 33, and Prov. 14: 29 are really to be classed with this, as is evident; and Acts 17: 6 is nearly related and easily intelligible.

But let me ask Mr. Roberts, has he found "hate, love, lust, appetite," in Scripture ascribed to the spirit? It is plain he has not, or we should have heard of it. Does not this look then, as if the "theory" had some foundation in fact?

As to the soul, Mr. R. asserts that the quotations —

"show as a whole, that the 'soul' of the Bible has as much to do with higher actions of the mind as the spirit: Thus Ps. 42: 1, Ps. 63: 1, Ps. 84: 2; in all these, which are the first three quotations, it is David's soul that aspires after divine things, and therefore that apprehends knowledge. But this point is more obvious in some passages which of course he has not quoted. Thus Prov. 19: 2, 'that the soul be without knowledge is not good'; Ps. 139: 14, 'That my soul KNOWETH right well;' Prov. 2: 10, 'when knowledge is pleasant to thy SOUL; Prov. 24: 14, So shall the knowledge of wisdom be to thy soul.'"

That is Mr. Robert's disproof of the whole argument. It is easy to show here again that it is illusive and imaginary, and that the view in question gives alone real distinctness of meaning to the texts.

For, as to the first three quotations how impossible would it be to say, "So panteth my mind after Thee," "my mind thirsteth," "my mind longeth." Certainly it has never been contended that the soul has not to do with divine things, any more than we could assert this of the heart, which we may take as in some sort its figurative synonym. On the contrary, it is the importance of their getting into the heart, and not being in the mind only, that is the key to the other texts so obscure to Mr. Roberts. The knowledge of wisdom must be thus sweet to the soul, in order to profit. If the mind acquire it, yet the heart enjoys it; and this is the explanation of the last two quotations. So we can well understand how "that the soul be without knowledge is not good": for the affections must be guided and governed by the understanding. Finally, that the soul (or heart) should appreciate God's "marvellous works," is thus not out of keeping: it is rightly, not merely my mind knoweth, but my heart does. The view of the soul above given is not inconsistent with such texts as these, but on the contrary brings out their beauty. Mr. Roberts' objections are not merely superficial and powerless, but his weapons are easily turned against himself.

Nor only this, but he is grossly inconsistent with his own statements. For when he interprets the apostle's "spirit and soul and body," he paraphrases it, as we have seen (p. 30 ) by "body, life and mind." Here, in express contrast with the soul, he identifies the "spirit" with the "mind." I believe, indeed, it is inconsistent with his system, and have said so, but that does not alter the fact that here he is in manifest contradiction to himself.

I repeat, then, without fear of successful opposition, that while the spirit is in Scripture identified with the mind, the soul is the seat of the affections, right or wrong, of love, hate, lusts, and even of the appetites of the body.

7 - Soul and Self

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 7.

Soul and Self

We may now proceed still further in proof of the distinct meaning and harmonious use of these words in Scripture; each added harmony discovered being of course new proof of the reality of man's spiritual being, and of the complete Scriptural recognition of the fact.

We have seen the intimate alliance of soul and body, the very appetites (as we speak) of the body being ascribed to the soul. This makes it little wonder that "soul" and "life" should be so far identified as to be expressed even by the same word. What ground have we from Scripture, indeed, for speaking of any "vital principle" apart from the soul? It seems plain that there is no such thing and that "life" is but the permeation of the body with the soul. The soul is the life while it abides in connection with the body. The life is (so to speak) the PHENOMENAL soul. It is no wonder, then, if these two meanings should easily in Scripture run into one another, and be both covered by the same Greek or Hebrew word.

That they do so is seen in a passage which Mr. Constable has very strangely himself brought forward to show the influence of "Platonism" in moulding the common translation of our Bible. He would have the word psuche, which stands for soul and life in Luke 12: 19-23, uniformly rendered "life" all through. To most readers this will surely appear impossible and absurd. Fancy a man represented as apostrophizing his life thus: "Life, thou hast much goods, etc., . . . take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry"! Yet, on the other hand, who can avoid the connection with the moral of this very story, "Take no thought for your life"? Instead, then, of manifesting the Platonism of the translators, it does show how near akin in Scripture, although impossible to be confounded, soul and life are.

Nor only this. The word for "natural body" — the body we now inhabit — is a word taken from this word psuche (its adjective, psuchic), one for which we have no equivalent in English, but which speaks of the body in its present state, as related in a special way to soul rather than spirit, for it is contrasted with the "spiritual" body of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 44).

This leads to a third use of the word "soul" in Scripture, which has been already glanced at, but which it will be of use now to consider more at length. As pervading and vitalizing the body, the soul, it is evident, connects itself with the practical life which we live in the flesh in a special way. We have seen that man's distinctive title, as compared with the rest of moral beings, is that he is a "soul." It is, accordingly, the word used for the "person," the "self," while thus in the body. It is, indeed, the only true word in Hebrew for either,* while in the New Testament psuche is used correspondingly in several places. It is thus the emphatic I or he. "My soul" is but myself: the soul of a person is but the person himself.

{*"Person" is the translation of six other words in our version, but of these, three are but words for "man" ('Adam, 'ish, 'enosh), and would be better given so. Ba'al is used but once (Prov. 24: 8). Panim, only in the phrase "accepting persons," lit. "faces." Methim again but once. For "self" we find, beside nephesh, only once, "basar," Ecc. 2: 3.}

Even in our own language, where, certainly, it is not materialism which has induced such a mode of speech, we speak of "souls" in a manner which should convict us, with such as Mr. Constable, of ourselves disbelieving the immortality of the soul. We speak of so many "souls" being on board a ship, nay, of these "souls" perishing in the waters. Think how impossible for those who believe in an immortal soul, to speak of souls perishing in the waters! It is, perhaps, impossible to justify such language to Mr. Constable, and yet we do believe in the immortality of the soul in spite of that. Somehow to us, as to the writers of Scripture, the man who dwells in this "natural" body, is pre-eminently a "soul." "Soul" characterizes him, while in the flesh at least, in some sense beyond spirit or body. The body he possesses is a soul-body; the life he lives a soul-life; the man himself is a "living soul."

Can we explain this identification, while yet the body is what is most evident to the senses, and the spirit the higher and intellectual part, and which really separates man from the beast? I believe we can very intelligibly explain it.

For, as to the body, what is it apart from that which animates and connects it with the scene around, nay, which holds even together its very component parts in one organic whole? It is the soul with which we have practically to do; our intercourse is of soul with soul; when the soul is gone, the body is but the relic of what we once knew.

And even as to the spirit, its connection with the outer world is also by the soul. The aperture of knowledge is by the senses. The word we have before seen, in 1 Cor. 15, to be translated "natural," is twice elsewhere translated "sensual" (James 3: 15, Jude 19), and is really "psychic," from psuche, soul. The soul is thus really the life here, the man himself as part of this creation. Soul, life, self; are so near akin to one another as almost to merge in one; but the key to the harmony is in no wise the materialistic conception, but the reverse.

And this is confirmed in a remarkable way by the use of Scripture, which, when speaking of the disembodied state, identifies man with his spirit rather than with his soul. Not that what kills the body kills the soul. This, as we have seen, the Word emphatically denies. But yet if the present life be emphatically the soul-life — the living man the living soul — death is the end of this form of existence. The soul, though not extinct in death, may well be said, according to the true phrase in Lev. 24: 17, 18, to be "smitten" by it. And, while in death the "soul departs" from the body (Gen. 35: 18), and in the case of one raised from death "comes into" it again (1 Kings 17: 21), man in the disembodied state simply is constantly and consistently a spirit, not a soul, with two exceptions only which limit this in a way which serves to show only more convincingly the reality of the distinction we are making.

The two exceptions are Acts 2: 27 (which is only the quotation of Ps. 16: 10), and Rev. 6: 9. Both of these evidently refer to death and the connection with the body. The souls under the altar are the "souls of them that were slain for the word of God," — "smitten" souls which cry for vengeance. While "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell" (or hades) no less is connected with the thought of the partner-body from which it had been sundered, but which is not allowed to see "corruption" in the tomb.

Ordinarily, the common language of the day, which speaks of departed spirits, and of ghosts (which is but the Saxon equivalent of the same word), is based upon the older and Scriptural usage. A "spirit," as in Acts 23: 8, 9, was the common term for one passed into the unseen state. The Pharisees confessed their belief in "spirits," carefully distinguished from "angels," and in opposition to Sadducean infidelity. So the disciples thought the risen Lord a "spirit," and the Lord answers them, "a spirit hath not flesh and bones." So the departed saints are "spirits of just men" (Heb. 12: 23), while the unrighteous on the other hand are "spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3: 19). So "the spirit departs to God that gave it" (Ecc. 12: 7); and the Lord commends His spirit to the Father (Luke 23: 46), Stephen his to Him who has the keys of death and hades (Acts 7: 59).

Again, the "spiritual" body of the resurrection argues the new condition upon which the saint enters then. "Flesh and blood" — the two combined — "cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15: 50).

We are anticipating here what may seem rather to belong to a future stage of our inquiry, but it seemed needful in order that we might have a full view of the Scripture teaching as to what man is. There is surely a consistency in all this which is the consistency of truth itself. We shall pursue this further in the next chapter. In the meanwhile we may take up the objections of Mr. Constable to that view of "soul" which we have been maintaining here.

Thus he complains of the various translation which in our common version is given to the word. He argues that the translators, "despite their Platonic views, are compelled to give 'animal life,' as a true and proper sense for that word, which they generally translate by a term which they suppose to mean something infinitely higher in meaning than 'animal life.' Just as if a word can have for its primary sense two meanings wholly different from each other!"

Where our translators have given this rendering of animal life I cannot find. Mr. Constable's object in introducing "animal" into it is plain, however. It is to let us know that soul-life (if I may use the expression) is common to the lower animals along with man, and to let us infer that it can be no higher a thing in us than in the "beasts which perish." This is to decide the question of the soul's immortality by sleight of hand. The inference is not a just one. If "all flesh," as the apostle argues, "is not the same flesh," how much less need all souls be the same? Why not say of all "life" even as much, except that its folly would be too transparent? Therefore the additional word dropped in, the responsibility to be assumed by the translators, while Mr. Constable is its author!

I have shown also that "soul" is really the primary meaning of both the Greek and Hebrew words in Scripture, and yet how closely connected the secondary meaning of "life" is. The two are certainly in nowise "contradictory," however little it is possible to confound them either. Mr. C. may urge, indeed, that thus our translators, and we after them, vary the translation as we please, in order to escape from the difficulties attendant upon an honest construction of it. He does adduce Matt. 16: 25, 26, and Luke 12: 19-23, as examples where psuche stands for life and soul, and where he claims it must at least be uniformly rendered.

But we have already seen that as to the latter passage it is clearly impossible. Did any one ever address such an impersonality as his "life," and bid it "take its ease," etc.? Yet this is the rendering Mr. Constable demands! The same uniformity of rendering would in other places give still more manifest absurdity, as in John 3: 8, already noticed, where "wind" and "spirit" are the same word. The rule he would apply is in short not without many an exception, these exceptions being determined by the connection in which the word is found. In Matt. 16: 25, 26, Alford and others, who are sufficiently orthodox, render the last verse as Mr. C. would do, without the least idea of its being "forbidden by their theory." My own view is that which the parallel passage in Luke 9: 25 seems evidently to show to be the true one, that "soul" is here, as so often in the Old Testament, the synonym of self. "His soul" in Matt. 16: 26 is interpreted by the passage in Luke to be "himself." The doctrine the Lord propounds is that a man must take his choice of this world or the next. He must be as a man of the world lost here, or lost hereafter; but I do not see how it could be better expressed in English than it is in the way that Mr. Constable demurs to, albeit it requires the double rendering of psuche by life and soul, a rendering which would be only inadmissible, if it required a meaning for the word which was not thoroughly established elsewhere.

Mr. Constable has produced some passages to show that the soul is mortal, and although it may seem anticipating, yet as the subject has been already somewhat before us, it will be well to consider them here.

And first as to the Old Testament, he brings forward Lev. 24: 17, 18, "literally translated:" — "he that killeth the soul of a man . . . . the soul of a beast," expressions similar to which abound, he says, in the Hebrew Scriptures. With these he joins Joshua's destruction of "all the souls" in the cities of Canaan (!) and the phrases "my soul shall live" (Gen. 12: 13), and "let my soul die" (Num. 23: 10). He urges also Job's soul choosing death (Job 7: 15), and Elihu's words (Job 33: 22): "his soul draweth near to the grave." Also that "in the 33rd psalm, we are expressly told that the souls even of God's people are exposed to death; and in another psalm (Ps. 78: 50), that the soul is not "spared from death"; while the final end of the wicked in hell . . . . is described as the death of the sinful soul (Ezek. 18: 20).

Again as to the New Testament, he contends that Mark 3: 4 should read, "to save a soul or to kill it," and so Luke 9: 54-56, Acts 15: 26, Rom. 11: 3. He urges Rev. 16: 3, "every living soul died in the sea;" and adds, "Once more John tells us that all souls, whether of the righteous or the wicked, after death continue without life until the resurrection. In Rev. 20: 4, he tells us that in the prophetic vision of the future with which he was favored, he saw 'the souls of them that were beheaded' in a living state. He goes on in verse 5 to speak of other souls. He tells us that these latter did not live again till after a certain period. Hence we gather of the former that they had been raised to life, i.e., had been without life, in a condition of death, till the resurrection."

Mr. Constable's own canon of interpretation is simple enough, "that the word psuche has evidently, when spoken of as a constituent part of human nature, one uniform meaning." This, he says, is "life." So that in the last quotation the apostle John tells us, "I saw the lives of them that were beheaded," etc., "and they," the lives, "lived." He saw these lives, to use Mr. C.'s language, "in a living state." So in Rev. 16: 3, "every living life," the word "living" makes things still plainer, Mr. C. thinks — "died in the sea." So Job spoke of his life choosing death, Elihu of its going to the grave, Abraham of his life living, and Balaam of its dying; while he that killed the life of a man was to be put to death, etc. This is all ordinary and quite intelligible English to Mr. Constable, and which ought to commend itself to his readers without even the necessity of a word to make it plain!

How is it that he does not see the impossibility of such renderings, and on the other hand that there is a legitimate use of soul in English, which explains in good measure the difficulty he seems to have? Why should he have more difficulty, for instance, in understanding Joshua's destroying "all the souls" in Canaan, or every "living soul" dying in the sea, than if it had been a newspaper paragraph as to a shipwreck, and "not a soul saved"? Would this suggest to him, as similar language in Scripture seems to do, how wrong our thoughts are about the "salvation" of "souls"? There is a childish simplicity in such remarks, which would provoke a smile if the subject were not too grave. In Mark 3: 4, Mr. Constable would even force the translation into "save a soul or to kill it," actually introducing the "it" where there is none, to bring in the killing of a soul in the most striking way! Why it should not be "life" there, he can only argue upon his principle of uniformity of meaning, which we have already practically tested and found wanting.

The "souls of those beheaded" in Rev. 20, presents but little more difficulty, for the reviving of these souls is expressly called a "resurrection." It is therefore but an instance of the use of soul of a man for the man himself, which I have already referred to. This completes the list of New Testament passages.

The first from the Old Testament (Lev. 24: 17, 18) I have already referred to. The expression here and elsewhere, as Gen. 37: 21, Deut. 19: 6, 11, Deut. 22: 26, Jer. 40: 14, is invariably "smiting the soul," and we have seen its force. The verb is not the true word for killing, nor would there be sense in speaking of killing the life of a person, because "killing" by itself means "taking life," and taking the life of the life would be an insufferable expression.

It is scarcely needful again to speak of Joshua. "My soul shall live," "let my soul die," "to deliver their soul from death," "He spared not their soul from death," "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," are all similar expressions to those we have noticed in Revelation.* Nor does Ezek. 18: 27 speak of punishment in hell, although commonly taken in that way, but of Divine government in the world.

{*Examples will be found without any difficulty in the Old Testament. See for instance Lev. 11: 43, Joshua 23: 11, Esther 4: 13, Esther 9: 31, Job 18: 4, Job 32: 2, Ps. 105: 18, Isa. 5: 14, Isa. 46: 2, Jer. 3: 11.}

Again, Job's soul choosing death presents no difficulty: how it should show that it dies, much more becomes extinct, Mr. Constable should explain. In Job 33: 22, were the common rendering correct, the vivid poetry would scarcely require so narrow an interpretation. But shachath is not the "grave": it is the "pit," as in vers. 18, 25, 28, 30,* the abyss, darker and more dread than the grave.

{*Or "corruption," not necessarily of the body merely but "pit" is more usual, and the true meaning here.}

This then is his whole argument. At the very best superficial, it is in many cases inconsistent and self-destructive in the extreme. His failure is not from want of will nor of mental ability: it is the failure of error to overthrow truth, and, thank God, whatever the advocate, fail it must.

8 - The Fall

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 8.

The Fall

There remain yet some things to point out before the harmony of Scripture doctrine as to spirit and soul is properly before us. Types indeed of the difference and relationship between these two essential parts of man's being are to be found, I doubt not, in the human race at large. Man and woman, in their characteristic differences, seem to present very much the peculiar features of spirit and soul: the one predominant in mental activity, the other in emotional the woman formed for the man, and each the complement of the other, made for mutual support and relationship.

The analogy may be traced further than this, however, and grows in significance as we contemplate it. The man was seduced through the woman, his judgment not astray, but led captive by his affections. "Adam was not deceived," says the apostle (1 Tim. 2: 14), "but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." "The serpent beguiled me," says the woman. "The woman gave me of the tree" (not beguiled me), says Adam. Thus, as the man was led by the woman and fell by her, so was he, it is plain, led by the affections of the soul, and with the soul the spirit fell.

It is always so. To use the language of the day, though not of Scripture — the head is seduced by the heart. "How can ye believe," asks the Lord Himself; "who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?" And again — "that they all might be damned, which believed not the truth, but" [mark the reason] "had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. 2: 12). And so again, when there is real turning to God, "with the heart," not the head, "man believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. 10: 10).

Thus, though the spirit be as much astray as the soul, it is through the soul, as well as with it, it is seduced and is fallen. And the word of God, in its own perfect and wonderful way, ever keeps in mind the distinction. It proclaims the fact that in fallen man the spirit has yielded its supremacy to the soul, and that the "natural" man is "sensual" or soul-led (psuchikos) (1 Cor. 2: 14). In the believer, and especially in the blameless state of such, the spirit again recovers its supremacy. "Spirit and soul and body" are again in the divine order

Nor are these by any means solitary expressions. The same thing is expressed in various ways in the language of Scripture. Thus the will, in the now natural state, is identified or connected with the soul. This is translated three times "will" in our common version (Ps. 27: 12, Ps. 41: 2, Ezek. 16: 27). "Let her go whither she will," is (in Deut. 21: 14) "let her go to her soul." "Aha, so would we have it" (Ps. 35: 25), is "aha, our soul!" And the expression, "binding the soul with a bond," i.e., with a vow, repeated ten times in Num. 30, shows how intimately will and soul are connected together. Thus it is even so that "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" characterize the world for God, and man, alas! is but the creature of fleshly impulse — "sensual," if "not having the Spirit" (Jude 19).

On the other hand, that the spirit should have supremacy, and so give the will (I say not, in independence of the soul, but as enlightening and guiding it), is evident from the chief place it gets. Indeed the old nature has its synonym of "flesh," from the opposite tendency of being guided by the soul, which is so nearly connected with the body. But into this it is not my province now to enter.

Still I would point out how, in perfect accordance with all this, as thus sin is in a special sense "the sin of the soul" (Micah 6: 7), so atonement is said to be made, in the same way, "for the soul." The expression is three times found (Ex. 30: 15, Lev. 17: 11, Num. 31: 50). And I speak of it to show the blessed harmony of Scripture on this as on every other point. Moreover, as for the soul atonement is needed, so by it atonement was made. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied" (Isa. 53: 10, 11).

So complete, so uniform, is the testimony of the Word.

9 - Man's Relationship to God

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Chapter 9.

Man's Relationship to God

One last consideration before we close this section. It is very plain that, as distinguished from the beasts, man is in Scripture recognized as in a place of relationship with God; and this by creation, not redemption merely. Adam, as the work of God's hands, is in some sort, as the genealogy in Luke bears witness, "the son of God."* The apostle confirms it by quoting from the heathen poet, "we are also His offspring"** (Acts 17: 28). Now, although sin has so far destroyed the meaning of this as to make it an unavailing plea in the lips of carnal and ungodly men, yet the basis of relationship exists spite of the fall, as these and other words assure us. And this is a relationship which plainly no beast could have. Its very nature denies it; and this is a distinction of the very greatest importance evidently.

{* Luke 3: 38: where it is futile to object, as some do, that "the son" is not in the original. That it must be understood is plain from its being equally left out all through after the first time, and evidently merely to avoid repetition. Its occurrence in the first instance (ver. 23) is a perfect guide to the ellipse afterwards, and people might as well question "Seth" being the "(the son) of Adam," as "Adam" being here "(the son) of God."

**Which Mr. Morris would translate "His product," a sense the word never bears.}

Man is fitted for acquaintance and intercourse with God, and in this shows himself; and in this I may say alone, a moral and accountable being. He may "not understand," and so he may become like the beasts that perish, but he is not one. In his manifest degradation even he is a witness of his nobler origin, for a beast cannot degrade itself. And with all this perilous capacity for evil, nay, with all the actuality of evil itself, he has the witness in himself of relationship to the Infinite and Eternal, which, spite of himself, warns him of his responsibility, and links him by his hopes or by his fears, or both, with that life beyond death, in which, notwithstanding the seeming protest of all his senses, he almost universally believes.

In thus asserting with the inspired historian, and with the apostle, man's distinct place in nature as a "son of God," I do not at all forget the Lord's words to those who made this very thing their plea. When they had put forth their claim, "We be not born of fornication we have one Father, even God," I perfectly remember that His answer is, "If God were your Father, ye would love me, . . . ye are of your father the devil" (John 8: 42, 44). — But this language is in no wise contradictory of the other, as of course it could not be. For the Lord says the same as to their being Abraham's children, and that certainly they were by natural generation however little morally such. It is of their moral condition then He is speaking. The devil was not their father physically of course. The Lord's words then do not touch the question of their being physically God's offspring, as the apostle asserts.

But we are not only said to be the offspring of God, it is precisely pointed out that He is the Father (in contrast with the flesh) of our spirits. "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb. 12: 9.)

Who can deny with any appearance of success, that we have here the development, by an inspired writer, of what the creation of man, as given in Gen. 2, implies? We have seen the bodily frame formed of the dust of the ground, and though God wrought in a special way to fashion it, as He did not with the beast, yet He does not claim to be the Father of our flesh. But we have seen also that man be came a "living soul," not in that way, nor as brought forth of the earth at all, but by the inbreathing of God into him. This is not said of the beast; and, phenomenal as the language is, it is only therefore the more, instead of the less, significant. If God did not want to convey to us an idea of what would be literally expressed by it, He must have intended to convey the thought of some corresponding spiritual reality.

And what can this be, but that the spiritual part which animates and controls the bodily organism is something from Himself and akin to Himself in a way that the body is not?

Here then the apostle develops this thought. He is not the Father, though the Creator, of our flesh. It is not the bare fact of our creaturehood that constitutes us His children. The beasts are His creatures also, but are not this. He is the Father of our spirits, not our flesh; nay, not merely of our spirits, but of spirits, — of all this class of beings, Creatures though these are, they are yet in a relationship to Him that no lower creatures can be. Thus we see why the angels are "sons of God" (Job 1: 6; Job 38: 7), as "spirits;" and man too, he is a "spirit" and a "son."

Note too how careful the language is. Man has a living soul and is one: and this too by the inbreathing of God. Yet is God not said to be the Father of his soul but of his spirit. How this harmonizes with the spirit being the distinct speciality of man alone in all this lower world! Had it said, "Father of souls," or had the beast, as men contend, a spirit, God would have been represented as Father of the beasts of the field. But the language is precise, as all Scripture is, and in harmony with Scripture and with nature too.

But this is not the whole of what the Word states. As He is the Father, so is He "the God of the spirits of all flesh" (Num. 16: 22, Num. 27: 16); "all flesh" being of course here what it is in many other places "all men," but characterized by what in him is only his lowest part. So we find (Gen. 6: 12) that before the flood "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth," and in Luke 3: 6, "all flesh shall see the salvation of God:" of course in either case all mankind, and only these.

In this expression then, "the God of the spirits of all flesh," we see again God in relationship with the spirit of man. The beast has no God that can be called his God; and man, forgetting God and living to himself, becomes a beast. The outward presentation of this you may find in Nebuchadnezzar finding his portion with the beasts (Dan. 4); the moral of it is in Ps. 49, "Man being in honor and understanding not is like the beasts that perish." Their perishing is the fruit of there being no proper link with God, such as man has.

Thus then we have in a very striking way, and as confirming all that has gone before, man's link with God to be his spirit, — relationship, moral character, responsibility, and even his perpetuity of being, all bound up with this.

Let us now gather up the Scripture statements upon the subject we have been examining: —

1. The body is not the whole man, for he is often said to be in it or absent from it, clothed with it or unclothed. Thus for faith the body is the clothing of the man, and his "tabernacle," which supposes an inhabitant. Paul has a vision of unutterable things, and does not know whether he was in the body or out of the body at the time he saw them.

2. In the language of sense man is identified with the body; for faith, with what dwells in it. The Lord lay in Joseph's tomb, yet confessedly His divine nature did not lie there.

3. Man is spirit and soul and body.

4. Spirit is not an universal principle floating in the atmosphere, but a separate entity in every individual, "spirit of man," "spirits of men." It was formed within him by the Lord, and all his knowledge is ascribed to it. This spirit the beast has not.

5. The soul is not the body, but in the body. Beasts have and are living souls, and man is called a soul to distinguish him from the rest of intelligent creatures, who are called "spirits." The soul is the link also between the spirit and the body, the life of the latter while in connection with it; the seat of affection, nay, of appetite, lusts, etc.

6. It thus characterizes the man himself, so as to be identified with him, soul and person being used as the same thing, while in the intermediate disembodied state the general term for him is that he is a spirit.

7. Again the soul is that through which man was seduced and fell, and which characterizes the natural man as led by it. It is thus specially connected in Scripture with will and lust, with sin and with atonement.

8. By the possession of a spirit distinguishing him from beast man is in relationship with God, the Father and God of spirits, and is a moral, responsible being, made for eternity in contrast with the beasts that perish."

"To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

10 - Death

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 2. Death and the Intermediate State

Chapter 10.

Death

We have already got a long way towards the settlement of the question as to what death is according to Scripture. I say according to Scripture, for it is remarkable how little the class of writers we are speaking of make it really a question to be settled by Scripture at all. They generally assume that we know all about it, that the word speaks for itself, and that our experience of it should settle the matter. So Mr. Roberts speaks: — "The popular theory will not allow that a dead man is really dead. . . It is incorrect in orthodox language to say that the man is dead. . . In reality, therefore, the word 'death,' as popularly used, has lost its original meaning."

And thus he defines for us what death is. "In order to understand death, we must have a definite conception of life. Of this we do know something, since it is a matter of positive experience. All we have to do is to bring our knowledge to bear, but this is what the majority of people have great difficulty in doing. Their minds are so occupied with established theories, that they are blind to facts under their immediate cognizance. Throwing metaphysics aside, what is life as known experimentally? It is the aggregate result of certain organic processes. Respiration, circulation of the blood, digestion, etc., combine 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."*

{*Twelve Lectures.}

The "experience" itself is more than questionable. Most people would imagine that instead of "organic processes" generating life, life itself was necessary in order to the organic processes. Mr. Roberts has somewhat misread the facts here, and his definition of life consequently fails. Physiologists do not believe it to be quite so simple a matter. "No rigid definition of life appears to be at present possible," says a late writer; but again, — "we are compelled to come to the conclusion that life is truly the cause and not the consequence of organization."* Much less then is it the consequence of "organic processes."

{*Manual of Zoology, by Prof. Nicholson, pp. 4, 5. 2d ed. (Amer.), 1872.}

But our business is not with physiology but with Scripture. Mr. Roberts plainly has no need of it in this matter. Only take for granted that the body is the whole man, and you need no revelation to tell you what death is. As regards the body death is plainly the cessation of all practical existence. And if the body be the whole man, the dust that lies in the tomb, death is for him of course the extinction of being. "Apart from this busy organism life is unmanifested": that is all we need say. Revelation there is no need of: we have only to apply the knowledge we already have.

Mr. Constable's argument as to death is mainly founded upon the views of human nature which we have already examined, and upon those of Hades, which we hope shortly to examine. But he has a chapter upon death itself, of which it only needs to give a brief outline, as explanatory of the final argument with which he closes it.

His propositions are — that "death, which God inflicted upon the human race for Adam's sin, was a great calamity for all who should endure it," that this death has passed upon all men without one exception, and "not part of it, but all of it" upon every one alike (if it did not, God's word would fail, and we have no security for anything); that nothing was said about the duration of the death threatened, that being left open for God to show His grace: "death might continue in some or in all, for a short time, or a longer time, or forever:" that death began for Adam from the very day he disobeyed, and reigns over believers and unbelievers alike till the day of resurrection. His argument closes thus:

"If death reigns until the period of resurrection, and if death during this period is exactly the same thing to the just and to the unjust, it follows beyond any question that both just and unjust are then wholly and altogether dead. For no one contends that during this period the just are in a condition of misery; neither does any one contend that the unjust are in a condition of bliss: but that condition which is neither one of bliss or of misery must be a condition of death or non-existence. This is the one condition that can be common to the redeemed and the lost."*

{* Hades, p. 79.}

Mr. Constable's logic and his memory have surely failed him here. Think of the rashness and flippancy of assertion which would pledge the whole truth of God upon the position that all men must die, and have died, exactly according to the threatening to Adam, in the very face of the fact that neither Enoch nor Elijah died, and that those alive at Christ's coming never will! "We shall not all sleep," says the apostle. So God's truthfulness is gone for Mr. Constable!

I need not answer this, I am sure. That not even atonement could righteously set aside the exaction of the penalty from even one of those subject to it, shows how little there is meaning in atonement for his soul. But his argument fails signally and entirely upon quite another ground than this.

For why should non-existence be "the one condition" upon which death should be the same to just and unjust? Granted they are dead alike. No one denies it. On the supposition that death is the sundering of the link between soul and body (and so it is), why cannot just and unjust alike be in this condition without the question of happiness or misery being raised by it at all?

His argument is laborious non-entity. To state it is to expose it. Yet it furnishes Mr. Constable with all the justification he has for the triumph over orthodoxy which fills the next chapter. I do not purpose following him in it, because we have to do with Scripture simply here. I would say, however, that, while every expression of those he quotes from cannot be justified, yet after all they are more in the spirit of Christianity than are his own. For with them "Christ has abolished death," — for him, it would seem, not. For just and unjust alike, alike for Jew or Christian, under law or under gospel, as to what death is itself there is no difference. There is no "willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord"; no "desire to depart and be with Christ which is far better." Of course such texts are owned to be in Scripture, whatever explanation they may be susceptible of but the spirit of them is not in his heart. For him death is still an enemy, a curse, a penalty which no atonement has effaced or lessened. "Death is after all the king of terrors," says Mr. Constable: has he never read of One who came that "through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage"?

We have already seen reason to believe that death is not extinction; that the living soul in man is not extinct, when it ceases to be any longer life to the body. We cannot therefore argue from the effect of death upon the body, as to what it is upon the spirit or the soul. We have seen that the word of God does on the one side use the popular language, the language of sense, and identify man with his body. This is seen in the class of texts of which Annihilationists are so fond. The man is the flesh and blood we see and touch. A dead body is a dead man. We all speak so, unconscious wholly of being exposed to the charge of materialism for doing so. Our daily speech in this way might convict us in the profounder wisdom of another generation, of disbelieving equally with Annihilationists themselves, in the existence of an immortal soul. Yet we really do believe it in spite of that, and even the attacks of Annihilationists have not, as yet at any rate, made us a whit more cautious. We quote even "Dust thou art," and believe it, and yet do not believe that we are all dust. And we find on the other side, and use as freely, a number of texts which Annihilationism cannot teach us how to use, which speak of man being "in the body," "in the flesh," "at home in the body," "absent from the body," "out of" it, and yet believe that the body is the man too, in spite of that.

Let us now fairly put the question apart from any partial answer it may have gotten in this way: Is the Scripture teaching of death extinction? — is it "ceasing to exist," or, as they delight to quote from Job 10: 19, to "be as though we had not been"?

You put seed into the ground, and, in the Scripture language, "it is not quickened except it die" (1 Cor. 15: 36). Does the living germ become extinct in order to bring forth the harvest? Are the "organic processes" extinguished in it? Where would the harvest be if they were? Yet this is in Scripture twice over spoken of as "death." And, if you reflect a little, the analogy to the death of man is nearer than it seems. There is that of the seed which is cast off as refuse, and decays. The germ within "puts off its tabernacle," but, so far from becoming extinguished in the process, springs up into the plant thereon. Is there no lesson in that? no type? no analogy commending the use of the strong word "death" in this case? Would it ever have occurred to Mr. Roberts or to any of his brethren, that "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and DIE, it abideth alone, but if it DIE, it bringeth forth much fruit"? Does the grain of wheat become extinct in order to bring forth fruit? They have never (at least, that I can find) attempted to illustrate their doctrine by it, that death is the cessation of existence, the extinction of organic processes.*

{*Mr. Roberts has tried to answer this. He asks, "Where is the living germ, when the harvest is brought forth? Can Mr. Grant find it?" Most certainly; for the stalk of corn is but the development of that very germ.

His account of the matter is curious enough. With him "the vegetating process" is an "invasion" of the vitality of the grain, which destroys it: a parasitic life, in short, from which the sprouting comes! And in this way he finds it a "distinct and striking illustration of death being extinction.

Upon his view of it no doubt it is so. But then it is rather a new theory, that the living germ is killed by the vegetating process!}

The death of man is spoken of, moreover, in language which is not doubtful. I have fully admitted already, and without hesitation, that there are a large class of passages which (identifying man with his body) speak in the ordinary popular phraseology about it. Passages too there are, which will be examined in the sequel, which may present difficulty in harmonizing them with the language of other parts. But, on the other hand, the clear full light of the New Testament affords us, in many simple and intelligible statements, abundant satisfaction as to what death is. Some of these I shall now proceed to examine, together with the arguments of the class of writers to whom I am replying.

1. As we have seen, the apostle Peter styles death the "putting off of his tabernacle" (2 Peter 1: 14). The language of Paul is similar, and if comment be needed, may supply it: "if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved" (2 Cor. 5: 1).

The language of Annihilationists upon these expressions shows their perplexity. Mr. Ham says on the latter passage, "Man, the one compound being, is compared to an 'earthly house' or 'tabernacle,' which will be dissolved." Similarly Mr. Constable, "We doubt very much if he speaks here only of the body. We think he speaks of our entire present being, which is not body only, but body animated by soul. Of this entire being death is the dissolution."

This is plainly incorrect. The apostle distinguishes between the tabernacle and the one who dwells in it: "for we which are IN this tabernacle," he says a little further on. The tabernacle was to be dissolved, not the inhabitant; and the man is identified with the latter rather than the former.

2. Another expression for death in the same passage (2 Cor. 5: 4) is "being unclothed" "not that we would be unclothed."

Even Dr. Field, materialist as he is, speaks here of "a disembodied state." Mr. Dobney on the contrary maintains that "Scripture recognizes no perfectly disembodied state." I ask, if there be not something to be disembodied, how can you use the expression at all? Can one talk of "disembodied breath" or "disembodied life? "

The putting off of clothing, if that is a figure of disembodiment, as it is, is simple enough, but only when we recognize a part, and that the higher part, of man, to be something that is not the body, but is in it, as the living soul is. Mr. Roberts indeed talks, as is common with him when in a difficulty, of the "inevitable fictions of speech." "The exigencies of mortal speech," he says, "require us to speak of the person as an entity separate from all that composes him, and when figure is added, as in this case, the effect is greatly heightened, and a theory like Mr. Grant's receives apparent countenance."

Would it not have been wisdom to have inquired why the use of the figure should so greatly heighten the effect, as he admits it does, and whether the countenance it gives is not more than merely "apparent"? Surely the use of a figure for a mere abstract personality, and a figure which makes the abstraction decidedly the higher thing, — nay, which goes so far as to speak of the "abstraction" as "putting off" that which is the reality, or being "unclothed" with it, — is somewhat overbold. But what difficulty will not the wit and will of man combined surmount?

Mr. Constable, in his comment on the passage, simply refers this expression to the "hades state." With this we are content, and shall soon inquire what is that state. But plainly here death is not cessation of existence, whatever (which for the present I leave open) becomes of soul or spirit afterwards.

3. In the text in 2 Peter 1: 15 before referred to, death is called "decease," literally exodus, "departure": "After my departure."

Now here the man departs; where, is not the question yet. The man departs. He leaves the earthly house of this tabernacle. Say, if you please, and if you can gather it from the Bible, that after dying he becomes extinct or unconscious. That you must prove, if you can, from elsewhere. Death is not it: does not infer or imply it. It is my "departure."

4. And to this agrees the expression used again in 2 Cor. 5: 8, "absent from the body."

People contend, I know (and it is their only hope), that this does not refer to death at all. Mr. Dobney thus attempts to paraphrase it by "absent from this body," "this gross corporeal investiture" (investiture of what?). Mr. Ham with absence "from our natural body," "our present mortal and corruptible nature." Ellis and Read speak in the same way of the "body" here denoting a "state of corruption and mortality," "this corruptible body or nature." Roberts says, "What absence from the body was it that Paul desired? Not disembodiment, for he says in verse 4 of the same chapter, Not that we would be unclothed.'" Mr. Constable seems on the other hand to allow that "absence from the body" applies to the death state while he will not allow that "presence with the Lord" similarly applies to it, but to resurrection, the two being brought in this way together because between it and dying there is nothing but a blank. "This" [the resurrection state], he says, "we have no doubt, is the 'presence with the Lord' which Paul here speaks of, and not the intermediate state, as Calvin and others dream. For Paul had just expressed himself that this unclothed condition was not his desire or wish. He could not, with any consistency with his just uttered declaration, say that he should view it with a good satisfaction."

Yet the "willing rather" must, according to Mr. Constable's own view of it, include the intermediate state, if only as the way to the other, "willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." Is not that "desire" for the unclothed state! And that these two things he desires are not successive, but contemporaneous conditions, is manifest also. For, when he says, "whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord," these states, he must admit, go together how then can it be doubted that the two things he desires, being the opposite of these conditions, go together also?

Mr. Roberts and others therefore with better judgment concede this; but then they have the quite as hopeless task to achieve, of making "absent from the body" also mean resurrection. They all coincide in opposing the apostle's "not that we would be unclothed" to the simple and natural interpretation of his desire to be absent from the body, as if the two were contradictory. But this is by no means the case. He does say that what he groaned for was, not to be unclothed, but clothed upon. He groaned for resurrection, true, and the unclothed state was not in itself what he or any man desired. Still, knowing that to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, he was after all "willing rather" to be absent. Death had no terror for him, but the reverse. To make "absent from the body" apply just to the time when the body will have its fulness of bliss, is only to make incomprehensible what is very simple.* "In the body" never has the meaning they attribute to it, and that they have to add words to make it suit their thoughts, is a plain proof that their thoughts are foreign to Scripture.

{* Roberts substitutes "animal body" for "body" in the above sentence, and then with great naiveté remarks, that "Mr. Grant himself would not acknowledge the sentence, thus deprived of its piquancy: yet this is the form which embodies the facts." So that the language used by the apostle does not, as he admits, "embody (his) facts."}

And when the apostle, speaking of his vision of the third heavens, says he cannot tell whether at that time he was "in the body or out of the body," we have the exact expression in a way which no wonder they shrink from as they do. Paul could not imagine he had possibly had his glorious body when caught up there, and lost it afterwards. Yet he supposes he might have been conscious of unutterable things when "out of the body." If so, why may not one (as this chapter teaches) be "absent from the body and yet present with the Lord"?

I shall have again to speak of this, when we come to consider the question of consciousness in the disembodied state. It is sufficient for us here that such a state exists, if words have meaning. Death is that disembodiment, the putting off the tabernacle of the body, being unclothed, departing, and being absent from it.

Moreover, we have already seen that Matt. 10: 28 asserts that the death of the body is not the death of the soul. Our Lord bids us "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Mr. Hudson allows that this teaches that death is not the extinction of the soul, nor involves it. Mr. Dobney follows on the same side. Mr. Ham wavers, admitting that it is implied "that the soul is distinct from the body," but at the same time suggesting that "soul" here may be merely "life." Ellis and Read interpret it to mean that "wicked men can only destroy the present being of the righteous, and that God could raise them up again." Miles Grant interprets "killing the soul" to mean "taking the life to come." Similarly Roberts makes "soul" to be "a life in relation to those who are Christ's, which cannot be touched by mortal man, however they may treat the body, and the poor mortal life belonging to it."* While others say, that "the dead in Adam are not destroyed," because "in consequence of the provision made in Christ for the resurrection of every human being from the Adamic death, those who can kill the body (take this life), only suspend our being till the resurrection."

{*He now states that psuche here means "the abstract power of life, which is in the hands of God," but there is nothing at all about this in the passage. He further brings in Matt. 16: 25, "He that loses his life for my sake" to show that psuche there cannot be immortal soul, in which we agree. I have before considered the passage.}

But the text before us will not bend to any of these criticisms. If soul be life merely, those who kill the body destroy it. Such a phrase moreover as "killing life" does not, and could not, exist at all, as I have before said: because "killing" is in itself "taking life," and you could not speak of taking the life of the life. "Life to come," or the believer's life, psuche does not mean; another word, we, is invariably used for it. And the contrast between suspension of life for the present and utter destruction of it is not what the passage makes, but between a killing which affects the body only, and the destruction which will overtake both body and soul in hell. I am only repeating here what I have said before, and what Mr. Hudson, destructionist as he is, has said before me. Proof is conclusive, that when man dies his soul is not touched by it. If it is conscious is another thing, and presently to be examined. And what destruction of body and soul in hell is, I do not inquire yet. Suffice it just now, that when we put off the body at death, the soul still lives.*

{*Mr. Edw. White, in his "Life in Christ" (p. 96), while agreeing with this, considers it the result of redemption only, and quotes in proof 1 Cor. 15: 17-19: "If Christ be not raised. . . they also which have fallen asleep in Christ have gone to nothing" apolonto; for thus he explains the term in the following verse: 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.'"

I deny that apolonto means "gone to nothing." "Are perished" as in the Auth. vers., is the proper rendering, and does not refer to material destruction, any more than "if in this life only" does. To die with a false hope is to perish, but not in the annihilation sense. For the meaning of apollumi, see chaps. 20, 21.}

11 - Consciousness After Death 1

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 2. Death and the Intermediate State

Chapter 11.

Consciousness After Death . . . 1

The question of consciousness may now be taken up. Of course every proof of it is proof also of existence. But many who allow that the soul exists after death, will not allow that it is conscious. Thus Mr. Hudson regards "the soul as an entity not destroyed by the death of the body, however dependent it may be upon embodiment for the purposes of active existence." So with others, whom I need not here quote. The thing contended for is what is unknown to (while professedly based on) Scripture — "the sleep of the soul."

But you never find in Scripture the soul sleeping. The man sleeps, but always as identified with the body. It is a mode of speech found in later Greek, outside the New Testament. It is never the soul that is in question. So Matt. 27: 52, "many bodies of the saints which slept arose." Again John 11: 11, "our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep," — i.e., by raising the dead. So Stephen fell asleep, and devout men carried him to burial, — i.e., his body. So "David fell asleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption." Again in 1 Cor. 7: 39, "if her husband be dead (asleep) she is at liberty to be married to whom she will." There it is no question of soul or spirit. Again, 1 Cor. 11: 30, "many sleep"; he is thinking of it as chastening, not the joy of presence with the Lord, which the soul had. Again, 1 Cor. 15: 6, "some are fallen asleep," — fallen out of the rank of witnesses. 1 Cor. 15: 18, "then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." Ver. 20: "Christ is risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept." There again the resurrection of the body is in question.

So always, if death be looked at as chastening, sorrowed over as we do over the breathless corpse, if it be simple history of the outward fact, or if resurrection be in question, it is here that we find the phrase which people have blundered over, perfectly simple, intelligible and beautiful, as we gaze upon the inanimate form, and brush away our tears at the thought, "our brother shall rise again."

Mr. Constable, as usual with him, contends for the identification of man with his body, and absolutely ignores the Scriptures which identify man with his soul or spirit. He can therefore from his point of view say: "If people will say, it is only the body that sleeps, then they must allow that the body by itself, is man. If they say that man has both body and soul, and that these united constitute man, then they must allow that both body and soul sleep." On the same principle we must affirm that when Paul was caught up to the third heavens, inasmuch as it was the man, Paul, who was caught up, and man is body, soul and spirit, therefore that about which he was ignorant was whether he, body, soul and spirit, had been "out of the body" or not. Mr. Constable chooses to ignore, it seems, this whole class of texts. No wonder, then, if he lose his balance and fall into error. It is not only his, it is common to materialists of every class. We have before considered this, however, and need not repeat again what has been said in our very first chapter.

Mr. Constable's argument as to 1 Thess. 4: 13 goes beyond the question of the application of the figure. He argues that the apostle here virtually denies the commonly held doctrine of the intermediate state.

"If those he wrote to mourned for separation, if Paul comforted them with the prospect of reunion, if he pointed to the resurrection as the consoling prospect when their longed-for reunion would be accomplished, then by every fair inference he did not believe or teach that there would be any reunion before the resurrection"

If the premises were true the inference might be a fair one. But the grief of the Thessalonians was not the mere personal grief of separation, and the apostle's comfort for them is not the mere prospect of reunion. It is, that "we which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (or precede) them which are asleep; for . . . . the dead in Christ shall rise first." The thought of the Thessalonian saints was this, that if Christ were to come, as they believed He soon might, the dead in Christ would be shut out of the joy of welcoming and being with Him then by the fact of their death. The apostle assures them the living would have no precedence over the dead in this respect: the dead in Christ would be raised even before the change of the living, and together they would be caught up to meet the Lord and be with Him. Thus the intermediate state was not at all in question. How could it be for those ALIVE till the coming of the Lord? How could living people be united with dead ones in an intermediate state?

Abundance of inspired testimony there is that death is not, for the soul, a state of unconsciousness. The passages are well known, and need only to be cleared from the objections which have been raised to their apparently very simple meaning.

The conceptions of the Pharisees upon this point are acknowledged on all hands, and the familiar story of Lazarus and the rich man in the 16th of Luke is confessedly in full accordance with them; yet they would forbid us to believe this to be anything more than accommodation to the superstitions of those whom the Lord addressed. Mr. Roberts indeed very naturally suggests that "it may be asked, Why did Christ parabolically employ a belief that was fictitious, and thus give it His apparent sanction?" To which he answers, that He "was not using it with any reference to itself (!) but for the purpose of introducing a dead man's testimony. . . . This did not involve his sanction of the theory, any more than he approved of slavery by introducing it into his parable of the ungrateful debtor. . . It may be 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. To this the reply will be found in the following (Matt. 13: 10, 11)." That is, that "to them it was not given to know the mysteries of kingdom of heaven," and that therefore He spoke in parables, because "seeing they saw not, and hearing they did not understand."

But Mr. Roberts will permit me to say, that he has entirely failed to justify the thing he pleads for. For the reason last given is a reason for the Lord speaking in parables indeed, but not for His making parables (as he admits) "perpetuate delusion." The introducing slavery into a parable was only introducing what, under certain restrictions, the Mosaic law permitted; and if it had not been so, the bare introduction of a custom that obtained was not sanctioning it, while the introduction of what had no existence, save as superstition, would tend, as he owns, to "perpetuate" it. This is a difference which upsets all his conclusions.

But then, he asks, "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 what is admittedly obscure?"

Indeed this is the common refuge of writers of this class. Mr. Dobney, it is true, seems to admit all we claim about it. He cannot really, since he contends that "Scripture recognizes no perfectly disembodied state." He probably applies it therefore to the final state. But his words are: "Our Lord shows an ungodly man in a state of wretchedness after death. How long it would last is not intimated. It is true there was no hope for him. He could not buoy himself up with the prospect of restoration to enjoyment. But whether that torment should endure forever, or would ultimately destroy him, the parable does not intimate. It teaches a terrible and hopeless state for the wicked after death, and that is all."

Edwin Burnham also seems to admit the doctrine of conscious existence after death. Speaking of eternal punishment he says, "So far as this question is concerned, man may be conscious or unconscious in death until the final judgment. Therefore the parable of the rich man and Lazarus proves nothing to the point of eternal torment, for that parable refers to some transaction BEFORE the judgment." But then he adds, "The same may be said of all those Scriptures which to some SEEM to teach that the dead are in a conscious state."

For the rest, all seem to agree with Mr. Hastings: "Of course the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not reckoned as teaching the doctrine; for all laws of criticism forbid that parables be made use of to teach doctrines."

Unfortunately for those, however, who speak thus, they themselves are forced to admit that, parable or not, it is "founded upon" what Mr. Roberts calls "a theoretic fact," i.e., the belief of the Pharisees. That the object of it, moreover, is really to lift the veil from the other world will be plain if we consider the connection with the rest of the chapter. For the Lord had been speaking in the first part of it of man as an unfaithful steward under sentence of dismissal, but with the goods of his Divine Master yet in his hand. He had thereupon exhorted them: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." Thereupon the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided Him, and to them He preaches this (parable, if you please) to show how what was highly esteemed among men was abomination in the sight of God. The point is here: "Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things," and now "thou art tormented." No crime is charged but this, his failure as to the unrighteous mammon. He could not serve God and mammon. He had served mammon and not God. And, while the beggar he had neglected was borne from his gate into Abraham's bosom, he was tormented. How this addressed itself to covetous Pharisees is easily seen. And the state described is of a man immediately after death, in torment, before the resurrection and the judgment, with brethren still on earth to be preached to.

You may call it parable, if you will. The state of the dead is the very thing it is designed to enforce; and this representation of it is acknowledged to be based on Pharisaic sentiments.

It is singular, however, how the terms used by our Lord are quarrelled with. If literally construed, Mr. Roberts urges,* "it upsets the belief it is quoted to prove, and substitutes the tradition of the Pharisees, which Jesus was parabolically using. If a literal narrative, it clashes with the popular theory of the death state in the following particulars. We read, ver. 21, that the beggar died, and WAS CARRIED — not his immaterial soul, but he, his bodily self — by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell, where he had been buried (hell, hades and grave being synonymous) he lifted up his eyes," etc. He also tells us that "immaterial souls" could easily have got over the great gulf fixed; and that if the popular view were correct, a spirit might have been sent to the five brethren without one needing to rise from the dead.

{*Twelve Lectures.}

This is, no doubt, said in serious earnest, although it may not seem so. But it is a specimen of the blinding delusion under which these men lie. Think of a man telling us, that it was the tradition of the Pharisees, that men were carried bodily after death into Abraham's bosom; that hades or hell and the grave were synonymous! and that men were tormented in the grave! If this parable teaches literally the traditions of the Pharisees, this is what he says it teaches.

But I pursue this no further than to ask where the parable states that the beggar's "bodily self" was carried into Abraham's bosom? Of course, if there is no other self than a bodily one, all is plain. But that is as little the doctrine of the Bible as it was of the Pharisees. As to hades, and what it is, we may see shortly: But would it not be rather foolish, even in a parable, to put it that "in the grave he lifted up his eyes, being in torment"? To such straits are men reduced who refuse the Scripture doctrine of the soul's consciousness after death. We may well thank God for making it so plain.

Figurative, no doubt, the language is. "Abraham's bosom" is not literal, any more than the gulf over which souls cannot pass. Nor do we contend for souls absent from the body having eyes or tongues or fingers. Mr. Roberts asks in View of this; how, if we "feel at liberty to admit the non-actuality of these things spoken of as apparently real," can we be "so sure about the reality of the other parts that apparently favor (our) theory of the death state?"

I answer: first, because it is addressed to Pharisees, and founded (as Mr. R. himself acknowledges) on their belief, which the Lord thus takes up and adopts without a word of protest, without one hint of its being the gross and heathenish delusion Mr. R. would have it.

Secondly, because figures, as it would seem, must necessarily be used in speaking of a state so far removed from anything of which we have experience. That is, words, phrases, and ideas, borrowed from things around us must be taken and adapted to these unseen things.

Thirdly, if the object were only to represent a final award ill resurrection no reason can be given for not picturing that award directly, as is done elsewhere, instead of representing it under the figure of a fabulous death state. The perfectness of the representation would surely suffer by so unnatural a proceeding.

The figures are not difficult at least to read intelligently, for one who is as to this point of doctrine a Pharisee, as we shall see Paul the apostle was, and as we may confess ourselves without shame to be. And thus are conveyed to us thoughts that it seems in no other way could we have so vividly presented. The meaning is only so clear, that those who oppose it are driven to the wildest expedients to escape from its plain speaking.

Thus Dr. Leask transcends even Mr. Roberts in grotesque effrontery. He says* as to Lazarus' being carried into Abraham's bosom: "Fact it cannot be. Otherwise you have the extraordinary thought of angels carrying a dead man, a loathsome corpse, to the bosom of Abraham" Shall we add the still more extraordinary thought of this "loathsome corpse" being "comforted" in this strange resting place! and of the rich man wanting to send it to his five brethren, etc. But, says Dr. L., "this parable is unequalled for the vividness of its imagery"! And he adds, after the usual fashion: "The word translated 'hell' here is hades, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew sheol and of the English grave," etc. Vivid imagery indeed!

{*The Rich Man and Lazarus.}

Again, "Surely sober and serious thought must convince any one, that the conversation between the rich man and Abraham must be parabolic, for Abraham himself was dead. (!) If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are consciously alive, our Lord's argument to convince the Sadducees of resurrection loses its point. God is not the God of the dead but of the living: therefore these honored saints shall rise from the dead some day; that is the argument, and it is irresistible."

Dr. Leask has scarcely read the passage attentively enough, or he would have seen that if God said at the bush, "I AM the God of Abraham," and He is not the God of the dead, Abraham must have been in some sense living then; or it would have been "I was Abraham's God, while he lived, and I will be, when he lives again."

There is one other argument the doctor gives, which has somewhat more in it: that "neither rewards nor punishments are given till after judgment," which Mr. Constable has enlarged somewhat more upon, and therefore I leave it to look at it with him. These then are Dr. Leask's reasons for turning aside the application of this parable from the death state altogether, and applying it to the setting aside of Israel and the bringing in of the Gentiles by the gospel. This, to convict "covetous" Pharisees of their liability to be excluded from "everlasting habitations"!

General Goodwyn* attempts to show that the Lord in his parabolic teachings did "adopt some of the prevalent [false] conceptions, and proved by the unerring wisdom of His mode of treatment, their fictitious origin and constitution." He adduces the first four parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matt. 13 in proof of this position. But he neither does, nor can, show that the Lord incorporated any prevalent errors with His teaching there or anywhere else. The Lord gives us on the contrary what is simple and recognizable truth as to the form the kingdom should assume in the period of His absence. For the kingdom exists now, and the condition of it of which He speaks exists also. The "popular ideas" Gen. Goodwyn seems to refer to are but misapprehensions of these very parables, and not errors He adopts in anywise. Let him put his finger if he can upon one error the Lord teaches there or elsewhere.

{*Truth and Tradition.}

Now here, if the consciousness of the dead is error, the Lord does teach it, and without the least warning of its being such. The two inconsistencies the General thinks to be in the parable are not there: viz., either the "final condition of punishment" being "before the day of judgment," or dead people being "in the body." Very strangely does he add: "Thus were these traditional and palpably erroneous views woven into the Divine discourse, serving the purpose of exposing the conceit of mere human theology"! Were these things "traditional"? Certainly not, at least, the thought of being in the body after death; or can he produce the tradition? Granting they were "traditional," and also "palpably erroneous," if their error were not palpable in the tradition themselves, how could the Lord's adopting them make them become so? Surely the reasoning is as pitiable as much of what we have elsewhere had upon the same side.

But he still goes on: "This parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a supplement to that at the beginning of the chapter, of the rich man and his steward, both being designed to enforce the piercing truth, that 'that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God,' ver. 15, the connecting link between the two. In regard to the first parable, human craft had instituted the idea that a welcome to the 'everlasting habitations' was to be secured by means of the friendship of 'unrighteous mammon,' or worldly riches; palpably in opposition to the principle of ver. 15; but by mentioning the incident of the unjust steward, the Lord showed that, though man might commend his act, it is divinely deemed unrighteous still."

And this is exposition of Scripture! "He placed the rich man in the flame, and the beggar in Abraham's bosom, thereby proving that a position in the kingdom of heaven could not be purchased by unrighteous mammon." Doubtless it could not; but was it not just his not having made himself friends of the unrighteous mammon that placed the rich man in the flame? Who can deny or doubt it? And who can suppose that solemn exhortation, "I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," with the questions following: "If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches," etc., to be the adoption of error? If General Goodwyn cannot reconcile this with the gospel, he is ignorant of the blessed fact, that the gospel in no wise sets aside the eternal principles of right and wrong, but reaffirms them all. True, riches will not purchase heaven, nor could aught save the Redeemer's blessed work. True, eternal life is God's gift, not man's purchase or his work. Yet shall "they that have done good come forth unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." That "we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works," is the connecting truth that puts all in its place and explains all.

I need not then repeat what I have said already as to the scope of these parables, nor follow the argument further with General Goodwyn. We shall only finally examine Mr. Constable's treatment of this subject in his volume on Hades, already so largely quoted.

He, too, asserts that "in the words of Christ, hades is identified with the grave, and the dead in hades are represented as alive and speaking." This we reserve for future consideration. He begins the argument with a significant statement that, if this parable "could be truly shown to teach their [the non-extinction] views, the only effect would be that of establishing a contradiction between one part of Scripture and another, or of affording reason to think that this parable of Lazarus, despite the authority of manuscripts, formed no part of the original Gospel of St. Luke." (!)

He begins by asserting, what I shall not question at all, that this story is a parable. He contends that on this account "the entire tale may be fictitious." But, while talking as usual freely of Platonism, he ignores the fact so fully allowed by others, and so impossible to be denied, that it adopts (and, the argument is, sanctions) the belief of the Pharisees. This plainly puts it on ground different altogether from those Mr- C. appeals to, wherein "the trees engage in political discourse," etc. Even this sort of representation we never find the Lord using in His parables, that I am aware. But certainly He never adopted the superstitions He condemned, nor made the traditions of men the basis of His own authoritative teaching. This plain distinction Mr. Constable seems never to have thought of, and of course has not noticed it. In reality it takes the ground from underneath his feet. Not only is the argument quite unanswerable, that the Lord could not have employed falsehood as the vehicle of truth (and without even a hint as to its being false), but that also the very moral of the tale is this, "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." This is the rich man's condemnation: his riches were his accusers now, and not his friends. He had received his good things, taken his portion in a world that passeth away. Now he was tormented. And observe how precisely the language accords with this: it is "when ye fail" — that is, of course, die; not when you are raised as Mr. Constable must read it; no, but that "WHEN YE FAIL, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." The precise doctrine is there, given in plain words and not parable at all, and illustrating and confirming the parable.

We might leave Mr. Constable's argument here, but there is one other point, insisted on already both by Leask and Goodwyn, to which we must reply before we close. Mr. Constable supposes —

"that Christ, for the purpose of his parable, antedates it. What will really happen to such men as Dives and Lazarus when they are raised up at the resurrection, He supposes to happen to them in Hades before the resurrection; and He consequently supposes them to be alive in this Hades state, and capable of feeling, speech, etc. . . In His explanation of parable upon parable He has Himself explained that it is not until 'the time of the harvest,' until 'the end of the world' or age, that His people are gathered into His barn and shine as the sun, while the wicked are sent as tares to the burning. Over and over He has told us that Gehenna, and not Hades, is the place of torment. . . . We are therefore not merely justified, but absolutely required by Scripture to hold that our Lord in this parable antedates it in time, a liberty which the nature and character of parabolical discourse fully entitled Him to do."

Now the passage we have just quoted from the chapter before us, and manifestly connected with the parable in question, affirms the opposite of this: "that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." This shows that at death we are received, and that there is no antedating. Doubtless it is after the judgment of works, and therefore after resurrection, that the exact recompense is given, the exact measure of punishment is meted out. But in the meanwhile the spirits of the lost are "spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3: 19), with no uncertainty as to their being lost, any more than he who, "absent from the body," is "present with the Lord," is uncertain of his own salvation. Even now are we privileged to know the latter if really ours (1 John 5: 13). And "the angels who sinned" referred to by the apostle Peter, though "reserved unto judgment" are yet "delivered into chains of darkness," while waiting for it (2 Peter 2: 4). Similarly the "host of the high ones" and "the kings of the earth" "shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison," after a whole millennium "to be visited" and judged. (See Isa. 24: 21-23, and compare Rev. 19: 19 – 20: 3, etc.)

Then it is a false application Mr. Constable makes of the parables of the tares and wheat. For these "tares" are men alive, "in the field," the world, when the Lord comes, and not dead men at all. So exactly with the "wheat." The Lord is speaking of the clearing of the field in the day of harvest, and not at all of resurrection even. Nay more, the very parable itself is decisive against his whole argument. For the tares gathered and cast in the fire are so dealt with when the Lord appears, before the millennium, and therefore a thousand years before the resurrection and judgment of the wicked at the great white throne. Let any one compare Rev. 19, 20, and see if it be not so.

Again the Lord does say that there is torment in Gehenna; but he does not say, that in Hades there is none. The Scripture Mr. Constable refers to is conclusively against him. The plain and simple impression which any one would receive from the first hearing of the parable, becomes only the more indisputably correct, the more we examine it. There is the harmony and Consistency of truth in it, and this the arguments of its opposers only the more bring out.

12 - Consciousness After Death 2

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 2. Death and the Intermediate State

Chapter 12.

Consciousness After Death . . . 2

We have seen then the Lord affirming the doctrine of the Pharisees as to conscious existence in happiness or misery in the intermediate state. We shall now pass on to a passage which shows how far the disciples of the Lord had imbibed the Pharisaic, or let us rather say, the Scripture doctrine, with which the Pharisaic was identical. For we read that when, after His resurrection, they were gathered together, "Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And He said unto them, 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 hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24: 36-39).

Now, here it is plain they recognized the form of the Lord, for in none of the appearances to them do we find anything spectral to make them think otherwise it was a spirit they saw. Mary Magdalene had supposed Him the gardener. The two on the way to Emmaus just before had taken Him for an ordinary man. Moreover, they had just come among the other disciples, and found them "saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon." Then, while they were giving their own account, "Jesus Himself stood in the midst." It was this sudden appearance, the door being shut, that staggered them. They did not doubt who it was, nor, had they doubted, would handling Him have given them that knowledge. The Lord does not need to name Himself, nor do it. He does not say, "It is I, Jesus," but "it is I, myself,'" using that common language which I have spoken of, the language of sense, which identifies man with his body: "HANDLE ME and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Thus, it was not a question of its being Jesus or another, but as to its being Jesus in the body or as a spirit only. This the Lord's answer shows.

The objections of Ham and Storrs are thus clearly set aside, for they make the question one of (to use the language of the former) "the existence of other beings, who are called spirits." But this is not the question, but whether it was He Himself in bodily presence, or as a spirit. The whole circumstances and the Lord's words assure us of this.

Upon the authority of "some ancient MSS. of Luke," Roberts would substitute "phantasma" for pneuma in ver. 37, and then, without any authority, make pneuma mean phantasma in the 39th verse. Having thus converted "spirit" into "phantom," he would make the whole a question of "reality or of spectral illusion."

But Mr. R. can find no such meaning for "pneuma" in the New Testament or in the Greek language anywhere, as "phantom" or "spectral illusion," and he must know he cannot. Hence his anxiety to import "phantasma" into ver. 37, a reading unanimously rejected by every editor of the Greek that I am acquainted with, and disproved by the fact of its being unquestionably pneuma in the 39th: for if their thought had been that it was a mere illusion that they saw, the Lord would not have answered it by saying, "a spirit," etc.

It was not with them then a question of illusion or reality, but of bodily or spiritual presence. Mr. R. objects that the Lord says, "It is I myself;" and that His spirit, according to the common belief, would have been Himself. But all depends upon the point of view. To those who had had Him as the living man among them, the mere visit of His departed spirit would not have been "Himself," for it is no question of metaphysical accuracy, but of heart, to which the Lord responds. They saw Him, did not believe that it could be a living man come among them in that mysterious way, therefore thought they saw a spirit; to which He answers by bidding them prove that He had flesh and bones. Thus it was not what would have been the evidence of the triumph of death over Him, but what their hearts would call Himself

But here then it is very plain that the disciples of the Lord were as to this point Pharisees, or Platonists, if you will. And it is as plain that, instead of checking their thoughts as superstitious fancies, He appeals instead to the bodilessness of a "spirit," and His own flesh and bones. Nor is there "parable" to justify (as they say elsewhere) the employment of fictitious speech. The favorite arguments fall here like broken arrows from the panoply of truth.

How common a use of the word "spirit" this is, we may see by the inspired statement of the Jewish views in Acts 23: 8: "For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both." There again the word "spirit" is taken as ordinarily applying (as our word "ghost," which is equivalent, does now) to the spirits of men apart from the body. Angels are given as another class. And the context confirms this: for Paul being called in question about the resurrection of Jesus, had declared himself a Pharisee, a believer in resurrection and hereupon the council was divided, "and there arose a great cry; and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man, but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God." Against this passage Mr. Storrs' criticism on Luke 24: 39 falls pointless. "Angels are spirits," says he, "but have not a body of flesh and bones." But in these two last quoted passages, and as identified with the Pharisees' belief (the nature of which all admit), angels are named as a separate class of beings from these spirits spoken of, — "if a spirit or an angel." In a Pharisee's mouth even our opponents allow the meaning of such words. And with their belief Paul links himself. For having declared himself a Pharisee, and called in question as to one point of a Pharisee's belief, the resurrection of the dead, it is added as showing the points in which their faith coincided with the Christian's: "for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel NOR SPIRIT; but the Pharisees confess both." The language of the inspired writer here shows his own consent with this doctrine: "the Pharisees confess (or acknowledge) both. When I speak of "acknowledging" a thing, I plainly suppose it true, what is acknowledged. And thus in these matters the Pharisaic and the Christian faith are one.*

{* Roberts says, "We prefer to let Mr. Grant have the full benefit of this. His inference that Luke endorses their opinion is too unsubstantial to call for serious argumentation." Be it so, but many will judge differently, and of the motive also for declining argument. Paul's "am a Pharisee," he passes over entirely.}

If I take the light this gives me, how plain and simple it makes such passages as the Lord's words to the dying thief, for instance: "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Or Stephen's prayer in the midst of the stones of his enemies: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."* Or "the spirit shall return to God that gave it." Or yet again, the passage that speaks (Heb. 12: 23) of the "spirits of just men made perfect," as Heb. 11: 40 shows, by resurrection, which we all get together. The Lord's saying to the thief will come up in another connection.** Meanwhile I turn to some other passages.

{*Would it be believed that in the "Bible vs. Tradition" it is asserted the "grammar of the text charges the saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit, upon the wicked Jews, and afterwards records what Stephen said and did" (2d ed., p. 98). This is from people who appeal not only to Greek and Hebrew, but to Syriac, and what not and yet they assert what any schoolboy in Greek could contradict. For the words translated "calling upon and saying" are in the singular number, and could not possibly apply to the Jews, or to any but Stephen himself.

Z. Campbell ("Age of Gospel Light," p. 44) concurs with this: "Now it seems it was the same they that ran upon him, and calling upon God. . . . But it may be asked, why the Jews should say, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit? Only by mocking the confidence of Stephen in the Saviour."

In the 6th ed. of Ellis and Read's book just referred to ("Bible vs. Tradition," p. 99), they give another version of the passage, equally remarkable for learning: speaking of the word translated "receive," they say, "Dexia means the right, cheir, hand, being understood metaphorically it means assistance, aid, strength, courage, and is equal to the expression, Lord Jesus, strengthen my spirit, or nerve me up to endurance." Here a common Greek word, dexai, rightly translated receive (a verb), is mistaken for the adjective dexia, "right (hand)."

Whether the wickedness surpasses the folly of this, or the folly the wickedness, I leave others to decide. But these are Annihilationist leaders.

** Roberts' comment upon the answer to the thief is therefore reserved to this. His remarks as to Stephen need but little notice. He thinks that Stephen's prayer means that "if God did not, so to speak, treasure his spirit or life for him, his death would be final as the beasts that perish." Here it is more convenient for him to say "life," than "breath of life," and to add one more new interpretation of "spirit" to those that have gone before. This "spirit," he has told us elsewhere, is an "abstract" "energy, which is the basis of our life" (p. 54). And God is to treasure up this abstract energy for Stephen!

"Spirits of just men," on the other hand, means neither "life" nor "energy," but "consciences." (Mr. Roberts takes credit to himself that his meaning of spirit is a key that "fits the lock all round.") So "we are come to. . . the consciences of just men made perfect," — notice the connection, "to Mount Zion, and to the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, and to God the judge of all, and to the consciences of just men made perfect!" The whole speaks to us of that future, which is yet so immediate for faith, in which both the church of the first-born finds its completeness, and the "just men" of old obtain their long looked-for "promises." "They without us shall not be made perfect." For us and for them this shall be attained in the resurrection day; and there is no anomaly according to our view (a view Mr. R. so poorly understands) in a human spirit being "perfected" by getting back again the body, for partnership with which it was of old created and ordained.}

In Phil. 1: 21-24 occurs a statement which has naturally had an important plan in the controversy upon this subject. It reads as follows in our version, which is sufficiently correct: — "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor [an idiomatic expression meaning 'worth my while'], yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."

The passage is simple enough, and would scarcely seem to need any explanation. But for the sake of distinctly reviewing the objections made, I shall divide it into its parts, and look at each part separately.

(1.) In the first place, to the apostle, the object of his life was Christ, and to die was gain. This is the plain meaning. Nevertheless it is denied. "Do you ask," say Ellis and Read, "how then it would be gain to Paul to die? Paul does not say it would be gain to him. Fill up the ellipsis according to grammatical laws: For me to live will be gain to the cause of Christ, for Christ will at all events be magnified in my body, whether by my life or by my death. And for me to die is gain to the cause of Christ, for Christ will be magnified in my body, whether I die or live.' If you insist that it would be gain to Paul to die, we reply, He does not say so, and if it would be gain to him personally, then he would not be in perplexity which to choose."* Mr. Hudson speaks similarly, though more cautiously. So also Dr. Field.

{* Bible vs. Tradition, pp, 139, 140.}

But the interpretation is not admissible. For the emoi gar (for to me) standing at the commencement of the sentence is necessarily related to both clauses of it: "to me to live is Christ, and (to me) to die is gain." Nor does he say, "to me to live is gain to the cause of Christ" at all, but to me to live is Christ, Christ is the object of my life. And when he comes to speak of death being gain, he never says, "to the cause of Christ" at all, but "(to me) to die is gain." I need not comment upon the remark that "if it would be gain to him personally, he would not be in perplexity which to choose." Of that people must judge for themselves, and of the knowledge of Christian spirit which it shows. The apostle goes on to say:

(2.) "Yet what I shall choose I wot not, for I am in a strait betwixt two."

Is it not plain that it was in spite of death being gain to him, that he was in a strait betwixt choosing death or life; not because, as Ellis and Read say, "they were equally in different to him," — that would be a strange way of being in a strait betwixt two equally indifferent things — but because it was a question of choosing his own interest or that of the saints, as he goes on to tell us. But the authors quoted have another version of it. "But there was a third thing that Paul possessed an earnest desire for; but this third thing was obviously not either of the former two indifferent ones, and therefore must be distinct from dying and going immediately to Christ; for dying or death was one of the things that he did not deem so greatly preferable to life as to decide his choice. But again, this third thing was 'far better.' Better than what? Better than life, better than death; therefore death could not be the thing desired."

This is remarkable reasoning certainly. The apostle says, "I am in a strait betwixt two": that means, say these writers, "they were equally indifferent to him" I "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart," says the apostle. "Which is a third thing," says Messrs. Ellis and Read, "as he was indifferent to the former two" Nevertheless I am persuaded any candid mind will perceive that the apostle is only revealing the cause of his perplexity between the two, when he says, "having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless" — here is the perplexity — "to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." So that although death would be his gain, and he knew it, the strait was between his own gain and other people's gain. And he was not indifferent to either, but desiring this and desiring that, and did not know which to choose.

There was no third thing at all, His having a desire to depart and be with Christ was just his strait on the one side, and his abiding in the flesh being more needful fox them, was just his difficulty on the other. And thus "departing and being with Christ" is fixed to mean his dying;

just as his "abiding in the flesh" is fixed to mean his living.

(3.) But here a great tumult is raised, and much knowledge of Greek is endeavored to be shown in letting us know that to analusai, does not mean "to depart" at all. So Messrs, Hudson, Roberts, Ellis and Read, would all have it, "having a desire for THE RETURNING and being with Christ," sup posing it to refer to Christ's returning. The latter writers go on even to suppose that it was better for the Philippians that Christ should not come, and that so Paul should abide in the flesh. However, it is at least a little unfortunate for their theory, that the substantive "analusis" (analusis) derived from the verb "analuo" (analuo) is used by Paul in 2 Tim. 4: 6, undoubtedly for his death: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my DEPARTURE is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course," etc. If it be departure there, and death, why cannot it be so where, as we have seen, the context fixes it down to apply to death? And it is true that it sometimes means "return," but not so often as "depart," so that an Annihilationist alone could tell us why it should be so translated here. The reason being only in the exigencies of a theory, which must bend Scripture to its need, or be convicted of open opposition to it.

Mr. Roberts is now willing, however, to accept the ordinary rendering. He says, "This understanding of Paul's words would not be affected by the acceptance of the common version . . . for to die and be with Christ are instantly consequential incidents to the consciousness of the man who dies." But that is not quite all we have to consider. Is it just the same to the consciousness of the man that lives? Would a fiction of this kind render attractive in the eyes of such a one as Paul, does Mr. Roberts think, what in reality would be "to depart into forgetfulness, and be with Christ when he woke up"? The "gain of death would be forgetfulness:" better by far "than present fellowship with Christ, and joy in God, and magnifying Christ by service such as his!

Mr. Constable is of one mind with Roberts in this last view of the passage. "To depart," he says, "means doubtless to die, and to be with Christ means doubtless the glorified state at resurrection. They are spoken of here as closely connected, as in fact synchronal, from that doctrine of the sleep of the intermediate state which Paul so often taught. [?] To depart from life and die would be, he knew, to be followed at once by the trumpet calling him to arise and be with his Lord; for time would in the actual interval, however long, between dying and rising, be annihilated for him who slept." How strangely it sounds to hear the different reports of that land of forgetfulness, which these writers give us at different times. Who would think that this was Job's place of darkness and disorder which his soul contemplated with so little desire! Yet Job too knew that his Redeemer lived, and expected to see Him stand in the latter day upon the earth. If the quiet oblivion of sleep alone was between him and that day, why not more of Paul's spirit as to it? The light had somehow shone into that place of gloom for Paul. Nonentity merely would have been the same for each, and not light nor darkness, but nonentity! Mr. Constable has not the solution of this enigma plainly. However, I have answered him before and independently.

But he adds —

"that the opinion that during the state of death believers are 'with Christ' in a state of life, involves a contradiction to one of the fundamental doctrines of Scripture. If they are then with Christ, and see Him as He now is, St. John tells us expressly that such a sight would change them into the likeness of Christ. It would hence follow that they would now possess the fullest glory that they could ever look for and obtain. The popular view that believers during the state of death are with Christ and see Him, involves in fact the denial of the resurrection as taught by Paul, or teaches what he condemned as heresy, that the resurrection is past already."

Now, without raising any debate as to the interpretation of 1 John 3: 2, it is plain Mr. Constable confounds two different things in this, viz., moral and physical likeness. Does he really mean to say that seeing Christ in the intermediate state would bring the body out of the grave and glorify it? So it would seem. We however believe that resurrection waits for the word of Christ to effect, and that there can be no "perfection" for the saint, short of body, soul and spirit being united in blessing, Nay, it may well be, that we must put on this "image of the heavenly" in order even in the full sense to see Christ as He is. All this consists perfectly with the thought of being with Christ in the meanwhile in such a way as to awaken the desire of the living saint in the fullest way. On the other hand nonentity for the saint can call forth no such desire, save on the supposition of an utter wretchedness in the present life such as Paul knew nothing of, it is clear. Mr. Constable shows this fully in what he has written elsewhere. "To one capable of the vast grasping thought of immortality death is indeed a thing of terror . . . death is after all the king of terrors." And he is speaking of Christians here. Yet when he comes to argue about Paul's words, this king of terrors becomes more attractive even than companionship with Christ on earth. Nonentity is a sweet forgetfulness which only hastens the day of glory! Which is the true statement I must leave Mr. Constable to say. Where speaks the man, and where the controversialist, I will not try to decide. But he is certainly self-contradicted, — hopelessly so.

I shall not again do more than refer to 2 Cor. 5. Its "at home in the body" and "absent from the Lord" — its "absent from the body and present with the Lord" — speak manifestly the same language as that we have just been considering. Those who tell us that in the resurrection state we shall not be "at home in the body," and that we are "absent from the body" when it has been raised in glory or changed into the likeness of Christ's glorious body, may well be left as hopeless of conviction. Mr. Constable's arguments are the same as those we have already reviewed. I pass on to just one more Scripture in this connection, which gives us in full reality the thing of which we have been in search, — not in parable but in the historical fact, — a man absent from the body, — a spirit conscious of unutterable things, — a bright transient gleam from the unseen, — Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord.

It is no dream, for eyes, that closed in sleep behold it not, awakened to behold it. (Luke 9: 32): "But Peter and they that were with Him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake they saw His glory, and the two men that stood with him." This proves also that it was no mere vision, even waking. The thing was there before they beheld it: "Moses and Elias talking with Jesus." Thus it was a real thing, apart from all spectators.* And how simply described, "two men which were Moses and Elias." One of these a man caught up in glory centuries before, and one still longer "departed," and his body buried, yet still a "man," neither extinct nor asleep, but in activity of thought and of enjoyment. Not raised from the dead either, as some would have it, because Jesus was Himself the "first-fruits," and the "first-begotten of the dead." For it is no question here of simple restoration to the earthly life just quitted, as with Lazarus and others, whom the Lord had so restored. It is a man in the blessedness of another sphere, to enjoy which he must have been raised (if raised at all) spiritual and incorruptible. But of this resurrection the Lord Himself was the beginning, as Scripture asserts. Moses could not have been thus the first-born then. Apart from the body therefore he was, yet associate with one who had never passed through death, and though not in the likeness of Christ's glorious body,** yet appearing "in glory" (en doxe), let men make of it what they will; entering moreover into the "bright cloud" (as Peter calls it afterwards, "the excellent glory"), the Shechinah of the Divine Presence.** *

{* Roberts, in his comment upon this, falsifies the whole argument, asserting that what is relied on to prove this no mere vision is simply the fact of their being awake when they saw it; and of course evading the real point.

**This is strangely taken by Mr. Roberts to be said of Elias, and here again he argues upon a mere misconception.

The "first-begotten of the dead," applied to the Lord Jesus, will not allow his interpretation of the first-fruits. It distinctly asserts that He was the first raised in the full meaning of resurrection. Enoch and Elias were not begotten from the dead at all.}

*** "They (the disciples) feared, as those" (ekeinous) — Moses and Elias — "entered into the cloud."}

I confess I do not understand how it can be plainer that we are here permitted to gaze upon one departed, and to realize as far as we can how a departed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob still "live unto Him," who, as the Lord tells us, "is not the God of the dead but of the living." We thus see how to Him they live who to men are dead. We learn to distinguish between the language of sense and the language of faith. We learn how really there is a departing and being with Christ which is, compared with life on earth, far better. No argument that Annihilationists can bring against this passage will avail for a moment. Their arguments have in fact been already disposed of as they either suppose on the one hand that Moses was raised from the dead, which Scripture elsewhere confutes (Col. 1: 18, 1 Cor. 15: 23, Rev. 1: 5), or that it was only a "vision" or appearance, which the passage itself confutes.* I may leave here then the question (though there be other texts) of the consciousness of the separate state, with the full conviction of its complete, manifest and divine answer.

{*"Tell the vision to no man" is somewhat urged, but horama is merely something seen, and raises no question of reality.}

13 - Objections from the Old Testament

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 2. Death and the Intermediate State

Chapter 13.

Objections from the Old Testament

I now proceed to consider the objections which are made to the views I have expressed, grounded upon the supposed plain teaching of many passages of Scripture. It is a point worthy of attention, however, at the outset, that these passages are, with few and slight exceptions, all found in the Old Testament, and especially in three books which lie near together in the middle of it (united really, I doubt not, in many respects) Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes.

To show this I mention from Mr. Roberts' book all the texts upon which he relies to maintain his views of death and the intermediate state. From pp. 40-50 of his "Twelve Lectures" (4th edit.) I find thus quoted Job 33: 22-28; Ps. 30: 3; Ps. 22: 29; Ps. 89: 48; Ps. 78: 50; Ezek. 18: 4; James 4: 14; Ps. 144: 3, 4; Ps. 103: 14, 16; Gen. 2: 7; 19; Gen. 18: 27; Rom. 7: 18; James 1: 10; Job. 14: 12; Ecc. 3: 18-20; Gen. 25: 8; Gen. 35: 29; Gen. 49: 33; Gen. 50: 26; Deut. 34: 5, 6; Joshua 24: 29; 1 Sam. 25: 1; 1 Kings 2: 1, 2, 10; Acts 2: 29, 34; 1 Kings 11: 43; Heb. 11: 13; John 6: 11, 14; 1 Thess. 4: 13; Ecc. 9: 10; Job 3: 13-19; Job 10: 18; Ps. 88: 5, 10, 12; Ps. 115: 17; Ps. 39: 5, 12, 13; Ps. 146: 2; Ecc. 9: 5, 6; Ps. 146: 3, 4; Ps. 6: 5; Isa. 38: 18, 19.

He then proceeds to cite the passages commonly urged against his views as follows: Luke 23: 43; Luke 16: 19-31; Acts 7: 59; 2 Cor. 5: 8; Phil. 1: 23; Matt. 17: 3; Matt. 22: 32; Matt. 18: 10; Prov. 12: 28: Matt. 10: 28.

Thus, for his own views, out of over fifty passages produced, nine belong to the New Testament and forty-seven to the Old. While out of the passages which he thinks might be adduced as against his views (though scanty in number), nine out of ten are from the New Testament.

But the disproportion is greater even than this, when the real value to the writer of the texts quoted is kept in view. Thus even Mr. Roberts can make but little of James 1: 9, 10: "As the flower of the grass he shall pass away;" or of James 4: 14: "What is your life? it is even a vapor." The other passages are, that in Paul (i.e., in his flesh) dwelt no good thing; as to David, that he was dead and buried, and not ascended into the heavens; that Abraham and others died in faith, not having received the promises; that Lazarus was sleeping, or in plain language, dead; and finally, that those that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him.

Really does it not seem a question between the Old Testament and the New?

It is not that; but still there is a tale that these quotations tell, the moral of which will be found in 2 Tim. 1: 10; where the apostle tells us, that Christ "has abolished death, and brought life and incorruption (not immortality) to light by the GOSPEL."

That means that these writers are groping for light amid the shadows of a dispensation where was yet upon this subject comparative darkness. They look at death as it existed before Christ had for the believer abolished it. They look at life there where as yet it had not been "brought to light." No wonder if they stumble in the darkness they have chosen.

Roberts represents the "logic" of the application of this passage to this question to be: "Life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel; therefore don't go to the Old Testament for light on death and corruptibility."

It is very strange that he should think he needs light on the latter point, for that "death is death" seems to him an axiom that settles all. Nay, "life" also, and what it is, is "a matter of positive experience." It is the "aggregate result of certain organic processes," he tells us. He only goes to Scripture to confirm this, which after all we should have known without.

But the abolition of death is clearly connected with the bringing life to light by the gospel, and it is clear that the Old Testament statements must in some way correspond to this. Mr. Roberts indeed would have it that the gospel simply makes known "the way of life." But Scripture is more accurate than he supposes it to be, and less plastic than it really seems as if he would like to have it. If "life" is brought to light by the gospel, as in any and every sense it is, how could death even be known fully in the Old Testament? Take Paul and Job, as I have before said, and compare their utterances as to death, — is there no difference? is there no light come for Paul into that land of gloom and darkness which Job contemplates? Surely there is. And this is the story Mr. Roberts' citations tell.

Another passage furnishes us with a further point about that old economy he needs to know: that by the hanging of the veil before the holy places, "the Holy Ghost this signified, that the way into the holiest was not yet manifested, while the first tabernacle was yet standing" (Heb. 9: 8). Mr. Roberts wants to know why the annihilationists should have their attention drawn to this. "It is the very thing," he asserts, "that proves their case. Mr. Grant contends that Abraham, Moses, and thousands beside them went into the holiest (that is, the heavenly state) as soon as they died, 'WHILE THE FIRST TABERNACLE WAS YET STANDING.'

The 'poor annihilationists,' on the contrary, accept the declaration that the way was not yet manifested while the old economy existed, and that, as Jesus said, No man had ascended into heaven.'" But the fact of Abraham and other saints going to heaven after death, does not imply that the way there was made manifest in the Old Testament, i.e., of course to men before they died. Nor do the Lord's words which he quotes (John 3: 13) at all imply even that Enoch and Elias had not "ascended into heaven." Plainly they had, and therefore Mr. R.'s interpretation of them is convicted of untruth. But the Lord is speaking, as the context decisively shows, of available witnesses of "heavenly things." It was no question of Enoch and Elias, who were not there to tell what they might know, still less of the condition of the departed dead, but of there being no other accessible witness of heavenly things, except Himself, the Son of Man, and yet (ho on en to ourano) "subsisting in heaven." "If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man [evidently, none here to give witness] hath ascended up to heaven, save he who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven." To make this clash with Enoch and Elias having gone there is surely a mere straining of the words, and just as much so to infer from it the condition of the righteous dead.

Doubtless Mr. Roberts would reinforce this untenable position by a quotation which those with him often dwell upon, to the effect that "David is not ascended into the heavens." (Acts 2: 34.) That too is freely granted. It is what the Lord says of Himself when risen, and yet He had been in Paradise with the pardoned thief. This will come up again in the next chapter, but I may say here, that the departure of the spirit to God is never reckoned "ascension." We may inquire why shortly, but the fact may suffice for the present.

The passage in Hebrews does not then "recoil with singular force against" the orthodox "position." It in no wise teaches that the saints of the Old Testament did not go to heaven after death, but that there was no revelation yet of their going there, no promise of it yet to living men. It simply means that the dispensation dealt with earthly and not heavenly promises. Thus if the faith of a Job carried him on to a day on which that Redeemer who he knew lived, should be seen by his eyes, it is to His standing upon the earth in the latter day he looks. If Sheol,* the land of darkness, lay between, certainly for him that was not heaven. Nor can Mr. Roberts find such a thought. He does not indeed look for it, I well know. The "heavenly promises" are for him promises merely of a "heavenly state," as he might say, on earth. This is again the darkness of the former dispensation imported into the full light of the Christian one. I cannot discuss it here, nor, happily, need I for the mass of those who may read this.

{*The Old Testament word for hades, the unseen world. See next chapter.}

But such then as Job's was the Old Testament hope.* Outside the present scene there was little light, death a deep, dark "shadow," well-nigh impenetrable, resurrection and restoration to a scene of earthly blessedness the tangible, plain thing. Scattered hints there were, indeed, of other things. Enoch had of old gone to God, and not seen death. Elijah in a later day had followed him. A little gleam of light had broken in there. But still that was not the revelation of the heavenly places and a portion there for those who believed. Nor was death abolished, or life and incorruption brought to light.

{*Some difficulty will be found perhaps in reconciling Heb. 11: 13-16 with this. I fully admit that this passage shows that individuals had hope beyond the proper Old Testament revelation. How they got this we hope yet to inquire. But that certainly no revelation of it is given in the Old Testament itself, I can only once again very simply affirm. Let my readers search and see.}

Still they were not annihilationists, as Pharisaism, which the people followed, shows. Something they did know: and with all their darkness were wiser than those who have now turned from the light which has come, back into it.

This even necromancy witnessed. Heathenish as of course it was, yet its practice testifies to the belief which lay at the foundation of it. And the bringing up of Samuel (1 Sam. 28) is an Old Testament confirmation of that belief too strong for any cavils of questioners to set aside.

True, indeed, the departed spirit of a saint was not at the mercy of a witch to summon into presence. And the appearance of the prophet threw the woman herself into astonishment; but so God permitted Saul to get his answer of doom. The language of the historian should be plain to any one who believes in the full inspiration of Scripture, that the woman saw Samuel, and that Samuel spoke to Saul. Mr. Roberts may raise questions which our inability to answer would not show were valid as arguments against the inspired words. But if as he suggests, the nature of the apparition was that it was "the spectral impression of Samuel in the woman's brain reflected from that of Saul," how did this "spectral impression" speak to Saul? Mr. Roberts would answer evidently "through the woman"; but not so says Scripture. It is his own invention, as the spectral impression is. Moreover his difficulty as to Samuel appearing in his clothes, as that of others, that he is seen as an old man, we may answer by saying that we know too little of spiritual appearances even to apprehend them as difficulties. Nor does it seem one that Saul himself should not have seen the spirit of Samuel, any more than that Elisha's servant did not see the horses and chariots of fire around Dothan (2 Kings 6: 17). How many similar questions might Mr. R. ask about these, and find, or give, as little answer!

Then as to the "bringing up," which Mr. R. considers should be, according to our views, rather. "bringing down," this is his mistake, and we shall look at it in the next chapter. While "tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me," means merely in the death state, or in Sheol, as a Hebrew might have expressed it.

I only dwell upon this to show that all was not dark, even here, as to immortality. People may talk, as some do, of resurrection, but there is none, and the thought of it would only complicate the difficulties of the case.

Without further preface I turn to the passages which they adduce as decisive of the point we are upon, that the dead are non-existent, or at least unconscious till the resurrection.

We naturally begin with Genesis, but here the passages produced have been already examined, save Gen. 18: 27; Gen. 25: 8; Gen. 35: 29; Gen. 49: 33; Gen. 50: 26. The reader may refer to these (except the first) for himself, as they are the mere chronicle of the deaths of the patriarchs, "sober and literal," as we quite believe, and as is the fashion of Scripture generally, and with "no heaven-going rhapsody," as Mr. Roberts tells us. There could hardly be, as I have already shown. Deut. 34: 5, 6; Joshua 24: 29; 1 Sam. 25: 1; 1 Kings 2: 1, 2, 10, and 1 Kings 11: 43, all come under the same category. It is sufficient for Mr. R. that he finds a text in which it is said such a person "died," to find a proof text in it for extinction; and if it should add, that he was "buried," then all dispute about the matter should be ended forever. For it seems none but materialists ever speak of people dying or being buried, or if so Mr. Roberts has not heard of it.

Abraham's lowly confession, "who am but dust and ashes" (Gen. 18: 27), which he takes to imply the lowest materialism, may perhaps be left to speak for itself. Of course that spirit of man, which sometimes Mr. Roberts reckons part of him, sometimes the highest part, is here none whatever, or else it too is "dust." He joins with this Paul's "in me, that is in my flesh," equally to imply that Paul was nothing but flesh. On the further expression in the same chapter, "with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin," he does not comment.

Outside of Job and its kindred books two passages remain. One is Ezek. 18: 4: "the soul that sinneth it shall die." Here, as I have before noticed, the soul is put for the personality of man. "The soul that sins shall die." Not a son for a father's sins, or a father for a son's, but every one for his own. This use of the word does not, as Mr. R. imagines, conflict with its proper force when used, as it has been proved Scripture does use it, for the immortal part of man. The other uses are all secondary to and founded on this, of which I have at large spoken.

The other passage is Isa. 38: 18, 19. It introduces us to that class of texts to which belong the quotations from Job, Psalms and Ecclesiastes, and we may therefore look at it with these.

These three books belong to a portion of the Old Testament very distinct in its character from all the rest. While the historical books are, as a whole, the language of the divine historian, and the books of the prophets are still more directly the words of Jehovah Himself; addressed through the prophet to the people, that section of the Scripture which comprises Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, is eminently man's voice, Of course I do not mean that they are less fully inspired on that account. Every word, I doubt not, is penned for us by the Holy Ghost Himself; so that we have nothing but what is profitable and needed. Still, if we find, as in Job for instance we do find, even Satan speaking, we do not any the more adopt his sayings as the expression of divine truth. They are carefully registered for us with a divine purpose. But we do not say "it is written" of Job, that if God put forth His hand and touch all that he hath, he will curse Him to His face. That was what Satan said, although it is written. So in like manner, when the Lord says to Job's friends," Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, like my servant Job," it is plain we cannot indiscriminately adopt their sayings, as divine truth either. And when we come to Job's own sayings, spite of the commendation so far expressed, we find that he, too, in his words, had "justified himself rather than God" (Job 32: 2). So that neither can we adopt without reservation his words either.

I have noticed elsewhere something equivalent as to the book of Ecclesiastes, where we have the experience of a man who had ransacked the world in vain for happiness, and the things he "said in his heart" while he was pursuing that vain and weary course. We know what was Solomon's career spite of his wisdom, and this seems undoubtedly to be his own conclusion upon it, under the teaching of the Spirit of God, now become the "preacher" of the vanity of the world he so well knew. Would it yet be believed, that this man's "sayings," penned by himself for our instruction in the word of God, have been taken by materialists as the sayings of divine truth, to settle it that men are "beasts," that "a man has NO pre-eminence above a beast"?

The Psalms indeed are of a different character. They are much more really prophetic in character, nay, in one sense, fully so. Still their prophecy has the peculiarity, in which they resemble the others, of its being the projection of human thoughts and feelings upon the page, which, under the control of the Spirit of God, become the foreshadows of another day and scene. Thus David muses upon his own sufferings until his thoughts find vent in words, which guided of God become full of a deeper meaning than any application to David could exhaust — prophetic utterances of Another, more than royal, Sufferer. But that is very different from direct revelation. It leaves the utterer to speak of things as from his own point of view he sees them, even while giving them this deeper significance.

Mr. Roberts has surely somewhat mistaken what is said on this head, when he asserts that it makes these books "in fact of no greater value than a newspaper report." On the contrary it makes them of the very greatest value.

Is it not this, that all the difficult problems as to the world and himself also, problems which man's heart ponders only thoroughly to lose its way in, should be allowed once for all to find expression in the presence of God, where alone they can find their perfect answer? Man's voice permitted to utter itself Thus, its questions, doubts, objections, reasonings — before One not uninterested, who condescends to take the place of listener, and does not decide a case before he hears it: is not this worthy of God to give us? is this of no more value than a newspaper report? I speak for myself only when I say, that to me it is of the profoundest interest, and of the deepest value.

This applies of course mainly to the books before us, Job, Ecclesiastes, and (in much smaller measure) to the Psalms. Now, as to the facts alleged by Mr. R. against it. The quotation of Job 5: 13, with seven other "allusions" to the book, in the New Testament, he gives in proof of Job as a whole being God's voice. Let us look at these latter first. They are as follows: —

Job 1: 21, referred to in 1 Tim. 6: 7. (?)

Job 1: 21, 22; Job 42: 1-7, referred to in James 5: 11.

Job 12: 14, referred to in Rev. 3: 7 (?)

Job 34: 19, referred to in Rom. 2: 11; Eph. 6: 9; Col. 3: 25.

Job 41: 11, referred to in Rom. 11: 35.

Of these references it will be seen that James 5: 11 merely speaks of Job's patience and the end of the Lord. 1 Tim. 6: 17 and Rev. 3: 7 are very doubtful as allusions at all; Rom. 11: 35 refers to God's answer to Job, which of course no one questions as His voice; while the three passages in Rom. 2: 11, Eph. 6: 9 and Col. 3: 25 may allude to what Elihu says of God's not accepting persons, but are the expression of so simple a truth, that it scarcely needs to consider them even an allusion.

But Elihu himself moreover is not one of the three friends convicted of falsehood by Jehovah, but one who is used to give Job his answer, after they and he both have left off speaking. It remains then that in all the New Testament there is one more or less doubtful reference to Job's own words, and this one quotation of the words of Eliphaz, in 1 Cor. 3: 19: "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness."

Of this Mr. Roberts says: "The speaker is Eliphaz, whose interpretation of God's dealings with Job was condemned. His abstract principles were right, though his application of them in Job's case was wrong." But this is not true. God's own words make the express distinction between Job and his three friends, that, whereas Job had spoken OF HIM the thing that was right, they had not done so. All of them, Job included, had erred in the interpretation of God's dealings, if that were all; and on that account, first Elihu becomes interpreter for Him, and then God Himself speaks. But Job had spoken rightly of God; and his friends had not.

Yet Eliphaz for all that could say many a true thing, truth that doubtless he had learnt of God, and could utter as from Him; and one such saying the Holy Ghost gives us certified through the mouth of Paul. This could not certify the things which the same Eliphaz had spoken which were not right.

Even Mr. Roberts allows "there is not the same direct recognition of Ecclesiastes." He thinks that "a remark of Paul's in 1 Tim. 6: 7 looks like a quotation of Ecc. 5: 15." It may refer to it, but it is one of those self-evident, however solemn, truths, that need no inspired authority to assure us of them. The passage has already been made to serve as a reference to Job, and in Bagster's list is again referred, though doubtingly, to Ps. 49: 17. Roberts adds, "Nevertheless the book stands on its own foundation, as the product of a man to whom God gave wisdom," etc. The inspiration of the book is not at all in question, but its character and purpose. The matter of Solomon's wisdom has been already discussed.

As to the Psalms, they are undoubtedly divine, but that is not the question. While inspired fully, their utterance, as already said, is so far like the rest, that the point of view is that of a man upon earth, the horizon earthly, the thoughts and feelings in accordance with this. Granted, fully granted, that the divine is in the human everywhere, it is none the less man's song or man's sorrow, human utterance out of a human heart, with only exceptional direct sayings of God.

Proverbs again is most evidently human, however perfect and divine in its authority, as it surely is. Mr. Roberts quotes Heb. 12: 5 against this, halving the passage cited from Prov. 3: 11, 12, by leaving out ver. 6. He can thus apply the passage as if the apostle meant by merely quoting, "My son, despise not," to show that God in that exhortation is "speaking unto us as unto children," and therefore that Proverbs was directly God's voice. The very form of the exhortation should have taught him better, for it is not "my son, despise not my chastening," but the "chastening of the Lord"; and the apostle's proof that Scripture in that exhortation speaks to us as unto sons is that "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."* The real argument is concealed in the verse which he, for whatever reason, pleases to ignore.

{*In Proverbs, "even as a father the son in whom he delighteth,," The quotation in Hebrews is from the Septuagint.}

All the weight of what Job says is found in the following expressions: that, had he died from the womb, he would then have been lying still and quiet, he would have slept and been at rest, as an hidden untimely birth, there where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest (Job 3: 13-17); that he would have been as though he had not been, in a land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death without any order, and where the light is as darkness (Job 10: 18-22); and that in death man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep (Job 14: 12).

Now, as I have said, I am not concerned to prove the harmony of all Job's utterances with the actual revelations of Scripture as to the intermediate state. He might have been mistaken, and that in no way touch the question before us, or the perfect inspiration of the record in which his words are found. They are given as Job's words, that is all. As the utterance of a saint of those old days, they contain, no doubt, the assurance of the dimness and uncertainty which then prevailed. Contrasted with Paul's language they show us death not yet abolished, "darkness" not yet dispelled by light. Yet the words cannot be fairly pressed into the service of materialism. Take the very strongest expression, "I should have been as though I had not been," with relation to the world and its sorrows, of which he was speaking, it was simple truth. So as to oppression: "there the servant is free from his master." He might have died under the lash, but dying, death set him free. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

But, you say, although that may be as regards earthly troubles, yet if there were misery of another kind awaiting man after death, could he talk so complacently of the "weary being at rest?"

Well, but to all that made Job weary, the grave would be rest. And for aught else, Job was a saint of God after all, and had confidence in God. He was not meditating upon the portion of the wicked, but what his own would be; and though in death a "land of darkness" stretched before him into which his eye could little penetrate, he had something of the Psalmist's confidence in One who would be with him there. The sorrows of the wicked are not at all before him, but for himself the end of all present sorrows.

Mr. Roberts may say, "There (in the grave) the weary are at rest," but Job does not say "in the grave"; and he may think it "obvious" that he means "righteous and wicked without distinction." I can only say to myself it is very far from obvious. He was surely thinking of his own sorrows, and as to the "wicked," what he says is, they "cease from troubling." Mr. R. would give righteous and wicked alike rest in nonentity in the grave. But is this "rest"? Who rests? Can a thing that is not, rest? I think not, if words have meaning.

Moreover, Job 10: 21, and Job 16: 22 prove positively that it is in the track indicated Job's thoughts are running. If otherwise, then when he says that in dying he "goes whence he shall not return," he simply denies all resurrection. But he is thinking of a return to the scene before him. It is not an abstract statement, but one very simply referring to the scene of mingled joy and sorrow, in the midst of which he then was. And so Scripture often speaks. "Enoch was not." Is that extinction? No, "he was translated, that he should not see death." As to the world "he was not," but as to God he was, for "God took him."* Just as with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who really died. To men they died; to God they lived: "For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live unto Him" (Luke 20: 38). People may say, that that means "in the purpose of God," but then if they had ceased to be, He could NOT be their God, the relationship between God and His creature must end with the being of the creature. That is simply and evidently the Lord's meaning. If to Him they are dead, they are no longer His creatures, nor He their God. The relationship is broken.

{* Gen. 5: 24; Heb. 11: 5, "Infants that never saw light," spite of Mr. R.'s protest, are beings that have begun to live, and his argument from Job's reference to these has no foundation. Besides, that is not the point. It is nonentity as to the present scene, not absolute nonentity, he speaks of.

The statement that Enoch "was not" he supposes to be a Hebrew ellipsis: a rather vague but scholarly looking expression to cover a difficulty with. Will Mr. R. define and illustrate it? But Paul has told us that Enoch "was not found," and he thinks that will explain and fill up the ellipsis. We need have no objection to the explanation, as it is substantially our own. From the human, point of view, Enoch "was not"; therefore, of course was not found; yet even in the apostle's words you must mentally supply "on earth," as we must conclude that he was found, I suppose, in heaven. That is, we must still keep the objectionable limitation, which Mr. R. refuses, and the apostle's language only confirms us in it the more.

It is strange, therefore, that when we turn to David's words, "while I have any being," and "before I go hence, and be no more," and explain them by the exactly parallel expression, Enoch was not, that Mr. R. should tells us, "The fallacy of this we have already pointed out," when he has actually confirmed the truth of it. For if "Enoch was not means, he was not found on earth, why should not the psalmist's "be no more" mean similarly "no more found on earth"?}

Job's words, then, are no contradiction of what we have seen elsewhere to be the revealed truth as to those departed. To weariness such as his a place of "rest," indeed, was the unseen world; but "rest" is not extinction; and if it were a "land of darkness" also, darkness and nonentity are absolutely contradictory thoughts.

The words of Elihu (Job 33: 22-28) have been already explained, and to them I need not return. I turn now to Ecclesiastes.

And here all that they urge has been already virtually, and, except one passage, actually answered. That one passage is found, Ecc. 9: 5, 6: "For 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 forever in anything that is done under the sun."

Further on (ver. 10) in continuation: "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 (sheol) whither thou goest."

Now this is a very plain example of that way of speaking, looking at things from a mere human stand-point, which I have before remarked upon. The writer's point of view is most evident. Nor was he capable, at the time he had these thoughts, of any other. As to the dead actually, he "knew not anything," for he knew not whether the spirit of man went upward or not. This we have seen. He was not, therefore, capable of looking at anything, save from his standpoint in the world. Otherwise clearly he could not have said, "Neither have they any more a reward." That would deny all resurrection and life to come, if taken absolutely. But he was looking at the scene around, out of which men departed, and left no sign behind to indicate that they had been; their memory was forgotten; their love, hatred, envy, which had once made them conspicuous actors in the scene, had vanished; and, in relation to it, they knew nothing, their wisdom and knowledge had departed too. This does not mean, as Roberts suggests, that they "lost their memories," or that they became fools; but they knew nothing of things taking place after their departure,* nor could their wisdom or knowledge appear in it any more. The closing sentence shows clearly to what the former part applies: "Neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun."

{*Comp. Job 14: 21.}

Therefore the moral is, Be busy now; work ceases in the grave; wisdom for this busy scene there is none there; no heart that deviseth; no planning head. All true in its way. But this was man's musings, not divine revelation of the state of the dead at all, nor given as such. Had you asked this man what he knew of that, he would have said, as he did say, Who knows?* "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward?" He saw the dust laid in the tomb, and that was all he knew. The rest was conjecture, nothing more.

{*"This," says Mr. Roberts, "is one of Mr. Grant's (we will not say deliberate, but) staring [? startling] perversions of fact. Solomon did not say, who knows, in reference to the state of the dead, but in reference to the spirit of man in its living operation."

This, it must be confessed, is "startling." Let my readers look at the whole passage, Ecc. 3: 18-22, and decide.}

But that was only part of the preacher's utterances, the musings of his heart while vainly seeking to "search out by wisdom all things that are done under heaven" (Ecc. 1: 13). But the time came when he had to own his inability to do so. To quote once more his lowly confession (Ecc. 11: 5): "As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit,** nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all."

{*Here the connection of the "way of the spirit" with the growth of the bones in the womb, confirms the application of the former expression to the human spirit. It is the double mystery of generation that is referred to, still as ever unfathomable to man's science. We know not how the spirit nor even the flesh of man comes into being And death is necessarily a mystery, as life is.}

Simple, but most important confession! on the dark side of which all the passages are found upon which materialists rely; while on the other one pregnant sentence at least is read, which, to do justice to the Old Testament preacher, we should look at a little closer than we have done: —

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who gave it."

As we have seen, men seek to explain the "spirit" here to be merely the "breath," as they do that which the Lord upon the cross commended to His Father, and Stephen to the Lord Himself. Few simple minds will accept that conclusion. They will scarcely see the sense of the return of the breath to God, whereas, if it be indeed the spirit, such a statement becomes of the greatest possible importance. It is what lifts the veil from the life of "vanity," and interprets its true significance. It is the answer to the doubtful questioning of the former chapter. Having come to the end of human wisdom in the matter, "the way of the spirit" is here revealed. It "returns to God who gave it." And thus there is complete harmony with that "conclusion of the whole matter," which the closing verses invite us to "hear." "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

Now if that be the conclusion of the whole matter, does it look as if the matter from which he drew the conclusion ended merely with the blank and silence of the grave? Rather, does it not conclusively show, that that return of the dust to the earth "as it was," is only what brings the spirit, — not "as it was," but with the character acquired in its earthly tabernacle, — into the presence of the God who gave it!

Nor does this involve, as Mr. Roberts thinks, that the "judgment of every work is going on every day as fast as people die." But we have seen that, while the judgment of every work does not come before resurrection, yet it is when we "fail," that either we are "received into everlasting habitations," or to the prison-house in which already the soul has the premonition of its doom, as the rich man his in hades. Ecclesiastes has no word of resurrection. Death, the stamp of vanity upon everything, is what is dealt with, and that which all men's reasoning can so little avail to penetrate or understand, faith makes known in its true character as the recall of the spirit into His presence, without which it is but a valueless cipher, and with which it becomes almost infinite in value.

I now pass on to consider the testimony of the Psalms.

Some passages adduced by Mr. Roberts I may be content with quoting. That "man is like to vanity; his days as a shadow that passeth away" (Ps. 144: 4), and that "as for man, his days are as grass" (Ps. 103: 15). Statements like these, which depict the brevity of man's life on earth, are not quite new or unknown to believers in the soul's immortality. And that it is a solemn and unnatural thing for God's creatures to be thus "subject to vanity," quite irrespective of what comes after death, is a thing for such as Mr. R. to consider. He thinks that, if man's existence be forever, such words as these lose force. But it is far from being really so. For the point is, the wreck and ruin of the first creation by death coming in at all. This is what gives solemnity to the brevity of his earthly history.

The other passages are mostly of similar character to those that we have already looked at. That is, they speak of man as connected with the world through which he passes. Thus, "while I live, will I praise the Lord; I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being" (Ps. 146: 2); before I go hence, and be no more" (Ps. 39: 13) are expressions no stronger than we have seen to be used of one who was translated that he should not see death. Enoch "was not," yet even annihilationism has not yet taught that he literally ceased to be. To be consistent, they should do so.

Or again, take Ps. 146: 3, 4: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help: for his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and in that very day his thoughts perish." Is it not plain here, that, so far as the context leads, his "thoughts" that perish are the plans and purposes in which he who was to be benefited by them had been made to hope, and which the death of his patron might in a moment frustrate and cut off?

Again, there is a somewhat different class of passages, as Ps. 6: 5: "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave (sheol) who shall give thanks?" And again, (Ps. 115: 17), "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Or again, that passage in Isaiah (Isa. 38: 18, 19): "For the grave (sheol) cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee, they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth; the living, the living, he shall praise Thee as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known Thy truth."

This may take a little deeper looking into: but only because we are so little accustomed to realize the point of view from which the pious Israelite beheld these things. That "congregation of the righteous" in which sinners should not stand, which the first psalm gives us, was what he looked for. A day, as we say, millennial, — a scene in which righteousness shall reign, and the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, this is what his faith anticipated; what ours does; but his, much more exclusively, for his knowledge of heavenly things was very dim.* To swell that great hallelujah chorus, such as the last five psalms give it us, and in a scene such as they prophetically anticipate, that were a godly Israelite's ambition. To celebrate His praises upon earth, to train up children for the service of His sanctuary, to go up to that temple where the glory of Jehovah visibly dwelt, this was with him connected with every thought of Jehovah's praise. You see it in that last quotation from Isaiah: "the father to the children shall make known Thy truth." Death would cut short that declaration, and make those praises cease. Death could not in that sense celebrate. "Who should give Him thanks in the grave?" Nay, the living, the living, alone could do it.

{*"According to Mr. Grant's thesis," says Roberts, "the knowledge of the Spirit of God is very dim.'" This is neither truth nor candor. Any one can see that it is not a question of the knowledge of the Spirit of God at all, but of that of those through whom He was pleased to speak. Plainly the full revelation of Christianity had not come. Death had not been abolished, nor life and incorruption brought to light. Such knowledge must have been "dim." Still, if dim, there is nothing untrue in their language nor do we "treat the Psalms as the private breathings of a pious Israelite," or "refuse David as a prophet," or "deny his testimony."}

Beside which, inasmuch as length of days was one of the blessings of the law, to be cut off in the midst of one's days, as Hezekiah was threatened, argued with a Jew divine wrath. And this manifestly adds its gloom to the first and last passages. While the 115th psalm is prophetic of a future day-when the earth will be purified by a judgment which will destroy sinners out of it, and these, I have little doubt, are referred to in them.

But the Old Testament contains brighter and more assuring passages than these, and with one of these we may close this chapter: "The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous are taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness" (Isa. 57: 1, 2).

Now as nonentity is "rest," it may be "peace," too, to Mr. Roberts. For we have seen the "king of terrors" sometimes putting on very attractive forms. But those who cannot quite give up Scripture language as unmeaning, nor put bitter for sweet or darkness for light, will be unable to accept such a conclusion. As well might the "second death itself be everlasting peace.

14 - Sheol, Hades and Paradise

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 2. Death and the Intermediate State

Chapter 14.

Sheol, Hades and Paradise

We are now to consider what is indeed but a secondary point, but one which will help to give completeness to this sketch of the Scripture doctrine of the soul's immortality. The word "hades" (hell, Auth. vers.) is found, as we have already seen, in the story of Lazarus and the rich man. The representative of the word in the Old Testament is sheol. "Paradise" is found in the Lord's reply to the dying thief, and in 2 Cor. 12, where Paul tells us he knew a man in Christ caught up into Paradise.

The interpretation of these words by the materialistic section of annihilationist writers is pretty uniform. Hades, they say (and of course sheol), is the grave.* Paradise, for most, the place of blessing on the restored earth; necessarily, therefore, having nothing to do with an intermediate state, nor existing at present, for a man to be caught up into. Mr. Constable and others, no doubt, dissent from this in favor of its being a place in heaven, in this more Scriptural than those they hail as co-workers in this cause.

{*Mr. Constable does not contend for this absolutely, but still hades for him has to do with the body, as we shall see.}

To begin with sheol. It is a word apparently derived from shaal, "to ask," and is generally supposed to derive its meaning from the insatiate way in which death continually "demands" its victims. Some have, however, suggested, what seems at least as probable, that it is derived rather from the "questioning" as to the dead, as in Job 14: 10: "man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?"

Sheol is acknowledged to be the equivalent of hades, and its significance seems, from the only probable derivation, to be the "unseen," — the invisible world, as people sometimes say. It applies undoubtedly in ordinary Greek to the region of departed spirits, an application with which the Pharisaic use coincides, as the treatise ascribed to Josephus bears witness, whether it be his or not: and to this the Biblical use in Luke 16 (even to the term "Abraham's bosom") exactly corresponds. Now we have seen that not only was it impossible for the Lord to adopt without remark a mere superstitious and pagan notion, but that Paul also professed himself a Pharisee on kindred points. From this persuasion no denunciation of heathenism or of Pharisaism is of any force to turn us. Neither the one nor the other was all untrue, and Pharisaism was at least more orthodox than the Sadduceism to which in many points the annihilationist belief conforms.

That "hades" should have a wider application than this, is no wonder from what we have seen to be its meaning. But although it might be used in other connections figuratively, in relation to man it has one very uniform sense. That sense is never the grave, as they allege, although the imagery of the grave may very naturally be applied to it. It is nevertheless demonstrably distinct and stands in the same relation to the soul as the grave to the body. The common coupling together of "death and hades" illustrates this, for in such a conjunction as "death and hades delivered up the dead that were in them" (Rev. 20: 13), death naturally stands connected with the lifeless corpse, as hades (the unseen) does with the soul or spirit. So similarly the quotation as to the Lord in Acts 2: 27, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades," refers to the soul, as "neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption" does to the body: and the apostle Peter distinguishes them accordingly in his interpretation: "his soul was not left in hades, neither his flesh did see corruption."

This accounts for eight out of the eleven passages in which hades is found in the New Testament. That in Matt. 16: 18 can present no difficulty. It is borrowed very likely from Isa. 38: 10, where the "gates of the grave" should be rather "the gates of sheol." The two remaining passages are really one: "Thou, Capernaum, shall be brought down to hades." Here the word is used tropically.

The use of sheol, though similar, is somewhat more obscure. This results from the character of the Old Testament, which has been noted and accounted for. It is quite natural that materialists should use it for their purposes, as they do, although after all with very poor success. Ps. 16: 10 we have seen quoted and applied by the apostle. Jacob speaks of going down to sheol to his son Joseph (Gen. 37: 35); and this has singularly little force, if a going down to nonentity. If we compare David's words of his child similarly, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me," (2 Sam. 12: 23) this is greatly strengthened.

Then we have such expressions as the "depths of sheol" (Prov. 9: 18), "the lowest sheol" (Ps. 86: 13, Deut. 32: 22), — in the last passage God's wrath being said to burn to it, — "though they dig into sheol" (Amos. 9: 2), which show that the grave cannot be the whole matter there. So even in sheol (Ps. 139: 8) there is no escape from the presence of God: "if I make my bed in sheol, behold, Thou art there!" Can that be nonentity?

Surely we may be excused then from following very, closely the dissertations of those who have learnedly endeavored to prove that sheol is the abode of dead sheep, of men's bones, and of weapons of war! For the first statement there is one passage produced, Ps. 49: 14: "Like sheep they are laid in sheol;" as Delitzsch expresses it, "they are made to lie down in sheol, like sheep in a fold." This one comparison of the wicked lying down in sheol like a flock of sheep, Mr. Constable thinks sufficient to show, "to the astonishment and disgust of our Platonic divines and thinkers, that beasts go on death to hades"

In the same way, Ps. 141: 7, "Our bones are scattered at the mouth of sheol," is made to assure us that "the bones of the dead are consigned in death to hades!" The psalmist plainly says they are outside.*

{* "Their souls below, their bones above," as Delitzsch well says.}

By others the imagery of Ezek. 32: 27 is pleaded to show that people go down to sheol with their weapons of war, and their swords laid under their heads! Nay, if Jacob speaks of bringing his grey hairs down in sorrow to sheol, we are bound to believe that sheol is the abode of grey hairs also! So Korah and his company go down alive into sheol, the earth swallowing them up alive; and this is proof conclusive that men's bodies go to hades! We have only to remember the vagueness of a term like "the unseen," to see how little we have here the formal doctrine they would draw from it.

Time fails us to pursue these phantoms, and yet of such sort is the reasoning found in the most elaborate performances of leaders of this school. Mr. Constable's two chapters on Hades in his treatise bearing that name, are the weakest and most inconclusive in it. And he seems in measure conscious of it by his anxiety to import into them all his prior arguments as to the nature of man, personality, death, etc., arguments that we have already sufficiently considered. We on the other hand may more reasonably believe that the consciousness of the intermediate state has been fully and independently established by the texts we have examined. And while, if soul is body, hades must of course be some equivalent of the grave, and if it be mere "animal life," hades may be extinction, if on the other hand the soul be a living entity separate from the mere bodily organism; there can be no question that it is not the first; there need be none, that it is not the other. But we have yet an argument or two of Mr. Constable's to consider.

Thus he complains that we make hades "a land of life" by making it the receptacle of men's souls after death. I can only say, we do not ordinarily judge it to be so. In this sense I mean, that although it be true that the spirits of the dead are living, they are nevertheless the spirits of the dead; and we necessarily and rightly speak of hades as the abode of the dead. To us they are the dead: though not extinct; and to God they live. It is not a fact that we find any difficulty in a use of language which perplexes Mr. Constable. It is writers of his class who having invented a new language for us would fain persuade us it is what we have been ignorantly using all along.

The only thing that might be judged a real difficulty as to hades we shall consider after we have briefly looked at the third term, "Paradise."

The greatest importance that the word has in this connection is from our Lord's use of it in His reply to the dying thief: "Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."

The common method of dealing with this text is by altering the punctuation. They would have us read the words, "Verily I say unto thee today: thou shalt be with me in Paradise." That is, "today, this day of my humiliation, I say to thee." But the order of the words in the sentence is all against them. With the emphasis they give it, semeron "today" should precede the verb. As compare in the Greek, Matt. 16: 3; Mark 14: 30; Luke 19: 5, 9; Acts 13: 33; Heb. 3: 7, 15. But, beside this, the Lord is answering a prayer in which a time wherein the thief sought to be remembered was expressed. He had said, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom." The Lord says virtually, "You shall not wait for that: today you shall be with Me." This is the simple, intelligible reason for the specification of time: "Today," not when I come merely, "shalt thou be with me in Paradise."

Seeing this, others would render semeron "in that day," or (as for instance Mr. Constable) more exactly, "this day," but meaning, "the day of which you have spoken."

Mr. Constable believes we cannot dispute his right to translate it thus, and he quotes Parkhurst and Schleusner to that effect. We have no quarrel with the lexicographers on this point,* but must contend nevertheless that their witness is insufficient. For while the word may well be rendered "this day," it cannot be as referring to a day not present when the word is spoken. In this way it is the exact equivalent of our word "today," which we know is incapable of such use. Let Mr. Constable produce, if he can, the passage which would bear this construction.**

{*Although Liddell and Scott, as high authorities, demur to the sigma or tau at the beginning of the word having anything to do with the article and for a very satisfactory reason, that "the word is Homeric, and therefore prior to the usage of the article." They only give the meaning "today," to which Dawson's Lexicon adds, "this very day."

**Dr. Thomas' reading is perhaps the strangest, and I mention it only as a proof of the perplexity into which writers of this class are thrown by the passage. "Today" is a Scripture term, and must be explained by the Scripture use of it. In the Sacred Writings, then, the term is used to express a period of over 2,000 years. This use of it occurs in David, as it is written, Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, lest ye enter not into my rest.' The apostle, commenting on this passage about 1,000 years after it was written, says, Exhort one another while it is called today.' . . . Thus it was called today when David wrote, and today when Paul commented on it. . . . This today is however limited both to Jew and Gentile and in defining this limitation Paul tells us, that today means 'after so long a time.' . . . If then we substitute the apostle's definition for the word 'today' in Christ's reply to the thief, it will read thus: 'Verily I say to thee, after so long a time thou shalt be with me in Paradise '" (Elpis Israel, pp. 54, 55).

But he is evidently afraid that will not answer, and so is careful to give other interpretations of the passage, even though contradictory of this.}

Mr. C. seems evidently not easy himself about this conclusion. He vacillates between this construction, and his strange idea of "synchronism." He thinks it may well be after all that "today" might really mean so, because "to the sleeper in death's arms there is no time," and having expired before the end of that Jewish day, "the last half-hour [of it] the penitent thief will spend with his King in His kingdom, for it is there he takes up the thread of time once more."

That is, "today" may mean two thousand years hence or so, if only you can get the "sleeper in death's arms" to sleep quietly enough to be unconscious of the interval!

Mr. Roberts agrees with the former of these two assertions, that "today" means "this day" — the day of Christ's coming. And he is one of a class of writers who urge that Paradise is in the new earth, and therefore not yet in existence, which of course would dispose of the passage effectually as far as applies to any teaching concerning an intermediate state. Mr. Constable too urges that we falsify the Scripture teaching as to Paradise. I shall therefore briefly state what it furnishes about it.

"Paradise" is an Eastern word for a "park" or "pleasure-grounds." The Hebrew, pardes is only used, Neh. 2: 8; Ecc. 2: 5; Cant. 4: 13. It is there translated: once "forest," twice "orchard." It is not used for the garden of Eden in Hebrew, but there it is the ordinary word, gan, for "garden." The Septuagint translation, however, gives here paradeisos (paradise), which is uniformly the word it uses for the Garden of Eden, or of God, except in one place where the usual word for garden (kepos) is used. From the Septuagint use of the word the New Testament use is doubtless derived. It does not follow, however, that it will have exactly the same application. Rather, we shall find, the Old Testament word becomes in it, as commonly such words do, transfigured into a higher meaning. The Old Testament type becomes the New Testament antitype: the "shadow of good things to come" emerges into the substantive reality. It is used but three times: —

Luke 23: 43. — "Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise."

2 Cor. 12: 4. — "How that he was caught up into Paradise."

Rev. 2: 7. — "The tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God."

In the last of these passages the mention of the tree of life connects itself plainly with the after account of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is therefore at least not the new earth, however related to it it may be. Nor does this in the least deny the earthly promises produced by Roberts. Each have their place, but those he quotes are distinctly those belonging to Israel nationally, as the apostle of the Gentiles tells us (Rom. 9: 3). Our blessings are "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1: 3); and of these the earthly ones are but the shadow. Mr. Roberts calls this an unproved assertion. It is, however, as definitely certain as can be, and without understanding it there can be no proper understanding of the promises at all. We shall devote a chapter to this point hereafter, and therefore may leave it now.

The second passage speaks of paradise as existing now, for Paul was caught away into it, — I have no wish to retain the "up" if Mr. Roberts objects, — and whether in the body or out of it he could not tell, even at the time he wrote. Manifestly, if he supposed he could be caught away bodily into it, he supposed it to be an existing place, and the plea that it was a vision will not answer. The "visions" doubtless refer to what he saw there.

To this Roberts answers that Paul might have supposed Paradise "made actually existent for the occasion of his inspection." The restored earth actually existent for Paul to see! It is a trite remark that faith is never so credulous as unbelief.

Mr. Constable insists that this Paradise could be no part of hades, and that people are forced thus to suppose that there are two Paradises! I agree with him that it is one and the same Paradise throughout. And the difficulty which he supposes is only the fruit of people studying rabbinical theology more than Scripture. Hades, as is acknowledged, is but the "unseen," and never defines precise locality. It is the attempt to make it definite which has confused people's minds, that is all.

But hades is in the "heart of the earth," says Mr. Constable. How does he know? Why, the earth swallowed up Korah and his company, and they "went down alive into sheol." That is his proof. May we not equally say that hades is the belly of a whale, because Jonah says that he cried "out of the belly of sheol"? Thus it is not so easy perhaps to decide the question of locality. The necessarily vague thought of the "unseen" refuses such limitation. True, its imagery was naturally borrowed, before the fuller revelation had been given, from that grave with which it necessarily was associated in the mind, and thus you have it pictured as "beneath," souls going down to it or coming up from it. There is moreover a real truth in this conception, in its being a descent from man's position, a degradation from his natural place on earth. The New Testament removes for the saint the veil of the unseen. He departs to be with Christ, and Christ is not in the heart of the earth. The very name of hades for the believer almost disappears, and thus it is most beautifully at the Cross of Christ that the veil begins to lift decidedly. "With me in Paradise" may well be in contrast with Old Testament utterances. Alas, that men should refuse the consolation, the brightness of the new revelation, and seek to retain the darkness, for faith passed away.

In a kindred way is to be explained the saying of the Lord after His resurrection, that He was "not yet ascended to His Father." Mr. Constable with others holds that that is inconsistent with the thought of His having been in Paradise in the intermediate state. But "ascension" is another thing from the departure of the spirit to God. It is connected with the victory over death, not the submission to it. David is not ascended, while his body remains in the grave. And for the Lord how easy to see the unspeakable difference! The departure of the spirit was the witness all had been stooped to, death in its full reality undergone; ascension was the witness of that work accepted, and man as man brought into the new place with God.

15 - The Authority and Use of Scripture

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 15.

The Authority and Use of Scripture

Hitherto we have been considering the arguments of only a section, although a large and important section, of those whose views we are examining. We are now to look at the final issues of life or death eternal. And here there are two classes of objectors to the common views: those commonly called "annihilationists" on the one side, but who prefer for their views the designation of "conditional immortality"; and those who on the other side advocate the doctrine of the possible or actual salvation of all men, after whatever ages it may be of purificatory suffering.

Of necessity our examination of these opposing statements will lead us in very different directions: they unite only in maintaining the doctrine to which is generally given the Scripture title of the "restitution of all things," and in certain ethical arguments against the ordinary views. The stronghold of the first class of writers they believe to be in the texts which speak of immortality, and of eternal life as the portion of the saved, and of death and destruction in various forms of expression as that of the unsaved. The stronghold of the latter, so far as they take Scripture as their ground of argument, is found, as they believe, in the texts which speak of the reconciliation of all things, and in the expressions for "eternal" being not really equivalent to "everlasting." As, however, we desire to take up not merely the arguments of those who differ from us, but to show the Scriptural view from Scripture itself, and as the full bearing of its statements needs to be considered, and not mere selected and isolated texts, the consideration of these will necessarily render it the only satisfactory course to meet the various arguments from whatever source as incidental to the examination of the Scripture doctrine itself. This only I believe will suffice him for whom Scripture has its due place and authority, as what alone can decide in a matter of this kind. The truth will thus be continually before us, and our souls be kept in the presence of Him who has given it, rather than in the presence of human thoughts and questionings, which can be but this after all.

I do not shrink from the ethical inquiry. But for this we must have first of all the distinct statement of the doctrine before us, and then also Scripture itself must test the ethics as all else.

It will be worth while then in the first place to consider the authority of Scripture in this subject of so immense importance to us, and which involves not only our views of the eternal destiny of men, but of the character of God Himself. And the question of its authority embraces another, of what is authoritative: is it the text, the "letter" of the word, if you will, or is it what some call the "Scriptures of God in their broad outlines" in contrast to this? To which of these is the appeal to be? Are we after all only likely more to lose our way by any minute examination of the words of Revelation? Is the danger in too close a scrutiny or too little?

For it has been asserted by a recent, but very well-known writer* that, because "we are in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit" — "our guide is the Scriptures of God in their broad outlines; the revelation of God in its glorious unity; — the books of God in their eternal simplicity, read by the illumination of that Spirit of Christ which dwelleth in us, except we be reprobates. Our guide is not, and never shall be what the Scriptures call 'the letter that killeth;' — the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors, the asserted infallibility of isolated words." It is true he tells us he is "quite content that texts should decide" this question; but then it is only "if except as an anachronism, we mean nothing when we say, 'I believe in the Holy Ghost'; if we prefer our sleepy shibboleths and dead traditions to the living promise 'I will dwell in them and walk in them,'" so that at that rate we shall consult them at manifest disadvantage, and with little hope it should seem of any satisfactory result.

{* Canon Farrar Sermons on "Eternal Hope," Serm. 3.}

There is some little difficulty in meeting objections which from their nature tend to deprive us of the very authority by which alone we can decide them. For if we should remind Canon Farrar that the apostle tells us that the things he spoke were not in "the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," and that it seems strange to make the Holy Ghost to be in conflict with His own "words," — he might answer us that we were doing now the very thing he objected to, and settling the matter by an appeal to isolated "texts."

The only encouragement to such an appeal seems to be in this, that he himself so appeals. He himself believes in the promise, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them," and cannot include this among the "sleepy shibboleths and dead traditions" of which he speaks. Moreover he believes at least that "the letter killeth." Therefore, it should seem that we might examine his own proof texts, and see how far, if indeed he base it upon these, they justify his position.

Now it is the same apostle who vouches for his very "words" being taught him by the Holy Ghost, who tells us that "the letter killeth"; and if we would not have that in the worst sense an isolated text, a phrase wrenched from its context and applied hap-hazard as we please, we must inquire a little what its context is. We shall find the words then in his second epistle to the church at Corinth (2 Cor. 3: 6); and with the verse preceding it runs thus: —

"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also path made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

If we look back to the verses going before, we shall find that he has been contrasting the writing on "tables of stone" with the writing of the Spirit of the living God "in fleshy tables of the heart." If we go on to the verses following, we shall find him speaking of the former as "the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones," given to the children of Israel by Moses, and of the latter again, in contrast, as "the ministration of the Spirit." And in the next verse again he styles the one "the ministration of condemnation," the other "the ministration of righteousness." We need not follow him further.

Upon the face of this then, the apostle in "the letter" that "killeth" is speaking of the "ministration of death," and that as what was written upon the "tables of stone," the law and nothing else. It is this that he is contrasting with the "new testament," or gospel, as "the ministration of righteousness" and life by the Spirit. The law, the letter, killed: was designed by its manifestation of what God required from man to give him the sentence of death in himself. "When the commandment came," says the apostle, speaking of its proved effect, "sin revived, and I died" (Rom. 7: 9). The gospel on the other hand "ministered righteousness" — provided, not required it, and so was life to souls, not death. In the one "the letter" of a mere commandment "killed." In the other the power of the Spirit wrought, giving life. Paul was a minister of the "New Testament," not the Old, "not of letter, but of Spirit."

But then, I fear me, Canon Farrar cannot be acquitted of the grossest violation of his own precept. He is in reality using "isolated words," words isolated from their context and applied to establish principles with which they have not the remotest connection. He uses them to put in opposition the words which the Holy Ghost taught and the Holy Ghost who taught them; and to substitute for adherence to the inspired text a sort of mystic, living guidance, which renounces the Scriptures as having any mere verbal accuracy to be adhered to — "the asserted infallibility of isolated words" — and replaces this with "the Scriptures of God in their broad outlines," not to be too narrowly defined; "the revelation of God in its glorious unity," untroubled by the discordance of "isolated texts"; practically, anything that we may please to call the teaching of the Spirit and the word, not to be critically tested even by that word by which the Spirit teaches.

On the other hand, we have been taught that "hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error," not by any assurance of our own hearts, as having the fulfilment of the promise, "I will dwell in them and walk in them," — true and blessed as that promise is, — but as "hearing" or "not hearing" the men inspired of God to give us Scripture (1 John 4: 6). We have learnt by the conduct of the Bereans to "search the Scriptures daily" whether these things are so. And from the apostle of the Gentiles that the "very words" he gives us, isolated or not, are words taught of the Holy Ghost Himself.

Canon Farrar does indeed allow us to "decide by texts alone," but it is only if we prefer "sleepy shibboleths and dead traditions" to the living guidance of the Spirit Himself. Is the word of God a "dead tradition"? I will gladly believe rather that he cannot mean this. But then his words do wrong to his meaning, and we have no guide to the latter. I quote from the appendix to his book another statement of his views, possibly more calm and deliberate than that from the sermon in the body of it:

"I care but little in any controversy for the stress laid upon one or two isolated and dubious texts out of the sacred literature of fifteen hundred years. They may be torn from their context; they may be distorted; they may be misinterpreted; they may be irrelevant; they may be misunderstood; they may — as the prophets, and the apostles, and our blessed Lord Himself distinctly intimated — they may reflect the ignorance of a dark age, or the fragment of an imperfect revelation; they may be a bare concession to imperfection or a low stepping-stone to progress. What the Bible teaches as a whole; what the Bibles also teach as a whole — for History and Conscience, and Nature and Experience, these too are sacred books, that, and that only, is the immutable law of God."

Thus it is very plain what Dr. Farrar means by refusing the "infallibility of isolated words." For him there are many Bibles, all fallible alike, and he himself is of these fallible Bibles the only apparently infallible interpreter. History is such a Bible, written where and how, out of all the contradictory tomes to which every day is giving fresh birth, he does not say. Conscience is another, though it teach men to bow down to stocks or stones, or snakes and crocodiles; conscience, which made Saul kill God's saints to do Him service. Nature is still another, with, perchance, a Huxley or a Darwin as its chronicler and expounder. Experience, which proved to the Jews of Jeremiah's day, that while they burnt incense to the queen of heaven, they "had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil." All these are Bibles, upon whose imperfect and contradictory utterances the mind of man is to sit in judgment — to decide what it can receive and what reject; and the blessed word of God is to take its place among these, and man is to say which of its utterances is the "reflection of the ignorance of a dark age," and which "a bare concession to imperfection," and which "a low stepping-stone to progress."

We may thank Dr. Farrar for his candor. It is certainly well to know what Scripture is for him, and how far "texts" are likely to decide the matter in question. Where he finds that prophets and apostles, nay, the Lord Himself, sanction his view of the matter, it would be hard to say. There is certainly abundance of proof of the very opposite, and in the mouth of one who professes such unbounded confidence in the "illumination of the Spirit of Christ," it seems a strange assertion that thus the Spirit of truth must have taught error, or at least have used such feeble and imperfect means of communicating truth, that He could not prevent its being mixed up with error. We refuse this teaching altogether. We on the authority of Scripture itself believe that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3: 16, 17). We believe in a really divine revelation given to us by One who cannot lie, and who does not for bread give us a stone, nor put darkness for light, or light for darkness. We would obediently "search" these Scriptures, conscious indeed of our own weakness and ignorance in doing so, but sincerely trusting Him, who assures us that "he that will do God's will shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God" (John 7: 17).

Dr. Farrar speaks of "the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors," of course, the metaphors of Scripture. And it is an objection which we have met before, and shall meet at every step as we now proceed, that the texts that are used in this controversy are largely of this nature. Now the ambiguity of the metaphors can only be tested by the examination of the passages in question: the fact of their being largely metaphorical admits of no doubt. Mr. Minton puts this triumphantly in his published "Way Everlasting." "Suppose," says he to the person he is addressing, "we agreed to wave everything on either side, of a purely figurative character, whether parables, metaphors or visions, together with passages admitted to be of doubtful meaning on other ground than that connected with the issue between us, and to abide by the plain prose statements that form the staple of Scripture testimony on the subject — where would you be? Simply nowhere. You would be out of court."

Mr. Minton's triumph is hardly so well assured; yet doubtless he has some apparent reason for what he says. The pictorial representations, if I may so say, of the eternal state are those naturally in which we find the most vivid images of eternal judgment; and these are precisely the passages which he and such as he have most difficulty in reconciling with their various theories. The book of Revelation especially, the prophetic panorama of things to come, gives them especial trouble. The eternal torment spoken of there Mr. Minton candidly confesses his inability to explain in any way quite satisfactory to his own mind.* But the "highly figurative" character of these visions is the constant plea, and they can refuse upon this ground what they cannot explain. To maintain the authority of texts like these, is just to assert that "tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors" against which Canon Farrar utters his protest. Yet the book has, as few have, its inspired title, and that title is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ." It is as if the complaints of obscurity and ambiguity had already reached the Divine ears from out the unborn future, and He had provided for them with the assurance of its being a revelation, a true unfolding of "things to come to pass." I would ask them to mark this, that it is here they find their greatest difficulty, in what Christ calls His "Revelation."**

{*Way Everlasting, 4th ed., p. 60.

**For Mr. Dobney these are the "hieroglyphs of Patmos." Mr. Cox would exclude from the decision of this question not only "Revelation," but the parables of the Lord, and all the Old Testament (Salvator Mundi, ch. 2).}

The figurative character is confessed, but it is only what is found wherever eternal things are pictured to us. There seems no other way of their being set before us indeed, than by figures taken from the things around and we may be sure that He who speaks to us in them has taken not the most obscure and doubtful way to show them to us. "We see through a glass, darkly," says the apostle. The last phrase is literally "in an enigma" (1 Cor. 13: 12, marg.). Thus it is the Scripture way to use enigmas to describe what otherwise it may well be impossible for a man to utter (2 Cor. 12: 4).

Yet though it was of old the complaint as to the prophets that they "spake parables" (Ezek. 20: 49), it is nevertheless expected of disciples at least, that they should understand them. "Know ye not this parable?" asked the Lord once of the twelve, "and how then will ye know all parables?" (Mark 4: 13). Surely our shame it is to be akin to those who seeing do not perceive, and hearing do not understand. The Lord does not trifle with us, does not invite us to see what He forbids us to understand.* And there we must pause for the present. The visions themselves will come before us at another time.

{*As to the doubtfulness of the interpretation of the parables, Mr. Cox asks of Matt. 13: 33, and Luke 15: 4: "Would it not be quite easy to interpret these weighty and emphatic phrases as signifying that the whole mass of mankind is to be leavened and quickened by the truth of Christ, and that the great Bishop of our souls will never cease from his quest of any poor lost sinner until he find him and restore him to the fold?" No doubt it is "easy," if we assume the meaning of symbols as we please, and this has been largely done; but the "three measures of meal" refer to the meat-offering with which no leaven was to be mixed (Lev. 2: 11), and cannot mean "the whole mass of mankind," any more than the "leaven" can ever be interpreted as good according to Scripture usage (Comp. Matt. 16: 6, 11, 12; Mark 8: 15; 1 Cor. 5: 6-8; Gal. 5: 9).

Again, the "lost" sheep is the "sinner that repenteth," and Christ does find all such. As to the prodigal figuring the return of a soul from hell (the far country), it is unworthy trifling, which stamps the character of the man who uses it. Think of a sinner going away from God to enjoy himself in hell!}

16 - Immortality: is it Conditional?

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 16.

Immortality: is it Conditional?

The course we shall pursue in our examination is briefly this: first, we shall seek out the meaning and use of the terms which are employed in Scripture in relation to this subject; then we shall look at the prophetic outline of the future, so far as may be needed to connect and apply the various passages; next, we shall try and fill in this scheme with the passages which bear upon the successive events which it marks out; and finally, give some attention to the ethical questions.

We shall begin with immortality and eternal life, two questions, which for annihilationists are only one; and, however discordant up to this time may have been their statements, we shall find them in almost perfect agreement now.

Says Mr. Morris: —

"The Son of God came to give life, even eternal life; and if it be asked, 'Who will live forever?' the answer of the Lord and Giver of life, who is also. the Bread of life, is in these words; 'He that eateth of this bread shall live forever.' And it is most irreverent and evil for any man to say, that in the vocabulary of the Son of God the word 'life' does not mean life; and that the words 'eternal life' do not mean eternal life, and that the words 'shall live forever' do not mean shall live forever. And yet, in their ecclesiastical teaching, certain men are hurried into this kind of irreverence and evil by reason of their having adopted the false doctrine of the innate and essential immortality of 'the earthly' race."*

{* "What is Man?" p. 43.}

And at the other end of annihilationism, the follower of Dr. Thomas, Mr. Roberts of Birmingham, after quoting various passages which speak of eternal life, writes (Twelve Lectures, p. 82):

"Now, if immortality be the natural attribute of every son of Adam from the very moment he breathes, what can be the meaning of testimonies like these, 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 an utter incongruity in such language, if immortality be a natural and present possession. How can you promise a man that which is already his own? The divine promise is, that God will award eternal life to those who seek for glory, honor and immortality; and this is the strongest proof that human nature is utterly destitute of it at present."

Immortality and eternal life are here confounded. And it does not make it better that Mr. Roberts quotes apparent Scripture to justify the confusion. He may shelter himself under the fact that he is not alone in it.* He is not; but that will not make him less responsible for deception, even unwittingly practised.**

{*Messrs. Dobney, Hastings, Ham, Moncrieff, Z. Campbell, Minton, Goodwyn and Constable, all agree with him. No doubt, others also.

**He takes no notice of it even in his review of my book, after its being plainly pointed out to him. But this is no unaccustomed thing with him.}

The true Scriptural statement is this: —

In the New Testament the true word for immortality (athanasia) occurs but three times: 1 Cor. 15: 53, 54, "this mortal must put on immortality;" "when . . . . this mortal shall have put on immortality;" and once of God it is asserted (1 Tim. 6: 16), that He "only hath immortality." The adjective "immortal" does not even occur.

There is indeed another word, aphtharsia twice translated in our version "immortality," and that is the word Mr. Roberts with others has caught at as showing man's seeking it but its proper meaning is "incorruption," and so it is mostly translated. I cite all the passages: —

Rom. 2: 7: — "glory, honor and immortality."

1 Cor. 15: 42: — "it is raised in incorruption."

1 Cor. 15: 50: — neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."

1 Cor. 15: 53: — "must put on incorruption."

1 Cor. 15: 54: — "shall have put on incorruption."

Eph. 6: 24: — "love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."

2 Tim. 1: 10: — "brought life and immortality to light by the gospel."

Titus 2: 7: — "incorruptness, gravity, sincerity."

Its adjective, aphthartos "incorruptible," is used seven times, and applied to God (Rom. 1: 23, 1 Tim. 1: 17); the crown of the righteous (1 Cor. 9: 25); our inheritance (1 Peter 1: 4); the word of God (1 Peter 1: 23); and once figuratively, "that which is not corruptible" (1 Peter 3: 4). It is only once in our version (1 Tim. 1: 17) rendered "immortal," but with no more reason than in other places.

Furthermore its opposite (phthartos) "corruptible," is six times found, and always so rendered: Rom. 1: 23; 1 Cor. 9: 25; 1 Cor. 15: 53, 54; 1 Peter 1: 18, 23.

The difference between these words comes out in 1 Cor. 15, in which they are all to be found. Speaking of the dead body of the saint (1 Cor. 15: 42-50) the apostle uses the word "corruptible" and "corruption." It was not mortal, but dead. Then, speaking of the resurrection of those "that are Christ's at His coming" (ver. 23), he brings in also the change of the living saints which would accompany it: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed;" "the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we (the living) shall be changed; for this corruptible (applying to the dead saints) must put on incorruption, and this mortal (applying to the living) must put on immortality."

Thus there is evident distinction in the use of these words in Scripture; and when it is said (Rom. 2: 7) that God will render "to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life," it is not at all the same as seeking for immortality, but the blessed, incorruptible state in which resurrection or the "change" will put the saints at the coming of Christ. And it applies only to the saints, as the whole description in 1 Cor. 15: 42-50 does. The wicked are not those of whom it is said, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power." Such words are applicable alone to the bloom and beauty of the "resurrection of life."

Quite true that the saints, alive but mortal when Christ comes, will then get "immortality." The liability and tendency to death will in their case be of course removed. But that word is the expression of a different fact from that which is pointed out in the case of those who have died. All will alike of course possess incorruption, putting on alike the image of the heavenly; but the fact noticed as to the living is that they shall not sleep at all, "mortality" in their case being "swallowed up of life."

For of course mortality is our condition down here. "Immortality" is not "our natural and present condition." Immortality is deathlessness, and who among the people Mr. Roberts is opposing asserts that we do not die? It is a poor quibble that. The soul does not die; nor the spirit; but man does surely. The question is as to what death is, not whether men are subject to it. Of course with Mr. R. it is cessation of existence, but then that is not what we mean by death. We mean the dust returning to the earth as it was, while the spirit returns to God who gave it. Under the same word we are in reality speaking of different things.

General Goodwyn has indeed another application of the words in this chapter: —

"Ver. 50 applies the word 'corruption' to flesh and blood, the entire natural man; ver. 52 applies the word 'incorruptible' to dead bodies 'raised.' In ver. 53, therefore, the word 'incorruption ' evidently applies to the body, and consequently 'immortality' to the soul, but only in resurrection, when body and soul are reunited. The apostle Peter, in contrasting the source of the children of God with the natural birth of the Adam race, says that the former are 'born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible.' The truth, therefore, remains that the latter are born of 'corruptible seed'; and the apostle Paul gives further force to this expression when he says, 'We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed' — uncovered with a body — 'but clothed upon, that MORTALITY might be swallowed up of LIFE.' Here is a distinct assertion that the personality — apart or not from the body — is 'mortal' (2 Cor. 5: 4)."

If boldness would carry the day the field were won. As it is we are not convinced. We dispute the fact of "flesh and blood" being the "entire natural man"; we agree that "incorruption" everywhere applies to the body. We deny the "consequence" that mortality or immortality refers to the soul. It refers to the bodies of the living when Christ comes, as corruption and incorruption to the bodies of the dead. Let any one compare 1 Thess. 4: 15-17, where the same event is spoken of, and where the dead in Christ, and "we" who are alive and remain are similarly contrasted. The "we shall be changed" is contrasted in 1 Cor. 15: 52, with the dead being "raised incorruptible," and so similarly in the next verse, "this corruptible" applies to the dead, "this mortal" to the living: both expressions to the body, the "mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4: 11).

Again, in the passage from 1 Peter 1: 23, the "incorruptible seed" is the "word of God, which by the gospel is preached unto you." What has that to do with the physical constitution of man? And if we are born, as I have no wish to deny, of "corruptible seed," how does that show that such a term applies to the physical constitution of the soul or spirit? Nay, he has himself just now applied "corruptible" to the condition of the body, and "mortal" in contrast with this to the state of the soul. Neither assumption can bear the least examination.

The quotation from 2 Cor. 5: 4 is, however, still more recklessly misapplied. Where is the "assertion that the personality, apart from the body, is mortal"? It is Gen. Goodwyn's own, not the apostle's. He has distinctly stated that he groaned, not to be unclothed, but clothed upon.

Now this is the very change of the living we have before been looking at. Paul, the living but mortal man, longed not to be unclothed — to be apart from the body — but, in opposition to that, to be clothed upon, that mortality, his present condition, might be swallowed up of life.

How could the "personality," apart from the body, be according to Gen. Goodwyn, "mortal" any more? Would he call a dead body mortal? And for him, apart from the body, the soul is as strictly dead as is the body itself.

Mr. Roberts makes an effort to show that immortality and incorruption are interchangeable terms; and we will allow him to state how in his own words:

"The first (athanasia) tells us that the life of the age is deathless. In entering it we are told that this mortal shall put on immortality. By this we know the truth declared by Christ, that 'They who are accounted worthy of the age . . . cannot die any more' (Luke 20: 36). But how is it that life is thus made endless to those that were before but mortal? The second word. (aphtharsia) answers it: 'This corruptible must put on incorruption' (1 Cor. 15: 53). Men are mortal — liable to death — because their natures are corruptible; they decay. But make them incorruptible, and endlessness of life is the necessary consequence. Hence to seek for incorruption is equivalent to seeking for deathlessness or immortality."

Mr. Roberts' physiological knowledge is as defective as his knowledge of Scripture. I have already pointed out that his theory of life being the result of organization is the very reverse at least of what the acutest physiologists of the day assert. Prof. Huxley, well known to be as stout a materialist as he is undeniably an unbeliever, admits over and over again that life is the cause of organization, and not organization the cause of life. (Introd. to Classification of Animals.) I have before quoted from another of the same school. It is almost the universally accepted doctrine now.

Mr. R.'s present assertion is but the logical outgrowth of his former one. If life be the result of organization, doubtless immortality will be that of incorruption. But as the former statement needs to be reversed, so will the latter require to be. Incorruption will be based rather upon immortality, but even so is not (as it would appear) its necessary result. We must bear in mind that we are speaking here of what is almost outside the sphere of mere human knowledge, and where a verse or two of Scripture is all the Biblical material to draw from either. But all that we do know is against the view Mr. Roberts advocates.

That "immortality" as a term is applied in Scripture only to the righteous is not of striking force when we remember that it is only applied to them in two consecutive verses (1 Cor. 15: 53, 54), one of which is but really the repetition of the other.

But, say these writers (quoting 1 Tim. 6: 16), "God only hath immortality." What then? Why, it is argued, "the soul can't have it." Let them go a little further, and the result will be apparent. The angels then cannot either. Does death then reign throughout the ranks of created, sinless beings? That will not of course be contended for; but it is involved necessarily in the argument; and must follow, or the argument be given up. No, says Mr. Roberts, for the angels "are God to us; for they are of His nature, and come only on His errands" . . . "they are of the divine nature; they are 'spirit.'" And so is man's spirit "spirit," and we have seen that, if angels be "sons of God" on that account, just so are men also "His offspring." Whatever therefore this proves as to angels, it proves also for the spirit of man. That the angels represent God to us, as coming on His errands, proves nothing nor disproves.

The Scripture sense of the passage does indeed make it apply to angels, and to all created beings. It is the essential difference between the Creator and all His works, that He alone by Himself subsists. "By Him," on the other hand, "all things subsist." "He upholdeth all things by the word of His power." Thus we by no means maintain what Mr. Morris calls, and rightly calls, "the false doctrine of the innate and essential immortality of the earthly race." So far from that we contend that the race is mortal, and that immortality innate and essential belongs to no creature, fallen or unfallen. It is the assurance of this that this passage in Timothy gives. In that sense, as possessing it in Himself, God alone hath it, and in Him "we live, and move, and have our being." "By Him all things subsist."

But this no more proves that the soul dies, than that angels die. Dependent, derived immortality it may have equally with them, and in that sense its immortality is affirmed; for they that kill the body cannot kill the soul.

Eternal life, which they confound with immortality, is a wholly different thing; and this we shall now proceed to show.

17 - Eternal Life: what is it?

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 17.

Eternal Life: what is it?

It will be remembered that the word used in the New Testament for the life that the righteous enter upon as their eternal condition is always the same word. It is not psuche but zoe.

It ought not to be needful to insist upon this again. Gen. Goodwyn, as we have seen, fully admits it, and tries to make capital of it in his own peculiar way. As however Mr. Roberts has made, in his review of my former book, one final effort to overthrow this position, we shall again listen to his own words about it. He says: —

"Just as we speak of the present life under different words, such as life, existence, being, so the future life is variously designated according to the relation in which it is considered. It is either psuche, soul (Matt. 16: 25); zoe life (Mark 10: 30); or hemeis, we, [!!] (1 Thess. 4: 17), as the line of thought demands; but the hope in all cases is absolutely one and the same. The saving of the psuche (Heb. 10: 39), is the obtaining of eternal zoe (Matt. 19: 29), by the 'us' of Paul's discourse (2 Cor. 4: 14)."

I feel as if apology were due to my readers for quoting this or answering. Still as I suppose it seems satisfactory to himself, there may be others also who need the answer. It may be a short one, when the "we" who obtain eternal life are stated to be the life that "we" obtain. But at least, you may say, "the saving of the psuche is the obtaining of eternal zoe," is it not? I should suppose that proved that they were different. For certainly it would not consist with Scripture to speak of "the saving of the zoe" or of the "obtaining of eternal psuche)." In Scripture phrase a saved man "keeps his psuche unto everlasting zoe," and these things are never confounded or reversed. Eternal life is never psuche. Mr. Roberts would gladly produce the passage to prove it, if it could be found.

Let it be remembered then that we are speaking of this one word zoe, when we inquire into the meaning of "everlasting life."

And first, what then is "life"? What do we ordinarily mean by it? Mr. Constable raises the same question, and answers it: and he now shall tell what he believes it means, He says (Duration and Nat. of Fut. Punishment): —

"If we were only to ask what was its primary sense, we should have no difficulty. All allow existence to be its primary signification. We will hereafter show that the primary sense of this term is the only one admissible; but here we will not further insist on it. We will here only ask if there was one universal sense attached to this term; so that while there might be to a greater or less extent a variety of senses attached to it in one place or another, still as accepted by all mankind speaking the Grecian tongue, it had only one sense which was every where accepted as a true sense, and by some accepted as the only sense. Here, too, we are able to come to a certain conclusion. That sense of 'existence,' which is undoubtedly the primary sense, is as undoubtedly a sense accepted by every Grecian speaker as a true sense, and by very many Grecian speakers accepted as its only sense. Our opponents themselves cannot and do not attempt to deny this. 'The unenlightened heathen,' says Mattison, 'understood the terms life and death as implying simple existence or nonexistence.'"

And Mr. Constable argues therefore that so it must have been understood, and meant to be understood, by the people to whom the gospel was addressed, or if not, the different sense attached to it would have required to be explained to them; and

"of such explanation we do not find a trace. Where we do find an inspired writer defining the meaning of 'life' he defines it exactly as a heathen would do: 'What is your life?' saith the apostle James. 'It is even,' he replies, 'a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.' Life, with St. James, himself a Jew, meant but what it meant with a heathen, existence."

Mr. Constable is one who, beyond most of his school, claims for himself critical and precise accuracy, and he challenges answer to his arguments. I have therefore so often chosen him as the exponent of the views of his own class of writers. But we have had already many a proof of his incompetency as a reasoner. It may be the result of the unhappy system he has taken up, which seems to cloud the intellect, as it certainly enfeebles spiritual perception. Let us examine his statement however.

And here in the first place, it is a little disappointing to turn to the table which he gives us further on in his book, of the meanings of the Greek words which bear upon this question, and to look in vain for this universal meaning attaching to zoe!

His vocabulary is from Liddell and Scott, "allowed to be an authority of the highest order," as he truly says. And moreover, he says, he appends to the words "every meaning" (the italics are his own) "attached to them in the ordinary Greek language." After giving it, he says, "we will thank our readers to look carefully at the foregoing table." We have done so, and find as the result: —

"Zoe, 1. a living or property, 2. life as opposed to death. Zao, 1. to live (spoken of animal life); 2. to be in full life and strength."

This is certainly remarkable. Mr. Constable's primary,universal sense of zoe is not found in a table furnished by himself; and certified to contain "every meaning attached to it in the ordinary Greek language."

But this is not all. Nor can we acquit Mr. Constable of the gravest charge that can be brought against a controversial writer, a lending himself to deception of the worst kind. The primary meaning he gives might indeed awaken suspicion by its strange appearance. Not only is "life, as opposed to death," the secondary meaning, NOT the primary, in his own table; but that primary meaning looks strangely also; "a living or property." What kind of property? and why "living" instead of "life"?

I turn to Liddell and Scott for explanation, and I find as follows: —

"zoe, a living, i.e., means of life, goods, property; 2. Att. life, opp. to death."

"A living, i.e., MEANS OF life, goods, property": that is the primary meaning. Secondarily, and in the Attic dialect, one of the FIVE dialects of Greek, it means "life, as opposed to death."

How different is the whole statement of the case from that which he has given us. And here I am arguing nothing myself; I am but giving his own authority.

Where is "existence" as the universal meaning of zoe? It is not found as a meaning at all, even in his own vocabulary! And even the meaning of life as opposed to death is neither the primary meaning, nor the universal, but only in the Attic dialect, one division of the Greek tongue out of five. To use no language unnecessarily harsh in the matter, Mr. Constable has misstated a very simple matter of fact.

But it is the New Testament use of the term with which we are concerned, and we do not purpose carrying the examination further. For my own part, in the case of a common New Testament word, I am convinced that a Greek concordance (that is, the examination of the word itself as it occurs in Scripture) is of more value to the Bible student than the best dictionary that ever was. The word zoe occurs 134 times in the New Testament. It is in one place rendered "lifetime" (Luke 16: 25); in every other case it is rendered, as it only could be rendered, "life."

And Mr. Constable may raise the question, if he please, are not existence and life but the same thing? I answer, the question occupying so intently the minds of many in the present day, would have no meaning if it were so. We have already quoted Prof. Nicholson to the effect that "no rigid definition of life appears to be at present possible." I believe from the Scripture point of view indeed something approaching a definition may be possible, but certainly not in the crude way which annihilationists press with the most extraordinary confidence. "Eternal life," says Mr. Roberts, "is in the first place life in its primary sense of being." Is that the primary sense? Can nothing "be," but what "lives"? It is not even the sense at all, any more than is existence. Goodwyn contradicts both; he says: — "I am now prepared to add that life does not in Scripture, nor anywhere else, invariably mean mere existence; but is inseparable from a condition or character developed by the action of the mind." If life is existence "inseparable" from a certain "character," then it can never be "mere existence"; and so far at least the definition is correct. Let us examine it a little further.

Life manifests itself by action: it is the energy that works the whole machinery, so to speak, of the being in which it dwells. But we may also, and in fact do more frequently speak of it as the motion of the machinery itself. The latter is life phenomenal, what it is as subject to our inspection, a matter of actual observation and knowledge. The former is life potential, the power behind the movement and unseen.

But then we also speak of life in a still larger way as comprehending the course of this active existence; life as furnishing the individual history. And as connected with this, although distinct, we speak of life as differentiated by its surroundings: English life, American life, and even without an adjective at all, of a young man entering upon life, life in the pregnant sense, implying its full tale of hopes and joys, and cares and sorrows.

In the sphere of merely natural things of which alone we are as yet speaking, the life potential, according to Scripture, is the soul, or psuche.

2. The phenomenal, physical, animal life induced by the presence of the soul in the body, is also psuche.

3. The historical life is on the other hand always zoe.*

{*I leave out of consideration bios, which, although it figures largely in ordinary Greek, occurs but five times in the New Testament in the sense of "life," and here always as a synonym of zoe in the historical sense. Its use lies outside of our present inquiry. The five passages are Luke 8: 14; 1 Tim. 2: 2; 2 Tim. 2: 4; 1 Peter 4: 3; 1 John 2: 16.}

And —

4. Zoe, too, is life in the pregnant sense, implying all that it introduces to.

The first two meanings are connected together and covered by the one word, psuche, as the last two are on the other hand connected, and covered by the one word, zoe.

Of psuche enough has been said already. Zoe used with reference to the natural He** occurs but thirteen times in the New Testament. I give all these occurrences that we may have the subject as fully as possible before us.

{*It is strange that Goodwyn should say (Truth and Tradition, p. 18): "In every instance where zoe is used it is applied to the eternity of God, of the Lord Jesus, and of believers in Him." This is but one of the many careless statements to be found in these writers.}

1. Life in the historical sense: —

Luke 1: 75: "all the days of our life."

Luke 16: 25: "thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things."

Acts 8: 33: "his life is taken from the earth."

Acts 17: 25: "he giveth to all life and breath and all things."

Rom. 8: 38: "neither death nor life shall separate us."

1 Cor. 3: 22: "all things are yours, whether life or death."

1 Cor. 15: 19: "if in this life only we have hope in Christ."

Phil. 1: 20: "whether by life or death."

1 Tim. 4: 8: "having promise of the life that now is."

Heb. 7: 3: "neither beginning of days, nor end of life."

James 4: 14: "for what is your life? it is even a vapor."

2. In the pregnant sense; only twice, but distinct: —

Luke 12: 15: "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things."

1 Peter 3: 10: "he that will love life, and see good days."

So far then we have been speaking of natural life only. I have been thus particular in speaking of it, because the natural sense is of course the primary, and furnishes the basis of the spiritual sense. We shall find, if I mistake not, by carrying these definitions with us, that they will assist us greatly in the apprehension of what Scripture calls "eternal life," which as a term is used in a precisely similar way, a way which the crude conception of Messrs. Constable and Roberts can in no wise harmonize, much less explain.

If life then is not mere "existence," "eternal life" is still less, if possible, merely "eternal existence." It is a life begun here and now in those who are nevertheless as mortal as ever, a consideration which at once sets such an explanation of it entirely aside. The wicked who have it not "exist" just as much as those who have it, while they do not in this sense "live" at all. Let us examine this closely, for it is the key of the whole position.

"Eternal life" in Scripture is always, as before said, zoe, never psuche. It is presented however in the same four aspects as the natural life. Here the potential life, the soul of this spiritual existence, is Christ Himself. The phenomenal life, the result of His relationship to us, is that which begins with our new and spiritual birth. The historical life is our individual course on earth as children of God. And finally we enter upon life, embark on it in the full and pregnant sense, when we "go into" it in the fast hastening day of the Saviour's coming. We must look at it in each of these different applications.

1. Apart from the illustration, not even Mr. Constable would probably deny the first sense, although he must needs be far from seeing its depth of blessed meaning. Scripture is full of it; but it will suffice to quote but a few passages. Thus the apostle speaks of Him who in the beginning was with God, and was God, that "in Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1: 4). In his first epistle similarly, that "the life was manifested; and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" (1 John 1: 2). So the record is, "that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John 5: 11, 12).

Now here to begin with, let me ask, is it eternal existence that was manifested in Christ, and was the light of men? But again, and furthermore, —

2. Not only has "he that hath the Son of God" got life, but he has got it as a present possession and an abiding one. He has no mere pledge and promise of it. It is as possessing it that he is in the spiritual sense a child of God and born of God.

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3: 36). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me HATH everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but Is passed from death unto life" (John 5: 24).

Is this only "the promise and the pledge"? Nay; for —

"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no life IN you; whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood HATH eternal life" (John 6: 53, 54). And again, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life ABIDING IN HIM" (1 John 3: 14, 15).

Thus eternal life is "in," and "abideth in" the believer: he has no mere pledge and promise of it; it is begun in him already. Listen, and the Lord Himself will define it yet more simply: for —

"THIS IS life eternal, that they might know," or better, "that they know,"* — "Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17: 3).

{*For it is a well known peculiarity of John's gospel to use ina for hoti, "in order that" for "that."}

Here it is characterized for us, and we know (if we know anything) the life it speaks of. It began in us when faith began. It began with our new birth. It is not then eternal existence, for still we die. It is not existence, but a new and blessed energy of good; an activity of holy affections of which Christ now known as Saviour is the spring and soul. This is eternal life, if Scripture is to be believed. The definitions of annihilationists fail hopelessly, therefore, here. Eternal life is not immortality; it is not eternal existence, as they allege. It is the life which we have as spiritually quickened from the dead.

3. The outward historical life necessarily blends with the outward natural life so that they cannot be really separated. The life of the saint and the life of the man are here but one. For this reason no Scripture can be produced under this head, which might not be fairly challenged.

4. But the pregnant sense is, as we might expect, in fullest use of all; for our life points ever forward to the time when we shall have it in all that it implies. And even as we have said, the young man "enters upon life," when he enters upon its full activities, free from the necessary restraints of immaturity, so we too shall "enter into life," albeit we have it now within us. And who that feels the workings of the life within most fully, but must look forward, too, most simply to that future, and say to himself, without a thought of denying what he has already, that his life is there?

Thus "ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Rom. 6: 22); "in the world to come eternal life" (Mark 10: 30); "in hope of eternal life" (Titus 1: 2); "shall inherit everlasting life" (Matt. 19: 29), and similar expressions, in no wise interfere with the fact asserted quite as plainly, if not as frequently, that we have eternal life abiding in us now. These are only the various modes of speech which as we have seen we use with regard to the natural life itself.

Yet these expressions are all that the writers who hold what they call the doctrine of "conditional immortality" can urge against the view that life eternal is what is begun in us in new birth already. Mr. Constable calls this sense of life the "figurative" sense. But it is no more figurative than is the necessary result of using words pertaining to what is natural and applying them to what is spiritual. And this we have always to do if we speak of the spiritual at all. Eternal life belongs not to the sphere of the natural. It is what was manifested in Christ down here, and is ours now in present possession — spiritual not natural life. Hence we use the term as it must be used; and Mr. Constable cannot use it in his fashion without falsifying Scripture to do so.

He does thus falsify it, when he says, "Scripture represents eternal life as a gift not yet enjoyed by the children of God." He falsifies it when he says that, "while there are no doubt many Scriptures, which describe the believer as now having everlasting life, we are EXPRESSLY TOLD elsewhere that this consists in having God's pledge and promise of that everlasting life; but not its actual possession and enjoyment." This is bold misstatement. Where is it "expressly told"? Mr. Constable cannot find it. He can find that we are promised it and go into it. He can find that we have it now. He cannot find that the latter only means the former.

Hence, his premises being unsound, his conclusions must be. Eternal life is not eternal existence simply, but something far beyond it, and the wicked, not possessing eternal life, are not thereby proved to lose existence.

There is only one clause of this argument remaining to detain us for a moment. The words of the apostle (Col. 3: 3) are quoted in his own behalf by Mr. Roberts: "Your life is hid with Christ in God." And so General Goodwyn:

"Eternity of living dates from the resurrection (John 6: 40, 53, 54) and is at present 'hid with Christ in God.' Nevertheless the child of God 'hath' it now, howbeit it is in safe custody," etc. This is the way in which these men read Scripture! Where is it said that "eternity of living" is hid with Christ in God? It is said "your life is." And where is there a word about its being in "in safe custody"? It is William Cowper, I believe, who sings,

"Your life is hid with Christ in God, Beyond the reach of harm."

But then that is not Scripture. The Scripture use and purport of the text which Mr. Goodwyn quotes is far otherwise. "Ye are dead," says the apostle, "and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." The passage belongs to the first class of texts pointed out, in which our life is identified with its origin. Christ is this life. He is hid in God, and the world sees Him not until the day of His appearing. Our life then is in character a hidden one, we shall not appear till we appear with Him. A life which draws its character from Him who is the soul of it cannot be known by a world which has rejected the Son of God and found no glory in the Lord of glory. With Him then we are dead. Our life is a hidden one, for Christ is hidden. But it is hidden in God, and so but waits for the time in which it will shine fully out. Christ is to appear; and then we shall. This has nothing to do with the question of security, or with eternity of living. It is Christ who is hidden, and who is our life. Our life, therefore, is hid with Him. But that is no denial of its being in us here, but implies the very contrary. It is our possession of it that gives us this character, and Christ being the soul of it, "the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not" (1 John 3: 1).

Eternal life is not then mere eternity of living, nor does it date only from the resurrection. It dates for us from that quickening by the Spirit which every child of God has known; and manifests itself, though the world (and alas, others) have no eyes for it, in every throb and movement of the soul Godward; while we wait yet to enjoy its fulness —

"In the world to come, eternal life."

18 - The First Sentence

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 18.

The First Sentence

As I have said, I do not refuse to consider the moral aspects of the present question. But just now we are occupied with what must necessarily precede all such considerations. The facts must be before us before there can be any proper appreciation of them. We are searching for the facts of the case, and any preliminary moral reasoning would be out of place — would hinder and not help our investigation.

The question of penalty stirs all the feelings of our heart, and there are two things, often forgotten, which should lead us to question how far we can safely allow their influence. The first is, that we are judging in our own cause. The second, that the in which has entailed the penalty has enfeebled necessarily the power of true judgment. The heart of man is not only "desperately wicked": it is deceitful too. Will it be any more likely to judge righteous judgment because the cause it pronounces upon is its own? itself? Is the sinner's estimate of sin and its desert so likely to be right? Is there no self-interest in the way? no pride that would forbid to stoop so low as to the truth? Ah, the heart of man! that question of the All-seeing is the judgment of its trustworthiness: "Who can know it?"

Yet there is One who knows. Can I trust Him? and has He spoken in such a way that I can assuredly know what He has said? He has. I can. You might stir my poor human feelings, no doubt, and make me murmur at the judgment He has given: — I am quite capable of that. But I look at the Cross, where for man His own Son hung, and I cannot persuade myself I have a more tender heart than He. No: His judgment is not an enemy's, nor the impassive estimate of One indifferent. He has given His Son. And though His judgments may be a great deep, and I may be little able to follow out His governmental ways, I have what is better, for I know Himself.

Thus you and I, reader, are to listen to His words; not with hearts callous to human suffering, but subject to Him. The deep, dark shadow of the Cross, whereon for us the Son of God hung and died, prepares us for a view of sin and its results deep and dark enough in shadow. But we know the heart we cling to through the gloom; and the sheep, here as ever, know the Shepherd's voice.

We are now to look at the solemn question of penalty. Mr. Constable does but follow in the track of others, when he takes us back to the sentence upon Adam to find in it the key to the whole matter. We shall examine what he says attentively.

"Death," he remarks, "was the penalty which God originally pronounced against human sin. All that God purposed to inflict upon Adam and his posterity in case of transgression is included in that word 'death.' 'In the day* that thou eatest, thou shalt die.' It is of the utmost consequence then that we should understand what God meant by death; nor is there the smallest difficulty in doing so if we will only attend to what reason and justice require, and what Scripture expressly declares. Its meaning then we contend to be, when it is thus attached to sin as its penalty, the loss of life or existence. One of the first principles of justice requires that parties threatened with a penalty for transgression should have the fullest opportunity of understanding what the penalty is. God accordingly speaks to Adam of death as a thing whose nature Adam knew. Now Adam knew very well what death was in one sense, and in one sense only. He knew it to be the law of the lower creatures, and to consist in the loss of their being and existence. He knew nothing of any other senses of death, such as 'death in sin' or 'death to sin,' for in his innocence he did not know what sin was at all. Still less did he understand by death an eternal existence in agony. He had one clear, well understood sense for death, the loss of life and being."

{* Edw. White maintains (Life in Christ, p. 118) that the execution of this was not carried out, but the sentence was delayed by mercy. This is a mistake. "In the day" does not require so rigid a construction. Comp. 2 Sam. 22: 1, Ps. 95: 8, Ecc. 12: 3, Isa. 14: 3, Isa. 30: 26, Jer. 7: 22, Ezek. 20: 5, and especially Ezek. 33: 12.}

Again he says: —

"As soon as Adam transgressed God came to him, and repeated to him in other words the penalty he had just incurred. It was 'dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.' God's definition of the death inflicted for the first transgression is frequently repeated in the later Scriptures. Paul tells us that it is the death which all men actually undergo, whether they are among the saved or the lost; and therefore an eternal existence in pain can be no part of its meaning (Rom. 5: 12, 14, 17; 1 Cor. 15: 22). Such too was the death which Christ endured for human sin — the very same penalty to its full extent to which man was exposed; and therefore spiritual death or an eternal life in misery, can form no part whatsoever of its meaning God said nothing in the first instance of transgression as to whether this death would be temporal or eternal, but what the death was He fully explained both by word and by example. He gave life to the race of man, and He would withdraw that life if man sinned."

I have thus quoted Mr. Constable in full in order to bring the subject properly before us. If it had only been for the sake of answering him much less would have sufficed. But we are seeking to bring out the Scripture doctrine and not merely to refute certain errors; and this is an important point to be clear upon in order to a full and satisfactory view of the great subject before us, Yet in aiming to be thus clear we must enter into a field of many controversies, not yet by any means extinct, and are almost sure to awaken feelings, which may prejudice the point of main concern, for many minds. Still we must not shrink from what seems needful, and Scripture is no more uncertain here than elsewhere.

As to Mr. Constable's main point, it is not hard to see that he makes immense assumptions, and that upon these his argument in its entirety rests. Let us grant for the meanwhile, at any rate, that it is of ordinary death the prohibition speaks. How can he prove what Adam knew about it? Suppose it true he must have known what the penalty was, how can he show that Adam learned it from seeing death around? how can he show that there had been any death to see in Eden? If death had been there, how can he harmonize this with the "creature being made subject to vanity," as Rom. 8: 19-23 shows, through man's sin, and waiting man's deliverance as its own?

Supposing it true that Eden before the fall had been profaned by death and corruption, how does he know that Adam would have argued that death would be to him as absolute nonentity? Everywhere through the world we find that man has nursed an instinct of a contrary sort in the face of such death ever before his eyes. Why should he think that he who had had wisdom given him to name all the beasts and distinguish them from himself should have been less wise? Or haply does he think this a mark of degradation? or what else?

Again, if man were to have instruction about death, why should not God instruct him? If we must needs assume, what other assumption has more probability?

In the face of all this Mr. Constable's argument for extinction loses all probability. When contrasted with the reality of what death is, according to the Scriptures we have examined, it is manifestly entirely inadmissible.

But it will be profitable to inquire more fully just what was the punishment of death denounced on Adam, and how far it has affected his posterity. And the simplest method we can take in doing so seems to be, without any doubtful argument as to the words of the prohibition, to ask ourselves, what Scripture elsewhere states as to the consequences of the first sin.

Now evidently the fullest statement we have as to its effect on Adam's posterity is that which is given us by the apostle Paul in the fifth chapter of his epistle to the saints at Rome (Rom. 5: 12-21). And here there are three things of which he speaks: —

First, "sin entered into the world," and "many became sinners": this is the depravation of nature, which is the sad heirloom of succeeding generations.

Secondly, "death by sin, and so death passed upon all": this is corporeal death, the death he could point to as undeniably "reigning from Adam to Moses" even, the time before the law.

Thirdly, "judgment was by one to condemnation," — "upon all men to condemnation." This is what death, following upon sin, proclaimed. It was the sign that nature was tainted in her whole course, that the God who had made man, and could not otherwise repent, now "turned him to destruction."

Of these three things the first clearly is the cause of the judgment pronounced, and not the judgment itself. Of the two latter, the first is the infliction, and the second is involved in it, and shows its character. Death is the infliction, but not as an arbitrary thing proceeding from the mere will of the Creator, but the mark of changed relationship to Him which the fall had produced. Death then (what we ordinarily call that) was the sentence, and that alone; but it involved necessarily a change in moral relationship between the Creator and the creature, distance between man and God, which His love and pity might yet find means of bridging over, — which was not yet final therefore, but which was there.

Now, I apprehend, the difficulty found in reading aright the sentence, "Thou shalt surely die," proceeds from the seeking a final sentence in what was not intended yet as final. God had of course His plan of mercy already in His mind, and was not yet giving an eternal sentence. Had He left man to himself indeed, no self-recovery on man's part being possible, it would have been, no doubt, practically eternal. But He had no design of leaving him to himself. As we know, this sentence, under which the whole race lies, is not the close, but the beginning of our history; and we shall keep, I believe, most closely within the limits of revelation, by interpreting the sentence following the sin of Adam as in no way involving the eternal issues, but as strictly provisional with a view to the intended mercy. This relieves at once from the difficulty as to the penalty involved. It makes all clear and consistent; and is in the highest degree important in reading aright the eternal penalty itself.

This in no way interferes with the first death being the type and shadow of the second, while it harmonizes with the fact that when the second death comes the first death will entirely pass away. It harmonizes also with the statement of Scripture everywhere, that that second death will be consequent upon a future judgment, in which men will be judged, not at all for Adam's sin, but "according to their works." It harmonizes also with what we shall find to be the fact hereafter, that the Old Testament revelation has no direct announcement of the second death at all. In a word, it will be found to clear the way for the after-question in many and most important respects, while it is a view of the matter, which from Scripture itself it seems impossible to contravene.

It must be admitted, however, to lie athwart two of Mr. Constable's assumptions very directly. The first of these is, that "ALL that God purposed to inflict upon Adam and posterity in case of transgression is included in that word 'death'" in the original sentence. The original sentence may be a shadow of the final one, as I have said, but that is all, and not enough for his argument. His statement itself is a mere assumption, which it is sufficient therefore to deny.

The second is, "that parties threatened with a penalty for transgression should have the fullest opportunity of understanding what the penalty is." Now the penalty here is for eating of the tree. Did that define to Adam's posterity, who never sinned this way at all, nor could do so, what the penalty of their sin would be? Plainly, as to legal enactment, "from Adam to Moses" there was none. And thus not one of them could be punished; certainly not raised up to endure the agony of the lake of fire, of which no experience, no instinct, no revelation, could give them the merest hint!

But Mr. Constable's assumption will not endure the moral test, any more than it will the test of Scripture. Is sin a thing in itself worthy of punishment, or only when committed in full view of its consequences? We must of course grant that that full view involves heavier responsibility. But do I only sin when I know exactly what I shall lose by it? That is an immoral argument, which infers so.

Nor is it consistent with what even nature itself teaches. For he who sins against the laws of nature so-called (which are after all divine laws), as a general thing knows little of the consequences of what he does; yet disease and death follow none the less surely.

Thus easily are Mr. Constable's theories refuted. And while we do not force into the first sentence anything that the words will not without strain admit, while we do not, we trust, add one iota to the "whole libraries of confused jargon and hopeless nonsense," which he tells us have been written upon this subject, — while we deny as much as he that the death spoken of is death in sin, or death to sin, or even eternal torment, — we maintain none the less, that while certainly death is death, it is not extinction.

It would be the most attractive course, perhaps, from this point to follow out the Old Testament revelation as to the future state; but before we can do this, we must look still further at the lexicography of the subject that we may understand the meaning of the terms which are used with reference to it, before we look at it as a whole.

19 - Destruction, and its Kindred Terms. - The Old Testament

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 19.

Destruction, and its Kindred Terms.  — The Old Testament

We shall still mainly follow Mr. Constable, because he is the one appealed to by his colleagues as the principal authority on the subject, and because he certainly claims to give very distinctly the whole vocabulary of words relating to it. Indeed, I may say the main part of his argument depends upon this. But his strength and his weakness lie very near together, as we may shortly see.

He gives us first the Old Testament phrases, and foremost of these the passages which speak of death, as Ps. 7: 13; Prov. 8: 36; Prov. 11: 4; Ezek. 3: 18; Ezek. 18: 4; Ezek. 33: 8. I do not as yet take up their application: this will come afterwards; we are only at the vocabulary now. He adds to these two (Ezek. 3: 18; Ezek. 13: 22) which give loss of life as the equivalent of death. No one would deny this, of course; the question is, is death extinction? We have seen over and over again that it is not, and Mr. Constable admits that if this were proved it would "militate gravely" against its being so when applied to future punishment. These are his words (Hades, ch. 7: 17): —

"And here we would particularly warn the upholders of the scriptural truth of life and immortality only in Christ, to beware how by explaining away the natural force of the many Scriptures which teach that the soul dies in the first death, they greatly weaken their own argument when they come to insist that the second death means the true and real extinction of the entire man. Scripture speaks of it simply as death. If the first death is consistent with man's in fact not dying, but continuing to live in regard to his most important part, whose survival again may be supposed to imply the restoration of the body to life, it seems plain that the common idea of the first death MILITATES GRAVELY against our view of what is intended by the second."

This witness is true, and it is all I need say here. The meaning of the passages we shall examine by and by.

He next crowds together a number of passages of very different applications which he makes to describe the "end of the ungodly": — "The destruction of the transgressors and sinners shall be together" (Isa. 1: 28) — which applies to the purification of Zion in the last days; "prepare them for the day of slaughter" (Jer. 12: 3) — which is also judgment in the land; "the slain of the Lord shall be many," and "they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men that have sinned" (Isa. 66: 16, 24) — God's destruction of Israel's enemies and others; "God shall destroy them" (Ps. 28: 5); "they shall be consumed" (Ps. 37: 20); "they shall be cut off" (Ps. 37: 38); "they shall be rooted out of the land of the living" (Ps. 52: 5) — misquoted, and referring to "Doeg, the Edomite"; "blotted out of the book of life" (Ps. 69: 28); and "they are not" (Job 27: 19): — not one of these can be shown to apply to the final judgment of the wicked. Let Mr. Constable prove this if he can.

But "for the sake of greater plainness" he takes up the separate Hebrew words; and here the full amount of his concession as to death becomes apparent. All these words are applied to death. If death therefore does not mean extinction, plainly its synonyms need not. Thus, then, the foundation being removed, Mr. Constable's edifice falls to the ground.

Thus we have first, abad to perish: and here presents itself from Isa. 57, a text already spoken of. "The righteous perisheth," and yet "enters into peace"; "the good man is perished out of the earth." It is the word also applied to a "lost" sheep (Ps. 119: 176; Jer. 1. 6; Ezek. 34: 4, 16).

But we can little trust Mr. Constable's statements: the next word, haras, he says, is "another word in frequent use for future punishment." There is one passage which he may possibly have thought applied, but which has no necessary reference to another state at all, and that is Ps. 28: 5: "Because they regard not the works of the Lord, neither the operation of His hands, He shall destroy [or overthrow] them, and not build them up."

The third word tzamath, is the word used in Ps. 119: 139, "my zeal hath consumed me"; and in 88: 16, "thy terrors have cut me off." It would be impossible to show it to refer to final judgment at all.

The fourth, shamad, Mr. Constable says, "is significant of utter extinction," so that it must be the most forcible of all these terms. Yet we find it used to predict the curse upon Israel under the penalty of which as a nation they still are, and which is not "utter extinction," as the very passage shows. "Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, till thou be DESTROYED. And ye shall be left few in number," etc., i.e., not utterly extinct at all (Deut. 28: 61, 62). In the 30th chapter it is added further, "And it shall come to pass when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing AND the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shall call them to mind . . . and shalt return unto the Lord thy God . . . that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity," etc. (Deut. 30: 1-3). Here is national repentance and restoration predicted, after what Mr. Constable calls "utter extinction." Here is in fact the place in all Scripture where the word is used most constantly. It is found in Deut. 28: 20, 24, 45, 48, 51, 61, translated "destroy" and in 63 "bring to nought": and yet the very prophecy shows that there is no "utter extinction" at all in the matter.

It is also used repeatedly of "death," which is not that.

The fifth word is karath  in Niphal, which Job 14: 7 uses to say, in the face of Mr. Constable, that "there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down," i.e., of course, "hope of a tree after it is extinct," as we saw of Israel before.

It is used also (Dan. 9: 26) of Messiah being cut off: and let Mr. Constable say what this means.

It is used of death continually, and this is indeed the almost constant use, although it does not always, as we see, mean as much as that for a dead tree never sprouts.

Finally, the sixth word, nathatz, is used once in the psalm which according to its title, speaks of Doeg (Ps. 52: 5): "God shall likewise destroy thee forever: he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place (lit. tent), and root thee out of the land of the living." It is death by the judgment of God that is indicated, and the meaning is better given in the margin, "beat thee down."

I have grave complaint to make of the way Mr. Constable uses all these words. He is content to say loosely of them that they are "applied to future punishment." He brings forward no proofs, he supposes you will take his word for it of course. He never attempts to show that they apply to the judgment after death at all. Temporal judgments are mixed up with eternal. No exceptional uses of the words are taken notice of at all, no contrary arguments that might be alleged, or anything of the kind. The consequence is that, while claiming precise accuracy, he is as loose and inaccurate as well may be.

Let Mr. Constable point out, few or many, the passages he relies upon to prove his point. Let him bring forward the convincing arguments which assure him that it is indeed "eternal judgment," that they speak of. Let him meet the arguments upon the other side. Let him show that the words which speak of the destruction of material things apply in the same sense to immaterial things. Let him do this, and he will at least have brought his argument into some tangible shape, and one which the gravity of the subject demands. Until he does so we shall have cause to suspect an argument which requires the assumption of materialism for its support, and which treats the overthrow of a man and of a wall, as if it was undeniable there was no difference between the two.

We shall give Mr. Constable's summing up of the Old Testament testimony as he understands it. We have given his whole reasoning, and therefore may safely appeal to our readers if he has taken the first step towards showing what he asserts.

"By every unambiguous term," he says, "it has pointed out the punishment of the wicked as consisting, not in life, but in the loss of life; not in their continuance in that organized form which constitutes man, but in its dissolution; its resolution into its original parts, its becoming as though it had never been called into existence. While the redeemed are to know a life which knows no end, the lost are to be reduced to a death which knows of no awaking forever and ever. Such is the testimony of God in the Old Testament. If Christian divines refuse to accept it because Plato, and before him Egyptian priests, taught a doctrine of the soul's essential immortality, let them see to it. We prefer the word of God to the logic of Plato and of Egypt."

And so do we. Nor have we appealed to either, or to aught but the word of God all through. And moreover we have faithfully and minutely examined Mr. Constable's arguments throughout, and tested them by that word, and have found them wanting. The keystone of his whole argument, as we have said, is its materialism, and he has himself virtually admitted it. If death is not extinction, as it is not, — if the soul is immortal (though not independently, but by the will of its Creator), as it is, — then Mr. Constable's argument is wholly, irretrievably, hopelessly gone forever. But we must follow him into the New Testament.

20 - Destruction, and its Kindred Terms. - The New Testament

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 20.

The New Testament Terms

He begins of course with the word so decisive, one way or other, to his cause — with "death."

He quotes a number of the passages in which this is applied to the punishment of the wicked,* "without the smallest effort to show that its terms 'death' or 'to die' have any new sense placed on them."

{* John 6: 50; John 8: 51; John 11: 26; Rom. 6: 21-23; Rom. 8: 13; 2 Cor. 2: 16; James 1: 15; James 5: 20; Rev. 20: 14.}

Now if this be so, and we bear with us the remembrance of what death (in the ordinary sense of it) is, and that it never means nor implies the extinction of being, we shall have to consider all the texts he can bring forward of this kind as against, and not for, his view of the extinction of the wicked. No more than the seed is extinct, when, sown in the ground, it is preparing the harvest — no more than man is extinct when the spirit returns to God who gave it — no more, if I am to accept the necessary conclusion from such use of words, no more will the wicked become extinct when eternal death becomes their awful portion. I grant, of course, the body might become extinct upon this view of the matter, but not the spirit or the soul. Even so there is no escape from God into the blank of nonentity. Alas for him who thinks that there is such!

But we cannot avail ourselves of this argument; for this reason, that there is an express statement, that death as applied to the final punishment of the wicked is not mere ordinary death. In Rev. 20: 14, the "second death" is explained to be "the lake of fire." The editors of the Greek Testament, without exception, read the passage: "This is the second death, the lake of fire." And to this the first death delivers up its prisoners. This is at the end of all, when the heavens and earth flee away before the face of Him who sits upon the throne of judgment (ver. 11). It is when finally, all enemies being put under His feet, the Son shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father; and then "death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed."* But so far from the second death being then destroyed, it is then that its reign begins, to endure (whatever that may mean) "for the ages of ages."

{*For thus it seems one should read "Eskatos ekthros katargeitai ho Ianatos.}

The first death, then, gives place to the second. They are not the same. The "second death" is the lake of fire. Will even Mr. Constable assert that this is only extinction? Second extinction it cannot be, for there has been none before, and moreover extinction would be deliverance from it. Extinction by it would be as rapid, according to the usual arguments, as by any other process whatever. How long would it take for life to be extinct, or flesh and blood to be consumed by a literal fire of brimstone? Would it consist with "torment for the ages of ages"? Yet that must at least be the distinctive feature of the lake of fire. What then does this "second death" imply? It must be torment AND extinction? But these are contradictory terms. "Life or death," says a writer, "is the theme of the Bible, not life or torment." Yet here torment, and that for ages of ages, must be admitted to ' be the distinguishing feature of the second death! Thus death must in this case mean torment; at least that must be part of what it means; for the lake of fire undeniably means torment. It cannot mean irresistible power of extinction, for any ordinary fire would make quicker work; flesh and blood even can resist it for ages, and so (as all natural comparison is out of question) why not forever? No; it means protracted torment, extraordinary, unnaturally, supernaturally protracted torment; if it can mean this and extinction too, then extinction itself may mean protracted existence and its end alike.

Thus at least "death" here, as applied to the future punishment of the wicked, is not, cannot be, and is expressly stated not to be, used in its ordinary sense. I shall not pursue the matter further here because the fitting place to inquire its precise meaning will be found when we come to look at the intensely solemn and important passages referred to. This we hope to do in the fullest way hereafter, and do not wish to anticipate it here.

Mr. Constable goes on to the passages which speak of "eternal life" as the portion of the righteous alone. This we fully believe, and have looked at already. His quotation of Matt. 10: 29 has also been met, and needs only to be referred to briefly again. It runs: "he that findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Psuche is the word used here in both cases, and, as I have before said, the parallel place in Luke 9: 25 shows that "his soul" is just the equivalent of "himself." And this we have seen to be very common phraseology in Scripture. The finding and losing (the same word as elsewhere given "destroying") the soul in the present world are reversed in the world to come. The finding becomes losing, the losing finding there. He who makes himself the object of his life, loses himself and is cast away. He who sacrifices self and its interests for Christ's sake is really preserving all for the world to come. The idiomatic expression is impossible perhaps to put into English without a periphrasis; but the meaning is intelligible enough. And the actual laying down of life in martyrdom is not necessary at all to the application. Can none but those who actually die a martyr's death live eternally? The making it a question of literal death or life would affirm so. It is not "life" then, that properly translates or interprets the verse.

Mr. Constable now turns aside for a moment to Moses' wish to be "blotted out of God's book" (Ex. 32: 32). He thinks that "we cannot suppose that he could even for a moment have wished throughout eternity for a life of pain and moral corruption," and so we must infer he wanted "the utter cessation of life" instead. But it is a little too much to decide a question of this moment by our supposition one way or another of what Moses must have wished for at a moment of intense and excited feeling. Granted he did not wish for "moral corruption" at all, much less for eternity, he might have accepted the thought of punishment instead of the people without a question of this. To force his words into perfect and calm consistency — to reason out the feelings of a moment when intense emotion had overmastered reason — is to pervert and not to interpret.

We have heard Mr. Minton's complaint of the use of figurative Scriptures, by which certainly God means us nevertheless to learn something on the subject, whatever it may be. Yet here Mr. Constable would take Moses' wish at a moment of unreasoning excitement, follow it out to all its necessary consequences, and decide the question in his own favor by a simple suggestion that he could not have meant to accept these consequences! To which we need only answer, suppose he could not, what then? Is it so strange a thing in times of much less intensity of feeling for consequences the most obvious to be wholly forgotten and ignored?

We pass on to consider other terms used for eternal punishment.

The first of these is apoleia, "destruction." Mr. Constable says, "There is not in the Greek language a word more strongly significant of the utter loss of existence. 'Its proper meaning,' says Schleusner in his lexicon, 'is the destruction of anything so that it ceases to exist.'" . . . He then quotes Peter's words to Simon Magus, "Thy money perish with thee," literally, "thy money go with thyself to destruction," and adds, "Here we see Peter's sense of destruction. It had the same meaning when applied to a man as it had when applied to metal: disorganization and wasting away until it should disappear, was the idea which Peter attached to it in both cases alike." His next argument is still more extraordinary. Quoting Acts 25: 16, he remarks:

"Festus here tells Agrippa that it was not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to death (literally, to destruction) before the accused had an opportunity of defending himself. Festus here calls the destruction of man his death;" — Mr. Constable means, of course, that he calls a man's death his destruction, — "and as Festus, DOUBTLESS, with almost every man of his station at that time, ridiculed the very idea of any future life after this, he could only have intended by the destruction of a man the putting him out of all existence. LUKE BY USING ACCEPTS THE TERM IN THE SENSE OF FESTUS, and we have thus in the usage of two of the inspired writers of the New Testament, Peter and Luke, the sense of destruction established as putting out of existence."

If this argument were in the first edition of Mr. Constable's book, it is rather extraordinary that the book has survived to a fourth. Such reasoning would seem only possible to such mental hallucination as would preclude all serious controversy. Out of the simple fact that Luke chronicles Festus' words in which he uses for "death" the word "destruction," Mr. Constable draws the amazing conclusions: —

First, that because Festus was a Roman governor, he "doubtless" shared the scepticism of his day.

Secondly, that in using the word "destruction" in this case, Festus' (supposed) views gave the word a peculiar significance.

Thirdly, that Luke must have known the scepticism that was in Festus' mind. And —

Fourthly, that by recording his words Luke meant to signify his adhesion to this scepticism which was behind them.

I can only say, that this is logical insanity, and that upon these principles all reasoning becomes impossible. This very Luke elsewhere, as we have seen, in stating the well-known Pharisaic views as to "angel and spirit," tells us that they "confess" both. "Confess" is his own word and surely implies that he believed that to be the truth which they were confessing. Yet Mr. Roberts considers that even too worthless an argument to reply to. What would he say to Mr. Constable's? And here is Luke against Luke! Rather here is Mr. Constable's censure of the unhappy race of historians, who it seems are condemned to endorse every falsehood that they tell us another utters!

On the other hand it is not to be wondered at if from our point of view we should consider this application of "destruction" to death, as the overthrow of the very thing it is sought to establish by it. Not alone do we find it in the lips of Festus. The verb apollumi is used in this way over and over again (Matt. 2: 13; Matt. 8: 25; Matt. 12: 14; Matt. 21: 41; Matt. 22: 7; Matt. 26: 52; Matt. 27: 20; Mark 3: 6; Mark 9: 22; Mark 11: 18; Luke 11: 51; Luke 13: 33; Luke 15: 17; Luke 17: 27, 29; Luke 19: 47; John 10: 10; John 18: 14; 1 Cor. 10: 9), and translated by the words "destroy" and "perish." In all these cases utter extinction is not its meaning.

In his interpretation of the apostle's words to Simon Magus, Mr. Constable again manifests his incompetence as a reasoner. How "thy money be to destruction with thee" shows that the destruction of the piece of metal must be just of the same sort as the destruction of the man, it would be hard for him to show, while it is very easy to assert it. If the man were only a piece of metal like the money the reasoning might hold good, and something like this is really the basis of his argument. He is a consistent materialist all through, and a material destruction for man is all he can according to his principles believe in.

But even as to material things the force of the word is not by any means what Mr. Constable would make out. When the new wine bursts the skins and the bottles are marred (Mark 2: 32) the same word is used to express this. Now the bursting of a skin-bottle is by no means its "disorganization and wasting away till it should disappear," as he tries to make out must be as to the coin. It is not even the first step to such wasting away. This would equally go on were the bottles whole. Mr. Roberts urges that the bottles are destroyed as bottles; but that is my argument, not his. The bottles are destroyed for the purpose to which they were originally destined, and so is man whether as the subject of the first death or of the second. In either case he is set aside from the place for which he was originally created, in the first death temporarily, in the second eternally. But the bottles exist, though "destroyed": they do not cease to be; and so neither does man. This is the Biblical force of destruction.

But again, apollumi is used in the sense of "losing" (Luke 15: 4, etc.). The "lost" sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15: 24), the "lost" sheep, "lost" piece of money, "lost" son, of Luke 15 are all examples of this use of the word. Also Matt. 10: 6; Matt. 18: 11; Luke 19: 10; 2 Cor. 4: 3. Mr. Roberts here contends that "in the case of an article lost, POSSESSION is destroyed for the time being." These gentlemen are sometimes wonderfully easily satisfied. So a man in prison for a week may be said to be destroyed, because, as R. remarks, "SOMETHING is destroyed," and it is no matter whether it be the man himself or anything else, — his liberty, for instance!! But upon this ground it would be hard to maintain the doctrine he so zealously advocates.

Mr. Constable winds up his discussion of these two words with a characteristic challenge, and a re-affirmation of the words of Dr. Weymouth, whom he calls "one of the best Greek scholars of the day," and who says, "My mind fails to conceive a grosser misinterpretation of language than when the five or six strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses, signifying 'destroy' or 'destruction,' are explained to mean maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence. To translate black as white is nothing to this."

But it is Dr. Weymouth who in this misinterprets, and it does not take first-rate scholarship to see it. For where does he find any one who interprets the words in question by anything else than "destroy" and "destruction"? I never saw or heard of one who violated language in the way he complains of. The words are found just as he would have them in the common version of the Bible which is in all our hands, — a version made too by people of the very views which he assails. Let him tell us who the people are who propose to change them.

The fact is, this is not what Dr. Weymouth means, and the parade of Greek scholarship is thrown away. Dr. Weymouth must mean that we take the English words, — which, thank God, brings the question into a shape intelligible to very many more than can claim to be scholars, — that we take the English words "destroy" and "destruction" (for it must be allowed we leave them in our Bibles) as meaning "maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence."

Even in this he is exceedingly inaccurate. I can answer at least for myself, I never understood these words in any such sense. When just now we were speaking of the bottles being "destroyed," surely no one understood that their "destruction" meant their "maintaining existence" at all. They might exist: true; but their destruction was not their existence, nor ever understood to be so. It was their being set aside as useless for the purpose of their existence; and in a similar way, only remembering the unspeakable difference between an inanimate thing, and a morally accountable being such as man, do we understand the destruction of the wicked.

Mr. Constable adds: "Even the leading modern advocate of the Augustinian view, who all but closed his literary labors in the defence of this wretched cause, looking in blank dismay at these words of doom, can only say of them, They do not invariably mean 'annihilation.' We on the contrary assert that such is in the New Testament, as used of the wicked, their invariable sense; they are there ever connected with death."

And that proves precisely the opposite, while it proves also how Mr. Constable's annihilationism and his materialism stand or fall together. I make no pretension to more than ordinary scholarship, but I dare maintain against all or any, that the words in question NEVER in themselves mean annihilation at all. Let the proof be only from Scripture, and let any that will prove it. We must pass on now to other words.

The next he takes up is aphanizo. It is once used as applied to unbelievers (Acts 13: 41), "Behold, ye despisers! and wonder, and perish," and once to the "vanishing away" of life (James 4: 14). The latter is its true signification in both places, although it has other meanings. Mr. Constable quotes from Josephus two passages, in which the word is used, once for the annihilation of the sluggish and cowardly at death: "a subterranean night dissolves them to nothing"; and once in describing the doctrines of the Sadducees, "that souls perish with their bodies"; and he adds: "That which the Sadducees taught would happen to all men at the first death the apostle tells us will be to unbelievers the sad result of the second death: they will rise from their graves and see what they have rejected, will marvel at their folly and will vanish out of existence."

But almost all this latter is pure invention: there is nothing in the text about the second death, about rising from the graves, or even of passing out of existence in his sense of it. And this is quite unquestionable, because it is a simple adoption of the language of the Septuagint translation of Hab. 1: 5, where Mr. Constable's idea of it suits neither text nor context. It is there added as an appendage to "wonder marvellously"* as if to complete the sense, "wonder marvellously and vanish." The apostle puts it, "wonder and vanish," thus still more plainly making the last words give emphasis to the former by the substitution for "marvellously" of "vanish."

{*The LXX. read Idete hoi kataphronetai [kai epiblepsate,] kai Iaumasate [Iaumasia] kai aphanisthete. The apostle leaves out what is enclosed between brackets.}

We have next four words, intimately united together, phtheiro, phthora, diaphtheiro and kataphtheiro. In the New Testament the first and second are uniformly translated "corrupt" and "corruption," except 1 Cor. 3: 17, where we find, correctly enough, "defile" and "destroy," and 2 Peter 2: 12, "made to be taken and destroyed." The third is found six times: Luke 12: 23, "where no moth corrupteth"; 1 Tim. 6: 5, "men of corrupt minds"; 2 Cor. 4: 16, "though our outward man perish"; Rev. 8: 9, "the ships were destroyed"; and Rev. 11: 18, "shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth." The fourth is only found, 2 Tim. 3: 8, "men of corrupt minds," and 2 Peter 2: 12, "shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

The meanings are sufficiently well given in these passages. Of the third of these words Mr. Constable says, "The sense of the word as signifying wasting away to utter destruction, is constantly found in the New Testament." Now the word is found altogether six times in five passages, as we have seen, and Mr. Constable is able to bring forward two not very clear or certain instances of this "constant" use: the first, "no moth corrupteth"; the second, "though our outward man perish."

But it is upon 2 Peter 2: 12 that he naturally lays most emphasis: "Speaking of the ungodly, Peter says, 'These, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, shall utterly perish in their own corruption.' Here the same Greek word is used of the end of beasts, and the end of the ungodly. We know what is the end of beasts taken and destroyed: even such, Peter declares, will be the end of the ungodly in the future life: they shall perish there as beasts perish here."

This argument has more appearance of truth in it, than any we have yet had from Mr. Constable. It is however merely fallacious. The true comparison necessitates no such inference. For the point is really just what we have before glanced at, man's loss of the place for which he was originally created and for which his natural constitution fitted him. From this place he perishes, utterly perishes, and is destroyed: he "loses himself and is cast away." This is the natural thing for a "brute beast, made to be taken and destroyed," — to fill a place temporarily, not perpetually. Man, made for eternal occupation of the position assigned to him, perishes like the beast when he forfeits forever and loses this. The comparison with the beast is here sufficiently obvious without its involving the physical extinction which Mr. Constable's materialism would alone suggest.

Two other words, — exolothreuo and olethros — are "properly and primarily significant," says Mr. Constable, "of utter extermination by death. They are applied in the New Testament to the punishment of sinners hereafter: 'Every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people'; 'the wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord' (1 Thess. 5: 3; 2 Thess. 1: 9; 1 Tim. 6: 9)."

The first of these words occurs but once (Acts 3: 23); the second is four times used, — three times applied to the destruction of the ungodly. Exolothreuo is given by Liddell and Scott as "to destroy utterly." Olethros is given as "ruin, destruction, death."

A last word, not given by Mr. Constable, is katargeo, to make void, of no effect, to nullify. It is the word translated "destroy" in 1 Cor. 6: 13; 1 Cor. 15: 26; 2 Thess. 2: 8; Heb. 2: 14; "come to nought" in 1 Cor. 2: 6; "abolish" in 2 Tim. 1: 10.

The effect of this inquiry as to Greek is to bring us back to the English, better satisfied than ever to abide by its decision. We have found no cause to quarrel with Dr. Weymouth when he tells us that the Greek words in question mean "destroy" and "destruction." As this is how they are translated in our common version, we may have confidence in it. The question is after all one of simple understanding of some common English words. It takes no uncommon education to arrive at a satisfactory settlement of the question raised. It is worth while to have gone through the Greek to have discovered this. Our readers will go with us with the more assurance and intelligence, that we may adhere in this to our common English version.

Meanwhile, we shall close this chapter with a remark or two on Paul's wish that he were "accursed from Christ for his brethren" — which Mr. Constable brings forward as "an exact parallel to the prayer of Moses already referred to." Not questioning this, our remarks as to that prayer of Moses apply here with equal force. I also agree with him that "an eternal life of blasphemy and moral corruption" was not in Paul's thought, nor implied in the word used, "anathema." It is punishment he was wishing to bear, not "blasphemy and moral corruption." Nor does Paul say," I could wish," as if it were a deliberate thing, but "I was wishing" — an impetuous wish at a certain time when brooding over Israel's terrible condition. To frame a doctrine out of or support one by, the expression of a moment's fervid emotion is to strain Scripture, not interpret it.

But Mr. Constable thinks that his is the only view consistent with "the use of the term 'accursed' among the Greeks, by whom it was applied to any animal devoted to death, and removed out of the sight of man, in order to avert calamity." It is granted fully it is "devoted to destruction," and occurs thus in a passage much more to Mr. C.'s purpose, though quite inadequate for it: "if any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema" (1 Cor. 16: 22). But this in no wise shows what the destruction is, of which the animal sacrifice might be a figure. The argument goes too far, for those same animal sacrifices among the Hebrews spoke of Christ, and were equally "devoted to death, and removed out of the sight of man." Did the Lord suffer what Mr. Constable would imply by "utter death"?

21 - A Further Survey of the Scripture Terms

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 21.

A Further Survey of the Scripture Terms

Death and destruction are clearly Scripture phrases for the end of the wicked. But the first is never extinction as we have seen, and all this class of texts are clearly against the views they are quoted for. Destruction again is the ruin of the thing or being of which it is predicated, but by no means its passing out of being. The importance of the point is such, however, that we shall again review the matter in company with others of Mr. Constable's school of thought, allowing them to state it to us in their own way, and to bring forward the arguments by which they believe their own view triumphantly sustained.

Mr. Hastings has given us a summary as to "The Destiny of the Wicked" in a small tract bearing that title, and consisting of Scripture texts arranged under ten different heads. To these Mr. Jacob Blain has added others in his book, "Death not Life." These two will furnish us with divisions under which we may arrange the material furnished by several other writers.

Mr. Blain has indeed recalled his book since the change of views already mentioned, and he owns "that part of the texts quoted to prove endless loss of life" he now sees "by further research only to refer to temporal death or earthly judgments." Still, as many yet hold his former views, we may use his headings as above said, as convenient enough for the purpose of our intended review.

To begin with Mr. Hastings' headings as to the destiny of the wicked:

"1. They shall not live forever." To which we may add —

"2. They shall die."

The texts quoted under the first we have already considered for they are those which speak of eternal life, that which with God is really life. Take as an example: "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John 5: 12). Or again, John 6: 53: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." How is it that Mr. Hastings does not see that, according to the passages he quotes, taken as he would take them, not only the wicked will have no future existence, but have none now? That is what his proof texts show, if his system is correct.

But what his texts do prove is, that eternal life is not merely existence or immortality, and that in the Scripture language one may be (to use Paul's expression of the woman that lives in pleasure), 1 Tim. 5: 6: "dead while living." Now, if there be such a living death even now, as we are thus assured there is, why not for eternity 9 And if the believer, having now (as we have seen) eternal life, yet enters into it as his general state hereafter, why may not the unbeliever, dead now as alas he is, and alienated from the life of God, yet go into death as his final adjudged condition, by the sentence of the Judge hereafter?

Mr. Roberts, apparently following Mr. Edw. White,* contends against this application of 1 Tim. 5: 6. He asks of the person in question whether she was "actually dead, or in a state relating to death as a consummation? Is it not the sense actually expressed in the words of Christ, Let the dead bury their dead '? (Luke 9: 60): the living said to be dead, because destined to share the fate of the corpses in question? This," he says finally, "cannot be gainsaid."

{* Life in Christ, p. 281.}

But one would think it could. For very plainly, if that be all, the man whom the Lord addressed was as dead as anybody else, and the language would be quite unmeaning. Nor can Mr. Roberts talk about the second death. "The dead" who were to be buried could not mean dead of that death.

Moreover, we have a similar phraseology sufficiently elsewhere to determine its meaning very precisely. For instance, where the Lord (in John 5: 24, 25) speaks of the dead hearing His voice and living, He is plainly not speaking of those subject to the first death, for the life must of course be in contrast to the death. If therefore those subject to physical death are "passed from death to life," they cannot physically die, which we know is not the truth. The "dead" must then be considered as subjects of, or sentenced to, the second death, according to Mr. Roberts; but this will not hold either. Under the power of the second death they are not yet, and need' not in that sense deliverance, for the second death is the lake of fire. And again if we say sentenced to the second death, deliverance from this sentence would not be quickening. But as such our Lord represents it, the impartation of a true life here and now, a life which is morally characterized by the knowledge of the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. The death in contrast with this can only be what we rightly call spiritual death, "alienation from the life of God through the ignorance that is in men, because of the blindness of their hearts" (Eph. 4: 18). Where this life is not, death is.

Spiritual death is what the apostle intends then plainly by "dead while living." Nor can Mr. Roberts prove that Scripture anywhere intends by the dead the fiction he conceives. People dying of the first death are never in Scripture called dead until they are so; and he is merely evading the force of words too plainly against him as they stand. I ask again then, if there be such a living death now, as it is proved there is, why not for eternity?

Again let us remind ourselves also that the second death is the lake of fire, beginning when death (as it is ordinarily understood) ends and is no more, and certainly not therefore its continuance or repetition. In no way can the threatening of "death" imply extinction.

All Mr. Constable's arguments as to the primary sense of words and the necessity of their being kept to their literal meaning, which so many beside himself insist upon, completely break down in the face of the facts of Scripture. It is in vain to urge a use of terms such as Macaulay and Hume in their character as historians of the present would necessarily require to make, when the things in question belong to that future where we see en ainigmati, in a riddle. God has not mocked us indeed, nor used words in an unreal or untruthful sense. His solemn statements are not unfitted surely to convey a meaning which the general consent of Christendom unequivocally attaches to them. And writers such as Mr. Constable show plainly that they are not, by the way they constantly pervert that meaning in order to force it into contradiction with the Bible terms. Thus Goodwyn says: "If death does mean ceaseless suffering in life, there can be no confidence in expression by words"; and so Constable, "death is made to mean its direct opposite — life"; and so Dobney asks, "How was Adam to understand that death meant life endless life — endless life in torment?"

But who asserts such a meaning? The second death is the lake of fire, and therefore torment cannot be excluded from the idea of it, as we have seen. But death in itself does not "mean" torment even here. It means anything but "life." It means separation from the Blessed Source of life: that "alienation from the life of God" on man's side, which is spiritual death, meeting its end in God's final withdrawal on the other. And as God's withdrawal cannot mean indifference, and as He cannot cease to be the Moral Governor of His creatures, it implies the manifestation of that eternal displeasure, which the lake of fire is.

This may suffice to answer Mr. Minton's question as to what life the wicked can lose in the day of judgment, and which he settles by a process of exhaustion can be only physical life. We might answer that, if that be the judgment, surely it would be release to many, and scarcely, in comparison of preceding anguish, judgment at all. But his question is founded upon a misapprehension. We have seen that the righteous "enter into life" in the world to come, and yet that that does not imply that they have not got it here; and similarly the wicked enter into death, find it in all its awful reality, in that judgment day. It is their whole condition, unrelieved and unmitigated as before it might be, aye, even for the rich man or for Cain. The resurrection for just or unjust alone can give them their full capacity for enjoyment or for suffering. The resurrection of the wicked precedes their judgment to the second death.

We may pass on to consider Mr. Hastings' third head, with which we may take as merely synonymous with it in the original, his fifth. These are —

"3. They shall perish."

"5. They shall be destroyed."

Mr. Hastings depends mainly if not entirely here upon what he considers the simple force of the words "destroy," etc. Says Mr. Jacob Blain: "If destroy is sometimes applied to calamities on earth, it still means the ending of a thing, as of prosperity, liberty, country, character, etc.; so to say it does not mean the ending of the thing to which it refers is false."

So it seems a question of some simple English words, which strangely enough, we do not understand. Our translators used however both destroy and perish for ruin where the thing remained in ruins, and did not come to an end. The bottles burst by the new wine are thus said to be "perished," as we have seen. They were ruined, looking at the original purpose for which they were destined. And so, though the righteous "perished," he entered into peace. So again we have, "the land perisheth," "the valley also shall perish;" so over and over again is it said that Israel was to be "destroyed," and after this had come upon her her captivity was to be turned (Deut. 28, 30). The constant reference to death agrees entirely with this. In none of these cases is there an end of the thing destroyed. Mr. Roberts, in order to find an end somewhere, must say that if "the land perishes," the state of prosperity does, and this is what is meant by "the land"! "In the case of an article lost" — the same word in the original, — "possession is destroyed"! and so on. The case is very plain that destruction does not mean "annihilation" in any of these examples.

But there is one text which we must specially look at in this connection, and a very important one it is. Mr. Minton has given it the fullest examination that I have seen, and therefore we may best follow his argument as to it. It is in his "Way Everlasting" (pp. 27-33), and follows what he calls the "settlement" by "exhaustion" of what life the wicked have yet to lose in the day of judgment. This we have seen he decides must be natural life, and he goes on: —

"And is not that just the life which our Lord Himself precisely defines to be what will be taken away from them? 'Fear not them which kill the body and are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell' (Matt. 10: 28). Now I put it to your conscience whether you can find a more distinct and positive utterance than that upon any subject whatever in the whole Bible. Would it be possible for any human being who read that text with an unprejudiced mind, to have the smallest doubt as to its meaning? Does it not distinctly threaten that God will do to both body and soul that which man can do to the body, but is 'not able' to do to the soul — 'kill' them? "

No, Mr. Minton, it does not. The word is expressly altered to avoid saying so. And what is not said here is not said anywhere moreover in Scripture. The soul is never "killed." Let Mr. Minton say, what would be the result if it were said: —

"And what is killing? Why, depriving of life. While the body retains one spark of life of any sort or description, it is not killed; and while the soul retains one spark of life of any sort or description, it is not killed."

I quite agree with him. And how then can he account for the fact, that having used this decisive word in the first clause of the sentence, the Lord refuses it for the second part? Certainly not without some reason for it, He turns aside from saying what would seem the most natural thing for Him to say, and instead of using again the word "kill," which he had just used, He substitutes "destroy" for "kill."

Nor only so. Mr. Minton cannot find this word kill applied anywhere to the soul or to future punishment. It is rejected as unfit both here and everywhere. And I ask, why? Why does the Lord substitute "destroy" for "kill"? Would it be believed, after Mr. Minton telling us so emphatically what "killing" is, and how decisive of the controversy in his favor, that he has the boldness to reply, "Undoubtedly to increase the force of the threatening. It is the same thing, but expressed by a stronger word — in fact the strongest word that can be used"!

Now the word "kill" is only employed for taking life, and scarcely ever in any figurative sense at all. Mr. Minton appeals to Liddell and Scott as his authority. We will accept the appeal, and contrast the words. The latter word in the verse, apollumi is indeed given as "to destroy utterly, kill, slay, murder," but it is added that it means "very frequently in all sorts of relations, to destroy, ruin, spoil, waste, squander," and in the middle form, not only "to perish, die, fall," but "also simply, to fall into ruin, be undone," and even "to be wretched or miserable."

Now compare the other word apokteino, and we find the only meanings given to be "to kill, slay, smite to death, to put to death, to weary to death, torment" — but this last metaphorical use a very rare one, and in Scripture never employed. Now I ask Mr. Minton, — I ask any honest man, — if our Lord had designed to use a word which should unequivocally set forth the annihilation of the soul, which would have been the fitter for his purpose, the one which in Scripture language has no other sense than that of taking life, or the one which is very frequently used in other senses?

And even this, decisive as it ought to be, does not put the argument in its strongest form. For if we will be at a little pains to go beyond the lexicon, and inquire for ourselves the force of the terms in Scripture, we shall find — and I do not doubt the same to be true elsewhere than in Scripture — that apollumi is NEVER the word used simply to express the taking of life. That may be (often is, no doubt) necessarily implied; but that is quite another thing. It is never once translated "kill" in our version, only once (in the middle) "die," where "perish" would be better (John 18: 14), and is actually put alongside of kill in the same sentence to convey a different thought (John 10: 10). The more any one will study the Scripture use of the words, the more he will be convinced that the very opposite of Mr. Minton's assertion is the truth, and that the decisive word to convey the annihilationist meaning is the very word that the Lord rejects, and deliberately rejects, after having used it in the beginning of the very sentence from which He rejects it at the end.

I close in Mr. Minton's own words that "it would really seem as if the force of demonstration could no further go."

We may pass on then to Mr. Hastings' next class of texts:

"4. They shall be cut off."

All that he quotes in this way is from the Old Testament, and refers, as the quotations themselves prove, to the extirpation of the wicked out of the earth simply, without intimating their after-condition. Thus Ps. 37, speaking of millennial days "for evil doers shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth." Again, Nahum 1: 15: "O Judah . . . the wicked shall no more pass through thee: he is utterly cut off." Or again, Prov. 2: 22: "But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it."

There are few more frequent causes of mistake with that class of annihilationists to which Hastings, Miles Grant, Blain, and Roberts, among others, belong, than this confounding of the destruction of the wicked out of the earth in order to the great predicted blessing for it with the eternal judgment when the earth and heavens flee away. They believe in no heavenly portion of the saints, nothing more than a sort of "heavenly condition" upon earth. For them consequently destruction out of the earth is apparently indistinguishable from final judgment. We shall have to consider the difference hereafter, but the passages quoted speak for themselves.

The same remarks apply to his sixth class: —

"6. They shall be consumed."

Take Zeph. 1: 2, 3, for example: "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast I will consume the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked, and I will cut off man from of the land, saith the Lord." So Ps. 104: 35: "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more." These are some of Mr. Hastings' own texts adduced for the annihilation of the wicked! The cause must be weak that requires such arguments.

Mr. Hastings' next three heads I must leave for after consideration. They are these: —

"7. The agent of punishment shall be fire and brimstone.

"8. They shall be burned up root and branch.

"9. Their punishment shall take place, not at death, but at the coming of Christ."

To the tenth again the same remarks apply. It is all the earthly judgment which precedes millennial blessing. And upon the principle of interpretation which must be adopted in order to make texts such as these apply to the final extinction of the wicked, I could not only prove that Enoch was annihilated (because he "was not") but could find the doctrine of annihilation in most books that were ever written. According to Mr. H., if I but find Israel assured that "they that war against thee shall be as NOTHING, and as a THING OF NOUGHT," or "that they shall diligently consider the place [of the wicked] and it SHALL NOT BE," I am entitled to put these expressions in small capitals, and consider them conclusive proof that the wicked are annihilated! Once more I ask, what can I think of such arguments as these, or of the cause that needs them?

Mr. Blain adds to these quotations: —

11. "Slay, slain, kill." All his texts as usual applying to earthly judgments.

12. "Blot out." Here he quotes Ps. 69: 28, which is earthly judgment, and Rev. 3: 5, which has reference to the peculiar case of those in Sardis who had "a name to live" on earth, showing that it applies to the profession of eternal life. Man had, as it were, written these names in the book of life. Christ would blot them out, where it was only that. What eternal life is we have already seen.

13. "Hewn down." Here he quotes Matt. 3: 10; Matt. 7: 19. But compare as to the force of the expression Dan. 4: 14: it does not at all imply even the taking away of natural life. His argument about the fire we may see the force of by and by but certainly if "hewn down" itself signifies the extinction of natural life, there would be little cause to dread the "fire" afterwards.

14. "Lose life." These texts have been already considered.

"End." Mr. B. remarks, "If the wicked are immortal, they have no end, and this language is absurd." But of what then, or of whom, is "everlasting life" (according to Rom. 6: 22) "the end"? If everlasting life be an end in any way, whether of a saint or of his works, then "end" is not necessarily cessation of existence. A man's final estate is his end, and the end of the wicked is "destruction" but annihilation it is not.

As to Ps. 7: 9, "O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end!" it is the groan of a soul feeling the strong hand of oppression, and has no reference to eternal judgment.

Mr. Blain's following texts (except one) have all reference to that clearing out of evil from the earth, which he everywhere seems to overlook. Yet it is a most real thing, and figures largely in the word of prophecy, as what is to take place at the coming of the Lord, before the earth shall have its blessing under the dominion of the Prince of peace.

As to the way these texts are quoted I have the same protest to make in general, as I had with regard to Mr. Constable's quotations before. The citations are loose, random and careless. They are heaped upon one another, as if to make impression by their numbers, and overwhelm the judgment, rather than invite inspection. Words and phrases are taken from their context, and assorted in the fashion of a concordance, with no discrimination of the texts in which they are found. The examination of them leaves the impression of unmistakable carelessness in the use of Scripture, and a most thorough will to push to the utmost every expression that in the least may seem to favor their doctrine. Against it I appeal to the very texts they have cited. They need but a little patient examination, with singleness of purpose and waiting upon God, to give true and unambiguous testimony as the word of the blessed God who cannot lie, cannot fail the soul that looks in faith to Him.

Note. Messrs. Constable and White both press an argument here from certain passages in Plato's Phaedo in which some of the New Testament words are used by him to give the idea of the literal destruction or "extinction of the soul." But Plato's use of the words cannot avail to set aside a use Of them, proved as we have proved it from the New Testament itself. Spite of their protest, it is well known that many words attain a moral or spiritual significance in Scripture, which will be vainly sought for in classical Greek. They will hardly deny this, as it can so easily be proved. That Plato should use some of these words therefore in a physical sense, while Scripture uses them in a spiritual, is no great cause of wonderment. Let them meet frankly the argument from Scripture, and not settle the question by appeal to the terms of Greek philosophy.

22 - The Provisional Character of Death

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 22.

The Provisional Character of Death

We now come to look at a point of great importance in many respects, and which has been indeed already spoken of, but not fully proved or dwelt upon as it deserves. I mean the provisional and temporary character of the first death.

We have already argued that the penalty attaching to the eating of the forbidden tree was simply this, and did not at all (as so many beside Mr. Constable assume) include in it "all that God purposed to inflict upon Adam and his posterity in case of transgression"! Where is the least warrant for this? The actual result to us of that primal sin we have had the apostle state to us, and that is (so far as infliction from God is concerned) physical death as His stamp upon a fallen condition, His judgment of a race corrupted from its beginning.

Herein lay of course the possibility, nay, probability, of a final sentence. But God is in no haste with judgment; and this was the beginning of the world's history, not the close of it. Who, save for the need of making a system, could imagine the beneficent Creator of man, at once, and for the personal offence of our first parents, adjudging all their descendants to eternal death? Scripture at any rate has naught of it, and we are seeking to follow Scripture in its simplest facts and statements.

It may be urged, however, that death followed as one of these facts and that that shows that Adam's posterity shared in Adam's judgment.

But that is a very different thing, as a little consideration will assure us. Death was indeed God's judgment upon the race as vitiated and corrupt, but — inasmuch as it was corrupted by another's sin and not its own, — a judgment which was a merciful discipline for it, a witness to the fallen creature of its own condition, an appeal to it by its own frailty and helplessness to look higher than itself for help, an admonition so to number its days that its heart might be applied to wisdom. What should we do without the thorns and thistles which grow out of the ground cursed for man's sake? What should we do without the need of the sweat of the brow? What, without the ministry of death itself? Surely a blessing is in this curse; it is an evil which is good; the discipline of the Father of spirits for our profit, chastening of a holy hand that we may be partakers of His holiness, and in its own nature contrasted with that final sentence which is "Depart from me, ye cursed." The first death and the second death are contrasts and not the same.

Such is its nature, if we consider it as the fruit simply of Adam's sin, its legacy to his descendants. It was the wise and tender foresight of Him who saw the floodgates of evil pierced, and the awful outburst of iniquity before it came, and ordained this as its corrective, as One who did not intend to give up His creatures to it, to perish through helplessness alone. If by one man sin was entering into the world, then "death by sin" was the Divine ordinance. And right and good every prodigal proclaims it whom the pressure of hunger causes to think of a Father's house:every psalmist that ever was, with Israel's sweet Psalmist when he owns, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept Thy words."

This is death as an appendage to a fallen condition; but if we left it there, there would be manifest incongruity with much of Scripture and of fact as well. In order to have the whole statement and the full harmonious truth, we must look further. We must distinguish between death as we should rightly consider it, as introduced into the world through another's sin, and, on the other hand, as brought upon us through our own personal transgressions, The Old Testament is full of this last subject, which is found also in the New. At Corinth, where they were profaning the Lord's supper, many were weak and sickly among them, and many slept (1 Cor. 11: 30). And the apostle John tells us of a "sin unto death" for which he does not say that one should pray (1 John 5: 16).

But the Old Testament it is that insists ever upon death as the penalty of personal transgression, and this is just what the text means on all sides so little understood, "the soul that sinneth it shall die." Even this is not the second death, which the Old Testament knows nothing of. It is a sinner dying in his sins and under judgment, and which leaves its boding shadow upon the future beyond death. But we must reserve this subject for another chapter.

Death is then a provisional, not a final, sentence. It is a corrective discipline from the Father of spirits in view of the entrance of sin into the world. It is in its own nature temporary and to pass away, as Scripture declares it will. As the separation of soul and body, it is a necessary hindrance to the full blessing of the righteous, and a hindrance also to the full judgment of the wicked. For the righteous and for the wicked alike, although with opposite effect, it is at the resurrection finally done away.

Let us look at some Scriptures which in this way get their proper significance, and in this way only.

First, the Lord's answer to the Sadducees touching the resurrection (Luke 20: 27-38). These Sadducees were consistent in their unbelief, and, as they denied resurrection, they denied the existence also of the spirit in the separate state; and it is this last that the Lord takes up and proves, in order by it to prove the resurrection.

God says at the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But, if He were then in that relationship to them, they must be existent for Him to be so. He could not be the God of the dead (in the Sadducee sense of death, the non-existent), they must be in some sense alive, alive to Him, and so they are.

But then this apparently proves but a separate existence of the spirit in death, and that has ever been the difficulty about it. How does proving the existence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the separate state prove resurrection? Very simply after all. For what is death upon this view of it? Manifestly the infringement of God's creative plan. He had not made man a spirit merely, but a spirit embodied. A spirit disembodied could not be God's intention, for His gifts and calling are without repentance. The body therefore must rise again.

And this is no forced argument. I doubt not it was one well understood in that day, when men were accustomed to a sort of reasoning which the clear light of the New Testament (wherein life and incorruption have been brought to light) has set aside as unnecessary to those who have it. But that this is no forced argument we have the best possible evidence; for it is Mr. Constable's own conclusion (perfect Sadducee as he is as to the separate state) as to what the separate existence of the spirit might imply. We have quoted his words already, but will cite them again to show how he considers this linked by implication with resurrection of the dead. "If the first death," he says, "is consistent with man's in fact not dying, but continuing to live in regard to his most important part, whose survival may again be supposed to imply the restoration of the body to life," etc. That is what it really does, and we may well believe it no forced or unnatural conclusion, when we find from such a quarter so decided a testimony as to its naturalness.

Take an illustration from a fact before our eyes. The preservation of the Jews as a nation after near eighteen hundred years of dispersion into all lands is one of the standing miracles whereby God rebukes the unbelief of His prophetic word. But what does it argue to those who believe in His hand as guiding surely and not doubtfully, all things according to His resistless counsels? If we must say, this is the finger of God, to what does it point? Surely, to that national resurrection from the dead, which yet in His own time He will accomplish. This is the simple, prompt conclusion of faith. It may serve to illustrate the connection of thought between the belief in the separate spirit and the resurrection of the body.

And we may note that the inspired historian seems in some way to connect them, when, Paul having proclaimed himself in the council a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, he adds in explanation: "for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both."

But we must not forget that there is another way in which the words of our Lord are attempted to be explained. Indeed, we have already heard Mr. Roberts upon the subject. Let us now listen to Mr. Dobney. He has taken particular pains to establish the sense in which the passage is to be understood. He says of the explanation of it in the way we have given: "With us it would be a striking and satisfactory proof of a continuance of conscious existence after death — but no proof whatever of a resurrection; and yet it is to prove this last exclusively that our Lord, who could not have reasoned inaccurately or sophistically, adduces it." He paraphrases therefore the Lord's argument thus: —

"God is not the God of the dead [utterly and eternally perished, which was the sense in which the Sadducees used it, with whom He was disputing] but of the living.

"But he calls himself the God of the Patriarchs.

"Therefore these still live — or will live again [which is the same thing with Him to whom the future is the present, and who calls the things that are not, but shall be, as though they already were].

"But then, as already intimated, since it was a resurrection our Lord undertook to establish, which He establishes only by proving a life after death, the life which carries with it a proof of resurrection must either be itself identical therewith, or else dependent thereupon."

The patriarchs "live" then in the purpose of God as to them, not actually, but God calling that which is not as though it were — that is how Mr. Dobney understands it.

But then, when God says, "I am the God of Abraham," the present actually is everything. If otherwise, then as the past is the present also to Divine Omniscience, no less than the future, He might be Abraham's God in that sense, and no resurrection be involved at all.

But it is not true that, in the way Mr. Dobney understands it, God calls the things that are not as though they were. In the passage he quotes God does indeed speak of the "many nations" of which He had made Abraham father, with divine certainty, as being, although they were not yet. But He does not speak of their present existence, while they do not exist. So He could not assert, "I am the God of Abraham" as a matter of present relationship, when none existed. To say so is to speak deceitfully for Him. "I am the God of Abraham" to human ears necessarily inferred what God was then at the time He spoke. Nor was there here prophecy at all; no announcement of the future, nothing that could involve the thought of the future. God could no more say He was the God of Abraham while there was no Abraham to be God to, than He could. say I am raising the dead, a thousand years before the resurrection. "The Lord which is, and which was, and which is to come," distinguishes between the present and the future, which Mr. Dobney would confound. But God says, "I will be" as well as "I am," and in this distinguishes, that we may understand Him; binding Himself to the forms of human speech which He adopts; speaking like one of ourselves, however little He be that, instead of hiding Himself from us in His own perfections.

"I am the God of Abraham" then involved the fact of Abraham's existence when He spoke. He could not be the God of one who had no existence, could not be in relationship to a nonentity, could not be (in the Sadducees' thought of what the dead were) "the God of the dead." The survival thus of Abraham in his most important part implied (as Mr. Constable allows) "the restoration of the body to life."

Death is then in its own nature temporary. As the derangement of God's thought of man in his creation, it must of necessity be set aside. It is the provisional appendage of a scene into which sin has entered, but where God's mercy also abounds. In its nature it could not be final. In fact it is to be done away.

Death does not enter then into the final judgment. That is expressly stated to be "AFTER death." It is appointed unto men ONCE to die, but AFTER this the judgment." There are men we wot of who say it is appointed unto men twice to die, — that the second death is of the same nature as the first, — and that death thus is the judgment. Let us examine carefully then this text also.

There is one fruitful cause of misapprehension of it on all sides. The sentence produced is not understood to be, what upon the face of it it is, part of a larger sentence in, which the portion of the saved is distinguished from the general lot of men. Now once in the end of the world hath He [Christ] appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And AS it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9: 26-28).

There is a manifest contrast here — a designed one. The express object of the passage is to display the efficacy of the work of Christ. He had appeared to put away sin by His sacrifice. Sin had brought in death, had created a necessity of judgment. How then did Christ's work meet these effects of sin for those who believed? Were death and judgment their common portion still? Alas, the general answer has been in the affirmative, and thus the meaning has been almost taken away from this pregnant and wonderful statement. Men say still, with the woman of Tekoa of old, "We must needs die," and as for judgment, to deny that a saint shall be judged would be by the mass considered heresy, if it were not lunacy. Let us seek to get "full assurance of understanding" as to this.

First, as to death, is it a "must needs" that the believer die? Did Enoch die? did Elijah? Will the saints that are "alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord"? "We shall not all sleep," says the apostle, "but we shall all be changed." Thus death, with the apostle, is no necessity for the believer. We may die, not must. We may meet it as the providential dispensation of an infinitely wise God, — not as wrath, not as penalty, nor necessarily even as judgment, in that sense in which the Father judgeth His own children.* It is "to depart and be with Christ, which is far better," — to be "absent from the body and present with the Lord." Thus has Christ "abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light by the gospel."

{*For of course I do not speak of such cases as those of the Corinthians, or of a "sin unto death."}

This, let me trust, is simple, though only to the one who refuses the unbelief of the. Sadducees as to death. If it be nonentity, the blotting out of existence, no fair words about it will ever make it other than it is confessedly to Mr. Constable. But we have not now to do with him. In Scripture and for faith (but oh how little alas, faith is with us) death is no more the portion of the saint. It is abolished. And, if alive and remaining to that coming of the Lord for which we are taught daily to wait, shall never even "sleep" at all.

And now as to judgment after death. The plain unequivocal statement of our Lord has been obscured to us by an unhappy translation; but there is no question as to the simple fact, that in John 5: 24-29 the word used both for "condemnation" and "damnation" is the simple word for "judgment." Alford's and the Bible Union revisions both give "he that heareth my voice, and believeth on Him that sent me, path everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment"; and again, "they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment."

The common thought is, "we shall have to come into judgment, but we hope not to be condemned." The Scripture truth is, if such as we are at our best came into judgment, we could not but be condemned. Hear the Psalmist express it when as a servant of the Lord he yet pleads: "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for in Thy sight shall NO FLESH LIVING be justified" (Ps. 143: 2).

And that this is the fact Scripture everywhere bears witness. The solemn final scene, as Rev. 20 pictures it, before the great white throne, we shall look at in detail at a future tier e. But the second chapter of Romans is sufficiently plain as to the issue of judgment for those who come into it. Let us look briefly at the apostle's words.

Mark then, in the first place, it is "the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ" (ver. 16). The principle, too, of the judgment is clearly stated. God "will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality (incorruption) eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God."

These are the principles of judgment; what is the actual result? Who of all the sons of men can advance his claim to eternal life upon this ground, before a holy and heart-searching God? The issue is this: —

"For as many as have sinned without law" — and these are the least guilty and the least responsible — "shall also PERISH without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be JUDGED BY THE LAW." Does any one think he can escape, when judged by the law? The apostle's words elsewhere exclude absolutely so vain a hope. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; 'for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3: 10). This then is the law's judgment and this the patient continuance in well doing which the law requires. Judged then by this rule, who can escape? Not one, assuredly. As it is written again: "Whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and ALL THE WORLD become guilty before God" (Rom. 3: 19).

If then God enters into judgment with a saint and servant of His own, he cannot be justified. The Old Testament and the New unite in this assurance. And God's way of deliverance from condemnation is by deliverance from the judgment that would involve it. The believer does not "come into judgment": the "resurrection of judgment" is the portion of the wicked alone.

Let any one consider, with the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, and the fourth of the first of Thessalonians, before his eyes, the order and connection of what is detailed there, and he will see how clearly and satisfactorily Scripture deals with this question. When "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout," not yet visible to men, as we shall see directly, "first the dead in Christ shall rise." They rise "in power," "in incorruption," "in glory," "in the image of the Heavenly" — of Christ Himself. Could there be a question of trying for their life these perfected and glorious saints? They have been already, for a longer or shorter time, every one of them absent from the body, and present with the Lord. Can it be now a question of whether they had title to the blessed place they have been in? Assuredly it can never be: the case has been abundantly settled before this. And can it be other for those who, remaining alive, without dying change their mortality for immortality, and are caught up with the risen saints in one glorious company, "to meet the Lord in the air," and "be forever with the Lord"?

It is after this that the Lord appears to judgment, for we are assured that "when Christ (who is our life) shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3: 3). And not till after this is there judgment, personal judgment. "He shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom."

Details as to the judgment will come afterwards. It is very evident there is here no putting upon trial to see who they are, and whether worthy or not to enter into life. Christ's call, which makes no mistake, summons forth His saints to meet Him. Not one is forgotten not one unknown. Blessed be His name! it could not be. And thus the whole matter is definitely settled, and can never come up again.

That we should give account of ourselves to God, is another matter, and should not be confounded with this. As a question of reward, we shall receive for the deeds done in the body, and "suffer loss" or find gracious recompense accordingly. That is not denied but affirmed. But we are not judged according to our works: we do not come into judgment, if our works do. There is a very manifest distinction between these things.

Having seen then the Scripture testimony as to death and judgment, let us return to look at these as the portion of men, from which Christ's work delivers His own. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." For the saint on the other hand, "Christ was once offered, to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear without sin," — or rather "apart from sin," as having no more to settle that question" apart from sin unto salvation."

"Once death," then, and "after this, judgment" is the lot of the unsaved. How clear this makes the distinction between the two! Death temporary and to give place to judgment, which is not in death but afterwards. Thus Scripture. How feeble then again all Mr. Constable's arguments as to the primary sense of words, and that death and nothing but death in its primary sense is the final judgment! Twice death, in effect, is his argument: once before, and then again in the judgment. Once death, says Scripture, but after this the judgment. That judgment is indeed the second death. But therefore the second death is not the repetition of the first: it is cancelled forever when the judgment of the second death begins. Is it so ill-named "a death that never dies"? a death in which they who suffer it also never die? How vain to dispute the unspeakably solemn fact

23 - The Ministry of Death

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 23.

The Ministry of Death

If death has then the place which we have seen it has, it is no longer a strange thing to hear of a "ministration of death"; nay, it is rather just what we should have reason to expect, that God would take up the fact of it, and of the condemnation of man which it involves, and press it home upon the hearts and consciences of men in some distinct and positive way. We should expect from His goodness, that He would not be content in letting the fact speak for itself, but would give it a voice and utterance which should be in itself — however much men might shut their ears to it an unmistakable one.

Now this is precisely what the apostle says he has done. The character of the law, — of the Old Testament therefore — is that it was a "a ministration of death," — a "ministration of condemnation."

Death was therein taken up as a moral, yea, spiritual teacher of a lesson most humbling to man's pride indeed, and therefore most difficult to learn; but a lesson, when learnt, of the very greatest value. It was made a teacher of the inadequacy of all human righteousness, the impotence of human power, the impossibility of a corrupt and fallen creature standing in the presence of a holy God: all this we shall find in the Jewish system when once we understand that the death it speaks of — "the soul that sinneth it shall die" — is not the yet unrevealed second death, but "death" in its ordinary sense. This once established satisfactorily, we shall find the Old Testament in a new light, and the perfect self-consistency of truth everywhere in its utterances.

And this will be established, as soon it is seen, what should be manifest as to the holy law of the unchangeable God, that the obedience it required was absolute, perfect obedience, and nothing short. This the New Testament, no less than the Old, abundantly declares. We have already had the apostle's statement as to this, which shows that Christianity itself also had not modified the law's requirements. It is the great apostle of the Gentiles, the man who, if any did, understood God's grace in the gospel, who assures us that "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3: 10). It is again the apostle who is considered by many (however improperly) the apostle of law, who unites with Paul in this testimony, that "whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2: 10). Unswerving, perfect obedience was therefore that required by the law.

To this, however, may be thought opposed the whole system of appointed sacrifices and the forgiveness that in this way the very law itself proclaimed. But the objection would apply in that case to the apostles' teaching, who certainly were not ignorant of so plain a fact. We must take it up, however, a little particularly, and try to show the consistency of these two things.

There were, as all will easily remember, two givings of the law. The first time (which we shall find as history in Exodus 19-24) it was pure law, with no whispered word even of mercy, — no provision for failure or for sin. Moses is then called up into the Mount to receive from God's hand the tables of stone "written with the finger of God." There, in the Mount, he does indeed see the pattern of other and of heavenly things, for God would show us that mercy is already in His heart, as it surely is. But no word of this is yet spoken to the people, and as actual institution finds no place till the covenant of the law as first given is transgressed and set aside. As far as the people is concerned, it is all as yet law pure and simple. Under this they fail utterly, turning their deliverer-God, "their glory, into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass." The tables of the covenant are broken; judgment is executed on the guilty people; and all, on this ground, is over forever (Ex. 32).

But the blessed God has still resources in Himself, and again He takes up the people. Again the law is given, word for word the same, and not a jot abated; for the holiness of God's nature can know no change. But there is this difference, and it is characteristic: it is now written by the hand of the mediator (Ex. 34: 28), and not by God Himself. The law is in the hands of the mediator, and now we hear the new glad tones of long-suffering goodness and mercy.

Jehovah declares Himself, as He did not before. His glory shines out as not yet it had. He is "the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." This is new ground; and yet not altogether new, nor grace unmixed. He is still the Lawgiver, still in a covenant of works with His people: — "and that will by no means clear the guilty." This is the new basis upon which everything is now to rest. It is law, but it is not pure law. It is law in a mediator's hand, ministered in mercy, yet not lessening its requirement: an apparent contradiction, and in reality two principles united which cannot unite really in the justification of man. God says so: He cannot clear — cannot justify; and it is of the law thus given, the second time and not the first, that the apostle speaks when he calls the law "written and engraven in stones," "the ministration of death" and "the ministration of condemnation" (2 Cor. 3: 7, 9). It is of this law in the hand of the mediator, that he says again, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse."

If we look at the scene described in the book of Exodus (33, 34), we shall find that God really gave witness at the very time He gave it, of its true character, although in that typical way, the well-known characteristic of Old Testament revelation. When Moses the mediator, and thus the representative of the people, prays, "I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory," God answers: "I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." But He adds, — and the words are the key-note of the Old Testament dispensation, — "THOU CANST NOT SEE MY FACE; for there shall no man see me, and live. And He said, There is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock; and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and cover thee with my hand while my glory passeth by; and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my FACE shall not be seen."

And thus, as at the first time of the giving of the law, the flame of fire upon the quaking mount, hid, not revealed, the Divine Goodness; so even now, while goodness covered the human eyes not yet able to behold face to face the One in whose presence he stood, still IT COVERED THEM; and what Moses actually saw, as the mediator of that dispensation, was: GOD WITH HIS FACE TURNED AWAY.

And that remained the feature of that old economy. It was what the veil before the holiest declared: the way into the holiest was not yet manifested. None could stand in His presence. All had sinned, and having sinned, came short of the glory of God. Death, not life, — condemnation, not righteousness, was the ministration of the law.

God might forgive iniquity, transgression and sin. But He could by no means clear the guilty. He could make known His long-suffering, and say, "When the wicked man turneth from his wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive" (Ezek. 18: 27). But who ever did what was lawful, as measured by a law, to break one commandment of which was to be "guilty of all"? Who ever broke off his sins so as to be fit for the presence of a "holy, holy, holy" God? Never one: not one. "There is none righteous, no, not one" was the law's verdict; "there is none that doeth good, no, not one." And the veil hung before God's presence unlifted, save as once a year the typical blood was put upon the mercy-seat and then it dropped again, impenetrable as ever, for "the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin."

Thus, through all the old economy: until one day, marked out from other days by a darkness such as never was. And when that passed, the darkness in which God dwelt had also passed. "The veil of the temple was rent in the midst."

God was no more "in the darkness"; He was "in the light" (1 Kings 8: 12; 1 John 1: 7).

The way into God's presence was no more barred up: Christ was "the Way" (John 14: 6).

And instead of, as heretofore, One who could not clear the guilty, there was revealed the glory of divine grace, justifying the ungodly (Rom. 4: 5).

One would gladly enlarge upon this unspeakable loving-kindness; — would gladly apply this healing assurance to any soul conscious of the double character of evil attaching to man. He is "ungodly"; true, but he is more, much more, than that: he is "without strength" also. Christ died for him as having that character (Rom. 5: 6). As having it, he is welcome at once to the blood which cleanses from sin, and the grace which strengthens and enables for holiness. But our subject is now the character of the law rather: let us turn back to consider what this involves as to the Old Testament.

God was, then, by a dispensation of law, shutting man up to mercy. He was running the plough-share into the soil to prepare it for the seed of the gospel. He was not by it saving: He was convicting and condemning. The New Testament constantly asserts this as the object of the law. The apostle speaks of it as what all Christians were well aware of: "We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." "By the law is the knowledge of sin." "The law worketh wrath." "The law entered that the offence might abound." "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded (shut up together) all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." I need not quote more than this.

But now, if such was the scope and object of the law, if God by it was seeking to produce conviction of a sinful and helpless condition, and to cast men thus upon His mercy, — how simple that He should take up in it the solemn reality of that death which had entered in by sin, and which was constantly appealing to man in every possible way, — the broad seal of condemnation — wide as humanity — upon the fallen creature! How irresistible the conviction of what man was, and where he was, in the eye of a holy God, if He should come in and say to him, meaning just what it would mean when heard in connection with the first threatening of death so literally carried out, "the man that doeth these things shall live in them," "the soul that sinneth, it shall die."

The strangeness of this interpretation to many is just its perfect consistency with the whole design and meaning of the law. If no one under it ever escaped death (with one exception evidently on another ground) people think it impossible that death (in the ordinary sense) could have been meant. They forget that no one ever did fulfil it, that there was none righteous, no, not even one. How could they then escape it? And if God in the law were not judging for eternity, but as a present thing, to cast men in the conviction of their lost condition upon His mercy, how consistent with this plan that He should make the judgment upon that condition a thing apparent to every one under it, instead of something yet unseen, and which eternity alone should too late reveal!

Had God said, as we have made Him say, "the soul that sinneth shall die the second death," they might have comforted themselves with the assurance that no one could know much about that, and written placid lies upon the gravestones, and lost the whole reality of the ruin they were in. Doubtless many did do so in spite of all, for light never yet opened eyes closed to it, but still God had borne witness, none the less, if they rejected it as men still reject, that they were fallen creatures, and who had confirmed by their own act and deed the original sentence under which they lay. Every white hair in a man's head, every wrinkle in his brow, was thus God's witness in a double way, a solemn appeal which one would think irresistible. Death was not that for which man was created; no, it was God "turning man to destruction." "Thou halt set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told. . . So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Ps. 90: 8, 9, 12).

But not only in this way was man's lost condition manifest, but the judgment of the law still left God free to the grace which was under the veil, while yet the veil was not removed. Had God said, "The soul that sinneth, It shall die the second death," none could contest with Him the justice of that sentence; but surely it would seem to bind Him to eternal judgment, to universal justice, but divorced from grace. As it was He did not bind Himself so that to the broken and contrite He could not show mercy, outside of law and its penalty altogether. It could do its work as convicting man of sin, and on the ground of human effort and human righteousness shut him up in condemnation, bring him to hopeless self-despair, and yet leave him in that world beyond the grave into which the full light yet had not and could not come, to a mercy which He could be free to exercise, where man's hope was in His mercy. It could in short tie man's hands, as to all working out of claim upon God. It could not tie God's hands as to mercy shown to man.

As to the fact itself, that the law does really speak of the first and not the second death (and there is no death between) is a thing which, when we examine it, seems impossible to question. That he that honored father and mother should "live long in the land" of Canaan, is imbedded in the heart of the ten commandments. And in Deut. 4: 40, where Moses is urging the people to keep these very commandments, what does he put before them as the result of their being kept, but "that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth which the Lord thy God giveth thee, forever."

Let any one who doubts read on and on through the entire Pentateuch, if he will, and let him find if he can any penalty pronounced, or any reward promised, of which he has got the least proof that it refers to a future state at all. Doubtless death as the result of Him who had created man turning Him to destruction cast its shadow over the state beyond, which as certainly the people of the old dispensation had knowledge of. That I have affirmed. It is the very thing which gives significance to it such as I am speaking of. But everywhere the legal promise is a life of blessing in the land, and everywhere the legal curse is the perishing from the earth.

Pass on to the New Testament, and look at that which is the very central feature in the whole scene, and what is the "curse of the law" which the Lord of glory bore? "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." The hanging on a tree was only the outward expression surely of the curse, and not the whole thing; and so, as I have urged, is death. This is death in its most shameful form; but it is not the second death, nor does the law speak of that.

Mr. Constable has endeavored to show that the Old Testament announces death as the punishment of the wicked in the future state. It is not to be supposed that he has brought forward the worst passages to prove this position. Let us then see what he produces. He says: —

"There [in the Old Testament] the word must be taken in the sense God has stamped upon it, and left unchanged. It is there over and over again described as the end, in the future age, of obstinate transgressors. For such God declares He has 'provided the instruments of death'; of such as hate divine Wisdom that Wisdom says, 'they that hate me love death'; to the wicked God saith, thou shalt surely die,' 'the soul that sinneth it shall die.'"

He adds: "No one, we suppose, will apply the death pronounced in the above passages upon unrepented and unpardoned sin to that death which all men alike, whether saved or lost, undergo as children of Adam. They can only apply it to future punishment. Death, then, is, according to the Old Testament, to be after judgment the result of sin, as life is the result of righteousness."

I have shown how directly this doctrine is opposed to Scripture. Death after judgment is Mr. Constable's version; "after death the judgment" is that of Scripture. And of course all he says upon this is his own conjecture. What proof has he that this death is after judgment? None. What proof that it is in the future state? None really. He has only a very weak argument that all men alike, saved or lost, undergo the first death But does he mean to say that it never comes upon men therefore as direct judgment for sin? If so, he is at direct issue with fact and Scripture alike.

What would he say, for instance, to these statements of Elihu? "He shall break in pieces mighty men without number, and set others in their stead. Therefore He knoweth their works, and He overturneth them in the night, so that they are destroyed. He striketh them as wicked men in the open sight of others, because they turned back from Him, and would not consider any of His ways" (Job 34: 24-27).

Or again: "And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; then He sheweth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity. If they obey and serve Him they shall spend their days in prosperity and their years in pleasures; but if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge. But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath; they cry not when He bindeth them: they die in youth, and their life is among the unclean" (Job 36: 8-14; comp. also Job 33: 18-30).

This is indeed the great lesson of all this part of Job. The thorough and complete exemplification of the principle we shall shortly have occasion to consider, in that great day, the day of the Lord upon the earth, when it shall be cleared by judgment that the meek may inherit it (Ps. 37). Of this the Old Testament is full, and the principle is, as we have seen, the principle of the law; to substitute for it the New Testament complete revelation is to lose the understanding of the old dispensation.

Strange as it may seem, and inconsistent too with the known belief of the Jews before our Lord's time, there is not really one passage in the Old Testament in which either heaven is spoken of as the abode of the righteous, or hell (in our present sense of it) as the abode of the lost. The word "hell" is always in it that word "Sheol" which we have already looked at, and which is the equivalent of fades, "the unseen," and applied always and only to the death state. This abundantly confirms the belief that the death threatened, even to impenitence and unbelief, was death in our ordinary understanding of it, but death as the judgment of God, and throwing its awful shadow over the eternity beyond. With this Mr. Constable's texts completely harmonize. Nor does he indeed attempt to show that the death they speak of is judgment in a future state. It would be impossible for him to prove this, for it is not true.

The legal dispensation was intended as a means of reaching on a broad scale (and with a still broader after-purpose) the consciences of men. It was part of a method of grace to prepare for the coming Christ by convicting men of guilt and of helplessness, shutting them up to the grace which was then to be revealed. And thus it was that there was a "due time" for Christ to come, as the apostle declares; and that when this purpose of the law should be accomplished. Thus "when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. 5: 6). In the meanwhile for individual need was provided a way of cleansing and forgiveness (typical largely, of necessity) in which broken and contrite souls found hope of mercy. But the system was, as a whole, a ministration of death and condemnation.

And for this purpose the death which was the broad seal of condemnation upon universal man was taken up and used in the penal code of the divine government in Israel: man thus having under his eyes a temporal retribution which would witness to the most carnal God's wrath upon sin, and his own condition as a sinner under it.

But that was not all the light shed upon the future, and we must look at what yet remains in some little detail: first, the prophetic landscape of the Old Testament, which is important many ways with regard to our present subject, and then the meaning and character of its typical teaching.

24 - The Purification and Blessing of the Earth

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 24.

The Purification and Blessing of the Earth

Let us now seek to arrive at some definite conclusion as to the prophetic future portrayed in the Old Testament. It is quite necessary to do so in order properly to understand the predictions of coming judgment which are scattered through its pages.

First then, the horizon is earthly, and extends neither to heaven nor to hell. It is recognized that the souls of the departed exist indeed in Sheol, but that it is as yet a land of darkness, unexplored and little known to living men. It is recognized, too, that there will be a resurrection, and the Redeemer will stand in the latter day upon the earth, and Job in his flesh will see him. But there is no dwelling in heaven openly revealed, and no hell, in the true sense. I do not say there were no beliefs upon these points, but we shall consider these hereafter.

A text or two here will give us the Old Testament range.

First, what the psalmist says: — "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth has He given to the children of men" (Ps. 115: 16). There is no other statement anywhere than that, save that as a matter of fact, Enoch had not died, but the Lord had taken him; and Elijah, too, had gone up in a chariot of fire to heaven. But there is no statement anywhere that heaven is to be man's dwelling-place. God dwells there, but into his "hill" the righteous ascend, and in His "holy place" on earth they stand (Ps. 24: 3, comp. ver. 1). Zion is where Jehovah rests forever (Ps. 132: 13, 14).

Then as to judgment or reward: — "For evil-doers 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 delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Ps. 37: 9-11).

Again: "The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; much more the wicked and the sinner" (Prov. 11: 31).

This is the universal strain. The God of judgment is going by judgment to purify the earth, and make it the abode of righteousness and peace. Transgressors are to be rooted out of it. The whole earth is to be full of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

These are the promises. But whose? Mark well, there is not one word yet of the Father's house or of the heavenly places. The inheritance is of earth only. The prospect is what we are accustomed to call millennial. Whose then are these Old Testament promises? If I take the Old Testament itself, they are Israel's. "Israel shall bud and blossom, and fill the face of the earth with fruit." "But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up unto the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it" (Isa. 27: 6; Micah 4: 1-4).

Thus sealed with Jehovah's seal is Israel's claim to the Old Testament promises. If still we doubt, let the apostle of the Gentiles assure us whether we are to read the name typically or literally here. "For I was wishing," says he, "that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh; who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenant, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, AND THE PROMISES" (Rom. 9: 3, 4). If we have no doubt then, as to who were Paul's kinsmen according to the flesh, we can have none as to whose are these Old Testament "promises." They are literally Israel's, spite of her present dispersion and casting off. For this she must of course be gathered and converted; and so she shall be, but it is interesting and important to ask when this national restoration and conversion shall be.

Scripture leaves us in no doubt either upon this point. The same apostle intimates to us, what seems so strange and hard to be received now, that it will not be by the going forth of the gospel as at present; that the partial blindness of Israel will not cease, and "all Israel" — the nation as a whole — will not be saved, "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." "As concerning the gospel," he adds, "they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom. 11: 25-29).

Thus the divine purpose holds, announced in the ancient Scriptures. God has not disinherited the people of His choice. Yet for the present blindness in part is theirs, and they are enemies (God is holding them as such) with regard to the gospel. Not till the full number of the Gentiles is brought in by it will "all Israel" be saved.

And then, how, if not by the gospel? Scripture answers (Zech. 12: 10–13: 1): "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born: in that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem . . . and the land shall mourn, every family apart. . . In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness."

When shall they see Christ thus, and how? With the mental eye only, or actually? That too is answered: —

"Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also WHO PIERCED HIM, and all kindreds of the earth" — or "tribes of the land," as the Greek might read — "shall wail because of Him."*

{* Kopsontai ep auton pasa hai phulai tes ges (Rev. 1: 7). It is well known that in Greek, as in some other languages, there is one word which stands for "earth" and "land." I do not insist on the latter, for it is quite according to the character of the New Testament to be of greater breadth than the Old. But the reference to Zech. 12: 10 cannot be doubted.}

Here then is Israel's national repentance, and how it is produced. It is then, when the Lord Jesus comes, their eyes shall see Him, and thus Israel's blessing, and that of the earth, follows, not precedes, that for which we as Christians wait, to receive the fulfilment of heavenly, and not earthly, promises. We thus see how it is that the gospel, as now going forth, will have to come to an end, and the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. All is consistent here, for it is true; and the present gospel dispensation is thus seen to be an interval in Israel's prophetic history, a time of the suspension of her promises, only suspended, to find, as soon as this has run out, their full accomplishment.

And this is the uniform tenor of Scripture. The last chapter of Zechariah proves convincingly that the Lord God and His holy ones will have come, and His feet have stood on the Mount of Olives, before He is "King over all the earth," and "in that day shall there be one Lord, and His Name one."

The second psalm also speaks with perfect plainness of the heathen being given to Christ for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession; but often and rightly as that is quoted as a millennial prophecy, it is not always as clearly seen that, to take possession, He must "break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." And Revelation adds distinctly the promise to him that overcometh, that he shall share with the Lord this rod of iron (Rev. 2: 25-27).

Thus again, therefore, when in the visions of the latter part of the book, the Lord is seen coming forth from heaven to the judgment of the earth (Rev. 19), it is after the marriage of the Lamb has taken place in heaven; and the armies of heaven that follow the white-horsed rider are clad with the covering of the bride herself — that fine linen which is the "righteousness of saints." Then follows that millennial picture with which we must become more familiar at a future time.

All this is impossible to enlarge on now. But it needs to be seen in order to get rightly hold of two very different epochs of judgment which, if confounded, confuse the whole subject of the prophetic future. There is a judgment of the quick, and a judgment of the dead; and these are quite distinct from one another. The judgment of the living is at the coming of the Lord, and before the millennium. The judgment of the dead is after it, not when the Lord comes to the earth, but when the earth and the heavens flee away (Rev. 19, 20). The judgment of the living is the purification of the earth in order to its blessing, and that the meek may inherit it, as we have partly seen. The judgment of the dead is the final award at the close of all, when the object, is finally to give every one not a sharer in the "first resurrection" his discriminate award.

It is of the judgment of the living that the Old Testament passages speak, which predict in so many ways the destruction of the wicked. As we have seen, its predicted future is of earthly blessing, which such a judgment is needed to produce. While the obstinately wicked perish out of it God's judgments cause the inhabitants of the world to learn righteousness (Isa. 26: 9). Then our Melchizedek becomes the Prince of peace; but still the character of millennial times is righteous authoritative rule, in which (if we are to take Scripture simply) the saints of the first resurrection reign with Him,* who is the manifest King of kings, and Lord of lords.

{* Rev. 3: 21 may help some to distinguish between a throne in which Christ now sits, and which, being the throne of absolute Godhead, the Father's throne, mere man can never share, and a throne which as Son of man He calls His own (Rev. 1: 13), and which He promises to share with the overcomers here.

The future millennial kingdom is thus clearly distinguished from the kingdom of Christ as Son of God (Col. 1: 13) in which we now are. That future one is when He takes His great power and reigns in order to bring everything into subjection to God and, having accomplished this, He delivers it up to the Father (1 Cor. 15: 24).

One other caution. The reign of the saints with Christ over the earth does not imply a return to a fleshly condition, the gross Chiliasm of many of the ancients. The heavenly and earthly spheres are always separate, whatever the links of connection in that time when the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven.}

There is one glimpse beyond this millennial condition in Old Testament prophecy, but it is only a glimpse. The Lord (in Isa. 65: 17, Isa. 66: 22) announces: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." The next verses return evidently to the millennial condition, before sin and death are finally done away. Again, He identifies the new earth with Israel's promises: "For, as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." But this verse, too, is parenthetical, and the next again returns to the millennium. It is plainly, however, to these passages that the apostle Peter refers, when he says, "We, according to His promise, look for new heavens* and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3: 13). The only expansion of this is in Rev. 21: 1-5. We cannot dwell upon it now. It is only adduced as giving us the full range of Old Testament prophecy.

{*Only the atmospheric heavens, which are dissolved with the earth.}

As I have said, it is to the purificatory judgment of the earth, which introduces the millennial blessing, that a mass of passages relate, which are brought forward to prove the extinction of the wicked. When only one "day of judgment" is thought of, and that the judgment of the dead after their resurrection, such passages do indeed seem to have force in this way. But it is gone as soon as we perceive their true application. And this is as true of some New Testament passages, as it is universally of the Old. It is only of the Old we are speaking now. Let us consider some of these texts, and they will illustrate the truth of the statements we have been advancing.

1. The Psalms abound in reference to this time. Passing over the second and eighth, which connected give us the prophetic outline, let us look at some more detailed statements in the ninth:*

{*The second psalm has been already referred to the eighth is applied by the apostle (Heb. 2: 5-8) to Christ's reign in the "world to come." That this term applies to earth, not heaven, this eighth psalm witnesses, as does the expression of the apostle, ten oikoumenen ten mellousan, "the habitable (earth) to come," the expression translated "world" in Luke 3: 1.}

"For Thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, Thou hast destroyed the wicked; Thou hast put out their name forever and ever. . . But the Lord shall endure forever: He hath prepared His throne for judgment: and He shall judge the world in righteousness, He shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. . . Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion; declare among the people His doings. . . The wicked shall be turned* into Sheol: all the nations that forget God."

{* Goodwyn's attempt at an argument from this word is a specimen of the kind of criticism we meet with in such writers: —

"David says by the Holy Ghost, 'The wicked shall be turned back (shoov) into (sh'ol) the grave, and all the nations that forget God.' Having been raised from sh'ol to appear before the great white throne, death relaxes not his claim upon them, but in the eternal embrace of the second, supplements his temporary hold at the first."

This is pure imagination. There is nothing about the resurrection of the dead in the passage, but the destruction of living enemies; nothing about the great white throne, but God dwelling in Zion; while the "turned back" refers to the 3rd verse, where the same word is used: "when mine enemies are turned back," i.e., from their assault upon the people of God.}

These words need no interpreter, if we will only read them literally as they stand, and not supplement them with other statements which have to do with a very different subject.

The thirty-seventh psalm has been more than once referred to. It should be carefully read in connection with our present theme. But pass on to the fifty-eighth, and listen to language which people quote of eternal punishment; it is again judgment upon living enemies: —

"Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth; break out the teeth of the young lions, O Lord. Let them melt away as waters which run continually; when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrow, let them be as cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away; like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the thorns, He shall take them away, both living, and in His wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily, He is a God that judgeth IN THE EARTH."

In a similar way speak Ps. 83, Ps. 101, Ps 118, Ps. 144; but there is no use quoting testimony of the same kind repeatedly. But we must look a little at the prophets.

Isaiah describes in his first chapters "the day of the Lord of hosts" upon the pride of man, and here again we find similar expressions: —

"Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies; . . . . Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness; and the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed."

Again (Isa. 11): —

"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, . . . with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall slay the wicked."

Then follows a well-known picture of millennial peace and of the regathering and reunion of Ephraim and Judah.

Ezekiel gives us the principle of these judgments, and applies them to God's dealings with Israel; see especially ch. 33. But even to refer to the passages which treat of the judgments themselves would fill up our space unduly. The theme is that of the prophets generally, but as a necessary step towards that blessing of Israel and the earth which fills everywhere the landscape of the future. One last testimony from the closing prophecy of the Old Testament is often quoted of eternal judgment, and with that we may leave the subject: —

"For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 4: 1-3).

Now this is, as stated, the time of the earth's day-dawn: the time when the sun rises. It is now "night," although a night "far spent." This harmonizes the pas sage (which has no exceptional difficulty) with all the other prophecies of the same time. It is earth's judgment in order to earth's blessing.

We have still to look at the bearing of the typical system of the Old Testament upon our present subject.

25 - Old Testament Shadows

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 25.

Old Testament Shadows

We have mentioned it as an apparent contradiction to our view of the limited range of the Old Testament future, that the belief of the people plainly went beyond it. Not only does the epistle to the Hebrews tell us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob confessed themselves pilgrims upon earth, and looked for a "heavenly country"; but also the very word used by our Lord for hell — Gehenna — seems to have been in use among the people before our Lord's time in that very way.* This implies a knowledge apparently in opposition to the statements of the last chapters. But any one need only read carefully the first half of the book of Genesis, to be quite clear at least as to Abraham that there is no promise at all of heaven to him recorded there. How then did he obtain the assurance of there being in store for him "a heavenly country"?

{* It is used in the Targum of Jonathan, and in the Mishna, as well as commonly by the Jewish doctors since. It is not used in the Septuagint, save once gaienna in Joshua 18: 1.6, for the literal "valley of Hinnom."}

One of two things, could alone be supposed. There was either an unrecorded promise; or else he must have been given to see very plainly the typical character of things which we know were types of the very truths which the New Testament shows us he had received. Abraham's call to Canaan was the perfect symbol of our "heavenly calling," but how he could have understood it so, we may be at a loss to comprehend. Yet some things there were that might have aided greatly in this.

Man had been shut out of Paradise two thousand years before, and Revelation ends with the picture of another Paradise, heavenly, not earthly, into which those that have "washed their robes" in the blood of the Lamb shall be admitted. No one doubts, save an infidel, that here again the first garden of God was a type of the other. Had the secret then been shut up those two thousand years, — absolutely shut up — that there was in it some such meaning?

Our suppositions in such a matter may not possess much value; but we are seeking to account in this way for a fact at least not to be denied, of Abraham's having a knowledge of that which certainly does not appear upon the face of the inspired record. And, our attention being turned to this, we cannot but notice how much the divine way was in those early days to teach by type and figure. Did Abel know nothing of the significance of that "more excellent sacrifice" which by faith he offered? And if the "seed of the woman" spoke, as we know it did speak, of a deliverer to come, it spoke still in the language of type of the bruising of the serpent's head. In Abraham's vision it was a figure spoke, though with some interpretation (Gen. 15). So Jacob's ladder; and still more the mysterious night-wrestling, with its consequence of a halting thigh. Joseph's dreams still exemplify this way of the divine teaching: and so the dreams which he interprets. In these and similar instances we find not merely the use of type and figure, but of these as things whose significance was known to the people in whose time they happened. They show us that these were the language of the day, certainly not wholly unintelligible when first uttered, however much the full mystery waited for revelation, when the appointed time should be come.

Still more would this be so as the word of God grew gradually to its full proportion, and the meaning of the law came to be unfolded by the prophets, partial though the unfolding were. And though the people were indeed blind and carnal, even this would not hinder the attainment of a certain body of truth as orthodoxy, while the point and power of it as bearing practically upon themselves might be denied. Such exactly was the later Pharisaism which carried with it the mass of the people. And such, in the history of the Christian church, was the Nicene orthodoxy.

We may thus account then for a knowledge in Israel beyond the apparent measure of the revelation that had been made to them. We have only to suppose (what is otherwise indicated also) that the great system of types which their law embodied was not wholly unknown to them; and while the ministry of death and condemnation was allowed to have its full effect, and the consistency of purpose was maintained throughout, the light was allowed in another way to shine, even if dimly, through the wonderful imagery in the midst of which they moved.

This was surely divine wisdom. But let us seek to realize a little how far beyond the usual thought of it, this typical character of the Old Testament books extends.

All must of course admit (who are not infidels) the figurative nature of the tabernacle and temple service. Priest, altar, sacrifice and sanctuary we must allow to have their inner meaning, for the New Testament so reads them all. But the New Testament finds such also in far other things: in the details of Israel's history, their Passover and Red Sea deliverance, the manna, the water from the rock. "All these things," says the apostle, "happened unto them for ensamples (literally, types), and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world (or ages) are come" (1 Cor. 10: 11). But this typical teaching is not even confined to Israel's history: we have similar explanations as to Adam and his wife (Rom. 5, Eph. 5), the flood and the ark (1 Peter Melchizedek (Heb. 7), Abraham's wives and sons (Gal 4), with more than a hint as to the offering up of Isaac (Gal. 3: 16, 17). Thus the history itself (while of course true and divine) is typical and prophetic also.

Guided thus far by the word of God, are we to stop where the actual explanation stops, and view the rest of it as history simply; or are we to take this explanation rather as the establishment of a principle which is applicable all through the historical books? On the one hand, we must remember that many of the parables given us by our Lord are given without interpretation, and that we are left to find this in the figurative meaning of words elsewhere, and the doctrine of Scripture generally. On the other hand, who could ignore a deeper meaning in such a story as that of Joseph, for which meaning yet no express warrant of inspiration can be produced?

It seems plain then that we are to apply the principle to the history in general. And here what a field of research presents itself, and how marvellously light breaks out in new and unlooked for places in the Old Testament!

From the first Eden, over now six thousand years, we look on to another, brighter and more blessed, God's own Paradise; where the tree of life, in new luxuriance and beauty, hangs its glorious fruitage over the perpetual stream that flows from the throne of God itself. Who can miss the comparison, albeit no doubt there is contrast also, between these two? Who can fail to see that the one is designed to be the shadow of the other; and that the contrast is but to remind us that the first is only the shadow, and cannot be the very image of that before whose transcendent beauty all pictures and forecasts fail? The first scene is the earthly and the fleeting; the second heavenly and eternal. Earth is made the mirror of heaven, as indeed to mortal eyes (it would seem) must be, to convey to us what "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," but which "God hath (nevertheless) revealed to us by His Spirit."

When we look further at the New Testament vision of the New Jerusalem, we find a new and most interesting link with the Old Testament. Let any one compare that picture of future blessedness with which Ezekiel closes, with this closing scene of our last Apocalypse, and say if the correspondence between the two can possibly be undesigned. The waters flowing from the house of the Lord, in Ezekiel, bring life even into the salt sea; "and by the river upon the bank thereof on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary, and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine" (Ezek. 47: 12). Who can refuse the connection with the account in Revelation: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22: 1, 2).

Yet there are contrasts also between the two descriptions. In the one case there are limits to the blessing which we do not find in the other, as, for instance, the marshy places are yet given to salt (Ezek. 47: 11); and the one is connected with an earthly city and a temple, while in the "heavenly Jerusalem." no temple is seen (Rev. 21: 22).

Thus here again we find the true characters of Old Testament types. The earthly is the pattern of the heavenly. The law has a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image (Heb. 10: 1).

But then this shows us that not only the past history but the prophetic future also contains its types. And that the millennial age, which the prophecy in Ezekiel speaks of is in part at least a picture for earth's inhabitants of things outside of earth. Visible signs of divine power* will bring them face to face as it were with eternal realities. It will be in short, in a very important way, a final dispensation of sight, as those preceding it have been of faith. Introduced by the appearing of Christ, and the manifestation of the risen and perfected sons of God, the reign of righteousness will be maintained by as manifest a display of divine authority. And as on the one hand we have seen in Ezekiel pictured the blessings which reflect the heavenly and eternal ones, so on the other hand does Isaiah show us the shadow of its awful opposite, by which men will be brought as it were face to face with "eternal judgment": —

{*So, Heb. 6: 5, miracles are called "powers of the world (or age) to come."}

"And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they 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" (Isa. 66: 23, 24).

Now these are words in part quoted by our Lord in reference to another judgment, of which the scene in Isaiah is only the earthly type. We shall shortly consider the difference between His words and those of the Old Testament prophet: for there is here (as before in the blessing) a contrast between the Old Testament and the New. But in Isaiah it is evidently an earthly scene, and a literal one:no mere figure, as Mr. Dobney with others supposes, of "the complete triumph of the cause of true religion." The solemn words will not admit of being explained in this way. It would not give them meaning but evacuate it. And yet what is surely a reality is also a symbol too. It is the designed contrast, openly manifested to the eyes of all in that day, with the living water flowing from Jerusalem. There was the symbol of eternal life, and here the shadow of the second death. Each with its tale to tell in the ears of the millennial nations, — this warning, that inviting: God's last appeal to man this side of eternity.

This then finally gives us the Old Testament with some completeness, and in full harmony with itself, and with that later revelation which supplements it, in which both life and incorruption are fully brought to light, and also the second death is seen to be what the first shadows, as it is that to which finally also it gives place. We must not even here, however, expect to have done with figures, for still we see in part and we prophesy in part, and the things with which we have to do are still seen but "through a glass, darkly" — in a riddle or enigma.

But whatever is given by inspiration of God is given for our instruction, and we must patiently and humbly take God's word as He has written it, and see if it deals in "ambiguous metaphors," and whether perhaps we may not find there the truth of which we are in search.

26 - The Ages of Eternity: - The Question Stated

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 26.

The Ages of Eternity: — The Question Stated

We are again stopped, upon the threshold of the New Testament. Stopped, by the need of considering a question of the utmost importance to our present subject. It is gravely asked whether we have any proper word for eternity in Scripture, in the sense, that is, in which we ordinarily understand the word "eternity." For even this the eccentricity of a few learned men would take from us by an etymological sleight of hand which is scarcely creditable to them. "Eternal" is "aeviternal" — age-lasting. So aionios, Dr. Farrar tells us, is "translated rightly and frequently by 'eternal,' and wrongly and unnecessarily by 'everlasting.'"*

{*"Eternal Hope," Preface, 34.}

But again "everlasting" is in the same dilemma, for of course it only means "lasting ever," and "an evergreen is not a tree green to all eternity, but a tree continously green during its life."*

{*"Hist. Doctrine Script. Retribution," p. 128.}

So that we are in some doubt as to our English even. The word "endless" is getting to displace "eternal," but as no word of exactly that meaning is found in the New Testament in any connection of interest to us here, we are practically left without any true word in it for what for want of a better term I must still call "eternity," at all!

Authorities also differ Mr. Oxenham thinks that the "word aidios might be expected from its root aei to mean 'everlasting' in the strictest sense";* while Dr. Beecher assures us that "in the New Testament aei is never used in the sense of eternity."**

{*"Letter," p. 17.

**"Hist. Retribution," p. 128.}

We must inquire, therefore, for ourselves; although we shall not refuse the help that those more learned than we can pretend to be can give us in the matter.

The words with which we have to do are in the Greek but two: aion and aionios. They have been Anglicised into won and aeonial, and these terms, although not naturalized in our language, we may find it convenient for our present purpose to retain. The phrases "forever" and "forever and ever" in our common Bibles are literally "for the aeon," "for the aeons," "for the aeons of aeons," and akin to terms in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word "olam" takes the place of aeon. "Eternal" and "everlasting" are both renderings of the word "aeonial."

It is upon the ground of this phraseology that the argument is built, that aeonial cannot be in the strict sense "eternal." "For the aeon" cannot be "for eternity," because there are aeons, and aeons of aeons; and you cannot so reduplicate eternity. Aeonial, "belonging to the aeon," consequently cannot imply a longer time than the "aeon" to which it belongs. Aeon, moreover, in Scripture itself is translated by "world" between thirty and forty times, and twice in the plural by "ages," and this last word seems to afford the most consistent rendering all through. "Eternal life," in that case would be "the life of the age" or "the life of the world to come," and "eternal punishment," of course, must be harmonized with this: it cannot or need not be an endless punishment.

Mr. Jukes, in his "Restitution of All Things," goes a good way further. He contends that these ages of which Scripture speaks, and of which the heathen writers understood nothing, refer to "Christ's mediatorial kingdom, which is 'for the ages of ages,' and must yet be 'delivered up to the Father, that God may be all in all.'"

"The 'ages,' therefore (he says), are periods in which God works, because there is evil and His rest is broken by it, but which have an end and pass away, when the work appointed to be done in them has been accomplished. The 'ages,' like the 'days' of creation, speak of a prior fall: they are the 'times' in which God works, because He cannot rest in sin and misery. His perfect rest is not in the 'ages,' but beyond them, when the mediatorial kingdom, which is 'for the ages of ages,' is delivered up, and Christ, by whom all things are wrought in the ages, goes back to the glory which He had 'before the age-times' (2 Tim. 1: 9, Titus 1: 2), that God may be all in all. The words 'Jesus Christ (that is, Anointed Saviour), the same yesterday, today and for the ages,' imply that through these ages a Saviour is needed, and will be found, as much as today and yesterday. It will, I think, too, be found, that the adjective founded on this word, whether applied to 'life,' 'punishment,' 'redemption,' 'covenant,' 'times,' or even God Himself, is always connected with remedial labor, and with the idea of 'ages' as periods in which God is working to meet and correct some awful fall. . . . Nor does this affect the true eternity of bliss of God's elect, or of the redeemed who are brought back to live in God, and to be partakers of Christ's 'endless life' (Heb. 7: 16), of whom it is said, 'Neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection' for this depends upon a participation in the divine nature, and upon that power which can change these vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue even all things unto Himself." (Rest., pp. 61-68.)

This has the advantage of being very definite doctrine, and as such it can be examined and compared with Scripture. This we hope to do in detail presently. But first, it seems, we have to look at these words outside of Scripture, and in their roots and beginnings in ordinary Greek.

Dr. Beecher has taken up this subject in a rather elaborate way, following out the suggestions of Dr. Tayler Lewis, which may be read in the "Genesis" and "Ecclesiastes" of Lange's Commentary.* We may sum up Dr. Beecher's statements in a much briefer way without detriment (we think) either to their clearness or their force.

{* Special Introduction to the First Chapter of Genesis, Part 3 and his excursus on "Olamic or Aeonian Words in Scripture," Ecclesiastes, pp. 44-51.}

He first of all examines the proof of aion meaning eternity from Aristotle's derivation of it from aei on (aei on) "always existing." Two questions arise from this: is this etymology correct? and if so, is it decisive of the matter? On the first point he concedes it to be correct for the sake of argument, although sufficient reasons could be given for rejecting it, and Plato and Aristotle were very poor etymologists. As to the second he objects that "aei does not always, or even commonly, denote or imply eternity, and in this passage it manifestly does not, and to give it that sense involves Aristotle in inconsistency and absurdity, and in a war with notorious facts in the history of the Greek language."

This last is by itself decisive, and we need not look further at the question of derivation. The constant meaning of aion in Homer is by all admitted to be "life": to "breathe out one's aion" was to die.

"From this abstract idea of 'life' it passed to a concrete form to denote a living spirit, an aion, or aeon." This meaning occurs, not in Homer, but in Euripides, and is found at a later period in Epictetus, who declares that he is not an won (a spirit) but a man. "The element of time in any form is not included in these original uses of the word," says Dr. Beecher. *

{*He would not deny it, I suppose, that by Arrian's time, the meaning even of eternity has entered into this application of the word. His words are: — "I am not an Aeon, but a man, a part of all things, as an hour of the day, I must subsist as an hour, and pass away as an hour."}

"Nevertheless, as the idea of duration is essentially connected with prolonged life, the word assumed an idea of time, and denoted the continuous time of life at any given point, and also the total duration of life." It is thus used not only by Homer, but by the great poets, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. And "as our word age, denoting the time of the life of a man, also comes to denote the life-time of a generation, and then a period marked with some characteristic, as the antediluvian age or the Mosaic age, and then those living in that period, so was it with the word aion."

"The senses of the word thus far spoken of occur for above five centuries in such writers as Homer, Hesiod, the Orphic Hymnists, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Herodotus, Xenophon and Thucydides; but we do not yet come to the idea of eternity."

But Dr. Beecher admits that afterwards we do find the idea. "The original idea of life was (at length) subordinated and disappeared, and ideas of time alone took possession of the whole ground, and aion, instead of denoting life, came to denote time." Thus it passed into the sense of eternity: for time, "when it is qualified by adjectives denoting totality, acquires the sense of eternity." At first this qualifying adjective was expressed; but by degrees came to be sometimes implied and understood, and "aion, with this understanding, was used for eternity."

"Thus the expression eis ton, aiona came sometimes to mean for all time, that is, forever, and to eternity. In such cases Cremer says that it means for the future,' that is, for all time to come. But this same form that may thus denote eternity, may also denote for an age, or for a dispensation, in other circumstances.

"There is still another use of aion, introduced by Plato to denote a kind of philosophical eternity, from which past, present, and future time are eliminated, and absolute being only is retained."

I have thus far followed Dr. Beecher, as his account of the matter seems to be on the whole correct. I have nothing to object, nor (at least, at present) anything to add. The next step carries us into Scripture, and there we get upon more satisfactory as well as more familiar ground.

In the Septuagint the word aion is used as the constant equivalent of olam, and it is easy to ascertain the meaning of it therefore at the time this translation was made. Olam is not the life of a man, and the Homeric significance of aion is not found. Olam is undoubtedly more often used for a limited time than for eternity. We have seen indeed that the Old Testament in general gives us only the shadows of what are eternal things. And the shadows are necessarily transient and to pass away. Yet to these the term is constantly applied. The covenant with Noah is a covenant of olam; and not less so the Mosaic statutes and ordinances, although these plainly were to pass away. So also even the "men of old" are "men of olam"; "the ancient landmark" is the "landmark of olam"; Israel's yoke had been "broken from olam," and so repeatedly.* Now, in none of these cases do we find a parallel to the limitations which the nature of things in all languages imposes on the term "forever," and which yet leave it its full significance elsewhere. An ancient landmark is not a landmark which had been there as long as in the nature of things it could; and so as to the rest. And such examples are numerous. By no process of fair dealing then can olam (or aion in its use in the Septuagint) be said necessarily to mean eternity.

{* Gen. 6: 4; Prov. 22: 28; Jer. 2: 20. It is rendered "old" or "of old" or "in old time," in Deut. 32: 7; Joshua 24: 2; Job. 22: 15; Prov. 23: 10; Ecc. 1: 10; Isa. 46: 9; Isa. 47: 11; Isa. 58: 12; Isa. 61: 4; etc.}

But again, it is used in the plural, where we can scarcely translate it otherwise than by "ages": Ps. 77: 5, "the years of ancient times" are "the years of ages"; Isa. 51: 9, "the generations of old" are the "generations of ages." Here the same remarks as before, and not less forcibly, apply.

Moreover, there is in the Old Testament a way of expressing absolute eternity, which seems fully to recognize the inadequacy of olam definitely to express it by itself. This is by the addition to it of a word which may be taken as "and yet": "for the olam and yet,"* showing that beyond the olam there is a conception of time possible and actual. This phrase occurs some fourteen times in the Old Testament, and in one instance only it may have a more limited meaning, Ps. 104: 5, and here really limited by the nature of that to which it is applied.**

{*Dr. Tayler Lewis speaks of it thus in Lange's Ecclesiastes: Ad "is transition to, arrival, and going beyond — a passing beyond still further, on and on. Thus it becomes a name for eternity, as in those remarkable expressions, Isa. 9: 5, abi ad, poorly rendered everlasting Father,' and shochen ad, 'inhabiting eternity,' Isa. 57: 15; with which compare Hab. 3: 6, Gen. 49: 26, and Isa. 45: 17, where we have the same word as noun and preposition — the mountains of ad, the progenitors of ad — to the ages of ad: to the ages to which other ages are to be added indefinitely. Hence, the preposition sense to, making it significantly, as well as etymologically, equivalent to the Latin ad et, the Greek eti, Saxon at and to, in all which there is this sense of arrival and transition. The idea becomes most vivid and impressive in this Hebrew phrase, "forever and yet."

**The other passages are: — Ex. 15: 18; Ps. 10: 16; Ps. 21: 4; Ps. 45: 6, 17; Ps. 48: 14; Ps. 52: 8; Ps. 119: 44; Ps. 145: 1, 2, 21; Dan. 12: 3; Micah 4: 5.}

This then gives us the sense (so far as the Septuagint goes) of both aeon and aeonial: for "aeonial" is the word they use in such cases as those where in Hebrew would be found the noun olam with a governing preposition. A "covenant of olam" becomes thus an "aeonial covenant," and the "landmark of olam," the "aeonial landmark." No one can avoid the conclusion, as it would seem, that olam and aeon in the Septuagint, may very properly be taken to mean "age," and that aeonial in the same way means "belonging to the age, or ages."

Here Dr. Beecher stops short in his inquiry, and does not follow it into the New Testament. Nor does he sufficiently recognize the fact that after all there are passages in which olam can scarcely stand for less than eternity, and that aion is therefore already used in the Septuagint in this way.* His examination is imperfect, and his statement partial. The former he does not carry far enough to decide the question, and yet leaves the full force of what he has brought forward to bear upon the decision of the meaning of the word as used by the Lord as to the condemnation of the wicked hereafter. This is scarcely candid. It is true he warns us at the beginning that he does not propose to discuss this question of eternal retribution, but he does unavoidably produce an impression by the partial investigation he has made. Nay, he would actually settle the point as far as concerns the meaning of the words "eternal" punishment, and "everlasting" fire. We may fairly demand of him, why he has omitted what is absolutely necessary to the mere philological inquiry even? and why the question of these words should be more difficult to settle in the New Testament than it is in the Old? Nor only so, but as he has shown us that the word aion did get to mean "eternity," and was used for it by Plato and others before the time of our Lord, it was surely above all necessary to see whether the New Testament might not use the word in some similar way.

{*The very first use of both shows this: Gen. 3: 22; and see Deut. 32: 40; Ps. 9: 7; Ps. 33: 11; Ps. 90: 2; Ps. 92: 8; Ps. 102: 12; Ps. 135: 13, etc.}

Dr. Beecher, however, has not done this, and from this point we must go on without him. We have presented the arguments and conclusions to which he and others have come, fully, and (we think) impartially. We shall seek the final solution now where only we can find it, and where he has not ventured yet.

27 - The New Testament Solution of the Question

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 27.

The New Testament Solution of the Question

In the New Testament we find aion over and over again translated "world," and not badly, if we only think of worlds in time instead of worlds in space, but more intelligible to us if rendered "age." The "end of the world" in Matt. 13, 24, Matt. 28: 20 is thus in all these places "the completion of the age." In Heb. 9: 26, it is "the completion of the ages." So we have "this world" and "the world to come," "the children of this world," "the princes of this world," and similar expressions frequently. So again we have "ages to come," as we have ages completed, and can look back to a time before these ages began.*

{* Matt. 12: 32, Luke 18: 30, Luke 20: 34, 1 Cor. 2: 6, Eph. 2: 7, Col. 26, 1 Cor. 2: 7 (before the ages).}

Thus Scripture everywhere recognizes the fact of these successive ages, surely not purposeless divisions of time, but each a step in the accomplishment of divine counsels. We have in fact the very expression, and to it we shall have again to return, "the purpose of the ages" (Eph. 3: 11). The ages, then, are dispensational periods, whose existence and character are not unimportant things for the student of the ways of Him whose "going forth have been from of old, from everlasting." It is to the "King of (these) ages" that the apostle therefore ascribes "glory unto the ages of ages" (1 Tim. 1: 17). Him they all serve in various harmony of the one everlasting anthem wherewith all His works praise Him their Maker.

Eternity in Scripture we need not wonder to find expressed in terms of these divinely constituted "ages." This is done in a number of different ways, hidden very much in our version by vague and dissimilar phraseology, which has little of the beauty and appropriateness of the inspired original. The word aion is used nearly eighty times in this way in the New Testament, and above seventy times the word aionios. We have thus nearly a hundred and fifty occurrences to test the Scripture use of these expressions. Surely we should be able to arrive at some satisfactory result.

Let us first look at the past ages. Of course from our point of view in time we can look at eternity as behind or before us. It is but one and the same eternity, of course; for there cannot in the nature of things be two: but to our conception there is a past and a future one. Let us gather up the expressions of the former first.

We find then that there are "ages" in the "ends" of which we are: for we read that "all these things happened unto them for types, and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world (literally, the ages) are come" (1 Cor. 10: 11). We may surely connect that with the passage before cited from Hebrews 9: 26, that "once at the completion of the ages hath (Christ) appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." These ages were the preparatory times of which we have been already thinking, when God by the ministry of condemnation and in other ways was shutting man up to the grace which Christ should show. Thus "when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly." This grace lay under the veil throughout these ages — there, but lacking full expression. The "ends of the ages" having come, that expression has been found; and thus the "types" of Israel's history, as well as the shadows of the law in a stricter sense, give to us their full weight of "admonition."

In Col. 1: 26 again, we hear of a mystery hidden "from ages and from generations," and in Eph. 3: 9 find a similar expression. There need be no doubt that here we have the self-same ages as before. Nor again, when Paul speaks of hidden wisdom "ordained before the ages, to our glory" (1 Cor. 2: 7).

These ages then are plainly finite, and so is the whole course of them; but we have two other expressions which are different from these. In them aion is used in the singular, and in one passage at least eternity must be meant. "Known unto God are all His works from aion" (Acts 15: 18), where we cannot say "from the age." In the other passages the expression may seem less decisive: God has "spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been from aion"; and similarly, "by the mouth of His holy prophets from aion" (Luke 1: 70; Acts 3: 21); but in neither case would "the age" do at all. What age? "From the beginning of the world" might suit the context, but would be no translation: and outside that beginning of the world is what? Surely, eternity. In this sense then "from eternity" would suit, and all the occurrences would be in harmony.

Once more a similar phrase occurs in the words of the man to whom the Lord gave sight (John 9: 32): "From the aion was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of the blind," and here again the meaning is simply "it never was heard." Thus wherever aion is used in these expressions it cannot be spoken of a particular age or dispensation, but seems invariably to imply eternity.

This is all we have relating to the past. As regards the future we have more and various phrases, which we may here again classify accordingly as aion is used in the singular or in the plural. The plural form we shall look at first as being the most simple. We have here three expressions: —

1. Simplest of all, in Jude 25, glory is ascribed to God "both now and to all the ages." There is plainly no reason to limit this.

2. More often we have, and less fully, "unto the ages." This occurs eight times. Six times in ascriptions of praise to God or to Christ (Matt. 6: 13; Rom. 1: 25; Rom. 9: 5; Rom. 11: 36; Rom. 16: 27; 2 Cor. 11: 31); once there is the statement Mr. Jukes relies on, and as to the force of which we shall presently inquire, — "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and to the ages" (Heb. 13: 8); and once it is said of Christ, that "He shall reign over the house of Jacob unto the ages" (Luke 1: 33). In none of these passages is there reason to question that a proper eternity is intended.

3. The third expression is a reduplicative form which plainly conveys a much greater impression of immensity: "to the ages of ages." And this is five times applied to the life of God Himself: He "liveth unto the ages of ages" (Rev. 4: 9, 10; Rev. 5: 14; Rev. 10: 6: Rev. 15: 7); once to the resurrection-life of Christ (Rev. 1: 18); once to the kingdom of "our Lord and His Christ" (Rev. 11: 15); once to the reign of the saints (Rev. 22: 5); ten times in ascriptions of glory to God (Gal. 1: 5; Phil. 4: 20; 1 Tim. 1: 17; 2 Tim. 4: 18; Heb. 13: 21; 1 Peter 4: 11; 1 Peter 5: 11; Rev. 1: 6; Rev. 5: 13; Rev. 7: 12); twice to the torment of the wicked (Rev. 14: 11; Rev. 20: 10); and once to the smoke of Babylon rising up forever (Rev. 19: 3). These last passages we shall have again before us, but if the duration of these ages is the measure of the risen life of Christ, yea of God Himself, surely its force cannot be questioned.

In all these cases the plural form impresses us with the sense of vastness and immensity. In the cases we have now to consider the use of the singular conveys the idea, of course, of unity. Here again we have various expressions.

1. A very singular one is "the aion of the aion," where it is the duration of the reign of the Son of God: "Thy throne, O God, is for the aion of the aion" (Heb. 1: 8), where we have the Septuagint rendering of the expression before noted as the Hebrew one for proper eternity (olam vaed). Here then it does seem that aion must, even in the Septuagint, have this later but acknowledged sense. Plato has it it is owned; and Philo also an Alexandrian Jew, from the very birth-place of the Septuagint, although of a somewhat later date. Here the expression is used for eternity, and we can only translate "for the age (or perhaps, course*) of eternity." We have seen a similar use of aion for the past (Acts 15: 18).

{* Aion is thus used in Eph. 2: 2, "according to the course of this world."}

2.  Again, we have an ascription of glory to Christ, "for the day of eternity" (aion) (2 Peter 3: 18). Here once more a limited meaning can scarce be contended for.

3. Again, in Eph. 3: 21, we find, "Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus unto all the generations of the age of the ages." Here no one, I suppose, would doubt eternity to be meant. It may define what "age" is meant when aion is used alone it is the "age" of the ages, the age in which all ages are summed up.

4. But the most common expression of all is that for which no more suited rendering can be found than "forever" — for the aion. It is used twenty-eight times; and not in a single instance can it be proved to have a limited sense. It too is used for the duration of the life of Christ (John 12: 34); of the abiding of the Spirit of God with His people (John 14: 16); of Christ's priesthood (Heb. 7); the enduring of the word of God (1 Peter 1: 23), and of the doer of His will (1 John 2: 17); and of the believer's righteousness (2 Cor. 9: 9). It is used too for the duration of the portion of the ungodly, "blackness of darkness forever" (Jude 13, 2 Peter 2: 17).

Amid all this varied phraseology not one passage can be Shown where our common translation gives some equivalent of "forever," in which less than eternity can be proved to be meant. Mr. Clemance has indeed said: "An aeon may have an end. Aeons of aeons may have an end. Only that which lasts through all the aeons is without an end, and Scripture affirms this only of the kingdom of God, and of the glory of God in the church."* Canon Farrar quotes this with approbation; but he has not attempted to produce a single New Testament passage that I can find, to prove the opposite of my assertion here. Instead of this, he goes to the Old Testament for his proof, and of course quotes olam instead of aion. This amounts to a confession that the New Testament will not serve his purpose. Would he not have produced its testimony, if he could?

{* Future Punishment, p. 86, quoted in the preface to Eternal Hope.}

Dr. Beecher, too, as we have seen, avoids the New Testament. Mr. Oxenham in his letter has nothing to say concerning these expressions. Mr. Jukes, however,* comes boldly forward, as we have seen, with a distinct statement as to the nature and duration of these ages to come. To his views, therefore, we must direct our attention.

{*And Mr. Cox, "Salvator Mundi," ch. 5, 6.}

The substance of them we have given before in his own words. The ages, he believes, are periods in which God is working in grace to meet and correct the effect of the fall. His rest is beyond them, not in them, when the mediatorial kingdom of Christ, which is for the ages of ages, is given up, and Christ, the Worker of the divine purpose in them, goes back to the glory which He had before the age-times, that God may be all in all. Throughout these ages Christ is a Saviour needed and found, as much as "yesterday" and "today."

Now we have seen that over and over again it is asserted of God, that He "liveth for the ages of the ages," and so, too, of Christ as risen from the dead. Will Mr. Jukes say that His "behold, I am alive for the ages of ages" is not meant to convey the thought of the English version, "I am alive for evermore"? or that "God, who liveth for the ages of ages" means "God who liveth for the time during which He is showing grace"?

Again, glory is over and over again ascribed to God for the ages of ages or the age of ages, and not once (according to this view of the matter) for a proper eternity at all! How beyond measure strange that there should be no glimpse beyond these ages, during which the smoke of torment never ceases! How strange that just when that long, lingering purgation shall have come to an end, — when praise should be most rapturous, and joy complete, — that just then we should come to the end of all that Scripture contemplates of joy or praise, or the very life of God Himself, and not a note be heard, not a ray of glory shine out of the impenetrable eternity beyond! Who can believe this? Who can seriously claim it as a thing to be believed?

But we are told that Scripture itself thus speaks of the "purpose of the ages."* The phrase occurs, Eph. 3: 11, as the Greek of what in our version is "eternal purpose." But what is this purpose, as Scripture, not the Restitutionist, declares it? Is it not, so far as given in the passage produced, "the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the purpose of the ages"? There is no mention here of other beings than the angels and the church; the time for the wisdom of God to be thus made known is "now." Can Mr. Jukes show how this speaks of the recovery to God of those in an after-time cast into hell? If he can, at least he has not done it.

{*So also Cox (Salv. Mun., p. 107): "In his epistle to the Ephesians he both expressly names God's determination to save men by Christ [all men?] 'the purpose of the ages,' the end that was to be wrought out through all the successions of time; and distinctly asserts that this redeeming work will take ages for its accomplishment." Ages to come? Where?}

But then "Christ's mediatorial kingdom is for the ages of ages, and after these are finished, He delivers it up." Let us see what is the truth of this.

Now sitting upon the Father's throne as Son of God, and having "all authority in heaven and earth," He comes as Son of man in glory to take His own throne as such,* It is plainly this kingdom which He delivers up to the Father (according to 1 Cor. 15: 24-28), having accomplished the purpose for which He took it. He reigns, says the apostle — until when? "Till He hath put all enemies under His feet." Is that conversion? If it is, words have no meaning. No; it is the subjecting by power those who could not be subdued by grace. Death is among these enemies, and "death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed." When? When death and hell (hades), having delivered up their dead, shall be cast into the lake of fire. When Gehenna shall swallow up hades, and the second death put an end to the first (see Rev. 20: 13, 14). Then will the last enemy be destroyed, and all be under the feet of Christ. Then, therefore, will be the time when Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father.

{*Comp. Rev. 3: 21; Dan. 7: 13; Matt. 25: 31, etc.} shall be cast into the lake of fire. When Gehenna shall swallow up hades, and the second death put an end to the first (see Rev. 20: 13, 14). Then will the last enemy be destroyed, and all be under the feet of Christ. Then, therefore, will be the time when Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father.

But the ages of ages stretch on beyond this: for the torment for the ages of ages in the lake of fire begins even for the devil himself but at the close of the millennial reign (Rev. 20: 10). The kingdom which Christ takes to put down all enemies will be over. Death, the last enemy, will be destroyed. But the ages of ages roll on their unbroken course, and Christ's "reign for the ages of ages" will of course go on also.

It is a very common mistake Mr. Jukes has made, but it becomes a very serious one when made the foundation of a doctrine such as his. He has confounded the brief millennial reign in which Christ by power puts down His enemies with the everlasting reign of Christ as Son upon the Father's throne, which never can be given up. For faith He reigns now before that kingdom is come. All authority is His in heaven and earth. It will not cease to be His when that coming kingdom shall be delivered up to the Father, that God may be all in all.

And that coming rule, will it manifest as Mr. Jukes would intimate, a grace beyond the present — at least more prevailing grace than now? On the contrary, it is the rule of "THE ROD OF IRON,"* and the effect as to His enemies, not their being won by the grace of the gospel, but "dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel."

{* Ps. 2: 8, 9; Rev. 2: 26, 27.}

Now in Rev. 11: 15, to which Mr. Jukes refers, it is indeed said, "The world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ has come," and this does of course refer to the setting up of what is called the millennial kingdom; but it is looked at (in a very intelligible way) as the setting up of an authority which will never cease, a divine kingdom, "the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ," and so, when it is added, "and He shall reign for the ages of ages," this does not affect the truth that the mere human form of the kingdom will be given up. "He shall reign forever and ever." Though He leave the human throne to sit upon the divine, still "He shall reign." It is the everlasting paean rightly then begun.

Certain it is that if as man He reign till all enemies be under His feet, and then deliver up the kingdom to the Father, and if death be the last enemy destroyed, then the ages of ages of torment begin for most from this point, instead of ending here. And Christ's reign for the ages of ages cannot end here either.

Thus Mr. Jukes' foundation is swept away. Another text upon which he relies, there, is not even so plausible an excuse for misinterpreting. For when the apostle speaks of "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for the ages" (Heb. 13: 8), he is certainly connecting this either with the faith of the Christian leaders,* of which he has spoken in the verse before, or with the "divers and strange doctrines" of the verse after, or with both. He is either showing the unchangeableness of Christ, as answering the confidence of His disciples' faith, or else that He is ever the same, to rebuke the divers and strange doctrines. In either case, there is no question of His being the Saviour of those who have rejected His salvation; and to translate the name by which His people know Him, in order to insist upon His being an Anointed Saviour to those who on the contrary refuse and reject His salvation, — is nothing less than bold perversion of a blessed truth.

{* hegoumenoi, "guides."}

Mr. Jukes' views on this point need not then detain us longer. But we have yet to consider the word aionios, "aeonial," or eternal.

And it is here that we find the full phalanx of opposition to the commonly accepted meaning of the terms. Canon Farrar and Mr. Oxenham here make their stand, not perceiving that the battle is already gone against them irrecoverably. Messrs. Minton, Roberts, and others, their opponents in doctrine, coincide with them. But an answer to one will be at the same time an answer to all the rest.

Aionios, as derived from aion, of course gets its meaning from this also. We have seen that aion has two meanings in the New Testament: one, that of "age" or dispensation, the other, of eternity in the commonly understood sense. We may expect then that aionios will reflect this double sense. And we shall find our anticipations verified by the fact. Let us first listen, however, to Dr. Farrar.

"I now come," he says, in the preface to his book, "Eternal Hope," "to aionios, translated rightly and frequently by 'eternal,' and wrongly and unnecessarily by 'everlasting.' I say wrongly on grounds which cannot be impeached. If in numbers of passages this word does not and cannot mean 'endless,' — a fact which none but the grossest and most helpless ignorance can dispute, — it cannot be right to read that meaning into the word, because of any a priori bias, in other passages. All scholars alike admit that in many places aion can only mean 'age,' and aionios only 'age-long,' or (in the classic sense of the word) secular, which is often equivalent to 'indefinite.' Many scholars who have a good right to be heard, deny that it ever necessarily means 'endless' though it is predicted of endless things."*

{*Doctors differ. Mr. Oxenham in his "Letter" says "that 'endless' was one of (its) senses NO ONE THINKS OF DENYING." Sect. 5, on Dr. Pusey's Sermon.}

In a note he gives as his authority, so far as the New Testament is concerned, as to aion,* no reference, and as to  aionios three (Rom. 16: 25; 2 Tim. 1: 9; Titus 1: 2). He adds, "He who said aionion pur (eternal fire) used the word a few hours after in a sense that had nothing to do with time (John 17: 3)."

{*By a clerical error aion, and aionios have changed places in the note.}

This sense he mentions in his sermon on hell as implying "something spiritual," — something above and beyond time,* as when the knowledge of God is said to be eternal life." He proceeds: — "So that when with your futile billions you foist into this word the fiction of endless time, you do but give the lie to the mighty oath of that great angel, who set one foot -upon the sea and one upon the land, and, with hand uplifted to heaven, swore by Him that liveth forever and ever, that time should be no more."**

{*Doctors differ here also. Mr. Cox, whose disciple Dr. Farrar mainly is, yet speaks on the other hand of aion and aionios as "words which, as I believe I can show you, so far from denoting that which is above time, or that which will outlast time, are saturated through and through with the thought and element of time" (Salvator Mundi, p. 100).

**Dr. Farrar shows how he can trifle with Scripture by admitting in a note that possibly this may mean, — as it most certainly does mean" that no further delay should intervene." If there be even a possibility of this, why argue (as above) from what is possibly ' not what he quotes?}

In his excursus upon the word, at the end of the book, he tells us that

"it is not worth while once more to discuss its meaning, when it has been so ably proved by so many writers that there is no authority whatever for rendering it 'everlasting,' and when even those who like Dr. Pusey are such earnest defenders of the doctrine of an endless hell, yet admit that the word only means 'endless within the sphere of its own existence,' so that on their own showing the word does not prove their point."

And he adds: —

"It may be worth while, however, once more to point out to less educated readers, that aion, aionios, and their Hebrew equivalents in all combinations, are repeatedly used of things which have come and shall come to an end. Even Augustine admits (what indeed no one can deny) that in Scripture aion, aionios must in many instances mean 'having an end,' and St. Gregory of Nyssa, who at least knew Greek, uses aionios as the epithet of an interval."

"That the adjective aionios is applied to some things which are 'endless' does not, of course, prove that the word itself meant endless and to introduce this meaning into many passages would be utterly impossible and absurd. . . . Our translators have naturally shrunk from such a phrase as 'the endless God.' The utter dearth of metaphysical knowledge renders most people incapable of realizing a condition which is independent of time — a condition which crushes eternity into an hour, and extends an hour into eternity. But the philosophic Jews and the greatest Christian Fathers were quite familiar with it. 'Aeon,' says Philo, 'is the life of God, and is not time, but the archetype of time, and in it there is neither past, present, nor future.'"

This is Dr. Farrar's whole argument. It is not all he says, of course; but it presents fully his thoughts. We may now compare his thoughts with Scripture.

And it is remarkable how little his appeal is to the New Testament. He refers largely to the Old, that is, to the Septuagint version, but as to the New, three passages of an exceptional character, in each of which occurs the phrase "aeonial times" constitute really his whole appeal! We have seen, too, that as to the phrases in the New Testament for "forever," etc., he does not venture one single appeal! This is the final result after so much erudite research, out of near one hundred and fifty passages to be consulted, one phrase recurring in three of them is produced

Dr. Farrar's will to produce more, if he could, need not be doubted. His learning is not for me to question. His mind is enlarged enough to apprehend that metaphysical eternity of which we shall have more to say by and by, but which the unmetaphysical part of mankind can so little realize, and which Dr. Beecher calls, somewhat otherwise interpreting the facts, "to common sense minds, nonsense." Yet after all, this is the result, after weighing (as we must give him credit for doing) one hundred and fifty passages, one phrase in three passages where aionios cannot mean "endless."

And let me put the force of that a little plainer; for it is a kind of argument we have before encountered in the mouth of some with whom Dr. Farrar would not perhaps like to be associated, but which needs to be made plain to be duly appreciated: —

Pneuma cannot be "spirit" in the first clause of John 3: 8; it ought not therefore to be "spirit" in the last part of the same verse.

Psuche is over and over again used for "life," where to translate it "soul" would be an impossibility. Therefore you cannot insist upon its being "soul" where the Lord speaks of man as being unable to kill it.

Let us put the parallel: —

Aionios cannot mean "endless" in a passage where it would read "endless times." Therefore it cannot mean this when God is spoken of as the "eternal God."

I can quite understand that Dr. Farrar will not own his argument in that shape, but its only shame with him is the shame of its nakedness. He has clothed it with fair words, which after all cannot prevent its halting badly.

Why does he not show us that aionios cannot mean "endless" in some of the passages in which we affirm it does, instead of taking up those in which we are as clear as he is that it does not? Why does he avoid the real issue, to create a false one? Dr. Farrar's animus evidently obscures his judgment, fatally to the argument he maintains. "Even Augustine," he tells us, "admits (what, indeed, no one can deny) that in Scripture, aion, aionios must in many instances MEAN having an end.'" I do not believe myself the only one, by some thousands at least, who would deny it. Nay, I must believe that it is merely careless writing when Dr. F. affirms this. Aionios never meant "having an end" yet, and none should know it better than himself. It is affirmed of things which have an end, and in those cases of course cannot mean "endless." No one will deny that: and that is all (I suppose) that he means to affirm.

A moment yet as to the Septuagint.

Dr. Farrar ignores the necessary change of meaning in words in lapse of time, and which Dr. Beecher's history of it (certainly from no point of view hostile to Dr. F.'s theory) so plainly shows as to the word in question. Even the Septuagint does not refuse the later meaning of aion by any means altogether, while the New Testament shows this later meaning almost superseding the earlier, as the time-sense in the Septuagint itself has superseded the earlier Homeric. It is well-nigh as vain to bring up the Septuagint to settle the case for the New Testament, as to bring up Homer to settle it for the Septuagint.

And, comparing the Old Testament with the New, where have you the leolam vaed* of the Hebrew reproduced in the Greek? That expression which does indeed imply a "beyond" to the olam is never used for the New Testament aion. Save only a word twice used (and where in one passage out of the two, people deny for it also that it means "everlasting"**) there is no other expression for this but aionios; no other for eternity but some phrase compounded of aion. The question is one of blotting or not every phrase for eternity out of Scripture.

{* Dr. Farrar takes even this term as not implying true eternity; but the one exception is merely a limitation from the nature of the thing spoken of, which in no wise shows a limitation elsewhere. If we speak even of the "everlasting" hills so often urged, does that make Dr. Farrar doubt what we mean by "everlasting"?

** Aidios, Rom. 1: 20; Jude 6.}

I beg Dr. Farrar's forgiveness, I must modify that statement. He will allow us to say "eternal" if only by that we do not mean "everlasting." But does not he know that we of the less learned see no difference between the two? Of course I do not dispute his right to go back to derivations and to speak of aevum or of aetas, as he will. The derivation of a word is one thing; its actual use is another. Do we use eternal in any other sense than everlasting really? As I have said, it really comes to this, that the expression (in the sense we have received) must disappear out of the English language — for aught I know, out of every other too, — as well as out of Scripture. Dr. Beecher will not let us have "everlasting" any more than Dr. Farrar will "eternal," and with just as good reason. So serious is the question. And we can only conclude that if learning and sense are so opposed as they seem to be, we may as well retain the latter and dismiss the former.

We might then perhaps as well return to simplicity and English, but we must not copy the example of those whom we have taxed with neglect of ascertaining the New Testament use of the word. We must seek ourselves to ascertain it; and out of 68 passages remaining to us, omitting the three produced by Dr. Farrar, we may surely discover the ordinary sense attaching to it.

But first, what of these three passages? what does the expression mean — "aeonial times"? Does "aeonial" there speak of limited duration? I think we may very fairly argue that it does not there speak of duration at all. "Times" is the word which there implies duration, and limited duration too, of course. Why then should another word be added to express the same thing?

That textual criticism deprecated so much by Dr. Farrar will help us here. We have before heard of a mystery "hidden from ages and generations," and now made manifest to the saints (Col. 1: 26), and we have seen that the ages here are those of preparation for Christ's coming, and closed by His death; so that now upon us the ends of the ages are come, and we have the full admonition of what happened unto them as types. A reference to Rom. 16: 26 will show that to these "aeonial" or "age-times" the apostle refers: times which had the character of "ages" or of dispensations. This is what "aeonial" here signifies: not the limited duration of the times, which as "times" are necessarily limited, but their being special, divinely constituted, times.

Aeonial here then strictly means "belonging to the ages": it gets its meaning from the first sense of aion. But inasmuch as aion has the sense of eternity as well, we may expect to find it also signifying "eternal," "belonging to the age of ages." Let us see how far we can prove this meaning to be in aionios, and how far general in the New Testament this meaning is.

Now, one very plain passage, one would think, to show that it means "eternal," is that in which it is contrasted with what is temporal: "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4: 18). Here limitless duration must be the contrast with the limited.

With this the "eternal weight of glory" of the verse preceding must be connected; and also "the house eternal in the heavens" of the following one.

So again in Philemon 15 the apostle writes: "For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldst receive him forever (aionion auton apekes) . . . a brother beloved;" and here the limited duration expressed in aionios is again contrasted with the limited "for a season."

Thus simply is it proved to have the sense "eternal." And why then should its force be doubted when we have it applied to God, to His "power" and "glory," to the "Spirit," to the kingdom of Christ, to the saints' "life," "inheritance," "habitations," "salvation," "redemption"? And this covers all the occurrences in the New Testament save those relating to the future judgment, and two others perhaps somewhat less decisive. Of these the "everlasting covenant" we need not doubt to be strictly such, only referring to the past, in our human way of speaking, the "covenant from everlasting"; while "the everlasting gospel" gives us a case of necessary limitation by the subject to which the term is applied, and which our English words, while incontestable as to their meaning, equally admit.

I do not see how the New Testament could give us much more assurance of "aeonial" being (save where necessarily limited by the subject) "eternal" in the fullest sense.

But Dr. Farrar believes this is only because of "the utter dearth of metaphysical knowledge" which renders us "incapable of realizing a condition which crushes eternity into an hour, and extends an hour into eternity." We doubt sincerely if Dr. Farrar can realize it. "Eternity crushed into an hour," and that when time is eliminated from the thought, we believe to be simply a very gross absurdity. How can what is not time at all be "crushed into an hour"? And how can an hour which is "time," be extended into an eternity which is not? Perhaps we should get on no better with Philo and the Christian "fathers." We do think there is more of Plato than of Scripture in their thoughts as to this, and perhaps it is this at bottom which makes Dr. Farrar reject the New Testament "ages of ages" as being the true expression of eternity; for here, in pity to our human faculties it may be, but still the element of time is not eliminated from the idea of eternity; eternity is just illimitable time. And we may thank God He does not write merely for metaphysicians, but for "babes."

But then again we read that aionios "is in its second sense something 'spiritual' — something above and beyond time, — as when the knowledge of God is said to be eternal life." Does Dr. Farrar really mean that "eternal" here signifies "spiritual"? Or does he mean to refer it to that metaphysical eternity which may be crushed into an hour and be eternity all the same? If it be the latter I have said all that is needful; if the former, I scarcely need reply. Why should not aionios be "something" holy, because "eternal life" is that; or anything else almost by the substitution of which the obnoxious sense of eternity may be most thoroughly blotted out?

28 - The New Testament Scriptures as to the Judgment of the World

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 28.

The New Testament Scriptures as to the Judgment of the World

We are now free to enter upon the New Testament, unembarrassed by the questions which would otherwise divert us too far from the study of the special texts which we shall now have to consider. And in order to pursue our study of the subject with more clearness, we shall first seek to separate from the texts which speak of final judgment those which speak of the judgment of the living when the Lord appears.

We have already looked at this from the side of the Old Testament, as it is indeed a point of main concern throughout it. But the New Testament, while going beyond the Old as far as the literal sense extends, does not by any means lose sight of the coming judgment at the appearing of the Lord. The millennial blessing as to the earthly part of it is indeed very briefly touched on, and the blessings in heavenly places are substituted for this, Christian promises instead of Jewish ones. And in accordance with this the judgment corning on the earth is more a solemn warning to the impenitent and unbelieving, than as connected with the hope of the saints themselves.

The Jewish promises being earthly, necessarily, for those who are to inherit them, the earth must be delivered from what defiles and destroys it. Israel's foes must be put down with the strong hand of power, that they may be nationally saved, and inherit the earth. Christians, on the other hand, rightly expect to be with the Lord in heaven in the Father's house according to His promise (John 14: 1-3). Their part in the millennial kingdom is to reign over the earth with Christ, but this is not to be confounded with living on it.

It is not, of course, possible here to dwell upon the points in controversy between so-called pre-millennialists, and the advocates of a merely spiritual reign. Still it will be found that the connection of truth is everywhere so intimate in Scripture that a wrong view as to the millennium may confuse many an otherwise clear passage of the gravest importance as to the present question. As already said, the putting off the Lord's coming to the end of the millennium confounds together two wholly different epochs of judgment. But what has been already urged as to this must suffice us now. The texts which apply to the judgment of the living in the New Testament in general present no special difficulty.

(1.) First, in the Baptist's words we have Israel, I doubt not, purged by judgment at the coming of the Lord. "He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." It is a figure of judgment wholly inconsistent with hope for those condemned as "chaff." Annihilationists would naturally claim it as a figure of utter destruction, and so it is. But then a figure and what it figures are as different things as here the "chaff" is from the men compared to them. This is what these writers constantly ignore. They argue from the literal effect of material fire as if the fire, the thing subject to it, and the effect itself were not all in some respects as much contrasted as compared. Material destruction is not a FIGURE of material destruction. It must figure something else.

Not of course its spiritual opposite: and here it is that universalism of all grades so completely fails. Material destruction cannot figure spiritual restoration. It is wholly and absolutely opposed to this. But it figures spiritual destruction on the other hand, and not material; and here annihilationism of all grades fails as completely.

When God's wrath is the fire and man its object, who can argue that the necessary effect will be his material destruction? Certainly it must be argued at least on some other ground than this. And this has been attempted accordingly, Isa. 57: 16 being quoted in the random and careless way, I must say not unusual with them, to show that "the spirit would fail before" His constant anger, "and the souls that He had made." But this is said, in the style of the Old Testament which we have before insisted on at length, of death as the effect upon mortal man here, and has no reference to that judgment which is beyond death itself. The argument is therefore inadmissible.

I have shown before what man's utter destruction is. It is his perishing from the place for which he was naturally made and fitted, and this by the wrath of God because of sin: this solemn judgment it is that may find its figure in the chaff burned in the fire. No material destruction can be argued from it.

Here the perishing even from the earth may be intended, for a similar figure is often used in the Old Testament when God's wrath takes away living men, And to the judgment of the living the words here apply. Yet in this case eternal judgment is so closely connected with it, that I see no use in separating between them.

(2.)In Matt. 22: 13 we are again warned of the judgment at the Lord's coming. The time is when the king comes in to see the guests invited and presenting themselves at the marriage-feast. The scene is earthly: no guest will find his way into heaven and be turned out. But here there is no figure even of destruction. The judgment is, "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." I need only refer to a similar picture in Matt. 8: 12.

Here "darkness" is not annihilation, even in figure. There can be none as punishment where there is no eye to behold light if it were there. In ch. 25: 30 the unprofitable servant is adjudged to the same thing; and in Jude 13, we shall find it again in stronger language used for an eternal doom.

(3.) I pass over the separation of the sheep from the goats, because although it is really the judgment of living people when Christ comes, the terms of it connect it plainly with the final judgment. We shall examine it therefore in another place. Luke 19: 27 again refers to the Lord's coming, and presents no difficulty.

(4.) Luke 20: 18 is again one of those pictures in which material destruction figures another thing. I need scarcely repeat what I have just now said about a parallel case.

(5.) We may pass on now to 2 Thess. 1: 7-9, upon which we shall dwell somewhat longer. It manifestly speaks of a time "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints," etc.

Mr. Dobney has the most fully of all writers that I know examined this passage in behalf of annihilationism. I shall therefore follow his argument as to it. He brings Whitby and Macknight forward to show that the "literal sense" appeared so manifestly the true one to these expositors that even they "had to adopt it to the fullest extent their mental philosophy would allow," and admit that the "utter destruction of the bodies [of the wicked] without any hope of their regaining new bodies" is involved in the passage. And Mr. D. presses that "beyond dispute, the sinner in his entireness can be destroyed literally and if the word has any literal force at all in this passage, it comes in all its tremendous fulness against the whole man, and not merely against a part of his nature."*

{* Scripture Doct. of Fut. Punishment, pp. 216, 217.}

Now here is an instance of the value of a little knowledge of what the Bible says as to the close of the present order of things. Had Dr. Whitby been a pre-millennialist instead of being as opposed to it as it is well known he was, he would have understood the absolute impossibility of "everlasting destruction" being what he would make it. For the passage says plainly that this takes place at Christ's appearing, — before the millennium therefore, and more than a thousand years before the resurrection of the wicked. In this last all the dead not raised at the first resurrection are to rise. It is impossible then that these could have been (in that sense) eternally destroyed, and so never to rise, a thousand years before. To any one who holds therefore to a true millennium, and Christ's coming before it, this text alone should be decisive that "everlasting destruction" is not annihilation. Thus error is linked with error, and truth with truth.

I need not follow Mr. Dobney in his further remarks upon the expression "from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," as I do not take this to mean "away from." I am quite content to accept Mr. Hudson's reference to "the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord" as a parallel instance of the use of that phrase. In either case the "presence of the Lord" is what brings whether the judgment or the blessing. But I cannot allow so easily his remarks upon "everlasting." I believe with his Eclectic reviewer that "the apostle in speaking of everlasting destruction, means to describe something which has continuance as a state of suffering, and not extinction of being."

But I must be permitted to state my own reason for this, which is outside all Mr. Dobney's argument. For, supposing this awful penalty to be inflicted after resurrection, "destruction" alone would be sufficient (if a material destruction) to convey the whole thought, and the addition of "everlasting" would be redundant. Annihilation would be, after resurrection, necessarily everlasting, for there is no repetition of resurrection, and "everlasting annihilation" has no proper sense. If before resurrection, then, as I have said, the resurrection afterwards would sufficiently show it was not "everlasting."

I have shown besides that "destruction" is not what Mr. D. and his associates mean by it.

(6.) In the next chapter we have another judgment which takes place at the same time, but the special destruction of the "wicked one." Without entering too much into particulars, which would divert us too from our present aim, it is evident that we have in this "wicked one" a person exalting himself above God, and claiming to be God Himself, and whom "the Lord Jesus shall consume with the breath (pneuma) of His mouth, and annul (katargesei) with the manifestation (or appearing) of His presence (epiphaneia tes parousias). The words are a partial quotation from Isa. 11: "and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him; . . . . with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked (one)." If any one doubt who or what is in question here, let him follow on this quotation, and he will find a familiar picture of millennial days when "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb," and also Israel and Judah be brought from the four corners of the earth and finally united together.

Thus we have, both in Isaiah and Thessalonians, a pre-millennial judgment of this" wicked one." In the latter we are distinctly told it is at the appearing of Christ's presence. Words could hardly more emphatically declare a personal, not a merely spiritual, coming. The wicked one is then to be "consumed" and "annulled," in the day when the rod of iron shall smite (and yet to heal) the earth.

Now, if we turn for a moment to Rev. 19, we shall find there (as I have before briefly argued) Christ's coming to the earth. It follows the marriage of the Lamb in heaven; and upon the white-horsed warriors who follow their Head and Lord we see the same white linen which before clothed the bride, and which is interpreted for us as the "righteousness of saints" (ver. 8). It is a figure of course, but a very intelligible figure, of Christ's appearing with His saints; and, as the sword out of His mouth to smite the nations answers on the one hand to Isaiah's "rod of His mouth," so among the objects of the judgment we have two leaders, one of which (it does not matter for our purpose which) is generally allowed to be "the wicked one." Indeed, it seems hardly possible for one who believes in any harmonious interpretation of the word of God to doubt this. The history of the beast and false prophet is given in the 13th and 17th chapters of the book, in close correspondence with what is said in Thessalonians, and there could hardly be a third person at the same time on earth, who could take the place that these do.

But what then is the "consumption," or "annulling," or even "slaying" (putting to death) of this wicked one? "These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone," and there they are found still alive a thousand years afterwards!

We shall have to return to this again. But here at least how fully evident that to be "consumed," "annulled," and "put to death," even, when applied to the final judgment of the wicked, do not mean material destruction or annihilation at all. Let Mr. Constable and others, instead of indulging in a priori reasoning as to the force of the words, only examine the interpretation of them by the facts of Scripture, and they will soon have indisputable proof that the general sense of Christendom has not been so far astray as to these common words of not very recondite meaning. Nor are they badly suited to convey just what they have conveyed to generations of at least ordinary intelligence as to the every day speech they used.

I do not know of any other passages referring to the judgment of the living which can cause any difficulty, save one which has been reserved for future consideration.

29 - The Resurrection of Judgment

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 29.

The Resurrection of Judgment

The Lord, in the 5th chapter of the gospel of John, declares as distinct the "resurrection of life" and "the resurrection of judgment." I have before noticed that the word "damnation" in this place (as in ver. 24, the word "condemnation") is the ordinary word for "judgment."

Dr. Farrar, it is well known, has raised the question as to whether the former word and its cognates really occur at all in the New Testament. I should agree with him entirely in discarding them in favor of a consistent rendering of the Scripture words all through.* But he means that this should go a good deal further, and evidently to expunge, if possible, the thought of what we now mean by "damnation" from Scripture along with the word. But "damnation" is only eternal judgment, in the true (not his) sense of "eternal," and "eternal judgment" is asserted in the fullest way. And when he tells us that the "judgment of Gehenna" is "something utterly different" from the "damnation of hell," we must entirely differ from him: but this will come up anon. The fact is that the unutterably solemn meaning now attaching to damnation has only grown out of the impression which that eternal judgment has made upon those who believed the Scripture statements.**

{* In such passages as 1 Cor. 11: 29, 1 Tim. 5: 12, Rom. 14: 23, the ordinary rendering is impossible and misleading, as he rightly urges.

**Mr. Cox objects, that if any "take the 'judgment' of God as equivalent to 'damnation,' that can only be because they conceive of the divine judgments as though they were confined to the future life, whereas the Scriptures constantly affirm that God judges all men, good and bad, every day and all day long; and because they wholly misapprehend the character of the divine Judge and Father" (Salv. Mun., p. 51, Amer. edit.).

It is Mr. Cox who does not apprehend the difference between the judgment of the Father, now for our profit, and the judgment of the day in which "the Father judgeth no man." The two are contrasted by the apostle: "The time is come that judgment must begin at the home of God: and, if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?And, if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear '" (1 Peter 4: 17, 18; compare 1 Peter 1: 17, 18; John 5: 22-24; 1 Cor. 11: 31, 32).

But God's judgment has with Mr. Cox no such meaning as would bring terror to an ungodly soul. Of a sensualist living prosperously in the world he asks, "Where is the judgment of God' Where is it? Why, there in the man himself, and in his base content with a lot so base"! (S. M., p. 92).}

But in some places "damnation" is even inferior in force to that word "judgment," apparently so much less strong. In that before us for instance its use has obscured the solemn reality that none can come personally into judgment before God, except to be condemned. This is everywhere what Scripture asserts, and here with a force perhaps little less than that of any. For it is only "they that have done evil" who come forth to a "resurrection of judgment" at all. How plainly this should tell us that the saints cannot be numbered among those spoken of as raised for judgment according to their works before the "great white throne" (Rev. 20: 11-15).

Yet this very passage in the gospel has been assumed to prove a general resurrection of saints and sinners together, because it is said "the hour cometh in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth," etc.; while a simple comparison of three verses before this would demonstrate that the "hour" in which the Son of God has been quickening dead souls has lasted now eighteen hundred years from the time He spoke. The Lord merely asserts here the general fact that all shall hear His voice, while He contrasts in the most absolute way the character of the two resurrections to which He summons them.

People imagine that but one obscure passage (which is not obscure however) in a book of visions is the only one which can be brought forward for a "first resurrection" of the righteous, whereas in fact almost every passage that speaks of resurrection infers it in some shape. There is even a special phrase for it, "the resurrection out from the dead" (ek nekron), as to which the disciples (who knew well the general truth of resurrection) inquired "what the rising from the dead should mean" (Mark 9: 10). It was of this special resurrection the Lord spoke, when in answer to the Sadducees He said that "they which shall be counted worthy to obtain that world" — the world to come, — "and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels: and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke 20: 34-36). How could people be "counted worthy" to obtain a general resurrection which no one can lose? or be the children of God as being the children of a general resurrection?

Then again, where the apostle is expressly speaking of the order of the resurrection, he gives it as, "Christ the first fruits; afterward, they that are Christ's at His coming." What more misleading, if all were to rise at the same time?

Once more, in 1 Thess. 4: 16, when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, we are told, "the dead in Christ shall rise first," then the living saints be changed, and all caught up together to meet the Lord in the air; and this before He appears to the world at all: for "when Christ who is our Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3: 4).

The passage in Revelation moreover is not obscure. We have a vision; then the interpretation of the vision. "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls* of them that had been 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, nor in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished." This is the vision: and so simple in character that the interpretation repeats much of it over again. "This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: upon such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."

{*Dr. Carson, in a violent attack, more suo, on pre-millennialism, has urged against literal resurrection, that we cannot say, "the souls of" people, without meaning literal souls. But it is an entire mistake as we have seen long ago. It is a very common Hebraism.}

Thus the millennium is literally such, and the resurrection is literal, for these are given in the interpretation of the vision, not the vision itself. And, after the thousand years are over accordingly, we see the rest of the dead rise, and here plainly is the "resurrection of judgment," in which by that very fact the saints can have no part. All is thus consistent, clear, and intelligible. For all is true.

There is little said as to the resurrection of the unjust in Scripture. The fact is affirmed. The nature of it is nowhere spoken of. It would seem therefore the only possible thing to say nothing about it. But as Mr. Constable proclaims it a point "of prime consequence" to know the unrevealed, and has written rather a long chapter upon it in his work so often cited,* we must needs follow him into the darkness. His arguments apply so little really to the view of things which we have taken, that we need dwell comparatively on very few of them.

{* Nature and Duration of Future Punishment, ch. 8.}

He first of all professes his firm belief in the resurrection of the wicked, but holds that they are raised to die again. Here he is opposed to Scripture as we have seen. In Scripture resurrection is the final end of death, for "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." He, on the contrary, holds that the bodies of the wicked are raised, "still natural bodies as they were sown, resuming with their old life their old mortality, as such subject to pain, and as such sure to yield to that of which all pain is the symptom and precursor, physical death and dissolution." He rests this conclusion "mainly on the supposition that no change passes upon them at their resurrection . . . if no change passes upon them they must needs yield to the bitter pains which accompany the second death."

He urges that the "Augustinian theorists" admit this, and so have to affirm immortality and incorruption of the wicked as raised. They therefore have to apply the language of 1 Cor. 15, where the corruptible puts on incorruption and the mortal immortality, to the resurrection of the ungodly; and when asked upon what grounds they do so, they answer that there cannot be a resurrection without a change. This he disproves by referring to Lazarus and others, and as to 1 Cor. 15 insists that it applies only to the resurrection of the just.

He then turns aside for a short time to show that the resurrection of the just is the only one which is a fruit of redemption; and if Christ says, "I am the resurrection and the life," He thus proclaims Himself the source of the "ressurrection of life" alone. Mr. Constable identifies then (as we have done) the resurrection from the dead with this, and further states that the quickening of the mortal body is exclusively confined in Scripture to the just, especially referring in proof to the "if" of Rom. 8: 11: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Thus "the resurrection of the just is the fruit of redemption: the resurrection of the unjust has nothing to say to it . . . Christ came to give no fatal gift which should force everlasting existence upon myriads who asked not for it, and would shun it with all their hearts."

Thus the resurrection of the wicked being no part of redemption, Paul could not, in 1 Cor. 15, include it at all. This he proceeds to prove at length, but, as we fully believe it, there is no need to follow him in his proof. He concludes that the change to incorruption in the case of the wicked is essential to the theory of everlasting misery; and, since there are no grounds for holding this change, the theory which requires it falls to the ground.

Thus an immense argument is built up upon the two props of ignorance and supposition. Mr. Constable occupies a number of pages with what we have reduced to perhaps three times the number of lines, for reasons already stated, but we have given the substance. There are two or three considerations which hinder our acceptance of his argument.

We grant fully that the resurrection of the just is distinct in character from the resurrection of the unjust; and that it is the former alone which is the fruit of Christ's redemptive work. We shall have more to say of this when we examine, as we hope to do, Mr. Birks' view. We fully believe also that the resurrection described in 1 Cor. 15, does not include in any way that of the wicked. "it is raised in power," "it is raised in glory," "it is raised a spiritual body," could not apply to any but "the just." Mr. Constable is wrong, however, upon one point: for the "change" the apostle speaks of is not said of the risen saints, but of those who are alive and remaining when Christ comes. "The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we" — the living — "shall be changed. For this corruptible (applying to the dead) shall put on in-corruption; and this mortal (referring to the living) shall put on immortality." Mortality cannot be affirmed of the dead, and here certainly, as in 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17, the two classes are recognized. The "change" applies to the living alone.

We dissent from Mr. Constable's view of the matter, in the first place, because his argument proves too much. If the wicked are to be raised in a condition of mortality, it is of course impossible that they could exist forever, that is, in the body. But it is equally impossible that they could exist for "the ages of ages," as to which certainly Scripture affirms their torment. He must reduce these indeed to a minimum in order to harmonize them with his theory. Nay, more, a resurrection which is a mere restoration to a present condition involves certain things of which we must all be fully aware. It involves the being sustained by food to repair the continual waste of a corruptible body: and thus he might have forcibly urged that hell would be soon cleared by starvation, except upon the supposition of such a supply as we are certainly in no wise justified in making. In any way "ages of ages" must be a myth, a dream, an impossibility in the nature of things, as great as that of eternity itself.

But again, Mr. Constable's view ignores the true nature of death, as I have shown it, a necessarily temporary provision in view of sin's entrance into the world, and to be finally done away, when "death and hades are cast into the lake of fire;" and also that "after death" is "the judgment." If death be this exceptional temporary thing, it is plainly a false view that the resurrection of the wicked even will be to a condition of mortality; or that, if not, it must be the fruit of redemption, and a work of grace inconsistent with eternal judgment. On the contrary, "a resurrection of judgment" it is expressly stated to be, and not grace, but the pursuance of the original creative plan, only suspended for a time and for a purpose.

This in no wise hinders the "resurrection of life" being due to Him who is "the resurrection and the life," for the "image of the heavenly," the likeness of Christ in which the saints are raised, is something immeasurably beyond what man naturally, if sinless, would have attained.

That there should be difficulties in connection with a subject of which Scripture says so little as it does about the resurrection of the unjust need not surprise us, and will not those who consider but the mysteries which surround our present life. It may be true that "incorruption" is not the state of the resurrection of judgment, and this not involve at all what annihilationists insist upon. We know too little to say much but to bring our ignorance to bear against what is clearly revealed is at least wholly unjustifiable and this is what Mr. Constable is doing in this case.

Mr. Hudson has somewhat upon this subject which while we are upon it we may briefly glance at. He says of the unjust: —

"It is hard to believe that they are raised up by a miracle which ends in their destruction, or that accomplishes nothing but a judgment, which in this view must appear simply vindictive. If they have no immortality, why are their slumbers disturbed? But if their resurrection is connected with the redemption, by a law that finds illustration in analogous facts, this difficulty may be removed. Damaged seeds that are sown often exhaust themselves in germination. And we have noted the fact, that of insects which pass through the chrysalis state to that of the psyche or butterfly, many, from injuries suffered in their original form, utterly perish in the transition. Now the Glad Tidings of the Redemption, quickening and invigorating the soul with new life, may so far repair the injury done it in the fall, that even the unbelieving, who derive many benefits therefrom in this life, may not altogether perish in the bodily death. . . May not such truths, as food to the souls even of those who do not cleave to Him who is the Truth and the Life, cause death itself to be divided, as the proper effect and token of the Redemption? And for judgment, it is as if the unjust, hearing the voice of God in the last call to life, should be putting on a glorious incorruption, and should perish in the act."*

{* Debt and Grace, pp. 263, 264.}

This is a step beyond Mr. Constable, and it seems hard to understand how in this way the wicked rise at all. Certainly judgment upon these abortions would be scarcely possible. Nor is the resurrection of the wicked either an effect of redemption or a blighted natural process, but an act of divine power alone. It is "God who quickeneth the dead." Nor again does it appear on this ground how the heathen could ever rise. But it is useless taking up seriously what must be the idlest of speculations in the absence of revelation. They that have done evil will come forth to the resurrection of judgment. That is revealed and that death will be over and ended when judgment begins: and this alone completely negatives the conclusion of annihilationism.

30 - Judgment: when and what?

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 30.

Judgment: when and what?

We must now proceed to what comes after death. And here, before we can come to details, there are some misconceptions as to the very idea of judgment which we must examine by the light of Scripture, and seek to remove.

In Mr. Constable's volume upon hades, so often referred to in the earlier stages of our inquiry, he has two chapters of considerable importance to his argument which we have as yet scarcely glanced at.* Their subjects are respectively, "The Time of Judgment" and "The Time of Retribution." The general object of these is to show that neither judgment nor retribution can take place until the resurrection, and we shall quote some passages that we may have a clear view of the issues before us.

{*Chap. 13, 14.}

His first arguments, grounded upon his peculiar views of death and of the nature of man, I may pass over. He next brings before us what the Lord says of Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, as to a future day of judgment (Matt. 10: 15; Matt. 11: 22; Mark 6: 11), and "what He affirmed of these heathen He also affirmed of the Jews living in His own days. Both are to be tried in this coming judgment day. And what He says of the Jewish cities of His own time, we suppose to be equally true of the Jews of all previous time. . . We are thus told that for four thousand years there was no such thing as judging men when they were dead."

This judgment of the great day, Mr. C. argues, our Lord tells us "is when He returns from that right hand of God where He now is. He tells us this in His parable of the talents. It is 'after a long time the lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them.' There is no reckoning with good or with wicked servants until the Lord comes."

Mr. Constable goes on to show us how —

"our Platonic theology has virtually nullified this great truth of Scripture. It has not denied in words the great day of future judgment of which Christ and His apostles speak, but it has robbed it of all its significance and meaning by telling us that there is another judgment before it which effects for every man separately what the final judgment has to do." He quotes in proof of this the Roman Catholic "Key of Paradise" and Poole's Commentary, the latter of which "tells us that 'after souls by death are separated from their bodies, they come to judgment, and thus every particular one is handed over by death to the bar of God the great Judge, and so is dispatched by His sentence to its particular state and place with its respective people. At the great and general assize, the day of judgment, shall the general and universal one take place, when all sinners in their entire persons, bodies and souls united, shall be adjudged to their final unalterable and eternal state.'"

Further, as to retribution, Mr. Constable quotes 2 Cor. 5: 10 as —

"decisive that no retribution whatsoever, be it reward or punishment, takes place before the resurrection and the judgment. There can be no question that 'made known or manifest' should be the translation of the Greek verb in this verse, as it is its translation in the next. Bengel expresses its sense when he says that it means not merely that we should appear in the body, but that we should be made known, together with all our secret deeds. . . The judgment seat of Christ is that judgment seat which He sets up when He comes and raises up the dead . . . not until then will retribution take place; not until then will the sinner be punished, and the saint receive his reward; i.e., it is in the body, and not out of the body that retribution takes place . . . Paul was here only following the teaching of his Master. Nowhere in the teaching of Christ are His disciples taught to expect their reward, or any part of it, when they are dead. The very idea of dead men recompensed is enough to excite scorn against the school of thought which has taught it, until, from the perpetual repetition of the nonsense, we could not see its folly. But not to the state of death, but to the resurrection from that state of death, does our blessed Lord teach His people to look. 'When thou makest a feast,' He says, 'call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed: for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. . .' But are there, according to our Platonic theologians, any passages of Scripture which do directly state that before resurrection retribution of any kind, reward or punishment, takes place? Yes, they say, there is one. Where is it? In Luke 16: 23. What do these words form part of? A parable! What are the words? 'In hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.'"

He then has the usual objections to employing a parable teach doctrine: all which we have already looked at.

Now there is truth in Mr. Constable's objections to the common doctrine here, as we shall see. The statements he objects to are not clear — do not distinguish between things which it is important not to confound. Especially the Romanist quotation (which I have not given, and which applies 2 Cor. 5: 10 to the intermediate state) does clash entirely with Scripture. But then Mr. Constable's error on the other side is as plain. He meets a false issue with a partial truth, and is certainly no less superficial than those he is opposing. The full statement harmonizes all Scripture, parable and all else, instead of arraying one text against another.

The very chapter last quoted from, as we have seen, bears witness, not in the last parable but in the lesson which our Lord deduces from the first, that when the righteous "FAIL" (that is, at death therefore, not resurrection) they are "received into everlasting habitations" (Luke 16: 9). And this the last parable shows, in whatever figurative language, with regard to Lazarus. And it is in express contrast to this that the rich man in hades is tormented, as he is "comforted." Thus there is no room to doubt the meaning of the solemn words. The rich man is certainly pictured (and. even Mr. Constable cannot deny that) as receiving retribution in hades, before the resurrection and the final judgment, and if the Lord did not mean that, He would not have used words which every one must admit give that impression, without one word of warning. It is useless to talk of trees speaking, etc., in the same breath with this. By the one no one could be deceived. In the other the Lord would be coming in with what men represent as false and heathenish ideas actually in the very minds of His hearers: for He spoke to Pharisees. And we are forbidden therefore by our reverence for Him, who was never anything less than Incarnate Truth itself; to allow that He could so trifle with falsehood, and help to confirm in error the souls of those He came to rescue out of it.

Thus far as to the parable. But as to the righteous at death being received into everlasting habitations, we cannot so ignore the direct teaching both of our Lord and His apostles, as to allow Mr. Constable unchecked to assure us that we have no other Scripture than that just looked at to establish such a doctrine. He may believe that when our Lord said to the thief by His side, "Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise," He meant only that he should fall asleep for perhaps two thousand years, so that it would be no matter to him whether that promise was kept or no! (What matter to him indeed, if he did not wake up forever? That quiet "sleep," in which the sleeper vanishes altogether, would not know one uneasy dream in consequence!) And so he may please to interpret Paul's desire to depart and be with Christ, and similar things. All this we have before examined. But then we must believe that we have some Scripture for a truth like this.

Mr. Constable may say, perhaps, "I am stating you have only one Scripture for retribution in the death state." Well, but the one involves the other. The righteous die, and the wicked. If death be extinction, the righteous could not be "comforted" in it, any more than the wicked "tormented." Mr. C. himself quite rightly puts both upon the very same footing. We should at least want proof of a difference, if difference indeed there were. We should need proof that the wicked were not tormented, if we were assured that the righteous were comforted.

Thus every text for the one is an argument for the other also; and when the language even of a parable comes in to sustain the prior conviction, we must be permitted to think that it neither stands alone, nor gives an uncertain sound either. We do not expect that it should be much dwelt upon. We have just been considering how little even the resurrection of the wicked is. Enough is given to establish the doctrine. Warnings and promises alike may be expect- ed to be connected rather with a final and everlasting state, than with one necessarily to pass away. Yet we do not accept Mr. Constable's statement as to there being only one text. There are others, as Isa. 24: 21, 22; 1 Peter 3: 19, 20, the first of which speaks of the "kings of the earth" whom Revelation (Rev. 19: 19, 21) shows us "slain with the sword" at Christ's coming in glory, while Isaiah speaks of them as prisoners shut up in the pit, to be visited after many days; i.e., at the judgment of the dead, after the millennium. While the latter speaks correspondingly of those disobedient in Noah's days, as now "spirits in prison." Both texts assure us of retribution in the intermediate state.

But Mr. Constable would allege doubtless, as he has against the views of others, that "retribution before judgment is contrary to all the principles of the divine and human law." I allow it fully. What he fails to see is that, as far as the settlement of personal guilt and condemnation is concerned, man — the world — is ALREADY judged — already condemned: a thing which, if it be not plain to him, as it would seem it is not, is none the less abundantly plain in Scripture.

We have already seen that God by the ministry of death and condemnation was for centuries pressing home upon man his lost condition, and that the apostle could speak for Christians in saying, "we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and ALL THE WORLD become guilty before God." Is that, or is it not, a sentence of God? and is it to be passed, or passed already? Certainly, it is long since passed, and this sentence of the law was, as we have seen, only itself the affirming and confirming of a prior sentence, of which every grey hair in man was witness.

It is true, man might, alas, prophesy smooth things to himself, and dream of being able to face God about his sins, and on the other hand it is blessedly true that, wherever there was real bowing to the sentence, the mercy of God was ready to manifest itself: real "repentance" is always "unto life." But it needed no judgment-seat for Him to manifest such mercy, wherever He knew a soul had bowed to own its guilt; while with all others judgment had not to be pronounced, but had been. This is what makes so solemn and so blessed that great truth of Ecclesiastes, the settlement of the question of the book: "the spirit shall return to God that gave it." Not yet indeed the judgment-seat, where He would "bring every WORK into judgment," but the assurance at least then, if never before, of PERSONAL acceptance, or of personal rejection.

Mr. Constable does not see, — as many do not, — the difference between these two things. We must look at them, therefore, more in detail, and the Scriptures which affirm and illustrate them.

Personal acceptance with God is NEVER on the ground of our works. "By the works of the law" — in which all good works are summed up, — "shall no flesh living be justified." So the word of God decisively says. On the one hand not the most perfect upon earth (as Job was in his day) but must, with Job, put his hand upon his mouth in the presence of God, or open it but to say, "I am vile:" "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

On the other hand, let any soul but take this latter ground, and "if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

The future day of judgment (whether we speak of saint or sinner) is, therefore, never in Scripture for the settlement of personal acceptance or the reverse. We have already seen that personal judgment for a sinful creature before a holy God can only be condemnation. The saved are saved here and now, and do not "come into judgment." The doom of the unsaved is determined in the present life also, and if men ignore. it here, the spirit returning to God cannot remain ignorant. It is a "spirit in prison," already with the consciousness of wrath upon it, if not received into "everlasting habitations." This is the rich man's portion, where the wrath of God is the consuming fire by which he is tormented, and yet resurrection plainly has not come.

Does this set aside the reality of the judgment to come? By no means. It only affirms the reality of the judgment pronounced. The judgment to come is the judgment of works, and there is what answers to this even for the saint. But he comes to it in resurrection glory, and in the image of his Lord. Can he be put upon trial to decide the future of one already glorified? Clearly not. But he does stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and receives for the things done in the body, as a question of reward obtained or lost. Eternal life is not a reward, but the free gift of God in Christ, and justification is by His blood alone Sonship, membership of the body of Christ, a home in the Father's house, are all fruits of the same blessed work, His and not ours. And these can never be brought in question: judgment never is brought in to settle these.

Similarly then as to the lost. The judgment to come does not settle that they are lost. If they come forth to a resurrection of judgment, it is not a judgment which is to decide if they can stand before God or not; but they are, as the saint is not," judged," themselves personally, "according to their works" (Rev. 20: 13). They get a measured recompense, as the saint does, but a recompense of judgment and nothing else: "few" or "many stripes," as the case may be; an absolutely righteous apportionment for the sins committed in the body. This is the judgment of works, as distinct from the settlement of whether lost or saved as is the reward of works for the righteous.

What has helped to confuse the minds of many has been a question of prophetic interpretation; and it helps to show how little there can be a thorough settlement of the question of eternal judgment without a previous settlement of what many judge so lightly as "the millennarian question." Failing to see the Lord's coming as antecedent to the millennium, and the purification of the earth by judgment in order to the blessing, the separation of the sheep from the goats, in Matt. 25, has been looked at as the same thing with the judgment of the dead more than a thousand years later. It was inevitable in this way that the latter should be supposed (yet in opposition to the plainest passages elsewhere) one in which righteous and wicked would stand together, and the former be discriminated from the latter by their works.

It should be plain, however, that in Matt. 25: 31-46, we have a judgment of living nations when the Lord conies to earth and sets up His throne there, and not a judgment of the dead, when the earth and the heavens are fled away; and also that the account of the taking up of the saints to meet the Lord in the air in 1 Thess. 4, before He appears to the world at all (Col. 3: 4), is quite inconsistent with such an interpretation. There is no hint of resurrection in our Lord's prophecy at all. And the nature of the investigation differs much from that in Revelation. The truth is, that "the nations" in the former Scripture are those who, after the taking away of the saints of the present dispensation, and during an interval which takes place between that and His appearing with them, have received a final call by the preaching of the coming kingdom. It would be too lengthy a matter to enter upon here. But the broad characteristic differences between this and the Apocalyptic vision, should be sufficient at least to prevent their being confounded.

Into judgment he who now believes in Christ can never come. So He declares. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, apart from sin, unto salvation." If "God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world by that Man whom He hath ordained," the saints whom He declares to be even now "not of the world even as He is not of the world," shall (not be judged with it, but) "judge the world" with Him (1 Cor. 6: 2). They are thus seen upon the throne in Rev. 20: 4-6 as having part in the first resurrection; and not till a thousand years afterwards does the judgment of the dead take place. God has taken care to separate thus widely between His people's portion and that of those who hate Him.

The truth is what alone makes all harmonious. Present judgment has been passed upon the world. The very cross itself, as His portion at men's hands, has only confirmed finally that sentence, to be executed when He comes.* Out of it God in His grace is calling men and saving them. His saved are upon the ground of Christ and His work, not their own. The unsaved are still under the universal sentence already judged; the judgment of works, the full measurement of each man's due, being still to come. This is not a question of personal acceptance or rejection, which is on other ground, but is the solemn and exact award of deeds done in the body, as Scripture says. The doer and the deeds are questions, however connected, still distinct.

{* John 12: 31-33; John 16: 8-11.}

31 - The Doom of Satan

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 31

The Doom of Satan

The very personality of Satan is, as everybody is aware, denied in many quarters in the present day. The only people with whom we have to do just now, however, who deny this, are the followers of Dr. Thomas, With these men, self consistently enough, the devil is simply a personification of sin, which, however, may be represented apparently by a variety of living agents, in order to get rid of the distasteful idea of separate personality and yet meet the texts in which personality is too manifest to be denied.

I may be allowed, without being thought to wander too far from the subject before us, to look briefly at this point.

Now, we read of one in the book of Job who, when "the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord," "came also among them." He is expressly called Satan, and is a true "devil" according to the meaning of that word, "a false accuser."

These "sons of God" are spoken of by Jehovah in the same book as present when He laid the foundations of the earth (Job 38: 7), and therefore are certainly not men but angels. Among these angels then the accuser comes, as one of them: surely not a man among angels, and hardly a personification of sin.

From the presence of the Lord he goes forth to exercise manifest superhuman power against Job within divinely ordained limits. He is here clearly an angelic, yet a fallen and evil being.

In the book of Revelation we have a being figured as a "dragon," and explained to be "that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan" (Rev. 20: 2). "That old serpent" of course refers to Eden, and tells us who was the real tempter hid under the form of the irrational creature. Here too the words of the Lord apply: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8: 44).

As a tempter we accordingly again find him assailing the Lord in the wilderness, One in whom there was no indwelling sin to seduce or personify; and there too he is called the devil and Satan, and appears as one who claims the kingdoms of the world as his. And he departing from Him for a season, the Lord speaks of his return in a way which suits this claim of his: "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me;" and of His own cross as that which was his judgment, and would ensure his casting out (John 14: 30, John 16: 11, John 12: 31). In all which we travel back once more to Eden, and find fulfilling the words to the old serpent, "He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

We find his being and power so recognized among the Jews that the Pharisees impute the Lord's casting out of devils to Beelzebub the prince of the devils; and the Lord rebukes them by asking, "Can Satan cast out Satan?" and, recognizing the fact of his having a kingdom, asks in that case how it shall stand? The devils He casts out, know Him in turn, call Him the Holy One of God and Son of God, and beseech Him not to torment them before the time.

Everywhere in the Gospels the power of Satan is a thing as manifest as malignant. A woman cannot lift up herself eighteen years, and it is Satan that has bound her. He puts into Judas' heart to betray the Lord; and in the apparent zeal for Himself of another disciple Christ discerns Satan also. He sows the tares in the parable, and these springing up are the children of the wicked one. Among the signs that follow those who believe is this, that they cast out devils.

In the Acts the workings of the same malignant spirit are as manifest. Satan fills Ananias' heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and keep back part of the price of his land. Cases of possession are still noticed, and as a common thing. Paul speaks of being sent to turn men "from the power of Satan unto God." In the Epistles he is the constant adversary of the people of God, whether openly as a roaring lion, or transformed into an angel of light. He is the spirit that works in the children of disobedience; the god of this world who blinds the minds of those that believe not. If resisted he flees, but the shield of faith is that by which alone the fiery darts of the wicked one are quenched. "Shortly," we are reminded, according to the first promise, "God will bruise Satan under your feet."

All this is but part of the testimony of the word of God as to the reality and power of man's old enemy. If words mean anything they assure us of his true personality, with that of numberless evil spirits, "his angels," possessed of superhuman power, which is used to obtain dominion over men's souls and even bodies, and from which nothing but divine power can deliver. I need not pursue this further now. But we shall have to consider some common mistakes as to Satan which it is of great importance to rectify, in order to have clearly before us the Scripture view.

Satan has been considered commonly (as one finds in the Paradise Lost of a great poet) to be here as a prisoner broken loose from hell, into which he had been cast immediately upon his fall, a hell in which even now he is supposed to reign, and to reign there eternally over fallen spirits and lost men, the divinely appointed tormenter of those whom he has made his prey. For no part of this is Scripture responsible, and its grotesque horror has been the reproach of orthodox theology. What would be thought of a government which allowed its prisoners so to break their bounds, and which employed the chief criminal to torture the lesser ones?

There is in Scripture not the slightest trace of a reign in hell,* or of Satan tormenting anybody there. He will be there, doubtless, the lowest and most miserable of all, but he is not yet in hell at all. Strange and startling as it seems to many, instead of being in hell, he is in "heavenly places," and instead of reigning in hell, reigns here, the prince and the god of this world.

{*It may have arisen from a misconception of Rev. 9: 11. But the "bottomless pit," or "abyss" is not even hell at all.}

Thus we are exhorted to "put on the whole armor of God, whereby ye may be able to stand against the wiles of devil; for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual hosts* of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6: 11, 12). Our translators have shown how foreign the thought was to their minds by putting "high" into the text instead of "heavenly." But here the devil and his angels are looked at as the antitype of the hosts of Canaan with which Joshua and Israel wrestled. We have long lost the type in losing the antitype.

{* Alford. "Hosts" is not expressed in the Greek: it is "spirituals."}

But in Job we have already seen Satan among the sons of God; and the "heavenly places" were surely his original dwelling-place. And if his casting down to hell has not yet taken place, he will be still naturally there where he belonged by creation. Now his casting into hell belongs to a time plainly yet future (Rev. 20: 10), and everywhere in the Gospels, we find the devils anticipating their coming doom, but knowing it was not yet come. "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" they ask. It is plain then that hell cannot be their present portion.

The binding of Satan precedes necessarily the millennial blessing. How could there be righteousness or peace in a world in which he was still as active as ever? Immediately, therefore, after the appearing of the Lord, among the other foes that are dealt with, Satan and his hosts are not forgotten. The fate of the beast and the kings of the earth is first shown us at the end of Rev. 19, and then Satan is bound and shut up in the abyss a thousand years. The account may be given in figurative language, and is, no doubt, but yet with perfect simplicity, and Isaiah, eight hundred years before, gives us the same things with almost equal plainness, and in perfect harmony with the obvious meaning. For "it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth" — the two classes of which Revelation speaks; "and they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days (plainly, the millennium) shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously" (Isa. 24: 21-23).

"When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison." And this post-millennial loosing seems again to stumble many. It is evident that the object is to distinguish between the true subjects and the concealed enemies of the Lord, still such in the face of the long reign of blessing and of peace. That there are these is plain from such intimations as that in Ps. 18: 44, 45. And the effect of Satan being free is soon apparent. "He shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up upon the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

Then comes Satan's final judgment. "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever "

Concerning the nature of this punishment we are now ready to inquire.

32 - Gehenna

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 32.

Gehenna

Gehenna is twelve times rendered "hell" in the common version, and is essentially* the only other word so rendered, beside "hades" already looked at. The rendering has, it is well known, been the object of special attack by Canon Farrar in his Westminster Abbey Sermons, as one of the three words (the others being "damnation" and "everlasting") which in his opinion ought to be expunged out of our English Bibles.**

{*Once, referring to a class of fallen angels, the word tartarosas is used (2 Peter 2: 4), and translated "cast them down to hell," literally "to Tartarus."

**"Eternal Hope," Serm. 3.}

Gehenna, says Dr. Farrar, "means primarily the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, in which, after it had been polluted by Moloch-worship, corpses were flung, and fires were lit; and is used, secondarily, as a metaphor, not for fruitless and hopeless, but — for all at any rate but a small and desperate minority — of that purifying and corrective punishment, which, as all of us alike believe, does await impenitents both here and beyond the grave.

"But, be it solemnly observed (he continues) the Jews to whom and in whose metaphorical sense the word was used by our blessed Lord, never did, either then or at any other period, normally attach to the word Gehenna that meaning of endless torment which we attach to hell.' To them, and in their style of speech — and therefore on the lips of our blessed Saviour who addressed it to them, and spake in terms which they would understand — it meant not a material and everlasting fire, but an intermediate, a remedial, a metaphorical, a terminable retribution."

To this is appended a note in which the Jews as a church are stated never to have held either (1) the finality of the doom passed, or (2) the doctrine of torment, endless, if once incurred. For this he quotes various authorities, among others as the most distinct utterance of the Talmud, one in which it is said "that the just shall rise to bliss; ordinary sinners shall be ultimately redeemed; the hopelessly bad shall be punished for a year, and then annihilated." In another place, "Gehenna is nothing but a day in which the ungodly shall be burned."

In his fifth excursus at the end of the book he adds other testimonies, among which is another from the Talmud, to the effect that "after the last judgment Gehenna exists no longer." His testimony of the Rabbins concerns us very little. He does not notice the views of either Pharisees or Essenes, who both held eternal punishment, as Josephus explicitly affirms.

Mr. Hudson has made a similar appeal to the Talmud, naturally laying the stress upon the annihilationism contained in it, that Dr. Farrar lays upon the restorationism. Both allow that there are some passages which may be pleaded against these, although they believe not really against them. I do not lay any stress upon it, nor propose at all to take up this line of argument. I leave it to those more competent to do so, and shall confine myself entirely to Scripture.

It is of Gehenna that the Lord speaks when He asserts God's ability to "destroy both body and soul in hell." We have seen how little the text can be made to mean annihilation. It would seem to be no less decisive against Dr. Farrar's view. Indeed he gives it up explicitly, if to be taken as implying that God will put forth this power that He claims. The passage, he says,* "merely attributes to God a power which we know the Omnipotent must possess. He can destroy the soul, but it says not that He will. If any think that this is implied, it seems to me that no logical choice is open to them, but to embrace the theory of conditional immortality."

{*"Eternal Hope," Pref., p. xl.}

But surely the Lord holds out no vain warning here. In a parallel passage in the same way He says, "Fear Him who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell;" and we certainly know that threat will be fulfilled. If He never wills to do this, men need no more fear it than if He had not power. And how strange a thing for the Lord thus to claim for Him a power none can deny, and which notwithstanding He will never exert! We do not at all on that account believe in the logical necessity of annihilation, but we do believe that God will fulfil the awful warning, and destroy both body and soul in hell.

Mr. Jukes indeed thinks even this to be for eventual salvation: he asks,

" Is not the losing ' or destruction ' of our fallen life the only way to a better one? Does not our Lord Himself say more than once, that the way to ' save our life ' or soul ' is to lose it,' or have it destroyed,' in its fallen form, that it may be re-created? These last words," he answers, ' should of themselves settle the question, for in one place they occur in immediate connection with those other well-known words as to fearing Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.'. . . And yet, in the very closest connection with those words, our Lord repeats this selfsame word destroy ' to express that death and dissolution of the soul, which, so far from bringing it to non-existence is the appointed way to save it."*

{*"Restitution," Appendix, p. 172.}

But Mr. Jukes can scarcely make so much out of the texts he cites. The destruction in them is not the destroying of the body of sin, or of the old man, with which Mr. Jukes evidently confounds it. For he goes on to say, "Christ saves it, as we have seen, by death; for being fallen into sin, what is needed is, that the body of sin should be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.'" This is not, I say, the destruction spoken of in Matt. 10: 39; but the Lord is speaking of our taking up the cross — our cross — in face of the opposition of the world. Is this the destruction of our old man, or what really, in the spiritual sense, saves us? The Lord is not then here speaking of "losing our life, or having it destroyed in its fallen form, that it may be re-created." There is nothing about either destruction or re-creation, in that sense; He does not speak of "that death or dissolution of the soul, which is the appointed way to save it."

Nor does Scripture anywhere speak of such a thing either. Dissolution of the soul is nowhere mentioned, nor its death as a way to save it. Similarly as to destruction: can Mr. Jukes point out one instance in which the destruction of the soul is the method of its salvation? He cannot; and his words are mere delusion. "Christ saves the soul by death," he tells us, "for the body of sin must be destroyed," but that is not the soul. He says again, "The elect, that is the first-fruits, are the living proof of this.' A new man ' is created in them; and the old man ' dies and is destroyed while yet he in whom all this is done remains the same person." But if the new man is created in people, he is not destroyed first, to be created; and if the "old man" dies and is destroyed, he is not re-created at all; nor is the person destroyed in whom this takes place either. Mr. Jukes adds: "it is only the riddle of the cross, that by death God destroys him that has the power of death.'" But then is he that has the power of death destroyed also in order to his salvation? Certainly there is not such a thought in the passage.

It is in vain then for him to seek to escape from the force of the words. What folly, indeed, to suppose the Lord saying, "Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body, in order to save them." No; it is impossible to read the thought of salvation into its very opposite, the awful destruction hopeless of deliverance, just because it is God who "destroys," and destroys not to save, but as the alternative of salvation. Annihilationism and restorationism fail alike and fail utterly here.

But then Gehenna is the place of this utter destruction, and though the terms used may be more or less "metaphorical," a "remediable" and "terminable" retribution they do not teach.

Nor does Dr. Farrar attempt to produce Scripture to establish his position as to Gehenna. It is the Talmud and the Jewish doctors that are to define for us what the Scripture means, and Dr. F. even brings in the thought of "the pleasant valley of Hinnom,"* as if to bear its part in transmuting darkness into light, and making tolerable the wrath of God itself.

{*Preface, 32.}

"In the Old Testament it is merely the pleasant valley of Hinnom (Ge Hinnom), subsequently desecrated by idolatry, and specially by Moloch worship, and defiled by Josiah on this account. Used, according to Jewish tradition, as the common sewer of the city, the corpses of the worst criminals were flung into it unburied, and fires were lit to purify the contaminated air. It then became a word which secondarily implied (1.) the severest judgment which a Jewish court could pass upon a criminal — the casting forth of his unburied corpse amid the fires and worms of this polluted valley; and (2.) a punishment which — to the Jews as a body — never meant an endless punishment beyond the grave."

As to this we have seen, however, what the Lord affirms of it, in a threat according to Dr. Farrar never to be executed. The destruction of body and soul can hardly be this side of the grave, and cannot consist with restoration. Dr. Farrar's words, too, are contradicted explicitly by Josephus, as is well known, both with regard to the Pharisees and the Essenes: a testimony he never even alludes to, and which as strangely Mr. Hudson sets aside as unreliable, But let us see now whence the Jews drew (or might have drawn) their views of Gehenna. We have the Old Testament as they had, and from it alone all right views, such as the Lord could Himself adopt, must surely be taken. Revelation alone could be a light beyond the grave.

To one of these Old Testament passages (Isa. 66: 24) we have already referred, in which we find both the fire and the worm attributed to the valley of Hinnom, and which more certainly are the basis of the well-known warning of our Lord which we must almost immediately consider now. As millennial and not final, it may be concluded to have given risen to thoughts of the temporary nature of Gehenna, which Dr. Farrar's extracts have so much of as well as also to have furnished argument for the annihilation doctrines of the day, in behalf of which also we find them quoting Mal. 4: 1, quite as do the present annihilationists.

The main passage beside is also in Isaiah, and here Tophet, the valley of Hinnom, is expressly named as the place of judgment for the Assyrian, where the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone kindles the pile (30: 33). Here, while the literal Tophet might furnish the terms of the prophecy, the language points to something deeper, which the fuller revelation could alone perhaps make plain.

We must now look at the well-known passage in the Gospel of Mark (9: 43-50), which I quote in full:

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [Gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched [or rather, the fire unquenchable], where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell [Gehenna], into the unquenchable fire; where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire; where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another,"

It was to be expected that annihilationists should have stumbled over this passage as they have. The admitted borrowing of phraseology from Isa. 66: 24, and the word Gehenna, with the associations which we have just been looking at, are taken to show that the terms used in these verses imply the "utter destruction" (in the new sense) of the ungodly.

Mr. Constable, appealing to the passage in Isaiah, says: "A moment's glance shows us that both the worm and the fire are alike external to and distinct from the subject on which they prey; and also, that what both prey upon are not the living but the dead . . . These most solemn words of the prophet, so solemnly endorsed by Christ, assert a state of eternal death and destruction, not one of eternal life in hell, as the destiny of transgressors in the world to come."*

{* Eternal Punishment, p. 195.}

Mr. Minton thinks it —

"difficult to conceive of any two images that our Lord could have put together, more hopelessly irreconcilable with the idea of never-ending misery, than the worm and the fire." And he adds, "It is contended that the worm not dying and the fire not being quenched, implies the continuance of being of that on which they prey . . . If the worm could die, or the fire be quenched, before they had done their work upon the body, it might possibly be rescued or left half consumed. But if neither the ravages of the worm, nor the burning of the fire, can be checked, then nothing can save the body which is exposed to them from complete extinction of being. If it be asked, what becomes of the worm and the fire after the body is consumed? it is enough to reply, that we have nothing whatever to do with that . . . And I will venture to say, that no one would ever imagine the idea of an eternal worm to be contained in this passage, if they did not bring to it the assumption that it is an eternal being who is preyed upon by it. Without that assumption the image is as plain and simple as possible. With it you have the monstrous incongruity of an eternal worm, and of a human body which is being eternally devoured by it, but yet remains forever as whole and entire as if the worm had never touched it. . . It is no reply to say that the punishment represented is not merely that of the body but of the soul also, or even, as some would now say, of the soul only. For the figure used to represent it is the consumption of a body by worm and by fire; and that figure does represent destruction, but does not represent eternal existence."

He further refers to Jer. 17: 27: "I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched," which, he adds, "can hardly mean that Jerusalem will continue in flames to all eternity."*

{*Way Everlasting, pp. 50, 51, 53.}

Mr. Hudson again says, "It is not the immortality of the individual soul, but the multitude of those who finally perish, that challenges the unquenched fire and the unfailing worm."*

{*Debt and Grace p. 192.}

Other writers speak very similarly, but it is not necessary to repeat more of what they say just now. The first thing to be noted in answer to Mr. Constable is that he makes no difference between type and antitype; yet it is scarcely the literal valley of Hinnom of which the Lord is speaking, and as for Isaiah, "the carcases" which he sees a prey to the worm and fire are surely not those of all the wicked, who are only raised from the dead at the time the earth and the heavens flee away. "Gehenna," as we have seen, was in point of fact used by the Jews in our Lord's day in this figurative way, as the Talmud has at any rate shown us. The typical character of millennial things also I have already pointed out. Consequently the carcases, fire, and worm are all the figures of deeper things. Does Mr. Constable even himself suppose that all the Lord threatens men with is that fire and worm should consume their carcases? This would be infinitely less than extinction itself, and instead of being the picture even of destruction, would be a picture merely of what would happen after they had ceased to suffer, and had been in fact destroyed!

But then, Mr. Minton argues, we must take the words at any rate as a figure of destruction, not of eternal existence. Surely nobody contends that it is a figure of the latter. The question is, is it consistent with eternal existence? and that is a different thing. Now material destruction, if a figure, should be a figure of something else, and not of itself. The material should figure the spiritual: and spiritual destruction may be, nay, is, entirely consistent with continued existence of body and soul. If the fire were material fire, and man's body the prey, according to its present constitution the body would come to an end. If the fire be a figure of divine judgment, however, this will not be so perfectly clear; and as a figure fire does surely speak of this. I have already so fully shown that the destruction of the sinner is in fact not annihilation, that I may be excused from going afresh into the proofs of this.

The unquenchable fire may have been, as to the mere force of the phrase, unduly pressed by those against whom Mr. Minton contends; and I concede fully that the fire in the gates of Jerusalem could not be "everlasting." He must be aware, however, that "everlasting fire" is spoken of by our Lord elsewhere: if (that is) the New Testament has any word for everlasting. But if he will look even at the passage in Isaiah once again, I think he will find reason to own that unquenched fire does there imply at least perpetuity. If "from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another," all flesh, as they come up to worship before Jehovah, "go forth and look upon the carcases of those that have transgressed against" Him, this implies a perpetuity of the awful spectacle surely. And the words following give the reason for this: "for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." The fire being unquenchable is not then given, as Mr. Minton argues, as a reason for the utter consumption of what it preys upon, but on the other hand for its abiding before the eyes of all flesh Sabbath after Sabbath and month after month. In the scene which Isaiah pictures it would matter little for the carcases themselves, whether the worm died or not, or the fire were quenched or not. Their being "carcases" doomed them to destruction, apart from all question of worm and fire; and these are surely added, not to bring them to any more speedy or certain end, but to intensify the solemn picture of judgment, and their being "an abhorring unto all flesh."

Thus even as to the passage in Isaiah, Mr. Minton's arguments are only plausible when the words he comments on are divorced from their context, and looked at as mere isolated expressions. Take the whole passage, and they be come worse than unmeaning. For worm and fire make no more certain the destruction of a carcase already secured by simple natural law; and instead of being given as hastening the destruction, the undying worm, and unquenched fire give assurance of the perpetuity of an awful spectacle, which abides indefinitely before the eyes of men month after month.

Still more do the arguments fail when we compare them with the passage in the gospel: for here the Lord is plainly not speaking of a spectacle before the eyes of others, but warning those who might suffer from it themselves. In Isaiah it is "they shall go forth and look," from one new moon and one Sabbath to another, for the fire shall not be quenched. In the other case it is in effect: Fear it,* for the fire shall not be quenched. And as these words in Isaiah announce the perpetuity of the judgment, so must they do when transferred to the passage in Mark.

{* Mr. Tipple, quoted approvingly by Mr. Cox, says, "The flame of the valley of Hinnom cannot be made to represent the awful suffering in store for sin; it can only fitly represent the certain consumption of sin to be effected by the sharpness of the fire" (Echoes of Spoken Words). They were to find the certain consumption of sin, without suffering! And this because the fires of Gehenna were not lighted to inflict pain and anguish! The same might be said of the burning up of chaff and all other figures! Cannot a figure figure anything but just itself?}

On the other hand who could call that "severest judgment which a Jewish court (even) could pass upon a criminal," — as Dr. Farrar puts it, — "the casting forth of his unburied corpse amid the fires and worms of the polluted valley," a "purifying and corrective," or "remedial" retribution? None, I think, who were not under hopeless bias, with which reasoning becomes impossible. Nor, as far as the Jewish court was concerned, was it "terminable" either. Of course it could not hinder the resurrection of those whom it adjudged to this; and in this way no human sentence could be eternal or irreversible; but it could represent this notwithstanding: for a final sentence, irreversible and not terminable by any after human one, would be the proper figure of irreversible and eternal judgment if divine. And only of such divine judgment would it be the proper figure. Dr. Farrar's facts are hopelessly against his inferences.

But the 49th verse in the passage of Mark adds something more; and Mr. Jukes has made what use he could of it for his purpose: "Take the ordinary interpretation," he says, "and there is no connection between never-ending punishment and the law here quoted respecting salt in sacrifice. But as spoken by our Lord the fact or law respecting the meat-offering is the reason and explanation of what is said respecting hell-fire, — 'for every one must be salted with fire, and every sacrifice must be salted with salt.'"

Then after explaining the meat offering as shadowing the fulfilment of man's duty towards his neighbor,* he goes on —

{*The meat-offering applies (like all other offerings) in the first place to Christ, the Bread of Life. Is this what it signifies as to Him?}

"The passage which we are considering begins with this, man's duty to his neighbor, and the peril of offending a little one. Then comes the exhortation to sacrifice hand or foot or eye, lest we come into the worse judgment, which must be known by those who will not judge themselves. 'For,' says our Lord, thus giving the reason for self-judgment, 'every man,' whether he likes it or not, if he is ever to change his present form and rise to God, 'must be salted with fire.' This may be done as a sweet savor to God; though even here 'every sacrifice is salted with salt,' — for even in willing sacrifice and service there is something sharp and piercing as salt, namely, the correction which truth brings with it to those who will receive it. But if this be not accepted, the purgation must yet be wrought, not as a sweet savor, but as a sin-offering, where the bodies are burnt as unclean without the camp; 'where their worm, dieth not, and the fire is not quenched' (the 'worm' alluding to the consumption of those parts which were not burnt with fire); 'for,' in some way, 'every one must be salted with fire,' even if he be not a sweet-savor 'sacrifice,' which is 'salted with salt.' But all this, so far from teaching never-ending punishment, only points us back to the law of sacrifice, and the means which must be used to destroy sin in the flesh, and to make us ascend in a new and more spiritual form as offerings to Jehovah."

This is decidedly a new interpretation. Mr. Jukes throws Gehenna and the passage in Isaiah of course aside or else applies them as types parallel to the "holy" sin-offering! But here he can find no "worm," so he invents one, to consume what the fire ought wholly to have burnt But we must look at this further.

The Lord certainly says "Gehenna." Is this in any way connected with such a type as the sin-offering, or are they not in every sense contrasts?

The sin-offering was a thing "most holy." It was an offering for sin, and therefore "without blemish," to be a fit type of such an one as alone could make atonement. The fat upon the inwards was put upon the altar of burnt-offering, and thus linked with those sweet-savor offerings of which Mr. Jukes speaks. The blood on the day of atonement went into the holiest, and at ordinary times was sprinkled before the veil, and anointed the horns of the golden altar of incense. That blood made atonement for the soul.

Dare Mr. Jukes apply all this to the abhorred Gehenna judgment of the unholy and unclean? Dare he include under one figure the One who bare judgment suffering for others only, and those upon whom, because of what they are personally, God's wrath abides? Dare he connect the "worm" of corruption with the type of God's Holy One, who therefore could (even as to His body) know none? Will he say that the sin-offering figures a corrective judgment purifying the victim offered? Will he make the blood of the sinner an atonement for his sins? Carry his view of the matter out, and he must do all this. He may say (and I trust would) he has no thought of carrying it so far. But then the whole is one consistent type, and a type expressly of the putting away of sin: that is its proper force — its use. If Mr. Jukes is but applying language used of the sin-offering to something wholly different, let him say so, and then take scrupulous care how he does apply it. But what he says is very different from this. He says distinctly that if a man will not judge himself about sin, "the purgation must yet be wrought as a sin-offering." Now this is what in the very nature of it he could not be. A blemished beast could not be offered. And here, if I take his words in their simple force, the sinner becomes his own offering, his own Saviour! The worm and the fire point us back to "the law of sacrifice, and the means which must be used to destroy sin in the flesh, and to make us ascend in a new and more spiritual form as offerings to Jehovah! "

"Sin in the flesh" is just what the sin-offering did not, and could not, typify, but the very opposite, a Holy One bearing sin not His own. And therefore, while the fire had its place, for the wrath of God Christ bore for us, the "worm," bred of corruption, could not possibly enter into such a figure. In Gehenna there are both: the torment of God's wrath upon sin, but the torment also bred of the corruption within. The two things are essentially and wholly distinct. Even as to the body God's Holy One could not see corruption: and these are types, whose significance and power become more and more realized the more we consider them. Gehenna judgment and the sin-offering are in their nature opposed.

"Every one must be salted with fire,"* the Lord says Mr. Jukes adds, "if he is ever to change his present form and rise to God," and thus assumes his whole ground. There is nothing of this expressed or implied in the passage. "Every one must be salted with fire; and every sacrifice must be salted with salt." Here salting with fire and with salt are distinguished. Salting is the figure of preservation. "Salt," which, as the Lord says, "is good," and always has a good meaning in Scripture, is the figure of that energy of holiness which preserves for God by keeping out corruption. But salting with fire is a widely different thing from salting with salt, fire being as always the figure of divine judgment.

{* Morris and Goodwyn prefer another rendering: "But the word 'pas ' in the Greek may mean every one person or every one thing, and the word for fire is in the dative, purl,; and the real force of the passage is this: For every one shall be salted TO or FOR the fire (that is, of the altar), even every sacrifice shall be salted with salt" (What is Man? p. 93).

There is no ground for this: pas, standing alone as here, can only mean "every person," and the word "salt" is just as much in the dative (hali) as "fire" is, so that there is as much ground for saying "salted TO or FOR the salt." Put without article as here, puri and hali are both datives of instrument, and exact parallels "salted with fire," "salted with salt."}

Now every one (it is quite unlimited) shall be salted with fire — even the saint, for he needs the discipline of it, and it is for his preservation as such, and salvation (comp. 1 Peter 4: 17, 18). But the ungodly will have it after another sort. To them it will be "unquenchable" fire, because of evil ever needing to be kept down: repression by judgment, where judgment alone will avail. The Lord adds, "And every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." There is the point of transition, at which he begins to speak of the saint alone.

Mr. Roberts finally has still another sense: he says:

"The meaning of Christ's words is made perfectly plain by Paul when he says (1 Cor. 3: 13-15), 'The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is, and if any man's work be burnt he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.' Through this fire of judgment every man and all his works will pass, and this fact gives the strongest point to Christ's exhortation; but the action of the judgment-fire is only preservative on certain kinds of men and work. The judgment justifies and makes such incorruptible; the others are destroyed."

This is fatal false doctrine. Mr. Roberts does not yet see that if a man comes into judgment, judgment can never justify him: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no flesh living be justified." How could a man, if judged according to his works, have his work burnt up and yet himself be saved, as the text he quotes says? Plainly he could not. The man is saved because building on the foundation, — on Christ, — and not because of what he builds, which is burnt up; he is saved not "by fire," but "through the fire," and in spite of it. But this question of judgment we have already sufficiently examined.

We must pass on now to other testimony of the word as to the final judgment.

33 - The Apocalyptic Visions - 1

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 33.

The Apocalyptic Visions — 1

At the very mention of Revelation there is a well-nigh unanimous exclamation. The cause is believed almost confessedly hopeless that appeals to this book of symbols for its support. It is principally, of course, with reference to it that Canon Farrar enters his vigorous protest against "the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors," and he is only giving fresh utterance to protests that have been again and again put forth by writers and speakers of every grade of orthodoxy or its opposite, in every case perhaps in which it ever was appealed to. In this regard the minds of many, who otherwise listen with reverence to the word of God, are under a cloud of unbelief which forbids their seeing some of the very plainest things that were ever written. While we look then particularly at these Apocalyptic visions, let us remember for our encouragement, that the title of the book is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass;" and that He has added, "Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of the book of this prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein."

Plainly we have nowhere else in Scripture the full and orderly detail of "last things" which we have in this one book of New Testament prophecy, the priceless gift of a love so little realized, for which we have been so little thankful. Nowhere are eternal things so vividly pictured to us, "the city which hath foundations" on the one side, the awful solemnity of the "lake of fire" upon the other. Glad would Satan be to withdraw from us the joys which beckon us forward in it, the judgments which warn men to accept the grace that now beseeches. Has God written it so badly as to be unintelligible? Are the metaphors ambiguous? Shall we not at least look into it earnestly and reverently, before we thus dishonor the blessed Master and Lord who calls it His "Revelation"?

We have already traced the outline of the 19th chapter, and have seen how, after the marriage of the Lamb in heaven, the armies there, clothed in the fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints, follow the white-horsed Leader to the judgment of the earth. The beast, the false prophet, and the kings of the earth with their armies, are the objects of the judgment. The mass are slain with the sword, two being exempted from this to share a special doom, being "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."

The next chapter shows us Satan bound and shut up in the bottomless pit a thousand years, while for the same time Christ and his saints reign together, the wicked dead not yet being raised.

At the end of the thousand years Satan is loosed out of his prison, and after having deceived the nations, and the judgment of God overtaking his followers, he is again taken, and this time cast into the lake of fire. There we are told expressly, a thousand and more years after they have been cast in, "the beast and the false prophet are,"* and it is added of them, "and they shall be tormented day and night unto the ages of ages" (ver. 10).

{*"Are" is not in the original, but necessarily implied there. The word "they" is also omitted in the common version from the next part of the verse, which runs, "and shall be tormented." The difference between this and what I have given is, that the ordinary translation seems to confine the torment to the beast and false prophet, while mine includes the devil in it. The Greek is capable of either, but the connection calls for the sense given.}

Now, if the lake of fire be extinction, how is it that two men remain in it a thousand years unannihilated, and that then we are told they are to be further tormented for eternity? The expression is "unto the ages of ages," one of the strongest expressions ever used for eternity, as we have seen; and, if it were not so, as far as annihilationism is concerned, the use of such language would at all events preclude the possibility of reasoning, as this class of writers love to do, from the nature of fire, and the present constitution of human bodies, that it must imply the total consumption of those condemned to it. For if a man could live there a thousand years, why not ever so many thousand? if for ages of ages, why not for a proper eternity?

Details we are not now attempting, but only seeking to get hold in the first place of the general outline of what is here presented, and presented with abundant plainness. It is not from any peculiar difficulty in these chapters indeed, that people stumble at them, but simply because they do not harmonize with the views they have elsewhere learned. But the plainest reading of these Scriptures is what is in most real harmony with all others. We have assured ourselves of this in part already. We may yet find equal assurance as to all here presented.

Man, unsaved man, then, here shares the destiny appointed for the devil and his angels. That destiny is "everlasting punishment" in "everlasting fire." Quite true, we have not as yet seen all the unsaved sharing it. But that this twentieth chapter gives: "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." This is spoken of the dead, standing in mass before the great white throne.

Into this lake of fire "death and hell," or hades, are also said to be cast; and people claim in this case (and many unthinkingly, too, concede) that this must at least as to them mean their coming to an end. It does not do this at all, as we may see, on looking more closely at the words. "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell (hades) delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works." Thus death and hell were emptied (it is "hades" as we have seen) and emptied of inhabitants, who, standing before God to be judged on the ground of their natural responsibility, "according to their works," come forth only to hopeless condemnation. Long before have the saints ceased to be tenants in hades. Nor does Scripture seem to speak of death for the saints living during the millennium.* The result would be that, as none but the "blessed" have part in the first resurrection, so none but the wicked have part in the second. It is the resurrection of judgment. And it is thus, as figuratively presenting their inhabitants, that death and hades are cast into the lake of fire.** It is immediately added, as if to show that the people are intended, "This is the second death:" of course, not of death or of hell, but of those represented by them. And I press it again, that the second death is the lake of fire; not extinction, for if there has been no first extinction, there CAN be no second. Yet so the first death (death, as we ordinarily call it) comes to an end. The last enemy is destroyed. The second death is deathless, and yet the "ages for ages" for most have but just begun.

{* Comp. Isa. 65: 20.

**See Isa. 14. 9 for a similar putting of "hell" (sheol) for its inhabitants. It is the constant thing when speaking of cities: "O Jerusalem, that killest the prophets," etc.}

It would seem that all this was clear, simple and conclusive. The metaphors are not ambiguous, and their "tyrannous realism" amounts only to this, that they are in fact very positive in what they represent, because so clear. We shall have, however, to consider, with a care in some degree commensurate with their importance, the comments of those who read them differently, and in so doing we shall learn the force of them still better, and find what ambiguity there is in them, if any.

As they have usually preceded, we may give precedence still to the advocates of "conditional immortality," and then listen to Dr. Farrar and the restorationist school.

We may begin with Mr. Dobney. He says on Rev. 20: 9, 10: —

"On the present text I submit — (1.) that the writer simply affirms that the devil shall be tormented forever and ever; which whatever be the legitimate meaning (concerning which we need not inquire) no one disputes. [!) At all events, I am not disposed to embarrass my present subject with any inquiry into the fate of fallen angels. What I have undertaken is sufficient. And so I simply remind my reader that this text says nothing at all about sinners of the human race. . . (2.) Whatever this lake of fire may really symbolize, it is before the great day of judgment that the devil is represented as cast into it. It is moreover that into which the beast and the false prophet were previously cast, long before the final close of human history. Now the beast and false prophet are not individual and historical persons really. They are symbolic persons. Many expositors tell us that they symbolize a system, which is to come to an utter end, rather than particular individuals. If so, the idea of torment is not to be literally understood. But this I waive altogether."*

{* Script. Doctrine, pp. 229, 230.}

Mr. Dobney is careful not to commit himself too much, where he is evidently not sure of his ground. The doom of Satan he admits to be torment forever and ever, and does not want to "embarrass" the doctrine of annihilation by considering it. No wonder, because Satan himself is to be "destroyed," and if that, may consist with eternal torment, it would "embarrass" an annihilationist. But then man is to share Satan's doom: how can Mr. Dobney refuse to consider this then?

Again, (2.) no men are concerned in this judgment. The beast and false prophet are personifications and not persons. At least "many expositors" tell us so, and Mr. Dobney will accept their judgment upon a point so immaterial as this! Why, Mr. Dobney, not "many" but the mass of expositors tell us that eternal torment is the portion of men also. Are you satisfied to abide by this? Surely not, if I can believe your book. Why are you more credulous here?

It seems to be immaterial whether or not two men are here said to be tormented with the devil forever and ever! But Mr. Dobney prefers to believe that the personal devil shares the lake of fire with two symbols, and is literally tormented, while they are figuratively tormented in the self-same fire! Surely Mr. Dobney cannot blame us if we read the facts the other way. We should argue that, if the devil be a real person, and the torment real for him, his associates must be as real persons and as real sufferers. But he does not tell us what these "symbols" mean, and we must wait till another does, before we examine this.

He dwells more at large upon ver. 11-15: —

"Orthodoxy ingeniously connects this 15th verse with the one we have just considered, and pronounces thus: — "The lake of fire is the symbol of the torment the devil shall undergo. This torment is to be day and night forever and ever. Into this lake the wicked are to be cast. Therefore they also are to be tormented forever and ever therein.' "

To this he objects: —

"(i.) The inference is not a necessary one. Because in the lake of fire the devil shall be tormented forever, it does not necessarily follow that quite another race of intelligences, cast into the same lake, must therefore exist as long as he does, and endure the same torment. If the orthodox use it, it proves too much for them . . . they must affirm that all men, even the least guilty, will endure precisely the same torment as the devil himself, seeing that the least guilty of the lost are cast into precisely the same fire as the devil. If they shrink from this . . . they surrender the entire case. If it may produce different effects, it may torment the one and destroy the other."

This is somewhat more like argument. But to it I answer: —

Mr. Dobney is not putting all the facts of the case. We have seen that death is forever gone when the lake of fire (for most) begins; and that "the second death is the lake of fire." If we are to learn in any way therefore what the lake of fire is, we look back of course to the prior account. We find two men — we must take them as such, till they show us otherwise — a thousand years in it alive, and then the devil sentenced with these to eternal torment in it. We argue, necessarily, this is no repetition of the first death; nor could it be, for the first death is over, and not existing still, under another name. If the second death is the lake of fire, extinction of being the lake of fire is not. Can any one show us the fallacy of such a conclusion?

But, says Mr. Dobney, every one must suffer then "precisely the same torment as the devil himself." There is not the least reason for that; for if the lake of fire mean torment forever and ever, all may suffer that, and yet in almost infinitely different degrees. "They were judged every man according to their works."

Mr. Dobney is thinking and arguing really about material fire. In a material fire for eternity it would be natural to say all would suffer alike — the degrees could not at least be very far removed. But then how could the devil suffer in material fire? Doubtless it is a figure and to be explained by the use of such a figure elsewhere. It is indeed the true ignis sapiens, the discriminative wrath of God which must be the portion of all the impenitent, yet not alike to each. The Lord has Himself taught us to speak of stripes few or many, of judgment greater or less.

As to even material fire and its effect, it is not conceded that the devil is in such sense of "quite another race of intelligences," as to be less susceptible to its action than the spirit of man: while as to his resurrection body, we can argue nothing, for we know nothing about it. But material fire we may be sure is not meant, as these very considerations show.

Mr. Dobney's second objection is:

"(ii.) The inference is not a fair one. . . What does the being cast into the lake of fire mean, in v. 14? It denotes the utter ceasing to be of death and hades. There is to be no more death. And this plain fact is poetically set forth by the striking image of death cast into a lake of fire; fire being the acknowledged symbol of the prophets for destruction. So 'death, the last enemy, is to be destroyed.' This is the undisputed sense of v. 14. When then, in the very next verse, sinners are represented as cast into the lake of fire, is it not obvious and legitimate to retain the sense necessarily attached to the symbol of fire in the verse before, rather than to overlook the near and go back to the remote passage?"

This objection has been already met. It is strange how little Mr. Dobney can see the fallacy of an argument which asserts death to be destroyed when cast into the lake of fire, and yet that death is to reign still in that very place! It is quite true that death is in fact destroyed in that very way. Not as if the fire destroyed it, but its prisoners being given up finally, and cast into the lake of fire, death exists no more; but that is not what casting into the fire as a symbol means.

Mr. Dabney reinforces his argument by reference to the book of life, and the threat of being blotted out of it. This, too, we have looked at, and need not return to it.

Mr. Hudson's main argument* also turns upon death and hades being cast into the lake of fire, and he says that if Satan, the beast, and the false prophet are immortal in it, by parity of reasoning death and hades ought to be. "Death and hades, symbolical personages, are supposed to cease from being; while their subjects, 'the dead ' . . . are supposed to be immortal! Who does not see (he asks) that hades and thanatos are only other names for the dead?" That is what I believe and contend for, and that the passage does not represent their ceasing to exist at all. It is quite true they do so, but that is inference only, although a sound one; for if all who make them up are gone from them, they are, of course, gone too. But if death be gone at the beginning of those ages of ages for which the torment of the lake of fire lasts, how can its subjects ever "die"?

{* Debt and Grace, p. 213.}

Mr. Hudson also regards the beast and false prophet as symbols of systems, and that they must come to an end with those who are their worshippers, but this again is not proved but taken for granted. If they are systems, come to an end for lack of supporters, how are they tormented for the ages of ages? "This might be said," he answers, "of the beast and the false prophet as impersonations, henceforth without power or worshippers." Death might indeed symbolize that, but it is the very thing they do not suffer. They are cast "alive" into the lake of fire, and remain alive a thousand years, and still to be tormented on forever and ever. How can there be life in systems without power or worshippers forever? Mr. Hudson does not even himself believe it, for he adds, "But we think the language describes their utter and irrevocable destruction in a dramatic form," and he compares it to Isa. 14: 9-12: that is, the welcome given by the dead to the dead king of Babylon!

As he gives no reason further than this, we have not much to answer. As to Satan himself he answers the question, "Is he mortal?" by saying, "the prophecies all look that way." He produces but two, however: one, "that the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent;" the other, Dan. 7: 11, 12! His proofs are perfectly conclusive as to the untenableness of his position.

As to the second death,* Mr. Hudson quotes various rabbinical statements to show that for the rabbis the phrase meant annihilation. If so, it would only show that Scripture in the most decisive way reverses their judgment.

{* Debt and Grace, p. 178.}

We will now look at Mr. Morris' view, and shall give it in his own words:*

{*What is Man, p. 120, etc.}

"A two-fold destiny awaits the devil — the one, political, and the other, personal . . . the dramatic representation of the personal policy and scheme of Satan is that of a 'great red dragon' (Rev. 12: 1-3). In the doom of his policy, his person and the persons of his host are involved. But it is the personal policy of Satan that the 'great red dragon' more especially represents. And it is the great red dragon that is caught, and chained, and cast into the abyss, and is imprisoned there a thousand years, and is then let loose, and is afterwards cast into the lake of fire. The policy of Satan as we have just remarked, involves his person; and so the doom of his policy involves his personal doom. But it is the political doom of the devil, or the devil as politically considered, that is intended, and is dramatically described when it is said, 'And the devil that deceived them (the nations) was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and THEY shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.' The passive verb in the original, basanistheesontai, is a plural verb, and so requires to be read, 'and THEY shall be tormented,' or, as divested of the dramatic dress, 'and they shall be PUT TO THE PROOF unto the ages of the ages.' That trinity of evil, called the dragon and the beast and the false prophet, shall be together involved in the same final doom."

In a note he adds,

"The dramatic force and design of this plural verb, basanistheesontai, is not — they shall be tortured, as some men count torture. As we have noticed before: That the the verb basanizo, and the noun basanismos, are derived from basanos, the name of a stone found in Lydia, in Asia Minor, by which gold was tried — a touch-stone. From the literal meaning of basanos came the metaphorical use of basanismos — that which tests or puts to the proof. In the mind of a Roman inquisitor — both ancient and modern — both secular and ecclesiastical — this word and its verbs came to mean torture, and torturing to elicit evidence, to extort a confession. But even in this there was an end proposed to be obtained by means of the torture, and so an end to the torture itself. The torment inflicted was, professedly at least, a means to an end, and not for the mere sake of tormenting. In common discourse, the word basanismos and its verbs came to represent the ideas of painful toil and great bodily affection . . . and the infliction of torture. But basanismos and its verbs always retain their radical meaning when used in relation to the jurisprudence and penal administration of God. The feminine symbol called 'Babylon the great,' and the masculine symbols called 'the beast' and 'the false prophet,' are said to be tormented; that is, the systems of ecclesiastical and of secular and moral polity and power, which these symbols represent, shall be tested and put to the proof."

Thus far Mr. Morris. We have all these words in the New Testament. Basanos three times, Matt. 4: 24; Luke 16: 23, 28, always given as "torment;" Basanismos similarly "torment" five times, Rev. 9: 5; Rev. 14: 11; Rev. 18: 7, 10, 15; Basanistenistes once, Matt. 18: 34, "tormentors;" Basanizo, once rendered "tossed," Matt. 14: 24; once "toiling," Mark 6: 48; once "vexed," 2 Peter 2: 8; once "pained," Rev. 12: 2; and the other eight times "torment," Matt. 8: 6, 29; Mark 5: 7; Luke 8: 28; Rev. 9: 5; Rev. 11: 10; Rev. 14: 10; Rev. 20: 10.

Mr. Morris' canon of interpretation is a very simple one. These words, so uniformly, rendered by some word expressive of suffering and pain, may be allowed to retain that meaning in every case where the penal administration of God is not in question, that is, wherever the theories of annihilationists do not require it otherwise, but there we must absolutely exclude the idea of torment: it must be "put to the proof" in all such cases.

In vain we ask, is there another instance which requires or would allow this rendering in the New Testament? Mr. Morris is sufficient authority evidently in the matter, for he condescends to give no other, nor even to reason about it.

But he is somewhat unfortunate nevertheless. For in the very text in question the canon strangely fails. "Divested of the dramatic dress," he says, the passage reads: "and they shall be PUT TO THE PROOF unto the ages of the ages." "That trinity of evil," is his own comment upon it, "called the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, shall be together involved in the same final doom."

That is, these three, two of them symbols, are "doomed" to be put to the proof (without torture) in a lake of fire and brimstone forever. The end of the "putting to proof" is never to come! For this putting to the proof, is to "elicit evidence"! The strange trial is to go on forever, and come to no result!

But this is not what Mr. Morris means. Possibly not. It is only what he says. They are tested forever. The fire and brimstone, too, are of course "dramatic," and it is only the devil's political doom, as personally he is to be destroyed! Perhaps that makes it plainer. If not, it is pretty certain to bewilder, which is apparently the next best thing.

But Mr. Morris comes at last to the question for which we have been waiting, "who or what are the beast and the false prophet?" And he answers: "They are symbols of governmental and of moral polity and power." "The beast is a composite symbol of the secular polity and power of the Roman world in the last stage of its history." "He ascendeth out of the abyss, and he 'goeth into perdition,' — eis apoleian, that is, unto destruction — final and eternal destruction; but he is first to be put to the proof."

"'The false prophet,'" he goes on, "is in the first instance, called 'another beast,' which is represented as coming up out of the earth." He "is the symbol of the moral polity and power of the Roman world in the last stage of its history. It will be accredited of Satan, who will display in it most marvellous powers — miraculous powers, in imitation of the powers of the Holy Ghost. . . This second beast is first called the 'false prophet' in Rev. 16: 13, and he is so called because the moral polity which is thus described will claim to be the mature result of manly wisdom.

"In Dan. 7: 11, the destiny of the Roman beast is spoken of thus: I beheld till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.'. . . But here in Rev. 19: 20, an additional truth is supplied. John saw the beast and the false prophet cast alive into the lake of fire, and they are represented as being still there and alive at the end of the thousand years, when Satan is let loose out of his prison. And this is intended to teach . . . that during and throughout the thousand years, it shall be left as an open question, as to whether those same systems of secular and moral power will ever be able to rise up again and be re-established upon the earth . . . and so the beast and false prophet are represented as alive in an open pool, or lake of fire burning with brimstone upon the surface of the earth and in view of all. And when Satan is let loose the great experiment is tried. . . . Instead of an escape and a re-establishment on the part of the beast and false prophet, by the assistance of the devil, he himself is cast into the same lake of fire with them, and to share their doom: and it shall not any longer be an open question as to whether moral evil will reappear and become rampant on the earth, or in any department of the universe of God."

The great question which concerns us here, and on account of which I have quoted so much from Mr. Morris, is, are the beast and false prophet men, or are they simply systems or polities as he represents it? I shall attempt no interpretation of the prophecy, save so far as it is needed for the purpose of definitely settling this; and it may be definitely settled, for God's metaphors are not ambiguous, and scarcely so hard to read as Mr. Morris' interpretations.

The book of Daniel conclusively settles that the seven-headed, ten-horned "beast" of Revelation is the Roman empire, as Mr. Morris states it, although in a somewhat different form. In Rev. 17: 11, however, there is a feature of the case which seems to have escaped him, for there the beast is identified with his own eighth head. Now "the seven heads are seven Kings." The imperial beast of Revelation is thus stated to be the last king, for in his day it "goes into perdition."

In Daniel, at the commencement of the Gentile empires, of which Rome is the last, we find a statement very similar to that in Revelation. In Nebuchadnezzar's dream the head of the image is of fine gold, and typifies the Babylonian power; but Daniel applies it personally to Nebuchadnezzar himself: "Thou art this head of gold." This double identification of the golden head may help us to understand that as in the days of Babylon one man represented in fact the empire, so it will be in the time of the fulfilment of Rev. 17: 11. One man will represent the empire for God; and of this as to the last beast an intimation at least is given in the book of Daniel also.

"I beheld then," says the prophet, "because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake, I beheld even till the beast was slain." The beast is judged for the words of the horn: beast and horn are one as to responsibility before God. Now a "horn" too is a "king" (Rev. 17: 12); and here even in Daniel is one morally so identified with the beast as to draw down the judgment of God upon it.

More than this, when we look at the picture in the Old Testament we find this horn to be an eleventh horn, feeble in its beginnings, but rising to superiority over the rest at last. In Revelation this eleventh horn, so all important in Daniel, does not appear at all; but there is an eighth head of the beast in Revelation, which on the other hand did not appear in Daniel, and which is in its place identified with the beast. Who can resist the conviction that these two (both "kings") are really one?

But the great words of the horn bring down judgment upon the beast: and this assures us still more of the horn's personality. For a "polity" is not a responsible agent, for that we must have a living being. Nor could we think of ten polities, of which an eleventh subdued three, as is said of the "horn;" whereas, if a real king be intended, nothing is more natural. Now, a king is the interpretation both of "horn" and "head," and this ought to be simple enough not to need another interpretation to explain it to us. The simplest is the best.

The beast is "worshipped" too by all that dwell on earth, and the number of the beast is the number of a man. He is found, when Christ comes, with the kings of the earth, (literal kings, as Isa. 24: 21, assures us), heading their opposition, and receives signal, awful judgment as the head of it.

That judgment we shall look at directly; but first as to the "false prophet." Apart from all interpretation he is manifestly the same as the second beast of the 13th chapter, as again Mr. Morris truly says. His character and time and end couple him unmistakably also with the "man of sin" in Thessalonians, and who, however much he too may represent a "polity," is plainly yet (or should be so) a man.

A "false prophet" hardly even can represent a polity; save as it represents one who may be identified with it. His miracles are Elias-like: he makes fire come down from heaven in the sight of men; he exercises all the power of the first beast in his presence; he gives breath to an image of the beast; he causes all to receive the latter's mark. Why and upon what warrant we should believe that this is not a personal agent, who can tell us? And when we find such an one united with the beast and kings of the earth in opposition to the Lord and cast alive with the beast into the lake of fire into which first Satan and afterward all the wicked are cast, and suffering torment there for ages and ages, why should we allow the dreams of men, who seem only to know how to darken daylight itself; turn us from or make us hesitate in the assured belief, that these two are men, and nothing but men?

But Mr. Morris' interpretation of the judgment must detain us a little, wild and incongruous as it surely is. Examination can only deepen the conviction of the reality of what we have to do with here, and of its simplicity also, a simplicity worthy of the Divine Author. It is not without profit ever to be occupied (if one's heart be in it) with the word.

Does "taken and cast alive into a lake of fire" mean judgment? Surely one would think so. But no; they are systems it seems, still alive in men's minds, it remaining an open question whether they will come up again in power upon earth or not. After the loosing of Satan and his failure, and being cast into the lake of fire also, it is not an open question any more, he says, but strangely enough they are still tested on and on for ages and ages in the same lake of fire!

And that lake of fire receives others also. Men are judged, and after judgment cast in, to be tested of course further still.

The lake of fire is on earth, too. But the earth and the heavens flee away from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and still the lake of fire abides as before.

I might, perhaps, conclude with Mr. Morris here; but he, too sees in the crushing of the serpent's head the personal annihilation of the devil, and (again with Mr. Hudson) his personal destiny involved in the destruction of the Roman beast in Dan. 7: 11. As for the first, the annihilation of the serpent as such is allowed to be complete when Satan is cast into the lake of fire, but his personal annihilation is by no means implied. As for the last, they must show us how they argue it before we can treat it as other than imagination.

We will now listen to Mr. Constable, and it need not be for any length of time, for he fairly gives the matter up. He says:*

{* Nat. and Dur. of Etern. Punishm., p. 199.}

"The sense we would put upon the passages in Revelation is, that they convey in highly wrought figures suitable to the character of the entire book, only the old idea which we have already gathered from the rest of Scripture, viz., that the punishment of all consigned to hell will be of an eternal nature, and that its fearful effect — the plunging of its subjects into death and destruction — will ever remain visible to the redeemed and angelic worlds. We will not try to establish this sense by examining the force of each word. We deny that language so highly figurative is capable of any such dialectical analysis, or that such is the manner in which we ordinarily interpret language of the kind."

He prefers to go to other passages to show the use of similar language. Of these, he produces two: Isa. 34: 9, 10, and Jude's reference to Sodom. Isaiah says of Edom, "The land thereof shall become burning pitch: it shall not be quenched night nor day, the smoke thereof shall go up forever." Mr. Constable asks:

"Will the advocates of Augustine's hell tell us that if we went to Idumea, we should see people suffering pain from some period subsequent to Isaiah's prophecy to the present time? . . . The present condition of Edom is the explanation of the poetic figure: its cities have fallen into ruin: the whole land is a desert. The burning pitch, the unquenchable fire, the smoke ascending forever, is reduced to this sober hue in the language of prose."

This is only saying that the language is that of poetic exaggeration. We utterly and absolutely deny it. The present condition of Edom is not what Isaiah prophesies of. He speaks of a yet future time, as ver. 2-8 distinctly show, and then this terrible judgment will be fulfilled. If Scripture language were so deceptive, who could trust it? But Isaiah says nothing about "endless life in pain" — not a word. It is Mr. Constable who has foisted the thought upon him. Nor is the Old Testament "forever" the "ages of the ages" of the New.

Next as to Jude 7, where it is said that "Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire," — Mr. Constable says this cannot refer to any suffering in hades, for their condition there is never alluded to in Scripture, and is therefore no "example"; that hell is a future thing for all, and Jude speaks of something "which had long been a plain and palpable warning to the ungodly of this earth." He concludes therefore it can only refer to "their overthrow in the days of Lot, and their abiding condition ever since." "They and their works were burnt up; and this ruined, lifeless, hopeless condition has remained to the present time. The whole transaction conveys the idea of conscious pain for a time, followed by ruin and death forever. This is, according to Scripture, to 'suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.'"

This is, rather, the way in which men venture to interpret the word of God, until it becomes the bye-word and scorn of infidelity. The cities are burnt up and not to be found, and the land lies desolate, and this is the vengeance of eternal fire! Words may mean anything in this way; they are made not to express sense, but to hide it. But it is not very hard to see that Jude in speaking of these "cities" speaks of the people in them. The people had sinned, and upon the people the judgment fell, the "fire and brimstone" from heaven being the type or pattern of that "eternal fire" in which they suffer still. The temporary fire by which they perished from the earth was not the eternal one, nor is it stated to be such. But the wrath of God manifested upon them is a sample or specimen (deigma) of what could not be temporary, that wrath against sin which is the "eternal fire." Mr. Constable confounds the people with the mere material cities, and thinks of a present condition of palpable judgment, of which not a word is said. The fire which destroyed them was "eternal fire," if you look, not at the material fire which was at once its instrument and symbol, but at the divine wrath so manifested. There is then no difficulty in the matter.

Nor need we discuss therefore the principle which Mr. Constable obtains from this passage, "that the judgments of God upon individuals or nations, in destroying them here for sin, is the pattern and example of that destruction which He will inflict on them hereafter for sin" although he presses to the same end also our Lord's words in regard to the Galileans, "Unless ye repent ye shall all likewise perish," and even Paul's statement that the things that happened to Israel in the wilderness "happened to them for ensamples," where the margin reads "types." We have been ourselves largely reading such types, and it is not to be supposed that we are afraid of the latter principle. But when we are told that "the slaying of the Galileans by Pilate essentially resembles the death of the wicked in hell," we may be allowed to ask for some further proof than his saying so can afford us.

Thus neither Jude nor Isaiah are in the least sympathy with Mr. Constable in his endeavor to give a sense to Scripture which he "will not try to establish by examining the force of each word." It is a very real, however little ingenuous a confession, that the words, if sifted, are against him. He does, however, try to do somewhat even here, and with reference to basanizo, "to torment," he points out, that "it is as applicable to things without life as to living things," because it is applied once (metaphorically) as we have seen, to the tossing of a boat! So he thinks the devil might be "tossed" in a lake of fire and brimstone forever! If that will not do, Schleusner, it seems, has said that it is used, not only for actual pain, but "for death produced by such pain," and "in this sense (he thinks) it is peculiarly applicable to future punishment." No doubt; so the devil is to be killed by torment day and night forever and ever!

We may leave Mr. Constable then, to look at some fresh arguments with Mr. Minton. It is strange how fresh the arguments are, and how little one writer accepts those of another; each seems satisfied only with his own. But we must be as brief as the case will allow.

34 - The apocalyptic visions - 2

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 34.

The apocalyptic visions. — 2

"If we are to learn anything with regard to what will happen to the persons here represented," says Mr. Minton,* "we must first inquire what would happen to that which represents them, as the consequence of being cast into a lake of fire. Now it so happens that in every one of the five or six cases here specified, the result would be utter destruction. They are all living things, and not one of them could possibly exist in a lake of fire. A wild beast; a false prophet; 'the devil,' evidently under the form of the 'dragon,' seen first in ch. 12, and again in 22: 2; 'death and hell' (hades), as evidently under the form already seen in ch. 6: 8, of a rider or riders on horseback; and 'whosoever' of the dead, small and great, that stood before God, 'was not found written in the book of life.' If these things be intended to predict the final doom of wicked men and wicked spirits, then their doom is set forth under images which point to nothing less than extinction of being."

{* Way Everlasting, p. 68, etc.}

This shows how utterly at fault as to these figures is the speculation Mr. Minton recommends. How long would a wild beast live in a lake of fire? Certainly, if we follow our thoughts, an exceedingly short space of time. How long if we take Scripture? A thousand years as first seen, and then the ages of ages. Similarly as to to the false prophet. So as to the devil from the time he is cast in. How worse than vain to speculate! how entirely Scripture contradicts Mr. Minton's suggestions.

But this Mr. Minton is candid enough to own, and he says:

"I at once admit my inability to explain this in any way that is quite satisfactory to my own mind. But I do not admit that the view which it seems to oppose must therefore be radically wrong (!) . . . A wild beast could no more live in such a condition for a day than for an age." What then? "This inclines me to think that the ages of ages indicate, not the period of suffering to the condemned, but the eternal destruction that comes upon them. . . .What then, you will ask again, do I understand by torment '? I understand by it — destruction (!) And to all objections that torment and destruction are two different things, I reply that the Spirit of God Himself has most pointedly applied the word torment to destruction in one of those very passages. Read the account in chap. 18 of Babylon's destruction. The inhabitants perish 'in one day' by 'death and mourning and famine'; and then the city itself is 'utterly burned with fire.' Now in the long description of the burning which follows, there is not a word of any living persons or things being left in the city, to suffer torture from the fire that consumes it. The city is, of course, destroyed for the sin of its inhabitants; but their destruction is distinguished in ver. 8 from its destruction. Yet they who gaze upon that burning mass 'stand far off for the fear of her torment.' What can the word mean there but destruction?"

Thus must words be perverted by man's will, and torment mean what torment never meant, and the sanction of the Spirit of God be claimed for an unnatural and impossible use of language, such as never could be imputed to anything beside Scripture. And what is the ground for this notable absurdity? Babylon's inhabitants perish "in one day," says Mr. Minton, by "death and mourning and famine," but the city as distinguished from these is burned with fire, no living inhabitant being in it; and ver. 8 distinguishes the destruction of the inhabitants from that of the city! It is ver. 8 he is citing for all this: of course he must have read it; but this is what it says: — "Therefore shall her plagues COME in one day, death and mourning and famine; and she, shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God that judgeth her!" Where is it said, Mr. Minton, that the inhabitants all perish in one day? Nowhere: her plagues come in one day, not are over! Where is the city distinguished from the inhabitants, so as to imply that these do not suffer in the burning of the former? Again, nowhere! it is bold perversion of the language: and all to give to the word torment in the subsequent verse an impossible meaning, which would scarcely have been attempted to be fastened upon any other book than Scripture, as I have already said.

We can well believe that his interpretation is not satisfactory to Mr. Minton. It is the only encouraging thing about it, that it is not.

But yet he has not done with Babylon. If she perishes so as not to be "found any more at all" — "what then," he asks, "is the meaning of her smoke rising up forever and ever? What, but that her guilt and her destruction will never be forgotten; that she will be pre-eminently an object of everlasting contempt? Such destruction I believe to be the 'torment' of all impenitent sinners, and such an eternal memory of sin and its destruction to be the smoke of that torment ascending up forever and ever."*

{*Mr. Roberts, who in his "Man Mortal" does nothing but repeat Mr. Minton's arguments, and to whom no separate reply is needed therefore, quotes, however, "her smoke rose up forever and ever," to remark: "If the sense here were the popular notion of absolutely endless futurity, how absurd to describe it in the past tense — 'rose up' — as a thing having happened! How can a thing have happened 'forever' in the English sense?" Aye, or in the Greek either? Mr. R. has forgotten his Greek here, although he quotes it in the very next words. The Greek is anabainei, "goeth up."

The only additional thing to be noticed as to him is, that he makes the casting "alive" of the systems into the lake of fire to intimate that they will not die of themselves, but be destroyed by the Lord at His coming"! Do the "kings of the earth" die of themselves, because they die! And how is it the systems are still "alive" after a thousand years, if they are destroyed (in his sense) by the Lord at His coming?}

So that we must read, instead of "torment," "destruction day and night for the ages of ages"!

I do not believe that Babylon's smoke ascending up for ever and ever means that the memory of it will be forever.* The memory of all that has ever been will endure forever and this is more than the assertion of such a common-place thought. The key to the expression is that identification of the city and people which Mr. Minton so vainly contends against. The expression is, of course, figurative, but identical with that in Rev. 14: 11, yet to be looked at. Babylon suffers forever, of course in those to whom her guilt really belongs.

{*In a former work I did accept this, but on more mature consideration must withdraw that acceptance.}

But Mr. Minton goes on: —

"But it is urged that the wild beast and false prophet, who were cast into the lake of fire before the millennium, are spoken of at its close as if still there. This is, however, a mistake, the word 'are' not being in the original. When a word has to be supplied, it should be supplied from what has preceded, and not made to assert an independent fact. 'The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet' — what? Surely 'were cast.' To supply 'are' is just to beg the question, and assert a fact which is not stated in the record. The words which follow, and (they — the verb being plural) shall be tormented day and night forever and ever,' merely contain a declaration that the destruction of the beast and the false prophet and the dragon would be final and irremediable none of them would ever appear again. The two former are included in this subsequent declaration, because nothing of the kind had been said when they were first cast into the lake of fire."

That is, again, we must transform torment into destruction, and say "they shall be destroyed day and night forever and ever"! And even so we must believe that "they shall be destroyed" means that two of them have been already, and only the third "shall be"! These are somewhat large demands upon our faith — the sceptical would say "credulity"; but where man's will is at work there is still credulity enough for this and more. Yet Mr. Minton finds it himself not quite satisfactory, it would seem. He cannot blame us if we sympathize with him.

But he has still a resource, if his explanation of these texts fails to be "wholly satisfactory," as he admits it may, he can still question ours! If he can make nothing else out of them, he will not accept what they plainly say: —

"Now, waiving the question which a Universalist would raise, as to the ages of ages" — If the doubt is not Mr. Minton's own, why does he affect to raise it? — "your argument manifestly depends upon the assumption that the 'torment' spoken of in these visions represents torment in the future realities which are therein predicted. But how can you prove that? You can produce a string of texts to show the precise meaning of basanos (torment); and so can I produce a string of texts to show the precise meaning of therion (a wild beast). Does the beast in the vision represent a beast in the reality? Then why should torment in the vision represent torment in the reality?"

Before we answer this, let us hear Mr. Minton's summing up of conclusions against this: —

"1. The word 'torment' is applied to the burning of the city Babylon, when its inhabitants had already perished." This has been disproved.

"2. Its smoke is said to rise up forever and ever, after it has been so completely destroyed that it cannot be found." This is also a mere confusion arising out of the first mistake.

"3. While the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire, all their adherents are 'slain with the sword '; which, on your principle of interpretation, would show, that some of the wicked will be punished with eternal torment, others with death."

Quite true, as to the time of the Lord's coming; but the latter are raised among "the rest of the dead," and then cast into the lake of fire also. How, if the beast and the false prophet are "phases of evil," as Mr. M. suggests, and not persons, they should be cast into the lake of fire into which Satan and all the wicked afterwards are cast, is a difficulty upon his side he can never explain. If their adherents had been at the same time cast in, it might have been contended that they shared the fate of their adherents, or if all had been slain this might have been said. But that "phases of evil" should be cast into a place of torment is inexplicable in the way the verses stand.

His fourth objection applies only to Rev. 14: 10, so must be reserved.

His fifth is the old mistake as to death and hades being cast in.

His sixth is, that torment not mentioned with regard to the dead in ver. 15. But the lake of fire is not (as he asserts) "the very embodiment of destruction," in his sense of it, as we have seen, and death being destroyed at the beginning of the ages makes it impossible thereafter that men should die. He asks: —

"7. But does the lake of fire itself go on burning forever? Is it 'everlasting' or 'unquenchable' in that sense? What are the very next words? 'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.' What then has become of the lake of fire which St. John saw on the first earth? Why, of course, it has passed away with the earth of which it formed part. Is there any lake of fire on the new earth?"

I think it useful to quote exact words, or people might really believe there was some strange perversion on my part, or misconception at least of an adversary's arguments. Mr. Minton proceeds with a full page more of reasonings upon this foundation, in which it is, of course, quite useless to follow him, for the foundation itself is lacking. Where does the passage speak of the lake of fire being on earth at all? He would seem to be reading from another Bible than that which is in all our hands. Why, the devil is only cast into this lake of fire at the close of the millennium, there to be tormented day and night for the ages of ages. Whatever that means, a long lapse of time is surely indicated. But in the very next words we read of the great white throne set up, and the earth and the heavens fleeing away. Are the ages of ages all expired in the meantime, and before the final judgment?

But again, the throne is set, the earth and the heavens flee away but the dead summoned from their graves are cast into the lake of fire, which, of course, has ceased to exist with that earth which has fled away!

We will now answer Mr. Minton's question as to why "torment" in the vision should represent torment in the reality. And we answer: —

1. Because it is impossible to say what it does represent figuratively. No one has given us, — no one (it seems) can give us, any meaning in the least degree satisfactory.

2. Because the language throughout the twentieth chapter becomes more and more literal continually. The "devil," when cast in, is distinguished by the title given him in the interpretation of the previous vision, not by "the dragon," as in the vision itself.* The interpretation in verse 6 of the "first resurrection" shows us the exceeding simplicity of the vision it interprets. Souls (persons) slain are seen to live again, and that signifies literal resurrection. The "thousand years," the reign as kings and priests, are the same in the vision and the interpretation alike. And as the solemn subject of judgment is approached, the plainest words seem studied by which to set it forth. How simple and decisive they are we can realize the better, after their survival of the treatment which we have seen them endure.

{*The "beast" is indeed still that, but I see not how else he could be spoken of without revealing the mystery which is left to the "mind which hath understanding." The second "beast" has become "the false prophet."}

3. Because literal death in the lake of fire we have seen to be impossible, and fire which does not annihilate must apparently torment.

4. Because the devils in the gospel speak of torment as their future doom, and here, therefore, the word is guaranteed as literal.

We ask Mr. Minton's attention seriously to these reasons as well as to the examination of his own views which has been given. He cannot complain of misrepresentation or of partial representation, nor do we think we have dealt with them more severely than he would himself desire if God give him another mind upon this subject every way so important to souls.

There is but one more argument, adduced by Blain, and repeated by Goodwyn,* that "day and night are characteristic elements of this dispensation," but in that case, for the purpose of his argument, "this dispensation" must last "for the ages of the ages." That "night" is not found in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22: 5) or the new earth is nothing to the purpose self-evidently. I grant the language may be figurative, but its obvious use is to convey the thought of what is continuous or ceaseless, which in addition to the phrase "forever and ever" shows even by itself that annihilation cannot be meant. What would be the force of "annihilation day and night forever and ever"?

{* Death not Life, Truth and Tradition, p. 32.}

The arguments on the side of "conditional immortality" close then here. But we have still to glance at those of the restorationist school.

Dr. Farrar is "quite content that texts should decide" this question. That would give us hope that in telling us "what hell is not," he would have shown us at least what this connected prophecy of Revelation on the very subject does not mean. But although he has spent pages upon the rabbis, I cannot find ten lines upon this main text throughout his book. Indeed the only thing at all to the purpose that I can find is one note of two lines quoted from Dr. Chauncey, that "If all things without exception be subjected to Christ, then death, the second death, as well as the first death, will be finally swallowed up in victory."** This belongs properly to another branch of our subject, but a word or two is amply sufficient in answer. For the "second death" is always subject to Christ, and never opposed, never needs to be subjected. Are the prisons to which a king commits his prisoners not subject to the king who commits them there? Dr. Farrar's reasoning is scarcely equal to his powers in other respects, if he believes this.

{* Eternal Hope, Excursus 5, p. 222.}

Mr. F. N. Oxenham in his "letter" to Mr. Gladstone, again spends pages upon two lines of Keble, and not a line upon the Scripture so all important in this matter.

We must depend then upon Mr. Jukes mainly to represent the restorationist view here, apart of course from the general reasoning upon the expressions for eternity which we have already examined. And we shall allow him as usual to speak for himself. He says: — *

{* Restitution of All Things, pp. 88-95.}

"I cannot even attempt here to trace the stages or processes of the future judgment of those who are raised up to condemnation . . . but what has here been gathered from the word of God as to the course and method of His salvation, throws great light upon that 'resurrection of judgment' which our Lord speaks of."

How the method of God's salvation should throw great light upon the process of final judgment, it is very hard to say. Mr. Jukes of course assumes that that judgment is itself a process of salvation. In that case of course it would throw light. But on the contrary, Scripture contrasts these as two incompatible things. He that believes in Christ "has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment," while "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned." "To them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation." "There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy." "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"* This is the uniform tenor of Scripture, in a great variety of expressions which assure us that the judgment of the wicked is the very opposite of being a method of salvation: it is a method of destruction. But we will let Mr. Jukes proceed.

{* John 5: 24; 3: 36; Mark 16: 16; Phil. 1: 28; James 4: 12 1 Peter 4: 18.}

"Awful as it is, who can doubt the end and purpose of this judgment? for 'God, the judge of all,' 'changes not,' and 'Jesus Christ' is still 'the same yesterday, today, and for the ages.'"

Which assures us of His unrepenting performance of all that He has threatened, as of all that He has promised.

"And the very context of the passage which describes the casting of the wicked into the lake of fire, seems to show that this resurrection and the second death are both parts of the same redeeming plan, which necessarily involves judgment on those who will not judge themselves, and have not accepted the loving judgments and sufferings which in this life prepare the first-born for the first resurrection. So we read, — 'And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new . . . He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be His God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whore-mongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death.' What does He say here but that 'all things shall be made new,' though in the way to this the fearful and unbelieving must pass the lake of fire?"

He says the very opposite. For instead of "passing" the lake of fire, He says they "have their part" in it, as the saints have theirs in the first resurrection. And these (or among these) are they who have their "part" taken out of the book of life (Rev. 22: 19) of whom Mr. Jukes teaches they have their part there really still.

Moreover it is only as to the condition of the blessed that God says, "Behold, I make all things new," as the context proves. "He that overcometh, I will be his God, and he shall be my son; but" — but what? He that overcometh not shall be also in the end my son? No, surely, "but the fearful and unbelieving, etc., shall have their part in the lake of fire." Mr. Jukes' explanation is a destruction of the sense, a sense which is as plain as can be. But again he says: —

"The 'second death' therefore, so far from being, as some think, the hopeless shutting up of man forever in the curse of disobedience, will, if I err not, be God's way to free those who in no other way than by such a death can be delivered out of the dark world whose life they live in. . . . To get out of this world there is but one way, death; not the first, for that is passed, but the second death. Even if we have not light to see this, ought not the present to teach us something of God's future ways; for is He not the same yesterday, today, and forever?"

So it is "forever" now, instead of "to the ages"! but "now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day of salvation." Is the day of judgment and of wrath still the same? If God is (as of course He must be) essentially always the same, does that make grace and wrath the same? or judgment and salvation? Does it not rather assure us that He who has threatened will make good? And that the word will fully be sustained, "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him"? Is it no perversion of the truth of His unchangeableness, to say that His wrath abideth not, and all shall finally "see life"? He goes on: —

"We know that in inflicting present death, His present purpose is to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil."

We know nothing of the kind; it is Christ's death, not ours, which does this. Has Mr. Jukes read the next words in the text he quotes?

"How can we conclude from this, that in inflicting the second death, the unchanging God will act on a principle entirely different from that which now actuates Him?"

That is, again, why should a day of salvation and a day of judgment differ in character? But as to death itself the principle is not different; for as the first death is the judgment upon the natural world, so the second death is upon the world beyond the grave for those who endure it. And as the first is final as to this present scene, the second will be as to that.

"And why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead, who for their sin suffer the penalty of the second death? Does this death exceed the power of Christ to overcome it? Or shall the greater foe still triumph, while the less, the first death, is surely overcome? Who has taught us thus to limit the meaning of the words, 'Death is swallowed up in victory'? "

I answer to the last question, God Himself; if 1 Cor. 15 be inspired of Him. For the apostle there tells us that it is fulfilled at the resurrection of the body, and that is no question of the second death at all. Nor is the second death Christ's foe, as the first death is. For the first death does (while it lasts) prevent the fulfilment of the eternal purpose fully, whether with saint or sinner. The second death does not, and is not an enemy, as I have before replied to Dr. Chauncey. As to what is "credible," all is that God reveals. This He has not revealed, but the very opposite.

"Is God's 'will to save all men' limited to fourscore years, or changed by that event which we call death, but which we are distinctly told is His appointed means for our deliverance?"

We are not told this as to physical death. Are the saints who do not die, but are changed at the Lord's coming, not delivered? God would indeed have all men to be saved, but this is not purpose or counsel, which is always another word,* but desire. "How often would I," says our Lord as to Jerusalem, "and ye would not." And "now is the accepted time" applies only to living men. But all this will come up again elsewhere, and the rest of Mr. Jukes' arguments will then be considered more fittingly. They are not based upon the text before us.

Thus then we have examined every objection which has been raised to that simple reading of this important Scripture with which we first began. We have surely seen that the metaphors are not ambiguous, but written in the speech of Him who cannot lie, nor call by the name of "revelation" an exaggerated, or at least "mysterious and highly-wrought" account, which, when reduced to the "sober hue" of truth, becomes the total opposite of what is on the face of it.

{* boulomai, boule: as Matt. 11: 27; Luke 22: 42; Acts 2: 23; Acts 4: 28; Acts 27: 42; Eph. 1: 11; Heb. 6: 17, etc. But we shall have to recur to this again.

Thank God, His word never fails to justify itself; and its witness is neither to be brow-beaten nor cajoled from its first statements for the simplest honest-hearted hearer. He has hid these things from wise and prudent, to reveal them unto babes.

35 - The Apocalyptic Visions — 3

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 35.

The Apocalyptic Visions. — 3

The examination of our next passage will not detain us so long, as the argument with regard to it is necessarily of a very similar nature to what has been already advanced on either side. It is, however, a separate and independent testimony of the destiny of the wicked, and as such we must not pass it by. It reads thus: —

"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever (for ages of ages); and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name" (Rev. 14: 9-11).

One would think that was as plain as it is solemn. Even Mr. Morris' "putting to the proof" instead of "torment" could scarcely much darken it. He has noticed the passage, however, and objects to its teaching the commonly received doctrine on these grounds: —

1. It is the penalty of a specific crime, and therefore cannot be the doom of those who have not committed that crime. Therefore, if it teach endless woe for some, that cannot be the "common penalty due to sinners."

But Mr. Morris is again at fault; for hell-fire may be the common penalty of sinners, and yet men be solemnly warned, as here, that once let them commit the sin in question and that hell would be their portion. What is intended very evidently is that for such persons there would be no escape The objection is therefore vain.

2. Mr. Morris says, that, whatever may be the "dramatic force" of what is said, "it is evident that it transpires on earth, and before the coming of the Lord."

But he gives no evidence for this at all, unless "it is evident" be considered such. I should think myself that "the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb," would rather make the opposite evident.

3. He appeals to the "smoke of Babylon rising up forever" (Rev. 19: 3), as showing that such words do not imply the necessary existence of the sufferers, as Babylon had been "utterly burned with fire." But this we have looked at in our reply to Mr. Minton on the previous text.

The comments of the rest of annihilationist writers are no better than this. Mr. Dobney's main argument is that "the advocates of any tenet — no matter what — must be hard driven, if they are glad to take their stand among the hieroglyphs that attract us to the isle of Patmos." If he had been one of those "foolish Galatians" whom the apostle rebukes with the statement that "Abraham had two sons," etc., he would, of course, have brought a similar argument against the apostle. Yet he will condescend to notice the "hieroglyphs;" and the second argument he produces is, that "their torment is in ver. 11 represented as synchronous with their worship: they who worship the beast have no rest.'" The scholarship of which is not profound: as I suppose hoi proskunountes simply to mean "the worshippers," without any distinction of whether the worship were in the present or the past, and moreover if "have no rest" proves the worship and the unrest to be synchronous, then "shall be tormented" must show the reverse as to the torment.

But Mr. Dobney concludes farther from the omission of the saints as spectators along with the "angels and the Lamb" "that the vengeance denounced is inflicted here on earth, and in the time state," which must last, therefore, as the torment lasts, for the ages of ages! And again, "that in subsequent chapters we have the fulfilment of these very threatenings exhibited; which fulfilment indisputably takes place here and now." Certainly the fulfilment is found in Rev. 20, and we have been looking at it already, but he who can believe that the torment of individuals here and now can be "for ages of ages" must be very anxious to believe it. We need scarcely follow him there.

Nevertheless, Mr. Hudson also agrees that the passage "refers properly to the scenes of time, and not to the final judgment;" his first argument being that there is "no allusion to the resurrection or to the opening of the books"! . . . "And the very expression who worship the beast and his image, seems (!) to refer to the earthly conduct and condition of idolatrous people. The passage proves an earthly immortality, if it proves any." I need not waste time upon these arguments.

Mr. Constable's remarks do not call for much attention either. "Elliot," he tells us, "has no hesitation in referring Rev. 14: 10, 11, together with the kindred passage in Rev. 19: 3, to a temporal judgment, viz., the swallowing up by volcanic fire of the territory of Rome in Italy." As to which our readers are, we think, in a position to judge for themselves. But Mr. Constable does not himself insist upon this; he will take the passages in their usual application, but only insist on their being images of "death and destruction," for which we have had his arguments under the previous texts.

Mr. Minton too unites this with the passages in Rev. 20, there being only one argument exclusively relating to it, and that is its inconsistency (understood in the orthodox way) with 2 Thess. 1: 9. "The torment is said to take place 'in the presence of the Lamb.' But in 2 Thess. 1: 9, those who are found in opposition to Christ at His coming, are 'punished with everlasting destruction from (away from) the presence of the Lord.' They are 'gathered out of His kingdom' and cast into outer darkness, away from the manifested presence of Christ during the millennial age."

But the "from" in Thessalonians does not mean "away from." We have already examined the passage, which Mr. Hudson rightly compares with Acts 3: 19 to prove this. If it did, it by no means follows that the torment is always in the presence of the Lamb or of the holy angels, but that the judgment will be executed under their eye. They will be witnesses, but it does not say eternal witnesses.

Gen. Goodwyn is also one of those who believe that the ages of ages expire before even the millennium, that they are in fact commensurate with the pouring out of the vials in the 16th chapter! "The wrath of God," he says, "the cause of their torment, is never spoken of in connection with the final judgment of the wicked, nor has it any reference to hell and its fire." It seems he has never read the apostle Paul's words about "indignation and WRATH upon every soul of man that doeth evil . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ" (Rom. 2: 8, 16). "It is, on the contrary," he adds, "identified here with the seven vials that will be poured out 'upon the earth,' previous to the advent of the Lord in glory (2 Thess. 1: 9) which are called the vials of the wrath of God.'" How identified he does not further say, and it is hard to understand; for "previous to the advent of the Lord" seems as much opposed to "in the presence of the Lamb," as do "the ages of ages" to the very short period comparatively of the pouring out of the vials. The series of mistakes founded upon these fundamental ones we scarcely need examine.

Finally Mr. Roberts, in his "Man Mortal," objects to the orthodox view, in a very similar way: —

"1. [The orthodox] 'wrath of God' is a wrath always operating in hell from generation to generation, whereas the wrath of the Apocalypse is a wrath that 'comes' at a particular juncture of affairs on earth, when the dead are raised."

On the contrary, the "judgment of hell," in the true sense, — of Gehenna, has not yet come for any one; and its coming at a particular juncture is not in opposition to its abiding when it does come.

"2. [The orthodox] sufferers of hell-fire are immortal souls, while the apocalyptic drinkers of the wine of the wrath of God are 'men,' with 'foreheads' and 'hands.'"

This is utterly false, as Mr. Roberts must know, for we all believe that God will "destroy both body and soul in hell," and in point of fact it is only those in the body that go into it.

"3. [The orthodox] hell-fire is endured in hell, in banishment from the presence of Christ and the angels, while the apocalyptic torment in fire and brimstone is inflicted in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb."

This is the old confusion between their being witnesses and eternal witnesses, which we have before remarked upon.

"4. [The orthodox] hell is away from earth, in some distant transpatial region without solid standing ground, whereas the scene of Rev. 14 is enacted in the presence of the Lamb, after the Lamb has come to Mount Zion," etc.

The passage in Rev. 14 says not one word about the locality of hell at all, but merely threatens the worshippers of the beast that they shall endure it. It is never said to be on earth.

This closes the arguments as to these passages, the strength of which is only the more brought out by all such efforts to evade their force. The simplest interpretation still approves itself the only consistent one, after repeated examinations and criticism by those who lack neither will nor mental capacity, but who fail here utterly and hopelessly, because in conflict with the word of One who cannot lie nor change, nor mock with needless mystery the souls of the simplest among those who "read or hear the words of the book of this prophecy," and whom He pronounces "blessed," if they "keep the things which are written therein." It is learned men who have unwittingly devised entanglements for the feet of these simple ones, until they have learned to stand in doubt of that which they own to be God's word, because of the interpretations which have been put upon it. If the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven and all His holy angels with Him may mean the taking of a Jewish city, no wonder that they need a learned man to tell them so. And if this is the Scripture mode of speech, no wonder if it should be thought "highly wrought and mysterious" — inflated and exaggerated rather: and if this be its common mode, who would seek out (as expecting to make aught of them) the "hieroglyphs of Patmos"?

It will be a matter of the greatest thankfulness to me, if (apart from the subject of special interest to us now) any shall learn by the long discussion which we have gone through, how true and trustworthy is the word of God; how little it "reflects the ignorance of a dark age"; how ignorant rather is the learning which would belittle it. "Heaven and earth shall pass away" — and the voice is that of the Lord and Maker of heaven and earth — "but my words shall not pass away."

We must now return to look at a text designedly left to the present, although its fitter place might seem to be long before, inasmuch as it is the judgment of the nations at the coming of the Lord.

36 - "Everlasting Punishment" in Matthew 25

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 36.

"Everlasting Punishment" in Matthew 25.

It is not needful to our present purpose to establish the particular application of what has been strangely called by some the "parable" of the sheep and the goats. It is indeed no parable, but a very simple statement of the separation of the living upon the earth when the Lord comes to it and sets up His throne there, which separation is compared to a shepherd separating his sheep from the goats. It is therefore a part of that pre-millennial judgment of the quick already spoken of, and which precedes by more than a thousand years the judgment of the dead before the great white throne. With this it has been identified in the popular view, simply because the Lord's coming having been considered to be at the end of the world,* distinction between the two was not possible.

{*The expression in Matt. 13 and 24, as before noticed, is not this, but is "the completion" (or 'consummation') "of the age."}

But the result has been a disastrous one. For the judgment in the one case being evidently a discriminative one it was, of course, considered that the risen saints were to be picked out from sinners by the trial of their works; and then the natural suggestion followed, that all must wait till the day of judgment, to know what was to be their everlasting condition. I do not need again to enter into this, but I shall briefly state the distinction which the passages themselves show as obtaining between them.

1. The judgment in Matthew is evidently (and stated to be) when the Lord comes, a coming connected with various features of the previous part of the prophecy, which make indisputable its character. That in Rev. 20: 11-15 takes place when, instead of His coming to earth the earth and the heavens flee away.

2. In Matthew there is no resurrection, and the judgment is of the living "nations," not of the dead; while the contrary is true of that in Revelation.

3. In Matthew they are judged according to their behavior to some whom the King styles His "brethren": in Revelation judged in general "according to their works."

These are distinctions which are simple enough and broad enough between the two scenes to prevent their being confounded. There is, however, a point of resemblance, and it is on this account that I have left the passage in Matthew to the present time, that, instead of being slain by the sword as those are who follow the beast, they on the left hand receive a judicial sentence, and are adjudged to the lake of fire as are those in the Apocalyptic vision; but, as it would seem before the millennium, as the beast and the false prophet are. I do not say positively that they go directly into it, but so it would seem. It is certain that they are appointed to "everlasting punishment" in "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

Men have come in with their explanations again here, and to these we must turn. They have to do chiefly, as our argument has, with the expressions "everlasting punishment," and "everlasting fire."

With regard to "everlasting punishment," the objections to the ordinary sense are various, some based upon the word for everlasting, some upon that for punishment, some upon considerations apart from the meaning of either word, while some combine several of these objections together. We must first, in the natural order, look at the word "punishment," for which several other renderings are suggested — "cutting off," "restraint," but especially "correction," the word, as it is stated by Mr. Jukes for example, being "always used for a corrective discipline, which is for the improvement of him who suffers it."*

{* Restitution, p. 129.}

The word for "punishment" here is kolasis, and is given by Liddell and Scott as meaning "a pruning": hence a checking, punishing, chastisement, correction, punishment." The verb kolazo, from which it is derived, means "strictly to curtail, dock, prune, but usually to keep within bounds, hold in check, bridle, check, then to chastise, correct, punish." The words derived from this show a similar meaning. Thus we find kolasma, "chastisement, punishment"; kolasterion, "a place of chastisement, prison," or 2, "an instrument of correction or torture"; kolastes, "a chastiser, punisher." kolazo is the word used for punish, Acts 4: 21, "finding nothing how they might punish them," and again 2 Peter 2: 9, "to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished." Kolasis is only found in the passage before us, and in 1 John 4: 18: "fear hath torment."

All is against the rendering of "cutting off," which is adopted by Ellis and Read,* Blain,§ Storrs,$ Hastings,** Morris, and even on the orthodox side by Landis.|| Blain adopts Ellis and Read's rendering, "And these will go to the cutting off that takes place at the age"! Morris says that it refers to the "cutting off" of false Christians from the flock of Christ, and from every pretence to the kingdom.¶ And even as to 1 John 4: 18, he says that its being represented by "torment" "is not justifiable; for the word relates to the children of God, who are not yet made perfect' in an experimental knowledge of the love of God. They are not tormented; but they are cut off from much experimental blessedness, which properly pertains to them." But this is poor and foolish reasoning. The words are "fear i.e., dread of God — hath torment," and so it has whether in saint or sinner. "Cutting off" (as he would have it here also) it never is, being never simply that, as the dictionaries show, and as even Mr. Hudson, who has no prejudice certainly against the word, admits. He says, "This (meaning of 'excision' — cutting off) seems to be supported by the cognate koloboo, and by the original sense of 'pruning.' But in pruning the tree is not 'cut off' — only the branches. And though, by the laws of language, the word might easily have acquired this sense, we find no proof that it has done so."*** This argument is thus fairly given up.

{* Bible versus Tradition.

§ Death not Life, p. 79.

$ Six Sermons, p. 59.

** Pauline Theology, p. 59.

|| Immortality of the Soul, p. 480.

¶ What is Man pp. 100, 101.

*** Debt and Grace, pp. 189, 190.}

The rendering by "restraint," Mr. Hudson says, "is favored by the use of the present tense in 2 Peter 2: 9 (kolazomenous, comp. ver. 4; Jude 6; and perhaps Acts 4: 21), and by a remark of Schleusner. It is favored by the tenor of various passages, which represents the wicked as the troublers of the righteous, to be effectually restrained by God's final judgments.* But," he adds, "this idea is not prominent in Matt. 25, and such a rendering would be hardly tenable."

{*He gives the following texts: Ps. 37; Ps. 73; Ps. 92; Isa. 66: 24; Dan. 12: 2, 3; Matt. 13: 40-43; 2 Thess. 1: 6-10; 2 Peter 2: 4-12; Jude 5-7, 13.}

The word certainly would not serve the cause of annihilationism, nor even of restorationism, if the "restraint" is to be "everlasting." This meaning, however, connects with that which restorationists would give, according to the passage which Mr. Hudson quotes from Eustathius, "kolasis is properly a certain kind of punishment; that is, a certain chastising and restraining of the disposition, but not vindictive punishment."

It is on the ground that the word expresses, not vindictive, but corrective suffering, that Mr. Jukes and Dr. Farrar take their stand. The latter affirms that "kolasis is a word. which in its sole proper meaning 'has reference to the correction and bettering of him that endures it.'"* Mr. Jukes adds, that "those who hold the common view are obliged to confess this," and supports this by an appeal to Archbishop Trench's "Synonyms of the New Testament," who distinguishing between the two words kolasis and timoria, says, "In timoria, according to its classical use, the vindictive character of the punishment is the prominent thought; it is the Latin 'ultio'; punishment as satisfying the inflicter's sense of outraged justice, as defending his own honor and that of the violated law . . . in kolasis, on the other hand, is more the notion of punishment as it has reference to the correction and bettering of him that endures it." As to which he refers to Philo, Plato, and Clement of Alexandria, and adds, "And this is Aristotle's distinction."

{* Eternal Hope, p. 200.}

It is true that the Archbishop resists the restorationist application of this. He says: "It would be a very serious error however to attempt to refer this distinction in its entireness to the words as employed in the New Testament." Mr. Jukes' comment upon this is, "that is, it would be a serious error to give the word its proper sense." "Why should it be a serious error," asks Dr. Farrar, "to refrain from reading into a word a sense which it does not possess?"

Archbishop Trench has, however, produced witnesses for this latter assertion,* which those who take him thus to task prefer to disregard. Indeed it cannot be shown that what Dr. Farrar considers "the sole proper meaning" of the word is ever the meaning of it, either in the Septuagint or the Apocryphal writings, in which we have certainly better authority for the meaning of words in the New Testament than can possibly be found in Plato or Aristotle.

{*"In proof that kolasis had acquired in Hellenistic Greek this severe sense, and was used simply as punishment or torment, with no necessary underthought of the bettering through it of him who endured it, we have only to refer to such passages as the following: Josephus, Ant. 15: 2. 2; Philo, De Agricul. 9; Mart. Polycar. 2; 2 Macc. 4: 38; Wisd. of Sol. 19: 4" (Syn. of New Test. §7).}

It occurs six times in the Septuagint of Ezekiel: twenty-one times in the Apocryphal books. "So iniquity shall not be your ruin" (Ezek. 18: 30) is translated "your punishment." In a passage in 1 Esdras, we find the disobedient enjoined to be punished whether by death or other infliction, "penalty of money, or imprisonment": where for "infliction" the word is actually the very word said to be opposed so entirely in meaning to kolasis, — "punished by timoria" and where death, the alternative of fine and imprisonment, is certainly not a "corrective discipline." In the book of Wisdom the word is applied to the punishment of the Egyptians, and in the 2 Macc. also to death.*

{*Prof. Bartlett, in his Life and Death Eternal, has a long note on the "meaning of kolasis," in which he brings forward a number of other instances, citing among the rest Plutarch, the (spurious) second epistle of Clement, and the Martyrium Polycarpi. The list of passages from the Septuagint and Apocrypha is as follows: Ezek. 14: 3, 4, 7; Ezek. 18: 30; Ezek. 43: 12; Ezek. 44: 12; 1 Esdras 8: 24; Wisd. 3: 4; Wisd. 11: 5, 9, 14, 17; Wisd. 12: 15, 27; Wisd. 14: 10; Wisd. 16: 1, 2, 9, 24; Wisd. 18: 11, 22; Wisd. 19: 4; 1 Macc. 7: 7; 2 Macc. 4: 38; 2 Macc. 6: 14; 3 Macc. 1: 3; 3 Macc. 6: 3.}

Dr. Farrar can scarcely be acquitted then, either of superficial acquaintance with the subject upon which he speaks, or of wilfully shutting his eyes to the facts before him, some of which are cited in Dr. Trench's book. Even in the New Testament, where out of four passages one is that in dispute, the evidence is certainly against him. "Fear hath kolasin," can hardly refer to "corrective discipline"; and the "punishment" of the wicked in the day of judgment which Peter speaks of; we have, as we believe, more right to claim than he.

The word means then practically in the Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament, "punishment" simply, and the mode of punishment it does not express. Fine, imprisonment, death may come under the term; in the epistle of John (as well as in other passages outside of Scripture) it can scarcely imply other than suffering in some form. Here it is "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," and that we have seen is torment: "they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."

But arguments pursue us still; for to yield here would be to give up all. These turn mainly upon the term for "everlasting," and they are of so very similar nature, that we think we shall omit nothing if we allow Mr. Minton to be their expositor.

He objects that "everlasting punishment" —

"is an expression taken out of a most difficult parable, and which occurs nowhere else in the whole Bible. The moral of the parable is plain enough. But in that aspect it has no bearing whatever on the question. It is only in its prophetical aspect that we are now concerned with it, and in that aspect it is beset with difficulties."*

{* Way Everlasting, p. 41, etc.}

This is the cry habitually raised. But why should prophetical questions be a difficulty, when in point of fact people of all kinds of prophetical belief see none, and agree perfectly in their interpretation? As to being a "parable," one verse and a half introduces and dismisses all that is in it of this character. There is a simple comparison of the separation the Lord makes in that day between the righteous and the wicked to a shepherd dividing his sheep from the goats. Then immediately the righteous are called "sheep," and the wicked "goats"; after which, instead of the figure being kept up, it is immediately dismissed, and this language never returned to; and the details are quite inconsistent with the figure being kept up.

Mr. Minton goes on: —

"Whether the event it refers to will take place at the beginning, or at the end, of the millennium; whether the sheep and the goats represent 'nations' or individuals, and in either case what nations or individuals, — whether Jew or Gentile, Christian or heathen, true and false professors in the church; and lastly, who are Christ's 'brethren,' apparently distinguished both from the sheep and the goats; all these questions are hotly disputed."

No doubt; but, as I have said, it has little to do with the matter. The parabolic nature of the passage has been most unwarrantably pressed, and as a consequence a veil of mystery has been thrown over what is very simple in character. What may fairly be questioned, as for instance who the "brethren" of the King may be, need raise no question touching our present subject. The everlasting punishment into which the wicked are sent away is defined as plainly as can be to be "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." It may be doubtful who are those punished, and when they are; the punishment itself is not doubtful.*

{*I do not mean that to myself these questions of who or when are doubtful. I have no question that they are the "nations" evangelized by the "everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14: 6, 7) during the interval that elapses between the taking away of the saints to heaven, and their appearing in glory with the Lord. The interval is of seven years at least, the last week of Daniel's seventy, and the time of preparation of the earth for its blessing, as the present period is that of the gathering for heaven. The "brethren" are, I believe, the publishers of this gospel, and Jews. But all this it would take many pages to establish from Scripture, and is quite unnecessary to the argument.}

"And yet it is out of such a parable as this, that a term is chosen to be unquestionably the main pillar of so stupendous an edifice as the theory of endless misery, and to be the name by which it is universally known."

The name may well express the doctrine, and thus have come into common use for it, without offence to those who claim that they hold eternal punishment as much as we do. If the term is itself so offensive, it surely must be because felt to be in opposition really to their views. Why urge the "difficulties" of the passage, if not so? But because it gives a name to the doctrine, it is not, therefore, necessary to the doctrine, which has been already abundantly proved, apart from this.

Mr. Minton next comes to the argument as to "everlasting," which, although in fact already met, we shall allow him to state in his own way: —

"There is at once the first crack in your infallible proof. 'Everlasting'" — he adduces "the everlasting hills," and Aaron's "everlasting" priesthood — "'everlasting' does not necessarily mean 'endless.' Why are you so sure that it does so in the passage before us? Your answer is ready: because the same word, though rendered differently in our translation, is in the same verse applied to the life of the righteous, which we know to be endless. This is without doubt the Sebastopol of your position. Thousands of persons who are wholly unable to follow anything like an argument, can feel the full force of this fact. When they once know that the word is the same in each clause of the sentence, they are perfectly confident that it must bear the same meaning in each.

"But why are you so sure that it means endless in either case? That eternal life means endless life elsewhere cannot prove it. We know that the expression is used in at least two different senses, namely, as a present possession, and as an object of hope. . . . Why may there not be some third aspect in which 'eternal life' can be presented, differing from, however closely connected with, the other two?"

Mr. Minton surely confounds things here. A thing may be seen in many aspects, and yet after all be but the same thing. "Eternal life" is always "eternal life," in whatever aspect seen, as a house is not a tree, whether seen from the north or from the south. Thus there is no warrant for his suggestion.

"Now here it becomes necessary to ascertain the precise meaning of the word aionios, rendered 'eternal' or 'everlasting.' And happily there is no difficulty either in its etymology or its usage. It is simply the adjective of the word aion, an age or period. It means, therefore, belonging to, or lasting throughout, some age or period. What that period is, in any specified instance, can only be known from the nature of the case, from the context, or from collateral evidence."

Here Mr. Minton ignores the later use of aion for eternity, which, we have seen, some of the stoutest advocates of limited periods have to admit, and makes the matter simple by denying all that does not consist with his theory. Aionios is never in the New Testament, when used in a time sense, less than "everlasting." It may be limited by the nature of what it qualifies, as "everlasting" itself is; but that does not make the meaning more doubtful in the one case than in the other.

"Sometimes it is left quite indefinite, as in 'the everlasting hills.' Sometimes it is unmistakably precise, as in 'everlasting consolation and good hope;' where the assurance is, that the consolation provided will never fail us, but will last throughout the whole period of our earthly life, that is, as long as we require it."

Which last would show that instead of being "unmistakably precise" according to Mr. Minton, its meaning has in this case to be determined by collateral evidence, and is not precise at all. The truth is, however, it is precise, and instead of being bounded by a lifetime, the consoling thing, the consolation, lasts forever in the strictest sense. If the future state did not fulfil it, it would be truly bounded by a lifetime, but that would make it only the hypocrite's hope that perishes. And so in the next example he produces.

"So also St. Paul says, 'I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, literally to the age,' elsewhere translated 'forever.' The aion there is the period of his own life, and, if the saying was to be rendered idiomatically, it should have been translated, 'as long as I live.'"

I should think if Paul ate no meat for the period of his life, he would eat none literally forever; and the argument is but a plausible deception. If the apostle were going to eat meat in eternity, it would have force. Perhaps Mr. Minton thinks he is, but he should show us why he thinks so.

"The question therefore stands thus: Is there any aion, except an endless one, to which the eternal life in Matt. 25: 46, can refer? And if so, is there any reason to believe that it does refer to such aion there? Turn to Luke 20: 35, 'They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (aion) and the resurrection from the dead.' You and I believe that the age there spoken of is the millennial age . . . then why might not the obtaining of the blessedness connected with that age, by resurrection in the case of the dead, or by change in the case of the living, be called 'aeonial life,' which we render 'eternal life,' deriving our word 'eternal' from the Latin aetas, or age? And would there not be a peculiar propriety in this, if, at the same time that those who are counted worthy enter into the life of that age, the members of that visible church, then living on the earth, who are counted unworthy, incur destruction from the presence of the Lord, and are gathered in bundles to be burnt?"

Let Mr. Minton produce a passage in which "aeonial" means "millennial" plainly, and he will be entitled to be listened to. This he cannot do, and if he could he would, we may be sure. Even then, how could "aeonial life" mean sometimes "everlasting," sometimes "millennial" life? Again, what is the meaning of "millennial" life? It cannot be life simply entered into at the millennium, but life belonging to it. Does the believer's life belong to the millennium? In no sense whatever. It is not the "life of that age" into which believers enter; whatever special reign they may have during that time, their life belongs to eternity in the strictest sense.

I agree with Mr. Minton that the judgment here spoken of precedes the millennium, and that it is a judgment of individuals. To me these are both as clear as need be, and therefore I need not bring forward his proofs for them. The argument he founds on this is none the less worthless. But he comes now to the question in answer to the post-millennialist, who he thinks will not be moved by his prophetic expositions. He will allow "eternal" to mean endless, for the sake of argument.

"And suppose it does, how much nearer would the passage be to proving the doctrine of endless misery? Not a particle."

But why then so much pains to prove that it means "millennial"? Why, the protest against a term for the doctrine taken from so "difficult a parable"? Is Mr. Minton fighting for the sake of fighting, to show us his power as a combatant, or for the truth? Why contest points which as far as the doctrine in question is concerned, have "not a particle" of importance?

"In order to make it prove that, they would have to prove that the word "eternal" cannot be applied to anything which is accomplished once for all, but the effects of which are eternal; that for anything to be eternal, it must be in eternal process of accomplishment. This is your assumption throughout. Others have asserted it more confidently. But what then are we to make of 'eternal judgment'? Will God be eternally judging the wicked, as well as eternally punishing them? Will not the judgment take place once for all? In what sense can it be called eternal, except that its effects are eternal — that is, if the word be used in its most extended meaning — in other words, that it will be final and irreversible? And what are we to make of the eternal redemption,' which Christ is spoken of as 'having wrought out for us'? It is distinctly declared to have been accomplished once for all: it will not be a continual process lasting through eternity. It is called eternal, because its effects will be eternal. And why should not punishment be called eternal on the same principle? If eternal judgment is not eternal judging, nor eternal redemption eternal redeeming, why should eternal punishment be eternal punishing"?

Now the words are, "these shall go away into everlasting punishment," and this is explained to be "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." It is singular how the force of these expressions is felt, almost admitted, and then denied. First, the complaint is, that a phrase is taken out of a most difficult parable; then everlasting is not everlasting but millennial; then if it is everlasting it is perfectly correct annihilation doctrine: the effect of the punishment is eternal, and punishment is not "punishing." Now even as to the last it is really the literal force of the word,* which, moreover, always implies suffering in some form. Fine, imprisonment, death are that, and the passage in the first epistle of John, already quoted, cannot be rendered otherwise than by some word near akin to "torment." It is not a word that will possibly allow the thought of the sufferer passing away from under it, while yet it endures. The punishment cannot continue when there is no longer a person to be punished. Annihilation cannot be eternal punishment. This is why Mr. Minton is so anxious to have it "millennial," as we have seen. He is uneasy under the very idea of its being eternal. Why will we call it so, quoting the words of a very difficult parable? Then he turns round and says, let it be eternal, it is all right, and we all believe in it alike. It must be seriously doubted if we do.

{* Kolasis not kolasma.}

But "eternal redemption" is not an eternal process, and "eternal judgment" is not; why should eternal punishment be? As for eternal judgment, of course "sentence" (krima) is not always being passed; but the person is always under it, or it would not be eternal. And similarly as to redemption, the person is always enjoying it. If the punishment then be inflicted suffering (and that is the very idea of punishment), the person cannot cease to be and the suffering go on. Let Mr. Minton find the passage in which kolasis does not imply suffering of some sort, and then he will have some argument; but then it will be easy to prove that every beast that dies (and multitudes die in severest pain) suffers eternal punishment as truly as a man. And he cannot deny it. A beast's loss may be, of course, as much less than a man's as a man is more than a beast. But eternal punishment is as real in the one case as in the other.

It will not do then to talk as Mr. Minton does of the effect being eternal. The effect and what produces the effect, are very different things. In "eternal redemption" the redeemed are not merely eternally enjoying the blessedness into which they are brought as the effect of redemption, but the redemption also itself. And this is, if you like to say so, one of the effects; but the redemption itself is possessed and enjoyed forever. It is in vain to plead that the punishment is endured forever, when there is no longer any being to endure it.

As to the "everlasting fire," Mr. Minton as usual refers to Sodom and Gomorrah, but adds nothing fresh to the argument.

We have seen what this "everlasting fire" is, and what its effect. It would be but the mere lengthening unnecessarily of a sufficiently protracted argument to take this up again. We have still to consider some things connected with this doctrine in Scripture, and it is time to turn to these.

37 - "The Gospel of Hope"

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 37

"The Gospel of Hope"

Our accounts with annihilationism are well-nigh closed. But there remain still some from the opposite side of restorationism which require to be looked at, and among the advocates of this, spite of his protest, we must reckon Dr. Farrar. He is not indeed an assured Universalist; but it is not wronging him to say that he is one in hope. His book is styled "Eternal Hope," and his own views are evidently identical with what he calls, "the gospel of hope": where by "hope," he does not mean certainty, not a "hope which maketh not ashamed," but at least a hope that may. His utterances are naturally somewhat inconsistent and contradictory in consequence. But we will credit him with the somewhat independent ground he takes, and reserving the doctrine of the apokatastasis, the "restitution of all things," as stated in Scripture, for future consideration, we will now look at his position, which we will state in his own words.

"On such a question as this," he says,* "I care but little for individual authority, but this much at least is proved by the many differing theories of wise and holy men — that God has given us no clear and decisive revelation on the final condition of those who have died in sin. It is revealed to us that 'God is love'; and that 'Him to know is life eternal'; and that 'it is not His will that any should perish'; and that 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive'; but how long, even after death, man may continue to resist His will; — how long he may continue in that spiritual death, which is alienation from God; — that is one of the secret things which God hath not revealed. But this much at any rate, that the fate of man is not finally and irreversibly sealed at death, you yourselves, — unwittingly perhaps, but none the less certainly, admit and declare and confess, every time you repeat in the Apostles' Creed, that Christ descended into hell. For the sole passage which proves that article of the creed is the passage in St. Peter which tells us that 'He went and preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient.' St. Peter in my text tells you in so many words, that 'the gospel was preached to them that were dead,' and if, as the church in every age has held, the fate of those dead sinners was not irrevocably fixed by death, then it must be clear and obvious to the meanest understanding that neither of necessity is ours.

{* Eternal Hope, p. 86, etc.}

"There then is the sole answer which I can give to your question, 'what about the lost?' My belief is fixed upon that 'living God,' who, we are told, is 'the Saviour of all men.' My answer is with Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, that 'we are lost here as much as there, and that Christ came to seek and save the lost;' and my hope is that the vast majority at any rate of the lost may at length be found. If any hardened sinner, shamefully loving his sin, and despising the long-suffering of his Saviour, trifle with that doctrine, it is at his own just and awful peril. But if on the other hand, there be some among you, — as are there not? — souls sinful indeed but not hard in sin; — souls, failing indeed, yet even amid their failing, who long, and pray, and love, and agonize, and strive to creep ever nearer to the light;then I say, have faith in God. There is hope for you; — hope, even if death overtake you before the final victory is won; — hope for the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;hope for the mourners, for they shall be comforted — though you too may have to be purified in that Gehenna of aeonian fire beyond the grave."

"We are wretched; therefore — not surely in this short world only, but forever — God will pity us. Punish us? Yes, punish us, because He pities. But 'God judges that He may teach, He never teaches that He may judge.' His aeonian fire is the fire of love; it is to purify, not to torture; it is to melt, and not to burn."*

{* Eternal Hope, p. 97.}

This is Dr. Farrar's "hope." And if it were confined to himself, one might afford to pass it by, but it is a hope that suits men well, and that they are drinking in, — a hope that is not the true hope for those "poor in spirit" whom he addresses, and for whom God has far sweeter comfort; but a hope that just those triflers with a Saviour's mercy of whom he speaks will take to hang themselves over that awful abyss of hell, till they prove it, not the fire of love, but the awful and eternal fire of wrath, which answers to the undying worm within.

First then, as to these "poor in spirit" — souls longing, praying, agonizing, striving ever to creep nearer to the light — is God's answer to your longing this, that after all the fire of Gehenna may be needed to purify you? No, it is the news of a better purification: "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin." What saved a dying thief at the last hour, can save still without the need of "aeonian fire." Dr. Farrar's "gospel of hope" mis-states the whole case as to man's condition, but worse; it slights Christ's blessed work, and substitutes penal fire for atonement, — wrath for grace.

Is man willing to have God's salvation, and God lacking in will or in power to save him? Never, surely.* "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Is salvation a doubtful, laborious process, arrived at by long effort, by prayers, by strivings, which may have to be eked out after death by some supplementary process? Nay, but being "justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," "justified through the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law." Is hell-fire God's process of salvation for those who look to Him, or God's wrath upon those who reject His salvation? It is the latter, and not the former. Did Christ tell the "poor in spirit" that theirs was the lake of fire or "the kingdom of heaven"? Did He tell the mourners they should be "comforted" or tormented?

{*I take this opportunity of noticing briefly Mr. Cox's argument in this connection, which is the starting-point of his book. He asks, if Tyre and Sidon would have repented in view of Christ's mighty works, why were they not permitted to witness them? "Can we blame them, will God condemn them, and condemn them to an eternal death, or an eternal misery, because they did not see what they could not see?" "It seems hard and unjust that a man's salvation, a man's life, should hang on the age into which he is born." "And yet who dare say of any class of men, in any age, that nothing but their own will prevented their salvation? . . . No; to say, Doubtless God gave these poor men all that was necessary to life and virtue . . is simply to offer Him that insincere flattery, to show Him that respect of persons, which even Job could see He Himself would be the first to rebuke." Thus Mr. Cox can "see no way out of the difficulty, so long as we assume what the Bible does not teach, that there is no probation beyond the grave." He has no doubt that the men of Sodom and Tyre have heard Christ's words long ere this, and that the words, "it shall be more tolerable for them in the day of judgment imply this"! (Salvator Mundi, ch. 1.).

Now we are among the people of "brain so narrow" as to believe the Lord's words imply the very opposite of this. They certainly show that the issue of the day of judgment depends upon the present response given by man to God, and not upon a supposed future one; for if it depended upon the future, it could not be decided now that it would be "more tolerable"; especially as nobody has a fair chance now! But then, if man's will is not the obstacle, what are we to think of our Lord's, "how often would I, and ye would not," or "ye will not come unto me," etc.

Doubtless Tyre and Sidon will not be condemned for not seeing what they could not see: no one believes they will. But they are responsible for the light they had, and there is a "more tolerable" judgment, "few stripes" instead of "many."

Again, "Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas," an illustration of what the Lord means in this very connection. Was that "repentance unto life"?The city remained in consequence, was not overthrown; Capernaum, not repenting, was. The comparison shows that the Lord does not affirm that Tyre and Sidon could have been so brought to God and saved, but that at least they would have been affected and humbled, like Nineveh, by a visitation which the cities of Israel were callous and indifferent to, With this sense there is no "difficulty" to get out of by an unwarrantable and unscriptural supposition.}

Dr. Farrar's gospel is really infidelity as to fundamental truth — as to Christ and grace. It makes their hearts sad whom God has not made sad, while those only could find encouragement in it who are as ignorant of grace as he is, or else those who want comfort to go on in sin as long as they can. The apostle asks, "how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" Dr. Farrar answers, we may escape, even out of hell itself, and most will, perhaps all. The Lord bids, "Fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." Of course He is able, but He never will, says Dr. Farrar. It is not an exceptional thing that the question of God's love and the denial of His truth should go together.

We have not forgotten the texts, however. One article of the apostle's creed, it seems, rests upon a most "isolated text," "the sole passage" in Scripture for it. According to his own words elsewhere, we might suppose he would not care to lay stress upon this. But we should be mistaken. He thinks this isolated text sufficient to bear the entire weight almost of the whole doctrine that the fate of men is not fixed by death, but that they may be saved after it.

We could not upon our own principles, however, object to the production of even one passage if really clear. But Dr. Farrar takes no pains to show that it is so. While speaking as he does about texts torn from their context, he himself presents us with the middle of a sentence from Scripture with both ends cut off; and while believing, on another subject, that the "differing theories of wise and holy men" prove as to it that "God has given no clear and decisive revelation," quotes this as if entire unanimity prevailed about it, as what "the church in every age has held," when he means "some in the church," more or less as it may be.

Perhaps we must not expect over-much consistency; but if the Canon of Westminster apprehended aright the greatness of the issue he is raising, and if he believed in Scripture as what alone could settle it, he would not be content to deal in this light and flippant way with the authorities he adduces. One cannot but feel that after all Scripture is very little that for him, and that his main reliance is elsewhere. For haply if his own text went against him he would protest against "this ignorant tyranny of isolated texts," as he has done already, and vaunt the more his "Christian liberty" to adopt his own independent thoughts.

But we, who claim no such liberty, nor desire it, are bound therefore, nevertheless, to accept his appeal to Scripture as if it were a loyal one. Let us first read the passage then, as it stands in our version, which is sufficiently correct: —

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also [He went and preached to the spirits in prison, which* sometime were disobedient] when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water" (1 Peter 3: 18-20).

{* Edw. White, who takes a similar view of this passage with Dr. Farrar, reads "though they once had been disobedient" — but this is interpretation, not translation (Life in Christ, p. 320).}

I have bracketed the part that Canon Farrar quotes, and emphasized the immediate context which he omits. It ought to speak for itself as to the suitability of the passage for his purpose.

First, it was by the Spirit that Christ went and preached — not personally, as the words separated from their context might be thought to mean. It has been sought to make "the Spirit" signify Christ's human spirit; with this necessary effect, that if He were "quickened in His human spirit,"* that human spirit must have itself died, in order to be quickened. On this account it has been attempted to substitute "quick," or "alive," or "preserved alive," for "quickened": meanings which the word cannot possibly bear. "Made alive by the Spirit" can only refer to resurrection, and thus it is not Christ as a disembodied spirit that is spoken of at all.

{*The words are quoted thus in "Yesterday, Today, and Forever."}

But people urge that "He went and preached" shows a personal going. It has been answered that in the same way He "came and preached peace," in Eph. 2: 17, must be (what confessedly it is not) a personal coming. "By the Spirit He went" excludes the thought entirely.

Then further as to the "spirits in prison." They are in prison now (that is the force of it) as having been once disobedient in the days of Noah. But disobedient to what? Why, to the Spirit's preaching. It was of these that of old God had said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." Plainly it was in that time of old that Christ had preached to them, and what should make it certain, without any nice questions of translation, is that the limit of God's striving with these antediluvians is plainly set: — "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: but his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." It is strange that some should think that a limit put to human life, which was then, and for generations afterwards, far longer. It is the limit of the Spirit's striving with that generation, at the end of which the flood came. With them the end of the Spirit's striving and of their life came together. And it is just these whom Dr. Farrar and others will have it that Christ specially singled out to preach to more than two thousand years afterward, in direct contradiction of the divine assertion that His Spirit would not strive.

The text is an unfortunate one for Dr. Farrar. It is unfortunate that the very examples to which he appeals of probation protracted beyond the grave, should be the very examples given us by the word of God itself of the precise opposite! And we may take his reasoning to reverse his conclusions, and say that, "if the fate of these dead sinners was irrevocably fixed by death, then it must be clear and obvious that "we have no good reason to suppose that ours is not as much as theirs. Nay, it is scarcely reasonable to imagine that they are an exception to, instead of an illustration of, the universal rule.

Canon Farrar has a similar text, however, in the next chapter of the first epistle of Peter. Let us take it, too, in whole and not in part, and see if it will lead us to any other conclusion.

"For for this cause [was the gospel preached also to them that are dead] that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit" (1 Peter 4: 6).

Here Dr. F. has substituted "that were dead" for "that are dead" without comment, evidently that we may infer that the people were dead when preached to. But the passage reads literally "to the dead"; and we must gather the rest from the context which he omits. And here it is not hard to see that his inference is as wrong as his translation is.

The apostle has been speaking of the altered conduct of those converted from heathenism, and of how the Gentiles around misjudged them. "Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you; who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Thus sinners were judging in their fleshly way the spiritual life that approved itself to God as such. Christians were judged after the manner of men in a fleshly way, but lived according to God in a spiritual one. And for this — to separate them from the ranks of these misjudging ones, themselves the objects of God's righteous judgment, had the gospel been preached to them. So far all is plain; but why "to the dead"? Surely because the apostle would bring in the very thought Dr. Farrar rejects, that death fixed the condition in which it found men. These righteous ones had got the good of that preached gospel, which had made them anticipate the coming doom of sinners, and accept the judgment of men in the flesh, rather than God's final and eternal one. But could they possibly be "dead" before they were preached to? Not certainly if the end was to be their being judged according to men in the flesh for their changed lives! The context is conclusively against the restorationist interpretation.*

{* Edw. White (Life in Christ, p. 321) says: "They had the gospel preached to them in hades, in order that they might be judged by Jesus Christ, and judged like men in the flesh, by the same rule as others who have had the gospel on earth, that is, by the gospel message itself so that they should not necessarily perish under the law, but may live (enter into life) according to God in the Spirit.'" He does not see that they who receive the gospel are NOT "judged," and if they were, could not escape condemnation. For men are judged not "by the gospel," which is a dream of his own, but "according to their works."}

The other texts cited will come in more fittingly elsewhere. Meanwhile we must look at one or two Scriptures more in this connection, which, although glanced at by Dr. Farrar, are more strongly put by Mr. Jukes.

He thus speaks of —

"the passage respecting the sin [‘ blasphemy,' it should be] against the Holy Ghost, which our Lord declares shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, not in that which is to come* For this it is concluded that the punishment for this sin must be never-ending. But does the text say so? The whole passage is as follows Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor the coming one.' These words, so far from proving the generally received doctrine, that sin not forgiven here can never be forgiven, distinctly assert — first, that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, — secondly, that some sins, those namely against the Son of Man, can be forgiven, apparently in this age, — and thirdly, that other sins, against the Holy Ghost, cannot be forgiven either here or in the coming age; which last words surely imply that some sins not here forgiven may be forgiven in the coming age, the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost not being of that number. This is what the text asserts; and it explains why God has so long withheld the general out-pouring of His promised Spirit; for man cannot reject or speak against the Spirit, until the Spirit comes to act upon him. God has two ways of teaching men; first, by His word, the letter or human form of truth, that is, the Son of Man, in which case a man may reject God's call without knowing that he is really doing so; the other, in and by the Spirit, which convinces the heart, which therefore cannot be opposed without leaving men consciously guilty of rejecting God. To reject this last cuts man off from the light and life of the coming world. This sin therefore is not forgiven; neither in this age, nor in the coming one But the text says nothing of those ages to come,' elsewhere revealed to us; much less does it assert that the punishment of sin not here forgiven is never-ending."**

{* Matt. 12: 32.

** Restitution, pp. 120, 121.}

Dr. Farrar does not go quite so far; he says: — *

{* Eternal Hope, Pref., pp. 40, 41.}

"If aion be rightly rendered, as, in nearly every passage where it occurs, it may be rightly rendered, by 'age,' our Lord only says that there is one particular sin — and what sin this is no one has ever known — which is so heinous as not to be pardonable either in this (the Jewish) or the coming (the Christian) dispensation. Nothing therefore is of necessity implied respecting the world beyond the grave. But if it be, how overwhelming is the argument with which I am supplied! Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven, our Lord says, — without further limitation, and with no shadow of a hint that He refers to this life only — a gloss which indeed His words directly exclude; every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven here or hereafter, except one! 'If one sin only is excluded from forgiveness in that coming age, other sins cannot stand on the same level, and the dimness behind the veil is lit up with at least a gleam of hope.'"

Mr. Oxenham has still another view:* —

{*Letter 3. (a).}

"Now on this verse I observe, first, that our Lord says nothing about hell; and secondly, that what He does say bears on examination no resemblance to an assertion of the popular doctrine of endless misery. Our Lord declares that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no aphesis either here or hereafter. He uses the words aphesis and aphiemi, the root-meaning of which is 'sending away,' 'getting rid of.' He declares of this sin that it can never be got rid of; i.e., some thing of the sin, its character, its consequences, will last on always — this is what He really says; and is it beyond the reach even of our present understanding to conceive that the penal consequences of wilful sin against the Holy Spirit, viz., e.g., loss of capacity to know and to love the truth, and Him who is truth, may well be irremediable either here or hereafter? How great such a penalty would be, or in what manner it would be felt or received, we have no means of knowing; but we feel at once that this penalty is something wholly different from what is commonly meant by eternal punishment; it is compatible with existence in heaven."

The three views being so dissimilar, it will be no great marvel if Scripture be again dissimilar from them all. We shall take them in retrograde order, Mr. Oxenham first.

His view is that "something of the sin, its character, its consequences," he does not know exactly what, will last on forever, But surely that is loose and unsatisfactory enough. Aphiemi and aphesis are the only words for "remit" and "remission," the latter also the only word for "forgiveness." The phrases used are, "it shall not be forgiven him," and "hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of (or subject to) eternal judgment" (Mark 3: 29). That defines it plainly enough. "Hath never 'sending away'" would be insufferable, not merely in sound but in sense; and if one subject to eternal judgment can be in heaven, heaven can scarcely be what Scripture represents it. It would be no better for Mr. Oxenham if we read with Canon Farrar and others, instead of eternal judgment, "eternal sin." I cannot accept the reading, but it is immaterial to the present question.

Dr. Farrar's own reasoning turns upon the rendering of "this world" and "the world to come." Whether we read it "age" or not, the "world to come" is not in Scripture heaven or hell or hades. It is undoubtedly what the Jews understood well and looked for, the world under Messiah, which Christians unhappily less know under that title than as the millennium. It is even called (in Heb. 2: 5) the "habitable (earth) to come," the word used for "the world" under Caesar's rule, which he decreed should be taxed (Luke 2: 1). If not (as Dr. F. thinks it may be) the Christian dispensation, it is yet a dispensation affecting men in the body, not "spirits in prison" nor the resurrection of judgment.

Consequently when it is said, whosoever shall blaspheme, it shall not be forgiven him either in this world or that which is to come, it does not refer to forgiveness beyond the grave, nor mean the same person in this world and the world to come, but that the sin would not be remitted to any one who committed it in either age.

Even Mr. Jukes falls into the same error, but he is bolder, and adds various suppositions of his own to it. He supposes that the sin against the Son of Man would be forgiven only in this age. He supposes that some sins not forgiven here may be forgiven in the coming age. And the ages beyond being quite unnoticed, there may yet be forgiveness there. But in truth the reason for not going beyond the "age to come" is an opposite one. It is because beyond the millennial age is the judgment and eternity, and all is fixed forever. We have already examined Mr. Jukes' theory of these ages of eternity, on which, of course, his view of this text is based; and need not, and shall not, return to it again.

But a word we must yet say as to another Scripture, where the "great gulf fixed" assures us of the impossibility in the death state at least, of any passing from the flame of torment on the one side to the comfort in Abraham's bosom on the other. Mr. Jukes, of course, objects that it is a parable, but that we have considered. No doubt the expressions here are figurative; yet they express very plainly what they figure. He also tells us that this great gulf fixed, "though utterly impassable for man, is not so for 'Him who hath the key of David, who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth,' who 'hath the keys of death and hell'; and who, as He has Himself broken the bars of death for men, can yet say to the prisoner, 'Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves.'"*

{* Restitution, p. 137.}

There is more of the same kind, always confounding a day of grace with a day of wrath and judgment, and assuming that "judgment without mercy" (James 2: 13.) shall be mercy still. The great gulf fixed is not impassable to Christ, he says. But Christ is the very One who has fixed it. He has ordained that none shall pass it, and that settles it for the death state at least that none shall. After this, eternal judgment allows no escape.

Yet Dr. Farrar will have it that the parable shows us "how rapidly in that condition [in which the rich man is seen in hades] a moral renovation has been wrought in a sinful and selfish soul."* He has not told us how it shows this, but I suppose by the concern he manifests for his brethren. But the motives for this the parable does not show, so that it would be difficult to assign its true moral significance. The fact remains of a "great gulf fixed" already in the intermediate state between the two classes of just and unjust, — a gulf which cannot be traversed upon either side. "After death, the judgment," and the nature and duration of that final award we have been for some time considering.

{Eternal Hope, Pref. 31, note.}

But all Scripture assures us of the momentous fact that the significance of the present life is just this, that here and now is decided man's eternal destiny. He is called to repent TODAY, lest God swear 'he shall not enter into His rest' (Heb. 4: 7, 11). And who shall say that brief as indeed it is, the present life may not as fully test the individual man, as indefinite ages of probation or eternity itself? The judgment after death it must be allowed is according to deeds done in the body and no other. If these did not after all characterize the man, that judgment would be partial, and therefore false. It is in vain then to plead for the extension of a day of grace beyond the present, which brings with it no extension of responsibility such as the day of judgment would take notice of; as vain as to plead that the Gehenna-judgment of one whose corpse was cast out amid the worm and flame of the polluted valley is the type of a remediable, or a terminable retribution.

38 - Annihilist - Restorationism. - Mr. Dunn's Theory

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 38.

Annihilist — Restorationism. — Mr. Dunn's Theory

It is no wonder that — considering the moral arguments that have been put forth to sustain it — annihilationism should have failed to satisfy the minds of many of its advocates. It is well to note, in looking briefly at the views now to come before us, that they are the product of a mind influenced by speculative considerations, anxiously seeking a way of escape from what in the first instance was believed to be the teaching of Scripture. I mean, it was not Scripture itself that raised question in the mind, nor led him who puts them forth away from what passes current as orthodoxy as to these points, but certain feelings of his own which rose up against it, and under which he sought and at last found, as he believes, a way of escape. It is precisely in the same way that infidelity rejects Scripture altogether, and we shall have to consider it more fully at another time. I am not by this pronouncing upon the result at which he has arrived. I am only stating that (true or false) this is how he got upon the path which led him to it.

Mr. Dunn's theory is a compound of two apparently very dissimilar things, annihilationism and restorationism. It diminishes the former to the least possible degree, reserving it for some obstinate transgressors only. In this respect it resembles the doctrine (or one of the doctrines) of the Talmud already noticed, which in a similar way combines the theories. In other respects Mr. Dunn's system is quite different, however, for those finally saved with him never come into Gehenna.

For convenience and brevity we may take Mr. Blain's representation of the views, of which he has become the zealous advocate. He has incorporated in the book* with which he has replaced his former one, a letter by Mr. Dunn himself, so that we shall have the doctrine also in the words of its first teacher. The main points moreover are all that we have space to deal with.

{* Hope for our Race (Buffalo, N. Y., 2nd ed., 1873).}

Mr. Blain first gives the chief points in Mr. Dunn's "theory" (as Mr. B. himself calls it), as follows. We shall look at them as they are stated: —

"1. God, in all the dispensations previous to the second personal coming of Christ, has been and is still calling out and preparing a select people, called in both Testaments 'the church,' 'the elect,' 'the bride, 'the Lamb's wife,' 'the first-fruits,' 'firstborn,' 'a chosen generation,' and also 'kings and priests,' to indicate that they are to be rulers and teachers in a dispensation yet to come. It was this elect people that Christ meant, when He said He 'prayed not for the world,' and whom He called the 'little flock who should possess the kingdom,' or to whom 'the Father would give the kingdom,' meaning by the kingdom the government in the world to come. . . To be one of Christ's bride we must find the 'narrow way,' the 'strait gate,' which comparatively few find in these dispensations. Thus, if this view be sustained, these texts and others like them, are no proof of only a few being finally saved. Others will be saved as subjects."

The first part of this statement is in the main true, that those called out before the coming of the Lord are to reign with Him during the dispensation that follows His coming. This we have before considered. It is no "theory" but a Scripture statement, and received by many long before Mr. Dunn.

It is not true that this means that there will be salvation for those who die unsaved now; nor is "election" what Mr. Blain states. But that is not our subject here.

"2. The Jewish nation was called out to be the headship of nations (sic) or to be what is meant by the elect church, as the prophecies show plainly. See Ex. 19: 5: if ye will obey . . . ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, an holy nation.' But this promise was conditional, and as they were not obedient, and finally rejected Christ as a nation, they became the broken off branches of Rom. 11: 17, and only the 'election' named by Paul, or the really righteous among them, of every age, together with the called of the Gentiles, are finally to constitute this 'kingdom of priests and kings' (?) — to be the bride of Christ. This is the people meant in Ps. 22: 30, 31. . . Micah 5: 3 tells us how long they ['the rest,' Rom. 11: 7] are to be blinded, and that they are to be restored: 'Therefore, will ye give them up, until the time that she which travaileth has brought forth; then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto he children of Israel.' Read from ver. 1-4 and comp. ver. 3 with Rom. 11: 25-27, and we see this given up remnant are to be saved. The church now travails and will, until the 'fulness of the Gentiles is brought in,' then the 'broken off remnant' is to be restored to those Paul says 'are of Israel,' meaning the 'elect.'"

Mr. Blain reads Scripture, I am compelled to say, very carelessly indeed. There is some truth here, but more error, as will be apparent in a moment. It is not true in the first place that to Israel as a nation were ever given, even conditionally, the promises which are now ours in Christ, nor that believers now inherit the promises which were once theirs. Rom. 9: 4 should keep any one from confounding these, as it shows that the "promises" given to the nation still were theirs (although for a time in abeyance) after they had rejected Christ. The passage in Ex. 19 shows that those promises had to do with an earthly, as ours with a heavenly inheritance. It is quite true that the two correspond more or less in their different spheres, the earthly being the type of the heavenly, as the Jerusalem of the future corresponds (with some essential differences) to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse.* But the earthly and heavenly are easily recognizable and abundantly distinct. Scripture never confounds them, if interpreters have done so; and it is not responsible for their mistakes.

{* See ante," Old Testament Shadows."}

But the last statements of Mr. Blain are equally careless at the least. Where does Micah 5 speak of the restoration of the blinded Jews? It does speak of the rejection of Messiah, and that for that the nation would be given up until the time that she which travailed had brought forth. (I do not take that last expression as referring to the Christian church, but need not contest it here: the result is much the same.) Then "the remnant of His brethren" — the brethren of the "Judge of Israel" whom they had smitten on the cheek — "shall return unto the children of Israel." Mr. Blain makes "the remnant" the unbelievers — "the broken off remnant" he calls them, while the apostle shows us the remnant as the "election of grace" and not broken off. The remnant of His brethren (remembering the Lord's words to the Jewish people, Matt. 12: 49, 50) are plainly this believing remnant, "those who do the will of His Father in heaven" whom alone He accounts such; while "the children of Israel" should be quite evidently the nation at large. So that it is the believers who return to the nation of Israel, not the unbelievers who return to the believers.

Mr. Blain may have difficulty in understanding the sentence read in that way, but the reason is, not that it is really difficult, but that his views are exactly opposed to the true meaning. This is often the apparent obscurity of Scripture, that it does not fit with our "theories" of what it should say. Its meaning is very simply this: during the present unbelief of Israel, believers among them are necessarily by their very faith separated from the nation. In Christ there is "neither Jew nor Greek." But when the time shall have come for God to fulfil His ancient unforgotten promises to the nation as such, when Israel, in travail with her hopes of a progeny shall have brought forth,* then believers among them will, of course, find their place again in connection with the nation. This will not be, as we have seen,** till "they look upon Him whom they have pierced" and mourn for having pierced Him, when "He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him" too.

{*Comp. Isa. 66: 7-12, and many other places in the prophets.

**See ante, ch. 10, "The Purification and Blessing of the Earth."}

That is, when Christ has taken up His people of the present and the past, and when He is preparing blessings (though through judgment) for the earth, then the time of His giving Israel up will be over, and with His return to them, His brethren henceforth (not the individuals gone to heaven before it) will become identified with the nation as of old.

This explains how according to Rom. 11, the "fulness of the Gentiles" will be come in, and so "all Israel" saved: i.e., not the former unbelievers, but the nation as such at the time indicated. Mr. Blain confounds these in a manner not very creditable to his intelligence, and certainly entirely unauthorized by the texts he has produced.

"3. When Christ comes personally, which he thinks will be soon, — the church, the tried and purified, will be raised first. 'Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's, at His coming.' They will be raised immortal . . . . will be associated with Christ in judging the world: 'the saints shall judge the world.'"

As to this we have already looked at Scripture; nor do I question its truth. The next point brings out fully the distinct feature of the system, and its essential error: —

"4. At Christ's coming, and after the resurrection of the elect church (how soon not told), all who have died impenitent will be raised, and in due time Christ will be made known to them by the elect church; or by Christ appearing to them as He did to Saul; and the offer of life be made to all who have not 'blasphemed against the Holy Ghost' or 'sinned wilfully after having a knowledge of the truth,' in former dispensations. In this coming dispensation, and in due time, light being given, the mass will repent and accept Christ, and so be saved; but with what he calls the lesser salvation, — will not reign with Christ, or be of the bride, but be 'the nations' outside of the New Jerusalem, as told of in Rev. 21: 22-26. Like many others, Rev. 20 seems dark to him — says but little about it; but decides there will be a dispensation, called that of 'the fulness of times,' before Christ gives up the kingdom. . . As to the time this dispensation is to last, he is indefinite, not being guided by the one thousand years of Rev. 20."

It is no wonder that "not being guided" by God's express "revelation" upon the subject, Mr. Dunn should be in the dark. Had he been so guided, he would have seen that the thousand years he can make nothing of, are the whole duration (or nearly so) of that reign of righteousness which precedes the eternal state, and that the resurrection does not take place till after this, when the heavens and earth flee away.

But the whole idea of a resurrection of the wicked, which is not to judgment, is the flat contradiction of Scripture, not interpretation at all. The Lord has expressly divided "all that are in the graves" into these two classes raised to opposite destinies: "they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment." Mr. Blain tells us "the sorrow, shame, and self-reproach felt by Saul (of Tarsus) and the three thousand at the day of Pentecost" will be "the main, if not the only, wailing and bitterness which the impenitent risen dead will experience," and that "only as they will lose the 'crown,' or 'birth-right' blessing." A man that can make out that to be the resurrection of judgment, such as it is described in the passages we have at large considered, it seems really useless to argue with.

This whole idea of a resurrection of impenitent men at the Lord's coming, and of Christ afterwards made known to them by the church, or by His appearing to them, not even one text is adduced for here. Nor is there one that has even the semblance of sustaining it. Mr. Dunn's texts are evidently the ordinary ones pleaded by Universalism, from which he just saves himself, as Mr. Blain tells us, by taking "all," "every" and "the whole" as meaning often the mass, or great majority.

"The term 'the kingdom of God,'" Mr. B. also tells us, "becomes an important word in this theory. It frequently means in the New Testament the same as 'life' or 'eternal life.'" And "with this idea, the saying of Christ, 'narrow is the way that leadeth unto life' is easily explained."

No doubt it is. Few difficulties could be expected to survive such a process of manipulation. It would scarcely spare the lexicographers themselves.

Mr. Dunn's letter is addressed to the Rev. Henry Constable, the writer of two books which we have been already examining, and details at length how he was led into the views he has adopted. We have only space however for what bears directly upon our present subject.

Mr. Dunn became first an annihilationist, and gives some of the usual arguments, but he found annihilation fail to give him full satisfaction. His first trouble was that still the creation of man seemed to be a failure.

"Christ, in such a case, seems not to have destroyed the works of the devil, since that is accomplished, according to this view, by mere power, and by the fiat of the Eternal Father. Satan, instead of seeing his schemes baffled, his work undone, his malignity utterly defeated, becomes in a certain sense conqueror, inasmuch as he succeeds in preventing man's restoration to the image of his Maker, and drags with himself into eternal perdition, not thousands or tens of thousands merely, but the whole human race, with the exception of the comparatively few who here receive the truth, and obey it to the saving of their souls."

Now the ruin of man is not merely the devil's work — it is man's own. We have all heard how at a certain place the Lord cast out a legion of devils with a word, and how the people of the place, instead of welcoming the Deliverer, prayed Him to depart. So it is ever wherever a soul is finally lost. It will not do to say it is the devil's triumph: if it were that, Mr. Dunn's scheme would be no more satisfactory than what he gave up, for the question of how many times God has suffered defeat is a very minor thing compared with the question, how could He suffer defeat at all? If a hundred souls lost were Satan's victory, in these God would be a hundred times defeated! If that be possible, a million or a billion such might be.

We do not believe in Satan's triumph in even one single instance. He has been permitted to gain a temporary advantage, and by it a worse and utter defeat at last. Hell is not his "work," but his judgment, and he does not "overcome when he is judged."

But I agree with Mr. Dunn that the settlement of the question of the existence of evil by mere physical annihilation would be a mere riddance by power of what might be well thought could not be got rid of in any other way. But he continues: —

"Further — and this seems equally impossible — the scheme represents God as allowing hundreds of millions to come into existence every thirty years, under conditions that all but compel their utter misery and eternal ruin after a brief, painful, and apparently unmeaning earthly existence."

But neither can this be a true representation of the matter. We are as sure as Mr. Dunn is, that God would never punish for eternity what was the fruit more of ignorance and weakness amid the pressure of circumstances too great to be resisted by human strength. If that is the true state of the case, men, or a mass of them, would be more the objects of pity than of blame. And He who is infinite in pity, and is slow to judgment, because He delighteth in mercy, could not overlook the essential difference. God will not damn for ignorance, for weakness, for inability to resist when circumstances were too strong, but for wilfulness and obstinacy in wickedness alone. So Scripture represents it. It represents men perishing, not as destroyed of Satan, or of adverse overpowering force of any kind, but as self-destroyed; and whatever be the mystery of this, and no one can pretend a competence to explain the depths of God's providential government of the world, we may safely leave it to Him, who will in the end vindicate the wisdom and goodness of His ways; and "overcome when He is judged," not by superior power but by truth and right.

But by these speculations Mr. Dunn was influenced in his pursuit of some fresh light that was to clear up the mystery. He says: —

"I felt that I had not yet reached the whole truth. . . I could not feel satisfied that I had so far rid myself of hereditary prejudice, and a sinful fear of consequences, as to have established anything in harmony with the revealed doctrine that Christ was the Saviour 'of the world,' the Second Adam, and as such the Redeemer of the race that had fallen in the first."

Universalism had already, that is, got hold of him, but his difficulty was to make Scripture agree with it. He was already steering his course towards a definite point, bent upon finding what he had decided must be there before he found it, and already was so far under the delusion of it as to be confounding the potential and the actual, what the will of God is for every man, with the result in which man's contrary will meets His: "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!"

So Mr. Dunn went on "for many long years," struggling to have things as he thought they ought to be.

"I now turned," says he, "to examine the words of the prophets, and began, for the first time, to listen with purged ear to the whisperings" — the emphasis upon the word is his own — "the whisperings, so to speak, of 'holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,' and who so often unconsciously addressed themselves to those on whom the latter days of the world should come. I found in them much more than I had expected which seemed to bear on the ultimate purposes of God, in relation not to the Jew only, but also to the Gentile; much that spoke of restoration in connection with resurrection. The first passage I noticed as apparently throwing light upon repeated declarations that a period shall come when truth and righteousness will be universal, was that remarkable portion of Isaiah (25: 7, 8) in which the prophet declares that the removal of the 'veil which is spread over all nations' will take place at the time when God shall 'swallow up death in victory,' and when He shall 'wipe away tears from all faces' — a passage which is distinctly applied by the apostle Paul to the resurrection, and partially by John to the happiness of the redeemed."

These are what Mr. Dunn calls "whispers," so that I suppose we are not to expect in them very distinct utterances of what he contends for. It is certain they are not very distinct. For on the face of what Paul says, he is speaking of the resurrection of "those that are Christ's, at His coming," and of no others. If otherwise, then when he speaks of their being raised "in incorruption," "in power," "in glory" — the wicked too are raised in this way, and of course the question is eternally settled for all of them, apart from all question of Christ being offered to them afterwards.

We have always believed too that the "veil spread over all nations" had to do only with the nations alive on earth when Christ came, and had nothing to do with their resurrection; and that "God wiping away all tears from their eyes" might be applied to the happiness of the redeemed without showing that the wicked dead are among the redeemed. Mr. D. goes on —

"A second, found in the same prophecy, was expressed in these words: 'In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land; whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.' A third appeared in Ezekiel, where the prophet speaks of Sodom and her daughters as returning 'to their former estate,' and says to Israel, 'I will give them to thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant' (Ezek. 16: 55-61). A fourth was found in Jeremiah, 'I will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days,' and further, 'I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the Lord' (Jer. 48: 47; Jer. 49: 6). There are many other kindred texts, but these, referring to the heathen nations of antiquity, steeped as they were in the grossest sin, will suffice for the present. No one pretends that they have yet found a fulfilment, or that they can do so under the present dispensation. Regarding apostate Israel similar declarations abound. Take only one by Hosea 13: 9-14: 'O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O death, I will be thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction; repentance shall be hid from mine eyes,' i.e., the promise shall be made good. To me it seemed utterly impossible to attach any rational meaning to predictions like these, whether relating to Gentile or to Jew, which did not directly contradict the supposition that the persons spoken of were to be annihilated. The assertion made by Matthew Henry and others, that in such passages denunciations are applied to the natural Israel, and promises to the spiritual Israel, appeared to me, and still appears, nothing less than a complete changing of the prophecy."

And to me also. Nevertheless Mr. Dunn has himself missed the meaning. The above passages are evidently the whole strength of his position, as apart from ordinary restorationism. His mistake is throughout identical, and it is one he would not surely have made, had he not been under the power of preconception, as he has already frankly owned to us. He confounds, as do a large number of so-called "Adventists," national with individual restoration, and national with individual resurrection.

Yet in that diligent examination of the prophets which he had for so long a time been carrying on, he must have come across passages which should have corrected his mistake. Take for instance the well-known passage in Ezekiel, (Ezek. 37) where the resurrection of dry bones is expressly interpreted in this way. "Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord. God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live; and I shall place you in your own land."

If Mr. Dunn wanted a passage to express his views, he could scarcely find one more suitable every way than this. One might have imagined it the very one which had furnished him with his idea. Here is resurrection, and conversion after resurrection, quite according to his thought. Yet he has not ventured to produce this passage in evidence, and it is clearly inapplicable as evidence. It is a figure of national revival simply, such an one as the chosen people are yet to know. People literally dead as individuals would not be represented as saying, "Our bones are dried," etc., while they might well bewail their national death so. This way of speaking is not uncommon in the prophets, and I have no doubt that an example of it is found even in Dan. 12: 2, where literal resurrection is more generally believed to be in question, but where the contradiction to any view of literal resurrection is absolutely prohibitory to the thought. It is not a general resurrection (a thing moreover found nowhere else in Scripture), for it would not in that case be "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth." However numerous the "many," they cannot be all the dead. Again, it is not the first resurrection, for some awake "to shame and everlasting contempt." Nor is it the resurrection of judgment, for the reason that others awake "to everlasting life." And the rendering some would propose, "these (who awake) to everlasting life; but those (who continue asleep) are for shame and everlasting contempt," is an inadmissible rendering to get over a suppositious difficulty. For "those who continue asleep" do not come into the text at all, as is evident. Interpreted in accordance with the passage in Ezekiel, there is no difficulty, for in the national revival of Israel there will be that double issue. It will not be blessing to all, but sifting and discernment between the righteous and the wicked, in many places asserted as to Israel in the strongest terms.

Again in Isa. 26: 15-19, we have a similar figure: "Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, Thou hast increased the nation: Thou art glorified; Thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. Lord, in trouble they have visited Thee, they poured out a prayer when Thy chastening was upon them. . . Thy dead shall live, my dead body, they shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead." Here the misapplication to literal resurrection has led to a very unwarrantable translation. In our version it is put "together with my dead body, they shall arise," as if the prophet expected his own resurrection among these, whereas it is Jehovah answering the cry of the people, and claiming them, dead as they were, as His: "My dead body, they shall arise."

Again in Hosea 6: 1, 2, the prophet exhorts them to repentance in the assurance of mercy: "Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for He hath torn, and He will heal us: He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight."

This is symbolism, very suitable, and by no means hard to understand, whereas if literally taken, as Mr. Dunn takes it, it clashes with many Scriptures. And the same remark applies to the restoration and revival of other nations, where the image of resurrection is not however used. Moab and Ammon, Assyria and Egypt, are undoubtedly to revive, whether by the recovery of the identical races or not, He knows who can and will accomplish it, just as He will bring forth in His own time the tribes of Ephraim, now so vainly being searched for. On the other hand, Edom and Babylon lie under irreversible doom. In all this there is no difficulty with God; and even as to Sodom, we have no proof of the race being utterly extinguished when judgment fell upon the guilty city. Thus there is no impossibility in restoration, without bringing up from the grave the people destroyed then. In supposing the latter, Mr. Dunn has been listening to the reasonings of his own mind, and not to the "whisperings" of the prophets.

His further texts are mainly those appealed to by Universalists of every class. Its being "more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment" than for Capernaum, he found it difficult to reconcile with the annihilation of either. He quotes the Lord's words, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," which will be quite true of that future condition of the earth, when the "prince of this world shall" (according to what He says in immediate connection with this) "be cast out" (John 12: 31, 32), but has no reference to those dying in their sins. He refers to what Christ also says, when "He bids them be like their heavenly Father in forgiving their enemies, not for a time only, but from the heart, and therefore forever; not for certain offences only, but for all; not 'seven times' merely, but 'seventy times seven':" words which he misquotes and misapplies, as is plain, for according to such a principle there could be no "day of judgment" at all for any.

He quotes also Paul's words: "As by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall the many be made righteous," where he accurately enough puts "the many" instead of "many"; but inaccurately retains "one" instead of "the one." It is plain that that indeed spoils the argument he would draw from this: for if "the many," in that definite way, must mean the same people in each case, then "the one," by the same rule, must mean the same particular one, which we know it does not

He cites next: "The creature itself (all creation) shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God," which is "creation" as we ordinarily apply the word — the lower creatures. They could not be brought into the liberty of grace, but shall be into "the liberty of the glory" (which is the exact expression) when the sons of God are manifested in glory (Rom. 8: 19-23). In the same way and in the same passage, it is not "in relation to man generally" that the apostle tells us, "he is a captive not by any choice of his own" (for he is, alas, a willing captive): it is still the lower creatures who have fallen with man, not of their own will, but as connected with him who was ordained the head of creation, "not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope."

After telling us that he had studied also most carefully "every text that appeared to have another bearing" without finding reason to reverse the conclusion at which he had arrived, he goes on to say: "So again and yet again I went back to the only source of light and truth, asking with deep earnestness, 'What is written in the New Testament regarding the future lot of the masses of mankind?' The passage that struck me as affording a kind of key-note to the inquiry was found in St. Paul's first epistle to Timothy, 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation. . . . We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe. These things command and teach.' Here was 'the missing link,' and one certainly that could not be set aside by the pretence that 'Saviour' meant temporal preserver in one clause of the sentence, and spiritual Redeemer in the other."

I suppose few would affirm that, and that it is rather believed that soter is here in both clauses "preserver," and not "Saviour." Mr. Dunn can hardly dispute that it may mean that, and therefore that he has no proof here of his position, especially as everywhere in Scripture "the day of salvation" is stated to be "now," in the present time, and not beyond the grave. Indeed if Christ be now "the Saviour of all men," as in a sense He is, it does not follow that He will be that finally for such as now reject Him, and it is often threatened that He will not be. But then Mr. Dunn's proof is nowhere.

He goes on to connect this with what he presently found as to the kingdom of God, and here (as we have noticed) he presents much that is really Scriptural. But even here he is, as natural, too much engrossed with one aspect of future blessedness in which every other is merged. I may not pause to point out where he fails, however. It is quite true on the other hand that the saints saved now are "to 'sit on thrones'; to 'judge others'; to 'reign on the earth'; to be 'priests' as well as 'kings'; to rule some 'with a rod of iron.'" No part of this is new to believers in the Lord's pre-millennial advent. It seems to have been new to Mr. Dunn, and so to have encouraged him to believe that here he had found what he wanted for the perfecting of his idea. "May it not then," this kingdom, he asks himself, "be the appointed agency for bringing about the final triumph of the Redeemer by placing the myriads who here live and die without light, without training, I might almost say without probation, under perfect government and infallible teaching?" He notices then that there are "nations" represented as outside the New Jerusalem, "who are said to be in process of healing by the leaves of a mystic tree, growing by the pure 'river of water of life' that proceeds 'out of the throne of God and of the Lamb;'" and these "nations" he assumes to include, of course, those of whom his thoughts are full, the unsaved dead of all ages and generations.

This closes the argument of his letter, in which it is interesting and sad to trace how the prepossession with one fixed thought led an intelligent man to find in Scripture just that thought which prepossessed him. It is touching too, and a matter of hopefulness, to note how doubtfully he has yet to speak. "That much is not said regarding this possible, or rather probable, field of future usefulness," for the heirs of this kingdom, he says, "need not excite our wonder." The things he speaks of are, at the most, "probable." What if they are not true? There is no "full assurance of faith," or "of understanding" here. With Mr. Blain, too, it is "Mr. Dunn's theory." And thus after years and years of study, a hope that may make ashamed is the sole result.

The false principle of this interpretation of Scripture has I believe been sufficiently shown, and there is no need of following Mr. Blain's book further. It is not hard to trace the workings of it all through the subsequent pages; but it would swell these pages to too great a number to follow them out. With its foundation the whole building falls.

39 - "The restitution of all things."- Mr. Jukes

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 39.

"The restitution of all things."— Mr. Jukes.

This Scriptural expression is the title Mr. Jukes has adopted for his well-known book, which in its fourth edition lies before me. I propose now to take up and pursue with Scripture the thread of its argument. Much we have already looked at, and of course need not look at again; but there is much needed yet to complete our survey.

We may pass over his preliminary observations upon the nature of Scripture and begin with his second section upon its "testimony." This, he tells us, "appears at first sight contradictory. Not only is there on the one hand law, condemning all, while on the other hand there is the gospel, with its good news for every one; but further, there are direct statements as to the results of these, which at first sight are apparently irreconcilable." He adduces first of all the texts, or some of these, which speak of eternal punishment, and owns as to them, "Words could not well be stronger," but he adds: —

"The difficulty is that all this is but one side of Scripture, which in other places seems to teach a very different doctrine. For instance, there are first the words of God Himself, repeated again and again by those same apostles whom I have just quoted, that 'in Abraham's seed all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed;' words which St. Peter expounds to mean that there shall be a 'restitution of all things,' adding that 'God hath spoken of this by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.'"

Let us look a moment at these texts ere we pass on, and ask ourselves how far they conflict even seemingly with eternal punishment. Few would imagine perhaps that the blessing in Abraham's seed to all kindreds of the earth did that. And by the very fact that all the prophets have spoken of the "restitution of all things," it is plainly not what Mr. Jukes would imply. Moreover this "restitution" is of things, not persons, and (according to what we have seen to be the scope of that Old Testament to which, of course, the apostle refers), it is upon earth, — and nowhere else. "Restitution of all (the) things of which the prophets have spoken" is the true force of the word,* and not a restitution of the universe, as Mr. Jukes seems to imagine.

{* apokatastaseos panton on elalesen ho Theos (Acts 3: 21). Mr. Jukes, as will be seen, has actually broken the sentence in two, as if to get rid of this on, and interpreted as if it were hes.}

"St. Paul further declares," he goes on to say, "this wondrous 'mystery of God's will, that He hath purposed in Himself according to His good pleasure, to rehead and reconcile unto Himself, in and by Christ, all things, whether they be things in heaven,' that is, the spirit world, where the conflict with Satan yet is, 'or things on earth,' that is, this outward world, where death now reigns, and where even God's elect are by nature children of wrath, even as other men."

But this goes no further than heaven and earth, and does not say one word about fallen angels or lost men; they will be outside the scene here spoken of. Heavenly things as well as earthly are said in Scripture to be "purchased," "reconciled," "redeemed," "purified," sin having been in heaven as well as earth. A comparison of the passages will show that they cannot apply to those to whom Mr. Jukes would apply them. In Heb. 9: 21-24, the tabernacle and the vessels of the sanctuary sprinkled with the blood, and which the apostle interprets of the purifying of the heavenly things with better sacrifices, cannot possibly refer to these. In Eph. 1: 14, it is "our inheritance" that is the purchased possession to be redeemed. And in Col. 1: 19,20, in the same way, things are spoken of not persons, the persons reconciled being named apart in the following verse: "by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven. And" — in addition to this — "you hath He reconciled." In none of these passages is hell named or by any possibility included.

"Further," he says, "St. Paul asserts that 'all creation, which now groans, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.'"

But this we have seen to be the lower creatures, and not even man; and the deliverance takes place at the time of "the redemption of the body," at the first resurrection, a thousand years before the judgment, which therefore could not take place at all if Mr. Jukes' view were the true one. It is a mere strain of the "all creation," impossible if we read it with the context. Again —

"In another place he declares that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself:"

True, but they refused and rejected it, and are now refusing the "ministry of reconciliation" by which Christ's mission, in His absence, has been perpetuated.

"And that Christ 'took our flesh and blood, through death to destroy* [or 'nullify'] him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;'" —

{* katargese,"nullify" (Heb. 2: 14).}

But to what end? "and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." It is the first death Christ has "abolished" (or "nullified" — the same word as before) "and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel" ( 2 Tim. 1: 10). For whom? For those who do not receive the gospel? And has Satan, or had he ever, the power of the second death," which is his own doom? But again —

"'That, if by the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, hath abounded unto many': that 'therefore as by the offence of one (or by one offence) judgment came on all to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one (or by one righteousness), the free gift should come on all unto the justification of life'; while 'they which receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ;' that 'as sin hath reigned unto death, so grace might reign unto eternal life,' yea, that 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.'"*

{* Rom. 5: 12-21.}

Surely; but there are "those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness," and by implication, as certainly, those who do not. The mistake commonly made as to these connected passages is to make the "over-bounding" of grace a matter of breadth, instead of height. But, from the nature of the case, if it were a question of the number reached, there could be no over-abounding of grace. Certainly, more could not be reached through Christ than fell with Adam, and that is how it must apply if in this way at all. But the real matter is one of depth and height, and not of breadth, as I have said. One offence brings condemnation; the free gift is of many offences to justification. By the one offence death reigned; by one righteousness not life reigns, but they reign in life. As to number, it is on each side "the one" and "the many": the first Adam and the many connected with him, the "last Adam" and the many connected with him, with a difference only in the 18th verse, where the tendency "towards all men" is in contrast with the actual issue in the 19th.*

{*The 18th verse reads literally, "Therefore as by one offence towards all men to condemnation, so by one righteousness towards all men to justification of life."}

Mr. Jukes goes on: —

"To another church he states the same doctrine, that 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive'; and that 'the end' shall not come 'till all are subject to Him,' that 'God may be' not all in some but 'all in all; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.'" (1 Cor. 15: 22-28.)

This, save the first passage, we have already had before us. Throughout the chapter the resurrection spoken of is the "resurrection of the just," and it is only that, or these, that are "in Christ." As all these die in Adam, they all are made alive in Christ: the "all are defined by the connection with the previous verses to be all "those that sleep," and of whom Christ "is the first-fruits." They are the just only. It is defined by the connection with the verses following, to be all "those that are Christ's": "Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." Nor does the apostle say one word about the wicked at all.

Again, Christ reigns till He puts all enemies under His feet. Changing them to friends is the very opposite to this. When this is accomplished He gives up the kingdom, and there are still enemies, though "under His feet." God cannot be all in all then, in the sense Mr. Jukes would assume. The connection in the text, moreover, does not give his thought at all. For if Christ's enemies had become friends before He gave up the kingdom, His giving it up would not make God all in their hearts any more than before. But it is the giving up of the kingdom that makes God "all in all." Evidently then the sense is that He will be in recognized and immediate supremacy everywhere.

But he goes on: —

"So he says again, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, . . . that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him.'"*

{* Eph. 1: 3-10.}

This is a text Mr. Jukes has already once given, when he translates "gather together in one" as "rehead." He certainly puts it in a new connection, by dropping six verses of the original, to bring the third and tenth together. This he does not however justify or explain.

"To the same purpose he writes in another epistle, 'that at (or in) the name of Jesus (that is, Saviour) every knee shall bow of things* in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father;' 'for to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.'"**

{*"Things" is not expressed here in the Greek. It reads "of heavenly, earthly, and infernal [beings]." In Col. 1: 20 on the contrary it is ta panta.

**Phil. 2: 10, 11; Rom. 14: 9.}

These texts have already received their meaning. For Christ's enemies being put under His feet implies that they own Him Lord; and that they find Him, or look to Him, as Saviour, is only said by Mr. Jukes.

"He further declares that 'for this sake he suffers reproach, because he hopes in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe'; that this God 'will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth'; that therefore, thanksgivings as well as prayers should be made for all, because there is a 'ransom for all, to be testified in due time'; and lastly, that 'God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.'"*

{* 1 Tim. 4: 10; 2: 1-6; Rom. 11: 32.}

These texts, except the last, we have also looked at. Mr. Jukes unites them together after his own fashion, omitting or supplementing as suits his argument. Thus in the first passage he omits, "For therefore we both labor" from before "and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God," etc., words which show us the connection with God us the Preserver. . . especially of those who believe, so that in the face of persecution, etc., he could labor. Again he quotes, "'thanksgivings, as well as prayers should be made for all' because there is 'a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.'" Here he joins words five verses apart, and in a very different manner from the apostle, who writes, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time." This is the whole passage. Mr. Jukes unfairly mutilates it, especially by representing the ransom for all as if to be testified of in a due time yet to come; whereas the apostle's words, which are literally "who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony for its own time,"* by no means convey this, but in the sentence that follows the very opposite: "whereunto I am ordained a preacher," etc.

{* to marturion kairois idiois.}

As for the last text quoted, it is an entirely different one in a different connection, and refers to Israel. It reads with the previous verse literally thus: "Even so have these also now not believed in your mercy" — "in mercy to Gentiles" that they also may be objects of mercy.* For God hath concluded (or shut up together) all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." The Jews refusing a mercy which took up Gentiles, lost all claim upon God, and became as much as the Gentiles themselves objects of mere mercy. But thus God could show mercy to them, when it was demonstrated to be merely that. This mercy is to be shown in a fast coming day, and all Israel saved, i.e., the nation as such. The words have nothing to do with universal restoration.

{*Outo kai outoi nun epeithesan to humetero eleei ina kai autoi eleethosi.}

Mr. Jukes turns now from Paul's testimony to John's: —

"The beloved apostle St. John, repeats the same doctrine, that 'the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world'; 'for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.'"

But why not go on to the next verse, which assures us of how alone this could be realized: "he that believeth on Him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God."*

{* John 3: 17, 18.}

"Further he teaches that the only begotten Son 'is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world '; that He 'is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,' and 'was revealed for this very purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil '; and that, as a result, 'there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor pain, because all things are made new, and the former things are passed away.'"*

{* John 2: 2; John 1: 29; 1 John 3: 8; Rev. 21: 4, 5; and see Rev. 5: 13.

Here again various and disconnected texts are brought together. No one, I should trust, that believes in Christ, doubts His being the world's Saviour, but what is more than doubted is His being the actual salvation of those who refuse Him. And if His being a 'propitiation for* the whole world,' means that all will be saved by it, how is this to be reconciled with the fact that for some there "remaineth no more sacrifice for sins"? Again Christ's taking away the sin of the world will yet be displayed, as Mr. Jukes rightly foresees, when in the new earth it and all its consequences, death, sorrow and pain, are passed away forever. But that is strictly in the new heavens and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and Mr. Jukes cannot make that language apply to hell.

{*"The sins of," should be omitted, as is well known.}

While as to the devil's works, as I have before said, they may be undone, and man even loosed from his bondage in this respect, and yet share through his own will the devil's portion. The lake of fire is not the devil's work: it is his punishment.

Finally Mr. Jukes adduces: —

"For 'the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand': and the Son Himself declares, 'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.' And again He says, 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.'"*

{* John 3: 35; John 6: 37-39; John 12: 32.}

Here again it should be no difficult matter to see that all things being given into Christ's hand is a different thing from people being given to Him as His own. And in that sixth chapter of John's gospel from which Mr. Jukes quotes, the limitation is so clear and precise, and so close to the very place he quotes, that it seems impossible it should have escaped him. The next verse to his last but one runs thus: "And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." Does that apply to all? Will they who do not believe have everlasting life alike? Is that what these texts point out?

The last I have before spoken of and need not return to it.

Mr. Jukes finds therefore an "apparent contradiction" in these sayings of Scripture which the "approved teaching of Christendom" still leaves an unsolved mystery. Indeed it must be confessed his version of it does leave much unsolved, but having given my own, I need not follow it.

"The truth which solves the riddle, lies," he says, "in the mystery of the will of our ever blessed God as to the process and stages of redemption: —

"(1.) First, His will by some to bless and save others; by a first-born seed, 'the first-born from the dead,' to save and bless the later-born: —

"(2.) His will therefore to work out the redemption of the lost by successive ages or dispensations, or, to use the language of St. Paul, 'according to the purpose of the ages'; and —

"(3.) Lastly, His will (thus meeting the nature of our fall) to make death, judgment, and destruction, the means and way to life, acquittal, and salvation in other words, through death to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

The second and third of these statements we have pretty well considered. We have seen that the "purpose of the ages" has not in Scripture the meaning Mr. Jukes alleges. We have seen, too, that the death of the soul or its destruction is never the appointed way of its salvation: the terms are opposed. As when James says: "there is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy," who would suppose that these were convertible terms after all? And when the apostle speaks of Christ by death destroying him that had the power of death, — it is by His own death He does it, and not by the death of those whom He sets free.

It is mainly then his first proposition we have to consider now: "God's purpose by the first-fruits or first-born to save the later-born." And here at first sight two dissimilar ideas seem to be confused. What has the first-fruits to do with producing the harvest? It is the pledge and assurance of it; but that is quite a different thought. However, we will let Mr. Jukes state his argument.

"This," he says, "which is in fact the substance of the gospel, like all God's secrets, comes out by degrees. Scarcely to be discerned, though contained, in the first promise of the Woman's Seed, it shines out brightly in the covenant made with Abraham: 'In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed'; for the Seed in whom all the kindreds of the earth are blessed, must be distinct from, and blessed prior to, those nations to whom according to God's purpose in due time it becomes a blessing."

It may be we are blind, but we confess we cannot see this. Is it the fact that Christ was born as Abraham's seed before any of those blest through Him as such, were born? Was not the blessing through Him reflected back as well as forward? It should seem so. And then Mr. Jukes' argument is void. Why does he apply the blessing of all kindreds of the earth only to what was future when Christ died? Moreover, the "Seed" in whom all kindreds of the earth are to be blessed, is expressly asserted by the apostle (Gal. 3: 16) to be Christ alone, and not true of others: "he saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ." Argument, of course, is easy, if we may assume the basis of it at our will. But, we are told: —

"This purpose is then revealed with fuller detail in the law of the first-fruits and the first-born, though here the veil of type and shadow hides from most the face of Moses. But in Christ the purpose is unveiled forever, and the mystery by the first-born to save others is by the Holy Ghost made fully manifest. Christ, says the apostle, is the promised Seed, the First-born, and in and through Him endless blessing shall flow down on the later-born.

"Now Christ, as Paul shows, is first-born in a double sense. He is first-born from above, first out of life, for He is the only* begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; 'for by Him were all things created, which are in heaven, and which are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.' But He is more than this, for He is also 'first-born from the dead,' first out of death, 'that in all things He might have the pre-eminence;' and it is in this relation, as first-born from the dead, that He is Head of the church, and first-fruits of the creature. All things are indeed of God; but it is no less true that all things are by man** as it is written, 'Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.' Therefore as by one first-born death came into the world, so by another first-born shall it be forever overthrown."

{*Mr. Jukes sees no difference between "first" and "only." How can an "only begotten" be a first?

**Where is this taught?}

But if this be the New Testament doctrine of the firstborn, as he holds it, Mr. Jukes allows it does not prove his case. Very remarkable it is, after his having told us just before, that "in Christ the purpose is unveiled forever, and the mystery by the first-born to save others is by the Holy Ghost made fully manifest," he now tells us that nevertheless it is not in the clear revelations of the New Testament that we are to find the unveiling of this purpose, but we must go back to the law to find it! "The law of Moses is most instructive here; for while it is true that the letter of that law cannot be explained but by the gospel, it is no less true that the gospel in its breadth and depth cannot be set forth but by the figures of the law, each jot of which covers some blessed mystery"!

We have usually thought that the letter of the law was plain enough, and that the figures were what the New Testament explained. On the contrary, Mr. Jukes asserts the figures of the Old Testament alone fully set forth the gospel of the New!

He confesses then that his full gospel cannot be found in what we style, by way of eminence, the "gospel"! Let us still go on with him, however: —

"What then does the law teach us of the First-born from the dead?. . . According to the law, the first-born had the right, though it might be lost, of being priest and king, that is, of interceding for, and ruling over their younger brethren; on him devolved the duty of Goel or Redeemer, to redeem a brother who had waxen poor, and sold himself unto a stranger; to avenge his blood, to raise up seed to the dead, and to redeem the inheritance, if it were at any time lost or alienated. To sustain these duties God gave him a double portion. Need I point out how Christ fulfils these particulars? how, as first out of the grave, that 'barren womb that cries, Give, give,' He is the First-born through whom the blessing reaches us? In this sense no Christian doubts that God's purpose is by the First-born from the dead to save and bless the later-born."

The first-born under the law were never priests. It is well known there was one special family. The nearest of kin redeemed the inheritance, etc., not necessarily the firstborn. And Christ's doing this does not yet present Mr. Jukes' gospel, but he must dig deeper down to find it.

"But the truth goes further still, for there are others beside the Lord who are both 'first-born' and 'Abraham's seed,' who must therefore in their measure 'share this same honor with and under Christ, and in whom, as 'joint-heirs with Him,' the promise must be fulfilled, that in them 'all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed.' This glorious truth, though of the very essence of the gospel, which announces salvation to the world through the promised 'seed of Abraham,' is even yet so little seen by many of Abraham's seed, that not a few of the children of promise speak and act, as if Christ and His body only should be saved, instead of rejoicing that they are also the appointed means of saving others. Even of the elect, few see that they are elect to the birthright, not to be blessed only, but to be a blessing; as first-born with Christ to share the glory of kingship and priesthood with Him, not only to rule and intercede for their younger and later-born brethren, but to avenge their blood, to raise up seed to the dead, and in and through Christ, their Life and Head, to redeem their lost inheritance."

This then is how the Old Testament figures set forth the gospel of the New! But the blessing of all nations is through the "one seed," Christ, alone, as we have seen. In what "measure" then can others share in it? And what has being "joint-heirs with Christ," to do with "saving others"? What does avenging the blood of those who have died for their sins and in them mean? and how are these the "later-born"? That the risen saints are priests and kings with Him who is Priest and King is of course true, and rule and intercession for others are implied in these terms. But over whom and for whom are these offices? "Their younger and later-born brethren," says Mr. Jukes. Then these should be, and will be, doubtless, millennial saints. They can hardly be the wicked, without we ASSUME the later birth (new birth, of course) of these. Mr. Jukes at present has at least given us no evidence at all of this.

He now passes on to the "first-fruits," rightly referring the Passover first-fruits to Christ, the Pentecostal leavened cakes to the saints: "'Christ, the First-fruits,' and 'we, a kind of first-fruits': Christ 'the First-born,' and we 'the church of the first-born'; words which carry with them," he says, "blessings unspeakable, 'for if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy,' the offering of the first-fruits to God being accepted as the sanctification and consecration of the whole coming harvest."

Does Mr. Jukes mean, of the "tares" as well as of the wheat, or of the wheat alone? If the latter, it will not be questioned; but neither will it serve his turn. He seeks to apply it thus: —

"First, the Jew is Abraham's seed, — the people that dwell alone, and are not reckoned among the nations, and although 'all are not Israel, who are of Israel,' Scripture will indeed be broken, if Israel is not again grafted in; when, if the casting away of them has been the riches of the world, the receiving of them, as St. Paul says, shall be life from the dead. 'Israel is my son, my first-born, saith the Lord.' All nations therefore, shall yet be blessed in them."

Here again is the constant twist, the many seeds substituted for the one. And while Israel will be fruitful in the earth, this is not the fulfilment of the Pentecostal first-fruits. The other application more concerns us now.

"The church is also Abraham's seed; for, as St. Paul says, 'if ye be Christ's ye are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.' To the church, therefore, belongs the same promise, as first-fruits with Christ, not to be blessed only, but to be a blessing, in its own heavenly and spiritual sphere. For if the Jew on earth shall be a 'kingdom of priests,' what is our hope but to be also heavenly 'kings and priests'? As kings, for the Lord shall say, 'Be thou over five cities,' to rule and order in the coming age what requires order; not only with Christ to 'judge the world,' but to be 'equal unto the angels,' and to 'judge the angels';* as priests, for a priest is 'for those out of the way,' to minister to those who are yet out of the way. . . . Christ barely entered on His priestly work till He had passed through death and judgment;** so with those who are Christ's, their death and resurrection shall only introduce them to fuller and wider service to lost ones, over whom the Lord shall set them as His priests and kings, until all things are restored and reconciled unto Him."

{* Judgment is with Mr. Jukes a mode of salvation, and we are to save the fallen angels so!

**He did not enter on it at all till then: "for if He were on earth He should not be a priest" (Heb. 8: 4).}

Priesthood is not for "lost ones." Christ as a priest, in contrast with the Jewish priests, is "separate from sinners." Even they ministered only within the limits of the chosen people, and our priesthood must conform to this. Here Mr. Jukes' interpretation ends. The shadows of the law, that were to preach the perfect gospel unpreached by the gospel, are utterly silent as to the "wider hope." After this long argument the only result is a question, and an unanswered question, as far as Mr. Jukes is concerned.

"To whom, I ask, shall the church after death be priests? Shall it be to that great mass of our fellowmen, who have departed hence;in ignorance? Shall it be to spirits in prison,' such as those to whom after His death Christ preached? Shall not His saints, made like Him, do the same works, still following Him, and with Him being priests to God? Will not their glory be to rule and feed and enlighten and clothe those who are committed to them, even as Christ has fed and clothed them?"....

And THAT is the argument. I have given it really at superfluous length, but it was well to see the whole, if only for the satisfaction of seeing how simply impossible it is to make Scripture contradict Scripture. Mr. Jukes calls it reconciling, of course; but there was nothing to reconcile. And a reconciliation which can only be accomplished by sinking Great Babylon into the water of life, as he does a little further on (p. 41), most people will after all think exemplifies one of his own principles in a rather startling way. But none who know what Scripture is will thank him for a salvation of it wrought by its destruction. As they do not believe in the process, so neither will they accept the result.

Mr. Jukes urges in another part of his book that —

"the precepts which God has given are in their way as strong a witness as His direct promises. Hear the law respecting bond-men, and strangers, and debtors, and widows, and orphans, and the punishment of the wicked, which may not exceed forty stripes, 'lest, if it exceed, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee;' yea, even the law respecting asses fallen into a pit: hear the prophets exhorting to 'break every yoke,' to 'let the oppressed go free,' and to 'undo the heavy burdens': hear the still clearer witness of the gospel, not to 'let the sun go down upon our wrath,' to 'forgive not until seven times, but unto seventy times seven,' 'not to be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good'; to 'walk in love as Christ has loved us,' and to 'be imitators of God as dear children': — see the judgment of those who neglect the poor, and the naked, and the hungry, and the stranger, and the prisoner; and then say, Shall God do that which He abhors? Shall He command that bondmen and debtors be freed, and yet Hims elf keep those who are in worse bondage and under a greater debt in endless imprisonment? Shall He care for widows and orphans, and Himself forget this widowed nature, which has lost its Head and Lord, and those poor orphan souls, which cannot cry, 'Abba, Father '? Shall He limit punishment to forty stripes, 'lest thy brother seem vile,' and Himself inflict far more upon those who though fallen are still His children? Is not Christ the faithful Israelite, who fulfils the law, and shall He break it in any one of these particulars? Shall He say, 'Forgive, till seventy times seven,' and Himself not forgive except in this short life? Shall He command us to overcome evil with good, and Himself, the Almighty, be overcome of evil? Shall He judge those who leave the captives unvisited, and Himself leave captives in a worse prison forever unvisited? Does He not again and again appeal to our own natural feelings of mercy, as witnessing 'how much more ' we may expect a larger mercy from our Father which is in heaven? If it were otherwise, might not the adversary reproach, and say, Thou that teachest and judgest another, teachest thou not thyself? Not thus will God be justified. But, blessed be His Name, He shall in all be justified." (pp. 93, 94.)

In that assurance we shall all, I believe, unite. But Mr. Jukes can scarcely thus turn the questions that he puts into the affirmations that he fain would make of them. He confounds things widely different. He forgets or omits what is in the highest degree essential to the argument. Who would suppose that according to him the law had any heavier penalty than the "forty stripes" referred to? Dr. Farrar can make the execution of a criminal, and the casting forth of his unburied corpse amid the flames and worms of the valley of Hinnom the figure of corrective and remedial punishment. Mr. Jukes seems to forget that the penalty of death ever existed for malefactors under the law. For if it did exist, he could hardly say that God enjoined for all offenders either continual forgiveness, or temporary punishment merely. Is death the figure of either? If not, of what is it a figure? Surely, as I have before argued, a punishment inflicted by man which, as far as he is concerned, has no end and cannot be reversed, must be the figure of that which if divine has not forever end or reversion. I know Mr. Jukes says that death is the way to life, and destruction but a process of salvation; but no criminal executed by a government ever believed that these were one and the same thing to him, or intended as such by those who sentenced him.

Again, what would mercy to an unrepenting criminal involve? Has Mr. Jukes forgotten that of some even in this life it is said, "it is impossible to renew them unto repentance"? Does he not understand that the mercy which with us as individuals may be right and good, may be the reverse of both if practised wholesale by a government? He confounds these thing as if he did not understand it. Nay, he speaks of God's remission of imperative judgment as "letting the oppressed go free"!

But I do not think it needful to argue further. We have it confessed by Mr. Jukes himself that "the gospel in its breadth and depth cannot be set forth but by the figures of the law." When these figures are appealed to, we find not the slenderest evidence to show that the "later-born brethren" to whom God's "first-born" sons are to be kings and priests are those in hell. The ages of torment, instead of being limited and temporary with an eternity of universal blessedness beyond, are limited only by the life of God Himself. And lastly, the destruction which he would have to be a method of salvation, is everywhere in Scripture defined as its opposite. These are the fundamental principles of his interpretation, and with these it necessarily falls; while in our examination of the Scriptures proof upon proof has been given of the contrary view. Mr. Jukes himself confesses that, from his stand-point of universal salvation, "taken in the letter, text clashes with text, on this subject." (p. 117.) But that gives up the whole question, except letter and figure are at issue. If they are, who shall decide between them? Nay, how shall the figure be interpreted if not by that letter, which it seems is discordant with it?

I leave then Mr. Jukes in the self-contradiction in which he has involved himself. Our account with him is virtually closed, although statements of his may yet come up for examination. We must turn to other advocates of universal restoration.

40 - "The restitution of all things"- Canon Farrar

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 40.

"The restitution of all things"— Canon Farrar.

Canon Farrar often names the doctrine of "final restitution" (in the universalist sense, of course), and his last "excursus" in the appendix to his book is entitled "The Voice of Scripture respecting Eternal Hope." There is little, however, beside a list of texts, which we shall presently consider. The first two pages are taken up with that protest against isolated texts, which we have already looked at. Then it is urged, that "if the doctrine of endless torment be true, it is incredible that there should be no trace of it in the entire Old Testament, except by putting on the Hebrew phrase 'forever' a sense which it does not and cannot bear." We have gone so fully into the question of the Old Testament doctrine, that this also we may pass by here.

His third section is devoted to the consideration of the Jewish rabbinical teachings upon the subject. I have added the few texts they appeal to to Dr. F.'s own list. Otherwise their views are of the very smallest value.* Of course, Josephus and the Pharisees and Essenes do not appear in the consideration of Jewish doctrine.

{*As an example we may give the following in Dr. Farrar's own words: "In a magnificent passage of Othoth (attributed to R. Akiba) it is said that God has a key of Gehenna, and that He will preach to all the righteous; that Zerubbabel shall say the Kaddish, and an Amen! shall sound forth from Gehenna, and that Gabriel and Michael will open the 40,000 gates of Gehenna and set free the damned. Akiba founds this on Isa. 26: 2, reading shomer amenim, 'observing the Amen,' for shomer emunim, 'keeping the truth'"!

Of course, according to this, Gehenna must be "in the land of Judah," and the righteous nation are the lost in Gehenna!}

His fourth section is occupied mainly with advice to "honest, serious, and competent readers" of his book, as to the spirit and manner in which he would have them weigh the texts he adduces. As it includes a brief review of the subject, and some things not said elsewhere, we shall briefly glance at this. He asks: —

"Now will honest, serious and competent readers weigh the plain, literal meaning of the texts which follow — the number of which might easily be trebled, — and in weighing them with an earnest and prayerful desire to get rid of traditional bias and attain to truth, will they also do as follows? —

"i. Examine their own conscience and reason as to all that they know, and all that the Bible teaches, respecting the love of God and redemption through Jesus Christ."

Only remembering that what they know of either cannot transcend the teaching of that Bible. The love of God is only really known where, and so far as, Scripture is known. And reason and conscience are not other Bibles — are not authoritative standards, — but only make us capable of responsibility, and actually responsible, to the authority of God.

"ii. See how very little, which is in the least degree decisive, they can produce on the other side; and how for every word of that very little an explanation is offered, demonstrably tenable, and far more in accordance with history than that which they adopt."

Which if true settles the matter. For if universalism be "demonstrably tenable" its opposite cannot be, save upon a principle which destroys the authority of Scripture altogether. But this may safely be left, after all that we have had before us.

"iii. Consider the tremendous weight of evidence which must be thrown against their private interpretation from the fact that neither the Jewish nor the Christian church have ever been able dogmatically to sanction it."

The word of God no more needs the church's "sanction" to make it true, than God Himself the permission of His creature to exist. But Dr. Farrar cannot mean to imply that the church has ever pronounced it a doubtful opinion, or that the overwhelming weight of human testimony has not been in favor of the doctrine he rejects. To me that does not make it one iota more authoritative or more trustworthy, because all true faith is in God's word, not man's; but the facts as to the general ecclesiastical belief are scarcely decisive against the view still prevalent.

"iv. Remember that in the extreme form in which they hold it, which excludes anything resembling purgatory, it is directly opposed to a large body of primitive teaching, and to the views of the entire Roman church."

How the question of "a purgatorial fire where the souls of the righteous are purified by punishment," as Dr. Farrar himself states this doctrine* from the Catechism of the Council of Trent, can mitigate the terror of eternal punishment for the unrighteous, it is hard to say. As for primitive teaching, it is too large a question to take up here, and "honest, serious, and competent readers" will hardly assume what has not been proved. But if Dr. Farrar identifies it, as we must suppose, with that "almost necessary belief" which he speaks of in his preface,** then it is hard to say how its exclusion from an evangelical creed, should make that creed harder and less merciful. He states it there as "the wide-spread, ancient, reasonable, and, I had almost said, necessary, belief in some condition in which — by what means we know not, whether by the paena sensus or only the paena damni — imperfect souls who die in a state unfit for heaven may yet have perfected in them until the day of Christ, that good work of God which has been in this world begun." That is only what we have before heard Canon Farrar intimate that some whom he styles the "poor in spirit" may have to pass to the kingdom of heaven through the flames of Gehenna. Right or wrong, the evangelical creed is not less merciful surely, when it teaches that the blood of Christ and the Spirit of God can make a dying thief fit for paradise the same day. It is scarcely less merciful, however little he may esteem it possible, to substitute paradise for the mildest form of purgatory. Nor does this touch the question of the unsaved.

{*Pref., p. 17; ** p. 19.}

"v. Give due weight to the fact that many who have devoted years of earnest labor to the inquiry — ripe scholars and good men, orthodox fathers, eminent theologians, profound thinkers, holy and reverent inquirers — have come to the deliberate conclusion that there is not a single text in all Scripture which necessitates a belief in endless torment."

But how many who have as patiently and laboriously come to the opposite conclusion? The effect of which upon a really reverent soul will be to make him see that God will not allow that to be settled by mere human authority, which must be ascertained in the presence of God alone, and from His word. Good men may, alas, suffer themselves in many ways to be drawn aside from truth; but still the word stands — for "Scripture cannot be broken" — "If any man will do (willeth to do) His will, he SHALL KNOW of the doctrine, whether it be of God."

"vi. Bear specially in mind that it rests, almost if not quite exclusively, on the meanings which they attach to two words, 'Gehenna ' and 'Aeonian,' of which the first, interpreted by the only possible means of interpretation open to us, cannot bear the sense which they attribute to it; and the other is over and over again applied in Scripture to indefinite but limited time, or to that which transcends all conception of time."

So far from its being merely a question of either word, there are a number of passages which would be decisive without either. Every passage which speaks of final "destruction" or "the second death," such statements as "he shall not see life," "cannot enter into the kingdom of God"; that "now is the accepted time," and "now is the day of salvation"; all the passages, the most solemn and full in all Scripture, of the book of Revelation; all these, among other testimonies, refute Dr. Farrar's first assertion.

Then as to Gehenna, if the students of the rabbins are alone competent to say what it means, few readers comparatively, however "honest and serious," can be pronounced "competent." But why should contradictory and hyperbolical rabbins be more trustworthy than the testimony of Scripture itself? Why on its authority may we not say that "Gehenna" is a place where "soul and body" are "destroyed"; as well as on that of the Jewish doctors, that "the judgment of Gehenna is for twelve months," or that "Gehenna is nothing but a day in which the impious shall be burnt," or that "after the last judgment Gehenna exists no longer" — that last judgment in which men are adjudged to Gehenna! All these statements are given by Dr. Farrar himself from his own chief authority, the Talmud.

Again, as to "aeonian," we have seen that while in other writings we can trace a growing use of "aion" for eternity, when used in the sense of duration at all, aeonial is never less than "everlasting." And though we may speak of "everlasting hills" this does not make the proper force of the word doubtful.

Dr. Farrar would have his readers begin their Scripture search with the matter already almost settled for them outside of Scripture.

His next piece of advice is characteristic enough: —

"vii. Be shamed into a little humility — a little doubt as to their own absolute infallibility on all religious subjects — a little sense of their possible ignorance or invincible prejudice — a little abstinence from cheap anathemas and contemptible calumnies — a little avoidance of such base weapons of controversy as the assertion that those who hold such views as I here have advocated are repeating the devil's whisper, 'Thou shalt not surely die.'"

To all this I may be excused from replying; but note what follows: —

"By not losing sight of the fact that (1) these views have been held in substance, not only (as I have said) by great teachers and holy saints, but also by whole churches; and (2) that they are involved in practices so universal and so primitive as prayers for the dead. The Kaddish, or prayer for the dead, in the Jewish liturgies, is probably as old as the time of our Lord, and if so was by Him unreproved, though it was believed to be efficacious for the relief of souls in Gehenna."

Dr. Farrar does not refuse very dubious texts, as we see, from that other Bible of history in which he believes; but it is a ponderous argument to base upon an "if." The next text is not less dubious, though from Scripture.

"Eminent commentators, comparing 2 Tim. 1: 16 and 19 (18?), and 2 Tim. 4: 19 have believed that St. Paul's prayer for Onesiphorus is a prayer for one who was dead and he does not reprove the principle of even so superstitious a practice as baptism for the dead."

The first of these is again a large conclusion from scant premises. Paul salutes the house of Onesiphorus, no mention made of Onesiphorus himself. He prays for mercy to his house, and "that he may find the mercy of the Lord in that day," and as Onesiphorus does not appear in all this, it must be inferred it was a prayer for the dead! In an opposite interest, how would Canon Farrar treat such a conjecture?

Yet the second argument is worse. Where does the apostle speak of the principle of the practice of "baptism for the dead"? Nowhere. He argues, if anything, for the practice itself: "Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest. . . I die daily" (1 Cor. 15: 29-31). If this is not approving the practice, I know not what is. Fancy the apostle urging in his argument for resurrection, "Else what shall they do who are (so superstitiously!) baptized for the dead." As for the principle, he says nothing about it. What was the principle? What was the practice even? Dr. Farrar evidently refers to a suppositious ceremony "never adopted except by some obscure sects of Gnostics, who seem to have founded their custom on this very passage,"* the practice of submitting to baptism for some person who had died unbaptized. Dr. Farrar owns it as a "superstitious custom"; yet thinks the apostle does not reprove the principle of it, — a principle which must have implied the need of baptism to free from the penalties of sin, and the possibility of the living making up the deficiencies of the dead! a thing too gross to be accepted by the ritualistic Christianity which so soon succeeded the apostolic.

{* Conybeare and Howson: Life and Epistles of St. Paul. In their note upon the text they speak of it as the only meaning the Greek seems to admit; "yet," they say, "this explanation is liable to very great difficulties." The first difficulty they mention is "that St. Paul should refer to such a superstition without rebuking it." The second, the discontinuance of such a practice "in the period which followed, when a magical efficacy was more and more ascribed to the material act of baptism." They conclude that "the passage must be considered to admit of no satisfactory explanation."}

Yet in the light of the context the difficulties of the passage are not insuperable. Why cannot the ordinary rite be styled — for it is evident there was no special one — "baptism in place of the dead,"* simply because those freshly receiving it were filling up the ranks in what was then indeed "the noble army of martyrs"** — of men "appointed unto death."** The verses following show that in this track the apostle's thoughts were running. "I protest I die daily. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?" Why should it be so very strange an expression for him to use, "baptism in place of the dead," under such circumstances and in such a connection? Especially when the choice is between this and the apostle's sanction of "so superstitious a practice" as Dr. Farrar owns the other to have been — a practice which there is no evidence ever existed?

{* huper ton nekron. huper is undoubtedly used in this sense in 2 Cor. 5: 20 and Philem. 13, though it is not a frequent use in the New Testament.

** Ch. 4: 9.}

The antiquity of the practice of prayers for the dead we may concede to Dr. Farrar, as of many another error which Scripture shows us coming in already in apostolic days. Superstition is not the more venerable for its grey hairs.

"viii. Let them weigh the fact that what Christ did once — namely, preach to the lost, and open for them the prison doors — He may do again and ever. The text on which I preached 'throws blessed light on one of the darkest enigmas of Divine justice — the cases in which the final doom seems infinitely out of proportion to the lapse which has incurred it.' [Was that the case with the Corinthians?] This was the interpretation of the early fathers."

Which does not save it, nevertheless, from being error.* Long before this, in view of what was coming in, the Apostle Paul commended the Ephesian Christians "to God and the word of His grace"; and we have certainly no less need of the injunction at the present day. Scripture is conclusive in this case against the interpretation of the fathers, however early or many.

{*I would commend Isaac Taylor's "Ancient Christianity" to those who wish to see what patristic teaching had developed into already in Nicene times.}

We may now turn to the passages, the principal of which have been already examined.* The first is Gen. 3: 15, the prediction of the serpent's head being bruised by the woman's seed, which only needs to be referred to again, on account of a quotation from Dr. Chauncey. "How could this be so, if Satan triumphed by gaining millions to be his slaves? In this case could it be said, as in Isa. 53: 13, 'He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied, for he shall bear their iniquities'?"

{*Passages adduced, which need no further notice, nothing fresh being said of them, are Gen. 12: 3; (Gen. 22: 18; Gal. 3: 8; Acts 3: 25); John 1: 29; John 3: 17, 35; John 12: 32; 1 John 2: 2; Acts 3: 21; Eph. 1: 10; Rom. 8: 19, 24; Rom. 5: 15, 17, 18, 20, 21; Rom. 11: 32; Rom. 14: 9; 1 Cor. 15: 22, 24-28; 1 Tim. 2: 4, 6; 1 Tim. 4: 10; Heb. 2: 14; Rev. 20: 14; Rev. 21: 4, 5; Rev. 22: 3.}

The answer to the first question is, that Satan will never gain a single slave. His reign in hell is a mere dream and a delusion. To the second, the answer will be found very simply by quoting the whole passage: "He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify MANY, for he shall bear their iniquities."

(2.) Ex. 34: 6, 7, is appealed to by Chief Rabbi Weill, who naturally quotes down to, "and will by no means clear the guilty," which he omits.

(3.) Ps. 30: 5 he also appeals to: "His wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, but His favor a lifetime"; but those words are part of an exhortation to the Lord's saints to sing to Him, and are illustrated by the deliverance which the Psalmist has experienced from his enemies. They apply to the discipline of the righteous, and not to the punishment of the wicked.

(4.) Ps. 62: 14* is one of the texts (with Micah 7: 1820, etc.), upon which Rabbi Albo founds the remission of eternal punishment for all except the worst. Nothing is said about it, however, in the psalm, but "two things"** — are ascribed to God, power and mercy, and these will be shown in rendering to every man according to his work. All the rest is speculation. And the passage in Micah speaks of God's mercy in Israel's restoration in the latter day.

{* V. 13 must be meant according to the Hebrew numbering, 12 in the English.

** Delitzsch translates: "One thing hath Elohim spoken, these two have I heard," etc.}

(5.) Ps. 103: 9: "He will not always be chiding, neither keepeth He His anger forever," is one of Dr. Farrar's own texts, but the application throughout the psalm is again quite obvious, as especially the 17th and 18th verses, where "the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on them that fear Him, . . . to such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to do them."

(6.) Ps. 139: 8: "If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there": — a very strange quotation on Dr. Farrar's part, made still more strange by the poetry in his note.* Strange — because the word for "hell" is (as of course he knows) sheol; one of the words he speaks of elsewhere as denoting "a place both for the bad and the good," and which "means an intermediate state of the soul previous to judgment,"** and not, therefore, "hell" in the ordinary sense at all. Made stranger by the poetry he quotes: for that would make it appear that hell was a receptacle for those who cling in humility and love to Christ.

{*"What hell may be I know not: this I know,

I cannot lose the presence of the Lord:

One arm — Humility — takes hold upon

His dear humanity; the other, Love,

Clasps His divinity, so where I go,

He goes; and better fire-walled hell with Him,

Than golden-gated paradise without."

** Pref., p. 31.}

(7.) Isa. 57: 16: "For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made." This has been already urged by Mr. Constable in behalf of annihilation, as by Canon Farrar for restoration. In truth it has nothing to do with either, being simply the reason why the Lord will not pursue Israel to extremity, as having purposes of mercy toward her. This is what the context positively proves.

(8.) Isa. 49: 9: "That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves." This is quoted by Mr. Jukes, as well as Dr. Farrar. It is an address of Jehovah prophetically to Messiah, and applies expressly to the earth and not to hell at all: "I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth, . . . . to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that Thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth," etc. Similar language is used in familiar passages, where none would dream of carrying it further.* Dr. Farrar must assume that it applies to hell. Will he say why?

{* As, e.g. Isa. 62: 7, Isa. 61: 1, Luke 4: 18-21.}

(9.) Hosea 6: 1: "Come, and let us return to the Lord: for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up." How this, which does speak of the Lord's mercy to the penitent, bears upon the question of the judgment of the impenitent, it is again difficult to say.

(10.) Hosea 14: 4: "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him." Here also a word of explanation would have been acceptable. How does this show that God's anger will be turned away from those under "eternal judgment"?

(11.) Luke 9: 56, I give without comment: "For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them"!

(12.) Luke 12: 47, 48: "He that knew not his Lord's will and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes." That I surely believe; but a man must be born again to go to heaven.*

{* Mr. Cox (Salv. Mun., p. 186) adduces Rom. 14: 9-11, to urge that "as 'no man can confess that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost,' the dead who are to bow to Him, as well as the living, must be open to the renewing ministry of the Divine Spirit: open to it! yes, and mercifully condemned (!) and exposed to it until every one, even the most stubborn, be compelled to yield it." O Now "no man can say that (not 'confess') Jesus Christ is Lord but by the Holy Ghost" is a question of power, not life. Many will say in that day "Lord, Lord," and be condemned (Matt. 7: 22). But condemned, says Mr. Cox, to the renewing ministry of the Holy Ghost. "The heart of fools proclaimeth foolishness."}

(13, 14.) Phil. 2: 10, 11; Col. 1: 19, 20: — These have been looked at before. I only mention them here to allow place to Mr. Minton's observations, of course from a different point of view to Dr. Farrar.

Mr. Minton contends* that "all things," in the latter passage, means "the whole universe," as being what is spoken of in ver. 16 as "created by Christ; for precisely the same language is used with regard to both. . . . If Gehenna be a locality, it is part of the earth as represented to St. John by the lake of fire. And when we are told that even on our view hell has to be excepted ' from the universal reconciliation, we reply, that when that reconciliation is completed, hell will have done its work, and passed away with the first earth on which it was seen. . . In each case the universe is regarded as a whole. . . There is nothing in existence which Christ did not originally create, and there shall at last be nothing in existence that He has not reconciled to God."

{* Way Everlasting, pp. 23, 24, note.}

Now the passing away of hell with the first earth is simply a dream of Mr. Minton's, inasmuch as the dead are not cast into it till after the earth and the heavens are fled away. And hell and those in it are never mentioned as to be "reconciled" at all. They are given as a third class in the passage in Philippians, where subjection and not reconciliation is spoken of: "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly beings, of earthly, and of infernal." Plainly heavenly and earthly do not here include this other class of infernal beings, and, therefore, all things in heaven and in earth do not, if Scripture is consistent with itself; as it surely is. This is demonstration that Mr. Minton's thought of the expression meaning strictly "the universe" is incorrect.

But he is not willing to give it up, nevertheless, and he urges that in the passage in Philippians in the original, —

"'at' is 'in the name of Jesus,' and that St. Paul is teaching the Philippians precisely what he taught the Colossians, though in different language. He declares that all the intelligent universe shall ultimately 'bow' to 'God the Father,' that is, worship God in the name of Jesus.' 'J. M. C.' appears to think that 'under the earth' means Gehenna. But no one has been cast into Gehenna yet; and it appears to St. John as on the surface of the earth. If he will once more refer to the original, he will see that the word is one commonly used in Greek for the dead. When speaking of the 'all things,' St. Paul divides them into this planet, with everything belonging to it, and all the rest of creation. When speaking — not of all 'things,' as erroneously translated in Phil, 2, but — of all intelligent creatures, he divides that portion of creation which is subject to death into the living and the dead, probably to convey an assurance of resurrection from the dead. . . There will not be left in the whole universe one single knee which does not bow to God the Father in the name of Jesus. It is 'subjection' no doubt; but it is the willing subjection of the heart, not a 'paralysis' or an enforced 'harmony of power.'"

Now here again we must first set aside the extraordinary view Mr. Minton has as to Gehenna. Where does it appear to the apostle as on the surface of the earth? Certainly not in the book of Revelation; nor anywhere else so far as I am aware. Then the dead, he tells us, are not in Gehenna "yet." Quite true, if we speak as to the present. But I suppose it is not "yet" that every knee bows. If it be the dead that are to bow in willing subjection of heart to God before they are yet in Gehenna, then it is hardly possible that they should ever go there, and universalism, not annihilation, would be true. But it would scarcely agree with Scripture to blot out Gehenna altogether. We must conclude then, that the "dead" do not bow before Gehenna. But then after Gehenna there are no dead to bow; and even according to Mr. Minton, those that die the second death will not, and there are no other dead at all.

Perhaps he will say, that is not yet what he means. Well, then he must mean that of those now dead, every knee shall in the future "bow"; but that, in his sense of bowing, is universalism again. Mr. Minton cannot give any meaning to the words he quotes, consistent with annihilation; if the subjection be subjection of heart. For if it be living and dead before judgment and every knee shall bow before then, the wicked dead will be converted and saved before they are in hell at all; and if those now dead are to bow after judgment, they will still be converted before they are annihilated, and God will annihilate converted souls; or if finally it be those dead after the judgment, then as none will die in any sense then but the wicked, still the same result follows. Willing subjection of heart in all the living and the dead is either universalism or mere absurdity.

But is it willing subjection of heart that the passage shows? Certainly every knee bowing does not of itself mean that. Nor does it say, as Mr. Minton puts it, that they bow to God the Father at all. The apostle is expressly speaking of the exaltation of the name of Jesus, and it is at that Name (as the context absolutely requires) that they bow, though it be to God the Father's glory that the Son is thus honored. Mr. Minton (with Jukes and others) renders "in the name," but there is no need from the Greek at all, and the context is decisive against it: "He has given Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow" is the only consistent reading, and subjection, not reconciliation, and that to Christ Himself, the only possible sense.*

{*That en to onomati must be "in the name" is a strange assertion to be made for any one who knows the flexibility of Greek prepositions. It would be impossible for a scholar save under influences which had destroyed his mental capacity, to assert it. The text is an example of en, denoting "the occasion," of which Winer gives an example which is quite parallel to this; Acts 7: 29: ephugen en to logotouto, " then fled Moses at this saying." To which may be added Luke 1: 21, "marvelled that he tarried," or "at his tarrying."

Then as to those "under the earth" being used for the dead, it is allowed that the Greek word (katakthonion) often means this; but Mr. M. will probably allow that "infernal" is more exactly literal, although he may not agree that this term should have its modern meaning. But if beings in heaven, on earth, and under the earth are characterized in this way at the time they bow to Christ, and that bowing itself corresponds (as clearly it must) to all things being put under His feet, there are then no "dead" to be covered by this term, and "infernal" must mean lost men and spirits in Gehenna, and no others.

Thus also, infernal being a third class to heavenly and earthly, it does not come into the passages in Colossians and Ephesians, and must be omitted from the thought of the universe which is found in them. Neither annihilationism nor universalism can make good their view from texts like these.

Let us now return to Dr. Farrar.

(15.) 2 Cor. 5: 19: "To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of  reconciliation." This says nothing of result; nothing of how men treated the Reconciler, or how they treat the reconciling word.

(16.) Titus 2: 11, 12: "Not as in the English version, but For the grace of God hath appeared, which is saving to all men (he soterios pasin anthropois)." This again is not result but aspect. "Saving to all" is the grace which has appeared, that is its character, but it does not set aside the warning of the same apostle, "that ye receive not the grace of God in vain"; (2 Cor. 6: 1) nor the fact that the gospel is that alone wherein this grace is offered, and that "he that believeth not shall be condemned." Salvation, as we have seen, is not consistent with such "condemnation" but the very opposite of it.

(17.) Heb. 2: 8, 9: "Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet. For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him. But now we see not yet all things put under Him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He by the grace of God (or rather coris Ieou 'for every rational being, or for everything (neut.) except God') should taste death."

In the first place, no editor of whom I have any knowledge authenticates Dr. Farrar's reading. It is mentioned (as by Alford) as found in "some ancient copies, versions and fathers," but no one prefers it or admits a question as to it. The object of the reading is of course to show that Christ died for angels, which is the very thing contradicted in the 16th verse of the same chapter, the true version of which is in the margin: "For verily He taketh not hold of angels; but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold," i.e., as result therefore, not even of all men. Dr. Farrar's reading is illegitimate from every point of view. As to the rest of the quotation there need be no dispute.

(18.) Rev. 5: 13: "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth (huppoka to tes ges), and such as are in the sea, and all that is in them, heard I saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever." Here those "under the earth" are a different class from those in Philippians, as the expression itself and the context shows. "On the earth" and "under the earth" and "in the sea" are evidently so many parts of the world itself; in which every created thing is now vocal with praise. Similarly —

(19.) Rev. 21: 4, 5 is limited to the new earth while —

(20.) Rev. 22: 3 does not necessarily extend beyond the New Jerusalem.

This completes Canon Farrar's list of passages to be considered, and our review of his book. I apprehend that the "honest, serious, and competent reader" to whom he addresses himself will be the last to believe that he has made out his case.

Before summing up the results of our inquiry as to the two main forms of the denial of eternal punishment, it will be well yet to consider the ethics of the doctrine, and as a preliminary to this we must give attention to a view of eternal punishment itself which has been propounded by one, who can by no means be classed with any of the writers we have hitherto been occupied with.

41 - Mr. Birks' View

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 41.

Mr. Birks' View

Mr. Birks' view of the doctrine of eternal punishment was first published about twelve years since, in a work entitled, "The Victory of Divine Goodness," and has since been republished in a revised form in the second edition of his "Difficulties of Belief," in which it occupies the last three chapters. It is to this exposition of it I shall, of course, exclusively refer in my present attempt at an examination of it.

With the first of the three chapters in question we have nothing to do. It is occupied with a statement of the case as against the doctrines of annihilation and of universal salvation, with every line of which I can most fully and heartily concur. His second chapter opens with a view of the common ethical objections to the orthodox doctrine, to the consideration of which we have not yet arrived. We are still occupied with the Scripture doctrine itself, and it is only so far as Mr. Birks deals directly with this that we shall follow him in this chapter. Passing over all the rest of his argument, therefore, we will confine ourselves now to his propositions as to eternal judgment itself.

And as to the first of these we find ourselves again in en tire agreement with him, that —

"1. First, the second death is not the reign of Satan in a kingdom of his own, in which he reigns over those whom he has deceived, and actively torments them forever."

We agree with him that —

"there is the widest contrast between the present time of Satan's permitted activity and reign, and the future season of his punishment, when all his power to tempt and accuse the brethren, or to reign over evil men, will have ceased forever. It is not strange, but natural and certain, that sinners should have less freedom for active wickedness under the fiery anger of God than in the time of His forbearance and long-suffering. Nothing can be more monstrous than the notion that, under the holy eye and righteous hand of the Supreme Judge, they can and will rebel more freely and fiercely than ever before. Such a prison, in which criminals should be allowed to cultivate their own wicked habits and practices to the uttermost, would be a foul reproach to any earthly government. How great, then, must be the evil of bringing this charge, without the least grain of Scripture evidence, nay, in the teeth of its express statements, against the government of the Righteous and Eternal King! "

Mr. Birks' second proposition is that —

"2. Again, the last judgment and the second death are one main part in a wise, holy, and perfect work of the God of love. . . . The issues of judgment, however solemn, must be such that the All-wise, whose understanding is unsearchable, the All-good, whose tender mercies are over all his works, can not only acquiesce in them, but even rejoice in them with a deep complacency of divine love. . . Now this revealed perfection of the whole work of God, when we reflect on it calmly, must throw a steady light on this mysterious and solemn subject of the second death. The first death is God's last and greatest enemy. It may be borne with for a time, but its continuance would be a fatal barrier to the dominion and glory of the Most High. 'God is not the God of the dead but of the living.' And hence that indignant sentence — 'O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.' But the second death proceeds directly from the appointment of the Supreme Judge who is perfect both in wisdom and goodness. However terrible and solemn, it is his divine remedy for all that is most fearful and appalling in the actual or possible evil of a fallen and rebellious universe. . . The attempt to deepen its terrors by heaping up all kinds of moral and spiritual horrors, the unchecked ravings of fiendish malice, the blasphemous utterances of raging despair, and to see in it the stereotyped continuation of rebellion, hatred and blasphemy forever, is to reverse and deny the revealed object and aim of the work of Christ. 'For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.' The grand purpose of the judgment which he will execute can never be to stereotype and eternize active rebellion against God, but to abolish it for evermore."

Now here again there is much of truth that needs to be remembered. Mr. Birks' system, however, begins to appear in the exaggeration of the contrast between the first and the second death. That they are contrasted has been already insisted on. Type and antitype, which is the relation in which they stand to one another, are always more or less contrasts. That the first death, moreover, would in its continuance be fatal to the fulfilment of the divine purpose, whether for saint or sinner, is simple and sure enough. As the infringement of the creative plan, it can but fulfil a temporary purpose and must eventually pass away; and the second death cannot be, therefore, the repetition of it. The resurrection which introduces the latter is the close of the former; and death is the last enemy, in this way, to be destroyed.

But if the last enemy, is it "the greatest"? Is there any warrant for opposing it in moral character and design to the final judgment? Surely none: in fact the very opposite. It is, just as the second is, "the appointment of the Supreme Judge who is perfect both in wisdom and goodness." Nay, the Lord's parable of the rich man in hades gives us a view of the first death which (as related to the lost) resembles so closely the second, that many have confounded them. There is not the least warrant for giving to the first death the character of moral evil which we shall find Mr. Birks attaching to it still more plainly in the sequel.

Again, does he not go too far in deciding that the second death will work any moral change in those who are subject to it? That it will not "stereotype and eternize active rebellion against God" is no doubt true. That it will change "hatred" into aught else must be proved rather than asserted. The subjection of "infernal beings" is clearly taught. Every knee shall bow to Christ, and every tongue confess that he is Lord; that is true, for Scripture affirms it. "The works of the devil" shall be destroyed, but not his character changed. Were it so, it would naturally seem that universalism must be the true view; for if the hearts of all were subject, eternal punishment would be a monstrosity; for it is not based upon the infinite guilt already contracted, but upon the persistency of moral character. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still." (Rev. 22: 11.) Apart from all questions of exact demerit, could the God whom Scripture reveals pursue with everlasting rigor those who had been brought into heartfelt subjection to His will?

Mr. Birks' third proposition is —

"3. The doom of the lost, we are further taught, will be the object of acquiescence and holy contemplation on the part of all the unfallen and redeemed. . . . That doom, however solemn, can hardly be one of unmingled horror and darkness, much less of unbounding and eternal blasphemy, which is the object of complacency and holy adoration to saints and angels, free from all taint of mere selfishness, and moulded into the full and perfect resemblance of the divine love."

The question could scarcely be seriously raised as to whether the acts of Him whose ways are perfect will be the object of complacency to creatures brought into His moral likeness. "Their happiness is not," indeed, "made to depend either on their ignorance or their forgetfulness of the doom of the lost." Nor need we suppose that doom to be "unmingled horror and darkness," if by that is meant a doom which would itself be an evil, rather than one designed for the repression of evil. To the very lost themselves, it is not inconceivable, that that repression in itself should be a good — the only one, it may be, which remains a possibility in their case.

"4. Fourthly, on the day of judgment the honor due even to the wicked as God's creatures, and gifted by Him with high and noble powers, will, in some way or other, be still recognized by the righteous Judge."

Mr. Birks applies here the principle of Gen. 9: 6 and Deut. 25: 2, 3, and seems to intimate that Christ as Judge will respect the divine image in man and the brotherhood of all humanity by some "measurement" or even "mitigation" of what might be the exact due. He does not positively say this, however; and we must not say it for him. "They were judged every man according to their works" is what Scripture says. We can say nothing else.

"5. Once more, the last judgment is the work of God's mercy as well as of His judicial righteousness. This is plainly taught us in those striking and impressive words of the Psalmist — 'Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his works.' In the judgment of the righteous it is easy to see and feel the truth of this whispered message of God. . . Can it be true, even of the souls that perish, that there is mercy in that sentence which dooms them to the lake of fire? The deep thought which Plato dimly apprehended by the light of nature, seems here to receive a direct sanction from the Spirit of God. Punishment is set before us in the light of a divine medicine for the diseases of the soul. Compared with that most awful of curses, that evil should be left to work out fully its own terrible issues in the darkness of utter banishment from the divine presence, even the justice of God, however severe, is medicinal to guilty sinners. Their doom is awful, but a world abandoned to the reign of unrestrained and triumphant wickedness would be still more awful. The abyss, a bottomless pit, boundless in its breadth and depth and insatiable in its craving, is to be destroyed and abolished by the power of the Redeemer. The revealed scene of judgment is not a sea, an ocean or abyss, but simply a lake of fire. It is mercy to the wicked to deny them the fatal power of adding sin to sin. It is mercy to keep them from the power of tormenting each other, by the free indulgence of their own sinful and hateful passions. It is mercy to force them back, even though captive and in chains, to the presence of that infinite goodness, from which their own rebellious hearts would lead them farther and farther away, till they should lose themselves deeper and deeper in delusion and darkness forever."

I have not quoted all this for the sake of opposing it. There is much in it suggestive, much that would seem as at least probably true. Whether it be the real meaning of the psalm is another question; and if we read it in connection we shall perhaps hardly agree that the thought of mercy to the wicked shown in judgment itself is what it speaks of.* Yet the principle need not on that account be untrue; and be it mercy to the lost or not, it is assuredly mercy to the unfallen and redeemed, that evil should be repressed. But Mr. Birks' texts can hardly therefore prove what he quotes them for. The radical error in his view is exhibited in his next proposition.

{*I have before given very briefly my own thought.}

"6. Again the second death is a sequel of a resurrection, but a resurrection 'to shame and everlasting contempt' (Dan. 12: 2). It thus involves in its very nature contrasted elements. For resurrection is a work of redemption, a triumph over death, and a fruit of the atoning work of the world's Redeemer. But a resurrection to shame and contempt must also be a perpetual manifestation of the creature's moral emptiness, in contrast to the immutable and glorious perfection of Him who is the Only Wise, and the Only Good."

I have already questioned the application of this passage in Daniel to literal resurrection; but that concerns us very little here, since evidently the resurrection of judgment would answer the purpose of Mr. Birks' argument equally well with that in Daniel. But the resurrection of judgment cannot be shown to be a work of redemption or a fruit of atonement. It is Christ's work doubtless, but not as redeeming; nor are the finally lost ever the redeemed. For the saints and for no others is resurrection "the adoption, the redemption of the body." (Rom. 8: 23.) For no others is it "a triumph over death." (1 Cor. 15: 64-57.) The purpose of God as to man indicated in creation, could not be intended permanently to be set aside by death, and the preservation of the spirit in death implies the resurrection, of the body from the grave. The resurrection of which Christ was first-fruits is a "resurrection from among the dead." This is a "redemption," and this alone.

There are no "contrasted elements" therefore in the resurrection of judgment. That it is on the other hand a "perpetual manifestation of the creature's moral emptiness," and a needed one, there should be no doubt. The apostle suggests at least, that God was "willing to show His wrath, and make His power known" with regard to "the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," (Rom. 9: 22.) and He who delighteth in mercy must have recognized a governmental necessity for this. And thus we may believe with Mr. Birks, that "their solemn doom, though no result of the choice of the Most High, whose love has displayed itself to the utmost in solemn warnings to deter sinners from the path of ruin, may yet be the object of His deep and holy acquiescence"; whether or not we are able to believe with him that the reason is "because in this way alone a ransomed universe can be upheld forever in a blessedness based on perfect humility, and capable on that very account of enlarging and unfolding itself, without risk of fresh apostasy, for evermore."

This closes Mr. Birks' second chapter, and what he considers the "direct and open lessons" of the Bible on this subject. These direct teachings have certainly carried us no further than this, that the final doom of the wicked involves their enforced subjection to God. That it cannot consist with active rebellion is quite true and important also. That there is an absolute need for it, looked at from the side of mercy as well as righteousness, is still true. And that in some sense it may be mercy even to the lost themselves we have conceded likewise. So far we can go — no further. What we believe Mr. Birks has not shown, and cannot show, is that punishment of this kind is in any sense a redemptive or restorative process, — the only proper result of which would surely be an end of the punishment itself. This he does not believe in, although a mitigation of the punishment he does seem to suppose. I cannot see that Scripture gives even a hint of either. Certainly the texts we have thus far looked at do not.

But Mr. Birks believes that "the New Testament throws further and perhaps still clearer light on this solemn truth of eternal punishment, when we look below the surface, and strive to combine the indirect with the direct and open lessons which its sacred messages convey." And here —

"1. Every created being may be viewed in two different aspects, personal and federal, or what it is of itself, and its character as part of a greater whole. This warp and woof runs through the whole of Scripture, and occasions a frequent antithesis in its statements of divine truth. Thus 'in Adam all die,' and still 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die.' In Christ 'all shall be made alive,' and still it is to those who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality, that God will render eternal life. The charge to the Galatians, 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ,' is followed at once by an opposite statement, as the attendant moral caution, 'For every one shall bear his own burden.' . . The same contrast, wherever selfishness is not complete, is found by experience in the elements which constitute human happiness and misery, joy and sorrow. In part they are purely and simply personal, but in part they arise from sympathy with the joys or sorrows of others, or from the contemplation of truths not personal, but objective and universal . . . .

"Now all the statements of Scripture with respect to the future doom in judgment of the righteous and the wicked, have direct reference to personal conduct and personal retribution. The federal aspect, in these passages, does not appear. . . . But this truth, however solemn, and however inwrought into the doctrine of man's personal responsibility, cannot exclude a further truth, namely, the federal relation of all mankind to the Creator of the universe, and to Christ, the Head of every man, the Saviour of the world, who gave Himself a ransom for all men. One of these truths is no less deeply inwrought into the texture of God's word than the other. It must reveal its reality and its power, in some way or other, amidst all the solemn and tremendous realities of the coming judgment."

Mr. Birks must surely feel that that assertion is vague enough at least. The difficulty in dealing with it is precisely its vagueness. And yet is it after all too definite in supplying what Scripture, as it should seem for some good reason, entirely ignores. He owns that the federal aspect does not appear in the passages which speak of future judgment. He must own that whereas, for instance, the "bear ye one another's burdens" (which he calls that), applies to the present life, the assurance as to the future is strictly personal: "every one shall bear his own burden." Is it allowable to say that a certain "truth" must reveal its reality and power in regard to that from which Scripture seems to exclude it altogether? Doubtless the Creator of the universe will not forget even in judgment that men are the creatures of His hand and Christ the Head of all men, to whom all judgment is committed because He is the Son of Man, (John 5: 27) will not forget His own humanity. But it is vain to bring this in to modify in any way the positive statements of the word. It is not as Saviour of the world, that He takes His place upon the throne of judgment; nor can the "ransom for all" avail any more for those adjudged to Gehenna. Mr. Birks does not, I suppose, think that it can; yet it is hard to say why he brings in thoughts that are incongruous to his subject. For the judged, through their own wilfulness, the ransom has not availed. Had it done so, they had not been judged. Salvation and condemnation are opposed in terms, and to argue as if those condemned were still in some fractional measure saved, is at least to suppose that Scripture has been deficient in not saying so and to assume a competency to make up the deficiency.

"2. Secondly, the second death is a work of the God of truth, by which pride and falsehood are to be abolished out of the moral universe. . . The fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, must be the destruction of guilty pride, when it has become in a manner consubstantiate with the spirit, and can be overcome in no gentler way than by the ever-enduring strokes of divine judgment. 'Them that walk in pride he is able to abase.'"

Only it is hard to say how far pride is "abolished" out of the heart, when it needs such "ever-enduring strokes" to keep it down. For my part I can accept the former statement, when interpreted by the latter.

"3. Thirdly, the second death is a work of the God of love, wherein He displays His holy anger against every sinner whose heart and life have been marked by utter selfishness, and the entire absence of genuine love to God and men."

I can have nothing to object to this.

"4. Fourthly, the resurrection to judgment, like the resurrection of life, is one part of the redeeming work of Christ."

This is a former statement, and the main one of the whole. It is here, however, more fully argued out, and we shall again look at it. He says —

"The two main issues of judgment, however great their contrast, have one feature common to both. They follow a resurrection. Hence the apostle unites them in one common statement, before he marks the contrast between 'them that are Christ's,' and all others. 'For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' The first death in every case has come through the sin of Adam. The life-restoring resurrection is to come in every case through the power and work of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. The judgment of the lost is based on a present work of the Redeemer, in which they share with the saved, and on a victory over death, wrought by Christ, and depending on the power of His atoning sacrifice and resurrection from the dead. Their bodies are restored from the earlier dominion of the grave, and the dominion of death, so far, is wholly abolished."

But Mr. Birks makes no sufficient distinction between the resurrection of judgment and the resurrection of life, of the latter of which the chapter from which he quotes throughout speaks. Had he begun his quotation a little earlier he would have seen that the apostle, instead of beginning with a general statement of resurrection which would include both classes of the dead, first of all speaks of them that "sleep" in Jesus, of whom (and of whom alone) He is "first-fruits." "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that sleep." These sleepers are not all the dead. They are those for whom death has been annulled, and changed into a refreshment and rest only from cares and conflicts of this life in anticipation of the endless morning. Of their resurrection is Christ the first-fruits, for they alone are raised in "the image of the heavenly" — the Lord from heaven; and "if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy." (Rom. 11: 16.) It is impossible to make Christ in any sense the "first-fruits" of the lost.

But then this precedes what Mr. Birks calls the "common statement," which is appended to it: "for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Now are all men "in Christ" to be thus quickened or made alive by Him? Let any one compare Scripture, and see if there be a doubt.* Nay, Mr. Constable has long ago been reminding us that the very word used here for "made alive" is expressly the word used by the same apostle, where he confines it to the saints: "if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by (or rather, because of) His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Thus although the wicked will surely rise, the apostle will not call that "quickening" or "life-giving," which is not the resurrection of life. And we are doubly told that "all in Christ" are not all men universally.

{* Rom. 8: 1; Rom. 12: 5; Rom. 16: 7; 1 Cor. 1: 2, 30; 1 Cor. 15: 18; 2 Cor. 1: 21; 2 Cor. 5: 17; 2 Cor. 12: 2; Gal. 1: 22, etc.}

Even where he says "in Adam all die," although that is true abstractedly of all mankind, the whole context at least (if not the construction also) would seem to necessitate the limiting it to those of whom the apostle has just been speaking. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that sleep; for since by man came death," and thus they are dead, "by man came also the resurrection of the dead," and they shall live; "for as in Adam they all die, even so in Christ shall they all be made alive."

There is not the least ground then for the assertion that the lost share with the saved in what is the fruit of atonement, or are made alive in Christ as raised from the dead. They are brought forth by His power to judgment. Judgment, and not grace, claims their resurrection. It may display His victory over death, but is in nowise theirs. It is not a life-resurrection but a judgment-resurrection.

Mr. Birks reads the lesson of that judgment-resurrection thus: —

"In the first death the dissolution of the body, and its corruption, was only the type, sign, and parable of the deeper curse resting on the spirit, when it had wandered or was driven away from the presence of Him who is Light and Love. And when the dead are raised by the power of Christ, this correspondence cannot wholly cease. When death and hell are cast into the lake of fire, the souls, even of the lost, can remain no longer under the curse of utter vanity. They will glorify their Maker, even amidst the fires of penal judgment. To glorify God is the great end for which every creature was made. If the dealings of God with any creature were such as to justify a charge of unnatural cruelty or excessive and needless severity, God could not possibly be glorified thereby, but rather the divine glory would be obscured, deeply clouded, or blotted out and wholly destroyed. To glorify God through shame and punishment, compared with the bliss of the redeemed and holy, must be an infinite and irreparable loss. But to glorify Him in any way, however solemn and mournful, when contrasted with the reign of that death, which is God's enemy, and the curse of eternal vanity, darkness, and corruption, may be, even to the souls of the lost, a real, and perhaps even in some respects, an infinite gain."

Thus in Mr. Birks' view, the judgment which comes after death, is really, and perhaps infinitely, better than the death which precedes it! The usual comparative estimate of the two is here reversed. Death is comparatively the curse, judgment the blessing! The proof will need to be convincing that will bring many to believe this. What is Mr. Birks' proof? It is here —

"The dissolution of the body, and its corruption, was only the type, sign, and parable of the deeper curse resting on the spirit, when it had wandered or was driven away from the presence of Him who is Light and Love. And when the dead are raised by the power of Christ, this correspondence cannot wholly cease."

That is, when the type is gone, the thing typified must be gone with it. But to what state then does "where their worm dieth not" apply? There is the very figure of death and corruption. It should apply, according to Mr. Birks, to the intermediate state alone. Yet I think he will hardly deny that it applies to the final — Gehenna being expressly named. That is, the figures drawn from death are applied expressly where according to him they should not and could not be.

And is the soul of the lost more away from the presence of God in death than in hell? What is the flame in which the rich man is tormented? What is the place of which the Psalmist says, "If I make my bed in sheol, behold, Thou art there"? What is it which the Preacher announces when he says, "The spirit shall return to God who gave it"? Is distance from God simple locality, or moral condition rather? If the latter be at least the essential part, will resurrection bring the lost soul in any measure back to God, as it should, if type and antitype are to correspond synchronically?

Again, are those "no longer under the curse of utter vanity," who are "destroyed body and soul in hell"? no longer under "darkness," to whom is reserved "the mist of darkness" and the "blackness of darkness forever"?

Or is "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" the day in which the lighter judgment of personal offences shall replace the far heavier one which comes upon us through the offence of another?

To find, however, the root of Mr. Birks' view we must turn to his chapter on Atonement in the same book, where he is answering the question, "what, apart from the atonement, is the state of mankind before God? What is their legal standing, and the nature of the curse and sentence under which they lie?" Here he rightly decides that "the death meant" in the law "must be the same which was threatened in Paradise, and which entered the world through Adam's sin." This "in all Scripture," he says, "is ascribed to the soul, even when separated from the body. 'In death there is no remembrance of Thee; and who will give Thee thanks in the pit? '" But that does not show that death is ascribed distinctly to the soul. It shows that there is such a thing as a death state, but not surely that the soul is dead. Death and hades are, on the contrary, named together where body and soul are distinctly in view, as we have seen. Mr. Birks' idea of death is that it is a physical condition of body, and a spiritual condition of soul as well. But this is incongruous and unjustifiable. Dying is the separation of soul and body — dissolution, decease, departure. The death state is the state of separation, the result of the dying. A dead man may be a corpse or a spirit. But as death affects the bodily organism in a way it cannot the spirit, we can speak of a dead body and cannot speak of a dead spirit. Thus Mr. Birks' representation of death is not only without Scripture, but contrary to it. And this destroys the very foundation of his argument. But he goes on: —

"The words temporal and eternal, often applied to death, tend rather to mislead, than to explain the true nature of this contrast. The first death is temporal, because its future abolition is a revealed promise but in its own nature, apart from Christ's redemption, it would be everlasting. Neither the faculties of the creature, nor the nature of sin, nor the justice of God, assign it any limit or bound. It is due to a mighty work of redemption alone, that it is swallowed up in eternal victory."

As to victory over death, every Christian will agree with Mr. Birks. For the rest he has produced no Scripture. On the other hand I have sought to show that the first death is in its own nature provisional and temporary. In speaking of annihilation Mr. Birks has truly and forcibly said: —

"The gifts and calling of God are 'without repentance.' If then a conscious being, not dependent on bodily organs, and fitted in itself to endure forever, has been given, and should afterwards be withdrawn, this would seem to reverse a great law of God's moral government;" —

And we may extend this argument further. For man was made no mere spirit, but a living soul, which implies, as we have seen, a bodily organism. Could the body finally and forever cease to be, and yet God's gift be without repentance? That death came in through man's sin, while of course true, does not more touch that, than it does the annihilation question; for it, too, would have come in through sin. The argument plainly requires that what man is by creation, he must continue to be ever, although a temporary discipline of death would not be excluded.

And with this Scripture perfectly harmonizes. It does so in the fact that death reigns everywhere through one offence: over those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam, and over the youngest babe who has never sinned at all. Did God for this one offence condemn forever all Adam's unborn posterity? Theology may say so; but not the word. Could the penalty for Adam's sin upon all his descendants be worse than that of their own, as Mr. Birks puts it?

Scripture argues resurrection, not merely from the fact of atonement, but from the existence of the person after death. This, as we have seen, is the Lord's argument with the Sadducees, and confirmed by one who holds partially their views today.

And again, the judgment for the deeds done in the body waits as of necessity for the body to rise again. To say that the resurrection of the wicked results from atonement, is to say that that judgment which requires it is the fruit of atonement also; and that had not Christ died for men, God would never have judged men for their sins.

While yet they would have suffered more severely, as well as indiscriminately, as the result of Adam's sin, than they now will for their own!

We shall now be able to see without much argument the vitiating error in Mr. Birks' further statement: —

"This death, the sentence of the law, extends to the whole man, both soul and body. To see its nature as respects the soul, we must reflect on its work with reference to the body. One is the invisible sign and sacrament of the other. The body is then parted from the soul, its life; and being thus parted, becomes the prey of inward corruption. So also death is the separation of the soul from God, the true source of life; and all the confusion, chaos, and moral corruption and dissolution which follows that awful separation. Without, there is banishment from the presence of God, and from all the light of His favor and blessing. Within, there will follow the unrestrained working of moral corruption, degrading, perverting, desecrating all the faculties and powers of the immortal spirit. Sin would thus become, under the name of death, a 'finished' evil, its own ever-growing torment, and the soul sink deeper and deeper in an abyss of hopeless misery."

It is evident at once that Mr. Birks does not derive this view from Scripture, but from his own hypothesis that the effects of death upon the body are typical of its effects upon the soul. And in carrying this thought out, he takes what are separately true and Biblical ideas — and which we are accustomed to speak of as death physical, and death spiritual, — and joins them together in indissoluble union. But surely Mr. Birks can scarcely have followed this out to its legitimate result. Can he mean, for instance, that there is no such thing as being "dead while living"? that spiritual death never takes place before corporeal? or that it does necessarily when this does? To the latter question he may perhaps easily answer that the saints are saved from this part of the penalty. But if so, why are they not saved from the whole, if the penalty be one? if it be but one and the same death, how is it they die at all?

If there are those now "dead" spiritually, while living, do these die again spiritually, when their bodies die?

Or what is the difference between these two spiritual deaths?

I can scarcely persuade myself, while I ask these questions, (imperatively called for, as they seem, by Mr. Birks' position} that I am not doing him some unconscious injustice in imputing to him thoughts which involve consequences so strange, and which it would not be hard to carry a good deal further. I should be happy could I conceive the possibility of having mistaken his meaning. His words will at any rate speak for themselves.

Mr. Birks having got so far really without Scripture, at last makes an appeal to it: —

"On this view we may see the force of the contrasted figures, by which the first and second death are portrayed. One is 'the lake of fire,' solemn indeed and most awful, yet bounded in its range, shut in by firm land on every side. The other is 'the deep,' 'the abyss,' 'the bottomless pit,' evil reigning, rioting, growing, deepening without limit and without end, in its fatal descent, farther and farther from light, happiness, and heaven. By the sentence of the law, fulfilled without atonement or redemption, mankind once fallen would be shut out from God's presence, and sink, and sink, and sink forever in this abyss of hopeless and endless ruin. There would have been, through ages without end, the awful reality of a God-dishonoring, God-hating, God-blaspheming, self-tormenting, God-abandoned universe. Such death is the wages of sin, its due desert, and the issue to which it naturally tends. It is the fatal harvest from the seeds of moral corruption harbored in the soul. 'Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.'"

All this out of the solitary word "abyss"! Mr. Birks has too strongly poetical an imagination to have always a sober judgment. He does not even give us data on which a judgment may be formed. "Abyss" means "bottomless": so far is clear. And it is a figure, Mr. Birks says, by which the first death is portrayed. That is not so clear. When the devils beseech the Lord that He would not command them to go out into the "deep" — this is the same word. "abyss." It is the bottomless pit out of which the Apocalyptic locusts come, and their angel is Abaddon or Apollyon, "the destroyer." It is the place out of which the mystic "beast" ascends; and finally that in which Satan is shut up for the millennium. These are all the occurrences in Scripture save one, in which the apostle asks, "Who shall descend into the deep? that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead."*

{*Luke 7: 31; Rev. 9: 1, 2, 11; Rev. 11: 7; Rev. 17: 8; Rev. 20: 1, 3; Rom. 10: 7.}

Now it seems as if it must be from the last passage that Mr. Birks has derived his idea; and yet it is one most inappropriate for his purpose. Whatever else it were, certainly the abyss could not be to the Lord what he has pictured it;* could not be in that sense, an "abyss." Where he finds it picture the death state of the lost it is hard to imagine. The devils have no death state. Satan is not shut up a thousand years in death. The "locusts" are not a symbol of the dead; nor Apollyon the king of the dead. The beast, it is true, is said to come up out of the abyss, and before that, it "was, and is not" — so that here the death state might be figured; but it could scarcely furnish forth Mr. Birks' picture. And here is the whole array of Scripture!

{*He does in point of fact make the Lord endure there, rather than "on the tree," the "extreme of separation from His heavenly Father." This is thoroughly unscriptural. It displaces the cross, it evacuates the Lord's cry, "It is finished," and mars the threefold witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood. It is a view which has absolutely no support, save in a fanciful interpretation of such passages as Ps. 88: 4-7; Ps. 69: 15; Ps. 18: 5-15; and is against the plain sense of every passage which ascribes atoning efficacy to the blood of the cross: Rom. 5: 9; Rom. 6: 6; Gal. 3: 13; Eph. 1: 7; Eph. 2: 13-16; Col. 1: 21, 22; Col. 2: 14; 1 Peter 2: 24, etc.}

It can scarcely need to follow out at length a mere poetic fancy, for such it is. I shall add but two thoughts: 1. that in this way the sentence of the law (as he conceives it) would involve a "God-dishonoring and God-abandoned universe" — God would have been tied by it to His own dishonor! the Governor of the Universe bound not to interfere with the development of evil under His own eyes!

2. I would again refer to the Lord's parable of the rich man in hades. Here, if anywhere, we should have the awful abyss of Mr. Birks' imagination. Instead of which we find a soul in God's hand, enduring His wrath; but certainly not the "reigning, rioting, growing, deepening evil," which, we are told, is the character of the first death.

The whole view is (I am compelled to say) incongruous and unscriptural, reversing the proportions of death and judgment, of the result of another's sin and of men's own. It is lacking in moral harmony as in Scriptural cohesion.

There are two more arguments we must briefly look at. Mr. Birks' fifth proposition is, that as —

"the love of Christ has a length and breadth and depth and height, that passeth knowledge," its infinite depth must be manifested forever in the guilty and condemned, towards whom it may be shown in the perpetual yearnings of a deep and true compassion. This, he thinks, "may pierce through their conscience, and pervade their whole being, even amid their still abiding consciousness of deepest loss and eternal shame. . . The truth of God seems to give a most solemn assurance that the penal sentence shall never be reversed. The depth of a love that passeth knowledge gives an equal assurance that their doom shall not be, however terrible and mournful, one of unmitigated misery, but such that even here the glory of the divine goodness, and those tender mercies of God which are over all His works, shall be revealed for evermore."

This, he believes too, accords with God's title as Saviour of all men; and though unbelievers are not saved from judgment, the second death, and the fire that is not quenched, they will be saved from temporal death and corruption, from the curse of hopeless vanity, from the "abyss" — "will they not be saved from that utter, unmingled, hopeless misery, in which no ray of comfort or relief of any kind breaks in upon a dreary solitude of everlasting despair? Will they not be saved, in some strange and mysterious but real sense, when their irremovable sorrow finds beneath it a still lower depth of divine compassion, and the sinful creature in its most forlorn estate, and in its utter shame, encounters the amazing vision of tender, condescending and infinite love"?

Of this Mr. Birks' last argument seems little more than a repetition. It is that all men stand in relationship to God under three distinct characters as Creator, Moral Governor of the world, and Redeemer.

"The contrast between the obedient and disobedient, the faithful and unbelieving, in their relation to God as the righteous Judge, cannot set aside their common relation to Him as the bountiful Creator of all men, and the God of grace towards all who are sunk in guilt or misery. . . Sinners, to whom the Son of God was given, for whom He bore the cross, and died accursed, over whom He wept tears of pity, and towards whom there have been patient yearnings of God's infinite compassion, and of His divine long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, can surely never cease, even under the strokes of judgment, and in their depth of utter shame, to be encircled evermore by the infinite compassions of that holy and perfect Being, whose very name and nature is Love."

To such arguments the answer has already been given, inasmuch as they are based upon the view previously advanced, that the strokes of judgment will not only effectively put an end to active opposition, but remove the enmity of the heart itself, and force — to use an expression which sufficiently refutes the view that it expresses, — a willing subjection to God. Grant once the heart so changed, who could refuse the thought of the infinite pity and love of God coming in with abundant and ready help! The difficulty in this case would not be to go as far as Mr. Birks in this, but how not to go much farther. Just as all that have known God's grace have experienced in their own case, whatever the natural impotence for good, it could not be an insurmountable obstacle to recovery were the will once with that divine will which has all competence in itself. But if of some on earth it could be said, as having in the face of light and knowledge rejected Christ, that it was "impossible to renew them again unto repentance," how much more must that be said of those whom even the infinite goodness of God has to give up to "eternal judgment"! It is not, God forbid, that His compassions fail! They are necessarily held back by the obduracy of the evil. That "amazing vision of tender, condescending, and infinite love" of which Mr. Birks speaks, could not be beheld by those for whom nothing less than the ever-enduring strokes of judgment will suffice. We dissent from his view, not because we think less of the mercy of the Redeemer, but because we are assured that if it could at any time throughout the ages of eternity win the heart to God, no arbitrary limit of probation passed could avail to shut out from it a mercy more effective than he pleads for. And because we are assured that what is impossible for mercy to effect is not more possible to be the work of judgment.

We are now to look at the ethical question.

42 - The Ethical Question

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 42.

The Ethical Question

It is the judgment of many that the ethical question should precede the exegetical, which seems as much as to say, that we must first decide what Scripture ought to say, before we attempt to ascertain what it does. We should certainly treat no other writings after such a fashion and the claim of these to be divine does not affect their claim to be intelligible also. If God has spoken, He is as well able to make Himself understood as another, and is as ready too to assume the responsibility of His utterances. If it be God, we need not fear lest His word should be immoral, or that it will not approve itself to the consciences of men, His creatures. Judge Him too they will, no doubt: but He will be justified in His sayings, and clear when He is judged.

There is little doubt that the attempt to decide on moral grounds what Scripture must have said upon the subject before us, has destroyed with many all certainty of what it does say. Almost everywhere among universalist writers of every grade the doubtfulness of its testimony is a thing considered beyond dispute by reasonable men. We may affirm positively what conscience or the "moral reason" says. We may not affirm positively what God's word has said. Strangely enough it is thought presumption to pronounce as to the latter, none in the former case. Yet it is hardly to be supposed God could not make Himself intelligible if He pleased; and none can deny He has spoken on the subject, if Scripture be His word. Is it to be supposed He meant to give no definite statement? But why should He have kept back what the "moral reason" by itself can pronounce upon? Perchance because He would not interfere with the province of reason in a matter as to which it is so abundantly competent to decide! Is it then so competent? Why then are we all in such a fog today, except, indeed, Scripture itself be responsible for the fog, and have thrown the moral sense into confusion. And this is a conclusion some would seem to have arrived at.

But even so, it can scarcely be a perfectly safe and reliable guide, if liable to this perturbation; especially as we cannot logically assume that Scripture is the only possible perturbing cause. Confessedly for centuries the moral sense has accepted the truth of eternal punishment for many, and with the addition (Canon Farrar's moral sense says, the softening addition) of a purgatory for nearly all. In the majority of cases within the limits of Christendom, it has not yet been able to free itself from what has been felt at least as a yoke which many would fain have shaken off. Nay, having shaken it off, as memorably at the French revolution, it has bowed its neck again and become subject. Outside of Christendom among the millions of Islam it has accepted a creed wherein God is blasphemously represented as assigning men their place in heaven or hell with utter and equal indifference.* Among Brahmans and Buddhists alike it accepts the loss of personal identity, the absorption into Brahma, or the attainment of Nirvana, as the goal and highest aim of man. While in Mr. Frederic Harrison and the Positivists it has come nearly round to this again, man's only worthy future being maintained to be a future of "posthumous activity":** a possibly eternal influence upon indefinite generations of ephemera, or at least until the gradual cooling of the sun brings them to the end so very generally contemplated.

{*Mr. Palgrave gives us as characteristic of Mohammedanism, a tradition, "a repetition of which," he says, "I have endured times out of number from admiring and approving Wahhabees in Nejed," that when God "resolved to create the human race, he took into his hand a mass of earth, the same whence all mankind were to be formed, and in which they after a manner pre-existed and having then divided the clod into two equal portions, he threw the one half into hell, saying, These to eternal fire, and I care not '; and projected the other half into heaven, adding, And these to Paradise, and I care not '" (A Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia).

**See "A Modern Symposium" in the "Nineteenth Century."}

The moral sense can hardly then be considered a satisfactory guide. Nor indeed do those who follow its guidance dare to speak of the attainment of any certainty thereby. Thus Principal Tulloch commenting on Canon Farrar's volume, while admitting that men do "crave to penetrate 'behind the veil,' and to lay hold on something definite on which to rest their hopes or fears," asserts that at the same time "all sober minds will feel how really impenetrable the veil is, and that no light of real knowledge can be carried beyond that sphere of time and space which now conditions all our powers of knowing." "Probability is all that we can attain to," adds Prof. Jellett, another critic on the same side. While Mr. W. R. Greg propounds it as one of his "Enigmas of Life," that while all the good, which he owns may be in a man's religion, lies in the certainty it communicates, a certainty that alone "sends him to the battle-field, or sustains him at the stake, or enables him to bear up through the long and weary martyrdom of life," — yet "it is precisely this certainty (to which all religions pretend, and which is essential to the influence of them all) which nevertheless thoughtful and sincere minds know to be the one element of falsehood, the one untrue dogma common to them all."*

{*" Enigmas of Life," p. 242.}

Thus the moral reason is not constructive, but destructive only; and destructive of (alas) the very power which would sustain a man through life, or at the stake if need be. Strangely enough, the thoughtful and sincere are they who must pay the penalty of renouncing what Mr. Greg calls "this strengthening and ennobling grace." That is one of the "Enigmas of Life," as he understands life: an enigma one might have thought essentially atheistic, but which is only "Agnostic," appertaining, that is, to a philosophy which without venturing to say, There is no God, simply affirms that He cannot make Himself known to His creatures,* — that they know enough about Him to know that The certainty of uncertainty as to all it most imports to know is what the painful toil of centuries of research has at last achieved.

{*"And finally, we philosophers and men of science know, with a conviction at least as positive as that of any of these believers, that they are all wrong, that no such dicta have ever been delivered, and that no such knowledge about the Unknowable can ever be reached" (p. 243).}

God is the "Unknowable." But if He is, how then can we know that? Does not that imply some knowledge at least? Can reason rest assured that that is an ultimate fact? Is it impossible He could communicate some knowledge of Himself? some certainty as to a future life even? Has science decreed that He shall be dumb, or helpless, or indifferent, or what? Is the science perchance not too dear, that makes all science valueless? It would seem as if men must think so; as if these scientific altitudes would be too cold and barren for human dwelling-places. Certainly if reason can be satisfied with that which takes all meaning out of human life and history; it the moral sense can satisfy itself with what levels a man with the beasts that perish; no thoughtful man can value either's guidance, no sincere man can feel such life as other than a lie.

And what about sin? Is there such a thing? Is it true that "out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies"? What says the moral sense again? Are these things inconveniences merely, or do they "defile the man"? Are they results of wrong diet, political blunders, accident, or are they innate in every child of man? If the latter, and if evil, is man as God made him, or is the Christian doctrine of the fall perchance a verity? One or other must be. If truth, if purity, if virtue be any more than a mere name, what is the world, and what are we? If we ourselves are exceptions, what at least are our neighbors? If God made such a world, He were not God. Either there is no God or we are fallen creatures.

Allow me once there is such a thing as sin, and the shadow is gone from off the face of God. It may rest on man, and on nature, but faith in God is possible once more. Death and judgment are realities, but God lives, and God is good. The very laws of nature bear Him witness, as the expression of a nature opposed to evil, visiting transgression with penalty. The shadow is the frown of God; and if upon evil, then because He is opposed to evil. Granted there may be difficulties and perplexities, the general bearing of the facts is evident; and the human laws without which men could not live, are but the copy and outcome of the Divine.

But grant once again that man is a sinner; grant that he has a will that perverts his judgment, lusts that seduce his intellect; grant that sin indulged dulls the conscience and depraves still further the heart (and these are lessons of every day experience); grant that an offender is not an unprejudiced judge in his own cause; and you have abundant, over-abundant reason for distrusting the mere rational estimate of man's possible future. That he has a conscience capable of being aroused by God's word, and of responding to His appeal, is of course true. That God challenges man's understanding and his moral sense, and makes them His witnesses is also true. He will be justified in His sayings, and clear when He is judged. But that those who have never learnt to measure themselves in His presence should arraign His justice because His estimate of sin is different from others, is the height of irrationality, as it is of pride.

Yet we are told that "every day sees an increase in the number of those who will not consent to receive a doctrine on external evidence only, without examination of its moral character. Many would give to the moral faculty the absolute right to reject as untrue any doctrine appearing to it immoral, whatever amount of (apparent) Scriptural evidence may be adduced in its favor."* This principle leads to a different issue in different people; some giving up the doctrine only; while they retain the Scripture: some giving up the Scripture on account of the doctrine. Thus Dr. Bellows in behalf of Unitarianism applies the principle:

{* Prof. Jellett upon Canon Farrar.}

"If we are to continue to claim the name of Christians, we must continue to believe that the testimony of the records of our faith is not contradictory of the evidence of the moral reason. If it were proved such, we should be compelled to abandon Christianity, so far as it claims to be founded on the New Testament. We believe the general testimony of the New Testament to be in full accord with the testimony of man's moral nature, in regard to the issues of the divine government. It is not to be denied that pictorial phrases, parables, and special texts, are to be found there, which, taken by themselves, seem to favor not only the doctrine of endless punishment in the popular sense, but, just as plainly, the existence of a material hell, and a personal devil. But as the literal force of these statements obliges us to accept the conclusion that this earth is the seat of the final (?) judgment, and that Christ is coming in person to judge the nations, we must leave it to those who are willing to accept the responsibility of maintaining these now generally discarded notions, to complain of our departure from the letter, in putting only a spiritual meaning upon any portion of these pictorial passages."*

{* N. Amer. Review, March — April, 1878.}

The requirements of the moral sense being thus various, the "spiritual" interpretation assumes any needed shape in order to accommodate Itself to it. In some of the less sensitive, the moral sense will only require that the personal coming of Christ and the earthly judgment be banished, and will allow hell and the devil to be retained. A more fastidious taste will require these latter also to be blotted out. Scripture is thus adapted to the most diverse habits of mind, and no one is offended. Each one sees his face in the glass, and imagining it is another he is meeting, is easily persuaded to worship his own image. "Thoughtful sinners,"* as well as saints of all descriptions are accommodated, and every one approves of a divine government in which each is allowed to adjudicate for himself, and of a revelation which is but a divine sanction put upon his own imaginings. Thus after all by a singular species of legerdemain the upholders of the supremacy of the moral sense manage to retain Scripture, while they cast overboard reason and the moral sense in order to do so.

{* Blain's Review of Beecher, p. 33.}

And those who seem most to contend for the letter of Scripture, as do the advocates of "conditional immortality," betray here the quiet undercurrent which is really carrying them. Mr. Constable's chapter on "the Divine Justice" may be cited in proof.* It is thus he argues: —

{* Dur. and Nat. of Fut. Punishment.}

"It was to a world of unbelievers that God was proposed as a God of justice, as well as of pity and of love. To this world, which had no faith, God was proposed for acceptance. God's character and conduct were placed before it, to win its faith and love. So it is even now. . . . The missionary tells the unbeliever what kind of God the God of the Christian is, in order to convert the unbeliever to the faith. Can we wonder that the answer of the heathen to our messages should be, 'We cannot, and will not, believe in a God of whom you affirm such outrageous wrong' . . . . We ask the human heart for its verdict. We say that judged by human judgment, and that the judgment of believers and unbelievers alike, the punishment which the theory of Augustine supposes that God will inflict is infinitely too great, and we are therefore to reject it as untrue, because wholly unworthy, not merely of a Merciful Father, but a just God."

Now we are going to look at the doctrine, not of Augustine but of Scripture, and to see how far it approves itself to the conscience of men. That it does and must, where the conscience is alive, is true, as I have already said. The extracts that follow in Mr. Constable's book I am no way concerned to justify; yet even they tell in my ears a very different story to what they seem to do in his. They tell me how little this vaunted moral sense — how little this poor heart of man has really to say in the matter. From the Romanists who accept and approve the horrors of Pinamonti or Father Furniss to the Protestant hearers of Jonathan Edwards or of Mr. Spurgeon, how many condemned as incredible the things portrayed to them? You would expect from the statements of those who laud the moral sense so highly, that their auditors would have risen up with one over- powering outburst of indignation and have driven them from the pulpit, instead of saying Amen and circulating their books by hundreds or by thousands. Possibly the "intelligent and educated Hindoo merchants and magistrates" of whom Dr. Leask has told us,* had the advantage in these respects of their Christian brethren. But if it requires intelligence and education of a certain order to detect these errors, perhaps after all the virtue is in the mildness of the Brahmanism under which they had grown up rather than the moral sense which could give in the one case a decision so just, in the other so unhappy.

{* Report of a Conference on Conditional Immortality, p. 24,}

We happen to know, however, that where the gospel has made its largest and most permanent conquests, the doctrine of eternal punishment has been held and put forth. Nay, in Christendom itself it must, according to Mr. Constable, have conquered the whole ground, and that in the teeth of the moral sense, where this had certainly no self-interest to seduce it from the so much milder truth which had first possession of the field. How strange a reflection that what the heathen have moral sense to reject, Christendom should have almost universally accepted! But the gospel can scarcely be shown to have won its way by the aid of annihilation doctrine, or its history will have to be rewritten.

If Scripture be the word of God, — if even the consciences of men not the worst in life have given a true verdict, — man is a fallen being; and his estimates of sin and its desert are alike faulty. Viewed in this way by the light of reason only, we might well predict that the divine estimate of either would far transcend our own. Consequently that that judgment of it which did transcend our own, and was opposed therefore (in the way Mr. Constable and others speak) to the moral sense, would be precisely the judgment most rational to receive as God's. Here reason and sense are in apparent opposition, an opposition which the word of God accounts for, if it does not remove. How false then must be the assertion that the gospel has won its way by winning men's admiration of God in the character of a Judge! Do the judgments which now come on the world from the Governor of it always approve themselves to men similarly as free from undue severity? No, the gospel has won its own way by being GOSPEL: by exhibiting God as a Saviour, not a Judge; by proffering a way of escape, not a mild sentence; and by the ransom given proclaiming the value put upon men's souls by Him who made them, and which gives real satisfaction to the awakened conscience by putting the righteousness of God, in the matter of salvation, upon the same side with His love.

But that ransom proclaims no less in its transcendent greatness the divine estimate of sin as equally beyond our own. Nor is it the estimate of an enemy, or of one indifferent, but of Him who at His own cost has provided the propitiation. Who that believes on the one can refuse his credence to the other also, when all that he has to object is but the testimony of a conscience dulled and enfeebled by the very sin which it is called to judge, a heart "deceitful above all things" as well as "desperately wicked"?

We do not believe then that God appeals to man's heart, in the way Mr. Constable avers, to decide whether His judgment be such as he can accept. He appeals to it by a love which would save him from it altogether, and presents His word, attested in every possible way as His, to enlighten and purify his conscience, not be judged by it.

Not one of those who lay this stress upon the judgment of the moral sense believe in any practical way in the fall, or in sin as defiling the conscience and enfeebling the intellect. One can hardly imagine that they receive what is the truth nevertheless, that the Light of the world, when come into it, shone upon a darkness which "comprehended it not," and that the cross was man's verdict as to Christ Himself. And yet here was not even judgment at all, but "God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Cor. 5: 19.) In this form, indeed (to use Mr. Constable's language), "God's character and conduct were placed before it, to win its faith and love." The success was not what he would apparently imagine. "The carnal mind" was "enmity to God." And still it is so. By no mere moral appeal could that enmity be changed to lave. Man must be born again. I do not say Mr. Constable does not believe this, but then it vitiates his entire argument.

God has taken care, therefore, to make His appeal to man in another way than Mr. Constable suggests. Instead of putting before him as a philosopher a picture of rectitude with which he would be charmed, or expecting a criminal to fall in love with his sentence, He has treated him as a sinful but a miserable being, a creature fallen and lost. He puts before this prodigal in a far-off country the bread in His Father's house — He appeals to the self-love of an essentially selfish being. He calls to Himself the thirsty, the weary, the heavy-laden, the lost; and the disinterestedness of a love which has come so far to seek, and gives so freely, without any gain but what love alone could count such, is all needed evidence of the truth of the message to the soul that thus finds itself searched out and besought. (Comp. John 7: 37-41.)

Beside this God's word has its abundant witness, so much the more evident because by no means of a mere moral kind. Thus prophecy invokes the facts of history, and even the current events before one's eyes; while in the present day the stones of Egypt and the bricks of Assyria are crying out in ears however unwilling. Thus not only conscience is appealed to; and where it is, it is not put into the critic's chair, but into the felon's dock; — not to judge, but to hear judgment. If man be a fallen, depraved creature, it must needs be so. If he be not, his existence, his condition, and his end, are alike an insoluble, impenetrable mystery.

Yet it is quite true that to a conscience quickened and enlightened by the word, God's ways approve themselves. The light brought in manifests itself as such by revealing to the opened eye the beauty and the deformity of things not before apparent. It is conscious knowledge: "one thing we know; whereas we were blind, now we see." Still the horizon is limited, and if the true light now shines, the darkness is yet passing only, and not passed.* He that sees farthest sees most the limit. He that judges himself most truly will own most fully God's judgments to be a great deep. It is not credulity to do so, but the most clear-sighted wisdom. Reason and faith are not at war. The apparent discords are but the evolution of a more perfect harmony.

{*So should we read 1 John 2: 8: he skotia paragetai.}

In this spirit then we shall seek to examine the objections to the Scripture doctrine of future punishment, objections now on every side being urged. The truth of the doctrine remains, established from Scripture itself, apart from all question of our skill in meeting the objections.

(1.) And first, briefly as to one point, which, though it be not a primary one perhaps, or actually a part of the doctrine of eternal punishment itself, is still naturally enough connected with it in men's minds, and tends to give it additional harshness, — I mean the comparative fewness of the saved. The Lord's words affirm, as to His people, that they are comparatively a "little flock," although, when gathered finally together, they may be also "a multitude which no man can number." The gate is strait, and the way narrow that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Here Satan is represented therefore to have triumphed, and Christ's work to have failed: as Dr. Littledale puts it,* citing the argument of Messrs. Jukes and White, — "if the popular theology be true, then Christ has been completely defeated by Satan in the contest for the souls of men, since incomparably the larger spoils of battle rest with the latter; and the incarnation has not affected the ultimate nature and destinies of mankind in general."

{*In his Critique upon Canon Farrar in the Contemporary Review.}

But this last is an uncomfortable argument in the hands of any save an out and out Universalist, such as Dr. L. hardly claims to be. For it is awkward to have to think it satisfactory for God only not to be defeated in so many cases, and that He would be content to share with Satan, supposing only He got "the larger spoils"! Dr. L. blames Canon Farrar for having only "distantly glanced at [these] two cogent pleas"; but in truth he cannot himself have looked at them very closely, or else the defect is in his own perception. If Satan "triumphs" when a soul is lost, how futile to contend as to whether he triumphs somewhat less or more! In either case God is not God. Dr. Littledale does not believe with the wise man of old, that "if thou scornest, thou alone shall bear it."(Prov. 9: 12.) He will make God also "bear it," for the shame of "eternal judgment" would be His!

Yet he rightly objects to Universalism, "that it militates against the existence of free-will, and the consequent possibility of a volition of evil through eternity"! Is this volition of evil then God's shame or man's? If man's, would it in ten million men be any more His shame or His defeat than even in one? Does Scripture represent men perishing through Satan's power or craft, apart from this "volition"? If not, how is it Satan's triumph? And as far as he has any part in man's ruin, will he not have cause to own that apparent victory has been defeat? his success, according to the sure and immutable law of divine government, his degradation: — "dust the serpent's meat"? Is it not always so that success in evil is the degradation of the evil-doer? If Dr. Littledale will think upon it, he may yet discover in this the secret of that apparent change in the rich man in hades, which Mr. Cox and Canon Farrar would take as moral bettering from purgatorial flame. He who in life would have been the tempter of his five brethren, in death would have them warned so as not to come into that place of torment.

Man's damnation is from himself. "Ye would not," is the complaint in sorrow of the One who came to save. Will Dr. Littledale taunt Him with defeat? The legion did not cast Him out of Gadara, but the men for whom He had broken Satan's power refused deliverance. Did Satan defeat Him there? If it be man's contrary will that is his ruin, what purpose of God does that defeat? Did He purpose to save all, spite of man's will? That He would have all men to be saved is the vindication of His heart; there is no declaration of a purpose to save all perforce, no defeat of His purpose if it is not done.

But —

(2.) It is objected to us the shortness of probation if limited to the present life, and that many have in fact none at all. Canon Farrar has many a vivid illustration of the injustice, as he considers it, of this; but I prefer to quote the calmer statements of others, not less forcible: —

"As yet I am compelled to believe," says Canon Plumptre,* "that where there has been no adequate probation, or none at all, there must be some extension of the possibility of development or change beyond the limits of this present life. Take the case of unbaptized children.** Shall we close the gates of Paradise against them, and satisfy ourselves with the levissima damnatio, which gained for Augustine the repute of the durus pater infantum? And if we are forced in such a case to admit the law of progress, is it not legitimate to infer that it extends beyond them to those whose state is more or less analogous?" He adds further on, "The theory I am now defending gives a significance to the final judgment of which the popular belief, in great measure, deprives it. Protestants and Catholics alike, for the most part, think of that judgment as passed, irrevocably passed, at the moment of death. The soul knows its eternal doom then, passes to heaven or hell or purgatory, has no real scrutiny to expect when the Judge shall sit upon the throne; while, on this view, the righteous award will then be bestowed on each according to the tenor of his life during the whole period of his existence, and not only during the short years or months or days of his earthly being. This gives, I venture to think, not a less, but a more, worthy conception of that to which we look forward as the great completion of God's dealings with our race."

{* Contemporary Review.

**It should in fairness be stated that Dr. P. is arguing with a Roman Catholic.}

Dr. Bellows, on behalf of Unitarianism, goes yet further;* he says: —

{*N. Amer. Review.}

"What we have hitherto objected to in the creed of orthodoxy, on the subject of eternal punishment, was the alleged finality of human fate, as determined by the state of the soul at the moment of death. . . This life has been considered to be mainly a state of probation, and the only state. Unitarians reject both ideas. With them life is not, here or anywhere, mainly a state of probation, but a state of education and discipline; and still more, a state of being for its own sake. We can conceive no state of human existence, that is, of finite spiritual existence, which shall be different in these respects from the present. . . We cannot, with our reverence for the freedom of the will and the free play of spiritual laws, be among those who think moral evil, with its sufferings and its penalties, will be forcibly terminated by a fiat of divine benevolence at any future date. We object to the old orthodox view of the finality of human probation at death, as lacking probability, as disregarding our present experience of God's government and the constitution of man's spirit. Moreover, while it seems awfully threatening to those who are inclined to evil and are likely to be lost, it seems relaxing of moral and spiritual obligations toward those who expect to be saved. It is a doctrine too cruel for the worst, too flattering for the best."

With which Dr. Littledale fully agrees. He objects* to the popular view of "this life being a state of probation, a solitary chance, failure in which involves destruction, just as with us gun-barrels which cannot pass the test in the proof-house are invariably condemned, broken up, and cast into the fire, — but only to be forged anew."

{*In the Contemp. Rev.}

"There is no warrant in Scripture (he says) for this current opinion, which in truth necessitates a denial of God's foreknowledge as not being able to trust His own work, nor to predict how it will turn out till He has tested it. He does indeed try and prove, but it is in the way of education and purgation, not of inquiry. 'When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold' (Job 23: 10). 'Behold, I will melt them and try them' (Jer. 9: 7). Once grasp the notion that we have only one life given us to live, and that death is a mere episode in it, so that this world is but a lower class in God's school, and another stage of education in our unbroken personality and life beyond the grave awaits us in the intermediate state, whether that stage be downward or upwards, according as we have used our opportunities here, and the whole scheme of redemption shows clearer."

And even President Porter suggests** that —

{*In the N. Amer. Rev.}

"Then, when the future life begins, every man will see Christ as He is, and the sight of Him may of itself bring a finality to his character and destiny, as it discovers each man fully to himself. They that pierced Him shall mourn, but not if when they see Him, they mourn that they pierced Him. The next life may be another probation, in that, by its first revelations, it shall make everything clear which was dark, and bring out in vivid lines that moral and spiritual truth which the soul shall accept with sympathizing joy, or reject with sinful perverseness; and as it accepts or rejects, shall know its own character and its just award. . . . The opening scenes of the next life may be at once the soul's second probation, and its final judgment,"

All this is anti-scriptural merely, and if unsound, then of necessity dangerous to the last degree. To teach men that they may put off into the future that which must be decided here and now is nothing less than enticing them to self-destruction. I have no desire to retain the word "probation"; but that Scripture insists upon it that salvation is a possibility only for those who find it in this life, we have already seen. The denial of it is reckless ignorance or unbelief. It destroys the whole meaning of death as death, the solemnity of the appeal to man founded upon the brevity of his life here; that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, and that now is the accepted time, and now the day of salvation; that "he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." (Matt. 9: 6; 2 Cor. 6: 2; John 12: 25.) It denies the fact that already in hades is there a "great gulf fixed," dividing the evil and the good, and that it is when men fail (or die) they are received into everlasting habitations. (Luke 16: 9.) It is contradicted by the affirmation — the very opposite of Canon Plumptre's idea — that the sentence in the day of judgment will be for deeds done "in the body," and not at all for conduct in the intermediate state. (2 Cor. 5: 10.) Finally, that the spirits of the unsaved departed are "spirits in prison," and with whom (if His dealings be the same with all, and we may argue from the case of those before the flood) God's Spirit will no more strive. (1 Peter 3: 19; Gen. 6: 3.)

With regard to Canon Plumptre's "unbaptized infants," I suppose as far as inadequate probation or want of development is concerned, they are scarcely worse off than those baptized. And while with all such the taint of a vitiated nature needs to be removed, those who know how absolutely we are debtors to Divine grace for this in any case will have no difficulty in this respect. That God cannot here show mercy, where no human will can yet be supposed of efficacy to resist the known divine will for the salvation of all; or that what people call probation in this respect should be a necessity in every case — this he must prove who would affirm. Those of this class can hardly be judged for deeds done in the body, nor condemned finally for a nature which they have without any act of their own will. Of this the Lord gives us full assurance: "in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven; for the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost." And "it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (Matt. 18: 10, 11, 14.)

As to Dr. Littledale's objections to the whole theory of probation, I suppose no one would contend for it in the sense he assumes, as if it were God's proving what was a matter of uncertainty to Himself apart from the proof. Why it should be inconsistent for Him to allow man after all to go through the trial, because He foresees the issue, is not made plain. Dr. L. can scarcely believe in the Edenic trial for the same reason; nor that Moses' account of the wilderness can be the true one, that "the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no." (Deut. 8: 2.) This he will naturally think a denial of divine omniscience, and repudiate, whereas it is only God refusing to act upon His foreknowledge, or to account that lie knows, till man has justified it.

In the same way the law has been the probation of man: "God is come to prove you," are again Moses' words. (Ex. 20: 20.) But that trial is over, and the verdict has been long since given: "there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." And "we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." (Rom. 3: 10, 12, 19.)

In this respect probation is passed for all. Israel's condemnation is not merely a piece of past history; it is of present and universal force by reason of our complete essential identity: "as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." But in another respect also, and still more solemnly, is probation passed, inasmuch as when "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not;" so that those who did receive Him, (and who do) are manifested by the very fact to be "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1: 10-13.)

Thus the cross of Christ was "the judgment of the world"; (John 12: 31) and man is convicted, not only of having failed to attain legal righteousness, but of having refused the One who came to save him from the law's penalty also. This is why I cannot contend for the term "probation," as applying to God's present dealings with men; while yet it is true that God will not finally treat men as in the lump condemned, but each man for his own personal rejection of Himself: his reprobation of God will be necessarily his own reprobation.

The time required for this, and the circumstances I have not calculated, nor do I presume to have wisdom for the calculation. If others have, they should produce their arguments. They who believe that God has given His Son for men can rest in the conclusion that not only will He be "clear when He is judged," but that His long-suffering mercy, and His will that none should perish, will be abundantly revealed in the fast-hastening day of manifestation. This they will not venture to anticipate; nor can they believe that the world would be one whit better governed if the secrets of that government were made fully known. The existence of evil is the one real and only difficulty; but it exists: and God has answered the question as to Himself raised by it, not by a logical explanation of the difficulty, which it may perhaps be doubted if we should have ability to understand, but by unveiling Himself in Christ. I see in the cross His holiness, I see His goodness, I see His love; and, if the darkness be only passing and not passed, I can walk amid it without stumbling with a Father's hand close clasping mine. The darkness that remains is but the necessary school for faith; but a faith which has the surest ground under its feet. "We know" but "in part"; still we know. The imperfection will pass, but the truth now known will abide forever.

(3.) For the continuance of evil God cannot be held responsible, save by an argument which throws upon Him equally the responsibility of its present existence. It is easy to assume that God could will it out of existence at any moment if He pleased, but then we must needs assume that He willed it into existence. Mr. Birks has well shown how much of the darkness which involves the subject proceeds from crude thoughts of omnipotence in this way. That He could annihilate, on the principle men are now zealously advocating, the sinful being is, of course, as a matter of power over His creatures, to be allowed. But the necessary limit of even Almighty power is determined by the circle of the divine perfections. That infinite Wisdom could do so we may not assume, except by assuming our own to be infinite. Nay, even reason may argue some things apparently against it. For His gifts and calling would scarcely be without repentance, did He destroy a being naturally deathless which Himself had given; and such is at least man's spirit. Mr. Constable has abundant cause to argue that the only true basis for annihilation is materialism. But such a mechanical destruction of evil might well seem to be its triumph in another form, — a confession of his being defeated by it in the creature thus destroyed. If men turn round and ask why at least create the being that He knew would fall, the practical answer is, He has created. "Who art thou, O man, who repliest against God?"

This line of argument Scripture itself suggests to be the true one. The conflict with evil is ever represented in it as a real thing, and a necessary, not to be dispensed with by the mere fiat even of Omnipotence: and that because Omnipotence in God means necessarily Omnipotent Wisdom,* as it does Omnipotent Love. Thus He "willeth not the death of a sinner," yet they die. Who will say He wills their sins? and yet they sin. And when we are told of some that "it is IMPOSSIBLE to renew them again unto repentance," (Heb. 6: 4-6) if we are to take such words in their full and apparent sense, must we not believe that Omnipotence had in their case found its limit? or can we say God would not still have renewed them, if He could? In the face of His own repeated protestations, can we believe that through His pleasure sinners, however much sinners, could not be renewed?

{*It seems to me that herein Mr. Birks' argument as to the limitation of Omnipotence in measure fails, that he does not insist enough that the limit is only that imposed by the Divine Perfections.}

If we touch mysteries on all sides here (and so we do), all the more must we keep to the simple, plain assurances which are the silver thread guiding us through the apparently, and to us really, inextricable labyrinth. God is God, because God is good: and to this His word holds us fast.

On the other hand it does not represent Him as baffled by the evil, and having to undo His own handiwork, as if man's will were thus triumphant above His. The reality of the conflict with evil gives the only basis for the reality of victory over it; and that victory is assured. "The Lord hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil;" (Prov. 16: 4) not their wickedness surely, but themselves. Praise Him therefore they shall, as "all His works" (Ps. 145: 10) do. The "vessels of wrath" and "to dishonor," (Rom. 9: 22; 2 Tim. 2: 20.) are still "vessels," and have their use. Who shall say that "to show God's wrath, and make His power known," is not such a necessity in divine government as in any other?

The eternity of sin is the real basis of the eternity of punishment. If in this life God has with any spent all available resources in vain for their deliverance, so that He should Himself have to say "it is impossible to renew them," what less than "eternal fire "can be the award of those of whom He has had to say, "he that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still"? Mr. Greg tells us:* "No subtlety of logic, no weight of authority, will induce rightly constituted minds, which allow themselves to reason at all, to admit that the sins or failings of time can merit the retribution of eternity, — that finite natures can, by any guilt of which they are capable, draw upon themselves torments infinite either in essence or duration." But, although we must allow that that is the way the doctrine of eternal punishment has been often sought to be justified, it is not the scriptural ground of it. Nay, it is one which has obscured the subject it was meant to clear; for it represents God in judgment as merely at the best exacting the full extent of penalty, even supposing it proved that that were the extent.

{* Enigmas of Life, p. 271.}

Mr. Constable represents the view I am advocating as one in which the "Augustinian theorists" are taking new ground. That is of little moment, that it should be new to them, if only it be a return to Scripture. At the same time I cannot accept Prof. Mansel as the exponent of it, if Mr. Constable gives justly his exposition.* Scripture gives no hint of "sins throughout eternity increasing in number, in magnitude, and in guilt! Condemnation and punishment throughout eternity gathering force and falling more terribly upon the wretched sufferers"! We may agree perfectly with Mr. C. that "Scripture, from first to last, says not one word of the sins of hell." And with Mr. Girdlestone, as he quotes him, that "as the saved will be raised above the possibility of sinning; so the lost will be sunk below it." But while sin in act will be thus restrained by punishment, he that is unjust will not be less unjust, nor he that is filthy less filthy. Restraint is not reformation. The eternal state is one fixed absolutely and bounded on all sides, as Mr. Birks suggests with probable truth a "lake of fire" may intimate.

{* Nat. and Dur. of Fut. Pun., p. 153.}

We do not accept then the teaching that the punishment of hell is inflicted for the sins of hell. On the other hand we cannot concede that the measure of eternal judgment being the measure of the sins of this life, as it surely is, militates in the least against the doctrine that the eternity of punishment is based upon this eternity of a sinful state. Mr. Constable seems never to have considered indeed this view of it. He must distinguish between sin and a sinful state. The everlasting fire is correlative to the undying worm. And here, if we consider a little, there is no opposition between the eternity of the punishment being linked with the abiding of the sinful condition, and the measure of the suffering being apportioned to the actually committed sins.

For the works and the words according to which men will be judged are of course the manifestation of the sinner himself. And such is the actual phrase used in Scripture. "We shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ " (2 Cor. 5: 10) is more literally "we shall all be manifested." Our works will bring out our characters, — will exhibit us. If it were not so, such a judgment would be necessarily partial. Inasmuch then as men's works exhibit their character, and that a character which abides forever, they are judged according to their works, and yet with "eternal judgment."

(4.) Thus the punishment is not indiscriminate, because in each case eternal. "Few stripes," as compared with "many," may have (and will have) their counterpart in the wrath inflicted, and yet that wrath "abide" on each who has chosen it for his future portion. Mr. Greg* urges strongly the objection indeed of any such "broad, bold line of demarcation," as this infers,

{* Enigmas of Life, p. 274.}

"separating, through all future ages, and by boundless distances, those whose measure of sin or virtue while on earth was scarcely distinguishable by the finest and most delicate moral electrometer. On one side is endless happiness, the sight of God. . . for those whom one frailty more, one added weakness, one hair's breadth further transgression, would have justly condemned to dwell forever 'with the devil and his angels,' an outcast from hope, chained to his iniquity forever, alone with the irreparable! On the other side is hell, the scene of torture, of weeping and gnashing of teeth; of the ceaseless flame and the undying worm; where 'he that is filthy must be filthy still' torment, not for a period, but FOREVER; for Him for whom one effort more, one ounce of guilt the less, might have turned the trembling balance, and opened the gates of an eternal paradise Human feeling and human reason CANNOT believe this, though they may admit it with lip assent; and the Catholic church accordingly, here as elsewhere, steps in to present them with the via media which is needed."

It is curious and instructive to see with what comparative favor the infidel looks upon Popery as compared with Protestantism. The two are united in this at any rate, that they alike set aside the word of God. Opposition to this is what is everywhere working in the unrenewed heart of man. It is more noticeable even, because purgatory is no such via media as Mr. Greg believes it. It decides nothing as to the line between the lost and saved, to which alone his own language can apply. It merely rejects the full value of the blood of Christ to cleanse from sin, and the power of the Spirit to renew and fit for heaven, apart from purgatorial suffering. This partial infidelity Mr. Greg naturally accepts as a step in the right direction. But purgatory settles nothing as to eternity.

Mr. Greg's own statement does not by any means present more truly the Bible doctrine. He would represent the day of judgment as ranging men in their gradations of sin or of holiness, and then breaking the line asunder at a certain point, and sending one part to hell, the other to heaven. It is the old heathen mythology, often, indeed, attempted to be Christianized, whereby a man's future lot would be decided according as his bad deeds or his good should overbalance the other. Scripture does not allow that in this way a single sinner could be saved. Instead of any going to heaven in this way, all would be alike lost and condemned. The law as the rule of judgment pronounces, "there is none righteous, no, not one," which Christianity does not set aside, but reaffirms. Hell is the award, not of a certain overplus of sin, but of the rejection of Him in whom alone is help. Heaven is the fruit, not of a little more than semi-righteousness, but of Another's atoning work availing for the confessedly unrighteous. Mr. Greg's picture is not even the caricature of Christianity: it is its fundamental opposite.

(5.) Mr. Greg again objects to a doctrine which represents the sufferings of a future world —

"as penal, not purgatorial, — retributive, not reformatory. It is not easy (he thinks) to conceive any object to be answered, any part in the great plan of Providence to be fulfilled, by the infliction of torments, whether temporary or perpetual, which are neither to serve for the purification of those who endure them, nor needed for the warning of those who behold them, since the inhabitants of earth do not see them, and the translated denizens of heaven do not require them. They are simply aimless and retrospective. It is true that, in the conception of the philosopher, they are INEVITABLE; that future suffering is the natural offspring and necessary consequence of present sin: but this is not the view of the doctrine we are considering, nor is the character of the sufferings it depicts such as would logically flow out of the sins for which they are supposed to be a chastisement."

Again Mr. Greg praises the comparative wisdom of the "Catholic" invention of purgatory, and adds: —

"But to believe, as Protestants are required to do, that all those fiercer torments will be inflicted when no conceivable purpose is to be answered by their infliction, when the suffering, so far as human imagination can fathom the case, is simply gratuitous, is assuredly a far harder strain upon our faith, — a strain, too, which is hardest on those whose feelings are the most human, and whose notions of the Deity are worthiest; on those, that is, who have most fully imbibed Christ's sentiments and views."

{* Enigmas of Life, pp. 272, 273.}

These then at least are they whose "notions of the Deity are worthiest;" and yet it has often been remarked, and it is true, that some of the most solemn denunciations of eternal judgment to be found in the whole Bible are in the discourses of our Lord Himself. Mr. Greg will perhaps believe this inconsistency; for he is himself inconsistent enough to suppose that the worthiest notions of the Deity have come down to us from One, who on his showing must have been after all an impostor. But, beside this, in the conception of the philosopher even, — a wisdom by which all other wisdom may be fairly judged, — future suffering is inevitable as the natural offspring and necessary consequence of present sin. This we may believe, therefore, the action of those natural laws to philosophers so dear. But natural laws are blind and aimless things. We must not believe in there being wisdom in them it seems, or purpose; for wisdom implies one who has it, and purpose a Controller, and these thoughts in this connection are foreign to a true philosophy. Laws, — self-acting laws, — perchance self-made also — have decreed future suffering for present sin. That saves us thinking about purpose. The sentence of law may be held as a different thing from the judgment of a judge. We can accept the inevitable, just as that.

In point of fact, however, Mr. Greg tells us, "it is not impossible to imagine a future world of retribution in such form and coloring as shall be easy and natural to realize, as shall be not only possible to believe, but impossible to disbelieve." And he represents that "if the soul be destined for an existence after death, then (unless a miracle be worked to prevent it) that existence MUST be one of retribution to the sinful, and purgatorial suffering to the frail and feeble soul."

He believes then in the probability of retribution as distinct from purificatory suffering. He does not wait to ask whether there are to be any to behold it for whose warning it may be needed. He does not inquire whether "gratuitous" or not. He speaks of "retribution," i.e., "repayment, recompense." Perhaps he does not believe that "retribution" could ever be "gratuitous," so that he need not consider it. Perhaps he is right.

But then that is also the Scripture view. The judgment of sin is, of course, recompense, retribution. Is there, or is there not, implied in this, righteousness in exercise? If God be a Moral Governor of His creatures, can He at His option dispense with this punitive exercise of righteousness? Can He blot out penalties out of His statute book, and yet leave intact the laws which the penalties accompany? Not certainly, if Scripture be true; or where would be the meaning of its doctrine of sacrifice? "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so MUST the Son of Man be lifted up." "It became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." (John 3: 14; Heb. 2: 10.) If retribution be not needful, if the mere benevolence of God could have dispensed with it, Christ plainly need not have died at all.

This to Mr. Greg may be nothing; yet he sees and can assure us of the necessity of retribution from the nature of things. And who gave things their nature? Is it not at least evident that the God of nature and of revelation are thus far one? Apart from all purpose it may serve, can sin exist and God ignore it? Can He be indifferent? Can He let it go on and not exhibit Himself in opposition to it? not show His anger? And that is essentially the fire of hell.

God is "willing to show His wrath, and make His power known." There is, and must be, therefore, governmental necessity. In the only world of which we have experience retribution is a manifest law of His government. On the inductive principle what other can we conclude to be the universal law? And even with regard to those who suffer from it, why should it not be, — nay, will it not be, as Mr. Birks has rightly argued (although he has gone to unscriptural lengths in carrying out the principle), mercy in measure even to them, that judgment is recompensed?

(6.) Last of these objections I shall notice that relating to the tortures of hell being corporeal. "Instead of the 'majestic pains' adapted to man's complete nature, and capable of such impressive delineation, the torments assigned by ordinary Christianity to the future life are peculiarly and exclusively those appropriate to this; they are all bodily; yet the body is laid down at death"; and "the doctrine of the resurrection of the body has been shown by Bush in his 'Anastasis' to be neither tenable nor scriptural." So says Mr. Greg once more.* But the thought of the bodily sufferings of the lost has been one of great perplexity to many who fully believe in the doctrine of resurrection; a perplexity which has been transformed into incredulity by the pictures that have been drawn of them by vivid and sensational oratory. But, as Mr. Birks has well remarked in his paper on Canon Farrar's book,

{* Enigmas of Life, pp. 268, 269.}

"the vehement dislike of any element of sensible pain in future punishment, when the doctrine itself is received, and also that of the resurrection both of the just and unjust, has no warrant either of Scripture or reason. To believe that in the life to come some will suffer intense mental anguish and agony, through former sin, and that they will so suffer in the body after they have been raised from the dead, and still to conceive that a painless and unsuffering body will be the clothing or vessel of a spirit enduring intensest anguish and mental torment, is an opinion as plainly unreasonable as it is opposed to the natural meaning of the sacred text. . . With regard to frightful pictures of future misery, like those of Tertullian in the preface, of Henry Smith, and Jeremy Taylor, I would remind the Canon of his own picture in these sermons of the horrors of delirium tremens to the unhappy drunkard. If one drunkard more can be reclaimed by such dark coloring, there may be a full warrant for the preacher. But the principle in both cases is the same. I fear that in both the indulgence in drawing pictures of intense horror is more likely to revolt some and deaden the feelings of others than effectually to reclaim. The Scriptures at least give us no pattern of such 'ghastly' modes of impressing their warnings deeper on the consciences of men. Their warnings, those of Christ Himself, are the more impressive because the words are few and simple, severe in their calm grandeur of earnest caution outer darkness, weeping, mourning, and gnashing of teeth."

As Scripture is evidently, however, what has furnished the basis of these descriptions, it will be well to ask just what it conveys. Are these expressions, "undying worm," "unquenchable fire," literal or symbolic; and what proof have we, if we have any, as to this?

In the first place the apostle's language before quoted, that "now we see through a glass in an enigma," seems clearly to indicate their symbolic character. The descriptions of heaven which are given us, few have any difficulty in admitting to be symbolic. We have none that seem of any other kind. And this argues forcibly that the same thing should hold as to the pictures of hell.

Further, if the valley of Hinnom be taken (as must surely be done), as furnishing the images whereby the Gehenna of the future is pictured to us, — "worm" and "fire," which were literal in the first, are manifestly symbols as applied to the second, and scarcely their own symbols.

Again, if Satan be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented there, it would seem that the fire must be other than natural which should torment him. And the same must be said as to the rich man in hades.

Finally, taken as figures, these expressions have a significance and power which fail altogether when taken literally. The undying worm has indeed been commonly held to be the type of remorse of conscience, and this as bred of corruption it would very naturally represent. But then the fire unquenchable would almost of necessity be figurative also, and stand for the wrath of Him who is a "consuming fire." With this would agree the title given to Gehenna of "the second death," as being complete spiritual separation, finally by divine judgment, from God the source of life; and this again would give full and terrible typical significance to that millennial judgment with which Isaiah closes, where the subjects of the worm and fire are "carcases" — the dead. This explains also why the fire can torment a spirit, and why a corporeal being may exist in it unconsumed; or why the "destruction" brought about by it need be no material destruction. Everything, in short, in this way is consistent and harmonious, as much upon the literal hypothesis seems difficult and contradictory.

This does not indeed do away with the thought of corporeal suffering, but it leaves the manner of it unrevealed, and allows room for the difference of few and many stripes which the Lord clearly teaches, and which the conception of material fire for all seems at least to obscure.

But this is not all the picture of the future woe which the word of God presents. "Outer darkness," as in contrast with the light of heaven, is again clearly a spiritual conception. "Weeping and gnashing of teeth," is a different thought from that of active and rebellious evil, which so many connect with the idea of hell. The anguish of seeing Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, while being themselves thrust out, is also spoken of. (Luke 13: 28.)

These are the descriptions given to us in the Scripture of eternal judgment. Separation from God and good, the sense of His wrath and the infliction of it, remorse of conscience, hopelessness: these are the main elements in that solemn hereafter. If Mr. Greg will ponder them, he will find the picture he has drawn anticipated in its essential features. Nay, there can be little doubt but that Scripture has, in fact, unconsciously to himself, furnished him with what appears to him the product of his natural thoughts. But I need pursue this no further. The day fast hastens, in which (to use his own words) "everything which clouded the perceptions, which dulled the vision, which drugged the conscience, while on earth, will be cleared off like a morning mist. We shall see all things as they really are, — ourselves and our sins among the number." Yes, but too late, forever too late, for those who have refused to face now the reality of what we are, and what things are, as seen by the light in mercy now held out to us. "The long-suffering of the Lord is salvation." God warns, that He may not strike. Meanwhile man may arraign His judgments and refuse His mercy. They cannot avert the one. They cannot, when once it is passed, recall the other.

43 - Last Words with Annihilationists

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 43.

Last Words with Annihilationists

The end of my examination is then reached. It remains to say a few words as to the general tendency and connections of the doctrines we have been reviewing. Many, who by no means hold them, are yet blind to the evil they involve. And in this way they gain toleration at the hands of numbers, who learn to look on at their steadily increasing acceptance with an indifference which produces lamentable results. Quietly the leaven works. And Mr. Blain can say, with perfect truth, "a large number in the different churches believe the doctrine, who say but little about it, except to its open advocates." Nor does the profession of a very large amount of truth hinder its reception, as numerous instances bear painful witness.

I wish to point out, therefore, very briefly, some things that are connected with it, and some fruits which grow upon this root of evil. The tree is known by its fruit, and the fruit is here abundant and evident enough.

In the present chapter I shall confine myself to the doctrine of annihilation; and in the next take up the restoration theory.

In the first place, the undermining of Scripture is very evident in many. We must distinguish somewhat, and give due credit to the fact that a more respectable class of writers in this respect have come to the front of late, especially in England. Yet even among these the tendency is to be found. In the lower classes the tone of scepticism is unmistakable. We are told that no vindication of eternal punishment can be made.

"Prop it up by popular opinion, or disguise and conceal it as we may, it must ever appear to all rational creatures the very essence of folly, injustice, and cruelty. Can we believe that the doctrine is taught in the 'precious Bible, book divine'? And is it so? Must our sense of justice and goodness in Him, in whose hands we are, float on a tempestuous and shoreless ocean forever? No, the effort to lock up reason and common sense much longer in the narrow dark cell of mystery will be vain. Just, impulsive feelings, both of saints and thoughtful sinners must burst the bolts, and emerge into light and relief."*

{* Blain's Review of Beecher, p. 33.}

If this were a solitary statement, or of one writer, I should not quote it, but similar language is used by many. Quite in accordance with it, Mr. Hudson gives us a volume of four hundred and sixty-eight pages upon the subject, the "Scriptural Argument" occupying sixty-seven. This single chapter he afterwards enlarges into a smaller volume,* "designed," he says, "to meet the convenience of those who rely for their views of future life upon the reading and interpretation of the Scriptures."

{*"Christ our Life."}

Mr. Edw. White is still more frank in telling us his estimate of the word of God. In his "Life in Christ" (p. 393), amid much similar language, he uses this: —

"I cannot conceal my conviction that the path of duty and of wisdom in dealing with such documents as the gospels demands this practical conclusion: — If they offer to us any statements of Christ's doctrine, by excess or defect conspicuously disagreeing with the facts, or with the plain sense of His teaching as recorded by the same or other historians, resolutely to refuse to allow such exceptional misreports or omissions to interfere with the truth which has been learned by a wider survey of the evidence."

With many who are not as open as this the secret undercurrent is yet manifest. It suggests to Mr. Blain that "the book of Revelation can settle no doctrine," and whether this one text "looks strong enough to vanish (? vanquish) the two hundred and ten opposing ones." It suggests to the authors of "The Bible vs. Tradition," that, of this Bible, such a passage "may have been amended by some officious copyist." It makes Mr. Dobney deride the seeking to "the hieroglyphs of the isle of Patmos." It reasons in Mr. Constable that if the parable of Luke 16 "could be truly shown to teach [non-extinction] views, the only effect would be that of establishing a contradiction between one part of Scripture and another, or of affording reason to think that this parable of Lazarus, despite the authority of manuscripts, formed no part of the original gospel of St. Luke." Thus the authority of the word is undermined, — that word which asserts for itself that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine." To seek to get the sacred text as perfect as possible, free from the real mistakes of copyists, is another thing; but to invent conjectural criticisms of this kind is but the poor, vain refuge of unbelief, too timid openly to avow itself as such. Mr. Hastings' own words, used as to one class of these, the deniers of the resurrection of the wicked, apply but too well to very many more: "these passages still stand, after all the attempts to evade them, to convert them into mere figures of speech, or to retranslate them in [such] a manner that they shall flatly contradict their originals!"*

{* Retribution, p. 74.}

This last mode of evacuating Scripture is with the lowest class of annihilationists (who are not the least popular) the one perhaps the most frequently adopted. "The Bible vs. Tradition" is crammed with new translations, specimens of which have been already given. But at the other end of the scale, Morris' "What is Man?" a book of the most extravagant pretentiousness, is perhaps as full. Ellis and Read, when Greek and Hebrew fail, bring in Syriac to their aid, yet do not know the difference between the singular and plural of a Greek participle, or between the verb dexai and the adjective dexia. Thus the minds of the simple are thrown off their balance, and doubts insinuated even as to the honesty of the common translation, calculated to destroy all faith in that which alone, to ordinary readers, represents the authoritative word of God.*

{*Mr. Blain says, "The translators designedly covered up the truth" (Death not Life, p. 54). One of his subsections is headed, "The Catholics more honest in their translation than the Protestants." The same writer observes (p. 104), "The 19th century has regulated brains so as to use steam and lightning, and it will yet regulate them to use the figurative language of the Bible aright."}

(2.) But there is another thing most evident and most disastrous in results. Mr. Hudson admits and laments the prevalence of materialism among the upholders of the views he advocates; and he notices one consequence, that the difficulty which results from thus conceiving of the wicked as "wholly dying" twice, and the penalty being thus twice exacted, "has led many to deny that the resurrection of the unjust" signifies their being made alive." This view is spreading among them. That, at the worst, "death is an eternal sleep," and there is no day of recompense or retribution. What that leads to is plain enough.

Mr. Hudson disclaims this materialism. Mr. Constable, however, with more reason, asserts its legitimate connection with annihilation. For if the cardinal terms of the controversy are (as is constantly asserted) life and death, then it must be for annihilation a point of first necessity that death should be extinction. If the first death be not that, why should the second death be? And moreover the words for destruction in both Greek and Hebrew are themselves in most cases used for death, and can scarcely be pressed as meaning more than this. Mr. Constable has rightly, therefore, urged that in consistency this meaning of death must be maintained.

(3.) But this, as we have seen, cuts yet more deeply: and Mr. C.'s logical mind carries it out further than many. Christ truly died. Nay, if He was one person before death, death could not make Him two; and this one person lay in Joseph's tomb. We must not think of any person elsewhere — in paradise, for instance, — says Mr. Constable. But if that be true, what about the divine nature? Did that become impersonal, or did it lie in Joseph's tomb? It is a noticeable fact, how much annihilationism links itself with the denial of Christ's Deity. With this also the Deity of the Holy Ghost comes into question.* If there be no spirit of man, is there any Spirit of God? The passage already noticed in 1 Cor, 2: 11, links the two doctrines close enough together to make any tampering with the one bode ominously the downfall of the other. Hence far and wide this view is also spreading. The 19th century may "regulate brains" (alas, what about hearts?), but not the Holy Ghost. It is a mesmeric influence, or something akin to electricity, if not rather even electricity itself.

{*Mr. Edw. White, himself an annihilationist, shows forcibly that the materialistic argument may be carried on to atheism: "If man has no reason to believe that he possesses a spirit ' in himself, he has no reason for concluding that the mind revealed in nature inheres in an Eternal Spirit '. . . . If thought is a function of matter, it is right to conclude either, pantheistically, that there is some governing thought which is a function of the matter of the universe, or, atheistically, that there is no mind in nature, notwithstanding appearances. Mr. Constable will resist the conclusion. But Prof. Clifford, a more consistent materialist, stoutly affirms it (Fortnightly Review, No. 139, 1875)." (Life in Christ, p. 296, note).}

(4.) There is another thing which naturally connects with these, but is found much more widely. Sin is softened down in all cases. You must not ask man to believe in a greater penalty attaching to it than his natural conscience, dull as that may be, approves. "The doctrine of eternal anguish," Mr. Hastings argues, "how can it be received by the unbelieving?" May we not ask that of a good deal more? This Christ crucified — these "things of the Spirit of God" — how can the "natural man" receive them? Scripture vouches that he cannot: "they are foolishness unto him." By parity of reasoning we should alike discard them all.

Necessarily then the judgment of sin is lowered. You are to accommodate the penalty to the conscience of the impenitent. The harder the conscience, the less you can press upon it penalty at all. It may be doubted if they will accept annihilation even: nay, rather, it is positively certain that they will not. The argument is not without danger therefore to the theory it supports. And if "man has NO pre-eminence above a beast," even in the highest thing he has, as Mr. Constable puts it, what is a beast's conscience? and what is the measure of a beast's responsibility? what becomes of the fall? Serious questions these, if we are to have anything left of Christianity beside the name. The actual fact is, that this reasoning is being followed out to its legitimate result. As we have already seen, the resurrection of the wicked is being denied by many. A beast's end is thus simply and wholly a man's end. And that means, there is absolutely no divine judgment at all. The wages of sin is death; i.e., simply what a beast suffers. Or if it be the suffering in view of death, then death alone is not its wages, and the most hardened suffers least.

All have not landed there yet: in many ears "after death the judgment" lingers still; but they have started on the voyage, and the many outstrip their pilots. Another who has had practical experience of the working of these views has written of it "The effect in destroying responsibility was fearful; and, in people of grosser habits, rejection of all truth, and immorality. The tree was bad, had a bad sap, and so was cut down, and there was an end of it." "And one of the chief teachers in the United States declares in his book, that the deep distress of conscience and terror about sin committed was a base, servile fear and wrong. To one who had found he had lost the atonement, and the sense of responsibility out of his mind, and who asked him what he made of responsibility, he replied, it was impossible to reconcile it with his system, but he saw it in Scripture, and so did not deny it."*

{*The Eternity of Punishment and the Immortality of the Soul, pp. 135, 139.}

(5.) The writer just quoted has added elsewhere as to the effect upon atonement: "If sin means eternal exclusion from God's presence, it is dreadful enmity against God now, exclusion from God then. If death is the only wages of sin, Christ had no more to suffer for me. Nay, if I am a Christian, He had nothing to suffer, if I die before the Lord comes. I have paid the wages myself. If it be only some temporary punishment I had incurred, He had only that to bear. 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' has lost its force. It is in vain to say, He gives us life. He can, in itself, quicken without dying. If He died, He died for my sins, and bore them. If death [simply] be the wages of sin, millions of saints have paid them. And if a partial punishment be all I had to bear, it is all Christ had to bear. The sense of sin I have, and its desert, is not being forsaken of God, shut out from Him when I know what it is, but a temporary punishment, a quantum of offence, which is all I have to think of, and all Christ had to bear, if anything."*

{*Ibid., p. 128.}

Let me say that, perhaps, none rise higher than this, viz., the substitutional sacrifice of life for life, the death of the cross no more than a martyr's death, to which the Deity of the Sufferer gave all its value* — the mass go lower far, as, for instance among those not absolute materialists, Mr. Hudson and Mr. Ham.

{*"And it is a truth never to be forgotten, that the infinite value which pertains to the one sacrifice of Jesus, arises, not from any inherent dignity or value in man, as the subject of redemption, nor from the nature or extent of the penalty due to sinners, but . . . from His own essential Deity, and from the fact of His having laid down His life in obedience to the commandment of His Father, God" (What is Man? p. 51).}

But the death of the cross was no mere martyr's death. It was that surely: the Prince of witnesses did there lay down His life in testimony to the truth that He had come from heaven to declare. But there was much more than that, and much more than the substitutional giving up of life for life. "He who knew no sin was made sin" there. "He was made a curse for us." And that solemn 22nd psalm, which, as we know, the Lord on the cross applies to Himself, declares to us a death exceptional in its character from that of all beside. Not merely in its being vicarious; that is not the point; but in what that vicariousness involved. No mere giving up of life — no pain of death — no bitterness of persecution — could have wrung that awful cry from the Lord of life and glory, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" That was the cup He dreaded. That was what the sacrifice involved. Not, as has been said, a quantum of suffering. But isolation from the presence and communion of One who had been from His mother's womb His trust and joy. It was the blood of One who had thus been laden with our burden of iniquities, and borne our sins in His own body on the tree, that alone could atone, alone could cleanse. The blood of a sin-offering, burned upon the ground outside the holy place, and outside the camp, alone could be "brought into the sanctuary by the high-priest for sin." (Heb. 13. Even so Jesus suffered, the Holy One in the sinner's place of wrath and distance from a holy God. If He did not, we have no blood of atonement, no efficacious sacrifice at all.

Thus annihilation strikes at the vitals of Christianity; while instead of resolving the problem of the existence of evil, it is a giving up of it rather as hopelessly insoluble. It is the mechanical stamping out of a life designed for eternity, given of God but resumed by Him, as if defeated in the object for which life was given. By that very fact it is the triumph of evil rather than its defeat.

44 - Last Words with Restorationists

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Part 3 The Eternal Issues

Chapter 44.

Last Words with Restorationists

Much of what has been said as to the doctrine of conditional immortality is true of the other form of the denial of eternal punishment. Especially the quarrel with Scripture is even more plain, and its authority as a consequence more directly attacked. There are those, as in the former case, who must be admitted as exceptions, whose arguments, however illogical, seek at least to preserve its authority. Yet even Mr. Jukes maintains, as we have seen, that "taken in the letter, text clashes with text upon this subject." And Mr. Cox quotes with approbation, from Dr. Littledale's paper already referred to, his averment "that no sufficient stress has been laid on the cardinal fact 'that the Scriptures of the New Testament contain two parallel and often seemingly contradictory statements as to the last things, one of which, even after being jealously sifted by hostile criticisms, DOES make for the popular theology, and another which more than implies a full restoration, and the final victory of good over evil.'" Still others speak thus of "irreconcilable antinomies" in Scripture. Canon Farrar more openly and boldly alleges that the "isolated texts" which seem adverse to his view may be "a concession to ignorance" or "reflect the ignorance of a dark age." Prof Jellett urges, "Even if it be conceded that according to the most probable interpretation of the texts which are supposed to contain the doctrine of endless punishment, they do contain this doctrine, it may still be asked — Does this decide the question? There is no infallibility attached to the process of interpretation. The reasoning by which the inspiration of Scripture itself is ascertained is not infallible. Probability is all we can attain to."

These testimonies might be indefinitely multiplied. They demonstrate not more the tendencies of universalism to a denial of the authority of the word, than they do the fact of that word being almost confessedly against it. They would not need to depreciate a testimony which was in their own favor. The counsel for a case does not brow-beat his own witnesses.

(2.) The doctrine of universalism, in whatever form, tends of necessity, though in another way from annihilationism, to make light of sin. It represents it as a thing capable of being reached and done away by a course of salutary discipline, and that in cases where all the riches of God's love and grace have been expended in vain. Sin is thus made the creature of circumstances, by a wise ordering of which it may be extinguished, and God as the Governor of His creatures becomes responsible for its continuance. It is His dishonor if evil continue, and He must at least share the blame of it with man. He is responsible to save. Man is perhaps as much sinned against as sinning. His life here is no proper probation. "What could have been done to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" admits of a plain answer. Man's ignorance, his feebleness, his manifold temptations, well-nigh balance his account with his Maker; and sin, as a matter of human responsibility or of divine judgment, becomes evidently diminished to an indefinite extent.

That full-blown universalism should be associated with loose morals is not, therefore, to be wondered at. Dr. Rigg affirms: "The same universalises who speak great words about the universal fatherhood of God not seldom also hold the doctrines of free love. It has been my lot to meet with some of these . . . who, in extraordinary rhapsodies, mixed up all these things, and whose practice corresponded to their principles." But the practical result of the belief is not to be measured by the mere open adherents. There are masses who readily take the license without caring to adhere at all. The theory, if true, renders adherence to it or to anything else of very little importance in the eyes of many who would accept the consequences very gladly. And it need not be doubted that the circle of influence which such views exert reaches very far beyond the number of its professed advocates. Just here, indeed, its ripest fruits will be found; man's will set free from the restraint of divine authority, openly lawless, and completely reprobate.

But those who cannot go the whole length of universalism, as, for instance, Canon Farrar, but who either attach no limit to probation, or at least prolong it beyond the present life, cannot be acquitted of ministering to the same unhappy end. The meaning of a "day of salvation" now proclaimed is lost, or at least the point of it. If it be said that only now is preached complete escape from the need of purifying fire, that to the mass of men is a very different thing, of almost infinitely less urgency; while souls praying, striving, agonizing to draw nearer to the light, may be quite unable at any rate (as they teach) to escape that. How many will think it worth while to pray and strive and agonize to so little purpose? How many will rather wait with closed ears to every warning for the fire that is at any rate to do its work, and which is but the aeonian fire of God's love! For such souls, Canon Farrar, and such as he, spite of his protest, must be content to be responsible; and if the "eternal hope" they would fain persuade themselves of be (as it surely is) a mere delusion, then are they responsible for the damnation of those who listen to and approve their teachings.

(3.) And where is atonement? where the value of Christ's blood-shedding? It is well known that universalism in its complete development denies atonement altogether; and to this denial all forms of it, however modified, necessarily tend. Mr. Jukes has no gospel; Dr. Farrar none. The "poor in spirit," the strivers after the light go down helpless to aeonian fire, because, if there be an eye to pity, there is no hand to save. And there men become their own sin-offering, for the worm and fire of Gehenna speak of that. They are saved by their own suffering, not by Christ's; and there will be souls in heaven by and by who can never join in the song of the blood-washed ones; if indeed there be any such song at all. For the many striving ever to get nearer to the light would no doubt gladly have washed their robes, but either it could not, or did not avail. Aeonian fire was their sharp and only remedy!

It is Scripturally certain that for those who count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace, "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." (Heb. 10: 27-29.) And as salvation is the fruit of this sacrifice, and aeonian fire the alternative of salvation, and its opposite, its contrast, — those who go into it must find (if salvation at all) another than by Christ's work. This Mr. Jukes virtually admits. The sinner becomes his own sin-offering; and although under the law a spotless and unblemished offering was needed, he has discovered that in the antitype God will not require that. Nor is vicariousness to be insisted on. A sinner suffering for his own sins is purified sufficiently by the process. For him, therefore, there can be no such thing as that "the Son of Man must be lifted up." (John 3: 14.) Atonement is for him unneeded.

Thus, as God is justified in doing, and certain to do, all that can be done for His creature, a purgatory is quite capable of taking the place of Christ and His work. And at any rate the mass will go to purgatory. Carry that out, and where is atonement gone? The denial of "eternal judgment" is thus the denial of the very "word of the beginning of Christ," (Heb. vi, 1, marg.) and is essentially antichristian. That some may be involved in it who are very far from meaning this is no doubt quite true, but the doctrine is Satan's lie to destroy the truth of Christ; and wherever it is fully developed it effectually does so. Witness the constant connection with unitarianism in the body that has adopted the name "Universalist" as its distinctive title.

Here let us close: it is useless to proceed further. Beloved reader, vicarious sacrifice is God's only means of blessing as surely as Scripture is true and "cannot be broken." The faith of a saved man is a faith which can say with the apostle: "Himself bare our sins in His own body on the tree." "The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." Jesus is now risen from the dead, and in testimony of the full acceptance of that work accomplished is gone into the presence and glory of God. The sins then that were laid upon Him are gone. Whose are they? Are they yours? Beloved, they are those of all, who in the consciousness of sin and helplessness, "have put their trust in Him" for their eternal salvation. Their peace is made. Their sins, borne by Him, are gone. And the coming of Jesus will put them, without question or challenge, into the blessedness of His Father's house, which He went to prepare as their abiding home. It is yours to choose, reader, whether you will have your "part" in the lake of fire with the devil and his angels, or with the "blessed and holy" of the first resurrection in the only really "Eternal City."

It may suit you, alas, to soften down the terrors of the day of wrath, but what if you should find God just in inflicting severer punishment than now your conscience, or your want of it, can allow as righteous? O, ponder those words of the very One who came to save! "Everlasting fire," "undying worm," are after all realities. They abide, the solemn figures of judgment to come. On the other hand, God's grace invites you — whoso comes to Christ, He will in no wise cast out.

Reader, if you be one of His redeemed, trifle not with that which undermines the reality of His blessed work, and with that the reality of sin, and of its judgment.

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

Appendix - Annihilationism

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Appendix

Annihilationism

1. Edward White: "Life in Christ"

Edward White's "Life in Christ" has been here and there referred to in the body of the present book. But a volume of five hundred and thirty-eight well-filled pages, by one who is considered the father of "Conditional Immortality" in England, may well demand a more extensive notice. It can be, after all, but brief, and the main points have been already dealt with; so that in much, a mere reference to this will be sufficient. Our review will be strictly supplementary.

His "first book" treats of "the nature of man, as considered under the light of science only;" so that we shall not have much to consider here.

He summarizes the evidence as to the reality of "mind" in animals, and its mortality in them; as to evolution, and man's derivation from the beasts, along with the proof from geology of his antiquity; and he concludes, —

"The sum of this argument is, that by the unassisted light of science and history we are able to reach no coherent or satisfactory conclusion as to the origin of mankind, its relation to the animal races, or its future destiny." "The phenomena are such as will consist with the hypothesis of a nature whose destiny depends on its moral qualities, and, above all, a nature which has suffered some deflection, which science may dimly divine without being able to elucidate or to remedy."

He next passes before us "the numbers and intellectual conditions of mankind," and then reviews the orthodox doctrine on" its "nature and destiny;" following with a chapter "on the possibility that Christians have erred on the doctrine of human destiny."

Into all this I do not propose to enter. Scripture, and Scripture alone, is what here concerns us. The only possible use of it all is to make us more closely and earnestly scrutinize what is there declared; and as Mr. White, with the full weight of all this pressing upon him, has made known to us the opposite conclusions to which he has come from what he allows is "supported by the general authority of nearly all Christians for at least fourteen (!) centuries," we had better reserve our space for their examination.

His last chapter, "On the immortality of the soul," we cannot, however, pass over quite in this way, for it is the foundation of all that follows, and here, spite of the caption of this "first book," he appeals to Scripture.

Here too we pass over the metaphysical arguments. A more promising one, he rightly says, —

"has, in all ages, been derived from the moral instincts of mankind." "No stress of physiological evidence on the structure and development of the brain, on the relation of the human brain to that of animals, on the dependence of thought on cerebral machinery, avails completely to silence the 'oracle of God' within the heart, which tells us that 'it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.'"

He urges that while this is moral evidence of survival or revival, it does not carry with it an equal probability of eternal survival. But he seems to forget that the fact of the survival of death removes the only objection of which we are aware to eternal survival. Death it is which raises the question, and that question is really answered.

We shall not dispute, however, that for absolute certainty we must have the voice of revelation. He is surely, however, entirely astray when he asserts, as usual with those of his school, but more boldly, "that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is never once explicitly delivered throughout the whole range of Jewish and Christian Scriptures"! That "they who kill the body cannot kill the soul" is an explicit statement. But, as we have seen, Christians, by so generally ignoring the true constitution of man, and overlooking the spirit as that which is his characteristic and essential attribute, have allowed the question to be wrongly put. Survival after death is every-where recognized in the Old Testament; and the spirit departs to God that gave it. The spirit, as spirit, is immortal: there may be a question of the soul, for the beast has soul. But God is spirit, and the God and Father of spirits. The angels too are spirits, and therefore "sons of God." And man is thus also the "offspring of God," and it is just after death that he is called a "spirit."

It is too bold, then, to affirm that "no single expression of Scripture can be pointed out in which man's natural immortality is affirmed directly or indirectly"! Boldness may in in many cases carry the day, but not in Scripture and Scripture has in this case, as I have said elsewhere (chap. 7 'Soul and Self'), moulded the very language of men. And so has it governed their thoughts, more truly than Mr. White will admit. So that there is no need of pleading divine government as working through error, or by the truth in error, in the way he pleads — truly, no doubt, but not to the purpose here.

So ends Mr. White's first book. The second will detain us longer: its subject is, "The Old Testament Doctrine on Life and Death."

To begin with, he tells us, strangely, that, "partly" because of the hardness (blindness) of their hearts, Moses was permitted to write many things imperfectly beside the old law of divorce. . . . To ask for science at his hands, or even for strict conformity to all the facts, is to forget that darkness is necessarily the swaddling-band of mind awakening from nothingness."

The account of creation he calls, thus, a "noble poem," though happily "there is no valid reason known to the writer why we should not accept the history of Adam, and Eve as a true narrative." Yet he would not "deny that there may have been previous human races upon the earth, as there had been previous animal races."

Coming to the creation of man, his first observation is, —

"that, according to Moses, man was not formed within the precincts of paradise, where grew the tree of life, but was created from the dust of the ground in the territory outside it, where animal life abounded, and where, as we now learn from fossil geology, death had reigned over all organized existence from the beginning of the creation. . . . This circumstance seems to point to the conclusion that if the creature so made enjoyed loftier prospects than those of the animals, to whose organization his own bore so strong a resemblance, this was not from the original constitution of his nature as eternal, but from super-additions of grace bestowed on a perishable being."

But it is hard to see what the geological argument adds to the physiological. Had not the dust of the garden itself, for aught we know, as many fossils in proportion to its extent as that outside of it? Had the tree of life any effect upon the garden, or upon the animal life within it? Was it not for man alone that it existed? Clearly it proclaimed that man had not immortality in himself, but in dependence, and conditionally. And whoever, with any glimmer of intelligence in Scripture, could claim any thing else? But man may be "mortal," and die, and yet not all die, as even Mr. White believes. His affinity to the beasts by one side of his nature is fully and freely acknowledged. The question is only, Is there another side?

Next, we have the objection that —

"the animation of man by the breath of God proves the immortality of his 'soul' no more than a similar asserted animation of brutes proves the immortality of their 'soul.' 'Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth. Thou takest away Thy Spirit, they die and return to their dust.' (Ps. 104.)

It is evident that Mr. White has quoted from memory here, and that his memory has deceived him. The passage reads thus: "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created," etc. (Ps. 104: 29, 30.) The difference is plain. As our author has quoted it, it might look as if God's Spirit was in the beast while living, and taking it away was their death, a doctrine worthy of Christadelphianism itself, however. Does Mr. White believe that the Spirit of God is in the beast? Scripture denies that He is even in merely natural men, and never teaches that He is their life. How could He be, then, the life of the brute?

The real quotation transposes the two sentences, affirms the sending of the Spirit as necessary indeed for creation, but only the taking away of their breath for dying. Was it the identity of these two words in the Hebrew ruach that caused the illusion in the mind of Mr. White? But he will own, surely, that "their ruach" could not be the Spirit of God. In Gen. 2, the word used, as we have seen elsewhere, is not ruach, but nishmath, the constructive form of n'shamah, of which I have elsewhere spoken. (Note at end of chapter 4 'The Spirit of Man'.)

That the phrase "living soul" does not convey the notion of an "ever-living spirit" — as Mr. White goes on to say — I fully agree; and that it is applied to the beasts, we have already seen (p. 56). I object entirely, however, to its being (as in his note, p. 90) translated "living animal," and the justification of it there by a reference to the common translation of Gen. 1: 20, is carelessness itself. "Creature that hath life" is not the translation there of "living soul." "Life," in that passage, represents "soul," and there is nothing at all answering to "living." Thus, if you interpret "living soul" by this, you would have to say, not "living creature," but "living life," which even a materialist would a little hesitate at. I by no means charge Mr. White with materialism; but his blundering on such a point is inexcusable.

His comment upon the apostle's reference to Gen. 2: 7 (in 1 Cor. 15: 44-47) is nearly that of Dr. Thomas. (p. 55.) He says, —

"Here, then, we have the authority of St. Paul for deciding that when Moses described the result of the animation of Adam by the Divine Breath, so far from designing to teach that thereby an immortal spirit was communicated to him, the object was to teach exactly the contrary, that he became a 'living creature, or animal,' neither possessed of eternal life in himself, nor capable of transmitting it. And the phrase 'living soul' is chosen, not to distinguish him from the rest of the creation, but to mark his place as a member of the animal world whose intellectual powers partake of the perishableness of their material organizations."

Here, all that favors Mr. White's view is introduced by him into the apostle's argument. It is indeed true that he does not and could not bring forward man's being a living soul to distinguish him from the rest of the creation, and it is a mistake entirely for any one to use it for this. On the other hand, it is evident that he has not before him the question of immortality at all. Contrasting, as he is, the first and the last Adams, he does quote the phrase "living soul" to put it in opposition to "a life-giving Spirit." And of course the first Adam was "neither possessed of eternal life in himself, nor capable of transmitting it." Who ever thought he was? No, he was a living soul with a soulic body. Paul does not speak of the divine inbreathing. He needed not to consider it. Man's class (though having a spirit) was not with those called spirits, as the angels are, but on a lower plane — that of a "living soul" (comp. p. 74). But it does not in the least follow that the apostle meant to class man with the beasts, or ignore what was higher in him. Rather, is it not among beings having spirit that he is affirming his place as a living soul? Scripture never levels man with the beast. "Without understanding," he is "like the beasts that perish." (Ps. 49: 20.) But he never is a beast.

Just as much — and as little — truth is there in Mr. White's statement "that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,' so far from being intended to indicate the immortal perpetuity of his nature, is specially chosen to mark his dependence on the atmosphere for his continued life." He does not realize the perfection and comprehensiveness of God's blessed Word. It is quite true that man's breath being in his nostrils marks his "present evanescence," and that in this way Isaiah appeals to it (Isa. 2: 22); but that touches not the significance that "God breathed," — that, as Elihu says, the "inspiration of the Almighty gave him life." (Job 33: 4.) Figurative as the language may be, and full of a mystery which does not yet discover itself, it should be plain that God thus communicates to man something by which he is in kinship with God as the beast never is. He "created him in His image," — possessing spirit from the "Father Of spirits." This simply and naturally interprets the expression, more concisely and fully than Mr. White's effort just afterward.

But it is striking enough that of the spirit of man, which alone "knoweth the things of a man," he knows, apparently, really nothing. A shallow sentence or two, abundantly refuted already (pp. 44-53), are all that he has to say with regard to what is the characteristic feature of man, — the very thing which constitutes him that. It is no wonder, then that he should find in him nothing but a "superior order" of, beast, and it is natural that with him, therefore, death should end all for such a being. He does not see, moreover, that the statements in the early chapters of Genesis need and find supplement and elucidation in the after-statements of Scripture, which here, as in other matters, is a progressive revelation. In this, its foundation, the book before us is essentially defective and poor, — poverty itself.

With this imperfect induction, Mr. White proceeds to consider the death threatened to Adam, in which I can find nothing but what has been already carefully considered. (chap. 18, pp. 180-186.) The "method of redemption," with which he follows it, we must reserve our examination of until it is presented in detail, and with its arguments, for the rest of his book is but the development of it. Nor need we review his chapter on the serpent, and demonology in general, in which he is, moreover, for the most part orthodox. It is singular, however, that he is not content to deal with the story of the serpent as he has done with the creation of man. Rightly enough, he connects it with the general doctrine of Scripture, and has no difficulty in going beyond the statements of Moses, whose "pen" — in this case, he can allow, — "was perhaps stayed by a superior will." But why not, then, in what lies in such near connection with it?

As to sacrifice, he sees nothing more in it than the taking away of life, — "death like that of the beasts which perish." The burning of the sin-offering outside the camp, and without an altar, has for him no significance. He levels the antitype with the type, and from the darkness of the "shadow" infers a doctrine of darkness by which to interpret the New Testament light. Here too we must reserve our judgment.

Concerning the death threatened under the law, and the Old Testament doctrine of judgment and of the life to come, I need add nothing really to what is already said. Mr. White's examination cannot be considered careful, and all his main points have been fully answered. There is much in the usual style of writers of his school, as where he takes pains to enlighten us as to the meaning of "carcasses" (p. 170), and that the death of a worm is extinction! so that (a triumph indeed of criticism,) "their worm shall not die" actually proves the non-eternity of torment!

One would think it proved only the will of the writer, and the feebleness of argument that can find comfort in help so feeble.

A chapter on the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees closes the second book. There is little to say about it, as our author adds nothing to the preceding argument. (Chaps. 11, 12.) Paul's "I am a Pharisee" he does not notice, and the Lord's "Ye have no life in yourselves" he does not understand. The doctrine of "eternal life" there is no need to dwell on here.

His third book brings us to the New Testament doctrine; and his first chapter treats of the "Incarnation of the Life; or, the Logos made flesh that man may live eternally." As to the incarnation itself, there is, of course, no dispute. As to the rest of the chapter, the only question is as to Mr. White's identification, as is inevitable by one of his school, of immortality and eternal life.

His arguments are the ordinary ones, and in the ordinary style also. He catches at the phrase "immortal soul" even to show that by the confession of those who use it, the "natural and proper sense of dying" is ceasing to exist. "An immortal soul is a soul that will not die; and to die there is taken for ceasing to exist, not for being miserable." That is true, and cheerfully admitted. It is a protest against Sadduceanism, wherever found, and therefore is expressed in corresponding language. What difficulty here? The argument is merely ad captandum, as so many from the same quarter are. The "death" of the body, — the death of the beast, — the death of the materialist, — the soul does not die; and it is no wonder if faith should affirm against sense in this respect, using the term as sense would use it. Language is not the hard mathematical unit that Mr. White would make it. There is a certain flexibility in it, without which it would scarcely meet the requirements of daily life. It strikes one that our author must have rather frequent troubles with his dictionary, if he applies at least the same keen-edged criticism to other subjects than the present.

So as to the words "destroy," "perish," and similar terms. Our author takes such words as applying to material things, and naively asks, Why not take them in the same sense when they are applied to immaterial? "A figurative sense of words," he quotes from Dean Alford, "is never admissible except when required by the context." Well, when destruction is applied to a wall and to a man, is there no difference of context? All this is a mere attempt to take the fort by coup de main, instead of honest demolition of its walls and bulwarks. It has been tried too often to succeed now, except by the grossest carelessness of its defenders.

Life is not mere existence in any language; still less is eternal life merely eternal existence. All that need be said on that point has been already said, and whether Scripture be applied to it or not, this is still the one great point in dispute. Even where the Lord says of the believer, "I will raise him up at the last day," Mr, White sees but the fact of eternal existence, as if the wicked would not be also raised. The real meaning is a very different one. It is to assure them that the full blessing was not to come, as they imagined, in the immediate future, or to men dwelling upon the earth, to which the hopes of Israel were so completely attached, but in resurrection and a life beyond.

The eating of Christ's flesh too, with him, speaks of life, and "the blood" too "is the life." Immortality is the one grand point throughout. He does not see that the flesh and blood apart speak of atonement accomplished, and its fruit to be enjoyed by faith.

We may pass over the following chapter which takes up the question of "justification of life." There is nothing in it which really affects the present argument. We are neither Pharisees, Galatians, nor Antinomians, and can meet perfectly, as it seems to us, all such errors without the help of "Conditional Immortality." We shall have to dwell, however, at some length upon the next chapter, in which the central doctrine of atonement is discussed.

"Many questions" says Mr. White, "have been discussed in relation to our Lord's death. . . . Did Christ die only in the sense in which other men die? Was His death the curse of the law? or was it some modification of that curse? Did Christ suffer a pain and misery of the same sort and of equal weight with that threatened to Adam in the day of his creation? or did He bear some commuted penalty, which, in consideration of His divine nature, was accounted a sufficient expiation?"

We shall answer these questions first, before we review the answer which Mr. White gives. The Lord was truly the substitute of His people, bore their sins, endured their penalty; not, as many say now, a "substitute for penalty," nor yet a "commuted," nor even an "equivalent" penalty, but the very penalty itself. Nothing else, if we have read the Scripture right, could have been true atonement — could have satisfied and proclaimed divine righteousness, or put away, therefore, our guilt. And why? Because atonement does not lie in so much suffering endured, a measurement of compensation, a commercial calculation. This is too often what is considered to be its essence by those who have rightly insisted upon real wrath-bearing on the cross; and this is what has been striven against by those who have denied it. The truth is far otherwise; and the statement of it at once removes a load of difficulty, and reconciles many things that seem opposed.

The penalty upon man as a sinner was not arbitrary, but necessary, the requirement of the divine nature itself. What was governmentally imposed indeed, was, and could be, nothing else than what the holiness of God required otherwise it would have been a false representation of Him who governs.

To abate this demand was impossible, then, even though a surety had to answer it. An arbitrary penalty could be, of course, as arbitrarily modified or set aside. The demand of holiness could not be, without a stain upon the holiness itself.

But it is a great mistake, and one which many beside Mr. White are committing, to look at the doom denounced on Adam as if it were in itself the whole thing. The judgment, as we see it in fact and in the doctrine of the apostle (Rom. 5: 12-21), was the judgment of a race, in the head of it. It was preliminary, not final; nor therefore the full individual judgment when it comes. And this last is, because individual, different in character according to the individual, although necessarily wrath upon all unsaved.

The eternity of the doom at last has been wrongly based by many. Judgment is eternal, not necessarily because sin as an infinite wrong must have an infinite punishment; that at least might be debated, and from Scripture could scarcely be established; but because the sinner remains a sinner, and the wrath upon him necessarily remains. There is not, and cannot be, any more open rebellion; all bow necessarily under the hand of God, and there are no more sins to suffer for; mercy has limited punishment to the reward of what was "done in the body" strictly, and punishment is in this way truly corrective — a restraint.

Thus "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment," and these are the two things needed to be borne for men. Of these, death, though necessary, is the far smaller part. Judgment, the bearing of wrath, is seen in the "outer darkness," away from the presence of God who is "Light," and in the fire of the sin-offering or of the lake of fire. On the one hand, He who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, turns away His face; on the other, He who is Light, and to whom nothing is hid, manifests Himself in wrath against the unrepentant. Yet there may be "many stripes" or "few," as the Lord has expressly said.

Death and wrath — the curse — were the two elements of the vicarious suffering of the cross, borne in reverse order: death the smaller, not the greater, — yet implying, if weighed, the other. If God sets aside thus His creatures from the place which at first He gave them, it is in judgment He has done this. "For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told." (Ps. 90: 9.) Thus it is that death is the divine stamp upon sin, and as such the law presses it; as such the Lord bears it. To suppose it all would be to miss the meaning of death itself.

Thus we shall easily, I trust, see now the defect and the excess of Mr. White's statements: —

"St. Paul says, 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' (Gal. 3: 13.) The construction of this sentence, and the quotation of one of the curses of that law (the law of Moses viewed as a repetition of God's eternal law), render it indubitable, that Christ bore the curse of the law in the sense of dissolution. For if the curse of the law, in which we are by nature 'children of wrath,' were everlasting misery, there would be an incongruity between the two parts of the apostle's statement. 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law (everlasting misery), being made a curse for us;' — not, however, that distinctive curse of the law, but a different one, — that of death by hanging on a tree.' Thus it would seem that there are two distinct curses of the law, — everlasting suffering due to the immortal soul, and death by hanging on a tree or otherwise and that, although the curse under which we lay was, according to this theory, the former, the curse which Christ bore was the latter, which notwithstanding availed to delivered us from the former."

No doubt there has been some ground given for this reproach. There has been confusion in many minds between the penalty incurred by the race now and the final individual one; and between that which Christ had to bear for our salvation and that of those finally unsaved. But we can have little difficulty in discerning between things so radically different, and thus the failure of Mr. White's argument to touch the true orthodox position. The curse of the law was not "eternal misery," and it was not, moreover, as he defines it, in this case "death by hanging on a tree or otherwise." There is no "otherwise." Could you read into the old law which the apostle quotes: "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, or dies otherwise? Clearly not. It is of the very essence of his statement that the form of the death the Lord died marked it out as a death of curse. And who that considers the strangeness of that special denunciation of one so dying, but must see that it was essentially prophetic, contemplating from the time of its utterance just that one death which has now given it significance and glorified it forever?

Not death alone, but death enshrouded with all that could make death terrible, — death in its true character for the sinner: not death as the doom of the race merely; not death as a babe or a saint might endure it, but such a death as the awful midday darkness symbolized, such as the anguished cry of agony declared it, — "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

Wrath, but not eternal wrath: who could think of that? Yet for another it would have been eternal. He with whom the fire of God could bring out nothing but sweet savor, — He who was (not disobedient, but) "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," — He who in the days of His flesh "offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him out of death," "was heard for His piety" (Heb. 5: 7, marg.), and "raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father" (Rom. 6: 4). The glory of God not only permitted this, but required it: as the sixteenth psalm expresses the faith of the blessed Offerer, "Thou wilt not abandon my soul to sheol; neither Thou wilt suffer Thine holy One to see corruption."

Not eternal wrath could there be upon a "holy one;" nor was it necessary for atonement that there should be an exact calculation of what suffering the sins of men would involve for them! Its value was otherwise; it was in the vindication of eternal righteousness in the very penalty necessitated by sin, — not arbitrarily inflicted, but necessitated. "Thou art holy" (Ps. 22: 3), proclaimed by the perfect Substitute in the very place of penalty, is satisfaction — the infinite satisfaction — for human sin.

I agree, then, with Mr. White that "it is not necessary to suppose that the Saviour endured an amount of suffering equal to that collectively deserved by the elect, or by the whole race of mankind." Scripture has no such thought. I do not, on the other hand, accept his own curious reason, that "He was a propitiation for the race, regarded as one individual — the first Adam, whose sin comprised the germ of all subsequent transgressions." Assuredly this is reasoning without the Word.

"Literal death" was not either the whole curse of the law or all that the Lord suffered — very far from it. The thought leaves out the burning of the sin-offering without the camp, which the apostle dwells upon in Heb. 13, as absolutely necessary that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, and which the place of the cross, outside the city of God, bore testimony to, externally. True, that "without shedding of blood is no remission," but only the blood of a victim so offered could be brought by the high-priest into the sanctuary for sin. This teaching leaves out, therefore, what is essential for atonement. Could it be thought that it was merely "literal death" which weighed the Lord down in agony in the garden, or made the cross the abyss of suffering that it was? It would be lowering the blessed One below the level of the thousands of His own people who have sung His praise out of the flame itself!

Mr. White, alas! knows not the cross in what it really was. He knows not either what "imparted its sacrificial efficacy to the blood of the Lamb." This he makes out to be His deity, — an error in which he is following others, no doubt, though pressing to an extreme their doctrine. But in its every form it is unscriptural. That the glorious fact of Christ's deity gives even His manhood a significance is of course true, and is brought before us even in relation to sacrifice in those offerings of birds in which the heavenly character of Him who makes atonement is set before us. Yet while this is true, and must not be overlooked or slighted, there is not the slightest reason to show from Scripture that "His deity gave a purging efficacy to the endurance of the curse of the law '" (p. 242). On the contrary, what gave effect was that endurance itself on the part of One in whom the fiery trial brought out nothing but sweet savor to God — the fragrance of perfect obedience even to such a death.

Thus "it became Him of whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." (Heb. 2: 10.) Thus indeed "it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul." Every passage which speaks of atonement and its efficacy insists upon the work as in itself efficacious, and upon the humanity, not the deity, of the Offerer. And the passage which Mr. White quotes is no exception to this: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the [an] Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works." (Heb. 9: 13.) This does not at all say that "it was the union of an Eternal Spirit' with the humanity which imparted its sacrificial efficacy to the blood of the Lamb" (p. 241). It is not of incarnation that the passage speaks, or could speak, but of the Spirit of God which rested on the Man Christ Jesus. How incongruous would be the thought of Christ's manhood offering itself to God through the Godhead! How simple that of "the Man, Christ Jesus," offering Himself through the Holy Ghost to God! And what Mr. White contends for can as little be found elsewhere as in his one proof-text.

"A difficulty" now "suggests itself" for our author, "in bar of the conclusion that Jesus Christ bore the curse of the law. It is objected that the curse denounced to our first parents was, according to us, death forever, — dissolution without hope of a resurrection; and that therefore the threatening did not take effect upon the Redeemer." He owns that this would be valid "if the Saviour had been simply human. . . . But the Saviour was divine. As man, identified with human nature, He died; and His death became a sin-offering; as God, He could not die. As man, He was 'made under the law;' as God, He was above the law laid on creatures. And therefore when the curse had taken effect upon the manhood, it was still open to the divine Inhabitant absorbing the Spirit into His own essence to restore the 'destroyed temple' from its ruins; and taking possession of it in virtue of His divinity (not legally, as a man,) to raise it up on the third day. He arose, therefore, as the divine Conqueror of death, 'God over all, blessed for evermore,' and was thus 'declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from the dead' (Rom. 1: 4)."

The last quotation is an incorrect one. Mr. White has — unwittingly, of course, but it shows great want of care in quoting Scripture — inserted "His" where it is not found. Another mistake would have been evident if he had consulted the Greek: it is literally "by resurrection of dead persons," and can scarcely apply as he has made it. I believe that the resurrection of Lazarus and others is what is spoken of; for resurrection is divine work, and the Lord speaks of this as what was to glorify the Son of God ( John 11: 4). At any rate, it is not "His resurrection," and another of these solitary proof-texts has failed Mr. White.

And what does he mean by the "divine Inhabitant absorbing the Spirit into His own essence"? That the Lord's human spirit was absorbed into Deity? I do not wish to make him responsible for so strange a doctrine, and yet I do not know what else the word can mean. I will pass it, therefore, now. That the Lord rose in another condition of life than that out of which He had passed in death is of course true; and that His death was the end judicially of the old creation, I do not doubt. That His spirit did not die, that His soul was in hades, but not left there, show clearly that, even to His manhood, death was not extinction. The "curse of the law" was not that, — did not involve it.

We may pass over the rest of Mr. White's third book. Much of it scarcely touches our present subject. Some things that do, as the Lord's preaching to the spirits in prison, have been already sufficiently examined. In much too we are glad to be able to express agreement with him. He does not, by any means, represent the wide divergence from orthodoxy found in many of the writers of the school to which he belongs. But we shall find nearer agreement with them in the fourth book, in which we come directly to the consideration of the "doctrine of future punishment." On this account, also, there will be the less to take up here.

In fact, in the whole discussion of Scripture-terms which fills the next chapter, I can find nothing that has not already been examined. They are presented after the usual manner, — what is temporal confounded with what is eternal, what is material with what is spiritual. In such massing of texts an effect is produced wholly disproportionate to their real value. The mind is dazzled and thrown off its guard; and when with this a strong appeal is made to the sensibilities at the same time, it is no wonder if many are insnared.

But how is it, it may be asked, that Scripture seems to lend itself in this way to these doctrines? Or why is it, to put the question more correctly, that these terms," death" and" destruction," are used in so many forms with reference to the future of the wicked? I answer, the object is surely to put an end to that false hope, which, even in the face of all this testimony, is so ready to assert itself, that eternity has yet a gospel for those unsaved here. No words are so effectual to dispel so dangerous an illusion as these and similar ones. True, that when applied to the present time, they are not completely so, for God can say as to Israel He says," O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help" (Hosea 13: 9). But "eternal destruction" forbids hope altogether. Again, "to him that is joined to all the living there is hope" (Ecc. 9: 4), but the dead are beyond recall. When, then, in eternity also, after the full review of the "things done in the body," the judgment of God confirms in a "second death" the sentence of the first, what hope is left? None — none whatever! Yet the second death is not extinction: it is the "lake of fire" (Rev. 20: 14, and see p. 193).

When Mr. White comes at last to examine the "principal texts supposed to teach the everlasting duration of sin and misery" it is evident that he is himself uneasy. Yet he says plainly, —

"The question is, whether these few passages, taken in the popular sense, are to give the law to the interpretation of the general current of Scripture language on future punishment or whether the plain and natural sense of this general language is to determine the force of the few disputed quotations" (p. 391).

Surely this is not the issue. The "natural sense" in Scripture is to rule every where, and, so read, the Word of God will never be found in contradiction to itself. It is already an argument that the case is gone against one when he proposes to take the testimony of the witnesses in a non-natural sense.

But the Word of God is not in the full sense that for Mr. White. It may contain it; but the Copernican astronomy has upset the Ptolemaic and the Bible one already. Modern geology has had a similar triumph in its own sphere. And when we come even to what might be considered its own peculiar field, we are told that, —

"The indefensible method of citing the books of the Bible as if some one had beheld an angel inditing them in succession; without consideration of their individual history, of the degree of confidence due to the fullness of each writer's information, of the POSITIVE MARKS OF DEFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE, OR MISCONCEPTION in some, will serve the cause of truth no longer" (p. 393).

What hope, then, of certainty at all? For how many are able critically to weigh such evidence as this? And who that has discovered the blunders of the inspired writers in things accessible to us will confide in them for revelations of things wholly beyond us? It is the Lord who asks, "If I have told you of earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"

But Mr. White has evidence: —

"We may read, for example, with general confidence the gospel of Matthew. . . . notwithstanding the omission of one sentence in the middle of Christ's last discourse on Olivet (the same discussion in which later occurs the kolasin aionion [everlasting punishment] of 25: 46) — an omission supplied by St. Luke (21: 24), 'And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.' And in consequence of that fault of St. Matthew, or his Greek translator, we shall not unduly [!] question the accuracy of the other reports of Christ's teaching in this gospel. Nevertheless, it is certain that that omission, leaving the discourse to end with the unqualified words, 'Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled' (24: 34), has thereby created one of the chief stumbling-blocks to faith in the New Testament, — it being clear that Christ's second advent did not occur in 'that generation,' but will take place at the end of those 'times of the Gentiles' our Lord's reference to which St. Matthew unwittingly omitted, and St. Luke has happily supplied."

Yet it cannot be supposed that Mr. White is ignorant that the passage in question has been otherwise explained, and he vouchsafes no reason for rejecting the explanation. He is doubtless aware that genea is given in the lexicons as "a race," as well as "a generation," and that in Phil. 2: 15 it is translated "nation," that the English word even is used in another sense than the ordinary one, as where it is said, "This is the generation of them that seek Him" (Ps. 24: 6), or, "Thou wilt preserve them from this generation forever" (Ps. 12: 7), or, "I should offend against the generation of Thy children" (Ps. 73: 15). I see no reason to doubt that the Lord spoke of the unbelievers among the Jews, who will not, in fact, pass away until the Lord appears, — "blindness in part" having happened unto Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles is come in" — that is, for this whole dispensation. In this case, there is really no difficulty whatever, the use of the term being precisely the same as in Ps. 12: 7 already quoted, and elsewhere; and there is no need for any supplementing of the text at all.

Yet upon such a slender basis as this Mr. White can say, —

"I cannot conceal my conviction that the path of duty and of wisdom in dealing with such documents as the gospels, demands this practical conclusion: — If they offer to us any statements of Christ's doctrine, by excess or defect conspicuously disagreeing with the facts, or with the plain sense of His teaching as recorded by the same or other historians, resolutely to refuse to allow such exceptional misreports or omissions to interfere with the truth which has been learned by a wider survey of the evidence."

And he goes on to announce his belief in the various degrees of inspiration of the writers of the Bible: —

"It forms no part of the present writer's belief that each contribution to the collection which we combine in one volume, and call the Bible, has been preserved from every tinge of educational thought, from every defect in statement, from every reflection of surrounding opinion or faith. The receiving mind somewhat colors perhaps every communication.

"And for our own part, we are well resolved that no isolated 'text' of any synoptic gospel shall overthrow our faith in the lessons learned from the massive records of a revelation extending from one end of man's history to the other," etc., etc.

These views are general enough, as we have already seen, among those who hold with the doctrines of our author. It is, of course, an indirect confession that if we are to hold the absolute inspiration, of Scripture, we cannot hold the views he advocates. And this we may well accept as truth. It prepares us also for the treatment which the texts to which he refers will receive at his hands.

The first of these is Matt. 25: 46; and he allows that there is in the Greek text "absolutely no various reading of any account in the most ancient manuscripts;" but, he adds, it must always be remembered that the nearly uniform testimony of antiquity is that the original of Matthew's gospel was in Hebrew, and that it is uncertain how much authority attaches to any particular expression in the Greek translation"!

This is to set aside the unanimous testimony of the ancients to the book we possess, of which Olshausen says, —

"While all the fathers of the Church relate that Matthew had written in Hebrew, yet they universally make use of the Greek text as a genuine apostolic composition, without remarking what relation the Hebrew Matthew bears to our Greek gospel. For that the earlier ecclesiastical teachers did not possess the gospel of St. Matthew in any other form than we now have it, is established."

I quote from Dr. Thomson's article in Smith's Dictionary, who adds, "The original Hebrew of which so many speak, no one of the witnesses ever saw. And so little store has the Church set upon it, that it has utterly perished." That Mr. White should set more store by it for his purpose is not hard to understand. A doubt is one of the easiest things to insinuate, one of the hardest to refute. By entertaining a doubt, man fell; and it is Satan's favorite weapon still.

In a note is suggested another doubt, "not as a basis of argument, but as a matter of interest" (!) "and those who know the weight assigned by Von Tischendorf to similar examples will be ready to allow it a certain degree of importance" — as what? as a matter of interest, or as argument? Who does not see that the argumentative force is what gives it "interest," and nothing else? — "that the two most ancient, and several more modern manuscripts of the Italic version . . . . here have distinctly, in ver. 46, These shall go away, ad ignem aeternum, into the eternal fire,' not ad supplicium aeternum, into eternal punishment."

Unfortunately, those who value Tischendorf's judgment in the matter are well aware that he did not sanction, and that no editor of the Greek Testament has sanctioned, any doubt as to the reading here. And many know also that by the end of the fourth century the Latin version was in such a confused and chaotic state as to necessitate Jerome's revision (the Vulgate). It is to the fourth century that the two manuscripts in question are referred.

After all this, Mr. White consents to the "supposition that the Greek was the original, and that Matthew wrote what we find in these expressions."

He then attempts (for the most part after the usual manner) to overthrow the natural force of the passage, in which to follow him would necessitate a recapitulation of a large proportion of the arguments already given in this book. I can find nothing that has not been fully met. Nor need I take up his comment upon Mark 3: 29, which he reads, with Tischendorf, "guilty of an eternal sin." The thought is strange to me, but I have no other objection, and found nothing upon the disputed reading.

The next passage which he considers is Mark 9: 44-50. "The original state of the text here," he says, "seems hopelessly doubtful." But on the contrary, the omission of the repetitions in vers. 44-46 leaves its teaching absolutely untouched. The forty-ninth verse is by some editors deprived of its latter clause, although the context speaks strongly for its retention. Here also the omission does not touch the doctrine. Mr. White speaks of a "mass of contradictory evidence" as to both clauses; but he does not seek to justify this, says, "it matters not, for no valid argument for immortality in sin and suffering can be drawn hence under any reading."

He relies upon two main arguments: —

"(1) The argument for endless sin and sorrow hence derived is cased upon that very understanding of the verb to die against which the argument itself is directed. The eternal suffering is supposed to be proved by the words, 'their worm dieth not.' But "dieth" here is taken in the sense of 'ceaseth to be,' — not in the sense of being miserable or being unholy."

Certainly an "unholy" worm would be a somewhat incongruous idea, and we freely concede also to Mr. White that "to die" never means "to be miserable." We concede that the death of a worm is its ceasing to be, and on this account, no doubt, teleuta is used (and not apothneskai,) as Mr. White himself observes: for this word has this as its primary sense. He seeks to rob it of its force indeed by a reference to the Hebrew of Isa. 66: 24, where "the worm's death is represented by tamuth, the same verb which describes the death of the sinner elsewhere." This, however, concludes nothing, for the Lord's words in Mark are not a mere citation of Isaiah, as he supposes. But we also allow that if he can prove that a man is no more than a worm, his death can only be what a worm's death is.

Mr. White's second argument is again from the supposed citation of Isaiah. In the Old Testament prophet, the language has reference to "carcasses," and literal worms and fire: he therefore argues that the words in Mark speak of a like physical extinction.

I have elsewhere (chap. 32: Gehenna, p. 310-314, and comp. chap. 25: pp. 250, 251,) sufficiently examined this. The truth is, that the earthly scene is typical of one beyond the earth, just as was the valley of Hinnom of the New Testament gehenna.

And now we come finally to the passages in the Apocalypse, which Mr. White is anxious to interpret by something else. He first of all adduces its "less obscure portions," chaps. 2 and 3; and in Rev. 2: 23 finds in the threatening "I will kill her children with death," "the strongest expression to denote absolute extinction." If he had compared Rev. 6: 8, he would perhaps be more doubtful. The sword and hunger and death and beasts of the earth answer, without question, to God's "four sore plagues" in Ezek. 14: 21: "the sword and the famine and the noisome beast and the pestilence," where the Septuagint as in many other places translates "pestilence" — death, thanaton. If this is the strongest expression to be found for "absolute extinction," then the cause of Conditional Immortality has assuredly no cause for triumph. Perhaps Mr. White may find more reason than he has done why "this is one of the many phrases used in Scripture . . . . which modern preachers never dream of employing in warning the wicked man."'

He then passes to the end of the book, brings in anticipatively the argument as to the lake of fire, the casting in of Death and Hades (to be "put an end to"), and the "generic likeness" between the first and second death. All this has been fully looked at (pp. 193, 322.) He next asks, "Shall the gospel [St. John] be interpreted by the key of the mystical Apocalypse? or shall the sense of the Apocalypse be fixed by the gospel?" Then a few lines dismiss Rev. 14: 10, 11, as "allowed by nearly all commentators to predict earthly and terminable judgments on the supporters of the apostasy," and he finds the fulfillment in the judgment of Babylon in the eighteenth chapter. Which (until some proof is attempted) it is sufficient to deny.

Rev. 20: 10 detains him a little longer. He says, as to the expression "forever and ever" ("to the ages of ages"), —

"There can be no doubt that the terms of duration here employed are sometimes used to denote an absolute eternity, as in relation to the nature of Deity. There is as little doubt that they are as frequently used to denote a very limited duration. The alternative meaning must be decided by the nature of the subject, or by other declarations"!!

So that "who liveth forever and ever" might mean, "who liveth for a very limited duration," only being spoken of the Lord God Almighty, we know it must here mean just what it says! "Forever and ever" is thus like an algebraical x, the symbol of an unknown quantity, which must be gathered from the company it keeps. Still, it seems strange that "who liveth forever and ever," — which must be, interpreted by the "nature of the subject," "liveth as long as He liveth" should be given as descriptive of God! Does not the feeblest mortal live as long?

No, we cannot accept this, Mr. White; and having gone carefully and conscientiously through all the passages, we feel abundantly able to deny that "for the ages of ages" means any thing less than strict eternity. Mr. White undertakes no proper examination, furnishes nothing in proof but what has been answered again and again, and, as usual, carries us lightly over a number of Scriptures in the two pages following. I can only refer my readers to the previous chapters of this book for what I have not space to review again.

2. J. H. Pettingell: The Theological Trilemma

Mr. Pettingell's book appeared about the time my own was published. It professes to be largely independent of kindred influences, "written under such circumstances of isolation as prevented all access to the volumes of his own or of any other library." "He has attempted simply to express his own sentiments, not those of other men." Yet both methods and results differ little from other writers of his school. We have but space for the review of the Scripture-arguments, and indeed of those only that are in some measure fresh, at least in the way of putting them.

A false psychology, here as elsewhere, profoundly influences his conclusions: —

"Soul denotes the mind as connected with the vital principle of Adam. It is what man has in common with other animals. It is cosmical in its relations. It looks downward to the earth. It is natural and transitory, like all earthly things. But Spirit denotes the mind or superior and supernatural vital principle of Jesus Christ. It is from above. It tends heavenward, and is indestructible. It is the spirit (Neshamah) of life, the breath of God Himself, so to speak, which He only can communicate to man. The soul he receives by ordinary generation, but the Spirit only by a new birth (John 3: 3). The possession of body and soul constitutes the natural man, but it needs the spirit to constitute him a spiritual man, and an heir of eternal life" (pp. 26, 27).

This is not new essentially, but the statement of it has some originality. "We shall scarcely understand it aright without connecting it with the after-statements of chaps. 7 and 8.

Here he tells us, looking at creation in its gradation from the lowest to the highest, we have, first, chaotic matter; next, "aggregated into masses, having the property of cohesion, which, for the want of a more general and comprehensive term, we call its life, or, the life-power in its lowest manifestation"! Then, possessing chemical properties. Then crystallizing, by "a certain formative life-force within." Then organic life, as in the plant, with "a certain blind instinct."

"(6) After this, comes matter possessing all the foregoing properties or various degrees of the life-power, with a sensitive nature super-added, which is yet a higher kind of life, with the power of thought, volition, and action. This kind of life is called in Hebrew Nephesh, which means, living soul, or creature that lives by breathing" "Last of all comes man, carrying with him all the properties, functions, and faculties of the orders beneath him, and yet endowed with something more which links him with the invisible world above. This peculiar property in man is called in the Hebrew Neshamah, a word never applied to the brutes: the Greek equivalent is Pneuma; in Latin it is Spiritus, hence our word Spirit; and the world above is called the spiritual world and this higher kind of life in man is called his spiritual life (pneumatikos life), to distinguish it from his animal (or psuchikos) life."

In the fall, Mr. Pettingell's doctrine is that the spiritual part was lost, —

"The soul of man, when it becomes entirely an animal soul by the loss of its spiritual nature, becomes perishable like the soul of all other animals. But when it is, or becomes, a spiritual soul, which can only be by union with God, it may live forever. It is here that we see the real difference between the real children of Adam by a natural birth and the children of God by a spiritual birth, and why it is that while the former most perish, the latter are immortal."

Let us examine this, then, with Scripture, so far as we can take Scripture, for our author goes far beyond. Scripture says nothing of the life-power manifested in cohesion, or in chemical combination, or even in the crystal. Nor does it speak of the instinct of the plant. This we may well pass over. We must, however, deny that nephesh (or even nephesh chayah) means "a creature that lives by breathing." We must also deny that neshamah represents the spirit of man proper, or that it is represented by the Greek pneuma. Ruach is the true word for spirit in the Hebrew, as pneuma is in the Greek, and that whether it be the Spirit or God, the angel-spirits, or the spirit of man; and this without any possibility of question. Both of these words have the lower sense of breath, and neshamah is the ruach in action, most commonly signifies "breathing" (in Greek not pneuma, but pnoe although applied in the higher sense in Prov. 20: 27.

Neshamah, moreover (necessarily in the lower sense), is applied to the beast in Gen. 7: 22, while ruach in the sense of spirit is not, save vaguely in Ecc. 3: 21, — a passage elsewhere fully examined.

Neither ruach nor pneuma speak necessarily of any product of new birth. That is indeed "spirit" in nature, as in the Lord's words to Nicodemus, but not the spirit of man, which is in every man still, and the means of all human intelligence: "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" (1 Cor. 2: 11.) Hence, if deprived of this by the fall, every unrenewed man would be an idiot. If he had lost it, the moral faculty also would be lost, and man could no more be a sinner than a beast could be one; the gospel and the day of judgment would alike have no possible significance for him.

But there are other incongruities. "The word Neshamah, translated the 'breath of life,'" says Mr. Pettingell, "means the Spirit of God, and does not belong to man even, except as it is breathed into him by God Himself." But when so breathed, as into Adam, it becomes "the true normal life of the soul of man" (p. 112) and "the spirit is the breath of God; it is an immortal principle, it cannot die."

It is the Spirit of God, then, that becomes the life of man; yet, as it would appear, it never belongs really to him. Indeed, if it did, the doctrine would be dangerously near to incarnation. Nevertheless, the whole spiritual faculty inheres in what does not properly belong to him: that is, if I understand it aright, is no real constituent part of the man himself.

Whether I am interpreting Mr. Pettingell rightly here, I can hardly say. The absurdity every way is so great that it is only a question of choosing the least. For one cannot suppose him to mean the Spirit of God became or becomes an integral part of man — that he means this. Yet it is clear all the spiritual faculties reside for him in this spirit of man which is the spirit or breath of God within him. And then the necessary consequence follows as I have put it: either there is no responsibility (for you cannot attribute it to the Spirit of God) or it is the animal soul — which the beast has just as much as man — that is responsible. Whichever horn of the dilemma our author please to choose, it is but a choice of what is evidently and equally inconceivable on every side.

His language seems to show a sense of perplexity, which he may not indeed have faced so as to realize it. For with him both soul and spirit seem to attenuate often into life of a higher or lower kind. The soul indeed he allows to be more than life — an entity that lives; but of spirit, he says that "it denotes the divine principle of life, dwelling primarily in God, and by Him communicated to the soul of man as its peculiar divine life." Now, if we take his whole doctrine, it would certainly seem as if this life were but an effect of the Spirit of God inbreathed. It is a life communicated to the soul. The soul is after all the real man: yet the soul is bestial, or (if you will), "animal." How a spiritual life can be communicated to an animal soul is a question difficult enough. But we are not called to answer it. Scripture is plain, and contradicts the whole system which is here presented to us.

When we come to consider the penalty, the same confusion follows us: —

"Against whom or what is this threatening [of death] denounced? . . . We reply, to the sinning man himself most surely. Not to his hand, nor to his feet, nor to his body, but to the whole man. 'What man holds of matter does not make up his personality. They are his, not he.' The words of threatening are, 'Thou shalt surely die.' It is not the body alone, nor the soul alone, nor any two of them together, — much less the body on the one hand and the spirit on the other, while the soul, in which the personality of man especially resides, is to live on forever. But the whole man, in the totality of his being, is to die."

Then there seems to be a spirit to die. But if it were merely a life communicated, the man would die, being dispossessed of it, but not the life. You can no more truly speak of a life dying than of a life living. The life does not possess life, but the man, or the soul, does. Dying is losing life. If the spirit lose life, it must have had it. It must be a distinct living entity.

But no, says Mr. Pettingell, the spirit is the Spirit of God, "it is the breath of God; it is an immortal principle: it cannot die" (p. 112). Certainly, if it be the Spirit of God, it cannot. But how are we to reconcile these flat contradictories? We must once more leave this to the author.

Really, there is no difficulty as to the threatening, if we will only learn from Scripture what death is. It is the quiet assumption of foundations which allows so many arguments to be built up apparently so impregnably. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return" is the divine judgment as announced to man when fallen, the divine interpretation of the doom threatened before. But the soul is not dust; nor the spirit. These, then, are not to return to dust. And when, at the end of ages of mortal existence, the dead — the wicked dead — are called up before the "great white throne," "death and hell" (or "hades") deliver up the dead which are "in them." Why "in them," if death in the same way applies to all? No; though the man dies, yet the blow falls directly upon the body only. Death gives up the body; hades, the soul.

We have long since discussed this first sentence, which is not the final one at all. The common mistake of reading into it the final one has favored the cause our author advocates. He goes on to insist, as all his party do, upon life and death being used in application to soul or spirit in the same material sense as when they apply to the body. "The words 'life' and 'death' are as applicable to them, not as figures of speech in some shadowy, tropical, unmeaning sense, but as actual verities, as to things altogether material and sensible." Here the basis of the whole doctrine and its materialism become apparent.

New birth, according to this teaching, is the reconstitution of the man by the restoration to him of the spirit which he has lost. Thus we are told clearly that the spirit in man is "the spirit of life (Neshamah), the breath of God Himself, so to speak," which "he receives only by new birth" (p. 27). And this is "indestructible and eternal."

But this is just what Adam is said to have had at the beginning: "The word Neshamah, translated the breath of life,' means the Spirit of God." "The spirit is the breath of God; it is an immortal principle; it cannot die."

According to this, it would certainly seem that, as born again, we are brought back again simply to the condition of Adam while yet unfallen, — guarded and guaranteed to us, no doubt, through the work of Him in whom we receive it. Still, in this case it seems strange to ask "by what means were they" — our first parents, if unfallen, — "to rise to the higher celestial life — that 'life and immortality' that are brought to light in the gospel?" (p. 122.)

I can find nothing more in Mr. Pettingell's book that needs examination. His discussion of the special texts for eternal punishment is especially weak and inadequate.

3. W. R. Hart: "Eternal Purpose."

Mr. Hart's book need not detain us long. He is a disciple of Mr. Morris, whose errors he reproduces, even to the rendering of "living soul" as "vigorous breather," and of basanismos (torment) as "putting to the proof." For him, also, "man, as descended from Adam, consists of a soul and body; the new man in Christ Jesus is body, soul, and spirit" (p. 108). Adam himself had "a 'pneumatic capacity,' — that is, he was so constituted as to be capable of receiving a spiritual life in addition to that psychical one with which he was created" (p. 218). He was "created in the 'lower parts of the earth.' (Ps. 139.) There his soul formed for itself a body according to the laws of gestation, and when God brought him forth out of his mother earth, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives,' the breath common to all animals." According to the penalty, "he himself, his soul and body, were to return unto the earth from whence he was taken. The personal pronoun is not used of the body alone in Scripture, though it is of the soul. The sin of Adam was willful, intelligent lawlessness, and his doom was utter death. . . . He was a type of Antichrist, according to Rom. 5: 14." (!) In the creation of Eve, "God 'took one ('rib' is a fancy of the translators) out of his side, and built it up into a woman; — that is, he took a vital germ — a soul — out of the body of Adam, and built up a material body." (pp. 221, 224.)

Of course all this is to make the soul mortal. The rendering of "living soul" by "vigorous breather" — puerile as it is — is quite needful to this hypothesis. For living, the soul must, of course, have been when it was clothing itself with a body before the breath of life was given. Nay, the body itself must have been also alive, and merely started on a new course of existence when it began to breathe, as a child does when it is born. The new idea, also, as to the creation of the woman is equally necessary. These are the two crutches of a very lame hypothesis.

But first as to the woman: "one out of his side," Mr. Hart would have it, — a singular phrase, it must be owned, and which still requires something very like "fancy" to read "soul" into it. But this is not all by any means; for I suppose that — although he is pleased to translate it as a singular "side" is really a plural, "sides." Nor can he deny either that, inasmuch as there is in Hebrew a dual number expressly to give the idea of a pair, as of arms, feet, etc., the plural here would indicate that Adam had more than two "sides"!

Besides the construction naturally means "one of" rather than "out of," the preposition being undoubtedly so used, and the want of a noun after "one" being supplied by that which follows. It would therefore read "one of his sides," if we are not to prefer what the lexicons give, and all translators probably prefer as an alternative, "one of his ribs."

Moreover, it is a new and rather startling doctrine, (which Mr. Hart seems to derive from Heb. 7: 10, but which would seem rather akin to the Darwinian theory of Pangenesis,) that men carry about in their bodies a supply of human souls as he suggests. And to "close up flesh instead of it" would seem to indicate that such souls must be sufficiently material. While that the Lord "builded" this soul into a woman does not seem to agree with any formative power of the soul to build the body, but would rather emphasize still more inert materiality.

On the whole, we prefer the "fancy" of lexicographers and translators in this case, founded as it is upon the requirements of sense and language, to the "fancy" of Mr. Hart founded upon grammatical misconstruction, a questionable doctrine, and the necessities of the cause he advocates.

Nor is the account of the creation of man more favorable to his purpose. For the "living soul" is undoubtedly that which indwells the body even of the beast. And in Gen. 1: 30 it would not do at all to translate "every thing in which there was a vigorous breather." But then, if the living soul be this indwelling principle, it is certain that man got it by the inbreathing of God, and that what was made of the dust of the ground is, in opposition to this, simply the human body.

Consequently the soul does not return to the dust, any more than it was taken out of it; and therefore when God says to man, "Dust thou art," Mr. Hart has before his eyes the very thing which he says cannot be found in Scripture. The identification of man with his body is in fact very common in Scripture, as we have long ago seen.

Every way the argument breaks down, and that most undeniably. But there is another result of such views as he enunciates. If man is but soul and body, as the beast is, and has lost even that "pneumatic capacity" which he asserts for Adam, then responsibility is lost also with this. Men are not immoral, but unmoral, just as the beast is. And this suits well with the thought of punishment which he advocates, which will leave still a balance of happiness on the side even of the lost. This he says of the angels that fell (p. 213), apparently forgetting that of one man, at any rate, the lips of truth have said, "Good were it for that man if he had not been born!" (Matt. 26: 24.)

When we come to the question of judgment, Mr. Hart boldly teaches that there will be no resurrection of the wicked. "The teaching of Holy Scripture concerning the resurrection of the body applies only to Christians," he says: "there is not a word any where which intimates that the souls of the wicked shall ever again be embodied after death" (p. 313). He could not of course say with the apostle, "I have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust" (Acts 24: 15). Nor does he believe that "the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth, . . . they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment" (John 5: 29). "The dead who are cast into the lake of fire," he says, "are disembodied souls. . . . Their souls, revived to consciousness, shall stand naked in the presence of the throne of God, and before the frown of infinite holiness shall shrink back into their original nothingness . . . while at the same time the material universe — the garment stained by sin — shall be destroyed by actual flame, to make place for the new heavens and new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness" (p. 314).

"This grand conflagration we believe to be the lake of fire, into which all evil persons and things are to be cast. Material fire cannot destroy immaterial life, but the frown of God and the material fire will act simultaneously" (p. 274). But how then can these evil spirits and lost souls be cast into this material fire? Tormented he denies it should be, as Mr. Morris does but what can the fire do with those whom it can neither torment nor destroy? He forgets also that the lake of fire receives the beast and false prophet a thousand years before, according to him, it exists.

We need not go further, however, with Mr. Hart. The rest is ground which we have trodden sufficiently already.

4. Seventh-day Adventism

The Seventh-Day Adventists are an off-shoot of the old Millerites, the followers of William Miller of Low Hampton, N. Y., well known as predicting the end of the world in 1844. They reasoned especially from Dan. 8: 13, 14 — the prophecy of two thousand three hundred days to the cleansing of the sanctuary, that, taking these days for years, they began in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, B. C. 457, and would therefore end in the year named. The sanctuary to be cleansed was the earth, and the cleansing to be by fire.

This very palpable mistake led, of course, to bitter disappointment, which resulted in the scattering of many of their adherents, and the division of the rest ultimately into three bodies, — the more orthodox body, or Messiah's church, who deny, nevertheless, the heavenly portion of Christians; another body, which engrafted annihilationism and still more fatal errors upon their adventist views; and the Seventh-Day Adventists.

These last have far outgrown the others in numbers, and claimed in the United States at the end of 1887, nearly twenty-six thousand members, with adherents in most European countries, as well as Australia, South Africa, British Honduras, and Guiana. With a tithing system, which in 1887 produced nearly $200,000, vigorous publishing houses, and an itinerant ministry, they are increasing rapidly at the present time.

Unhappily, they are annihilationists and materialists of the most pronounced kind. Mind is but the product of organization: spirit is only a form of matter, and the inevitable conclusion they do not seem to shrink from — that God is matter also. Indeed, the image of God in man is for them a bodily one. They are not Trinitarians, though holding that Christ is "the Son of the Eternal Father, the One by whom He created all things, and by whom they consist;" while the Spirit is the "representative" of God, by which His omnipresence is made good. Atonement was not upon the cross, although Christ bore there "the sins of all the world;" but He makes it in the heavenly sanctuary above; and when it is completed, He will come again. It is the last stage of this work — the cleansing of the sanctuary — which they believed began in 1844, and the time that will elapse before its completion is uncertain, so that they are now left to expect the Lord at any time.

Although the annihilation views are those with which we have especially to do here, I shall allow myself to speak briefly of their other peculiarities, which are often used as the thin end of the wedge to make way for the rest to follow.

And perhaps the first by which they claim attention is the doctrine which is connected with the name they have assumed — not peculiar, indeed, to them even among professing Christians, although strongly emphasized in their teachings — the obligation of the Jewish Sabbath.

Unhappily, they find every where the ground prepared for them. For the obligation of the seventh day is but the natural outcome of a larger doctrine, almost universally received, that the ten commandments given to Israel, the words, as distinctly declared (Ex. 34: 27, 28), of God's covenant with that people, are the rule of life for the Christian no less than for the Jew. Grant them but this, and it is the most direct and simplest argument that can be, to appeal to the law itself — that of which the Lord said, "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill," and that "one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled," — and ask, Of what day does the fourth commandment speak? of the first, or of the seventh?

Is not the change of the day the causing even a "jot or tittle" of the law to pass away? Who can say it is not? And where in your Bibles will you find the history of the change? Who changed it? and where was their authority for doing so? You can find no answer to these questions if you search your New Testament from end to end.

Where will you find your Christian Sabbath? where is the first day of the week declared to be that? where is it even commanded to be observed? And yet, is it not Scripture only by which the man of God is to be "thoroughly furnished unto all good works"?

Thus it is as easy as possible to convict the mass of the Christian profession of plain breach of their acknowledged rule. And though you may plead universal custom, the testimony of Church history, and whatever else, it will not save you from a manifest contradiction between your practice and your principles. While the Romanist says, with a smile, as he looks on, "Both you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God's Word, and the church to be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter; you follow it, denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which often makes the commandments of God of none effect.'" (Quoted from "Who changed the Sabbath?")

What, then, shall we do? Must we accept these principles, or change the practice? Scripture is clear enough: the truth is, we have not gone far enough with Scripture. If the law of the ten commandments be our rule of life indeed, there is no more to be said about it: we must not tamper with our statute-book; we must keep the seventh day.

There is, however, a text which seems suggestive; but it goes so far, that in general, Christians are afraid to entertain its suggestions — have, indeed, pretty much abandoned it as impracticable to be used in this connection. It is bold enough, no doubt, and a bold man wrote it: it is here: —

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; . . . .

"Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath; which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ" (Col. 2: 14-17).

If your obligation to keep the Sabbath has been indeed struck through, — canceled with the nails of the cross, then, Christian reader, you are no longer bound to the observance of the seventh day. Nay, if Christ has canceled the bond, you dare not surely go back to put yourself under it. You would be denying in measure the value of the cross of Christ.

But here, alas! if you take your stand here, voices on all sides will clamor against you. Let us not fear, but abide the encounter. 1 have before me now a good-sized volume upon this Sabbath-question by a prominent man in the body of which we are speaking. And this is his demurrer to such a use of the passage: —

"The object of this action is declared to be the handwriting of ordinances. The manner of its abrogation is thus stated: 1. Blotted out. 2. Nailed to the cross. 3. Taken out of the way. Its nature is shown in these words: 'Against us' and 'contrary to us.' The things contained in it were meats, drinks, holydays [Gr., "a feast-day" ], new moons, and Sabbaths. The whole is declared a shadow of good things to come; and the body which casts this shadow is of Christ. That law which was proclaimed by the voice of God, and written by His own finger upon the tables of stone, and deposited beneath the mercy-seat, was altogether unlike that system of carnal ordinances that was written by Moses in a book, and placed in the side of the ark. It would be absurd to speak of the tables of STONE as NAILED to the cross; or to speak of BLOTTING 011t what was ENGRAVED in STONE. It would be blasphemous to represent the Son of God as pouring out His blood to blot out what the finger of His Father had written. It would be to confound all the principles of morality to represent the ten commandments as contrary to man's moral nature. It would be making Christ a minister of sin to represent Him as dying to utterly destroy the moral law. Nor does that man keep truth on his side who represents the ten commandments as among the thing contained in Paul's enumeration of what was abolished. Nor a' there any excuse for those who would destroy the ten commandments with this statement of Paul; for he shows, last of all, that what was thus abrogated was a shadow of good things to come — an absurdity if applied to the moral law."*

{*"History of the Sabbath and First Day of the Week," by. J. N. Andrews; second edition, pp. 138, 139."}

We will pause here for the present, though there is more; but it will be wise, perhaps, to inquire what damage this storm has done to our defenses. Sooth to say, by all we can perceive, it has but hurtled over our heads and done no harm. What a safe shelter is the Word of God to all that will but fearlessly commit themselves to it! Mr. Andrews has done all he could: he must be acquitted, if after all the fortress was too strong for such an assault.

Let us notice first his mistake as to the "handwriting of ordinances." He imagines we must refer it to God's handwriting upon the tables of stone, and would refer it himself to the book which Moses wrote and placed in the side of the ark. But this is a double error. The word "handwriting" (cheirographon) denotes a "bond," an obligation to which one has signed one's name; and it is this bond which has been stricken through and blotted out, — effectively canceled by the Lord's death. It is this of which the apostle, speaking as a Jewish believer, says, "was against us," and "contrary to us," as an obligation is which we cannot meet. There is thus no disparagement done to the law itself, which is "holy, just, and good," and certainly no such thought intended as that it is contrary to man's moral nature! This is but a fancy, and a very strange one, of Mr. Andrews himself. Does he not remember the words of this same apostle — "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them '" (Gal. 3: 10)? Is not this a sufficient reason why the law should be, just because of its holiness, "against" sinful men?

A second mistake, in which Mr. Andrews has indeed abundant support among those who dissent very widely from his final conclusions, is in the division between a supposed "moral" and a "ceremonial law." Not a text of Scripture can be cited for such a division, and the very ten commandments to which he would appeal, as distinguished from the rest by their place upon the tables of stone, are really proof on the other side. For, the Sabbath itself, is it a moral or a positive precept? Surely, whatever moral effect may be pleaded for it — and every divine command must have been intended to have a moral effect — yet it is plain that it is the latter and not the former.

Moreover, it was to the law of the two tables that Israel set their hand. It was this that contained the terms, the words of that covenant which they had subscribed (Ex. 19: 8), and to which their obligation was. No similar obligation did they take to the rest of the law, and none such could certainly be so "against" them, so "contrary to" them, as that by which the very heart was searched out, and every lust of it forbidden (Rom. 7: 7). Thus it was this obligation of the covenant of works which confronted those who were convicted of the breach of it, and that needed to be blotted out and taken out of the way.

But with this went the whole ritual service which was founded upon it, and which in fact, if it were in one way burdensome, alone made the law tolerable by the mercy with which its rigor was abated. Thus only could there be the remission (or passing over) of the sins done aforetime (R.V.), through the forbearance of God (Rom. 3: 25). To have canceled this merciful addition, and left in force the other, could have been only to lay the basis for a gospel of despair.

The law as a whole being thus connected, it is manifest how the apostle could draw from the doctrine of the fourteenth verse the conclusion of the sixteenth. It does not follow that meat and drink, and holydays, and new moons, and Sabbaths, were all the things, or the whole class of things, to which the "ordinances" before mentioned extended; nor does he speak of all, but only of these specified things, as being "shadows of things to come."

On the other hand, when the apostle says, "Let no man judge you in respect of . . . Sabbaths," he could not have meant to except just that from which all other Sabbaths derived their name and significance. Think of such an exhortation from a Jew not being meant to convey the very thing which would have been first in every Jew's mind on hearing it! What! a Jew not guard the Sabbath from profanation! and an inspired apostle not hint even so important a restriction of his meaning! And not only so, but in all his writings, not a word — not even one — about Sabbath-observances? No, nor in any other epistle of the New Testament beside!

The Christian doctrine is thus perfectly plain and consistent. Negatively and positively taken, its consistency is apparent and conclusive. The more we are reminded of the contrary position of the Old Testament prophets from first to last, — the more we listen to their denunciation of transgressors of the law of the Sabbath, the richer the promises to those who "keep My Sabbaths from polluting them," — only the more marked becomes the difference, — only the more fundamental. It is not, it cannot be, accidental. Some radical change must have taken place with the change of dispensation — that is evident.

Nor are we left to surmise as we may. What the change is is carefully explained to us. It is not that the law is changed or destroyed or weakened. It is that "we are DEAD TO the law by the body of Christ;" and that "that we should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God" (Rom. 7: 4). And the law itself forbids, and the figure is used to enforce the prohibition, that there should be two husbands at the same time (vv. 2, 3).

Will any say it is the ceremonial law only from which we are divorced? Nay, it is the law by which we know sin; the law which is holy, just, and good; the law which says, "Thou shall not covet" (vv. 7, 12). There is no doubt permitted here at all as to whether what Mr. Andrews styles the moral law is included. It most certainly is. Yet it is to this law that we are "dead" and that not with regard to justification by it merely, but "that we should bring forth fruit to God." This to many more than the writer I am meeting may be a matter of profound astonishment. There are many, thank God, who realize the deep necessity of it, and give God continual thanks for the deliverance.*

{*Those who desire to pursue this subject may find help in a tract, "Deliverance, what is it?" issued by the publishers.}

We have had two witnesses from the Word of God; let us add yet another. In the third chapter of the second of Corinthians it will not be doubtful what is meant by "the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones." Even Mr. Andrews here can have no doubt. But it is the "ministration of death;" and notice what follows (vv. 9-13) "For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. . . . For if that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing, then, that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech; and not as Moses, who put a vail over his face, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished" ("was passing away" — R.V.).

With these unhappy Jews we must number, therefore, the seventh-day advocates. Scripture is clear enough, and the absence of one exhortation in the writings of the apostles as to Sabbath-observance agrees with the injunction to let no man judge you in respect of Sabbaths, and with the doctrine from which this springs.

But let it not be imagined that this is any conflict with the design of the Sabbath, as made for man, as undoubtedly it was — a most merciful institution. Put upon this ground, we readily accept all that can be said for it. Not only is the rest for man and beast an immense benefit physically, but spiritually the break with ordinary care and worldly business is beyond all price. No one with the least concern for his own soul, or the souls of others, would think of lightly esteeming the sanctification of the day of rest. But then this is not, it is plain, a reason for the observance of the seventh day rather than the first. It suits well with those intimations in the New Testament which invite us, by way of privilege, to the observance of this first day, to which, as recognized by Christians, the title of the Lord's day is, I doubt not, rightly given (Rev. 1: 10).

We fully concede to the Sabbatarians that there is no ground for calling it the Sabbath, and that they can find no command for its observance such as the law contains for its day. For this there is the best of reasons. When God took up Israel as His people, He separated them from the rest of the nations to Himself. The whole land, and all in it, were subject to Moses' law. Thus an ordinance of the kind controlled the whole fabric of society from the highest to the lowest: and this was necessary for its due observance. As a law, such a command could be issued only by recognized authority, and that the authority of the state. We may be thankful that we have laws to this end, but it would be an entire mistake to look for them in the New Testament.

That the Sabbath commemorates the creation of the world, and is a rest at the end of six days' labor, only makes the reason for the observance of the first day more evident. The law took men in nature, a nation, and tested them as to their ability to "do and live." But the first creation is lapsed into ruin, and Christians are a people by grace separated from the world, a "new creation," "created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Eph. 2: 10). The principle of grace is not "do and live," but "live and do." Life begins for us out of death. "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together" (vv. 4-6). Thus it was suited that a Jew under law should observe the day of creation and legal rest; but how suited that a Christian should observe the day of his Lord's resurrection, with whom he is raised, — the new beginning for him, an which he rightly calls "the Lord's day"! How suited that his keeping it should be enforced, not by legal commandments, but by the joy and privilege of it!

More might be said — much more, but we have not space for it, nor is there really need, for those who will examine what has been already stated, prayerfully and before God. My reason for saying so much is not only the importance of the subject in itself, but also because their Sabbath-doctrine and their adventism are undoubtedly the two chief elements of their successful proselytism. We must now take up briefly the latter, more connected as it is also, with the subject of our book.

They hold rightly that the personal coming of the Lord will be before the millennium. At His coming, —

"the righteous dead will be raised, the living righteous will be changed, and thus the subjects of the eternal kingdom will be made immortal." These "will ascend with their Lord to the eternal city, and reign with Him in the judgment of the wicked a thousand years, during which time the earth will be desolate." "All wicked men will be destroyed at the second advent." "At the close of the millennium, the wicked will be raised up from the dead. 'But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished' (Rev. 20: 5). They will then be destroyed. 'And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them' (20: 9). Satan and all the fallen angels and all wicked men will then be consumed by the fire of Jehovah's wrath. (Rev. 20: 10 Matt. 25: 41; 2 Peter 2: 4 Jude 6). In the general conflagration of that time, the old earth and atmospheric heaven will pass away from the face of Him that sitteth on the great white throne." "From the old earth, melted and cleansed from sin and sinners, will come forth, moulded by the hand of the great Restorer, the new earth, free from all the marks of the curse.'" It is at the close of the thousand years of Rev. 20, after the final destruction of all God's enemies, that the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever."*

{*"Bible Adventism," by Elder James White, pp. 82-86.}

A thousand years' reign for the saints over a desolate earth is certainly a view as to the prophetic future somewhat startling, as it is undoubtedly new. Of course, to make room for the promises to Israel, must be "spiritualized" and applied to the eternal state; while the lake of fire lasts at most through the millennium (?), and the "little season" at its close. The "forever and ever" does not trouble these powerful reasoners: it can be compressed into as short a time as may be necessary, according to the simple rule which another writer* explains thus: —

{* Uriah Smith, in "Man's Nature and Destiny," p. 273.}

[These words] "denote duration or continuation of time, the length of that duration being determined by the nature of the objects to which they are applied. When applied to things, which we know from other declarations of the Scriptures are to have no end, they signify an eternity of being; but when applied to things which are to end, they are correspondingly limited in their meaning."

That is, they tell us God lives eternally, when we know from other sources that He does. And on the other hand, by the same rule you may say, without deception, that a match will burn for ages of ages, if you know quite well that it is in its nature to be consumed in a minute! Admirable perspicuity of language which will thus positively assure you of what you know already, and pledges itself to nothing about any thing you don't know! The gnat's life and the angel's measured by the same "forever"!

But we are familiar with views like these already, and gladly refer our readers to the past discussion of them (chap. 27, pp. 265-267; chap. 34, pp. 343, 344) for details. But the lake of fire is not on earth at all, and the judgment to it does not take place till the earth and the heavens flee away; only just before this is Satan cast in, and then, with his two associates, adjudged to torment for the ages of ages.

To confound the multitudes who go up (deceived by Satan) against the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and who are destroyed by fire, with the whole company of the wicked dead raised up for judgment afterward, is an egregious blunder, springing from the notion of a desolate millennial earth. Scripture carefully distinguishes them. The millennial earth is not desolate, any more than its inhabitants are all converted. (Ps. 18: 43-45; Isa. 66: 15-21; Zech. 14.) Think of the dead raised for judgment attacking the city of God!

The truth is, that until the harvest is ripe, the sickle is not put in. During the millennial reign of righteousness, those still in heart unchanged are yet not manifested by external act. For this purpose Satan is loosed, that they may be. They break out in open rebellion, and judgment falls on them. This is not the violent effort of escaped convicts; nor is the judgment the careful discriminative one of the great white throne. We have only to read the Scripture without theories to uphold, and all is simple.

We must spend more time upon what is (along with that of a desolate millennium) thelr real peculiarity in doctrine the cleansing of the sanctuary.

Their doctrine as to this is professedly based upon the eighth chapter of Daniel, and it will be well, therefore, first of all, ourselves to look at this, and see what Daniel really says. We have not as yet to apply or interpret, however, but to lay the ground-work only for true interpretation.

The points which concern us can be briefly stated. The vision has to do with the Grecian power in one of the kingdoms into which it was subdivided, in its relation to Israel in the latter times. So it is expressly declared.

1. The history of the Grecian power under Alexander is given, the overthrow of the Persians, the division of the kingdom into four; out of one of which finally a king arises, fierce, crafty, and mighty, but not by his own power, and he destroys wonderfully, even the mighty and the holy people. Finally he stands up against the Prince of princes, and then is broken without hand.

In the vision itself, of which this is the inspired interpretation, it is said, "And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great even to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped on them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host; and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away; and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practiced and prospered."

2. As to the time, it is asked, "How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and host to be trodden underfoot?" And it is answered, "Unto two thousand three hundred days," literally, "evening-mornings;" "then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."

Does this time measure the whole time of the kingdoms spoken of? Of course, two thousand three hundred days, if it be literally this, could not; and "evening-mornings" — taken from the Jewish reckoning of days — seems literal enough.

Is, then, the treading down of the sanctuary looked at as lasting throughout the time of these kingdoms? or only during the prevalence of the last "little horn"? Surely the answer must be the latter; and known history confirms it. Neither the Persian empire nor Alexander trod down the sanctuary, nor even oppressed the Jews.

Moreover, it is distinctly stated, "the vision belongeth to the time of the end" (v. 17, R.V.); and "I will make thee know what shall be in the latter time of the indignation; for it belongeth unto the appointed time of the end." (v. 19, R.V.) Plainly, not the whole vision does, but the special part about which inquiry is made, and for the elucidation of which the vision is given.

3. "What is the sanctuary here spoken of? It is Israel's. The "indignation" is God's anger against them, which closes with their restoration and blessing, as seen here. And so it is prophesied of Israel, in the day when her scattered tribes shall be reunited — the stick of Ephraim with the stick of Judah, — "Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord that sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezek. 37: 26-28). The only sanctuary of God that could be trodden underfoot was that in Israel, and thus shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

But this destroys the Adventist doctrine, root and branch. For them, the two thousand three hundred days are years; they last from the days of the Persian empire till 1844; they end with the cleansing of a heavenly sanctuary, not an earthly: which cleansing is supposed, therefore, now to be going on, and to end with the appearing of the Lord at a time uncertain. I shall briefly follow Mr. White's argument.

1. The little horn is the Roman power: it "had made Macedon, one of the four horns of the Grecian goat, a part of itself, B.C. 168, about seven years before its first connection with the people of God. So that Rome could as truly be said to be 'out of one of them' as the ten horns of the fourth beast of the seventh chapter could be said to come out of that beast, when they were ten kingdoms set up by the conquerors of Rome."

That is, the mistakes of commentators are to justify more mistakes. The ten horns of the Roman empire are not ten kingdoms born of her destruction; and the Roman empire could not ever be a horn of the Grecian power which she overthrew. How differently is the contest between Persia and Greece presented in this very prophecy! What could be the object supposed for making one empire grow thus out of another?

Moreover, "a little horn" among the other horns would imply one smaller than the rest; but Rome, when it conquered Macedon, was already mistress of Italy and of the Mediterranean Sea; Carthage had been conquered, though not yet destroyed; and the power of Antiochus broken on the field of Magnesia. There was no power in the world so strong as that of Rome at the very time when Mr. White speaks of it as a "little horn."

But he says, "It was to cast down some of the host and of the stars. This is predicted respecting the dragon (Rev. 12: 3, 4). All admit that the dragon is Rome." Not quite. Scripture does not: the dragon it interprets as the old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan;" and it tells us that twice over, that there may be no mistake (Rev. 12: 9; Rev. 20: 2). The resemblance fails to prove the point.

But the strangest mistake is where it is contended that "the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation represent Rome in its pagan and papal forms"!! "Sacrifice" is not in the original, and Mr. White reads "the daily desolation." "The agents by which the sanctuary and host are trodden underfoot are the daily, or continual, desolation, and the transgression, or the abomination of desolation (Dan. 8: 13; Dan. 11: 31; Dan. 12: 11). These two desolations, as we have already seen, are paganism and papacy."

For "seen" we should read "said," I suppose, for Mr. White has given no proof, and gives none. Keil says, "Hattamid" — "the daily," or rather "continual," — "is every thing in the worship of God which is not used merely temporarily, but is permanent, as the daily sacrifice, the setting forth of the show-bread, and the like. The limitation of it to the daily morning and evening sacrifice in the writings of the Rabbis is unknown in the Old Testament. The word much rather comprehends all that is of permanent use in the holy services of divine worship" (Comm. on Daniel, p. 298).

Look at the passages: —

"By him the daily was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down." This is a marginal reading of the Hebrew. That of the text is preferred generally, as now in the R.V," From Him" (the Prince of the host) "it" (the little horn) "took away the daily."

Did Rome take away paganism from the Prince of the host?

Again, —

"And a host was given [him] against the daily by reason of transgression." Or take it, if you will, as the R.V. — "And the host was given over to it, together with the continual [burnt-offering], through transgression." Was the host given over to Rome, along with paganism, through transgression?

It seems quite needless to pursue this further, or I should have equally to question the application of "the transgression of desolation" to papal Rome.

On the other hand, it should be quite plain that the removal of the daily sacrifice implies this transgression of desolation in which both sanctuary and host are trodden underfoot.

Now, as to the time. Mr. White argues that two thousand three hundred literal days could not cover the duration of one of these kingdoms, much less of the three; therefore they must be years. But we have seen they do not profess to give the duration of even one of the kingdoms, but of the treading down of the sanctuary, as is plainly said. Then the argument is all the other way: days seem more suited than years.

Nor is it true that the time alone is what the prophet did not understand. He says it was the vision (v. 27). Nor is the vision which he says he understood in Dan. 10: 1 this vision, plainly, but the one that follows in Dan. 11. Nor again, if Daniel understood all the vision of the eighth chapter except the time, could he possibly have supposed, as Mr. White says he did, that now the two thousand three hundred days were just accomplished? How had all that was predicted come to pass in the meantime?

That the prophecies of the two chapters are connected is surely true; for all these prophecies are so; but it is certainly not as to the time that Dan. 9 throws light on Dan. 8, — for this plain reason, that the times do not coincide in the way claimed at all. The seventy weeks are not "cut off" from the two thousand three hundred days, as they are evidently weeks of years, and therefore a much longer period. They begin with the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, and therefore do not define the time of treading down.

"Cut off" may be right enough as the meaning of the word translated "determined," although the latter meaning is preferred by the mass, and allowed by every one: so that to build so large an inference on a doubt cannot be to build solidly. Yet "cut off" can have the very simple meaning of "cut off from ordinary time" — as set apart for a divine purpose. The application is therefore doubly insecure. But when, in addition to this, the seventy weeks are clearly not the time appointed "to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot," plainly the whole scheme of prophetic interpretation we are considering collapses utterly.

We might refuse, then, to go further, but the view as to the sanctuary and its cleansing is one so affecting their position, and in itself so important, that it will be well to devote a brief space to it.

The sanctuary with them is the heavenly one, typified by Israel's earthly one; its cleansing answers to the work done in the holiest on the day of atonement once a year.

"In the first apartment stood the priests in a continual course of ministration for the people. He that had sinned . . . laid his hand upon the head of the victim, to denote that his sin was transferred to it. Then the victim was slain on account of that transgression, and his blood, bearing that sin and guilt, was carried into the sanctuary. . . . Thus through the year this ministration went forward, the sins of the people being transferred from themselves to the victims offered in sacrifice, and through the blood of the sacrifices TRANSFERRED TO THE SANCTUARY ITSELF.

"On the tenth day of the seventh month, the ministration was changed from the holy . . . to the most holy place. . . . In the most holy place, blood was offered for the sins of the people, to make an atonement for them. The two holy places of the sanctuary, and also the altar of incense, were on this day cleansed from the sins of the people, which had been borne into the sanctuary by means of the blood of the sin-offering.

"The high-priest having by blood removed the sins of the people from the sanctuary, bears them to the door of the tabernacle where the scape-goat stands . . . and puts them upon the head of the goat and sends them away."

Such is the type. Now the antitype: —

"The sins of the world were laid upon the Lord Jesus, and He died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The blood of the Lamb of God, which was shed for our transgressions of God's law, is that by which our High-Priest enters the heavenly sanctuary, and which, as our Advocate, He offers for us in the sanctuary. His great work . . . He here carries forward by pleading the cause of penitent sinners, and presenting for them His blood. . . . As the sin of him who came to God through the offering of blood by the high- priest was, through the blood, transferred to the sanctuary itself, so it is in the substance.

"The ministration in the holiest of all in the heavenly sanctuary begins with the termination of the two thousand three hundred days. Then our High-Priest enters the holiest, to cleanse the sanctuary. This work, as presented in the type, was for the twofold purpose of the forgiveness of iniquity and the cleansing of the sanctuary. And this great work our Lord accomplishes with His own blood; whether by the actual presentation of it, or by virtue of its merits."

This accomplished, the Lord comes out of heaven. Atonement is now completed, and the work of the Priest finished. At His appearing, the sins of the pardoned "are borne away from the sanctuary and host forever, and rest upon the head of their author, the devil. The azazel, or antitypical scape-goat, will then have received the sins of those who have been pardoned in the sanctuary, and in the lake of fire he will suffer for the sins which he has instigated. . . . The cases of all men will then be forever fixed."

This, then, is the cleansing of the sanctuary. It is certain, however, that the sanctuary in Dan. 8 is the Jewish one, which is not wholly set aside, as they imagine, but is to be, as we have seen, and the sure word of God teaches, in the midst of Israel yet. And the apostle assures us (Rom. 9: 3, 4) that to these, his "kindred according to the flesh" — no spiritual Israel, therefore — the [Old Testament] "promises" belong. This, then, is as sure as can be. No heavenly sanctuary, spite of all assertions, could be "trodden underfoot," and the prophecy shows us the one who is to do this as to the earthly one. When the Son of God is spoken of in this way (Heb. 10: 29), He is looked at as in His humiliation upon earth.

But now, as to the types of atonement. It is not the fact that atonement was only made in the holiest of all. The blood was given them upon the altar to make atonement for their souls (Lev. 17: 11). The burnt-offering, the blood of which never went into the sanctuary at all, atoned (Lev. 1: 4). So did the ordinary sin-offerings, which did not go in. (Lev. 4, 5.) Only when there was the sin of the high-priest, or of the whole congregation, did it go in (Lev. 4: 7, 18); cases which were not ordinary, but special and exceptional. Atonement ordinarily involved, then, no entrance of the blood into what the apostle calls (Heb. 9: 2 ) "the first tabernacle" at all. The basis of the whole theory is therefore wanting.

How strange, too, to be told that this atoning blood in the first tabernacle could only defile it! The sins, uncanceled, were carried in with it there. They were but transferred for adjudication, as it seems, to another court! Not so speak the types. "The priest shall make atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them" (Lev. 4: 20); "and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him (Lev. 4: 26). So constantly: the sins were forgiven and gone; the blood shed did its work; and that where there was no carrying it into the holy place at all. Hence the bottom of these assertions has dropped out.

Where in Scripture is there the least word about the blood carrying in the sins for which it was shed? There is none. On the day of atonement it is said to be "for the tabernacle of the congregation that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness" (Lev. 16: 16). It is not that the uncleanness is in the midst of the tabernacle, but the tabernacle in the midst of it — quite a different thought.

The blood cleanses, — atones, — not defiles; and that where-ever it was applied, and not in the sanctuary alone. If it brought sin into the holy place, how could it remove it? Can that which defiles cleanse? Surely not. But then there is no atonement for the blood at all.

Now in the antitype, will they dare to say that the precious blood of Christ has defiled the heavenly places? That is the question which they will not plainly put. Will they face it? And then, if it be so (though it were blasphemy to say so), how could the same blood cleanse?

Again, the veil is rent, and the holy and the holiest are now one. There is no "first tabernacle" now, as it is a great point of the apostle in the Hebrews to prove (Heb. 9: 8; Heb. 10: 19, 20), and has been none all through the dispensation. On the day of atonement the high-priest did not perform a first service in the outer sanctuary and then go in to the inner. His work was in the inner, and the service in the outer was that of the ordinary priests, and not specifically that of the high-priest at all. Thus the whole ground for these evil doctrines breaks down once more.

As to the scape-goat, the foolish dream about Satan being the scape-goat has been adopted from others, but foolish enough it is, The two goats are but one sin-offering (Lev. 16: 5), and of the scape-goat it is said expressly, "to make an atonement with him." (v. 10.) The principle in it is what is quoted by the apostle and applied to us already (Heb. 10: 17), "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." What is alleged in this matter is as wrong as all the rest.

In a word, every peculiar feature of their system is false, — Sabbath-keeping, prophetic system, dates, sanctuary-cleansing, atonement, desolate millennium, annihilation doctrines — all. It is a thoroughly evil system, with neither a true God nor a true sacrifice, nor therefore a true salvation for its adherents. Christians may no doubt be entangled with it, but the system is unchristian and antichristian.

I know of nothing in their annihilation views that requires fresh comment, except, perhaps, one point, which in the former part of this book I had left unnoticed. I take it up now for its own sake, not because there is any thing of importance as to it in the book before me already cited, in which one chapter is devoted to it.*

{*"Man's Nature and Destiny," chap. 3.}

What is the "image of God" in which man was created? That it was immortality, I leave to Mr. Smith to deal with as he lists. As it has never been my contention, I am not concerned with it, and as no error helps the truth, if it be a popular argument, let it be demolished, and the truth will gain.

But Mr. Smith's own view is worse. If the other is false, this is dishonoring to God: it is that it consists in bodily likeness. "An image must be something that is visible to the eye," he says. "Even an image formed in the mind must be conceived of as having some sort of outward shape or form. In this sense, of having outward form, the word is used in each of the thirty-one times of its occurrence in the Old Testament."

Now, if an "image" must be something that is visible to the eye, then we need not go to the Hebrew or Greek at all. But what, then, about "Renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him"? There is no need to speak of eikon, as Mr. Smith does. Is "knowledge" something that is visible to the eye? He will hardly say so. And there is another thing. The apostle is, without doubt, thinking here of the original "image of God" in which man had been created. Was he thinking of — do his words suggest — a material image? There can be but one answer.

But Adam begat a son in his own likeness — "after his image;" and "no one would think of referring this to any thing but a physical resemblance"! I suppose none but materialists count for any body with Mr. Smith; so that it is useless to protest; nevertheless, I am not convinced, and should deny it. The fact of the reference to the "image of God," in which man was created, is enough to make it more than questionable that it is merely physical.

"A spirit, or spiritual being, as God is in the highest sense," says Mr. Smith further, "so far from not having a bodily form, MUST possess it, as the instrumentality for the manifestation of his powers." Again it is hard to answer one who speaks evidently from some superior knowledge.

Merely common sense would imagine that it would be as easy for a spiritual being to act upon (or produce) the matter of the world without hands, as to make the hands first by which to act. He refers us to 1 Cor. 15: 44, — "There is a spiritual body." Truly. What then?

Again, we are told of Moses and the elders having seen God. In some true sense, no doubt they did; but Mr. Smith is again unfortunate in forgetting what the former says with reference to this: "Take ye, therefore, good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female," etc. Had they only known that man was the bodily image of God! But did not Moses know it? What becomes, then, of Mr. Smith's argument, whether he did or whether he did not?

So collapses the bodily image. But in what, then, did the image of God consist? Notice that man was created in it. It must be something, then, in man himself, from which his dominion over the other creatures resulted indeed, but his lordship over these was not the image.

Notice, again, that it is only the third time that the word "created" appears in the narrative. At first God "created" the heavens and the earth. Then you have it no more till, on the fourth day, "God 'created' every living soul that moveth." (Gen. 1: 21, Heb.) And then again, "God 'created' man in His own image."

Now, if creation speak of a production out of nothing, or even if it speak of the production of quite a new thing merely, — here are three steps, plainly: 1. The creation of material things; then of a creature with soul; and then, finally, of one not only with soul but also SPIRIT. And here the image of God is that in which he is created: the new element of being characterizes him as that; he is spirit, the image of Him who is spirit!

And mark, that the dominion over nature is found thus in man's own constitution. In him, the spirit governs soul and matter. He is, as he has been often styled, a microcosm — a little world; but he is more: he is to this world the free and moral governor, representative of God Himself in the sphere of the universe. This, I believe, is what is implied in his being created in the image of God.

Appendix - Annihilo–Restorationism

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Appendix

Annihilo–Restorationism

1. L. C. Baker: The Fire of God's Anger.

Simple annihilationism has probably passed through all the forms of which it is capable. It varies but in proportion to the materialism on which it is engrafted, or from which it springs. Of these, too, the most materialistic are those that prevail most. They are the most self-consistent if the most removed from Christianity; and thus the tendency here is rapidly downward.

Restorationism, on the other hand, verges naturally to the opposite pole of a hyperspiritualism. Resurrection, upon which all is based for annihilationism, here tends to be slighted and displaced, if not, as in Swedenborgianism, denied altogether. Judgment upon sin, too, is here pared down to the minimum, and atonement loses all true significance. Quite true it is that Universalism began by insisting upon its efficacy for all, and that there are doubtless some who still occupy such a ground. But its untenableness soon makes itself felt, and Unitarianism is more rapidly reached by this road than by the former one.

It is no wonder, then, that a middle path should be sought between these two — a path which, in the nature of things, can only be found in affirming both of them with necessary limitations on either side. Mr. Henry Dunn was, as we have seen, in modern times, the leader in this direction. He has been since followed by others, who have perfected his scheme after their own fashion; and of these, the first and most respectable by far is Mr. L. C. Baker, till lately a presbyterian minister, but who, on account of his persistent advocacy of his views, has been disowned by his denomination, In defense of them, he publishes a monthly magazine, "Words of Reconciliation," and has embodied them in the book which we are now to examine.

The fundamental principles of his teaching are given in the preface, in which he insists upon "two fatal misconceptions" in the general faith of the Church.

"1. She has interpreted the Scripture-teaching concerning final judgment as relating chiefly to a remote assize to be held after a general resurrection of the dead. Whereas, Jesus was careful to teach His disciples that He would enter upon His office as Judge of the world before that generation passed away.

"2. She has therefore misconceived the place and meaning of resurrection in the divine economy, as a gracious provision for another life to those who must suffer the wages of sin under that judgment! That which was meant to be a boon, the purchase of a ransom given for all, has been perverted into an untold curse to all who have died unsaved in this life, — the prelude to an aggravated retribution and endless despair. . . .

"This mistake has largely arisen from the attempt to fix a meaning upon the words of Christ concerning the wicked without a previous study of the Old Testament conceptions out of which this teaching grew, and upon which it was based."

The exaction of penalty in the intermediate state, and a redemptive resurrection, are the two pillars, therefore, of Mr. Baker's position. We shall reserve our remarks until we come to his arguments, merely desiring, by this anticipative statement (as he himself does), that we should be able to see from the beginning whither these are tending.

In beginning, then, with the Old Testament-teaching, the "song of Moses" (Deut. 32) is that in which he finds the first intimation of these truths. I shall concentrate in one his scattered comments, omitting nothing that touch es the subject in hand, that we may have before us at once the whole argument.

The song "asserts the wickedness and ingratitude of the chosen people, and recounts their mercies and apostasies. Observe here (v. 17) that, behind the forms and forces of nature worshipped as gods, there were demoniac powers, the real recipients of this homage. ' They sacrificed unto devils.'

"It declares the Lord's abhorrence of their sins, their consequent rejection, and the calling out from the Gentiles of a new people (vv. 19-21). Their rejection, however, would not be final.

"It affirms that the Lord's anger, which must burn against them on account of their sins, must burn also to the final destruction of this world-system under which this depravity in His people had been developed. 'For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains' (v. 22). Here occurs the first mention in Scripture of the fire of hell. It is represented as burning down to the regions of the dead, and to the very foundations of this natural order, as if it were the source of that corruption which had come upon ills people.

"Here we meet with a principle of the divine judgments which cannot be overestimated: that which views the present cosmos, or natural system, as sharing in the responsibility for man's evil nature. As subject to vanity, and in bondage to corruption, it has put its yoke on its highest creature, and it is therefore bound over to the consuming fire of God's judgments. It may seem to us irrational that accountability should attach in any way to the material system. But if the whole system is pervaded by living forces, — if it is the visible representative of things invisible, which, according to Col. 1: 14, are living powers, it will not appear so strange that the searching fire of God's anger should find evil entrenched at its very foundations, and that this present order and the powers that rule in it, with the devil, who is declared to be its prince (John 12: 31), should be involved in a common judgment. . . .

"The term 'fire' stands for the concentrated energy of the dissolving forces of nature. It is a rapid consumer of created forms. But this devouring energy operates in slower ways. It is more or less resisted, and for a while baffled. And yet Scripture groups all the forms in which human lives are blighted and destroyed under this one head, and refers them to one agency. 'Our God is a consuming fire.' And so we read vers. 23-25. . . ."

In vers. 25-27, the song "brings to view an enemy and certain adversaries who have well-nigh brought God's people to ruin, and who would have made an utter end of them, but whom Jehovah, for the love He bears them, and for the honor of His name, shall baffle and defeat. . . .

"The mystery of God's people as thus enthralled is next referred to. And the 'times' during which this 'mystery of iniquity' should work, with the final issues of it, are declared to be in His own power (v. 34). . . . He will judge His people, and turn toward them after they have been brought low and have become convinced that the false gods can bring no help (vv. 36-38).

"And so the Lord proclaims Himself as their only Saviour, in that He alone is Lord of life and of death. His judgments must fall upon His people unto death. They must be handed over to the great Destroyer. And one generation after another must go down as captives unto His gloomy realms. In this, the triumph of their enemy over them seemed complete and irreversible. But nothing is too hard for a God who can heal as well as wound, who can make alive as well as kill, and out of whose hands none can fall (v. 39). Here we have an early intimation of that grand truth which runs through the Bible and underlies its whole redemptive system. Our redeeming God can make alive from death. He is the God of resurrection. So that not even death, which holds of right His people captive, can annul or defeat His gracious designs toward them.

"Hence this song passes on to declare His sworn purpose to defeat and destroy all their enemies. . . . And so we have in grand outline a series of revenges upon all their enemies, human and diabolic.

"The English version translates the last clause of this verse (v. 42) 'from the beginning of revenges on the enemy.' The Septuagint give the sense as above," — the "head or chief of the princes of the enemy." "And this is the meaning assigned to the word peraoth by Gesenius. . . .

"And so the song closes by calling upon the nations to join with Israel in their joy over this coming deliverance. That a triumph over other than mere human enemies of His people is referred to is manifest from the fact that the nations are summoned to rejoice with them."

I have quoted probably at superfluous length, emphasizing some portions which contain the stress of Mr. Baker's argument. After all, my readers may have difficulty in finding it. What is essential is simply supplied by himself. At least, he is like Mr. Dunn before him, listening for prophetic "whispers," which it is hard for other men to perceive.

It is plain that the gist of his argument is that the generations of Israel go down under God's judgment to death, are judged there, and delivered by the mercy of God in a resurrection from the dead, the nations sharing in their blessing. As to the latter, if they are to be partakers in resurrection, it is only indicated in their rejoicing with His people; and this will scarcely do, for it is His mercy to these simply that they are called to rejoice in (v. 43). But as to Israel also, where is the resurrection of their generations of the dead declared? Why, no where but in this, that God says of Himself, "I kill and I make alive"! and this where He is not speaking of mercy, but challenging any to deliver out of His hand! That the power of death and of life is in His hands, He declares, but where His purpose of bringing up in a resurrection of blessing the lost generations of the impenitent dead?

Look back to the chapters immediately preceding this: you will find the history of their rebellions and of their punishment predicted, and along with this God's mercy in their final deliverance; but it is a very different picture from that which Mr. Baker draws for us. "And it shall come to pass, when all these things shall come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind" — not among the dead, but — "among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart and with all thy soul; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee" (chap. 30: 1-3).

Thus it is plain why the song, in which these prophecies culminate, says nothing of the impenitent dead, or of the dead at all. It is the nation as such that it is occupied with, and out of this the dead generations are dropped forever.

But is it not said that the fire of God's wrath shall burn to the lowest hell, and consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains? Yes, certainly; but it is His wrath that does this, and there is no hint of mercy in the passage. Nor is it in connection with the enemies that this is threatened, but in connection with Israel themselves. And, while the earth will in the end be thus burned up, this is in Scripture rather associated with the judgment of ungodly men (2 Peter 3: 7) than of angels. Its subjection to vanity is on account of its subjection to man (Rom. 8: 20), not of man to it, and thus it is delivered at the manifestation of the sons of God.

Moreover, "the enemy" throughout is a generic term, and there is not the least reason for applying it to Satan; and if the forty-second verse be translated, as many prefer, "the head of the princes of the enemy," it would still seem by the context that an earthly leader is spoken of, his fall showing the completeness of the deliverance.

In fact, there is not an atom of evidence for what Mr. Baker finds in this wondrous song. His proofs are read into it, not taken out of it. His wish is father to his thought. And this is the way in which Scripture is constantly perverted.

"It remains for us," he says, "now to see how these principles give tone to all subsequent psalm and prophecy." He then goes on to assure us that "death, bondage in sheol, is viewed in the Old Testament as a final vindication of Jehovah's righteousness, the supreme expression of His anger against sin." The idea of death, too, is "cessation of being." "But before resurrection, the dead, in the Hebrew conception, were not men who had passed into another form of being. They were dead; not absolutely extinct; otherwise they could not be resurrected. But their being was only 'the miserable consciousness of not being.' . . . It was not, therefore, judgment after death that men were taught to fear, but judgment in death."

Scripture, however, says, "It is appointed unto men once to die, and AFTER death the judgment" (Heb. 9: 27).

He next, from the fact of God's judgments being disciplinary and restorative this side the grave, raises the inquiry whether this principle of divine dealing does not reach beyond this sphere of temporal suffering. He takes from Moses' song the idea of a deliverance from death. "And therefore the frequent promises of God to hear the cry of His imprisoned people, to loose their bonds, to plead their cause against the enemy (Micah 7: 8, 9), and to bring the prisoners out of the pit wherein there is no water (Zech. 9: 11) must reach over to and include their bondage in death."

In neither of these cases is there the least warrant for such a view. But he says, "The words of Moses (Deut 30: 4) seem to imply precisely this, — 'If any of thine be driven out into the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee.'" These "outmost parts of heaven" "imply precisely" sheol, or hades, then, for Mr. Baker; but unfortunately for his view, the Medes who destroy the land of Babylon "come from a far country, from the end of heaven" (Isa. 13: 5), exactly the same expression in the original. And in Deut. 4: 32, the people are bidden to "ask of the days that are past, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side (or end) of heaven to the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing." Mr. Baker is himself, therefore, not precise enough here. In fact, he is very careless. Nor will the quotation of Isa. 57: 16 avail him more, as undoubtedly the Lord is speaking of His dealings with men on earth.

The principle he is contending for is surely not to be established by such methods as these.

The next chapter is devoted to considering the "redemptive" character of the Lord's judgment of His people as to which we have little to object, and none at all to the principle. Nor need it be contested that resurrection has the same character for the saint. On the other hand, to make the deliverance from Egypt "a primal type of Jehovah's redemption from sheol" is only to show how far one's prepossessions may destroy one's sobriety. Is it so the apostle uses this grand type in Corinthians? or does the wilderness-journey follow resurrection?

The same prepossession is shown when Mr. Baker would substitute the marginal "sons of death" for "those appointed to die," in Ps. 79: 11, Ps. 102: 20, and would here also read in a bringing up of the dead. Such assertions should be rebuked, for they show gross carelessness, while misleading with an appearance of knowledge. If our author will use his concordance, he will find that "he shall surely die" (1 Sam. 20: 31) is, in the margin, "he is the son of death;" that in 1 Sam. 26: 16, "ye are worthy to die," is similarly "ye are sons of death," and similarly in 2 Sam. 12: 5 and 1 Kings 2: 26. The Hebrew expression never has the meaning Mr. Baker attaches to it.

This is not reassuring as to the trustworthiness of a guide who will have us "not accept any interpretation of such expressions in the Psalms and Prophets" — he has quoted some real passages speaking of resurrection, figurative or literal, as Isa. 25: 8; Hosea 13: 14; Ps. 49: 15; Ps. 88: 10-42 — which does not view them as looking forward (1) to the Messiah's victory over death, (2) to the rescue of His people from its bondage, and (3) to an ultimate recovery of the generations of mankind who have gone down as prisoners into its realm."

For the last of these applications, Mr. Baker has not given as yet one solitary proof. Assumption takes the place of argument all through. And here we are amidst those "Old Testament conceptions," which are to be the key to the words of the New hereafter. Here is (such as it is) his argument: —

"Bondage in Egypt, captivity in Babylon, and among all nations stands out, no doubt, on the foreground of such passages. There is also a hidden reference to the spiritual darkness and bondage into which the people had fallen by reason of their sins, and a promise of quickening from this spiritual death. BUT the deliverance promised would be no message of mercy to the men to whom it was spoken, it would not meet the case, it would not execute the judgment written against all God's enemies, (!) nor vindicate the honor of His name, did not these prophets look forward to the ransom from Sheol of these very generations of men whom the wrath of their enemies and the justice of God had consigned to its gloomy prison."

Were, then, the messages of the prophets to be messages of mercy unconditionally to all, and even to those upon whom they denounced judgment? That is a strange principle of interpretation surely. The judgment of God's enemies and the honor of His name, moreover, require this! In what way, then? and what imperious necessity compels us to stretch the prophecies beyond their plain meaning into predictions of that which is no where plainly announced?

And how would it affect Mr. Baker's principle of interpretation to put over against it the canon of the apostle of the circumcision, — "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory" (rightly, "glories") "which should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." (1 Peter 1: 10-12).

Here certainly the apostle shows us (1) that the New Testament is clearer than the Old; (2) that the glories beyond were not clear even to the prophets that wrote of them. How much less, then, could the Israelites in general make these strange and recondite applications of them, of which we are only hearing now through Mr. Baker?

But let us look at the sample instances which he gives us: —

"The sixty-eighth psalm is a glorious anticipation of this deliverance by One who ascends on high, leading captivity captive, and obtaining 'gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them' (v. 18). 'He that is our God is the God of salvation, and unto God the Lord belong the issues of death.' (The outgoings of death, — Young.) This Lord over death shall 'wound the head of His enemies,' and bring again His people from Bashan, and from the depths of the sea (vv. 21, 22). Bashan was a region on the other side of Jordan — type of death. (!)"

So far, the direct proof, such as it is. But this evidently, if we allow it, does not touch the proper subject of Mr. Baker's book. But this must be accomplished: here is the argument, —

"That this deliverance is more than that of an elect remnant, or even of the nation of Israel, is manifest from the scope of the whole psalm, which celebrates a salvation for which all the kingdoms of the earth are invited to sing praises unto God (v. 32)."

That is, after prophesying the salvation and blessing of Israel, the Psalmist says, "Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth; O sing praises unto the Lord:" and that proves "an ultimate recovery of the generations of mankind who have gone down as prisoners into the realm of death." (!)

If this has not quite proved it for you, reader, Mr. Baker has another and yet another witness: —

"Ps. 142 is a resurrection-psalm, to be understood first of the Messiah, but also of those in whose behalf He went down to death. The writer expresses his confidence that while no man 'sought after his soul' (v 4, margin), the Lord would be his portion in the land of the living, and bring out his soul from prison."

That is the second witness; here is the third: —

"In Ps. 143 we hear the same complaint, — "For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath bruised my life to the earth; he caused me to dwell in dark places, as the dead of old (v. 3, — Young's translation). We have the cry for deliverance, — 'Hear me speedily, O Lord; my spirit faileth; hide not Thy face from me, for I am become like unto them that go down into the pit (v. 7, margin). Cause me to hear Thy loving-kindness in the morning (the time of awakening), for in Thee do I trust.' And then we have the confident expectation — "For Thy name's sake, O Lord, Thou wilt quicken me; in Thy righteousness Thou wilt bring my soul out of distress. In Thy loving-kindness Thou wilt cut off mine enemies, and wilt destroy all the adversaries of my soul; for I am Thy servant" (vv. 11, 12, see Young's and Conant's versions).

Now we have a fourth: —

"Ps. 116 records a similar experience: 'Compassed me have the cords of death, and the straits of sheol have found me; distress and sorrow I find, and in the name of the Lord I call; I pray Thee, O Lord, deliver my soul . . . for Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from overthrowing. I walk habitually before the Lord in the land of the living' (vv. 3-9, — Young). Whatever application these words may have to release from spiritual death, ver. 15 makes it clear that the ultimate deliverance in view is from death in sheol. For this must be the 'death of His saints' which remains precious in the eyes of the Lord, and rescue from this the reason of the thanksgiving, "Thou hast loosed my bonds" (v. 16)."

This closes the testimony of the Psalms, as Mr. Baker presents it. I have given it in full, and leave it to make its due impression. I am persuaded that with any sober mind it will be more convincing than comments of my own would be. Had I simply put into my own words these arguments of his, it might have been reasonably doubted whether I could have represented them aright. But we have yet to see what he can produce from the prophets.

"Such a deliverance is proclaimed in Isa. 26: 14-19, a passage which speaks plainly of resurrection from death, as even rationalistic interpreters admit. The prophet had just declared that the judgments by which Jehovah would restore His people and bless all nations would be carried on to this climax, — 'He will swallow up death in victory' (chap. 25: 8). A careful reading of the whole of the magnificent prophecy (chaps. 25-27), shows that there is before the writer's mind the burden of woes under which not only Israel, but all the inhabitants of the earth, suffer. And the deliverance foreseen is as wide as the misery. And yet it comes 'in the way of judgments' (chap. 26: 8). Only in this way will 'the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness' (v. 9). 'If favor be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness ' (v. 10). Therefore Jehovah's hand must be lifted up against him in judgment. The fire of His enemies must devour them (v. 11). They must go down to death. Their condition is thus described: 'Dead, they shall not live; Rephaim (shades), they shall not rise: therefore Thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish' (v. 14)."

Certainly no destruction would seem more complete and final than this; it is the very text claimed as most decisive by those who deny the resurrection of the unjust. But the truth is, that the prophet is only speaking of the Gentile "lords," and as lords. "O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us, but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name" (v. 13). Indeed the question may well be raised whether they are not the idols of the heathen that are spoken of here, as Mr. Birks takes it. The last clause of the thirteenth verse — "by Thee only" — seems to require this, and it makes the non-resurrection spoken of in what follows easy.

However, taking the usual application, it is plainly only Israel's "lords" that pass away and come up no more, and this language shows that the prophet is by no means speaking of men at large who are to "learn righteousness" in death and come up in resurrection. The ninth verse is quite distinct that when God's "judgments are in the earth," (not in sheol, or the death-state,) the inhabitants of the world, — that is, the living, not the dead, will learn righteousness.

But Mr. Baker goes on: —

This removal of all the ends of the earth (that is, of its inhabitants into sheol. The italics in the English version obscure the sense,) had enlarged the nation of Israel, — that is, it had given it wide scope for the accomplishment of its mission (v. 15). At the same time, it had compelled these banished ones to cry in their trouble unto the Lord for relief (v. 16)."

The rendering and application are certainly ingenious here. The omission of the preposition, not uncommon in Hebrew, and the change of person in the seventeenth from the sixteenth verse, again not at all uncommon in the prophets, unite to give plausibility to an interpretation otherwise extravagant enough. Yet Mr. Baker himself cannot show that we are in the least necessitated to adopt it. Why, on his own view of the matter, "the ends of the earth"? The expression could naturally apply to people beyond the countries in which were the nations previously named and addressed as hostile to them. Why, then, should judgment be specially leveled against these? And why their removal be connected with the enlargement of Israel? Of its "mission" nothing is yet said.

On the other hand, applying it in the usual way to Israel all through, there is simple consistency and truthfulness. It is notorious enough that they have been removed to the ends of the earth. It is natural enough to mention this when the prophet is just providing to predict their penitent confession. In this very dispersion of theirs they have grown to a multitude, and in that dispersion will their hearts be turned to God (Deut. 30: 1-3). Certainly, then, Mr. Baker must give us some better reason than it appears he can do for such an application as he proposes.

He goes on to speak of Israel's mission, and of their failure in it.

"And then comes the announcement of redemption for Israel, whose mission had ended in failure, and for mankind through resurrection. 'Thy dead men shall live, my dead body they shall arise.' The Lord here asserts His property in them, foreshadowing His identification with them in Christ, who went down to death with and for them. The ransom from death of His people, the first-fruits, should be as dew upon the dust of the earth in which all the dead lie buried. 'Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs (Heb. 'lights,' i.e., vivifying dew). And the land of the Rephaim thou wilt cause to fall' (v. 19). The verb is the same as at the close of ver. 18. Hence Young gives it a similar rendering.

"The idea is, that while the inhabitants of the world had not fallen before Israel and Israel's Lord, yet, as captives in sheol, they should be forced to confess His name. The resurrection grace and power which should some day reach Israel would finally subdue and rescue them. This deliverance, however. could only be in the way of judgment: and hence Jehovah invites His people to shelter themselves from the coming storm of His indignation, which should beat upon the earth's inhabitants, the issue of which shall be that the earth should disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain."

The error here is in the bringing in of others beside Israel, who are really seen as brought up from the dead upon their penitent return to God. Vers. 16-18 give their confession; ver. 19, the answer of God in their national resurrection. They do not repent or confess in sheol. That they do, or that any do, this is what Mr. Baker should have first proved. He adds in a note as to ver. 19: "The English version reads, 'And the earth shall cast out the dead.' The force of the Hebrew verb and the collocation of the words are such that either rendering is admissible." And this being so, it ought to be plain that the common translation is the right one. Taking his own, it could only speak of victory over the dead, which the connection with the previous verse, if real, would confirm. "Neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen" is not expressive of any spiritual change, and when in the twentieth verse the Lord summons Israel to enter into her chambers, and hide herself till His indignation be overpast, it is because He comes "to punish," not the dead, but "the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity."

Nothing is here said of restoration, except for Israel, and for her it is as from the dead, according to a simple but strong figure, frequently used. How much must Mr. Baker import into this to make it yield the meaning for which he contends!

So in the opening of the next chapter: while it is true that "Leviathan" represents the power of Satan, it is to Israel, and through them to the nations of the earth, that the deliverance is. There is no disciplinary judgment and deliverance of those gone down to the grave, save in the case of Israel, where the context always makes plain that the language is figurative. Mr. Baker on his side has, in order

to make good his meaning, and to see in the inhabitants of the world the tenants of hades, to make figurative whatever stands in his way. Thus the "perishing in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt," are alike "seen to be typical of the victims of a real and lasting captivity in the land of death. The people 'robbed and spoiled,' 'snared in holes,' 'hid in prison-houses,' 'a prey whom none delivereth,' 'a spoil, of whom none saith, restore ' (Isa. 42: 22), are the people that are bound in the prison-house of death." And so a promise of restoration is easily found for them.

If we say that these promises apply to Israel, and their restoration from spiritual and national bondage, Mr. Baker is anxious to be understood not to deny this (p. 54). But, he contends, we must not limit them to this. "For the men to whom they were made are long since dead. They never realized the promised salvation. They 'died without the sight.'" Doubtless, if our author could show that the promise of salvation was made to all the nation irrespective of faith, the argument would be unassailable: the pledged mercy could not fail. But whither will he turn to prove this? The very opposite is plainly to be proved.

"Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect," says the apostle. "For they are not all Israel which are of Israel; neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children; but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed" (Rom. 9: 6-8). How simply do these words refute Mr. Baker's whole argument! "For the promise that he should be the heir of the world," he says elsewhere, "was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith" (Rom. 4: 13). And again, "Know ye, therefore, that they which be of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. . . . So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful" — or believing — "Abraham" (Gal. 3: 7, 9). And once more, "Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved" (Rom. 9: 27).

Mr. Baker does not seem able to accept this witness. Or shall we say that, so great are his prepossessions, he does not see it?

It is needless, then, to look at the other texts he brings forward, the nature of their testimony being precisely similar. Not a scripture that he quotes but may be otherwise interpreted; and he even himself admits this.*

{*The application by Matthew of Jer. 31: 15 to Herod's murder of the children (Matt. 2: 17) is shown by the formula of quotation to be only an application, and the promise which follows is not necessarily therefore applicable. Rachel manifestly did then weep for her children: it does not follow that in the prophecy the "land of the enemy" must be the land of death, as our author asserts. The context refuses this (comp. v. 8)}

He now takes up the subject of "unquenchable fire," as the Old Testament speaks of it. He quotes the usual passages, and remarks, "It is manifest that God's consuming anger against men and nations is every-where represented as an unquenchable fire, and its work as a work of destruction and death. These denunciations do not carry with them the idea of torment beyond death. They do not exclude it. But retribution beyond the grave is never in view in the Old Testament, only so far as captivity in sheol is such a retribution . . . But one thing is made clear. This destruction in death is not final extinction. The hope of resurrection, of ransom from this captivity, we have seen gleaming all along these Old Testament pages."

So far, then, as the Old Testament is concerned, saint and sinner beyond this present life are very equally treated. All descend unto death alike; and there is no torment for the sinner any more than for the saint. The "fire" that "goeth before Him and burneth up His enemies on every side," burns up, too, God's people no less certainly. "War, famine, pestilence, death." says Mr. Baker, "all destructive agencies are included in it." And if for the righteous there is a promise of deliverance, there is as real a hope for the wicked also. There is no "torment" revealed for the one in hades more than for the other! Whatever is distinctive, then, must be in the temporal calamities afflicting men on earth. Strange it is that the writer of Ecclesiastes had not discovered this (Ecc. 7: 15; Ecc. 8: 14; Ecc. 9: 2, 3), while the verdict of Job's friends was exactly right. And yet it is not upon earth where God's strokes come on men, but in tormentless hades that the mass of men repent! And, moreover, the fire of God's anger is nevertheless denounced only on His 'enemies'!

However, this is only the view of the Old Testament; another thing may be in fact the truth; to discover which, we must now go on to consider with Mr. Baker the teaching of the New Testament.

The New Testament

We first come to the Baptist's words, in which, according to Mr. Baker, the ax is laid at the root of the tree of the old man in order for the "God of resurrection to come in and work out His salvation for man upon a new basis, and in the power of a new life." The baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire he takes, with the burning up of the chaff in unquenchable fire, as part of the same salvation-work. Can the endurance of God's wrath, then, do in hades (what it cannot here) the work of the Holy Ghost? Are men born again there, but not of the Spirit? Or does the work of the Spirit go on in hades? This is a dream of Mr. Baker's own, scarcely needing to be seriously discussed here. In the failure of more positive texts it could scarcely be convincing even to himself.

Starting from this, however, he goes on to identify this unquenchable fire with eternal fire and the fire of hell, or gehenna, and of course to locate this latter in hades also. As usual, he takes Isa. 66 as showing that Mark 9 cannot imply eternal torment, and especially closing as it does with vers. 49 and 50. "The most that could possibly be drawn from it," he says, "would be the destruction in the fire of those who will not submit to this sacrifice of self. But even this inference is made to be an uncertain one by a comparison of this fire, to which every one must be subjected, to salt, the effect of which is to preserve." We have already discussed the whole matter (pp. 310-319).

He then takes the punishment of the rich man in hades as identifying this with gehenna. It is clearly not the case. Yet in passing to the question, "What punishment do these terms describe?" he answers, "We have no doubt that the one idea in which they all unite is that of complete destruction"! "Eternal fire is the one term which comprehends all those devouring forces which destroy man from off this strange heritage of creation of which God made him the heir and lord, and quench in him the light of life; and gehenna is the maw of these whirling forces down into whose vortex man disappears at death."

This complete destruction, however, he decides, is not annihilation; the continuity of the being of the wicked is somehow preserved. "So constant is the use of these terms that we are obliged to regard them as involving either the extinction of man's existence, or his destruction qua homo, — that is, of his being as a man." He thinks that as death disembodies the soul, so in gehenna the destruction of the soul may leave the spirit entirely naked.

So that it would seem that in the case of the resurrection of the unjust there must be a resurrection of the soul as well as of the body! For them, also, judgment must be in death, and not "after" it, and as introduced to it by a "resurrection of judgment." On the other hand, Scripture is clear that the reckoning with men is not when they die. There is a fixed future "time of the dead to be judged" (Rev. 11: 18); and Christ "shall judge the living and the dead" (2 Tim. 4: 1), not have been and ever is judging them. So all the New Testament, from first to last. "As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel" (Rom. 2: 12, 16).

Again, "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city" (Matt. 10: 15); "It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you;" — "for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you" (Matt. 11: 22, 24).

"The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." (Jude 6). And "The Lord cometh to execute judgment upon all" (vv. 14, 15).

"The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day" (John 12: 48).

"Who shall give account unto Him that is ready to judge the living and the dead" (1 Peter 4: 5).

Some of these texts Mr. Baker seeks to explain elsewhere from his own point of view; others I cannot find that he has noticed. But they are all decisively against him. If Sodom and Gomorrha, Tyre and Sidon, and even the apostate angels, still await their judgment, — if the sinners that had crept into the professing church in Jude's day were to receive it at the coming of the Lord, — if Christ is Himself (and because He is Son of Man — John 5: 27) the appointed Judge of all, how impossible to believe in this judgment as one entered upon by all at death: therefore by Sodom and all the sinners before the present dispensation when as yet there was no Son of Man; or by any before that coming of His to judgment, which is manifestly future yet. "The time of the dead to be judged" he himself admits to be future, but thinks it refers to the reward of the righteous simply; but this is never called their judgment, and "into judgment," the Lord positively assures us, he that heareth His words, and believeth on Him that sent Him, shall never come. (John 5: 24, — R.V.)

What has Mr. Baker to bring forward against this general positive language of Scripture? This, that when the Lord bids us cut off foot or hand rather than go with two hands or two feet into hell-fire, He must speak of the present (not a future resurrection-) body! That gehenna as a present fact "is certified by James in his epistle (3: 6), where he speaks of the tongue as now 'set on fire of hell (gehenna).' And that the casting into hell is not a remote but an immediate punishment, is made as plain as it can be, by the plainest of all passages that refer to it — the parable of the rich man and Lazarus"!

Now, the single fact that is made plain by it in this connection is, that there is retribution in the death-state; and that is at once and always has been admitted. It is no new discovery of Mr. Baker's. But hades (which is here the word for "hell") is not gehenna nevertheless, nor does it include it.

"Gehenna," says Mr. Baker, "is the maw of these whirling forces down into whose vortex man disappears at death." "Fear not them which kill the body," says the Lord, "but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell" (gehenna). I would ask Mr. Baker, Does the body of the righteous perish in a different way from that of the wicked? or in what sense does God destroy the body of the wicked in gehenna, and not that of the righteous? Or are the righteous dead partly in gehenna and partly not? It would certainly be a new discovery (as it would seem of necessity Mr. Baker's doctrine), that the righteous dead are half in hell. Happily for them, it is a half that does not feel!

But then, as to the body, this is the same with the wicked; and what becomes of our Saviour's words, "both body and soul?" What becomes of "who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell," when the body is in hell by the mere fact of death?

On the other hand, by the very fact that God destroys both body and soul in hell, is it not plain that resurrection has taken place in order that they may be there together?

Now, the rich man is not body and soul in hell; resurrection confessedly has not taken place; the day of judgment is not come, and he has brethren upon earth who may yet be reached and saved. Hades and gehenna are not the same.

But, says Mr. Baker, —

"There is not the slightest warrant for the assumption that, when Jesus urges men to cut off a hand or a foot, if need be, rather than having two hands or two feet, the whole body should be cast into hell, He means, not the present body, but a resurrection-body of the far-distant future. His words evidently refer to a now-impending loss of this present embodied life in a present gehenna."

Wonderful reasoning, certainly! So, then, when the Lord speaks in this self-same passage of entering into life maimed or halt or with one eye, He must with equal certainty be speaking of this "present embodied life," and not at all of resurrection! And this is quite indubitable, for how could a resurrection-body be maimed or halt, or with one eye!

And yet there are difficulties; for if we enter life at death, when the body drops, how can we speak of entering it even with one eye?

It is hard to speak seriously of Mr. Baker's argument: all the more, perhaps, that it is so satisfactory to himself. Surely he ought to see that if gehenna be just the maw of the natural destructive forces, the body at least disappears into it at death; and that when the Lord says (Matt. 5: 29), "It is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell," He is not speaking of something which happens at any rate at death, and which no one could escape by any plucking out of the eye, or cutting off of a limb at all.

As for the final argument that gehenna is certified as a present fact by James' expression as to the tongue as "set on fire of hell," it would seem scarcely serious, and yet we must suppose it is. But does he take this for a literal truth, or an energetic figure of speech? I should have thought the latter. The "of," of course, is "by," as the R.V. translates, and "hell" stands by metonymy for the incorrigible evil which necessitates it. The tongue is an unruly evil, he says: no one can tame it. Just for such unruly evil is hell designed. Setting on fire the course of nature, this fire in the tongue seems communicated to it from that which is worst in kind — the evil for which nothing but hell suffices.

Thus Mr. Baker's argument collapses: indeed, it might seem scarcely worth while replying to it did we not know that gossamer-webs like these hold captive many minds with chains like adamant. The thinner a bubble is, the brighter it shines; and blown with our own breath, the light fabric floats to admiration. But let us go on still with our author.

The next chapter, in which he labors to show that "eternal fire" — which means for him fire that is distinctly not eternal — is "a fact of science, as well as of Scripture." This is to be proved with the help of Herbert Spencer and the doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." "'Fire' stands in Scripture," he says, "as the representative of all the death-dealing forces of nature." And the forces of nature he conceives to be "closely identified, if not identical, with" angelic powers. "It is in their agency that we find the proper explanation of the angels which attend the administration of the Son of Man. They 'gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and cast them into a furnace of fire,'" etc., etc.

There is no need, surely, to follow out all this. But it needs to be said that, according to Mr. Baker, the destructive forces are the devil and his angels, that the whole world has been rescued from their grasp, though to fall back into it again, save where the power of eternal life prevails, and that "the 'eternal fire,' which is the concrete expression of all these devouring agencies of nature, must finally consume them all in its own bosom. For we read that it is 'prepared for the devil and his angels.'"

We should have thought this a difficulty rather, but difficulties only display the resources of great minds. Still, we confess that Mr. Baker has not solved them for us. He is very anxious to tell us, on the one hand, that in these same destructive forces "God is seen as a 'consuming fire'" (p. 107), and yet they are "evil powers," — nay, the devil and his angels. God and the devil are made to be in complete accord, although in the end the destructive forces are, it seems, to destroy, and were "prepared" for the destruction of, the destructive forces; Satan is to commit suicide, I suppose.

Our author now goes on to the judgment of the "goats" in Matt. 25. Much of his argument here does not at all affect us, and much of it has been already fully answered (chap. 36, pp. 355-368). We believe, as he does, that it is not a judgment of risen men, but of men yet alive upon the earth. We believe, moreover, that it is not a judgment of all that have ever lived, but of those of a certain class and time only, viz., the nations, or Gentiles, at the appearing of the Lord. Here, indeed, we are in decided opposition to Mr. Baker's views, who takes it to be a judgment going on secretly all through the present period, though it become in the end manifest. For the proof of this, he would refer us to the old argument from our Lord's words, that "this generation shall not pass until all these things be fulfilled." He is aware of "the efforts made to evade the force of this declaration," but does not vouchsafe any serious examination. So we are to believe that the Son of Man is come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, and has sat down on the throne of His glory, and before Him all the nations have been gathered, and the rest of the scene is being enacted all the time! Certainly no book whatever is treated as men treat Scripture. By the same rule the sign of the Son of Man has appeared in heaven, all the tribes of the earth mourning and seeing the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven in power and great glory (Matt. 24: 30)! By this marvelous method of interpretation we are only perplexed to know why, if men say Christ is here or He is there, we may not as well believe it. Certainly in the secret chambers He would seem to be. Nor do we know how it could be said that "as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be" (Matt. 24: 23-27).

However, it is all plain to Mr. Baker, and the angels cause him no difficulty, though how they have gathered (?) or are gathering (?) the elect with a great sound of a trumpet, he has never explained. Perhaps it is all the scientific trumpeting about natural forces that has been going on so vigorously of late; or, at least, we would commend this to Mr. Baker as a possible explanation, though the gathering of the elect by this means does not yet look probable.

He will complain, perhaps, that we are answering him rather with sarcasm than argument. We answer, that just to carry out his own principles of interpretation is indeed the bitterest sarcasm upon them. He must not blame us for this. There are certainly systems farther from orthodoxy than is his own upon this subject, but it may be questioned if there are any that more completely set aside Scripture as to it.

But we pass on, and may take the next three chapters together, as the "resurrection of judgment" is really the subject of all. Mr. Baker contends that this phrase "expresses a characteristic quality by which this resurrection is distinguished from the resurrection of life," implying a "lower order of being in which the wicked dead come forth." "They are invested again with human bodies; and as these cannot be of the heavenly order, they MUST BE of the earthy. The bodies, therefore, MUST BE mortal and corruptible."

Mr. Baker speaks with decision; but decision does not always decide. Winer, who has written a pretty large volume of New Testament grammar, gives in his eighth edition, with reference to these expressions, "resurrection of life," "resurrection of judgment," "resurrection to life," "to judgment," as equivalent terms; and calls the genitive here "the genitive of destination." He brings forward many examples of this use. Certainly, Scripture, in a passage very familiar to our author, speaks of the righteous going away into life eternal" (Matt. 25: 46). And although this is not resurrection, it is equivalent. There are many similar texts which speak of entering into life.

Then our author allows that the resurrection of Rev. 20: 12-15 is the "resurrection of judgment;" yet we find there no thought of judgment as expressed in the resurrection, but rather of its following it: "And death and hell (hades) delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to his works."

I know well that Mr. Baker believes this judgment following to be of works done after resurrection, in a possibly long dispensation of trial, which, in defiance of the plain sense of the passage, he would insert into it. He can find no where that the resurrection of the wicked embodies the discriminative judgment of the last day.

But he thinks that as to the righteous, he has found the announcement of the principle in 2 Cor. 5: 10. He reads it, "For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things through the body, according to what he hath done, whether good or bad;" and remarks that "here it is implied that the future bodies of saints will gather up and perpetuate the fruits of previous character."

But I venture to say Mr. Baker's translation will find no advocacy among the critics. "The things through the body" — to use his language — are connected together, as every Greek scholar must know, and mean the things done by its instrumentality; not that we "receive through the body the things done," — a very different thing indeed. The R.V. gives accordingly, "That each one may receive the things done in the body."

The congruity of thought is as much against our author as is the plain rendering of the Greek. For we are to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive the things in question. But how do we appear there? Disembodied? to receive embodiment according to the issue of the trial? No, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Cor. 15: 52). We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (or precede) 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; than we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. 4: 15-17).

Every way, Mr. Baker's view is disowned by Scripture. His own witnesses testify against him.

He allows, indeed, that the "resurrection of the unjust introduces them to judgment," but insists "that no where do the views of Christians need broadening more than in their notions of judgment. Our theology has but little use for this word save in its narrow, legal, and technical sense. But in Scripture, this represents but a small part of the divine work of judgment which is a benevolent as well as a judicial administration, and one for which the nations were to be glad." "So the unjust, in resurrection, continue under judgment. But as this brings to men now corrective discipline, we may infer that this will be its character and issue in the life to come."

A large inference indeed! We may as suitably "infer" that when the apostle says, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6: 2), he means that it always will be that! True, we have not supposed so hitherto, but Mr. Baker would have us re-read such passages under the interpretation of his new theory. Yet he allows that at some time there is to be a "second death," for which he discerns, moreover, no resurrection. Here it would not be safe to infer the hereafter from the now, and we must plainly, therefore, limit the "always" accordingly. But now, if you begin to limit, you will perhaps find it hard to know where the limit is to be put. Perhaps, then, the "now" is strictly what it appears, and the "now is the day of salvation" means, after all, that there is no future day.

In fact, inference, theory, conjecture, reign and revel in Mr. Baker's pages; no where more so than in those we are reviewing now. He skims over Scripture, reads between the lines, forces the words apart to make room for his conjectures, strangely mixes authoritative speech with confessed uncertainties; the premises are not sure, but the result conclusive. And by dint of thoroughly mixing up the living and the dead, the nations of the millennial earth with the past and present generations of unsaved men, the judgment of the world in the age to come with the judgment of the wicked dead, he confuses first of all himself, and then possibly some of his readers. But they have only to examine the arguments by the adduced proof-texts, to find a plain road out of the maze.

For instance, take those of his chapter on "The Judge of quick and dead." His object is, to show the merciful side of judgment on which he dwells, and that it extends to the dead after their resurrection in the world to come. What are the texts by which this is to be made good? They are here: —

"And He charged us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is He which is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead" (Acts 10: 42).

"For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living" (Rom. 14: 9).

A reference again to Matt. 25: 31-46 and John 5: 29.

Far more of promise than threat in the announcement that He shall judge the world in righteousness (Ps. 96, 98; Isa. 11; Jer. 23)!

The reason for judgment being in the hands of the Son, "that all men may honor the Son even as they honor the Father" (John 5: 23).

Christ about to judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17: 31).

About to judge the quick and dead (2 Tim. 4: 1).

Ready to judge the quick and dead (1 Peter 4: 5).

"The time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God" (4: 17).

Reference to 1 Peter 3: 19, 20, and 4: 6 (spirits in prison, and preaching to the dead).

These texts are mostly simple enough. The argument is mostly imported from elsewhere. The texts which speak of Christ as "about" to judge show that He has already assumed the office; and we are not "by any means sure that the judgment of the dead is wholly future" in view of the last texts in the list! The judgment is, of course, largely "benevolent," because His judgment of the world in Ps. 96, etc., is! And, beside, the dead are raised by Him that all — even the wicked — may honor the Son as they honor the Father!

But we too believe that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow; and so we have said elsewhere.

It would not be profitable, plainly, to follow further these fine-spun reasonings. Let us proceed to the examination of Rev. 20: 5, to which Mr. Baker devotes the next chapter.

Now, we agree with him that the judgment of the dead here is not a general one of righteous and wicked all in one. We agree that the saints are raised in the first resurrection — a wholly distinct company — and a thousand years before the end as depicted here; and that this is the judgment of the "rest of the dead" who did not rise with them — the wicked only.

But Mr. Baker would leave out, with the Sinaitic MS. and the Syriac version, the fifth verse of this chapter, and demurs to the statement that "the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished." Not an editor of the Greek text agrees with him, nor raises even a doubt with regard to it, not even Tischendorf, well known for his attachment to the Sinaitic MS., his own discovery. But Mr. Baker is not disconcerted by this. He has his own reasons: for, he says, —

"It certainly harmonizes better with all we have learned (?) from the study of the Old Testament concerning God's purpose to redeem mankind from death through the resurrection, to suppose that the 'times of the kingdom' here referred to as the reign of the saints with Christ, are, throughout, times of resurrection. The various orders of mankind would then be raised, not all at once, but as each class was fitted for it."

Precisely. The text as it stands is a felt difficulty; for if he who died yesterday is to be raised today, and along with him the one who has been millennia under judgment, it does seem strange that the purposes of this disciplinary process should be equally served by a day under it as by centuries. But if the text can be dismissed, the gloss, though without a text, may be substituted.

And there is need; for he allows that "no other passage in the Bible seems to militate against" his "view so strongly as the one now before us." But he does not despair. We have already indicated, however, the way by which it may be brought into harmony with this primary truth. We have simply to regard it as presenting in a pictorial way the final results of that age, or of those ages, of trial and judgment through which the nations are to be conducted by Christ and His risen saints, and to which they shall be introduced through a resurrection from the dead.

Certainly one would not, without help from Mr. Baker, think of a dispensation passing while the heavens and the earth were fleeing away from the face of Him that sits upon the throne! And that they are all "dead" who stand there adds considerably to the difficulty. It certainly looks as if all dispensations were at an end. But then we have only got to see it differently, as Mr. Baker tells us!

His real argument is that, take it for what it evidently seems to be, it manifestly contradicts his whole system. Not seeing the object of a discriminative "day of judgment," when all that is now hidden shall be brought to light, and award given strictly according to works, he naturally finds it in conflict with the general sentence of guilt which lies against all the unsaved already, and with death as the wages of sin, which as the "dead," these have already endured. We have long since looked at all this, though in other connections, and have seen that there is no contradiction at all in it, but completest harmony. The argument, therefore, falls to the ground. The view he combats does not "make this trial-scene to be the raising of an issue which was settled long before, the re-enactment of a sentence already passed and of a penalty already inflicted." The tenor of Scripture requires no protraction, then, of the period represented in the vision.

Our author refers to the analogy of Dan 7 as sustaining his view. There is really no analogy such as he supposes. In Daniel there is a crisis of judgment, but also a kingdom received, and the lapse of time, or rather its eternal duration, is plainly declared. The judgment is not continuous, but the reverse. Also as to John 5: 28, which he adduces, all that there is really there is the word "hour" for a protracted period. There is no vision as in Revelation, and the stages of resurrection and of the putting down of Christ's enemies in 1 Cor. 15: 22-27, by which he would strengthen the weakness of his position, are all against him. There is no concealment of the time in these, and we do not in the least confound Messiah's reign with a brief assize of judgment. This is but an incident of the reign, whatever its importance.

The Lord's reign had begun a thousand years before, according to the testimony of Revelation here, and is not confounded with the session of judgment at the end of that time. It is only Mr. Baker who confounds them.

In the thought of the final destruction of the persistently wicked, he is on common ground with all annihilationists. All this has been fully examined already. And Mr. Baker's own system need not detain us longer. We have given all his main arguments, and in their full strength. If these fail, as assuredly they have failed, it is utterly useless to protract the discussion.

2. C. T. Russell: "Overcomers"

I do not know that those of whom I have now to speak would claim the title of "Overcomers" as distinctively theirs. It is, however, a popular name for them, which has evidently its ground in some of their known doctrines. I use it thus for the body of people not long since arisen whose headquarters are in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, and whose monthly organ, edited by C. T. Russell, is "Zion's Watchtower."

Mr. Russell himself seems to be not merely the head but the whole inspiration of the movement; and the books which contain its principles are but reprints from the "Tower." These principles are fearlessly stated, and challenge universal acceptance, being pressed by diligent colportage and very active tract-distribution upon the attention of the masses. They are professed to be purely scriptural — indeed to give the full explanation of Scripture — to settle all difficulties and to solve all problems. "Be it known," says Mr. Russell, "that no other system of theology even claims, or has ever attempted, to harmonize in itself EVERY statement of the Bible; yet nothing short of this can we claim for these views." This is no slight assumption, and that many are examining it may be inferred from the fact that my copy of the volume which contains it purports to be one of the seventieth thousand, a number which it must by this time have far exceeded.

The views are evidently, as are Mr. Baker's, an evolution from Mr. Dunn's. Redemptive resurrection; full and equal trial for all by a gospel to be announced after resurrection to the unsaved; and the annihilation of the finally impenitent: these are the cardinal points. But Mr. Russell has in other respects, as we shall see, gone far beyond Mr. Dunn and the rest of his disciples, as he is far beyond them in assumption. What they more or less timidly advance, he asserts with the fullest assurance; and this is a well-known element of success. The Watchtower principles are gaining ground in many and unlooked-for places, if we may trust its frequent notices of accessions from the ranks of denominations accounted orthodox.

In our review of them, we shall have to go beyond our usual range, and take up points which may not seem to be within the scope of our present undertaking; but the system is a well-compacted one, and can only be considered properly when taken as a whole. As a whole, therefore, we shall consider it, although many points will need but brief discussion. We may divide what this system brings before us into three main topics: 1. The Saviour; 2. The present salvation 3. The final salvation of those here unsaved.

1. The Saviour

Mr. Russell's creed is a peculiar form of Arianism. His Christ is but "the chiefest of all God's creatures" ("Food," p. 139), or, as he quotes it for his purpose, "the beginning of the creation of God" ("Millennial Dawn," vol. 1, p. 226). He was "'in a form of God' — a spiritual form, a spirit being" (p. 174). For the angels are not the highest form of spiritual being, and Jesus was higher than the angels, yet not so high as He is now (p. 174).

The whole foundation of Christianity is thus taken away at once; but thus, thank God! the system is revealed at the start as antichristian, and its power is broken for those who know Christ. "The beginning of the creation of God" is not said of Him as what He was before He descended to the earth, but as what He is as man having gone up again. For so Colossians teaches (Col. 1: 18) — "He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence." For God's good pleasure is, "in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to gather together" — literally, "head up," — "all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth" (Eph. 1: 10). And thus He is the "first-born* of every creature" in this wide sphere of eternal blessing.

{*"First-born" does not necessarily speak of priority in time, but in dignity sometimes, because of the privileges attaching to birthright. Thus God says to Pharaoh (Ex. 4: 22), "Israel is My son, even My first-born;" and in Jeremiah (31: 9), "I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born;" thus also of David, the type of Christ (Ps. 89: 27), "I will make him My firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth," So also Christians are "the Church of the first-born ones, whose names are written in heaven" (Heb. 12: 23), in contrast to Israel, God's first-born upon earth, and the "spirits of just men made perfect" — Old Testament saints.}

His primal distinction from all creatures is emphatically asserted in Scripture, and the same scripture as we have just quoted: "For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him" (Col. 1: 16). He is Creator, not created, and all created things are not only by but for Him. Did He, a creature, create all things for Himself? What is left then for God?

Nay, He is openly owned, and from eternity, as God. The babe in Bethlehem is He whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (Micah 5: 2). The Man smitten upon the cross is Jehovah's fellow (Zech. 13: 7). The glory of Jehovah upon which Isaiah gazed (chap. 6) was the glory of Christ (John 12: 41). The "form of God" which was His before He came in the flesh involved as truly His being God, as the "form of a servant" which He took involved His becoming one. And if He were one all through, how could He become one (Phil. 2: 7)?

So He whom John sees (Rev. 1) as Son of Man, yet with the glory of the Ancient of Days (comp. Dan. 7), declares Himself "the First and the Last." Thomas worships Him unrebuked as "My Lord and my God" (John 20: 28). Yea, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1).

Mr. Russell's Christ is but a creature, not even possessing immortality before He came into the world, and only "guaranteed everlasting life as long as obedient" ("Food," p. 139). It is a creature, then, who created, and a creature who re-redeemed us. There is no movement on God's part; the unexampled self-humiliation we had dreamed of never took place. Our gratitude, our praise is due to another. It is not He who ordained the penalty who has stooped under the penalty. God merely planned what another executed; stayed up in heaven, and looked on only while another moved. God is shut out from the whole work of atonement!

What moved, then, this Christ of Mr. Russell (not mine, thank God!) to become man for man's redemption? Not simple, disinterested love, you may be sure. This is conspicuous as a motive, that "as a reward for his faith in God's promise and obedience to His will, he would be exalted to the right hand (chief place of power), and have inherent life ('life in himself,') the divine degree — immortality" ("Food," p. 142)!

No doubt beside this there are other motives given, "to ransom a race of beings from sin and death," and to "bring some of the human race to the higher plane of being — the spiritual." But the characteristic of love is not found  — "love seeketh not her own," — and the glory of God is consistently enough omitted.

Here, however, is creature-obedience; and it has power to set the one who fulfills it on the throne of God! He seeks his own glory, though the Lord contrasts that with His object (John 7: 18). But now let us look at how this being becomes man.

We must not imagine any thing like what we call incarnation. We think of One who in becoming man did not cease to be God, — in whom, as incarnate, were two natures — a divine and human. Mr. Russell refuses this. His Christ, when down in the world, was a man, and nothing more; except that he brought with him, in a way Mr. Russell thinks he can account for, the memory of heavenly things! We do not propose to study this problem now. We propose rather to ask this man of "all mysteries and all knowledge," who can "harmonize every statement of the Bible," with an emphasis even on the "every," — how he would explain a few passages that strike us here.

What, for instance, of that statement of the apostle, as it really reads, "The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, — glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth"? Here the reference is very plainly to the tabernacle of old in which the divine glory dwelt. It was in flesh the Word tabernacled, and displayed its glory, was it not? Was it only perfect manhood that was seen then? or was it really divine glory that dwelt and could be seen?

Or WHO was the "child born," the "son given," whose name should be called "The Mighty God" (Isa. 9: 6)?

Or how could He upon the cross be the Man that was Jehovah's "fellow," as Jehovah Himself declares?

Or who is it that says God is His Father, "making Himself equal with God" (John 5: 18)?

Or of whom is it again that the apostle says, "Esaias beheld His glory," when he saw the vision of the Lord of Hosts" (John 12: 41)?

Or who is it that says to Philip, "Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou, then, 'Show us the Father '"?

These texts apply to the Lord when He was in the flesh amongst us, and here is a mystery which no wisdom that Mr. Russell is master of can read for us, while the simplest believer in the Lord's twofold nature understands them without difficulty. The Jews, too, who charged Him with blasphemy for it, knew that being a man, He made Himself God. Was it all a mistake on their part? and did He let them go on in their self-deception?

But we must pass on to consider His work: what was it that He suffered for us? — what was the work of atonement? Mr. Russell says it was simply death, though elsewhere he mixes it up with His life-work. He gave up His life, he tells us, "His human existence. This giving up was at the time of His baptism, and His death was typified in that act. But after giving up or consecrating His life as a ransom, He was three and a half years in actually giving it up, — spending it in the service of others, and finally ending it on the cross" ("Food," p. 140). We shall find the meaning of this definition in a little while. Elsewhere the ransom-price is stated to be simply "death;" which is understood in the materialistic sense — "extinction." Thus, we are assured, Christ died, as man eternally, and in resurrection He is a man no longer — "no longer a human being in any sense" ("Food," p. 113; Mil. Dawn, p. 227). Concerning this, we shall inquire directly.

But we are particularly warned to remember "that not the pain and suffering in dying, but death — the extinction of life — in which it culminates, is the penalty of sin. The suffering is only incidental to it, and the penalty falls on many with little or no suffering" (Mil. Dawn, p. 149). Thus it should be death, and death only, apart from suffering, that was the penalty the Lord endured — the ransom-price.

This, however, is not what Scripture teaches. It teaches, indeed, that "Christ died for our sins." It does not teach that death alone, the simple giving up of life, was what the Lord endured, or had to endure, for us. Far otherwise.

Why, then, that death of shame and aggravated suffering — the death of the cross? Was this but incidental — a mere circumstance? Strange indeed would it be to imagine this!

Look at Gethsemane, and contemplate the Lord's agony there, — a sorrow so great that the ministry of an angel is needed to give Him physical strength to sustain it. Is all this overwhelming sorrow simply at passing through death, as all men meet it?

It is not, assuredly. The death of the cross is an infinitely greater depth than death alone would be, and the death of the CROSS is what is needed for our redemption. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a CURSE for us: for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that'" — dieth, merely? No; but "dieth ON A TREE"

Another mystery which Mr. Russell cannot explain to us. Why should redemption be the fruit of dying on a tree? and why should that be the curse of the law? Yet it is plainly taught: "For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of Man be LIFTED UP, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 15). These are His own words; and again: "I, if I be LIFTED UP from the earth, will draw all men unto Me" (John 12: 32).

The last chapter of Hebrews adds another particular: "For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high-priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered WITHOUT THE GATE." Here again is a point we never should have thought of. Why must it be, that if the people are to be sanctified by the blood of Jesus, He must suffer without the gate? Is not His blood any where the same precious blood? Is it not the blood of the spotless, peerless Lamb of God? Place, position, — outside the gate, lifted up from the earth, hanging on a tree, — how can this add any thing to, be any element in, atonement?

Certainly, in themselves, these things are nothing. Shall we, then, turn from them as meaningless? We dare not. Scripture insists too emphatically on them. If as mere outward things they are nothing, then we must look for something deeper in them. The apostle prepares us for this by linking the "outside the gate" with "outside the camp" in what we know had a typical, spiritual meaning. With hanging on the tree he associates also the "curse of the law." And now the meaning becomes apparent. The curse is wrath, separation from God, and all that He owns as His. See now the darkness that settles upon the cross! Is not God light? The light is withdrawn! Listen to the anguished cry of the Sufferer: does He not declare that God has forsaken Him? Yes, not death alone is the penalty upon the sinner: "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." And this appointed judgment — inconceivably more than death — is what the Lord bears for us when He bears our sins in His own body on the tree.

Mr. Russell is at fault, then, grievously. The atonement that he imagines, would not atone. So unitedly affirm the epistle to the Galatians and the epistle to the Hebrews. So affirm, in a somewhat different way, the gospel of John and the gospels of Mark and Matthew. Read the twenty-second psalm in the light of the Lord's forsaken cry, and the same thing will be traced throughout. "Be not far from Me" is the desolate wail: "Thou hearest not;" "but Thou art holy," if — solitary exception to all God's ways with men the righteous One is now forsaken.

The penalty is not death alone, and the penalty is not extinction. Christ was not extinct in death, and to say He was is to deny the glory of His person. "This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise" negatives the dreadful thought. But we have examined elsewhere what death is. Let us see now how the truth of atonement tells upon Mr. Russell's system.

For whom was this penalty paid? Christ, Mr. Russell affirms, was "Adam's substitute or representative before the broken law, and thus gave Himself a ransom for all" (Mil. Dawn, p. 151). This he supposes to be got from Rom. 5: 18, 19, "As by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

This is not just according to the original, as Mr. Russell ought to know; but yet, taken as it stands, his doctrine is not in it. There is a comparison as well as contrast between the effect of Adam's trespass and Christ's accomplished righteousness, but no statement that Christ was Adam's substitute or bore Adam's sin. Nor is such a statement any where to be found. He says, —

"The proposition is a plain one: As many as have been condemned to death because of Adam's sin shall have life-privileges restored because their penalty was paid by Jesus, who became Adam's substitute or representative before the broken law, and thus gave Himself a ransom for all."

Here is palpable confusion. Adam is "the figure of Him that was to come," says the apostle (v. 14); and that is the key to the present passage, in which he compares them. That Christ was Adam's substitute is Mr. Russell's invention only, and no where said.

And before what "broken law" was He a substitute? Had Adam's law any curse for him that hung upon a tree? This was what Christ bore, as we have seen; and we have seen its profound significance. Dying merely was not the curse, and simply to have died would not have been atonement.

Moreover, while the consequence would follow which Mr. Russell puts, supposing his view were true, that the whole world would get without fail all the blessing of atonement, Scripture declares that the propitiation is "through faith, by His blood" (Rom. 3: 25, R.V.), therefore assures this to none except in this way. Whereas, according to Mr. Russell, it is not through faith at all, and no question of faith. Eternal salvation, he contends, may still be by faith, but not the fruit of atonement, which all alike must share.

Nor are the consequences of atonement "life-privileges restored," — i.e., a condition like Adam's, and a new trial; but eternal life, without possibility of perishing, along with justification and a standing in grace, of which Mr. Russell's scheme knows nothing. But at this we shall have to look again.

He asks, as others have asked before him, —

"If Jesus redeemed mankind, died in our stead, as our ransom, went into death that we might be set free from it, is it not evident that the death which He suffered for the unjust was of the same kind exactly that they were condemned to? Did He, then, suffer eternal torture for our sins? If not, then so surely as He died for our sins the punishment of our sins was death, and not life in any sense or condition" (p. 154).

Now "as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment," death and judgment were what our Lord took for us — the exact, full penalty of sin. Thus He glorified God's righteousness in bearing just what He had pronounced upon sin. To have borne any thing else would not have glorified Him in inflicting that.

But these two things He bore in the reverse order of that in which man would bear them. It was not for Him "after death, the judgment," but before death, so that with death close at hand, He could say, It is finished," and depart to paradise.

The wrath He bore could not be "eternal" — granted. He was saved out of death, heard for His piety (Heb. 5: 7, Gk.) God's holy One could not even as to the body see corruption (Acts 2: 27). Doom is eternal for the sinner only because he is eternally a sinner. The wrath borne for the saved sinner could not be that.

But Mr. Russell is quite wrong in supposing that "God hath laid upon Him the iniquities of us all" applies to all the world. It is what faith says, and true for those who have faith, — "a propitiation through faith."

And what shall we say of the argument with which he supports his theory of Christ's being Adam's substitute, that one unforfeited life could redeem one forfeited life and no more"? "The one perfect one," he says, the Man Christ Jesus, who redeemed the fallen Adam (and our losses through him) could have been 'a ransom [corresponding price] for all,' under no other circumstances than those of the plan which God chose" (p. 130).

The shred of Scripture here is in "a ransom for all," which we are told means "corresponding price." Nor need there be any objection, so long as this is not supposed to necessitate just "one life for one life" — a supposition which is indeed the "commercial theory of atonement" pushed to its fullest extent. The glorifying of God in view of sin is not here the great point, but the simple giving Him so much for so much, — a dreadful estimate or blasphemy of the divine nature, and in which Christ's life is valued at just the worth of any other man's! So much so that as actual value it could not redeem two persons of the sons of Adam! Yet, by a bold stroke of jugglery this is actually made to redound to the credit of the system, and, atonement being made for Adam himself, what could not otherwise have availed for two, avails absolutely now for the whole human race! All their sins are heaped upon Adam; no one is guilty (or should be, at least,) but he; so that to atone for Adam covers all the rest! It is simply a clever plan for making a very large purchase with a very little money; and this trader's wit Mr. Russell credits to God as divine wisdom.

He does believe that "it is appointed unto men once to die," but not "after this the judgment." On the contrary, the wicked sleep awhile in nonentity, and then awake in happiness, restored in resurrection to the lost Adamic condition, from which indeed they may still slip and be lost; but "resurrection of judgment" there is not. The text should read, one would think, "They that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of life also!" There is an attempt to escape from this, however, which we shall consider later.

"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" must have, therefore, no meaning, or refer to repentance in an afterlife, or to — Mr. Russell knows what. Perhaps, as he certainly must know, he will explain.

The passages commonly used by Universalists, it is natural, of course, that he should press for his own view, though it is not needful here to take them up again. He would have us remember, however, that "'the ransom for all,' given by the Man Christ Jesus, does not give or guarantee everlasting life and blessing to any man, but it does give and guarantee to every man another opportunity, or trial, for life everlasting" (p. 146). He gives no text for this, and does not explain some texts which we have been accustomed to think teach the opposite. As even our Sunday-school children have them in their memories, it would have been as well if he had taken some notice of them.

Such is atonement and such its object for Mr. Russell. Being the work of a creature, and for his own benefit largely, it would avail but little, as even he allows, but for an ingenious plan of making it stretch beyond its measure. Let us now trace the result for the creature-saviour, who, strangely as it would seem, made all things for himself, and has purchased Mr. Russell with his own blood. He has gained, it seems, as to himself, the prize he aimed at; he is become immortal, and possesses the divine nature, life in himself, and a source of life to others.

We have seen that originally Christ was, according to this conception, the highest of creatures, "in a form of God — that is, possessed of a spirit-nature." This He gave up to become a man, and was thus a mere man, although a perfect one: —

"When Jesus was in the flesh, he was a perfect human being; previous to that time, he was a perfect spiritual being; and since his resurrection, he is a perfect spiritual being of the highest or divine order. It was not until the time of his consecration even unto death, as typified in his baptism — at thirty years of age (manhood according to the law, and therefore the right time to consecrate himself as a man,) that he received the earnest of his inheritance of the divine nature (Matt. 3: 16, 17). The human nature must be consecrated to death before he could receive even the pledge of the divine nature. And not until that consecration was actually carried out, and Jesus had actually sacrificed the human nature, even unto death, was he a full partaker of the divine nature. After becoming a man, he became obedient unto death: wherefore God hath highly exalted him to the divine nature (Phil. 2: 8, 9). If this scripture be true, it follows that he was not exalted to the divine nature until the human nature was actually sacrificed — dead. Thus we see that in Jesus there was no mixture of natures, but that twice he experienced a change of nature" (Mil. Dawn, 175, 176).

It seems almost doing too much honor to this to refute it. Where is the descent of the Spirit upon our Lord said to be the earnest of His inheritance? and where is this inheritance said to be the divine nature? The first is an unwarranted application of what is said as to us (Eph. 1: 13, 14). The second is never any where said at all. All this is human conjecture and invention merely. But the passage in Philippians is still more perverted: "Wherefore, God hath also highly exalted Him" is said indeed; "to the divine nature" is a fraudulent addition.

But the passage does say, "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly, earthly, and infernal beings, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Does this assert or imply the assuming of the divine nature then? Mr. Russell should show us how.

Instead of this, he goes on to discuss the nature of spirit-being, confounding this with the "spiritual body" of the resurrection, and from the example of angels (who, he decides, have spiritual bodies), affirms of these power of invisibility, a human appearance and a glorious, bright condition: all which makes plain to him that the spiritual and human natures are separate and distinct, and that there is "no evidence that the one shall evolve or develop into the other," though a few will be thus changed.

He then examines the terms "mortal" and "immortal," defining the first to be "liable to death" and the other "not liable," and then assures us that no where in Scripture is it stated that angels are immortal, nor that restored mankind will be immortal." In fact, Satan is to be destroyed! "Immortality pertains only to the divine nature" (Mil. Dawn, 177-183). Jesus is alone now immortal; and "at and after His resurrection was a spirit — a spiritual being, and no longer a human being in any sense" (p. 227).

Thus the "One Mediator between God and man — the MAN Christ Jesus," (1 Tim. 2: 5) is taken from us. He does not comment upon this text, that I can find; nor upon the appearance in Luke after the resurrection, when the Lord expressly calms the fears of those who "supposed that they had seen a spirit" with the words, "a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have" (Luke 24: 37, 39).

A spirit and a spiritual body are not, then, the same, clearly; and the passage in Corinthians equally assures us of this, for the word for "natural body" in the same place is "psychical," as we have seen elsewhere — "soulical," if we barbarize it into English: and you might as well say that the body that now is is a "soul," as that the resurrection-body is "spirit."

Nay, a man apart from the body is a "spirit," which decides also two things more against Mr. Russell: First, that death is not the complete extinction of man, as he believes; and secondly, that a spiritual nature is a normal part of humanity, instead of being, as he thinks, incompatible with it.

Now, if we add another thing, we may leave him to pick out of the ruins of his system any thing that is left of it. The angels, he tells us, are "mortal;" yet the Lord says of the "children of the resurrection" (Luke 20: 36), "Neither CAN they die any more" — that is, as Mr. Russell would allow in their case, immortality; but read on — "for they are EQUAL UNTO THE ANGELS" Immortal, Mr. Russell, because they are equal to the mortal angels!

Yet all this is of the very foundation of his system. With its overthrow, the whole is gone. But we shall follow out now his theory of "the present salvation," and show how equally unscriptural it is throughout.

2. The Present Salvation

And first, briefly, as to the nature of man himself. He is, we learn, simply "a combination of life and body," and this is what "soul" means: it is his being or existence. This, too, it is that dies, or is dissolved: not the life, nor the body; but the life returns to God that gave it, the body to the dust, and so the being is dissolved, or gone ("Food," p. 126).

But not so says Scripture. It is the "earthly house of this tabernacle" which is "dissolved" (2 Cor. 5: 1), and the Lord speaks of those that kill the body (which, if "Scripture cannot be broken," conclusively proves that the body does die), while He adds that those who can kill the body "are not able to kill the soul" (Matt. 10: 28). An equally conclusive proof that (in ordinary death, at least,) the soul does not.

Of the "spirit of man," which alone knows the things of a man (1 Cor. 2: 11), Mr. Russell says nothing. It is an awkward matter for his theory of spiritual being, as we have seen. For man in death — just when he ought to be extinct, according to Mr. Russell — becomes a "spirit;" and the death of the spirit is unknown to Scripture.

But if the "soul" stand for the being of man, what would our author make of "destroying being and body in hell"? Or of Elijah's prayer, with the marginal reading which is literally exact, "Let the being of this child come into his inward parts again" (1 Kings 17: 22)? Or of much else fully as incomprehensible as this?

We come now to look at what salvation is, as reached by men at the present time. The first thing necessary for us is, to be justified. This is by faith, not works, Christ having died for us; and being justified by faith, we have peace with God, "and are no longer enemies, but justified human sons, on the same plane as Adam and Jesus, except that they were actually perfect, while we are reckoned so of God. . . . We stand in God's sight absolutely spotless, because Jesus' righteousness covers all our imperfections . . . and brings with it all the rights and blessings originally possessed before sin entered. It restores us to life and to fellowship with God. The fellowship we may use at once by the exercise of faith, and the life and fuller fellowship and joy are assured in God's due time'" (Mil. Dawn, pp. 228, 229).

However, we must not understand this word "assured" too strictly. Any one may enjoy "all the blessings due them on account of Christ's ransom," and fall from all, and die the second death ("Food," p. 53). Nay, it is actually only for Christians that there is any present liability to this. "None but the 'little flock' have as yet sufficient light to incur the final penalty, the second death" (Mil. Dawn, p. 142).

Then, though one who believes in Christ is justified by faith, yet this does not involve his being sanctified or begotten of God. This is a further step, and is by works, by consecration and self-sacrifice ("Food," pp. I 15, 116). The majority of the nominal church do not go on to this: "they are justified, but not sanctified, not entirely consecrated to God, not begotten, therefore, as spiritual beings." "This class receive the favor of God [justification] in vain' (2 Cor. 6: 1); because failing to use it to go on and present themselves acceptable sacrifices, during this time in which sacrifices are acceptable to God. This class, though not 'saints,' not members of the consecrated 'body,' are called 'brethren' by the apostle (Rom. 12: 1)"! (Mil. Dawn, pp. 232, 233). These, however, will attain to merely human perfection in the future state, in the image of God as was Adam.

Let us examine this before we pass on. Does Scripture speak of such a class of justified ones, who are neither sanctified nor begotten of God? Surely not; nor does Mr. Russell attempt any serious proof. Scripture assures us that "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" (1 John 5: 1); while Paul bids us "follow peace with all men, and sanctification, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12: 14); and Peter writes to Christians as "elect through sanctification of the Spirit unto the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1: 2). Thus there can be no justification without sanctification, or apart from being born of God.

According to Mr. Russell, the great use of justification now is simply to enable some to make the acceptable sacrifice and join the class which are members of the body of Christ. (Mil. Dawn, p. 233.)

"The gospel-age is the period during which the body of Christ is called out of the world, and shown by faith the crown of life, and the exceeding great and precious promises whereby (by obedience to the calling and its requirements) they may become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1: 4)." (Mil. Dawn, p. 210.) "During the gospel-age [God] has been calling for the little flock of joint-heirs, saying, 'my son, give me thy heart;' that is, give yourself, all your earthly powers, will, talents, — your all to me, even as Jesus has set you an example, and I will make you a son on a higher plane than the human; I will make you a spiritual son, with a spiritual body, like the risen Jesus — 'the express image of the Father's person.' If you will give up all of the earthly, consecrate it entirely, and use it up in my service, I will give you a higher nature than the rest of your race — I will make you 'partakers of the divine nature' — make you heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ; if so be that ye suffer with him, that you may be also glorified together." (pp. 229, 230.)

Here, then, the principle of works comes in, and grace and the blood of Christ having lifted you to a lower level, you are to use it to take wing to this immensely higher one to the glory of your own performances! But where is the scripture for this offer and its conditions? There is reference implied to two texts — Rom. 8: 17 and 2 Peter 1: 4; but the first declares that if children of God, we are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, though it be true that suffering with Him is the way to the glory; and the second declares the effect of the exceeding great and precious promises in producing moral conformity to the divine nature. The latter is not the thing promised, but the thing produced, and produced by the promises, as received in faith, delivering us from the corruption that is in the world through lust. It is a present effect, not the prize of good conduct.

But here is the real bottom of these assertions (one can scarcely call them arguments), that Christ is not in resurrection a man any longer; that the human nature cannot be possessed along with the divine; that the divine nature implies immortality and a divine body (Mil. Dawn, p. 196); things which are all unscriptural inventions, and not truth at all. We have only to hold fast the truth that Christ is man — the Man Christ Jesus, — and yet God over all blessed forever, and all this system of error falls to the ground. Think of a man daring to say, in his blindness as to the glory of the Lord, that the prize held out to men now is, to be what He is — "the express image of the Father's person"! "Ye shall be as God" could not have been more plainly uttered since Satan destroyed man in the garden with it.

Will they sit, as Christ does, on the Father's throne?

As children of God we have, blessed be His name! the "divine nature;" not "divinity" (Food, p. 13), nor (as yet) immortality even; but eternal life in the Son of God (1 John 5: 11). This has to be denied in the system before us, which teaches that for any to enjoy everlasting life is for them to possess the right and means of continuing their life (by eating, etc., — Ps. 78: 25) as long as they continue obedient to God's laws" (Food, p. 1). Adam had everlasting life, we are told, but lost it when he fell; and he that believeth in Christ has not got it, spite of the Lord's words, emphasized as they are by the statement, "is passed out of death into life" (John 5: 24; John 6: 53, 54).

Thus the present possession is denied, in order to swell to blasphemous proportions the prize of the future. In the act of "consecration" (as they call it) to the pursuit of their own interests after the fashion already shown us, they hold, however, that a kind of spiritual life begins. They are then "begotten of God" — not "born," for new birth is only in resurrection.

"The Greek word gennao, and its derivations, sometimes translated begotten, and sometimes born," says Mr. Russell, "really contains both ideas, and should be translated by either one of these two English words. . . . When the active agent with which gennao is associated is a male, it should be translated begotten; when a female, born. Thus in 1 John 2: 29; 1 John 3: 9; 1 John 4: 7; 1 John 5: 1, 18; gennao should be begotten, because God (masculine) is the active agent. Sometimes, however, the translation is dependent on the nature of the act, whether masculine or feminine. Thus used in conjunction with ek, signifying from, or out of, it should be translated born. So in John 3: 5, 6, gennao should be rendered born, as indicated by the word ek — 'out of water,' 'out of flesh,' 'out of spirit'" (Mil. Dawn, p. 276. n).

This looks like accuracy, has a measure of truth in it as to the use of the word, and yet, like all else here, is a deception. Would it be imagined, from what Mr. Russell says, that in every one of the passages in which we are told gennao must be rendered "begotten," the preposition ek is used, although the agent is masculine? Or that in John 1: 13 it is "not out of blood, nor out of the will of the flesh, nor out of the will of man, but out of God"? Is it "begotten," or "born" here?

And in John 3: 3, why should it be "begotten," when two verses further on it is "born"? Is not the Lord explaining the being "begotten from above" (as Mr. Russell renders the first passage, p. 276), as being "born of water and of the Spirit"? And here, where two elements combine, the (typical) water and the Spirit, is it not certain, if there were a difference, it would be "begotten," not "born"?

The truth is, it is the same expression all through, whether you say "begotten" or "born," and there is no ground for any difference.

Our author has some supplementary arguments as to the meaning of this new birth. He contends that to "enter into the kingdom of God" here means to share the ruling power, not to be "under" the kingdom as subjects! (p. 278, n.) A new and curious phraseology to cover an unscriptural thought; I cannot find at least the expression in Scripture, of people under the kingdom. The tares are gathered out of it (Matt. 13: 41), not out from under it, as we are bidden to read, and the parables of the kingdom in general have nothing to say ordinarily of the ruling power.

But still more unfortunately for the argument, the Lord is undoubtedly referring to Israel's entrance into the kingdom of God as prophesied by Ezekiel (Ezek. 36: 25-27), in which these expressions "water" and "spirit" are found. And thus He could express His surprise that a master (or teacher) in Israel should not know upon what the blessing of the nation depended. Only He puts it here as a necessity, not merely for Israel, but for all; while the indubitable reference to Israel shows clearly that what is said does not refer to any thing peculiar (as Mr. Russell puts it) to the saints of the present "gospel-age."

But the most notable argument is derived from the eighth verse — "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." This refers, our author tells us, to the risen saints, who "will all be as invisible as the wind; and men not born thus, of the Spirit, will neither know whence they come nor when nor where they go" (p. 278)! It is a physical fact that provokes Nicodemus' wonder, not the spiritual mystery, as we thought it, that whosoever is born again is born by the subtle operation of the unseen Spirit! Yet his question, which the Lord is answering, is plainly, "How can a man be born?"

That it is Israel to whom Ezekiel's words have reference is again sufficient, moreover, to show how groundless is this interpretation.

To return to the act of consecration, in which spiritual life is said to begin. Those thus consecrating themselves "present their justified humanity a living sacrifice, as Jesus presented His perfect humanity a sacrifice — laying down all right and claim to future human existence, as well as ignoring present human gratifications, privileges, rights, etc." "Those thus transformed, or in process of change, are reckoned new creatures." They have bartered earth for heaven, humanity for divinity, — shrewd merchantmen, with their eye on eternity, and gain to self. They run for the highest honors, "sacrifice" the present to the future, and this sacrifice is of such efficacy as not only to raise its offerers (supposing they fulfill their obligations,) to the heights of glory, but even to supplement and perfect Christ's atonement for the world!

"As the man Christ Jesus laid down or sacrificed his life for the world, so these become joint-sacrificers with him. Not that his sacrifice was insufficient and others needed, but while his is all-sufficient, these are permitted to become his bride and joint-heir if willing to serve and suffer with him" (Mil. Dawn, p. 208).

And yet though the sacrifice is "all-sufficient," the price is not yet fully paid: —

"But the price is not yet fully paid. . . . With her Lord the wife becomes a part of the Christ — the anointed body.' She now fills up the measure of the afflictions of Christ which are behind — Col. 1: 24. With him she bears the cross here, and when every member of that body is made a living sacrifice, has crucified the fleshly human nature, then the ATONEMENT sacrifice will be finished, and the bride being complete will enter with her Lord into the glory which follows, and share with him in the joy that was set before him, and which he set before her — of blessing all the families of the earth, thus completing the AT-ONE-MENT between God and the redeemed race" ("Food," pp. 13,14).

The sacrifice of Christ is all-sufficient, and yet the price is not fully paid till the Church has made her sacrifice! There is to be an over-payment beyond what is all-sufficient, and the price is put correspondingly too high. This is very well for the Church, however, which thus by sufferings which are for her own benefit, can raise the sacrifice to more than "all-sufficient," and fully pay an over-payment for the world!

But the proof? Well, you heard the scripture, Col. 1: 24, clipped at both ends a little, to be sure, to make it fit in Mr. Russell's system. For it is Paul who, according to the passage, was filling up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ — not of His atonement — for His body's sake, which is the Church. How this can be the Church atoning for the world does not after all seem clear, and we should like a better explanation.

Our bodies a living sacrifice — is that atonement? Atonement was with a dead sacrifice, not a living one. And our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, is that too atoning, because a sacrifice?

The whole of this is as morally low as it is a perversion of Scripture, and mentally incongruous. The "love" which "seeketh not her own" is not in it as a principle; and though Mr. Russell claims to "understand all mysteries and all knowledge," yet without "love" this is nothing. Yea, and "though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing."

According to this scheme, the love that came out after us was not in God: God is not the Saviour. It is a creature who has brought salvation, and he as a means of reaching a place beyond his original one. While his work puts us only on our own feet, to pursue the same pathway of self-exaltation, and add our mite to the already self-sufficient ransom for the world! What wonder, then, that the apostle's words, the principle of his life — "the love of Christ constraineth me" — should not be found in this entire system? I may have overlooked something in some corner of a page, but I have not found it, and the omission is perfectly characteristic and decisive.

3. The Final Salvation

The eschatological views of Mr. Russell will not long detain us, as there is little that is peculiar to them except that raising of men to divinity — to be as God — which we have already looked at. How really this is so may be seen by such statements as the following: —

"Further, we learn that Jehovah, who alone possessed immortality originally, has highly exalted His Son, our Lord Jesus, to the same divine immortal nature; hence, he is now the express image of the Father's person (Heb. 1: 3). So we read, 'As the Father hath LIFE IN HIMSELF [God's definition of immortality — life in himself, not drawn from other sources, or dependent on circumstances, but independent inherent life], so he hath given to the Son to have LIFE IN HIMSELF' (John 5: 26). Since the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, then, two beings are immortal; and, amazing grace! the same offer is made to the bride of the Lamb, being selected during the gospel-age" (Mil. Dawn, p. 207).

"Thus we see that the new gift is that held out for the bride — immortality — divinity" ("Food," p. 13). "In a word, as already scripturally expressed, it is to have 'life in himself,' to be a fountain of life, a means of supplying life to others" (p. 139).

"The great work before this glorious anointed company — the Christ — necessitates their exaltation to the divine nature. No other than divine power could accomplish it" (Mil. Dawn. p. 287).

Here is the old lie in a more developed shape than ever presented, I believe, elsewhere. The glory of Christ is annulled that men may be exalted to His level. Where is it said that the saints are to have life in themselves? No where. "God hath given us eternal life, and this life is IN His SON" (1 John 5: 11). If, as Mr. Russell claims, eternal life is only ours in resurrection, then it is only plainer, if need be, that eternal life is always "in the Son." Moreover, as these tracts, with the common version, read, that "to those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality" God will give "eternal life" — eternal life in the Son is therefore at least the equivalent of "immortality."

And Christ was ever "that Eternal Life, which was with the Father; and was manifested unto us" (1 John 1: 2). As man, He is "given" to have "life in Himself." No one who was mere man ever could.

But we have looked enough at this, and there is little beside to detain us. The Scripture view of national restoration we have looked at already with Mr. Dunn (Ante p. 391) and again with Mr. Baker (App. p. 556, seq.). The latter has also given us the arguments as to the sheep and goats and the judgment of the great white throne, which Mr. Russell somehow omits. He never fairly endeavors to meet these scriptures, although quite aware that they stand in the way of acceptance of any such views as he maintains.

There is but one point more which needs, perhaps, a passing notice. It is the doctrine that Christ is already come, although not manifested, but is making Himself known by intimations of His presence, such as faith alone can understand. We have only to put this along with 1 Thess. 4: 13-18 to discern its falsity: for when the Lord comes, He descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. Then the dead in Christ shall rise; and then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

In conclusion, it is very plain that this system is not Christianity. As with Unitarians, the true deity of the Son and the personality of the Spirit are denied. Christ was not God come down, nor is He man gone up. God is not the Saviour-God. A creature created and a creature redeems us; and salvation is putting us in a condition to save ourselves. We are not under grace, but law; and the con-training motive in life is not Christ, but personal aggrandizement. Satan's lie becomes God's truth, — "ye shall be as gods," have life in yourselves and be a source of life to others! Yea, ye shall be the saviours of the world, helping Christ to make an atonement "all-sufficient" without your help. With this are united the doctrines of annihilo-restorationism; and the whole comes to us certified to be the solution of every mystery in Scripture from end to end!

Appendix - The Andover Theology, Swedenborgianism

Facts and Theories as to a Future State

by F. W. Grant.

Appendix

The Andover Theology

The Andover theology claims as its character to be "Progressive Orthodoxy,"* and as compared with most of the systems we have been reviewing, it may justify the claim. It is not annihilationism, neither is it restorationism, although it would not be inconsistent with a modified form of Mr. Dunn's views. So far as it may concern us here, it is simply a speculation or belief, which does not attempt to ground itself upon precise passages of Scripture, but only upon general principles and the ethics of the case, that those who have not in this life had the gospel-offer made to them must yet receive it, — how, is not defined. And this view we might simply decline to entertain as founded upon inference merely, always uncertain where so many questions have to be considered as are involved in the present.

{*"Progressive Orthodoxy: a contribution to the Christian interpretation of Christian doctrine." By the editors of the Andover Review.}

But we do not propose either to decline the inquiry or to limit it to the eschatological question which it is easy to see is connected with the theology as a whole, and with nearly every thing in it. This is not, nor intended to be taken as any, discredit to it. It is the contrary. All truth is thus connected necessarily, although we may not always be able to trace the connection. Thus to affirm the unity of the "New Theology" is to give it commendation, and to ascribe to it at least one of the characteristics of truth.

But on this account we shall, if briefly, yet as we hope sufficiently, examine the main positions of the volume in which the editors of the Andover Review have embodied their thoughts; and we trust to do so with candor. In the governmental ways of God, with which we have in this matter largely to do, we have enough in the Scripture-assertion, fully borne out by the histories both of the world and of the Church, that "clouds and darkness are round about Him," to check the spirit of pride and dogmatism, and make us go no further than as the Word of God "leads us by the hand."

The first portion of the book (after the introduction) takes up the subject of —

The Incarnation

And here the significance of what is said seems to be mainly this, that Christ's humanity was not assumed simply for the purpose of accomplishing atonement, but that (with the atonement itself) it is the revelation of God to His creatures, the abiding link between Him and them. Thus Jesus is not only the Head of the Church, or the Head of man, but of all created beings also. And this is surely true.

The writer points out that "the uniqueness of Jesus' humanity appears in its universality." Men differ by their respective limitations and preponderances, —

"The uniqueness of Christ's humanity appears in this, that it was not thus circumscribed. He was an individual man, but His individuality is His universality. He was 'the Son of Man.' That which distinguished Him from all other men is that He represents them all. His separation from any one of us is that which brings Him near to every one of us. His peculiarity is that no man's nature is so peculiar that He cannot comprehend it. He has kinship with us all by being our common Head."

This is very true and very blessed. In his thoughts on the "unity of Christ's person" the writer, on the other hand, fails grievously and loses himself. He speaks plainly of the Word as the "second Person of the Trinity," and yet afterward as "a particular mode of the divine being, not itself a person, but the bearer of a personal principle, and capable of self-realization in a human life." Similarly, the human [nature] is only potentially personal." "The act of incarnation is the union of these two." But is this as he represents it? The very word "incarnation" shows how opposite is the real thought, which Scripture expresses in "The Word was made flesh." Could you say equally "flesh was made the Word"? Two natures equally only "potentially personal," as he represents it, unite to form the One Person — Christ. On the contrary, it is, according to Scripture, the Person of the Son of God that assumes humanity.

Were it as he says, what he seeks escape from would be realized exactly: "a Person would be the object of supreme worship exterior and additional to the one only God." Or does he really not worship Christ? We may be sure he does; we may not doubt it. But the inconsistency upon this ground remains.

What is the seat of personality in man? Is not the body part of the human person? But changing as it is said to do every seven years, does the person change? No; it is the spirit which endues the body with personality; and if body and spirit alike form part of the living person, yet these are not co-equal in it but communicator and recipient. This may illustrate at least, if not actually typify, the way in which the divine and human are united in the one person of our Lord.

Upon what follows in the book before us, on the "self-consciousness" of the Lord, we do not propose to enter. It is well to remember that "no one knoweth the Son but the Father." If we ourselves are riddles to ourselves, how much more must a subject like this be a mystery before which we need to worship rather than to speculate.

But with the last section on the "significance of Christ's person," we are again, as intimated at first, in very hearty agreement. We believe truly that "a theology which is not Christocentric is like a Ptolemaic astronomy, — it is out of true relation to the earth and the heavens, to God and His universe." And we believe that Christianity is the religion of the cross and of redemption; and it is more: it is the religion of nature and reason as well."

We pass on to consider with the Andover theologians the doctrine of —

Atonement

The writer objects to the starting-point of the doctrine being found in the sin of man. But surely atonement could have no meaning apart from sin. Nor need the insignificance of the earth trouble us, or even the graver consideration that sin is thus made an absolute necessity in order to the revelation of God in Christ. Why should it be a difficulty that the wisdom of God should use the sin of man to bring out by it His holiness and His grace? Does this really make grace debtor to the evil which called it forth?

It is asserted that "the correct and scriptural starting-point is the mediation of Christ in its universal character." But this mediation could not take the form of atonement apart from sin. We may reason, if we will, that the incarnation might have been without this, and even "that the human race would have come earlier into the knowledge of God through Christ if there had been no sin." But there is no firm ground for argument in suppositions of this kind. Redemption implies unquestionably sin as prior and necessary to it; and while it is true that "the work of Christ has no meaning apart from His person," it seems unnecessary, to say the least, to remind us "that His work is not something set off by itself on which we can depend, as if the atonement were a thing, a quantity of suffering endured, an impersonal result." Who is there who would teach as saving a faith which rested in the work done without regard to the Person who did the work? But yet there is a work done upon which we can and must depend in its own place. If "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree," then we can rest in the consciousness that (as believing in Him) our sins are removed, and forever.

As we go on with the writer, the meaning of this becomes clearer. His idea of substitution is given in this way: —

"The substitution is not of Christ standing on this side for the race standing on that side, but the race with Christ in it is substituted for the race without Christ in it. This Christ in with the race is regarded by God as one who has those powers of instruction, sympathy, purity, which can be imparted to His brethren. Likewise the individual in Christ takes the place of the individual without Christ, is looked on as one whom Christ can bring to repentance and obedience, and so is justified even before faith develops into character."

This seems to me the central statement of the whole paper; but we may supplement it by another found a few pages further on: —

"The sin of man prevents God's love from flowing forth, so that the God of love is in reality hostile to man. In Christ, God can come to man in another relation, because Christ is a new divine power in the race to turn it away from sin unto God. God does not become propitious because man repents and amends, for that is beyond man's power. He becomes propitious because Christ, laying down His life, makes the race, to its worst individual, capable of repenting, obeying, trusting and He does this in such a way that God's abhorrence to sin is realized, the majesty of law honored, the sinner and the universe convinced of the righteousness of the divine judgment."

This is certainly a new language, and it will be hard to show that it is that of Scripture. Indeed, it is not, perhaps, presented as its statement, but as an underlying philosophy of atonement rather, by which its statement is to be explained and commended to reason. We must remember also that what is dressed in an unscriptural garb may be in itself not so unscriptural as at first sight we might naturally believe it. We have therefore to walk warily here, and look closely, seeking first of all to get hold of what is meant, and then to see if it is rightly presented.

Now the way which God has actually chosen to bring back man to Himself must of course be divinely suitable for its purpose, and chosen, we may say, for its suitability. And Christ is this way of God, in which we must not exclude His incarnation and personal preciousness any more than His sacrificial work. Nay, we must not exclude, either, the work of the Spirit of God upon man, by which alone all this is made effectual for his salvation. Yet no one would speak of all this as atonement; not even the theologians of Andover. Nor could we say that God was reconciled to man or man to God by virtue of the real suitability or potency of alt this.

There is no such thought in Scripture as that of reconciling God: it is always reconciliation to God of which it speaks. Nor is it ever said that the world is reconciled, but "you" — believers — "hath He reconciled" (Col. 1: 21). "God was;' indeed, "in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. 5: 19), but that was in His ministry down here, and for the present, says the apostle, He "hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." What is the consequence? "Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us, we pray in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." Thus the reconciling of the world still goes on, Christ absent, and others acting in His stead; but it is not atonement, clearly: and just because the reconciliation is going on, it is not accomplished.

As for God, He is never said to be reconciled; nor can He need it. Nor is propitiation, though for the world (1 John 2: 2), available except "through faith" (Rom. 3: 25).

And when it is said that the "race with Christ in it is substituted for the race without Christ in it," the juggle of words has surely deceived the writer. It is not sacrificial substitution that he means at all: the "race with Christ in it" does not lay down its life for the race without Christ! The real substitution in sacrifice could only be of Christ Himself for others.

But was substitution for the "race"? Actually it was for believers: "He taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold" (Heb. 2: 16). All men being invited to faith, it is in this sense for the world, but only in this sense. And thus it is that when a man believes, he comes under the value of the sacrifice, and is "justified" at once "by blood" and "by faith," and we see, too, in how different ways. Not latent capacities justify him, but the work of Christ; and not as one of a race with Christ in it, but as one of the "seed of Abraham."

Nor is Christ the "last Adam" of the old creation, but of a new: "If any man be in Christ, [it is] new creation" (2 Cor. 5: 17, marg. R.V.): so much so, that "from henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more" (v. 16). As long as He was in the world, though incarnate, He abode alone, as the corn of wheat to which He compares Himself: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12: 24). There was no "race with Christ in it" then. And having gone out of the world, He is not head of it, but of a new race, crucified with Christ to the world (Gal. 6: 14), — no more of it than He is of it (John 17: 14, 16). "Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2: 11).

Progressive Orthodoxy" is clearly wrong, then. It is not a question of words or modes of expression merely, but of things. Christ's relation to the race is not what is claimed, nor therefore is atonement what it is made to be. The writer says, —

"It must be confessed, however, that it is not clear how the sufferings and death of Christ can be substituted for the punishment of sin; how, because Christ made vivid the wickedness of sin and the righteousness of God, man was therefore any the less exposed to the consequences of sin."

It is simple enough, however, surely, that the penalty of sin being borne, and the holiness and righteousness of God being maintained, He can righteously justify the sinner who turns to Him, while Christ, having given Himself for such, righteousness requires it: "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1: 9).

We may leave, then, the question of atonement here, the last pages of the article we have been reviewing falling really to be discussed under the next head of —

Eschatology

And here there is no need for taking up the whole discussion. The point contended for, that in some way or other prior to the day of judgment all men of all generations will have heard the gospel of Christ, and will be judged according to the attitude taken with regard to it, is argued —

1. From the relationship of Christ as Son of Man to all men.

2. From the universality of the atonement.

3. From the announcement that the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

4. From judgment being in the hands of the Son of Man.

5. From the hopelessness of man's condition without the gospel, in view of the righteousness and love of God.

This, I believe, covers all the ground, and we shall not omit any point within this range of argument. The first argument, however, is by the writer distributed under the second and fourth heads, so that we may begin at once with the second — the universality of the atonement. He says, —

"It may be thought that the battle was long ago decided concerning the extent of atonement, that the atonement is generally believed to be universal in extent, not for the elect alone, but for the whole world, and that no one questions it (?!) But all that is involved in its universality has not been accepted. Can it be considered universal if a large portion of the race know nothing of the historical Christ and the redemption that is in Him? The extent of atonement resides not so much, it is to be considered, in the thing done, in the ample provision made, but rather in the personality of Christ. He is the universal Person, as we said at the outset. His religion, therefore, is the universal, absolute religion. There is no salvation in any other. He alone is able to bring God and man together. This would seem to lead us to the conclusion that the final word concerning destiny is not pronounced for any man till he knows Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Here, as I have said, the argument from the person of Christ is identified with that from the extent of the atonement, the person of Christ being looked at in fact as part of the atonement, as already we have seen. This is not scriptural, for every where in Scripture atonement is by blood. The types kept this constantly before the Jewish people (Lev. 17: 11).

In the New Testament we read, "a propitiation, through faith, by His blood." (Rom. 3: 25, R.V.) The universality of the atonement, as Scripture teaches it, consists in this, that there is in it a real and available sufficiency for every one that trusts in it. It is for all, upon condition of faith. Apart from faith, it saves none.

But this is plainly a condition for those to whom the condition would apply. Plainly, it would not exclude infants or idiots, nor therefore (so far as this goes) the unevangelized heathen. It is the condition announced to those who hear the gospel.

But if it be so, this speaks differently from what we might anticipate. If "a propitiation, through faith, for the whole world," be the terms to be announced to those to whom we carry the gospel, then we have really no warrant to apply the universality of the atonement itself more widely than to those to whom the gospel comes. And may we not in so doing be intruding on what belongs to God alone? The apostle thus calls the truth that Christ "gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony for its own times; unto which," says he, "I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles" (1 Tim. 2: 6, 7). If, then, this be the "testimony for its own times," does this give us liberty to apply it to all times? Is it not one other instance of the way in which Scripture refuses to answer questions which are not practical ones for us, but must be left with Him who is perfect in knowledge as in holiness and love?

"Lord, are there few that be saved?" was an inquiry very like the present one. And how does the Lord answer it? "Strive," He says, "to enter in at the strait gate."

The argument from the person of Christ does not carry us further. "He is the universal Person, as we said at the outset." Be it so: what then? "His religion, therefore, is the universal, absolute religion." There is nothing else, surely, for us now; and in it are found in full development all the germs of truth that ever were. But does not the person of Christ belong to the full development, if it be meant by this, as I suppose, that the power of what He personally is must be an instrumentality in the conversion of every saved soul?

Christ is the full-orbed perfection of all beauty; and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ defines what is conversion for us now. There is no power such as He for the conversion of souls, and all that God has ever used in this was, I believe, some radiance of His glory, if obscure. But there are rays before the dawn; and it cannot be meant that souls were not converted before Christ came! And yet this seems to be the argument in what follows: "There is no salvation in any other. He alone is able to bring God and man together. This would seem to lead us to the conclusion that the final word concerning destiny is not pronounced for any man till he knows Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

This principle would carry us very far indeed. We should have to say that all that ever lived before Christianity had their destiny undecided. And those even who have lived since Christ, but when the glory of His face was obscured, as it has been, and His gospel buried under the rubbish of revived ceremonialism — these too, it would seem, must be waiting for the final word. How many even in Protestantism? Before or since the gospel, probation (as people speak) must have been more a failure than it is easy to believe; and the apostle's words, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6: 2) must apply to a comparatively few only. Just how far it applies in fact, who can tell, when such men as Sir Moses Montefiore (Pr. Or. p. 131), living in the midst of the full light of Christianity are supposed to be exempted from its application on the ground of "invincible ignorance"? If the power of education, race-prejudices, and similar influences could excuse one with exceptional opportunities for knowing the truth, for how many of the hearers of the apostle Paul could they be pleaded with equal truth?

No, we must in this case accept the fact that while "he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" may be true still, yet it is not true, or does not apply to the present time, that "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3: 36); it is not true that if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8: 24); or rather, shall we say, that dying in one's sins has no such evil in it as the words seem to convey? Although, indeed, when He said, "ye shall die in your sins," He added, as if it were the consequence, "whither I go ye cannot come" (v. 21).

But let us go on now with the writer: —

"The view has been taken that justice condemns the sinner to death before or until atonement is made, and that Christ rescues the sinner from his just doom."

How could atonement by blood be otherwise true? If death were not the due apart from atonement, why need death be taken? And does it not say that "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse"? and that because "it is written, 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them'" (Gal. 3: 10)? Is the law harsh and arbitrary in saying this? And is it the misfortune of the one thus cursed, that he is under it? And did Christ accept an over-harsh sentence when He "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us"? (v. 13.)

"It has been said, therefore, that God must be just and may be merciful, as if the exercise of mercy were not necessary to God in the sense in which justice is necessary. But we must now conclude that justice does not pronounce its final word till God has revealed Himself in all His intended manifestations of righteousness and love. Justice is concerned that every attribute of God should be displayed; is as jealous for the rights of love as for those of holiness. If it is God's very nature to love, — if — if it is a desire of His to save men from sin, justice sees to it that love is not deprived of its rights, and is not hindered in any of its impulses. We may go so far as to say that it would not be just for God to condemn men hopelessly when they have not known Him as He really is — when they have not known Him in Jesus Christ."

This involves fully the thought that none before Christ came could possibly perish in their sins, and none since where the knowledge of Christ was defective or corrupted. "Moses and the prophets" were not enough, and the rich man's condition in hades is impossible and inconceivable. "The Holy Scriptures," which Timothy had known from his childhood, and which, of course, were Old Testament scriptures, were not "able to make wise unto salvation" except only where there was a receptivity not by any means always to be found. And when God asks, in Isaiah, as to His people, "what could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done to it?" the Andover theology, with its developed ethics and new light on such questions, can answer this!

Would it not be well to be more cautious, possibly more humble, in these reasonings, and to accept the probability that here there may be more data needed than we are in possession of for so positive and sweeping a conclusion? The equalizing of God's dealings with men is just one of those things in which it is positively asserted that "clouds and darkness are round about Him." May He not ask of those who undertake to do this for Him, "Who hath required this at your hands?"

But there is more than this to be considered. For after all, while it is by His Word that God works our salvation, are men in fact born again of their own will ever? or can any concentration of light upon the eyeballs of the dead bring them to life? Not so; if at least we are still to have faith in Scripture. Men must be born again; and that "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1: 13).

Why, then, plead for the concentration of light upon all alike? Why insist that even love must do this? Why not rather that that quickening of divine power needed by any for new birth should be put forth on all? Granted that men are responsible to receive the Word of God, — grant (as to the lost) that all that the most decided Arminianism could assert of them is true; yet if their refusal of grace were certain, who could demand as mercy to them that it should be offered? God asks of His vineyard, "What more could I do than I have done?" Yet He had not given them this full gospel which the new theology requires to be given to all. Can they assure us that there would have been more hope of success, so that the divine love itself could speak of it as "doing more"?

But Calvinism is not the theology of Andover, and this is Calvinism! No; it is not even that. Take away, if you will, all thought of absolute decrees; only leave man his free will to reject, and God His foreknowledge of that rejection, we may still argue as we have. If man has no free will or God no foreknowledge, then indeed the argument (and all argument) is absolutely hopeless.

We find now another: —

"And it is evidently the intent of God that all men should know Him through Christ. The judgment does not come till the gospel has been preached to all nations. The gospel is preached to a nation, not when within certain geographical boundaries it has been proclaimed at scattered points, but only when in reality all individuals of all the nations have known it."

This is quite a new interpretation. Is it correct? If it had been meant to say "preached to all individuals," why say "nations"? Would it be just the same to say "all persons" and to say "all classes"? I cannot but think not.

But allow that all persons in the nations are to hear the gospel, would any one not prepossessed by a theory suppose that one could not preach to a whole nation without its involving the resurrection of all their dead?

But let us look at the Scripture-usage.

The passage referred to is, I suppose, Matt. 24: 14: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; and then shall the end come." Turn back then to the ninth verse: "And ye shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake:" does this mean, "hated by all persons of all nations" absolutely?

Again, in Rom. 16: 26, the apostle speaks of the mystery which "now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." Are we to believe, then, that every individual of all the nations had had it manifested to him, and even all the generations of the dead?

It is quite useless, I think, to argue this point further. Not the words, but the ethics of the case, have convinced our author of what is in this text.

Let us go on to consider with him now "the principle of judgment."

"The Son of Man is to be Judge of the world. . . . Now this means more than that, in addition to His offices of Redeemer and Master, Christ is also appointed Judge. It means that all men are to be judged under the gospel — to be judged by their relation to Christ. . . . They are not to be judged under the light of reason and conscience alone, but under the light of the gospel of Christ."

The only scripture here appealed to is that "the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son; . . . and hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man" (John 5: 22, 27). Nothing is said, however, here about the "principle of judgment." That He who is Himself Man should be the Judge of men commends itself to us as every way suitable. That they will all be judged by their relation to Him in the gospel is not said, and we must be careful about saying it. We are told by the Lord Himself that "he that knew not [his Master's will], and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes" (Luke 12: 48). This does not indeed absolutely say "knew not his Master;" nor should we expect that Scripture, reserved as it always is, in dealing with questions that are not practical ones for those addressed by the Word, should deal at large with these.

But there is a passage which would seem to decide this matter. It is the apostle's statement of the guilt and condemnation of the Gentiles which occupies the first half of the second chapter of the epistle to the Romans. It is thus referred to in the paper before us: —

"The only other passage which is claimed as explicit and decisive is in the second chapter of Romans, where Paul says that as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law. But even this statement, direct as it seems, is found in the midst of a discussion the aim of which is to show that all men have absolute need of the gospel; that for Gentile and Jew alike there is no hope apart from the gospel; that all men, by reason of their sins, are shut up to the gospel; that the nations left to themselves would perish; having not the law, they would perish notwithstanding, as the Jews having the law would perish notwithstanding. The apostle was describing the actual present condition of the Gentiles and Jews, to show that there is universal need of the gospel. And at the end of the same sentence he affirms that all men at last are to be judged 'according to my gospel by Jesus Christ."'

The argument is apparently that "as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law" does not refer to what actually will be, but only to what would be if the gospel did not intervene. The actual judgment is according to the gospel, — that is, by the reception or rejection of it. Who can believe this? The apostle's words are, "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." I have merely omitted the verses which are confessedly parenthetic, and brought the two parts of the interrupted sentence together. Thus connected, it is impossible to read it as any thing but a positive assurance of what will be.

This is a day of judgment for men of which the gospel assures us. In that day, those that have sinned without law shall perish without, they that have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. To add any thing to so plain a tale would be but to obscure it. It is as plain as can be.

It is true that this does not settle that every heathen perishes, any more than it does that every one under the law does, though judgment by the law would be necessary perdition. But it does speak of what will be the lot of many (if not all), — of an actual, not a hypothetical, doom.

Another text, which is of force to show that probation (as it is called) is ended with this life, is the passage in Hebrews (Heb. 9: 27), which the writer of this paper spends but a few words over: "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." His comment is, —

"If it means that death, as we believe, is a great crisis, it seems to mean also that judgment is the other great crisis for every man. It is silent concerning the period between death and judgment."

True, it is silent; but silence may sometimes have a trumpet-tongue. Why after death the judgment, if it should be rather, after adequate testing with the gospel? Does not "after death" imply that judgment is for the life which death has closed? And does it not agree perfectly with that receiving of the "deeds done in the body" (2 Cor. 5: 10), which certainly no other scripture would limit, as the new theology suggests, to any special class? With these the words of the preacher make a threefold cord not quickly broken: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil" (Ecc. 12: 13, 14).

The passages which seem positively to favor the evangelization of the dead, according to the Andover professors — 1 Peter 3: 18-20; 1 Peter 4: 6; Matt. 12: 32; Matt. 25: 31 seq. — have been all examined fully. I would point out again as to the second text what I have said before (p. 376), that it really confirms the thought of the fixed condition of the dead. But I must refer my readers to what has been already said. There would be no apparent profit in a repetition of it.

Nor need we follow the book we have been looking at further. We have examined the Scripture bearing on the subject, and for speculation we have no taste, even though it be in the interest of ethics. To "justify the ways of God to man" is not free from danger, as Job's friends found who meant sincerely to show that His governmental dealings were always as plainly as they are really right. But look at the history of Christendom itself; see how they who were to preach the gospel to every creature lost it for themselves; see the world groaning under the rule of the church; the reformation in the sixteenth century splitting up into ever-multiplying and discordant sects. It is man's failure, you say, not God's. Truly; and so is the lapse from the truth man once knew, and the resulting heathenism: "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Let us not put this upon God either. And if He says and swears, "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth," let us believe Him, and rest there.

The day of manifestation is coming, and God is not in haste to justify Himself. The darkness is the discipline of faith, but in the face of Christ is glory without a vail. If the question put to Himself, "Lord, are there few that be saved" brought no direct reply, can we force an answer to a very similar question? "Secret things belong unto the Lord our God:" we may not rob the future of what is to be revealed by it, when at last every eye shall see what faith unseeing knows and rejoices in, that "the Lord is righteous in all His ways." Where agnosticism means, not unbelief, but faith, — where it is the confession of nothingness, and the refusal to be wise above what is written, is it a reproach to be thus far agnostics?

A Note on Swedenborgianism

I omitted in the former edition of this book to speak of Swedenborgianism, and this has been objected to me; but the reason will be plain to those who are at all acquainted with it. Swedenborgianism rejects ten out of thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, twenty-two out of twenty-seven in the New; and what remains is interpreted in an arbitrary mystical manner, which, based upon a supposed supernatural illumination, refuses to submit to ordinary criticism. To the shred of Scripture left it adds the visions and revelations of Swedenborg himself, and the whole is a new dispensation of truth superseding the gospel. Thus evidently it is of little use discussing this doctrine or that belonging to it. It stands or falls as a whole, and any sufficient review of its claims would be beyond the scope of this volume. Yet we may permit ourselves a very brief notice.

Indeed, for those who believe in Scripture, and have not yielded themselves up to the deadening of the moral faculties which false doctrine ever induces, a statement of the views is a sufficient refutation. Dr. Enoch Pond has given this already, with constant reference to the books from which he quotes; and his account, until it be shown a false one, should be enough for all purposes. I shall therefore avail myself of his book so far as needful.

Swedenborgianism denies the Trinity, the spotlessness of the Lord, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, justification by faith, and the resurrection. No real Christianity remains, therefore, in it. At death, the body is done with, but the man rises in a spiritual body which has been contained within the natural. There is, however, an intermediate state of existence in a spiritual world, where henceforth — the last general judgment having taken place — no person is allowed to remain longer than thirty years. Every one passes then into heaven or hell, according as his ruling affections and life on earth have been either good or evil.

In the spiritual world things go on much as in the present one, so that one come recently into it does not know but that he is still in the former world. He walks, runs, sits, eats and drinks and sleeps as before. He is amid plains and valleys and hills and rivers, gardens, groves, and woods. The people live in nations, pursuing trades and occupations as they did on earth.

In heaven it is little different. You find birds, beasts, and fishes, vegetables of all kinds, groves, fields, plains, flower-beds, shrubberies, and grass-plats. There are mechanical arts, and trades, "judiciary proceedings," museums, gymnasiums and colleges; the inhabitants still eat and drink and sleep, wear clothes, live in houses, marry and rear children, play hand-ball, rackets, and engage in other diversions.

"It is not so difficult as it is supposed to live a life which leads to heaven." "Some people believe that a spiritual life is difficult, since they have been told that a man must renounce the world, and deprive himself of the concupiscences of the body and the flesh; which things they conceive as implying that they must reject worldly things, which consist chiefly in riches and honors; that they must walk continually in pious meditation about God, salvation, and eternal life; and that they must spend their days in prayer, and in reading the Word and other pious books. This they call renouncing the world, and living in the Spirit and not in the flesh. But that the case is altogether otherwise has been given me to know," says Swedenborg himself, "from much experience, and from conversation with the angels. Indeed, they who renounce the world and live in the Spirit, in the manner above described, procure to themselves a sorrowful life, which is not receptible of heavenly joy; for every one's life remains with him after death."* He accordingly recommends "the delights and pleasures of the bodily senses," — dice, billiards, cards, and dances.**

{*"Heaven and Hell," sect. 528.

** Charity, sect. 117.}

Only we must "beware of this heresy, that man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law; for he who is in it and does not fully recede from it before life ends, after death associates with infernal genii; for they are the goats concerning whom the Lord says, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."* Pious Mohammedans, on the other hand, go to heaven and enjoy the very paradise promised by their religion!

{* Apocalypse Revealed, sect. 838.}

"It is evident," he further says, "that they who come into hell remain there to eternity." Yet he contradicts this again: "It is not to be thought, therefore, that the Lord would suffer any one to be punished, much less without intermission forever, except with a view to his reformation; as whatever is from the Lord is good, and for a good end; but eternal punishment could have no such end."*

{* Spiritual Diary. sect. 3489.}

But in fact "no one suffers punishment in hell on account of the evils which he has done in the world, but on account of the evils which he then does."* And yet he speaks of the punishment of assassins as "dreadful," and has a special one for the popes who deprived emperors of their dominions. Punishment seems largely inflicted by the lost upon each other, and it is often terrible enough; but there are mitigations. Those who do their task well get food and clothing and beds to rest on. There are hypocrites, who, "by means of a holy external, have communications with some of the societies of the lowest heavens; and by means of a profane internal, with the hells; while others are able to persuade themselves and others that they are in heaven. Indeed, those in hell are permitted to live as they like and enjoy the delights they desire, with no other qualification, no other restraint, than is necessary to prevent their making each other miserable."* "But this idea," says Dr. Pond, "is contradicted in a great many passages."

{* Heaven and Hell, sect. 509.[528?]}

Plainly it would be doing too great honor to all this to refute it. Nor need it have been mentioned, except for the fact that many are still ignorant what "New Church" doctrine is, and are exposed by their ignorance to being deceived by it. Dr. Pond's book contains many more and grosser things than these, which it is not necessary for me to bring forward. I commend all who desire information to the book itself.