Life And Death
Or The Theology Of The Bible In Relation To Human Immortality.
Three Lectures By J. Panton Ham
Minister, Formerly Of London Street Chapel,
Now Of Coopers’ Hall Congregational Church, Bristol.
Second Edition, Revised, With Additions.
London: Houlston And Stoneman, 65, Paternoster Row
Bristol: Evans And Abbott, Clare Street.
1851.
“These Lectures discuss subjects that have recently afforded matter of earnest controversy between men equally orthodox upon other points. We do not apprehend a speedy close to these discussions. The subject of retribution is so wide in its relations, and involves questions of such difficulty and delicacy, that we neither expect nor desire a termination soon to the fullest, freest controversy. It does not come within our chosen province to take part in the discussion; but though, as journalists we have no opinion, as individuals we take a great interest in the matter in dispute, and the course of inquiry and debate.”— Non Conformist.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
These Lectures were not originally designed for the press, nor would they have appeared in this form, had not circumstances transpired which seemed to render it imperative. Little more has been aimed at than to present, in a popular manner, a general survey of the system of revealed truth. To have pointed out all the relations of this view of the scheme of religion, —though it would have added strength and confirmation to the argument, — or even to say all that might be said on the several topics briefly discussed in these Lectures, would have gone beyond the object contemplated, which was to excite the intelligent inquiry of the pious believer in Christ, in the hope that it would remove many acknowledged doctrinal difficulties, and lead to a more enlightened and general profession of Evangelical Christianity.
In issuing the Lectures in the present form, it may be well to state that no additions have been made to them except a few Notes, — neither time, nor the desirable limits of this small volume, permitted extensive alterations or more copious illustration, — they are, therefore, left in the form in which they were publicly delivered.
The views here developed the Author firmly embraces; and, believing them to involve a just conception of the scheme and details of Evangelical Religion, he was induced to give them a marked prominence in the course of his ordinary ministrations. But, reminded how natural it is for the mind, especially the opening mind of youth and inexperience, to attach undue importance to its fresh information, he confined them to the secrecy of his own bosom, even for some time after his convictions were fully matured, that the enthusiasm which novelty often begets might be sobered by calmer and more lengthened reflection. Subsequent study of Divine Truth tended but to strengthen conviction, and the decision of conscience was deemed to be that of prudence, in the course which it appeared to be a duty to adopt.
It has appeared to the Author that the speculative reason has had more to do in the discussion of religious doctrines than is consistent with the profession that the Bible is the sole and efficient teacher in religion.
And perhaps nowhere do Evangelical Divines of the present day exhibit more the speculative tendency than in their arguments in favour of the natural immortality of man, and the nature of future punishment. Oh the former of these subjects I may, in illustration of the summary manner in which the argument from Scripture is disposed of, quote the language of a highly respectable writer, in his versions on an argument of the Reverend George Storrs, — “Man,” he says, “that is Adam, was a probationer, no doubt of it, For what?” is a question to which revelation furnishes no answer, and which may well be deemed therefore of no great importance to us?
Is it conceivable that the Bible should reveal the fact that Adam was a “probationer” and yet not reveal for what he was a probationer? The statement that revelation furnishes no answer to this question, is most surprising. Is not the narrative of the Edenic dispensation designed to be an, answer to it? Surely it will not be conceded to the author of “Athanasia” that the answer is “of no great importance to us”! It is because some have attached so little importance to this portion of the inspired narrative, and have sought their information in their own speculations, that they have adopted the splendid but hurtful fiction of unconditional natural immortality.
* Reverend J. H. Hinton, M.A., “Athanasia,” page 341,
These Lectures suppose the Bible capable of answering the several questions raised in them. They appeal exclusively to the Scriptures, as their sole criteria, to whose Author and His grace they are reverently and hopefully commended.
Bristol, March, 1849.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
In sending forth a Second Edition of these Lectures, the Author is but yielding to the public demand which has been created for them — a demand to which he the more readily responds since the subjects of which they treat are not of mere local and transient interest, but appertain to the highest interests, both temporal and eternal, of mankind.
It is gratifying, and a cause for devout thankfulness that, notwithstanding the misrepresentations and indiscriminate opposition which have been endured in the public advocacy of the scriptural truths advanced in this volume, — some, and these not a few, have bestowed upon it a candid and dispassionate investigation, and the result of their reading and reflection has been the cheerful addition of their testimony to its general scriptural integrity.
The readers of the First Edition will perceive that, although the Lectures retain their original popular form, they have undergone a very considerable alteration, so that they cannot, in their present form, be regarded as the Lectures formerly delivered in Lodge Street Chape50:Very much new matter has been added, and much that was not immediately connected with the subjects under consideration has been removed, so that this re-issue might be more strictly what its title professes to be, a treatise on “Life and Death; or the Theology of the Bible in relation to Human Immortality.”
Connected with the subjects of these Lectures are the theological inquiries concerning the human soul, and the intermediate state between death and resurrection. To these topics the Author has devoted a separate volume, which is published under the title of “The Generations Gathered and Gathering; or the Scripture Doctrine concerning Man in Death.”
Two years have elapsed since the first edition of these Lectures was published. During this interval an increased acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, and a clearer understanding of the doctrines here set forth, have enabled nae to modify and improve, and in some instances have obliged me to expunge statements which I had previously published. I am free to confess this much because candour demands it, and furthermore I am aware how common it is for unscrupulous opponents to endeavour to excite prejudice against an obnoxious writer by contrasting his more recent opinions with those he may previously have maintained, a course which I am solicitous here to repudiate both as unfair in controversy, and adverse to the interests of truth. The pious and learned Doctor Watts has said:
“Though a sentence or two from any man’s former writings may be cited, perhaps to confront his later thoughts, yet that is not sufficient to refute them: all that it will prove is this, that that man keeps his mind ever open to conviction, and that he is willing and desirous to change a darker for a clearer idea. It will only declare to the world, that he can part with a mistake for the hope of truth, that he dares confess himself a fallible creature, and that his knowledge is capable of improvement. It becomes the All-wise God, and not mortal man, to be unchangeable. It doth not belong to such poor imperfect beings as we are, to remain forever unmoveable in all the same opinions that we have once indulged, nor to stamp every sentiment with immortality. For a man to be obstinately tenacious of an old mistake, and incorrigibly fond of any obscure phrase or conception, because he has once admitted it, is the shame, and not the glory, of human nature.”
With the same eminent man I may venture unostentatiously to add: “When I apply myself with diligence to make further inquiries into the great doctrines of the Gospel, I would never make my own former opinions the standard of truth, and the rule by which to determine my future judgment. My work is always to lay the Bible before me, to consult that sacred and infallible guide, and to square and adjust all my sentiments by that certain and unerring rule. It is to this supreme judge of controversies that I pay an unreserved submission, and would derive all further light from this fountain. I thank God that I have learned to retract my former sentiments, and change them, when upon stricter search and review, they appear less agreeable to the Divine standard of faith.”
It may be well to state, to guard against the possibility of misapprehension, that the corrections and additions in the present edition are designed to furnish a more correct and emphatic representation of those grand doctrines, of the scriptural truth of which I am more than ever convinced.
May the Great Head of the Church accept this humble endeavour to give currency to long-neglected and perverted truths, and condescend to employ it for the revival of a pure faith in the Church of these last days, — and to Him shall be the glory and praise!
Bristol, April, 1851.
Preface to “Dissertations relating to the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity,” part 2:
CONTENTS
LECTURE 1:
THE EDEN DISPENSATION
LECTURE 2:
THE CHRISTIAN REDEMPTION
LECTURE 3:
THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION
APPENDEX:
NOTE 1:
The Value of Speculative Philosophy in Scriptural Science
NOTE 2:
The Value of the Christian Fathers in Religious Controversies
THE EDENIC DISPENSATION
Genesis 2:7.
“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.”
It may reasonably be presumed, apart from any overweening sense of one’s own personal claims upon public attention, that, in announcing a series of discourses on the “Theology of the Bible,” some inquisitiveness may have been excited in the minds of those who feel any interest in the truth; and, perhaps, a state of mind has been antecedently produced, which is rather curious and disquiet than devoutly reflective and calm, and which may, in consequence, disturb that consciousness of interested fellowship in which I desire we should come, at the present time, to the oracle of truth.
* These lectures were originally delivered under the title of the “Theology of the Bible,” to young men in Lodge Street Chapel, Bristol, in the months of February and March, 1849.
It is a great attainment, and evinces a noble independence, when a mind will, in the spirit of earnest devotion and inquiry, look the truth humbly but steadily in the face; and without anticipations and pre-judgments, go whithersoever it is directed. It often happens, that the calm and independent current of our thoughts, in the investigation of truth, is interrupted by a foresight of the conclusion which we are about to reach, — a conclusion which, because opposed to our previous belief, is, on this account, anxiously avoided. The inquirer, thus taken by surprise, is injuriously checked by his prejudices; and, unless accustomed to independent thought, and urged on by the irrepressible thirst after truth, forecloses abruptly the prosecution of the inquiry.
It were too much to presume that, in a mixed assembly like the present, none should be mentally circumstanced as I have supposed: I hope, however, notwithstanding this forestalling tendency, that I may be permitted to lead the way in these interesting inquiries, in which I shall endeavour from the Bible to show, that the popular religious teaching gives an incorrect representation of the fall of man, and as a consequence, does not accurately represent his redemption by Christ. The scriptures, I have been led to believe, exhibit the fall of man as a more intelligible and complete ruin, and the redemption by Christ as a more rational and blessed recovery, than is commonly taught. My endeavour will be to indicate the teaching of the Bible on the important subject of human immortality, with the view of proving that this doctrine, as professed by the modem Christian church, is a tradition of the old speculative philosophy of the heathen sages, which is nowhere recognized in, but is most repugnant to the word of God.
But this is an undertaking which will probably be considered by many as unnecessary as it is presumptuous. Is it possible, some may ask, that the Christian church can have nurtured in her bosom such mischievous and distracting errors, and that through a long series of ages they should not have been discovered and that it remains for us in the nineteenth century to go back to first principles, and revise the basis of our holy faith? Even so. If all impartial history assures us, that very early in the Christian era the seeds of serious errors were sown in the bosom of the church, — and if the progress of that history exhibits, in its many controversies, the germination and too successful growth of these errors, is it not rather probable that the lateness of the period in which we live, instead of putting us beyond their reach, has afforded a longer time for their destructive maturity, and that now may be the harvest-time of many early errors, and we may in reality be feeding upon their fruit? If the living and “true vine” be closely pressed upon by the forest trees of old errors, is it improbable that the “branches” of “the true vine” shall put forth their tendrils to these deceitful props, and by seeking other supports, be unconsciously dishonouring the parent stock? Let not then the supposition of a necessary doctrinal perfection prejudice the mind in the prosecution of this inquiry.
No less authority than Douglas thus wrote on the rise of error in the primitive church: — “The early Christians were by no means aware of the extent of their danger when they enumerated only the heresies and the heretics, that were without the church. The same errors were also spreading within. Those who were vehement and determined in their errors, naturally separated themselves from others, and distinguished themselves by a peculiar name, while the many through whose minds the same erroneous notions of philosophy or superstition were vaguely floating remained included in the bosom of the church. As the multitude of believers increased, the number of crude and mistaken opinions they brought with them were multiplied also; and the study of the scriptures the only cure for these evils, wan either neglected or pursued upon visionary principles. While the doctors of the church were refuting heretics, they were often cherishing in their own writing the seeds of future heresies; and the tone of feeling and the mode of thinking among Christians was rapidly receding from the standard of scripture and the oracles of truth. [♦ Errors Regarding Religion, pages 58-59. See also pages 82-83.]
In this and the following discourses, I desire to adhere closely to the word of God, — to take this word as the infallible instructor in all the matters of our religious faith and practice. It is not with human opinions, whether right or wrong, that I desire to have to do, — although these must, of necessity, be occasionally referred to, — but with the plain and authoritative teachings of God. To this I have endeavoured to bring my own mind, from the conscious insufficiency and unsatisfactory character of much which I had been taught to believe was the revelation of God, but which I am constrained to regard as but the doctrines and commandments of men.
Mr. Noel, in his work on “The Union of the Church with the State,” well observes, that since the doctrine of Christ “has been preached, men can no longer receive the creed of their fathers or of their country without investigation; but each one is bound to search after truth, to receive it, to maintain it, and to promulgate it in the world, in opposition to all error, however venerable or popular. Our Lord predicted, that this novel exercise of conscience in matters of religion, this independent inquiry, and resolute profession, would disturb society everywhere to its very foundations. ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword;’ to which may be added another declaration of our Lord, “I am come to send fire on the earth.” And while this is the predicted effect of making conscience of our creed, the obligation to do so is no less obvious; — “Let every man be fully persuaded In his own mind;” — “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin;” — “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.”
All who are accustomed to investigate the grounds of their own religious faith, and who are in the habit of contemplating the development of the religious opinions of others, will readily concur with me, that considerable vagueness, and even actual ignorance, with respect to religious doctrines, exist in the minds of the majority of religious persons; and that a very considerable proportion of religious belief is rather to be regarded as traditionary and educational, than the result of enlightened conviction. May not this be chiefly traced to the fact, that religion is propagated rather independently of the Bible, than by its supreme authority, as the source of all religious teaching? There is an understood creed, conventionally stereotyped in the minds of all so called orthodox believers, according to which the correctness of any belief is examined, and by which it is approved or condemned. We have an authoritative tribunal, a ghostly council, as virtually a spiritual council as either that of Carthage or Trent, with canons and formularies as fixed; the effect of which is to awe and intimidate any independent mind that shall be bold enough, in the consciousness of a sacred duty, to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of him.
One has only to entertain a different opinion, even on some minor point of religious belief, from the orthodox multitude, and immediately suspicion, hard names, and sometimes something worse, become the recompence of such temerity. Roman Pontiffs, alas! Are not the only Popes who have troubled the churches of Jesus Christ. Protestantism, with all its protestations, has had its Popes; and even now, while Romanism has one Pope, Protestantism has many. In this respect Protestantism has become non Protestant, and needs to revise and revive its noble position, — the Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants. “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them.”
* A dissenting minister in this city, not content, it would seem, with the unavowed yet practical popery of the reformed churches in refusing the right of private judgment, and punishing the nonconformity of religious opinion with excommunication from Christian fellowship, both visible and real, — has, in a recent publication, entitled “The Bible and its Profitable Use,” boldly demanded of all devout students of the word of God that they shall study it only by the light of the unwritten commentary of the conventional opinions of the “living church.”
Who constitute the “living church” among the many corporate claimants to this distinction, we are left to guess. Now, I should not have taken further notice of this lecture, after having addressed a printed “Expostulation” to its author, had he not in k subsequent publication indicated the obnoxious sentiments on which I felt it to be a duty to animadvert. Nor should I originally have attached any particular importance to the lecture, had it not been delivered before the Associate Ministers of the Bristol Dissenting Churches, and published as so delivered, which has given to its publication a kind of local ministerial sanction. The pamphlet entitled “The Bible and its Profitable Use” stands before the Bristol public with the imprimatur of the dissenting ministers and churches. They, by their silence, have virtually indorsed its contents.
That there is much that is excellent in this lecture is readily allowed, but its virtues are tarnished by the presence of such statements as the following: —
“I do not mean that we are to compare scripture with scripture, a comparison you cannot fail to institute; but that you are to compare your apprehension of scripture truth with the apprehension of the whole church, especially the living church of our own day.” — Page 21.
“Hence it is with the convictions of the living church that comparison must be chiefly made for a profitable use of the Bible.” — Page 2.
“There surely is a sense in which private judgment must yield to the church.” — Page 24.
“We do not put our judgment in proud antagonism to the congregation of God’s people; however strong an opinion we may form, our humility will prevent us from holding anything as indubitably certain, which may be contradicted by the general conviction of the body — the church.” — Page 25.
The character of these discourses will be rather expository than controversial. An attempt will be made to reply to the question, “What saith the scripture?” on the successively connected subjects which I have proposed to bring before you. The subject for our present consideration is, the scriptural representation of man, — his constitution, probation and fall.
Tested by the above sentiments, the great religious reformers, Wycliffe, Luther, Knox, and others, merit rather the reprehension than admiration of the protestant church; and protestants, as their offspring, should retire back with an atoning submission to “mother church,” against whom these immodest and disobedient sons put their “judgment in proud antagonism,” and who had the audacity to hold their convictions “as indubitably certain,” although “contradicted by the general conviction of the body— the church.”
In the same lecture, the author thus expounds the “profitable use of the ministry, as well as of the bible.”
“And is not, or ought not this to be the true service rendered us by the pulpit? Our pastors are not to investigate, or meditate, or feel for us; but as the exponents of the religious VIEWS OF THE CHURCH, they furnish us with a standard with which to compare our own.” — Page 23.
I had always regarded this as the duty of the popish, not the protestant pastorate. Does our author really mean what he says? Expound “the religious views of the church?” The “religious views of the church,” the proper “standard” with which Christians are “to compare their own?” What more can the priesthood of Rome say or desire? “Hear the church! Preach the church!” Such is our author’s doctrine.
I hope our veneration will witness the manifestation of a nobler non-conformity than that which now bears the name.
Nonconformity must ascend into a higher and holier region; it must do battle on a wider field, and with severer conflict than it even now wages. The imposition of a national establishment of religion, and the demand of ecclesiastical uniformity, originate the holy warfare which is hastening, I trust, to its victorious consummation. But the harness must not be put off. There is yet remaining a worse spiritual domination, with heavier pains and penalties as its sanction. Our author’s rule of comparing our convictions with the convictions of the “living church,” seeks to conserve the worst of all forms of spiritual tyranny, which practically anathematizes, in the true popish spirit, every independent mind that prefers to compare its convictions with the revealed word. The open enunciation of these sentiments by a dissenting minister in the presence of his ministerial brethren and an intelligent assembly, looks like a last desperate resource to keep orthodoxy so-called strong, and its abettors comfortable in the severe siftings of these “last days.” Let them be accept, and their results will be the nurturing of a dissenting priesthood at once obsequious and imperious and the multiplication of traitors against God and hypocrites among men.
Turning to the book Genesis, where the inspired account of the creation and primitive condition of man is recorded, we learn that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” It must be confessed, that the first creation of man is fitted to awaken humiliating reflections on our constitutional original, and to check the complacency with which we are wont to dwell upon our distinctive nature.
There is a disposition in man to exalt himself too highly, and to talk extravagantly of his native excellence. His language often indicates the belief that he is by natural constitution allied, in some very important respects, to God; and that he possesses, although in a vastly inferior degree, attributes and capabilities similar to those of the Supreme Being. In some sense, this is indeed true; but, in opposition to the conceit of the native constitution of man which is commonly entertained, I cannot but regard the sacred history as designedly teaching us that our origin is extremely humble, and that our constitutional alliance is less with the immortal Deity than with the mortal and perishable earth. “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Considerable emphasis is placed upon the fact, that man was originally formed “of the dust of the ground” an emphasis which appears to me to be inexplicable, except on the supposition that the scriptures teach the native mortality y and 7iot the immortality of mankind.
We are accustomed to assume a phraseology when speaking of the human constitution, singularly different from that which the bible uniformly employs.
We speak of the soul, as suggesting the essence and destiny of human nature, and not infrequently as being properly and eminently the man; but the Bible gives a marked prominence to the material form which was constructed out “of the dust of the ground,” and points rather to that as suggesting the essence and destiny of man. Observe the phraseology, — “God formed man,” — not the body of man, but man, — “of the dust of the ground.” And after the unsuccessful probation of our first parent, and he was cast forth from Eden, the curse is expressed in terms as definite as language can possibly furnish, — “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken, FOR DUST THOU ART, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Now, let it be remarked, that this very distinct and emphatic language is employed after it had been said, at the time of the creation of Adam, that God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,” — or as the word “soul” here means, a living person. We should have expected, if these words were intended to teach that the breathing “into man the breath of life,” signified the impartation to him of an immortal or undying spirit, and that the possession of such a spirit suggests the essence and destiny of man’s nature, that the curse would have been expressed in very different language from that which is actually employed; instead of which it is most explicitly and significantly suggested, even after the operation of breathing “into man the breath of life,” that the essence and destiny of hid nature is not an immortal, but a mortal and perishable existence — “dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return”. The terms point out the personality of the first Adam as involved in his perishable and mortal nature. “Dust thou — thyself thy personality — dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Genesis 3:19.
In further corroboration that the phrase, “the breath of life” which God “breathed” into Adam, does not imply the constitutional immortality of the human soul, permit me to call your attention to the very significant language in which this creative act of God is recorded. “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” That spark of life, which the vivifying breath of God kindled in Adam, and so lit up ms personal consciousness, did not descend into the depth of his human constitution to enthrone itself in an imperishable seat; it trembled, as it were, on the surface of his being, as if tarrying for a season only. The tenure of that life, so far from being eternal, is suggested as both temporal and precarious. The “breath of life” was but breathed into his nostrils.
* In giving prominence to the emphasis which the scripture places upon me word “thou” in association with the “dust” of the ground, — I do not necessarily make or imply any affirmation with regard to the elements of the human constitution. Whether the soul is a distinct subsistence, and into what state it passes at the time of dissolution, we have no means of positively learning. The scriptures certainly never attach the human personality to the soul or spirit, but they do, as in the text above, attach it to the material organization. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
And in laying an emphasis on these words, I do not unduly exaggerate their importance, as the following scriptural examples of their usage will testify. — The prophet, when he would express the helplessness and mortality of man, thus writes, “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of?” And yet more definite and significant is the language of the patriarch, “All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils.” [Isaiah 2:22, Job 27:3.] The breathing into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, imparted not immortality, but life and consciousness to him: the duration of that life was altogether an independent consideration. Before this divine act, Adam was a man, after it he became, not an immortal man, but simply a living man. “Man became a living soul,” that is, a living person.
Now it is commonly said, that the “breath of life” which God breathed into Adam was an immortal soul. The opponent who avails himself of this argument, should be reminded that it proves much more than he will be disposed to concede, unless he believes in the immortality of the whole animal creation. If the phrase “breath of life” proves that Adam had an immortal soul, then it also proves that every animal, beast, bird, fish, and reptile, has an immortal soul:
Of the animals saved from the deluge we read, “They went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all fleshy wherein is the breath of life. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, and every man; All in whose nostrils was the breath of life of all that was in the dry land died. And every living substance was destroyed, which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.” Genesis 7:15.
In this passage it is obvious that the whole animal creation including man, is comprehended in the phrases “all flesh,” and “every living substance;” and in reference to them all without any distinction it is written, “in whose nostrils was the breath of life.” Of them all — man, beast, fowl, reptile, animated by “the breath of life,” we are told that they “died” and were destroyed, The “breath of life” cannot therefore mean an immortal, or deathless spirit, otherwise the whole animal creation are immortal; and it would, moreover, have been impossible that either by the deluge or any other catastrophe, they should have died and been destroyed. What is immortal is necessarily indestructible and deathless. If man s soul is his personal self, and is possessed of immortality, man cannot die, nor be destroyed.
The last clause of the text under consideration, informs us of the product of this creative act of God; and, therefore, could there have been brought no evidence whatever to show the value of the phrase, “the breath of life,” since it is recorded what the product was — what, that is, “man became” it would be sufficient, if it be possible, to demonstrate by scriptural evidence what is the nature of this production, — in other words, what is the meaning of the phrase, “living soul.” God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
Every candid disputant will allow, that to fix the true meaning of the phrase “living soul,” is to preclude any argument founded upon the process of breathing into man the breath of life. What is the meaning, then, of this phrase? Does it, or does it not, mean that Adam became an immortal soul? Relying solely upon scriptural evidence, I hesitate not to reply, that it does not teach that Adam became immortal in any sense. For, in the first place, it is a phrase that is not restricted in its application to Adam, but is applied equally to all the inferior creatures. In Genesis 1:20, we read, ‘God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life’ or, as it is in the marginal reading, and which is the literal translation, “living soul.”
In the original Hebrew, in all the following places — Genesis 1:20, 21, 24, 30; 2:19; 9:12, 16— it is the same language that is employed of the lower animals as of man, — they are invariably called “living souls.” This fact, then, destroys the possibility of building up the doctrine of the soul’s immortality upon such a basis.
We have, moreover, a more direct and emphatic testimony to the value of this phrase, in the authoritative commentary upon it of the Apostle Paul: In his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle quotes this text for a purpose so manifest and unmistakeable, that if his reasoning be impartially attended to and accepted, not only would all discussion about the meaning of this text in particular be forever set at rest, but the doctrine of the soul’s immortality would be driven from, the arena of controversy, as a philosophical figment, inconsistent with and detrimental to scriptural Christianity. In the fifteenth chapter of this epistle, where he discourses with considerable particularity on death and resurrection, he thus observes — “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” The term “natural” in our translation is in the Greek an adjective formed from the substantive soul and, therefore, its most literal English equivalent is not “natural,” but soul like. It is sown a soul body that is a body animated by a soul, or in other words, a living body all of which “is sown” in death, and “raised” in resurrection. Paul does not use the word “body” either here or elsewhere in the modern conventional sense, of the mere tabernacle or fleshly garment of the soul: As employed by him and the sacred writers generally, we are compelled to understand it, as comprising the human nature as a complete whole the essential basis of which is a material body, mortal and corruptible, and which is animated by a temporary life. For the sake of illustrating and confirming the foregoing statement, I would instance the following passages, “I beseech you that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” [Romans 12:1.]
Surely Paul did not enjoin upon the Roman believers that they should present their bodies merely, but their entire selves. Again, when he says, “We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,” he does not mean that the soul is the human personality distinct from the body, and that at death the soul leaves the body, and is present with the Lord. Paul’s idea of absence from the body, if we are to judge by the analogy of his doctrinal teaching, is an absence from the present condition of the entire human nature as mortal and under the dominion of death; to be absent from which is to be entirely liberated from liability to death, and to be invested with immortality; which is, at the time of resurrection, when “this mortal shall put on immortality,” and when, not before, believers will be “absent from the body, and present with the Lord.”
In the same comprehensive sense is the word soul used by the sacred writers, not to signify the essence of man distinct from his body, but the complete man whose characteristic nature is a rational living organization — the essential basis of which lies not in an indestructible soul or spirit, but in a material and perishable body.
Attaching then the Apostle’s idea to the words which he employs, we see clearly what he means us to understand by the phrase ‘living soul’ and what is the real constitution of the human nature. ‘There is a natural body (a soul body) and there is a spiritual body (a spirit body). And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul (a living person) the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (a life-giving power). Here the Apostle proves the mortality of man, by the very phrase which the advocates of the popular doctrine, bring to prove the soul’s immortality! He contrasts the first Adam with the last Adam, or Christ, — the first is only “a living soul,” a mere temporal existence, the last, or Christ “hath life in himself,” and is the “quickening or life-giving spirit.”
And with greater particularity Paul proceeds to state the mortality of man. “Howbeit that was not first which is iW/a/ (life-possessing or immortal) but that which is natural (soul like, animal or mortal) and afterward that which is spiritual: The first man is of the earth, earthly the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy such are they also that are earthy, (that is mortal and perishable) and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly (that is, immortal, and heirs of the everlasting life). Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood (the mortal creature man) cannot inherit the kingdom of God (because that kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and “flesh and blood” is not immortal and everlasting) neither doth corruption (and man is corrupt and must decay) inherit in-corruption. For this corruptible (which is the character of our present human nature) must put on in-corruption, and this mortal (for such we are by natural generation) must put on immortality.” It demands very special attention, that Paul does not say that the incorruptible soul — the immortal soul, is to “put on in-corruption and immortality” but “this corruptible” and “this mortal.”
The whole human nature of man is corruptible and mortal, and before it can enter into life, must be endowed with an everlasting or immortal quality, “So when this corruptible shall have put on in-corruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory;” — “mortality is swallowed up of life.” And so being ‘absent from the body’ — the mortal and corruptible nature of man, by means of resurrection from the dead in a “spiritual body,” or life-endowed nature, we, if we are Christ’s, shall “be present with the Lord,” by whom, as by “the quickening spirit,” we are raised. “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory” over the mortal nature or “body through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The passage just referred to is, according to some, a scriptural proof of the doctrine of man’s native immortality. Besides what has just been advanced in opposition to this interpretation of the passage, and which, in my judgment, is {most conclusive, I would ask, if the language in question would convey such an idea, as that of the native immortality of man to any one, who, ignorant of the sense generally put upon it, should for the first time be required to express its meaning? I cannot but think that, to one unbiased in his judgment by a conventionally understood meaning, and uninfluenced by attachment to a creed, the natural signification of the passage would appear to be this, — that after the creation of man from the dust of the ground, God breathed into him, and he became an animated existence. There surely is nothing in the term “living” that suggests the idea of unlimited duration of existence, but only a different condition of existence from what was presented before.
Until breath was put within him, and thus the first impulse was imparted to the human mechanism, man was only a lifeless form; but after this Divine act man became “a living soul,” that is, an animated existence.*
In Genesis 1:27, we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Upon this language more emphasis is laid by the advocates of the native immortality of man. Man having been created “in the image of God,” it is affirmed, that he must have been created immortal because that “image” would have been imperfect without this element in his constitution. In reply to this statement, I would observe, that it is a perfectly gratuitous assertion, destitute of all evidence, and resting only upon an assumed probability. It will surely not be maintained that man, because he is said to have been created in the Divine “image,” is like the Divine Being in every attribute of his nature.
* “Some of our readers,” writes the late learned Dr. J. Pye Smith, “may be surprised at our having translated nephesh chaya by living animal: There are good interpreters and preachers who, confiding in the common translation, living soul have maintained that here is intimated the distinctive pre-eminence of man above the inferior animals, as possessed of an immaterial and immortal spirit, we should he acting unfaithfully if we were to affirm its being contained or implied in this passage, — Kitto’s Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, Article, Adam.
That nature can, in this extensive sense, have no “image” or “likeness.” Immortality is one of the peculiar attributes of the divine nature, and why then should one only of these peculiar attributes be selected, and not all of them, as properly involved in the “image” and “likeness” of God? If immortality be selected, why not select every other attribute involved in the complete similitude of the Deity? Now, we have a direct scripture prohibition against the assumption of the attribute of immortality by man; for the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, distinctly asserts that “God only hath immortality.” [1 Timothy 6:16.]
To this it is replied, that God hath immortality in a peculiar sense, that his immortality is essential and underived, and looks back into the infinite past, as well as forward into the infinite future; while man’s immortality is dependent upon the Divine will, and has no retrospective but only a prospective relation. This admission satisfactorily proves, that there cannot therefore be any “image,” or “likeness” of God in this respect, if man’s immortality is quite another attribute, and so materially different from the immortality of God. Let it be distinctly borne in mind, that the argument for man’s natural immortality is established upon the statement in Genesis, that he is made in the Divine image or “likeness.” Now, there is a very material respect in which, this “image” or “likeness” fails as we have seen, and this is, that God’s immortality embraces eternity, — the eternity past and the eternity future, — while the assumed immortality of man embraces only the eternity to come. Man s immortality, then, is quite a distinct idea, a widely different attribute — it is not the image or “likeness” of God’s immortality.
The attributes in which man resembles God, are the intellectual and moral attributes of his nature. Here, it is true, there is a wide difference in the respective perfection of these attributes. As possessed by God, they are absolutely perfect; possessed by men, they are but imperfect. The reason and moral nature of man are infinitely inferior in their capacity and excellence to those of God; but yet they are images, likenesses of the Divine reason and moral nature, the difference being, that they are not possessed by man in the same degree and perfection as they exist in God. The immortality of God is incapable of an “image,” or “likeness,” since it admits of no degrees, and no imperfection: it is the exclusive prerogative of the Divine self-existence.
The language of the apostle Paul is very explicit: “Put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” Colossians 3:10. “Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:24.
To claim for the original constitution of the human nature the attribute of immortality, because it is an attribute of the Divine nature, is therefore a most palpable mistake, since of all other attributes demonstrative of the Divine personality and supremacy, this is most frequently selected by Jehovah himself. Thus the memorable reply to Moses, “I am that I am;” the solemn and frequent form of the Divine protestation, “As I live, saith the Lord;” and the no less frequent form of asseveration, “As the Lord lives;” to which may be added the emphatic and commonly occurring phrase, “The living God.” These formulas indicate a peculiarity in the Divine nature which is incommunicable, — “God only hath immortality.”
The interpretation, then, of the disputed passage in Genesis, I would submit, may be fairly seen in the following paraphrase: “As yet,” — as if the self-communing Creator had said, — “we have formed but irrational creatures in this lower creation, without a moral nature, and therefore unaccountable, — let us make a creature that shall sustain a moral relation to us, that shall resemble and represent us in this new creation, — a creature possessing intelligence, self-consciousness, a moral sense, and capable of a higher enjoyment than other sentient existences, — a rational enjoyment, — and who shall exercise dominion over the earth, and all that is therein.” “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
The assertion that man is not by original constitution an immortal being, obtains, very possibly, an unwilling reception from many whom I have now the pleasure to address. It has been so long a settled point of our belief, and so flattering to human pride, that it may appear to occupy an impregnable position among the credenda of religious doctrines.
I cannot also but be aware, that the denial of the natural immortality of man affects other articles of religious teaching, in which the faith of the (Church has, for many years, unsuspectingly reposed. Nevertheless, with those who seek truth, and who desire not to be the conservators of opinions on the mere ground of their antiquity, the question is, — “what saith the scripture?” It does not follow, because during even several centuries a popular belief has not, except in some few instances, been called in question, that that popular belief is founded in truth.
The papacy is a venerable institution, yet Luther was right in his crusade against that system of iniquity, notwithstanding its antiquity, and the confidence and reverence with which it was almost universally regarded. The aged man of three-score years and ten, about to be gathered to his fathers, is right in going to Christ at the eleventh hour of his mortality, and in believing, that during the whole of his past long life he has been religiously wrong.
Errors, alas! Seem more indigenous to our world, and obtain a more tenacious longevity than truth. The progressive development of religious doctrines, abundantly proves, that the grossest heresies have survived centuries, and been embraced by hundreds of thousands in every succeeding generation; and, notwithstanding, have at last been shown to be but human speculations, or the interpretations of a false criticism. And it will not be pretended that we have even now arrived at the Ultima Thule of all religious truth, and that to call in question any popular article of faith, or to expect to elicit any new voice from the Word of God, is to exhibit either puerile weakness or daring presumption.
The dogma of the natural immortality of man, it may not generally be known, was not the uniform belief of the primitive Church. The history of the Church abundantly proves that the primitive Fathers, so early as the second century, were greatly divided upon this subject. It would appear, that up to this time this dogma was not a received article of religious faith, and that its introduction is to be referred to just this period, when Christianity began to number philosophers of the Platonic and Aristotelian schools among her converts; for those who maintained the natural immortality of man did so, not so much on Scriptural, as on philosophical grounds. The question was discussed as properly belonging to the region of metaphysics, and the form in which it was held by the polemics of this age, depended upon their respective philosophical creeds. Thus, even those who maintained this dogma differed in very material respects; a reasonable consequence of suffering “science falsely so called” to decide what are, and what are not, articles of religious faith. The question was at last settled by the dictum of authority. The Council of the Lateran, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, decreed, that the proper immortality of the soul be a recognized doctrine of religious faith; and from these sources, and not from the teaching of the Bible, we have the doctrine of the natural immortality of man transmitted to the Churches.
The Platonism of the second century was the father, and a Lateran Council, under Pope Leo X., in the sixteenth century, was the foster-father, of this so-called Bible doctrine.
That the natural immortality of man should be almost universally held at the present time, will not be a matter of surprise to any who know how comparatively few they are who really derive their religious faith from the fountain of truth itself. How few obtain the religious doctrines they hold from the Bible, is evidenced by the fact, that the eat multitude of professing Christians are ill qualified to prove from the Bible the doctrines which they believe it to contain. The great mass form their religious creed from the discourses of their appointed teacher, from catechisms and conversations. Orthodoxy is soon learnt, and its symbols soon adopted; it being like a well-paved highway along which all travel, and the greater proportion not with an intelligent step, as the pathway of their deliberate and reasonable choice, but with a mere mechanical precision. Judaism, the Papacy, and even the Reformed Churches have taught us lessons about orthodoxy, — its history and influence, — by which, if we are wise, we shall, by this time, have profited, — the chief lesson of which is, that the Bible has had less to do in the teaching of the Church than many have suspected. Creeds conventionally stereotyped, in which human conceit and a speculative philosophy have lent their mischievous aid, have supplanted the Book of God, and even now, as in our Lord’s time, men make void the law of God through their traditions.
If we may then judge from the present state of religion, — the extremely unsatisfactory aspect of certain great religious questions, and the impotency of the Gospel compared with what, from Scripture promises, we might be led to expect, — we shall, I think, conclude, that the Gospel of Christ is capable of a presentation to the popular mind far more striking and influential; and that at present it is encumbered with many human admixtures which distract and destroy its moral efficiency. We are not, therefore, to be deterred by the cry of novelty, from an honest and independent inquiry into the meaning of that infallible record, which contains the sayings of “holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;” — nor are we afraid, while cautiously and prayerfully threading our way, of being led into the labyrinth of dangerous error. We know him who has said, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me;” — and who has further taught us, that the Palladium of our faith is not in blindly following the echoes of popular beliefs, and in the prejudiced adherence to systems and creeds, but in studiously and devoutly examining the written Word for ourselves. “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures.”
I repeat, then, that the teaching of the Bible upon the primitive constitution of man, — if that and not human speculations and assumptions is to decide what is, and what is not truth, — will be found to be this: — that man was created a being who, while capable by the power of God, of an unending existence, yet had it not by original constitution; — that after his creation he was removed to a particular locality, where the pure pleasures of which, in his first formation, he was alone conscious, might receive their highest gratification, — and where, as a moral being, he should be submitted to a state of probation, the success of which should be rewarded by an unending existence, subject to no suffering nor constitutional decay.
Whether this probation would have been limited, or extend throughout the whole course of Adam’s existence, — and what the actual condition of mankind would have been in the event of the successful progress of Adam’s probation, — it is impossible to say, and it is of little moment to be informed. That the probation would have been confined to our first parent, and that it would have been limited to a definite period, seems highly probable, from the fact, that the Divine arrangement constituted him the representative of the human race.
The scene of the trial of our first parent’s obedience was a garden, separated from the rest of the earth by a greater luxuriance and attraction, and adapted to minister to his most refined satisfactions and enjoyment. Adam was not created in this garden, but was brought thither subsequent to his creation: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (chapter 2:8); and which is again repeated in the 15th verse, “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.” In this favoured and peculiar place Adam was to enter upon his momentous trial, and to attain to, or forfeit forever, immortality for himself and for generations then unborn.
The terms of the trial are thus stated: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die.” The test was at once simple and easy: it involved, we may presume, no self-denial; it was not likely, amidst so many and such exalted attractions to act as a temptation.
Were this even the case, there were counteracting motives far stronger and more influential: Upon the success of the trial depended the highest issues. The reward of his faithfulness was, for himself and his descendants an unending life, — the only desideratum of his being, — the character of which, from his original moral excellence, and the superadded gifts of God, would be a life of blessedness. The punishment of his disobedience was for himself and his descendants, — an existence of toil and suffering, exposed to all the contingencies of a native mortality, and then a return forever to the parent dust and original non-existence: “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
But, it may be asked, does not this penalty imply that Adam vas constitutionally immortal, for how otherwise could death be a punishment to a being who was created to die? I may reply on the other hand, and with equal reason, by another question; if Adam was created an immortal or deathless being, how could he die? It should be borne in mind that Adam was not created to die neither was he created to live forever. The duration of his existence was left to be determined by himself under a gracious system of moral probation. The penalty was proclaimed to Adam after he was placed in Eden. Outside of Eden, that is, before he was placed there, he was a mortal creature. From the moment he entered the Garden of Eden he was a candidate for immortality, and was therefore raised above the condition of necessary mortality. He had begun to live a life after he was placed in Eden, which, on a certain condition being fulfilled, should never end. He had in fact entered conditionally upon his immortality. To Adam therefore, who was a probationer for immortality or a deathless existence, and to whom both life and death were possible, these words, “in the day that thou eats thereof, thou shalt surely die,” only implied that his immortality was conditional: Death, to him who might have been forever exempt from its dominion, was, therefore, manifestly a punishment.
That the above is the fair exposition of the account given in the sacred history of the probation of Adam, cannot but think every candid person who is happily unfettered by the dogmas of the common belief, will at once admit. That this exposition greatly detracts from the supposed native dignity of man’s constitution, I readily allow;* but what is gained by cherishing beliefs, if they are rather fond and flattering conceits, than the instructions of the unerring word of God? If the doctrine of natural immortality be true, it must be proved from the Bible; for there, or nowhere, can this important doctrine be authoritatively taught.
And if this be not the true explanation of this interesting fact, what, I ask, is the true explanation?
If Adam was placed as our representative in Eden, not that he might obtain a higher good than he already possessed; — if he was merely placed in Eden that he might run a terrible risky — the risk of losing something which he already had; and not that he might have the advantage and opportunity of gaining something more than he already had, — then the placing of him in Eden was less an act of grace than the Bible represents it to have been.
* It is sometimes hastily assumed, that the denial of the natural immortality of man involves the degrading him to an equality with the brute creation. This is a serious mistake, since the equality is only in one particular, that of his natural corruptibility and possible non-existence as a conscious being. It is only of this equality, I apprehend, that the preacher speaks when he says, “I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalls the sons of men, befalls beasts; even one thing befalls them: as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows the spirit of man that goes upward, and the spirit of the beast that goes downward to the earth?” — Ecclesiastes 3:18, 21. Not-withstanding the fall, there is a wide distinction between man and the lower animals; he has a nature distinctly pre-eminent,—though his destination may be one with theirs; and this native excellence of his constitution it is, that makes the curse of his doomed decease so terrible, and so much deprecated by him. Even in his degradation, man is a noble being. He is like a magnificent ruin, whose prostrate and defaced sculpture evidences the genius of his Divine Architect; and who, though covered with the slime of noxious reptiles, as if the lowest of the low would triumph in his fall, is yet wreathed around in affectionate embrace by the variegated vegetation of his mother earth, who seems to weep over his ruin, while she welcomes him to her bosom.
Indeed, such a representation of the design in placing Adam in the Garden of Eden, is incompatible with the evidences of love which the sacred narrative discloses in connexion with this event. *And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sights and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: Here, surely, is the enumeration of what was to contribute to our progenitor’s highest felicity.
Among all the delights which greeted his senses, and which reminded him of the grace of his divine benefactor, was “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
But the popular representation of the probation of Adam, makes this tree-test a terrible calamity. “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil” stands in the garden-centre, not as the crowning gift of all, as its locality would seem to suggest, — giving, while untouched, a right to the tree of life; — but as a visible worm at the heart of Adam’s many enjoyments. It stands there but to mar, and to be in unsightly contrast with all around. It is in the popular view but a Upas tree, which had already discharged its poison into the fruits which were “good for food,” and spread its dark pall over such as were “pleasant to the sight;” instead of a Jacob’s ladder, by which the creature of earth might rise to the perfection of an immortal existence.
The two trees, singled out by name, and situated side by side in the centre of the garden, require a more extended consideration. I venture to think, that there was nothing mysterious about these trees; that the names which they bear originated in the arbitrary relation which they sustained in the peculiar Edenic dispensation, and do not characterize their inherent or communicated virtues and capabilities. Their design is sufficiently apparent to guard against any possibility of mistake. The prohibition, it is to be particularly observed, extended to one of these trees only, — “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:” “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.” Both these trees were in the centre of the garden. Compare Genesis 2:9, and 3:3.
“Respecting the probable reasons for the particular act prohibited, nothing need be said. That something else might have been forbidden, the use of a particular stream or an approach to a particular spot, and that the same truths might have been taught by such prohibition, is quite possible. But still, there is ground to conclude, that in the eye of infinite wisdom, the one selected was preferable to any other. And when it is remembered that, as a positive precept, the law was only in harmony with the contingent arrangements of all external nature, that it was intended to teach the same truth as those arrangements teach, and especially to point to the fact that they do teach it: namely, the great doctrine of our dependence on the divine will; and that, in this way, it is to be viewed as forming part of the universal system, and tending to the same end, as every other part of that system, nothing but a state of mind akin to that which led to the first sin, prevents man from recognizing in it a marked display of divine benevolence.
“The particular prohibition,” Dr. Harris further observes, “was only the indirect occasion of transgression. The same spirit of disobedience would have been developed, it may be assumed, in some other manner, (although not necessarily) even if that prohibition had never existed. Indeed, the probability is, that the probationary arrangement did not even hasten the moment of transgression, but actually delayed it. For had not the entrance of evil been provided against at every avenue save one, the likelihood is that it would, in however mitigated a form, have earlier made its appearance. Neither must it be imagined that the outward act itself constituted the guilt of the first transgressor. This was only the external manifestation of the fatal change within. Had the forbidden object eluded mans grasp, or vanished from his sight, as he essayed to take it, the sin would yet have been completed in purpose, and therefore, in the eye of God and of conscience, though still incomplete in outward and muscular action. So that the consequences which ensued are not to be viewed as resulting from the outward breach of a positive law, however reasonable and benevolent that law might be, but from that breach, as indicating the internal change of man’s nature, or his disregard to the will of God formally and solemnly expressed. And, accordingly, it will be found that the threatened consequences resulting from his disobedience are not arbitrary, but the constitutional and properly retributive effects of it.” — Man Primeval, pages 424, 426, 426.
This tree f was the sole test of Adam’s obedience: while he abstained from this, he might eat of every tree in the garden, including of course of the tree of life. Now what we ask, is meant by this “tree of life?” If Adam had already, by original creation, life in himself, of what use could this tree of life have been to him? It is replied, that it had an antiseptic quality imparted to it, and that its design was to preserve the mortal part of Adam’s nature from decay. But this answer, however plausible, is a petitio principii — it assumes, what we contend is contrary to the record, that man is, in any sense, by creation an immortal being; and proceeds, moreover, upon the assumption of a compound and conflicting nature of the human constitution, — that man is in part mortal, and in part immortal, — a strange and unnatural union! Where is it taught in the scriptures that man, in reference to his soul, is immortal; but, with respect to his body, mortal? Where is this anomalous breaking up, so to speak, of the unity of man’s nature to be found in the Bible? It is not a religious doctrine; but a philosophical refinement, which started into existence when Platonism meddled with the simplicity of the scriptures. Neither the body nor the soul separately is the man, but the union of’ both. To borrow the illustration of a living writer, — “ as the union of oxygen and hydrogen produces water, so the union of body and soul constitutes a man.”*
Man is always in the Bible spoken of as one, and as having one destination. It is true, by the figure synecdoche, the scriptures often employ the word soul to signify the person; as we do, when we say, that such a number of souls perished in ship-wreck, or by any other catastrophe; but it is never used in antithesis to the word body, as appropriating the idea of the human personality. An apparent exception to this may be suggested to some in the language of the preacher, where he says, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it:” but this language is rather confirmatory of the opposite view, that in the disjunction of the constituents of man’s conscious being, he ceases to be such a being. The body, or “the dust” returns “to the earth as it was,” and the spirit, in like manner, returns to God as it was before he gave it: — not as a man, a human personality; for if so, man must have had a conscious existence before he was born, but as a constituent of the man, — the man himself is dissolved.
When I say that the human mind is “dissolved,” I neither affirm nor imply that the components of man’s compound being are annihilated. Science teaches that annihilation is impossible, except by the agency of the Creator of all matter; and we have no instance within the range of human knowledge of actual annihilation. Matter may change its form; organic bodies may become disorganized, and be resolved into their primal elements; but the elements themselves exist; and, independently of the Creator’s fiat, are indestructible. All that I state in the text is, that since neither the body nor the soul, but the union of both is the man, therefore the disunion of these constituent parts of man is the dissolution of the man.
Neither of these constituent parts — that is, neither the soul nor the body is separately the human personality; their separate destiny, therefore, is of no practical interest to our race. The consideration of those passages of scripture, which are supposed to teach the separate existence and conscious personality of the soul. I have purposely deferred. For the scripture doctrine on this subject, I refer the reader to “The Generations Gathered and Gathering; or, the Scripture Doctrine concerning Man in Death.”
And it is in harmony with these remarks that we learn from the Bible that the resurrection of the body must precede the judgment of men; and that until the resurrection of the body, the righteous can neither enter upon their reward, nor the wicked pass away into final condemnation. And permit me again to repeat, and to request your particular attention, that Adam after the fall, when in possession of the living, animating principle is not addressed as the possessor of an immortal spirit; — it is not his spiritual nature, which we might have expected, according to the popular belief, that is alluded to, as suggesting the essence of his being; but, on the contrary, his corporeal nature, and to this corporeal nature the personality and essence of his nature are attached, — “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
The reply, that “the tree of life” was placed in the Garden of Eden to counteract the native tendency of one part of the constitution of Adam to decay, does not, we think, furnish a satisfactory explanation. It represents man as a very incongruous compound as a defective work, to say that one part is inwardly self-sustaining, while the other component part is dependent upon a constantly miraculous external agency. In opposition to this view, I would remark, that “the tree of life” in the garden was in the character of a pledge. Side by side with the prohibited tree, it was a perpetual check upon the temptation to violate the command, by memorializing Adam of the tremendous penalty he would endure for his disobedience. So long as he persevered in his fidelity he was assured of an immortal existence, and regarded as exempt from suffering and death; — there stood the divinely-given pledge of his immortality. While in the Garden of Eden, and having access to that tree, immortality was guaranteed to him and to his posterity; death had no dominion over him or them: The immortality of Adam, therefore, was contingent not native; it depended upon a particular dispensation and locality, — his position in the garden of Eden, and upon the circumstance of his free permission to eat of the “tree of life” as its guarantee and sign. It was a conditional gift, not a personal possession, — the reward of his obedience and not his original constitution.
With this view of the condition of Adam in Eden, all the circumstances of his expulsion from Eden obviously agree. The test having failed, and the melancholy consequences of his disobedience being experienced in the knowledge or consciousness of evil,* purchased at the tremendous cost of a forfeited immortality, Adam is expelled the home of privilege and pleasure. He must now quit the Garden of Eden with its scenes and associations of conscious innocence and joy, and, with a guilty conscience and a lost immortality, toil for the subsistence of a brief and sorrowful life, and then, having resigned the breath of his consciousness and animation, dissolve again into his parent dust.
* Jehovah having created man an intelligent and moral being, capable of progressive improvement and happiness, appointed him, for reasons unknown to us, the representative of the whole race which should proceed from him; and offered to him, in this representative capacity, the magnificent privilege of an undying existence, on condition that he would acknowledge the divine supremacy, and observe the divine commands. The evidence of this acknowledgment, on the part of the first man, was a sacred abstinence from one particular tree, called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” so called, probably because, according as he obeyed or disobeyed, would be his knowledge or consciousness respectively of good and evil: The recompense of his obedience was, an unending existence, the sign and certificate of which was “the tree of life,” so called because it was the pledge of the promised life, or immortality. These trees located side by side in the centre of Eden, reminded our representative at once of the condition and the reward.
The terms of the original curse most explicitly teach this doctrine, — “In the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die.” That the meaning of this curse is not that Adam should cease to exist in the very day that he ate of the forbidden tree, is manifest from the fact that he did not then die. Had this been its signification, we should have been at a loss to account for the delay of the punishment, and be unable to explain upon what principle he continued to live so many years afterwards. Now, I would submit, that the terms of this curse are quite incompatible with the doctrine of man’s constitutional immortality. How could an immortal being die?
It is worse than trifling to say that his body should die, but that his soul should live; for, in the first place, the body of Adam did not die in the day of his transgression; and secondly, if the soul of man is his personality and the body only a mere instrument for connecting him with, and fitting him for this condition of existence, — the body, the unconscious tabernacle of the human personality; then, to say that the curse contemplated only the body of Adam, that his body only should die, is to leave the terrible curse un-executed; for the curse is, “ in the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die,” not thine unconscious body, but thou thy conscious personality, — thyself.
It has been affirmed that the words of the curse, “in the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die,” imply the constitutional immortality of man, because the threat of death pre-supposes the possession of life, which otherwise would not end.
But this is rather specious than sound, for all that the words signify is simply that immortality would be a conditional privilege. Of course up to the time that Adam violated the command he continued to live, and would, had he not eaten of the fruit, have lived forever; but even then, his immortality would have been conditional, and by no means a possession independent of the Edenic dispensation.
This threat must mean something else, and demands a more satisfactory exposition; and what more consistent exposition can be given than that which accords with the view I am now presenting, of the possible, and since the fall, of the real mortality of human nature? “In the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die;” or, accepting its more literal interpretation, “dying, thou shalt die.” In that very day in which Adam ate of the tree he lost the privilege of immortality; in that moment he fell from the sublime possibility of an attainable immortality, and realized the condition possible to his nature — the condition of a mortal, perishable being.
Thus and thus only in that very day Adam died; from that time forth immortality to him was an impossible inheritance, — from that day the seeds of decay possible to his constitution commenced their desolating growth, and spread in him, and in us all, through him, the desolation of death. The death threatened was thus a progressive, not an immediate death. From the day of his transgression his mortality became a fixed and irreversible fact. Adam was henceforth a ding man travelling onward, not to the realms of the light of life, but to the region of darkness and death.
* Dr. Lardner has the following observations upon this passage: “In the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die.” Literally, in the original, dying, thou shalt die.” Which our translators have well expressed, “thou shalt surely die.”
Hereby, some expositors have understood death spiritual, natural, and eternal: But I do not see any good reason they have for it. We seem rather to be justified in taking it in the sense of natural death only, or the dissolution of this frame the separation of soul and body. We are led to this by the words of the sentence pronounced after the transgression: “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
“In the day that thou eats thereof, thou shalt surely die.” By which may be meant, that very day thou shall become mortal and he liable to pains and diseases which will issue in death,” Essay on the Mosaic Account, Works, Volume 10, p. 220.
Now the popular exposition of this curse represents God as declaring that he will punish the guilty offender, and i/et not doing so. If the curse of death here means, as it is said to mean, a threefold death, that is, in the popular phraseology — death temporarily death spiritual and death eternal, then this threefold death must have been executed upon Adam, and by consequence upon his posterity, and redemption is necessarily impossible! God had said “thou” shalt die, not “thou,” or a substitute for thee, but thou, thyself. If this threefold death, therefore, is involved in the word “die,” then Adam must have been the subject of it, and to this death, as “the wages of sin,” the whole race is exposed. The animal life is destroyed, the spiritual life is alienated, and both forever.
How then, on the popular theory, is redemption possible? From an eternal death, of course there can be no redemption whatever. But accepting the word “die” in the conventional, and evidently scriptural, sense of ceasing to exist, then Adam did and does endure this curse, and so do his posterity, and it is from this curse that Christ, as “the resurrection and the life,” recovers us. He has “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light.”
The sequel throws additional light upon the nature and consequences of the fall of Adam. Our first parents were immediately expelled Eden; and the reason assigned for their expulsion is as follows: —
“And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
In this passage, the expulsion of Adam from Eden is obviously spoken of as a necessity arising out of his altered moral condition, — “the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” “To know good and evil” is not necessarily sinful, since God has the most perfect knowledge of these opposite moral qualities. Adam, however, could only have attained this knowledge by an act of disobedience — he knew “evil” subjectively, by acquisition, and melancholy experience.
When Adam therefore had become as God “to know good and evil,” it was a proof that he had fallen from his integrity, and that his probation had failed. His knowledge was the evidence of his guilt, which, under his circumstances, he could in no other way acquire than by disobeying the command in reference to “the tree or the knowledge of good and evil.” It was, therefore, to be deprecated, indeed to be positively forbidden that such a being, as Adam had become, should have an immortal existence, — it could not be permitted that any being should have an inherent immortality who had thus challenged the divine supremacy, and set an example of disobedience to the whole intelligent creation. “And now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forevery therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
It has already been remarked, that it is not necessary to suppose that the tree of life had any miraculous power of conferring immortality; it seems rather to have stood in Eden as the symbol and pledge of an immortal existence to Adam while he retained his integrity, and the Edenic dispensation continued.
* Genesis 3:22—23.
Nor does this passage necessarily teach, that the fact of Adam’s putting forth his hand and taking and eating of the tree of life would have regained and secured to him, in his then altered condition, the immortality which he had forfeited. It is not the once eating, but the habitual eating of this tree of life which is deprecated and forbidden. So long as he had access to this tree, according to a previously given assurance on the part of God, he was exempt from the contingencies of a mortal nature; it was, therefore, necessary to send him forth from its neighbourhood, since he had forfeited the privileges of which it was the symbol and pledge; and “therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
Now I confidently appeal to every candid mind, whether this historic relation of the circumstances of Adam’s fall, is consistent with the belief that Adam possessed immortality as a part of his original constitution? Is it not distinctly proved, that he was put into Eden as a probationer for immortality, and, having failed in the trial, is not the assigned reason for his expulsion, — the necessity of removing him from “the tree of life?” That sacred enclosure, the happy home of the sinless Adam, was now forbidden ground to him; for he had lost the immortality which his obedience could have gained. The repetition of the reason for his expulsion, and the design, so emphatically expressed, of the cherubims with the flaming sword, “to keep the way of the tree of life,” against Adam and his posterity, appear to me absolutely inexplicable upon the supposition that our first father, or ourselves, his posterity, have immortality, or a ceaseless, conscious existence, as an attribute proper and originally belonging to our constitution.
We have been contemplating a humiliating and melancholy fact in the history of our species. If, my brethren you concur in the simple, and I think, honest reasoning of this discourse, you cannot but, with myself, be humbled on this view of fallen humanity. As we think of man’s destiny, we sympathetically exclaim, “How hast thou fallen!” The view which I have now presented differs, it will be observed, from the popular theory, in this respect, — that I have represented the fall of man to be a more extensive calamity than is popularly believed.
Man has appeared, in the preceding reasoning, to be more significantly Host and more literally in need of being saved. The popular theory represents mankind to have lost, in their representative, their original holiness and happiness; the theory of this lecture represents this also, but something more than this, — man has lost besides, immortality. But if I have asked you to look into a gloom so profound, I can point you, on the same divine authority, to a light no ess glorious; for “life and immortality,” says the apostle Paul, are brought to light by Christ in the gospel: If all in Adam die, on the other hand, all in Christ will be made alive. If the opening book of inspired truth reveals a flaming sword turning every way to defend the approaches to the tree of life; the closing book of inspired truth tells of an obedience, which, resulting from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, has power to sheathe the burning weapon, and clear an open way to recover the lost privilege; for “blessed are they,” we read, “who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city.” [Revelation 22:14] If we have stood in sad mood by the all-engulfing grave, and witnessed the sepulchre of a lost immortality, we now hear a voice uttering the joyful recovery, — “ I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live: and whosoever lives and believeth in me, shall never die.”*
LECTURE 2:
THE CHRISTIAN REDEMPTION
Romans 6:23.
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The conclusion to which we came in the last lecture on the important question touching the original and actual constitution of man was, we think, necessitated by the obvious teaching of the sacred narrative. We then saw, after a plain and impartial examination of all the circumstances connected with the creation and probation of the first man, that in consequence of the unsuccessful issue of his trial, as the representative of his posterity, he was exiled from Eden, where was “the tree of life,” the symbol and pledge of immortality. In that dishonourable banishment was involved the wreck of the moral excellence and immortality of the race.
It is true, that we do not derive from the Mosaic account of the fall any very definite information with respect to the precise relation which Adam officially sustained to his descendants; this we learn from other portions of the sacred writings. Thus we read, “If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” [Romans 5:16, 17.] And again, As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive; for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22.
That Adam sustained a representative relation to his posterity, a relation, that is, wholly distinct from his natural or parental relation, resulting from the divine pleasure and appointment, is supported moreover by the fact, that the effects of the fall are entailed upon them even before the period of their moral accountability, as in the case of infants. It is in this view of the correspondence between the fall by representation, and the recovery by the same scheme, that the apostle denominates our Lord Jesus Christ the second Adam, — “the first man Adam was made a living soul,” [1 Corinthians 15:4] a mere animated existence; the last Adam was made a quickening,” or life-giving “spirit.”
“A reason for the representative aspect of the arrangement has been suggested, as brought to light by the representative character of the grand remedial economy which followed. Foreseeing that men, if placed on probation individually, would all incur the penalty of transgression, God was pleased to make their escape from such an issue possible, by the representative arrangement which we have been considering, in order (it has been said) to foreshadow the representative nature of the evangelical economy.
The first was, in this particular, a rehearsal of the second. Adam was the figure of him that was to come. ’The gospel was preached before unto Adam.’ Now, doubtless, the event has disclosed the analogous relation of the first constitution to the second; and inspiration itself affirms a resemblance. And a grand display it presents of the all-related and comprehensive nature of the divine plans. Still we can only regard the analogy supplied as an incidental, not a primary or leading reason for the existence of the economy which supplies it. For, from the moment the first became, m the particular in question, an analogy of the second, the second itself was actually promised. In the same moment in which the shadow appeared, the substance itself was coming into view.” [“Man Primeval, A Contribution to Theological Science,” By Dr. Harris, p. 424.]
It is of great importance to observe, that the divine arrangement which constituted the first Adam the representative of the human race, has entailed upon his posterity exclusively the effects of his fall. It is to misconceive and misrepresent the nature of that catastrophe to teach that the entire race, by virtue of this constituted relation, have become personally guilty of Adam’s sin. The guilt of that act of disobedience in Eden was exclusively Adam’s; and he alone can, strictly speaking, be said to have been punished.
What mankind are exposed to in consequence of the fall, is neither the charge of fruit, nor the desert of punishment; but simply loss. The acts of the first man, in his representative capacity, are participated by his progeny in their consequences only, since guilt is not transferable nor hereditary. In correspondence with these remarks, I may quote the language of the late Dr. Payne: I must again call the reader,” he says, to observe most carefully that our statement is not that guilty in the proper sense of the term, i.e. desert of punishment, rests upon the race in consequence of Adam’s sin; nor that the results of his sin overtake us as punishment, strictly so called; but that his federal failure has brought upon us legal exposure, or liability to suffer the consequences of that failure; that is, has exposed us to the loss of chartered blessings. [Congregational Lecture — “Original Sin,” p. 119.]
Now, what were these “chartered blessings” which Adam might have enjoyed and transmitted to his posterity? I reply, the privilege of an unending existence, or immortality, together with such local and conditional circumstances, and the bestowment of such spiritual aid, as should effectually secure the moral and spiritual integrity of the race thus immortalized. In the failure, therefore, of Adam, we read, not the indictment of our own guilt, but the privation of such “ chartered blessings.”
This statement, that we are deprived by the fall, not of personal rights and previous possessions, but chartered blessings, will meet an objection which many feel, and some have even ventured to express. While all admit that the doctrine of Adam’s representative relation is distinctly revealed in the Bible, yet, seeing that such momentous issues to the human race are involved in this constitution, it is alleged that such an arrangement has the aspect of injustice towards the race, since it is presumed that their highest interests would have been safer in their own custody than intrusted to another; and this arrangement being made without the possibility of their being a party to it. Such an objection is of course nothing short of an impeachment of the Eternal Wisdom and Benevolence; and, although the Divine Being needs no apologists for His proceedings, I may be permitted to observe, in the hope of removing this painful and erroneous judgment, that it is based upon the common error of contemplating the fall insulated from the entire scheme, and necessary oneness of revealed truth.
Ruin by Adam is not to be regarded per se, but in connection with its grand complement, — redemption by Christ. The Apostle Paul has, as we nave seen, expressed the correspondence between these two great parts of the evangelic system; and has affirmed that mankind are indeed gainers by this original arrangement with Adam, since it became possible to institute a second representative head in the person of Christ, by whom all the lost privileges might be again recovered. “If,” he reasons, “through the offence of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto deaths even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” [Romans 5:16, 20, 21.]
This inspired reasoning neutralizes the objection against the representative arrangement, and shows us that every man is now his own keeper; and thus, through the new representative relation of Jesus Christ, who has again planted the tree of life, all men are made probationers for immortality; and, with a second opportunity of being enriched with the forfeited chartered blessings, are challenged to prove themselves worthier and safer guardians of their own interests.
But, independently of this correspondence between the two schemes upon which the fall and recovery of mankind depend, and which exhibit an incalculable over-compensation in the gift of Christ, by which more extensively beneficial ends are generally secured, — had no such restoring scheme been devised as that of the Christian redemption, on what principle, we ask, could injustice be charged upon God in the representative arrangement which he made with Adam? “Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?”
Let it be distinctly remembered that the loss mankind sustained in Adam was not personal rights, but chartered blessings. This disposition to impeach the justice of the Great Moral Governor arises in part, and I am fain to believe chiefly, from a mistaken apprehension of the nature and consequents of the fall: The most erroneous statements have been made by some writers on this subject. One expositor of the Epistle to the Romans maintains, “that the sin of Adam was ours as really and truly so as it was the sin of Adam himself; that every believer is bound to acknowledge and confess that he is guilty of Adam’s sin;” and that no doubt may be entertained as to the sense in which he employs the word guilt he says, “Adam’s sin is imputed to his posterity because it is their sin in reality though we may not be able to see the way in which it is so.” [Haldane’s Commentary, volume 1, page 440.]
In harmony with this view of the actual guilt of the human race, on account of Adam’s transgression, are the popular representations of the desert and punishment of mankind. It is right to observe, that there are different views of the nature and effects of the fall; and that in stating what is the popular theory, I may not be stating the theory of many accustomed to reflection upon this subject The fact, however, that so much, and such wide difference of opinion exists upon this portion of the evangelical system would seem to suggest that there is, somewhere or other, a wrong element in the admitted facts, and thus various and unsatisfactory results are arrived at. I think I shall correctly state the popular doctrine when I say, that it is believed that Adam, through his disobedience, brought death into the world, in this sense, — that is, that he exposed his body to dissolution, and his spirit to an unending existence in misery, which terrible heritage, as our representative head, he transmitted to us, his posterity.
Cruden, in his Concordance, under the word Death, thus expounds its meaning, and the nature of the curse which Adam has transmitted to his posterity.
“Death,” he says, “signifies the separation of the soul from the body, — this is temporal death. A separation of soul and body from God’s favour in this life which is the state of all un-regenerated and un-renewed persons, who are without the light of knowledge, and the quickening power of grace, — this is SPIRITUAL DEATH. The perpetual separation the whole man from God’s heavenly presence and glory, to he tormented forever with the deil and his angels, — this is the second death, or ETERNAL DEATH. To all these kinds of death Adam made himself and his posterity liable, by transgressing the commandment of God in eating the forbidden fruit.”
This preposterous definition of the scripture word death, is that which is indorsed by modem Christian teachers! Can such extravagancies fail to shock the understandings of an intelligent and truth-seeking age? Who can be surprised that such teaching should furnish a theme for the severest sarcasms of the sceptic, and enable him to point the finger of scorn at the Christian profession? If the above be the definition of the scripture term death, then it must be applied, to be consistent, to other passages where this word occurs. “We see Jesus,” says the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, “who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that he by the grace of God should taste death forevery man.” Hebrews 2:9.
According therefore to the orthodox definition, as given by Cruden, Christ must have suffered this threefold death. 1st, Temporal Death, or the separation of soul and body. 2ndly, Spiritual Death, or the separation of the whole nature from God’s favour in this life. 3rdly, Eternal Death, or the perpetual separation of the whole man from God, to be tormented forever with the devil and his angels! Can any one believe that Christ suffered this? Of course not; not even the orthodox believe this, though in consistency they are bound to do so. They invent a commutation theory to get out of their difficulty.
In the following passage the word death occurs three times. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, 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 life-time subject to bondage.” Hebrews 2:14, 16.
Now the common sense principle of interpretation requires us to understand that the death mankind feared, the death the devil had the power of, and the death which Christ died, are all the same. If therefore it is the threefold death which Satan has the power of, and mankind fear, Christ must have suffered this threefold death. But this would have made redemption impossible, because one element in this death is eternal torment in a state of perpetual banishment from God! Orthodoxy and scripture are as much at variance, as orthodoxy and common sense. The passage just quoted, moreover, obliges the conclusion that death in the apostolic age, and prior to that period, had no such mystic sense as that which now has the accredited seal of popular orthodoxy, a separation of the conscious and immortal soul from the unconscious body; — that on the contrary, it was regarded as a complete and dreaded dominion over the entire conscious humanity, which blasted the hopes, froze the energies, and broke the spirits of the race so far as no clearly defined views of a future life by resurrection were possessed. Under such circumstances its melancholy anticipation sat like an incubus upon the life-loving heart of humanity, — it was a “bondage” which clung with dismal and oppressive tenacity to them all their life-time, and from which they could only be effectually delivered by a sure and certain hope of resurrection from the dead, through the resurrection of Christ. Surely, it was the fear of this all-engulfing death, not of the threefold death of the modem church, which begat the “bondage” of which the text speaks.
I will not here repeat what was said in the former lecture about the unscriptural breaking up of the unity of the human nature, and attaching the essence and personality of the human being to the spirit which this theory develops; but merely ask you to ponder over that thought, and give it its just weight in your reasoning. There are again others who, while they consider that such were the effects of the sin of Adam upon himself, only a portion of these evils descend upon the race; this transmitted portion being, the withholding of sustaining grace, condemnation to toil and suffering, and death in the sense of dissolution of the body; the other portion, viz., the eternal suffering of the soul in Hell, resulting to the race, as it did to Adam, through personal guilt.
But you will perceive at once, that if it be admitted that a part of the curse which Adam’s disobedience brought upon himself is, that his spirit should be punished with eternal suffering then, as the head and representative of the race, he must transmit, not a part, but the whole of the curse. They who hold this latter theory, evidently revolt from the conclusion to which they see they are fairly and unavoidably brought, although they are very inconsistent in so doing. But they do not escape from the dreaded element of the former theory by any such forced explanation; for if they teach as they do, that mankind inherit a corrupt tendency from Adam, which will infallibly bring them into this terrible estate, the two theories, apparently different, come to the same point in the end, and that is, that we all inherit from Adam, as the curse of the law, a condition of sufferings followed by the dissolution of the body, and unending misery in hell:
It is not surprising that such representations of the fall should excite, in every reflecting mind, painful and distracting thoughts concerning the blessed God and His moral government. There is, I am disposed to believe, a secret, antecedent condemnation of such a doctrine in the mind of the intelligent inquirer before any attempt is made to test it by the infallible word; and although I would not attach too much weight to this h priori judgment, I would not, at the same time, set it altogether aside as of no weight in the argument. The human mind, even in its unregenerate state, has its perceptions of justice and the fitness of things. The fall, complete as it is, has not obliterated every right perception from the mind, — it has less damaged the moral sense than the moral dispositions of the race. The fact that the human mind secretly revolts from such a representation of the consequences of the fall, is at least worthy the careful consideration of those who uphold this theory, and should, we think, induce them to re-consult the inspired record, that they may be satisfied that they have not erred in their convictions of its teaching.
My deliberate opinion is, that the exposition which is very generally given of the fall and its effects is anti-scriptural, and seriously pernicious to the religious interests of mankind, and that the root of the prolific error lies in the assumed doctrine of man’s constitutional immortality which, in our last lecture, we saw was not the instruction of the Bible, but the conceit of a false science. Taking it as an incontrovertible truth, that man is a being composed of a dying body and an undying spirit, the advocates of this theory are unable to dispose of the undying spirit in any other way than to dismiss it to a state of perpetual misery and sin. Of course, it cannot be supposed that the portion of the guilty spirit is one of bliss; the only alternative therefore, is, the supposition that it is consigned to the unending torments of hell: Attempted justifications are not wanting of this awful punishment, which is considered to be due to Adam, and which has become the heritage of his posterity; justifications be it, however, remembered, which are not derived from the Bible, but from certain speculative notions about the infinite evil of sin, and the possible necessity of the guilty portion of the intelligent creation enduring a perpetuity of torture in the future state to operate as a moral restraint upon the saved. I cannot understand in what way he can become infinite nor can I think that the blessed Jehovah needs to kindle a hell, while the fire of his all-consuming love glows, to enforce and perpetuate hereafter the obedience of his ransomed creatures.
If we interpreted the Bible rightly, in our last lecture, we learnt from it that Adam, after his creation, was put into Eden as a probationer for an undying existence, or immortality; and that an arrangement was made with him, according to which he should sustain a representative relation to his posterity, by which the consequences not the moral character, of his acts should be visited upon them, as well as upon himself. The real consequences of the failure in Eden, and which are transmitted to mankind, are directly the loss of immortality and indirectly of spiritual integrity. The condition, character, and prospects of the race are so seriously damaged by the unsuccessful probation of our representative head.
The death threatened to Adam was not a figurative, nor a partial but a literal and complete death. It did not relate to one part only of his nature, but to his nature in its proper and complete unity: it contemplated him as man. The curse was a condition of suffering, following as a consequence from his altered moral relation to God, to issue in the decease of the man, which had it been permitted to take its full effect, would necessarily have been the everlasting extinction of the human being. The spirit would return to God whence it proceeded, not as the conscious man, but as a component of the man, and the body to the ground whence it was taken: the man by this severance would have been destroyed, — his personality, himself, would have been annihilated. “In the day that thou eats thereof thou [thy personality, thyself] shalt surely die.” Genesis 2:17.
The actual condition, then, into which the entire human race has been brought through the failure of our first parent, as our divinely constituted representative, in whose image or likeness we are generated, is, according to the Mosaic narrative, an exposure to suffering, issuing in a total decease.
“The wages of sin is death,” — a final cessation of existence. Man, by his descent from Adam, has inherited this terrible legacy, he has descended from the attainable elevation of an immortal existence, to the inevitable and dishonourable level of the beasts that perish.
Now, if this be the true meaning of the death threatened to Adam, — if this be the curse to which mankind, with their representative, are obnoxious, we should expect to find a phraseology in the scriptures agreeing with this humbling view of the race, in their actual condition, apart from the scheme of recovering mercy. And hence we hear the patriarch Job asking, “ What is man that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man’s days? Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little: before I go whence I shall not return, even to the 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 7:17; 10:5, 20-22.]
Again we hear him exclaim, — How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?” “Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly; how much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth? They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish forever.” [Job 4:18-20.] And similar is the language of the Psalmist: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visits him?” [Psalm 8:3, 4.]
In that exquisite composition, the 104th Psalm, which celebrates the wisdom, power, and goodness of God in creation, we meet with a somewhat particular enumeration of the animal kingdom. And in this enumeration, man occupies a place without any other distinction than that of a rational being adapting means to ends for the purpose of daily sustenance. “Man goes forth unto his work, and to his labour, until the evening.” The beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and man are all referred to in exemplification of the grandeur and goodness of God, — and of them all, not excepting man from the general summary, it is added, “ Thou hides thy face, they are troubled; thou takes away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Thou sends forth thy Spirit [the same word as breath in the preceding text] they [others like them] are created, and thou renews the face of the earth.” Here, man ranks with the inferior animals in their natural destination to the dust of the earth, according to the statement of Solomon, Man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, and his mortality along with theirs is brought into contrast with the eternity of Jehovah. “The glory of the Lord shall endure forever.”
The Psalmist, too, speaks as one sensible of the brevity of his own duration, — “I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God, while I have my being.”
These are specimens of the estimate in which the sacred writers held the actual dignity of human nature. Does it not strike you as singularly different from the language which is commonly employed in modem times, in reference to the actual excellence of humanity? It is far from an unusual thing to hear of the human spirit as being incomparably more precious than a universe of worlds; and that, in comparison with it, all mere material things, however gorgeous and mighty the assemblage, “are less than nothing and vanity.”
This language would not be extravagant if it had respect to what humanity may attain to and may be, instead of what it now has and is; — if it spoke of its possible and attainable instead of its present and actual worth. In the passage just quoted, David can find no terms to characterize the extreme insignificance of man, when compared with the glory and grandeur of the starry firmament, — “What is man?” Whence this discrepancy between our modes of thought and speech, and those of the sacred writers? I confess that I cannot explain it, except on the supposition that we have erred in our estimate of what are the real elements of the human constitution; and that man, instead of attaining to the status of angelic nature, is in closer affinity with the worm.
Such a representation is naturally repellent to our feelings, — it is designed so to be. The actual degradation of our nature is a part of the conscious bitterness of the curse. We feel that whatever may be said, and however truthful, about our actual alliance with the irrational creation, it is not our proper alliance. We aspire to an equality with angels, and feel that immortality is more germane to our sympathies, and more in harmony with our instincts. But, brethren, what is the truth about our actual condition and prospects? Does the Bible teach us that, notwithstanding the fall, we are the imperishable beings that God designed we should be? Has the fall left us immortal or mortal? Has it despoiled us of moral excellence and happiness? and has it not also kept back, in addition, the magnificent bestowment of immortality? The Bible teaches that the fall is no less extensive and lamentable than this, — that mankind, with their gifted capacities, honourable ambitions, and elevated instincts, are, nevertheless, lost — dead. The fall is thus terrible and complete. How bitter is the curse!
It is not infrequently urged, as an argument for the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, that the aspiration for unending existence is universal, in the human bosom; and that it is the common belief of the race. The implantation of this instinct in the human constitution, it is argued, proves that the Creator has invested the human soul with the attribute of natural immortality. But this reasoning is rather specious than sound. It is beyond dispute that the love of life is a natural instinct in the human race, but that is a hasty logic which from this premise draws no less than two extraordinary conclusions, viz.: the possession by man of immortality or endless life, and the immortality of the soul in particular! If the love of life is a proof that man is naturally immortal, because it is an instinct in human nature then it is a proof that man, in his compound or complete totality — his body as well his soul — is immortal: But the argument, if it may be so dignified, claims only a fractional immortality — the immortality of a part or the human nature, — that of the soul as a separate existence! To justify this conclusion it must be first proved that human instincts reside exclusively in the soul, as a separate principle, and are altogether independent on the material organization of man.
But we demur to the conclusion that the love of life, which refuses to be satisfied with a limited existence, is a veritable proof of the possession by man in any sense of natural immortality. If the desire for immortality be a proof of the possession of it, then any and every other instinctive desire is a proof that its object or objects are possessed. A more just logic would oblige us to conclude that immortality is a good which the beneficent Creator probably designed to bestow on man, and for which man has a possible adaptation. The desire for immortality would make the conscious loss of it a “curse” — and this is chiefly the curse which the disobedience of our first father brought on himself and his posterity.
The love of life in the heart of man, proves the Gospel of Christ to be the great desideratum of his being, and supplies a mighty subjective motive, to those other motives which the Gospel itself presents, to induce mankind to believe and rejoice in Christ. For the Gospel of Christ brings life and immortality to light. Is it not then, more reasonable to regard this instinctive clinging to life as naturally exciting, under a true scriptural preaching, the conscious bitterness of the loss of it, and that it is mercifully sustained in man, as an auxiliary of religion; that it may act as an impulse to induce him to seek life, and give a willing response to the invitations of him who said “I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly.”
There is another specious method of reasoning out the natural immortality of the human soul from the contemplation of man’s artistic skill and ingenuity. Here also it may be observed that if the argument is worth anything it must demonstrate the immortality, not of a part of man, but of all that constitutes man, he mightiest agencies of nature, have, by human skill, been made subservient to the wants and conveniences of the social state. The elements do man’s bidding as well as the bidding of God. Surely, it is argued, man, this skilful, powerful being cannot share the beast’s lot! But be it remembered, that all these wonderful achievements are the result of the knowledge, not of essences, but of laws merely; — the fruit not of actual creation, but only of a closer inspection of the phenomena of nature. Man in his self-complacency calls his scientific advancements, discoveries, inventions; piety would rather term them revelations, providential disclosures. Let vain man be humbled by the inspired interrogatory, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?”
But is the possession of wisdom and power to be accepted as an argument of man’s eternal longevity! Because man has skill and ability, is he therefore immortal? We in our ignorance and imperfection would exalt the intellectual above the moral. The former has greater attractions for imperfect man than the latter. Had we the peopling of Paradise, we should fill it with the world’s heroes in literature, science, and the arts. The skilful are the world’s saints, and the proper candidates for heaven’s “many mansions.” This argument, dispassionately considered apart from the imposing parade of human achievements, is just this; Man is clever therefore he is immortal! Here is neither logic nor religion. The cleverness of man is surely no title to immortality, much less is it the proof of its possession. It is a silly logic, which asserts human immortality from such strange premises as balloons and pyramids, electro-telegraphs and railways. How true is it that “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart!”
A virtuous heart, rather than a skilful head, were a proof of immortality. But man will search in vain for the evidences of his own natural immortality. Immortality is “the gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Let not man therefore unduly exaggerate his skill, nor seek therein an argument for his immortality, but remember that immortality is a Gospel reward bestowed not on intellectual but moral considerations: as it is written, into “that great city, the holy Jerusalem, there shall in nowise enter anything that defiles neither whatsoever works abomination or makes a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” The exposition of the fall and its effects, as previously exhibited, is capable of being put yet further to the proof.
As a part, and a fundamental part, of a great system of revealed truth, it must accord, if it properly belong to that system, with every other part; and if it does so, obviously, and without laboured and unnatural interpretations, will evince its claim to be so regarded. “We may observe,” says a living writer, whose observation, though it has a special reference, is applicable as a general rule of sound exposition, — “we may observe that an interpretation, besides being thus in accordance with its context, must be so without any very violent means being applied to bring it into such agreement; even as, generally, the interpretation must be easy, if not always easy to be discovered, — yet, being discovered, easy. For it is here, as with the laws of nature; the proleptic mind of genius may be needful to discover the law; but, being discovered, it throws back light on itself, and commends itself unto all: And there is this other point of similarity also; it is the proof of the law, that it explains all: the phenomena, and not merely some, — that, sooner or later, they all marshal themselves in order under it; so it is tolerable evidence, that we have found the right interpretation if it leave none of the main circumstances unexplained.
A false interpretation will inevitably betray itself, since it will invariably paralyse, and render nugatory, some important member of an entire account. If we have the right key in our hand, not merely some of the wards, but all will have their corresponding parts; and, moreover, the key wall turn without grating, or over-much forcing; and, if we have the right interpretation, it will scarcely need to be defended, and made plausible with great appliance of learning, to be propped up by remote allusions to Rabbinical, or profane literature, by illustrations drawn from the recesses of antiquity.” [Trench: Notes on the Parables of our Lord, pp. 37, 38.]
If, therefore, the fall of man be as extensive as I have represented, the recovery will be co-extensive with it, and the redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ, which is revealed in the Scriptures, will be found to adapt itself to the alleged extremity in which mankind are placed.
I proceed to observe, that the redemption needed by man, and which Christ would therefore accomplish, is redemption, not from the moral dominion of sin only, though this was an important part of the scheme of infinite benevolence, for Christ “ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity;” [Titus 2:14.] but also redemption from death in the sense of a positive decease; and union with him, as the second Adam, sustaining a representative relation to us, would recover for us all that had been lost by the first Adam. Among other losses, through the failure of the first Adam, was the magnificent gift of eternal life; and what is the gift which, through Christ, is restored to the believer? Our text answers the question, — “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
But here a question arises which must be answered before we can arrive at any certain and satisfactory- results. What is the meaning of the words life and death in the Bible? The question has an important bearing upon the argument of this discourse; and, if we do not agree in the meaning which we suppose these words to have, it will be impossible to consent in any conclusion. It should seem strange that such a preliminary question is needed; for what ought more reasonably to be conveyed by these terms, than those ideas which, in conventional usage, are always associated with them? I do not believe that this question would ever have been asked, but for the error into which the great bulk of professing Christians have been led in reference to the native constitution of man. Believing that man is an immortal being, it is seen to be impossible to understand the terms life and death, in their application to him, in any other than a figurative sense. A being who believes that he has life already by original creation, in the sense of an unending or immortal existence, is necessitated to understand the promise of life as synonymous with the promise of happiness; and when death is predicated of such a being, it also must be understood in the metaphorical sense of misery, since it is presumed that this native immortality will never be alienated. Does not this conversion of the most common-place terms, from their familiar and natural use, to a use both unfamiliar and unnatural, appear, to say the least, a very singular circumstance? If the languages in which the original Scriptures were written could not furnish terms to express the ideas of happiness and misery, then there might be some plausibility for the appropriation of these terms in this arbitrary sense. But the rudest language has its signs for these ideas; and, therefore, there could have been no need, and we should think too, no reason, to set aside the appropriate words, and to employ others in a sense so different from their peculiar signification.
Thus employed, the words life and death part with their proper and distinctive signification; and one term especially, — the term death, — is employed in a sense the very opposite of its original and conventional meaning: death, according to the popular theory, is made to signify A life Of misery!
Now, there are grave objections against this figurative use of the words life and death. In the first place, as we have seen, they have a very arbitrary and unnatural meaning forced upon them. And, in the second place, the conversion of these words from their proper to a very violent and arbitrary meaning, has no authority from, nor is it demanded by the written Word.
The Bible, professing to be the teacher of mankind in religion, the most interesting and important of subject, would, of course, not construct a terminology of its own; but make use of the language which the people understood, and employ the terms of such language in their current and conventional meaning; and whenever it was necessary to employ a word different from its customary usage, either the context would make this apparent, or there would be some cautionary observation to prevent the possibility of mistake.
* To this I am aware it is replied, that the idea of life is involved in the constitutional immortality of man, and, therefore, the term death is a figurative expression, not for “life in misery,” but misery. This is an explanation, but one which involves the assumption of the point in debate. We ask for the proof of man’s constitutional immortality; for the ones probandi rests with the teacher of this doctrine.
All language is, more or less, figurative; and of all imaginations, the oriental is the most imaginative; and, therefore, it was to be expected, that words would not invariably be used in their strict primary signification; but whenever it should be necessary to employ a word in an unusual sense, there would be ample evidence of its new appropriation. Should there be any danger of misunderstanding the sense in which a word is used, especially if upon that word depended important doctrine, then we might expect such a cautionary notice of its new meaning, as is furnished, for example, in the book of Revelation 2:8, where Jerusalem is called “Sodom and Egypt,” and we are carefully informed that it is so called “spiritually.” But the words in question have no such admonitory notice, which is the more surprising, since such a usage of them, as the Scriptures are alleged to furnish, is contrary to all custom; and, being employed to teach very vital doctrines, such an admonition is the more necessary, and to be expected. The fact that the Bible has no inspired glossary or explanation of terms, renders it the more imperative that all its words should be employed according to established usage; and is in itself a tacit proof that such is the sense in which every word is used. I conclude, therefore, that the words life and death as used in the Bible, are to be understood in the same sense as they obtain in ordinary language, — that is, except when obvious reasons demand a figurative meaning for them, — in their plain, literal, conventional signification, — not respectively happiness and misery, but existence and non-existence.
* See also another example in John 7:38, 39.
It may be said, that the terms existence and non-existence are not definitions of life and death; but it should be borne in mind, that we speak of these terms, not in the abstract but in a special relation, i.e., to man. Life, according to scripture usage, and in this relation, signifies the continuance of that existence. which is proper to man; and death, of course the opposite, or the cessation of that existence which is proper to man. The regenerate have life, inasmuch as their existence will never have an end: the unregenerate have not life, because their existence will have an end. In this sense I would understand the language of the apostle, — “ He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” — 1 John 5:12.
A passage occurs in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans of considerable importance in the controversy touching the meaning of the term life, when used to express the reward of the righteous. “For to be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” [Romans 8:6.] Here the term “peace,” equivalent to the term happiness is employed by the Apostle in addition to the term “life.” If life means happiness, then Paul is guilty of an unmeaning tautology,— for the element of peace is inseparable from the idea of happiness, and would, on this supposition, be comprehended or expressed by the term “life. The occurrence of the two words “life” and “peace” in this text is demonstrative of the literal usage of the former term. And therefore if “life” is to be understood in a literal sense, its opposite, “death,” must be understood in a literal sense also.
The view which we derived from the Bible, of the condition of fallen man, as having lost the privilege of unending life, makes it the more obvious that the term life is needed in its primary and literal sense. The loss which Adam has entailed upon mankind, is the loss of life, therefore the promise of life, not in the figurative sense of happiness, but in its own literal meaning of existence, is what is needed as the blessing conveyed by the gospel scheme. We cannot understand in what sense the Gospel of Christ can be considered a scheme for restoring to man what he lost in the fall, if it omit to mention among its chartered blessings, the offer to man of life or immortality. But this it does; “for the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
According to the historic account in the book of Genesis, Adam, as the representative head of the race, failed to secure this distinguished boon, and the proof of it is furnished in the assigned reason for his expulsion from Eden, — “ And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” [Genesis 3:22-24.]
He is, with studied emphasis, condemned to an absolute decease, by the dissolution of his compounded nature as many — his “breath of life“ being resumed by his Maker, and his body left to decompose into its original dust. His mortality is characterized in terms the most definite and unmistakeable, — “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;“ it is not his body that is thus characterized, but himself; the conscious man is not associated with the higher element of his compound nature, but with the visible material form, — “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.”
Accept these words, then, in their proper significance; divest your mind of the philosophic conceit that the nature of man, either before or after the fall, is essentially immortal, and you remove a veil which greatly obscures the whole system of revealed religion. Let it be clearly perceived by you that mankind, by virtue of the representative headship of their first progenitor, have lost the magnificent inheritance of immortality, and you will see how appropriate to our fallen and degraded condition is the language of the Gospel, which assures us that Christ “has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light.” [2 Timothy 1:10.]
The popular view of the theory of redemption is briefly as follows: — Man, it is asserted, was at his creation endowed with immortality, and that this attribute is as proper to his nature as his reason, or his moral sense; that through the failure of his representative he Is despoiled not of his immortality, but of his original spiritual excellence; and, being deprived of the favour of God, is exposed to an immortality of misery; that the redemption of Christ, so far as regards man, rescues him from his merited destination to the unending torments of hell; and, by laying the foundation, and effecting the superstructure of his spiritual character, fits him for the inheritance of the saints in light.
Now, I contend, that this theory is but a partial statement of the Bible theory of human redemption; that, taken as a whole, it is a very erroneous statement, without the proof of a single passage, or any assemblage of passages of Scripture; that it does to the system of Christian truth, what he would do to the solar system who should think that it was more complete and attractive without its central sun. If any fact of Scripture revelation is more prominent than another, it is this, that the human race is, through Adam, doomed to a literal and complete decease; and that our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save the race from this death. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Recall to mind the phraseology in which the New Testament describes a chief benefit of Christ’s mediation, and you will find that its distinguishing and emphatic language is “life” and “eternal life.”
Let it be distinctly understood that this lecture is confined exclusively to the consideration of one and only one purpose of the Mediator’s mission. That mission of divine beneficence contemplated other great objects than the redemption of the race, which more especially denotes the recovery of mankind from death. The mission of Christ contemplated important moral ends also, and the Mediator had much to accomplish before he could say, “I have finished the work which thou gave me to do.” Jesus Christ is “made unto us wisdom and righteousness (or justification) sanctification, and redemption.” Mankind had lost the image of God in themselves, and the conceptions of Him by the Jew, as well as by the Gentile, were erroneous and grovelling. Christ came therefore, to manifest the unseen and unknown Jehovah, — “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “Henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him.” Thus, Christ is “ made unto us wisdom.
The consciousness of guilt disposed our race to blot out the memory of God’s existence, for mankind dreaded, and sought by forgetfulness to flee from, His presence. Christ came, therefore, to preach forgiveness of our sins, — to assure the self- condemned race that “there is forgiveness with God,” and to conciliate their alienated hearts by declaring, that God does not impute sin where there is repentance and faith. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”
Hence, Christ is “made unto us justification.” The moral condition of mankind was another gulf of separation between them and their Maker. As sinful beings the holy Jehovah could not have fellowship with them, and as such, they had no desire for fellowship with God. Christ, therefore, came to reform the moral character of mankind, — he came to “take away their sins” by purifying “unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.” Hence Christ is “made unto us sanctification.” Besides these great purposes of the Mediator s mission, there was yet another purpose to be accomplished, without which all the foregoing benefits of the Mediator-ship would have been but imperfect and temporary. The race of man is mortal: “Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
Christ came, therefore, that he might “abolish death, and bring life and immortality to light” “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live THROUGH HIM.” 1 John 4:9.
Hence, Christ is “made unto us REDEMPTION.”
Now, this grand purpose of the mission of Jesus Christ, to bestow a future and endless life on all to whom his manifold mission has been personally efficacious, necessarily supposes that the human race are mortal, in such a sense as that death has complete dominion over them, and that the state of death is an absolute non-existence of the conscious life of the human being. “What man is he that lives, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the GRAVE?” Psalm 89:48. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It remains for me to prove, that the view I have given of the Christian redemption, is the obvious instruction of the Christian scriptures; and this I proceed to do by showing, first, what is the testimony of the New Testament writers concerning Christ as the medium of everlasting life to man; and then, by collecting concurrent evidence furnished in the personal teaching and history of our Lord himself. The amount of evidence furnished by the New Testament is very large; and, therefore, instead of gathering it together in one vast mass, I will distribute it in corroboration of the three following propositions respectively.
The following is the apostolic testimony to the truth of our first proposition — that,
1. Immortality, or endless life, is not a natural property of the human constitution, but is the gift of God bestowed through Jesus Christ.
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” — John 1:4.
“Ye killed the Prince of life.” — Acts 3:15.
“To those who seek for glory, honour, immortality, eternal life.” — Romans 2:7. “Even so might grace reign to eternal life by Jesus Christ.”— Romans 5:21. “The gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”— Romans 6:23. “O man of God, lay hold on eternal life.” — 1 Timothy 6:12.
“In hope of eternal life which God promised before the world began.” — Titus 1:2. “Made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” — Titus 3:7.
“Our hands have handled of the word of life. For 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 1:1, 2.
“This is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” — 1 John 2:25.
“This is the record, that God hath given to us, eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” — 1 John 5:11.
“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life; and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”— 1 John 5:13.
“We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” — 1 John 5:20.
“Beloved, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” — Jude 1:21.
“If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more, death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God. Likewise reckon ye yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” — Romans 6:8 — 11.
“We shall live with him by the power of God.” — 2 Corinthians 13:4.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:10.
“ Shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” — Romans 5:17.
“The free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”— Romans 5:18.
“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” — Romans 8:2. “That mortality might be swallowed up of life.”— 2 Corinthians 5:4.
“Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” — Colossians 3:3, 4.
“Paul an apostle, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.” — 2 Timothy 1:1.
“Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”— 2 Timothy 1:10.
“There arises another priest (Christ) who is made after the power of an endless life.” — Hebrews 7:16. “Being heirs together of the grace of life.” — 1 Peter 3:7.
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” — Revelation 21:6,
“That in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should here-after believe on him to life everlasting.” — 1 Timothy 1:16.
“These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, we might have life through his name.” — John 20:31.
The foregoing array of passages taken only from the apostolic writings of the New Testament are amply sufficient to indicate the apostolic doctrine on this point. No considerate person can question the proposition which they have been collected to establish, viz., that mankind are in no sense immortal beings, but that immortality is a blessing of the gospel, a gift of God, bestowed through our Lord Jesus Christ. If it be asked, how is immortality bestowed through Jesus Christ, I reply, because Christ is the medium of all God’s blessings to mankind, — he is the one medium or Mediator between God and man. The revelation of God, and the communication of all his benefits is by means of an intervening party or Mediator, through whom alone we know God, and are made partakers of his grace.
We obtain immortality through Christ, because he is exalted to be the Prince or Author of life; even as we obtain repentance and remission of sins through Christ, because “he is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins.” The sacred Scriptures reveal the fact that the manifestation of God is mediation, and as Christ is that exalted personage who fulfils the office of the Mediator, every communication of God, in the way of knowledge, promise, and gift, is necessarily through our Lord Jesus Christ. We now proceed to the second proposition.
2. That immortality, or everlasting existence, is introduced by, and dependent upon the resurrection from the dead at the second coming of Jesus Christ.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively (living) hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, RESERVED in heaven for you; who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation (which is) ready to be revealed in the last time. At the appearing of Jesus Christ, Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” —1 Peter 1:3—5, 7, 13.
“Jude, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.’ — Jude 1:1.
“I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, (which is called also the incorruptible crown, 1 Corinthians 9:25; the crown of glory that fades not away 1 Peter 5:4; and also the crown of life Revelation 2:10). Henceforth then, says Paul, there is laid up for me the crown of immortality, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:6—8.
“I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day,” (the day of his appearing). [This will explain what the dying Stephen meant when he said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit:” be thou the guardian of my life, and let it, in common with the life of all thy saints, be “ hid with” thee in God, for thou art “our life:” and when he had said this, “he” the personality Stephen, “FELL ASLEEP.”] — 2 Timothy 1:12.
“ When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” — Colossians 3:4. “We groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of the body” — Romans 8:23.
“That I may know him and the power of his resurrection. If I may but attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”—Philippians 3:10, 11.
Paul consoled the Thessalonian believers concerning their dead friends who had died in the faith, by assuring them that they should rise from the dead, when Christ came again, (1 Thessalonians 4:13 — 18.)
“If there be no resurrection of the dead then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.”— 1 Corinthians 15:13, 14.
“If there be no resurrection of the dead then they which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished” — 1 Corinthians 15:18.
“If the dead rise not at all, why stand we in jeopardy every hour? — 1 Corinthians 15:30.
“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?”— 1 Corinthians 15:29.
“If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me, if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” — 1 Corinthians 15:32.
“This corruptible must put on in-corruption and this mortal must put on immortality.” Which is, when we are raised in our spiritual bodies at the time of resurrection. — 1 Corinthians 15:50.
The fact that there is no future life but by means of a resurrection from the dead, and that the resurrection depends upon the second personal advent of Christ, will explain why the apostles were preachers of the resurrection from the dead; — why they groaned for and earnestly desired the resurrection of the dead — why they preached so much about the second coming of Christ; exhorted and persuaded their converts by the prospect of that event, and anticipated with so much enthusiasm the speediness of its approach. If Christ do not come again as the “Resurrection and the Life,” to raise the dead— then is our faith vain — Christian preaching is vain — they who have fallen asleep in Christ are perished. Can language more clearly express the truth, that if there he no resurrection there is no future life?
I remark thirdly —
3. That immortality, or endless existence, is the peculiar privilege of the regenerate; that is, in other words, that none but believers in Christ are immortal:
“Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Acts 13:46.
“Now being made free from sin, and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:22, 23.
“He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that sows to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:8.
“Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” 1 John 3:15.
“To be carnally-minded is deaths but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Romans 8:6. “The Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Romans 8:10.
“Henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind being alienated from the life of God.” Ephesians 4:18.
“Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” 1 Timothy 4:8.
“He shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.” James 1:12.
“He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life.” 1 John 5:12.
“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life.” Revelation 22:14.
“If ye live after the flesh t/e shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live.” Romans 8:13.
“Yield yourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead.” Romans 6:13.
“There is therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from, the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1, 2.
“For if by one mans offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:17.
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.” 1 John 3:14.
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36.
In accordance with this representation of the exclusive privilege of immortality belonging to believers in Christ, is the scripture revelation concerning the two resurrections. “The first resurrection,” as it is called, is distinguished as the “resurrection unto life” and is exclusively “the resurrection of the just.” The second resurrection is denominated “the resurrection unto damnation” — and is described as “the second death” — and this is the awful portion of unbelievers.
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the resurrection, on such the second death hath no power.” Revelation 20:6.
In the foregoing citations is exhibited the testimony of the New Testament writers to the feet, that immortality, or endless life, is a blessing peculiar to the Gospel, and that Jesus Christ, as the Mediator, is the dispenser of this distinguished boon. We have also seen, that the gift of everlasting life is bestowed at the time of the resurrection, when Christ comes the second time for salvation, — and that he bestows it only upon those whose faith in himself had justified and sanctified them, and made them “meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” It now remains to examine the personal mission of Christ, as recorded in the histories of the Evangelists, that we may see whether our Lord’s testimony accords with that of his apostles; — whether he represented it as one chief purpose of his mediatorial mission, to announce the gift of life at the time of resurrection, and himself as the medium of its communication.
“As the Father hath life in himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in himself: and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:25—29.
“And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life!” Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:29, 30.
“The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life,” John 4:14.
“He that hears my word, 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.
“These shall go away into everlasting punishment, (“the second death”) but the righteous into life eternal.” Matthew 25:46.
“He that reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto life eternal.” (Christ’s allusion to the multitudes of Samaritans coming out to meet him.) — John 4:36.
“Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.” John 5:39.
“Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,” John 5:40.
“I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10.
“Labour not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed.” John 6:27.
“The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and gives life unto the world.” John 6:33.
“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.” (Here our Lord taught the future life through resurrection.) John 6:39.
“And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which sees the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and / will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:40, 44.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” John 6:47. “I am that bread of life.” John 6:48.
“Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die” John 6:49, 50.
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” John 6:51.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” John 6:53.
“Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, hath eternal life and / will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:54.
“As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats me, even he shall live by me.” John 6:57. (The peculiarity of the phraseology in this and other verses of this chapter, arises from the carrying out of the figure of “bread,” to which our Lord compared himself, and hence naturally spoke of eating himself, as the “bread of life,” to convey the idea that life or immortality was derived exclusively from him.)
“This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead; he that eats of this bread shall live forever.” John 6:58.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death,” John 8:51. (i.e. death absolute; the death that is to be followed by resurrection our Lord called “sleep;” that is properly death, from which there is no waking or resurrection, which will be the character of the “second death.”)
“I am the light of the world, he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12.
“I am the resurrection and the life, he that believes in me, though he were dead, (though he die,) yet shall he live, (i.e. again). And whosoever lives and believeth in me, shall never die.” (Literally “shall not die forever.”) John 11:25, 26.
“Jesus saith, I am the way, the truth, and the life, — no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” John 14:19.
“I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish,” John 10:28.
“He that hates his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal,” John 12:25.
“As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” John 17:2, 3.
“The Father which sent me. He gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting, John 12:49, 50.
“To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Revelation 2:9.
“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Revelation 2:10.
These passages all of which are selected from the recorded discourses of our Lord, place it beyond all reasonable doubt, that a chief purpose of Christ’s mission was to proclaim the offer of immortality, or endless life, by means of resurrection from the dead; and through himself as the life of men.
The Miracles of our Lord, wrought as they were in his own name, and because he had “life in himself,” may be regarded as illustrating his high prerogative, as “the Prince of life.” The three recorded miracles of raising the dead exhibit a gradation in the condition of the deceased which it is interesting to notice, and which demonstrates the complete dominion of Christ over Hades, the state or place of the dead, of which he is represented as holding the keys. Revelation 1:18.
The first miracle of raising the dead was on the youthful daughter of Jairus, who had died since her father had gone to supplicate the aid of Christ. She had but just expired when Christ entered the house, and re-animated her by his life-giving voice.
The second miracle of this nature, which exhibits a stage in advance of the former, was on the son of a widow who was being borne on the funeral bier to his tomb.
The third and yet farther-advanced state of decease was in the person of one who had lain in the tomb four days, upon whom corruption had begun its work; but, at the bidding of the Life-giver, corruption was checked, and repaired, and the dead Lazarus came forth.
The personal Resurrection of Christ, is the most wonderful illustration of the fact so emphatically asserted by him, that “the Son hath life in himself.” In our Lord’s appearance to John in Patmos, he thus significantly reports himself, ‘I am he that lives, and was dead, and behold I am alive far evermore.’ To this event he always referred as the pre-eminent sign which he would give to the sign-seeking Jews, that he was their Messiah. “Destroy (ye) this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. He spake of the temple of his body.” “No man takes my life from me, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” And it is deserving special consideration, that in the Apostolic age, there was erected a grand monument of this stupendous event in our Lord’s history, in the institution of the Christian Lord’s day. The seventh day Sabbath, the most ancient of all institutions, whose antiquity was coeval with the completion of the terrestrial creation, yielded up its sacred claim of weekly celebration, to the first day of the week, for the distinguished reason, that on that day Jesus Christ arose from the dead, as the Head of a new and imperishable Creation. The doctrine of our Lord’s resurrection occupies a very observable prominence in the Christian system, as revealed in the New Testament, which contrasts remarkably with the subordinate position which it is made to occupy in the modem Christian instruction. Many modern expositors, indeed nearly all, consider this fact rather in the light of a dependent circumstance, than the grand circumstance itself. The resurrection of Christ is commonly referred to as if its chief use were to prove the divine authority of his Messiah-ship whereas the Apostles suspend upon it the salvation of mankind.
Paul thus reasons: “Now is Christ risen from the dead) and become the first fruits of them that slept.” And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” 1 Corinthians 15:20, 17, 18.
There is a very significant circumstance connected with the personal history of Christ, which demands our attention. Among the supernatural events which occurred on the occasion of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, we are informed “the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves, after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” [Matthew 27:51-53.]
It is universally agreed, that the several prodigies on these memorable occasions were emblematical, and significant of some of the primary truths of the Christian system. The mysterious noon-day darkness, the rending of the temple-veil, and the opened graves, announce important truths in connection with the mission of Christ.
The specialty which marks the narrative of this latter event is most suggestive. The death of Christ shook in emblem the whole empire of death, when rocky sepulchres were rent asunder, and the dark chambers of the dead laid bare their mouldering contents, Still, however, the tenants of the grave slumbered on, unconscious of this prelude to the mighty revolution, which was yet to be affected in the dominions of death.
The death of Christ had thus given a symbolic promise big with assurance to the captive dead, but nothing more. That event enveloped the earth in a simultaneous darkness, and but for the earthquake of promise would have suggested the failure of the Mediator’s enterprise, and the destruction of the world’s resurrection hope. The three days’ duration of the death of Christ, was the proudest moment of Death’s dominion. It was “the hour of darkness.”
That supernatural gloom that spread over Jerusalem at the moment Christ bowed his head in death, fitly shadowed forth the melancholy wreck of human hope, if it were “possible that he should be held of death.” The death of Christ therefore was but promissory, with regard to the accomplishment of victory over death. It remained for the Resurrection of Christ to complete this mightiest conquest. Hence when Christ had burst the bands of deaths these dead tenants of the opened sepulchres revive too, and come out of their graves, enter the city of Jerusalem, and appear to many that probably knew and recognized them. Now why, I ask, was this preternatural event permitted at this special time, if it were not to furnish an acted representation of this one great purpose of the Mediator’s mission, “that the world might LIVE through him.” Why are we told that it was not until “after his resurrection” that these dead ones “arose, and came out of their graves,” but that we should be reminded of the fact, that life or immortality, by means of resurrection from the dead, is through Christ who is “the first-begotten from the dead.” And why, I would further ask, are we expressly informed of the fact, that only “the saints which slept arose,” but that we should have an extraordinary illustration in fact, of what our Lord and his disciples so frequently affirmed, that only saints or holy persons, should have everlasting life. “He that hath the Son, hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life.”
“This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which sees the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
The conquest of death by our Lord, is celebrated in the Scripture in language which must be acknowledged to be extravagant and beyond the greatness of the theme, if the death of the body is all the literal deaths which, through Adam, is entailed upon the race — the body, which, according to the popular theory, is a mere appendage to the man, and not the man himself. Paul, in his rapturous contemplation of the victory of Christ, thus exclaims, “death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is thy sting? O GRAVE, where is thy victory?”
This paean of the Apostle, is over the so-called tabernacle, the dispensable tenement, and as we are sometimes assured, the gross prison-house, of the man! Did the contemplation of Christ’s victory in behalf of mankind, suggest no vaster theme for the evoking of his pious transport, than this? Why does he triumph over the grave, and not over Gehenna, the burning HELL of the condemned? Surely, the liberation of the self conscious spirit from the alleged doom of unending torment supplies a worthier occasion for triumphant ecstasy, than the mere deliverance of the unconscious body from the corruption of the grave! If Paul did not think so, the modem church does. Hear her voice, in her accredited psalmody.
“Plunged in a gulf of dark despair,
We wretched sinners lay;
Without one cheering beam of hope,
Or spark of glimmering day.
“With pitying eyes the Prince of grace.
Beheld our helpless grief;
He saw, and, amazing love!
He ran to our relief.
“These are the wounds for you I bore,
The tokens of my pains
When I came down to free your souls
From misery and chains.
“He spoiled the powers of darkness thus.
And broke our iron chains;
Jesus hath freed our captive souls
From EVERLASTING PAINS.
“He raised me from the deeps of sin,
The gates of gaping hell;
And fixed mj standing more secure
Than ‘twas before I fell:
“ Oh, for this love, let rocks and hills,
Their lasting silence break;
And all harmonious human tongues
The Saviour’s praises speak.”
Here is an obvious difference, between apostolic and post-apostolic views of the benefits of redemption, Paul rejoices in “the redemption of the body” from corruption. The modern church rejoices in the redemption of “captive souls from everlasting pains.” The apostle is absorbed, in the contemplation of Christ’s victory over death and the grave. The church views this victory as over the burnings of “gaping hell.” The contrast is no more obvious than remarkable, and is altogether inexplicable on the supposition that Paul believed, and taught, the doctrine of the soul’s separate state of existence, and immortality. It is not over hell the place of endless torment, but over the power of deaths and its prison-house, the grave that the apostle erects himself in holy triumph! Look with Paul into the grave, and see therein, the sepulchre of the conscious humanity, and you will participate in his grateful enthusiasm, as you contemplate the conquering Immanuel, leading captivity captive.
It has been observed, that the doctrine of our Lord’s resurrection occupied a position of prominence in the teaching of the apostles, which it certainly does not obtain in the popular theology of the day. No one was even suitable for the apostolate, however eminent might be his piety and gifts, if he could not bear personal testimony to the truth of Christ’s resurrection: it was expressly provided, that an apostle should be able to say that he had seen the Lord Jesus after his resurrection. [Acts 1:21, 22.] Paul speaks of himself as “one born out of due time” in reference to his call to the apostleship after Christ’s ascension, yet he could vindicate his title as an apostle of Christ.
“Am I not an apostle?” he asks his Corinthian converts, “have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?” [See also 1 Corinthians 15:6-8] Peter thus argues in his first sermon to the Jews on the day of Pentecost: David “being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, — he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.” [Acts 2:29,32.] In the following passage we learn what was the grand theme of the apostles preaching; “ As they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” [Acts 4:1, 2, 33.] When the philosophers at Athens wanted to be informed concerning the Christian doctrine, Paul preached unto them resurrection from the dead through Jesus Christ, which gave considerable offence, and ended in his abrupt dismissal by them. [Acts 17:18-32.] I would ask, if this prominence which was given to the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, by the first teachers of Christianity, is not at least very remarkable, compared with the subordinate relation which in modem preaching it sustains to some other parts of the evangelic system? Does it not justify, or at least help to strengthen the conclusion, that there is a part of the evangelic system which is wanting in the theology of the nineteenth century?
I think this conclusion is irresistible. What that part is, is the object of this lecture to show, viz., that life or immortality is only to be had through Christ, whose personal resurrection from the dead is the evidence and pledge of our own. It is he who bids the cherubim sheathe the flaming sword, and leave an open door to “the tree of life.” “To him that overcomes, will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”
The grand distinguishing doctrine of the Christian redemption is, Eternal Life in Jesus Christ alone, — the free gift of sovereign grace, and appropriated by faith. In every part of the system of revealed religion we see evidences of this fundamental doctrine.
Life in Christ is among the chief doctrines of the Bible. It was promised to our first parents after the fall in the then obscure language, — “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head;” and the ancient and elaborate ritual of the Levitical dispensation derives much of its significance from this promised fact. The ceremonial prohibition to eat the blood, furnishes an interesting, and conclusive argument in support of the doctrine, that immortality is not an attribute of human nature, but is the gift of God through. Jesus Christ. In the 9th chapter of Genesis, 3rd and 4th verses, we have the statement of this prohibition to Noah, — “Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things; but flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” This prohibition was repeated with still greater emphasis under the subsequent economy of religion. “Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eats any manner of blood, I will even set my face against that soul that eats blood, and will cut nim off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for it Is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul: For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eats it shall be cut off.” Leviticus 17:10, 11, 14.
One reason of this prohibition to make use of blood, is assigned in the last quotation — “the blood makes atonement,” or reconciliation. The prohibition to eat blood, then, was because of its sacred ceremonial appropriation. But it seems to have had another reason, viz., that it might operate as a memorial to the ancient worshippers, to humble them in the assurance that they had no life in themselves, — that their, immortality was forfeited. It was of great importance to assure the Israelite, and all mankind through him, that he was judicially dead.
Hence every animal that was slain for daily food was to be drained of the blood. This command to a people familiar with the method of instruction by symbolic actions, was most obvious in its humbling meaning, — it told them, and the intelligent worship-per understood the voice, Ye are mortal. The blood poured upon the ground to mingle with the dust, showed them whither was their destiny, that from the ground they were taken, and thither, unransomed, they would forever return. “He shall even pour out the blood thereof and cover it with dust.” Leviticus 17:13.
“Thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.” Deuteronomy 15:23. They were thus taught this melancholy truth, not only on special occasions, and in the tabernacle and temple worship, but every day, and in their own homes, “Ye shall not drink the blood, for the blood is the life, and ye have no life in you He that drank of the blood claimed ceremonially to possess immortality — an offence which was to be visited with the highest severity: — “I will even set my face against that soul that eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people.”
In support, of this second reason, which I have assigned as the ground of the command to abstain from the use of blood, I may refer you to the declaration of our Lord, — “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” John 6:53-65. Now, this language must have sounded very strange In the ears of a people who were familiar with the prohibition to use blood for food, and the heavy penalty with which it was enforced. The contrast is strikingly apparent between the teaching of Moses and that of Christ; and the inference is irresistible, that in this figurative language of drinking his blood, our Lord referred to the Mosaic prohibition, and suggested to his hearers, that while in themselves they had no life, ceremonially signified by abstaining from the use of blood, they might have life in him, which was signified by the command figuratively to drink his blood. And in the affecting monument which Christ has given to his church, — I refer to the institution of the Supper, — what is the act of every Christian worshipper? Is it not the very opposite of that of the Jewish worshipper? The Israelite might not take of the blood on pain of being cut off from Israel: The Christian must take of the blood of Christ, — which he does virtually in his union with Christ through faith, and emblematically when he drinks of the cup, — otherwise he has no part with Christ. The blood is the life: in drinking, therefore, emblematically the blood of Christ, the worshipper shows that life is not a personal possession — that no man is inherently immortality — that it is a gift and that it is in Christ alone. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I could multiply proofs from the Bible in evidence of this cardinal doctrine, which is among the doctrines of the Bible, what the sun is in the solar system, the grand central fact. I will add, however, to what has already been advanced, but one drawn from a scene at Bethany. When our Lord returned to Bethany, four days after the death of Lazarus, the weeping Martha hastened to meet him, and thus addressed him, — “Lord, if thou had been here my brother had not died. But I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Martha believed the doctrine of a general resurrection from the dead which was taught by the Pharisees; but she, in common with all others at that time, knew not the Christian doctrine, that the resurrection depended upon Christ, and but for his mediation would have been impossible. When, therefore, she said, with perhaps a peevish confidence, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” Jesus replied, “I am the resurrection and the life;” and in confirmation of his exclusive prerogative to give life, he wrought the memorable miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead.
The doctrine which I have been endeavouring to inculcate in this lecture, and which appears to me to be the plain, unequivocal voice of the Bible, is, that life, eternal life, literally understood, is the privilege of NO MAN but the believer in Jesus Christ, through whom it is bestowed as the sovereign gift of God.
Now, the popular view of the theory of redemption excludes this cardinal doctrine of immortality alone in Christ; it builds its theory upon a philosophic conceit, erroneously assuming that we have eternal life as a proper attribute of our human nature. The doctrine of this lecture, I hope, is seen to be the teaching of the Bible, the fair and rational exposition of our text, “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
* “He became one flesh with us, in order that we might become one spirit with him. Here is a two-fold bond subsisting between Christ and his people; but the former of these they possess only in common with all mankind; it allies him to the species, and by virtue of it all the ungodly shall be raised. The spiritual bond, however, is peculiar to themselves it has been tied by his own hand, and nothing shall be able to separate it. By virtue of this union it is that believers shall arise; not merely by an act of his power, for thus the wicked shall arise, but by an extension of his life as their life. To the ungodly he can say, ‘I am the resurrection;’ but to the faithful alone he proclaims, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ — The Great Teacher by Dr. Harris, pp. 230, 231.
He, then, who teaches that man Is immortal, independently of Jesus Christ, introduces a distracting element into the system of the Christian religion. It is to render its plain and obvious teachings obscure and inappreciable, except upon a system of interpretation, which affixes to words ideas which they have nowhere else in the writings and commerce of mankind.
It is to flatter human pride, by unduly exalting human nature. It is to commingle with the teaching of God the doctrines and commandments of men, and eminently to deprive the Christian redemption of its chief lustre, and Christ himself of his mediatorial dignity as the Life- Giver. “This is the record, that God hath given to 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.” “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
In this point of view the gospel of Christ assumes a more definite, as it does a more solemnly interesting aspect. This exhibition of the “truth as it is in Jesus” throws around the head of the world’s Life-Giver a halo of magnificence and glory. It adds a mighty emphasis to our Lord’s declaration, “without me ye can do nothing.” It shows more obviously the need of a Ransomer, and echoes trumpet-tongued the emphatic “must” of the new birth, — “Ye must be born again” — ye must be engrafted in the living vine.
The blood which flows in your veins, through the fall, is mortal; ye must drink of the blood of Christ, or ye have no life in you. Ye must be re-created, re-born. Ye are created in the image of the earthly, ye must be created in the image of the heavenly. “This corruptible must put on in-corruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. This is the Bible doctrine of regeneration: “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.”
Brethren, let the instincts of your nature, — that thirsting for life, which a loving Father has excited within you, as a motive to seek it where it may be found; let the earnest expostulations of that Father’s voice, “Why will ye die?” — let the free invitation of the Author of life himself, “Let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely;” let these, and every other consideration urge you to forsake the companionship of the Dead, [Proverbs 21:16.] and associate yourselves with the Living, God forbid that the Redeemer should ever have occasion to say to any here, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” Brethren, come, and “When Christ who is our Life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” Colossians 3:4.
LECTURE 3:
THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION
Isaiah 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.”
The design of these lectures is professedly, but humbly, to indicate what I believe to be fundamental errors in the popular religious belief concerning certain portions of the Christian revelation; I shall therefore confine my attention in this lecture exclusively to one branch of the doctrine of future retribution.
The Bible gives definite and unmistakeable answers to the anxious inquiries of the believer in Jesus Christ, and assures him that “verily there is a reward for the righteous;” and although “it does not yet appear what we shall be,” yet, says the Apostle, “when he shall appear we shall be like him;” and therefore, in joyful anticipation of this distinguished honour, each may declare with the Psalmist, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.”
* It is possible that some may object to this appropriation of this passage of scripture, that it does not refer to future punishment, but to the merciful consideration of God for his people in their present earthly condition. This view I believe to be correct, but it does not affect the use which I make of this passage, which is only as an argument against the theory of everlasting torture. Some persons avail themselves of this text in support of the theory of a limited future punishment, and a final restoration of the wicked. The text, however, as we have admitted above, does not refer to the future punishment of the wicked, and therefore is of no value as an argument in support of this theory. Although its reference is to the present dealings of God with mankind, it involves a principle destructive of the doctrine of endless misery as the future punishment of the wicked. Whether it refers to the present or the future is of no moment, since it does not affect the sentiment of the passage; for man will be man, — the same being constitutionally hereafter that he is now: and, therefore, if “the spirit should fail,” now, what is to qualify it to sustain the mighty pressure of God’s everlasting wrath hereafter?
In entering upon the important and painfully interesting inquiry, relative to the future retribution of the wicked, and purposing to lay before you the results of my own inquiries concerning what I believe to be the teaching of the Bible on this subject, and which, in some respects, will differ materially from the popular creed of the professing church, I cannot but feel, as I have felt throughout these discourses, that I occupy a position of the most solemn responsibility, — a position which I am justified in taking only after a prayerful and mature deliberation, and with a firm persuasion that it is at the call of sacred duty.
I hope also that I attach due importance to the fact, that the opinions which I am about to call in question, have been long embraced by many famous for their learning and piety, and whose opportunities and ability, very far beyond my own, qualify them much better to ascertain the real teaching of the Word of God on this subject But it is not presumption to say, that even the wisest and best of men are no more free than their humbler brethren from the dominion of customary modes of thought, and conventional belief. Indeed, in some respects they are more exposed to this species of tyranny, on account of the reverence which sympathy begets for the opinions of kindred intellects; and because they are apt to be diverted by the wide and ever-expanding sphere of their mental operations.
Duty has its claims upon the simple as well as upon the profound, — its obligations are not circumscribed, but only modified by talents and learning. I have therefore done what it is every man’s duty to do, that is, to enquire “what is truth?” — in a spirit of meekness, and without discourtesy to the labours of great and good men, — at the Bible, the only authoritative source of religious instruction. And if, after much anxiety and earnest prayer, I have reached conclusions which appear to me to be more in harmony with the Divine character and glory, and with the complete system of his revealed truth, than those which are popularly received, what remains to me, but either to keep my conclusions to myself, or, in my capacity as a preacher of truth and righteousness, to make them known to others? The former course I could not adopt, as being incompatible with moral honesty and obligation, I can only say, therefore, in explanation of my present course, “I have believed, and therefore have I spoken.”
Sir James Stephen, in the epilogue to his “Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography,” has some remarks, which so suitably express the purport of the present lecture that I cannot do better than introduce here the paragraph in which they occur. “Nothing” he observes, “can be more remote from the design with which these pages are written, than to suggest a doubt, whether penal retribution in the future state, does really await the many who are called, but who throng the broad way which leads to destruction.”
Neither does the writer of these pages presume to intimate, that either the nature or the continuance of that penalty, are such as to be fitly contemplated by any soul of man, without the most profound awe, and the most lively alarm. To propagate or to entertain such opinions, would be to question the truth of Him, who is emphatically himself the Truth.
The questions proposed for inquiry, are, whether he, or any one of his inspired apostles, has really affirmed in express words, that the retribution shall be endured eternally by those on whom it shall fall? — Whether all the words employed by him, or by them, on the subject, are not satisfied by understanding that the punishment is eternal only, inasmuch as it involves the ultimate destruction or annihilation, of those on whom it is to be inflicted? — Whether the sense usually ascribed to this part of Holy Scripture, is congruous with the spirit of the rest of the revealed will of God?
Whether it is not really derived from ecclesiastical traditions, rather than from any sound and unbiased criticism? — And whether our own translators have not been induced, by those traditions, to enhance the real force of our Saviour’s words, by a forced and exaggerated version of them? [Volume 2, pages 496, 497.]
Before addressing myself more immediately to the questions before us, I must offer some preliminary observations, for the sake of preparing the way, in an inquiry which I feel is encumbered with no small amount of difficulty, arising, not so much from the discussion of the subject itself, as from the mental condition of many, who, in an assembly like the present, and upon such a theme, can scarcely be expected to be free from the operation of strong and interested feelings. I can conscientiously say, in the presence of a heart-searching God, and before this congregation, that I have been stimulated to this inquiry by the anxiety to know the truth, believing that error, and especially religious error, cannot be otherwise than pernicious to the best interests of mankind. I have to request, then, as well for your own sakes as for mine, that you will grant me your patient and candid attention; and that, in the disposition of seekers after truth, you will, so far as you are enabled, hold your feelings and pre-judgments in complete abeyance. My hope is, that in the exercise of a prayerful and independent spirit, you will calmly contemplate the scriptural evidence which I shall endeavour to bring before you; for it is only in this temper of mind, that this, or indeed any religious question, can be properly approached.
There are those, and some such I may be now addressing, who are absolutely afraid to thinks — whose mental operations, if they may be so dignified, have ever been directed by others rather than by themselves; and who are impatient at being disturbed in their ignoble ease. Their minds are rather passive than active; recipient than energetic; and who dread nothing more than being put into a condition demanding mental activity, and self-decision. This puerile dependence and self-diffidence, — the fruit oftener of mental indolence than incapacity, — is frequently associated with a morbid fear of the truth, which necessarily closes up every avenue by which truth can alone reach the understanding and the heart. I would fain believe, however, that there are few of this class among those I now address; and that I may presume upon a reasonable share of intelligence and moral magnanimity in the majority now present.
There are others, and by no means a small class, who consider it a part of religious obedience, and inseparable from Christian humility, to receive the doctrines of the Bible as they are popularly taught; and would esteem it an act of dishonour done to the Divine Word to adventure an independent inquiry into its meaning. There is a proneness to imagine that, in proportion to the antiquity and universality of an opinion, must be its truthfulness; and to question it, the height of extravagance and presumption. Even when evidence the most palpable is presented against any venerable belief, the prestige which attaches to the ancient faith, if it cannot altogether neutralize the force of opposing evidence, will often act as a paralysis upon the independent energies of the mind.
But let such remember, that they most honour God and his truth when they receive the law at his mouth, and derive thence the articles of their religious faith. The Church at Berea was honourably commended, because, when listening even to an Apostle, they received not his instructions until they had examined them by the written revelation of God.
I am sure that I shall speak to the knowledge of many whom I now address, when I affirm that religious creeds are more generally framed from the lips of human, than the divine teacher. How comparatively few read the Bible for doctrinal information? It is the custom to learn the doctrines of Christianity apart from the Scriptures; and then to make the inspired oracles quadrate with our pre- conceptions and pre-information. A persuasion is lamentably current, that to get definite ideas of Bible truth, we must read the expositions of accredited divines, whose learning is needed to simplify and popularize the Word of God. Mankind honour the Sacred Book with the title of the Divine Revelation; and yet they tacitly affirm that it is inappreciable and obscure! It is a remnant of Popish influence in the popular mind, is the belief, that God does not speak plainly enough in that Book which he has given for the instruction and solace of the simplest, as well as the most erudite of his children; and in reference. to which it has been said, — “The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” The Bible has been the teacher of the Priesthood; and the Priesthood, too exclusively, the teachers of the mass.
Religious opinions have been transmitted from one generation to another, much in the same way as titles and estates, which rarely come down to their possessors intact, and without considerable modifications by their successive owners. They have their additions and abstractions, their worthless appurtenances and valuable alienations; they show evidence of the handling and infirmity of human nature. This fact should make the most rigidly orthodox modest in the maintenance of an inherited faith, and be a reason why he should bring his religious belief to the text of God’s Book, that he may be assured that his belief is justified by its teachings.
If I had not been Sanguine that those whom I address in these lectures will search the Scriptures for themselves, and test what I have stated by the Word of God, as the only authoritative teacher in religion, I should have been greatly discouraged in attempting to bring before you these deeply interesting inquiries; but, having confidence in the pious independence of many whom I knew I should number among my auditory, and being under a strong conviction that the matter of these discourses is not a subordinate and dispensable fart of Divine truth, but “the truth as it is in Jesus,” have only to give you the proof to secure your cordial and reverent acceptation of it.
Very few persons, accustomed to think upon the doctrine of future punishment, I am disposed to believe, have been entirely free from doubt with respect to the accuracy of its popular representation. Infidelity has directed some of its keenest, and I may add, most effective shafts against the doctrine of unbending excruciating torture as the apportionment of the unregenerate in the future world, which have not failed to awaken considerable sympathy in the minds of those hostile to religious obligations, and to occasion much pain and perplexity to the devout believer.
This view of future punishment comparatively few intelligently and rationally receive. And even those who accept it, believing it to be taught in that Word, to whose decisions they are accustomed to bow, do not unhesitatingly receive it as an article of their belief. There is a secret irrepressible suspicion of its truth in the minds of the majority, especially of earnest and independent thinkers, — and this, be it observed, not only among the unbelieving and profane portion of mankind, but among the most eminently pious. While they would not detract from the extreme sinfulness of sin, nor mitigate a single element of its just retribution, yet they are unable to discover any proportion between the guilt of the transgressor and his terrible punishment, as popularly taught.
Especially when this doctrine is contemplated in the light of God’s revealed character, — in the view of that attribute in which Jehovah eminently takes pleasure in presenting himself to his intelligent creatures, the attribute of love — there is awakened in the mind of the inquirer such an overwhelming conviction that it is absolutely inharmonious with that presentation, that it tends sorely to disturb the complacency with which he dwells upon the Divine moral administration, and, pained and perplexed, he seeks refuge in the banishment of the subject from his meditations.
It is set aside as a painful and insoluble problem, and consigned to a voluntary oblivion; but not without a latent and hopeful belief, that the future will prove the fact otherwise than is popularly supposed. I cannot refrain my conviction that there must be something wrong here, for such painful thoughts of God are not the legitimate products of his revelation.
God commends his truth to us, — he has implanted within us moral perceptions which shall justify his every act, and compel an approving Amen to all his moral decisions.* We feel that the doctrine is widely discrepant with God’s character, that it stands out in its own solitary tremendousness, and without any analogy in his historic transactions, or present manifestations; but, on the contrary, at irreconcilable variance with them. We cannot meditate upon the subject in this view without secret pain, and a marring of our conceptions of the ever blessed God. The popular representation is vindictive and sanguinary, — its very suggestion, but especially its vivid conception, breaks in upon our holiest and happiest moods, dissipating that “perfect love” which, the Apostle says, “casts out fear, because fear hath torment.” Surely, brethren, in this relation of the universal mind to the doctrine, there is supplied a powerful motive to induce us, at least, to investigate the grounds of this belief, and to ask, with reference to it, “ What saith the Scripture?”
* Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, presents us with a melancholy catalogue of human vices, and affirms of the wretched subjects of them, that they acknowledge the justice of the retribution which awards death as the punishment of their delinquency. “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things, are worthy of death.” Romans 1:32.
In harmony with the above statements I rejoice to be able to quote in this second edition, the recently published sentiments of an elegant and judicious writer lately referred to. “Throughout the Holy Scriptures” writes Sir James Stephen, “a constant appeal is made to those moral sentiments which God has himself implanted in our nature. Our heavenly Father has graciously condescended everywhere to point out to us the sacred harmony between his law as revealed by prophets and evangelists, and his law as written by Himself on our hearts; and from that harmony we are taught to draw the best and highest proof of the inspiration of those sacred writings.”
Deeply conscious with what profound reverence it behoves us to apply that test of truth to any opinion deduced by the church at large from Holy Scripture, we may yet venture to inquire whether it could be successfully applied in the case under consideration?
If the words ascribed to our Saviour are not inexorably bound down to the construction they usually receive, by the absolutely inflexible force of the text, and of the context, is it not most reasonable to adopt some other construction to which our own natural sense ofjustice and equity can respond, as clearly as it responds to all the rest of the inspired canon?
“So inveterate is the corruption of the human heart, that, in the judgment of some, the infliction and announcement of no penalty less than that of eternal misery would be sufficient to turn it aside from its present sinfulness. But does the dread of that terrible penalty really stem the headlong current of iniquity?
Is it really productive of any corresponding alarm? Does it produce an alarm equal to that which would have been excited by the announcement of a penalty of infinitely less amount but definite and intelligible?
Does the world — does the church — do her ministers — do her saints — really believe this part of the language of our Redeemer in that sense in which they familiarly interpret it? Is any human mind so constituted as to bear the incumbent weight of so fearful a probability of an evil so utterly beyond the reach of exaggeration? Is the texture of any human body vigorous enough to sustain the throes of so agonizing an anticipation? What means the whole course and system of life which is passing hourly before our eyes, and through which we are ourselves passing? Why have our preachers time to engage in study, to harmonize the periods of their sermons, to give heed to our wretched ecclesiastical disputes, to devote one superfluous instant to food, to repose, or to occupy themselves with any other thing than the proclamation of the horrors of the approaching calamity, and the explanation of the only way of escape from it? Let any honest man fairly propose to himself, and fairly answer the question, whether the unutterable disparity between his actual interest in all the frivolities of life, and his professed belief in an eternity of woe, impending probably over himself, but certainly over the vast majority of the human race, does not convict him of professing to believe more than he actually believes?
And if so, is there not some reason to doubt whether he has not erred in attributing to his Saviour a meaning, for which, after all, he cannot find any real place in his own mind, or any vital influence on his own heart?”
* The Epilogue, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, volume 2, pp. 494-496.
Before entering upon the scriptural inquiry, I would briefly advert to the early history and development of the doctrine of future punishment. At a very early period, about the latter half of the second and the beginning of the third century, we find that, among other doctrinal debates, was that of the duration of future punishment. This was that period in the history of the church, when the philosophic element began extensively to develop itself in Biblical expositions; and we are not therefore surprised to find that age eminently characterized by a spirit of daring speculation, and a gross departure from the simplicity of the faith. In reference to this age, and the influence of the Platonic school upon the Christian doctrines, Neander thus writes, — “There could not fail to arise, then, out of this school itself, an opposition of views; on the one side were those who held this position in hostility to Christianity; on the other, those to whom it proved a point of transition to Christianity. But then these latter, again, were exposed to a peculiar danger. Their earlier prejudices might react in such a way as to prevent their mode of apprehending and of shaping Christian truth. In this way much foreign matter drawn from their previous opinions might unconsciously be conveyed over with them to Christianity.” The new Platonism could not bring itself to acquiesce, particularly in that humility of knowledge and that renunciation of self which Christianity required. It could not be induced to sacrifice its philosophical, aristocratic notions, to a religion which would make the higher life a common possession for all mankind. The religious eclecticism of this direction of the spirit could do no otherwise than resist the exclusive and sole supremacy of the religion that suffered no other at its side, but would subject all to itself.”
* Neander’s General Church History, volume 1, p. 47. * Neander’s General Church History, volume 1, p. 46.
To this age we are indebted for the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, which is purely a doctrine of Plato’s; and it is not difficult to see how the presumption of human immortality led to the belief, that the Scripture doctrine of eternal punishment would be an eternity of conscious misery in hell.
While the Platonizing Christians generally taught this doctrine, there were many who repudiated it, and sought refuge in other theories which would satisfy at once their philosophy and the Bible. Some, among whom was Origen, maintained that the punishment of the wicked was limited, and that a time would come when there should be a general restitution; the wicked, having been punished, would, he believed, be reclaimed and restored to God. In this philosophic notion may be discovered the germ of the Popish dogma of Purgatory. Many since Origen have embraced this opinion of a universal restitution; and even in our own times it has many advocates, which may serve to show how eagerly the mind seizes any alternative rather than the popular theory of unending torment
In his private discussions, Origen maintained that the punishment of the wicked is not of eternal but limited duration. Nevertheless, fearing that the doctrine would have an injurious tendency in relaxing the ties of moral obligation, he considered it expedient to teach the people in his public discourses that it will be eternal: He says, moreover, what I am sure will shock every reverent and truth-loving mind, that the popular fear of eternal misery is a wholesome delusion and invented by God himself! [Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, volume 1, p. 223.]
You will, I am persuaded, agree with me, that if the doctrine of eternal misery in hell is not the scriptural representation of future punishment, no considerations of expediency ought to permit the religious teacher to inculcate it upon mankind. If it be not a doctrine of the Bible, it can neither be safe nor profitable to teach men to believe it; nor can it be unsafe to labour to undeceive them, if they have hitherto accepted it as an article of religious faith.
No human admixture with divine truth has ever contributed to its just acceptability or influence; but, on the other hand, has seriously retarded, in proportion to its prevalence, the progress of that truth in the world. We cannot err, then, in pointing out what we believe to be strictly human dogmas in the popular religious creed, and in recommending the implicit faith of the church, in the Bible, and the Bible alone.
From the time of Origen up to the eighth century, the doctrine of future punishment, with respect to its duration, continued to be a disputed point. Why this aspect of the doctrine was the more prominent topic of discussion, is accounted for by the fact, that it was a generally assumed point, that the soul is immortal, and therefore must, so long as the punishment lasted, endure conscious misery. It was this philosophic notion that led Origen to doubt the eternal duration of the punishment, and to adopt the theory of an ultimate restitution, rather than a final and complete destruction. Those who maintained against Origen, that future punishment, in the sense of conscious misery is eternal, were by far the majority.
Augustine, Chrysostom, and others, founded their argument for the eternal duration of punishment, chiefly on the use of the word eternal in the two antithetic clauses in Matthew 25:41, 46, [Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, volume 1, p. 387.] passages which we shall presently have occasion to examine. And from the time of Augustine down to the present, the belief that eternal misery is the portion of the wicked, has prevailed over the doctrine of a limited duration.
No one can study the development of this religious doctrine, in the history of Christianity, without coming to the conclusion, that the dogma of everlasting torment in hell is the legitimate offspring of its parent error, the natural immortality of the soul. Nor can any one be familiar with the history and development of religious doctrines generally, without being strongly impressed with the conviction, that it is impossible to ascertain what is, and what is not truth, from any other source than the sacred writings. The dogma of everlasting torment has been transmitted to the church by the Platonizing theologians of the second and third centuries, an era more prolific in religious disputation and error than any other in the history of the church.
What was then assumed, is but assumed still, that man is inherently and essentially immortal, — that he will never die in the sense of ceasing to exist. This being accepted as an established article of faith, it is obvious on what ground the dogma of an everlasting existence in torment as the punishment of the wicked, holds its position in the Christian creed. If the wickedness of man, if unrepented of and unpardoned, is to be punished with conscious misery which will never be remitted, then, by virtue of his inherent immortality, he must be forever miserable.
Now, I have already shown, from a plain and impartial examination of the Scripture account of the constitution and probation of Adam, as the representative of the human race, that immortality was not the privilege of his being, — that, on the contrary, it was the grand chartered blessing to be bestowed as the reward of his obedience. Since, therefore, we share in the constitutional nature of our first parent, in whose likeness [Genesis 5:3.] we were created, and inherit, as the result of a covenant made with him, all the consequences of his disobedience, it is as obvious as any doctrine in the Bible, that mankind have not immortality as their inherent nature; and that if it be enjoyed by any of our fallen race, it will be by gracious communication, and in connexion with the mediatorial agency of the Lord Jesus Christ, To bring “life and immortality” to a world that had lost it, we saw in the last lecture, was a chief, although not sole object of the Mediator’s mission. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the “last Adam” in his representative capacity, corresponding with the original representative arrangement made with the first Adam,” accomplished the complete recovery of what mankind bad lost; and hence, immortality has become a conditional gift, not a primal possession, — “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Our inquiry therefore is, — “What does the Bible teach in reference to the nature and duration of future punishment? In attempting to lay before you the reply which I believe the Bible gives to this inquiry, I will first examine those passages of Scripture which are thought to uphold the popular theory of everlasting conscious misery; and then collect some of the many passages which strongly disprove the dogma of the popular belief.
It is of great importance that correct ideas should be formed of certain words which are employed by the sacred writers, when referring to the doctrine of future punishment. On this part of my subject, my aim will be to present to the least informed in classical and biblical learning, evidence at once definite and appreciable, and I shall therefore studiously avoid, as much as possible, the introduction of any matter, which, however it might subserve my purpose, would not contribute to the information of many of my hearers. My object is to communicate the truth, and therefore I shall labour to be understood.
Considerable emphasis is laid by the unlearned reader of the Bible, upon the words eternal and everlasting. Now, it may sound strange in the ears of some, although the classical hearer will justify the affirmation, that these words have not necessarily, as their inherent meaning, the idea of endless duration.
Our English words, eternal and everlasting certainly convey this idea; but then it must be borne in mind, that these words are but translations, and by no means the strict equivalents, of what the sacred writers employed; and our inquiry, therefore, respects the proper meaning of the original words of Scripture.
These Greek words, a substantive and adjective, have each a singular and plural number, which circumstance is inexplicable, if their primitive and essential signification be endless duration. We do not say eternals everlastings; these words, implying endless duration in the English language, will not admit of a plural number. This grammatical circumstance, then, demands your attentive consideration.
Again, these words are not uniformly translated in our English version, for the obvious reason, that if one uniform rendering had been preserved, many passages would have been absolutely unintelligible. Hence they are employed as the context may seem to demand.
The substantive occurs one hundred and twenty-eight times in the Greek Testament, sixty-six times in the singular, and sixty-two times in the plural number. Our translators have rendered it as the context seemed to them to require, by the following words: — ever never evermore, ages, course, eternal, world, worlds, world without end. The adjective occurs seventy-one times, and is thus rendered in our English version; ever, world, everlasting, eternal: From this it will be seen that no distinction is made in our version between the substantive and adjective; nor has any attention been paid to the singular and plural forms of these words. The Greek correspondents of our words everlasting and eternal, are more indefinite, and admit of greater latitude of interpretation. The idea of “how long?” is not contained in the original words independently considered; but is borrowed from, and dependent on, the word or words with which they may happen to be associated.
Now it will be admitted, that if in any case these words are used where a limited and not an unlimited duration is meant, then no argument for the doctrine of an endless duration in misery can be built upon the fact, that they are employed in reference to the doctrine of future punishment; for if they denote, in one instance, a limited period of time, they may, of course, do so in another. Let me not be misunderstood in these remarks. I do not assert that the punishment of the wicked will not be eternal I believe the Bible most distinctly teaches that future punishment will be of eternal duration. My object is to caution the unlearned hearer against the very prevalent error of supposing that the nature and duration of future punishment can be ascertained from isolated words and phrases. These, separately considered, are very uncertain guides to a correct judgment, and very unsafe and insufficient data upon which to build such a theory as is popularly believed. The doctrine of everlasting misery — which, by the way, is not a scriptural phrase, as are not many others in current usage, and which will, be carefully distinguished from the doctrine of everlasting punishment, is entirely supported by detached words and phrases, viewed in connexion with the assumption of maris native immortality which we have seen in a former lecture is not a doctrine of the Bible, but a speculation of false science. I believe that every candid and competent critic will admit that these words and phrases cannot alone prove the doctrine of everlasting misery; and that, if it be a fact that man is not inherently immortal, then his punishment may, for aught these mere words and phrases can prove, issue, literally, in what the Bible calls “the second death.” Revelation 20:14.
While, therefore, many put their chief emphasis upon the passages which relate to future punishment, I would lay the greatest stress upon the already! proved fact, that mankind are not immortal; and that immortality is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord to all who believe in him, and hope in his; salvation; and would further affirm, that every inquiry into this subject which proceeds upon the assumption that immortality is essentially the constitution of human nature is extremely unsatisfactory, and, in its conclusions, necessarily unsound. In illustration of the insufficiency of mere terms and phrases to prove the nature and duration of future punishment, allow me to direct your attention to the following Scripture citations: —
Genesis 9:16. — “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” But how can this covenant be everlasting in the strict sense of the word? for the world itself will have an end, and the bow in the clouds can refer only to so long as the world exists.
Genesis 17:8, 13, 19. — “And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.”
The land of Canaan is here called an everlasting possession; and the covenant of circumcision an ever lasting covenant. Yet the land of Canaan has long ceased to be the possession of the Hebrews; and, even if they be permitted to re-occupy it, there must come an end when the world itself shall be destroyed.
And with respect to the covenant of circumcision, the New Testament has shown that that is annulled,
Numbers 25:13. — “And he shall have it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood.” But the priesthood of Aaron has long been abolished.
Exodus 40:15. — “And thou shalt anoint them as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office; for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood.” Now, compare with this passage Hebrews 7:12, — “For the priesthood being changed, there is made, of necessity, a change also in the law/’ And also verse 18, — “For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitable nature of it.” Here is Scripture authority to prove that an everlasting priesthood has come to an end; and that an everlasting covenant is disannulled.
There is no passage where future punishment is said to be so emphatically everlasting, as is affirmed in the passage just quoted of the Aaronic priesthood. It is there said, that “their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood.” Now, how much emphasis would be laid upon this word “surely,” if it had been used in connection with the everlasting punishment of the wicked! And yet we have Paul’s authority for affirming that such an argument would be fallacious.
The mountains are called everlasting. “Forever, Forever and Ever.” Habakkuk 3:6
The same observations apply to the phrases “forever,” and forever and ever” they do not of necessity involve the idea of endless duration. In proof, I select the following passages: — Exodus 21:6, — “Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.” Of course the meaning is, to the end of his life.
Psalm 37:29 — “The righteous shall dwell in the land forever,” that is, from generation to generation.” Psalm 122:14 — “This is my rest forever.” that is, from age to age.
Psalm 48:14 — “This God is our God forever and ever,” that is from age to age; for, in the sense here intended, Jehovah has long ceased to be the God of the Jews.
Psalm 119:44 — “So shall I keep thy law continually forever and ever.” That is, as the Psalmist meant, through every period of his life on earth.
Psalm 148:6. — “He hath also established them [the heavens] forever and ever.” that is, through many successive ages. That it does not denote eternal duration, compare what Peter says, “the heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store reserved unto fire;” and again, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” 2 Peter 3:10.
These quotations will suffice to show how careful we should be in constructing arguments upon mere words and phrases, since we read of covenants and ordinances, and many other things which, in the phraseology of Scripture are termed everlasting etc; but which have been, and will be yet destroyed. It is not denied that the word is often properly translated everlasting, eternal etc.; all that is affirmed is that it is not the mere word which supplies this idea, but the subject with which it is connected. Thus in its application to the Divine Being, it necessarily has the idea of unlimited duration; but then it is the nature of the Divine Being, and not the adjective so translated, which requires this signification, — “The ever lasting God.” [Romans 16:26] “To God, only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ, forever,” [Romans 16:27.] necessarily for eternity, for the reason just stated.
* See also Ecclesiastes 1:4. John 8:85. 1 Corinthians 8:13, and many others which might be cited. In this last passage Paul says, “ I will eat no flesh while the world stands” The Greek is literally, “I will eat no flesh forever.”
Let it then be distinctly understood, that the words, eternal, everlasting, forever, etc., when employed to denote the duration of future punishment cannot, independently regarded, prove that punishment is even eternal; — the proof of its endless duration must depend upon other auxiliary evidences.
Although I have said that the words translated eternal, everlasting, etc., do not convey by themselves the idea of endless duration, the extent of duration being qualified by their associations and contexts at the same time, there are passages in which they occur in connexion with the subject of future punishment, which prove that the words are so used. And, therefore, let me not be understood, I repeat, to deny that punishment in the future world will be eternal; the eternity of punishment is as distinctly taught as the eternity of the blessedness of the righteous. In proof of this, we need but to refer to one passage: that for example, which occurs in Matthew 25:46, — “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”
It is sufficiently obvious that the words eternal and everlastings the same word in the original, must, in these two antithetic clauses, mean the same thing.
And, therefore, since the blessedness of the righteous is everlasting, so must be also the punishment of the wicked. What I affirm to be the teaching of the Bible is, not that punishment is not eternal; but that punishment is not eternal torment. Some persons have so habituated themselves to attach to particular words certain meanings, that they seem totally unable to separate in their minds the arbitrary connexion, however imperatively this separation may, by the most in-contestable evidence, be demanded. In this manner the phrase, “everlasting punishment,” in the verse now cited, is by many considered to teach the doctrine of everlasting torment; torment and punishment being regarded as synonymous terms. But who, that is not a stereotyped thinker, cannot see that the word punishment has not, necessarily, the idea of conscious existence in misery? The word punishment itself defines nothing, but is itself defined by some other word. Punishment signifies the desert of guilt; and, as that desert is various, so punishment is various also. Punishment does not necessarily involve the consciousness of its subject; its effects may extend far beyond the consciousness of the being punished. Thus we speak of the punishment of death; and is not death, as a penal infliction, properly so termed? Does the culprit think that because he is about to go out of existence, therefore death is no punishment? Certainly not; and, therefore, the phrase, “eternal punishment,” is as properly descriptive of a complete destruction of the conscious existence, or annihilation, as it would be of a continued existence in misery. To blot a living, life-loving being out of existence, is a terrible punishment; and the fact that life will be forever extinguished, will constitute this punishment eternal:
It may help to elucidate the meaning of this much-disputed phrase to compare it with another in Hebrews 6:2. Here we have the expression eternal judgment The same kind of reasoning which insists upon the continuance of the infliction of punishment throughout eternity, will oblige us to admit that the judgment will continue throughout eternity also. The one interpretation is as obligatory as the other. It is beyond dispute that the word “eternal” in the expression “eternal judgment,” marks the duration, not of the judgment itself, but of its decisions. And equally obvious in its meaning is the expression “eternal punishment,” — the punishment itself is not to be eternally inflicted upon its wretched subjects, but being once visited upon them in their complete destruction, it will never be revoked — “the wrath of God abides on them.” It is a punishment which, in its effects, is eternal; and, therefore, it is properly designated “eternal punishment.”
The apostle Peter, however, has, apropos to this disputed point, so employed the term punishment, as to place it beyond dispute that he considered a total destruction to be fitly so denominated. “The Lord knows how to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished, these,” he says, “as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, shall utterly perish in their own corruptions Here the punishment is explained by the terms destroyed utterly perish, and corruption.”
“ Eternal fire,” “Everlasting fire,” “Unquenchable fire,” “The fire that never shall be quenched.”
Much importance is attached to these expressions in support of the doctrine of eternal torment in hell: With respect to the words eternal and everlasting, I have only to remind you of what has already been said, together with the scripture proofs, that these words do not necessarily signify an unending duration. I will now show, by a few scripture comparisons, — which will, perhaps, be a more satisfactory and convincing method than any lengthened expository remarks of my own, that these expressions do not demand the popular interpretation of eternal torment.
Matthew records the following language as uttered by our Lord: “ Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” [Matthew 25:41.] This passage is commonly referred to in proof that the fire” will ever continue to burn. To show the incorrectness of this interpretation, I have only to request you to compare with it the language of the apostle Jude, — “ As, 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, The eternal fire which consumed the cities of the plain has been long extinguished.
It is possible that some may object that the apostle uses the phrase “eternal fire,” in this place, not in reference to the burning of the “cities,” strictly considered, but of their inhabitants, in the fire of hell: In reply to this objection I would observe, that the apostle says of these cities that they “are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,” [Jude 1:7] which undeniably proves, that he refers to the historical fact of their destruction by fire, for only thus have they been “set forth for an example” to all other evil-doers.
Besides this objection assumes what is altogether unscriptural, and to which in the course of this lecture I shall have occasion to refer, viz., that the place of punishment is already in existence, and that the wicked dead are not really dead, but living in the experience of their actual punishment I will merely observe in this place that, if Sodom and Gomorrah are now, and have ever been, since their fiery destruction, suffering their punishment in an intermediate hell, why did our Lord speak of their punishment as yet future, when, alluding to any that should refuse to welcome his apostles’ message, he said: “Verily I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, in THE DAY OP JUDGMENT, than for that city?” Matthew 10:15. The great Teacher evidently taught the future punishment of the wicked after and not before the judgment.
“But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:12.
“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, into the fire that never shall be quenched.” Mark 9:43.
“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, into the fire that never shall be quenched.” Mark 9:45.
In these passages, the expressions unquenchable fire and “the fire that never shall be quenched” are presented as unquestionable proofs of the perpetuity of the miserable existence of the wicked in hell: Let it be observed, that whatever of perpetuity belongs to these expressions, pertains not, according to the literal expression, to the objects upon which the fire acts, but to the fire itself. That the wicked should be compared to “chaff,” which of all materials is the most rapidly consumed, is far from countenancing the theory of everlasting endurance in torment. But let us compare these passages with others. For example, in the prophet Jeremiah, — “But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” Jeremiah 17:27.
And yet the same prophet predicts that Jerusalem shall be rebuilt, — “Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places, and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof.” [Jeremiah 30:18.]
Jehovah thus commands the prophet Ezekiel, “Son of man, set thy face toward the south .... and say to the forest of the south, — Hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it: it shall not be quenched.” Ezekiel 20:46-48.
The fulfilment of these menaces upon Jerusalem, its final destruction by the Roman power, will sufficiently explain that the scriptural expressions of “unquenchable fire,” and “fire that shall never be quenched,” while they indicate the terrible severity of the Divine displeasure, do not denote a fire that shall never be extinguished.
They determine nothing relative to its duration; but only to its efficiency as an agent of destruction. Isaiah asks, — “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire f Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” Isaiah 33:14. The land of dwelling to which the prophet refers, may be seen by casting the eye a verse or two back, [Isaiah 33:11, 12.] where the wicked are described as “chaff” stubble “as thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire.” Hence, these materials of rapid combustion are said to dwell with devouring fire not preserving fire — and the phrase “everlasting burnings” in the end of the verse is explained by the phrase “devouring fire” in the beginning. With this representation, corresponds Paul’s description of the Divine vengeance, “Our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29.
Two passages in the book of Revelation are often referred to as being decisive of this question. “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 ascends up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night!” Revelation 14:10-11.
“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 he tormented day and night forever and ever.” Revelation 20:10.
Although it is always assumed, by those who maintain that future punishment is eternal torture, that these passages refer to the future punishment of the wicked, it is contended by many that they describe rather a condition of misery prior to the final consummation.* If it be replied that the extreme anguish which is threatened in these extracts, is more properly descriptive of torment in the future than the present, it can be shown that it is not more severe than was actually experienced by the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Edom, and therefore may as likely, so as the imagery of suffering is concerned, refer to the present as to the future. But I pass this by. It is apparent that this language borrows its expressions from the awful judgments denounced on Edom or Idumea, and may therefore be properly illustrated by a comparison with the prophecy in Isaiah. “For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of repayment for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof [Idumea] shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever.” Isaiah 34:8-10.
Now, here is language quite as strong, indeed stronger, than that which occurs in the book of Revelation, and yet it is applied to the land of Idumea, where the fire has long been quenched and the smoke has ceased to ascend up, except in the figurative sense of a perpetual memorial. This language, let it be observed, according to the illustration now given, is not incompatible with a limited duration. The language in the book of Revelation, like that of the Hebrew prophets, is highly poetical and emblematical, and can never be justly pressed into an argument for the eternal duration of torment, as the future repayment of the wicked.
From the above comparison of passages of the New with the Old Testament, it is, I think, beyond debate, that the phrases “unquenchable fire,” are hyperbolical expressions, which, if they are interpreted, as they should be, according to the meaning they have in the Old Testament, whence they are quoted, will be found to describe not a condition of endless torment; but very grievous suffering, to be followed by a final annihilation. The fire is fitly termed “unquenchable, because it will utterly destroy by a resistless, inextinguishable energy.
Another phrase demands special consideration, because it is always cited with confidence by the advocates of the popular theory. This phrase occurs in Mark, and is thrice repeated, — “Where their worm dies not.” [Mark 9:44, 46, 48.] This is an expressive image quoted from the prophet Isaiah; and an examination of the original passage will, I think, convince any candid inquirer that, instead of upholding the dogma of eternal torment, it is at irreconcilable variance with it This expression is sometimes explained metaphorically, of the conscience which excites an eternal remorse in the bosoms of the wicked But this is evidently not its meaning. The passage is as follows: — “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.” What the prophet states is simply this, — that so numerous shall be these loathsome and putrefying carcases that, hyperbolically speaking, the worms will never make an end of feeding on them, nor the fire of consuming them.
A glance at the passage will at once convince that the meaning is not that the “worm” of living persons shall not die, but the “worm” of their “carcases;” so that what is here intended is the putrefaction of dead bodies, and not the exquisite eternal torment of the living. Like “the unquenchable fire,” which will not be extinguished until it has completed its work, the undying worm will do its part in the complete demolition of the wicked. This expression, instead of implying, excludes the idea of conscious and everlastingly protracted pain. Isaiah 66:24.
“Fire,” says Mr. Hinton, “Is, in my view, a much fitter emblem of suffering than of extinction, since fire destroys nothing.” — Athanasia, p. 869. Fire certainly does not annihilate matter; but it changes or destroys its mode of existence; and, therefore, since fire destroys that condition of existence which is called life, it is a proper emblem of extinction.
Much light may be cast upon the nature and duration of future punishment, by a consideration of the term which, with one exception, to which I will presently refer, is always used in the original Scriptures to signify the place of future punishment. This term is Gehenna or Gehennom, and is derived from two Hebrew words Ge, a valley, and Hinnom, the name of a person, at one time its possessor. The valley of Hinnom, situate near Jerusalem, had been the scene of those abominable sacrifices which the Jews had perpetrated, when they burned alive their children to Baal and Moloch. There the disgusting remains of these horrid sacrifices were left to be consumed by fire and worms; and from this place the name was derived which denotes, both in the Hebrew and Greek tongues, the place of future punishment.
If analogy had anything to do with this appropriation of the term Gehenna, it is difficult to see how a loathsome valley of decomposing and smouldering human remains which were being gradually consumed, should fitly depict a state of conscious, unending misery, as the punishment of the wicked. If the valley of Hinnom was a type of the Gehenna of the damned, the unconsciousness and gradual consumption of its dead carcases, cannot portray the consciousness and eternity of living persons. Analogy suggests rather that suffering to be followed by the corruption of death, is the portion of the guilty in the future righteous retribution.
“It may be said indeed,” says Archbishop Whately, “that supposing man’s soul to be an immaterial being, it cannot be consumed and destroyed by literal material fire or worms. That is true: but no more can it SUFFER from them. We all know that no fire, literally so called, can give us any pain unless it reach our bodies. The fire, therefore, and the ‘worm‘ that are spoken of, must at any rate, it would seem, be something figuratively so called — something, that is, to the soul, what worms and fire are to a body. And as the effect of worms or fire is, not to preserve the body they prey upon, but to consume, destroy, and put an end to it, it would follow, if the correspondence hold good, that the fire, figuratively so called, which is prepared for the condemned, is something that is really to destroy and put an end to them; and is called ‘everlasting,’ or ‘unquenchable‘ fire, to denote that they are not to be saved from it, but that their destruction is to be final. So in the parable of the tares our Lord describes himself as saying, Gather ye first the tares and bind them in bundles to bum them; but gather the wheat into my garner as if to denote that the one is to be (as we know is the practice of the husbandman) carefully ‘preserved and the other completely put an end.” Revelation Of A Future State.
The only place where Gehenna is not used to describe the place of torment, is in the discourse of our Lord concerning the rich man and Lazarus. Here, as in an impregnable position, our opponents entrench themselves and bid exulting defiance, as if our object were to gain a theological victory, rather than to get at the truth. This is the text, when their teaching is openly challenged, from which to preach a silencing sermon both for foes and friends. Venture to impugn the popular preaching on the doctrine of everlasting torment, and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus [Luke 16:19—31.] is either the text or the grand conclusive illustration of every orthodox sermon which professes to repel the assault. From this there can be no appeal, at least such is the orthodox conviction. Now we venture to attack this last retreat itself with no other weapon than “ the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God;” and we think to be able to show that so far from affording any support to the popular doctrines which are built upon it, it is directly opposed to those doctrines, and virtually denies them.
Let me, however, first introduce here a quotation from the admirable volume of Trench on the Parables, for the purpose of explaining the use of the parable in Scripture exposition. “The parables may not be made first sources of doctrine. Doctrines, otherwise and already grounded, may be illustrated, or indeed further confirmed by them, but it is not allowable to constitute doctrine first by their aid. They may be the outer ornamental fringe, but not the main texture of the proof. For from the literal to the figuratively from the clearer to the more obscure, has been ever recognized as the law of Scripture interpretation. This rule however has been often forgotten and controversial people looking round for arguments with which to sustain some weak position, one for which they can find no other support in Scripture often invent for themselves supports in these.
This error of making the parable the first source of doctrine is that into which the popular expounders of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus have fallen. They assume that it is a matter of fact, a real historic occurrence which our Lord narrates; an assumption which erroneously has its origin in the belief, that it would be inconsistent with the dignity of any teacher of truth, and eminently of the Great Teacher, to illustrate his doctrine by any kind of narrative but that of fact. It should be remembered, that the object of a parable is to make plain something else by means of analogy. Whether the parable be in itself true or not, is not the question. If this parable must be a real history, on the ground that the Great Teacher could not consistently suppose, or create a case for the purpose of illustration, then all our Lord’s parables must, for the same reason, be actual historic occurrences. Let us, on this principle, take the parable of the Marriage of the King’s son. It is said, that when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment,” and having expostulated with him on his gratuitous insult, he commanded his servants to bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The punishment of this offender for a mere breach of etiquette, is described in the terms which are employed to express the final suffering of the wicked in the future punishment Is this parable, then a real history? If so, it must have been in the power of this insulted monarch, whoever he was, to consign a man to that punishment which specially awaits the impenitent in the future righteous retribution! The probability is, that not one of our Lord’s parables was an actual occurrence, but merely a supposed case, — a higher sort of apologue.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus has been perverted, not designedly I by any means would insinuate, to teach the doctrines of the separate state of the human soul, and a condition of existence in death— of conscious happiness for the righteous, and conscious suffering for the wicked; and this, be it remarked, on the ground that our Lord was delivering an actual narrative of fact. Now, let us attempt the explanation of this parable on the supposition that it is a history and not a supposed case, and it will be obvious what inconsistencies and concision will necessarily ensue. “We are informed, that “ the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom:” “ the rich man also died, and was buried.”
Here are three historic personages, we are to suppose, dwelling as disembodied souls, in a state of conscious existence, immediately after death, and before their resurrection. The souls of Abraham and Lazarus in heavenly bliss, and the soul of the rich man in miserable torment; not eternal torment for nothing is said in this parable about the duration of the rich man’s torment.
“Now, what is the aspect of, and what transpires in, this intermediate state? Here heaven and hell are represented as visible to each other — in sufficiently close proximity for the inhabitants of the one to be within hearing of those of the other. “The rich man sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said,* Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” These are said to be disembodied souls conversing. The beggar died, and his soul was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and his body was buried in the grave. What strange conversation for separate bodiless souls! — Abraham’s soul has, like his body, a “bosom.” Lazarus has a finger that he can dip in water, and the rich man has a parched tongue and is enduring literal torment by the “flame” of fire! And we have been assured moreover, with respect to the rich man, that his body was buried in the grave! Besides all this, here are represented the enjoyment and suffering of repayment before judgment has been pronounced — and the judgment day is fixed for after the resurrection! How is the proof to be derived from this parable of the separate state of the immaterial soul? And how, when there are such strange inconsistencies on this interpretation, can there be drawn hence the proof that there is conscious life for the dead when they are dead, and before their resurrection?
But on the other hand it is replied — the scene which our Lord describes is evidently one between death and resurrection — for, in the first place, the word “hell” is in the Greek not Gehenna which is always used in the Scriptures to signify the place of final future punishment, but Hades which, with the same uniformity of usage, always denotes in the Scriptures the state or place of the dead. Therefore, as the scene is laid in Hades there must be a state of conscious life for separate souls immediately after death.
* For the meaning and scripture usage of this word, consult “The Generations Gathered and Gathering; or the Scripture Doctrine concerning Man in Death,” section 2.
And in the next place, the conversation between Abraham and the rich man occurs while the “five brethren” of the latter are alive on the earth — for he prays that Abraham mil send Lazarus to his ‘fathers house, that he may testify unto them lest they also come into this place of torment.”
Now, I readily admit, that here we have some apparent countenance of the popular doctrines. But let us not forget the law of parabolic interpretation, — that the parables must not be made first sources of doctrine. In searching for the Scriptural evidence for the separate state and immortality of the soul, and an intermediate state of consciousness for the dead, I discover none — not even the faintest evidence, from one end of the Bible to the other. The terms and phrases which are employed to express these doctrines by their modern advocates, are not derived from the Bible but, like the doctrines themselves, are of human invention. As therefore these doctrines are nowhere taught, but on the contrary, are by implication disavowed in the Bible, we ought not to allow this solitary parable to be the authority for such important and extraordinary teaching.
Literally and historically interpreted, this parable is incapable of conveying any instruction whatever, and therefore, we are of necessity compelled to give up the attempt to treat it as a matter of fact. On this account it was impossible that the dullest of our Lord’s auditors should mistake his meaning, and imagine him to teach doctrines which the whole of his ministry disallowed and condemned. It must have been obvious to all those who heard this parable from the lips of Christ, that it was a case supposed or invented, according to his usual method of exemplifying his instructions. And no less obvious would its teaching be to us, were we free from the dominion of educational prejudices. Having been taught that the soul of man is capable of a separate state of conscious existence, and that when a man is dead he is not dead, but alive in another state, it is natural enough that we should expound this parable in, agreement with these dogmas. And it is only when we are able to divest ourselves of that implicit confidence in the truth of all that we have been taught from childhood, and to come with intelligent and devout inquiry to the source of all religious truth, the Bible, that we discover, and are qualified to correct these errors.
Giving up, then, as we are compelled to do, the historic character of this parable, and adopting the only other opinion, that it is a case invented or supposed for the sake of the moral it conveyed, we see at once that every difficulty vanishes, and that the parable utters a solemnly intelligible lesson to all who have ears to hear. Our Lord had been discoursing to his disciples upon the impossibility of loving God supremely, while they coveted the wealth of this world. “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Certain Pharisees were standing by and heard this discourse, and we are informed that being “covetous they derided him.” They supposed that as sons of Abraham their salvation could not be endangered by their love of riches and the luxurious ease in which they lived Now it was to expose the folly and futility of their confidence in Abraham, while they loved supremely and covetously their wealth, that this parable of the rich man and Lazarus was delivered. Moreover, the case of the covetous Pharisees was a desperate one.
When men can go so far as to deride the plain, salutary lessons of truth, they have made melancholy progress on the road to death. And when this spirit of derision takes its rise from the deeply-seated covetousness of their hearts, their case is all but hopeless. If the lessons of truth cannot break the bonds of their sordid slavery, nothing else will: A voice from the silent. tomb, or “if one went unto them from the dead,” would be equally unavailing.
To exemplify these truths by a supposed case was the design of this parable. Our Lord imagined the case of a certain wealthy son of Abraham against whom he brought no chaise of gross immorality beyond that all-absorbing covetousness which inclined him to fare sumptuously every day, while he neglected the wants of his poorer brother, who was allowed to lie at his gate in suffering indigence, and left to be ministered to by the dogs who came to do, in their best way, those kind offices which were denied by him at whose gate he was laid “ full of sores.” Both the rich man and the beggar were sons of Abraham, as the dialogue shows; but only the beggar was admitted to the spiritual privileges of the Abrahamic sonship; the rich man was disowned and rejected. To exhibit this rejection of the rich Jew by his father Abraham, our Lord gave a supposed scenic representation of the interview. To do this it was needful that he should give existence and utterance to the silent and unconscious dead. Hence the scene is laid in Hades the state of the dead, not Gehenna, the place of the future punishment.
Because the covetous Jew will be tormented in the all-consuming fire, and the suffering beggar be exalted to the joys of Paradise, they are represented respectively realizing their condition. It is as if our Lord had said, “ Were these three deceased persons, Abraham, the rich man, and Lazarus alive, and now that the events of this probationary life are over, brought into each other’s presence, such as I have described would be the character and circumstances of the interview. And could that deceased selfish one but know the fearful repayment which awaits him after his resurrection — could he but utter the warning voice to his five brethren who are following his fatal example on earth — he would speak to them from the grave, or commission some happy Lazarus to go “unto them from the dead.”
Hence the representation of the proximity of the places of the blessed and condemned and the occurrence of the imagined scene while the five brethren of the rich man are on the earth. The whole scene is a supposed one; the grave is peopled with living intelligences, and its still silence broken by imagined discourse, for the sake of administering a solemn warning to those money-loving and self-righteous Pharisees who derided our Lord. I ask, if this explanation is not the only reasonable one, and if it does not clear up every circumstance connected with this important parable? Let me ask if this explanation is not perfectly consistent with the dignity and mode of teaching of our Lord? Is it not usual with the prophets of the Lord to portray Hades, the state or region of the dead, by the imagery of a powerfully fortified city, with its massive gates, which close with irresistible security upon the captive dead? Do they not uniformly speak of them as knowing nothing, as dwelling in darkness, and awful silence in the land of forgetfulness?
Occasionally, like our Lord in this parable, they personify the dead, and give them both action and speech, as in that sublime figure in which Isaiah raises up from their thrones in Hades all the deceased kings of the nations, to taunt the tyrant of Babylon with his own mortality and weakness. The Jews were familiar with such personifications of death — examples of which are furnished indeed in all languages — and therefore to insist, in spite of all the unconquerable difficulties, upon expounding this figure of the rich man and Lazarus as an historic fact, exhibits a pitiable tenacity of a favourite prejudice, and a mischievous determination, like the Jews of old, to keep their traditions contrary to the voice both of candour and the Scriptures.
It is too commonly taken for granted, that the place and elements of torment are actually in existence; and that the wicked, the moment of their decease, are transferred thither. Now, there are two serious objections to this belief; one is, that, on this supposition, only a part of the man, his spirit, can be supposed to be in torment, because his body is in the grave.
But on this hypothesis, the many who ought to be the subject of punishment, cannot possibly be so, because, until the body and soul are re-united, the many properly speaking, does not exist Even admitting the possibility of his being so punished, which may be doubted, he is being only partially tormented until the resurrection and resumption of his body. Again this belief is at variance with the teaching of Scripture, which declares, that the judgment precedes the punishment; but, according to this opinion, punishment precedes the judgment. All these inconsistencies and errors are the reasonable consequence of departing from the teaching of the Bible, and listening to “science, falsely so called,” instead of to the voice of Scripture. If the Bible be read carefully on this subject, it will be found that hell, — the place of the punishment of the wicked, — does not yet exist. Satan and his companion apostates, although they may be enduring a hell of some sort, are not in the hell which they are to endure in common with wicked men.
He is denominated “the prince of the power of the air,” and he “goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” The apostle Peter distinctly informs us, that the destruction of our earth by fire, will accomplish at the same time the destruction of the wicked. “The heavens and the earth which are now,” he says, “by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men.” [2 Peter 3:7. See Vitringa on the Burning of the World; translated by A. Kitto’s Journal of Sacred Literature, p. 304.] This Scripture authority will confirm our view of the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, — that our Lord did not refer to an actual history, but invented the story in the manner of the parable, for the sake of the instruction which he designed to impart. [See further proof of the impossibility of regarding this parable as an historic fact derived from other and explicit parts of our Lord’s teaching, in “Generations Gathered and Gathering,” Section 5.]
We must turn, then, to other sources of information on this important subject, than to the mere words and similes which are employed in Scripture; although these, when interpreted according to their plain meaning, give a most emphatic contradiction to the popular theory.
Having engaged your attention with the principal phrases and passages of scripture, upon which the arguments for eternal torment are constructed, and which I hope you clearly see, are, to say the least, very doubtful foundations of a doctrine so fearfully awful, and which clashes so painfully with our perceptions of the divine character and government, let me now place before you some of the many passages which might be cited, to prove that the punishment of the wicked will issue in their final extinction of.
That the force of these passages may not be neutralized, I must request you to recall to your memory what has already been proved in the preceding lectures, viz., that immortality is not the personal possession of man; but is gift to him under certain conditions, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
If, then, the wicked shall endure, as their appropriate punishment hereafter, an unending existence in misery, immortality, or endless life will be conferred upon them as well as upon the believer in Christ; but the Scriptures teach us that immortality is the peculiar privilege of the regenerate! To be fitted foreverlasting misery, they must be constituted previous to their banishment into miserable exile, immortal beings, otherwise as mortal beings they are constitutionally unfitted to bear the terrible punishment which it is assumed will be their award.
But is not this a very awful and dangerous representation of the moral administration of God! Such an exhibition of the final award of punishment contradicts one of our most common perceptions of strict justice; it disregards what is essential to a righteous administration, — that there should be a proportion between the penalty and the crime. If men sin as mortals, justice requires that, as mortals, they shall be punished. It is inconceivable that the divine Being, whose acts are ever in accordance with the strictest equity, should award a punishment infinitely beyond the native capability of endurance, and to fit the guilty being for its terrible infliction, should recreate him, and cast a new and alarming element, — the element of immortality, — into his constitution. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Has he not revealed the righteous principles, upon which his decisions will be based, when he assures us that every one shall be judged and recompensed according to his deeds, opportunities, and circumstances? The popular theory of eternal torment, involves either this injustice or the absurdity of? finite being becoming capable of an infinite burden of suffering.”
* “We are not to be told,” says a reviewer, “that misery will become infinite because it is endless; for, at every point of the infinite series, it will be as far from infinity as from its termination.” — British Quarterly Review, Number 13, page 112, Article “The Doctrine of Future Punishment.” If, by this observation, the reviewer means, that the whole of an infinite duration of misery cannot be endured at one and every point of the series, he states a very obvious truism; but, in describing infinity as being never realized, he does but state the impossibility of the case. “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” — Isaiah 57:16.
Let the following Scripture statements prove whether the Bible doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked does not more obviously agree with the Bible doctrine of the native mortality of man, than the philosophic conceit of human immortality. If we had formed no opinion upon the nature and duration of future punishment, but had ascertained that the Bible taught the mortality and perishableness of our fallen nature, we should expect to find such descriptions given as would obviously accord with this previous instruction. I submit, then, the following, out of many passages which might be selected for your consideration.
The terms “Consume,” “Destroy,” “Destruction,” and “Corruptions,” used to denote the nature of future punishment.
“The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume, into smoke shall they consume away.” Psalm 37:20.
“Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” Psalm 104:35.
“And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” 2 Thessalonians 2:8.
“For when they shall say peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them. . . and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3.
“But these as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things which they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” 2 Peter 2:12.
“Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
“Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul;” not as some suppose, because it is immortal and indestructible, as is shown by the latter part of the text, — “but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28.
“The Lord preserves all them that love him; but all the wicked will he destroy.” Psalm 145:20. Deuteronomy 1:27, and 2:12, 21, 22, 23.
The employment of the terms “Perish,” “Devour,” “Perdition” to describe the nature of future punishment, “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16.
“And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” John 10:28.
“Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish.” Acts 13:41. See also: Romans 2:12; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:10; 2 Peter 2:12.
“There remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking; for of judgment, and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.” Hebrews 10:26, 27.
“In nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.” Philippians 1:28.
“But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” (life.) Hebrews 10:39. See also, 1 Timothy 6:7; 2 Peter 3:7
The employment of the term “Death”, as descriptive of the nature of future punishment.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil: Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.” John 8:51, 52.
“For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2, 6.
“For to be carnally minded is deaths but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Romans 8:2, 6.
“What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is deaths.”
“For the wages of sin is deaths but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:2123
“Who (the gentiles) knowing the judgment of God, that they which do such things are worthy of death.” Romans 1:32.
“All liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8.
“And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” Revelation 20:14.
Ponder attentively this last extract from the book of Revelation, — “This is the second death.” Here an analogy is drawn between the death of the future punishment, and the death which men endure in this life. Look, brethren, in imagination upon the corpse of the dead, and say whether that suggests consciousness and sensation as being the everlasting portion of the wicked hereafter. It is also said, that death and Hades shall be cast into the lake of fire. Death and Hades are mere abstractions, mere personifications and not personalities;— are death and Hades, then, to be associated with the wicked in the endurance of everlasting torment? Is not this imagery a most emphatic picture of what the “great voice out of heaven” said, — “There shall be no more death?” Revelation 21:4. Death and Hades are to be cast into the lake of fire to be, as it were, destroyed, together with the wicked.
I am aware that attempts are made to obviate this conclusion, by affirming that all these terms are but figures of speech, and that they have a spiritual meaning. On the figurative interpretation of these and other similar words, I have already remarked in a former lecture, in which I think it was clearly shown, that the system of figurative interpretation was neither required nor justified, and that it did but obscure the plain meaning of the Word of God. If the conclusions at which we arrived in the former lectures be correct, as I cannot but believe every impartial student of God’s Word will allow, viz., that Adam failed to secure in -Eden for himself, and his posterity, the conditional privilege of immortality, and that immortality is brought by Christ, and is the gift of the Father through him to believers only, — then there is a positive necessity that the words, destruction perishing, consuming, devouring, perdition, and death, to which might be added some very expressive similes, should be literally understood as descriptive of the future punishment of the wicked, unless the other and only alternative be accepted, that God will immortalize the wicked that they may be capable of enduring their everlasting torture. But such a supposition is most impious in its aspect towards the righteous God, and most unjust towards the wicked; and, therefore, the conclusion is unavoidable, that the wicked will ultimately be blotted out of existence. “They shall perish with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” “This is the second death.”
The following phrases are used in the scriptures to describe the nature of the future punishment. The wicked shall be burnt up; broken to shivers; ground to powder; plucked up by the roots: trampled under foot; sawn asunder; none of which can be interpreted in any other sense than as complete destruction.
Look at the popular doctrine of unending torment, in the view of the passage which stands at the head of this lecture. The Creator himself declares that the human soul could not sustain his everlasting wrath, that it would fail or perish under the pressure of such protracted indignation. I leave it, then, with the advocates of the popular theory to say, if they will charge God with the dreadful intention of supernaturally strengthening the wicked for the endurance of punishment. They are on the horns of no common dilemma, from which an abandonment of their theory can alone extricate them. Let them compare their theory of eternal torment with my text, “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.”
On the nature and details of the future punishment of the wicked there is considerable diversity of opinion even among those professing Christians who arrogate to themselves the claim of being the orthodox or evangelical church. One will understand the term “fire” in its literal sense, and believe that this is to be the material agent of the endless torment of the wicked. Another will discard this conception of the literal element, of “fire” as gross and plebeian, and affirm that the agencies of torment are not material, but moral: obviously proving that the prevailing notions of the future punishment differ considerably, are rather general than specific, vague than well defined, and originating less in scriptural than conjectural sources.
The language of the apostle Peter previously quoted, is so explicit that none but such as prejudge this question can possibly mistake its instruction. “The heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day ofjudgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
In this passage are the following plain revelations. First, the earth is to be destroyed by fire. Lower down in the same chapter he says: The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up And again, “All these things shall be dissolved. “The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, Here is no room for any diversity of opinion with regard to the meaning of the word “fire.” Let it then be observed in the next place, that Peter assures us that the burning of the world is to be the time and means of the future punishment The “heavens” or super-adjacent atmosphere, with the “earth,” are to be destroyed by fire, but their destruction is reserved until after the decisions of “the day of judgment” and for the purpose of effecting “the perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:7.
The instruction of this passage is beyond mis-apprehension, and the following are its undeniable revelations.
On the authority of this one passage alone we are justified in pronouncing the modem notions about the nature, time, and duration of the future punishment as altogether false and mischievous. Taken in connection with what precedes, it must surely convince every impartial student of God’s Word, that the popular teaching on this painfully interesting subject is anti-scriptural and adverse to the integrity and efficiency of scriptural Christianity. We are not therefore to understand by the fire of hell, the chastisement of a condemning conscience since the fire which consumes the world will be the instrument of the future punishment. Neither are we to believe that immediately after death and before the resurrection is there any place or consciousness of punishment for the wicked, since the burning of the world at the last day is to kindle the “lake of fire” to consummate “the perdition of ungodly men.” Nor are we to represent this burning of the wicked to be everlasting, since they will be in the midst of the burning world, and will share its fate, which is to “pass away,” to be “dissolved,” and “burnt up.” “For behold the day cometh,” says the prophet Malachi, “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 bum them up saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch And ye shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” 4:1-3.
I cannot feel the weight of the objection which some have brought against this exposition of the doctrine of future punishment, that it is a licence to the wicked to continue in sin. Who, I ask, are they that secretly felicitate themselves in the hope of a final annihilation? Are they not those who now, even in the very teeth of the threatening of the popular creed, will, with terrible effrontery and hardihood, sin on, despite the everlasting wailings which they are taught they must endure? Say not that I give the reins to impiety because I proclaim a cessation to the “weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” In the plastic hand of the wicked, there is scarcely any doctrine that may not be most mischievously perverted.
Were there not some in Paul’s time, who, because he had taught that “where sin abounded grace did much more abound,” said in their hearts, “let us sin then for the abundance of grace?” with whom he was obliged to expostulate, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” Romans 6:1. Therefore the doctrine of this lecture must be discarded, for other reasons than because some awfully wicked spirits, who have made up their minds to sin that sin which is unto death, — to blaspheme the Holy Ghost and die, — pervert it to their own abandoned ends, thus exhibiting themselves as “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.”
My answer, then, to this objection is furnished in the inquiry, “What is truth?” Is the punishment of the wicked to be eternal torment or eternal destruction? “What saith the Scripture?” If it replies, “The wages of sin is death,” — utter destruction, — then my way is clear: my mission is, to tell the truth and to leave consequences with God. If the Bible teaches that the wicked will be eventually blotted out of existence, then he who believes this to be the truth, and, like Origen, from motives of dishonest expediency, preaches that mankind will be punished with everlasting misery, tells a terrible and most mischievous lie in the name of the Lord, and exemplifies the very spirit of priestcraft and spiritual deception. If God has declared that the wicked shall perish, — be plucked up root and branch, burnt up consumed, devoured, destroyed, fade away, be no more, die, that they shall utterly perish in their own corruption, and endure the second death, — can it be obedience to God, and profitable for mankind, to say, that all this is figurative language, — and that the wicked shall never die?
Is it not to enact the great rebel, and to say as he did, in the very face of the Divine testimony, “Ye shall not surely die.”
Now those persons who consider it a most dangerous thing to deny the doctrine of eternal torment, and who are weak enough to believe that he who ventures to do so must be on the high road to infidelity, are generally those who have been induced to believe it, not because they discovered it in the Bible, but because they have been so taught. The extreme displeasure with which they denounce the imagined innovation, leads one to ask if they have any interest in upholding the popular doctrine. It surely does not minister to their sympathetic ease, to believe that hereafter a mighty multitude which no man can number shall live on in racking agonies throughout a lingering eternity! It is marvellous that human hearts should repel a doctrine which their heads when soundest, are most ready to receive.
This is unreasonable and unnatural: But I cannot believe that it is either the head or the heart that acts thus unadvisedly: it is a morbid timidity lest truth should not take care of itself, and error, despite its omnipotence, should spread havoc and desolation around.
* Jonathan Edwards thus describes the influence which the sight of the torments of the condemned in hell will have upon the glorified saints: —
“When they (the saints) shall see how miserable others of their fellow creatures are, who were naturally in the same circumstances with themselves; when they shall see the smoke of their torment, and the raging of the flames of their burning, and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they, in the meantime, arc in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity; how will they rejoice! How joyfully will they sing to God and the Lamb when they behold this.” Works, volume 2, p. 209, Edition 1840.
This is the language of Edwards as a theologian, not of Edwards the man and the Christian. Neither humanity nor religion will endure a representation so horribly revolting. If such a spectacle will excite the rapturous pleasure of the saints, it will be no pleasure to the God of saints. How strikingly does the following contrast with the above! “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live? . . I have no pleasure in the death of him that died, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.” Ezekiel 18:23, 32.
But, brethren, I have greater reason for being shocked at your upholding the doctrine of eternal torment than you have for being shocked at me in denying it. Do you really believe, that when an unregenerate human being dies, he is plunged into the terrible gulf of everlasting torment? How, then, can you mingle with your ungodly neighbours and friends without constantly urging them, in season and out of season,” to flee from suck wrath to come!
How is it that you have not so warned every one that you came in contact with this day, despite the conventionalities of modem society? Your stupendous faith would justify any manifestation of intrusive solicitude. How, believing this doctrine, can you calmly suffer days and months and years to be consumed in the varied concerns of this transient life, and not, Jonah- like, daily lift up your warning voice in the city of your habitation? And how can you lay your head upon your pillow at Slight, and compose yourself to sleep, knowing that hundreds and thousands, in every part of the world, before you awake on the morrow, will have tasted the first bitter draught of the exhaustless cup, and have felt the first terrible pang of “the worm that never dies,” and “the fire that shall never be quenched!”
How, I ask, can you give “sleep to your eyes and slumber to your eyelids,” when perhaps, the partner of your life, or your beloved children, or some other dear relative, may all the while be exposed to the unending torments of hell? Tell me not that you believe your doctrine, — your indifference is terribly criminal if you do: the Wood of humanity cries bitterly against you! Your zeal for the dogma of eternal torments, while you are thus neglecting to warn dying men, is your heaviest and most severe rebuke. I prefer the doctrine of my text, which, while it does not deny the doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked, nor make the salvation of man less an object of interest and solicitude, yet gives a most emphatic denial to the dogma of eternal torment. “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 subject is not to- be treated as a mere matter of opinion, which we may hold or reject as we think proper. If it be a part of God’s revealed truth, that the wicked will ultimately be destroyed, then it is impossible to deny this truth without introducing considerable mischief into the evangelic system.
We have only to examine the effect of the popular doctrine upon the faith of the church, to be convinced that its influence is pernicious. The Apostles preached in such a way, that they excited in their hearers a love for, and aspiration after, heaven; and their own inner life was manifestly the experience of joyful and ardent anticipation of the glory awaiting the righteous. The natural tendency of their preaching was to stimulate the energies, exhilarate and elevate the heart, and develop and mature sanctified character.
But this is not the tendency of most modern preaching, especially where it is the habit of the preacher to dwell much upon the doctrine which I have ventured to repudiate. Instead of rejoicing the heart of believers, in giving them an all-engrossing expectation of their Lord’s second coming, — instead of awakening in their hearts, an earnest response to the Amen! of the Apocalypse, when he said, “ Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!” — it impresses upon the church too effectively the painful conviction that this longed for revelation of Christ will be a revelation of wrath.
The terrible nature of the popular doctrine of future punishment, almost annihilates the prospective pleasure which the church should enjoy. Heaven is, to a lamentable extent, anticipated as a refuge from hell, rather than longed for its hallowed and blissful engagements. Can we wonder that the effect of such views and feelings should be to check the growth of a healthy and happy piety, since it destroys the operation of that perfect love which eminently characterized the ancient saints? Fear has supplanted the place of love in the bosoms of the mass, and until love is restored to its rightful pre-eminence in their sanctified consciousness, in vain shall we expect to see, as the general experience of the Church, an earnest, self-denying, rejoicing piety. Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always;” but the heart of the Church is heavy and depressed,— fear has cast out that “perfect love,” without which it is vain to exhort, and unreasonable to expect. Look, brethren, around you, and see how few are rejoicing believers. Where there is one who knows what the “ peace of God” is “which passes all understanding,” there are twenty whose inner life is one uniform state of dissatisfaction and uneasiness. Their spirit is that of the slave, which scarcely dares look up to heaven, and still seldom ever yearns to be admitted there. The “new earth wherein dwells righteousness” is less frequently a first than a second thought: “the bottomless pit” is the gloomy suggestion of the brighter and better world.
In this respect, the development of Christian character in our times exhibits a remarkable contrast with the earlier development which the New Testament exhibits; and I am led to believe that this fact is to be accounted for in intimate connection with the question before us. It deserves our attention that the recorded sermons of the Apostles, and also their writings, are comparatively deficient of allusions to the subject of future punishment at all; and, what is more astonishing, there is a marked abruptness in the utterance of their emotions whenever they have occasion to refer to the subject. Now, if the Apostles believed that the punishment of the wicked will be everlasting torment, how shall we explain these phenomena? It surely deserved a very considerable prominence in apostolic preaching, if, as is popularly believed, to save us from eternal torment was the moving cause of the Mediator’s mission, and the grandest evidence of God’s ineffable love. No vivid and pathetic descriptions of the punishment of the wicked are, however, to be met with in their writings: they never attempt to portray the dreadful picture of future wrath, — make use of no language indicative of the vision of terrible images of deathless agonies, but briefly advert to it occasionally, and then in terms which, if accepted according to their conventional meaning in common usage, would lead to the belief that the Apostles expected a “ second death or complete extinction to be the portion of the wicked.
It is sufficient to mention, that the style of much modem preaching is the very reverse of that exhibited in the writings and discourses of the apostles. Genius itself, to find imagery and language merely, is put to the torture. Imagination stretches itself to the utmost, to depict the horrors of the condemned, and the most painful emotions evidently agitate the mind of the earnest preacher of the popular theory. He believes it, and it is natural, therefore, that he should often refer to it, and make it the ground of his most faithful appeals. No one will imagine that the apostles were not men of strong feelings and lively sensibilities, nor attempt to account for this extraordinary fact by asserting that their writings were less emotional than rational and preceptive. Paul, whose writings constitute the chief portion of the epistolary New Testament, exhibits sometimes the intense emotion. I need only remind you of his ecstasy over the vanquished death and the grave, [1 Corinthians 15:55] and of his memorable declaration, however you interpret it, concerning his brethren after the flesh [Romans 9:3]. To mention but one occasion which occurs to me, when we should have expected that Paul, had he believed the popular theory, would have addressed his brethren in language, not only earnest but descriptive,— I refer to his recorded address to them at Antioch, in Pisidia; — but we hear him, under most painfully affecting circumstances, thus curtly addressing them: — “Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Acts 13:40, 41, 46.
* President Edwards, a most impressive preacher of the popular theory of future punishment, thus describes the portion of the wicked after this life: —
“The soul of a wicked man at its departure from the body will be made immediately sensible that it is before an infinitely holy and dreadful God, and his own final Judge; and will then see how terrible a God he is, how infinitely he hates sin; he will be sensible of the greatness of God’s anger against sin, and how dreadful is his displeasure. Then will he be sensible of the dreadful majesty and power of God, and how fearful a thing it is to fall into his hands. Then the soul shall come naked with all its guilt, and in all its filthiness, a vile, loathsome, abominable creature, an enemy to God, a rebel against him, with the guilt of all its rebellion and disregard of God’s commands, and contempt of his authority, and slight of the glorious gospel, before God as its Judge. This will M the soul with horror and amazement As soon as ever the soul parts from the body, from that moment the case will be absolutely determined; there will then be an end forever to all hope, to everything that men bang upon in this life; the soul then shall know certainly that it is to be miserable to all eternity, without any remedy. It shall see that God is its enemy; it shall see its Judge clothed in his wrath and vengeance. Then its misery will begin, it will that moment be swallowed up in despair; the great gulf will be fixed between it and happiness, the door of mercy will be forever shut up, the irrevocable sentence will be passed. Then shall the wicked know what is before them. Before the soul was in distress for fear how it would be; but now, all its fears shall come upon it; it shall come upon it as a mighty flood, and there will be no escaping.
The soul was full of amazement before through fear; but now, who can conceive the amazement that fills it that moment when all hope is cut off and it knows that there never will be any difference!
We may well suppose that when a wicked man dies his soul is seized by wicked angels; that they are round his bed ready to seize the miserable soul as soon as it is parted from the body. And with what fierceness and fury do those cruel spirits fly upon their prey; and the soul shall be left in their hands. There shall be no good angels to guard and defend it.
God will take no merciful care of it; there is nothing to help it against those cruel spirits that shall lay hold of it to carry it to hell, there to torment it forever. God will leave it wholly in their hands, and will give it up to their possession when it comes to die; and it soul be carried down into hell, to the abode of devils and damned spirits. If the fear of hell on a death-bed sometimes fills the wicked with amazement, how will they be overwhelmed when they feel its torments, when they shall find them not only as great, but far greater than their fears! They shall find them fax beyond what they could conceive of before they felt them; for none know the power of God’s anger but they that experience it. Psalm 90:11: ‘Who knows the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.’ [Surely not such “anger” and “wrath” as is here depicted!]
“Departed spirits of wicked men are doubtless carried to some particular place in the universe, which God has prepared to be the receptacle of his wicked, rebellious, and miserable subjects: a place where God’s avenging justice shall be glorified; a place built to be the prison where the devils and wicked men are reserved till the day ofjudgment [Can “God’s avenging justice” be “glorified” by permitting one order of his intelligent and apostate creatures to be the prey and indignant sport of another order of apostate beings! Our author, moreover, represents the devils as most willing and delighted agents in fulfilling their hellish mission as the tormentors of wicked men! So far then as the devils are concerned, hell is to their taste — its fiendish occupation is their delight. For them hell is a heaven — a place of happiness rather than of misery! Strange theory of future punishment is this!]
“Here,” proceeds President Edwards, “the souls of wicked men shall suffer extreme and amazing misery in a separate state until the resurrection. This misery is not indeed their full punishment; nor is the happiness of the saints before the day of judgment their full happiness. It is with the souls of wicked men as it is with devils. Though the devils suffer extreme torment now, yet they do not suffer their complete punishment. [What inconsistency is here! President Edwards represents first of all the devils as the most busy and delighted agents of Divine vengeance, and then affirms that they are themselves all the while the prey of extreme torments! And with even greater than“ extreme torment” in prospect after the decisions of the judgment.] “They are reserved,” he proceeds, “in the state they are in; and for what are they reserved but for a greater degree of punishment?
But yet they are there [in the intermediate state as separate souls and apostate demons] in extreme and inconceivable misery: they are there deprived of all good; they have no rest nor comfort; and they are subject to the wrath of God; God there executes wrath on them without mercy, and they are swallowed up in wrath.
And those who go to hell never can escape thence; there they remain imprisoned till the day of judgment, and their torments remain continually. Those wicked men who died many years ago, their souls went to hell, and there they are still; those who went to hell in former ages of the world, have been in hell ever since, all the while suffering torment. They have nothing else to spend their time in there, but to suffer torment; they are kept in being for no other purpose; [!] and though they have many companions in hell, yet they are no comfort to them, for there is no friend, no love, no pity, no quietness, no prospect, no hope. [Can the multitude of professing Christians really believe this doctrine, and not weep as though their “head were waters and their eyes a fountain of tears” at the horrid reflection, that at this, and at every moment of their lives, hundreds and thousands of their fellow creatures are actually enduring these inexpressible sufferings? Perhaps, reader, thou hast lost a beloved friend concerning whom thou hast no hope, — canst thou think that such is his present awful condition, and that the following description of our sadly mistaken author, yet awaits him in the eternal future?]
The separate souls of the wicked, besides the present misery that they suffer, shall be in amazing fear of the more full punishment at the day of judgment. Though their punishment in their separate state be exceedingly dreadful, and far more than they can bear, [!] though it be so great as to sink and crush them, yet this is not all; [!] they are reserved for a much greater and more dreadful punishment [!] at the day of judgment; their torment will then be vastly augmented, and continue in that augmentation to all eternity [!] Their punishment will be so much greater then, that their misery in this separate state is but as an imprisonment before an execution. [We are told that the “imprisonment” is far more than they can hear, and “so great as to sink and crush them;” how then can the wretched objects of such punishment endure “ a much greater and more dreadful punishment which is to be vastly augmented, and continue in that augmentation to all eternity [!] Both the language and the horrid conception lose their awful gravity in this anti-climax of positive absurdity.]
“When we are under any great pain of body at any time how do we dread the least addition to it! its continuance is greatly dreaded, much more its increase. How much more will those separate spirits that suffer the torments of hell, dread that augmentation and completing of their torment which there will be at the day of judgment, when what they feel already, is vastly more than they can support themselves; when they shall be, as it were, begging one drop of water to cool their tongues, when they would give ten thousand worlds for the least abatement of their misery! How sinking will it be to think, that instead of that the day is coming when God shall come forth out of heaven to sentence them to a far more dreadful degree of misery, and to continue them under it forever!
The damned in hell know not the time when the day of judgment shall be, but when the time comes it will be made known, and it will be the most dreadful news that ever was told in that world of misery. It is always a doleful time in hell; the world of darkness is always full of shrieks and doleful cries; but when the news is heard, that the day appointed for the judgment is come, hell will be filled with louder shrieks and more dreadful cries than ever before. . . Then must the souls of the wicked come up to be united to their bodies, and stand before their Judge. They shall not come willingly, but shall be dragged forth as a malefactor is dragged out of his dungeon to execution. They will hang back, but must come; the devils and damned spirits must come up together. . . Then the sentence shall be executed. When the Judge bids them depart, they must go, however loathed, yet they must go, . . and that great company of devils and wicked men must then enter into those everlasting burnings to which they are sentenced.
“In this condition they shall remain throughout the never-ending ages of eternity, their punishment shall be then complete, and it shall remain in this completion forever. Now shall all that come upon them which they so long trembled for fear of, while their souls were in a separate state. They will dwell in a fire that never shall be quenched, and here they must wear out eternity. Here they must wear out one thousand years after another, and that without end. There is no reckoning up the millions of years, or millions of ages; all arithmetic here fails, no rules of multiplication can reach the amount, for there is no end. They shall have nothing to do to pass away their eternity, but to conflict with those torments; this will be their work forever and ever; God shall have no other use or employment for them; this is the way that they must answer the end of their being, [!!] And they never shall have any rest, nor any atonement, but their torments will hold up to their height, and shall never grow any easier by their being accustomed to them. Time will seem long to them, every moment shall seem long to them, but they shall never have done with the ages of their torment.” — Works volume 2, pages 880—883, edition 1840.
So preached the great Jonathan Edwards, one of the acutest metaphysicians that our world has ever seen. A good man too, and a believer in the paternity of God, and the declaration of scripture that “God is love.” Is it possible that divine justice can demand such a vindication as he represents? It is not possible! The doctrine is monstrous; and must be as offensive to the holy and good Jehovah, as it is astounding to men. It is worthy of remark how such descriptions of the future punishment are destitute of scripture phraseology; and when scripture is quoted, it is always those passages which are capable of, and which, by comparison with other parts of the sacred writings demand, a more reasonable interpretation.
This absence of any attempt at vivid and pathetic portraiture of the miserable condition of the wicked hereafter, adds considerable weight to the evidence for the literal interpretation of their language on this subject, and justifies us in believing, that Paul and the New Testament writers generally believed the future punishment of the wicked to be their utter annihilation.
A difficulty may be suggested to the contemplative mind by the statement, that the wicked will share a common fate — that all will in the end perish. The Scriptures most certainly make a distinction in the wretched experience of the wicked hereafter. We are assured, that it will be “more tolerable” for some than for others, — that there will be those who “shall receive the greater damnation.” But we have no detailed information concerning what will precede — what will be the beginning of the end. The interval between the resurrection of the wicked and their “second death“ will, we cannot doubt, be sufficiently long to afford an opportunity for the manifestation of the discriminative justice of God, “who will render to every man according to his work,” inflicting upon some “many” and upon others “few stripes.” The wicked will obviously share a common end, — “the candle of the wicked shall be put out;” but previous to that end their conscious experience will be as various as their characters and deserts.
I would only observe, finally, for the sake of the anxious fears of any present, that it is a mistaken notion, that the public proclamation of this doctrine is injurious in its tendency. The question is, — Is it — true? for if it be true, then it cannot be injurious — Whether we view this doctrine in relation to the well-being of society, or the personal salvation of mankind, in neither aspect is there any ground for apprehension.
For, before it can be declared injurious to social morals, it must be shown, that the vices of the community are really kept within the present limits through the belief in the doctrine of everlasting torments, as the future punishment of the wicked. How far this belief operates beneficially in this respect it is impossible to say, but there is reason to apprehend that its influence is exceedingly small in this direction. The fear that the denial of this view of the future punishment will affect most disastrously the condition of society, implies the assumption that the doctrine in question is the principal conservative of the social morals, and the powerful restraint upon those baser passions, which only need its removal to break forth in frightful inundation of all social order and safety. This is surely to exaggerate the practical value of this doctrine. Is it not rather the dread of that certain and nearer retribution which the criminal laws of the country threaten, that hold in check the mischievous excesses of evil-disposed men?
And besides this conventional restraint, is there not another and potent one, which lies in the constitution of our nature, which compels the confinement of evil passions within certain limits, on pain of a summary and terrible penalty. These two sets of laws, — the laws of the country, and the laws of the human constitution, — are unquestionably the chief safeguards of social order. There is, alas! too much scepticism and awful recklessness of all future consequences among the delinquents even of a nominally Christian country, to permit the belief, that the more elevated motives of the Word of God have a chief influence upon their characters and conduct. They are too much the creatures of time and sense, to be influenced to any great extent by the sanctions of eternity.
And with regard to the influence of the disbelief of this doctrine on the personal salvation of mankind, it is to altogether misapprehend the nature of that salvation, and the motives that urge to its acceptance and enjoyment, if it be supposed that this awful exhibition of the future punishment, or even that punishment at all, however firmly believed, accomplishes the salvation of men. “The devils believe and tremble:” but in order to be saved, the eye and thought, too, must be averted from the bottomless pit to the Cross, and to Him who, crucified thereon, so displays the quality and extent of the divine love for men. Not one that will be among the saved at the great future gathering of the church, will have been saved by the fear of hell-torments, whether temporal or eternal; nor even by the dread of punishment of any kind whatsoever.
Their salvation will be owed to a drawing, not a driving power; the drawing of divine love, through the character and mission of Jesus Christ. Let it never be forgotten, that terror is not the power which brings mankind to Christ, but love: this, and this only, is the efficient power which melts by its fervour the iron obstinacy of the hardest heart.
But some have flattered themselves that they can sin on, and take their full draught of iniquity, if they are not to endure eternal torment What impious madness is this! Such, surely, will have the greater damnation! The punishment which awaits such will be long awful and dishonourable enough to be worthy the name of ‘vengeance.’
* A reviewer of the first edition of this work, in the Evangelical Magazine for September, 1849, makes the following unaccountable critique in connexion with the above passage, —
“The contradictions in Mr. Ham’s views have been referred to;” [certainly not proved except in one trifling instance of hyper-criticism] — “ one singular instance occurs to us. In the second lecture, p. 51, he says, Nor can I think that the blessed Jehovah needs to kindle a hell;’ and yet in the third lecture, p. 157, we are told, ‘the punishment which awaits such will be long, awful, and dishonourable enough, to be worthy the name of vengeance.’ By the first quotation, I am made to appear as if I did not believe that God will create a hell at all for the wicked, — and then afterwards employing language descriptive of such a place of future punishment. If the reader will glance at the passage above referred to, (at p. 51 first edition, or p. 49, of this edition), he will see that my reviewer has torn away a clause from the middle of a period and, thus insulated, makes it forcibly express a sentiment for which it was never intended. So far from asserting that there will be no hell hereafter, this clause, as I wrote it, forms part of a reply to a specious argument which is not infrequently advanced by those who labour hard, as if conscious of a weak cause, to find other than scriptural arguments in support of the dogma of everlasting torment, and which is, indeed, put forth by my reviewer when he asks, “Who can say that the knowledge of immortal spirits enduring the just consequence of their sin throughout eternity, may not conduce to preserve inviolate the integrity of those that people heaven?”
Our opponents must indeed be pressed for arguments when they are compelled to construct such an one as this at the expense of so serious a reflection upon the hallowing motives and blessedness of heaven! So it has come to this, that the glorified saints might be tempted to break away from the immediate presence of God and the society of the holy, were it not that beneath them yawned the open mouth of the bottomless pit, wherein they know are preserved, in eternal anguish, the miserable enemies of God, whose portion, as the only alternative, they must share! The reader will perceive, that it is against this miserable representation of the bliss of heaven, and the motives to duty there, that I directed the language upon which my reviewer so strangely animadverts, and which read in its proper connexion, is as follows: — “I cannot under- stand in what way sin can become infinite (referring to the argument that sin is infinite, because committed against an infinite Being, and therefore demands an infinite punishment of torment), nor can I think that the blessed Jehovah needs to kindle a hell, while the fire of His all-consuming love glows to ENFORCE AMD PEBPETUATE HERE-AFTER THE OBEDIENCE OF HIS RANSOMED CREATURES.”
The reader will be able to judge whether, in the instance referred to as my crowning inconsistency, my reviewer has pointed out “a singular instance” of contradiction or not. I abstain from severe terms of reprehension, being willing to believe that my reviewer had no dishonest intentions in so misrepresenting me. It is, however, an example of culpable negligence, and, I have no doubt, has helped to confirm the narrow-minded prejudices of such of his readers who rarely form an independent opinion for themselves, but take their ignoble shelter behind the arguments, whether good or bad, of others.
“Vengeance belongs unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord.” Its first approach will be sufficient to excite the predicted invocation, “Ye mountains, fall on us, — Ye hills, cover us.” The ingredients in that blood-red cup will be potent enough to stir up the most pungent remorse. The fire will be keen enough to stimulate the “ weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth;” and the whole scene horrible enough to be worthy the name of damnation! That any can callously contemplate the awful representations of the future wrath contained in the Scriptures, seems scarcely credible.
The declaration of the Apostle Peter, that “the heavens and earth, which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men/’ is suggestive of a punishment, from which our sensitive natures shrink with instinctive horror. And this is but the terrible sequel, the closing scene of the great mortal tragedy. Before punishment is the judgment, and although we know nothing of the processes of the great final assize, nor what shall be its duration and precise moral effects upon the wretched consciousness of the condemned, yet it is probable that its conduct will be such as to afford ample opportunity for conscience to collect her chastising forces, for the infliction of the “many” or the “few stripes,” as the case may be. Who can conceive that scene of mortal sorrow, when remorse, fed by a then too faithful memory, is lacerating every human bosom, and every cry for mercy is met by the stem reply, “I know you not, depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity?”
With what awful suspense will the wretched victims of self-delusion and guilt await the kindling of the destroying element, whose flowing flames shall engirt the earth in one vast fiery deluge! The horrible sounds of the dissolving heavens which are to “pass away with a great noise,” will be heard in dreaded anticipation; — “the elements” that “shall melt with fervent heat,” will have already breathed around their scorching atmosphere, — and “the earth,” whose scenes, originally of beauty and innocence, have become associated with, and suggestive of, suffering and sin, will, even then, in fearful imagination, be wrestling with “the fire that shall not be quenched,” until its triumphant flames have accomplished their devastating mission, and “the works that are therein shall be burnt up!” Oh horrible ruin! And to be involved therein! Living, life-loving, sensitive human beings, waiting to be “burnt up” in the fires of the burning world! Is this no punishment, — a licence to sin on, — a justification of guilty complacency? Is this not hell, — the fit antitype of Gehenna? Must it, to be complete, be inextinguishable, so that this earth, having become a perpetual hell, shall travel on in its wonted orbit, freighted with burning but unconsumed humanity?
Must corruption be eternized to glut the sanguinary maw of undying worms — and the. fire everlastingly wreathe around the vitals of essential life, otherwise the exigencies of Scripture language are unmet? May mankind be fearless, if they fear not this? Is it not written, ‘Rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28. Will the guilty refuse to “fear” on any assurance less than that God will perpetuate both soul and body in hell? Because the miserable sufferers will in the end perish will any despise the future hell? If so, we can but respond to suck desperate impiety, in the words of Paul, “Behold, ye despisers and wonder, and perish!”
Is it so that any man can secretly congratulate himself, that hell- torments are not eternal; and not only refuse to fear, but, on this ground, can also justify and rejoice in his rejection of Christ? Wretched man, how little dost thou know of Christ! Let all such remember, that they are incompetent judges now of what will be their feelings hereafter. The Bible assures us that it will be a terrible calamity to the wicked; its phrases and figures by the interpretation of this lecture are not deprived of their awful significance. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Let such, while consciousness is theirs, conceive of themselves slumbering in awful silence after the first resurrection of the believers in Christ awaiting that resurrection which shall call up the shrouded wicked from the sleep of the grave!
Is there nothing terrible in this anticipation! Will there be nothing terrible when, gathered together on the doomed world, which, in its final conflagration, is to consummate the perdition of ungodly men, they shall see heaven opened, the great white throne erected and occupied, and the multitude of the redeemed, — the children of the “first resurrection,” — returning with the host of heaven to grace the triumph of their Lord, and be spectators of the degradation and destruction of his enemies, — themselves those enemies, and the objects of that perdition? Will there be no desire for the blessedness of the righteous, when they see their incipient enjoyment and honour? Will there be no wailings, no compunction, no entreaty for pardon and grace then? Will it then be a bright spot in the dark perspective of the miserable future, that their torments will have an end? Will life then be a despised thing? — to lose its honours and blessedness, of little moment? Alas, no! Desire will be as strong as lamentation. The wicked shall see and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.” Psalm 112:10.
* This is the second deaths Into the all-devouring lake will Satan also be cast, and every agent of evil in the universe; and, when destruction has done its work, and its tumult is hushed in silence, — then shall the stillness be broken by the anthems of the redeemed; every blot in the creation will be effaced; “the former things are passed away,” and God shall be all in all.”
The time shall come when every evil thing From being and remembrance both shall die; The world one solid temple of pure good.
It appears to me to be distinctly revealed in the Bible, that the universe shall be entirely purged of evil. How, except on this supposition, can the declaration that “God shall be all in all” be realized? If God shall be “all in all” none but the sanctified will exist; for, surely in no sense will God be in the wicked, Satan himself and all the apostate spirits will, at the time of the perdition of the ungodly, be punished and destroyed. “That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” — Hebrews 2:14; see also 2 Peter 3:13.
APPENDIX
NOTE 1:
THE VALUE OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN SCRIPTURAL SCIENCE.
The speculations of human philosophy I have designedly excluded from these lectures, considering them rather as impediments than aids to the acquisition of the truth on the subjects here discussed. “What is the chaff to the wheat?”
But since, however, it is even still the practice with many Christian theologians to justify their acceptance of the doctrine of the soul’s immortality by appeals to the ancient philosophers; and since, moreover, the opinions of these ancient philosophers are cited as of unquestionable authority, it may enable the reader to form a correct judgment of their value, to bring under his notice the following competent and decisive testimonies.
The learned Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, observes: — “As however even the faintest conjecture of a future existence, though it must not be confounded with a full assurance of it, is, as far as it goes, an approximation towards the knowledge of truth, so also notions considerably incorrect respecting that existence, if they are but such as to involve the idea of enjoyment or suffering, corresponding with men’s conduct in this life, have so far something of a just foundation, and of a tendency to practical utility. This, however, appears by no means to have been the case with the systems of any, as far as we can learn, of those ancient philosophers who contended the most strenuously for the immortality of the soul. For not only do they seem to have agreed, that no suffering could be expected by the wicked in another life, on the ground that the gods were incapable of anger, and therefore could not punish; but the very notion of the soul’s immortality, as explained by them, involved the complete destruction of distinct personal existence. Their notion was, (I mean when they spoke their real sentiments; for in their exoteric or popular works they often inculcate for the benefit of the vulgar the doctrine of future retribution, which they elsewhere laugh at,) that the soul of each man is a portion of that Spirit which pervades the universe, to which it is reunited at death, and becomes again an undistinguishable part of the great whole; just as the body is resolved into the general mass of matter. So that their immortality, or rather eternity, of the soul was anterior, as well as posterior; as it was to have no end, so it had no beginning; and the boasted continuance of existence, which according to this system we are to expect after death, consists in returning to the state in which we were before birth; which every one must perceive is the same thing, virtually, with annihilation.
* “Let it be remembered, then, when the arguments of the heathen sages are triumphantly brought forward in proof of the soul’s immortality, that when they countenanced the doctrine of future retribution, they taught with a view to political expediency, what they did not themselves believe: and that when they spoke their real sentiments on the subject, the eternity of existence which they expected, as it implied the destruction of all distinct personality, amounted practically to nothing at all.” — Revelation of a Future State, section 5.
“If after all, it be said that the heathens did come to the knowledge of God, a religious behaviour towards him, the immortality of the soul, etc., and that by the light of nature and unassisted reason only, without any help or instruction but their own ratiocinations, by observation, collection, and inference from sensible objects; a point that many are willing to believe, and to persuade others; I might as justly answer that they never did come to any tolerably adequate conceptions of the Supreme Being, much less of his will, or that worship which must be due to him; nor of the immortality of the soul, or a future state: that it is almost impossible to recount the many impious and false opinions they conceived of the Deity.”
“What their notions and doctrines were on theology, and how far their so much boasted philosophy conducted to the knowledge of these important truths, or to the final good and end of man: our author proposes to, and does fully examine, so that we may the better judge how far nature and reason are sufficient for these things; for if they did not direct the heathens, neither can they others; and if the former knew not God, nor worshipped him as God, all the shining scraps and quotations cited from them, will be no more than empty, big, swelling words, without any truth or meaning.
“If among all the writings of the heathen world, notwithstanding so many glittering sentences and almost divine discourses, there cannot be extracted any tolerably explicit system of God, his providence, attributes, and will, the immortality of the soul, or a future state; but in every important point there were horrid defects, and monstrous errors, no agreement or certainty amongst them, some affirming, some denying, others doubting; in all places shocking and impious principles, together with the vilest practices, allowed and tolerated, contrary both to nature and reason; the conclusion must be, that natural light was insufficient to divine knowledge.”— A Knowledge of Divine Things, pp. 380, 381.
Among modern authors who have laboured to prove the immortality of the soul by a process of rational argumentation Mr. Samuel Drew must unquestionably be ranked as occupying a foremost position. His essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Human Soul, founded solely on physical and rational principles, is an elaborate metaphysical argument altogether independent of revelation. He emphatically deprecates any supposed disrespect to the word of God in assuming this ground which he was led to adopt in the belief that the human reason can furnish an independent argument confirmatory of what he supposes to be a doctrine of revelation, — and which, therefore, might be of some service to those sceptical persons who resist the testimony of the sacred writings. As a composition, the essay of Mr. Drew displays remarkable intellectual acumen, and may serve as a monument of his literary fame; but as an argument, like all its predecessors in ancient and modem times, it is unsuccessful: Cicero’s ecstatic rapture on the souls permanence after death, thus coldly terminates: — “If after all, I am mistaken in my belief of the soul’s immortality, I am pleased with my error.” — De Senect. And with respect to the arguments of Plato, he says: — “I have perused Plato with the greatest diligence and exactness, over and over again; but know not how it is, whilst I read him I am convinced, when I lay the book aside and begin to consider by myself of the souls immortality, all the conviction instantly ceases” — Ttisc, Q. lib. i What Cicero said of Plato, must also be said by the intelligent and most pains-taking reader of Drew. There is no well-defined data sufficient to form the basis of a superstructure of pure reason which shall demonstrate the soul’s immortality.
What do we know of the nature and essential properties of matter that we should affirm, that no mere material organization is adequate to the production of the conscious thinking principle? It is true that we are not acquainted with any combination of matter or means of combining matter which do, or shall secure such a result; — but shall we conclude, that because our experience and ability cannot furnish us with an illustration, therefore there is no illustration? It has yet to be proved that man is not such an illustration of consciousness resulting from material organization. Let it be granted, however, for argument’s sake, that matter is incapable in any combination of evolving consciousness and thought, does it follow of necessity that the conscious or thinking principle is not matter, — immaterial! If this is sound logic then the following argument stands good; it is affirmed of matter that it is indestructible because capable of divisibility, — then what is not matter, or immaterial, is destructible for the reason as in the former case that it is the opposite. The argument is this: matter cannot think, therefore what is not matter can think. For the same reason since matter is indestructible, therefore what is not matter is destructible. But it is an important step in the proof of the soul’s immortality in the argument from reason, that the soul is immaterial: It is immortal, say our metaphysicians, because it is immaterial; while on their own principle of reasoning, the immateriality of the soul is the proof of its destructibility or mortality!
Cicero affirms, that a pure mind, thinking, intelligent, and free from body, was altogether inconceivable; and with a feeling bordering on despair says: — “ Which of all the philosophic opinions is true, let some god see to it; which even is most likely to be true, is a question hard to be determined.” — Tusc, Q. lib. 1:
The immortality of the soul is a human conceit reared upon the rotten foundation of mere conjectures and assumptions. A sound philosophical inquiry into the phenomenon of our being will ever end in the humble and pious admiration of the Psalmist, “I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
NOTE 2:
THE VALUE OF THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS IN RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES.
I have excluded any reference in the preceding lectures to the opinions of the Christian fathers, since, although I could have made considerable use of the opinions of the earliest among them in support of the views here advocated, I am yet aware that so vague and contradictory are their writings, for the most part, that they are of no real value, either on one side or the other, in these discussions. “Each of the Christian fathers,” says Douglas, “who affected a reputation for literature, naturally adopted the favourite opinions of some philosophic school; and thus, every speculative sect came to mingle their own peculiar errors in that incoherent and discordant mass of opinions which formed the Christian literature of antiquity. Few attempts have had less foundation to proceed upon than the endeavour to make the Christian fathers pass for the supreme judges of controversy, and the oracles of religion. Nothing can be more vague than their conclusions, nor more weak than their arguments, nor more variable than the tendency of their writings. They might, notwithstanding the weakness of their judgment, have been valuable as furnishing facts; but in these they are lamentably deficient, and hence the meagreness of church history. When appealed to as authorities, they lend themselves by turns to every side; when resorted to for information, they furnish little but conjectures. It is well, however, that Christianity should have small obligation to its early advocates, and that religion should rest upon the power of God, and not upon the authority of men. It is well, also, that a great gulf should be placed between the inspired and the uninspired Christian writers.
‘Many of the fathers, as they are called, were but recent converts from paganism, who were better acquainted with the superstition they had left than the revelation they had embraced. Many were more attentive to the study of philosophy than to the search of scriptural truth. The caution of St. Paul was lost upon them, ‘to beware of philosophy, falsely so called.’
The emanative system, with all its errors, spread far and wide, under the authority of Origen, and with the aid of his allegorical interpretations. In the hands of the master of Origen, Ammonius, and his fellow disciple, Plotinus, the absurdities of paganism, by the supposition of an inner sense contained in them, had been made to coincide with the dreams of philosophy.
The truths of Christianity were now to be explained away by the same subtle powers. Evil was considered less a transgression of the holy law of God than as distance from the supreme Fountain of existence. A Christian purgatory was introduced similar to the Platonic purgation by fire, and all souls, after certain cycles of aberration and remedial punishment, were supposed to be destined to return to the one great Being from whom they had departed The doctrines of Plato, from the degree of resemblance which they occasionally bear to revelation insinuated themselves with ease among the truths of Christianity. The old Pantheistic error of God in eluding all being within himself, had, likewise, numerous advocates; and so confused were the notions of its adherents, that it might be doubted of many, as in the cases of Bishop Synesius and the false Dionysius, whether they were more properly heathen Pantheists or Christian mystics. To sum up all, Aristotle, after stoutly defending paganism, at last lent the Christians his vexatious logic to exasperate the multitude of their disputes, and to split and subdivide every error to infinity.” — Errors regarding Religion, pp. 49—61.
THE GENERATIONS GATHERED AND GATHERING:
By The Same Author,
Or, the Scripture Doctrine concerning Man in Death. Evans and Abbott Printers, Bristol; Longmans, London.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS:
“The author maintains, by a scriptural argument, that the belief in the separate personality and immortality of the soul is erroneous; a perpetuation of Platonic theories; a firm ground for the idol-worship of Rome; and a fruitful source of doctrinal strife and divisions in the church. We can, at least, afford him the praise of learning and some ingenuity.” — Eclectic Review.
“It seems, to us, a reverent and sincere-spirited book; and as such, entitled to attention and respect, even from such as may withhold assent.” — Non Confromist.
“In our editorial capacity we cannot enter into the discussion of the question. We may say, however, that the work is written in a philosophical and Christian spirit.”— Bristol Examiner.
“A learned and ingenious argument to prove that the immortality of the soul is not only unwarranted by scripture, but is altogether unscriptural. Natural death, both in the Old and New Testament, is, in Mr. Panton Ham’s opinion, always spoken of as extinction. The resurrection of the body is the only idea of a future life to be drawn from scripture: the notion of a separate or intermediate state of existence, and of the immortality of the soul apart from the body, is a philosophical, that is a human opinion. The arguments of Mr. Ham are drawn from scripture, arranged under appropriate heads. ‘The Generations Gathered’ is a curious book on a curious subject, but the writer looks at some of the texts from his own point of view.” — Spectator.
N.B. — The above work is a Sequel to the Author’s Three Discourses on ‘Life and Death.’ THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD’S SUPPER;
And the Disciples’ Qualifications for Communion.
THEOLOGICAL TRACTS BY REVEREND J. PANTON HAM.