By John Milton,
Author Of "Paradise Lost."
Creation Of Man
A Living Soul
Use Of The Term Soul
Souls Propagated By Natural Descent
Objections Examined.
The visible creation comprises the material universe, and all that is contained therein; and more especially the human race. the creation of the world in general, and of its individual parts, a related Gen. 1. It is also described Job 26.7, etc., and Job 38, and in various passages of the Psalms and Prophets—Psal. 33.6-9, 104, 148.5: Prov. 8.26, etc.: Amos 4.13: 2 Pet. 3.5. Previously, however, to the creation of man, as if to intimate the superior importance of the work, the Deity speaks like a man deliberating: Gen. 1.26. "God said, let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness." So that it was not the body alone that was then made, but the soul of man also, (in which our likeness to God principally consists); which precludes us from attributing pre-existence to the soul which was then formed—a groundless notion sometimes entertained, but refuted by Gen. 2.7: "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; thus man became a living soul." Job 32.8: "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the A mighty giveth them understanding." Nor did God merely breathe that spirit into man, but molded it in each individual, and infused it throughout, enduing and embellishing it with its proper faculties. Zech. 12.1: "He formed the spirit of man within him."
We may understand from other passages of Scripture, that when God infused the breath of life into man, what man thereby received was not a portion of God's essence, or a participation of the divine nature, but that measure of the divine virtue or influence, which was commensurate to the capabilities of the recipient. For it appears from Psal. 104.29, 30, that he infused the breath of life into other living beings also: "Thou takes away their breath, they die . . . . thou sends forth thy spirit., they are created;" whence we learn that every living thing receives animation from one and the same source of life and breath;* inasmuch as when God takes back to himself that spirit or breath of life, they cease to exist. Eccles. 3.19: "They have all one breath." Nor has the word spirit any other meaning in the sacred writings, but that breath of life which we inspire, or the vital, or sensitive or rational faculty, or some action or affection belonging to those faculties. The same idea is distinctly taught in Job 12.10, "In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind"
Man having been created after this manner, it is said, as a consequence, that "man became a living soul ft whence, it may be inferred, (unless we had rather take the heathen writers for our teachers respecting the nature of the soul,) that man is a living being, intrinsically and properly one and individual, not compound or separable, not, according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two distinct and different natures, as of soul and body, but that the whole man is soul, and the soul man, that is to say, a body, or individual substance, animated, sensitive and rational; and that the breath of life was neither part of the divine essence, nor was it the soul itself, but as it were the inspiration of some divine virtue fitted for the exercise of life and reason, and infused into the organic body; for man himself, the whole man, when finally created, is called in express terms "a living soul." Hence the word used in Genesis to signify soul, is interpreted by the Apostle, 1 Cor. 15.45, "animal." Again, all the attributes of the body are assigned in common to the soul: the touch, Lev. 5.2, "If a soul touch any unclean thing,"—the act of eating, Lev. 7. 18, 20, "the soul that eats of it shall bear his iniquity:" "The soul that eats of the flesh, and in other places—hunger”, Prov. 13.25, Prov. 27.7, "To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet"—thirst, Prov. 25.25, "as cold waters to a thirsty soul."—Isai. 29.8, Capture, 1 Sam. 24.11, " Thou hunts my soul to take it:" Ps. 7.5, "Let the enemy persecute my soul and take it."
Where we speak of the body as a mere senseless stock, there the soul must be understood as signifying either the spirit, or its secondary faculties, the vital or sensitive faculty for instance. Thus it is as often distinguished from the spirit as from the body itself. Luke 1.46, 47, 1 Thess. 5.23: "Your whole spirit and soul and body"—Heb. 4.12, "To the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." But that the spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existent's independently of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and the doe-trine is evidently at variance both with nature and reason, as will be shown more fully hereafter. For the word soul is applied to every kind of living being; Gen. 1.30, "Every beast of the earth wherein there is life," (Hebrew "a living soul.")* Gen. 7.22, "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, (Heb. living soul,) of all that was in the dry land, died;" yet it is never inferred from these expressions that the soul exists separate from the body in any of the brute creation.
Living soul, "nephesh chaiya”, a general term to express all creatures endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations, from the half reasoning elephant down to the polyp, which seems equally to share the vegetable and animal life."—Dr. A. Clarke. Note., on Gen. 1.24.
On the seventh day God ceased from his work, and ended the whole business of creation; Gen. 2.23. It would seem, therefore, that the human soul is not created daily by the immediate act of God, but propagated from father to son in a natural order; which was considered the more probable opinion by Tertullian and Apollinarius, as well as by Augustine and the whole western church in the time of Jerome, as he himself testifies, Tom. 2. Epist. 82, and Gregory of Nyssa in his treatise on the soul. God would in fact have left his creation imperfect, and a vast, not to say a servile task, would yet remain to be performed, without even allowing time for rest on each successive Sabbath, if he still continued to create as many souls daily as there are bodies multiplied throughout the whole world, at the bidding of what is not seldom the flagitious wantonness of man. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the influence of the divine blessing is less efficacious in imparting to man the power of producing after his kind, than to the other parts of animated nature; Gen. 1.22, 28. Thus it was from one of the ribs of the man that God made the mother of all mankind, without the necessity of infusing the breath of life a second time, Gen. 2.22, and Adam himself begat a son in his own likeness after his image, Gen. 5. 3. Thus, 1 Cor. 15.49, "as we have borne the image of the earthy:" and this not only in the body, but in the soul, as it was chiefly with respect to the soul that Adam was made in the divine image. So, Gen. 46.26, "All the souls which came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins." Heb. 7.10, "Levi was in the loins of Abraham:" whence in Scripture an offspring is called seed, and Christ is denominated "the seed of the woman." Gen. 17.7, "I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." 1 Cor 15.44, 46, "It is sown a natural body . . . that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural."
But besides the testimony of revelation, some arguments from reason may be alleged in confirmation of this doctrine. Who-ever is born, or shaped and conceived in sin, (as we all are, not David only, Ps. 51.5,) if ho receive his soul immediately from God, cannot but receive it from him shaped in sin; for to be generated and conceived, means nothing else than to receive a soul in conjunction with the body. If we receive the soul immediately from God, it must be pure, for who in such a case will venture to call it impure? But if it be pure, how are we conceived in sin in consequence of receiving a pure soul, which would rather have the effect of cleansing the impurities of the body; or with what justice is the pure soul charged with the sin of the body?
But it is contended, God does not create souls impure, but only impaired in their nature and destitute of original righteousness. I answer, that to create pure souls destitute of original righteousness,—to send them into contaminated and corrupt bodies,—to deliver them up in their innocence and helplessness to the prison house of the body, as to an enemy, with understanding blinded and with will enslaved,—in other words, wholly deprived of sufficient strength for resisting the vicious propensities of the body—to create souls thus circumstanced, would argue as much injustice, as to have created them impure would have argued impurity; it would have argued as much injustice, as to have created the first man, Adam himself, impaired in his nature, and destitute of original righteousness.
Again, if sin be communicated by generation, and transmitted born father to son, it follows that what is the original subject of in, namely, the rational soul, must be propagated in the same manner; for that it is from the soul that all sin in the first instance proceeds, will not be denied. Lastly, on what principle of justice can sin be imputed through Adam to that soul, which was never either in Adam, or derived from Adam? In confirmation of which Aristotle's argument may be added, the truth of which is, in my opinion, indisputable. If the soul be equally diffused through any given whole, and throughout every part of that whole, how can the human seed, the noblest and most intimate part of all the body, be imagined destitute of the soul of the parents, or at least of the father, when communicated to the son by the laws of generation?
It was probably by some such considerations as these that Augustine was led to confess that he could neither discover, by study nor prayer, nor any process of reasoning, how the doctrine of original sin could be defended on the supposition of the creation of souls. The texts which are usually advanced, Eccles. 12.7, Isa. 57.16, Zech. 12.1, certainly indicate that nobler origin of the soul implied in its being breathed from the mouth of God; but they no more prove that each soul is severally and immediately created by the Deity, than certain other texts, which might be quoted, prove that each individual body is formed in the womb by the immediate hand of God. Job 10.8-10, "Thine hands have made me . . . . hast thou, not poured me out as milk?" Ps. 33.15, "He fashions their hearts alike." Job 31.15, "Did not he that made me in the womb make him Isai. 44.24, "Thus saith Jehovah . . . he that formed thee from the womb." Acts 17.26, "He hath made of one blood all nations of men." We are not to infer from these passages, that natural causes do not contribute their ordinary efficacy for the propagation of the body; nor on the other hand, that the soul is not received by transduction from the father, because at the time of death it again betakes itself to different elements than the body, in conformity with its own origin.
With regard to the passage, Heb. 12.9, where "the fathers of the flesh" are opposed to "the father of spirits," I answer, that it is to be understood in a theological, not in a physical sense, as if the father of the body were opposed to the father of the soul; for flesh is taken neither in this passage, nor probably anywhere else, for the body without the soul; nor "the father of spirits" for the father of the soul, in respect of the work of generation; but "the father of the flesh" here means nothing else than the earthly or natural father, whose offspring are begotten in sin; "the father of spirits" is either the heavenly father, who in the beginning created all spirits, angels as well as the human race, or the spiritual father, who bestows a second birth on the faithful; according to John 3.6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is torn of the spirit is spirit." The argument, too, will proceed better, if the whole be understood as referring to edification and correction, not to generation; for the point in question is not, from what source each individual originated, or what part of him thence originated, but who had proved most successful in the employment of chastisement and instruction. By parity of reasoning, the apostle might exhort the converts to bear with his rebuke, on the ground that he was their spiritual father. God is as truly the father of the flesh as "of the spirits of the flesh," Numb. 16.22, but this is not the sense intended here, and all arguments are weak which are deduced from passages of Scripture originally relating to a different subject.
With regard to the soul of Christ it will be sufficient to answer that its generation was supernatural, and therefore cannot be cited as an argument in the discussion of this controversy. Nevertheless, even he is called "the seed of the woman," the seed of David according to the flesh," that is, undoubtedly, according to his human nature.
There seems, therefore, no reason why the soul of man should be made an exception to the general law of creation. For has been shown before, God breathed the breath of life into the other living beings, and blended it so intimately with matter, that the propagation and production of the human form were analogous to those of other forms, and the proper effect of that power which had been communicated to matter by the Deity.
Of The Fall
Sin—Its Consequences
Death—Guilt—Fear
Spiritual Death
Bodily Death
The Punishment Of Sin Not A Natural Result
Not A Separation Of Soul And Body
The Whole Man Dies
Each Part Also, Soul, Body And Spirit.
THE Providence of God, as it regards the fall of man, is observable in the sin of man, and the misery consequent upon it, as well as in his restoration. Sin, as defined by the apostle, is aropta, anomia, or "the transgression of the law," 1 John 3.4-5.
By the law is here meant, in the first place, that rule of con science which is innate, and engraved on the mind of man secondly, the special command which proceeded out Df the mouth of God, (for the Law written by Moses was long subsequent,) Gen. 2.17, " Thou shalt not eat of it." Hence it is said, Rom. 2.12, "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law."
After sin came death, or the calamity or punishment consequent upon it. Gen. 2.17, "in the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die." Rom. 5.12, "Death entered by sin." Rom. 6.23, "the wages of sin is death." Rom. 7.5, "the motions of sin did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death."
Under the head of death, in Scripture, all evils whatever, together with everything which in its consequences tends to death, must be understood as comprehended; for mere bodily death, as it is called, did not follow the sin of Adam on the selfsame day, as God had threatened.*
Hence divines, not inappropriately, reason up several degrees of death. The first, as before said, comprehends all those evils which lead to death, and which it is agreed came into the world immediately upon the fall of man, the most important of which I proceed to enumerate.
In the first place, guiltiness; which, though in its primary sense it is an imputation made by God to us, yet it is also, as it were, a commencement or prelude of death dwelling in us, by which we are held as by a bond, and rendered subject to condemnation and punishment ... Rom. 3.19, "that all the world may become guilty before God." Guiltiness, accordingly, is accompanied or followed by the terrors of conscience. Gen. 3.8, "they heard the voice of God . . . . and Adam and his wife hid themselves . . . . and he said, I was afraid." Rom. 8.18, " Ye have not received the spirit of bondage twain to fear." Heb. 2.15, "Who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Heb. 10.27, "A certain fearful looking for of judgment." It is attended results a diminution of the majesty of the human countenance, and a conscious degradation of mind. Gen. 3.7, "They knew that they were naked." Hence the whole man becomes polluted: Titus 1.15, " Even their mind and conscience is defied:" whence arises shame. Gen. 3.7, "They sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons." Rom. 6.21, "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed, for the end of those things is death."
The second degree of death is called spiritual death; by which is meant the loss of divine grace, and of that innate righteousness, wherein man in the beginning lived unto God. Eph. 2. 1, "who were dead in trespasses and sins." Eph. 4.18, "alienated from the life of God." Col. 2.13, "dead in your sins." Rev. 3.1, "thou host a name that thou lives and art dead." And this death took place not only on the very day, but at the very moment of the fall. They who are delivered from it are said to be "regenerated," to be "born again," and to be "created afresh;" which is the work of God alone.
The third degree of death is what is called the death of the body. To this all the labors, sorrows, and diseases, which afflict the body, are nothing but the prelude. Gen. 3.16, 17, " will greatly multiply thy sorrow .... in sorrow shalt thou eat of it." Job 5.7, "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." All nature is likewise subject to mortality and a curse on account of man. Gen. 3.17, " Cursed is the ground for thy sake." Rom. 8.20, 21, "The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly. Even the beasts are not exempt. Gen 1.14; 6.7, So "the first born of beasts" in the land of Egypt perished for the sins of their masters, Exod. 11.5.
The death of the body is to be considered in the light of a punishment for sin, no less than the other degrees of death, notwithstanding the contrary opinion entertained by some. Rom. 5.13, 14, "until the law sin was in the world . . death reigned from Adam to Moses." 1 Cor. 15.21, " Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead;" therefore that bodily death from which we are to rise again, originated in sin, and not in nature; contrary to the opinion of those who maintain that temporal death is the result of natural causes, and that eternal death alone is due to sin.
The death of the body is the loss or extinction of life. The common definition, which supposes it to consist in the separation of soul and body, is inadmissible. For what part of man is it that dies when this separation takes place? Is it the soul? This will not be admitted by the supporters of the above definition. Is it then the body? But how can that be said to die, which never had any life of itself? Therefore the separation of soul and body cannot be called the death of man.
Here then arises an important question, which, owing to the prejudice of divines in behalf of their preconceived opinions, has usually been dismissed without examination, instead of being treated with the attention it deserves. Is it the whole man, or the body alone, that is deprived of vitality? And as this is a subject which may he discussed without endangering our faith or devotion, whichever side of the controversy we espouse, I shall Declare freely what seems to me to be the true doctrine, as collected from numberless passages of Scripture; without regarding the opinion of those, who think that truth is to be sought in the schools of philosophy, rather than in the sacred writings.
Inasmuch then as the whole man is uniformly said to consist of body, spirit and soul, (whatever may be the distinct provinces severally assigned to these divisions,) I will show that, in death, first the whole man, and secondly, each component part suffers privation of life. It is to be observed, first of all, that God denounced the punishment of death against the whole man that sinned, without excepting any part. For what could be more just, than that he who had sinned in his whole person, should die in his whole person? Or, on the other hand, what could be more absurd 'Ian that the mind, which is the part principally offending, should escape the threatened death; an: that the body alone, to which immortality was equally allotted, before death came into the world by sin, should pay the penalty of sin by undergoing death, though not implicated in the transgression.
It is evident that the saints and believers of old, the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, without exception held this doctrine. Jacob, Gen. 37.35, "I will go down into the grave unto my son, mourning." Gen. 42.36, "Joseph is not." So also Job 3.12-18, "As an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light." Compare Job, 10.21, Job 14.10-13, "Man giveth up the ghost and where is he? .... "man lieth down and rises not till the heavens be no more." Job 17.13, 15, 16, " If I wait, the grave is mine house." "Where is now my hope?" .... "They shall go down to the bars of the pit." See also many other passages.
The belief of David was the same, as is evident from the reason so often given by him for deprecating the approach of death. Psal. 6.5, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" Psal. 138.10-12, " Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? Psal. 15.17, "The dead praise not Jehovah." Psal. 39.13, "Before I go hence and be no more." Psal. 146.2, "While I live I will praise Jehovah." Certainly if he had believed that his soul would survive, and be received immediately into heaven, he would have abstained from all such remonstrances, as one who was shortly to take his flight where he might praise God unceasingly. It appears that the belief of Peter respecting David was the same as David's belief respecting himself. Acts 2.29, 34, "Let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this lay, for David is not ascended into the heavens."
Again it is evident that Hezekiah fully believed that he should die entirely, where he laments that it is impossible to praise God in the grave. Isai. 38.18, 19, " For the grave cannot praise thee: death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth; the living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." God himself bears testimony to the same truth. Isai. 42.12, "The righteous perishes, and no man lays it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come; he shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds." Jer. 30.15, Compared with Matt. 2.18, "Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." Thus also Daniel 12.2, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake."
It is on the same principle that Christ himself proves God to be a God of the living, Luke 20.37, arguing from their future resurrection; fur if they were then living, it would not necessarily follow from his argument that there would be a resurrection of the body: hence he says, John 11.25, "I am the resurrection and the life." Accordingly he declares expressly, that there is not even a place appointed for the abode of the saints in heaven, till the resurrection. John 14.2, 3, "I go to prepare a place for you: and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." There is no sufficient reason for interpreting this of the body; it is clear therefore that it was spoken, and should be understood, of the reception of the soul and spirit conjointly with the body into heaven, and that not till the coming of the Lord. So likewise Luke 20.35; Acts 7.7, 60, "when he had said this he fell asleep." Acts 23.6, "the hope and resurrection of the dead," that is, the hope of the resurrection, Which was the only hope the apostle professed to entertain. Thus also, Acts 24.21; 26. 6, 8: 1 Cor.15. 17-19, "If Christ be not raised" (which resurrection took place for the very purpose that mankind might likewise rise again,) "then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished; " whence it appears that there were only two alternatives, one of which must ensue; either they. must rise again or perish: for "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men, most miserable;" which again indicates that we must either believe in the resurrection, or have our hope in this life only; verse 29, 30, 32, " if the dead rise not at all, why stand we in jeopardy every hour? . . .. let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" that is, die altogether, for otherwise the argument would have no force. In the verses that follow from verse 42, to verse 50, the reasoning proceeds on the supposition that there are only two states, the mortal and the immortal, death and resurrection; not a word is said of any intermediate condition. Nay, Paul himself affirms that the crown of righteousness which was laid up for bum was not to be received before that last day: 2 Tim. 4. 8, " henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 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." If a crown were laid up for the apostle, it follows that it was not to be received immediately after death. At what time then was it to be received? At the same time when it was to be conferred on the rest of the saints, that is, not till the appearance of Christ in glory. Philip. 2. 16, " That I may rejoice in the day of Christ." Phil. 3.11.20, 21, "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead . ... our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." Our conversation therefore is in heaven, not where we are now dwelling, but in that place from whence we look for the coming of the Savior, who shall conduct us thither. Luke 20. 35, 36, "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; for they are equal unto the angels being the children of the resurrection,"—that is, when they finally become such; whence it follows, that previous to the resurrection they are not admitted to the heavenly world.
Thus far proof has been given of the death of the whole man. But lest recourse should be had to the sophistical distinction, that although the whole man dies, it does not therefore follow that the whole of man should die, I proceed to give similar proof with regard to each of the parts—the body, the spirit, and the soul, according to the division above stated.
First, then, as to the body, no one doubts that it suffers privation of life. Nor will the same be less evident with regard to the spirit, if it be allowed that the spirit, according to the doctrine previously laid down, has no participation in the divine nature, but is purely human; and that no reason can be assigned why, if God has sentenced to death the whole of man that sinned, the spirit, which is the part principally offending, should be alone exempt from the appointed punishment; especially since, previous to the entrance of sin into the world, all parts of man were alike immortal; and that, since that time, in pursuance of God's denunciation all have become equally subject to death.
But to come to the proofs. The Preacher himself, the wisest of men, expressly denies that the spirit is exempt from death Eccl. 3.18, 20, "as the beast dies, so dies the man; yea they have all one breath, (Hebrew, spirit,) . . . all go unto one place." Aid In the twenty-first verse, he condemns the ignorance of those who venture to affirm that the way of the spirits of men and of beasts after death is different: " Who knows the spirit of man, (an sursum ascendat,) whether it goes upward?" Psal. 146.4, "his breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Now the thoughts are in the mind and the spirit, not in the body; and if they perish, we must conclude that the mind and spirit undergo the same fate as the body. 1 Cor. 5. 5, "That the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus:" the apostle does not say "in the day of death," but "in the day of the Lord Jesus."
Lastly, there is abundant testimony to prove that the soul, (whether we regard by this term the whole human composition, or whether it is to be understood as synonymous with the spirit,) is subject to death, natural as well as violent. Numb. 23.10, "let me, (my soul, Hebrew, anima mea, Lat. Vulg.,) die the death of the righteous." Such are the words of Balsam, who, though not the most upright of prophets, yet in this instance uttered the words which the Lord put into his mouth. Job 33.18, "he keeps back his soul from, the pit." Job 26.14, " they die in youth, (Heb. their soul dies. Lat. Vulg., anima eorum.") Psal. 22.20, "deliver my soul from the sword;" 78.50, "he spared not their soul from death;" 89.48, "shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave e" xciv. 17, "my soul had almost dwelt in silence." Hence man himself, when dead, is spoken of under the name of "the soul," Lev. 19.28; 21.1, 11, "neither shall he go in to any dead body," (Hebrew, dead soul.) Isai. 38.17, "Thou has in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption." The just and sufficient reason assigned above for the death of the soul, is the same which is given by God himself; Ezek. 18.20, "The soul that sins, it shall die:" and therefore, on the testimony of the prophet and the apostle, as well as of Christ himself, the soul even of Christ was for a short time subject unto death on account of our sins. Psal. 16.10, compared with Acts 2. 27, 28, 31, "his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." Matt. 26. 38, "my soul exceeding sorrowful even unto death." Nor do we anywhere read that the souls assemble, or are summoned to judgment, from heaven or from hell, but they are all called out of the tomb, or at least that they were previously in the state of the dead. John 5. 28, 29, "the hour is coming in the which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth!" In this passage, those who rise again, those who hear, those who come forth, are all described as being in the graves, the righteous as well as the wicked. 1 Cor.15. 52, " The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised." 1 Thess. 4.13-17, "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope: for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with film: for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord himself shall descend, and the dead in Christ shall rise first I then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." They were asleep; but the lifeless body does not sleep, unless inanimate matter can be said to sleep. "That ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope"—but why should they sorrow and have no hope, if they believed that their souls would be in a state of salvation and happiness even before the resurrection, whatever might become of the body? The rest of the world, indeed, who had no hope, might with reason despair concerning the soul as well he the body, because they did not believe in the resurrection; and therefore it is to the resurrection that Paul directs the hope or all believers. "Them which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him;" that is, to heaven from the grave.
“We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep." But there would have been no reason to fear lest the survivors should prevent them, if they who were asleep had long since been received into heaven; in which case the latter would not come "to meet the Lord," but would return with him. "We," however, "which are alive shall be caught up together with them," not after them, "and so shall we ever be with the Lord," namely, after, not before the resurrection. And then at length "the wicked shall be severed from among the just," Matt. 13.49. Dan. 12.2, " Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
Heb. 13.20, God brought from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ; even so, them that sleep in Jesus, will he bring with him, from the dead, in like manner.
In such a sleep I should suppose Lazarus to have been lying, if it were asked whither his soul betook itself during those four days of death. For I cannot believe that it would have been called back from heaven to suffer again the inconveniences of the body, but rather that it was summoned from the grave, and roused from the sleep of death. The words of Christ themselves lead to this conclusion: John 11.11, 13, " Our friend Lazarus sleeps: but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep: howbeit Jesus spoke of his death:" which death, if the miracle were true, must have been real. This is confirmed by the circum. stances of Christ's raising him; verse 43, "he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth." If the soul of Lazarus, that is, if Lazarus himself was not within the grave, why did Christ call un the lifeless body which could not hear? If it were the soul which he addressed, why did he call it from a place where it was not Had he intended to intimate that the soul was separated from the body, he would have directed his eyes to the quarter whence the soul of Lazarus might be expected to return, namely, from heaven: fur to call from the grave what is not there, is like seeking the living among the dead, which the angel reprehended as ignorance in the disciples, Luke 24.5. The same is apparent in raising of the widow's son: Luke 7.14.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED AND EXPLAINED.
ON the other band, those who assert that the soul is exempt from death, and that when divested of the body, it wings its way, or is conducted by angels, directly to its appointed place of reward or punishment, where it remains in a separate state of existence to the end of the world, found their belief principally on the following passages of Scripture. Psal. 49.15, " God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave." But this proves rather that the soul enters the grave with the body, as was shown above, from whence it needs to be redeemed, namely, at the resurrection, when " God shall receive it," as follows in the same verse. As for the remainder, "their redemption ceased forever," verse 8, and they are like the beasts that perish, verse 12, 14.
The Hebrew word ruach, rendered spirit in this passage, is rendered breath in Eccl. 3. 19, and applied to both man and beasts.
The second text is Eccl. 7.7, "the spirit shall return unto God that gave it." But neither does this prove what is re quired; for the phrase the spirit returning to God, must be understood with considerable latitude; since the wicked do not return to God at death, but depart far from him. The Preacher had moreover said before, Eccl. 3. 20, "all go unto one place;” and God is said to have given and to gather to himself the spirit of every living thing, whilst the body returns to dust Job 34.14, 15, "if he gather unto himself his spirit and hi breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust. See also Psal. 104.29, 30. Euripides, in the Suppliants, has, without being aware of it, given a far better interpretation of this passage than the commentators in question.
Each various part
That constitutes the frame of man, returns
Whence it was taken; to the ethereal sky
The spirit, the body to its earth.
Line 599 Potter's Translation.
That is, every constituent part returns at dissolution to its elementary principle. This is confirmed by Ezek. 37.9, "Come from the four winds, O breath;" it is certain, therefore, that the spirit of man must have previously departed thither from whence it is now summoned to return. Hence perhaps originates the expression in Matt. 24.31, " they shall gather together the elect from the four winds." For why should not the spirits of the elect be as easily gathered together as the smallest particles of their bodies, sometimes most widely dispersed through different countries. In the same manner is to be understood 1 Kings 17.21, "Let this child's soul come into him again." This, however, is a form of speech applied to fainting in general: Judges 15.19, "his spirit came again, and he revived." See also 1 Sam. 30.12. For there are many passages of Scripture, some of which undoubtedly represent the dead as devoid of all vital existence; but what was advanced above, respecting the death of the spirit, affords a sufficient answer to the objection.
The third passage is Matt. 10.28, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." It may be answered that properly speaking, the body cannot be killed, a, being in itself a thing inanimate: the body therefore, as is common in Scripture must be taken for the whole human compound, or for the animal and temporal life; the soul for that spiritual life with which we shall be clothed after the end of the world, as appears from the remainder of the verse and from 1 Cor. 15. 44.
The fourth text is Philip. 1.23, "having a desire to depart (cupiens dissolvi, having a desire for dissolution) and to be with Christ." But, to say nothing of the uncertain and disputed sense of the word, which signifies anything rather than dissolution, it may be answered, that although Paul desired to obtain immediate possession of heavenly perfection and glory, in like manner as everyone is desirous of attaining as soon as possible to that, whatever it may be, which he regards as the ultimate object of his being, it by no means follows that, when the soul of each individual leaves the body, it is received immediately either into heaven or hell. For he had "a desire to be with Christ;" that is, at his appearing, which all the believers hoped and expected was then at hand. In the same manner one who is going on a voyage desires to set sail and to arrive at the destined port, (such is the order in which his wishes arrange themselves) omitting all notice of the intermediate passage. If, however, it be true that there is no time without motion, which Aristotle illustrates by the example of those who were fabled to have slept in the temple of the heroes, and who, on awaking, imagined that the moment in which they awoke had succeeded without an interval to that in which they fell asleep; how much more must intervening time be annihilated to the departed, so that to them to die and to be with Christ will seem to take place at the same moment? Christ himself, however, expressly indicates the time at which we shall be with him; John 14.3, "if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (See Colossians 3. 4.)
The fifth text evidently favors my view of the subject: 1 Pet. 3. 19, "by which also he went and preached to the spirits that are in prison," literally, in guard, or as the Syriac version renders it, in sepulchre, in the grave, which means the same; for the grave is the common guardian of all till the day of judgment. What therefore the apostle says more fully, chap. 4. 5, 6, " who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead; for, for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead;" be expresses it in this place by a metaphor, "the spirits that are in guard;" it follows, therefore that the spirits are dead.
The sixth text is Rev. 6.9. "I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain." I answer, that in the Scripture idiom the soul is generally often put for the whole animate body, and that in this passage it is used for the souls of those who were not yet born; unless indeed the fifth seal was already opened in the time of John; in the same manner as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Luke 16, though Christ, for the sake of the lesson to be conveyed, speaks of that as present which was not to take place till after the day of judgment, and describes the dead as placed in two distinct states, he by no means intimates any separation of the soul from the body.
Some Greek copies have the point after "to-day." The punctuation is the work of uninspired men. The thief did not ask to go to heaven when he died Christ did not ascend to heaven that day, (See John 20.17.)
The seventh text is Luke 23.43, "Jesus said unto him, verily hay unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." This passage has on various accounts occasioned so much trouble, that some have not hesitated to alter the punctuation, as if it had been written, "I say unto thee to-day;" that is, although I seem to-day the most despised and miserable of all men, yet I declare to thee and assure thee, that thou shalt hereafter be with me in paradise, that is, in some pleasant place, (for properly speaking paradise is not heaven,) or in the spiritual state allotted to the soul and body. Nor is it necessary to take the word to-day in its strict acceptation, but rather for a short time as in 2 Sam. 16.3; Heb. 3.7. However this may be, so much clear evidence should not be rejected on account of a single sage, of which it is not easy to give a satisfactory interpretation
The eighth text is Luke 23.46, "Into thy hands I corn: mend my spirit." But the spirit is not therefore separated from the body, or incapable of death; for David uses the same language. Psal. 31.5, although he was not then about to die "into thine hand I commit my spirit while it was yet abiding in, and with the body." So Stephen, Acts 7.59, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit . . . . and when he had said this, he fell asleep." It was not the bare spirit divested of the body that he commended to Christ, but "the whole spirit and soul and body," as it is expressed, 1 Thess. 5.23. Thus the spirit of Christ was to be raised again with the body on the third day, while that of Stephen was to be reserved unto the appearing of the Lord. So 1 Pet. 4.19, "let them commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing."
The ninth passage is 2 Cor. 5. 1-20. It is sufficiently apparent, however, that the object of this passage is not to inculcate the separation of the soul from the body, but to contrast the animal and terrestrial life of the whole man with the spiritual and heavenly. Hence in the first verse, the house of this tabernacle," is opposed not to the soul, but to "a building of God, an house not made with hands," that is, to the final renewal of the whole man, as Beza also explains it, whereby "we are clothed upon" in the heavens, being clothed, .... not naked. This distinctly appears from the fourth verse: " not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." See also verse 5, "now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God;" not for the separating of the soul from the body, but for the perfecting of both. Wherefore the clause in the eighth verse, "to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord," must be understood of the consummation of our happiness; and "the body" must be taken for this frail life as is common in the' sacred writers, and the absence spoken of, for our eternal departure to an heavenly world; or perhaps to be "at home in the body and to be absent from the Lord," may mean nothing more than to be entangled in worldly affairs, and to have little leisure for heavenly things; the reason of which is given "for we walk by faith, not by sight:" whence it follows "we are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord;" that is, to renounce worldly things as much as possible, and to be occupied with things heavenly. The ninth verse proves still more clearly that the expressions "to be present" and "to be absent" both refer to this life " Wherefore we labor that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of God:" for no one supposes that the souls of men are occupied from the time of death to that of the resurrection, in endeavors to render themselves acceptable to God in heaven; that is the employment of the present life, and its reward is not to be looked for till the second coming of Christ. For the Apostle says "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." There is, consequently, no recompense of good or bad after death, previous to the day of judgment. Compare 1 Cor. 15., the whole of which chapter throws no small light on this passage. The sense is to be ascribed to 2 Pet. 1.13-15, "as long as I am in this tabernacle," etc., that is, in this life. It is, however, unnecessary to prolong this discussion, as there is scarcely one of the remaining passages of Scripture which has not been already explained by anticipation.