Scriptural Meaning of the Word Soul.
THE Scriptures often speak of saving the soul. What is the meaning of this expression? From what does the soul need to be saved? James says: "He that converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death." This exactly corresponds to the words of Eze. 18:4, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Now comes the objection: "The soul is immortal, and cannot die." And this objection is so deeply grounded in the minds of the multitudes, that a quotation from the Scriptures is not sufficient to remove it. There must be a reason for this. It is found in the rule of interpretation which is generally adopted of spiritualizing the words of the Bible; that is, giving words a meaning in the Bible which the same words have no where else. This rule causes endless confusion and disagreement where the Scripture is so plain, that, if taken according to its evident meaning, there would be nothing but harmony. In this case, the spiritualizing process is brought to bear on the word die, and to it is given a meaning or meanings which would not be admitted at all in every-day life, or applied to it in any other book. Whatever meaning was attached to the word in the prohibition laid down to Adam, must be the true meaning; the Lord's own meaning, in his own law. This we must examine. The Lord said to Adam: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Now the question is asked, To what does this refer? Is it the body or the soul that shall die? Our answer is, It is the sinner that dies. Man is the sinner, and man must die. Surely all of man that partakes of the guilt must suffer the penalty. This is just, and cannot be contradicted. Leaving that thought for the present, to be examined again, we notice, that Adam sinned; he did that which God said he should not do, under penalty of death. Have we any means of determining how the Lord regarded this penalty? what construction he put upon the word die? We have; we have a rule furnished which is unmistakable. If the common people are in doubt about the terms of a law—what construction they shall put upon them—if they watch its operation, and note how it is construed in Court by the Judge who is appointed to administer it, their doubts must be relieved. In this case, Jehovah is both the Lawgiver and Judge; he can make no mistake. He arraigned Adam as a transgressor, and proceeded to pronounce sentence upon him. It is true that divine clemency interposed to stay the execution, because a plan was devised whereby the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the tempter, but the threatening was carried cut notwithstanding. The sentence upon Adam was this: "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. 3:17-19. Here is the penalty in full: toil and care while he lived, and finally a return to the earth—to the dust, of which he was formed. See Gen. 2:7. All the days of his life—until he returned unto the ground out of which he was taken. This shows that when he returned unto the ground, his life was ended. And his biography closes with the words, "And he died." When we were catechized in our younger days, we were taught to say that the penalty threatened for disobedience was "Death temporal, death spiritual, and death eternal." The answer is wrong in every particular. It was simply and only death. "The wages of sin is death." Had no ransom been provided, it would have been death eternal, for without a resurrection, which comes only through Jesus in the gospel, man would sleep in the dust forever. Had God declared that the penalty should be eternal death, it would have forever shut out all possibility of a remedy, or else caused a reversal of his word in a change of the penalty. The sentence was simply death, other circumstances determining whether man should forever remain dead, or be redeemed from death. As for spiritual death, it can be no penalty. It is a state of sinfulness, which man brought upon himself, and which God could not inflict upon man without showing that he desired that man should be a sinner. To say that it is the penalty of the divine law, is to cast the deepest reproach upon the divine government. We leave the thought as unworthy of further consideration. The idea of the nature of the penalty pronounced upon Adam, may be learned by examining the sacred word which treats of Adam as a representative of the race. As such, the consequences of his sin extends to the race. In bringing mortality upon himself, he entailed it upon his posterity. The members of his race now die because of his act and of their relation to him. We read in 1 Cor. 15:22, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Apply this text to the idea of the three deaths taught in theology, and we have the following result:— 1. As all die in Adam an eternal death, so in Christ are all made to have eternal life. This contradicts many scriptures, and is an impossibility; for it is not possible to suffer eternal death and have eternal life after it, or any life at all. 2. As all die in Adam spiritual death, so in Christ shall all be given spiritual life. This in like manner contradicts the Scriptures. It would be acceptable to Universalists, but Universalism itself makes the Bible a mass of contradictions. But, 3. As all die in Adam, that is, lose their lives, return unto the dust of which their first parent was made, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, restored to life, brought up from the dust, for "all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth." This involves neither absurdity nor impossibility; it is possible for Him who made man of the dust, to bring him up from the dust again. It affords no aid or comfort to Universalism, for they arise with the characters with which they died. "They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." "There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Some die as unjust, having done evil and rejected the gospel of Christ, which is the only remedy, and they rise as unjust, unto the resurrection of damnation. These scriptures, these facts, will apply only to that death which all people die, without respect to character, condition, or age; to that death by which they all go into the grave, or return unto the earth from which they sprang. This was the death which was threatened to man if he sinned, and pronounced upon man because he sinned. And lastly, the objection is raised, for we regard it as only an objection to the truth, that when the Bible says the sinner shall suffer eternal misery, it means that he shall suffer eternal misery. But on examining this statement, it will be seen to involve in difficulty only those who present it. If it were true, the atonement, as taught in the Scriptures, could not possibly be accomplished, for God could not possibly be just, or vindicate the justice of his law, and justify him that believeth in Jesus. Rom. 3:23-26. On this point we copy the following paragraphs from our own work on "The Atonement":— If the signification of death is "eternal misery," Christ never died at all; and then all the scriptures that say he died are untrue; and thus the atonement would be proved impossible, and further consideration of it would be useless. But admitting the Scripture testimony, that the wages of sin is death, and that Christ died for sin, and we have the scriptural view of the term death, utterly forbidding such an unnatural and forced construction of a plain declaration. Secondly, If the correct definition of death is eternal misery, the relative terms, first and second, as applied to death before and after the resurrection, are used absurdly. For how can there be a first and second eternal misery? Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men. But the very fact that man may be resurrected, released from death, as the Scriptures teach, clearly proves that the Scripture use of the term death is entirely different from the "theological use," as given above. And, thirdly, if death means eternal misery, then that is the penalty of the law; but as Christ did not suffer it, and the redeemed will not suffer it, so it follows that justice is never vindicated by the infliction of the penalty, either upon them or a substitute; and thus justice is suspended, not satisfied; and Christ's death (if it could with any reason be called so) is not truly vicarious. As we have before considered, justice demands the infliction of the penalty of a just law; and as God is unchangeable and infinitely just, the penalty will surely be inflicted upon the transgressor or his substitute. But the above view makes it impossible. According to that, mercy does not harmonize with justice, but supersedes it; and God's justice is not manifest in justifying the believer. The sum of the matter is this: that if the penalty be eternal misery, then all that have sinned must suffer it, and be eternally miserable, or else the demands of the law are never honored. But the first would result in universal damnation, and the other would degrade the government of God, and contradict both reason and Scripture. This definition of death has been adopted of necessity to conform to the popular idea of the inherent immortality of man; yet it involves a contradiction in those who hold it. For it is claimed that the wicked are immortal and cannot cease to exist, and therefore the death threatened in the Scriptures is something besides cessation of existence, namely, misery. But immortality signifies exemption from death; and if the scriptural meaning of death is misery, and the wicked are immortal, or exempt from death, they are, of course, exempt from misery! The advocates of this theory do not mean to be Universalists, but their position necessarily leads to that result. Life and death are opposites; the first is promised to the justified, the second is threatened and inflicted upon the unjust. But life and misery are not opposites; misery is a condition of life. In everything but "theology" such a perversion of language would not be tolerated, as to make eternal misery and death, or even misery and death, synonymous. Were we to report that a man was dead because we knew him to be suffering in much misery, it would be looked upon as trifling—solemn mockery. With a cessation of life every condition of life must cease.