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Whom Shall We Believe?

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 5, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 1.

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Whom Shall We Believe?

By F. M. W.

In Ford's Hall, Boston, Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Outlook, recently preached on the subject, “Why I Believe in Immortality.” According to the Boston Journal of December 12, he made the following statement:—
The question which has been asked for so many centuries is this, “If a man die, shall he live again?” I find it difficult to believe this body shall be buried in the earth and decay, and at some future date the spirit come to re-establish it, and that it will rise into new life. When that question is put to me, my answer is, “No. It does not live again.” What I believe is, Man never dies. I believe the spirit immediately passes into its possession of the treasures of the other world.
This is the view held by Dr. Lyman Abbott, and not only by Dr. Abbott, but also by scores of other professed Christians at the present time. It is the view held with some modification by Spiritualists and theosophists. Now comes another equally great man, Thomas A. Edison, of electrical fame, and he declares his belief that death is the end-all of man's existence. According to current newspaper report, he is quoted as saying, “In regard to believing in a hereafter, I am from Missouri. Some one must show me.” With Mr. Edison stand many other materialists of the present time, together with such men as Thomas Paine, R. G. Ingersoll, Voltaire, and others, of past fame.
Which doctrine shall we believe? The belief of Mr. Edison surely affords no comfort in this life, and no hope for the future. It makes of life, as expressed by Mr. Ingersoll, “a barren peak between the vales of two eternities. We look beyond the heights, and cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our despairing cry.” From this cold, chilling doctrine, man instinctively turns to something affording greater comfort and hope.
The view expressed by Dr. Abbott is the more pleasing; but unfortunately this, equally with the view held by Mr. Edison, is in direct opposition to the statement of Holy Writ. If we attempt to trace Dr. Abbott's doctrine to its source, we must travel back through the mystic, winding labyrinths of Roman, Egyptian, and Babylonian mythology, back to the originator of all evil systems of belief, the serpent, when he declared to our first mother in the garden of Eden, “Ye shall not surely die.” The source of this doctrine is even older than the infidel sentiments of the other view; but in sharp contradistinction to both these errors stands the plain, simple teaching of the Word of God.
The apostle Paul tells us that “death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” This death, according to the psalmist, robs man of complete consciousness. There is not merely a death of the body while the conscious entity wings its way to the spirit world; but all that composed man ceases to exist. That which thought before in life, at death ceases to think. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”
According to Solomon, man after death ceases to love, to hate, to envy. “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” And according to Job the dead man is utterly oblivious to all that occurs on this earth after his decease. “His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” But the grave is not forever to be his house. Job asks, “If a man die, shall he live again?” He does not leave the question unanswered, but declares: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.”
This set time when God will remember the dead is at the resurrection at the last day. A multitude of scriptures prove this. One statement from our Lord will suffice: “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.”
Again we ask, Whom shall we believe? Shall we accept the spiritualistic view expressed by Dr. Abbott, the infidel belief expressed by Mr. Edison, or the statements of the Word of God? To him who takes the Scriptures of truth as the man of his counsel, there can be no question as to the finality of its authority, and the erroneousness of all counter-claims. We must take the Word of God or the word of man. “What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.”
F. M. W.