Certain Bible Texts Relied on to Prove It—The Thief on the Cross—Disobedient Spirits in Prison—The Rich Man and Lazarus the Beggar Are Heaven and Hell Side by Side?
By W. A. GOSMER
This is the third of Professor Gosmer’s articles on the relation of man to the question of immortality. In an article two weeks ago, he showed that the doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul has been universally accepted and taught by pagans, from the remotest antiquity down to the present time. In view of the universal acceptance of the doctrine by the pagan world, the professor suggested that we should have suspicions about its being one of the fundamentals of Bible teaching. His article last week gave the Bible use of the words “soul” and “spirit.” It considered the creation of man, and his relation to immortality, and made a brief reference to the vision Ezekiel had of the resurrection, and quoted an important testimony showing that Luther did not regard the immortality of the soul as a Bible doctrine. Next week, his article will present the resurrection as the great door of hope for those who have gone into the silent embraces of the tomb. EDITOR.
It must be evident that the Bible cannot be made to harmonize with the idea of man’s having an immortal soul that may live apart from the body. All texts in Scripture that seem in any way favorable to it, may readily be harmonized with the general tenor of the Word. We shall examine some of the objections to the Scriptural teaching.
THE THIEF ON THE CROSS
One of the foremost of these is the record of the thief on the cross, given in Luke 23: 39-43: “And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”
By three propositions, we shall show that this incident in no way contributes anything to the doctrine of inherent immortality; first, it is very improbable that the thief died that day; secondly, Christ did not go to heaven that day; and thirdly, the punctuation of the passage is wrong.
THIEF DID NOT DIE ON CRUCIFIXION DAY
That the thief did not die that day, seems clear from the following considerations: “Death by the cross was a lingering process,” says one Biblical writer. “It was difficult to determine when life had ceased. It was an unheard-of thing for one to die within six hours of crucifixion.”
It was a rare occurrence for crucified persons to die within three days, and often they lingered much longer.
The Saviour’s death was exceptional, as the mental anguish caused by the weight of the sins of mankind broke His heart. Ps. 69: 20. The following narrative, read in the light of these facts, plainly shows that the thief did not die on the crucifixion day: “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs.” John 19:31-33.
Mark states that “Pilate marveled if He were already dead; and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether He had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.” Mark 15:44, 45.
Here it is plainly shown that the Jews, according to their custom, would not allow the bodies of those crucified to remain upon the cross during the hours of the Sabbath. As the day begins and ends at sunset (Lev. 23: 32; Mark 1: 32), the bodies were taken down from the cross before the evening of the crucifixion day. In order to prevent the escape of the victims, and to hasten their death, their legs were broken.745
But when the soldiers came to Jesus, they found Him already dead, and for that reason, did not break His legs. The fact that He had died so soon caused Pilate to marvel, as he knew that such a speedy death by crucifixion was out of the ordinary. Therefore, to make certain, he called on the centurion to verify the Lord’s death, before delivering the body to Joseph. That the legs of the thieves were broken, shows that they were yet alive. As the day ended at sunset, and as the bodies were taken down late that afternoon, we are justified in the conclusion that the thief did not go to Paradise that day, according to the popular theory, for he had not yet died. It must be evident, too, that the Holy Spirit inspired the dying man’s request, which was that the Lord would remember him when He should come into His kingdom. That event is even yet future.
CHRIST DID NOT GO THAT DAY
Christ did not go to Paradise that day; for three days after, on the morning of His resurrection, He said to Mary, “Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father.” John 20: 17. Before being touched by humanity, He must see if His sacrifice was acceptable to God. On the evening of the same day, He said, “Handle Me, and see.” Luke 24: 39. This shows that sometime during that day, He had been in the presence of God; as His injunction of that morning, “Touch Me not,” was based entirely upon the fact that He had not yet ascended to His Father. This makes it clear that it was not until the third day after His crucifixion that Jesus went to Paradise.
WRONG PUNCTUATION
The punctuation of Luke 23: 43 is wrong. As punctuated, it reads, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” Now it is evident that punctuation is not inspired. And there is no punctuation whatever in the original Bible manuscripts. Therefore we are at liberty to place the comma where it will serve to carry out the true sense of the passage.
The sentence order in the Greek reads: “And said to him the Jesus, Verily I say to thee to-day with Me thou shalt be in the Paradise.” If, then, we punctuate the passage as follows, all is clear: “Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” It is as if the Saviour said: “On this day of My crucifixion, while suspended between the heavens and the earth, dying as a criminal, apparently cut off and abandoned by God and man,—on this great day when the Author of the universe condescends to lay down His life for a lost race; on this day when all seems dark and hopeless, and My promise apparently impossible of fulfilment, I yet most solemnly declare that thou, poor penitent, shalt be with Me in the Paradise of God.”—Rotherham.
DISOBEDIENT SPIRITS IN PRISON
Another objection is found in 1 Peter 3: 18-20: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.”
In the light of the following considerations, it is difficult to see how this scripture can be made to uphold the natural immortality theory: The doctrine of probation after death is foreign to the Bible. This being true, Christ could have offered no hope to the spirits of the once disobedient. What, then, could possibly have been the nature of His message to them?
The only time when preaching could have helped these souls was while they were yet in the probationary state. That was while the ark was preparing. But what could possibly be the object of preaching to them after their day of salvation was past?
These persons were in prison in the same sense in which those who are in darkness, and who are “bound by the cords of their own sins,” are in prison to-day. Says the prophet, “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” Isa. 42: 7. It was the avowed mission of Christ, while here on earth, to “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound”; and all, He declared, because “the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.” Isa. 61: 1; Luke 4: 18-21. Hence, in the days of Noah, He preached by the Spirit through Noah to those who were disobedient, while the long-suffering of God waited for them to repent.
THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS THE BEGGAR
It is urged by some, that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a literal verity, and therefore lends aid to the theory under consideration. That it is only figurative, and designed to teach lessons of importance, and that this parable is based upon the belief and teaching of those days, can be shown.
The Jews in that day believed that riches commended men to the favor of God, and that poverty was a sign of heaven’s disfavor. This parable was aimed directly at this error, for the conditions are exactly reversed; the rich man is represented as being in hell, while the poor man Lazarus is pictured as being in heaven.
NO PROBATION AFTER DEATH
Another erroneous teaching of the times was that of probation after death. To show the falsity of that view, Abraham is represented as saying: “And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.” Luke 16: 26.
To lend further emphasis to this point, the rich man is represented as imploring Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers who were still alive on earth, that they might be warned concerning their fate should they too be cast into the place of torment; for, once there, they could never escape, their destiny would be forever sealed. The great gulf was impassable.
REBUKE TO BIGOTED EXCLUSIVENESS
The parable was also a rebuke to the bigoted exclusiveness of the Jewish nation. They built a wall of partition between themselves and the gentiles, which was in effect a great gulf of separation. They counted these poor heathen as dogs. But the sequel in the parable shows those despised ones saved, and they themselves lost.
Of this parable, T. J. Hudson, in “Law of Psychic Phenomena,” says:
“It is a historical fact, nevertheless, that before the advent of Jesus, the Jews had become imbued with the Greek doctrine of Hades, which was an intermediate waiting station between this life and the Judgment. In this were situated both Paradise and Gehenna, the one on the right, and the other on the left; and into these two compartments, the spirits of the dead were separated according to their deserts. Jesus found this doctrine already in existence; and in enforcing His moral precepts in His parables, He employed the symbols which the people understood, neither denying nor affirming their literal verity.”
Josephus bears still more explicit testimony regarding this doctrine of Hades:
“Now as to Hades, where the souls of the righteous and unrighteous are detained, it is necessary to speak of it. Hades is a place in the world not regularly finished; a subterranean region wherein the light of this world does not shine. From which circumstance, that in this region the light does not shine, it cannot be but there must be in it perpetual darkness. This region is allotted as a place of custody for souls, in which angels are appointed as guardians to them, who distribute to them temporary punishments agreeable to every one’s behavior and manners.
“In this region, there is a certain place set apart as a lake of unquenchable fire, whereinto we suppose no one hath hitherto been cast, but is prepared for a day afore determined by God, in which one righteous sentence shall deservedly be passed upon all men. When the unjust and those who have been disobedient to God, and have given honor to such idols as have been the vain operations of the hands of men, as to God Himself, shall be adjudged to this everlasting punishment, as having been the cause of defilement: while746the just shall obtain an incorruptible and never fading kingdom.
“These are indeed confined in Hades, but not in the same place wherein the unjust are confined. For there is one descent into this region at whose gate we believe there stands an archangel with an host; which gate when those pass through that are conducted down by the angels appointed over souls, they do not go the same way; but the just are guided to the right hand, and are led with hymns sung by the angels appointed over that place, unto a region of light in which the just have dwelt from the beginning of the world; . . . with whom there is no place of toil, no burning heat, no piercing cold, nor any briers there: but the countenances of the fathers and of the just which they see always smile upon them, while they wait for the rest and eternal life in heaven which is to succeed this region. This place we call the Bosom of Abraham.
“But as to the unjust, they are dragged by force to the left hand by the angels allotted for punishment, no longer going with good will, but as prisoners driven by violence; to whom are sent the angels appointed over them to reproach them, and threaten them with their terrible looks, and thrust them still downwards. Now these angels that are over these souls, drag them into the region of hell itself. Who when they are hard by it, continually hear the noise of it and do not stand clear of the hot vapor itself; but when they have a near view of this spectacle as of a terrible and exceeding great prospect of fire, they are struck with a fearful expectation of a future judgment, and in effect are punished thereby. And not only so, when they see the place (or choir) of the fathers and of the just, even thereby they are punished; for a chaos deep and large is fixed between them, inasmuch that a just man that hath compassion upon them cannot be admitted, nor can one that is unjust if he were bold enough to attempt it pass over it.”—Josephus’s “Discourse to the Greeks.”
The accompanying diagram will help to understand the application of the parable.
THEN HEAVEN AND HELL SIDE BY SIDE
Were this parable of the rich man and Lazarus to be literally understood, then must heaven be in close proximity to hell; for the inhabitants of both places are represented as being in sight of one another, and also within speaking distance. Should one of the saved be so unfortunate as to have a relative among the lost, there would be the terrible prospect, for all eternity, of seeing and hearing the unhappy soul writhing and moaning, and bewailing his awful fate, in the fiery billows never to be quenched. Mingled with the wails of the lost, with imprecations and sounds of woe unutterable, forever and forever would fall upon the ear of the saved, calls for help, and heart-rending pleas for intercession and deliverance. Dear reader, would that be heaven? Oh, dreadful travesty upon that name which we associate with sorrows forgotten, tears wiped away, death and pain banished, infinite satisfaction, joy, love, and everlasting peace!
If this parable be literally true, then Mariolatry is right. The rich man prays to Abraham; the Mariolater, to Mary. Praying to a fellow mortal has no sanction in Holy Writ. There is one Intercessor between God and man; that is Christ, the Lord. This parable should teach that it is futile to pray to man, for the prayer of the rich man was not granted.
More might be written concerning a literal construction placed upon what is manifestly figurative. Suffice it to say that such a literal view cannot stand the test of the Scripture. Nor is it consonant with reason, or the justice and love of Him who is abundant in goodness and truth.
