Is Man Immortal?

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 15, 1883

1. Is it reasonable to suppose that God created man an immortal being, and yet has never informed us of the fact?

2. Is it reasonable to suppose that, if man naturally possessed immortality, God would require us to seek for it, as he does in Rom. 2:7?

3. Is it reasonable to suppose that, if men were naturally immortal, God's word would so plainly assure us that God "only hath immortality"? 1 Tim. 6:16.

4. Is it not far more reasonable to believe that immortality is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, as stated in Rom. 6:23?

5. Is it reasonable to suppose that words, when found in the Bible, must have a meaning attached to them which no man in his senses would ever think of attaching to them in any other book? For instance, the words life and death, when found in the Bible, must (as theologians tell us) mean happiness and misery; but, if found in any other book in the world, they would simply mean "existence" and "cessation of existence."

6. Is it reasonable to suppose that in all the vast multitude of passages in which Christ promised life, eternal life, to his followers, he did not literally mean what he said? This he could not, if all men have immortal life by nature. In that case, the wicked will live through eternity as well as the righteous.

7. Is it reasonable to suppose, in all the vast multitude of passages in which death is threatened as the punishment of the sinner, that loss of happiness is all that is meant? An unhappy man is as truly alive as the most happy being in existence.

8. Is it reasonable to suppose that Infinite Wisdom would invariably use language which was only calculated to mislead mankind, or which none but doctors of divinity could unravel?

9. Is it not more reasonable to suppose that he would give his creatures such a revelation as plain, common-sense people could easily understand?

10. Is it reasonable to believe that men go to Heaven or hell immediately at death, and then hundreds or thousands of years afterward are taken out to be judged, to determine which fate they deserve? Should we deem it right to send a man to the State's Prison for ten years, and then bring him out for trial to see if he deserved such a punishment?

11. Is it reasonable that such prominence should be given in Scripture to the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead, if the soul is as capable of happiness or misery without the body as with it?

12. Is it reasonable to talk about a "death that never dies," when there is not a word in Scripture to sanction such a contradictory phrase? Would it not be equally reasonable to speak of the reward of the righteous as a "life that never lives"?

13. Is it reasonable to use so constantly, both in sermons and prayers, such terms as "immortal souls," "never-dying souls," "deathless spirits," and similar expressions, when there is not from Genesis to Revelation one single passage to warrant the use of such language?

14. Is it reasonable to say that eternal death and eternal torment are synonymous expressions (as theologians tell us)? for how then can it be said, in Rev. 21:4, "There shall be no more death"?

15. Is it reasonable to believe that a hell of fiery torment and ceaseless misery is to exist forever, when God says (Rev. 21:5), "Behold I make all things new"?

16. Is it reasonable to believe in the eternal torment of the wicked, when more than two hundred passages of Scripture plainly affirm that they shall "die," be "consumed," "devoured," "destroyed," "burnt up," "be as though they had not been," etc.?

17. Is it reasonable to believe that the righteous in their glorified state can be indifferent to, and unaffected by, the endless sufferings of countless millions of their fellow-beings; among whom would probably be found parents, children, husbands, wives, etc.?

18. Is it reasonable to believe that God is such a vindictive being that his justice cannot be satisfied with the death of the offender, but that he must be constantly pouring floods of fiery wrath upon the wretched being through the ever-rolling cycles of eternity?

19. Finally, "1. The apostle Paul is the only writer in the whole Bible who makes use of the word immortal or immortality. "2. He never applies it to sinners. "3. He never applies it to either righteous or wicked in this world. "4. He never applies it to men's souls at all, either before or after death. "5. He speaks of it as an attribute of the King Eternal. 1 Tim. 1:17. "6. He declares that he is the only possessor of it. 1 Tim. 6:16. "7. He presents it as an object which men are to seek after by patient continuance in well-doing. Rom. 2:7. "8. He speaks of it as revealed or brought to light (not in heathen philosophy, but) in the gospel of the Son of God. 2 Tim. 1:10. "9. He defines the period when it shall be 'put on' by the saints of God, and fixes it at the resurrection, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear. 1 Cor. 15:52, 54; Col. 3:4. "10. Therefore he never taught the immortality of the soul as it is now taught, and hence, when he declared that sinners should be destroyed, or perish, or die, or be burned, or devoured by fire, he did so without any 'mental reservations, or theological definitions.' In other words, he said what he meant, and meant what he said."—Pauline Theology.

I might multiply questions of this kind, but I forbear. Men of reason and common sense, give your serious attention to these points. Read your Bibles again. Read carefully—read prayerfully. See whether these things are true or not. Dare to think for yourselves. Do not trust to commentaries. Do not build your faith on bodies of divinity. Go to the fountain-head of truth. "The words of the Lord are pure words." "The law of the Lord is perfect." This cannot be said of the writings or opinions of any man or number of men, however wise and holy they may be. To err is human. God and his truth are alone infallible. Show yourselves true Protestants, and cast away the "traditions of men." You have the Bible. The wisest and holiest of the "Fathers" had no more. Your ministers have nothing else to guide them—at least they ought not to have. "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants." Go, then, to your Bibles, and see whether the God-dishonoring doctrines to which I have directed your attention are found there or not. Excuse me if I tell you that, however full of these doctrines human books and human sermons may be, God's book does not contain them. Rather believe that man is mortal and condemned to die, but Christ is come that men may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10. "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 6:23.