Life and Death | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 17, 1883

Life and Death.

LIFE and death as phenomenal words need no definition or explanation, for they designate phenomena with which we are all familiar. Scientists and metaphysicians may inquire into their interior signification, and dispute about the real source and essence and meaning of these phenomena; but for all practical purposes these terms need no definition. The same is true of all the ultimate and antithetical terms that are in common use in our language, or in any language. Their meaning is so obvious that any attempt to define them, like the attempt to demonstrate an axiom, tends only to obscure the subject and confuse the mind.

Life as a phenomenon of nature is everywhere visible. So is death. The one is set over against the other. Hence they are called antithetical terms. They explain each other. If the one be known, the other must also be known. But death is not simply the antithesis of life, as darkness is of light, and cold is of heat. It is more. It implies a previous life. It denotes the loss of what was once possessed. We do not predicate death of a stone or a lump of clay. We say they are lifeless. They are not dead, because they have never had life and have never died. "Lifeless" is the proper negation of "life."

Neither can we predicate degrees of death as we can of many other terms. It is an absolute and ultimate term. Nothing can be said to be dead so long as there is any life in it. It may be almost dead, or about to die, but it is not dead till all life is utterly extinguished.

We sometimes, however, use the term death proleptically, or by anticipation of what is sure to follow; as when we say of one who is attacked by a fatal disease, or has received a fatal wound, "he is a dead man." But we can use this figure only with reference to the actual death in view.

It is true of all words that have their application to material and physical things, that they are susceptible of secondary and tropical uses; for we have no other way of speaking of things that are beyond the reach of our senses than by the use of such terms.

All spiritual truths are represented by terms that have a physical or material base. It is by means of the resemblance which they are supposed to have to sensible things that we can at all apprehend them. Hence the necessity in treating of these higher truths, not only of using these physical terms, but of adhering strictly to the idea expressed by them, if we would understand ourselves or be understood by others. For, unless the strictest analogy be preserved, we might as well use one term as another, or no terms at all, for no definite idea would be expressed by them.

A man's life may be said to be in the hands of another, who has the power to take it from him. Or a child may be said to be dead to his parents when his life is entirely lost to them. We readily understand such figures of speech. But if the analogy be far-fetched or obscure, our meaning will be obscure in the same degree. This is the reason why some metaphysical speculations are so hard to be understood. The terms that are used suggest no analogy to our minds. This is why some sorts of poetry convey to us no meaning, or are susceptible of almost any interpretation our fancy may dictate. This was just the secret of the Delphic oracles. They were intentionally couched in tropical terms of ambiguous application. This is just the use to which theological speculators would put the oracles of God—the Sacred Scriptures. By interpreting the language of Holy Writ in a tropical sense, they may put into it any meaning their fancy or philosophy may require.

There are no words in the Bible that have suffered more from this kind of treatment than these two words, life and death; for they are two of the most important words in the whole Bible. The whole controversy between ourselves and those who hold to the deathless nature of man centers in these two words. They are the two hinges on which the whole question turns. If they are to be taken literally when referring to the destiny of man, as we maintain, then our opponents have no ground to stand on for one moment. They must give up the case at once. It is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of their position, that the literal and ordinary meaning of these two words should be taken out of them, when the destiny of man is spoken of; and, as they must have some meaning, another must be found and put into them, that will harmonize with their doctrine concerning the immortality of all men.

We hold that the Scriptures mean just what they say, when they set forth death as the sure result of sin, and endless perpetuity of life as the portion of the righteous only. We believe that Jehovah meant just what he said, just what Adam must have understood him to mean, when he promised him perpetuity of life only on condition of obedience, and threatened him with death in case of disobedience. He could not have understood these words in any other sense, nor did he, till the tempter suggested another meaning—a figurative meaning—as he still continues to do to all who will listen to his interpretation.

We hold that when men now die in consequence of sin, they actually die; and that they live again, not because they are immortal and must naturally live on, and live forever, but only by the gracious purpose of God as made known in the gospel of Christ who is the resurrection and the life; and that through him, and him only, another life, a higher and better, an eternal life, is given to his redeemed people; and that the second death of the unsaved is also an actual death, from which there is no resurrection.

They hold, on the other hand, that to the active, conscious, sensitive life of man there is no end, no literal death, as in the case of every other living creature upon the earth; that both the first death and the second death, spoken of in the Scriptures as the consequence of sin, denote a state of sin and misery which, if the sinner is not recovered from it, will be endlessly perpetuated in hell; and that the life, the everlasting life which Christ gives to his redeemed people, is a state of purity and blessedness endlessly perpetuated in Heaven.

Now we believe that such trifling with the plain declarations of God's word is utterly unwarranted, sacrilegious, and subversive of the truth. In the name of the Master, whose word is the supreme rule of our faith, we protest against it, and insist on accepting and understanding these words—life and death—as meaning just what they seem to mean.—"Life Everlasting," by Prof. Pettingell.