p. 85 | The Immortality of the Soul against Jesus Christ

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 30, 1870

The Immortality of the Soul against Jesus Christ.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THE other evening, after we had lectured in the tent on the nature of man, a Methodist minister arose and took very strong exceptions to what had been said. Among other things, he said the immortality of the soul was his only hope. If we destroyed that, we destroyed his hope of eternal life. Now how different this man’s hope from the hope of all the Bible writers.

No such language can be found in any of their writings; but the very opposite. They often speak of their hope, and tell what it is. It is the hope of the resurrection of the dead, and everlasting life through Jesus Christ, the Lifegiver. See Job. 19: 23–27; Ps. 17: 16; John 6: 39, 40; Rom. 8: 19–24; Heb. 11: 35; &c.

When God created man he gave him life, and gave him access to the tree of life, which would perpetuate his existence, as long as he could eat of it; but man sinned, and by so doing, forfeited the life, the existence, which God had given him. John 2: 16, 17; 3: 19–24. From that time till this, man has been a mortal creature, subject to death, perishing without any element in his nature which can possibly save him from it. He loves life, and wants to live forever; but immortality and everlasting life are beyond his reach, so far as he himself is concerned.

While in this condition, God sends his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die, to open up a way whereby man could obtain the coveted boon of immortality and eternal life. Thus John says: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3: 16. Here man is recognized as in a perishing condition. But he may have everlasting life, not through his immortal soul, but through Christ the Lifegiver.

Paul testifies likewise. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Rom. 6: 23. Here again man is represented as a poor, dying mortal. Christ then appears as his only hope of eternal life. So in 1 John 5: 11, 12. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” By this it will be seen that if man ever has eternal life, he gets it only through Jesus Christ. This life, says John, is in his Son, not in man’s nature. If man has an immortal, never-dying soul, which in its own nature must and will live eternally, then every man has eternal life in himself, and his life is not in the Son of God, neither could Christ give him eternal life, for he already has it.

If man has an immortal soul, then he will have eternal life just as well as the saint of God. Again John says: “Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” 1 John 3: 15.

To illustrate: Here is a murderer: he dies such. What will become of him according to the orthodox view? He will be cast into hell. How long will he stay there? Eternally. Will he be alive there? Yes; this is their theory. If this be true, then that murderer does have eternal life abiding in him. All the powers of hell can never extinguish it. To say that a man who lives eternally has not eternal life, is too palpable an absurdity to be answered. How, and when, are we to get everlasting life? Answer: Through Jesus Christ, at the resurrection, at the last day. Says Jesus, “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6: 39, 40. So again Paul says in 1 Cor. 15, that immortality should be given at the resurrection.

Here, then, we have the Christian’s hope of everlasting life. It is not in his immortal soul, but in Jesus Christ. The doctrine of man’s natural immortality, robs Christ of the glory of his mission, that of a Lifegiver.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Adel, Iowa.