Our Lord's Doctrine Concerning the Soul.
By John Nevins Andrews
"THEREFORE I SAY UNTO YOU, Take no thought for your life [psuche, soul], what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life [psuche, soul], more than meat, and the body than raiment?" Matt. 6:25; Luke 12:22, 23. "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul [psuche]; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul [psuche] and body in hell." Matt. 10:28. "He that findeth his life [psuche, soul], shall lose it; and he that loseth his life [psuche, soul], for my sake shall find it." Matt. 10:39. "For whosoever will save his life [psuche, soul] shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life [psuche, soul] for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul [psuche]?" Matt. 16:25, 26; Mark 8:35-37. "For whosoever will save his life [psuche, soul] shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life [psuche, soul] for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away." Luke 9:24, 25. "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life [psuche, soul] also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26. "Whosoever shall seek to save his life [psuche, soul] shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." Luke 17:33. "He that loveth his life [psuche, soul] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life [psuche, soul] in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." John 12:25. These texts embody Christ's doctrine concerning the soul. Though the word psuche, or soul, is so often used in them, the fact is not generally understood because it is in most of the instances here quoted rendered life. But these texts are worthy of study. They should be carefully compared with each other. 1. The term soul is, in several of these texts, used in distinction from the body. 2. It is something to be sacrificed for Christ's sake, and even to be hated. 3. It is something to be saved unto life eternal, and is of greater value than the whole world. 4. Though in some of these instances it is used, perhaps, as signifying the whole man (compare Matt. 16:26; Luke 9:25), it is manifest from the sense that it is rightly translated life in the places where it is so rendered. Even in the instance cited as signifying the whole man, losing one's life may be fairly equivalent to losing himself. 5. But how can we reconcile our Lord's words respecting the saving and the losing of the soul or life, and also respecting its comparative worthlessness and its exceeding value? Without doubt, there is perfect harmony in his statements. The last text above quoted gives us a key to them all: "He that loveth his life [psuche, soul] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life [psuche, soul] in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." John 12:25. 6. There are two of these lives. (1) Our life in this world. (2) Our life in the world to come. And, indeed, the other texts plainly imply this. For we cannot save the present life by losing it, nor lose the life to come by saving it. But we can save our future life by giving up our present life, and one of these is of little worth, while the other is of infinite value. 7. Christ speaks of the present life when he says, "Take no thought for your life [psuche, soul], what ye shall eat." Matt. 6:25; Luke 12:22. Also when he says, "He that findeth his life [psuche, soul] shall lose it." Matt. 10:39. That is, he that sets his heart on this present life shall have no part in the promised life everlasting. This is the life, or soul, we are to hate. Luke 14:26; John 12:25. 8. He speaks of the future life when he asks, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Matt. 16:26. He also speaks of it in all these places where he speaks of saving or finding the soul or life as the reward for losing the soul or life for Christ's sake. 9. It is our life, or soul, "in this world" that is to be hated, that we may secure life eternal. This last is the life that God promises to those who give up the present life for him. 10. But does the Lord in any of these passages teach, or assume, the existence of a separate conscious being called the soul? In the first of the above texts, he speaks of the soul as distinct from the body, but it is plain from the sense that he means by it the present mortal life. In the third instance, he speaks of saving the soul by losing it, that is, of securing the life to come by giving up the present life. And all the remaining passages are of the same nature. 11. But does not our Lord in the second instance affirm the existence of the soul as a separate being that survives the death of the body, and that maintains a conscious life when that is dead? Such is the general understanding of the passage, yet it is not at all in harmony with our Lord's use of the word soul. He uses it to signify either our present or our future life. Read again the passages above quoted and this fact will appear undeniable. 12. We shall better understand Matt. 10:28, by comparing it with Luke 12:4, 5. Thus: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." "And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." These two texts are different versions of the same statement of Christ. 13. It is certainly reasonable that we consider whether our Lord's use of the word soul in the other instances in which he uses it, is not the true sense of that word in this passage. He uses the word soul for the life that now is, and also for the life that is to come. Men can destroy the present life. But after that they have no more that they can do. The life that succeeds the resurrection is in the power of God alone. This is plainly our Lord's meaning in the next clause. "But rather fear Him which is able to destroy, both soul and body in hell." The hell of these two texts is not hades, the place of the dead, but gehenna, the lake of fire, where the wicked shall suffer the second death. Now in this fire the body shall indeed be consumed, as many texts assert; and this is not all; when the wicked shall have suffered each what God sees to be just, then their life shall be extinguished, not as is the present to be followed by the resurrection, but to have no revival forever. 14. This gives us an interpretation of our Lord's words that is in harmony with his own use of the word soul, and that is sustained by all the facts in the case. It is strongly confirmed by Luke's version of the text. The killing of the body is mentioned by both Matthew and Luke. But while Matthew says that men are not able to kill the soul, Luke uses this clause as an equivalent: "and after that have no more that they can do." 15. Then Luke gives us a definite idea when this shall be. "Fear Him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell," gehenna. Now the wicked, when cast into the lake of fire, are living men, and are not cast thither till after the resurrection of the unjust. They have been made alive from death, and this God alone can do, before being cast into the gehenna of fire. This future life shall be extinguished in the lake of fire, and God himself in the act will inflict adequate retribution upon the wicked. Then they will be as though they had not been. 16. If our Lord had been speaking of the separate, conscious existence of the soul between death and the resurrection, he would have spoken of what should take place in hades, the place and state of the dead. But he passes over hades and speaks of gehenna where no wicked man will be cast till after the resurrection of the unjust. 17. We cannot, therefore, doubt that our Lord speaks of the life to come by the word soul in Matt. 10:28. The present life is, under God, in the power of wicked men. The future life God alone can give, and he alone can take it. The loss of the present life is comparatively unimportant, for God can and will restore it. The loss of the future life is unspeakably awful, not only because that the suffering attending it shall be such as to inflict adequate retribution upon each sinner, but because it shall end in the absolute and irretrievable destruction of the whole man. His body shall be consumed, and his existence effectually and eternally blotted out.