THERE is one other scripture which, while not using the term soul, speaks of the conditions of certain persons after death in such a way as apparently to lend the support of the Master Himself to the idea of perpetuated conscious existence in death. This is the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Luke 16: 19-31. Remembering that this is a parable, it would hardly seem necessary to do more than ask the reader to go over again what we have just written concerning the interpretation of prophetic symbols. The same is equally applicable to parables.
Aim of the Parable.
But tho we may agree that it is not wise to dogmatize on metaphors, some very natural and proper inquiries will arise.
Where did Jesus get this idea of the condition of the dead, if He did not draw on His superhuman knowledge of what lies behind the vail?
If Jesus did not intend to recognize the truth of this idea, why did He adopt the form?
What is its teaching?
1. The answer to the first question is, briefly, as we learn from Josephus and other sources, it was a common opinion held by the Pharisees. But that makes it no more probable than some other opinions they held, such as that an oral law had been given by Moses along with the written, of equal authority with the latter, and not infrequently superseding it. Another general opinion with them was that the soul pre-existed!
2. As to why Jesus used this form of teaching, there are several very natural replies.
a. He employed a parable for the same common-sense reason that any one else would. He took a notion to.
b. It was the current method in His day, used by all the rabbis in their teaching.
c. He followed a very common Biblical example. The Old Testament has numerous instances of this kind. Similar illustrations may be found in Isa. 14:9-20; Eze. 31: 15-18; 32: 17-32. The whole Song of Solomon is a metaphor.
d. Any of these reasons would be sufficient to justify the use; but there is another that is exceedingly strong if adopted, but one we do not emphasize, since it rests on an interpretation which may not appeal with the same force to all minds. We shall merely outline it here. In the twenty-second chapter of Acts we have an account of Paul's last visit to Jerusalem and his last sermon there. He stands on the steps of Antonio Castle, and relates the circumstances of his conversion to a large crowd of his countrymen. In verse 21 he reaches the trance he had in the temple, and the commission given him by the Lord to go as a missionary to the Gentiles. "And they gave him audience unto this word"—Gentiles—then pandemonium began; a frenzy seized them, and they demanded his blood. Why?—Simply because he had suggested that God intended to save any one but a Jew. Such was their prejudice and spiritual conceit.
Jesus also recognized this when He sent out the twelve to preach. He said, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Why?—Because if they first went to the Gentiles and Samaritans, no Jew would ever listen to them, and the Jews might possibly seek to kill them. Now we suggest that, if one of the things Jesus wished to teach in this parable was the naturally favored condition of the Jewish nation (compared to Dives), theirs being the oracles, the covenants, the promises, everything (Rom. 9:4, 5), and the naturally hopeless situation of the Gentiles (compared to Lazarus), without God and without hope in the world (Eph. 2:12), and if He wished to show how the Jews would be rejected and the Gentiles accepted, it would have been an exceedingly dangerous thing for Him to have told them in plain language. We leave this phase of the question, but believe it will be a source of much profit to any one who will follow it out.
3. Some of the teachings of this metaphor are plainly stated; while, like all Scripture, being the wisdom of God, it may have, and doubtless has, depth beyond depth of glorious meaning.
One of the main purposes of the parable, as stated in verse 31, is to show the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees. You would be doing the same thing exactly if you were to tell a Roman Catholic that he would not repent even if his brother, after suffering in purgatory, came back to warn him; the only difference being that Jesus, by His divine insight, knew whether His hearers would repent, while you do not.
Another error held by the Pharisees, and one which the Saviour here combats, was the belief that riches were a sign of God's especial favor. It will be noticed by reading the lesson, that the rich man was guilty of nothing but his riches, and the good things they brought him in this life. The perception of the Master's meaning on this point would lead them naturally to apply the principle in the view given above to their own spiritual riches as the chosen nation of God.
The whole truth seems to be that Jesus gave them profound lessons by here assuming the truth of their view—for the sake of the argument, as we sometimes put it. In our "Retrospective Vision," a little back, tho we have expressed the sentiments of the Romish Church, we have not necessarily given them our assent nor sanction; no one would think of pretending that we have accepted them. Is it therefore necessary to believe that Jesus was teaching the conscious condition of the soul in death simply because He used what, to His hearers, would be a familiar illustration? We confess that to us such a conclusion seems entirely gratuitous.
A Few Questions.
We will promise an interesting time to the believer in soul-consciousness after death, if he will attempt to reconcile the account of the souls under the altar (Rev. 6:9-11) with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. To assist in the study, we would humbly suggest a few queries.
Why was it that the rich man (it doesn't say anything about his soul in the account) was checked straight through to hell, while the murderers of the souls under the altar were side-tracked so long that the said souls were forced to pray for vengeance?
Do naked souls have to crawl under an altar in order to nestle in Abraham's bosom?
Was Stephen, the first martyr, one of the souls under the altar? If so, how long after he got there did his dying prayer for his enemies, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," change into the blood-thirsty scream for vengeance on these souls?
Do all the martyrs change their dispositions so radically when they get huddled under the altar?
If so, what sort of spirit presides in this half-way place?
If the persecutors of the souls under the altar were in the same flames as Dives, the rich man, how much hotter would these pious souls like to see the crucible get before they would consider it "vengeance"?
We trust it will be believed that only the necessity of exposing the absurdity and ridiculousness of the popular interpretations of these two passages of Scripture could lead us to deal with them in a way that might suggest too much of levity for so serious a matter. We have taken so much space for these two Biblical references, not because they really need it for a common-sense inquirer, but because they are so persistently misunderstood by popular expounders.
Thus far the human soul from the scientific standpoint. In this view it can not be distinguished from mind; and just as mind is unknown in itself, so also is the soul. Science defines neither. All the testimony thus far discovered in the records of the past or vouchsafed by living witnesses (exclusive of Spiritualists) gives no hint of an immaterial soul-essence remaining in conscious existence after the vital spark has become extinguished. Nature and science alike declare no difference in that respect between man and beast. "As the one dieth, so dieth the other." "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
The heart may palsy with dread at the thought of passing into nothingness. We may enter the silent city of the dead, but the mute marble slabs are tongueless as the tombs they mark. The wind soughs a hopeless sigh through the yew and the willow; the mourning dove's sad note from yonder cypress is a Rachel's woe, as she grieves over the silent sleepers. We stand by the open grave,—
"where, mourned and missed,
The lips repose our love has kissed."
We cry aloud for one faint sign from the voiceless shore; "but the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry."
Affection may refuse to believe that never again it shall know its object; "listening love may hear the rustle of a wing;" sentiment may whisper a prophecy of souls made perfect by escaping from the hindrances of earth; metaphysics may offer a plea for immortality based on the dignity of man and the incompleteness of life; but science and nature only emphasize the epitaph placed by the French Revolutionists over the graveyards of France, "Death is an eternal sleep;" and Dante's warning over the mouth of the Inferno might serve as nature's inscription over the door of the tomb, "All hope abandon, ye that enter here." If God has not spoken, better by far the lot of the blind worm which burrows under ground; for to him is given no mind to torment him with its limitations, no reason to aggravate despair by taunting him with the insolvable problems and perplexities of existence!4
The Alternative
Thus are we driven to philosophy or revelation for a knowledge of what lies beyond the grave.
We have already disclaimed any ability to deal with the metaphysical side of the problem, and all intention of doing so. Nor do we think it necessary; God's religion is a religion of common sense, not of metaphysics. If He had intended to save common people with metaphysics, He would have made us all philosophers. As to the use of transcendental speculations in a discussion of this nature, we regard it as safer for plain folk to adopt the definition given by the Blacksmith of Glamis: "Twa folk disputin thegither; he that's listenin disna ken what he that's speakin means; and he that's speakin disna ken what he means himself—that's metaphysics."
The Word in Common Usage.
In common language we find no one, invariable meaning attached to the word soul; but, like other words generally, it is of various import, its position and the context determining the idea to be given it. Sometimes it is the symbol of a reality; sometimes the sign of a conception drawn from the imagination instead of from any scientific source. A few uses may be illustrated:—
a. "Not a soul was saved from the sinking vessel." The context plainly shows that the word here means person.
b. "Shylock was a soulless extortioner." The only sense we can here give it is that of feeling or charity.
c. "Brevity is the soul of wit." Essence, or substance.
d. "Psychology is the science of the soul." Mind.
e. But if in a funeral oration, the orator should speak of a dead man's soul walking the golden streets of Paradise while the body lies mouldering in the grave, he draws heavily on his imagination or his theology; for scientifically he is a forger, offering a check against a fictitious bank account. There is nothing to cash it with. There is abundant evidence to confirm our scientific conclusion that man is not an immortal soul.
Aptly indeed was the question put by the common sense of the old Persian poet,—
"Why, if the soul can cast the dust aside,
And naked on the air of heaven ride,
Were't not a shame—were't not a shame for him
In this clay carcase crippled to abide?"
An argument for suicide which has not yet been answered scientifically.
[The next, or fifth, article in this series is entitled, "Natural Immortality and Character."]
