CHAPTER III | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 18, 1858

CHAPTER III.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED AND EXPLAINED.

On the other hand, those who assert that the soul is exempt from death, and that when divested of the body, it wings its way, or is conducted by angels, directly to its appointed place of reward or punishment, where it remains in a separate state of existence to the end of the world, found their belief principally on the following passages of Scripture. Ps. xlix, 15. God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave. But this proves rather that the soul enters the grave with the body, as was shown above, from whence it needs to be redeemed; namely, at the resurrection, when God shall receive it, as follows in the same verse. As for the remainder, their redemption ceaseth forever, [verse 8,] and they are like the beasts that perish. Verses 12, 14.

The second text is Eccl. xii, 7. The spirit shall return unto God that gave it. But neither does this prove what is required; for the phrase, the spirit returning to God, must be understood with considerable latitude; since the wicked do not return to God at death, but depart far from him. The Preacher had moreover said before, [Eccl. iii, 20,] All go unto one place; and God is said to have given and to gather to himself the spirit of every living thing, whilst the body returns to dust. Job xxxiv, 14, 15. If he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust. See also Ps. civ, 29, 30. Euripides, in the Suppliants, has, without being aware of it, given a far better interpretation of this passage than the commentators in question.

That constitutes the frame of man, returns Whence it was taken; to th' ethereal sky The spirit, the body to its earth. Line 599 Potter's Transl.

That is, every constituent part returns at dissolution to its elementary principle. This is confirmed by Eze. xxxvii, 9. Come from the four winds, O breath. It is certain, therefore, that the spirit of man must have previously departed thither from whence it is now summoned to return. Hence perhaps originates the expression in Matt. xxiv, 31, they shall gather together the elect from the four winds. For why should not the spirits of the elect be as easily gathered together as the smallest particles of their bodies, sometimes most widely dispersed through different countries. In the same manner is to be understood 1 Kings xvii, 21. Let this child's soul come into him again. This, however, is a form of speech applied to fainting in general. Judges xv, 19. His spirit came again, and he revived. See also 1 Sam. xxx, 12. For there are many passages of scripture, some of which undoubtedly represent the dead as devoid of all vital existence; but what was advanced above, respecting the death of the spirit, affords a sufficient answer to the objection.

The third passage is Matt. x, 28. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. It may be answered that properly speaking, the body cannot be killed, as being in itself a thing inanimate: the body therefore, as is common in Scripture, must be taken for the whole human compound, or for the animal and temporal life; the soul for that spiritual life with which we shall be clothed after the end of the world, as appears from the remainder of the verse, and from 1 Cor. xv, 44.

The fourth text is Philip. i, 23. Having a desire to depart (cupiens dissolvi, having a desire for dissolution) and to be with Christ. But, to say nothing of the uncertain and disputed sense of the word, analusai, which signifies anything rather than dissolution, it may be answered, that although Paul desired to obtain immediate possession of heavenly perfection and glory, in like manner as every one is desirous of attaining as soon as possible to that, whatever it may be, which he regards as the ultimate object of his being, it by no means follows that, when the soul of each individual leaves the body, it is received immediately either into heaven or hell. For he had a desire to be with Christ; that is, at his appearing, which all the believers hoped and expected was then at hand. In the same manner one who is going on a voyage desires to set sail and to arrive at the destined port, (such is the order in which his wishes arrange themselves) omitting all notice of the intermediate passage. If, however, it be true that there is no time without motion, which Aristotle illustrates by the example of those who were fabled to have slept in the temple of the heroes, and who, on awakening, imagined that the moment in which they awoke had succeeded without an interval to that in which they fell asleep; how much more must intervening time be annihilated to the departed, so that to them to die and to be with Christ will seem to take place at the same moment? Christ himself, however, expressly indicates the time at which we shall be with him, John xiv, 3. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. Col. iii, 4.

The fifth text evidently favors my view of the subject. 1 Pet. iii, 19. By which also he went and preached to the spirits that are in prison; literally, in guard; or as the Syriac version renders it, in sepulchro, in the grave, which means the same; for the grave is the common guardian of all till the day of judgment. What therefore the Apostle says more fully, [chap. iv, 5, 6,] Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead; for, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead; he expresses it in this place by a metaphor, the spirits that are in guard; it follows, therefore, that the spirits are dead.

The sixth text is Rev. vi, 9. I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain. I answer, that in the Scripture idiom the soul is generally often put for the whole animate body, and that in this passage it is used for the souls of those who were not yet born; unless indeed the fifth seal was already opened in the time of John; in the same manner as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, [Luke xvi,] though Christ, for the sake of the lesson to be conveyed, speaks of that as present which was not to take place till after the day of judgment, and describes the dead as placed in two distinct states, he by no means intimates any separation of the soul from the body.

The seventh text is Luke xxiii, 43. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise. This passage has on various accounts occasioned so much trouble, that some have not hesitated to alter the punctuation, as if it had been written, I say unto thee to-day;* that is, although I seem to-day the most despised and miserable of all men, yet I declare to thee and assure thee, that thou shalt hereafter be with me in paradise; that is, in some pleasant place, (for properly speaking, paradise is not heaven,) or in the spiritual state allotted to the soul and body. . . Nor is it necessary to take the word, to-day, in its strict acceptation, but rather for a short time, as in 2 Sam. xvi, 3; Heb. iii, 7. However this may be, so much clear evidence should not be rejected on account of a single passage, of which it is not easy to give a satisfactory interpretation.

The eighth text is Luke xxiii, 46. Into thy hands I commend my spirit. But the spirit is not therefore separated from the body, or incapable of death; for David uses the same language. Ps. xxxi, 5, although he was not then about to die: Into thine hand I commit my spirit; while it was yet abiding in, and with the body. So Stephen, [Acts vii, 59,] Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, . . . and when he had said this, he fell asleep. It was not the bare spirit divested of the body that he commended to Christ, but the whole spirit and soul and body, as is expressed in 1 Thess. v, 23. Thus the spirit of Christ was to be raised again with the body on the third day, while that of Stephen was to be reserved unto the appearing of the Lord. So 1 Pet. iv, 19. Let them commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing.

The ninth passage is 2 Cor. v, 1-20. It is sufficiently apparent, however, that the object of this passage is not to inculcate the separation of the soul from the body, but to contrast the animal and terrestrial life of the whole man with the spiritual and heavenly. Hence in the first verse, the house of this tabernacle, is opposed not to the soul, but to a building of God, an house not made with hands, that is, to the final renewal of the whole man, as Beza also explains it, whereby we are clothed upon in the heavens, being clothed, . . . not naked. This distinctly appears from the fourth verse: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. See also verse 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God; not for the separating of the soul from the body, but for the perfecting of both. Wherefore the clause in the eighth verse, to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord, must be understood of the consummation of our happiness; and the body must be taken for this frail life as is common in the sacred writers, and the absence spoken of, for our eternal departure to an heavenly world; or perhaps to be at home in the body and to be absent from the Lord, may mean nothing more than to be entangled in worldly affairs, and to have little leisure for heavenly things; the reason of which is given, for we walk by faith, not by sight; whence it follows, we are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord; that is, to renounce worldly things as much as possible, and to be occupied with things heavenly. The ninth verse proves still more clearly that the expressions, to be present, and, to be absent, both refer to this life: wherefore we labor that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of God; for no one supposes that the souls of men are occupied from the time of death to that of the resurrection, in endeavors to render themselves acceptable to God in heaven; that is the employment of the present life, and its reward is not to be looked for till the second coming of Christ. For the Apostle says, We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. There is, consequently, no recompense of good or bad after death, previous to the day of judgment. Compare 1 Cor. xv, the whole of which chapter throws no small light on this passage. The same sense is to be ascribed to 2 Pet. i, 13-15. As long as I am in this tabernacle, &c; that is, in this life. It is, however, unnecessary to prolong this discussion, as there is scarcely one of the remaining passages of Scripture which has not been already explained by anticipation.