OR, AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRESENT CONSTITUTION AND FUTURE CONDITION OF MAN.
BY THE EDITOR.
WHATEVER we know of a future life, must come to us by direct revelation. Sternly has the grave closed its heavy portals against all the efforts of human foresight, philosophy or science, to penetrate the dark region beyond. The human mind has felt its weakness in this respect; and the noblest of its representatives, who have presumed, untaught by revelation, to inquire into man's futurity, have been obliged to confess the more than Delphic uncertainty with which alone their deepest researches have been crowned.
Says Prof. STUART: "The light of nature can never scatter the darkness in question. This light has never yet sufficed to make the question clear to any portion of our benighted race, whether the soul is immortal. Cicero, incomparably the most able defender of the soul's immortality which the heathen world can yet boast, very ingenuously confesses that after all the arguments which he had adduced in order to confirm the doctrine in question, it so fell out, that his mind was satisfied of it only when directly employed in contemplating the arguments adduced in its favor. At all other times he fell unconsciously into a state of doubt and darkness. It is notorious also that Socrates, the next most noble advocate, among the heathen, of the same doctrine, has adduced arguments to establish the never-ceasing existence of the soul, which will not bear the test of examination."
Who has not heard of the dying words of Socrates? "I am going out of the world, and you are to continue in it; but which of us has the better part is a secret to every one but God." It is further recorded of Cicero, that after recounting the various opinions of philosophers, he was obliged to say, "Which of these is true, God alone knows, and which is most probable is a very great question." And Seneca, on a review of this subject, says, "Immortality, however desirable, was rather promised than proved by these great men."
"Reason cannot prove man to be immortal. We may devoutly enter the temple of nature, we may reverently tread her emerald floor, and gaze on her blue, 'star-pictured ceiling,' but to our anxious inquiry, though proposed with heart-breaking intensity, the oracle is dumb, or like those of Delphi and Dodona, mutters only an ambiguous reply that leaves us in utter bewilderment."
"I am taking a leap in the dark," said Hobbes when about to die.
That the revelation of which man here stands so much in need, is found in that glowing volume of inspiration, which is given as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, we shall take for granted in this investigation; for with those who deny this we have, at present, no controversy. And if there is, as logicians affirm, "an antecedent probability in favor of a Divine revelation, arising from the nature of the Deity and the moral condition of man," just so there is a probability that in that revelation, if an uncontingent immortality is the unspeakably grand prerogative of the human race, the fact will be plainly set before us. With a passing glance, then, at the importance of the subject, since upon our views of man's nature depend in a very great extent our views of life, death, resurrection, heaven, hell, and all other subjects, in short, of divine revelation, we present our inquiries, direct, at the glorious temple of the Living Oracles: What is the nature of man? Must he necessarily exist forever; so that if he fails of securing happiness at the end of his probationary state, his destiny is an eternity of incomprehensible woe? Has he in his nature a principle so tenacious of life, that the severest implements of destruction which God can wield, an eternity of his intensest, devouring fire, can make no inroads upon its immaculate vitality? To these solemn and important questions, we shall here expect answers that will not perplex us by their ambiguity, nor deceive us by their falsehood.
The attention of every student of the sacred page has doubtless been arrested by that prominent declaration, "God only hath immortality." 1 Tim. vi, 16. The query arises, Can this be taken in its absolute sense? Is this a declaration that God is now the only being in the universe, who is in possession of immortality, or absolute exemption from death? Doubtless not. Our Lord declares of the angels that they die no more [Luke xx, 36]; and he says of himself, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore." Rev. i, 18. The meaning of the passage under consideration, must then be simply this: that God only is the great source of immortality; that he only has it in himself to bestow upon others. The fact that now the Father has conferred equal power in this respect upon the Son [John v, 26], affects in no wise this declaration. With this interpretation I Tim. vi, 16, is final and conclusive. This being admitted, we must also make room for the inevitable sequence, that those only are immortal upon whom God has, by a separate and distinct act, bestowed this immeasurable gift. We accept the issue here; and here we might rest, saying to all the believers in man's immortality, Show us the record that God hath bestowed upon man this, so glorious a boon, irrespective of character, and it sufficeth us.
We cannot however wait for their response to this appeal. We fear that to wait till they should find the record we call for, would involve too long a delay. And as we, equally with them, are in possession of the only source from which we are willing to admit that legitimate testimony can come, with them we will turn to the "opening page of a progressive revelation," and see if for ourselves we can find the prerogative of a never-ending existence in anywise inherent in the birth-right of man.
THE IMAGE OF GOD.
The first testimony of the Bible concerning man, is found in Gen. i, 26, 27: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," &c. A claim is here instituted for immortality by the advocates of the popular sentiment. This image of God, say they, in which man was created, cannot refer to his body which is mortal and corruptible, but must refer to his soul or spirit, which is in this respect like God, immortal and incorruptible. Formally stated, their argument is this: 1. God only hath immortality. 1 Tim. vi, 16. 2. Man is created in the image of God. Gen. i, 26. 3. Therefore, man is immortal. If this conclusion is correct, it will be equally so in a parallel case: Thus, 1. God is omnipresent. Prov. xv, 3. 2. Man is created in the image of God. Gen. i, 26. 3. Therefore man is omnipresent! This syllogism, by bringing the conclusion, unlike the former, within the grasp of our senses, betrays its own utter falsity. We might also inquire, Is not God omniscient? Yes. Is man? No. Is not God omnipotent? Yes. Is man? No. What right have we then to assert that the "image" has respect to immortality alone to the exclusion of these other divine characteristics? None whatever. It is pure assumption. The argument which is drawn from this passage for immortality would clothe poor, puny, finite man, with all the attributes of the Deity;114and it is unnecessary to remind the reader that an argument which proves too much, proves nothing.
The image is further referred to in Gen. ix, 6; 1 Cor. xi, 7; Jas. iii, 9. In all these instances we give the term its most obvious and literal meaning, as applied to the material man. This application avoids all necessity of clothing man with those divine attributes which we know he does not possess. But it is urged that man cannot be in the image of God in respect to bodily form; for God is without form, body or parts. A grand mistake, reader; and one that has not been without its weight in giving rise to the interpretation of Gen. i, 26, already refuted. But to place the matter in a still clearer light, we shall be pardoned a short digression on the direct inquiry.
Is God a person? If language has determinate meaning, and Inspiration knows how to use it, he certainly is. An immaterial spirit, without body or parts, cannot be seen with mortal eyes; yet Moses did behold the Lord of Israel. Ex. xxxiii, 21-23. To say that God assumed a body and shape for this occasion, places the theory in a worse light still; for it is virtually changing upon God a double deception: first, by giving Moses the idea that he was a being with body and parts; and second, showing him something that was not himself. On another occasion Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders saw the God of Israel. Ex. xxiv, 9-11. No man, to be sure, has seen his face, nor could they do it, and live, as he has declared. Ex. xxxiii, 20. The harmony on this subject, therefore, between the Old and New Testaments, is undisturbed, skeptics to the contrary notwithstanding.
Again, Christ was bodily upon the earth. After he had risen from the dead, he bade his overjoyed disciples handle his immortal, though not then glorified, body, and satisfy themselves of the existence of flesh and bone. Luke xxiv, 39; John vi, 39. Bodily he ascended into heaven, where none can presume to deny him a local place and habitation. Acts i, 9-11; Eph. i, 20; Heb. viii, 1. But Paul, speaking of this same Jesus, says, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature." Again, "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." It yet remains to be told how Christ could be in the form of God, if God has no form. Once more: "God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person," &c. Heb. i, 1-3. However unsatisfactory previous quotations may have been, of this testimony there can be no evasion. Here is an express declaration that God has a person, and of that person, Christ is the express image.
But is not God, it may be asked in objection, omnipresent? and how can this be reconciled with the idea of his having a physical form? He is everywhere present, we answer, by his Spirit, which is his representative. Ps. cxxxix, 7. Of the text which declares him to be himself a Spirit [John iv, 24], we shall speak when we come to an examination of the import of that term.
To return to Gen. i, 26. The leading definition of image is, "A representation or similitude of any person or thing, formed of a material substance; as an image wrought out of stone, wood or wax." Webster. And there is no definition given of the word, when applied to a material object like man, which will allow us to refer to it anything else but the outward shape, the physical contour. We hence conclude that Gen. i, 27, simply informs us that in this respect man resembled his Maker.