OR, AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRESENT CONSTITUTION AND FUTURE CONDITION OF MAN.
(Continued.)
Answers to Objections Continued.
u.2 Tim. iv, 6. "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." It is claimed that the departure here referred to is death, with which we agree. We take no exceptions to the remark so often made, "Departed this life," &c. But as Paul does not here intimate that his departure was to be to heaven, or even to any conscious intermediate state we have no right to infer this.
v.Heb. xii, 23. "Ye are come, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written [in the Lamb's book of life] in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect." Of this passage two expositions may be given. The first is, that the apostle here certainly could not mean to tell the Hebrews that they had in reality and literally come to Mount Zion, [see verse 22], to the city of the living God, &c. This then was only prospective; and they had come, on a change of dispensation, only by faith, to all these things which are mentioned. The spirits of just men made perfect are not therefore spoken of as existing in the present sense. Let it be noticed again that it does not say spirits made perfect, but men made perfect. But when is it that men are made perfect? He tells us in verses 39, 40 of chap. xi, of this same epistle to the Hebrews: "And these all [the ancient worthies] having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." The child of God in the nineteenth century may take up this language as his own. The scriptures reveal to us God's grand design of having the whole family perfected together when all those who are written in heaven shall be gathered home.
The second exposition, and which is not without its force, is, that Paul is here simply contrasting the two dispensations, the Mosaic and the Christian (which is evidently the case, and equally true on the exposition above given), and that we, christians, are come, or have come, in the present sense, to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, &c. That is, that we are no longer in this dispensation to look to old Jerusalem or to the earthly Mount Zion, but to the Jerusalem above, the mother of us all; that we have come to it in this respect, that now our communication and intercourse is to be directly with it, without going through the circuitous medium of an outward priesthood as in the former dispensation. In this sense we have come to God and an innumerable company of angels. Angels are more intimately connected with the believer and the work, of this dispensation. And to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven. We enjoy a closer union with those whose names are in the book of life than was ever experienced in any dispensation before. And to the spirits of just men made perfect. That is, persons, perfected not in the sense of Heb. xi, 40, which refers to the final glorification, but perfect as Christ makes us perfect here, through the justification of his blood and the sanctification of his Spirit. And the christian of this dispensation does come directly "to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
It is in this sense that Dr. Clarke understands the passage. He says:
"The spirits of just men made perfect.] We cannot understand these terms without the assistance of Jewish phraseology. The Jews divide mankind into three classes: 1. The JUST PERFECT, tsaddikim gemurim. 2. The wicked perfect, reshaim gemurim. 3. Those between both, beinoniyim.
"1. The just perfect are those, 1st. Who have conquered all brutal appetites and gross passions. 2d. Who have stood in the time of strong temptation. 3d. Who give alms with a sincere heart. 4th. Who worship the true God only. 5th. Who are not invidious. 6th. Those from whom God has taken yester hara, evil concupiscence, and given yester tob, the good principle.
"2. The wicked perfect are those, 1st. Who never repent. 2d. They receive their portion in this life, because they can have none in the life to come, and are under the influence of yester hara, the evil principle.
"3. The intermediate are those who are influenced partly by the evil principle and partly by the good. See Schoettgen.
"In several parts of this epistle [to the Hebrews] teleios the just man, signifies one who has a full knowledge of the Christian system, who is justified and saved by Christ Jesus; and the teleiomenoi are the adult Christians, who are opposed to the nipioi or babes in knowledge and grace. See chap. v, 12–14; viii, 11; and Gal. iv, 1–3. The spirits of just men made perfect, or the righteous perfect, are the full grown Christians; those who are justified by the blood and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. Being come to such, implies that spiritual union which the disciples of Christ have with each other, and which they possess how far soever separate; for they are all joined in one Spirit, Eph. ii, 18; they are in the unity of the Spirit, Eph. iv, 3, 4; and of one soul, Acts iv, 32. This is a unity which was never possessed even by the Jews themselves in their best state; it is peculiar to real Christianity: as to nominal Christianity, wars and desolations between man and his fellows, are quite consistent with its spirit." The reader is also referred to Dr. C.'s note at the end of the chapter.
We are inclined to think that this latter exposition best expresses the sense of the passage.
w.1 Pet. iii, 18, 19. "For Christ also hath once suffered, &c., being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison." A paraphrase of this passage will, we think, make all plain. Thus, Being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit, by which Spirit also he went [not when he died, but] when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, &c., and preached to the spirits, or persons, in prison.
Dr. Clarke remarks on this passage, "He went and preached. By the ministry of Noah, one hundred and twenty years." Thus he places Christ's going and preaching by his Spirit, in the days of Noah where it evidently belongs, and not during the time that his body lay in the grave.
Again he says, "The word pnumasi spirits is supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean disembodied spirits; but this certainly does not follow, for the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. xii, 23, certainly means righteous men, and men still in the church militant; and the Father of spirits, Heb. xii, 9, means men still in the body; and the God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. xvi, 22, and xxvii, 16, means men, not in a disembodied state."
But, it may be asked, does it not speak of the spirits' being in prison? and does not that expression denote a state of death, and show that men are conscious, and can be preached to, in death? Answer. We have seen that the preaching took place in the days of Noah, to men in this present state; and if the spirits, or persons, were in prison while they were hearing the preaching, that expression must mean their detention under the arrest of divine justice, their days being limited to a hundred and twenty years. Thus detained, and their doom appointed, they are represented as being in prison, the judgments of God waiting either for their repentance, or for the expiration of the time allotted to them, that they might suffer the threatened doom. But if the preaching did not take place to them while they were in prison, and this expression denotes the138state of death into which they have since fallen, and now are, then the passage furnishes no sort of proof for the conscious state. We will only remark finally, that to locate the scene here brought to view beyond the grave, and to say that Christ's soul or spirit went, while his body lay in the grave, and preached to other souls which were detained somewhere after death where they could be benfitted and reformed by Christ's preaching; smells too strong of purgatory, ever to be found on the lips of a Protestant.
x.2 Pet. i, 14. "Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me." It is here claimed that the "I" that speaks, and the "my" that is in possession of a tabernacle, is Peter's soul, the man proper, and the tabernacle is the body which he was going to lay off. That Peter here has reference to death, we doubt not; but it was to be as the Lord Jesus Christ had showed him. How had he showed him it would be? See John xxi, 18, 19: "But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God." Here we are shown that the "thou" and the "he," claimed on 1 Pet. i, 14, to be Peter's soul, the man proper, was going to die, and by death glorify God. And Peter himself says in the next verse, "Moreover I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance." Here, then, the same "my," Peter's soul, the man proper, recollect, which in the verse before is in the possessive case and governed by tabernacle, is again in the possessive case and governed by decease, or death! Yes, Peter himself was going to die.
y.Rev. vi, 9, 10. "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Let us understand the real difficulty of this text, before we enter upon its exposition. We have seen in our examination of the words soul and spirit, that soul may and does sometimes mean the body, and that dead soul is as proper an expression as living soul. But it is claimed that the souls here must be alive, for they are heard to cry. Their consciousness is based upon their crying. For this reason and no other they are supposed to be intelligent and conscious. But this is far from a necessary conclusion. See Gen. iv, 9, 10. "And the Lord said unto Cain . . . the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." Was the blood conscious? No; but it revealed the fact that a murder had been committed, a life taken, and thus it called for vengeance. See also Hab. ii, 11; James v, 4, for other instances of similar expressions. So in Revelation, when the fifth seal was opened, John in symbolical vision saw the representation of an altar, and under that altar, like victims slain upon it and fallen by its side, he beheld those who had been martyred by the idolatry and superstition of Pagan Rome; and their blood, even like the blood of Abel, cried to Almighty God for vengeance. And all this is in the strictest accordance with that beautiful figure of rhetoric, personification, which is "the attributing of life, action, intelligence and personality to inanimate objects," and without which language itself would scarcely be complete.
But let us look at the picture here brought to view, according to the popular interpretation. First, we have souls under the altar of incense in heaven—souls it would seem shut up in a certain place in heaven; and second, these souls cry for vengeance on those who had slain them, or rather driven them from their bodies on earth; but these very persons, if current with theology be correct, had been the means of their going directly to heaven, had caused their entrance into all its unspeakable and perpetual bliss. Act they well or consistently to call for vengeance on such? Is the life on earth so much happier than the life in heaven, and so superior to it, that vengeance must be taken on those who presume to shorten it by ushering us into the latter? It would hardly seem so. But, third, these souls call upon God to avenge their blood; but we did not suppose that an immaterial, invisible, indivisible, indestructible, unimaginable, popular soul, had blood that could be shed, as is here represented. Is there not something of incongruity in the view usually taken of this passage? We think all must admit it.
We will now answer in order a few such questions as may suggest themselves to the mind of the reader, according to our view of this passage, and so dismiss it. 1. Who or what are the souls under the altar? Answer, Those who had been slain by Pagan Rome: the fifth seal, before the opening of which they were slain, denoting the time of Papal supremacy. It was during this time of Papal rule that their fellow-servants and brethren were to be slain as they had been; and during this time it was said to them that they should rest. The grave is denominated a place of rest. Job. iii, 17, 18. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor." How true of these victims of Pagan persecution! John in Rev. xx04, speaks again of these souls: "I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus . . . and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." This shows that the time does not come for these souls to live until the resurrection. 2. What and where is the altar? It denotes the place where they were slain, and was "upon earth," says Dr. Clarke, "not in heaven." 3. How could they cry if they were not conscious and intelligent? Even as Abel's blood did cry. 4. And white robes were given them? Showing the decision of heaven on their characters: a good pledge that they will join the general assembly around the great white throne. Rev. vii, 9.
z.Rev. xxii, 8, 9. "And I John . . . fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets." This text is supposed to prove that one of the old prophets came to John as an angel, showing that the dead exist in a conscious state. But it does not so teach. The angel simply stated that he was John's fellow-servant, and the fellow-servant of John's brethren the prophets, and the fellow-servant of them which keep the sayings of this book. The being of whom they were all worshippers together, was the great God. Therefore says the angel, do not worship me, since I am only a worshiper with you at the throne of God; but worship God. This angel had doubtless been sent to the ancient prophets to reveal things to them, as he had now come to John. Such we believe to be the legitimate teaching of this scripture, the last that is found in the book of God, supposed to teach a conscious state.
We have now examined a whole alphabet of scriptures which are brought forward as objections to the view we advocate. We have found that when interpreted in accordance with the acknowledged rule that scripture should explain scripture, many of them become positive testimony for the unconscious state of the dead; and those that are not such, prove nothing for the other side, and so, at most, are but neutral. But this argument has been rather negative than positive. We now propose to bring forward a few scriptures which prove beyond all the arts of sophistry or the blindness of prejudice, the view we hold.
DIRECT TESTIMONY FOR THE SLEEP OF THE DEAD.
a.Gen. iii, 19. "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." This was God's sentence upon Adam. The moral, responsible, intelligent Adam, is here addressed, the one that had sinned, and that Adam was remanded back to the dust from whence he was taken. Nothing here truly that looks much like consciousness in death.
b.Deut. xxxi, 16. "Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers." These were the words of the Lord to Moses. Now when the Bible speaks of a man in life, we understand that it means the whole rational, intelligent man; and we do not believe when it speaks of the same individual in death, that the language suddenly changes its meaning and refers only to the body, leaving the soul, the man proper, to fly off unnoticed to a higher state of activity and conscious being. Mark then, that it is the Moses that lived, that was sentenced to sleep with his fathers. See also 2 Sam. vii, 12; 1 Kings ii, 10, &c.
c.Job iii, 11–19. Job here testifies that could he have died in earliest infancy, he had been at rest with kings and counsellors of the earth which built desolate places for themselves, &c.; "as a hidden, untimely birth," to quote his own language, "I had not been." Such is the condition Job declares the dead to be in. We imagine that none will contend for much consciousness here, except those who believe in the pre-existence of the human soul, as well as its life after death.
d.Job x, 21, 22. Speaking of death Job says, "Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." This is the place to which Job was going. But Job was a righteous man, and must have gone, according to general belief directly to heaven. Is this a description of heaven?
e.Job xiv, 10–12. Job here asks the direct question, "Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he?" The very point we want to know Job. Then, might the venerable patriarch reply, mark well my answer! "As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep." No plainer testimony can be needed, that, till the heavens be no more, or are "rolled together as a scroll," and the resurrection of the dead takes place, those who have fallen in death shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep.
f. Verse 21. "His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not." What? Don't a dead man know more than all the living? Has not his soul opened into an unbounded field of consciousness? Is he not permitted to be the guardian of his friends? Scarcely. For his sons come to honor, an event so well calculated to please him, and he knows nothing of it: they are brought low, an event calculated to grieve him, and he knows nothing of that; for he is gone to that place, where, says another scripture, there is no knowledge.
g.Job xvii, 13–16. "If I wait the grave is mine house." Job had told us in chap. xiv, 14, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come." Now he says, "If I wait the grave is mine house." The change referred to then, must be the resurrection; and what his condition would be till that time, he tells us in the following language: "I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister, . . . when our rest together is in the dust."
h.Ps. vi, 5. "For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" A positive declaration, on which comment is unnecessary.
i.Ps. lxxxviii, 10. "Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee?" Certainly, if they are in heaven. But here is a declaration put in the interrogative form, to express the strongest possible denial of any such condition in death.
j.Ps. cxv, 17. "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Would the theology of our day speak thus of the dead? Let its funeral sermons answer. But we139say, Let God be true, though at the expense of all men-made creeds, and traditionary dogmas.
k.Ps. cxlvi, 3, 4. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." What kind of consciousness is it supposed a man could keep up without thoughts? But in the very day of his death his thoughts perish.
l.Eccl. ix, 5, 6, 10. "For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished, neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest." Comment unnecessary.
m.Isa. xxxviii, 18, 19. "For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth." Such is the plain unequivocal testimony of good king Hezekiah. God had in mercy added to his life fifteen years; and in his song of thanksgiving he thus tells us why he rejoiced: it was because in the grave he could not praise him, as he desired to do; for the living alone could praise him as he did that day. Contrast this with the sentiment of the hymns which enter into divine worship at the present day:
"I'll praise my Maker while I've breath;
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers."
Hezekiah, it seems, thought differently; and now, reader, which do you prefer, the imagination of the poet, or the inspiration of Isaiah?
n.Eze. xxxvii, 1–14. Here reference is made to the resurrection, and the Lord promises his people that he will bring them, not from heaven, but from their graves.
o.Dan. xii, 2. "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," &c. They are not sleeping in the dust of the earth if they are in heaven; and if the resurrection is simply the coming back of the soul, the man proper, to resume the old body, this language is a very improper description of such an event.
p.Hos. xiii, 14. "I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death." Where is the necessity of this, or who would wish to be thus redeemed, if death is, as we are told, "but the gate to endless joy?"
q.Matt. xxvii, 52. "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose." Not bodies of the saints which were in heaven.
r.John iii, 13. "No man hath ascended up to heaven." Rather a startling declaration, viewed from the stand-point of the common belief. But what about Enoch and Elijah? We answer that Bible rules, as well as others, have their exceptions; but we must not suffer the exception to usurp the place of the rule.
s.John v, 28, 29. "The hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." But there are none there, says popular theology. It will be vain to endeavor to apply this language to the body merely; for is hearing an attribute of the body when the soul has departed?
t.John vii, 34. "Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am thither ye cannot come." This was the language of Jesus when speaking of going to his Father. Should any say that this was addressed to the wicked Jews who would not of course go to heaven to be with Jesus when they died, we reply that he said the same to his disciples also. Chap. xiii, 33.
u.John xi, 11–14, &c. Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death." Read the whole account: it speaks of anything else but a conscious state in death. And in the account of the raising of Lazarus, verse 44, it is said, "And he that was dead, came forth," &c.
v.Acts ii, 29, 34. "Men and brethren let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. For David is not ascended into the heavens." What? Do not the souls of the righteous mount up to God and glory the instant they are liberated by death from this "mortal coil?" And who more likely to do this than David, a man after God's own heart? But no; such is not the teaching of the infallible oracle. David in the days of Peter had not ascended into heaven. Where was he? Chap. xiii, 36, answers: "For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid to his fathers, and saw corruption."
w.Acts vii, 60. "And when he [Stephen] had said thus, [he went to heaven, to Jesus whom he had seen standing on the right hand of God? No; but] fell asleep."
x.1 Cor. xv, 20. "But now is Christ risen and become the first fruits of them that slept." See also verse 51: "We shall not all sleep," &c., language entirely incompatible with the idea of consciousness in death.
y.1 Thess. iv, 13, 14. "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." We have had occasion to refer to this scripture once before, and shall refer to it again. We quote it here simply to show that the dead are represented as asleep.
z.2 Pet. ii, 9. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." This testimony shows that the unjust do not enter into a place of punishment at death, but are reserved to the day of judgment. Where are they reserved? Ans. In the general receptacle of the dead, the grave. See Job xxi, 30.
We have now introduced twenty-six positive scriptures for unconsciousness in death, answering text for text to those which are considered as objections to this view. We trust that those which are so considered have been shown to be no objections, while the import of these direct proof texts no sophistry can evade. Can the reader longer hesitate to which view to give his adherence? Can he longer doubt upon which side the testimony of the Bible stands? But there is another great doctrine of the Bible which amounts to the most positive evidence upon this point, and that is,
THE RESURRECTION.
There are various views extant of this event and various theories relative to the time and manner of its accomplishment. But we speak of that literal resurrection which the Bible assures us shall take place, and that, too, at the last day. It is the resurrection of those that sleep in their graves. The Saviour himself declares, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." John v, 28, 29. It is an event which is yet future. Paul said, when disputing with Tertullus before the governor, I "have hope towards God which, they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust." Acts xxiv, 15. And he tells us in chap. xxvi, 7, that unto that promise the twelve tribes hope to come. He also reasoned of a judgment to come [chap. xxiv, 25,] and declares that God hath appointed a day for this very purpose. Chap. xvii, 31.
These two great events, therefore, the resurrection and a general judgment being fixed facts, according to the plain declarations of the Bible, the important inquiry arises, What need is there of a resurrection, if the man proper ceases not to exist at death, but lives on in a more enlarged and perfect sphere of consciousness and activity? If the body is but a trammel, a clog, to the operations of the soul, what need that it should come back and gather up its scattered particles from the silent tomb? Says Wm. Tyndale, while defending the doctrine of Martin Luther that the dead sleep, "In putting departed souls in heaven hell and purgatory, you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection. . . . If the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be? and then what cause is there of the resurrection?" Most just and pertinent question; one which places the tendency of the popular doctrine in its true light; for, indeed, what cause is there of the resurrection, in such a case as that?
Again: What propriety can there be in a general judgment at the last day, if those who pass from this state of existence, enter immediately at death into happiness or misery accordingly as their characters have been good or bad? Is there possibility of mistake in the decision passed upon men at death? and is it perhaps the case that some have been unjustly tormented in hell, and others unworthily reveling in the bliss of heaven for ages past, so that there must needs be a general assize on the whole human race, to correct these momentous errors of former decisions? Such a view reflects on the character of the divine government. Thus the popular teaching renders two cardinal events in the Bible plan of salvation, altogether useless and unnecessary; and any view, which leads us to conclusions so serious in their nature, we respectfully submit, should be held with modesty and received with caution.
The resurrection is the great event for which the sacred writers looked and longed. It was the hope of the patient Job: "I know that my Redeemer liveth," exclaims he in the assurance of faith, "and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Job xix, 25, 26. This was the satisfactory hope of the psalmist David: "As for me," he says, "I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." Ps. xvii, 15. To the same theme Isaiah tuned the lyre, and this was the burden of his joyful song: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Isa. xxvi, 19. It was the hope of the apostle Paul through all his manifold sufferings and toil. For this he could take up any cross and sacrifice any temporal good. And if he could esteem his afflictions, his troubles on every side, his perplexities, persecutions, stripes, imprisonments and perils;—if he could esteem all these but light afflictions, yea, if he could utterly lose sight of them, it was in view of the "glory which shall be revealed in us," "Knowing," says he, "that he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." 2 Cor. iv, 14. He could count all things loss, if by any means he might attain to a resurrection out from among the dead. Phil. iii, 8–11.