OR, AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRESENT CONSTITUTION
AND FUTURE CONDITION OF MAN.
---
(Continued.)
Answers to Objections Continued.
k.Luke xvi, 19–31, or, The Rich Man and Lazarus. With the points brought to view in this scripture, and the use made of them, the reader is doubtless familiar. The poor man dies and is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also dies and is buried, and in hell he lifts up his eyes, being in torments, and calls for a drop of water to cool his tongue, &c. Where surely, if not here, shall we find evidence of the life of the immortal soul in death? and the advocate of that doctrine thinks no doubt he has it here, beyond the possibility of refutation. But let us carefully examine the basis upon which it rests. There are but two views which can be taken of this scripture: one is that it is a parable, the other, a literal narration. If it is a parable, the following language is applicable to it: "Allegory is a combination of kindred metaphors, so connected in sense as to form a kind of story. The parables of Scripture, as well as fables that point to a moral, are varieties of this figure." Such is the nature of this scripture, if it is a parable. But in regard to the use of metaphorical language in proof of any doctrine, Dr. Clarke thus speaks: "Let it be remembered, that by the consent of all (except the basely interested), no metaphor is ever to be produced in proof of a doctrine. In the things that concern our eternal salvation we need the most pointed and express evidence on which to establish the faith of our souls." Those by whose "consent" this stands as a rule, will not take any exceptions to our rigidly adhering to it. The other class we do not feel specially bound to gratify. Hence we may dismiss all further consideration of the subject in the light of a parable; since if it is such, it cannot be legitimately brought forward to sustain the infinite weight of the soul's immortality.
But if it is a literal narration, what then? Well, let us see. The beggar dies and is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Let it be noted right here that it is the beggar himself that is spoken of, and not any of his immaterial appendages. The beggar died; and the beggar, the very one that died, not his immortal soul, is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Now the inquiry arises, and a pertinent one it is, too, When do the angels, according to the scriptures, bear those who have died into Abraham's bosom, or, which is doubtless meant by this expression, into the state of the blessed? Inspiration answers, "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matt. xxiv, 31. When is this? It is when the Son of man is seen coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. See verse 30. It is then that the mighty voice of the archangel's trump pierces the silent chambers of the dead and calls them forth. 1 Thess. iv, 16, 17. This part of the scene then is definitely located. We have no proof that at death the angels bear away the immortal soul into Abraham's bosom. This has to be assumed in order to make this scripture available to the common theory. But this is assuming the very point in dispute, and begging the whole question.
The rich man also dies, and lifts up his eyes, being in torments. How long it is after he dies before he lifts up his eyes in torments, we are not directly informed. But when he looks up, he sees Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. It must therefore be after Lazarus has been carried there, which is not, as we have seen, till the coming of Christ. Again we ask, When is it that the wicked, represented by the rich man, will be in torments and see the righteous in the kingdom? See Luke xiii, 24–28 for an answer: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many I say unto you shall seek to enter in and shall not be able. When once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door," &c., then he shall say, "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." This again locates it in the future; for it is when the master of the house has risen up and shut to the door, or when the probation of our race is past. Thus as a literal narration, the scene is inevitably located beyond the resurrection and the coming of Christ. It cannot therefore be used to prove the conscious entrance of the soul of man into bliss or woe at the hour of death.
And here we leave it. For if we have found on good and satisfactory reasons that either as parable or literal narration, it cannot be made available to that theory which we oppose, what need we or what want we more? It is with a full appreciation of the justness of that sentiment which forbids our pulling down a man's house without giving a better one, that we thus speak. But it is to a theory as a whole, that this sentiment applies, and not to the particular reasons on which it rests; and as regards a theory in full, we are doing it no violence; for while we are showing (satisfactorily to all we trust) the weakness of the evidence which supports the mystical views of the present day, we are giving something better in their place, a more substantial theory, according to the plain and harmonious teaching of the sacred word. In this particular instance, we are only endeavoring to dissuade persons from leaning on a false prop, and putting trust in fallacious reasoning; and we are equally solicitous to do as much as this, whether the popular theory be true or false.
The reader must not expect us therefore to present him with any fantastic structure of our own, based on this confessedly obscure and perplexing scripture. We have plenty of these already. It will be enough for us, if by our silence we can sufficiently deprecate that spirit which with restless impatience thinks that an application must be made, and an exposition must be given, of every intricate text between the lids of the Bible, however distorted or uncouth that exposition may be.
We may however remark, in closing, that it is evidently a parable. First, it stands in connection with a notable list of parables; and we have no reason to conclude that here an unintimated and arbitrary change takes place in the nature of the discourse. Second, the language is such as to forbid its being taken literally; for instance, Lazarus is carried into Abraham's bosom. How this could literally be, it would be quite awkward to conceive. And again, the place of the rich man's torment, here translated hell, is ᾅδης [hades]; but this is not the word used in the New Testament to denote the place where the unregenerate are punished; that word being γέεννα [ge-enna.] While thus this scripture is evidently a parable, the "moral which it points" is also evident: it is that those stiff-necked and heart-hardened Jews, if they would not believe the clear testimony of Moses and the prophets, would not believe though one rose from the dead. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." It was a scathing rebuke upon them for their unbelief and hardness of heart; and through them, upon all those who with the Bible in their hands, are found in a similar condition.
l.Luke xxiii, 43, or, The Thief on the Cross. "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." An express affirmation, it is claimed, that they would both be conscious and both in paradise that day, though their bodies should be cold in death. But there is no exposition of this scripture that can reasonably conduct us to such a conclusion; while there are several that lead to just the opposite.130Some, we are aware, object to throwing out a variety of expositions of the same scripture. But we do not so regard it. We would just as soon suggest several explanations of the same scripture, as we would several methods of solving the same problem, provided they all equally "get the answer." But before offering any solution of the passage, we will state the objection that lies like a mountain barrier in the way of the common exposition: it is that Christ did not go in that same day, to paradise. He said, three days after he had made the above promise to the thief, that he had not yet ascended to his Father. John xx, 17. In harmony with this declaration the promise must of course be understood. In other words, paradise must be located somewhere away from the presence of the Father, if it still be true that the spirits of Jesus and the thief went there on the very identical day on which they died. Paradise is therefore made to mean a place for disembodied spirits; simply a state of separate existence for souls, where they are kept till the resurrection. What argument exists for this position, other than a law of necessity or convenience, we are not scripturally informed.
But paradise is definitely located in the word of God; and when we hear the Scripture writers speaking of paradise, we may know with the utmost certainty to what place they refer. To point out this location of paradise is our present object.
First, Paul says, [2 Cor. xii, 2,] "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell; God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven." In verse 4, he tells us that he was caught up to paradise. This testimony settles one fact; namely, that paradise is located in the third heaven.
Again, we read in Revelation ii, 7, in the promise of the Saviour to the overcomers in the Ephesian church, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Another nail in a sure place. Paradise, then, we have found to be in the third heaven, and in paradise is the tree of life. One more inquiry concerning the location of this tree of life, will definitively settle this question.
In Rev. xxi and xxii, we have a description of the New Jerusalem, the holy city which is above. In chap. xxii, 1, 2, we read: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it [the city] and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life which bear twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month." By this testimony we learn that the tree of life, which grows in the midst of the paradise of God, is in the holy city, fast by the river of life, which proceeds from the throne of God. Nothing could be more explicit than this. We have now found the paradise of the New Testament. It is in the third heaven where God maintains his residence and his throne.
Apply this fact to the testimony of Luke xxiii, 43, and John xx, 17, and the declaration of the Saviour that he had not yet ascended to his Father, the third day after his crucifixion, is as plain and positive a declaration as could be made that he had not yet been to paradise.
And what does this prove? Does it prove that the declaration of the Saviour failed? Not by any means. It only shows that the words, "This day," in the expression, "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise," as it stands in the common version, do not refer to that day on which the Saviour died; and that they err egregiously who make paradise some convenient separate apartment, some accommodating "ante-chamber" for the reception of that creature of the imagination—the conscious disembodied spirit.
How then can it be explained? is the next inquiry. Let the inquirer then give his attention, and we will tell him, to his entire satisfaction, we trust. The difficulty arises from the manner in which the sentence is punctuated. The comma is unfortunately so placed as to make to-day qualify the declaration "Shalt thou be with me in paradise;"—unfortunately placed, we say, because it makes Christ three days afterwards expressly contradict what, according to this construction, he here promised. And as the punctuation is not the work of inspiration, and withal of but recent origin, the comma in its present form not having been invented till the year 1790, we shall take the liberty to place the comma after to-day, making to-day an adjunct of the phrase, "I say unto thee." It will then read thus: "Verily I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me," &c.—But the objector accuses us of making sad nonsense of the text by this change; and he asks in bitter irony, "Didn't the thief know it was that day without Christ's telling him?" Very true, as a matter of fact; but let the objector beware lest his sarcasm falls upon the Scriptures themselves; for such very expressions do occur therein. See Zech. ix, 12: "Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to-day do I declare that I will render double unto thee." Transposing this sentence without altering the sense, and we have phraseology similar to that of Luke xxiii, 43; namely, "I declare unto you even to-day, I will render double unto thee." The events threatened here were to take place in the future when the Lord should bend Judah, &c. See context.—So the phrase to-day could not qualify the "rendering double," &c., but only the declaration.
Here then is an expression exactly parallel with that in Luke, and the same irony is applicable here, only it would be leveled directly against the words of Inspiration itself; thus, "Did not the prisoners of hope know it was that day when the declaration was made to them?" Also some Gr. manuscripts, according to Griesbach, place the comma after to-day in the declaration in Luke.
But when we take into consideration the circumstances of the case, we see a force and propriety in the Saviour's making his declaration emphatically upon that day. He had been preaching the advent of the kingdom of heaven to listening multitudes. A kingdom, he had promised to his followers. But the powers of death and darkness had apparently triumphed, and were crushing into the very grave both his prospects and his promises. He who was expected to be the king of the coming kingdom, stretched upon the shameful cross, was expiring in ignominy and reproach; his disciples were scattered; and where now was the prospect of that kingdom which had been preached and promised? But amid the supernatural influences at work upon that memorable day, a ray of divine illumination may have flashed in upon the soul of the poor thief, traveling the same road of death beside his Lord. A conviction of the truth of his claims as the Messiah, the Son of God, may have fastened upon his mind, and a desire have sprung up in his heart to trust his lot in his hands, leading him to put up a humble and sincere petition, Lord, in mercy remember me when the days of thy triumph and glory shall come. Yes, says the suffering Saviour, in the hearing of the mocking multitude, I say unto thee to-day—to-day in this hour of my darkness and agony; to-day, when the fatal cross is apparently giving the lie to all my pretensions; to-day, a day of forlorn prospects and withered hopes so far as human eyes can see, verily to-day I say unto thee, thou shalt be with me in paradise, when my kingdom shall be established in triumph and glory.
Thus there is a divine force and beauty to these words of our Lord, as uttered on that occasion.—How like a sun at midnight would they have broken in upon the gloom that enshrouded the sorrowing hearts of the disciples, had they fathomed their import. For who had occasion to sink in despair, if not he upon whom all depended, and that, too, when sinking under the agonies of the cross. But lo, no cloud of gloom is sufficient to fix its shadows upon his serene brow. His divine foresight, riding calmly over the events of the present, fixes itself upon their coming period of glory when he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. There in the hour of his deepest humility, he points them to the joys of paradise.
Thus by a simple removal of the comma one word forward, the stone of stumbling is taken out of this text, by making it harmonize with other scriptures; and thus the promise by having reference to something in the future, and not to anything to be performed on that day, contains no affirmation of consciousness in death.
Another explanation of this passage is based on the nature of the thief's request. He requested to be remembered, not particularly that day or the next, but when the Lord should come in his kingdom. The Lord replies, Verily I say unto you to-day, or this day [when I come in my kingdom] thou shalt be with me in paradise.
Again, it is claimed by some that what the thief said was only in mockery of Christ, denominated King by the inscriptions upon his cross; and that his reply was only a more solemn asseveration of what could not be: "Shalt thou be [dost thou think it possible that thou shalt be] with me in paradise?" In this case the adverb to-day, could be reasonably disposed only by putting the comma after it and making it qualify say, as in the first exposition.
Thus three expositions are given of Luke xxiii, 43. There is a degree of plausibility in each.—The reader can adopt that which seems to him most satisfactory; but if he should have the curiosity to inquire which the writer was inclined to regard as the truthful one, he would be told, The first.
m.Acts vii, 59. "And they stoned Stephen calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit." Here, it is claimed, Stephen called upon God to receive his conscious intelligent soul, when he should fall in death. Christ used a similar expression in Luke xxiii, 46: "into thy hands I commend my spirit." The expression seems to be borrowed from Ps. xxxi, 5; which psalm declares how David put his trust in the Lord against those who "devised to take away his life." But we inquire, if the soul lives right along in one uninterrupted course of existence, where would be the propriety of committing it at the hour of death into the hands of our Maker, any more than at any other time? There would be none. The expression bears upon the very face of it evidence that those making use of it, desired to commit something into the care of their Maker which was about to pass out of their possession; to commit something into his hands for safe keeping while they should fall back from the plane of life into unconsciousness. What was this? Answer, their pneuma. Now let us look at Robinson's second definition of this word, as follows: "The spirit of man, i. e., the vital spirit, life, soul, [animal soul—Greenfield.] Latin, anima, the principle of life residing in the breath, breathed into man from God and again returning to God." This then is what Stephen commended to his God, to be bestowed upon him again at that time when they who for Christ's sake lose their life, shall find it. Matt. x, 39. There is nothing unnatural, nothing forced, nothing unfair, nothing unreasonable, and more than all, nothing unscriptural, in such an exposition.
n.Rom. viii, 38, 39. "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, &c., shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." It is claimed that death cannot separate us from the love of God; but as God cannot exercise his love towards any but a rational and conscious creature, therefore the soul must be alive after death. To what far-fetched and abortive reasoning will wrong theories lead intelligent men. We owe the reader an apology for noticing this passage at all. We should not here introduce it, were it not used as an objection to the view we advocate; and we should not believe it could ever be urged as an objection, had we not actually seen it. The reasoning of the apostle has to be completely inverted, before any argument (may we be pardoned the misnomer) can be manufactured out of it, for the conscious state theory. For it is of our love to God, through Christ, and not of his to us that the apostle speaks. It has reference also wholly to this life. Thus he says, [verse 35] "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?" That is, shall these things which we have to endure on account of our profession of the gospel and our love for Christ, quench that love in anywise? Shall we compromise the gospel, and alienate ourselves from the love of Christ, who has done so much for us, and through whom we hope for so much [see the whole chapter] to avoid a little persecution, peril and distress? The separation from the love of Christ by death, of which he speaks, is the same as the separation by persecution, &c.; but tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword do not necessarily kill us; they have respect to this life; the separation therefore is something which takes place here—simply an alienation of our hearts from him. And shall all these things, he asks, nay more, shall even the prospect of death on account of our profession of Christ, prevent our loving and following him? No! is the implied and emphatic answer.131Such we believe to be the view which any one must take of this passage, who does not find himself under the unfortunate necessity of making out a case.
o.1 Cor. v, 5. "To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." We may remark here that it is not till the day of the Lord Jesus that the spirit is spoken of as being saved. It does not say, that the spirit may go off to heaven in conscious existence at the hour of death. The means through which persons will be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus is the resurrection, as we shall presently see. The salvation of the whole person is what is undoubtedly referred to here; pneuma, the spirit being put simply in contrast with sarkos, the flesh. The destruction of the flesh good authorities understand in a literal manner, of the power with which the apostles were authorized to punish offenders in a supernatural manner with disease or death. John xx, 23; Acts xiii, 11, &c.
p.2 Cor. iv, 16. "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." Is this inward man the immortal soul? We answer, No; but the new man which we put on, Christ formed within the hope of glory. See Col. iii, 9, 10. Eph. iv, 22, 24, iii, 16, 17. Col. i, 27.
q.2 Cor. v, 8. "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." This is the only real expression in this chapter from which an argument for the conscious state can be drawn. But we hold it to be wrong to take an isolated expression, and build upon it a great doctrine, without taking into consideration the general tenor of the context with which it stands connected. And what is the intent of Paul's discourse here? He is contrasting the temporal and eternal states. See previous chapter, verses 17, 18. "The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." "Our earthly house of this tabernacle," and the "building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," of the first verse of chap. v, bring to view the same things. "For in this [in this state] we groan earnestly;" says he, "desiring to be clothed upon with our house from heaven." And this being clothed upon is explained in verse 4, to be the swallowing up of mortality in life. The same scene is brought to view in Rom. viii, 22, 23: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves [almost the same expression], waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Such are the scenes brought to view in 2 Cor. v, 1–10; but when they take place, or when it is that mortality is to be swallowed up of life, we are not then informed. But Paul elsewhere tells us: See the xvth chapter of his first epistle to these same Corinthians: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." Verse 53.
When? "At the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Verse 52. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. "Death is swallowed up in victory" [or mortality is swallowed up of life]. Verse 54.
r.2 Cor. xii, 2. "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell; God knoweth), such an one caught up to the third heaven." There is such a thing, then, as the soul's maintaining a conscious existence out of the body. We submit that this does not follow. Mark the Apostle's subject, verse 1. It is visions and revelations. He goes on to relate a view he had had of paradise, and states that he is in doubt whether he was taken up bodily into paradise or not. If he was not, he was, of course, according to his subject, in vision. All must admit that these two conditions are the only ones brought to view by the apostle; either being carried bodily into paradise, or viewing it in vision. All the apostle means, then, by the phrase, "out of the body," is merely to be in vision. But according to the view usually taken, as being out of the body (a separation of soul and body) is death, when the apostle had a vision, he died; and when he came out of vision, of course he had a resurrection! Will our friends go all the way with their theory? Paul, then, does not say it is possible for a man to be out of the body in the popular signification of that expression; for he only relates that he had had an inexpressible view of paradise; but whether he was taken up bodily into that glorious place, or whether being wrapt in vision, the things were presented to his mind by the power of the Holy Ghost, (in which case they would appear none the less real), he could not tell; God alone knew the means he had employed to give his servant a vision of his glory. What would be his astonishment, could he now be present, to behold the attempts that are made to wrest his language into proof for the conscious state of the dead: a doctrine which he so often, both directly and incidentally, had taken occasion to deny!
s.Phil. i, 23. "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." We are anxious to give all the passages adduced by those who advocate life in death, their true hearing, and all the force to which they are entitled. Truth is too strong to need prevarication. We therefore differ from our opponents only where we feel obliged so to do—where to follow them would be, to the best of our discernment, to adopt unsound principles of interpretation. In the present instance we can go with them in every particular except the conclusion. We concede, then, that the language of Paul in Phil. i, 23, and the context, conveys the following meaning: first, that he had only two states in view, viz., life and death; as he says in verse 20, "So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain [not to me but to the cause of Christ];" that is, it would be equal gain to the cause of Christ whether he should live or die. Second, that he knew not which he should choose, provided it was placed before him as a matter of choice, for he had a desire to depart and be with Christ, but it was more needful for his brethren that he should remain. If he should consult his own personal desires, he would depart; he longed to go: but then the church could illy spare him; they had need of his presence and his labors; "to abide in the flesh," says he, "is more needful for you." Perhaps the apostle here had his eye upon the grievous wolves of which he elsewhere speaks; and he knew it was needful that he should live to beat back those fell destroyers from the fold of Christ. Third, that by the expression, "to depart," he meant death. Then says the objector, you agree with us that when a saint dies he is immediately with Christ in heaven? By no means, we reply: If you take this testimony to prove the conscious state, it is vulnerable still in a most vital point; for it does not state how long a time elapses between the departing and the being with Christ: it does not say that the being with Christ is immediate. But it would seem so from the manner in which it is expressed, says one; and it would not be proper to express it in any other manner, we reply, since a person absolutely unconscious, as in death, has no perception whatever of a lapse of time, and the next event of which he has any knowledge, is what opens to him beyond the resurrection. No perceptible time elapses to the dead between their death and the resurrection. When Abel shall come forth at the trump of God, it will seem to him but an instant before that he was falling beneath the murderous blows of Cain.
It may be objected again, that Paul, according to this view, would gain nothing by departing, since he would not be with Christ any sooner than if he should remain in the flesh a while longer. Measuring the time absolutely, he would not, to be sure; but measuring it by his consciousness (his only means of measurement), and he would; just as much sooner as what time elapsed between the penning of that sentence and the day of his death. Paul then in Phil. i, 23, does not contradict what he elsewhere says, when, speaking of the dead, he tells us plainly that they are asleep.
t.1 Thess. iv, 14. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him." Yes, says the objector, bring them from heaven; so they must now be with him there in a conscious state. Not quite so fast. The text speaks of those who sleep in Jesus. Do you believe those who have gone to heaven are asleep? We always supposed that heaven was a place of unceasing activity, and of uninterrupted joy. And again, are all these persons going to be brought from heaven asleep! What a theological incongruity! But from what place are they brought if not from heaven? The same place we answer, from which God brought our Lord Jesus Christ. And what place was that? See Heb. xiii, 20: "Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ," &c. We may then read the text in Thess. as follows: "For if we believe that Jesus died and God brought him from the dead, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him from the dead." Simply this the text affirms, and nothing more. It is a glorious pledge of the resurrection, and so far diametrically opposed to the conscious-state theory.