The State of the Dead by John Milton

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 5, 1862

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 20, No. 10.

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The State of the Dead.

By John Milton

BY JOHN MILTON.

AUTHOR OF "PARADISE LOST."

CHAPTER I.

THE CREATION OF MAN—A LIVING SOUL—USE OF THE TERM SOUL—SOULS PROPAGATED BY NATURAL DESCENT—OBJECTIONS EXAMINED.

The visible creation comprises the material universe, and all that is contained therein; and more especially the human race. The creation of the world in general, and of its individual parts, is related in Gen. i. It is also described in Job xxvi, 7, &c., and xxxviii, and in various passages of the Psalms and Prophets—Ps. xxxiii, 6–9; civ; cxlviii, 5; Prov. viii, 26; Amos iv, 13; 2 Pet. iii, 5. Previously, however, to the creation of man, as if to intimate the superior importance of the work, the Deity speaks like a man deliberating. Gen. i, 26. "God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness." So that it was not the body alone that was then made, but the soul of man also (in which our likeness to God principally consists); which precludes us from attributing pre-existence to the soul which was then formed—a groundless notion sometimes entertained, but refuted by Gen. ii, 7. "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; thus man became a living soul." Job xxxii, 8. "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." Nor did God merely breathe that spirit into man, but moulded it in each individual, and infused it throughout, enduring and embellishing it with its proper faculties. Zech. xii, 1. "He formeth the spirit of man within him."

We may understand from other passages of Scripture, that when God infused the breath of life into man, what man thereby received was not a portion of God's essence, or a participation of the divine nature, but that measure of the divine virtue or influence which was commensurate to the capabilities of the recipient. For it appears from Ps. civ, 29, 30, that he infused the breath of life into other living beings also. "Thou takest away their breath, they die . . . thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created;" whence we learn that every living thing receives animation from one and the same source of life and breath; inasmuch as when God takes back to himself that spirit or breath of life, they cease to exist. Eccl. iii, 19. "They have all one breath." Nor has the word spirit any other meaning in the sacred writings, but that breath of life which we inspire, or the vital, or sensitive, or rational, faculty, or some action or affection belonging to those faculties.

Man having been created after this manner, it is said, as a consequence, that "man became a living soul;" whence it may be inferred (unless we had rather take the heathen writers for our teachers respecting the nature of the soul), that man is a living being intrinsically and properly one and individual, not compound or separable, not, according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two distinct and different natures, as of soul and body, but that the whole man is soul, and the soul man, that is to say, a body, or individual substance, animated, sensitive and rational; and that the breath of life was neither a part of the divine essence, nor was it the soul itself, but as it were the inspiration of some divine virtue fitted for the exercise of life and reason, and infused into the organic body; for man himself, the whole man, when finally created, is called in express terms "a living soul." Hence the word used in Genesis to signify soul, is interpreted by the apostle, 1 Cor. xv, 45, "animal." Again, all the attributes of the body are assigned in common to the soul. The touch. Lev. v, 2. "If a soul touch any unclean thing." The act of eating. Lev. vii, 18, 20. "The soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity." "The soul that eateth of the flesh," and in other places. Hunger. Prov. xiii, 25; xxvii, 7. "To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." Thirst. Prov. xxv, 26. "As cold waters to a thirsty soul." Isa. xxix, 8. Capture. 1 Sam. xxiv, 11. "Thou huntest my soul to take it." Ps. vii, 5. "Let the enemy persecute my soul and take it."

Where we speak of the body as a mere senseless stock, there the soul must be understood as signifying either the spirit, or its secondary faculties, the vital or sensitive faculty for instance. Thus it is as often distinguished from the spirit as from the body itself. Luke i, 46, 47; 1 Thess. v, 23. "Your whole spirit and soul and body." Heb. iv, 12. "To the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." But that the spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and the doctrine is evidently at variance both with nature and reason, as will be shown more fully hereafter. For the word soul is applied to every kind of living being. Gen. i, 30. "Every beast of the earth wherein there is life" (Heb., a living soul). Gen. vii, 22. "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life (Heb., living soul) of all that was in the dry land, died;" yet it is never inferred from these expressions that the soul exists separate from the body in any of the brute creation.

On the seventh day God ceased from his work, and ended the whole business of creation. Gen. ii, 2, 3.

It would seem, therefore, that the human soul is not created daily by the immediate act of God, but propagated from father to son in a natural order; which was considered the more probable opinion by Tertullian and Apollinaris, as well as by Augustine and the whole western church in the time of Jerome, as he himself testifies, Tom. ii, Epist. 82, and Gregory of Nyssa in his treatise on the soul. God would in fact have left his creation imperfect, and a vast, not to say a servile, task, would yet remain to be performed, without even allowing time for rest on each successive Sabbath, if he still continued to create as many souls daily as there are bodies multiplied throughout the whole world, at the bidding of what is not seldom the flagitious wantonness of man. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the influence of the divine blessing is less efficacious in imparting to man the power of producing after his kind, than to the other parts of animated nature. Gen. i, 22, 28. Thus it was from one of the ribs of the man that God made the mother of all mankind, without the necessity of infusing the breath of life a second time, Gen. ii, 22, and Adam himself begat a son in his own likeness after his image. Gen. v, 3. Thus, 1 Cor. xv, 49, "As we have borne the image of the earthy;" and this not only in the body, but in the soul, as it was chiefly with respect to the soul that Adam was made in the divine image. So, Gen. xlvi, 26, "All the souls which came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins." Heb. vii, 10. "Levi was in the loins of Abraham;" whence in Scripture an offspring is called seed, and Christ is denominated "the seed of the woman." Gen. xvii, 7. "I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." 1 Cor. xv, 44, 46. "It is sown a natural body . . . that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural."

But besides the testimony of revelation, some arguments from reason may be alleged in confirmation of this doctrine. Whoever is born, or shapen and conceived in sin (as we all are, not David only, Ps. li, 5), if he receive his soul immediately from God, cannot but receive it from him shapen in sin; for to be generated and conceived, means nothing else than to receive a soul in conjunction with the body. If we receive the soul immediately from God, it must be pure, for who in such a case will venture to call it impure? But if it be pure, how are we conceived in sin in consequence of receiving a pure soul, which would rather have the effect of cleansing the impurities of the body; or with what justice is the pure soul charged with the sin of the body?

But it is contended, God does not create souls impure, but only impaired in their nature and destitute of original righteousness. I answer, that to create pure souls destitute of original righteousness—to send them into contaminated and corrupt bodies—to deliver them up in their innocence and helplessness to the prison-house of the body, as to an enemy, with understanding blinded and with will enslaved—in other words, wholly deprived of sufficient strength for resisting the vicious propensities of the body—to create souls thus circumstanced, would argue as much injustice, as to have created them impure would have argued impurity; it would have argued as much injustice as to have created the first man, Adam himself, impaired in his nature, and destitute of original righteousness.

Again, if sin be communicated by generation, and transmitted from father to son, it follows that what is the original subject of sin, namely, the rational soul, must be propagated in the same manner; for that it is from the soul that all sin in the first instance proceeds, will not be denied. Lastly, on what principle of justice can sin be imputed through Adam to that soul, which was never either in Adam, nor derived from Adam? In confirmation of which Aristotle's argument may be added, the truth of which is, in my opinion, indisputable. If the soul be equally diffused through any given whole, and throughout every part of that whole, how can the human seed, the noblest and most intimate part of all the body, be imagined destitute of the soul of the parents, or at least of the father, when communicated to the son by the laws of generation?

It was probably by some such considerations as these that Augustine was led to confess that he could neither discover, by study nor prayer, nor any process of reasoning, how the doctrine of original sin could be defended on the supposition of the creation of souls. The texts which are usually advanced, Eccl. xii, 7; Isa. lvii, 16; Zech. xii, 1, certainly indicate that nobler origin of the soul implied in its being breathed from the mouth of God; but they no more prove that each soul is severally and immediately created by the Deity, than certain other texts which might be quoted, prove that each individual body is formed in the womb by the immediate hand of God. Job x, 8–10. "Thine hands have made me . . . hast thou not poured me out as milk?" Ps. xxxiii, 15. "He fashioneth their hearts alike." Job xxxi, 15. "Did not he that made me in the womb make him?" Isa. xliv, 24. "Thus saith Jehovah . . . he that formed thee from the womb." Acts xvii, 26. "He hath made of one blood all nations of men." We are not to infer from these passages that natural causes do not contribute their ordinary efficacy for the propagation of the body; nor on the other hand, that the soul is not received by traduction from the father, because at the time of death it again betakes itself to different elements than the body, in conformity with its own origin.

With regard to the passage, Heb. xii, 9, where "the fathers of the flesh" are opposed to "the Father of spirits," I answer, that it is to be understood in a theological, not in a physical, sense, as if the father of the body were opposed to the father of the soul; for flesh is taken neither in this passage, nor probably anywhere else, for the body without the soul; and "the Father of spirits" for the father of the soul, in respect of the work of generation; but "the father of the flesh" here means nothing else than the earthly or natural father, whose offspring are begotten in sin; "the Father of spirits" is either the heavenly Father, who in the beginning created all spirits, angels as well as the human race, or the spiritual father, who bestows a second birth on the faithful; according to John iii, 6. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." The argument, too, will proceed better, if the whole be understood as referring to edification and correction, not to generation; for the point in question is not from what source each individual originated, or what part of him thence originated, but who had proved most successful in the employment of chastisement and instruction. By parity of reasoning, the apostle might exhort the converts to bear with his rebuke, on the ground that he was their spiritual father. God is as truly the Father of the flesh as of the spirits of the flesh, Num. xvi, 22, but this is not the sense intended here, and all arguments are weak which are deduced from passages of Scripture originally relating to a different subject.

With regard to the soul of Christ, it will be sufficient to answer that its generation was supernatural, and therefore cannot be cited as an argument in the discussion of this controversy. Nevertheless, even he is called "the seed of the woman," "the seed of David according to the flesh," that is, undoubtedly, according to his human nature.

There seems, therefore, no reason why the soul of man should be made an exception to the general law of creation. For as has been shown before, God breathed the breath of life into the other living beings, and blended it so intimately with matter, that the propagation and production of the human form were analogous to those of other forms, and the proper effect of that power which had been communicated to matter by the Deity.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE FALL—SIN—ITS CONSEQUENCES—DEATH—GUILT—FEAR—SPIRITUAL DEATH—BODILY DEATH—THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN NOT A NATURAL RESULT—NOT A SEPARATION OF SOUL AND BODY—THE WHOLE MAN DIES—EACH PART ALSO, SOUL, BODY, AND SPIRIT.

The Providence of God, as it regards the fall of man, is observable in the sin of man, and the misery consequent upon it, as well as in his restoration.

Sin, as defined by the apostle, is ἁμαρτία, anomia, or the transgression of the law. 1 John iii, 5.

After sin came death, as the calamity or punishment consequent upon it. Gen. ii, 17. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Rom. v, 12. "Death entered by sin." Rom. vi, 23. "The wages of sin is death." Rom. vii, 5. "The motions of sin did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death."

Under the head of death, in Scripture, all evils whatever, together with everything which in its consequences tends to death, must be understood as comprehended; for mere bodily death, as it is called, did not follow the sin of Adam on the self-same day, as God had threatened.

Hence divines, not inappropriately, reckon up several degrees of death. The first, as before said, comprehends all those evils which lead to death, and which it is agreed came into the world immediately upon the fall of man, the most important of which I proceed to enumerate.

In the first place, guiltiness; which, though in its primary sense it is an imputation made by God to us, yet it is also, as it were, a commencement or prelude of death dwelling in us, by which we are held as by a bond, and rendered subject to condemnation and punishment, Rom. iii, 19, "that all the world may become guilty before God." Guiltiness, accordingly, is accompanied or followed by the terrors of conscience. Gen. iii, 8. "They heard the voice of God . . . and Adam and his wife hid themselves . . . and he said, I was afraid." Rom. viii, 15. "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear." Heb. ii, 15. "Who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Heb. x, 27. "A certain fearful looking for of judgment." It is attended likewise with the sensible forfeiture of the divine protection and favor; whence results a diminution of the majesty of the human countenance, and a conscious degradation of mind. Gen. iii, 7. "They knew that they were naked." Hence the whole man becomes polluted. Titus i, 15. "Even their mind and conscience is defiled," whence arises shame. Gen. iii, 7. "They sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons." Rom. vi, 21. "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death."

The second degree of death is called spiritual death; by which is meant the loss of divine grace, and of that innate righteousness, wherein man in the beginning lived unto God. Eph. ii, 1. "Who were dead in trespasses and sins." Eph. iv, 18. "Alienated from the life of God." Col. ii, 13. "Dead in your sins."

Rev. iii, 1. "Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead." And this death took place not only on the very day, but at the very moment of the fall. They who are delivered from it are said to be "regenerated," to be "born again," and to be "created afresh;" which is the work of God alone.

The third degree of death is what is called the death of the body. To this all the labors, sorrows, and diseases, which afflict the body, are nothing but the prelude. Gen. iii, 16, 17. "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow . . . in sorrow shalt thou eat of it." Job v, 7. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." All nature is likewise subject to mortality and a curse on account of man. Gen. iii, 17. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." Rom. viii, 20, 21. "The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." Even the beasts are not exempt. Gen. iii, 14; vi, 7. So "the first-born of beasts" in the land of Egypt perished for the sins of their masters. Ex. xi, 5.

The death of the body is to be considered in the light of a punishment for sin, no less than the other degrees of death, notwithstanding the contrary opinion entertained by some. Rom. v, 12, 14. "Until the law sin was in the world . . . death reigned from Adam to Moses." 1 Cor. xv, 21. "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead;" therefore that bodily death from which we are to rise again, originated in sin, and not in nature; contrary to the opinion of those who maintain that temporal death is the result of natural causes, and that eternal death alone is due to sin.

The death of the body is the loss or extinction of life. The common definition, which supposes it to consist in the separation of soul and body, is inadmissible. For what part of man is it that dies when this separation takes place? Is it the soul? This will not be admitted by the supporters of the above definition. Is it then the body? But how can that be said to die, which never had any life of itself? Therefore the separation of soul and body cannot be called the death of man.

Here then arises an important question, which, owing to the prejudice of divines in behalf of their preconceived opinions, has usually been dismissed without examination, instead of being treated with the attention it deserves. Is it the whole man, or the body alone, that is deprived of vitality? And as this is a subject which may be discussed without endangering our faith or devotion, whichever side of the controversy we espouse, I shall declare freely what seems to me to be the true doctrine, as collected from numberless passages of Scripture; without regarding the opinion of those who think that truth is to be sought in the schools of philosophy, rather than in the sacred writings.

Inasmuch then as the whole man is uniformly said to consist of body, spirit, and soul (whatever may be the distinct provinces severally assigned to these divisions), I will show that in death, first, the whole man, and secondly, each component part, suffers privation of life. It is to be observed, first of all, that God denounced the punishment of death against the whole man that sinned, without excepting any part. For what could be more just than that he who had sinned in his whole person should die in his whole person? Or, on the other hand, what could be more absurd than that the mind, which is the part principally offending, should escape the threatened death; and that the body alone, to which immortality was equally allotted, before death came into the world by sin, should pay the penalty of sin by undergoing death, though not implicated in the transgression?

It is evident that the saints and believers of old, the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, without exception, held this doctrine. Jacob, Gen. xxx7ii, 35, "I will go down into the grave unto my son, mourning." Gen. xliii, 36. "Joseph is not." So also Job iii, 12–18. "As an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light." Compare Job x, 21; xiv, 10–13. "Man giveth up the ghost and where is he? . . . man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more." Job xiv, 13, 14, 15. "If I wait, the grave is mine house. Where is now my hope? . . . They shall go down to the bars of the pit." See also many other passages.

The belief of David was the same, as is evident from the reason so often given by him for deprecating the approach of death. Ps. vi, 5. "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" Ps. lxxxviii, 10–12. "Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Ps. cxv, 17. "The dead praise not Jehovah." Ps. xxxix, 13. "Before I go hence and be no more." Ps. cxvi, 9. "While I live I will praise Jehovah." Certainly if he had believed that his soul would survive, and be received immediately into heaven, he would have abstained from all such remonstrances, as one who was shortly to take his flight where he might praise God unceasingly. It appears that the belief of Peter respecting David was the same as David's belief respecting himself. Acts ii, 29, 34. "Let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day . . . for David is not ascended into the heavens."

Again it is evident that Hezekiah fully believed that he should die entirely, where he laments that it is impossible to praise God in the grave. 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." God himself bears testimony to the same truth. Isa. lvii, 1, 2. "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come, he shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds." Jer. xxxi, 15, compared with Matt. ii, 18. "Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." Thus also Dan. xii, 2. "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake."

It is on the same principle that Christ himself proves God to be a God of the living, Luke xx, 37, arguing from their future resurrection; for if they were then living, it would not necessarily follow from his argument that there would be a resurrection of the body: hence he says, John xi, 25, "I am the resurrection and the life." Accordingly he declares expressly, that there is not even a place appointed for the abode of the saints in heaven, till the resurrection. John xiv, 2, 3. "I go to prepare a place for you: and 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." There is no sufficient reason for interpreting this of the body; it is clear therefore that it was spoken, and should be understood, of the reception of the soul and spirit conjointly with the body into heaven, and that not till the coming of the Lord. So likewise Luke xx, 35; Acts vii, 60. "When he had said this he fell asleep." Acts xxiii, 6. "The hope and resurrection of the dead," that is, the hope of the resurrection, which was the only hope the apostle professed to entertain. Thus also Acts xxiv, 21; xxvi, 6, 8; 1 Cor. xv, 17–19. "If Christ be not raised (which resurrection took place for the very purpose that mankind might likewise rise again) then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished;" whence it appears that there were only two alternatives, one of which must ensue; either they must rise again or perish; for "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable;" which again indicates that we must either believe in the resurrection, or have our hope in this life only. Verses 29, 30, 32. "If the dead rise not at all, why stand we in jeopardy every hour . . . let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." That is, die altogether, for otherwise the argument would have no force. In the verses that follow from verses 42–50, the reasoning proceeds on the supposition that there are only two states, the mortal and the immortal, death and resurrection; not a word is said of any intermediate condition. Nay, Paul himself affirms that the crown of righteousness which was laid up for him was not to be received before that last day. 2 Tim. iv, 8. "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

If a crown were laid up for the apostle, it follows that it was not to be received immediately after death. At what time then was it to be received? At the same time when it was to be conferred on the rest of the saints, that is, not till the appearance of Christ in glory. Phil. ii, 16. "That I may rejoice in the day of Christ." Phil. iii, 11, 20, 21. "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead . . . our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." Our conversation therefore is in heaven, not where we are now dwelling, but in that place from whence we look for the coming of the Saviour, who shall conduct us thither. Luke xx, 35, 36. "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; for they are equal unto the angels, being the children of the resurrection." That is, when they finally become such; whence it follows that previous to the resurrection they are not admitted to the heavenly world.

(To be Continued)