DEAR BRO. HULL:—You think it disingenuous in me to designate your doctrine as Spiritualism. I did not intend to class you with that odious brood, so recently hatched, which take the name of Spiritualists. I only meant, that modern infidels are leaving their former materialistic position, and embracing your popular view, that man has an immortal spirit, which continues to live after the body is dead, while with Bible students and believers, the gain is decidedly the other way. This is significant. The Devil has changed his tactics, because the people are ripe for a change. He once fought the doctrine of the resurrection with this inscription upon his banner, "Death is an eternal sleep;" but now he finds greater success against the same truth, by taking the more popular motto, "There is no death"—an assertion equally at war with the truth; and there are multitudes of professed Christians at the present time, giving up the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, as the legitimate result of this popular sentiment. The view that you have held in this discussion—that Jesus did not ascend to Heaven in the same body in which he was crucified, and in which he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection—looks too much like making the bodies of the saints entirely useless, as they will ascend at once, and not remain here to convince men of the fact of their having been raised from the dead, and afterward be cast away as worthless at their ascension. I do not accuse you of infidelity. Far from it. But I warn all of the "last ditch," and ask them to open their eyes, lest they fall into it. It is better to admit that man dies and lives again, than to deny the clearly revealed doctrine of the resurrection altogether. Do not take offense. I did not complain when you said, in your fifth article, "I do not say that infidelity is dead—that materialism slumbers. Nay, they are boastful!"
You give our faith considerable antiquity—dating us back to the days of Origen, who was born in A. D. 185. We go a little further back, and find a record thus written, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died."171
You hold that eternal life in the Scriptures means eternal blessedness, and that to say that Christ came to give literal life to men is a monstrous perversion. Jesus illustrates the object of the sacrifice of himself as follows: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."—Jno. iii, 14, 15.
The object of lifting up the brazen serpent in the wilderness was not to relieve the pains and give ease and comfort to those who had been bitten, though doubtless it had this effect. But the great leading object was to prolong their lives. It saved them from perishing literally, and gave them literal life. So Christ died that the believers in him should not perish—literally perish, or die to live no more—but have eternal life. If this does not mean what it says, by what rule of interpretation shall we understand the Scriptures? I know that words are often used figuratively, always deriving their force from the literal idea. But shall we take the exception for the rule, and because words are sometimes used figuratively, say they have no literal meaning? Again, Paul, speaking of the literal death of Christ and of the literal resurrection of those who sleep in him, at the time when the "Lord himself" shall descend from Heaven, sets forth the object of Christ's death as follows: "Who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him." 1 Thess. v, 10. Is not this the literal death of Christ, and the literal living of the saints with him, by literal resurrection of the dead? Did not the Son of God give his life for ours? Did he not come "to give his life a ransom for many"—to "ransom them from the power of the grave"—and to "redeem them from death"—a thing which Paul says "shall be brought to pass" at the resurrection? Matt. xx, 28; Hosea xiii, 14; 1 Cor. xv, 54, 55. Or did he lay down his blessedness, and become unhappy, that he might give blessedness to beings already in possession of eternal life?
We are agreed that the body without the spirit is dead. James ii, 26, mar. You rejoice at this, and ask, "Having gone thus far together, why need we separate?" I do not desire separation—would rather retain your company. You further ask, "You do not believe that the spirit returns to God a dead spirit, do you?" I answer no; it was not a living creature, but merely a "vital essence" before it was given, and I believe it is such when it returns to the Fountain of Life. I am happy that we agree so far. You cite me to Alger. I will give his rendering of Gen. ii, 7, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the spirit of existence, and man became a conscious being." p. 155. If the spirit of existence entering through the nostrils of the man made him a conscious being, the return of the spirit to God would leave him an unconscious being. In this connection, Alger further says, "It seems to be implied that the life of man, having emanated from the spirit, is to be again absorbed in it, when it is said, 'Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.'"
And still further we agree, "that the rewards promised, and the punishments threatened," are not awarded until after the resurrection. And here we find ourselves in company with the ancient Preacher, who said of the dead, "Neither have they any more a reward." That they have no more a reward, implies that they enjoyed some reward before their death. This agrees with the promise of the Saviour to his disciples, that they should "receive an hundred fold now in this time, and in the world to come eternal life." Now, since men are rewarded both in this life and in the world to come, I infer that the reason they have no reward between death and the resurrection is, because they are unconscious, and consequently incapable of receiving it. This admission brings you very near the ground I occupy—so near that it would be very difficult to define the difference. You find it so; but still think "there must be experienced a sense of fellowship or disfellowship with God," from the very "nature of the case," in that almost dreamless state. Centuries must hang heavily upon them while waiting, in such a state, for their reward. You are almost as far from modern orthodoxy as I am, on this point. Your hold upon it seems only nominal. One more step in the right direction, and we are one.
Concerning the authorities you have quoted on the meaning of sheol and hades, I have only to recommend a careful examination of them, as altogether favoring the faith I contend for. They show the primary and scriptural meaning first, and then the historical or corrupted meaning, as drawn from human tradition. The early Jews believed with their inspired teachers, that sheol was a "land of darkness as darkness itself"—"the land of forgetfulness"—until, by mingling with the heathen, and learning their mythology, they "advanced from" the truth of revelation to the fables of paganism. This gave a new "historical" meaning to the term, but still the Holy Spirit told the truth when he said, "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in sheol, whither thou goest." And whatever the heathen might fable to themselves concerning the dead—their activity and their rewards or punishments in hades—when this term was chosen as the best Greek word to represent sheol, the inspired meaning of it is the same; consequently there is no knowledge in hades, and no gehenna or hell-fire there. Alger says, "Those passages which attribute active employment to the dwellers of the under-world are specimens of poetic license, as the context always shows." And then, after giving a version of Isa. xiv. 8, 9, (which see,) he adds, "The activity thus vividly described is evidently a mere figure of speech." We may apply this to the case of the rich man in hades, in torment; because it is a matter of express revelation, that there is no knowledge, nor work, nor device there.
I think I understand your definition of the historical meaning of words. I will illustrate it. The immersion of believers is, by the Spirit of inspiration, called baptism, and the seventh day of the week is called the Sabbath. At the present time, the historical meaning of baptism is putting a drop of water on the head of an infant, and that of the Sabbath is the first day of the week. Still, you and I use these terms in our teaching; but when we say baptism, we never mean sprinkling, and when we say Sabbath, we never mean the first day of the week. So when the Saviour said hades, he did not endorse the fables of heathen mythology concerning it.
The fire of the valley of Hinnom is taken as a type of that which will be kindled outside of the city in which the wicked will receive their punishment after their resurrection. But the bones, filth and refuse that were cast in there, were cast there, not to be preserved, but to be consumed. The fire from Heaven that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah is also given as a type or example of the punishment of those who should afterwards live ungodly; and it will be fulfilled when fire shall come down from God out of heaven and devour them. Rev. xx, 9. The types are types of destruction, and not of preservation.
But if tartarus is "gehenna intensified," or the hottest hell, as you understand it, how is it that the evil angels, who are already there, are expecting a more severe punishment, as is evident from the fact that some of them asked the Saviour, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" Matt. viii, 29; Rev. xx, 10. They are reserved, an apostle tells us, "unto the judgment of the great day." They are not yet destroyed, though they are doubtless unhappy, for the same class of spirits that said, "Art thou come to torment us before the time," said also, "Art thou come to destroy us?" Mark i, 24. According to your theory, they were destroyed when they were driven out of Heaven. But they do not know it, but are looking forward to a time when they will be destroyed. And if tartarus where they now are, is "gehenna intensified," what can they be looking for in the future? The conclusion is, that tartarus is the prison in which they are reserved to the judgment; and from the evidences we have of their presence among men, both in the days of our Saviour and at the present time, we conclude that our earth and atmosphere are within the limits of their prison.
There is something remarkable in your fifth conclusion concerning the use of the words in question. You conclude that "hell in English, better, upon the whole, represents the Greek word gehenna, than the Greek word hades. Nevertheless, hades is sometimes fairly represented by hell, because the connection in which it is used requires this interpretation." From this I infer that, although you have confessed that men do not receive their punishment till after the judgment, you still think there are some exceptions—that the rich man, for example, of Luke xvi, some way gets into hell before the judgment. I will remind you, that when we come down to the time of the judgment, "death and hell (hades) deliver up the dead that are in them." So if the rich man is an exception, going to hell or purgatory before the time, who knows but that he will go to Heaven when he gets out?
I freely admit that the language of our Saviour, concerning the plucking out of a right eye and the cutting off of a right hand, is figurative. I do not believe that men will be "going about in Heaven with one eye out," nor that there will be immaterial ghosts there in the like sad condition. But if the context alone does not prove that the wicked will be punished in their bodies, other scriptures prove it, and you have admitted it; for you admit that the resurrection of the body takes place before the punishment. You will not claim, I presume, that right hands and right eyes represent darling sins, and the whole body, of consequence, all our sins, so that the danger to the sinner is that all his sins will be cast into hell, while he himself escapes. The teaching of the text seems to be, that it is better to suffer the loss of anything which would cause us to offend or to sin, than to lose all things, even ourselves, as the consequence of our sins. The destruction of soul and body in hell is, in effect, the loss of all things; but if life, or body, is preserved, something is saved, and something which we value pretty highly in the present life, and why not in that which is to come?
You think the fire of future punishment is to be taken in a figurative, and not in a literal sense. I ask you, was it literal or figurative water which inundated the earth, and destroyed the sinners out of it? There is but one answer, that a believer of the Bible can give: It was literal water. Well, Peter says, speaking of the destruction of the antediluvians by the flood, "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the judgment and perdition of ungodly men." The antediluvians perished—literally died by a deluge of literal water. The earth now is reserved to fire. How long reserved? To the day of judgment, the time of the final punishment of the wicked—to the day of perdition—utter destruction—of ungodly men. Will they be literally destroyed by fire, as the wicked were by water in Noah's time? or will it be figurative fire? We are informed, as to the effect of this fire, that "the elements will melt with fervent heat." Will not this make a literal lake of fire?
It is objected to our view of future punishment, that it is not sufficiently terrible to restrain the wicked. An eternity of living woe and misery in the unquenchable flames of hell must be threatened. But when we come to search out the real position, those flames are only figurative—they have no real existence. The wicked are their own tormentors; perhaps, the unquenchable fire is only the remorse of a guilty conscience—a punishment which rests very lightly upon them in this life, and the lighter still, the further they are advanced and the deeper sunk in sin and iniquity. And thus they are to go on, sinning and being punished, to eternity. And this is the popular Protestant hell—as good a heaven as degraded sensualists, calling themselves Spiritualists, would ask for, so far as the goadings of their own consciences are concerned. But I must not anticipate too far, I wait your lead.