NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN
From the Sabbath Recorder. NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN.
DISCUSSION BETWEEN ELD. N. V. HULL, SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST, AND ELD. R. F. COTTRELL, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST.
(Continued from Review, No. 5, present Vol.) Elder Hull's Seventh Article.
DEAR BRO. COTTRELL:—Your parry, in the opening of your answer to my fifth letter, is well enough executed, I suppose; but I fail to see the necessity of asserting your belief in the doctrine you advocate. Doubtless you believe you are right. I believe you are wrong. But what has either this or that to do with our argument? Your designating the doctrine I defend as "Spiritualism," is, to say the least of it, disingenuous. The term defines in popular phrase a form of belief upon the subject of spiritual conditions and agencies entirely aside from anything I have said or believe, and I am at a loss to account for your assertion, that the whole infidel world are embracing my views, as rebels against "high Heaven," and in this their "last ditch" entrenching themselves. That the Christian and heathen worlds, at least the great mass of them, believe with me, that the spirit does not die with the body, is true; but that they are "coming" to this belief, is not true, for they have always held it. Whether a hundred thousand persons in the United States have within the last twenty years embraced your faith in this respect, I know not; but that the statement smacks a little of boasting, no one, I think, would deny. In so far as infidels are concerned, they of course, at least many of them, will have little to object to that part of your faith which asserts that the "whole man becomes unconscious at death," but that any Christian should be led thus far astray, is truly a matter of surprise. Nevertheless, we are told that seducers will "wax worse and worse," and I suppose we may expect that, as time advances, new errors will be introduced, and old ones reproduced. Yours is an old one revived. Eusebius says, (Eccl. Hist., chap. 37, page 253, translated by Rev. C. F. Cruise, A. M., and published by T. Mason and G. Lane, 1839,) "But about this time also other men sprung up in Arabia as the propagators of false opinions. These asserted that the human soul, as long as the present state of the world existed, perished at death, and died with the body, but that it would be raised again with the body, at the time of the resurrection. And as a considerable council was held on account of this, Origen being again requested, likewise here discussed the point in question, with so much force that those who had been before led astray completely changed their opinions." So yours is not a new error, as it dates from the days of Origen, who was born in 185. You have no need of writing to convince me that eternal life is the gift of God. That I believe as firmly and joyfully as you. Where you and I differ is, that you make continued existence and eternal life the same. I do not. I hold that eternal life, in Scripture phrase, is the same as eternal blessedness. One may exist eternally without being eternally blessed, or having eternal life. To say that Christ came to give continued being to men, calling that eternal life, is so monstrous a perversion, that I see not how any man knowing the Scriptures can utter it. That those who have eternal life will also have continued existence, is true; but that is not what is meant by "eternal life." That the body, without the spirit, has no life or knowledge, as you say, is true; and your statement, that the spirit came from God, and returns to him, I believe, and rejoice that you so believe. And now, having gone thus far together, why need we separate? You do not believe that the spirit returns to God a dead spirit, do you? I do not. If, then, you agree, that the spirit of man returns to God, a living, vital essence, I see not why our controversy may not come to an end. I have not maintained that the rewards promised, and the punishments threatened, are awarded until after the judgment. What I have maintained, and do maintain, is, that the spirit does not die with the body. What may be its exact state between death and the resurrection, I have not affirmed, nor do I take any interest in the thousand and one vagaries advocated by the often senseless talkers and writers of the world, whether heathen, Jewish, or Christian. That there must be experienced a sense of fellowship or disfellowship with God, according to the moral state of the subject, seems to me unavoidable from the nature of the case, and is also, I think, clearly indicated in the New Testament. But that they have been judged and rewarded, I do not believe. I do not see that you have advanced anything essentially new on Matt. x, 28, although you have availed yourself of the aid furnished by Eld. Andrews' criticism and comment, which is nearly shorn of its strength when I agree, that the judgment does not pass upon men until the resurrection. The literary feature, however, of the quotation you have made and endorsed, can not be passed over lightly. His article cuts the knot instead of untying it. He has introduced three Greek words, hades, gehenna, and tartarus, each, he says, represented by the English word hell. He further says, these three Greek words, rendered by the word hell, mean three different places. Those in hades, he says, are dead; those in gehenna are cast in there alive, with all their members, to be destroyed soul and body; and tartarus, he says, is the place into which the evil angels were cast after their rebellion. This is too summary and partial. I shall therefore consider these words somewhat at length; ascertaining their grammatical meaning. The field of investigation is fruitful and deeply interesting. 1. HADES. The classical meaning of hades, according to Liddell and Scott, is, 1st. "The nether world. 2d. The grave. 3d. Death." A common phrase with the best authors to express the meaning of hades, is "underworld." As to the definition given by Liddell and Scott, I suppose there will be no dispute, and I will not therefore multiply authorities, only adding the definition given by Grove in his Greek and English Dictionary. Hades he defines, as to its classical meaning, "a dark, obscure place, unseen, or not seen by mortals; hades, the receptacle or region of the dead, containing all the fabulous mansions of the heathen ritual. According to the Christian doctrine, the invisible world of spirits, the unseen place of souls, the place of the dead generally, but vulgarly a place of torment, the abode of the damned in hell—death."170 Alford, in his "Greek Testament with Critical Notes," vol. i, on Luke xvi, 23, says, "Hades is the abode of all disembodied spirits till the resurrection, not the place of torment, much less hell, as understood commonly in the E. V." Kitto, vol. i, under the word hades, says, "A Greek word by which the Septuagint translates sheol, defining the abode or world of the dead, in which sense it frequently occurs in the New Testament, where it is usually rendered 'hell' in the English version. The word hades means literally that which is in darkness. In the classical writers, it is used to denote orcus, or the infernal regions. According to the notions of the Jews, sheol or hades was a vast receptacle, where the souls of the dead were in a separate state until the resurrection of their bodies. The region of the blessed during this interval, or the inferior paradise, is supposed to be in the upper part of this receptacle, while beneath was the abyss, or gehenna, (tartarus,) in which the souls of the wicked were subjected to punishment." Herzog, vol. ii, under the word hades, says, "At first, hades among the Greeks was the name of Pluto, the God of the nether world, but was afterward applied to the world itself, the abode and estate of the departed, and corresponds to orcus, or the inferna of the Latins, and sheol of the Hebrews. To a greater or less degree, it was regarded as a place of final rewards and punishments, and contained its abysses and tartarus. The life led there was closely analogous to that of the upper world, the only difference being, that the inhabitants were shades, forms without substance. From this heathen view of the future state, that of the Old Testament differs less than might be supposed." It would be easy to multiply testimony upon this point; but I proceed to say, that the Septuagint translates the Hebrew word sheol by hades, and therefore, to find the meaning of hades, we must go back to sheol, the meaning of which must be looked for in the opinions of the Jews concerning the place or state described by it. The historical, therefore, as well as the grammatical meaning of the word, is essential to a proper understanding of it. Alger, in his "History of the Doctrine of a Future Life," page 154, says, "Sheol is directly derived from a Hebrew word signifying first to dig or excavate. It means, therefore, a cavity or empty subterranean place. Its derivation is usually connected, however, with the secondary meaning of the Hebrew word referred to, namely, to ask, to desire, from the notion of demanding, since rapacious orcus unsparingly lays claim to all; or, as others have fancifully construed it, the object of universal inquiry, the unknown mansion, concerning which all are anxiously inquiring," etc., etc. Herzog says, "Sheol comes from a word which means to demand, and signified the place that demands all (Prov. xxvii, 20,) the common receptacle of the dead, the righteous as well as the wicked." Kitto says, "In the great majority of instances, sheol in the Old Testament used to signify the grave, and in most of these cases, is so translated in the Authorized Version." While, then, the grammatical meaning of sheol is to demand, and primarily means the grave into which we all go, its historical meaning is whatever might be the views of the Jews, of the state of the dead, at any given period of their history, in which they used that word to express those views. These views were not always the same. The earliest opinions held by them were, I think, that the dead were in a sort of dreamless state; not actually senseless, but only one degree from it. Such, I say, were their early views. But at a later period, these views were abandoned, or rather advanced from, and those giving the soul greater activity came to possess the Jewish mind. Indeed, such ideas of Heaven, hell, the resurrection of the dead, future rewards and punishments, as are taught in the New Testament, by Christ and his apostles, were almost if not entirely unknown to the first ages of Old Testament times. The historic meaning of these terms, then, is to be considered, or we are left yet in the dark. But before I proceed further with the words hades and sheol, I must attend to gehenna and tartarus. Gehenna is a later word in Scripture usage than sheol, but is nevertheless simply a transfer of the Hebrew word Hinnom by the Greek word gehenna, being a man's name. To know, then, what gehenna means in Scripture phrase, we must go back to its application to the Valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem. Kitto says, "Hinnom, or rather Ben Hinnom, an unknown person, whose name was given to the valley which bounds Jerusalem on the north, below Mount Zion, and which in Scripture is often mentioned in connection with the horrid rites of Molech, which, under idolatrous kings, were there celebrated. Josh. xv, 8; xviii, 16; Neh. xi, 30; Jer. vii, 31; ix, 2. When Josiah overthrew this idolatry, he defiled the valley by casting into it the bones of the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among the Hebrews; and from that time it became the common jakes of Jerusalem, into which all the refuse of the city was cast, and where the combustible portions of that refuse were consumed by fire. Hence it came to be regarded as a sort of type of hell, the gehenna of the New Testament being no other than this valley of Hinnom, (Ge-Hinnom.) See Matt. v, 22, sq; Mark ix, 43; Luke xii, 5; James iii, 6." The same author, on the word hell, has the following: "Hell—Much that belongs to this subject has already been considered under the word hades. It is there shown, that hell is represented by the word sheol in the Old, and by hades in the New Testament. But as both of these words mean also the grave, or the condition of the dead, hell, as the place of final punishment for sinners, is more distinctively indicated by the term gehenna, which is the word translated hell in Matt. v, 22, 29, 30; x, 28; xviii, 15, 33; Mark ix, 43, 45, 47; Luke xii, 5; James iii, 6. It is also distinctively indicated by such phrases as the place of torment, (Luke xvi, 28;) everlasting fire, (Matt. xxv, 41.) The hell of fire, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, (Mark ix, 44.) The dreadful nature of the abode of the wicked is implied in various figurative expressions, such as outer darkness; I am tormented in this flame; furnace of fire; unquenchable fire, where the worm diest not; the blackness of darkness; torment in fire and brimstone, (Matt. viii, 12; xiii, 42; xxii, 13; xxv, 30; Luke xvi, 24; comp. Matt. xxv, 41; Mark ix, 43, 48; Jude 13, comp. Rev. xiv, 10, 11; xix, 20; xx, 14; xxi, 8.) The figure by which hell is represented as burning with fire and brimstone, is probably derived from the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as that which describes the smoke ascending from it, (compare Rev. xiv, 10, 11, with Gen. xix, 24-28.) To this coincidence of description, Peter also must probably allude in 2 Pet. ii, 6." Tartarus is but once used in the whole Bible, and then it occurs in 2 Pet. ii, 4, and seems the synonym of gehenna. If there be any difference in their meaning, it is gehenna intensified. The opinion that tartarus, as a place, differs from gehenna, is beyond doubt founded in mistake. In view of the foregoing, then, I come to the following conclusions: 1. That sheol, in its grammatical meaning, is the grave. 2. The underworld—the place of the dead. 3. That in its historical meaning, it is the place of departed spirits, whether good or bad. 4. That hades has the same meaning with sheol, only that it more clearly expresses the opinions of the Jews in the time of Christ, (especially of the Pharisees,) concerning the state of the dead, which was one either of happiness or misery. 5. 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. 6. That the phrases "destroy soul and body," "cast into the lake which burns with fire and brimstone," etc., etc., are to be taken, in their application to the punishment of the wicked in the future state, in a figurative, and not literal sense. For instance, when Jesus said; "If thy right eye cause thee to offend, pluck it out, and cast it from thee, for it is better for thee to enter into life having but one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell," I conclude he is to be understood figuratively. You surely cannot suppose that in Heaven men will be going about with one eye out! But if this and kindred passages must be taken figuratively, upon what principle will you establish a literal interpretation for the word body, in the passage, "Thy whole body shall be cast into hell." Matt. v, 29, 30; that you really think that a man, by some indulgence in this life, may save to himself in hell both eyes, because both are saved to him here, but under certain circumstances we are literally to pluck out one of our eyes, (and that the right one,) that we may enter Heaven, although with only one eye, and that the left one. Do you really think so? But if you abandon your literal interpretation at this point, you can not return to it afterward. What then will you do? Hoping to reply to your last letter in a few days, I remain,
Truly yours,