Dear Brother :—When I said, in my fifth article, that "the Bible is silent concerning the immortality of the soul in its present state, or until it shall put on immortality at the resurrection of the just," I told the truth, as you know, and my meaning was not concealed, but obvious. I said, in the same article, speaking of the resurrection as taught by Paul in 1 Cor. xv, "then this mortal person or soul will put on immortality." To this you objected. You said with emphasis, "There is neither word nor hint in the Bible, of the soul's putting on immortality at the Resurrection." In reply to this, I made
the argument which you now complain of as sophistical. This argument was briefly this: 1. Man is a soul. 2. Man is mortal. 3. This "mortal man," or soul, if just, puts on immortality at the time of which it is said "This mortal must put on immortality." I submit it to the reader, that in this there is no deceptive use of terms, nothing ambiguous or equivocal—that there is neither sophistry, nor yet unsoundness, in it. If it had not been unanswerable, you would have shown its unsoundness, instead of quoting Webster's definition of repleen.
But you complain that the sense in which I use the term soul, is not the sense in which it is "used in this discussion." Now, I really thought that a Bible discussion of the nature of man would lead to the discovery of the Bible sense of the word soul. A leading definition of soul, as used in the Bible, is person or creature, though in its first use in the Bible it means life—the life which God gave to the lower animals. Gen. i, 20, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life"—Hebrew—soul. These two are the leading definitions of soul, as used in the Bible. Yet you say that soul, in the sense of person, "has nothing to do with our discussion."
Then, as the gift or endowment of life was communicated through the breath of the nostrils, the breath is sometimes called the soul. 1 Kings xvii, 17, 21. But breath and life are the leading definitions of spirit, breath or wind being its literal meaning. "Ruah signifies, originally, a breathing or blowing."—Alger. This author says of nehphesh, soul, "Its first meaning is breath, the breathing of a living being. Next it means the vital spirit, the indwelling life of the body." In these definitions he is in perfect harmony with Gesenius.
I did not mean to argue that life, which is the gift of God to every living creature, and to all men a mysterious endowment, which none but God can give—that this is the thing that puts on immortality at the resurrection. Nor yet that it was the soul in the sense of Matt. x, 28. Neither did I argue that an immaterial, immortal soul, is to put it on. And for you to assume this is the sense in which soul is used in this discussion, is begging the whole question. Such a soul or spirit is not revealed in the Bible. The words soul and spirit are used about seventeen hundred times in that Book, but they are never qualified by immortal, never-dying, deathless, or any other term of like import. If I am wrong in this, please bring out the testimony, and end this controversy. The Bible is as silent as Hades concerning the existence of such a soul in man. This stupendous fact is unaccountable upon your hypothesis, and irreconcilable with your theory.
I freely admit that Paul, in 1 Cor. xv, is speaking of the resurrection of the dead—of the fleshly, mortal body, if you choose; and I have no idea that he meant to teach that that which never died nor was subject to death puts on immortality. I admit that the body is mortal, as you have insisted. But when you try to make this fact prove that the soul is immortal, you must ever fail. Must I repeat and compare our arguments? Mine is this: 1. The Scriptures call man mortal, in a general, unlimited sense. 2. The Scriptures nowhere represent any part of man as being immortal. 3. Therefore man is wholly mortal. Now you know that both my premises are true, and every one has seen that my conclusion is found in the premises. Otherwise our revelation is deficient. But we are to discuss the question by the Bible. Now what is your argument from these revealed truths? It is in substance this: 1. Man is mortal. 2. But the body is mortal. 3. Therefore a part of man is immortal. Your conclusion is not in the premises, and there is nothing in the Bible to supply the deficiency.
Let me illustrate this argument by another equally forcible. 1. "The Sabbath was made for man." 2. But the Lord said to the Jewish people, "I have given you the Sabbath." 3. Therefore the Sabbath was not intended for the Gentiles. You and I will not accept of such logic, but we claim that if the Gentiles are included in the general term man, the Sabbath was intended for them. So if the soul is included in the general term man, it is mortal; but if it is excluded, then it is no part of the man, and consequently is excluded from our discussion on the nature and destiny of man.
But you say, "Our discussion is not about this dust, that was taken from the ground and returned to it again, but of that of which Stephen spoke in Acts vii, 59, when he said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'"
Then what the Bible calls man, formed from the dust of the ground, is excluded from a Bible discussion of man. But what was the spirit which Stephen commended to his Lord? It was simply his life—the "vital essence" which God communicated to man with his breath, and which made him a living soul or conscious being. We read the text:
"For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both. And there arose a great cry; and the Scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man; but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God."—Acts xxiii, 9, 10.
There is nothing said of human spirits in this text; and there is nothing to prove that they were disembodied, or "departed," if human spirits are meant. Therefore, if the human spirit is meant, the denial of its existence in such general terms, involves the denial of a human spirit in living men. Do you think the Sadducees went so far as that? I do not wonder that Olshausen, or yourself, or any one believing as you do, should infer that it "is plainly to be understood of a departed soul, because it is distinguished from angelus." It is possible, however, that spirits are not distinguished from angels in the text, but are the same. When God said, "Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws," we are not to infer that commandments, statutes, and laws, are each distinguished from the others. Angels are spirits. Are they not all ministering spirits? But the view that distinguishes spirits from angels in the text, involves the absurdity that "the Pharisees confess both" of three things—the resurrection, angels, and spirits. I believe they confessed both of two things. 1. The resurrection. 2. Angels or spirits. I do not think it was the Spirit of God that the Pharisees supposed might have spoken to Paul, neither do I think it a human spirit; for, to oppose a human spirit disembodied, would no more be fighting against God, than to strive with such spirits while in the body. In the belief of the existence of superhuman spirits—the angels—Paul and the Pharisees agreed. But if the Pharisees did "believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards and punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life," Paul did not endorse this Pagan notion, neither does Eld. Hull; for you hold that rewards and punishments are not awarded till after the judgment and resurrection. Then why quote such testimonies? When you quote, "The spirit shall return to God who gave it," do you mean that the soul goes into some mammoth cave of the earth to find God there, where immaterial souls are confined within the damp and dismal walls of a material prison? If not, why quote such nonsense? You might as well go right to the fountain head of all such marvelous and precious knowledge, namely, the mythology of the Pagans. If Josephus and the Pharisees got these ideas from their inspired Scriptures, we have those Scriptures, and can get them there. But if they got them from some other source, we have no more to do with them than we have with the teachings of the "Christian fathers" of the tenth century to establish Christian doctrine and prove a change of the Sabbath.
Where, then, is your authority for saying that "when Jesus said, 'A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have,' he said it with reference to the doctrine believed by the Pharisees concerning the existence and nature of the spirits of departed men, i. e. dead men; otherwise his language would have been unintelligible." The doctrine of spirits, good and bad, was taught in their Scriptures. See 1 Kings xxii, 19–23, Job iv, 15, and all those passages that speak of familiar spirits, and unclean spirits. Zech. xiii, 2. Such were the unclean spirits cast out by Jesus. Hence the Saviour's language is perfectly intelligible without the aid of the spirits of dead men.
Did Jesus and Paul endorse the doctrines of the Pharisees? They did in regard to the resurrection of the dead, and of the existence of angels or spirits. These were endorsed, because they were Scripture doctrines, not because the Pharisees believed them. But what179is the source of our information, outside of the Bible, of what the Pharisees did believe? and is it perfectly reliable? Let us see.
Speaking of Josephus, Alger says, "These are his words: 'The Pharisees believe that souls have an immortal strength in them, and that in the under-world they will experience rewards or punishments according as they have lived well or ill in this life. The righteous shall have power to live again, but sinners shall be detained in an everlasting prison.' Again he [Josephus] writes, 'The Pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but that only the souls of good men are removed into other bodies.' The fragment entitled 'Concerning Hades,' formerly attributed to Josephus, is now acknowledged on all sides to be a gross forgery. The Greek culture, and philosophical tincture with which he was imbued, led him to reject the doctrine of a bodily resurrection; and this is probably the reason why he makes no allusion to that doctrine in his account of the Pharisees."
Such is the corrupted, fabulous source of our information of what the Pharisees believed. Who knows then, what they believed, further than is revealed in the Bible, only that some of them were turned away from the truth unto fables, our most reliable witness being one of that number? If you make Jesus endorse one iota not revealed in the Scriptures, by the same rule you can make him endorse the whole—non-resurrection of the wicked, transmigration of the souls of the righteous, and no bodily resurrection at all. Let us return, then, and discuss our subject from the Bible, as we agreed to do.
I am satisfied with what I have already said of the inward man, hidden man of the heart, &c., figurative expressions so easily explained without the aid of an immortal soul.
You still hold that phtharton "is never used by any Lexicographer of the spirit of man." Very well. I have never used it so; but admit that the spirit leaves the body at death. But what is that spirit? It can mean no more than the life imparted to man, as well as other living creatures, with the breath. "His breath (Ruah, spirit) goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish."—Psa. cxlvi, 2–4. Is there no sophistry in assuming that that spirit is an immortal soul?
Of the literality of eternal life, promised to believers, I have spoken in my former letter. You think it "really too shocking" to reduce the whole gospel transaction to the work of securing man an eternal existence. If he were to exist in an eternal hell, I should think the same. But the gospel promises, not only an escape from death, and eternal life, but freedom from all the effects of sin and the curse. I see nothing shocking in "glory and honor and immortality."
To the sentiment you utter, near the close of your letter, that you "sincerely hope the effect of this controversy may not be to alienation, but to a union in the truth," I heartily respond, Amen and amen!