LIFE EVERLASTING: What is It? Whence is It? Whose is It?
PREFACE.
The real question under discussion in this volume is stated as clearly as possible on its title page; but that its main purpose may not be misapprehended by those who may cursorily glance at a page here and there, or by those who may feel called to criticize it adversely without reading it, I have defined more particularly its object and limitations in a brief Introductory Chapter. To this I must refer all who may think it worthy of their notice; and I most earnestly entreat them to read this introduction, if they read nothing more, before they shall attempt to characterize the book. So much, at least, is due to the importance of the subject of which it treats, as well as to the claims of truth and justice — not to speak of the claims of the author.
I am the more earnest in this regard, from the fact that the question herein discussed has been often so needlessly complicated with other questions, by too many who have advocated it, and so obscured and ignored by those who have argued against them, and who have chosen rather to combat the irrelevant collateral issues which have been raised, that the real question has rarely, if ever, had any fair discussion before the public. Indeed, I have found nothing more difficult than to bring the opponents of our view to an argument on the main question. In all the adverse arguments which I have ever read — and I have read everything which I could lay hold of on the question that seemed to be worth any attention — it has never been my good fortune to find one which fairly met this question : Is the Life Everlasting, for which we hope, the gift of God through Christ by a new birth, or is it the inheritance of all men from Adam by their natural birth? Let our opponents direct their attention to this main issue, without any attempt to divert the mind by
irrelevant and inconsequential issues, or to prejudge the question in advance by assuming, as they too often do, the very thing to be proved; and any fair and honest argument against our position will be gladly welcomed.
We may here say, what is said more at length in another place, that our inquiry is chiefly concerning Man, and not concerning the "soul of man," as too many would have it. It is especially concerning the Life Everlasting for which man hopes, the Source and Foundation of this hope, and not — excepting in an incidental way — concerning the punishment of sin.
Our aim is to honor and exalt and glorify our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to enhance, in every possible way, the estimate that is to be put upon Him and His work in our behalf, and not, as too many are doing, to depreciate and minify the boon which He offers us. It is to affirm and confirm the authority of Divine Revelation, and to hold men to it as the only reliable source of knowledge as to the destiny of man. It is, indeed, our special desire and aim to defend the Christian system, and to preserve its integrity as a Divine and not a human device for the recovery and salvation of men, against the "oppositions of science, falsely so-called," and the insidious attacks of rationalism of every sort.
The manifest drift of the present age is towards a religion of science and philosophy, and away from the simple truths of the Gospel. Many well-meaning, but sophisticated minds are being led away by the delusion that these truths must be brought within the scope of natural laws. They are trying to bring the facts which it reveals to the test of reason and science, and to consider the Christian religion as one of the many forms of a natural religion only purer and better than any other. Here is the real source ot the confusion and darkness and doubt of many who would become scientific and philosophical Christians, if Christians at all; forgetting that the first step in the knowledge of Divine things is to become little children at the feet of Christ.
The great truths of the Christian religion are revealed, not to our reason, but to our faith. They do not come within the scope or sphere of natural science or human philosophy. Its great facts are altogether Divine and supernatural, and until this is apprehended and allowed, no real progress can be made in the right direction. They are above nature, and cannot be explained by natural laws.
The creation of the world in the beginning was a supernatural act, and whatever speculation one may entertain as to the mode of this creation, to deny its supernatural character, as though it could be explained by natural laws is to be an atheist.
Sin itself is in opposition to all law, and nature provides no antidote to the death to which it inevitably leads, nor any way of recovery from its ruin. If there be any remedy, or any recovery from its fatal poison, it must be supernaturally provided. It is just here that we find the radical difference between our holy religion and all the other systems of religion the world has ever seen. This is given from heaven; as for the others, they are at best but human devices.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is the foundation of the Christian system, was miraculously conceived, and not begotten by any natural law of ordinary generation. To deny this involves also the denial of His divinity. His teachings and His mighty works — excepting when He acted under the limitations of His human nature — were divine and supernatural. His death was human, for He died as a man; but His resurrection was a stupendous miracle. It was wrought only by the divine power that was within Him. "He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit;" and such must be our resurrection, or we do not rise at all. It is not a natural process, but eminently supernatural. There is no such process in nature as a resurrection from actual death. We may think we find some faint analogies in the waking from sleep, in the revival of spring, in the quickenings of seeds in the earth, and in the transformation of the grub into the winged butterfly; nor need we deny this. But we must bear in mind that these are all living processes. There is no actual death in any one of all these— a dead tree never lives again, dead seed will never sprout, a dead grub never develops into a butterfly. If a man dies and lives again, and lives forever, it must be a super natural, Almighty power, above the ordinary laws of nature, that raises him up and endows him with this new, imperishable life.
Those who are attempting to explain this doctrine of the future life on the ground of natural law, by the process of development through death into a higher state of being — as, alas too many who call themselves Christians are doing at the present day — are ignoring and denying one of the fundamental principles of the Christian religion.
The same might be said of the doctrine of the new birth — a truth which Nicodemus could not understand on any principle of natural law, nor can any man; for it is supernatural. So, also, the second coming of Christ, like the first, and the general judgment, are not to be considered as natural phenomena, as philosophizing Christians are endeavoring to do at the present time. However sincere or well meaning they may be, their efforts are essentially anti-Christian, and, so far as they are successful, they cannot issue in anything but in the subversion of all true Christian faith.
It is with the earnest hope and prayer that I may be able to contribute a little — if it be only a little — to withstand this rationalzing drift and tendency of the times away from tho simple Gospel of Christ, and to recall men to the faith once delivered to the saints on this question of Eternal Life which occupies such a fundamental position in the Gospel system, that I have undertaken this work.
I am well aware how presumptuous it will seem to many of even my esteemed friends, for me to oppose myself to the popular current, on a doctrine that has had the sanction of so many good and learned men, and has so entwined itself about what is called the orthodox system of theology as to be regarded as one of its foundation principles, and to what severe judgment among men I am exposing myself. I am, however, encouraged to the effort by remembering how often it pleases God to use the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and things which are not to bring to naught the things that are. But were I to consult my own personal comfort and convenience and reputation, I would gladly remain silent. But when I consider the origin of this dogma of immortality apart from God and without a Savior — how unscriptural it is; what reproach it is bringing on the character of our Heavenly Father; how it depreciates the work of Christ in our redemption, and obscures the lustre of the glorious Gospel; what a fruitful source of error it has always been, and what mischief it is working at the present day, I cannot hesitate to protest against it in the name of Him to whom I must and will be loyal, come what may.
But though I speak with the earnestness of conviction, I desire to speak the truth in love. Indeed, when I remember that under the same false training to which those whom I address have been subject, I was led away by this same delusion, and how l preached for more than a score of years this error, the falsity of which I now see by the grace of God, I have no occasion or heart for bitter words. Let no one construe what I have written in any other sense than that of kind, though earnest entreaty and persuasive argument. It is no pleasant duty in itself to oppose men's cherished sentiments, to attempt to destroy their cherished idols before their faces, or to expose their errors of doctrine. Be it done ever so kindly, it is hardly possible to perform such a duty without seeming to attack their persons, and to be actuated by an ill feeling towards them as individuals. It must be admitted that the discussion of principles and doctrines among those who differ, though undertaken in the utmost good-will, often degenerates into offensive personalities. I have resolutely endeavored in the prosecution of this discussion, whatever provocation I may have had — and I must say that I have been very severely tried by what seemed to me the perversity and unfairness of many whose views I have been called to examine and oppose — to deal only with sentiments and opinions, and not at all with the individuals who have expressed them, and to avoid everything that might be regarded as an unkind personality. If any line or word in this whole volume shall seem to any one to be obnoxious to any such criticism, I beg that it may be attributed to human infirmity, and to the necessity of hasty composition, for I have had no time to rewrite, or properly revise what I have written. I offer this, however, not as any apology for the sentiments I have expressed, for they have been matured by a special and most careful study of many years; but I could wish that I had been able to put them into some better shape and to clothe them in a better dress.
The desultory manner in which I have been obliged to prepare this work — writing at such irregular intervals of time as I could snatch from exhausting labors in another direction — has resulted in some repetition of thought in some of its various parts; for I have desired to give some degree of completeness to each of its sections. This, however, though it might be regarded as a fault in a strictly methodical argument, has its advantages in a popular work, such as this is designed to be.
In citing Scripture passages, and in commenting upon them, I have not hesitated to avail myself somewhat of one of my previous works — The Theological Trilemma — now out of print, whenever it would serve my convenience; and those who are familiar with that work will sometimes observe an identity of illustration and of expression in those sections where I have traversed the same ground. But still, this volume is intended to be a more full and exhaustive treatment of the subject it discusses, and to embody the result of ten additional years of earnest and careful study.
As the first part of this volume was written and stereotyped before the Revised edition of the New Testament was given to the public, my citations have in that part especially been from the Old Version. In the latter part, I have frequently made my citations in the language of the New Version. I am happy to see that all my principal criticisms of the text of the Old Version, in the earlier part of the book, have been justified by the revisers, and while they have not done their work as thoroughly as could be desired, so far as they have gone, it has been directly to sustain the views which we are advocating.
I have given but a very small space to what are called the rational arguments, either pro or con., on this question, because I do not regard this doctrine under discussion as a doctrine of natural religion. It belongs pre-eminently to that which is divine and supernatural, and I have desired as much as possible to advocate it and honor it as such. Life and immortality are only brought to light in the Gospel — brought to light, not as an old truth of nature which had hitherto been hidden, but as a new truth — as the great gift of God, which Christ Himself came to bring down from Heaven, and to offer as from His own hand.
THE SYMPOSIUM, with which this volume closes, will no doubt be regarded as its peculiar and most interesting feature. I could wish that the idea had been developed sufficiently early, to have allowed time for a more systematic arrangement of topics and of papers. But these papers have come to hand so irregularly and, many of them, so tardily as to give no opportunity for any such arrangement. They will be found, however, to cover almost every phase of this question, and to exhibit a great variety of methods in its treatment; and most, if not all, of them will be regarded as very able, and well worthy of careful study, and I hope that, how ever imperfect the argument of the book; itself may be considered, these papers will not fail to establish in the minds of those who read them the truth for which we contend.
It would have been quite easy, could the room have been afforded, to have added greatly to the number of these papers. Indeed, I would gladly have inserted others, had I not already exceeded my original design, and reached the utmost practicable- limit of space that could be allowed.
But it is hoped that those that are inserted are sufficiently numerous and varied to meet the purpose intended — namely :
1. To show that the essential doctrine of this book is not peculiar to any one sect or class or nationality of Christian men. Among these more than twenty writers, may be found laymen as- well as clergymen, professors of medicine and theology, scientists of no mean repute, and erudite scholars, doctors of divinity and humble preachers of the Gospel, widely scattered throughout the States of the Union and various parts of Europe, and connected with all the various evangelical churches in which it is possible for men to hold and express, without expulsion, a belief in this great Christian doctrine, that Jesus Christ is the only source of Eternal Life. Hence it is that some of these denominations — evangelical so-called — are not here represented; for it will be noticed that several of these writers, though earnest Christian men, have been driven out of the churches of their choice for this cause alone.
2. To lift this question above the claims of any sect or party of Christians, to which some of its advocates have thought to hold it, and to distinguish it from various other related and subordinate questions, upon which those who hold it in common have differed and perhaps always will differ, and to show that, however important these other questions may be in themselves, they are by no means fundamental to the question upon which we all, looking upon it from so many different points of view, are agreed.
3. To unite Christian men who hold this truth in common not- withstanding their differences on minor points, in harmonious action in opposing this great anti-Christian error, and in advocating this paramount Christian doctrine of Life Everlasting through Christ and the Resurrection; and so we have taken as our motto:
In things essential, unity; in things doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity.
4. And finally, to present something to the Christian public that may be regarded as worthy of serious attention; hoping that if my own views and arguments may not be thought worthy of a special notice, those who have so kindly come to my aid may be able so to present this question as to secure such a fair hearing and a can did and thorough discussion of it as its importance deserves. If this can be secured, I have no fears for the issue.
It only remains for me to thank most heartily my Christian friends who have so kindly co-operated with me in this work of love and faith, and to express the hope that this great Scripture doctrine of Life Everlasting through Jesus Christ and Him only, which we have united to bring to the notice of our Christian brethren of every name, will not seem to any of them to be un-worthy of their most serious attention.
J. H. P.
Philadelphia, February, 1882.
Comments