The Real Question at Issue : Misuse of Language. Scripture Terms Perverted.
The doctrine "Thou shalt not surely die," or, in other words, the certain immortality of the sinning soul, is a very old doctrine, as the Scriptures inform us (Gen. 3: 4.) But the assurance of its first promulgator, "who was a liar from the beginning," when in flat contradiction of the word of God Himself, -is hardly sufficient authority for its truth. It is a very specious doctrine, as is evident from the readiness with which it was first received, and the currency it has always enjoyed in the world. It is a very delusive doctrine, as we hope to make apparent to any candid and unprejudiced inquirer after the truth. It is a very popular doctrine, as is manifest from the way in which it has insinuated itself into the literature of all ages, and into the theology of the Christian Church, and from the hold it has upon the popular mind. It could not be otherwise than popular. There is something so ennobling, so inspiriting, so flattering to the pride of man in the idea of living, like God, forever, ("Ye shall be as Gods") — something so responsive to the instincts of his nature — instincts which were implanted in his pure soul as a motive to perseverance in the way of holiness, and which sin has never eradicated; something so degrading and horrible in the thought of extinction that it is not surprising that man should seize hold of the hope of protracting his life forever beyond the grave, and cling to it as he clings to his natural life.
And when we still further consider how, on the one hand, this notion of perpetual existence ministers to the hope of final happiness, (for "where there is life there is hope,") as in the case of the criminal under sentence of death; if he can by any means escape the execution of that penalty, which is absolutely final, he hopes to be able eventually. to escape altogether; or, on the other hand, how the threat of eternal torments naturally fails of its end by the very incredible magnitude of the penalty threatened, and so, how, under either alternative, the law of God is brought into contempt, His wisdom, goodness, justice and truth are called in question, and His character is aspersed, and how the work of Christ is belittled and misconstrued, and how the progress of the gospel is hindered by this doctrine of life everlasting for the saint and sinner alike, we cannot wonder that the arch deceiver should exert all his cunning to perpetuate the delusion as long as possible. Surely the gospel must be possessed of a divine energy which nothing can destroy, or it could never have carried the burden of reproach which this dogma has brought upon it, and yet gather its trophies in the world. But its glory has been dimmed and its career impeded and its motives weakened ; nor will it ever win its early triumphs again, until it is re stored to its primitive simplicity, and Christ is preached once more, as the only Saviour of man from Death, complete, inevitable and final Death — the only hope of Life and Immortality for them that believe on His name.
We are aware of the difficulty and hazard of attempting to controvert a sentiment that is so deeply rooted in the human heart, and that has so thoroughly imbued the language, the literature, the philosophy and the religion of the world ; we are aware how like foolish presumption it will seem to differ from so many of the -wise and the good in the Church and out of it. We know something, of the power of religious prejudice, and how intolerant many worthy men are of those who disagree with them in matters of religious faith, and how hopeless it is to attempt (as Dean Swift says) " to reason a man out of an opinion he was never reasoned into," or to argue with those who have no argumentative faculty, or who, if they have, insist on using their prejudices in the place of arguments.
We know also that there are many who have no taste for discussions of this sort, and who prefer to follow their trusted leaders; and that the leaders themselves too often find it more convenient and safe to take their systems at second hand, than to form them by independent investigation, and so they hand down their stock in theology from one generation to another. It is no easy thing for those who have a reputation for sound orthodoxy to maintain, to brave the suspicions of their brethren, by calling in question any popular doctrine ; and then the fear of the heresy-hunting dogs of the herd that are ever on the alert to worry back any who may wander from the beaten path, or else to drive them far away into the wilderness, constrains many to stifle their rising convictions that the whole truth may not lie in the pasture where they are feeding. And so they prefer to chew the cud of contentment and be quiet.
But we are confident there are also many earnest Christians who are ill at ease in their present position on this subject, and are looking for light, and who would welcome any honest discussion of this question, and give it their candid attention. It is for such that we write.
We boast of no superior intelligence, or learning or zeal for the cause of Christ. It is supposed to be equally dear to all our brethren. We were brought up " after the most straitest sect of our religion," and educated to believe in the inevitable immortality of the wicked, and the consequent eternal perpetuity of sin and misery. We faithfully preached it for a quarter of a century, relying implicitly on the commentators and our theological teachers. May God forgive us, for we did it ignorantly — but, led gradually by the Spirit of God through earnest and prayerful study of His Word, we have come — even contrary to our own expectation and purpose to find our error, and to see a meaning and beauty in both the law and the gospel, of which we had before only the faintest conception, and now, while we preach the same law and the same gospel, it is with inexpressibly greater satisfaction and delight. We would fain do what we can to bring others who may be involved in this error to the same point of view. We are not unmindful of the obloquy, the pity, and scorn which those who dwell complacently in their error will bestow upon us ; but we must be true to our convictions of duty and utter the truth that is stirring our hearts. It is but little, though all we can do, to give the remnant of life to the work of dispelling this delusion, so derogatory to the character of God, and so obstructive to the progress of the gospel, and of preaching Christ, "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light, which no man can approach unto," as our sure and only hope of eternal life.
It is important, before we go further, to have a clear understanding of the real point in question. It is quite common for those who advocate the eternal existence of the wicked to confuse their own minds, and the minds of those who follow their lead, by introducing a great deal of irrelevant matter into their discussion — to insist on the importance of adhering to the testimony of God's Word, and on the necessity of a general judgment and a future retribution and so forth ; all of which is very good and true, but it is quite one side of the point at issue.
This is not a question of the truth of the Scriptures, but what the Scriptures teach. It is not a matter of faith, but of opinion. It is not how much those who agree in denying the immortality of the wicked may disagree in other respects. It is a favorite method of some in their endeavors to support the affirmative of this question — to show how their opponents have disagreed among themselves. *[* See " Life and Death Eternal," by Prof. Bartlett, also New Englander, Oct., 1871] It is specious, but it has no argumentative force. The Papist may endeavor to strengthen himself in upholding the doctrine of Purgator}', which we as Protestants all deny, by showing how we differ among ourselves, but this is really nothing in support of his dogma, nor does it make anything in behalf of that other greater Popish dogma, of a place of perpetual and eternal torment, from which the Protestant Church failed to free itself in the Reformation, for those" who still cling to it, to show how they who have cast it off may yet disagree upon other points.
This is not a question of the immortality of the soul, as a Christian doctrine; for, so far from denying this doctrine, we are most especially endeavoring to affirm it. But it is a question concerning the source or foundation of this immortality: whether it is received by all men as an inheritance from Adam, or by the Christian alone as a free gift from Christ.
It is not a question as to how generally the idea of a future state prevailed among the Jews at the coming of Christ, but what He taught when He came. It is not as to how early Plato's doctrine of the essential immor-tality of the soul, and the consequent necessary immortality of the wicked, insinuated itself into the Christian Church, and how soon the fathers began to teach it, but whether it was a doctrine of the Church which Christ instituted in His time, and whether the inspired writers of the New Testament taught it.
It is not a question whether the soul dies at the same moment of time with the body, but whether it is so independent of the body, on the one hand, and of God the source of all spiritual life on the other, that it can maintain a perpetual and eternal existence when entirely severed from both.
It is not a question of an intermediate state, so-called, but of an eternal state of conscious existence beyond and after the dissolution of this material universe. It is not a question concerning the resurrection of the dead and a general judgment, nor of future punishment, nor of the eternity of future punishment, but whether the everlasting punishment to which the wicked shall be consigned at the judgment, will be everlasting torture or everlasting destruction.
It is not a question as to whether there will be degrees in the severity of the punishment visited upon the wicked — some receiving "many stripes," and some "few stripes," but whether in the case of all, these stripes, whether many or few, will be inflicted without measureand without end!
It is not a question as to the irreversibility of the doom of the wicked, but as to the nature of that irreversible doom.
It is not whether there shall be at the day of judgment, disappointment, chagrin and such grief and rage on the part of God's enemies, as may well be described as weeping and gnashing of teeth, and especially on the part of the opposers and rejectors of Christ and His gospel, when they shall find themselves separated from His friends and utterly rejected from His everlasting
kingdom, but whether they shall be gathered into another kingdom, which is also everlasting, where they shallperpetuate their sin and misery forever.
It is not a question of annihilation, strictly speaking, concerning which no one can assert anything positive, as we will soon" show, though some of our adversaries insist on calling it so in spite of all our disclaimers, that they may travesty our position and mystify the point at issue; but it is a question of the utter destruction of the wicked, soul and body — the complete extinction of their conscious existence; as complete as "that of the brutes that perish."
It is not a question as to the general correctness of our English version, nor of the common and classical meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words translated "death," "destruction," "perdition," and the like, but whether these words, when employed to describe the fate of the human soul are to be taken in their ordinary, literal and natural sense, or in some extraordinary, metaphorical and unnatural sense.
It is just here that we find our chief embarrassment in discussing this question. It is not in the prejudices of men in favor of the doctrine we are opposing, nor in the pertinacity with which they cling to it, — all this were sufficiently hard to meet — but it is in the perversion and misappropriation of the very terms we need to express our meaning, and which would express the true meaning of the Scriptures, had they not been first vacated of their legitimate signification and another sense, which will tally with this dogma infused into them, so that now, while the Word of God employs the strongest, expressions of which language is capable, under every variety of phraseology, to declare the utter and final death and destruction of the wicked, both soul and body, and the absolute extinction of their conscious existence, it fails to convey any such idea to those who hold fast to the indestructibility of the human soul, and we cannot in our arguments express the idea without employing new terms less appropriate, or by the use of labored circumlocution and wordy reiteration.
It would seem as if the scholarship of the Church and the literature and philosophy of the world had conspired together to perpetuate and sustain the delusion of the tempter, "Ye shall not surely die," in spite of the most positive declarations of God Himself, by giving another meaning to the words of Scripture. Our Commentators handing down their hermeneutics from one to another, have displayed their learning and skill in showing how it is possible to put another sense into these words which teach a truth their own dogma forbids them to receive, which they call the " Scriptural Sense."
Our theological system-makers, blinded by the same delusion " ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," reasoning in a circle, gravely assure us that the human soul is immortal, and there fore it will never die ; it is indestructible, and therefore it will never be destroyed ; it is destined to exist forever, and therefore it will never come to an end ; and, of
course, all those many passages that seem to teach that it will die, will be destroyed, will come to an end unless it is restored to holiness, cannot possibly mean any such thing; and what else can they mean but that it shall be miserable forever ? therefore, it will be miserable forever. Q. E. D.
Our lexicographers and philologists are agreed in the same cause. The authors of our standard Hebrew and Greek lexicons, while giving us the true and literal meaning of such words as ahvad and shahmad; thanatos, Apoleia, Apollumi, Katargeo, Kataluo and other words meaning actual death and destruction, and also, of Zoe Soteria, and others, meaning life and salvation, inform us that they have a peculiar and unnatural sense when applied to the soul — a "Scriptural Sense," and why so? Simply because they have put that sense into them, and then transferred it back to their lexicons. So when we go to these " Scripture Helps " for light, we find the " Word of God made of none effect through their tradition" and traduction. For example: in referring to Matthew 7:13, 14, " Enter ye in at the strait gate ; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to {apoleian) destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." " Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto {zoen) life, and few there be that find it," my lexicon informs me that apoleian here means " endless misery," and zoen means "everlasting happiness." In Romans 6 : 23, "For the wages of sin is {thanatos) death ; but the gift of God is {zoe aionios) eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord," I am assured that thanatos means " an unchanging eternal state of wretchedness and misery," and that zoe aionios means as before, "everlasting happiness," and so is it with every important passage bearing on this question in the Bible. Why are not these words allowed to have their own usual and proper meaning ? Why is this new meaning put into them but that they may not conflict with the dogma of the endless existence of all souls.
Webster's English dictionary defines the word soul to be "the spiritual, rational and immortal principle in man," etc., as though the author would effectually estop all inquiry as to its immortality, by making it enter into the definition of the word itself, and then he gratuitously informs us that " The immortality of the soul is a fundamental article of the Christian system," * and so he would close the door of the Church against all who may venture to call his definition in question. But in the name of truth, we protest against this unwarrantable perversion of the plainest Scripture terms to sustain a human dogma. If by the immortality of the soul he means the immortality of the souls of those to whom Christ gives eternal life — it is indeed a fundamental doctrine of the Christian system ; but if he means the immortality of all souls as a natural inheritance from Adam, without any regard to Christ, so far from admitting it to be a fundamental doctrine. of the Christian system, we demand by whose authority this heathen doctrine has any place whatever in the Christian system ?
* In the latest revised edition, this oracular dictum has very properly been suppressed.
\ The author used the above paragraph not long since (Jan. 30, 1878), by anticipation in an article on " Conditional Immortality," in one of our religious papers.
* See " Life and Death Eternal," by Prof. Bartlett, also New Englander, Oct., 1 87 1.
Kommentare