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STUDIES IN
ESCHATOLOGY
OR
EXISTENCE AFTER DEATH
ULYSSES 5.BARTZ
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Studies in Eschatology ;
OR,
Existence After Death
BY
ULYSSES S. BARTZ, A.M.,
T
Pastor of the Hawthorn Avenue Presbyterian
Church of Idlewood, Pa.
THE
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PUBLISHERS
114
FIFTH AVENUE
Condon ^EW YORK montreal
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
'•A6T0R, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1918 L
Copyright, 1900,
by
tik:
Hbbey press
TO
PROF. M. B. RIDDLE, D.D., LL.D.,
FIRST AMONG TEACHERS,
IN MEMORY OF HIS INSPIRATION TO "DO THE NEXT THING'
AND DO IT FAITHFULLY, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY
INSCRIBED BY HIS FORMER PUPIL,
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
L A Study of Death 7
II. Immortality, in the Bible and Out 17
III. What Do We Know op the Intermediate
State? 27
IV. The Resurrection from the Dead 37
V. The Second Comino — The Judgment— The
Millennium 49
VI. Heaven : Where is it, and What will its
Occupations be?— Recognition of Friends 62
VII. Hell: Why is it, and What Makes it? 75
studies in Eschatology.
I.
A STUDY OF DEATH.
*"For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die." — Gen. 2: 17.
"Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto
all men, for that all sinned." — Rom. 5 : 12.
In entering upon this series of discourses a
few words by way of preface are in order. It
should be borne in mind that these are admit-
tedly difificult subjects, because of the obscurity
necessarily surrounding them. The wise in-
vestigator will therefore speak in more guarded
tones than would be necessary to employ in
other departments of theological research. On
many of the topics relating to eschatology, or
existence after death and the end of the world,
no consensus of opinion exists. In fact, this
♦ Quotations of the Bible text are invariably mide from the Revised
Version.
8 Studies in Eschatology.
has been, generally speaking, the least dis-
cussed of all the great divisions of religious
inquiry.
And yet none is, in its very nature, more
interesting. If death ended all, there would
be no room for such investigation as we have
proposed. But our gospel according to Jesus
Christ affirms and insists that death is not the
end of human existence, however much it seems
to be. Our Saviour clearly taught, if it be ad-
mitted that He clearly taught anything, that
it is possible to live after death. Hence two
questions immediately arise: i. Who will live
after death? 2. What will be the essential
nature and the attendant conditions of that ex-
istence? The natural desire which we have
to live, coupled with the belief, apparently in-
nate also, that something of us persists as im-
mortal, invests these questions with the deepest
and profoundest interest. Therefore, even
though little can be certainly known on these
matters, we all want to know whatever can be
ascertained.
Evidently the starting-point must be that
change which sooner or later comes over a hu-
man being which we call death. From that
A Study of Death. 9
point we date the "hereafter." But we cannot
pass on to discuss what follows death until we
know what death itself is. If death is annihila-
tion, nothing follows it. On the other hand, if
it is not annihilation, neither is it continuance of
present existence ; and what, then, is it ? This
is the preliminary question to the two already
mentioned; and to its answer we now address
ourselves.
Because in death there is a cessation of this
present existence which we call life, it is evi-
dent that death stands in direct contrast to
life. This contrast is especially manifested in
two respects to the beholder. In life there
is motion, in death there is none; in life there
is word- or sign-language; that is, communi-
cation of thought; in death this is impossible.
Now, in these two elements of self-motion and
communication of thought resides the funda-
mental conception of human life. Self-mo-
tion shows an object to have life, and the
power of thought-expression indicates that
the life is human.
But it must be borne in mind that these in-
dications have reference to the beholder, and
not to the living being himself. We know
lo Studies in Eschatology.
very well, each one for himself, that there may
be thought without communication of it. You
look upon a sleeping person, and the only evi-
dence of life there to you is the breathing and
the blood-color. Yet you are assured that the
mind still exists and acts, because you have
risen from sleep with the consciousness of
thought exercised by your own mind. There-
fore you know that it is possible for the mind
to act, even though no evidence of such acting
could possibly be found by another person. In
other words, there may be a mind consciously
acting independently of any external evidence
of it, either in voice or eye or gesture.
We thus distinguish between the fact of life
and the motion of life which attests the fact to
another. This will appear more clearly by the
use of an illustration. A man may be so par-
alyzed that neither with hand nor with foot
could he make a gesture — not the slightest
movement in response to his will. Yet his
personality is just as clearly in existence as
ever, for he can converse as usual. But sud-
denly that paralysis might overtake the muscles
of his throat, and his voice would be hushed.
Still his life would be manifest through his
A Study of Death. 1 1
eyes. He could not convey all his thought and
feeling that way, it is true, but you would not
for a moment doubt that he still had as much
as ever. But suppose that his eyelids, too,
closed down with that paralysis : can that one
thing, which seems like death to you, any
more end the existence of that mind than
either of the preceding strokes? It is unrea-
sonable to suppose so.
What then is that which we term human
death? Simply the destruction of all the ex-
ternal evidences of the power of thought.
There is no reason to believe that that power
itself becomes extinct or ceases to act, but
rather every reason to believe otherwise. The
avenues of its communication with the material
world are simply closed; that is all. It re-
ceives no knowledge from it and can give none
to it. But it can work on within itself, just as
it does during sleep, or while in a trance.
Death is simply breaking the connection of
the mind with the outer world by the dissolu-
tion of this organism, the body, by which the
connection was made. The mind itself re-
mains, capable of its own essential processes.
But why must this connection be broken?
12 Studies in Eschatology.
Since our minds delight in taking knowledge
of and communicating with things apart from
themselves — as evidenced by our dread of
death — what unwelcome necessity makes the
separation inevitable? In brief, why must the
body wear out and be dissolved? Some have
thought that it was mortal from the first. Tiiey
point to the death of all plant life, and all ani-
mal life below man, and claim that he was
never meant to be an exception. But this view
does not harmonize with Gen. 2: 17: "In the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die" — unless the word "die" be taken to refer
only to spiritual death. That physical death is
included, however, is shown in the curse pro-
nounced upon Adam, "Till thou return unto the
ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for
dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."
We conclude from this that mortality began
to work in Adam and Eve from the very day
they sinned. And because it wrought in them
it continued to work in all their descendants,
and still continues. As Paul says, in Rom.
5:12, "Therefore, as through one man sin en-
tered into the world, and death through sin;
and so death passed unto all men, for that all
A Study of Death. 13
sinned." Our bodies go to the grave because
sin made them mortal. Had sin never been
fastened upon us, we should have been exempt
from death. How disease and accident and
wearing out would have been avoided we do
not know, and need not try to guess.
We have spoken of spiritual death. There
is such a thing, and it was undoubtedly also in
consequence of sin. But its real import is apt
to be much mistaken. Let us bear in mind that
physical death is simply the cessation of corre-
spondence between the mind and the material
world, by no means involving the annihilation
of the mind itself. Then must spiritual death
be simply the cessation of correspondence be-
tween that mind and the Spirit of God, but
again by no means involving the annihilation
of the mind. Hence a human being may go to
both physical and spiritual death at the same
time, and yet be as truly a personal, living
being as when he was in the flesh. He is as
far from annihilation, from ceasing to exist, as
ever he was. Eternity is before him as really
and consciously as if he were not spiritually
dead.
In striking confirmation of this view of
14 Studies in Eschatology.
death, as we take it, is the remarkable saying
of our Saviour on the occasion of His raising
the daughter of Jairus. You remember that
He rebuked the hired mourners by the state-
ment, 'The child is not dead, but sleepeth."
The skeptic now would fain have us believe that
the body was still alive, but those unbelievers
knew better than that. But not perceiving the
parabolic meaning, they laughed Jesus to scorn
for His declaration. And what was that hid-
den meaning? That the child was still a liv-
ing, personal, conscious being, though com-
munication through her body with the world
had ceased. And how did He prove it? By
calling to her as a person, ''Damsel !" and by
appealing to her conscious thought and mem-
ory, "Rise up." He treated her, in other words,
just as if she had been lying sleeping and He
wished to rouse her.
So also He did Lazarus, having used a simi-
lar expression in regard to his death. When
He said, "Lazarus!" He addressed a self-
conscious personality. When He cried "Come
forth," He appealed to that person's sense of
position, and his memory of muscular action,
and his will. All that was necessary was first
A Study of Death. 15
to stir the sleeping mind into full consciousness,
and then it was ready to act as it had always
acted when in the body.
Therefore death is a sleep in that the mind,
when no longer associated with the body, is
in that peculiar state of consciousness which
characterizes a dream. It is not clear, definite,
full, as it is in waking hours. But what it can
do in a dream it can do after death. There is
only this difference: that then it cannot re-
ceive knowledge from the outside world, for
the cable is cut. It is shut up to its own ac-
quired contents of memory to work upon.
And so it must remain until an Omnipotent
voice shall summon it back to its tenement and
put it once more in communication with the
world of objective realities.
And so our beloved dead would better be
termed our beloved sleepers. Those minds
which we have come into loving, pleasure-giv-
ing contact with are still acting. Verily, verily
they have not ceased to exist — they cannot
cease. They are but asleep, they dream.
What occupies their thoughts, their dreams,
must depend on what they thought of here in
the flesh. We, too, shall sleep and dream.
1 6 Studies in Eschatology.
Having begun to exist, we can never stop.
The power of thought is indestructible. Then
what shall be our attitude toward that which
we call death? If our theory is correct, a sin-
gle sentence will answer the question : what we
are ever afraid to think of here, we shall be
afraid to think of hereafter; if by the grace,
the mercy, and the blessing of God there is
nothing we are afraid to think of here, afraid
to take account of before conscience, we need
not dread the dreaming which inevitably
awaits us.
Let us then, in the words of the poet Bryant,
''So live, that zvJicn thy summons comes to
join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, zvhere each shall
take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave, at night
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and
soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one zvho wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams,"
Immortality. 17
11.
IMMORTALITY, IN THE BIBLE AND OUT.
" Who abolished death, and brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel."
— 2 Tim. I : 10.
It will be remembered that at the outset of
our study upon these subjects we found our-
selves confronted with these two questions :
I. Who will live after death? 2. What will
be the essential nature and the attendant con-
ditions of that existence? It was remarked
that in order to answer these questions we must
first have some definite understanding of what
death itself is. The conclusion arrived at was
that death is simply the breaking of the con-
nection between the mind and the outer world
by the dissolution of the body, by which that
connection was kept up; or, in other words,
death is simply the destruction of all the exter-
nal evidences of the power of thought. That
power itself, however, is indestructible and
1 8 Studies in Eschatology.
abides — though in a modified form apparently
resembling its activity during sleep.
It is of course evident that he who accepts
this definition of death stands already com-
mitted to a doctrine of immortality. But the
question is, What evidence is there that the
mind is indestructible? What is there in the
nature of the case which makes it reasonable to
assume that it abides after death, and unreason-
able to believe that it is annihilated ? Since the
Almighty permits the body to come to an end,
is not that an indication that the whole being
has served its end, and forever disappears?
Why should it not be with man as it is with the
lower orders of animals and w^ith plants, viz.,
that the genus, or race, alone is immortal, and
the individual is not ? In brief, what adequate
purpose can be found for believing that every
human intelligence ever created is imperish-
able, and must therefore forever continue to ex-
ist in some form or state?
We refer first of all to the almost, if -not al-
together, universal belief in immortality, the
world over and the ages through. Two strik-
ing examples of this as to time and place
must suffice here. In our own hemisphere and
Immortality. 19
for modern times take the North American
Indian. He placed upon the grave of his de-
parted friend the tools and utensils which were
supposed to be necessary for the dead brave's
comfort in the happy hunting-grounds of the
hereafter. Rude as was his conception, yet it
as definitely meant to him, as ours does to us,
that death does not end all. However indis-
tinct and incomplete was his idea of immortal-
ity, yet it was there. Hoiv did it get there f
Turn now to the opposite side of the earth
and to several thousand years ago, and, to em-
phasize the contrast, from modern savagery to
primitive civilization. The ancient Egyptian
did two most remarkable things : he built pyra-
mids, and he embalmed his dead. He looked
upon the seed in its progress from germination
to decay and then back to life again, and he
looked upon the cycle of the rise and fall of the
Nile; and he thought that everything must
have its cycle. And so he set the soul's cycle
at three thousand years, after which it will re-
turn to the body again. Therefore he prepared
that body for that event by embalming it to pre-
serve it from decay. As a further evidence of
his faith he built the pyramid to endure till that
20 Studies in Eschatology.
time, and which would thus serve also as a
special tomb for kings. Time has proved the
Egyptian's cycle incorrect, and yet the belief in
immortality still persists, and prevails every-
where. What gives it this persisting power?
To this question we shall join the preceding
one, How did this idea of immortality come to
be in even the savage mind, and consider the
two together. We know that we have a natu-
ral horror of being annihilated, a natural desire
to live on forever. The instances adduced
show this to be true of men of widely different
intelligence and widely separated localities.
Both this fact and our own consciousness go to
show that the idea and the desire of immortality
are native to the mind, and not simply imposed
upon it by training. Then shall we imagine
the mind to be self-deceived? Would a God
of love have created it so? Why should He
have implanted this desire for immortality if it
were destined not to be realized? Supposing
there were no existence after death, would it
not be to us a pitiful sight to see the poor sav-
age laying the utensils of his dead companion
on the grave for future use? And if pitiful to
vs, surely more so to the Divine Heart!
Immortality. 21
Would the most Merciful One thus have de-
luded the simple mind of the untutored sav-
age?
In harmony with what we have been saying
are the words which Addison puts into the
mouth of Cato :
''// must be so, Plato, thou reasonest well! —
Else zvhence this pleasing hope, this fond
desire.
This longing after immortality f
Or zvhence this secret dread, and inzvard
horror
Of falling into naught t Why shrinks the
soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction F
'Tis the divinity that stirs zvithin us,
'Tis heaven itself that points out an here-
after.
And intimates eternity to man."
But this is by no means the only argument
for personal immortality. Another has its root
in the sense of incompletion which constantly
accompanies our life in its onward course.
Reason tells us that the human mind never
22 Studies in Eschatology.
reaches its full capacity in this life. Every
genuine thinker has at times a most tantaliz-
ing sense of things ahead for which somehow
he is not yet prepared and cannot grasp; and
the farther on his mental development pro-
ceeds, the more frequent and the more pressing
this sense becomes. Reason therefore de-
mands that the opportunity for further acquisi-
tion shall not cease as long as such a desire
continues. Reason asserts that it is contrary
both to the course of nature and the Divine
character to endow a being with capacities
never to be developed. Unless there is ex-
istence after death, it is evident that they never
will be.
To this idea James Freeman Clarke thus
gives expression : ''One of the most convincing
arguments for immortality is the undying ap-
petite of the soul for knowledge, love, progress.
As we approach the turn of life it never occurs
to us that it is time to fold our arms, close our
eyes, and bid farewell to nature, poetry, art,
friendship, business. . . . We build houses,
begin books, undertake operations, just as if we
were to live forever, which shows, I think, that
the sense of immortality destroys all sense of
Immortality. 23
death as we grow old." This is confirmed
by the words of the great poet Goethe. "To
me/' said he, "the eternal existence of my soul
is proved from my idea of activity. If Ij
work incessantly till my death, nature is bound
to give me another form of existence when the
present can no longer sustain my spirit."
Most beautiful, also, are the words of our
own Longfellow to the same effect: "All the
great and wise and good among mankind, all
the benefactors of the human race, whose
names I read in the world's history, and the
still greater number of those whose good deeds
have outlived their names — all those have
labored for me. I have entered into their har-
vest. I walk the green earth which they in-
habited. I tread in their footsteps, from which
blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime
task which they once undertook, the task of
making our common brotherhood wiser and
happier. I can build forward, where they were
forced to leave off; and bring nearer to per-
fection the great edifice which they left uncom-
pleted. And at length I, too, must leave it,
and go hence. Oh, this is the sublimest
thought of all ! I can never finish the noble
24 Studies in Eschatology.
task; therefore, so sure as this task is my des-
tiny, I can never cease to work, and conse-
quently never cease to be. What men call
death cannot break off this task which is never-
ending."
A still more potent argimient in favor of
personal immortality has to do with the fact
that perfect justice is not meted out in this
life. And at this point we turn to distinctively
Bible teaching on this great subject. To any
observant student of the Book it is evident
that its WTiters treat of immortality almost ex-
clusively from this point of view. Jesus' par-
able of the rich man and Lazarus fairly illus-
trates the prevailing tendency. According to
the teaching involved in it, rewards and pun-
ishments, at least in their completeness, do not
pertain to this life, but to the hereafter. And
certainly to this corresponds our own obser-
vation. The good often suffer — nay, we are
taught to expect it : the wicked are frequently
left to prosper. Death brings no redress, for
it levels both alike.
God's righteous government is therefore
left unjustified and under suspicion, unless
hereafter there is opportunity and promise of
Immortality. 25
vindication. This can only take place in case
present intelligences are so continued that they
will be conscious of the difference between their
state then and what it had been on earth.
Hence, in order that the Divine government
be accepted by us now as just and equitable, it
seems absolutely necessary to keep before the
mind a future world whose distinctive features
morally are recompense on the one hand and
retribution on the other. Otherwise, what in-
centive is there for us to live righteously in this
age? Only by belying his own consciousness
can any one assert his belief in adequate re-
ward and punishment on this side of the grave.
As before suggested, our Lord's teaching is
to a marked extent along this line. It was
through that teaching, as Paul informs us, that
Christ "brought life and immortality to light."
Before His day immortality was but an obscure
hope, a thing guessed at. rather than definitely
believed in. It was as if a blind man had felt
it — it was real, but its form could not be ascer-
tained. Under the Saviour's enlightening in-
fluence, however, personal, conscious immor-
tality stood revealed ; revealed in His argument
concerning the God of Abraham, Isaac and
26 Studies in Eschatology.
Jacob ; revealed in His meeting with Moses and
Elijah ; revealed in the dead He restored to life,
and revealed finally and fully in His own res-
urrection from the dead. He abolished death,
in that He abolished the power of death, and
He abolished its power by proving that it
does not end all ; that the mind of man, or his
soul, if you please, is immortal.
As the result of this inquiry — all too im-
perfect and fragmentary — we are prepared to
answer the first of our two questions. Who
will live after death? All who have ever lived
at all, everybody. We have no room for the
theory of conditional immortality; that is, of
future existence only for the good. It is op-
posed by each of the arguments we have ad-
vanced, and by others which might be given.
It is true that only the righteous shall inherit
eternal life; but eternal life means vastly more
than mere continued and unending existence.
The soul is one thing, and its inheritance, or
possessions, is a different, a separate thing.
Of the latter it shall be in order to speak later
on. We close our study for the present by
asserting that history, science and religion unite
in proclaiming the essential immortality of the
human soul.
The Intermediate State. 27
III.
WHAT DO WE KNOW OF THE INTERMEDIATE
STATE ?
"But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed
that they beheld a spirit." — Lxike 24:37.
"Then said the woman, Whom shall I brine up unto
thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. . . .
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted
me, to bring me up? " — i Sam. 28: 11, 15.
Let it be recalled again that at the outset of
this inquiry into existence hereafter two ques-
tions were presented for answer : i . Who will
live after death ? 2. What will be the essential
nature and the attendant conditions of that ex-
istence? Assuming that death is simply the
destruction of all the external evidences of the
power of thought, and not the annihilation of
that power itself, and that therefore a human
being once brought into existence must for-
ever continue to exist, we answered the first
question by saying that all mankind will live
after death. We are now ready to discuss the
28 Studies in Eschatology.
second question. What do we know of that
life hereafter?
The first thing to be noticed is that that life
must be treated of under two distinct aspects
and two separate periods. That which causes
this distinction and separation is a fact of
revelation under the New Covenant, viz., the
resurrection from the dead. When that event
occurs, another change will be made in the con-
ditions of human existence, a change resulting
in a reunion of the soul with a body as its final,
everlasting tenement. As we shall see in a
succeeding article, this will not be a resump-
tion of this present earthly life, but an essen-
tially different one in many respects. Before
passing to consider it, however, we are logically
called to study what will be our condition in
the period between death and this second
change. What do we know of spirit-existence ?
Has Science or Revelation anything to tell us
regarding the interval between death and the
resurrection as respects the state of a human
being?
For convenience, we shall speak of this as the
intermediate state. It is probable that to most
Protestant Christians the phrase has an un-
The Intermediate State. 29
welcome sound, because it suggests that ficti-
tious product of Roman Catholicism which
passes under the name of ''purgatory." But
it is quite possible to deny purgatory and yet
affirm the intermediate state. Purgatory, ac-
cording to Roman Catholic definition, "is a
temporary middle state in which those who
depart this life in the grace of God are detained
to expiate, by suffering, the slighter offenses
not forgiven before death, or to complete the
expiation of grievous sins which had been for-
given." No such doctrine is taught in the
Bible, and therefore we utterly reject and con-
demn it. Probation, we believe, ends at death.
Repentance then must be either complete or not
begun; and if it is complete, God's forgiveness
of sin cannot be any the less complete.
We decline, therefore, to associate any pur-
gatorial idea with the soul after death and while
awaiting the resurrection. The question then
confronts us, Does the soul immediately enter
heaven upon its departure from earth? — that is,
in the case of a believer. This question can-
not be conclusively answered until we have
reached a decision as to what and where heaven
is. Without assuming to decide as to that at
30 Studies in Eschatology.
present — leaving it for a future discussion —
we proceed to examine the evidence, if there
be any, in regard to a separate aspect of ex-
istence during the period between a person's
death and the resurrection. This will include
a consideration of certain biblical terms, the
bearing of the passages quoted from Luke and
I Samuel upon these, and some deductions of
the general arguments already advanced in re-
gard to death and immortality.
Of the former the first to be noticed is a
Hebrew word in the Old Testament — Sheol.
It is commonly derived from a verb meaning
*'to be hollow," and denotes the vast, hollow
subterranean resting-place which is the common
receptacle of the dead. The Hebrew original
occurs fifty-eight times in the Old Testament.
In the Authorized Version it is translated
thirty-one times "grave," twenty-four times
"hell," and three times "pit." In the Revised
Version it is rendered fifteen times "grave,"
fifteen times "hell," and twenty-five times
"Sheol." A comparison of usage in the differ-
ent parts shows that, speaking generally, the
earlier use of the word had reference to the
grave, while in later use it denoted the
The Intermediate State. 31
subterranean abode of departed spirits — with-
out distinction for a time, however, as to moral
character.
Observe here the bearing which the passage
quoted above, from i Samuel, has on this an-
cient belief. King Saul had gone to consult
a woman who was reputed to have a ''familiar
spirit.'* He couched his request in these
words, "Bring me up whomsoever I shall name
unto thee." Recognizing the propriety of the
language, the woman asks, ''Whom shall I
bring up unto thee?" The King's reply is,
"Bring me up Samuel." The latter having ap-
parently made his appearance, he uses this lan-
guage to Saul : "Why hast thou disquieted me,
to bring me up?" also endorsing the idea of
ascent from some subterranean place. If
we regard this as a real voice from Samuel, it
is certainly necessary to regard it also as prov-
ing the existence of Sheol. On the other hand,
even if this was not a genuine message, it none
the less shows the prevailing belief in regard
to the state of the departed — and incidentally,
in the use of the word disquieted, the cahn,
peaceful condition of those who had lived
righteously on earth.
32 Studies in Eschatology.
At this stage of Hebrew thought on immor-
taHty, it does not appear that this under-world
was conceived of as having any division in it.
The dead all wxnt to the same place. In
process of time, however, Sheol began to be
thought of as having two divisions, or depart-
ments, caused by the separation of the right-
eous from the wicked. By the time of Christ
this usage was clearly established, since we find
the Greek word Hades substituted for it. This
word in its ancient Greek usage signified, like
the Roman Orcus or Inferna, *'a place for all
the dead in the depth of the earth, dark, dreary,
cheerless, and shut up, inaccessible to prayers
and sacrifices, ruled over by Pluto. But a dis-
tinction was made between Elysium and Tar-
tarus in this subterranean world of shadows."
One was the abode of the blessed and the other
of the lost.
Hades thus became an approximate equiva-
lent for Sheol, which also had come to be
thought of as containing two departments, viz.,
Paradise and Gehenna. But inasmuch as
Judaism had come to expect a future and final
judgment, Sheol was accordingly regarded as
only a temporary abode until that judgment
The Intermediate State. 33
should take place. With this modification, the
Greek conception of Hades was adopted by the
Greek translators of the Hebrew Scriptures;
and thus the term reached Christ. He him-
self adopted and made use of it in His teaching.
This is notably the case in His parable of the
rich man and Lazarus, where the latter is
located in ''Abraham's bosom," while the
former is in ''torments." It would seem,
however, that both were "in Hades"; that is,
the under-world of departed spirits.
This conception enables us to interpret satis-
factorily several otherwise difficult points.
Thus the article of the Apostles' Creed re-
specting Christ's descent "into hell" gives no
trouble when the word hell is taken to mean,
not Gehenna, but Hades. Then also we can
understand the Saviour's meaning when He
said to the penitent and believing robber on
the cross : "This day shalt thou be with me in
paradise." Paradise cannot mean heaven, for
Jesus told Mary not to touch Him, because He
had not yet ascended to the Father in heaven.
But He and His convert from the cross had
descended into that spirit-world whither all
must go who die. Of course, they would be in
34 Studies in Eschatology.
the Paradise-part of it — if we must think of it
as a place. The other robber, impenitent and
unbeHeving, would also go to his own place.
But after all, why need we think of a place
in this connection? The mind in sleep has
always a sense of position, to be sure, but yet
we know it is not confined to any one place,
nor can it be. It is only the consciousness of
the body which ties us down to a fixed place
for a definite time. When, in the resurrec-
tion, the mind is once more united to its body,
then the correlative ideas of time and place
will resume their part in the soul's processes;
and then heaven and hell must become fixed,
unchangeable quantities. Till then, we shall
be in the intermediate state — not in purgatory
— not in either Elysium or Tartarus — not
even in Paradise or Gehenna, as the Jews con-
ceived of them. The believer will be happier
far than any wanderer over the Elysian fields
or through the vale of Paradise was ever
imagined to be. Christ, for him, has robbed
Death and Hades of their terrors. In calm
restfulness and unutterable peace he w^aits that
supreme moment when the happy dream shall
The Intermediate State. 35
be changed, and changed forever, into the glori-
ous reality of the resurrection-life.
Some there will be who will never enter this
intermediate state; for, as Paul teaches, some
will be living at that last great Day, and they
will not need to die; they will be instantane-
ously changed. It may seem to us that our
departed friends will have long to wait, and
that perhaps we too will share the stress. But
how long is an hour to a sleeper? Happy
dreams pass all too soon. A wretched dreamer
lives an age in a few minutes. It all depends
upon whether Jesus Christ as a personal
Saviour goes out with you, as you start into
spirit-land. Tennyson understood it, when he
said :
''Sunset and evening star.
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea;
But such a tide as moving seems asleep
Too full for sound and foam,
Jllien that zdiicJi drew from out the bound-
less deep
Turns again home.
36 Studies in Eschatology.
''Twilight and evening bell.
And after that the dark!
And may there he no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of time and
place
The Hood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."
The Resurrection. 37
IV.
THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAC.
"Marvel not at this : for the hour cometh, in which
all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall
come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resur-
rection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the
resurrection of judgment." — John 5:28, 29.
'The Bible . . . knows nothing of an
abstract immortality of the soul, as the schools
speak of it ; nor is its Redemption a Redemption
of the soul only, but of the body as well. It is
a Redemption of man in his whole complex
personality — body and soul together. It was
in the body that Christ rose from the dead;
in the body that He ascended to heaven ; in the
body that He lives and reigns there for ever-
more. It is His promise that, if He lives, we
shall live also; and this promise includes a
pledge of the resurrection of the body. The
truth which underlies this is, that death for
man is an effect of sin. It did not lie in the
Creator's original design for man that he
38 Studies in Eschatology.
should die, — that these two component parts
of his nature, body and soul, should ever be vio-
lently disrupted and severed, as death now
severs them. Death is an abnormal fact in the
history of the race ; and Redemption is, among
other things, the undoing of this evil, and the
restoration of man to his normal completeness
as a personal being." — James Orr^ D.D.
It has been argued that inasmuch as the
term resurrection of the body is not found in
the Bible, there is no warrant for expecting or
believing that such a thing will occur. Thus
Dr. Lyman Abbott writes: "If the New Testa-
ment means to teach the resi./rection of the
body, if Paul means to teach that doctrine, it is
very strange that the phrase itself never occurs
in the New Testament. The notion that the
body which is laid in the grave must rise again
in order to preserve personal immortality is the
relic of a paganism which ought long since
to have been forgotten. The body that lies
in the grave will rise in grass and flowers."
He also declares elsewhere that w^e ''must also
distinguish resuscitation, restoring one to life
in this world, as in the case of Lazarus, from
The Resurrection. 39
resurrection, the rising of the spirit into the
Hfe of the world to come. No educated person
now believes that the buried body, or any part
of it, is to be raised again. The New Testa-
ment now^here teaches any such fiction."
But in spite of the fact that the phrase resur-
rection of the body is not in the New Testa-
ment, we cannot admit that Dr. Abbott's posi-
tion is correct. His first error is in supposing
that any one makes personal immortality de-
pendent upon the rising of the buried body
from the grave.
As we have tried to show in a precedmg
article, personality is immortal in spite of
fleshly embodiment, and not in consequence
of it, and therefore is in no need of a body to
preserve it. Spirit can exist independently of
a body of flesh, and does so exist after death.
But the point which Dr. Abbott misses is that
a human spirit in that state is in an imperfect
and, as it were, mutilated condition. God's
gracious scheme of redemption has simply pro-
vided that human life should be restored co its
wholeness, that its parts separated by sin
should be reunited when that sin has been fully
removed. As Dr. Orr puts it, "It is a Re-
40 Studies in Eschatolog-y.
demption of man in his whole complex per-
sonality — body and soul together."
But Dr. Abbott falls into another error, not
less serious, though of a different kind. When
he considers it strange that the term resur-
rection of the body is absent from the New
Testament in case it teaches that kind of rising
from the dead, he forgets the force of the word
resurrection itself and alone. The truth is that
the added phrase, "of the body," is wholly
unnecessary. The single word resurrection
tells it all. It literally means to rise again.
But zvhat rises again? Dr. Abbott says the
spirit. Then was the spirit buried under
ground? The word resurrection means — un-
less you make language utterly lawless — it
means that what has been put down comes up
again, the same thing, and not something else.
Now nobody believes that after death anything
is put in the grave except the body; and hence
it must be the body, the identical thing placed
there, which rises. No wonder the phrase "of
the body" is not placed after the word resur-
rection in the New Testament! You might
as well expect to find the expression, the teeth
of his month!
The Resurrection. 41
When therefore the New Testament speaks
of a resurrection of or from the dead, the very-
phrase itself must naturally indicate to the
reader the reanimation of a once dead body.
As we saw^ at the outset, such a conception
naturally follows from the biblical doctrine of
human nature, the effects of sin upon it, and
the purpose of redemption with regard to it.
As the writer first quoted further says : ^'The
soul in separation from the body is in a state
of imperfection and mutilation. When a hu-
man being loses one of his limbs, we regard
him as a mutilated being. Were he to lose
all his limbs, we would regard him as worse
mutilated still. So when the soul is entirely
denuded of its body, though consciousness and
memory yet remain, it must still be regarded
— and in the Bible is regarded — as subsisting
in an imperfect condition, a condition of
enfeebled life, diminished powers, restricted
capacities of action — a state, in short, of dep-
rivation. The man whose life is hid with
Christ in God will no doubt with that life re-
tain the blessedness that belongs to it, even in
the state of separation from the body — he
will 'be with Christ, which is far better' ; but
42 Studies in Eschatology.
it is still true that so long as he remains in that
disembodied state, he wants part of himself,
and cannot be perfectly blessed, as he will be
after his body, in renewed and glorified form,
is restored to him."
But we have more direct and stronger evi-
dence even than this. We turn to the teach-
ing of our Saviour, and we find these words :
"The hour cometh, in which all that are
in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come
forth." Notice the use of the word "all."
The argument stated a moment ago holds good
for the resurrection of those who are redeemed
from the power and curse of sin, but affords
no basis for expecting the resurrection of
others. We might have supposed that the
latter would be left in their disembodied con-
dition, were it not for this clear statement of
Christ's. There will come a time when at the
voice of the mighty King every spirit disem-
bodied by death shall be re-embodied; and re-
embodied in such sense that it will constitute
a real rising from the tomb.
Yet an apparent difificulty comes in here.
It is true, as Dr. Abbott says, that the body
which lies in the grave rises in grass and
The Resurrection. 43
flowers. That it returns to dust, in the vast
majority of instances, is undeniable; and from
thence its chemical forces must pass into vege-
table matter. How then can that body de-
posited in the grave ever be brought together
again? To reconcile this difficulty with the
theory of a bodily rising again several solu-
tions have been offered. It must be the same
body, or else the term resurrection becomes
meaningless. But what constitutes sameness,
or identity? Have you the same body you had
when you were born? Common sense says,
yes ; it never belonged to any one else ! Science
answers, no; it has been entirely changed in
every particular since that time. Which is
right? And the enlightened thinker replies,
both are right. But he recognizes that the
common-sense idea and the scientific idea of
sameness do not exactly correspond.
Now under the scientific conception it seems
improbable that the resurrection-body should
be identical with the one laid in the tomb. Ob-
serve, we do not say impossible; for God could
collect the scattered atoms and bring them into
precisely the same combination they had when
the breath left the body. But would that be
44 Studies in Eschatology.
desirable? Then would a one-armed man be
raised with a missing member ! But that idea
fails to harmonize with our conception of
Christ's work on behalf of His people, how-
ever appropriate it might seem with regard to
those who reject His healing on their behalf.
Under the scientific conception of bodily iden-
tity, all malformations and mutilations would
have to be reproduced in the resurrection-
body.
Under what we have termed the common-
sense conception, however, this difficulty is
avoided. The actual particles of flesh and
bone, of blood and lymph, are constantly
changing, as the water of a river is changing,
the new oncomer displacing the old particle.
Yet both the river and the body are the same
that they were before. So the actual material
of the resurrection-body may be wholly dif-
ferent from the constituent elements of the
natural body at death, and yet it may be the
same body, because recognizable to the eye
as such — or rather, recognizable by the spirit
inhabiting it as such.
Perhaps an illustration will make this
plainer. You have a pocket knife of one blade.
The Resurrection. 45
Constant use has so worn the blade away that
you resolve to replace it with a new one.
Having clone so, you still consider yourself
to possess the same knife. By and by the
rivet wears out, and you insert a new one.
Presently the spring fails to act, and it too is
replaced. Later on, one side of the frame gets
broken, and you replace it with a new one.
And so on, until every individual part has had
a successor; and yet you still have the same
knife — for you never had another one; you
never had two! Something there has per-
sisted all this time, call it what you will. So
we recognize the identity of these bodies of
ours, though they are in a constant process of
change. And so we shall recognize them in
the resurrection, though the greatest change of
all shall have come over them.
We deny, therefore, that the resurrection of
which Christ spoke is a spiritual resurrection.
Certainly His own was no spiritual resurrec-
tion, but most emphatically a bodily one. He
showed the prints of the nails in His hands
and feet ; He insisted that a spirit had not flesh
and bones, as they could prove for themselves
He had; and He partook of ordinary food in
46 Studies in Eschatology.
their sight. These were in order to prove
to His followers, first, that His body was real,
and not visionary; and second, that it was the
same body which had suffered death on the
cross and had been shut up in Joseph's sepul-
cher. Yet withal it was a changed body, in
that it was no longer subject to certain laws
of nature, neither was it any more corruptible.
It was a body which the Saviour could take
and did take to heaven with Him, whereas
mere "ilesh and blood," as Paul tells us, ''can-
not inherit the kingdom of God."
We conclude, therefore, that in the Bible im-
mortality and the resurrection of the dead go
hand in hand; that is, that the human spirit
does not cease to exist at death, simply because
its Creator designs that it shall one day be
re-embodied, thus to remain forever. This we
conceive to be the essential difference between
the human spirit and other spirits. We shall
never be angels, neither can an angel ever be
human. It is to be feared that a great deal of
false teaching is founded on a failure to grasp
this distinction. We are led to think that
existence out of the body would be far prefer-
able to that in the body. We even find ref-
The Resurrection. 47
erences to these "vile" bodies of ours! just
as if God had put a worthy spirit into an un-
worthy tenement! What we want to get rid
of is not the body itself, but its corruptibil-
ity, its liability to putrefaction and decay.
Death is a thing to be welcomed, not because
the spirit is ''set free," as the phrase unfor-
tunately runs, but because it is the occasion for
getting rid once and forever of bodily corrup-
tion. Of all the false doctrines, that of re-
incarnation is the most abominably foolish, as
well as un-Christian. God has provided
something infinitely better for us than to have
to return to another body with the germs of
corruption within it.
But we can look forward, every one of us,
to a return to a body free from all elements
of decay. This much has Christ done for
every human being. In this sense He is the
Saviour of ''all men." (i Tim. 4: 10.) To
this extent His redemption is world-wide, as
the race. This is the true universalism, and
this is also its limit. When we speak of the
future state of the niiiid, a distinction must
be made, on the ground, among others, of our
Saviour's words in the text, 'They that have
48 Studies in Eschatology.
done good, unto the resurrection of life; and
they that have done ill, unto the resurrection
of judgment." Whether this re-embodiment
at the last great Day shall be to us ''life" — that
is, the knowledge, peace, and everlasting
favor of God; or whether it shall be to us
''judgment" — that is. His condemnation,
wrath, and the torment of perpetual regret,
depends upon our attitude in this world to
God's will as expressed in and through Christ.
The Second Coming. 49
THE SECOND COMING THE JUDGMENT — THE
MILLENNIUM.
"And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to
die, and after this cometh judgment." — Heh. 9:27.
"But each in his own order; Christ the first fruits;
then they that are Christ's at his coming." — i Cor. 15 : 23.
"The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand
years should be finished. This is the first resurrection."
—Rev. 20 : 5.
In our previous discourses we have discussed
the subject of existence hereafter, in ^vhat
seem to be the logical steps, from the moment
that death occurs up to the time when death
is robbed of its victory by the resurrection
from the dead; that is, the re-embodiment of
the spirit. We have thus given answer to the
first question, as to the fact of such existence,
and also to the first part of the second ques-
tion. What is the essential nature of that ex-
istence? There remains now the further in-
quiry. What will be the attendant conditions —
that !:>, the outward circumstances — of that ex-
50 Studies in Eschatology.
istence? This brings us to Eschatology
proper, or the doctrine of the ''last things,"
and joined with this, the moral issues of hu-
man life.
The discussion upon which we thus enter is
one of even greater difficulty than attaches to
those preceding. No known scheme of in-
terpretation claims to be flawless; difficulties
confessedly beset every one of them. We shall
not expect to escape from this common fate,
and are willing to make our confession in ad-
vance. Nevertheless, we do not consider it
idle or profitless to take up the theme, for
Scripture has something to say on the subject,
and that something is necessarily of the great-
est importance to us. Besides, mysteries have
a use peculiarly their own, in leading us on to
investigate; and the very existence of one is
a challenge to set forward in search for new
truth. The very fact that all is not revealed,
shows that something has been left for us to
do.
First, then, what has been revealed concern-
ing the ''last things"? Without overlooking
others, three main facts call for notice. As
set forth in the various passages cited, they are
The Second Coming. 51
Christ's second coming, the judgment, and
what has been called the ''Millennium." In
this enumeration we do not yet pronounce any-
thing as to the order of these things, either
as to time of revelation or as to the sequence
of their actual occurrence. This is the very
problem before us for our study. To begin
with, we simply assert, on the authority of the
New Testament, that Jesus Christ will some-
time come to earth again — i Cor. 15 : 23, and
numerous other places — that there wull some
day be a judgment of the world — Heb. 9: 27,
and elsewhere — and that before the final sum-
ming up of all things at the close of this
Revelation-age, there will be a specific period
in it which John the Revelator terms ''the
thousand years."
The first question which confronts us, if we
take these facts in the order of their mention
by Christ and His Apostles, pertains to the
day of judgment. This is our Saviour's own
expression, first used in His warnings to the
scribes and Pharisees, as recorded in Matt.
12, as follows: "And I say unto you, that
every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judg-
52 Studies in Eschatology.
ment" — v. 36. Later on He used the same
expression, first of any city which might re-
ject His Apostles, saying that ''in the day of
judgment" it would be ''more tolerable for the
land of Sodom and Gomorrah" than for that
city; and again of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and
Capernaum, where a similar comparison is
made. Here there is evidently an advance
over the earlier use of the term, from judg-
ment of an individual to that of whole com-
munities. A further extension of the idea is
found in Paul's speech to the Athenians, where
he says — x\cts 17:31 — "Inasmuch as he hath
appointed a day, in the which he will judge
the world in righteousness by the man whom
he hath ordained; whereof he hath given as-
surance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead." Here the reference is to
a judgment world-wide, evidently including all
men.
To the same effect, are the words already
quoted, "And inasmuch as it is appointed unto
men once to die, and after this cometh judg-
ment." As one writer says, "From a teleo-
logical view of the world, also, as well as from
a survey of its existing imperfections, it is felt
The Second Coming. 53
that there is an inherent fitness, if not a moral
necessity, in the supposition of a last judgment
which shall form, as it were, the denouement
of the great drama of universal history."
With this conception harmonizes that of Paul,
as expressed in 2 Cor. 5 : 10: "For we must all
be made manifest before the judgment-seat of
Christ; that each one may receive the things
done in the body, according to what he hath
done, whether it be good or bad."
Thus, as the writer before quoted further
says, "the representations which Christ Himself
gives us of a gradual ripening of both good
and evil to the harvest, then of a final and
decisive separation — joined with the similar
representations of the Apostles — compel us, it
seems to me, to speak of a day of reckoning,
when God shall judge the secrets of men by
Jesus Christ ; which shall be at once a vindi-
cation of God's action in the government of
the world, and a decision upon the issues of the
individual life." On this latter point. Scrip-
ture distinctly teaches a division into two
classes. Christ Himself, as quoted in John
5 : 24, describes the first class as follows :
"Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth
54 Studies in Eschatology.
my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath
eternal life, and cometh not into judgment,
but hath passed out of death into life." For
all such the day of judgment will have no
terrors.
The other class, for whom that Day will
have terrible significance, is described by the
Apostle Peter as composed of "unrighteous"
and ''ungodly men." Thus he says — 2 Peter
2 : 9 — 'The Lord knoweth how to deliver the
godly out of temptation, and to keep the
unrighteous under punishment unto the day
of judgment"; and further, 2 Peter 3: 7 — 'The
heavens that now are, and the earth, by the
same word have been stored up for fire, being
reserved against the day of judgment and de=
struction of ungodly men." These, according
to our Saviour's classification, must be such
as reject His divine mission and refuse to hear
His word.
Having thus settled upon the fact and the
purpose of judgment, the question of time now
comes forward. This necessarily connects with
another event, revealed by Christ and fre-
quently referred to by New Testament writers,
viz., the second coming. Since the Father
The Second Coming*. 55
has given all judgment into the hands of the
Son — John 5 : 22 — the latter, in his capacity
as world-King and world-Judge, must render
the final decision. This He represents as the
object of a second coming of Himself to earth,
as in the following words — Matt. 25 : 31, 32 —
''But when the Son of man shall come in his
glory, and all the angels with him, then shall
he sit on the throne of his glory: and before
him shall be gathered all the nations : and he
shall separate them one from another, as the
shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats."
This w^ill be a bodily presence of the Lord on
earth, as the words of the angels at His ascen-
sion denote : ''This Jesus, which was received
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye beheld him going into heaven."
The time of His appearing has not been re-
vealed, as Christ Himself declared. Hence
all schemes of calculation as to that time must
continue to be, as the past has proved some to
be, utterly unreliable and useless. But much
effort has been devoted toward determi.inig
what the order of events w^ill be with reference
to Christ's coming and the judgment, in con-
nection with the resurrection of the dead.
56 Studies in Eschatology.
There are two systems of interpretation in
general, viz., premillennial and postmillennial.
The difference between them is based, mainly,
upon the twentieth chapter of John's Apoca-
lypse. The keynote of the passage may be
taken from the fifth verse, viz., 'The rest of
the dead lived not until the thousand years
should be finished. This is the first resur-
rection."
From this it is claimed that there are two
resurrections, separated by an interval of one
thousand years. Then it is said that the first
resurrection is referred to in i Cor. 15:23,
*'But each in his own order : Christ the first-
fruits ; then they that are Christ's, at his com-
ing." According to this theory, Christ's
second coming will be immediately followed
by the resurrection of the righteous dead, who
will then be made partakers with him in world-
judgment. That judgment will continue for*
a thousand years, at the end of which will oc-
cur the resurrection and judgment of the
wicked and the full establishment of the new
heavens and the new earth. Thus will be
ushered in, we are told, the final, the endless
age, when "the earth, renewed by fire, deliv-
The Second Coming. 57
ered now forever from sin and the curse, be-
comes the eternal home of a holy humanity,
over whom the Son of man, subject to the
Father, shall rule forever as the head of a
redeemed people."
This is the general outline of the pre-
millennial doctrine. Its central idea is the set-
ting up by Christ of a visible kingdom on earth
and His personal reign over it. Connected
with this is the national conversion and res-
toration of the Jews, a consequent outpour-
ing of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentile peoples,
and the filling of the whole earth with right-
eousness and glory. Near the close of a thou-
sand years of these conditions, Satan, who
during that time has been bound, will be loosed
for a little season, and will make one last des-
perate attempt to regain his lost control, but
in vain. Then the wicked dead will be raised,
and together with Satan and his angels will be
cast into the lake of tire. Then Christ will
deliver up the kingdom to the Father, in such
sense that God will be "all in all" — though
the priestly co-regency of Christ and His samts
still exists (West).
Against this system of interpretation as to
58 Studies in Eschatology.
the "last things," the following objections,
among others, have been offered : First, there
is no sufficient warrant for understanding the
term "thousand years" in Rev. 20, in its literal
sense. Where everything else is admittedly
symbolical, as plainly so in this Book, we would
expect to find the same true in this instance,
particularly as there is a universally recog-
nized symbolism of numbers. Furthermore,
this interpretation is confessedly based upon
the ninth chapter of Daniel, where each day is
taken to represent a year; and therefore it
would be more natural to take "thousand
years" as representing 365,000 years. This,
however, premillennialists decline to accept, for
to take the language of Rev. 20 figuratively,
would destroy the theory of two resurrections,
and thus be fatal to the whole scheme of inter-
pretation.
A further objection is grounded upon the
use of the word "souls" in verse 4. The Apos-
tle in vision "saw the souls of them that had
been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus," and
of these it is said that "they lived, and reigned
with Christ a thousand years." This is then
declared to have been the "first resurrection."
The Second Coming. 59
But if the language is literal, it was not a
resurrection of the body which John saw ; and
so the case falls to the ground; while on the
other hand, if the language is figurative in
one place, it would naturally be throughout
the whole passage. Besides, a ''second death"
is spoken of, and if the resurrection is literal,
the second death must also be ; and in that case
we have the wicked raised from the dead only
to be almost immediately disembodied again —
a very unnecessary proceeding, surely!
It is further objected that 'In Christ's own
words there is no statement of a separation of
the resurrection of the unrighteous from that
of the righteous, as if they were events belong-
ing to different times." — S. D. F. Salmond.
This objection is clearly sustained by refer-
ence to our Saviour's utterances. Not only
does He say nothing of a thousand years, but
there is no hint of an interval at all. To a
mind unprepossessed of such an idea, His
statements would never suggest such an in-
terval. He speaks of an ''Jioiir/' "in which all
that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and
shall come forth," and to conceive of His
speaking thus with the knowledge of a thou-
6o Studies in Eschatology.
sand years' interval between parts of that going
forth, is to do violence to the appropriateness
of His language.
But what appears to be the most decisive
argument against the premillennial order of
events is derived from Paul's statements in
I Cor. 15 : 25, 26, reading as follows : 'Tor he
must reign, till he hath put all his enemies
under his feet. The last enemy that shall be
abolished is death." With the abolition of
death Christ's kingship comes to an end.
This can only refer to physical death, inas-
much as spiritual death is not abolished. Then
Satan and all other enemies of Christ, includ-
ing wicked men, must be deprived of Iheir.
power and placed under condemnation at that
time, else death would not be the last. But
when is death abolished? Evidently, at the
resurrection. Christ's personal victory by His
own resurrection will be supplemented by His
kingly triumph in the raising of all men, —
even as the writer of Hebrews tells us that
Christ tasted death "for every man."
And this will be the basis of the judgment
which will immediately follow upon the re-
jecters of Christ, that in spite of what He has
The Second Coming. 6i
thus done for them they refused to ally them-
selves with Him, to obey Him, to become
united to Him. Standing in the presence both
of Him and His holy angels and all the saints
who have ever lived, they shall receive their
sentence of condemnation, viz., '^eternal de-
struction from the face of the Lord and from
the glory of his might." — 2 Thess. i : 9.
Everlasting and hopeless regret for wasted
opportunity will be their awful portion. They
too shall live, endlessly live; but it will be a
living to which death would be preferable,
yea, welcome.
This then is our conception of the last
things : that when the gospel has been preached
for a testimony unto the whole world, com-
pleting the symbolically termed Millennial
Age, Christ will personally, visibly return to
this earth, change living saints into incor-f
ruptible bodies, call forth all the dead from
their graves, separate between the sheep and
the goats, pronounce upon the latter and their
Satanic leader and allies their consciously mer-
ited doom, and hand over into eternal son-
ship to God with Himself those who, havmg
been called in time, had remained faithful unto
the end.
62 Studies In Eschatology.
VI.
HEAVEN : WHERE IS IT, AND WHAT WILL ITS
OCCUPATIONS BE? RECOGNITION OF
FRIENDS.
"For our citizenship is in heaven." — Phil. 3 : 20.
"But, according to his promise, we look for new
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous-
ness." — 2 Peter 3 : 13.
In the preceding article we took a brief gen-
eral survey of Eschatology, or the doctrine of
the last things; that is, the events directly
leading up to and immediately preceding the
end of this Revelation-age. Three of these
it is important to keep in mind as the basis of
our remaining study, viz., Christ's visible, per-
sonal return to earth, the resurrection of the
dead, and the general or world-judgment.
Our Saviour's second coming is in order to
call forth the dead, and the resurrection of the
dead is in order to universal judgment, and the
judgment is in order to the everlasting settle-
Heaven. 63
ment of human destiny. We are now to in-
quire concerning the character and the place
of that destiny.
In our Lord's description of His coming to
judgment, as recorded in Matt. 25, He repre-
sents Himself as separating mankind into two
classes, which are simply termed those ''on his
right hand" and those "on the left hand."
To the former He says, "Come, ye blessed of
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world."
That statement clearly has in it every indica-
tion of final award and everlasting reward.
When a father bequeaths to his children his
property, it is his final award to them, and is
called their inheritance. So this inheritance
of which Christ speaks must be God the
Father's final award to His children. And
since it was prepared for that express purpose
from "the foundation of the world," it is evi-
dently intended as a reward, and one that shall
last as long as the world itself lasts.
Now the supreme question is, What is that
inheritance ? Its most common name in popu-
lar usage is "Heaven." Christian people talk
much about "going to heaven." It is often
64 Studies in Eschatology.
put as a sort of test question, whether one
*\vants to go to heaven," or expects *'to get
to heaven." This may be all right — but it may
be all wrong. It is a noteworthy fact that
Jesus Christ never used the phrase go to
heaven. His characteristic phrase is ''into,"
or "in," ''the kingdom of heaven." If you
are desirous of entering into the kingdom of
heaven, all right, for that means entering into
the kingship of Christ, who is its ruler. If
you are willing to be His subject, you will as-
suredly inherit His kingdom and share in its
blessings. But if you simply want to go "to
heaven," without having made up your mind
to obey Christ and follow Him, to think His
thoughts and share His affections, I am ready
to affirm that you are wanting to go to a place
which has no existence save in your own
imagination.
But you will ask. Are not heaven and the
kingdom of heaven the same ? The answer is,
no, not in the same sense in which Christ used
the terms. As we have said. He never speaks
of believers going to heaven, nor on the other
hand does He speak of the Father who is in the
kingdom of heaven; but He does reverse the
Heaven. 65
phrases continually. The truth is that heaven
is the place of Christ's pre-existence — see John
6 : 38 : 'Tor I am come down from heaven,"
and hence the abode of the Father and the holy
angels, as the Saviour's own language also
teaches with regard to them. But when Christ
speaks of the kingdom of heaven, His thought
is not directed toward that place.
For example, in the parable of the pounds
He taught His disciples that after He had gone
to the Father to be invested with kingly au-
thority, He would return to earth to take pos-
session of His kingdom. Here also He w^ould
distribute the various rewards according to
different degrees of faithfulness, and here He
would likewise punish His enemies.
And so instances might be multiplied to show
that in Christ's conception, the kingdom over
which He was to rule would have its full es-
tablishment upon the earth. But then why
did He call it the kingdom of heaven? Why
did He not say the kingdom of earth ? Doubt-
less for precisely the same reason that led Paul
to say, 'Tor our citizenship is in heaven."
The Christian, though living in this world,
must yet live apart from it. Like an exile,
66 Studies in Eschatology.
he disavows the country in which he is com-
pelled to live, because its conditions are not
congenial to him, and he repudiates the au-
thority of its government, because it is respon-
sible for those conditions. It is not his coun-
try, though he is in it. It may exact taxes
and service from him, yet his real citizen'^hip
is elsewhere. There is another state which he
prefers, because it is freer from obnoxious in-
fluences and is ruled more in accordance with
the principles of righteousness and equity.
But where is there such a country for the
Christian? Not on this earth, for it is under
the dominion of Satan. There is a place, how-
ever, where God's will reigns supreme, and
where the pursuit of righteousness is not be-
set by disturbing influences. To that gov-
ernment the Christian professes his allegiance,
and in such a place as that he would fain
dwell. Since that place is not on earth, the
only location he can give it is in the heavens.
Therefore he says his citizenship is in heaven,
meaning by that that it is of a higher character
than citizenship here on earth is; and m.can-
ing also that he hopes some day to have this
ideal citizenship made real to him, when the
Heaven. 67
days of his exile are over. But the question is,
Will the Christian need to go to heaven to ac-
complish that result? And we answer, by no
means. Heaven can be taken to him — that is,
heaven not as a place but as a state. In other
words, he can enter into the kingdom of
heaven, without departing from his present
habitation.
But you may ask. How can he ? The Apos-
tle Peter explains it. He says, ''But, accord-
ing to his promise, we look for new heavens
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous-
ness." The change from the old to the new
will take place at the coming of the ''da)^ of
God," which will itself be ushered in by the
coming of Christ. By this latter coming
Christ will bring the kingdom fully upon earth,
and so fit it morally for the habitation of the
blessed, while its renovation by fire will make
it the fit abode of the resurrected and glorified
dead. In short, heaven will simply extend its
borders so as to take in a redeemed earth and
its redeemed people. The Apostle Paul must
have had this in mind when he said : "For the
earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for
the revealing of the sons of God. For the
68 Studies in Eschatology.
creation was subjected to vanity, not of its
own will, but by reason of him who subjected
it, in hope that the creation itself also shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the glory of the children of
God."
But it may be further objected that this con-
ception of the Christian's heritage is in con-
flict with our Saviour's beautiful promise in
John 14:2, 3 : "In my Father's house are many
mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told
you ; for I go to prepare a place for you. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I come
again, and will receive you unto myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also." Christ,
we know, went to heaven. It is argued that
He called it His Father's house, that He in it
prepares a place for believers, and that when
He comes again He will take them with Him
back to heaven. But in these statements there
are two errors. First, our Lord says nothing
of leaving again after He has returned to earth.
His language clearly implies that He will stay
v/ith His people, in order that they and He
may be together. What need for Him to
come to earth at all, if He did not intend to
Heaven. 69
abide here? Why not represent believers as
translated to heaven to meet Him?
The other error lies in interpreting the
words, ^Tather's house," as meaning heaven.
The term necessarily includes the whole uni-
verse, or both heaven and earth. This is God's
building. And when He located His human
children He chose to put them not in heaven
but on earth. In fact, He called this earth
into being for that express purpose. He gave
the angels their habitation in heaven, but earth
He set apart for the home of men. It is one
of the many abiding-places, or "mansions,"
throughout the universe. Renewed in the last
day and purified from all corruption and cor-
ruptibility, it will afford a beautiful and
blessed home for the redeemed of Christ for-
ever.
But perhaps you say, Didn't Christ say, *T
go to prepare a place for you," and didn't He
go to heaven? Yes, but did heaven need any
preparation? It was earthly preparation which
He had to go to complete. It was the indi-
vidual inheritances which He had to make
ready; but it had to be done from heaven, the
holy of holies, into which He must enter as a
70 Studies in Eschatology.
High-priest ere He could return to earth as its
King. When the Jewish high-priest went into
the holy of holies in the Tabernacle, it was not
to prepare a place there for the Israelites, but
to preserve them in their own dwelling-
places, lest God should cut them off from the
earth, like He had done with other nations.
So Christ went into heaven in order to in-
tercede on our behalf, that we might inherit
the title to this beautiful home of ours on
earth.
If, then, we conclude that the kingdom of
heaven will be consummated on earth, the
question becomes doubly interesting. What will
the occupations of the redeemed be ? It would
be natural to infer that they will bear some
resemblance to those which interest us now.
Indeed, what do Ave know of any other kind?
If the pursuits we have followed here are to
be exchanged for others of which we are ab-
solutely ignorant, what purpose have the
former served us here? To use a single il-
lustration, why should we spend years and
years in muscular skill, how to use our fingers,
if they are to remain idle hereafter? And
if they are to be employed, what will they be
Heaven. 71
doing, if not the very things they do here?
Imagine, if you can, anything else they could
do!
True, we must make some qualification.
Life in the consummated kingdom must be
different in some way from what it is now.
To go on working as we work under present
conditions would be neither rest nor reward,
both of which are promised to the redeemed.
The conditions must somehow be changed.
That change appears to be hinted at in these
words, ''But, according to his promise, we
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness.'' The earth, as well
as man, is to be purged and purified. Right-
eousness, or rightness, will characterize both.
Things will be in their right relation, of qual-
ity, quantity, motion, and value. This simply
means that all hardship, danger and tempta-
tion will be removed.
And with such removal what could be more
desirable than to be occupied just as we are
now? Readjustments would follow, of
course; for who of us is not deprived of some
favorite occupation or pursuit? But in the
aggregate there will doubtless be the same
72 Studies In Eschatology.
mechanical and fine arts as the world now
knows, the same constructions in patterns and
models and moulds and pictures in all their
thousand forms and varieties. There will be
the same studies and investigations into the
secrets of nature, the curiosities of numbers,
the phenomena of light, and the qualities of
sound. There will be also, doubtless, the
same inquiries into the workings of the hu-
man mind, and the same study of the laws
and modes of its expression. Why not? If
we were to come into possession of unlimited
power and knowledge in an instant, what in-
centive would there be ahead of us? We can
interpret the delights of the other world only
as we link them with the things that delight us
here.
And this suggests our closing inquiry on
this theme : Shall we recognize our friends here
as such in the state of the redeemed? I have
heard it argued that neither religious phi-
losophy nor the Bible gives any warrant for
answering in the affirmative. It is claimed
that what we term friendships are based after
all on considerations more or less selfish,
which will vanish hereafter in that wider and
Heaven. 73
nobler love which will comprehend all in equal
intensity and ardor. And this would seem
to be a very reasonable view — were it not for
a single consideration, which we proceed to
state. In the resurrection we are to be re-
embodied in the same bodies which we possess
now. As we have previously seen, the iden-
tity must lie in the form and appearance of
the body, in spite of differences in the chemi-
cal or constituent elements thereof. So that,
like Christ's resurrection-body, it will be
recognized in spite of the change which has
come over it. How then could we help but
recognize our friends? Unless we retain no
memory of this life! But in that case we
could neither be rewarded nor punished for the
deeds done here, which is contrary to Scrip-
ture.
Besides, on the theory that we shall rein-
habit this earth, it would seem eminently fit
that we should link the old friendships with the
new life. In the very nature of the case some
people would be nearer to us than others, for
all could not occupy the same spot. Then
why should we not be permitted to know those
who had been our friends here, so that they
74 Studies in Eschatology.
might be first at our side? How better could
we be made thoroughly happy from the very
first moment of the new life? What joy it is
to meet a loved one after a long separation,
and fall to conversing about the common ties
and interests which extend from the past mto
the present! So shall there be, we believe,
many a glad reunion on that joyous resurrec-
tion-day, when friend shall clasp friend in
thrilHng embrace, and with one accord raise
heart and voice in golden strains of harmony
as they worship at the feet of King Jesus.
Hell. 75
VII.
hell: why is it, and what makes it?
"And be not afraid of them which kill the body, but
are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear him whi^h
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
—Matt. 10:28.
Permit me to recall a statement made at
the opening of our last article : *'Our Saviour's
second coming is in order to call forth the
dead, and the resurrection of the dead is in
order to universal judgment, and the judgment
is in order to the everlasting settlement of
human destiny. We are now to inquire con-
cerning the character and the place of that
destiny." We found that in Christ's own rep-
resentation there will be a separation between
men in this respect, part to be ''on his right
hand," and the others "on the left hand."
Having then discussed the destiny of the
former as to its character and place, there re-
76 Studies in Eschatology.
mains, as our concluding study of the series,
an inquiry into the destiny of those whom the
King will assign to the ''left hand."
Concerning these we read as follows : "Then
shall he say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal
lire which is prepared for the devil and his
angels." — Matt. 25:41. A moment later,
speaking of these same persons, Christ used
these words, ''And these shall go away into
eternal punishment." Here, then, we have set
forth the everlasting destiny of this portion
of mankind. They will be punished, with a
punishment originally designed for the devil
and his angels, and in consequence will suffer
the loss of all that good which would result
from the presence and favor of Christ. Per-
haps some would think that with this general
statement we might be content, without seek-
ing to know more of a subject necessarily un-
pleasant. But just as we are not satisfied
with the general statement that the righteous
will "inherit the kingdom" — we want to know
the character and place of that kingdom, so
we naturally want to know all we can about
the place and nature of the opposite state. In-
Hell. >]^
deed, as in every other case of opposites, each
is needed to make the other clear.
First, then, is there a "hell," or is this only
a purely figurative expression? Shall we say,
*'The mind is its own place, and in itself can
make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven," and
stop at that? or is this only part of the truth?
The passage of Scripture at the head of this
article ought to settle this question beyond
all doubt. "And be not afraid of them which
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul :
but rather fear him which is able to destroy
both soul and body in hell." A body must
have position, place. It is impossible to con-
ceive of its existence otherwise. It must be
surrounded by material conditions of some
kind. Hence the very expression, "body in
hell," shows hell to be a real place, just as
real as the body is. If Christ had attributed
"hell" only of the soul, we might say hell
means only a state, the mental condition of the
soul itself; but since He explicitly associates
the body with this condition, there is no avoid-
ing the conclusion that hell is an actual place.
For we must remember that we are dis-
cussing the final destiny of resurrected per-
yS Studies In Eschatology.
sons, in whom soul and body are once more
united. Our thought is not now directed to
the place of departed spirits, but to where
those spirits re-embodied at Christ's coming
shall dwell. If the redeemed of Christ are
raised from the dead to inhabit a place — a place
likened to heaven — as the reward of their faith-
fulness, it is clear that those not so redeemed
must also be raised from the dead to inhabit
a place — a place likened to the Valley of
Gehinnom — as the punishment for their un-
faithfulness. In other words, if those whom
Christ termed ''blessed of my Father" are to
have a place of existence, and this is the pur-
pose of their re-embodiment, then those wliom
He termed "cursed" must likewise have a
place, else why were they raised from the
dead? Or, to put it differently, if the wicked
go right to hell at death, because hell is noth-
ing more than their own mental state, what
would they ever be re-embodied for?
Concluding, then, that there will be a real
place called hell, we are ready to inquire more
specifically. Why is there such a place ? What
apparent necessity is there for it? The origi-
nal Greek term, ''Gehenna," derived from the
Hell. 79
Hebrew Ge-Hinnom, has reference to a deep
gorge lying south of Jerusalem, where
anciently children were burned as offerings to
Moloch. "To break up this detestable prac-
tice, Josiah defiled the place, and subsequently
it became the receptacle of the dead bodies of
criminals and of brute beasts, and of all sorts
of filth." Perpetual fires were kept up to de-
stroy this offal; and from this combination of
waste, corruption, and constant fire was de-
rived the horrible significance which attached
to the term Gehenna in Christ's time.
That term our Saviour simply adapted, as
in many other cases, to a new and enlarged
meaning. In representing the act of final
judgment He had already assigned the saved
to a place called the "kingdom prepared from
the foundation of the world," where He him-
self as King was to be in the midst. He
then assigns the lost to their place, which, how-
ever, He does not say was prepared for them,
but was prepared for the devil and his angels.
Here, then, we have the answer to the question,
Why is there a hell ? There must be one as
the only and fit abode of Satan and his co-
workers, the opponents and enemies of God. If
v3;y6861
So Studies in Eschatology.
Christ is to be rewarded for His work, the
devil, as Christ's antagonist, must be punished
for his. For the purpose of that punishment a
place has been prepared, and to that place our
Saviour has given the name Gehenna, as sug-
gesting the best idea of its character at present
possible to the human mind.
The question then arises. Are we to un-
derstand the fire of hell as being real flam-
ing heat, such as we now denominate by that
term? Certain it is that the natural sense of
Christ's words seems to bear out this interpre-
tation; as for example when He says, **De-
part from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire
which is prepared for the devil and his angels."
And yet other considerations seem to require
a modification. Thus fire to us means two cer-
tain results of contact with it, viz., terrible
pain, followed by bodily destruction. Then
to an embodied being eternal fire might mean
awful punishment by suffering for a tijne, but
not for eternity, since the body would soon be
destroyed. But Christ speaks of "eternal
punishment" for those who in His judgment
are condemned; and since they will be then
once more in the body, it appears impossible
Hell. 8i
that they should be enveloped with actual
flaming heat, for they would soon be con-
sumed.
Then shall we interpret our Lord's language
as purely figurative, and say, with many, that
hell is nothing more than the mental torment
of self-regret on the part of the lost? Truly,
in this conception there is much of truth;
but it is not wide enough to cover all the
necessary features of the case. We must not
forget that the object of fatal and final judg-
ment, the resurrection-man, will have a body
to be punished as well as a mind. We are
therefore under the necessity of conceiving
some condition w^hich will give pain to that
body — and yet not destroy it. Christ calls
that condition "unquenchable fire." Can we
picture such a state? Yes. We have only to
imagine the heat of our sun increased to such
a degree that the sensation produced upon us
would be absolutely destructive of comfort,
and yet not fatal to life itself. True, in these
weakened bodies of ours these two conditions
cannot coexist ; but that is far from proving
that the same will be true of the resurrection-
body, which, as we believe, will be essentially
immortal.
82 Studies in Eschatology.
Suppose, then, that the unsaved should, at
the Righteous Judge's command, be dri'ven
from His presence— which will be on earth-
to a place of incessant heat as their final abode :
the conditions set forth by Christ will Dien
seem to be met, without either explaining
away or doing violence to His language. If
it be asked, Where could that place be? we
answer, it cannot be on earth, for that will
be the heritage of the redeemed ; but for aught
we know it might well be on some other planet.
If the kingdom of heaven will so extend its
limits as to take in a redeemed earth with its
redeemed people, why should not the present
sphere of evil be so extended as to include
some other material creation set apart for the
existence of the wicked? Or, since there will
doubtless be different degrees of punishment,
why should there not be several such exiled
abodes, varying as to the intensity of painful
conditions ?
You may characterize this as mere specula-
tion concerning the location of hell and the
manner of its torments — and so it is. But,
while admitting that little has been revealed
directly on this subject, and that the fact of
Hell. S3
a hell is of far greater consequence to us than
the mode of existence in it, yet it is to be in-
sisted that the fact can have its due influence
upon us only in proportion as its dread con-
sequences are made vivid before our minds.
We believe that this was wdiat influenced our
Saviour to use the descriptive terms He did.
.Wherever and whatever hell is, it is at least
a terrible, and an everlastingly terrible, real-
ity. Therefore we ought to form and keep
in our minds the most vivid conception of it
possible. If some other conception of what
constitutes hell can be made to explain more
teachings of the Bible and leave fewer un-
solved problems of philosophy and science, we
shall be glad to substitute it for the one here
presented.
Before concluding, just a word regarding
the oft-repeated attempt to explain hell and
its eternal punishment out of existence. This
has been done in the interests either of ulti-
mate universal salvation, or final annihilation
of the hopelessly wicked. Of the two theories
the latter is confronted with fewer difficulties
in the teaching of Christ, the Apostolic doc-
trine, and the general faith of the Church ever
84 Studies in Eschatology.
since, than the former. But they both break
down under Christ's use of the term eternal
punishment. He uses it as the exact opposite
of "eternal life," into which the righteous are
to go after the judgment. Everyone accepts
this as meaning endless bliss; but if eternal
means endless in the one instance, it must
mean the same in the other — else all cer-
tainty in language is denied. If eternal means
only age-long as to the condition of the im-
penitent, that is all we dare make it mean to
the saved — then what will follow for them at
the end of that age? Let those who advocate
limited punishment for the unsaved explain
wherein the saved would gain anything by
denying themselves in this world, if their hap-
piness hereafter were only "age-long" !
Thus we bring our study of existence after
death to a close. Not a little research and
much thought have been given to this study.
The first aim has been to set forth what the
Word of God teaches in regard to the facts
themselves ; and then we have sought to bring
these facts into their proper relations both to
one another and to other facts commonly ac-
cepted in the Christian faith. It is confidently
Hell. 85
believed that a sufficient degree of unity and
consistency in reasoning has been attained to
make the view harmonious throughout. Each
discussion is hnked with the preceding one,
so that all must either stand or fall together.
If our view of death is correct, there must be
immortality of the soul; if there is immortal-
ity, first, without the body, and then finally in
the body, the former must constitute an inter-
mediate state between death and the resurrec-
tion; if the personality persists in this state,
it can only be in waiting for its completion,
and hence there must be a return to bodily
life; that return can only be accomplished by
the second coming of Christ, which He Himself
represents as a coming to judgment; that judg-
ment fixes final destiny for men, and presup-
poses on the one hand a heavenly kingdom for
the rewarding abode of the righteous, and on
the other hand a hellish anarchy for the penal
abode of the wicked.
Such studies as these may well claim our
attention, if, as we believe, this life is but the
vestibule of a never-ending existence for weal
or woe ])eyond the grave. It is right to give
our attention to the things of this world; but
86 Studies in Eschatolo^y.
only as they connect themselves with the un-
seen things of the next world. To so give
our attention is to use this life, to withhold
it is to abuse it. For using, some shall be re-
warded : for abusing, the rest shall be pun-
ished. This is the philosophy of the here and
the hereafter, in a nutshell. And this, my
reader^ may well make you pause long enough
just now, and at the close of every twenty-
four hours of your life, to ask yourself. Am I
using this world, or abusing it? Am I travel-
ing toward weal, or toward woe, as my foot-
steps approach the eternity of existence be-
yond the grave ?
THE END.
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