I\l
HADES;
OR, THE INTERMEDIATE STATE OF MAX.
HADES;
OR,
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE OF MAN.
HENRY CONSTABLE, A.M.,
Author of *' The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment,'' iS;c.
LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G.
1873.
<\1^
PEEFACE.
I. There are few subjects connected with theology on which
so much variety of thought, and so much confusion of thought,
exists, as on the subject of Hades, or the Intermediate State of
Man. By this state I mean the condition of man from the time
that he dies to the time that he rises from the dead. To lay
this befoye the minds of thinking men as it is presented in
God's Word is the object of my present work.
II. I must be met by honest argument, and not by declama-
tion. The work which I now present to the public has cost me
much time and much thought. I have not rushed hastily or
thoughtlessly into the subject. Drawing towards the close of
my life, knowing the awful responsibility of speaking at alj
upon themes like this, I would not dare to put forward what I
now do unless I felt it to be my duty to do so. To the best of
my ability I have studied what God's Word here teaches. I
have prayed for guidance that I might not go astray. I knew
that all but universal opinion was against me, and, therefore, I
proceeded the more cautiously.
III. As I have pursued my argument I must be met by my
opponents ; to reasoning, reasoning must be opposed. My
arguments from Scripture must be overthrown from that source.
In this day, when everything is sifted and examined, it will not
do to be told that common opinion is against me. The old cry
of materialism, which used to be so potent, will not suffice to
overthrow me. There is a good deal of materialism in the Book
which tells us that God made man out of the dust or matter of
the earth. These and similar methods must be abandoned
VI PEEFACE.
now. Men of Christian character and deep reflection have fully
adopted the views here presented. Others, in increasing num-
bers, are inquiring closely whether these views are true or not.
If I stood alone, I might be overlooked or cried down ; but the
question has now taken too firm a hold on many minds to be
disposed of thus.
IV. To the lovers of truth in the various Churches of Christ
I commend this effort to clear up and establish upon its Scrip-
tural basis a most important question. I ask only for a candid
hearing; I ask only for readers who will say. If the view here
advocated be indeed God's truth, we will accept it with all our
hearts. That view — I say without hesitation — is one that does
not subvert, but upholds and brings into their proper promi-
nence some of the fundamental articles of the Christian faith.
They who regard the Coming of Christ and the Resurrection as
indeed the Hope of the Church, will see how the view of Hades
here advocated at once and of necessity gives to these articles
of our faith that foremost place which the Bible gives them, but
from which popular teaching has almost completely removed
them.
HENRY CONSTABLE.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGB
I. Man in His Origin - ------- 1
II. Man One Person 6
III. Man, a Living Soul - - 7
IV. The Breath op Life, or the Nishmath Chajim - - 10
V. The Spirit of Man, or the " Euach " of the Hebrews- 16
VI. The Spirit of Man, or the "Pneuma" of the Greeks- 25
VII. The Soul of Man, or the "Nephesh" of the Hebrews 29
Vni. The Soul of Man, or the '* Pysche " of the New Testa-
ment 42
IX. Hades, or the Sheol of the Hebrews - - - - 50
X. The Hades of the New Testament - - - - 64
XI. Death 74
XII. Popular Theology on Death 79
XIIL The Time of Judgment 88
XIV. The Time of Eetribution 93
XV. The Sleep of Death 97
XVI. Life or Death? 104
XVII. Eesurrection 113
XVIII. Time and Sleep - - - 121
XIX. Theory of Sleep: Its Doctrinal Aspects ... 125
XX. Objections from the Old Testament ... - 132
XXI. Dives and Lazarus 139
XXII. The Penitent Thief - 148
XXIII. Paul's Desire to Depart 158
XXIV. The Apostles' Creed 163
HADES,
CHAPTER I.
MAN m HIS ORIGIN.
I. It will scarcely be disputed that in this inquiry into the inter-
mediate state of man, the preliminary inquiry must be, What is
man ? The understanding of human nature, so far as it can be
understood by us, will of necessity be found the very best guide to
our understanding what is affirmed of it in any of its conditions.
II. Now here we have no doubt whatsoever that most Christian
inquirers have approached this fundamental question from the wrong
side. As it appears to us, we have, mostly, formed our opinions of
human nature from some philosophical system, and then, if we have
not deemed any further inquiry altogether superfluous, applied our-
selves to Scripture chiefly for the purpose of confirming a foregone
conclusion. This appears to us to be altogether and completely an
error. To the believer in the divine authority of Scripture there can
be no dispute as to whether it or any human philosopher can speak
upon this point with the greater weight. The only question can be
as to whether Scripture has here given us information. If it has, it
cannot be disputed that the Maker of man is the One who is best able
to inform us as to the nature of the creature of His hands. One
verse of the Bible on the nature of man, on the source of his life, on
the meaning of his death, must outweigh a whole treatise of Plato,
Aristotle, or Epicurus.
III. Now certainly, when we read the Scriptures with any care, we
will repeatedly find that they do speak on this question. They do
not indeed speak on it in the way of formal treatise ; but they seldom
speak in this way of any of their doctrines. Systems of theology
may be drawn from Scripture, but Scripture itself does not, generally,
propound theology in this systematic way. Its definitions and des-
criptions of man, in all his conditions, in his rude origin and mature
completion, in life, and death, and resurrection, will be found by any
fair inquirer to be just as full and systematic as its declarations upon
almost any other subject on which it treats. We will then endeavour
to learn what we can of man from our Bible. If we are not greatly
mistaken it will give us as full and as clear ideas of him as we
B
25 MAN IN HIS OKIGIN.
require. More than this we cannot ask. We also believe that any
real additional information beyond what we have in the Bible is not
to be found in philosophical treatises upon human nature. They
may be full where Scripture is only brief ; but where they pretend
to add to the real amount derivable from Scripture, we are quite
satisfied that they are at best but guessing, and are generally wrong.
Almost the earliest, and certainly the fullest account we have
given us of human nature is in Gen. ii. 7. It is worthy of our closest
consideration. It is the word of the Maker, telling us what the
creature was which He made. The words are "The Lord Grod formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living soul."
IV. No careful reader of this verse can fail to see that the creation
of man is described in two distinct stages, in each of which he is
spoken of as man, though his condition in these two stages is widely
different. The first stage is the creation of the organised body and
figure in a lifeless state : '" God formed man of the dust of the
ground." Here we have the figure as it lay lifeless and thoughtless.
And yet this figure was man. "We cannot dispute this, for God
tells us so Himself. It was man before he could think, or feel,
or breathe."
V. That we- are not straining language with any desire to
accommodate it to a theory is evident from the fact that writers and
reasoners of the highest ability, and whose opinions on the subject
of oiu" present work dififer altogether from ours, have taken the very
same view of it that we do. "Man," says Bishop Hail, in his
"Contemplations," "God did first form, then inspire." "Man,"
says Augustine, "was up to this only body." "He was already
man," says TertuUian, " who as yet was but earth." *
YI. Now this is a most important point to be clearly understood.
We have brought before us in this verse what man originally was.
We have here told us by God Himself all that we can truly and
properly claim as our own. Here is our original. It is not much.
It is dust". This is a great point to be clear upon. Man did not
become man after the breath of life was breathed into him : he was
man before. He was man when as yet he had no life ; when he had
neither spirit nor soul, whatever ideas are to be attached to those
terms, placed within him by his Maker. " God formed man of the
dust of the ground." We insist upon the plain meaning of this
Scripture to its fullest extent. We are here not told that God
formed man out of dust and spirit, or out of dust and soul, but out
of dust and dust only. Man now has soul and spirit. They belong
to him so long as God leaves them to him. But the time was, be
it long or short, when he had neither one nor other, and yet was
man. And our plain inference is that the time might come when
* Hall's Contemplations "Of Man;" Augustine, i. 497; Tertullian, "Eesurrection of
the Flesh," chap. v. 103.
MAN IN HIS ORIGIN. 8
he would be bereft of both, and yet, when that which was thus
bereft of soul and spirit would still be man.
VII. It will be well here to give the opposite view of man as to
what he is thought properlv to be, and to which we suppose the
text in Gen. ii. 7, to be Hatly opposed. It is the Platonic view of
human nature, now in its main features thoroughly incorporated
into our prevailing Christian theology, so that to most minds it
appears to be as much a part of divine revelation as the existence of
God, the incarnation of Christ, or future rewards and punishments.
According, then, to Plato, man was not formed out of the dust of
the ground. Man was truly and properly a soul, which, for one
reason or other, was united to a body. This union to body Plato
considered an evil, and he therefore regarded death as a blessing in
itself, inasmuch as it dissolved the undesirable union, and freed the
soul, i.e., the man, from'that which was a clog and a burden to him.
Death was, in Plato's view, not the cessation of existence to man,
but the change of his mode and condition of life, a change to the
good man of sure and unmitigated blessing.*
VIII. It will be quite plain to any one acquainted with the
theology of Christendom how deeply the Platonic idea has inter-
penetrated it. We do not, of course, say that Christian divines
have adopted the entire theory of Plato. Few of them, for instance,
agree with his idea that the soul had an existence long before its
union with the body : they generally suppose, we believe, that the
body of each man is formed prior to, or at all events, contempora-
neously with his soul. Again, few of them believe with Plato, that
the dissolution of soul and body will be permanent. The Christian
doctrine of a bodily resurrection forbids them to suppose this.
Their theory of necessity most grievously disparages the importance
of the resurrection of the body, because it teaches that man has
a true life without the body ; but still, few of them openly dispute
the idea of the re-union of soul and body, however little they can
possibly see it to be required. But the idea of Plato that what he
supposes the soul is the true and proper man, and that the body is
not the true and proper man, has undoubtedly pervaded Christian
theology to its very core. Thus Bishop Butler, one of the greatest
thinkers that England has produced, has devoted a chapter of his
grand *' Analogy" to prove that "our organised bodies are no part
of ourselves," and that man can and will exist in the truth of his
nature, when his body lies in the grave in dust. And John Wesley,
a man of profound mind, has thus defined his idea of man's nature :
"I am now," he says, "an immortal spirit, strangely commingled
with a little portion of earth. In a short time I am to quit this
tenement of clay, and remove into another state. "t
* Plato, "Pheedo."
t Butler's " Analogy." ch. i. ; Wesley's Sermons, il. 721-9 (Rainbow, 1871, p. 177).
G. S. Faber, " The Many Mansions." 2nd ed. 151.
b2
4 MAN IN HIS OEIGIN.
It will not be disputed that Butler and Wesley here represent the
current opinion of Christendom. They do not hold the body to be
the true man, or essential to the idea of man. Man is, with them,
a soul, which may or may not inhabit the body, but which, whether
inhabiting the body or not inhabiting it, is the true and proper man.
This opinion, we believe to be the very foundation stone of an
amazing amount of false doctrine. This false philosophy regarding
human nature has tainted the theology of centuries.
IX. Nor can it be said that it is only the text of Gen. ii. 7, which
teaches a philosophy of our nature directly opposed to that of Butler
and Wesley. All subsequent Scriptures give us the very same idea
which we have taken from this old text. Thus when man had
sinned, and God came to him to pronounce his doom, God reiterates
in even fuller terms the first description of. his proper nature. He
tells Adam that he is to " return to the ground, for out of it he was
taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen.
iii. 19.) How different, how opposed to Wesley's definition: ''I am
an immortal spirit, strangely commingled with a little portion of
earth ! " We surely cannot place the two definitions together with-
out perceiving that they convey different and opposing ideas. The
idea conveyed in God's words was that adopted by the old saints.
Thus, when Abraham takes upon him to intercede for Sodom he
says, '' Behold, now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord,
which am but (only) dust and ashes." *
X. If we look into the accounts of Scripture, we will find also that
where death has taken place, when spirit and soul have left the
body, when the body has been brought to that very condition in
which Adam's body was ere God breathed into it the breath of life,
yet this body thus reft of all life is still regarded in Scripture as
the man. Popular theology teaches that in death the body is but
like a garment laid aside from use, or a dwelling abandoned, while
the wearer of the garment, or the dweller in the house, i.e., the soul,
the real man, has gone elsewhere. But certainly this is not the view
taken in Scripture. The very opposite view is there taken. The
body, dead and lifeless though it be, is there looked on as the man.
Thus, whenever we read of burial throughout Scripture, we in-
variably read that Sarah, or Abraham, or Jacob, or Moses, or others
as the case may be, are buried in the grave, f We never read
anything of our common language on monumental stones and in
funeral sermons, that all that is mortal of such or such a one lies
in the grave, while he has himself gone elsewhere. The person, the
individual, the man, he who was once alive, is throughout Scripture
spoken of as lying in the grave.
XI. We will just look at one or two instances of the kind which
are related at some length in Scripture. The widow woman, at
* Gen. xviii. 27. Homilies. " Misery of Mankind.'
t Gou. XXV. 10; xlix. 3i ; 1 Kinga xiii. 31 ; Acta ii. 29; 1 Cor. xv. 4.
MAN IN HIS ORIGIN. 5
Zarephath has lost her son by death. Breath, spirit, soul, life, all
have left the corpse. It lies colourless and rigid and lifeless. Yet
Elijah regards this lifeless figure as still the widow's son. **And
he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of lier
bosom, and carried him up ,into a loft, and laid him upon his own
bed."* The dead body is regarded by the prophet as the man.
In the very same way our blessed Lord speaks. Lazarus his friend
has died. Where did Christ think and say that Lazarus was ? In the
grave. " Where have ye laid him f " He said to the standers by,
and they pointed out the grave. Over the grave stands the Lord
of life and He addresses what lay in that grave as Lazarus. " He
cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was
dead came forth." f
XII. We will now draw attention to another Scripture, which
establishes our view that with the body is essentially bound up the
personality of man ; that without the body it is not allowed that
the man can be said to be. "I am an immortal spirit," says John
Wesley. John Wesley thought that this spirit was his true self,
that where it was he was, and where it went he went. But our
great Teacher teaches an opposite doctrine. It is the evening of
His resurrection from the grave. As His disciples speak of the
wonders of that day, " Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them."
At the sight, " they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they
had seen a spirit." Jesus proceeds to disabuse them of their error.
He tells them, " Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. "i
In the mind of Jesus His body was absolutely essential to His per-
sonality. A spirit, whatever ideas we may attach to that term, was
not, and could not be, Jesus Himself. He does not allow us for
a moment to suppose that He could exist as a man independently
of His body. Our modern notion that the true I, the true man,
is a spirit, or a soul, which may leave the body, and yet without
the body be the man, is rejected by our Lord.
XIII. If we are content, then, to take the teaching of Scripture
as our guide, we will see that its teaching is that man in his origin
was made of earth in the very same way that all the' lower creatures
were created from it : that to any true conception of man the idea
of body is absolutely essential : that no subsequent addition of spirit
or soul, whatever be the ideas we attach to these terms, can assume
to have superseded this idea of man ; that as they were once dis-
associated from man, viz., ere God had given them to man, so they
may again be disassociated from man : that man may return to his
old condition ere he had them at all, and the dead body they have
left is then the man, the person, the self.
* 1 Kings xvii. 17—19, ,. f John xi. 34— '44. J l-uke xxiv. 36—39.
MAN ONE PEESON.
CHAPTER II.
MAN ONE PEESON.
I. Befoee we proceed to discuss the nature and properties of soul
and spirit, so far as they are told us in Scripture, it may be well to
say a few words on the utter absurdity of supposing them apart from
the body, to be man, or a person. We suppose that every one will
allow that each man constitutes only a single person. We suppose
that no one will maintain that any change of which man is capable
can have as its result the making of two men or two persons out of
what was but one. In life we allow that each individual, however
composed, is yet but a single person. No one can surely contend that
death converts this single person into two or three !
II. We will in the course of our inquiry have a good deal to say
about Death, and what it is. We do not accept the common definition
of death as regards man to be an adequate definition of it, but we
fully accept it as a true definition of it, to a certain extent. The
definition we refer to, is that death is the separation of the soul and
spirit from the body. As we have said, we accept this as perfectly
scriptural anii true : we only object to it as not conveying the entire
idea of what Scripture means and defines by death. But death is
unquestionably the dissolution of union, the separation of the spirit
and soul from the body of man.
III. Now what is the result as regards person f Has it made two
persons out of one ? We wait for an advocate so hardy as to say that
it has. Until he appears, we will assume that there is no man of
sense or reflection who will say that it has. At once there is brought
before us the question, whether is the body without the spirit, or the
spirit or soul or both without the body, the true and real person ?
Plato has decided the question in his own way. He never fancied
that death made- two persons out of one, but he did fancy that death
separated the true and real person from what had been associated
with it for a time. With him the true real person was the soul. To
it he gave all the attributes of personality. Accordingly, when death
came, and the soul was separated from the body, the true person, the
soul, went forth, leaving that body which was not a person, but had
only been associated with a person, behind. When Plato makes
Socrates speak of death and its separation, he makes him say always,
" I depart hence to-day," '' I depart to the gods." The separated
soul he supposes to be the true person, to be Socrates. He is not
guilty of the absurdity of supposing that another Socrates remained
behind in the lifeless corpse. * He expressly denies that what the sad
* Plato's "Phcedo," 56: 5: 12.
MAN, A LmNG SOUL. V
friends of the philosopher would then look upon would be Socrates at
all. Socrates had gone away : was beyond the sky : the dead body
they looked at no more deserved to be called Socrates than would an
old garment which Socrates had worn and laid aside. The only
difference was that he had worn one garment, the body made of clay,
longer than another garment, the dress composed of wool.
IV. Now unquestionably our Platonic divines in heart adopt the
theory of Plato. But then they are clogged with their recognition of
a book of which Plato was ignorant— the Bible. This Bible persists
in calling the body when dead the man. It says that Abraham, and
Jacob, and David, and others departed from life, are in the grave,
and it never says that they are in heaven, or anywhere else but in
the grave. Now here is the perplexity of the theologians who plato-
nise. They cannot deny that the persons who have departed from life
are in the grave, without denying those numberless Scriptures which
say they are. They therefore in words, whatever they think in their
hearts, allow that they are in the grave. But they also hold, and
possibly, if not probably, with a stronger faith, that these persons
are in heaven, or hell, or a Hades distinct from the grave ! And thus
we see that the recognition of spirit or soul, separate or united to
each other, distinct or different names for the same essence, leads its
Christian maintainors to the absurdity of supposing that death has
converted one person into two. In life there was but one Abraham,
in death there are two ; in life there was but one David, in death
there are two Davids ! In life there was but one Christ ; during the
three days of his death there were two. One David was in the
sepulchre at Jerusalem ; another David was somewhere else. One
Christ was in Joseph's tomb ; another Christ was preaching to spirits
in prison, or otherwise busily occupied. One Abraham was asleep
and dead ; another Abraham awake and living ! Such is the absurd
yet necessary conclusion to which men who accept the Scriptures as
true are led when they adopt the philosophical idea that the soul or
spirit separated from the body is the true man, or a man or a person
at all!
CHAPTER III.
MAN, A LIVING SOUL.
I. When we say that man was originally and properly earth, and
that what he originally was he might and does become again, we are
far indeed from supposing that this waSall he was intended to become
when God formed him. God had a far higher end in view for man.
The figure which in its organised but yet lifeless state was man, was
also to be man endowed with life and capacities of a high order. We
come then to the final stage in the creation of the human race.
8 MAN, A LIVING SOUL.
IT. "When we read in Gen. ii. 7, that *' Grod formed man of the dust
of the ground," we find it added that he also "breathed into his
nostrils the hreath of life, and man became a living soul.'''' Man had
been at first a beautifully fashioned and wonderfully organised lifeless
figure. He becomes by a further act of God a living soul. How he
became so we are told, as well as what he became.
III. God breathed into the nostrils of the lifeless figure the h-eath of
life, [Nishmath chajim.) We will farther on bring joroo/ from Scrip-
ture as to what this breath of life was. "We will at this stage of our
inquiry assume that it is identical with what is elsewhere called *' the
spirit," or "the spirit of man," or "the spirit of God." {Ruach.)
"We will here also state briefly what we hold this breath of life or spirit
to be. We are not going to enter philosophically into this question,
for that we hold ourselves utterly unable to do. AYe doubt greatly
that man has as yet mastered the properties of that matter which is to
a great extent open to the inspection of his senses. We hold him then
incapable of analysing that spirit which is imperceptible to sense. But
to some extent we hold ourselves capable of knowing from Scripture
what the breath of life, or spirit, breathed into man by God, is. We
hold it then to be a direct emanation from God himself : to be the
divine influence and power proceeding from God to man. We also
suppose that whatever this breath of life resides in, must live so long
as the breath of life abides in it. We suppose this breath to be the
grand vivifying power of God : not only living itself, but giving life.
"We cannot imagine death to be where this spirit is.
lY. We also suppose that the effect of the entering in of this breath
of life differs according to the organisation of the subject ujjoji which
it operates. This does not limit the power of God, for it is he who
creates each different organisation, and creates one different from
another for the very purpose of producing the difference of effect.
Nor does it alter the nature of the breath of life which is in all subjects
of its operation the very same, while it produces according to the
organisation of each subject a different effect according to the will of
God, who both forms and inspires. But it produces in different
subjects a difference of life, according to the organisation upon which
it acts. The breath of life breathed into the organisation of man pro-
duced that human life of which each man is conscious, and which he
understands from this inner consciousness far better than any one can
explain to him.
Y. Again, we suppose of this breath of life that it may remain in
any organisation as long or as short as God who gave it pleases. It
may be destined never to leave the organisation upon which it has
entered : or it may be appointed to leave it after any periods of time
fixed upon by God, from the longest to the shortest. What are the
laws which regulate its eternal or its temporary abode in any organi-
sation we believe to be fully known only to God. At all events, we
are satisfied that man knows little about them. But according to the
MAN, A LIVING SOUL.
9
abode in any organisation of the breath of life is it duration. Those
in which it abides for ever, such as are the angels of God, are im-
mortal. Those in which it abides for a time only, are mortal, while
their period of life may range from ten thousand years, or ten times
that, to an hour or a moment, according to the arrangement of Him
who gives and takes away. Such in brief we suppose to be that
breath of life which God breathed into man, lifeless before its
inspiration.
VI. Its introduction into man produced a marvellous eifect. The
lifeless Jig lire becomes full of life. The inanimate frame becomes
instinct with animation. Man becomes a living soul. AVe are not
told that man became the breath of life, or became spirit, which is the
same thing. Doubtless, if this were the case, we should have been
told so. As we are not told so, we reject the idea. We will find
hereafter that Scripture expressly rejects it. Man did not become that
breath of life which was breathed into him by God. Man was not
transubstantiated : earth did not become spirit. But, in consequence
of the inbreathing into him of the divine breath of life, man, before
lifeless, became a living soul. By this is meant that life, or soul, by
the Hebrews called nepheshf by the Greeks psyche, became, while the
breath of life remained in man, the possession or attribute of man.
The frame was not lifeless, but full of life : man was not soulless, but
was a living soul : each part of him, while it remained connected with
the rest, was instinct from life, soul, animation. The brain, the heart,
the lungs, the limbs, each sense, and each minutest or least important
part, was, in its measure and degree, living. Man became something
he was not before : man possessed something he had not before : that
something was the life, the soul, the animation, which the inbreathing
of the breath of life caused him to have.
VII. We are now able in some degree to see both what man origi-
nally was, and what he subsequently became. He was originally
earth, as lifeless as any clod of earth. Into this earth enters a divine
breath of life. The earth does not cease to be earth, but it becomes,
what it was not, full of life, it possesses as its attribute what it did
not possess, viz. — a soul. The breath of life was not the soul any
more than it was the body, but it was the producer of the soul, as
being the quickener of the body. Hence we have man in the condition
to which the last act of God brought him, no longer the simple creature
that he was. He is still as much as ever earth, and earth is still his
only essential property : but he possesses also, so long as God pleases,
the breath of life from his Maker, and as a consequence of this
possession, and so long as he possesses it, he has, or has become, a
living soul.
VIII. Hence we see human nature become what may not impro-
perly be termed tripartite. There is still the original man made of
earth : into this is breathed a Divine spirit, or breath of life : as a
consequence, the original man becomes a living soul, becomes some-
10 THE BREATH OF LIFE ; OR, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM.
thing he was not before. But while we thus see man become truly
tripartite, we must remember this condition is not essentially his.
All he can claim as essentially his, is his earthly origin from clay.
"What he has become depends for its continuance upon God. He has
not been changed into divine spirit, he only has this divine spirit
dwelling in him at the pleasure of God. It may be withdrawn, and
man sinks back to his original. With the withdrawal of the breath
of life of necessity is connected the ceasing to be of that living soul
which only the indwelling of the divine spirit causes man to be.
Man is then no longer a living soul, but the lifeless figure he was at
the first. He is dust, and dust only. He has not any longer spirit,
and he is no longer living soul. The object of his first creation, life
for a purpose, gone, and God does not even think it worth while to
preserve the figure, however beautiful, or the organisation, however
wonderful and perfect. The organisation is destroyed : the figure
crumbles into its essential dust. The death of man produced by the
withdrawal of the spirit is followed by the destruction and disorgani-
sation of his form and shape.
CHAPTER lY.
THE BREATH OF LIFE; OR, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM.
I. Having in our last chapter given a general sketch of man in
the perfection of his being, and alluded to his constitution as in a
measure become tripartite, we think it will be necessary to say some-
what more of some parts of this constitution of man. Of his body
we need not say anything, as probably sufficiently understood. But
of the breath of life which God breathed into his body, and of the
sonl, which as a consequence his body then received, of each of these
we think it necessary to say more. The true understanding of human
nature will be found of the utmost consequence in our understanding
many theological questions. As a false understanding of it has led
to many grave theological errors, so the true understanding of it will
enable us to retrace our steps to truth.
II. In our present chapter we will lay before our readers what
Scripture tells us of the Breath of Life. We will also establish the
identity of this breath with a term of far more frequent use in
Scripture, viz., the spirit, sometimes spoken of as man's spirit, and
sometimes spoken of as God's spirit. Having established this
identity, we will, in our next chapter, enter upon the examination of
what Scripture tells us of the spirit. Its more frequent mention of a
part of the human constitution under this terra, will enable us the
better to understand all that God intends us to understand about it.
We will then devote a chapter to the understanding of the important
question of the nature of the human soul.
THE BREATH OF LIFE ; OK, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM. 11
III. We find the first mention of the Breath of Life {Nishmath
chajim) in Gen. ii. 7, where we read of its being breathed directly
from God Himself into the nostrils of man yet inanimate. From its
mention here we should, as we have already stated, infer it to be a
direct emanation from Deity.
JV. We will now consider some of the passages in which it is
spoken of in Scripture. Before we proceed to the examination of
these places, we must first draw the attention of onr English readers
to the fact that they will not apparently find all the places we refer
to justifying our conclusions in the authorised version. This, how-
ever, is only apparent, and arises from the Hebrew word translated
"breath" in Gen. ii. 7, not being always so translated in the
authorised version. It is, for example, very frequentlj'^ translated
" spirit." We can only assure them that all our references are to
passages where the Hebrew word translated *' breath" in Gen. ii. 7,
occurs. We do not think that we will be guilty in any instance of an
oversight in this respect, as we have gone over our ground very care-
fully. The Hebrew scholar can in any case correct ns, and we will
willingly acknowledge any oversight that we may unwittingly
have made.
y. We find, then, in the first place, that the breath of life is an
attribute of God Himself. We frequently read in Scripture of "the
breath of the Lord." This is plainly that breath of life which we
read of in Gen. ii. 7, and which we there considered an emanation
from the divine nature itself. Even after it has been given to man,
even after it has entered into and formed, as it were, part of his con-
stitution, it is still regarded by God as his otvn breath, properly belong-
ing to Himself. "Who," says Elihu, in the ancient book of Job,
here representing the primitive faith of enlightened man upon this
subject, " Who hath given God a charge over the whole earth? or
who hath disposed the whole world ? If He set His heart upon man,
if He gather unto Himself his spirit and his breath." * Here we
find that the breath of life, even while it is in man, is regarded as the
property and attribute of God. It is still 7i/s, not man's: it is still
as much as ever His : his, as part of His very essence : His, there-
fore, to dispose of as He pleases : His to take away from man, as it
was His at the first in His bounty to bestow it on man.
VI. We see the same great truth in many other places of Scripture.
The breath of life which man possesses is ever spoken of as God^s
gift to 7nan, and not as properly belonging to the essence of man.
God ever speaks of Himself as "He that giveth breath unto the
people " of this earth.f Man is not this breath, but this breath is
God's gift to man. Like every other gift it is distinguishable from
the party to whom it is given. Man was once without it, and yet
was man. But when man was without it, it was residing in the ful-
ness of the Deity Himself. |
* Job xxxiv. 4 ; xxxiii. 14. t I Isaiah xlii. 5. X Job xxxiii. 4.
12 THE BREATH OF LIFE ; OE, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM.
VII. This breath of the Almighty is that which gives life to man,
and which bestows upon man his soul.* **The spirit of Grod hath
made me," says Job, " and the breath of the Almighty hath given me
life ;" and in the narrative of the calling back to life of the widow's
son by Elijah, we find that the coming back of the soul of the child
was dependent on the presence of his hreath. We thus find the breath
of life from God to be at once the source of life to, and the bestower
of a soul upon, man, while it is at the same time clearly distinguished
from that life and soul which it bestows. The " breath of the
Almighty," which gave Job life, is just as much distinguished from
the "life" which it gave, as the "spirit of Grod" spoken of in the
first clause of the verse is distinguished from Job himself whom that
spirit made. In fact, as we shall presently see, the "spirit of the
Lord" and "the breath of the Almighty" are but different descrip-
tions of one and the same Divine attribute, and it would be there-
fore as absurd and as erroneous to confound the " spirit of God " with
Job, as to confound "the breath of the Almighty" with Job's life."
YIII. That this breath of life is only a gift to man, not man him-
self, and a gift since man's fall taken from every child of Adam at
one time or other, is evident from Isaiah's significant warning against
putting our trust in man. " Cease ye from man," says the prophet,
*^ whose breath is m his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted
of ?"t Is not this to say, — Why trust in a creature from whom the
Divine breath of life, which alone distinguishes him from the clods of
the valley, is ever trembling in His nostrils, ready to depart ? Think
not man to be this breath of life. He has it only from God for
a little while, and then what is he ? The earth that covers him is
not more dull and dead. Accordingly death, to which we will devote
a chapter further on, is ever described as the departure of the breath
of life from the man, who was not identical with it, but only had it
as a gift for a while. Life is dependent on its presence. " All the
while ?ng hreath is in ???e," says Job, " and the spirit of God is in
my nostrils, my lips shall not speak wickedness, "| Here Job identi-
fies his " breath" with the " spirit of God," speaks of both as a gift
from God, and both as distinguished from and to be separated from
himself. And then what was he ? Dust and ashes ! This is yet
more fully set forth in a later part of this book, in which a descrip-
tion of death is given us which it would be well indeed for our popular
platonising divines to ponder over when they speak of death: "If
God set his heart upon man, if He gather unto Himself His s^nrit
and His breath ; all Jlesh shall perish together, and man shall turn
again into dust.''^^
Before we proceed further we will just draw attention to a most
important point in this entire question ; and one on which we will
further on dwell at greater length, viz. : the fact that all the lower
* Job xxxiii. 4 : 1 Kings xvii. 17—21 ; Gen. ii. 7. t Isaiah ii. 22.
X Job. xxviii. 3. § Job xxxiv. 14.
THE BREATH OF LIFE ; OR, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM. 13
creatures of God are in their lifetime possessed of the very same
'* breath of life" which man possesses, and which God breathed into
man's nostrils when he made him " a living soul." We are told this
important fact in the narrative of the destruction of life by the flood,
where we read that " all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both
of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth, and every man ; all in whose nostrils was
the breath of life."* We here find that the <' breath of life," what-
ever it be, whatever be its nature, and whatever its consequences to
its possessor, was not the possession of man alone. It belonged to,
and was possessed by, all the lower creatures as much as it was by
man. The fowl, the beast, the insect, had it breathed ' into their
nostrils as much as man.
X. Now there are a variety of consequences and inferences which
follow of necessity from this fact. In the first place, it is quite ap-
parent that the inbreathing into a creature of the breath of life, or
the possession by a creature of the breath of life, does not make that
creature to become the breath of life. Beasts had the breath of
life ; but it would not be a true definition of a beast to say that it
was this breath of life. The same is true of man. God breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; but man did not, therefore,
become that which was breathed into him. It would not be true to
define man as "the breath of life." Another consequence which
follows from this is, that the possession of the " breath of life " by a
creature does not of itself confer immortality upon that creature.
Every living creature whatsoever, every animal below man down to
the minutest animalcule, had this breath of life resident in them.
Yet not one of them was immortal. All without exception were
made under the law of death. It follows, therefore, that man's
possession of it did not of itself constitute him immortal. He might
lose his existence, and cease to be, just as the brutes did, for aught
that his possession of the breath of life could efiect.
A third consequence of this fact is that the ''breath of life" is
separable from the creature in whom it may reside. So long as it
abides in any creature death cannot come to that creature. The
death of all the lower animals at the period of the flood resulted from
the separation from them of this breath of life. So in the very same
way it was separable from man. And here we see again the truth
of the first inference which we drew from this most important fact.
When a beast died, the breath of life, whatever it was, was separated
from it. There was no longer union, but division. A carcase of a
beast lay on the ground, the breath of life had left it, and was where
vou please and what you please. Which of the two was the beast ?
The carcase was the beast all will allow, though now in a difierent
condition from what it was. Just so of man, so far as his possession
of the breath of life is concerned. A dead body lies on the ground,
♦ Gen. vii. 21, 22.
14 THE BEEATH OF LIFE ; OK, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM.
the breath of life has left it, and is where you please and what you
please. But, according to our analogy, the dead body is the man,
the man is not the breath of life ; that is something which has left'
the man. Make what you please of it, endow it with what attributes
you like, locate it where you may imagine, — it is not the man.
It has left the man behind it. The carcase it has abandoned is he.
XI. Such are the important inferences we are already able to draw
from the fact that the possession of the '• breath of life " was common
to man and beast. This, of course, is only our inference from this
common possession. Other facts may hereafter arise to alter our
conclusion. We here merely argue from the facts of creation, as
brought before us up to this point. Man, because of his possession
of the "breath of life," cannot be defined as the breath of life, or
as an immortal creature, or as inseparable from the breath of life. It
may be taken from him, and he would then be but a lifeless carcase,
unless some other endowment by his Maker hinders such a conse-
quence. His possession of the breath of life does not.
XII. It now only remains for us in this chapter to show that " the
breath of life," spoken of here, and attributed to the lower creatures
as much as to man, is identical with " the spirit^'* which is also said
to belong to man ; so that we are to consider them as but different
names or symbols of one and the same thing. This will be of
important consequence in more than one respect. As the term
"spirit" occurs much more frequently than the term "the breath
of life," we will be better able to see fully what the breath of life
really is. We will be able to correct our previous ideas of it, if
it be in any measure incorrect : or we shall be able to confirm the
view we have taken, if it be correct ; or we shall be able to complete
the idea, if it be imperfect. On the other hand, it may possibly be
that we may be able to confirm or even to extend our just idea of
" spirit " from what we have already seen of its synonym " breath
of life."
XIII. Bishop Horsley, a first-rate Hebrew scholar, and a man of
strong intellectual ability, does not hesitate to give on this point the
following decided opinion: "None," he says, "who compares the
two passages (viz.. Gen. ii. 7, and Eccl. xii. 7) can doubt that * the
breath of life ' which ' Grod breathes into the nostrils of man ' in the
Book of Genesis is the very same thing with the '• spirit which God
gave' in the Book of Ecclesiastes." *
There can be, we also think, no doubt of this. Where Horsley is
here in error is in identifying the soul of man with the sjnrit ; but of
this more hereafter. We are now dealing with the, question of the
identity of "the breath of life" with the " spirit given by God to
man ;" and here we thoroughly agree with Horsley's dictum, and for
Ms reason. We doubt if any man of sense could compare together
Gen. ii. 7. with Eccl. xii. 7, without allowing that the " breath of
* Bishop Horsley's Sermons. Sermon xxxix.
THE BREATH OF LIFE ; OR, THE NISHMATH CHAJIM. 15
life " in the former is identical with "the spirit" in the latter. They
are evidently but different names for one and the same principle of
life which God gave to man when He made him a living soul. We
will, however, proceed to give full proof from Scripture that they are
but different symbols for one and the same thing.
Xiy. The parallelism of Hebrew poetry is a feature which has
been frequently remarked by Hebrew scholars. The parallelism to
which we are now alluding is the frequent occurrence of verses com-
posed of two clauses in which the second clause is the repetition of
the sentiment of the first in different language. Now in the single
book of Job we find such a number of verses of this kind, in which
the breath of life in one clause is plainly used for the spirit in the
other clause, that we can have no hesitation in accepting them as
synonymous terms. We will mention some of them. "All the while,"
says Job in one passage, "m;/ breath is in me, and the spirit of
God is in my nostrils^ In another place, he says, describing death,
" If God gather unto himself his spirit and his breath.^^* We do not
see that it is possible to doubt that in passages such as these, the
breath of life is said to be identical with the spirit.
XY. What we have seen from these passages in the Book of Job,
we also see from- the writings of Isaiah composed on the same principle
of poetical parallelism. Thus we read in one place: "Thus saith
God the Lord, . . . He that giveth breath unto the jieople upon it
(the earthy, and sjnrit to the?n that walk therein^ And in another
place he introduces God as saying, "I will not contend for ever,
neither will I be always wroth ; for the spirit should fail before Me,
and the souls which I have made."t From the latter passage, indeed,
we might suppose that it is the soul of man which Isaiah identifies
with his spirit; but the word here translated "souls" is not the
usual Hebrew word for soul, but is the identical word translated
" breath " in Gen. ii. 7, and elsewhere. Between the soul and the
spirit of man (Hebrew : nephesh and ruach) there is a clearly marked
distinction in the Hebrew Scriptures. We challenge any scholar to
bring forward from the entire of the Old Testament a single case of
parallelism, such as we have brought forward between " breath " and
" spirit." This is more remarkable when we consider that for once
the "breath" [nishma) is spoken of, the Hebrew term nephesh^
translated most frequently by " soul," occurs twenty times or more.
XVI. We have then, we consider, established the identity of the
"breath of life," breathed into man by God with " the spirit given
to him by God." The words are but different names for one and the
same principle. With this established, we have but to remark that
from the parallelisms above advanced, we have confirmed some of the
observations already made by us. We will merely remark, then,
that "the breath of life" is indifferently spoken of as belonging to
man and as belonging to God. Job calls it both his own breath and
* Job xxxii. 3 ; xxiv. 14. t Isaiah xlii. 5 ; Ivii. 16.
16 THE SPIRIT OF MAN.
God's breath. It is both in this way. It is man's as given to him by
his Maker ; it is God's as proceeding from God, an emanation from
the Divine nature, going forth from it when God pleases, returning
to it when God pleases ; not the essential property of man, but the
essential property of God.
CHAPTER V.
THE SPIRIT OF MAJS^, OR THE " EUACH " OF THE HEBREWS.
It may appear strange that, in a chapter which treats of the lofty
subject of the spirit of man, which, as we shall subsequently see, is
in truth far more, being also the Spirit of God, we should commence
by turning our readers' attention to the fact that this spirit is not im-
parted by God solely to the higher order of his creatures, but is
shared by him with every creature that is possessed of the smallest
share of what is called animal life, even if it does not, as we think
by no means improbable, descend to lower things, and become, in the
divine wonder-working power, the animating principle of all life of
whatever kind, vegetable and mineral as well as animal.
II. It is in this great idea that the truth which is mixed up with
the error of Pantheism consists. Every great system of error has
some deep truth mixed up with it, to which it owes its currency.
There is no falsehood altogether false. Pantheism is not. Its grand
idea that God is in everything is a grand truth. Its inference that
everything is God, i.e., that there is no personal God, is the deadly
poison to which the admixture of truth lends its colour. But we
may not deny the truth itself. God is in everything. His Spirit is
all-pervading.
III. But our subject at present is not so wide as this. "We confine
our attention to this one thing, viz. : that the very same spirit which
is said in Scripture to be in man, is also said in Scripture to be in
every creature that is possessed of any amount of animal life. Man
cannot claim spirit as his peculiar possession. There is not a beast
that roams over the earth, nor an insect that crawls upon it, there is
not a fowl that flies in the air, nor a fish that swims in the waters,
that does not possess the very same spirit which man possesses as a
gift from God. Man, proud of his superiority to them all, their un-
doubted lord and master, cannot truly deny to the meanest of the
living creatures beneath him the possession of that very spirit which
exists within himself.
lY. Now this is a very important fact, if it be a fact. Man is
prone to deny any community of nature with the lower animals.
But science and scientific men are every day more and more establish-
ing a very strong community of nature between the beasts and their
OR THE ''RUACH" OF THE HEBREWS. 17
master. We cannot say that we admire the spirit in which too often
scientific men pursue this inquiry, namely, as giving them a handle
to overthrow the authority of Scripture. For some of their specula-
tions also we entertain a feeling of utter contempt. We do not expect
that all the subtle analysis of science, or all the inquiry into the past
psychological changes of genus and species, will ever establish the
Darwinian dream, that man is the descendant of the mollusc, the
lizard, or the' ape. But we also warn orthodox theologians that they
by their philosophical dogmas afford considerable ground for stumbling
to scientific men. Their theory of human nature, as in its component
parts utterly dissimilar from that of the lower creatures, gives just
cause of offence to men who study animal nature, and find beyond any
(question that there is intimate community where Christian divines
teach that there is essential dissimilarity. But we beg to tell men of
science that they may not take the views on human nature of popular
theology as truly expressive of the teaching of Scripture. Ere they can
by their researches and discoveries overthrow any position supposed to
be taken by Scripture, they must see whether it is really taken by
Scripture, or only fathered upon Scripture by men who have learned
from Aristotle or Plato.
V. The denial to beasts of the same spirit which is in man is very
common. Theologians of every school almost agree in this. High
Church and Evangelical, Nonconformist and Churchmen, generally
teach the same on this point. It is with them all a first principal, a
something which they suppose a foundation or corner-stone of Chris-
tian faith. They think man's future life is somehow bound up with
it ; that its denial is equivalent to the denial that man has anything
to hope for beyond the grave.
VI. Strange that Scripture does not give the smallest ground for
this common opinion of divines who are supposed to have learned their
theology from Scripture ! Stranger still that what they hold up as
the corner-stone of the faith is denied by Scripture as plainly as
words can deny anything. This we will proceed to show.
Yir. We have already, in fact, established it in our last chapter,
when we showed the identity of this " spirit" with the " breath of
life," and showed that the " breath of life " was the possession of the
lower creatures as well as of man. We will, however, here give fur-
ther and more direct proof from the Word of God.
yill. If we accept the positive declarations of Scripture upon this
point there will be no difficulty, for Scripture does positively declare
that beasts have "spirit" as much as man, and that this spirit in
both is one and the same. And this is told us in Scripture fully as
often as we could reasonably expect it. Man, and not beast, is the
subject of Scripture. The beast is but rarely spoken of, and this in
evident connection with a higher subject ; and yet we find its posses-
sion of spirit, and the identity of that spirit with the spirit of man,
frequently insisted on. For our part we do not at all wonder at this.
c
18 THE SPIRIT OF MAN,
We believe that God did intend in his Word to give us a true account
of our nature, so far as it was possible for us to comprehend it, or as
its comprehension would be of use. For this purpose a comparison
of it with that of beasts where there was resemblance would be per-
haps of equal use with the pointing out its distinction where there
was a diflerence. We are not arguing for the identity of nature of
man and beasts in all respects. In some, and these the most impor-
tant respects, as we will hereafter point out, man was immeasurably
superior to the beasts at his creation. In some of these he is, even
when fallen, superior to them. In all the particulars in which he was
superior at creation will redeemed man maintain his superiority in the
regeneration. But all this may not blind us to the fact that, if there
is distinction of the most important kind between man and beast, so
there is also identity of constitution of the strongest nature. One of
these points of union and identity is the possession by the beast of
the very same spirit which man possessed, as we will now point out.
IX. In Gen. vi. 17, God describes the coming flood to Noah in these
words: "Behold I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy
all Jlesh, wherein is the breath (Hebrew ruach, spirit) of life, from
under heaven." All flesh here comprehends, as Poole states in his
commentary, " men, birds, and beasts ; " and all these are possessed,
acconiing to the words of their Maker, of one and the same spirit of
life. If any one were disposed to say that " all flesh " here only com-
prehends all men, this idea is corrected in the next chapter, where,
speaking only of the lower creatures, they are said to be possessed of
that "breath, or spirit of life," which, in chap. vi. 17, is ascribed to
all flesh.* These two texts, if we had none beside them, would be
sufficient to show the teaching of Scripture upon this point. We
have, however, others just as plain. In Psalm civ. 29, 30, the in-
spired Psalmist is describing the death and the creation of the lower
creatures. Their death he thus describes in verse 29 : " Thou (God)
hidest Thy face ; they are troubled : Thou takest away iheir breath
{ruach, spirit), they die, and return to their dust." In verse 30, he
describes the creation of these creatures thus: " Thou sendest forth
Thy spirit; they are created."! The Hebrew scholar knows that the
original word for " breath " in verse 29, and for " spirit " in verse 30,
is the very same. Here as constantly when the words descriptive of
human nature and that of the lower animals come to be translated,
our translators show the utter confusion into which their Platonic
theory of man has involved them. There is not the smallest ground
why the Hebrew term ruach should not be translated by the same
English word " spirit" in both these verses. The philosophical idea
of the translators, that beasts were not possessed of a spirit, alone
prevented them from doing so.
We do not object to the term being translated " breath," but if it be
so translated in ver. 29, it should also be so translated in ver. 30. We
* Gen. Ti. 17; vii. 15. ' t Psalm civ. 29, 30.
OR THE " RUACH " OF THE HEBREWS. 19
merely show to the English reader that the term "breath" in verse 29, is
of the same sense as the term ''spirit" in verse 30, both having the same
Hebrew original. This understood, what do these two verses teach
us ? They teach us that beasts have spirit, and that this spirit is no-
thing less than the Spirit of God breathed into them as He breathed
it into man. We will draw attention to one other passage of Scrip-
ture upon this point, viz., Ecclesiastes iii. 19-21. The preacher is
here expressly comparing together man and beast. " That which be-
falleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth
them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one
breath (Hebrew ruach, spirit) ; so that a man hath no pre-eminence
above a beasts Words cannot be stronger than these. The preacher
tells us not only that man and beast both have spirit, but that the
spirit of both is one and the same. He is here evidently comparing
them in what they had of the highest kind, and nothing could be
higher than their possession of that spirit which the Psalms and other
Scriptures tell us was indeed nothing less than the spirit of God Him-
self. Yet in this he tells us that " man hath no pre-eminence
above a beast." He tells us the spirit of one was the same as that of
the other, and that man could claim no distinction, no pre-eminence
whatsoever.
And here the confusion of thought produced by the philosophical
ideas of our translators of the Bible appears very strongly. Again,
as in Psalm civ. 29, 30, in consecutive verses speaking of the very
same subject, they have translated the same Hebrew word by two
different English terms. What English reader, who reads of * ' breath "
in verse 19, and *' spirit " in verse 21, would suppose that the same
Hebrew word stands for both ? Yet so it is. What scholar can give
a single reason why it should not receive the same translation in both
verses ? It should. But a false philosophical idea blinded the minds
of our translators. They supposed that man had an immortal spirit,
which immortal spirit was, in their imagination, the man himself.
. They could not, or did not, hold this to be true of beasts. They denied
to them the possession of any such spirit, and therefore they translated
ruach in verse 19 as '■^breath,'''' because in that verse it was stated that
man and beast had one and the same ruach ! We hope the revisers
of our translation will attend to this in their revised translation of
the Bible. The Platonic notions of the soul, and immortality, and
future punishment, have to a most serious extent injured the fidelity
of our present Authorised Version. We hope they will not be allowei
to mar that which is promised us.
X. And now, with the fact established from Scripture that the lower
creatures are possessed of the same spirit which man is possessed of,
let us draw a few inferences from this most important fact. The
spirit of life, the Spirit of God, is the possession of every thing that
is possessed of animal life at all ! Such a spirit is the possession of
every beast of the field ! Yet it would not, therefore, be a j ust defini-
c 2
20 THE SPIRIT OF MAN,
tion of a beast to say that it was a spirit. It possessed a spirit, and
yet it was itself but earth. Neither can we infer from its possession
of a spirit that the beast is immortal. This spirit is separable from
it, and separated from it in death. In death this spirit is returned,
taken back, by him who gave it ; and then what is the beast ? It has
lost its spirit : with that loss it has lost its life, its soul ; with that loss
it has become nothing but lifeless organised earth : soon destruction
will do its work upon this mechanical organisation, and the beast,
who once had spirit, and with spirit, life, is resolved into the dust of
the earth. We will not forget these inferences when we come to con-
sider the question of man, the higher animal, who yet has no higher
spirit than that of the beast, for he could have no higher ; for the
spirit that gives life to the beast is the Great Spirit in whom all living
things live and move and have their being, who preserveth man and
beast.
XI. We now proceed to consider *' spirit" as the possession of man.
Merely that it is his possession, we suppose, need not be shown, as no
one, least of all those with whom we here dispute, controverts it. We
will, therefore, only refer to some texts which speak of spirit as the
possession of man, and then pass on to consider what is said of this
spirit, whether in its own nature or in its effects. * And in the first place
we have to remark that that spirit which is in all living men, whether
they are good or bad, is expressly said to be the Spirit of God. Thus
God calls the Spirit which gave life to man, and which He would with-
draw when an end was to be put at the flood to that godless generation,
His Spirit. ^^ 3Iy Spirit j*^ He says, "shall not always strive with
man."t Job is also very clear upon this. In xxxiii. 4, he evidently
refers to the creation of man as we find it recorded in Gen. ii. 7. His
words are, '' The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the
Almighty hath given me life." % We suppose no one will doubt but
that the *' breath of the Almighty " here spoken of is that " breath of
life " which we are told in Gen. ii. 7, that God breathed into man,
and by which he became a living soul. We also suppose that no one
will question what we have already proved, viz. : that the *' Spirit of
God " in the first clause of this text is identical with '' the breath of
the Almighty " in the second. But hence it follows that the spirit or
breath breathed into man by God is really and truly God^s own spirit
of life. The same truth is taught us in Job xxxiv. 14. Here Job is
speaking of man's death, and in what manner it is brought about.
It is brought about. Job tells us, by '* God gathering unto Himself
his Spirit and his breath"^ Hence we gather that that spirit of man
which God takes from man in death is in reality God's own Spirit
brought back to its eternal source. In accordance with this we gather
from Ecclesiastes xii. 7, that the spirit which is in man while alive
had a being and existence before it was imparted to man: "Then
* Joshua xxxviii. 16; Psalm xxxi. 5; Eccl. iii. 19—21. X Job xxxiii. 4.
, Gen. vi. 3. § Job xxxiv. H.
OR THE *'RUACh" OF THE HEBREWS. 21
shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return
unto God who gave it." * In death it only returned, went back again,
where it was before God had ever formed the dust of the earth into
the figure and organisation of man. The spirit which went forth to
animate that frame was in God before it went forth, in God from
all eternity, of and belonging to God when given to man ; in truth
an emanation from Deity itself. ^ . '
XII. The presence of this Spirit of God in man is that which gives
him life. '' The Spirit of God," says Job, *' hath made me, and the
breath of the Almighty hath given me life"-f We here learn that it
is the presence of this spirit which bestows life on man, while at the
same time the spirit is distinct from the life as the cause is distinct
from the effect. This is not unimportant to remark. If the life of
man was identical with the spirit, it would of course possess all the
essential attributes of the spirit. But this is avoided by the account
of Scripture, which describes the spirit in man, not as identical with
man's life, but as the cause or producer of that life. That which
gives life, while most intimately connected with the life, is yet dis-
tinct from and distinguishable from it. Hence we may suppose the
effect to perish, while the cause of it has not perished. The life of
man may perish and become extinct while the spirit that caused it has
not. For, the life being produced by the entrance of the spirit into
the body, the withdrawal of the spirit from the body causes the life
to cease, while it does not cease to be itself, but only ceases to main-
tain its connection with man. And hence, too, while we do not deny
the incorruptibility and immortality of the spirit in man, we also see
the source of the precariousness of the life in man.
Man is not the spirit, but only has the Spirit of God within him.
It is therefore a possession which may be withdrawn from him. It
is not himself, but a loan from God. God may withdraw the loan,
and at once sinks into nothingness that life of man which only
depended for its being upon the presence of the spirit. This was a
truth which the old and true philosopher Job well knew; and there-
fore he only pledges himself not to speak wickedness " all the while
my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils." X He
knew his spirit was not his own as his right to keep, but was the
Spirit of God in his nostrils, ready to depart at the Maker's pleasure,
and then — what was Job ? Dust and ashes ; a lifeless thing, unable
to see, or hear, or speak. In the very same way that the entrance of
spirit into man first gives him life, so 'the re-entrance of this spirit
is that which is to renew his life. We see this from that remarkable
vision of the valley full of dry bones which God showed to Ezekiel.
The bones are dry and lifeless which once had life. How is this life
to be restored ? By God's causing spirit or breath to enter into them
again. " I will lay sinews upon you, saith the Lord, and I will
bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath
* Eccl. xii. 7. t Job xxxiii. 4. J Job xxvu. 3; vii. 7,
22 THE SPIRIT OF MAN,
(spirit, ruach) into you, and ye shall live." * The life which had
vanished when the spirit left the hody is renewed when the spirit
enters into it again. The spirit itself had not perished in this
interval, but the human life had perished during it. It does not
affect our reasoning here whether we consider this whole vision of
Ezekiel as a vision of the literal resurrection, such as Paul speaks of
in 1 Cor. xv., or as the prediction of a spiritual resurrection, taking
its shape and form from the terms properly applicable to the literal
' resurrection.
XIII. In perfect agreement with our view of the presence of the
spirit as giving life to man is the scriptural account of the absence or
withdrawal of the spirit as causing his death. On this, however, we
will not now enlarge. We will content ourselves here with referring
to some passages which prove our assertion. f To the scriptural
account of man's death, and what is really meant by it, we propose
to devote a future chapter. In it we will compare the account of it
as given in God's Word with the perplexed and contradictory
accounts given of it by men of large powers of mind, but who have
come to the consideration of the question with prejudices and
opinions derived from some system of human philosophy.
XIY. We will, however, here say a few words of what becomes of
the spirit when man dies. To faith at every period of the world has
been given by God as its stay the hope and 2^'^omise of a future life.
Such a faith has underlain the life of every man who has sought
truly and earnestly to serve God in the midst of an evil world.
Without such a faith the life of the just would be an impossibility.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all lived and died with such a faith : they
did not look for transitory promises when they renounced, at the call
of an invisible God, the idolatries and sins of a world alienated from
Him. -They all waited for God's salvation, as Jacob said at the close
of his life. They all expected something they had not got here.
They all looked upon themselves as strangers and pilgrims, who had
a home and a city in another age. In a Word they had their heart
set upon another life. Now to this life the possession of the spirit
which had given them life here was essential. Without it they knew
they could have no life at all. They therefore knew that if they
were to have a new life hereafter, their spirit fnust be kept for them to
be restored to them again. Of that spirit itself they could have no
apprehension, as they knew it was the Spirit of God. But this was
not their thought. It was the renewed connection of this spirit with
themselves that was in their minds. Without it they knew that they
would continue for ever but dust and ashes. Hence when they were
truly dying ; when they felt themselves to be sinking back to their
original earth, they commended their spirit into the safe keeping of
God to keep for them. They hoped, expected, believed, they would
* Ezekiel xxxvii. 5, (5, 14.
t Pt-alm civ. 30; cxxxvii. 17; cxlvi. 4; Job. xv. 30; xxvii. 3; Eccl. viii. 8; xii. 7.
OR THE "RUACH" OF THE HEBREWS. 23
get it back again. Hence the expression of the Psalmist at the pros-
pect of death, " Into thine hand I commend my spirit,''^ a sentiment
built upon the faith that he was redeemed of God : " Thou hast
redeemed me, 0 Lord God of truth."* It was because he was
redeemed that he was able to commend his spirit into the hands of
his God, and to call it his at all. God first gave man his spirit in the
covenant of creation. Man by sin forfeited his right to this spirit,
and in consequence it is at the first death rendered back by every
man to the God to whom it belongs. Redemption restores to the
redeemed his possession of this spirit for the life eternal. Hence the
believer, even when he is rendering up his spirit to God as the forfeit
of the original transgression, still regards it as his by virtue of the
new covenant of grace in Jesus Christ, and is able to use the very
same words that Christ used himself, — ** Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit."
XV. Hence we see the exact position of the spirit of every believer
during that reign of death which continues unbroken till the resur-
rection. It has been rendered back to God as the forfeit of original
sin. It is, however, pledged to be restored by virtue of the covenant
in Christ. It is, therefore, the possession of the believer in death by
a promise that cannot be broken. He is allowed, nay commanded, to
call it his, even in the solemn humbling hour when he is giving it
up. His he knows it to be, kept safe for him. The separation is
only for a time which, to the sleeper in the dust, shall seem to be but
the twinkling of an eye. The hour he knows is coming when his
spirit shall come back to him ; and until that hour comes he knows
that it is his spirit which he is commending into the hands of the God
of redemption.
XVI. Another point of much importance in this whole question is
the distinction between the spirit of man and his soul. We willsee
this more fully brought out hereafter when we come to consider at
some length the nature of the human soul. At present we will only
say a few words upon this point. With the great majority of
Christian thinkers man's spirit and his soul are identical ; being, in
fact, only different names for the same thing. Of late, however,
this identity has been called a deal in question. The rise of the good
theory of a tripartite nature of man, of which Mr. Heardf is the
learned and zealous advocate, has caused many to question the
identity of the spirit with the soul. For our part we quite agree
with Mr. Heard in the distinction which he draws, though this point
is probably the chief thing in which we are able to agree with him.
But with the generality the identity of spirit and soul is an un-
doubted matter ; so much so, that they think to commend the spirit into
God's hands might just as well be said to be commending the soul.
* Psalm xxxi. 6.
t The Tripartite Nature of Man; Spirit, Soul, and Body. By Rev. J. B. Heard, M.A.
Edinburgh: T. St T. Clark.
24
THE SPIRIT OF MAN,
XYII. We will here merely say, that for this identification Scrip-
ture not only affords no ground, but has as plainly as possible denied
it. "We have already seen in our examination of the original creation
of man in Gen. ii. 7, that a marked distinction was drawn. The dis-
tinction of soul and spirit is spoken of by Paul as being just as definite
as the distinction of both from the body.* We have seen how clearly
Scripture identifies the spirit with the breath of life ; though the
latter is not often mentioned in its passages. But, though the soul
is spoken of in numberless places, we have not been able to discover a
single one in which such identification is made of the spirit with the
soul. But it will, we think, be found in the account which the
Scripture gives of the soul how utterly impossible it is to identify
them. Things are said of one which are never said of the other, and
which are quite incompatible with what is said of it. This must
sufiice on this point for the present. We will content ourselves now
with the expression of our conviction that between the spirit of man
and his soul there is an essential difference.
XYIII. And now, before we leave this chapter, we will just
make one or two observations which its subjects suggest. We have
often stated, and now repeat, our belief that in every great error there
is a great truth mixed up. That false popular theology which makes
every man, good and bad alike, immortal, is seen from our chapter to
have that element of truth which is necessary to give a colour to its
deadly falsehood. Every man is not immortal ; but every man has
the element of immortality within him in his possession of the Spirit
of God. It is the confounding of this spirit with the man, or the
making this connection between them an indissoluble one, that has
converted a great Scriptural truth into a diabolical and pernicious
lie. Another observation of the same nature we would make. It is
well-known how prevalent the system of Buddhism is, whose primary
doct rine is the reabsorption of the Divine element in man back into
Goda; and thus virtually the annihilation of all creatures. The Scrip-
turul view of the spirit shows us a great truth in this system. There
is s ch a reabsorption of the Divine element into the Godhead going
on perpetually. In all the lower creatures this is, and always has
been the universal law. Sin made it to become the law also for
fallen man. Redemption has rescued the redeemed from its operation ;
but the unredeemed are left to it. Here is a great element of ti^th
in the system of Buddha, but it has been poisoned by making that to
be a universal which is only a particular law. There are whole orders
of beings to whom the law does not apply at all. Redemption has
saved the redeemed race of man from its operation. So far is God
from wishing to reabsorb all creation into Himself, that Scripture
tells us He delights to be ever going forth into the creature imparting
a share in His life, to some of a limited period, to others for ever.
XIX. And now it only remains for us to draw very briefly a few
* 1 Thess. V. 28.
OR THE "PNEUMA" OF THE GREEKS. 25
inferences from the doctrine of the spirit as we have seen it to be in
Scripture in this chapter. Man possesses in this life a spirit which is
in fact the spirit of God. But the beast, as we have seen possesses
the very same. Hence we can draw no inference from its possession
by man which we are not able to draw from its possession by
beasts. We cannot, therefore, define man to be a spirit, because he
has a spirit. Neither can we conclude that man possesses the attri-
bute of immortality because he possesses this spirit. Its mere pos-
session by him does not insure his immortality, because it may be
possessed for a time only and not for ever. It does not of necessity
continue to abide where it has once abided. It may be separated
from man as it is separated from beast, unless we have other proof of
its inseparability from him besides the mere fact of his having
possessed it. And if it is separated from man, what is man then be-
come ? Even such as he was before this spirit entered into him. With the
departure of this spirit fades away into the grave, into the invisible
state of Hades, that life or soul which its entrance alone communi-
cated to man. The dead body is then all that remains of him who
once had soul and spirit. Soon corruption exercises its destroying
power over this lifeless frame, and man returns wholly to his original
dust.
CHAPTER yi.
THE SPIRIT OF MAN, OR THE **PNEUMA" OF THE GREEKS.
I. We now come to consider the subject of the last chapter as it is
brought before us in the pages of the New Testament. That spirit of
man, which in the Hebrew Scriptures is called ruach, is known in
the Greek of the New Testament as pnenma.
II. Of the identity of the Hebrew ruach with the Greek pneuma
there is no doubt. It is not, we believe, doubted by any one. The
usual, if not the invariable, rendering of ruach is by pneuma in the
Septuagint translation. We also find the same rendering of ruach
by pneuma in the New Testament where passages from the Old Testa-
ment containing the former word are quoted.* We will also see full
corroboration of this in the present chapter from perceiving that in
the most important riespects the very same things are taught us
of the pneuma in the New Testament which are taught us of the
ruach in the Old. We therefore think it would be only a waste
of our reader's time to dwell further upon this. We assume the
identity of the two terms in their leading and proper sense. We will
now drop the Greek yj ord jmeuma and use the English word " spirit,"
* Luke xxiii. 46, comp. with Psalm xxxi.
26
THE SPIRIT OF MAN,
merely assuring our readers that wherever we use this word " spirit,''
we use it as the equivalent term for the Greek term pneuma.
III. The identification of these two terms is of very great import-
ance. The New Testament, as all know, is a very much shorter work
than the Old. Consequently its terms, and among them the term
spirit, do not of course occur nearly so many times as the same terms
in the Old Testament. As it is from the occurrence of this term in
Scripture that we are enabled to gather the sense in which Scripture
uses it, we are, of course, better able to establish its sense from the
book in which it most frequently occurs, while it may be that in some
particulars we may find a usage for it in the book where it occurs
more frequently that we do not find at all in that in which it occurs
more rarely. But with this observation we will content ourselves.
It is not our purpose in the present chapter to dwell upon any sense
or application of the word spirit which we do not find in the 'New
Testament. We merely make the above remarks to enable our reader
to fill up his ideas of the subject from its discussion in the last chapter
if it should be, or should appear to him to be, imperfectly discussed
in this. This our identification of the Hebrew with the Greek term
for " spirit" justifies and enables him to do.
lY. Having in our last chapter identified the spirit of life which is
in man with the Spirit of God, as being in truth an emanation from
God, we will not now dwell any further upon this. But we will see
here how the New Testament, as the Old, sets forth this spirit as
being by its presence the source of physical life to man, and as causing
by its withdrawal his death. The Apostle James lays down this
general truth when he says that "the body without the spirit is
dead." We find this general truth exemplified in particular instances.
Thus our Lord's death is described as His " yielding up the ghost," or
spirit. In exact agreement with this we find that the restoration to
life, or the recovery from death, is described by the re-entrance of the
spirit into the person who was dead. Thus our Lord's raising Jairus'
daughter to life is described as "her spirit coming again." And in
the same way the resurrection to life of the two witnesses who were slain
is described by " the spirit of life from God entering into them."*
Y. The very important truth which we have already drawn from
the Old Testament with reference to the location of the spirit of man
in death, is also very clearly brought out in the New. It is done so
in the case of our blessed Lord and His martyr Stephen. Thus, when
the hour came for our Lord to die for His sheep, we read that He
said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:" and precisely
so when Stephen is stoned and dying, we read that he called upon
Jesus and said : " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."! We thus Bee that
in death the spirit which had been the source of life to men, returns
to God who gave it, and is commended trustfully by each believer as he
* James ii. 26; Matt, xxvii. 50; John xix. 30; Luke viii. 65; Kev. xi. 11.
t Luke xxiii. 4G; Acts vii. 59, .
OR THE " PNEUMA " OF THE GREEKS. 27
dies into the hands of his God. (An expression which is neve?- used
of the soul of man is thus frequently used of his spirit, viz., its com-
mendation into the hand and safe-keeping of God at the time of death.)
Yl. And here it is natural to observe that it is only believers of
whom we read in Scripture that they in death commend their spirit
into the hand of God. We will venture to go farther and to say that
it is only believers who are warranted to do this. This may require
a little explanation. From Eccl. xii. 7, and other passages, we
gathered that the spirits of all men alike, utterly irrespective of their
character and relation to God, went back to God in death. This,
however, is not only quite consistent with the fact that it is only
believers who are warranted to commend their spirits to God, but is also
required by the relation of these latter to God. When a thing that
belongs to us is commended to the care of another, it is so commended
with a view to its restoration. Now it is only the believer who is warranted
in calling the spirit his. In all men now this spirit is forfeit to God.
Although in the resurrection of the wicked this spirit must for a while
give to them life, still it is given to them only for the purpose of
judgment, and is at their resurrection as much forfeit to God as it
now is, theirs not being the resurrection to life eternal. They have
no right therefore now or in the hour of death to call the spirit theirs,
seeing it is forfeited, and therefore no right to commend it into the
hand and safekeeping of- God. In their case it is destined perma-
nently to return to God. But with the redeemed it is quite
different. The spirit, which they as all others sprung from Adam
had forfeited, is restored to them through Christ. They part with it
for a time to receive it back for ever. It is, therefore, theirs by
covenant. In death they are entitled to regard it as their possession.
They therefore place it solemnly and trustfully in the hands of their
Father and their Saviour in the sure and certain hope of receiving it
back in the morning of resurrection, to be to them the source of that
everlasting life, which will then be bestowed upon them, and is now
promised and pledged.
YII. And from abundant passages of the New Testament we also
gather that very important truth which we have already learned from
the Old that the spirit, even the spirit of the believer, though pledged
to belong to him for ever, is yet not regarded as identical with the
man to whom it belongs. This is a most important feature in this
whole inquiry. The generality of Christian teachers have fallen into
the error that the spirit when separate from the body is regarded as
the man. Hence John Wesley's proud boast — too proud for man —
*'I am an immortal spirit." But the New Testament, equally with
the Old, cuts off this boast, by expressly teaching that the spirit,
whether man's for a time, or man's for ever, is not man. Thus
the death of Jesus is described : ** Jesus yielded up the ghost,^' or
sjnrit. * Here Jesus as a man is distinguished from the spirit which
* Matt. xiTii. 50.
28 THE SPIRIT OF MAN.
was in Him. He gave it up : He was separated from it: He was there-
fore not that which was separable and separated from Him. When
the spirit had gone to God, Jesus, the man Jesus was left, without
the spirit, yet still Himself. The spirit of Jesus was not Jesus Him-
self. "We are not here straining words, but merely taking them in
their natural sense. The Scripture says, " Jesus gave up His spirit:"
popular theology would say, with Plato and Wesley, *' Jesus, a spirit,
ga;v^e up His body." But such language is never met with in Scrip-
ture. We will show this same truth from other parts of the New
Testament, and prove that our interpretation of the passage in Matthew
is the interpretation which inspiration puts upon it. Jesus is dead :
His spirit is gone back to God : His lifeless body hangs upon the
cross. Which of the two is Jesus ? The dead body, according to the
Word of God. '* When they came to Jesus, and saw that He was
dead"* The lifeless body is called Jesus by His apostle John, and
not the spirit which had left Him. In the very same way the angels
speak of Jesus to the women who came to anoint the dead body.
When they entered within the tomb they found not Him whom they
sought. Why ? Because He had left the tomb. " Why," said the
angels to them, " why seek ye the living among the dead ? He is
not here but is nsen."t Thus we see that in the judgment of the
angels that which lay lifeless in the tomb of Joseph was Jesus Himself.
He had been there during three days, but he was there no longer.
He ceased to be there when He rose from the rocky floor and departed
from the tomb. It was not His spirit with God that was Jesus : it
was the lifeless corpse. Many may not like this language, but it is
the uniform language of both Old and New Testament. It is the
very view which our Lord Himself would impress upon us. It is the
evening of the day of His resurrection. He appears to His disciples
as they are discoursing to one another. "They are terrified and
affrighted," we read, *' and supposed that they had seen a spirit."
And what does Jesus reply to them ? He said unto them, . . .
*' Why do thoughts arise in your minds ? Behold My hands and My
feet, that it is I Myself ; handle me, and see ; for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as ye see Me have."J We here see the mind of
Christ. He would not be Himself unless He was in the body : the
idea that He was a spirit was quite foreign to the mind of the true
man, Christ Jesus.
VIII. And here it becomes us from that fuller account given of
Him who is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, to view Jesus in
His death as detailed to us in various parts of the New Testament ;
and see whether that which is spoken of Him does not bear out all
that we have gathered of the nature of man from God's Word. It
will not be disputed by any one who takes our Lord's words as true,
that during the three days of His death " the Son of Man was in the
heart of the earth," as truly and as really as " Jonas was three days
* John xix. 30. t Luke xxiv. 6. X Luke xxiv. 37—39.
THE SOUL OF MAN.
29
and three nights in the whale's belly."* Yet there was a marked
difference between their condition in this state. Jesus was dead :
Jonah was ajive ; Jesus had commended His spirit into God's hand,
and it was with His Father : it still animated the prophet. And yet
the Son of Man was truly and really, not figuratively, or in mere
popular speech, in the heart of the earth. And so, as we judge of
Jesus, we judge of all men. What lies within in the heart of the earth
is the man. The spirit which has gone to God is not the man. It once
belonged to the man. In the case of the believer it is pledged to him
as his for ever. But for all that it is not man, whether possessed for
a time only or for ever.
IX. And now we will only refer to a consequence which follows
from this ; and which we have already concluded from separate and
independent evidence of Scripture, viz., the real and proper distinc-
tion between spirit and soul. In popular language they are con-
founded: in Scripture never. Intimately connected, they are distinct
and different things. This we see from the case of our Lord. In
death His spirit was with His Father. Where was His soul ? In
Hades. "We will hereafter consider particularly what the soul is,
and what Hades is. But our particular conclusion here is not at all
affected by the consideration of their nature. Whatever the soul of
Jesus was, it was in Hades ; whatever Hades is, it is within this
earth. The soul of Christ, then, which was in Hades, was distinct
from His spirit which was with His Father, and what was true of
His spirit and soul is also true of all spirits and souls ; they are dis-
tinct from one another: always separable, and in death separated.
And in agreement with this, Paul, when he would apparently
embrace the entire constitution of man in its perfect condition, calls
it " body, soul, and spirit," as being each distinct from, and dis-
tinguished from the other. t
CHAPTER VII.
THE SOUL OF MAN, OR THE "NEPHESH" OF THE HEBREWS.
I. In discussing the question of the soul, we come to a question of
great importance, and one which has engaged the attention of man-
kind at every period. The most opposite theories, it is well known,
have been held upon it in the schools of philosophy and theology. By
some it has been supposed identical with the spirit ; by others to be
distinct from it. By some it has been supposed to be the peculiar
' • Matt. xii. 40. t 1 Thesa. v. 23.
30 ' THE SOUL OF MAN,
attribute of man ; by others to be shared with him by every animal.
By some it has been thought to be in its own nature immortal, and
so incapable of death from any source whatever ; by others it has
been supposed to have been created by God with an inalienable im-
mortality, so that, without denying the power of God to destroy it,
it is yet certain that He never will, and that no other power can.
By others it is thought in death to pass into the same lifeless con-
dition as the body ; while others have thought that it survived the
death of the body for some time longer or shorter, and at length ceased
to exist. By some it has been thought to have had an existence before
the body ; by others to come into existence simultaneously with it.
By some it has been thought to be an entity, or person by itself, so
that on the dissolution of the body it was still a true person, capable
of all the thoughts and feelings of a living and reasonable being ; by
others it has been thought to be rather a quality of a person, so that
'en the dissolution of that person it of necessity ceased to be. By
some it has been thought to be the true and proper man, of whom the
body was an attribute, or circumstance, without which it could
subsist for a time or for ever ; while others have supposed the body
rather to be the man of whom the soul was an attribute, in posses-
sion of which the man was alive, and deprived of which he was dead.
Amid all this variety and contradiction of thought the one source to
which we look with perfect confidence is the Bible, in which He
speaks of the soul who is its Maker. In the Old Testament Scrip-
tures we have the nature of the soiil referred to in numberless pas-
sages. From that book alone, therefore, we might expect clear and
sufficient evidence upon this question. As it appears to us, all tha.t
can be said upon it has been said over and over in the Old Testament.
There are points on which the Old Testament is confessedly obscure :
but this is not one of them. In clear, decided terms, not darkly or
with stammering lips, it speaks of the soul of man from its earliest to
its latest page. But at the same time that we are of this opinion we
will not refrain in a succeeding chapter from drawing attention to
what is said on this subject in the New Testament, where the soul or
psyche of the Greeks is equivalent to the soul or nephesh of the
Hebrews. From these two sources together as much information as
God is pleased to give us upon this subject will be derived, nor do we
believe that a single particle of light can be thrown upon it other
than that derivable from Scripture. Divines and philosophers, we
fully believe, have succeeded in investing the whole subject with
obscurity, and in connecting it with a vast amount of falsehood : we
do not think they have ever spoken a single truth about it which may
not be found in the Word of God. What is more : we believe that
if we would attain to so much of truth as is attainable upon this
question, we must discard from our minds the theories of men,
whether those men have been called heathen philosophers or Chris-
tian theologians, and sit down as little children to learn from God
OR THE *' NEPHESn " OF THE HEBREWS. 31
what He is pleased to tell us of ourselves, and what He only can with
infallibility speak of.
II. We will commence our chapter upon the nature of the soul as
we commenced that upon the nature of the spirit, by showing from
Scripture that whatever soul be, or whatever its nature and attributes,
the Scriptures attribute the possession of soul just as much to all the
lower creatures as they attribute its possession to man. Man's proud
boast that he alone has soul, and that its possession by him is his
essential difference, or one of his essential differences from all those
living creatures which are unquestionably below him -dn the scale of
creation, fades away and disappears utterly when we come to consult
upon this point the oracles of God.
III. We must say that in an inquiry of this kind an English reader
meets with great difficulties in consequence of grave faults of trans-
lation of which the translators of our Authorised Version have been
guilty ; not through any wilful fault, but in consequence of their
coming to the translation of the Bible thoroughly imbued with Platonic
views of human nature in general and of the soul in particular. They
all believed that the soul was a person dwelling within the human
body, wholly unaffected save in its connection with the body by
death, possessed of an inalienable immortality. Adopting widely
different ideas of the nature of the lower animals, supposing them in
their nature capable of death and dying, they were of necessity obliged
to deny to them the possession of such a soul as they supposed man to
be possessed of, or, rather, to speak with more propriety, to consist
of. Hence, when they found the Hebrew term nephesh, generally by
them translated soul when spoken of man, applied to the lower crea-
tures, they could not give it a similar translation ; but translated it
by some other term. A notable instance of this occurs in the trans-
lation of the first and second chapters of Grenesis. The Hebrew scholar
knows that when Moses, in Genesis i. 20, 21, speaks of the nature
of the lower order of animals, and when in Genesis ii. 7, he speaks of
the nature of man, the inspired writer used the very same Hebrew terms
of both one and the other. Each fish, and fowl, and creeping
thing, and beast is called in the Hebrew a nephesh chajah as much as
man who was given the rule over them. But this was in its apparent
bearing wholly inconsistent with the philosophical ideas of the trans-
lators. They considered it dangerous that the similarity of descrip-
tion should appear in the English version which Moses did not con-
sider it dangerous to exhibit in the Hebrew original. Hence they
must guard God's Word from its supposed dangerous language by
translating nephesh chajah very diflerently in the first chapter of
Genesis, where it is applied to the lower creatures, from what they
translated it in the second chapter, where it is applied to man. Hent'e
the Hebrew words which they translate by " creature that hath life,"
and " living creature," in Genesis i. 20, 21, they translate " by living
soul " in Genesis ii. 7. The striking difference of expression which
32 THE SOUL OF ilAN,
appears in the English version is utterly absent from the Hebrew
original. A gross, though unintentional fraud has been committed
against the English reader. He is mislead in his searching of the
Scriptures. He is put on a false scent. The Greek translation of
the Septuagint and the Latin Yulgate, true to the duties of the
translator, has given the very same Greek and Latin words in their
translation of the Hebrew terms, whether applied to the lower ani-
mals or to man. Our English translators have supplied us with a
commentary of their own instead of a translation, a comment we will
here add utterly alien to truth.
lY. But the result of this mistranslation is to lead astray the
English reader who trusts to it. This is not the only instance which
occurs of the thing in reference to this question. The same Hebrew
word is throughout the Old Testament translated according as the
Platofitc notions of the translator led him to think it ought to be
translated. Plato had a considerable hand in the translation of King
James' Bible. The Hebrew word nephesh is translated "creature,"
"soul," "life," &c., just as squared with the notions of men
who carried Plato's philosophy into their noble work of the trans-
lation of Scripture. We aflBrm that a grave injury has been done
to the English reader, and a gross wrong to God's Word, by conduct
such as this, — an injury and a wrong which we trust will not be
repeated in that new version of Scripture into English which we
are promised. And while upon this subject we would just say
that a grave duty rests upon those who have the management
of this much required work of revision that there should be among
the revisers one or more men who do not accept Plato as an in-
fallible authority upon the question of human nature, or rather
one phase of Plato's doctrine ; for that great philosopher was by no
means consistent with himself in all his statements. With these
observations we turn to our subject, merely informing our English
readers that in our statements of the soul in this chapter we inva-
riably speak of the Hebrew word nephesh, though the variety of its
translation in the various passages to which we refer in the Autho-
rised Version might lead them to suppose a very different thing.
Y. We begin, then, by saying that so far from the popular idea of
soul as the peculiar possession of man. Scripture teaches us that it is
just as much the possession of all the lower creatures. The Hebrew
Scriptures tell us that all these possess that nephesh which is usually
translated by the English word soul. Eiirst, perhaps the highest
existing authority on the Hebrew language, in his "Concordance"
defines nephesh as the soul, by which an animal lives, both of man
and brute" [anima, qua animal vivil, turn hominis turn hruti). No
one, indeed, having the smallest acquaintance with the Hebrew
Scriptures, could say anything else. In no less than five versts
of the first and second chapters of Genesis are all the lower
creatuies of God said to be '"living souls," the expression in
OR THE " NEPHESH " OF THE HEBREWS. 88
the Hebrew being the very same which, when spoken of man,
is thus translated in Genesis ii. 7. Again, in the Book of
Leviticus, all the fishes of the sea are said to be " living creatures,"
or "living souls." Again, in a passage of the Book of Numbers,
even our Platonic translators could not avoid using the English
word " soul " of the beast as much as of men, where the Lord's tribute
is reckoned as '■^ one soul oi five hundred, both of the persons, and
of the beeves, and of the asses and of the sheep.^' Birds and beasts
are both said in the Book of Proverbs to be possessed of soul, and to
be capable of losing it ; though here our translators have given to the
Hebrew term the translation into '* life."* Here is a very considerable
array of texts, considering how little of Scripture is occupied with the
lower creatures, which prove that whatever is meant by that Hebrew
word which is commonly translated '' soul," is possessed by the lower
creatures as much as by man.
VI. We will draw a few inferences which occur to us from this im-
portant fact. All the lower animals, so long as they continue in
existence, are said to be possessed of soul, or to be living souls. Yet
they are none of them immortal. They all at one period or other
cease to exist. In ceasing to exist they lose their soul, they cease to
be living souls. It is never supposed that their soul is a second in-
ternal animal which, when the outward gross frame becomes lifeless,
flits away somewhere else, and enjoys life in some other scene.
Thoughts such as these are entertained by the poor Indian who fain
would hope that
" transported to yon equal sky,
His faithful dog will bear him company."
But the fancy of the Indian has not yet possessed the theological
brain of Christendom. It is still commonly held that the lower
creatures really die when they seem to us to die. There is for no part
of them survival. It may be found difficult to define what is the life
or soul which they possess, but it is all but universally conceded that
in their death this life or soul departs, ceases to be, perishes. They
have souls, and they are living souls ; yet they, whatever be their
organisation and nature, do, in their entirety, cease to be or to exist.
The possession of a soul does not imply immortality on its own part or
on-that of the creature who possesses it.
YII. And now we come to man and his soul. Man, in life, has a soul.
Man, in life, is a living soul. We need not quote Scripture for this,
as it is affirmed in a thousand places, and our translators have not
been at any pains to hide it. All we want to know is what is intended
by having a soul, or being a living soul, in the case of man. We
have no hesitation in saying that the very same thing is meant in
man's case that is meant in the case of the lower creatures. We may
have difficulties of definition in one case, but not more or different
from what we have in the other. Physiologists, and naturalists, and
* Gen. i. 20, 21, 24, 30; ii.l9; Lev. xi. 10; Num. xxxi, 28; Prov. vii. 23; xii. 10.
D
84
THE SOUL OF MAN,
medical men, and divines may be perplexed in their accounts of the soul
or life ; but we have no hesitation in saying that what it is in the case
of the lower creatures that very same thing it is in the case of man.
VIII. Any other idea would be to do a violence to the language of
Scripture, which would thoroughly shake our confidence in it. Thus,
in the first two chapters of Genesis, Moses, in his account of the crea-
tion of the lower creatures and of man, uses one of his most important
terms no less than six times. The very same Hebrew phrase, nephesh
chajah, which is translated variously as "living creature " or '' living
soul," is used by Moses in his account of man and beast. Of the
latter it is affirmed five times, of the former once. He uses it of the
lower creatures before he applies it to man : he uses it again of them
immediately after he has applied it to man. He never gives the
smallest hint that he uses it of one in any sense different from what
he uses it of the other. If, then, we are to interpret the language of
Scripture in the same way that we interpret the language of any other
book, we can only arrive at the conclusion that men are '' living
souls " in the very same sense that the lower creatures are. We do
not say that there is no difference between men and beasts : we know
that there is much. But what we here say is, that this difference is
not brought out by saying that man has a soul, or that man is a living
soul : for the very same phrase is used of every animal below him as
of him. The distinction between man and beast must be ascertained
from other sources than this.
IX. Now this facilitates our inquiry very much. At its very out-
set it enables us to dispose of the entire Platonic theory about souls
and their nature. The soul of man is not the man himself, any more
than the soul of the beast is the beast. The soul of man is not a
second entity, a second person, a second inner ethereal man existing
within an outer and grosser man, any more than it is a second entity
or ethereal beast within beast. The soul of man is not itself essentially
or inalienably immortal, nor does it confer immortality in man's case
more than in that of the beasts. All these ideas are seen to be but
human fancies painfully wrought out of the crucible of the human
brain, but having no real foundation, the moment we learn from
Scripture that beasts have souls, and are living souls, as much as men.
If we would be consistent, and affirm all this of man and of his soul,
we must adopt more than we have hitherto adopted, and become
Pythagorean philosophers, and suppose that the lower creatures are
what the Platonist makes man. If we refuse to lower our idea of the
human soul from its Platonic level, we must raise the bestial soul to
a level with it. But we will now show from Scripture that the lower-
ing process is that which we must adopt.
X. The simple and proper meaning of the Hebrew word nephesh^
when applied to the lower creatures, is life, animal life. The soul of
the beast is nothing else than the life of the beast. We affirm that the
soul of man is nothing more or less than that animal life which he shares
OR THE ''NEPHKSH" OP THE HEBREWS. 85
in common with the beasts. We consider that we have already proved
this in paragraphs vii.-ix., but we will proceed to give further proof.
XI. Gesenius, in his Hebrew Dictionary, gives the primary mean-
ings of the Hebrew tiephesh as " breath," ** life, the vital principle in
animal bodies." Fiirst, as we have already seen, gives a similar
definition. These are the highest authorities on the Hebrew language.
The usage of our own translators of the Authorised Version confirn^s
this very strongly. Let us remember they all held the Platonic
notion of the soul as a sort of second inner ethereal immortal man,
dwelling in a house or tabernacle called the body. Hence they most
frequently translate the Hebrew nephesh by '■'■ soul," meaning mostly
thereby their philosophical fancy. But in spite of their bias, they
are constantly obliged to translate the word by ''life," e.e., animal
life, because the word " soul," understood as they understood it, would
be wholly unsuitable. We, who understand by "soul" animal life, do
not care much, or at all, by which term it is translated ; but it is quite
a different matter with those who suppose the soul to be an immortal
entity or person. Hence our Platonic translators of the Scriptures
are constantly obliged to vary their translation: they are constantly
compelled to use the equivalent of " /</e," because "soul," in their
sense, was inadmissible. We will give an example of this. In
Proverbs xii. 10, we read, " A righteous man regardeth the life of his
beast. ^^* The word here translated "life" is that which is ordinarily
translated "soul." According to our views, it is perfectly immaterial,
whether it is here translated by "soul" or "life," seeing both mean
one thing. But not so with our Platonic translators. According to
them " the soul" was an immortal person, and beasts had no soul ;
and so they must needs here use the term " life." What they have
done here they have been obliged to do in numberless instances,
of which we give some below, f Despite their Platonic views, they
are compelled to give "animal life" as a true and proper sense for
that word which they generally translate by a term which they sup-
pose to mean something infinitely higher in meaning than ' ' animal
life." Just as if a word can be said to have^or its primary sense iy^o
meanings wholly different from each other ! But this violates the
laws of language. The secondary senses of words often depart
widely from the primary ; the primary sense is almost invariably one,
and certainly never allows of two contradictory meanings.
XII. We will now give some instances from Scripture, in order to
show that the primary and proper meaning of the Hebrew nephesh,
usually translated "soul," is animal life. We have an instance of
this in 1 Kings i. 12, when Nathan gives Bathsheba counsel how she
"may save her own life {nephesh) and the life of her son Solomon J^
This might just as well have been translated, " save her own soul,"
* Prov. xii. 10.
t 2 Chron. i. 11 ; Prov. i. 19 ; vi. 26 ; 1 Kings i. 12 ; Lam. ii. 19 ; Jonah i. 14 ; 1 Sam.
xxii. 23 ; Esth. vii. 3.
d2
86 THE SOUL OF MAN,
and shows us the simple sense of what is meant throughout Scripture
by the phrase *' to save the soul.^' Again in the book of Job, we read
of men, beasts, and fishes, that ' ' the soul of every living thing is in
the hand of the Lord," It is quite plain that here " animal life" is
meant by " the soul," for beasts and fishes have no other soul but
animal life. In the same way the heathen sailors, when about to
throw out Jonah into the sea, use the word nephesh as simply ex-
pressive of animal life, when they pray to God that they may not
''perish for this mail's life^ Further instances of this kind are
needless. The usage of Scripture shows beyond a question, that its
primary sense for " soul " is animal life.
XIII. Having for its primary sense the meaning of "life," the
Hebrew nej)hesh, or soul, comes naturally to signify the person who is
possessed of this life so long as he possesses it. No one, we believe,
doubts this sense, and we therefore content ourselves with giving
below references to some Scriptures in which it is so used.* From
this usage of the word it sometimes comes to signify a dead jjersoii ;
but this, we contend, is only done when the adjective " dead," is
joined to it.f Even in face of such authorities as Fiirst and Gesenius,
we more than doubt that the Hebrew nephesh, or soul, hy itself and
laiaccomjjaiiied hy a qualifying adjective, ever means a dead body or
corpse. Num. v. 2, and Levit. xxii. 4, are appealed to as instances
where it does, but we do not see our way to accept the interpretation.
As this, however, does not bear upon our present question, we will not
occupy our readers' time with its discussion. The view that nephesh,
or soul, does sometimes by itself mean a corpse, is against, not in
favour of, the theory we here contend against. "We only mention it
to express our opinion, which is that the Hebrew nephesh primarily
signifies "animal life," then readily comes to signify "a living
person," and finally comes, when accompanied by the adjective
" dead," to signify that person when dead.
XIY. We now pass on to consider the important question of the
mortality or immortality of the soul. Certainly this question, which
now agitates the mind of the Church, could never have arisen if men
had only learned their philosophy of human nature from the Bible.
Our theological and philosophical books are replete with arguments
for the immortality of the soul, but when we come to Scripture, we
fail to find a single passage which states it. Some may suppose it to
be inferred from certain passages, but no man, of all the men who have
read the Bible from beginning to end, can say that he has ever seen
it stated in Scripture that the soul is immortal. But this is not all.
The very opposite is asserted in Scripture of the souls of specified
classes of mankind. This we will now proceed to show.
XV. We will only draw particular attention to a few passages on
this subject. If we were to draw attention to all the passages of
* Gen. xlvi. 18 ; Ex. xii. 15 ; Lev. iv. 2 ; v. 15 ; vii. 27 ; Esth, ix. 31 ; Isa. xl vii. 14.
t Num. vi. C ; Lev. xxi. 11.
OR THE " NEPHESH " OF THE HEBREWS. 37
Scripture which tell us that the soul of man is mortal and dies, we
should swell a moderate volume into a folio. We will then draw our
readers' attention first to a passage in Leviticus, in which the death
of man and beast is spoken of in the very same terms, and in which
the death of both is said to be produced by the smiting or killing of
their souls. As is too usual, our translators have disguised the original
Hebrew from their Platonic predilections. The passage in our
Authorised Version runs thus : '* He that killeth any man shall surely
be put to death; and he that killeth a hea&t shall make it good."*
The English reader might pass over this as unimportant in the present
question, but a glance at the Hebrew shows it to be of great conse-
quence. The Hebrew is thus literally translated: " He that ^^Y/e^/i
the soul of a man shall surely be put to death, and he that killeth the
soul of a least shall make it good." Here the nature of death is
described. It is said, as in Eccles. iii. 19, to be the very same in man
as in beast; and it is also said to consist in killing the soul {nephesh)
of each. The mortality of the human soul is here taught, beyond
any question, by God himself, for the words are spoken by him. In
Deuteronomy xix. 6 we have a similar expression, so far as relates to
the death of man. The Hebrew words, which are in our version
translated " slay him," are literally " kill a soul."t Phrases of this
kind abound in the Hebrew Scriptures, but our translation hides the
expression from the English reader. | The Greek of the Septuagint
version will generally be found to carry out faithfully the expression
of the Hebrew, as does also, though not so commonly, the Vulgate
Version. Sometimes our translators allow the literal force of the
Hebrew to appear in our translations. Thus we read that Joshua
*' utterly destroyed all the soids^^ that were in the various cities of
Canaan taken by him. § And in Leviticus God himself uses the same
language : " Whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same
day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people." || We may
not in the face of such Scriptures deny the fact that in death the soul
is really and truly destroyed. Abraham's expression to Sarah, that
his ^^ soul should' live^' if she pretended to be his sister, implies his
belief that, if she did not, his soul ivould die.^ And the same truth
is fully brought out in the well-known wish of Balaam, when literally
translated, " let my soul die the death of the righteous."** In his
time of anguish. Job tells us that *' his soul chose death rather than
life," tt meaning plainly that the condition of unconsciousness in which
his soul then would be was preferable to living woe. The description
given by David of the condition of the soul when separate from the
body is a description which is utterly inconsistent with its possession
of any conscious life more than the body is possessed of in the grave.
* Lev. xxiv. 17, 18; Prov. vii. 23. || Lev. xxiii. 30.
t Deut. xix. 6. ^ Gen. xii. 13 : Jer. xxxviii. 17—20.
X Num. xxxi. 19 : Deut. xxii. 26 : xxyii. 25. ** Num. xxiii. 10.
f Josh. X. 28, 30. 39. tt Job vii. 15.
38
THE SOUL OF MAN,
His prayer to Grod is, ** Deliver my soul: oh, save me for thy mercies'
sake. For in death there is no rememhrance of thee : in Hades who
shall give thee thanks ?"* Here he describes the state of his soul in
Hades as, so far from being in any glorious or happy state, absolutely
as incapable of thanking God for anything as it is for the dead body
in the grave to remember former things. That the soul dies is inti-
mated in Proverbs and elsewhere, where it is said, that wisdom and
discretion are the preservation of its life.-f Job tells us that in death
the soul goes to the grave, \ an expression wholly inconsistent with
its continuing to live. In the thirty-third Psalm we are expressly
told that the souls even of God's people are exposed to death ; and in
another psalm that the soul " is not spared from death ;"|| while the
final end of the wicked in hell, which we know from the entire evidence
of Scripture to be the utter extinction of their entire being, is
described as the death of the sinful soul.§
XVI. Now what is to be said of passages such as we have referred
to, and which could be readily multiplied ten times over ? What do
they teach us as to the immortality of the soul ? Do they not with all
authority teach us that any such doctrine is a mere human conceit, to
be rejected, no matter what array of great names are paraded for it ?
Let us remember that we have in the Hebrew language no other word
but nephesh for that conception which we speak of as the soul. And
of this soul, this nephesh, Scripture tells us, in passages of every
variety of expression, that when man dies this soul of his dies with
him. Let us then suppose it to be what we will, yet this we must
accept, if we accept God's word, that the soul, which Plato tells us is
immortal in the case of every man, God tells us dies in the case of
every man. It does not survive the body : both together cease to
exist, to live together again when the spirit of life re-enters the body
and reproduces the soul within it.
XYII. And here we would particularly warn the upholders of the
scriptural truth of life and immortality only in Christ, to beware how,
by explaining away the natural force of the many Scriptures which
teach that the soul dies in the first death, they greatly weaken their
own argument when they come to insist that the second death means
the true and real extinction of the entire man. Scripture speaks of
it simply as death.^ If the first death is consistent with man's in fact
not dying, but continuing to live in regard of his most important
part, whose survival again may be supposed to imply the restoration
of the body to life, it seems plain that the common idea of the first
death militates gravely against our view of what is intended by the
second.
XYIII. A very important feature of onr inquiry, and one which
will not take us long to determine, is the locality of the soul during
* Ps. vi. 4, 5. • II Ps. xxxiii. 19 ; Ixxviii. 50.
t Prov. iii. 22 : Isa. Iv. 3: § Ezek. xviii. 27.
X Job. xxxiii. 22. H Eom. vi. 23 ; nil. 13.
OR THE " NEPHESH " OF THE HEBREWS. 89
the period of death, i.e., during that period, of whatever length, which
intervenes between the time a man dies and the time he rises from the
dead. With one unbroken voice, from beginning to end, the Old
Testament declares that the souls of all men, good and evil, are in a
place which it calls Sheol, and which the Septuagint and New Testa-
ment translate into the Greek equivalent of Hades. What Hades is
we will not now inquire, farther than to say that, beyond any doubt,
it is some place within this earth. In another chapter we will inquire
whether it is distinct from, or equivalent to, the grave. Such an
inquiry is as yet unnecessary. Here it is enough to say that the Old
Testament teaches us that all souls go on death to Hades, and that this
Hades is within the earth. We do not consider that it will be neces-
sary in proof of this to do more than refer, at the bottom of the page,
to some places of Scripture which affirm it.* Wc would merely warn
the English reader that, when he turns to these passages, he will find
a great variety of renderings which would perplex him if he was not
informed that they are one and all translations of the same Hebrew
word, Sheol, or of its synonym in Greek, Hades. The truth is, that
no reader of the Authorised Yersion can be more perplexed at this than
were the translators themselves. In their utter confusion of mind as
to the nature of Hades, they alternately translate it by " death," or
**the grave," or "hell," as the supposed exigencies of each case
required it. The result is that the English reader is utterly unable
to judge for himself in this important question. We earnestly hope
that the revisers of our translation will attend to this. As the invari-
able translation of the Hebrew Sheol in the Old Testament, we would
recommend its Greek equivalent. Hades. If this is not approved of,
we would suggest that the word Sheol may be left untranslated. It
will soon become a familiar word, and the English reader will be able
to judge from its use in Scripture what Scripture really intended him
to learn about it. But we would prefer the rendering of Hades, which
the New Testament authorises, f and which is its invariable rendering
in the Septuagint version.
XIX. There is undoubtedly a very intimate connection between the
soul of man and the spirit. We have already seen this from our exami-
nation of the creation of the living man by God, in Gen. ii. 7. It was
the inbreathing of the breath of life, i.e., of the spirit, which pro-
duced within man his soul, or made him become a living soul.
Soul had no existence in man until the spirit entered into him. Then
it was produced. While the spirit remains in man it is evident that
the soul continues : and equally evident it is that when the spirit
departs, the soul returns to its original non-entity. The existence
of the soul, as it was produced by the presence of the spirit, so must
always depend upon that presence. With the spirit it comes, remains
* Deut. xxxii. 22 : Jobvii.9; Ps. Ixxxix. 48 ; \i. 5;XYi. 10; Eccl ix. 10 ; Acts ii. 31 ;
1 Cor. XV. 65.
t Acts ii. 31.
40 THE SOUL OF MAN,
and vanishes. With the departure of the soul man ceases to be a
sentient being. He becomes like the clods of the valley. And thia
vanishing of the soul, and departure of all sense and thought from
man, is consequent essentially on God's taking back the spirit which
he gave. '' Man's breath or spirit," says the psalmist, " goeth forth :
in that very day his thoughts perish."*
XX. But while the close connection of the soul and spirit is as certain
a thing in the constitution of man, as it is in that of the lower creatures
of God, it is equally certain, and an important point to insist upon,
that soul and spirit are two perfectly distinct and distinguishable
things. Between the cause and its effect, while there is the closest
of connections, there is also a perfect distinctness. The heat which
sets fire to a barrel of gunpowder is distinct from the explosion
which it produces. There lay hid in the gunpowder, from the nature
of its composition by the manufacturer, a certain power or quality
which would for ever lie dormant unless a certain power, that of heat,
stimulated and brought out its latent quality. Just so with man.
God so made his bodily organisation of heart, and brain, and member,
that all possessed within them a latent capacity of certain action on
the application of a certain power, viz., the spirit. The application of
this produces this in man, i.e., calls forth within him his soul, or
makes him a living soul, capable of certain thoughts, feelings, actions.
Hence the moral responsibility lies, not with the spirit, but with the
soul, i.e., with the living man.
XXI. But close as is the connection between spirit and soul, they
are two distinct things. This will readily appear from the few
considerations following. When we were comparing the breath of
life with the spirit with a view to their identification, we saw how the
manner in which they were spoken of in the parallel clauses of Scrip-
ture poetry completely identified them, although the breath of life is
spoken of comparatively in but few places of Scripture. Now, while
both spirit and soul are mentioned in a very great number of places,
they are not once, that we are aware of, and we have, we believe,
examined every passage in which they occur, mentioned in such a
way. Again, throughout the entire of the Old Testament the Hebrew
word tiephesh, or soul, is never translated by ptieuma, or spirit, by the
Septuagint translators, but always by the word 2}syche, or soul, thus
showing that, in the judgment of the Septuagint translators, nephesh
and 2meuma, or soul and spirit, were two completely distinct things.
But this appears more strongly from the different things that are
spoken of them. The soul is very often identified in Scripture with
the blood, t language which is never used of the spirit. The soul, as
we have seen in this chapter, is said to be capable of death, and
actually dies, whereas nothing of this kind is ever said of the spirit.
Again : we have seen that in death the soul goes to Hades, while the
* Ps. cxlvi. 4.
t Gen. ix. 5; Lev. xyii. 11, 14 ; Pp.xciv. 21 ; Prov. xxviii. 17: Ps.lxxii. 14.
OR THE *'NEPHESH" OF THE HEBREWS. 41
spirit goes back to God, from whom it originally came. Again : we
are frequently told that the soul sins ; but this is language never used
of the spirit. For these reasons, to which others cotild be added if
they were at all required, we hold it as an indubitable truth of Scrip-
ture that the soul of man and his spirit are two essentially different
things. In ordinary theology they are perpetually confounded, but
never in the theology of the Bible. Divines and philosophers con-
stantly speak of their soul and their spirit as one and the same thing,
but this confusion is never seen in scriptural language. The Old
Testament, as we have seen, keeps them perfectly distinct, and we
will, in our next chapter, see that the New Testament observes a like
distinction. In human life they are intimately connected as cause
and effect. In man's death they are completely severed. ' It requires
a resurrection to another life to renew the dissevered connection.
XXII. Before we leave this chapter we will say a few words on a
scriptural phrase which is readil}' suggested to us throughout our in-
quiry, viz., what is it that the Scripture means by saving a soul ? The
ordinary explanation, we believe, is that it means restoring it to the
holiness which it has lost since the fall of man, and, as a consequence,
preserving it from a misery which, it is usually supposed, will be
eternal. Now, while we hold that the restoration of the soul of man
to holiness is an incalculable blessing, and absolutely essential to the
saving of the soul, we do not hold that it is what is meant by saving
the soul. The phrase has another and simpler meaning. To save a
soul is simply to save what is the equivalent of soul — a life. Man
was made to have an eternal life. He lost it by sin. His soul would
have lived for ever if he had not sinned. It dies because he has
sinned. But it may be saved out of and from this death ; and this is,
we believe, what Scripture means when it speaks of saving a soul
from death, or saving a soul alive. The Christian's repentance and
faith are not the life of the soul, but the way to that life. This life
eternal is promised as God's great reward to faith and obedience.
These fit a man for life and its true objects, as sin unfits him. When
the man is fit for life eternal, God bestows it upon him. The way
the believer walks here before his God is not his life, but the way to
his life; as Christ said, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way
that leadeth unto life^ To save a soul is to procure for it the eternal
existence which God placed within man's power when He made him,
and once more places within his power through the Gospel of Christ.
" What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his
own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?"
42 THE SOUL OF MAN,
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SOTJL OF MxiN, 0]R THE '' PSYCHE " OF THE NeW TESTAMENT.
I. We now proceed to see what the New Testament says of the soul
of man. Its term for soul is psyche. There is no doubt that the
nephesh or soul of the Old Testament is identical with the psyche of
the New Testament ; ^.e., that both terms are put for one and the
same idea when they refer to the soul as a constituent part of man.
The invariable translation of viephesh in the Septuagint version is
psyche ; and wherever in the New Testament a passage from the Old
Testament is quoted, or referred to, in which the word nephesh
occurs, it is translated by psyche* We therefore assume that the
psyche or soul of the New Testament is equivalent to the nephesh or
soul of the Old.
II. It is at once apparent of what advantage this is to us in the
prosecution of our inquiry. It enables us, even before we have
examined into the meaning of a single passage in which the word
psyche occurs, to affirm of it everything that we have already esta-
blished of the nephesh or soul of the Old Testament Scriptures. As,
for examples, that it is distinct from the spirit, that it means that
animal life which man shares in common with the brutes, that it is
mortal and dies when man dies, that during the entire state of death,
i.e., the period of time ending at the resurrection, it is in Hades, *.e.,
within the heart of the earth. All these things, established of the
nephesh or soul of the Old Testament, are also established of XhQ psyche
or soul of the New Testament for the simple reason that nephesh and
psyche mean one and the same thing.
III. An objection may, perhaps, be raised to this which, though it
has no real foundation, may yet operate with some minds against the
reception of truth. It is that the Greek 2^syche or soul had in the
Oreek language one uniform and established sense, which sense, there-
fore, must be supposed to be carried into the Septuagint and New Testa-
ment Greek ; and that consequently this uniform Greek sense of the
term is to be our absolute law in the interpretation of the Greek
phrase, and may even be taken as determining the sense of its
synonym nephesh in Hebrew instead of being determined by it. The
supposed uniform sense of the Greek ^Jsi/cAe or soul is by such object-
ors supposed to be an immortal principle or person within the body,
"whose existence is not at all affected by the destruction of the body.
lY. Now if the Greek had any such uniform and established
sense, we freely admit the tremendous power of the argument. It is
* Acts ii. 27, compared with Psalm xvi. 10; Eom. xi. 8, compared with 1 Kings xix.
10; 1 Oor. XV. 46, and Gen. ii. 7 ; Matt. xx. 28, and Isa. liii. 10.
OR THE ** PSYCHE " OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 43
one which we have ourselves used to determine the sense of the terms
of the New Testament relative to future punishment, and to which no
serious attempt at reply has ever been made.* But to suppose that
the same uniform sense is given to the term psyche or soul in the
Greek language that is given in it to its terms for destruction, corrup-
tion, perishing, dying, is only to exhibit an utter ignorance of the
variety of sense attributed in the Greek language to the term jJsyche
according to the philosophical or theological sentiments of the
speaker. Psyche, in the mouth of a Platonist, a Stoic, or an Epicu-
rean, schools which represent the universal sentiments of Greek
speakers and Greek thinkers, meant a totally different idea. It will
be sufficient for this purpose to quote a passage from Arnobius, a
Christian father of the third century, who was thoroughly conversant
with Grecian sentiment. " This one," he says, speaking of the condition
of souls, " thinks that they are both immortal, and survive the end
of our earthly life ; that one believes that they do not survive, but
perish with the bodies themselves ; the opinion of another, however,
is that they suffer nothing immediately; but that, after the form of
man has been laid aside, they are allowed to live a little longer, and
then come under the power of death." t Such were the widely
different ideas entertained of the soul by Grecian speakers. In the
mouth of a Platonist it meant a never-dying principle, more pro-
perly, person ; in the mouth of an Epicurean it did not mean a person
at all, but simply animal life which perished with the body ; in the
mouth of the Stoic it meant a principle or person of greater vitality
than the body, and which would therefore survive the body ; but
which was, after all, but mortal, and must, therefore, after a period
of survival, itself yield to death. It is quite evident, therefore, that
we come to consider the meaning of the Greek psyche or soul wholly
unfettered by any uniformity of sense attached to it in the Greek
language. It had no such uniform sense. Grecian thinkers were
wholly at variance with one another as to its meaning ; Grecian
speakers used it in senses wholly opposite to each other. In the
mouth of one speaker it meant a person or individual ; in the mouth
of another it meant a quality of a person : in the mouth of one it
meant what was immortal, and could never die ; in the mouth of
another it meant what was mortal and must die. AVe are free, then,
to examine the New Testament to see what is its view of the soul ;
we are free to assume that the sense attached to the nephesh or soul
of the Old Testament is that attached to the psyche or soul of the
New. The Grecian thinker was at fault upon the nature of the
soul : we may examine wholly independently of him what God is
pleased to tell us about it in His Word.
Y. We observed in our last chapter that the Old Testament attri-
* " The Duration, &c., of Future Punishment." Third Edition, chap. iv. Longmans
and Co.
t Arnobius. Adv. Gtentes. ii. 57. Ante-NIcene Library. Edinburgh: T. «& T. Clark.
44 THE SOUL OF MAN,
buted the possession of souls to the lower creatures as well as to man.
"We have now to remark that the New Testament does the same. In
Eevelation we are told that ''the third part of the creatures that
were in the sea and had Ufey^ literally, ^^ and had soids," " died."*
It does not matter at all for our argument whether the creatures here
spoken of be literally creatures living in the sea, i.e., fishes, or men
symbolised by such creatures. In either case the possession of souls
is attributed to the creatures themselves. Our translators have, to
some extent, disguised this by their translation of "life;" but the
Greek scholar will at once see the force of the original Greek, stronger
by being put in the plural than if it were put in the singular.
VI. This possession by the lower creatures of soul naturally leads
us to see, what we now will proceed to show, that the New Testament
means by soul that which the Old Testament signified by nejjhesh :
namely, animal life, that life which is possessed by every creature
that has existence, and which perishes when that creature dies.
VII. Such was the primary meaning of the Greek psyche or soul
in the Greek language. Thus, Liddell and Scott's Dictionary gives
us as the primary sense, " the breath, life, spirit, of man and
animals.''^ It came also, with the spread of the Platonic theory, to
convey the idea which this philosophy entertained of the psyche^
viz. — as an immortal principle within the body. That animal life is
its true sense in the New Testament appears in our authorised version
in spite of those strong Platonic prejudices which forced our transla-
tors to suppress this fact as much as possible. Let it be remembered
that the English word " soul" is that which Platonic theorists prefer
to "life " as the translation o? psyche, as conveying from usage better
that idea which they attach to the Greek psyche. Yet in spite of this
strong prejudice, which led them as frequently as possible to translate
psyche by soul, out of ninety-eight places in which the Greek jJsyche
occurs, and is translated either by soul or life, they have been com-
pelled to translate it " life " in no less than forty-one places, because
" soul" — meaning by soul their sense of it — would be in those places
wholly inadmissible. Nor will it be thought out of place in this
inquiry that in the Gosjjels, where our Lord's words are recorded, our
translators have been compelled to translate psyche by "life" in
twenty-four places, while they have translated it by " soul " in only
twenty places.
VIII. Now what is the force of this fact ? A certain Greek word,
psyche, occurs in the New Testament a certain number of times. The
translators of that New Testament had two different meanings in
their minds for this word ; one of those meanings was " animal life,"
such as all living creatures have : another was ' ' an immortal prin-
ciple," which they supposed to exist within man, and which they
called by the word " soul." Their strong prejudice led them as fre-
quently as possible to suppose that psyche was put for the supposed
* Eey. viii. 9.
OR THE "psyche" OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 45
immortal principle ; and yet with all their prejudices they are com-
pelled to acknowledge by their translation of it, that in very nearly
half the places where it occurs in the New Testament, it cannot by
any possibility be supposed to mean the immortal principle ; while,
as used by Christ Himself, they are forced to confess that in the
majority of instances He cannot be supposed to have intended by the
2isyche an immortal principle in man. Surely such a confession,
coming from such a source, is argument of no weak nature that
''animal life," and not an "immortal principle," is the true and
proper sense for psyche in the New Testament.
IX. But we must examine a little closer into this matter. We
affirm that, whatever be the meaning of the Greek psyche in the New
Testament, it should certainly have one uniform meaning throughout
that New Testament whenever it is used as descriptive of a consti-
tuent part of human nature. We do not deny that it may have,
when thus used, different translations ; but we contend that those
different translations should be taken as expressive of one and the
same idea. We find no fault with the word being sometimes trans-
lated "soul" and sometimes "life;" but then we do insist that
"soul" and "life" should mean one and the same thing. To sup-
pose the word psyche to have two different senses when spoken of as
an important constituent part of human nature, and that we are
sometimes to take it in one of these senses and sometimes in another,
when the New Testament itself does not hint that it is to be differently
understood, — that we are to mix up and alternate their senses just as
we please, is, to our minds, to interpret the language of God's Word
as we would not dare to interpret any book of man.
X. Let us take an example. Plato has written a book, his Phaedo,
upon the nature of the psyche or soul of man. This word 2^syche
occurs in a great number of jjlaces throughout this book. He affirms
and denies a great many things of this psyche. What would be
thought of an interpreter of Plato who would venture to give to this
important word of Plato two entirely distinct senses, and attribute
now one sense and now another to the word, without the smallest in-
timation from Plato that he ever used the word in different senses.
What, I say, would be thought of an interpreter of Plato, who would
say that in one paragraph Plato used it in one sense, and in another
paragraph that he used it in another, while Plato himself never hinted
anything of the kind ? What would be thought of the interpreter of
Plato who would in otie sentence of Plato take this word in one sense,
and in the very next sentence take it in a quite different sense, although
Plato himself was proceeding in one unbroken line of argument ? We
confidently say that such an interpreter would be dismissed with con -
tumely as assuming a task for which he had shown himself utterly
unworthy, and held up to scorn as introducing a principle of inter-
pretation which would throw into utter confusion all human thought.
This principle of interpretation, which would be rejected in the case
46 THE SOUL OF MAN,
of a commentator or translator of Plato, or any human author, is the
very principle which the translators of our authorised version of God's
Word have gone upon, and hitherto without rebuke. Against it we,
for one, raise our voice.
XI. A translation is to a considerable extent a commentary. When
any word is capable of two different translations, and one is chosen
rather than another, then the translator puts his comment upon the
original. A translation is of all commentaries the most subtle. The
reader fancies he is reading the words of the author when he is, per-
haps, reading the words of the translator, putting into the author's
mouth sentiments he never felt. It is on this account that, of all
tasks that can be assumed by any man, the office of translating Grod's
Word is the most responsible. We will show our readers how our
translators have treated the words of Christ when he speaks of the
human soul.
XII. They have done what, we affirm with little danger of contra-
diction, no translator of any human author would dare to do. Christ
speaks often of the psyche, the soul pf man. He teUs us of its value :
how it may be saved: how it may be lost. This psyche of man is
ever in his thoughts, for it was to save it he came into the world.
And yet our translators have in the various discourses and warnings
of Christ translated ilih psyche by two different words which, in their
estimation, and so used for this very reason, convey two different and
opposite ideas, — viz., "life," i.e. animal life; and "soul," z.e., an
immortal principle. Now we say that throughout the Gospels there
is no intimation given that our Lord ever uses this important word
in such different senses ; and that to use it thus differently is to do
as great violence to his language as to attribute two different senses
to the same term in the Phsedo of Plato. But there are instances in
which this is done of so flagrant a character that we venture to say
that no scholar will now stand up and defend them. To some of these
we will now draw attention.
XIII. We will first draw attention to Matt. xvi. 25-6, which runs
thus in our authorised version : ' ' Whosoever will save his life shall lose
it ; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For
what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his
own soul ? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soid f "* In
these two verses, which follow one another, and in which one consecu-
tive argument is followed out by Christ, "life" in the twenty-fifth
verse is given by the translators as expressing a different idea from
" soul " in the twenty- sixth. The one is given as expressive of
animal life ; the other as expressive of an immortal principle. And yet
will it be believed by the English reader that the very satne Greek
word, psyche, stands for " life " in verse 25, and for " soul " in verse
26 ? Yet so it is. It is surely apparent that our Lord means the
same thing by this word in these two consecutive sentences of a con-
* Matt. xvi. 25, 26.
OR THE *' PSYCHE " OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 47
secutive argument. Why, then, did not the translators use the same
word in translation? Because a miserable philosophical theory of
theirs about the soul forbade them. They could not give the true
natural translation, that which must have struck them as obvious,
without contradictirig Plato. We will show this. We will suppose
them to translate verse 25, giving there the word " soul " as in verse
26 : *' Whosoever will save his soul (his immortal principle) shall lose
it : and whosoever will lose his soul (his immortal principle) for my
sake, shall find it." Every one will see such a translation would be
impossible to men imbued with the Platonic theory. For, according
to them, "to save a soul" is not to preserve it from destruction or
annihilati'on ; since, according to their theory, the soul cannot suffer
such. To " save a soul" is, with them, to turn from sin to God, and
so avoid the punishment of hell ; and this they cannot deny that
every one should do, and is commanded to do. Hence Scripture
and their own knowledge of it forbids them to translate psyche
by *' soul" in verse 25, because they mean by " soul" an immortal
principle in man. But their own theory forbids them to translate it
by "life" in verse 26 ; for so translated, their theory would be con-
tradicted. Thus translated it would run thus : '' For what is a man
profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life ? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his life ?" This translation,
we see, is forbidden by their own theory, for it would teach us the
folly of those who have in this life prolonged their life by the denial
of Christ, and even gained all that this world has to give ; but who,
in the scene of coming retribution after the judgment will lose their
physical life which they had here prolonged. The Platonic theory
forbids the idea that physical life will be lost in the scene of future
retribution ; and hence the translators were forced to translate psyche
in verse 26 bv " soul," meaning thereby an immortal principle whose
immortality forbids the idea of its extinction ; and hence forces upon
the word "lose," and the phrase "lose his soul," an unnatural and
absurd interpretation.
XlY. We defy any man to contend that psyche should have two
different meanings in verses 25 and 26. We assume, then, that it
cannot mean physical life which may be terminated in verse 25, and
an immortal existence which cannot be terminated in verse 26. We
say that we must choose which of these two senses it is to bear in
loth places. We conclude that as no one can maintain it to mean an
immortal principle in verse 25, butthat it must mean there physical life ;
so it must mean physical life in verse 26. So translated the verses are
harmonious and reasonable. " Whosoever will save his life shall lose
it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For
what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his
life ? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his life ?"
XV. We will now give another example of the violence done to the
translation of the word psyche by the Platonic views of our trans-
48 THE SOUL OF MAN,
lators. In Luke xii. 19-23 the word psyche occurs five times. In
verses 19 and 20 it is translated by *' soul," in verses 22 and 23 it is
translated by *'life." Now whoever reads this passage will see that
it forms one consecutive argument. In verses 16-21 our Lord utters
the parable of the rich man : from the 22nd verse he proceeds to draw
the lesson deducible from it. The ''therefore" of the 22nd verse
connects the entire passage. No one then can suppose that when he
speaks of the psyche three times in verses 19 and 20, and then pro-
ceeds to speak twice of this same psyche in verses 22 and 23, he means
by it two different things. But, as no one can contend that in verses
22 and 23 the word can mean an " immortal principle," they must
needs confess that it cannot mean such an immortal principle in verses
19 and 20. The translation of psyche^ therefore, in these latter verses
should be "life," as it is rendered inverses 22 and 23; or, if we
prefer the word *'soul " throughout, we must at least confess that it
means simply and only physical life.
XVI. These instances are sufficient to show us two things. First,
the injurious influence which the Platonic theory has had upon our
authorised version of the Scriptures ; 2nd, that the word psyche has
evidently, when spoken of a constituent part of human nature, one
uniform meaning. We do not contend that it must always be
translated by one and the same word " life ;" though we think that
such translation would bring out the sense of the original perhaps
the most clearly. "We have no objection to the old familiar word
" soul." But what we do most solemnly protest against is such
translation as our authorised version is not seldom guilty of, namely,
in sentences and consecutive arguments giving to this word psyche two
different translations, as though in these consecutive seatences it
meant two different ideas, when it is plainly put for one and the
same. We attribute no moral blame to our translators for this. They
must have seen the violence they were doing to language. But
they had firmly fixed in their minds a philosophical theory of the in-
alienable immortality of the soul, which they never dreamed of
questioning ; and hence this supposed truth forced them to do a
violence to language of the grossest kind. But now, when we are
promised a revised version of Scripture, and when the old Platonic
theory of immortality no longer passes unquestioned, we solemnly
call upon those learned and good men who have undertaken a much
needed office, to see that they do not allow any philosophical predilec-
tions to cast upon their revised version the grievous slur they have
brought upon King James's Bible. If they do, the Scriptures will
require to be revised again. We now turn to resume our view of
what is the tcue meaning of psyche in the New Testament, and will
proceed to show that it means there a mortal and perishable thing.
XVII. What we mean here by saying that the soul of man is mortal
is not that it is doomed to die at the second death in the case of the
wicked, but that it dies and perishes in the case of every man at the
OR THE ** PSYCHE " OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 49
period of natural death in this world. Of course, we hold that the
souls of the wicked will die eternally in the punishment of hell. But
what we here maintain is this, that Scripture teaches us that the
result of the first death is the death of the soul of every man, redeemed
or unredeemed. Between its death at these two periods there is no
difference as to the actual condition, while there is the grand, essential
distinction as to the time in which this condition endures. The soul
of the believer dies at the first death a true and real death ; but it
has the pledge and the promise of an eternal life. Hence, while it is
truly dead until resurrection, as to its actual condition, it is truly
alive as the heir of immortality. Hence, while it is destroyed for
time, it is indestructible for eternity. But, so far as regards the entire
intermediate state which commences when the believer dies, and ends
when he rises from the grave, we maintain that the New Testament
teaches us that, during this state, the soul of every man is in the
state of death, is dead, has no existence. To God it then lives : in
His mind and purpose it has, from the moment it chose Christ, an im-
perishable life : but in submitting to that death which is the penalty
of original sin, the soul of every man suffers an actual and positive
death so long as the state of death lasts and is in force.
XVIII. One text which teaches us this very plainly is Mark iii. 4,
where our Lord asks His enemies, **Is it lawful to do good on the
Sabbath day, or to do evil? to save a soul or to hill it f^ Here, as
was their wont in cases of the kind, our translators give us the trans-
lation of ''life " for psxjche, but still it is of this psyche that our Lord
here speaks. To prolong life is, in His mind, to save the psyche ; to
end litb is, in His mind, to kill the psyche. Hence, if we will believe
the words of Christ, the psyche of man, which, whether we translate
it by ''soul" or "life," is the same thing, is hilled when natural
death is inflicted by one man upon another. And hence we see that,
so far from its being impossible to kill a soul or psyche, it is a thing
which is continually done by man to man, and actually happens
whenever death takes place. Our Lord teaches ns the same truth in
Luke ix. 54-6. James and John, angry with the Samaritans who
refused to receive their Master, proposed to call down fire from heaven
to consume them. Our Lord rebuked with the words, " Ye know not
what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to
destroy men^s lives {or souls, ^jsyche), but to save them." Hence,
according to Christ, the first death is the destruction of the psyche, i.e.,
of the soul of man. Such was the common sentiment of the apostles
and other early Christians untainted with the philosophy of Plato.
In sending Paul and Barnabas to the Church of Antioch, they
describe them as men who "had hazarded (e.e., put into danger of
destruction) their lives'' or souls {psyche).* So far from thinking
the psyche or soul of man to be that invulnerable immortal prin-
ciple which the Platonic philosophy teaches, they knew it to bo
* Acts XV. 26.
50 HADES, OR THE '*' SHEOL " OF THE HEBEEWS,
open and exposed to death. So lie also teaches when he quotes
the sad words addressed by Elijah to God, "I am left alone, and
they seek my life,''^ or soul {psyche).* So far from thinking the
psyche inaccessible, both Paul and Elijah agreed in thinking it
exposed to the attacks of men to kill and to destroy it. John
teaches us the same truth in the book of Revelation, where, from
the adjective *' living," attached to the Greek ^:>s?/c72e, our unfortunate
translators were unable to avoid the use of the word <* soul," which,
in every similar case where they could help it, they have scrupulously
shunned. '"'• Every living soul died in the sea.^' Here we are told
that in natural death the soul dies, and this expression is all the
stronger from having the adjective ^'living" attached to " soul."t
Once more, John tells us plainly that all souls, whether of the
righteous or the wicked, after death cojitinue without life until the
resurrection. In Rev. xx. 4, he tells us that, in the prophetic vision
of the future with which he was favoured, he saw '* the souls of them
that were beheaded" in a living state. He goes on, in verse 5, to
speak of other souls. He tells us that these latter ''did not live
again " until after a certain period. Hence we gather of the former
that they had been raised to life, i.e., had been without life, in a con-
dition of death, until their resurrection. J These passages of Scripture
taken from every part of it, giving us the inspired utterances of our
Lord and His apostles, teach us that the psyche of man, whatever
translation we choose to give it, whether we call it " soul '' or ''life,"
does truly and really die and suffer destruction when the first death
takes place. The p>8yche of man is mortal, and dies in the case of
every man.
CHAPTER IX.
HADES, OR THE " SHEOL " OE THE HEBREWS.
I. "We now proceed to a very important part of our inquiry, viz.,
the nature of that state or place which is called, in the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, Sheol. Throughout this chapter we will call it Hades. Hades
is a name more familiar to our ears than Sheol, and of the identity of
the two terms in meaning there can be, and we believe is, no doubt.
The Greek translation of the Septuagint invariably renders Sheol by
Hades. In the quotation of passages from the Old Testament into
the New, where the word Sheol occurs in the former, it is always
translated Hades in the latter.^ It had been well if our translators
had observed the uniformity of translation of which the Septuagint
Version set them the example. In their utter confusion of ideas,
* Rom. xi. 3. % Ecv. xx. 4, 5.
t Rev. XV). 3. § Acts ii. 27, 31 ; Psalm xvi. 10.
IL\DES, OR THE " SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS. 51
however, on this whole question, produced by their adoption of the
Platonic ideas of death and the soul, they have given to the Hebrew
word Sheol such a variety of translation as has effectually prevented
the English reader of the Old Testament from being able to form any
opinion as to what the Old Testament really teaches. The Hebrew
Sheol has been translated by them '' hell," '' the grave," '' the pit,"
just as they, in the utter confusion of their thoughts, supposed best.
The result has been a confusion of thought upon this question which
seems all but impossible to remove. We trust the revisers of our
translation will attend to this very important point. We would sug-
gest Hades as the invariable translation of Sheol. Our translators
surely need not scruple to follow the example which has been set them
by the inspired writings of the New Testament. It is true that the
word Hades is associated in our minds with the pictures drawn by
Homer, Virgil, and the Greek tragedians, but we venture to say that
the only result of making Hades a prominent word in the Old Testa-
ment will be to show how utterly different a description God gives of
it from that which has been drawn by heathen writers. If our
revisers should object to the term Hades, which we fancy they will be
compelled to use in their revision of the New Testament, their next
best way, in our judgment, would be to give us the Hebrew term
Sheol itself untranslated. It will soon become a familiar word. The
English reader will then be able to see for himself how it is under-
stood and used in Scripture. If it has but one sense, he will be able
readily to ascertain this sense. If it have several senses, the usage
of Scripture will enable him to see for himself what they are. We
respectfully call upon our revisers not to perpetuate the confusion of
thought which the present variety of translation has introduced.
*'Hell" is a word all but universally associated with the place of
future punishment, and is a most unsuitable translation for this
reason. Suitable as we ourselves think " the grave " is for its trans-
lation, yet Christian thinkers are by no means agreed on this, and
therefore we do not ask for it. " The pit " is an expression to which
it is difficult to attach any definite meaning. It may stand for any-
thing we choose to imagine. Let us then have the translation which
God has given it already, and call it Hades. If not, let us have the
word Sheol itself untranslated. We will here merely inform our
readers that we invariably use the word Hades as the equivalent for
Sheol, and that whenever we use Hades they are to understand that
the Hebrew Sheol is spoken of.
II. The locality of Hades is a matter easily decided. It is, beyond
a doubt, a place and condition within this earth of ours. It is always
spoken of agreeably with such an idea. One distinct reference to its
locality places this beyond a question. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
have headed a rebellion against the authority of Moses in the
wilderness. Moses appeals to the mode of death which these men
were to die as deciding that God was on his side and against them.
e2
bZ HADES, OK THE *' SHEOL OF THE HEBREWS.
He said, **If the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her
mouth, and swallow them up, and they go down alive into Hades ;
then ye shall understand that these men have sinned against the
Lord." According to the appeal of Moses was the issue of this most
strange matter : "the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them
up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah,
and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went
dotvn alive into Hades and the earth closed upon them.'''' * This one
passage decides the question. Our authorised version obscures the
thing to the English reader by translating Sheol ^Hhe pit;'" but
the original Hebrew is Sheol, and we therefore are here told by Moses
that Sheol or Hades is within this earth of ours. Every other of the
very numerous passages in the Old Testament only confirms this
view : not a single passage can be quoted that is even apparently op-
posed to it. It would therefore be mere waste of time to spend further
labour upon this point. Hades is situated within the crust of this,
earth. Our further inquiries will only confirm our view.
III. There can be no question that to this Hades, this place and
state within our earth, the Old Testament teaches that all souls go in
death. Of course throughout this chapter we speak only of the time
antecedent to the resurrection of Christ, when, according to some, a
very important change was made in the intermediate state of believers.
But of that period of time which preceded the resurrection of our
Lord, there can be no doubt that the Old Testament taught that all
souls went during it to Hades. A few texts will be sufiicient to show
this. The Psalmist affirms it of the soul of every man whatsoever, in
these words, — " What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death ?
Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of Hades l?"t Here, as usual
with our translators, the EDglish reader is mystified by the transla-
tion '' the grave " in the authorised version. In the older translation
of the Psalms retained in the Book of Common Prayer, the translation
is " hell.'" The Hebrew word however for these varying translations
is Sheol, i.e., Hades, and the text tells us that the soul of every man
without exception goes at death into the hand of Hades. The truth
expressed by David, speaking in the person of Christ, that his ** soul
should not be left in Hades, shows us also that the soul of our blessed
Lord, and by undoubted inference the souls of all men (for the history
of Christ's humanity, with the exception of his miraculous concep-
tion, is the history of our common humanity) are in Hades during the
state of death. J The soul could not be delivered from a place in which
it was not previous to its deliverance.
IV. But not only does the Old Testament teach us that the soul of
every man goes in and during death to Hades, but it also teaches us
that man himself as a person or individual, goes in death to Hades,
Passages affirming this are very numerous : we will content ourselves
with quoting a iew of them. Job teaches it in these words, *' As the
* Numb. xvi. 30, 33; Deut. xxxii. 22. f Ps. Ixxxix. 48. X Ps. xvi. 10; xlix. 15.
HADES, OR THE '' SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS. 53
cloud is consumed and vanislieth away : so he that goeth down to
Hades shall come up no more : " and again he says, speaking of the
wicked, " they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go doivn
to Hades."* Again the Psalmist teaches us this when, speaking of
the foolish, he says, " like sheep they are laid m Hades ; death shall
feed on them."t And, once more, Jacob expresses his faith that in
death he would himself go there, and that it was not merely for the
wicked it was ordained, when, on hearing of Joseph's disappearance,
*'he refused to be comforted, and said, ^^ I will go down into Hades
unto my son mourning." f We thus see it to be the teaching of the
Old Testament that every soul of man, and every man himself, goes
to Hades and remains in Hades during the period of death.
V. Again, as we have learned so many useful lessons about our-
selves from the lower creatures of God's hands, so now we learn
another lesson from them relative to Hades. It is what will doubt-
less surprise and considerably shock our Platonising divines, namely,
that not only do men go on death to Hades, but that beasts also on
death go there ! We saw before that the lower creatures are possessed
of a spirit of life from God, which on death goes back to God, just as
does that of man : we now will see that on this dissolution happening
the beasts themselves go to that very Hades to which man himself is
consigned. This startling fact, so abhorrent to Plato and his Christian
disciples, is, however, told us in that Word of God which we see to
be perpetually teaching us a physiology of man of a kind totally un-
like that of Plato. We cannot of course expect to find many pas-
sages of a nature such as this, nor could we expect even one whose
object it is to teach us a truth of the kind. The expression comes in
incidentally, just as we should expect, when speaking of another sub-
ject of more importance. It is not, however, the less valuable for
that. The passage to which we refer is one already quoted, where
the Psalmist, speaking of foolish men in their death, says, " like
sheep they are laid in HadesJ'^ Our authorised version translates,
"like sheep they are laid in the grave :^^ the earlier version in the
Book of Common Prayer translates " they lie in the hell like sheep ;"
but here we have it affirmed that sheep are in Sheol, i.e., in Hades, as
well as men.
YI. We will next draw our readers' attention to the fact that Hades
is always spoken of in the Old Testament as a place of death. The
ordinary Platonic theology tells us that the grave, the receptacle of
the body, is a place of death, but that Hades, the receptacle of dis-
embodied souls, is a place of life. Denying that the soul in death
dies or perishes : holding that it retains"^ a perfect life, susceptible of
every thought that we now have, even beyond its power here suscep-
tible of joyous or painful emotions, and in the case of the redeemed
enjoying a happiness greater by far than it had ever experienced in
this age or world, they hold, and must needs hold. Hades to be a land
* Job vii. 9 ; xxi. 13. f Pa. xlix. 14. t G^en. xxxvii. 35. § Ps. xlix. 14.
54 HADES, OR THE " SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS.
of life. For all, good and bad, they must hold it to be a land of the
living ; while, with their ideas of what life in its most true and proper
sense means, viz., well being and happiness and holiness, they must
in the case of redeemed souls hold Hades to be pre-eminently a land
of life. Where there is no sin — where there is no sorrow — where
peace and happiness are enjoyed, and even a brighter existence is
looked forward to with hope and assurance, is most assuredly and
unquestionably a land of life. Compared with it this present earth,
even in its happiest aspect, is a vale of tears. Accordingly the very
names which common theology attach to that part of Hades where the
righteous souls are supposed to dwell apart from the wicked fully
carries out their idea of it. Two of those names are ^^ Paradise,''''
and ^^ Abraham'' s Bosotn.^^ Paradise is a land of life: Abraham's
Bosom is a land of life. And thus it is clearly seen that whatever
ideas they may attach to the supposed division of Hades, where they
locate wicked souls, that part of Hades where they locate righteous
souls must be truly and pre-eminently a land of life.
YII. But is it ever thus spoken of in the Old Testament ? "We
leave out of view here the case of wicked souls. It might well be
that it would be only in gloomy terms that Scripture would speak of
their locality. So we will leave them out altogether. But righteous
souls, and righteous men, are in Hades as well as they. Now does
Scripture ever once speak of Hades in connection with them as a land
of life ? Never. Not so much as once. We call upon our Platonic
divines to produce a single passage of the Old Testament which does.
We know of course that there is here and there a poetical image, as
Isaiah xiv., where those in Hades are said to perform the acts of living
men. To all such we will apply ourselves by and by. If we do not
mistake, every such passage speaks of the wicked and not of the
righteous. But what we do say is this, that every passage of the Old
Testament that speaks without poetical figure of Hades in relation to
believers, or describes the feelings of believers at their prospect of
entering upon the Hades state, speaks of that state and place as one
of death and not of life.
Yin. We will refer our readers to several passages of Scripture
which invariably connect the idea and mention of Hades with the idea
of death. We cannot, however, dwell upon these passages, and there
is no occasion for our doing so. The quotation of the passages will
probably in most cases suffice. Hannah, in her inspired song of
praise to God for the birth of Samuel, describes Ood as one who
'* killeth and maketh alive : who hringeth down to Hades and bringeth
up." Here, bringing down to Hades is equivalent to killing, as
bringing up from Hades is equivalent to making alive. Hannah's
idea of Hades was as a place of death and without life.* Again,
David gives us precisely the same as his idea of Hades in his own
case: *Hhe sorrows of Hades compassed me about; the snares of
* 1 Sam. ii. P.
HADES, OR THE " SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS. 55
death prevented me."* Hades in the first clause is given as his
equivalent for death in the second. This idea is frequently repeated
throughout the Psalms. Thus we read, '* 0 Lord, thou hast brought
7ip my soul from Hades : thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go
down to the pit." Bringing up from Hades is reckoned as identical
with keeping alive. Hades being reckoned a place of death. Again
we read, '* What man he that liveth, and shall not see death ? Shall
he deliver his soul from the hand of Hades V Death and Hades are
here equivalents.! So the idea runs throughout Scripture. In
Proverbs we are told of the strange woman, that " her feet go down to
death : her steps take hold on Hades ;" and again, " her house is the
way to Hades, going down to the chambers of death. "| The bride in
the book of Canticles speaks in the same strain: " Love is as strong
as death ; jealousy is cruel as Hades.^^^ Hades and death are
regarded as synonyms. So runs the idea as we go on through the Old
Testament to its close. Isaiah represents the scorners of Jerusalem as
saying, ^' We have made a covenant with death, and with Hades are
we at agreement. "II Death and Hades were, in their minds, one and
the same condition. And so Habakkuk speaks where he describes the
proud man as one * ' who enlargeth his desire as Hades, and is as
death. ^^^ Thus invariably and throughout the Old Testament, from
its earliest books to its close, is the idea of Hades and Death asso-
ciated and linked together as in truth one and the same idea. So far
is the Old Testament from describing Hades, or any division of it, as
the land of life, that it invariably describes it as the land of the
shadow of death.
IX. And hence the wail of the believer under the ancient dispen-
sation, when he contemplated his going into this dark, silent, lifeless
state of Hades, while he saw not with the Christian's clearness of
vision its dominion broken and its rule abolished in the resurrection
of Christ from its power and domain. Did David imagine he
would be alive in Hades ? No ; he knew that he would not. He
knew that when he went, as go, he knew, he must, to that land, he
went to a land of utter silence and of utter darkness. " In Hades,"
he said, in one of his inspired psalms, '* who shall give thee thanks?"**
He knew and tells us that not one would. Of all that innumerable
host of holy men who had passed out of this life and been gathered
together into Hades, he tells us that no note of praise could ascend
from the lips of a single one of them while there. Abel there uttered
no note of praise : Noah was silent • and Abraham, and Sarah, and
, Isaac, and Rebecca, and Moses the man of God, and Samuel, the
prophet of God, and even himself, the sweet singer of Israel, could
none of them praise the Lord. And was that a land of life where this
vast congregation of Saints were silent ? No. Hades was not a land
* 2 Sam. xxii. G. § Cant. viii. C. H Hab. ii. 5.
t Ps. XXX. 3 ; xlix. 14, 15 ; Ixxxix. 48 ; cxvi. 3, || Isa. xxviii. 15. ** Ps. vi. 5.
i Prov. V. 5 ; vii. 27.
56 HADES, OR THE " SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS.
of life. It was <' the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a
land of darkness as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death,
without any order, and where the light is as darkness."* "What,
think 3^ou, is that land ? Is it Paradise, or the Bosom of Abraham ?
X. It is the grave! It is no other land. To this Scripture brings
us at last. Our inquiries can reach no other goal. Have not our
readers come to this conclusion even before we bring a directer proof?
That place within this earth whither man, and man's soul, goes on
death, where the beast of the field goes when it lays down its life,
where man is dead and silent, where death reigns with unbroken
slumber, that place is no other than the grave. Yes: Hades is the
grave. It is the silent, invisible land to which God told sinful Adam
he must go when He said, " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return." We will show by and by further proof, though further
proof is surely not required.
XI. While on this question we must admit that lexicons of high
authority are against us. The Sheol of the Hebrews is both by
Fiirst and Gesenius described as " the region of ghosts,^'' while neither
of these eminent Hebraists give it the sense of ^Hhe graved Here,
however, we hold ourselves as just as capable of ascertaining the
meaning of Sheol as either Fiirst or Gesenius, or any other man.
The etymology of the word is uncertain, according to Gesenius ;
and if so, we can derive no help towards its meaning from those
cognate languages, with which we are sorry to say, we are unac-
quainted. According to Furst it is derived" from the Hebrew verb
Shahal, to dig, an etymology which, it is quite evident, points rather
to the grave, which men do actually dig and hollow out, than to any
supposed region within the earth, wholly inaccessible to the research
of man. If, as seems to us not at all improbable, it is derived
from the Hebrew verb Shaal, to ask, it is also evident that
such an etymology is quite suitable to the sense of ''the grave,"
which we put upon it, that hungry grave which is never satisfied,
and never has enough, but is gathering to itself generation after
generation of mankind. But whatever we suppose of the etymology
or want of etymology of this word Sheol, it is quite plain, that to
the Hebrew Scriptures alone we can look for its sense. It here occurs
quite often enough to be able to ascertain its sense, and we will take
its sense from no other source, neither from lexicographers who may
have been misled as to its meaning by philosophical opinions of their
own, nor from Gentile fables about Pluto and Orcus and the Shades,
nor from Jewish tales gathered from heathen sources, or generated by
the natural superstition of the human mind. To the Old Testament
and its usage alone we appeal to know what God meant by the
word Sheol, a word in constant use from the opening of the Bible to
its close.
XII. Indeed, we think that what lexicographers opposed to our
* Job. X. 22.
HADES, OR THE *' SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS. 57
view tell us is the proper meaning of Sheol, or Hades, in the Old
Testament, tells strongly in our favour. "We refer here to the lexicon
of Gesenius. It will be remembered that we hold Sheol to be a land
of death, and to be equivalent to the grave : Gesenius on the contrary
holds it not to be the grave, but to be a land of living ghosts. Yet how
does this eminent authority, after his careful examination of this impor-
tant word in Scripture, define it ? Here is his definition : '' Sheol," he
tells us, * ' is the Hades of the Hebrews ; in which thick darkness
reigns, and where all men after death live as ghosts, without thought
or sensation.^^ To us this appears perfect nonsense. AVe deny
wholly that a thing which has neither " thought nor sensation " has
aiiimal life at all. To affirm animal life of that which has neither
thought nor sensation is to make life equivalent to death. But the
important thing here is the fact that Gesenius tells us that, according
to the usage of Scripture, those who are in Sheol, or Hades, are devoid
of thought a?id sensation. This is really all that we contend for. To
our minds the man that is devoid of thought and sensation is dead.
This Gesenius allows to be the case of all in Hades. If he likes to
call this thoughtless, senseless state, a living state, of course he can
do so. It is for him or his followers to justify this use of language,
which certainly is not justified in any of our standard English lexicons
with which we are acquainted. To our minds to say that a man who
is "without thought or sensation" is a living man is the same as
saying that sweet is bitter, or round is square. We claim Gesenius
as really on our side when he affirms of everything in Hades that it
is ' ' without thought or sensation." When he also affirms of it that it is
alive, we make bold to say that he uses the word alive in a non-
natural sense.
XIII. The frequency with which Sheol, or Hades, is translated by
" the grave " in our authorised version is a strong argument in favour
of its being the true sense.* So far from having, as some suppose,
a strong prejudice in favour of this translation they had a very strong
prejudice against it. With their ideas of the immortality of the soul,
of the nature of the soul as a true personality existing after bodily
dissolution, they had a very strong feeling leading them to suppose that
place where they knew that all souls, at least in the Old Dispensation,
went on death to be a land of the living. They were most unwilling
with this leading idea of theirs, which they must guard as much as
possible from intrusion, to identify the Hades whither the soul went
with the grave whither the body went. And yet here, as everywhere
in respect of their Platonic ideas. Scripture was every now and then
rudely breaking in on their sacred idea. The Hades which they
\vould fain confine to a place of departed ghosts, ethereal, yet full of
life and thought and sensation, they could not help seeing must some-
times he identified tvith that grave from which they would dissociate
it. And hence the fact that Hades, or Sheol, is very frequently tran-
* Job xxi. 13; xvii. 13 ; xxiv. 19; Gen. xxxvii. 35; xlii. 38; xliv, 29, 3] ; Pa. xxx. i.
58 HADES, OR THE '^ SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS.
slated ''the grave" in our authorised version is a very powerful
argument that such is its proper translation. We will now proceed
to show that such is its sense in Scripture.
XIY. We have shown in this chapter that not only is the soul of
man said in Scripture to go to Hades, but the man himself, the true
person, the I, the self, goes there. Now it is equally certain that the
man, the person, the I, is said in Scripture to go to the grave. Hades
and the grave must therefore be one and the same place, unless we
insist upon the absurdity and impossibility of there being two
persons or individuals in death, whereas there was but one in life.
Jacob went down to Hades : Jacob was buried in the grave of
Machpelah. Both propositions are true according to Scripture : both
are equally true. But from their truth it follows, as a matter of cer-
tainty, that Hades and the grave were one and the same. Whoever
disputes this must also be prepared to maintain that there were two
distinct individual Jacobs ! In life there was but one Jacob : death,
according to our Platonic thinkers, converted him into two. And
so they must say of every other person as they must say it of Jacob.
There were two Abels, one in Hades, the other in the grave : two
Woahs, the one in Hades, the other in the grave : two Abrahams,
the one in Hades, the other in the grave : and so on of every indi-
vidual who ever breathed the breath of life.
XY. We have also, to the astonishment and disgust no doubt of
our Platonic divines and thinkers, shown that according to Scripture
beasts go on death to Hades: fVhat is their Hades f Is there an
invisible nether world of ghost-animals ? Have we not only a nether
world where the ghosts of every man, woman, and child who has
ever lived are wandering about in possession of their ghostly life, but
have we also a nether world where are ghost elephants, and ghost
horses, and ghost sheep and dogs, &c., &c. ? The poor untutored
Indian is said in poetry to entertain the hope that perhaps his ghost
dog may bear his own ghost company into that ghost land where
there is the ghost elk, and bear, and buffalo, to be hunted by the
ghost Indian and his ghost dog ! Is the fancy of the American savage
after all the starting point for Christian theology ? But if this may
not be : if the Hades of the lower creatures must needs be the grave :
if their Hades state means their going back in death to be dust and
ashes as they once were : then Hades even for man must needs be
allowed to be that humbling grace which casts contempt upon our
pride, for we too shall lie in Hades even as they do !
XVI. Now this is the very thing which Scripture affirms of Hades.
We must call to mind the popular idea of Hades. It is then a ghost-
land, where ghost-men live, shadowy, unsubstantial : there are no
bodies of men, and no parts of human bodies, in this ghost-land.
Such cannot descend to Hades : Hades is not for them. But is such
the representation of Scripture ? We will see.
XYII. We will first draw attention to the full description of
HADES, OR THE ** SHEOL " OP THE HEBREWS. 69
Hades given by Job. It exhibits the primitive faith of well-
instructed and holy men as to the nature of Hades. Job's words are,
** If I wait, Hades is mine house ; I have made my bed in the dark-
ness. I have said to cornq)tion, thou art my father; to the tvonn,
thou art my mother and my sister. And where is now my hope ?
As for my hope, who shall see it ? They shall go down to the bars
of Hades, when our rest together is in the dust.''''* It is, we think,
utterly impossible to read these words without seeing that Job con-
sidered Hades and the grave identical. Our translators, compelled
to see it, have here translated Sheol by **^Ae //rare," and so pre-
vented English readers from judging for themselves Job's sentiments
on Sheol. But the Hebrew word is Sheol, and Sheol, or Hades, was
thought by Job to be the place where ''corruption" ruled, where
*Hhe worm" preyed upon the carcase, not a place where ethereal
ghost-men lived either in pain or joy. Job thought that Hades was
the grave.
XVIII. Hades, let us recollect, is, according to popular belief,
the land of ghosts, souls, or spirits, which are often supposed to be
the same as souls. Hades is never allowed, according to this popular
belief, to contain the bodies, or any part of the bodies of men. The
body, according to this belief, goes to the grave, the living, ethereal,
unsubstantial soul goes to Hades. The heathen poet Yirgil gives the
closest view that we know of as to the popular idea of Hades and the
righteous souls in it, when he describes the shades of his Elysian
Fields as ^' shajjes like the light tcinds, and as nearly as possible
resembling Jleeting dreatns.^-f No part of the gross body of our
humanity is ever supposed to go to the ghost-land of Hades. But is
this the view that the Old Testament gives us ? Not at all. The
Old Testament supposes that the bodies of men go on death to Hades.
We will give some instances of this.
XIX. Jacob is urged by his sons to send Benjamin down into
Egypt. He refuses, fearful of losing him as he had already lost
Joseph. He refuses in these words: "My son shall not go down
with you ; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone ; if mischief
befall him by the way in which ye go, then shall ye bring down my
grey hairs tcith sorroio to Hades." The same sentiment is twice
afterwards repeated in connection with this subject. J It was Jacob's
belief that his grey hairs, which we suppose is put for the entire
aged frame of the patriarch, would go on death to Hades ; i.e., he
identified Hades with the grave just as Job did. Popular belief does
not admit grey hairs, or any hairs, into its Hades. We will now see
what was the opinion of Moses. We have already referred to this
passage, and will therefore be brief on it. Moses pronounces the
doom of the Levitical rebels in these words : — " If the Lord make a
new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, and
they go doicn living into Hades." According to the doom pronounced
* Job xvii. 13—16. f iEneid, yi. 702. t Gen. xlii. 38 ; xliv. 29, 31.
60 "hades, OE the " SHEOL " OF THE HEBBEWS.
was its execution by God: "The earth opened her mouth, and they
went down living into Hades.''^* Here we see that Hades received
the bodies as well as the souls of the conspirators and their families.
And, moreover, the only unusual thing in this occurrence was that
Hades received them alive instead of, as was usual, dead. Hades,
according to Moses, received the dead bodies of all men ; only in the
case of these conspirators God made a new thing, and they went doivn
alive into Hades. We suppose that the faith of Job, of Jacob, and of
Moses represents the faith of primitive times, from those of Adam to
those of Moses : we suppose also that it represents the teaching of the
Old Testament, at all events of the Pentateuch. That teaching is
that Hades receives the bodies of men in death, and that Hades is
therefore identical with the grave.
XX. He would be a bold man who would undertake to show that
if Hades was identified with the grave in the Pentateuch it ceased to
be identified with it in the later Scriptures of the Old Testament, and
came there to represent a ghost-land of ghostly life, instead of the
place of the worm and corruption. Such a change would involve an
alteration of the very nature and constitution of man ; would alter
death from what it had been to something totally different : and we
would therefore require evidence of the very highest kind ere we
could possibly accept it. For, according to the teaching of the
Pentateuch, Hades was the grave, where was no life ; according to
the new supposition, Hades was not the grave, but was a ghost land
full of life. But so far from later Scriptures leading us to think that
they in any degree modify, or change, or improve the idea of Hades
given us by Job and Moses, those Scriptures only confirm and repeat
the primitive idea.
XXI. The materialistic idea of Jacob and Moses, that Hades re-
ceived the dead bodies of men, is repeated by David upon several
occasions. It is true that our authorised version hides this teaching
of the Psalmist from English readers by translating Sheol in these
places by "the grave." But when we tell them that in these passages
David speaks of Sheol, or Hades, they will see that the translation only
confirms our view that Sheol, or Hades, is indeed no other than the
grave. In one place, David, speaking apparently of the near approach
to death to which the plots of his enemies had brought him, says,
" Our bo7ies are scattered at the mouth of Hades,^^-^ His idea was
that the bones of the dead, i.e., their dead bodies, were consigned in
death to Hades. It was in his eyes no ghost-land where living shades
flitted, and mimicked the affairs of this life. In his eyes, as in those
of his predecessors. Hades was the grave. He expresses the same
sentiment in different language elsewhere. He is on his death bed,
and giving his parting advice to his son Solomon how he should deal
with men who deserved to die, and who were at heart inimical to the
establishment of Solomon on the throne. Speaking of Joab and of
* Nail., xvi. 30, 33. t Psalm cxli. 7.
HADES, OR THE ** SHEOL " OF THE HEBREWS. Gl
Shimei he counselled Solomon that he should not let their hoar head»
go down to Hades in peace^* The body as well as the soul went,
according to David, to Hades, i.e.. Hades was with him identical
with the grave.
XXII. Let us now turn to the grand parable of Isaiah, which is by
some supposed to teach us that Hades is the land of ghost-life, to
which ghosts carry the memories and the thoughts of life on earth.
As plainly as is possible, Isaiah here identified Hades with the grave,
and imagines the dead raised to life in order to utter God's doom upon
Babylon. He imagines the distinctions of this life transferred to
Hades, and kings sitting there on thrones as they had sat in those
royal palaces from which so many of them had been rudely ejected by
the conquering arms of the great Nebuchadnezzar. He puts words
of taunt and mocking into the mouths of these royal inhabitants of
Hades. But all this was imagery. All this was an inspired poet
creating one of the grandest odes that was overwritten, to cast contempt
upon the pride of Babylon, while yet its broad walls rose upon the
plains of Chaldea, and its strong gates opened to let forth the fierce
bands of conquerors who subdued the earth. But what was this
Hades to which the old kings had descended, to which Nebuchad-
nezzar and Belshazzar would one day descend ? It was the grave.
What is it which these kings are made to say to the king of Babylon,
and how do they describe their real condition? Thus: "Art thou
also become weak as we ? Art thou become like unto us ? Thy pomp
is brought down to Hades, and the noise of thy viols ; the worm is
spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.^'-f In the mind of
Isaiah, Hades was no other than the place where the worms revel on
the dead, i.e., it was no other place than the grave.
XXIII. We will draw attention to one other passage as showing
that it was the uniform faith of the Jewish prophets that their Sheol
or Hades was indeed no other than the grave. Ezekiel is describing the
overthrow of Egypt by the sword of Babylon, and its consignment,
together with that of other fallen peoples, to Hades. They are de-
scribed there as " speaking out of the midst of Hades. "J All through
this grand picture of the overthrow of once-mighty peoples, Hades is
described as no other than the grave, as containing within it all that
the grave contains of man and of his pride. Indeed, all through this
description by Ezekiel the very Hebrew word {keher), which is put
for the grave, and which is by our Platonic divines supposed to be
essentially distinct from Sheol or Hades, is expressly stated to be in
Hades. " Asshur is there [i.e. in Hades) and all her company; his
graves (Kibroth) are about him." (V^erse22.) The same expression
is repeated in verses 23, 24, 25, 26. And what is in this Hades of
Ezekiel ? All the multitudes of the slain in the bloody wars of these
ancient nations ; the sword with which they smote each other ; the
weapons of war with which they attacked or defended ; the bones
* 1 Kings ii, 6—9. t Isaiah xiv. lO.^ll. % Ezek. xxxii. 21—32.
62 HADE;3, OE THE " SHEOL OF THE HEBREWS.
which were all that remained when the pride of the warrior and his
pomp and his strength were suhdued by the stronger hand of death !
Are not these what go to the grave ? But according to Ezekiel they
went to Hades, ^.e., according to Ezekiel, there was no distinction
between Hades and the grave.
XXIY. We will only advert to one other consideration in order to
show that the Old Testament identifies Hades with the grave. The
Hebrew word Sheol is in the Old Testament identified with another
Hebrew word, Bor, usually, though not, we think, always, translated
^* the pit." The identification of these two words is seen from passages
in various places. One is that of Isaiah: "Thou shalt be brought
down to Hades, to the sides of the pit. ^'^ Here Hades and the pit are
plainly identical. "We refer below to other passages which establish
the same identity.* The primary meaning of this word Bor is a
cistern hewn out for the reception of rain water. It hence came to
signify a prison where criminals are confined. And it also came to
signify as Fiirst renders it, '' the pit in which the dead are laid up,
the sqjulchre." We must not weary our readers' attention with any
minute examination of the passages which establish that the Old
Testament, when it uses this word of the place where the dead are,
does not use it for any Grhost land of living souls, but for the grave.
" I am counted," says the Psalmist, "with them that go down into
the pit, I am as a man that hath no strength. Free among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave.^^f Here Bor, the pit, is used as
identical with the grave. A similar conclusion will follow from the
examination of the passages to which we refer below. J
XXY. We have established then, beyond any question, the fact
that the Old Testament, so far from holding Hades to be a land of
life of any kind or for any part of man, holds it to be a land of dark-
ness, and silence, and death. Heathen poets and tragedians amused
their fancies by pictures of Elysian fields within this earth, where
the souls of the blessed dead sought relief from the tedium of exist-
ence in occupations as like to those of earth as their disembodied con-
ditions would permit of. Something of what Plato sought vainly to
establish by reason, the fancy of the Greek poets, copied by the Latin
muse, eagerly laid hold of as a good ground -work for amusing the
wits of Athins and of Rome, perusing their works at home, or
assembled in the gay theatres of the capitals of wealth, power, and
refinement. The introduction of heathen ideas among the Jewish
people consequent on the conquest of Alexander, the incorporation of
the Jews into the Grecian empire, and especially the residence of vast
numbers of them in Alexandria, brought into the region of Jewish
thought and speculation the heathen fancies of Elysium for righteous
souls, and Tartarus for wicked souls, during the disembodied state.
* Isaiah xiv. 15; Prov. i. 12 : Ezek. xxxi. 16 ; Psalm Ixxxviii. 3, 4.
t Psalm Ixxxviii. 4, 5.
t Isaiah xiv. 19; Erek. xxvi. 20 ; xxxi. 14; xxxii. 28.
HADES, OR THE " SHEOL *' OF THE HEBREWS. 68
But for all this, they had to travel beyond the region of their own
holv books. The Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets ignored any
such land as Pluto ruled within the heart of the earth. They knew
of no ghost land for disembodied souls. With them death was truly
death. With them, God carried out to the spirit and the letter the
old sentence, which said, " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die." They did not seek to evade this sentence of death,
or to cast discredit upon the Word of Him whose spirit inspired them,
by teaching that death was only a change of life, sometimes better,
sometimes worse. The death which they taught was the death of
Epicurus, and not of Plato : the end which Horace feared when he
contemplated the two fleeting years, which brought him nigh the
time when the gay genial satellite of Maicenas would be reduced to
his dust and ashes. Where they departed from Epicurus and his sad
school, and shone with a glory which Plato's brightest imaginations
never approached, was where they pictured a. future i-eswrrection life,
when they saw in rapt vision graves opening, and death's power
broken, and the dead in the faith of the redeeming God of Israel
rising up to a new eternal life.
The Old Testament uniformly tells us to look to the resurrection
for redemption. It taught its disciples that the condition of righteous
souls in Hades, so far from being one of joy and glory, was not one
even of life. Deliverance from it was the faith of the Old Testa-
ment saint : deliverance from it was the promise of the Old Testa-
ment. "Return, 0 Lord, deliver my soul; oh, save me for Thy
mercy's sake," was the cry from earth to heaven under the ancient
dispensation ; "for in death there is no remembrance of Thee : in
Hades who will give thee thanks ? " " Godicill deliver my soul from,
the power of Hades, for He shall receive me," was the hope and the
faith of the ancient Church. " Thou wilt not leave my soul in
Hades,^^ was the assurance with which they faced death, which else
would have been to them a king unshorn of any of his terrors. And
to this faith and hope, or rather as its groundwork and its base, came
the promise of the covenant God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
^* / ivill ransom them from the power of Hades ; I will redeem them
from death : 0 death, I will be thy plagues ; O Hades, I will he thy
destruction^ Philosophising Jews may have introduced a paradise
and an Abraham's bosom into the dominion of Hades ; but certainly
the Old Testament did not. It casts no ray of light upon that dark
region save such as arises from the dawning light of resurrection,
which spoke of its gloom and its darkness, and its silence, and its
death, for ever abolished for those who loved the God of salvation.
64 THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
CHAPTER X.
The Hades or the New Testament.
I. We have seen the view which the Old Testament gives us of
Hades, as synonymous with the grave, as the region of death, as the
receptacle of the body and soul of those who once had life but now
are dead. We now proceed to consider the light in which the New
Testament speaks of Hades.
II. And here we are met by an assertion, sometimes very confidently
made, that since the resurrection of our Lord from the dead the souls
of believers do not go to Hades at all, and that moreover our Lord
descended to that region, probably during the period of his own lying
in the grave, and did so for the purpose of bringing out of it the souls
of all believers who had died before his resurrection. According to
this opinion the souls of believers since Christ's resurrection, instead
of going to that Hades to which the souls of believers before it went,
ascend up to heaven, to where Christ is seated at the right-hand of
God, and there, in the enjoyment of life and glory, await the period
of resurrection, when they shall rejoin the bodies raised in incorrup-
tion. Hades, on this view, is only for wicked souls since the resurrec-
tion of Christ.
III. In proof of this several texts are confidently quoted from
various places in the New Testament. We do not deny that some of
these texts have much apparent force, or that if they existed alone
the opinion above advocated would derive very strong support. The
texts however having this apparent force, when viewed by themselves,
are exceedingly few in number. We do not think that there are more
than three or four verses in the whole range of the New Testament
which seem to have real force in this direction. However, three or
four verses are not to be disregarded, nor will we disregard them.
We think it best, however, to present first the positive side of this ques-
tion as it appears to us to be taught in Scripture. The only safe way of
study, in our judgment, is first to take the general teaching of Scrip-
ture. If we come first to some particular passages, and refuse to go
beyond them until we are fully satisfied of their meaning, we do not
think any certainty can ever be attained on any subject in Scripture^
Particular texts will ever appear to speak one way to one mind, and
perhaps another way to another mind. If they will not leave this
debatable ground unless they are agreed as to its special bearing upon
this question, we believe they must only difier from each other for
ever. The true way is to take the general sense and analogy of
Scripture. This can only be taken by an extensive and painstaking
research of it as a whole. This taken, they will bring it to bear upon
THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 65
the disputed passages, and surely, if we believe in the plenary inspira-
tion of the Bible, we will be compelled to see that the general sense of
Scripture must rule the interpretation of a few disputed passages.
This shall be our mode of action. We will first present what appears
to us the general sense of Scripture, and with it in our possession we
shall expect to have the only key that can unlock the sense of the
disputed places.
ly. The proposition then which we propose to establish in this
chapter is that believers since the resurrection of Christ go to Hades
exactly as they did before that event ; that they do not consequently
ascend to heaven on death, either in soul or body, but still, in a condi-
tion of entire death, await the second coming of Christ and the Resur-
rection in order to enter on and enjoy life of any kind. Our proposi-
tion is that Hades is for believers since Christ's Resurrection exactly
what it was for believers before it.
y. If the reasoning of our last chapter be correct, it by itself
decides this entire question. If Hades he, as we there showed,
idetitical with the grave, there can be no doubt that Hades still exists
in full power for believers in Christ, since no one contends for a
moment that the grave has been abolished for believers in Christ, or
will be abolished until the day of resurrection. The identity of
Hades and the grave proves beyond any question that Hades exists in
power for believers since Gospel times as much as it did for believers
before them. They who would uphold the contrary must first over-
throw the reasoning of our last chapter.
yj. They must also do a great many other things which we utterly
defy them to do. They must prove that death since the resurrection
of Christ means a very different thing from what it meant before His
resurrection. Death, before the resurrection, meant the going of the
body and the soul to Hades or the grave. Death, if this opinion be true,
must mean the going of the body to the grave, and the ascending of
the soul to heaven. One of the most important words in Scripture,
one of the most commonly used, one on which all reasoning as to the
redemption of Christ must rest, must be thus shown to have two dis-
tinct senses in different parts of God's word. All through the Old
Testament, and up to the time of our Lord's resurrection, it had one
well-known, well-established, uniform sense. Since that event it
came to have a widely different sense ! Who can credit such a thing ?
Who can admit a view which would involve such embarrassment ?
Are we to suppose that death means one thing in the epistles of Paul,
and another in the writings of the Prophets ? But Paul himself will
admit of no such thing. He freely quotes the prophets speaking of
death, and he never allows us to suppose for one moment that he
means one thing and they another. The death which Paul declared
would be abolished was the very same death which Isaiah and Hosea
declared would be abolished.* And we therefore utterly reject a
* 1 Cor. XV. 64 ; Hos. xiii. 14 ; Isa. xxv. 8.
66
THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
theory which would make death a different thing in different parts
of the word of God. That word throughout speaks of it as one
and the same thing ; and we utterly repudiate a theory for which
it affords not one solitary word of countenance. Death is through-
out Scripture the same thing, and therefore wherever the souls of
helievers went before the resurrection of Christ, there they have
gone since.*
yil. Again, this theory lies open to the fatal objection that it not
only alters the meaning of death in the two great divisions of the
Scripture, but that it virtually abolishes death for the believer. God
said to Adam, and through him to all born from him, '' in the day
that thou eatest thou shalt die :" and Paul declares that the conse-
quences of Adam's sin have visited all mankind, believers and un-
believers alike. Satan contradicted God, and said that man would not
die.f Now really we must say that a theory which teaches that man
in what is called death only changes life here for a better life in
heaven, denies that the man who has made this change has truly died.
It is true he says that the body dies. He makes this out, however,
to be a positive advantage to the man. But t?t,e true man, the soul,
has not, according to him, died at all. It left a clog and a mar to
enter upon a far better and more glorious life. The theory we oppose
is a theory which holds that believers do not truly die, when the Bible
says they do truly die.
VIII. Again, this theory lies open to the grave objection that it
supposes death to produce ttco persons out of one. We hope we shall
be excused when we say that, on the authority of Scripture, the man,
the person in death rests in the grave. Our opponents may repeat
a hundred times the saying — "Oh, the body is in the grave!"
But we will say what Scripture, whenever it speaks, says, that the
man is in the grave ; " devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and
made great lamentation over him.^X Well, then, we have, on the
authority of Scripture, one person in the grave. But here comes the
theory we oppose, and says, the same person is in heaven ! Then
there are two persons made out of one. There is one Stephen in the
grave : and there is a second Stephen in heaven : and still, there is
but one Stephen after all ! But where does the Bible teU us that
death converts one man into two ? And certainly, unless it does, we
are called upon in the name of our common reason to reject a palpable
absurdity. We are glad that Scripture nowhere calls upon us to
accept such contradictions.
IX. But Scripture itself disavows such a theory. In their en-
deavour to escape from the palpable absurdity of creating two persons
out of one by the operation of death, the theorists we contend against
assert that there is truly but one person. The body, they say, is laid
aside for the time, and is not the man : the soul on death is the true
person or man. Now we leave these theorists to explain away the
* Rom. V. 12—14. t Gen. iii. 4. X Acts viii. 2.
THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 67
numberless Scriptures which speak of man as laid in the grave, and
turn to their theory that there is but one true man, the survivinj^
soul. The survivin<^ soul, they say, has gone to heaven. Then accord-
ing to them, the true man has gone to heaven; Paul has gone to
heaven, and John, and all the rest of the true believers ! But what
says Scripture ? Speaking of one of the most eminent believers, one
who since the resurrection of Christ has, according to our theorists,
been taken out of Hades and brought up to heaven, inspired Peter,
speaking of him after the resurrection of Christ, said : " David is not
ascended into the heavens."* What are our theorists to do with this
passage ? How are they to explain it away ? They say, " Oh, David
here means David^s body .'" Well, what of that ? Do they not see
that in saying so they only overthrow their own house of cards ? If
David means David's body, then David's body means David: i.e.,
Scripture obstinately persists in calling that body David which these
men say is not David at all. If the soul of David on death were
truly David, and if this soul had ascended into heaven, then it would
be true that David had ascended into heaven. But Scripture denies
that he has so ascended, and in so doing insists that the body of
David in the grave was David himself. If we will accept Scripture,
the soul is not the man, but is the life of the man. When the man
has it he is a living man, and when he is without it he is a dead man.
But to separate the man or person from the body, Scripture does not
permit us for a moment to do.
X. But, leaving those contradictions in which the theory we speak
of involves its supporters, we will go to the plain testimony of the
New Testament. We wiU show these two things : iirst, that the
New Testament teaches us that Hades exists for believers since
Christ's resurrection just as it existed for believers before that event:
secondly, that the New Testament gives us exactly the same view of
it that the Old did, viz., as a place of death, and the receptacle of the
dead bodies of men, i.e., as identical with the grave.
XI. We think it is to be taken as an indisputable fact, readily
proved from the general testimony of Scripture, that the death of
Christ was in every respect identical with the death which all His
people die, since His resurrection as before. He tasted our death for
us all. We do not think it here requisite to establish this from
reference to special texts. Scripture throughout speaks of His death
and that of His people as one and the same, and it is incumbent on
those who would maintain any material distinction between the two
to prove it by direct testimony of Scripture. In one respect only,
and that respect does not concern the nature of His death but its
duration only, did the death of Christ differ from ours. It was that
it should continue for so short a time that his Hesh should not see cor-
ruption. Yet this even was especially noted in prophecy. f But, in
the proper elements of death, itself the death of Christ was the very
* Acts ii. 34. t Ps. xvi. 10.
f2
68 THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
same as that of all His people. It follows therefore, in direct and
essential consequence, that as it was a main part of His death that His
soul went to Hades, and remained there until His resurrection, so it
is a main part of the death of all His people, from the beginning to
the end of this age, that their souls go on death to Hades and remain
there till resurrection.
XII. But the nature of resurrection, as it is expressly defined in
Holy Scripture, proves beyond a doubt that the soul of every one of
Christ's people is in Hades up to that event. What is meant by
resurrection in Scripture ? Let us hear the Apostle Peter defining it
on the day of Pentecost. It is not merely raising the body out of the
grave, but it is also bringing the soul out of Hades. Peter's
words are — " He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of
Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, neither His fiesh did see
corruption."* It will perhaps be replied that Peter here only speaks of
the resurreciio7i of Christ, and that consequently his definition of
resurrection need not apply to that of His people. But this answer
does not suit the case, for we are expressly told in many Scriptures
that the resurrection of Christ is identical with that of His believing
people. t But since they are identical it follows that on resurrection
the souls of His people come out of Hades just as the soul of Christ
did on His. It is strange doctrine which would teach that believers
since the resurrection of Christ resemble their Lord neither in death
nor resurrection.
XIII. But the Apostle Paul in his description of \\\q resurrection of
believers in 1 Cor. xv., expressly tells us that Hades continues to keep
its victory over them until the period of their resurrection, i.e., until
the second coming of Christ. It is indeed sad to hear good men
asserting of death what Paul says of resurrection from death. How
constantly is it said when a good man dies, — *' 0 Death, where is thy
sting ? 0 Hades, where is the victory P"! But what mistaken Platonic
divines teach of death, Paul does not allow to be true until the resur-
rection from the dead. When does Paul tell us the victory of Hades
over the people of God is exchanged for its defeat ? It is " when this
corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on
immortality," it is " then''^ and not before that the victory of Hades
over believers is changed into its defeat. Paul here, then, does not
allow us to believe that the people of Christ are free from Hades since
his resurrection ; they have in his resurrection the pledge of their
freedom from it, but the freedom itself they will not obtain until
their own resurrection. If we are content, then, to follow the teaching
of St. Paul, we must hold that the theory which tells us that the
souls of believers since the resurrection of Christ do not go on death
to Hades, but go to heaven to the right hand of God, is a mere dream
of man, a poetic fiction derived from Plato but not from the Bible.
The case of believers since Christ's resurrection will, of course, detdt-
* Acts ii. 31. t Horn. vi. 5 ; 1 Oor. xv. 20. t 1 Cor. xv. 64, 56.
THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 69
mine another point sometimes put forward, but which we will not
take the trouble specially to discuss, as it is determined by the case
before us. It is with reference to believers before the resurrection of
Christ, of whom it is sometimes said that the Lord at His resurrec-
tion took them out of Hades, just as He did not allow believers since
that to enter it at all. If believers since Christ's resurrection go to
Hades, of course no one will contend that believers before it were
taken out of it. Indeed we know of no earlier authority for this
fiction than the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. Such are the
sources of too many of the opinions which now are accepted truths iu
Christendom.*
XIV". The effort recently made to get rid of Paul's testimony here,
by saying that Hades is an error in the manuscript, and that the word
used by the apostle was " death" (thatiatosj, is whully unavailing.
The great preponderance of authority is on the side of the reading of
Hades. But we have in the nature of the passage itself full proof, if
manuscript authority were insufficient, that Hades is the word used
by the apostle. The passage fortunately is, as every annotator allows,
borrowed from Hosea xiii. H, with just so much change of language
as to suit the place in the chapter in Corinthians. The sentiment and
idea of Hosea, the structure of the sentence, and, so far as the place
woiild admit of, the very words themselves, are borrowed by Paul
from the prophet Hosea. Hosea's words are, "0 Death, I will be
thy plagues ; 0 Hades, I will be thy destruction : " which Paul plainl}'-
copies in the paraphrase, — " 0 Death, where is thy sting ? 0 Hades,
where is thy victory? " To suppose that Paul in this passage departs
from the sentiment and meaning of Hosea is perfectly inadmissible,
and therefore Hades must have been the word he used.
XV. Paul's teaching in 1 Cor. xv.-is reiterated by our Lord Him-
self in the Book of Revelation. He is comforting His apostle John,
overcome by His divine presence. His words of comfort are, — " Fear
not; I am the first and the last. I am He that liveth, and was dead ;
and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of
Hades and of death."-]- The teaching of Christ here is very plain.
He refers to His own death, when His body was in the grave and His
soul in Hades. He refers to His own resurrection, when His body
left the grave and His soul was delivered from Hades. He does this
to comfort the mind of His apostle John, and so of all believers, that
what He had done for Himself He would do for them. He conveys
this comfort in the words, " I have the keys of Hades and of death. ''^
What is this but saying, " I will open Hades and the grave for My
people, even as I opened them for Myself?" And hence we are
taught that for believers in Christ sijice His resurrection, Hades still
has the very same existence and power that it ever had, that it as
truly reigns over them as death reigns. The words of Christ are but
* Gospel of Nicodemua. Clarke's Ante-Nicene Library, pp. 173, 174,
t Rev. i. 18.
70 THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
the reiteration of the sentiment of Paul, — " 0 Death, where is thy
sting ? 0 Hades, where is thy victory ?" The sting of death would
he removed, and the victory of Hades changed into defeat, when, in
the morning of resurrection, Christ uses the keys of death and Hades,
and lets his prisoners of hope free for ever.
XYI. And now, having shown from the New Testament that Hades
continues to receive the souls of helievers since the resurrection of
Christ, just as it received them before that event, we will proceed to
show that so far as its notices of Hades extend, it gives us the very
same idea of it that the Old Testament gave us, viz., as a place of
death, and as identical with the grave. As the allusions to Hades in
the New Testament are very few in comparison to the number of
allusions to it in the Old, we cannot, of course, expect so much in-
formation about it. In truth it was not wanted. The Old Testament
had fully informed its readers about Hades. If there had been any
change made in Hades, then, it would have been the part of the New
Testament to speak fully and explicitly of this change. But where
no change was made, there was no room in the New Testament for
any further information where the fullest had been already given.
We accordingly find no descriptions in the New Testament of Hades,
such as we find repeatedly in the Old. In but eleven places does the
New Testament allude to Hades. The references to it in the Old are
six-fold more numerous. Yet in these few references we find allusions
to Hades of such a kind as show beyond any question that in the mind
of the Spirit which inspired the writing of the New Testament, Hades
was the very same place and state since the resurrection of Christ that
it was before.
XVII. In no less than three places out of the eleven where it occurs.
Hades is associated with death exactly as we saw it to be in the Old
Testament. " I looked," says John, " and behold a pale horse; and his
name that sat on him was Death, and Hades followed with him." And
in the same way we find Death and Hades twice afterwards associated
together in this book.* So far from life being associated in the New
Testament with Hades, Death is its corresponding idea. But we have
in one of these passages if possible a plainer testimony to the truth of
our view. In the account of the judgment which precedes the aspect
of the " new heaven and the new earth" of the eternal age, we read
that '' the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death and
Hades delivered up the dead which were in themy\ Even from this
passage, as it occurs in our Authorised Version, we could show, as we
showed from repeated passages in the Old Testament, that Hades is
the receptacle of the dead bodies of men as well as of their souls —
i.e., identical with the grave. For Hades contains the dead
even as the sea contains the dead. Now we suppose that every one
will allow that what the sea contains are the dead bodies of those
who have been drowned in it. If so, then Hades also contains dead
* Kev. vi. 8 : XX. 13, 14. f Rev. xx. 13.
THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 71
bodies. But what our translation only enables us to gather by induc-
tion, the (jrreek of the Apocalypse, if properly translated, expressly
states. We suppose that our translators did not well see how they
could place dead bodies in Hades. Hades was with them the recep-
tacle of souls in a condition of full sensation and life. Accordingly
they shroud the original Greek under the expression *' the dead,"
which they think may both cover the dead bodies in the sea and the
living souls in Hades because these latter had once belonged to the
dead bodies. But the Greek word here used, nekros, signifies properly
and primarily a dead body. So it is used throughout the New Testa-
ment, * except on some rare occasions where it is used in a secondary
and figurative sense for the dead in sin.f Its use in this secondary
sense is indicated by the context, for the phrase is always applied to
persons known to be possessed of physical life. But when not thus
used it signifies a dead body. The senses Liddell and Scott's Dic-
tionary gives for the term are : 1. *' a dead body, a corse ;" 2. *'a
dead man as opposed to one alive." It gives no other sense for the
word used as a noun. Its meaning then is the dead body of a man.
But Hades, according to John, contains dead bodies of men, and
therefore Hades is with him identical with the grave. We thus see,
what we might have expected to see, that Hades in the New Testa-
ment is the same as Hades, or Sheol, in the Old : that it means the
grave ; that it contains the bodies as well as the souls or lives of
men, of the just as of the unjust, that it is the region of death.
We cannot leave the subject of this chapter without adverting for
a moment to an objection confidently made at times against our en-
tire argument. It is this. Hades is a Greek word. It is said then
that in the Greek language it has one primary invariable meaning,
viz., a place of departed living souls. Such, it is said, would be the
meaning which every Greek speaker would, as a matter of course,
apply to it when used. Hence it is asserted that when we find it in
the Septuagint used as the translation for the Hebrew Sheol, and
when we find it used in the New Testament, we are to take it in its
invariable sense, and that consequently the use of this term at all
indicates that the souls in Hades were alive.
Now, certainly, if Hades had in the Greek language but one
meaning, and if the above were that meaning, there would be con-
siderable, if not absolutely conclusive, force in this argument. But a
little consideration will show us that we cannot by any possibility
suppose that either the original or the invariable sense of Hades was
a place of living souls.
Hades was a term in use in the Greek language from the time of
the formation of that language. It was in use as long as the word
psyche, or soul, was in use. It was on all hands allowed that on
death the soul went down to Hades. It will, therefore, appear
* Matt. X. 8: Mark xii. 26; Luke, vii 22 ; John xii. 1 ; Acts. v. 10; Eom. iv. 24. \
t Matt. vui. 22 ; Luke xv. 24.
72 THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
evident that on the meaning attached by a Greek speaker to the term
soul, on what he supposed would happen to the soul on death, would
he his meaning for that Hades to which the soul went. If the Greek
speaker supposed that the soul survived death, and went to Hades,
he would mean by Hades a place of living souls ; if he did not
believe that the soul survived death he could not possibly have sup-
posed Hades to be a place of living souls, but must have identified
it with the grave.
Now, on this plain ground, we insist that the original sense of the
word Hades with Greek speakers did not mean a. place of living souls,
for the simple reason that the original belief of Greece, as at all times
the prevalent belief amongst its educated classes at least, was that
the soul was mortal, and did not survive bodily dissolution. For
this we have as good a testimony as we need desire in the Grecian
historian Herodotus. He tells us that the original faith of Greece
was that the soul was mortal : that the idea of its immortality was
derived from Egypt : he tells us that he knows the names of the first
Greeks who introduced the novel idea: while he leads us to the
opinion that it was in his time an idea by no means generally received.
His words are : — " The Egyptians are the first of matikind who have
defended the immortality of the soul. They believe that, on the dis-
solution of the body the soul immediately enters some other animal,
and that, after using as vehicles every species of terrestrial, aquatic,
and winged creatures, it finally enters a second time into a human
body. This opinion some among the Greeks have at different periods
of time adopted as their own ; but I shall not, although I am able,
specify their names." *
Now it is quite plain from this, that Greece originally held no such
doctrine as that the soul of man survived his body, and Herodotus
leads us very plainly to see that he held no such idea himself. In
the time of Socrates and Plato we see that it was not a general
opinion, for the entire argument of Socrates in the Phcedo is to con-
vince his friends of this very matter, upon which they were, at least,
very sceptical. But hence it follows, as a necessary consequence, that
Hades did not originally signify with any Greek speaker a place of
living souls, and that such was never its universal sense. We have
no doubt that originally it meant the grave : that it came next to
signify the God of Death, Pluto : and that, by a further modification,
it was supposed to signify Pluto's realm, where he was supposed to
rule over shadowy souls, in some sort of existence. In those latter
senses the word is usually used by the Grecian poets, to whom it
afforded a lively exercise for their imagination, though few of them
probably believed a word of what they said about it. We have in
existence but very few Greek writings in prose where we find the
term used. Had we the writings of Epicurus, we would doubtless
find it used by him as equivalent to the grave. As it is, it is difficult
* Herodotus, Euterpe, cxxxiii.
THE HADES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 73
to find places where it is thus used. There are, however, some ; and
writers of the first authority in the Greek language acknowledge that
the grave is a true and proper sense for Hades in Greek.
The first Greek classical dictionary of the present day is that of
Liddell and Scott. It gives the following as the meanings for Hades :
*' In Homer, Pluto, the God of the nether world; 2, the nether
world, the grave, death." The only lexicon specially applied to the
Septuagint Greek is that of Schleusner. It gives the grave as one of
the meanings of Hades. It explains the expression " Oi en Aidou,"
as " qui sunt in domo sepulchri," "those who are in the house of the
grave." Archbishop Ussher, whose learning is undoubted, and who
does not at all agree with our view of Hades as the grave, is yet com-
pelled to acknowledge that it is constantly used by Greek writers in
that sense. Thus in one passage in his Answer to a Jesuit, chap,
viii., he says: " As for the Greek word Hades, it is used by Hippo-
crates to express the first matter of things, from which they have
their beginning, and into which afterwards, being dissolved, they
make their ending ^ This is very different from the idea that Hades
meant with all Greek writers a place of living souls. Hippocrates
held the Epicurean view, and makes Hades to be that lifeless sub-
stance out of which he supposes man to have been made, and to
which he thought he would return in death for ever, being annihilated.
In another passage Ussher says that Hades " is taken for a tomb in
that place of Pindarus. Other sacred kings have gotten a tomb apart
by themselves before the houses, or before the gates of the city. And
therefore we see that Aidas is by Suidas, in his lexicon, expressly
interpreted O tajjhos, and by Hesychius tumbos taphos, a tomb, or a
grave." In another place, referring to several passages in the Old
Testament, Ussher says, '* In these places where in the Hebrew is
Sheol, in the Greek Hades, in the Latin Inferni, or Inferi, in the
English Hell, the jdace of dead bodies, and not of souls, is to be
understood.''^ To the examples of the use of Hades for the grave
given by Ussher we will only add one more. It is from j3Eschines,
Agam. 678 : Aden pontion pefeugontes, " having escaped a watery
Hades, or grave."
It is sometimes said, in opposition to our view, that if Hades
meant " the grave," we should sometimes read of a Hades of brick,
marble, &c., and also that we should find it often in the plural num
ber. This objection is readily disposed of. Hades is, at least gener-
ally, used in Greek as a generic term, i.e., as a term comprehending
under it a variety of species or kinds. It is used precisely as its
English equivalent, " the grave," is used when this latter term is
supposed to signify, not any particular grave, but the state of sepul-
ture in general. When " the grave " is thus used as a generic term,
it is never spoken of as made of this material jor that, because it
comprises tombs or graves of whatever material they are composed :
neither is it, when thus used generically, ever used in the plural.
74
DEATH.
Just SO, since Hades is in the Greek a generic term, at least generally
such, we do not when it is so used read of it as composed of any par-
ticular material, nor do we find it in the plural number. But we are
far from saying that it might not at times be so used. We should
say that Pindar would certainly, if asked, have told us of what
material the royal Hades, or tomb, was composed which he speaks of
as before the houses.
There is, then, nothing in the usage of the Grreek word Hades to
prevent our giving it the meaning which we see given to it in Scrip-
ture, viz., the grave.
CHAPTER XI.
DEATH.
I. Feom all our previous chapters it will be seen what death means
in the mind of Scripture. Inliicted in punishment of sin, and to
mark God's great abhorrence of it, it is certainly a calamity of no
mean kind. Such a calamity' the theory we advocate as that of
Scripture makes it indeed to be. If life, as given by God to man,
was a priceless blessing, death, which is the deprivation of this life,
is an incalculable loss. The life which God gave at first to man, we
must remember, was not such a life as He gave to beasts, who, by the
primal law of their nature, must die, but was a life which, if man
had obeyed God, would have had no end. The death which cuts
short such a life is, indeed, a terrible penalty. And if we examine
what Scripture tells us of death, we shall see that, in the eyes of God,
it is regarded as such. The living God, the eternal of days, regards,
in this light, the loss of a life which might have been like His. We
do not think it needful to dwell more upon the truth that the death,
which God infiicted upon the human race for Adam's sin, was a great
calamity for all who should endure it.
II. Whatever this death be, it is the uniform teaching of Scripture
that all the sons of men, however they may differ in character, or
whatever may be their relation to God, do really and truly suffer and
endure it. There is not in Scripture, from its first page to its last,
one text which tells us that any covenant of God with man subse-
quent to the fall, any gospel of grace in a Saviour, relieved mankind,
or any portion of mankind, from suffering that death which God
threatened, when He said to Adam, "In the day inat thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die." It would, indeed, shake our faith in
the stability of God's Word, in His promises as well as in His
threatenings, if we were to admit that a threatening so solemnly,
and, we must suppose, so deliberately made by God, at the outset of
human life, was set aside. In what other pledge of God could we
DEATH. 75
possibly trust if we saw that this, His first solemn covenant, were not
kept by Him ? How could the believer trust His Word for life
eternal, why should the wicked man dread His threat of the
second death, if both could point to a word, as solemnly passed as
that of life eternal to the just, and everlasting death to the wicked,
broken for any reason ? There was no intimation given that it would
be altered. They who urge that redemption made either a total or a
partial change in the nature of that death, which God threatened as
the penalty of sin, must allow that there might be, perhaps, some
after-change of mind and purpose on His part towards men, other
than He has spoken of in the revelation of His purposes both towards
the redeemed and the lost. The idea that the redemption of Christ
Jesus altered, in any respect, the nature of the death threatened to
Adam, or exempted any of those originally contemplated as affected
by it from enduring it, would shake our confidence in every word of
God. In God's character, as one who cannot lie, we ground our faith
that all which was necessarily included in the threat, '' In the day
that thou eatest thou shalt die," did actually and truly take place in
the case of Adam and all his descendants, included with their father
in this first covenant of God with man. We can no more allow one
covenant of God to be broken than another. One rests on the same
foundation that another rests on. If one is broken the confidence in
another is justly shaken. If God broke or departed from His cove-
nant in Adam, what is to hinder his departing from his covenant in
Christ? That immutability of God, on which Scripture teaches us
unwaveringly to rest, would be shown by such a course to be but
mutability like that of our own frail race.
III. But what we would insist on with absolute confidence from our
knowledge of God's character — what we would insist on as requisite
to inspii-e the believer with any good trust, or the wicked with any
weU-founded alarm, is expressly told us in God's Word. There
we are told that the death threatened to Adam has fallen upon Adam
and upon all his sons. We suppose that one text from Paul will be
enough to quote for this purpose : * ' Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death j)(issed upon
all men" * With this text of Paul every other scripture harmonises:
against its evident sense we defy all opponents to advance a single
passage. Its teaching is this — that the death — the very death — not
part of it, but all of it, which God said He would inflict He has in-
flicted. Death has passed icpon all men.
lY. A very considerable amount of false theology, manufactured
for the purpose of supporting Plato's fiction of the immortality of the
soul, files away before this simple tr\ith. All that theology which
tells us that God, by reason of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, did not in-
flict the death which He said He would inflict, or that He inflicted
part of it, and did not inflict the rest, or that He exempted one por-
* Eom. V. 12.
76
DEATH.
tion of men from this death, either in whole or in part, all this theo-
logy flies into thinnest air before the simple truth, that the death
which God threatened He actually inflicts upon all men. How great
this amount of theology is, any one acquainted with theological works
of almost every school will readily see.
V. We now come to a very important question, viz., the duration
of that death threatened to the race of men. Now it is to be remarked,
in the threatening of God to Adam, that not one word is said upon the
2ooint of duration. " In the day that thou eatest, thou shalt die," is
the penalty denounced. A death from which there would be no
deliverance, i.e., an eternal death, or a death from which there would
be deliverance, i.e., temporal death, are both equally suitable to the
penalty denounced. It only speaks of the inHiction of death ; it does
not speak as to whether this death would continue for ever, or last
only for a time, either on all or some whom it would aifect. It is evi-
dent that in this omission, a designed one we may be certain, God
left Himself open to all that provision of subsequent grace in Christ
which He purposed before sin entered at all. All that we can argue
with any certainty from the enunciation of the penalty is that death,
in its true and full import, with no diminution of its meaning, should
pass upon all without exception. We could not argue that it should
abide on all, or any, for any longer or shorter period. It might, by
some subsequent provision, be removed from all whom it affected, or
it might be removed from some only, according as it should please
God. Death might continue in some, or in all, for a short time, or a
longer time, or for ever. All that we can require from the covenant
in Adam is that it passes upon all men.
YI. And here a very important question arises, viz. — When did the
death threatened to Adam be(/in ? We can have no hesitation in
saying that it began the very day and hour, speaking most literally,
in which Adam sinned. We must accept this upon God's Word —
" in the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die.^^
YII. Regarding the death here spoken of as that death which all
men, whether redeemed by Christ or not, endure, we suppose that it
commenced on the day when Adam sinned, because he then fell under
the sentence of death. We are quite satisfied that when God came to
Adam after his transgression, and said to him, *'dust thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return," He did but pass the sentence which
He had threatened in the words ''in the day thou eatest thou shalt
die." It is true that the jpenalty was not then executed, but in the
eye of law a penalty is supposed to take effect from the time that
sentence to it is pronounced by the Judge.
YIII. We have an excellent illustration of this principle of law in
the treatment of Shimei by King Solomon. (1 Kings ii. 36 — 46.) In
language almost identical with that spoken by God to Adam, Solomon
warned the false and crafty old man that "on the day" when
he should transgress the King's commandment not to go out of
DEATH. 77
Jerusalem he should *' surely die." When Solomon spoke this he
must have also known that the execution of this sentence would in all
probability be impossible on the very day that Shimei should oflfend, for
in offending he put himself for the moment out of reach of the minis-
ters of justice. Shimei, in fact, had time to leave Jerusalem, execute
the purpose for which he left it, and return before word of his leaving
at all had been brought to the king (40, 41). His departure and
absence were in all likelihood kept as secret as possible for fear of the
consequences which might ensue. But though a period certainly of
several days, if not weeks, had elapsed since Shimei had transgressed,
Solomon considered that the threat he had held out to him was fully
kept. He recalls to Shimei his words — " Know for a certain, on the
day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, thou shalt surely
die." (42.) He considered these words were completely accom-
plished in the fact that on the day that Shimei transgressed he fell
under a sentence which was not executed for some time after. Such
is the principle of all law. The criminal sentenced to death is looked
upon as dead in the eye of the law, though days, or weeks, or months
may elapse before the sentence takes its full effect. Mr. Dixon in his
work on Her Majesty'' s Tower has a passage which illustrates admir-
ably this legal principle. Speaking of Traitors' Gate he says,
" Beneath this arch has moved a long procession of our proudest peers,
our fairest women, our bravest soldiers, our wittiest poets. Most of
them left it, high in rank and rich in life, to return by the same dark
passage, in a few brief hours, poorer than the beggars who stood
shivering on the bank, in the eyes of the law, and in the words of
their fellows, already dead." (i. 29.) And in conformity with this
principle Paul speaks of himself as " having the sentence of death in
himself." (2 Cor. i. 9.) The death threatened for original transgres-
sion did actually take effect upon the day of the transgression in that
then, and therein, the irrevocable sentence of death was passed on
Adam and his race.
IX. From that very day preparation was made for the execution
of the sentence. On that day Adam was sent forth from the garden
where grew that tree of life the eating of whose fruit would have
perpetuated his life for ever. He is cut off from the channel through
which immortality was to flow in upon him. He is left to the natural
mortality of every creature not permanently sustained by the endur-
ing life of God. Death is thenceforward coming surely upon him.
He dies daily : his sands of life are falling through the hour-glass of
existence.
X. But not only must the sentence be passed, and the preparations
made for executing it, but it must also be actually put into full
execution. As in Shimei' s case Solomon's threat would have been
falsified if he had not actually been put to death, so it would have
been in man's case if he did not actually die. If Shimei had never
returned to J.erusalem, if he had fled into some land beyond Solomon's
78 DEATH.
jurisdiction, as Jeroboam afterwards did, and so escaped the sentence
of the law, then Solomon's threat would have been vain. The sentence
of death, the assurance that if he ever came within the jurisdiction of
Solomon, it would be executed, this, by itself, would not have been
enough. He must die hy the comma7id of the King, in order to carry
out the sentence "in the day that thou passest over the brook Kidron
thou shalt surely die." So it must be with man. He must actually
die, and not merely have sentence of death passed upon him, in order
that God's words should be proved true, "in the day that thou
eatest thou shalt die."
Man, then, is under the sentence of death, even while he is yet
alive : he suffers this sentence when he actually dies : we inquire
how long the death executed lasts? On one point we are certain,
from the express testimony of Scripture, and this is the point which
is of moment in our present question. It is, that the death executed
upon the people of God lasts in force until their resurrection to
eternal life. This is placed beyond question by the general tenor of
Scripture, and by special texts. Death is said to " reign from Adam
to Moses" over those whom it had conquered.* It is, therefore, no
momentary triumph. Paul tells us that it reigns over believers
until the day of their resurrection. f From the day, then, on which
they die, up to the day when they are raised up, death rules over the
people of God.
XI. The other question connected with this point is one of deep
interest and importance to the theological inquirer, though it is not
of importance in the inquiry before us, viz., how long the death
inflicted on man for Adam's sin rules over the lost f It certainly
rules until their resurrection. But may it not also still be said to
rule even after that? We are strongly inclined to think that it may.
The unredeemed cannot be said ever to have passed from under the
sentence of death pronounced upon Adam. " Ye will not come to
Me," saith Christ to such, " that ye may have life. ''J Consequently,
they would seem to have been still under the full sentence of the
original penalty. And again, John says, " We know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother ahideth in death. ''^^ Hence it would appear to
us that the unbeliever has never passed from under the sentence of
the original transgression even when he shall have been raised from
the dead to the resurrection of damnation, and that, consequently,
what is called the second death in hell is only carrying out the
execution of the original sentence, unrelieved by redemption, while
in the resurrection of the wicked is afforded room for the execution of
Divine Justice on sins actually committed by them.
XII. But, however this may be, and important as such a point is to
other questions, it does not, that we see, affect our present purpose.
* Eom. V. 14. X John v. 40.
t 1 Cor. XV. 54, 55. § 1 John iii. 14.
POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH. 79
For that it is sufficient to say that death rules in its full, unbroken,
power over both the just and the unjust until the period of their
resurrection, and that death during this period is the very same
thing both to one and the other.
XIII. Now this fact, established beyond a question on the authority
of Scripture, is of primary importance in this inquiry. It conlirms
most powerfully all that we have said as to the entire intermediate
state of man being one of loss of all existence, both of soul and body,
and it exhibits the popular theory of death as diametrically opposed
to the teaching of Scripture. If death reigns until the period of
resurrection, and if death is during this period exactly the same
thing to the just and to the unjust, it follows beyond any question,
that both just and unjust are then wholly and altogether dead. For
no one contends that during this period the just are in a condition of
misery : neither does any one contend that the unjust are in a condi-
tion of bliss : but that condition which is neither one of bliss nor
misery, must be a condition of death, or non-existence. This is the
one condition which can be common to the redeemed and the lost.
CHAPTER XII.
POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH.
I. We may pause for a few moments here to compare popular
theology upon the subject of death, with the view of it derived from
Scripture. In its main features we have seen that Scripture teaches
us that death to man is the loss by man of his soul or life : that death
visits every child of man irrespective of his character, and reigns iu
full power from at least the period of his death to that of bis resur-
rection ; that death is a curse and an enemy, not a blessing in itself ;
and that what Scripture tells us of death, it tells us in no doubtful,
obscure hesitating language, but speaks throughout as if it were
thoroughly acquainted with what death was, and meant that man, to
whom it speaks, should understand it clearly too.
II. In this chapter we propose to show that popular theology is
utterly at variance with Scripture upon all these points, and speaks a
confused, barbarous, uncertain language in consequence. For this
purpose we will refer to the opinions of men who represent, and who
are acknowledged as representing, the popular mind of Christendom
upon this point. And, before entering upon these views, we will just
remind our readers that a Platonic dogma, generally accepted, is the
cause of all the contradiction of Scripture, and all the confusion of
thought which so widely prevail. That Platonic dogma is that the
soul survives death, and is in this separate state the man. The immor-
tality of the soul is the source of the wide- spread errors on the inter-
80
POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH.
mediate state, as it is the source of the errors of Origen and Augustine
on the nature of future punishment. But here we must include in
our condemnation very many of those who agree with us in our views
on the latter question. What we now mean by the immortality of
the soal is not the opinion that it will never die at any future time in
hell, but the opinion that it does not die at the period of the first
death, and survives the body throughout the intermediate or Hades
state, and at the resurrection of the body rejoins its own old com-
panion, having never, up to that time, died itself. There are very
many who believe that the soul will die in the scene of punishment,
subsequent to resurrection, who do not believe that it dies before.
These we hold to be erroneous, as well as those who hold that the
soul will never die in hell. It is the soul's survival of the first death,
which is the main point in question throughout this book.
III. We have seen it to be the teaching of Scripture that death,
i.e,, loss of life, visits all descended from Adam, irrespective of their
character. Popular theology denies that there is any such thing as
death at all. It says that no man dies, no man suffers the loss of life.
A word, Death, has so got into common use that it cannot be extirp-
ated, but this word has no real meaning, or if it has any real mean-
ing, it means that to which it is thought to be the opposite, — Life .
We afiirm that popular theology denies the fact of death : denies that
any man dies : that any man suffers the loss of life at that period
denominated his death. God says that all men die, popular theology
says that no man dies.
IV. This it does by its definition of what man truly and properly
is. We cannot be esteemed as taking unsuitable representations of
the theology of Christendom upon this point, when we take Bishop
Butler, the author of the "Analogy," and John Wesley, the founder of
the great Methodist Churches, as its representatives. We will first
give Wesley's definition of man, and the a draw more particular
attention to Butler's Chapter on a Future Life. The views of two
of England's master-minds are perfectly agreed upon this point.
V. "I am now," says John Wesley, speaking of human nature
and of that event commonly called death, " I am now an immortal
spirit, strangely commingled with a little portion of earth ; but this is
only for awhile. In a short time I am to quit this tenement of clay,
and remove into another state."* Here Wesley lays down that
man is truly and properly an *' immortal spirit." "That is his nature
and his essence. That is the person, the I, the man. That human
nature which God defined as "earth," and "dust and ashes," Wesley
defines as "immortal spirit." He acknowledges some relation to the
" earth " of which God speaks, but it is only the relationship of a tem-
porary connection, somewhat like what a man has to his house or his
coat. This connection is dissolved at death. The man lays aside the
" little portion of earth " with which he has strangely, and for a time
* The Rainbow, 1871, p. 177.
POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH. 81
commingled, and goes into another state. The man, according to
"Wesley, does not die. Death is nothing more than laying aside a
garment unfit for use. For man, according to the great founder of
Methodism, there is no death. For Paul's version ** death passes
upon all men," Wesley substitutes " death passes upon no man."
yi. What Wesley expresses as his faith Bishop Butler in the first
chapter of his grand work laboriously argues. Butler's was one of
the profoundest minds that England ever has produced, and The
Analogy of Religion is one of those works of which any Church or
any nation may be proud. It formed a portion of our own theological
course, nor was there any portion of that course in which we took so
much pleasure as in following the argument of '* The Analogy." But
when looking back upon a period of our life, now far removed, we
well remember that we were never satisfied with the reasoning of
his opening chapter ** Of a Future Life." Even when it never oc-
curred to us to doubt what he sought to prove, and when those views
of the future of man which we have since learned from Scripture had
not dawned upon us, we never felt assured upon this as we did upon
almost every other part of his argument. One great mind in the
Divinity Lectures of that period led us to see that Butler was not
infallible, when Dr. O'Brien, then Archbishop King's Lecturer in
Divinity, showed us a fiaw in Butler's argument on ''Miracles."
Scripture, in its account of man, has since led us to detect a far greater
error in the reasoning of Butler, and to see its source. The philo-
sophical dogma, derived from Plato, led the profound mind of the
Bishop of Durham to write his weak, inconsequential, and unscriptural
chapter " Of a Future Life."
Vn. The object of Butler's chapter is to show that " our organised
bodies are no more ourselves, or part of ourselves, than any other
matter around us." The person, the man, the being we each feel
ourselves to be has only a temporary but by no means necessary con-
nection with the organised body. This person is a "living substance,"
a " living agent," who dwells for a time in the body, but is not the
body or of it. As here a limb may be lost and yet this " living
agent" survive the loss, so may the entire organised body be lost,
and yet the " living agent" be no more affected by the loss than it
was by the loss of a limb, or, for that matter, by the shortening of
the hair or the cutting of the nails. Death is only the "living agent"
ceasing to be connected with the body, and going alive and uninjured,
or more probably with greatly enlarged powers of every kind, to some
other place than this earth. Death is not the loss of life, or the
diminution of life, by the "living agent," but simply change of
locality and residence. The man survives what is impertinently
called his death: the "living agent" does not die: death answers,
with Butler, to our birth, " which is not a suspension of the faculties
we had before it, or a total change of the state of life in which we
existed in the womb, but a continuation of both with such and such
G
82
POPULAE THEOLOGY ON DEATH.
great alterations." There is Butler's idea of Death. It is like a
man's birth: it is no loss of life, but the continuation of life under
vastly improved conditions. He exactly agrees with Wesley. "What
"Wesley calls *' immortal spirit" Butler calls "living substance,"
'* living agent." This " spirit," or " living substance," is with both
the person, the man. With both it is unaffected by death, or rather its
living powers are vastly increased. And so with the recluse meta-
physician of the cloisters of Durham, as with the peripatetic preacher
of Methodism, the Scriptural doctrine that all men die is wholly set
aside. French philosophy wrote over the entrance of Pere la Chaise —
" Death is an eternal sleep ; " English orthodox theology would write
over every graveyard, " there is no death at all." Graveyards are,
with Butler and Wesley, but vast receptacles of worn-out clothes
and ruined houses made of earth, which the wearer has ceased to
use and the dweller to inhabit. No man has died, according to these
great authorities; and Butler and Wesley represent the current
thought of Christendom, The opinion of orthodoxy is as unscriptural
as the opinion of infidelity.
YIII. Now for another popular contradiction of Scripture on the
subject of death. We have seen that death is represented in Scrip-
ture as a penalty, a punishment, a curse, an enemy. This it is to all
whom it affects. It is stated to be an '* enemy " to the believer up
to the very time when it is abolished by his resurrection.* But tHe
popular view of death, as consisting in the survival of the soul, i.e., in
the survival of the man, and his introduction, in the case of the
righteous, to a life of a happier nature than any enjoyed here, wholly
alters the character of death so far as the just are concerned. To say
that death is to a good man a penalty, a punishment, a curse, an
enemy, may be agreeable to the language of Scripture, but it is
abhorrent to the language of orthodox theology. With the latter,
death is one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, blessing which
can possibly occur to a good man :
" 'Tis our great pay day, 'tis our harvest rich
And ripe."
" Death gives us more than was in Eden lost ;
The king of terrors is the prince of peace." t
IX. Young may be thought more a poet than a theologian, yet
Young here only expresses what is generally thought of death ; what
must be thought of it in the case of the just if ordinary theology is
correct, that the soul is the true man, and that it survives death in
any of those elysian fields which pass under the names of heaven,
Abraham's bosom, and paradise. But we, at any rate, cite a theolo-
gian and a master of thought when we cite the great reformer of
Geneva. Calvin thus writes of death : " Certainly, whoever believes
in Christ ought to be so minded that at the mention of death he
* 1 Cor. XV. 26. t Young's " Night Thoughts."
POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH. 83
should raise up his head, rejoicing at the news of his redemption^ *
We need not waste words to show the contradiction of Scripture here.
Our Lord tells us to regard the day of His coming as the period of
our redemption ; Calvin tells us to regard the day of our death as
such. Paul tells us that believers groan, waiting for the *' redemption
of their bodies" at the day of resurrection ; Calvin tells us that we
need not wait for this day of resurrection, for that our redemption
comes long before. The Bible tells us death is our enemy ; CaWin
tells us it is our best friend, the Prince of Peace, f And yet Calvin
could not help contradicting Scripture. He had adopted as a first
truth Plato's fiction that the soul was the man, and that man sur-
vived death. Nor can any one who holds this Platonic fiction avoid
falling into a similar contradiction. This one philosophic error poisons
our theology, as Satan knew it would when, with hellish craft, he first
taught it in Eden.|
X. We have seen from Scripture that the power of death endures,
at least, from the time when a man actually dies to the time when he
rises from the dead. This is the Scriptural account — plain, simple,
and intelligible. But how does our Platonic theology treat this
rational and scriptural view ? It simply denies it. Death, with it,
is the momentary act of dying : it is the act of the soul leaving the
body : it is over the moment the soul has quitted the clay ; it cannot
be said with any truth to occupy so much as a moment of time. To
this Death has come with our popular theologians. Its reign until
resurrection is an old Pauline error corrected by those divines who
drunk from an older and higher authority than Paul, the great phi-
losopher of Athens, Plato. To this it must come according to their
views. Their only idea of death must be that of a passage, painful
it may be at times, but momentary, from life here to life elsewhere.
XI. *' That is not death^'' says Athanasius, " that hefalleth the
righteous, hut a translation ; for they are translated out of this world
into everlasting rest ; and as a man would go out of a prison, so do
the saints go out of this troublesome life into those good things that
are prepared for them."§ We do not here note the agreement of our
orthodox Athanasius with Bishop Butler in denying the Scriptural
doctrine that " death passes upon all men ;" nor do we here note that
Athanasius translates all believers to heaven ; whereas Scripture
seems to teach that two only, Enoch and Elijah, were translated : we
here note that Athanasius regards the death of the righteous as a
tnomentarg act of transition. So the great Ambrose, of Milan, regards
it: he tells us that death " ts a passage made from corruption to
incorruption, from mortality to immortality, from trouble to tran-
quillity." II We do not here note that the great Ambrose, in here
* " Calvin on Philippians," i. 23,
t Luke xxi. 28; Eom. viii. 23. t Gen. iii. 4.
§ Athanasius, quoted Usher, Abp., "Answer," Ch. vi.
II Ambrose quoted Usher's " Answer," ch. vi.
g2
84 POPULAE THEOLOGY ON DEATH.
describing death as the passage from corruption to incorruption, has
affirmed of death what Paul affirmed of resurrection from death, i.e.,
has made a fool of the apostle : we only here note that he regards
death as a momentary passage. It has no duration with him. The
Hash of lightning across the sky is the only thing that can, on his
view, be compared with the time occupied by death. According to
the teaching of these ancient fathers is that of their modern followers.
The following is the learned Archbishop Usher's definition of death.
Clear upon some points ; learned on all on which he treats : he is
utterly lost and bewildered in those labyrinthine wanderings through
Limbo, and Hades, and Death, into which Romish schoolmen, and
Christian fathers, and Grecian philosophers, led the honest mind of
Usher. One error — the immortality of the soul and its identification
in its supposed disembodied state with the man — led him into the
hopeless, endless maze in which he struggles, and pants, and toils —
now thinking he is on sure ground, now sinking deeply and hopelessly
into the mire. However this be, here is his definition of death as, in
point of fact, occupying no space of time, i.e., as being, in fact, nothing
but a bugbear.
XII. '* That which properly we call death," he tells us, *' which is
the parting asunder of the soul and body, standeth as a middle term
betwixt the state of life and the state of death, being nothing else but
the ending of one and the beginning of the other ; and, as it were, a
common mere between lands, or a communis terminus in a geometrical
magnitude, dividing part from part, but being itself a part of neither,
and yet belonging equally unto either, which gave occasion to the
question moved by Taurus the philosopher, "when a dying man
might be said to die ; when he was now dead, or while ho was yet
living P" Whereunto Gellius returneth an answer out of Plato, that
his dying was to be attributed neither to the time of his life nor of his
death (because repugnances would arise either of those "ways), but to
the time which was in the confine betwixt both, which Plato calleth
a moment or an instant, and denieth to be properly any part of time
at all.* He goes on, indeed, to say that death is sometimes taken
for that state of death which lasts until the body is raised, but he
tells us that this is an improper use of the word, and that state of
death should rather be termed the state of Hades.
Such of our readers as have not read for themselves the works of
the learned and pious Archbishop of Armagh, and have heard Samuel
Johnson's description of him as the great luminary of the Irish
Church, would find it very difficult, judging from the above quotation,
to see how he was justly entitled to so flattering a description. But
Usher is not to be judged from the above. He was here only follow-
ing the ignis fatuus of Plato which led astray clearer intellects even
than his. We may safely say that within the space of so many lines
it would be difiScult to find a greater amount of learned nonsense than
* Utilier's "Answer," ch. viii.
POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH. 85
we have just quoted. Death, according to Usher, belongs as much
to the state of life as it does to the state of death ! That is rather
perplexing. Again, he tells us, it is no part of either state ! Again,
he tells us that a man does not die either in the time of his life or of
his death ! Again he tells us that death occupies no time at all !
And again he tells us that death is no part of the state of death !
However, what we here have to note is that, according to Usher,
death J in its proper acceptance, occupies no time. From hence we
would conclude that Usher annihilates death. Lest any of our readers
should suppose that we, in our prejudice, put a constrained interpre-
tation upon Usher's language in order to make him appear unscriptural
or ridiculous, we will quote the words of a writer who agreed with
Usher and differs wholly from us, in a work which now commands a
large circulation and credit in America : ' ' We talk of the death of
man," says Hiram Mattison, *' because we see the earthy house
dissolve, but it is only an illusio^i.''^
" There is no death ; tvhat seems such is transition^* Thus modern
theology, under the guidance of Plato, denies that there is truly any
such thing as death, and teaches that what is most improperly called
so is only a transition, man changing one place for another. The
emigrant from Europe to America may, according to Mattison, Usher,
Ambrose, Athanasius, and their whole school, be as truly said to die
as he who leaves this world to enter upon another. But then, men
should remember that it was God who gave to a certain condition the
name of death, and that if there is illusion in the name, it is God
whom they charge with deceit !
XIII. It is most strange that men, clear upon other questions, do
not see the absurdity of the language which they use on this whole
question of death. We could quote verse after verse of hymns in
extensive use, and supposed by their admirers to breathe the very
essence of the Gospel, which are in reality only tissues of absurdity.
Let us take the following lines selected at random : —
" With my latest breath,
Overcoming death.
From the body disencmnbered."
How can a man be said to overcome death in drawing the last
breath of life ? Surely when he has drawn the last breath of life it
is then that death has overcome him ! As long as any breath of life
is in the man, death is kept at bay. Death may be near at hand —
visibly seen to approach — but as long as breath remains death certainly
has not conquered in the strife. And yet the hymn above quoted tells
us that this is precisely the moment when man has conquered death !
Death has overcome the man, and the man has overcome death by one
and the same last drawing of breath ! Can absurdity go farther ?
And yet unto this absurdity Plato's view of the immortality of the
* Quoted in "The Doctrine of Immortality," by J. H. Whitmore. Buchanan.
86 POPULAR THEOLOGY ON DEATH.
soul draws millions of plain, sensible, pious Christians, who sing with
heart and voice the most utter nonsense. It is well God accepts the
will for the deed ; but in the triumph of truth on this question of the
intermediate state of man we foresee the expunging of many popular
hymns from Christian hymnals.
XIV. From every quarter proceeds a medley of utterances upon
this intermediate state of man, and upon the nature of death, which
are all supposed to be very scriptural, but which are, in reality, op-
posed diametrically to its teaching. Heathen philosophy, Jewish
tradition. Apocryphal forgeries, Christian fathers, middle-age school-
men, Homan theologians, and Protestant divines, unite here in a most
astonishing harmony which is yet the harmony of error. We will
give a few passages for the edification of our readers. Here are
descriptions of that death which God has described as a penalty, an
enemy, and a curse !
XV. " When thou shalt leave the body," says the heathen Pytha-
goras, " and come unto a free heaven, thou shalt be an immortal God,
incorruptible, and not subject to mortality any more." If this is
true, is it not strange how a heathen taught so clearly what no pro-
phet had ever uttered ; for certainly we find no strains of this kind in
Job, the Psalms, or Isaiah. The Apocryphal Book of Wisdom,
speaking of the souls of the just, says, " In the sight of the unwise
they seemed to die,''^ and the Jew Philo says that Abraham " having
left this mortality, was adjoined to God's people, enjoying immor-
tality, and made equal to the angels." Strange that uninspired writings
should go so far beyond the inspired writings of the Old Testament !
" Thy death,'''* says the Apocryphal Gospel of Joseph, speaking of the
dissolution of our Lord's mother, " as also the death of this pious
man, is not death, hut life enduring to eternity.'''' How much clearer
this Apocryphal forger is on death than Paul ! " Death is abolished,''^
says Gregory Thaumaturgus, " in this performing a more wonderful
work than any of his other wonders." " What the midtitude call
death,''^ says the Platonic philosopher, Maximus Tyrius, " /"s hut the
heginning of immortality ^ '' That is not death," saith the orthodox
father, Athanasius, copying too faithfully the maxim of the Platonist,
''that is not death that befalleth the righteous." " Death is the
passage from corruption to incorruption," says Ambrose of Milan.
" Death is the salvation of the Lord," says Calvin, " and anticipates
the' day of His coming." Tillotson quotes approvingly the old
heathen saying — ** The Gods conceal from men the sweetness of dying,
to make them patient and contented to live." No other subject seemed
to transport Young into the very heavens of rapturous poetry as this
subject of death :
" Death is the crown of life
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain ;
Were death denied, to live would not be life;
Were death denied, even fools would wish to die.
POPULAB THEOLOGY ON DEATH. 87
Death wounds to cure : we fall, we rise, we reign I
Spring from our fetters, fasten in the skies.
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost :
The King of terrors is the Prince of Peace."
The poet of Methodism also sings of death, —
" Mortals cry, a man is dead !
Angels sing, a child is bom."
At the time of death says Luther, we have the mansions in heaven
and Christ with us for all eternity. *' To die," says Isaak Taylor in
his Saturday Evening^ "is to burst upon the blaze of uncreated
light, and to be sensitive to its beams — and to nothing else." It is
no wonder that our most recent writers upon this subject, encouraged
by an unbroken catena of authorities through Christian and Jewish
Rabbis to the great Eabbi Plato, should boldly teach Plato's doctrine.
" There is no deaths'' says Hiram Mattison, " ivhat seems such is
transitions'^*
XVI. Such is the glorification and deification of death ! In the
teaching of men who call themselves orthodox and Scriptural death
is magnified and lauded to the skies. No event can be more cheer-
ing : no event can be more glorious. More glorious things cannot be
spoken of Life Eternal than these men speak of death ! The coming of
our Lord is not more to us than the coming of death ! Speak of
death as an enemy ! Speak of death as a penalty ! Speak of death
as a curse ! 'Tis foul slander, shouts out the host of the orthodox,
following in the wake of Plato. Death is the best of friends : the
truest of comforters : the presence most to be desired ! So loud is
the chorus of voices praising death : so unanimous the crowd of
grave, learned, pious men, who speak lovingly, cheerfully, trustfully
of death, that we almost think that we must be wrong, and that we
have been saying things of death that we ought not to have uttered.
But when we look a little more closely into the conduct of these
men we begin to doubt the sincerity of their words, or at all events
their truth. They seem to dread this friend : to shudder at the
approach of this Prince of Peace. Nature seems then to us to
struggle within them against their creed, and to be too strong for
it. It begins to appear to us to be with them an intellectual pro-
position which they learned at school, not a heart belief. We go
back to our Bibles to see whether the irrepressible nature of these
men or their intellectual creed speaks truth, and we find that the
former does. To one capable of the vast grasping thought of immor-
tality death is indeed a thing of terror, for what is death according to
the Word of God ? It is even this : ' ' that which befalleth the sons
* Usher's " Answer," chaps, viii., vL ; " Wisdom," iii. 2 ; " Apocryphal Gospels."
Ante-Nicene Library, p. 71 ; Gregory Thaumaturgus, ''Discourse on all the Saints,"
ditto; " Immortality of the Soul," by R. W. Landis, p. 91; "Calvin on 2 Cor. v. 8;"
Abp. Tillotson's "Sermons," p. 277; Young's "Night Thoughts;" "Dies Iree," E.G.
Girdlestone, 273.
88 THE TIME OF JUDGMENT.
of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as the one
dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath ; so that a
man hath no preeminence above a beast."* So away depart all the
grand things spoken by man of death. We see them to be vain
illusions : fond conceits summoned up in heathen times to sustain
mortified man at the sight of his mortality. Death is, after all, the
king of terrors. Death is, for the time, the annihilation of man, his
hopes, his thoughts, his life, himself — an annihilation without hope
were it not for that Saviour, the true Prince of Peace because the
Prince of life, who conquered death in His own person, and will
abolish it in that of all His people. But this last is yet a future
thing. The time is yet to come of which Isaiah speaks — "He will
destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all
people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow
up death in victory ; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off
all faces ; and the rebuke of His people shall he take away from off all
the earth : for the Lord hath spoken it." f Until the Lord performs
this, we must regard death as the enemy who will be, but has not
yet been, overcome.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TIME OF JUDGMENT.
I. We now come to a very important point in our inquiry, viz., the
period when judgment takes place. Our question is, whether there
is any judgment of souls supposed to exist as conscious and re-
sponsible persons separate from the body, or whether judgment
does not take place until resurrection.
II. If our previous reasoning from Scripture has been just this
question has been already decided. If man be truly but one person,
and not converted by death into two individji^als, there can be no
judgment of man until the resurrection. For, according to the un-
varying testimony of Scripture, the various men who have died are
now buried and in their graves. But if these persons are also judged
during this state of death, this can only be done on the supposition
that death has made two persons out of one : that the dead body is
one of them, and the separate soul another ; and so that it is true of
any man, say of Cain, that Cain is both dead and living, that one
Cain is in the grave, and another Cain somewhere else ; that one
Cain is in the grave incapable of judgment, and that another Cain
has been summoned before a judgment seat. We make free to say
that such a theory has as little foundation in Scripture as it is con-
trary to our reason and convictions.
* Eccl, iii. 19. t Isa. xxv. 7, 8.
THE TIME OP JUDGMENT. 89
III. Again, if our reasonings from Scripture, as to the nature of the
soul and the source of life, have been just, judgment is impossible
until the resurrection, for there is no one to judge until then. We
have seen that the spirit of man is, in truth, no other than the
Divine breath of life, whose incoming into man before dead imparts
to him His soul or life, and whose departure from him back to its
source in the eternal nature takes away his soul or life, so that this
soul or life is no more than it was before the breath of life entered
into him. The idea of a separate living soul is, on this scriptural
view, therefore untenable, and, consequently, there can be no judg-
ment on such separate souls since, in reality, they do not exist.
IV. But besides these Scriptural arguments which are to our mind
quite conclusive upon the subject, Scripture expresslv tells us that
judgment is not passed upon any man, good or bad, during the state
of death, but is reserved, as all our sense and reason would point out,
until the resurrection. It was very natural for men like Plato, who
believed that the body was not any part of man, but was an accident
which became connected with man by way of punishment, or for some
reason — who believed that man had a perfect life before he Joined the
body, and would have a perfect life after he had left it for ever — who
never dreamed of the grand Scriptural truth of a Kesurrection — it
was natural, we say, for such a man to suppose that judgment would
take place when man quitted the body. With Plato the soul had
existed from eter7iitij. With Plato this eternal soul was the real
man. It became connected in time with a body, but this body was
never a part of the true man, but an accident from which death would
disencumber him. Judgment upon the soul separate from the body
was, therefore, a natural and a reasonable idea with Plato, for it
was judgment upon the man in all his proper nature. But for us
who read that *' God formed man out of the dust of the earth," to
suppose judgment passed upon anything else but this man thus made
of earth seems perfectly absurd. Happily Scripture does not require us
to believe it. All the great scenes with which Scripture connects man, it
connects with the man of Genesis, not with the man of Plato's Phcedo.
The man of Genesis is a being essentially different from the man of
Plato. It is with the man of Genesis that the Bible deals. His first
pure life in Eden, his fall, his recovery, his judgment, his resurrec-
tion, his eternal life, his everlasting destruction, are all connected
with the man of Genesis, the living soul, the body animated by the breath
of life from the ever-living God, — and not with Plato's Soulman, or
Virgil's unsubstantial shade. Error is ever striving to break this
connection of the Divine dealings with the man as made by God. One
error divides man for ever from the body by denying a bodily resur-
rection : another error divides man for a' time from the body by
teaching a judgment on and retribution to man in the intermediate
state. Both errors are of one and the same kind. They who would
deal with man bodiless for a time may surely suppose man bodiless
90 THE TIME OF JUDGMENT.
forever. The supposition of judgment and retribution without the
body in the intermediate state naturally leads to the denial of any
resurrection, for surely if judgment and retribution can happen to
man without any body, of what use is resurrection ?
y. But Scripture expressly tells us that neither judgment nor retri-
bution happen until the state of death is passed and resurrection has
taken place. The former of these truths we will show in this chapter,
and the latter of these in our next. Resurrection, the grandest act in
God's dealings with man, is not the aimless, objectless, purposeless
thing that our Platonic theology has made it. It gives life to man,
to one man eternal life for his endless joy in praising God, to another
man life for judgment and righteous retribution. Without resurrec-
tion, according to Scripture, the dealings of God with man would and
must be cut short and ended. With our Platonic divines those
dealings could go on with man for ever without any resurrection, for
with them the separate soul is the true man, capable of and possessing
life ; capable of all the acts and purposes of life ; a fit subject for
judgment, a fit subject for retribution, a fit subject for joy and sorrow,
not requiring the body either to constitute it man or to enable it to
perform the act and part of man ! Plato's man has taken in our
theology the place of God's man. "Man is a soul," says Plato:
" Man is dust animated by my breath of life," says God. Popular
theology, in teaching the separate life of the soul and making this
soul true and proper man, has adopted the teaching of Plato, and
abandoned that of God. For it is evident that if this supposed
separate living soul is not true and proper man it would be unjust to
make it responsible for the acts of man. It would be like j udging
William for the conduct of John.
VI. But Scripture uniformly tells us that the judgment of man for
his conduct here is to take place before Christ when He comes again
the second time. Without entering upon the prophetical question as
to whether all men are judged together, or whether this judgment
may not be spread over a wide space of time, and comprise judgment
of various classes of men subsequently the one to the other — questions
which must be decided by a very careful induction of many places of
Scripture — all that we would here maintain is that no man is, accord-
ing to the teaching of Scripture, judged until after the Lord Jesus
comes the second time in person. Of such importance was this truth
held to be, and so undoubtedly the doctrine of Scripture, that it forms
one of those articles of the Apostle's Creed deemed essential to bap-
tism, and so to salvation, which have been accepted in the Catholic
Church from the Apostle's days to ours — " From whence He shall
come to judge the quick and the dead." Here the Athanasian Creed
has faithfully followed the earlier Creed of the Apostles : "At whose
coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give
account for their own works."
YII. We should scarcely think it necessary to prove from Scripture
THE TIME OF JUDGMENT. 91
an article which every Christian man professes to hold. However we
will refer to some passages of Scripture in proof. And, in the first
place, our Lord tells us of large classes of men long since dead that
they have not yet been judged, but await judgment at some future
time : *' Yerily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land
of Sodom and Goraorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city."
He elsewhere repeats the same sentiment of the men of Tyre and
Sidon.* He thus affirms of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha,
of Tyre and Sidon, that they have not yet been judged, but will be
judged at some future time, which He calls the day of judgment. We
suppose that what Christ said of these men may with equal truth be
affirmed of at least all the heathen who had died before His time.
But what He affirmed of these heathen He also affirmed oi the Jews
living in His own day. Both are to be tried in this coming judgment
day. And what He says of the Jewish cities of His own time, we
suppose to be equally true of the Jews of all previous time. And thus
we have Christ teaching that neither the various generations of His
own nation up to the time of His first coming, nor the various genera-
tions of the heathen nations, had been judged, but that they all awaited
judgment at some future day. We are thus told that for four thou-
sand years there was no such thing as judging men lohen they were
dead. We should suppose that we might affirm the same of the
generations of men, Jewish, Christian, and heathen, who have died
since, i.e., that separate souls are not judged.
YIII. This is the very thing which our Lord does teach. He
affirms that all the sins of mankind of all future time should be
accounted for in that "day of judgment," wherein Sodom and
Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Bethsaida and Capernaum, should give
account of themselves: " I say unto you, that every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg-
ment." And His apostles Peter and John afiirm the same truth. f So
here we are taugh't that all mankind. Christian and heathen, will be
judged as the generations before Christ, i.e., that their judgment
does not take place during their state of death, but at some period
subsequent to it.
IX. We suppose that no one will dispute that this judgment of the
great day, when fallen angels share with man in judgment, is that
day of which Paul speaks when he says, " We shall all stand before
the judgment-seat of Christ." | Here Paul assembles the whole
universe — men of every time, and land, and creed, and life — before
the judgment- seat of Christ, at some future time. What that time is
our Lord tells us Himself. It is when He returns from that right
hand of God where He now is. He tells us this in His parable of the
talents. § It is '' after a long time that the Lord of those servants
* Matt. X. 15 ; xi. 22 ; Mark vi. 11. X J«de 6; Kom. xiv. 10.
t Matt. xii. 36 ; 2 Peter u, 9 ; 1 John iv. IT. § Matt. xxy. 19.
02
THE TIME OF JUDGMENT.
Cometh, and reckoneth with them." There is no reckoning with good
or with wicked servants until the Lord comes.
X. As usual, our Platonic theology has virtually nullified this
great truth of Scripture, as it has done to every other truth to which
it is opposed. It has done so stealthily and craftily, but most surely.
It has not denied in words the great day of future judgment of which
Christ and His apostles speak, but it has robbed it of all its signifi-
cance and meaning by telling us that there is another judgment before
it, which effects for every man separately what the final judgment has
to do. There are two judgments, say our Platonic divines : there is
a special judgment for every man separately the moment he dies, and
the general judgment for all united at the resurrection. As the soul
is the man, and lives apart from the body on death, they must have
soul judgments to suit its state. It is curious how this Platonic
dogma has ranged under one banner men of the most opposite
opinions. Protestant and Romanist are called forth by its stern
behest from their opposite ranks to march as brethren in the ghost-land.
XI. " Consider," says the " Key of Paradise," instructing the
Romish penitent in his " Meditations of Judgment," " Consider that,
instantly after death, thy soul is to be presented before the bar of
God's judgment, according to that of the Apostle ' after death comes
judgment.' And again, * all of us must appear before the tribunal of
Christ, that every one may give an account of his deeds, good or evil.'
Which particular judgment is no less to be feared than the general
doom at the end of the world."* The excellent Commentary of Poole,
drawn out by JS'onconformist divines in the I7th century, is here
harmonious with the Roman view. It tells us that " after souls by
death are separated from their bodies, they come to j udgment, and
thus every particular one is handed over by death to the bar of G-od the
great Judge, and so is despatched by His sentence to its particular state
and place with its respective people. At the great and general assize,
the day of judgment, shall the general and universal one take place,
when all sinners, in their entire persons, bodies and souls united, shall
be adjudged to their final unalterable and eternal state."!
XII. Such are the heresies into which men are led by their adoption
of a single philosophical dogma. This immortality of the soul has
united Protestant and Romanist in one common error ; has created
two judgments where God only speaks of one ; has virtually nullified
God's day of judgment by the adoption of man's. For what is the
second judgment if another has already taken place? Why should
saint or sinner be called a second time to account for what he has
already accounted? Man's day of judgment makes a fool's-day of
God's. But for man's day of judgment there is no proof. We defy
a single text of Scripture to be advanced in favour of it. While
those passages which we have already referred to do most assuredly
* Key of Paradise, "Meditations of Judgment;" " Oatichismus ad Parochos, p. I,
a. 7, s. 3. t Poole, Mat. " Com. on Heb. ix. 27."
THE TIME OF JUDGMENT. 93
contradict it, when they tell us that it is at the second coming of the
Lord that He will take account of His servants. We denounce this
figment of a judgment upon separate souls, introduced by heathens
who taught that the soul survived the body, and who must, there-
fore, needs introduce shadowy courts of law for shadowy culprits.
XIII. We rejoice to find that the idle imaginations of heathen
philosophers and poets are rejected from the healthy world of God's
revelation. Christ is not a Minos or a Ilhadamanthus, summoning
naked souls before Him to judgment. The Hades of the Bible is not
" An Infernal Region," such as Pluto presided over, whither
shivering ghosts went to hear their doom. The scenes which Lucian
held up to ridicule are not to be reproduced for the edification of
reasonable Christians without drawing forth a protest that they are
as baseless when taught by Christian theologians as when taught by
heathen priests. The bar of Christ is a different scene. A man will
sit upon that judgment seat, judging men. Men, as God created
them, not as they are pictured by John Wesley and Bishop Butler,
will stand before that bar. In the body they sinned or served God :
in the body they will be judged by the Son of Man.
CHAPTER XIY.
The Time of Reteibittion.
I. We are now led by the course of our inquiry to consider when
retribution to man is given for his conduct in this present life. By
this retribution we mean God's treatment, as well of the righteous
as of the wicked, the believer's reward of grace, the sinner's wages
earned and deserved by his sin.
It. As we remarked in the beginning of our last chapter, so we
have to remark at the beginning of this, that if our view throughout
this book of human nature, derived from our study of God's Word,
has been correct, we cannot for a moment doubt but that retribution
takes place at the resurrection, and not one moment before. If man
be really but one person, it is absolutely impossible that retribution
could take place before resurrection, since Scripture tells us that man
is dead and buried in the grave. The idea of retribution in the inter-
mediate state would involve the unscriptural absurdity that death
creates two persons out of one— one of these persons dead in the grave
and incapable of joy or sorrow, the other living, and therefore capable
of both. And, again, if we have rightly understood from Scripture
the nature of the soul, viz.^that it means that life of man of which
the withdrawal of the spirit deprives him, it is impossible that retri-
bution could be exercised in the case of that which has ceased to
94 THE TIME OF EETEIBUTION.
exist. To these considerations our last chapter has added another
proof in the same direction. Retribution before judgment is contrary
to all the principles of the divine and human law. Scripture ex-
pressly tells us that judgment must precede retribution in the case of
every individual of whatever character. " We must all," says the
Apostle Paul, '* appear before the judgment seat of Christ ; that every
one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he
hath done, whether it be good or bad."*
Iir. This text of St. Paul is a most important one in this enquiry,
and absolutely decisive that no retribution whatsoever, be it reward
or punishment, takes place before the resurrection and the judgment.
It is thus decisive whether we accept our present translation as per-
fectly correct or whether we alter it in agreement with very high
authority. To the best of our judgment the text should be trans-
lated thus: *'for we must all be made known before the judgment-
seat of Christ ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body
according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." There
can be no question but that " made known or made manifest" should
be the translation of the Greek verb in this verse as it is its transla-
lation in the next. Bengel expresses its sense when he says that it
means not merely that we should appear in the body, but that we
should be made known together with all our secret deeds. "f The
text is plainly one in sense with those numerous texts of Scripture
which speak of the great coming day of the Lord, when He shall
raise the dead, and when all secret things shall be exposed and
brought to light, when every man shall be made known in his true
and proper light. % As this is, however, now generally allowed to be
the proper translation, we need not dwell further on it.
lY. Now what is the teaching of this solemn text of Paul ? It is
plainly this, that retribution does not, and cannot, take place, until
after the day of resurrection. The judgment seat of Christ is that
judgment seat which is set-up when He comes and raises up the dead.
It is then that all secret things are made known, when every man is
manifested. But not until then will retribution take place ; not until
then will the sinner be punished, and the saint receive his reward,
i.e., it is in the body, and not out of the body that retribution takes
place.
y. This scriptural doctrine is just what our reason approves of.
It was in the body man sinned, or man glorified his Maker. It
seems that it should be in the body that he should receive his recom-
pense. The idea of retribution out of the body is absurd. The
idea of souls unconnected with the body receiving retribution is
only .worthy of that Platonic ^Aeology which tells us that the soul,
and not the body, is the man. " Man," says Bengel, ** acts well or
ill with his body. Man, with his body, receives his reward." § It
* 2 Cor. V. 10. X Luko xiL 1—3; Eom. ii. 16.
t Bengel on -I Cor. v. 10. § Bengol on 2 Cor. v. 10.
THE TIME OF RETRIBUTION.
95
would have been well for TertuUian's reputation if he had reasoned
as truly and as scripturally on all other subjects as he has on " The
Resurrection of the Flesh." His argument here we could, indeed,
commend to our readers, if they would read what we consider the best
treatise upon the resurrection that has ever been written.
VI. It is especially useful at the present day, when the prevalence of
a Platonic theology hides from our view the importance of the resurrec-
tion, even if it does not actually deny the dogma altogether. In two
places Tertullian comments upon this passage of the Apostle in words
we would recommend to the best attention of our readers. In one
place he ,says, * ' If the things which are to be borne hy the body are
meant, then undoubtedly a resurrection of the body is- implied ; and
if the things which have been already done in the body are referred
to, then the same conclusion follows ; for of course the retribution
will have to be paid by the body, since it was by the body that the
actions loere performed.^'' And in another place he says : " By men-
tioning both a judgment-seat and the distinction between works good
and bad, Paul sets before us a Judge who is to award both sentences,
and has thereby affirmed that all will have to be present at the
tribunal in their bodies. For it will be impossible to pass sentence
except on the body, for what has been done in the body. God would
be unjust, if anyone ivere not pimished or else rewarded in that very
condition wherein the merit was itself achieved.'''' * Had Tertullian
always reasoned thus he would have stood foremost among the fathers
of the early Church.
VII. But here Tertullian and Bengel, quoted above, bring out
exactly the sense of St. Paul. "All must be made known," says
the Apostle, " before the judgment- seat of Christ." Why must they
be thus made known ? In order that they receive the fitting reward
or punishment . Then, according to St. Paul, this making hnown must
precede retribution ? The idea of retribution before resurrection was
wholly alien to his teaching. The idea of retribution upon separate
souls in Hades was an idea that Paul knew nothing of save to reject
and to condemn it. It was with him but one of those Gentile or
Jewish fables which he holds up to reprobation. To the masculioe
and Scriptural mind of Paul, the heathen fields of Elysium and their
fires of Tartarus for their wandering ghosts was an absurdity, as it
was in the mind of Lucian.
VIII. But Paul was here only following the teaching of His
Master- Nowhere in the teaching of Christ are His disciples taught
to expect their reward, or any part of it, when they are dead. The
very idea of dead men recompensed is enough to excite scorn against
the school of thought which has taught it until, from the perpetual
repetition of the nonsense, we could not see its folly. But not to the
state of death, but to the resurrection from that state of death, does
our blessed Lord teach His people to look. " When thou makest a
* TertuUian's "Resurrection of the Flesh," eh. xliii., against Marcion, Bk. V. ch.xii.
96 THE TIME OF EETEIBUTION.
fea«t," He says, " call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind,
and thou shalt be blessed ; for they cannot recompense thee : for thou
shalt he recompensed at the resurrection of the just * Then, and not
when his people slept the sleep of death, did the Lord of Life teach
them to look for their reward. He never tells them to think their
reward is come when they are dead, when their soul is in Hades and
their body in the grave, but when they follow Him in His resurrec-
tion as they followed Him in His death, and when their soul is
rescued from Hades and their body from the grave at the voice
of love and power that speaks to sleeping ones in the day of His
appearing.
IX. And what passage from Christ's lips, or those of His Apostles,
is brou^:Kt forward to overthrow the doctrine that on resurrection,
and not before it, retribution is dealt out ? We here speak of pas-
sages which directly speak of such a previous retribution, not of
passages from which such a retribution may be inferred. To these
latter we will give attention further on. But are there, according to
our Platonic theologians, any passages of Scripture which do directly
state that before resurrection retribution of any kind, reward or
punishment, take place. Yes, they say, there is one. Where is it ?
In Luke xvi. 23. What do these words form part of ? A parable !
What are the words? *' In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in
torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom."
And here is the only passage in Scripture which directly states that
before the resurrection punishment and reward are meted out. And
of what force are these words to set aside the uniform testimony of
Scripture ? They form portion of the story part of a parable. How far
this story part is true ; how we are to interpret its various cir-
cumstances ; whether we suppose events here presented, which
are anticipated in time and place in order to suit the moral,
the hidden, real truth : all these things are to be determined
from other sources, and not from their position in the story.
We have exactly the same right to suppose, from Isaiah's grand
parable, that the* old kings are seated upon thrones in Hades and
make taunting or civil speeches to each other as the recently deceased
monarchs come in and take a new throne there, as we have to sup-
pose that the rich man suflered and spoke in Hades as he is repre-
sented in the parable of Christ. But as this parable of Dives and
Lazarus shaU receive further on a full consideration, we will not fur-
ther dwell on it here. We only noticed it to affirm the principle that
the mere story of a parable can never be allowed to set aside the plain
teaching of Scripture, and that the only passage of Scripture from
Genesis to Revelation which directly affirms that retribution precedes
resurrection is this solitary parable. But it must take its interpreta-
tion from other Scriptures, not impose a meaning upon them. And
* Luke xiv. 13, 14.
THE SLEEP OF DEATH. 97
their plain and uniform teaching is that retribution follows resurrec-
tion, and never precedes it by a moment.
X. Again we have to express our deep sense of delight that God's
revelation does not send us back as to our schoolmasters to heathen
fables. Ghost-lands on the earth or under the earth have no place
in the healthy teaching of Scripture. We have in heathendom bodi-
less souls rolling stones up steeps, and longing for draughts of water,
and suffering agonies upon wheels. But these are old wife's fables.
We have no mimicry of them in the Word of the Living God.
CHAPTER Xy.
The Sleep of Death.
I. From all that we have hitherto considered we have drawn the
conclusion that death is to man really and truly a sleep. That it is an
eternal sleep as the Epicurean philosopher of old and many infidels
now have taught we reject on the testimony of those repeated Scrip-
tures which speak of resurrection for all men, and of eternal life for
the people of God. But that it is a sleep such as Epicurus thought
would be eternal, a sleep deep, unconscious, unbroken while it lasts,
for man, is what we have concluded as the teaching of God's Word.
II. Now that man sleeps in death is the express testimony of Scrip-
ture. From first to last this is the testimony. This is the uniform
language of the Old Testament ; this language is continued uni-
formly in the New. Man is said, in death, to go to sleep. This is
absolutely affirmed of man, without any explanation that it is only
meant for a part of him, and not for all. We never read that man
sleeps as to his body, while he is wakeful and conscious as to his soul.
This is the language of Platonic theologians, for which the faintest
resemblance is not to be found in Scripture. There we are told ab-
solutely that man sleeps. We are bound, therefore, to believe that
man does sleep. Whatever man is, sleeps, if we will believe God's
Word. If people will say it is only the body that sleeps, then they
must allow that the body, by itself, is man. If they say that man
has both body and soul, and that these united constitute man, then
they must allow that both body and soul sleep. For, that man sleeps
in death is the express testimony of Scripture repeated too often to
be contradicted or set aside.
III. Job, anticipating the period of his death, thus addresses God :
" Why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine
iniquity ? For now shall I sleep in the dust ; and thou shall seek me
in the morning and I shall not be."* Here is what Job expected
.* Job vii. 21.
98
THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
death would be to him : a sleep where was no life — the sleep of death :
when there was in bein^ no such man as Job ! For a future life Job
must indeed have looked to resurrection, for assuredly he did not
believe there was any life for him in the deep sleep of death. Again,
God speaks to Moses of His approaching death. In what words does
He describe it ? He does not tell him that He is going to take him
up to heaven, or to give him a place in paradise, or to remove him
from this life into another and a better. He simply describes his
death as the time when he *' should sleep ivith his fathers.''''* Moses
when he died slept. That is God's account. Let who will say,
"Moses did not sleep." God's Word says he did, and that all his
fathers before him did the same. Such was the faith of David's time.
Bath-sheba ?peaks to David of his approaching end, " When my
lord the king shall sleep with his father s^ And Daniel affirms of
all men who have died that " they sleep in the dust of the earth. "t
Such OS is the testimony of these texts is the unvarying testimony of
the Old Testament. The dead, according to it, are asleep. Man,
however he is to be defined, is asleep in death. The Old Testament
knows of no waking for man until the period of the resurrection,
lY. It is often said that the New Testament speaks a different
language from the Old. It never speaks an opposite language. But
here it repeats the language of the Old without the smallest deviation
from it. On eternal life it is fuller and clearer than the Old Testa-
ment, because its grand theme is Christ Himself, who is eternal life,
and whose resurrection is its pattern and its pledge. But of death,
and of its state, the New Testament has nothing new to say, and it
says nothing new. It repeats in language just as strong as the Old,
that death is a sleep for tnan. It makes no nice distinctions such as
our Platonic divines so constantly make. It never says that the soul
is alive, and awake, while the body is asleep. From language such
as exposes Christian theologians to the ridicule, open or concealed, of
men who have studied the physiology of man, the New Testament is
wholly free. It simply says that tnan — whatever man is — sleeps in
death. The absurd contradictions of our Platonic divines, that man
is in the grave and in heaven at the same time, that he is dead and
alive, asleep and awake, the New Testament knows nothing of.
y. Our Lord speaks to His disciples of His friend's death as " our
friend Lazarus sleepeth ;" and of his resurrection as, " / go, that I
mag awake him out of sleep." In Christ's mind Lazarus was sleeping
in the grave, not singing praises in heaven, or anywhere else. Such
was Paul's view of all the dead in Christ — '* Now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept," or rather of
ihem who have slept — *' the firstfruits of the sleeping." (So Yulgate.)
He repeats this when addressing the Thessalonian Church — " We
which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not
prevent them which are asleep."X If one of our Platonic divines were
* Deut. xxxi. 16. f 1 Kings i. 21 ; Dan. xii. 2. J 1 Cor. xv. 20; 1 Thes. iv. 14.
THE SLEEP OF DEATH. 99
asked in what condition a departed believer was, he would reply that
he was in paradise praising God: if Paul were asked, he would reply
that he was asleep. Paul's theology differed here from Plato's.
VI. The passage from Thessalonians to which we have just referred,
bears so strongly upon our present subject, and is so decisive that
Paul knew nothing whatever of that survival of man in his soul ot
which modern theology is so full, that we will dwell more fully upon
it. The Christians of Thessalonica had lost some of their number
through death. They were sad in consequence. Whence principally
did their sorrow arise ? One chief cause, or rather the great cause,
was one personal to the survivors. This would appear from verse 13,
where their sorrow is compared to that of the heathen. When these
lost their friends, their grief was, that they never hoped to see them
again. The ^^ destderiuin mortuorum" (Bengel), the longing for the
presence of what has faded away from our sight, which everyone
who has loved and lost feels so strongly, was the strong cause of the
grief of the believers at Thessalonica. They knew that their dead
slept in Christ, and, therefore, it was through no misapprehension of
their real condition that their sorrow arose. It was personal : it was
for their own loss. Paul does not find fault with them for their
sorrow : he only warns them not to allow it to be excessive.
VII. In what would this excess consist ? It would consist in allow-
ing their sorrow to resemble the grief of the heathen for their dead.
What was this heathen grief ? It was the grief of persons who had
no hope. I^o hope of what ? No hope of ever seeing their dead again.
Why had they no such hope ? Because they believed in no future
life beyond this where they and the departed might meet again. It
was not merely that the heathen did not believe in a resurrection of
the body, but that they did not believe in the life of the separate
soul, because, to use Calvin's words, *' they considered death to be
final destruction, and thought that whatever was taken out of the
world had perished." * Such, according to Paul, was the real belief
of the great majority of mankind, of that vast heathen> world, which
surrounded the little Churches of Christ. All their philosophers'
arguments about the soul's Immortality, all their poets' pictures about
Elysian fields and happy shades, as well as shades in woe, came to
nothing when they looked at the face of death. They had no faith in
Plato and Cicero ; they smiled sadly at Virgil's pictures when they
saw death enter their dwellings and seize upon his prey. Plato
might do very well for a school exercise, to sharpen the wit and to
furnish fine periods for the future literates and orators. of Rome and
Athens and Alexandria, hut they did not believe in Plato, as indeed
it would be hard for them to do, when Plato only appealed to reasons
in which he evidently had no great confidence himself. Virgil and
his Shades might very well amuse the mind when it was free and
careless, but not when sorrow had fallen upon it. The heathen mind
♦ Calvin on 1 Thes. iv. 13.
h2
100 THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
did not believe in Charon and the ferry-boat, in Pluto and Proserpinp,
in Elysian iields, or in Tartarus. When they saw their dead lying
before them, they mourned for them as persons who had no hope of
ever seeing them again, because their real persuasion was that they
had passed away into that blank non-existence from whence they
had so mysteriously come.
VIII. Paul tells the Thessalonians that as C7ms^mws they ought not
to have such a sorrow. Why ? Because they mourned as persons
who had hope. What hope ? The hope of Reunion. This is the
consolation that Paul here gives, and the only consolation that would
suit the sorrow that was felt. Those whom you mourn for, he tells
his readers, you shall see again, and meet in a unioti which shall
never meet with end or interruption. Reunion is the Apostle's watch-
word. Reunion to an intercourse as real, as personal, as conscious,
as had here been felt in life. This was the believer'' s consolation ad-
ministered by the Apostle.
IX. Now, when was this consoling hope to be realised f In this life
they were to have the hope. When were they to have the fulfilment ?
The popular view of death places the fulfilment of this hope in the
intermediate state. It tells us that each soul on death enters with all
its powers increased into Paradise, there rejoins all who have departed
in the faith, that each saint on death is reunited to all who have gone
before him, and that all consciously enjoy mutual fellowship and
intercourse in an even increased degree above anything which they
had enjoyed here on earth in their lifetime. It will be remarked,
however, that Paul does not allude to this in the remotest way. He
does not, as Calvin would have done, tell them to expect such reunion
upon death. Now there was here occasion for such a reminder if it
could have been given. The Heathen opinion not only was that there
would be no resurrection, but that also souls had on death ceased to
exist, and, therefore, could have no personal intercourse with each
other. The Heathen opinion was that the isolation and separation
began from the moment of dissolution. R was against Heathen grief
that Paul was consoling the Thessalonians. He would, therefore, if
he had believed as is now popularly believed in the Church, have
pointed out to them that the sorrow which the Heathen felt for their
dead would be removed, not merely at the resurrection, but at the
moment of each believer's death. But he does nothing of the
kind. He does not give us a hint of it. He ignores it altogether.^
X. He does more. He virtually denies it. He is comforting
believers by the prospect of reunion ! When does he tell them to
expect it ? At the resurrection ! At the resurrection, he tells them,
your sorrow will be removed, you will rejoin the departed, you will
enjoy their society once more. Here, we maintain, Paul virtually
tells us that he did not know of, hold, or maintain any such idea of
the intermediate state as Christians now generally hold. If those he
wrote to mourned for separation, if Paul comforted them by the pros-
THE SLEEP OF DEATH. 101
peot of reunion, if he pointed to the resurrection as the consoling
prospect when their longed-for reunion would be accomplished, then
by every fair inference he did not believe or teach that there would
he any reujiion before the resurrection. All might, as they would no
doubt, be united in death, but the union would not be of that kind
which alone could console the Thessalonians, the union of living with
living, it would be bat adding one more sleeper to the unnumbered
sleepers of the past. The reunion which could give any consolation
would be at resurrection.
XI. Perhaps the best way to give a just idea of what the New
Testament teaches on this question of the sleep of death is to point
to one of the fullest descriptions which it gives of the death of an
individual believer. Luke thus describes the death of the martyr
Stephen: "They stoned Stephen, calling upon Grod, and saying,
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with
a loud voice. Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he
had said this, he fell asleep.^^* Every part of this narrative is well
worthy of our consideration. It furnishes a key, if we will only use
it, to the whole question before us. The soul and spirit of man are
too often confounded as if they were diflPerent names of one and the
same thing. Scripture most jealously distinguishes them. The spirit
of man, with it, is that breath of life which came forth from God Him-
self, which belongs to man in this life, and is the pledged possession
of the believer for ever in the life eternal. It is this spirit, not his
soul, which Stephen commits into the care of Jesus to keep for him.
The spirit of Stephen is carefully distinguished from Stephen himself.
Man's hope of life consists in the spirit being kept for him. Assured
of this, i.e., assured of his resurrection to life, Stephen himself falls
asleep. The spirit was not Stephen : the spirit was not the man.
Poor man might identify himself with this spirit, but Scripture tells
him he is not spirit, but that he is dust. And so, when the spirit of
Stephen had gone back to its source, and there was kept reserved to
return to him on the day of resurrection, the man himself, Stephen,
falls asleep. He could not help it. The source of life was gone. He
must sleep, body and soul, an unbroken sleep, until that spirit of life
come back again.
XIL Now it so happens that in that Word which was meant to give
us full and clear ideas of the statt of death, and which, as we have
seen, describes that whole state as a state of unbroken slumber for
man, we have not only these general descriptions of the state, but we
have accounts of several persons who were in that state and came
back from it, and lived many years afterwards among their fellow-
men. Such were, in the Old Testament, the widow of Zarephath's
son raised to life by Elijah, the Shunammite's child raised by Elisha
living, and the dead man raised by contact with Elisha's bones in the
sepulchre : such were, in the New, the widow's son, and Jaifus
♦ Acts vii. 60.
102 THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
daughter, and Lazarus, raised to life by Christ.* 'Now all these were
cases of persons whose souls were in Hades for a longer or a shorter
period of time. All these were persons competent to tell about Hades,
if there was anything to tell.
XIII. According to Platonic theology, all of them had passed living
into a vast world of living men. Their bodies, indeed, had ceased to
have life, but they themselves, living souls, in full possession of living
powers, able to speak and to act, able to enjoy and to suflfer, and
actually suffering or enjoying more than on earth they had ever
suffered or enjoyed, had gone somewhere where they met unnumbered
myriads of others like themselves. "Whether such a visit to this great
ghost-land were the visit of a moment, an hour, or of days, it would
have impressed its wondrous lesson upon the imagination and the
memory as with a pen of iron upon rock. For, according to our
Platonic divines, these men and children had seen in their brief
visit to the land of souls sights such as no man had ever witnessed
upon earth. The gorgeous scenes of Nineveh, Babylon, and Rome,
the festivals of Jerusalem, the battle-fields of Alexander, the
triumphal entry of Roman consuls, would not so fill the imagination,
or write themselves upon the memory, as would those scenes on which
the soul of the widow's son was gazing as Elijah was praying that it
might come back again, or on which Lazarus was lost in astonish-
'ment as his sorrowing sisters were sadly urging Christ with the
words, — " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."
These were persons who saw and conversed with the dead of all past
times, the living souls, more countless than the sands of the sea,
engaged in the occupations of this land invisible to living men.
When they came back from this land of life they would have much
to tell.
XIV. That Shunammite, whose greatness was in her eyes as
nothing hecaiise she had no child, whose heart and soul were bound
up with her child when God granted her the longing of her whole
married life, whose hopes and anticipations were withered like grass
when he died upon her knee, would she not ply him with her thou-
sand questions when she took up her son once more alive, and went
out to enjoy, with no witness near her, the sight of her child again ?
That friend of Christ, who was in Hades for four entire days, who
was the centre of astonishment and curiosity to the crowds of a great
metropolis, who, on the views of our Christian Platonists, had seen
Adam, and Methusaleh, and Noah, and Joshua, and Samuel, and
David, and Isaiah, and had walked and talked with them in the new
scenes of soul-land, — How would he be plied with crowding question
upon question by the various Jewish sects who held such various
opinions of this mid-passage between this world's and resurrection
life, by his many friends and acquaintances, by those fond sisters to
whom life was a blank when Lazarus did not share it with them?
* 1 Kings xvii. 2 Kings iv.-; xiii. 21 Mark v. 41 ; Luke vii. 14 John xi.
THE SLEEP OF DEATH. 103
The history of one world to tell to the inhabitants of another world
hanging upon their lips ! Never such narrators, never such an
audience, if only our Platonic Christianity were true.
" They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathj',
Nor change to us, although they change ;
Eapt from the fickle and the frail
With gathered power, yet the same.
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil."
XV. So writes Tennyson, giving us the Platonic view of the blessed
dead. The poet turns from his own friend to the friend of Christ,
who had, in Platonic judgment, so far surpassed in death all he had
had in life, and expresses, through the mouth of Mary, that irrepres-
sible longing to inquire of the returned from the land of living souls
as to its condition.
"Where wert thou, brother, Viose four days*
There lives no record of reply."
XVI. The poet is forced to give this as the answer to Mary's ques-
tion. He has searched those beautiful chapters of St. John which speak
of Lazarus : those other records of the Old and New Testaments which
speak of others who were in the same condition in all respects as
Lazarus, But still there is the same utter silence in Grod's Word.
Not a syllable on record. The spell of unbroken silence reigns over
the inspired writings. There must be a reason, and Tennyson gives
us our choice of two : —
" He told it not ; or something seal'd
The lips of that Evangelist." *
XVII. But we have a better reason in God's Word for this silence
of Scripture than Tennyson has given. There is no record of reply,
because there was no reply to be made. When Lazarus left his
charnel-house, he had no tales to tell of Elysian fields within this
earth, of heavenly orbs above it, and of their inhabitants, and so
there is no record of what was not and could not be spoken. " The
dead know not anything ; all their thoughts perish," sentences such
as these, which could be quoted in hundreds from the Bible, account
for the Evangelist, because they account for a needs-must silence on
the part of Lazarus. Where no word was spoken, no record could
be made. Had Lazarus but spoken one word, given a general im-
pression of the fancied soul- land, or detailed some particulars of its
condition, the silence of St. John would not silence the thousand
rumours and tales that would originate from a single utterance of a
man who had seen and spoken of the mysterious land which was in
everyone's thoughts, to which everyone was travelling, of which
everyone would wish to catch a glimj)se ere he was ushered into it to
dwell as one of its inhabitants until the day of the coming of the
Lord, But not one word in inspired or uninspired writings ; not one
* Tennyson : In Memoriam^ xxx., xxxii.
104 LIFE OR DEATH?
faint tradition in Father or heretic, in genuine writings or forgery of
the early centuries, that one single word fell from the lips of Lazarus,
or that one solitary tale was told by him of the invisible land.
Apocryphal gospels spake of the fancied circumstances of this
imaginary land ; but even they, in their shameless impudence, never
ventured to connect their lying wonders with the name of the friend
of Chribt. For one who had been truly dead and truly returned from
the state of the dead, whatever that state was, the '* Gospel of Mco-
demus " substitutes two supposed sons of the aged Simeon, who had
taken up Christ in his arms, supposes them to have been raised from
the dead and to have returned from the land of living souls, and into
their mouths puts the lying tales of Hades and its supposititious
dwellers, which it imposed upon credulity and ignorance.* But even
Apocryphal Gospels never dared to connect their stories with Lazarus.
He had spoken no word of what he knew nothing of ; he had brought
back no tales of the living from the land of death ; he could but re-
port that those *' four days " were to him an utter blank, no memory
of circumstance or event. He knew not how long he had been in the
grave. The four days might have been four thousand years, and they
would have been to him the same blank, unidealess, uneventful
period, which had left no memory of time, or place, or thought, be-
cause it was a period of the most utter and unbroken sleep unvisited
even by a dream. The general accounts of Scripture of Hades as a
place of oblivion and of sleep, exactly tally with the circumstances oi
those who had been dead, and who were raised from the dead.
CHAPTER XYL _
LIFE OR DEATH ?
I. We propose to consider in our present chapter the light in which
Scripture generally regards the opposite states of life and death. The
life we speak of is man's life here terminated by his death. The
death we speak of is his entire condition from the time he dies until
the time he is raised again from the dead. We want to ascertain
what comparison Scripture draws between these two states ; which of
them it considers the preferable one.
II. This is the simplest question in the world, and the most easily
answered, according to the Platonic theory of death. We have only
to ascertain the character of the person who dies, in order to be able
to give a clear and decisive answer. There is no difficulty in making
it. The reply comes at once and readily to our lips. That reply is,
that if the person who dies dies in the faith of Christ, the state to
* Tlie Apocryphal Oospels. Ante-Nicene Library. T. T. Clarke. P. 199.
LIFE OR DEATH ? 105
which death introduces him is a far happier state than the very hap-
piest state here, and therefore that in the case of every such man
death is preferable to life ; while if the person who dies dies unrecon-
ciled to God, the state to which death introduces him is a far more
miserable state than the worst he can suffer here, and that, con-
sequently, to every such man life here, under any circumstances, is
preferable to the state of death.
III. For the ordinary theory is that when a good man dies, his
body goes to the grave, while he himself goes at once to a place of
joy. Platonic divines may here differ as to where this place is, and
what is its name ; but of the character of the place there is no dif-
ference. They may suppose it to lie within the crust of this earth, or
to be beyond the stars. They may call it Hades, or Paradise, or
Abraham's bosom, or Heaven, according to their judgment, and
attach peculiar ideas to these several places, confounding or distin-
guishing them as they think fit. But — no matter where the place be,
or what its name — the good man goes to a condition of happiness
surpassing anything he has here enjoyed. Again, the ordinary theory
as to a wicked man is the opposite to this. The wicked man's body
is buried, but the wicked man himself goes to a place of misery.
Platonic divines may differ as to where this place is, and what it
should be called. They may call it Hades, Tartarus, or Hell, con-
founding or distinguishing these places according to their several
ideas, but they all agree that the condition to which the wicked man
goes on death is a condition of misery. The state of the rich man in
the parable of Lazarus expresses their opinion — *' He lifts up his eyes,
being in torments." The answer of the Platonic theory to our
question is in every case ready and a simple one. Death is in every
case the greatest blessing to a good man. Death is in every case the
greatest curse to a wicked man.
IV. On our theory, we confess, the answer is by no means so simple
and ready to hand. Our theory is that death is for all men alike the
same, viz., an unconscious sleep. Being such it cannot, in itself, be
desirable to any one, for it is, while it lasts, equal to annihilation.
In comparing together life and death we must take into account a
great many circumstances which are to guide us in our comparison.
We are, in the first place, to compare together life and death as they
are in themselves, without any reference to that resurrection and
judgment which await every sleeper : in the second place, we are to
take into account that this resurrection and judgment do await every
man : that life is, according to our theory, that condition in whicn
alone choice can be made of the resurrection to everlasting life or
shame : that death merely sets its seal upon the choice that each man
has made in life : that it frees the believer from any possibility of
falling, and shuts out the wicked man from any possibility of salva-
tion. And, according to these very various considerations, we must
make our answer.
106 LIFE OE DEATH ?
V. Our answer, then, is complicated. If life here were in every
case one of happiness, or even of tolerable ease, we should say that
life here would be, in the case of every one, preferable to death. But
life here is not in every case one of happiness, or even of tolerable
ease. It is often associated with such weariness and suffering,
whether of body or of mind, that men would positively prefer not to
exist than to exist in such circumstances. In all such cases, and sup-
posing that the circumstances here supposed were to continue for life,
we should say, death is preferable to life. While those painful cir-
cumstances lasted we should say, death is preferable to life. And
thus in our comparison of life and death, ^/^ themeelves, we do not
take into account the character of men in God's sight, but we take
into account the proportion of happiness and misery they are conscious
of ; we take into account only whether they would themselves prefer
the life they have to not having life at all. On this supposition we
should say that, under certain circumstances of ease, &c., it is better
for a good man to live than to die ; and, under certain other circum-
stances of misery, &c., it is better for a good man to die than to be
alive. And the very same we say of a wicked man. If he enjoy his
life, we say life is better for him than death : and if he be weary of
life, we say it is better for him to be dead than to be alive.
But when we come to the second reilection we are able to give a
decided and simple answer. We then sa}^ it is good or evil to die
exactly in respect of each man's character in the sight of God. If a
man has here chosen God in Christ for his portion, then it is good for
that man to die, because he is then free from any further danger of
making shipwreck of his faith. Resurrection will find him in the
precise position he was in when he fell asleep in Jesus. But if a man
has here refused God's offers of mercy, and chosen sin for his portion,
then death is an evil to that man, because death excludes him from
the possibility of repentance. Resurrection will find him in that
precise state of alienation from God in which he breathed his last
breath.
YI. We thus see that our theory does not enable us to give at all
the ready answer to the question which the divine of Plato's school of
theology can give. We must first separate the conditious of life and
death in themselves from ulterior results ere we can make any reply
at all. Comparing the two conditions, we must take into account the
circumstances of each man apart from his religious condition in order
to give an answer. The Platonist need do nothing of this. With
him it is always better for a good man to be dead than alive ; always
better for a wicked man to be alive than dead. What we want to
know is, with which of these views, our view or that of the Platonist,
Scripture best agrees.
YII. In the abstract, Scripture always prefers life to death. This
exactly suits our view, while it contradicts that of the Platonising
divines. Life is God's gift to man ; therefore, in itself\ of necessity,
LIFE OR DEATH
107
a blessing. Life, as given by God, is accompanied by wbat is requi-
site for its enjoyment. But death is, witii us, the taking away of
life, i.e., the removal of a blessing. Consequently, in the abstract,
our view that life is preferable to death is agreeable to Scripture.
But the Platonist tells us that death is, in the case of every good man,
his introduction to a higher and happier life than any he had here at
the best; and therefore he by no means agrees with the abstract
proposition of Scripture, that life is preferable to death. That such
is the proposition of Scripture every one who has any knowledge of
it must know. We need only refer below to some texts which
affirm it.* ,
VJII. We now come to circumstances and cases. So far, then,
from Scripture supposing that death is, in the case of every good
man, preferable to life, it lays down the exact converse, that, as a
general rule, life is for him a preferable state to death. Length of
days here is, in both Old and New Testament, regarded as a thing to
be desired by good men, and promised to them as a blessing from
God. *' He that will love life, and see good days," says the Apostle
Peter, "let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they
speak no guile :" while Paul exhorts Christian children to obey their
parents in the Lord, that it may be well with them, and they may
live long in the land.f What Scripture thus says in general terms
we also learn from it in special cases. David, speaking by inspira-
tion, tells us thaj; it was far more desirable for him to be alive than
to be dead. " Eeturn, 0 Lord," he says, "deliver my soul: oh,
save me for Thy mercies' sake. For in death no man remembereth
Thee : in Hades who shall give Thee thanks ?" X David had not the
'smallest idea that it would be in itself better for him to be dead than
to be alive : on the contrary, he says that life was for him a far more
preferable condition. In the very same way his godly successor,
Hezekiah, compared together life and death. On the approach of the
latter he very earnestly deprecates its triumph. Life had its joys for
the pious king, and he would not change them for what death could
bring. He regarded death as taking them away, while it brought
nothing else to replace them. Therefore, life was in his eyes far
more to be desired than death. What is more, God allowed tnat he
was in the right. As an answer to his prayer, and as a blessing to a
pious man, God added to his days fifteen years. § Those fifteen years
were, if happy as those which preceded them, to be preferred to fifteen
years, aye, to fifteen thousand years, in the state of death. They
were so much time of happy life rescinded from the reign of nonentity.
But, perhaps, some will say, " Oh, these are Old Testament Scriptures,
and Old Testament saints ; let us have the New Testament and its holy
men." As if what death was loas unknown for four thousand years !
As if God had been speaking of death from man's creation, and
• Deut. XXX. 16. X Psalm vi. 4, 5,
t 1 Pet. iii. 10; Eph. vL 1—3. § Is. xxxviii. 3—5.
108 LIFE OR DEATH ?
neither David, nor Hezekiah, nor Isaiah, knew what it was ! But
we will come to the New Testament and its holy men. We will come
to Paul and Epaphroditus. Both knew — the former at least — what
death was to bring to the child of God. Epaphroditus is sick, nigh
unto death. He recovers. And what is Paul's comment on this
recovery ? Just the very same kind of comment which Hezekiah is
blamed for making by our Platonic divines ! ' ' God had mercy
upon him" *
IX. So Paul agrees with Isaiah, and Hezekiah, and David I No
woiader this when he tells us that he learned his theology from the
Old Testament, and taught no one dogma that was not written in the
law and in the prophets. In Paul's eyes, for such a man as
Epaphroditus life was a better condition for him to be in than death.
Epaphroditus was not come to its dregs — steeped in its miseries ; for
him it was better to live than to die, in the judgment of St. Paul!
Then Paul was not here at one with Calvin, who tells the child of
God to lift up his head at the bare mention of the name of death, as
the bearer of redemption. Paul would reckon it no blessing to be
detained from redemption, and therefore death was not in the eyes of
Paul the bearer of joys more than life has to give. Life, in the cir-
cumstances of Epaphroditus, was with Paul a far more preferable
condition than that of death. Paul, where was your philosophy ?
Certainly not in the page of Plato, but in the old page of the Old Book
which taught that death was in itself a curse.
X. So life, even for a good man, is, in the testimony of Old Testa-
ment and of New, vastly preferable to the state of death ! What,
then, becomes of the theory that this state of death is for every good
man vastly preferable to life ? It is seen to be an illusion, a mirage
summoned up from the Platonic waste of sand, an effort upon man's
part to reverse and make nugatory a great decree of God. But is not
death sometimes represented by good men as preferable to life ? No
doubt it is. But when F In circumstances that make life no longer
a blessing ! Under the very same circumstances that make wicked
men prefer death to life ! Under no other,
XI. When did Job regard death as a blessing ? It was not when
health and wealth, children and honour, were his, but when he was
deprived of them all, and continuance in life was continuance in
misery. It was then that death was to be preferred to life. It was
then he said, " Wherefore is light given unto him that is in misery,
and life unto the bitter in soul ; which long for death, but it cometh not ;
and dig for it more than for hid treasures : which rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad when they can find the grave."! It was when he sought
rest in his bed and found no ease from painful watching, when even
in his broken sleep he was scared with dreams and terrified with
visions, that *' his soul chose strangling and death rather than life."|
As it was with Job so was it with Elijah the prophet. It was when
* Phil. il. 27. t Joto iii. 21. % Job vii. 15.
LIFE OR DEATH ? 109
he was forsaken and solitary, when lawless power sought his life,
when weary with hasty ilight, when he thought himself alone on
earth of faithful men, it was then that " he requested for himself that
he might die, and said, ' It is enough, now, 0 Lord, take away my
life, for I am not better than my fathers.' "* As with Elijah, so with
Jonah. It is when he feels himself made a scorn and a reproach, as
though he had been a false prophet ; and when bodily weariness is
added to keen mental anguish, that he faints, and wishes to die, and
says, '' it is better for me to die than to live."t These were all men
of God, and yet all these judged that life, in ordinary circumstances,
was better than death, and that it was only the pressure of misery
that made death preferable to life. They did not regard it with
Calvin as the day of redemption: they regarded it as the loss of
existence, only to be sought and longed-for when life was associated
with pain. Then, but not otherwise, they wished to depart, and
be at rest.
XII. As it was with holy men in the Old Testament so with
believers, in the New. Paul, like Jonah, Elijah, Job, wished "to
depart."! ^^ take the meaning of this word to be "to die." But
what more can be argued from this wish of Paul than is shown from
the similar wishes of believers before him, viz. — that he thought
death, the loss of existence, better than such a life as his ? He was
now in the decline of a life which, at its best, seems to have been one
of much physical iniirmity. He was at this time lying in a Roman
prison. For Paul, persecuted and almost alone, it was a gain to die.
To Paul, persecuted and alone, rose up the strong desire to depart and
to be at rest, as it rose to Jonah under the sun of Nineveh, to Elijah
under the desert juniper, to Job as he scraped his body among the
ashes. His work, he hoped, was over, and it had been a weary work
which his Master had laid upon him, a work only endurable for the
grand prospect which lay before hira, when it was itself but a memory
of the past.§ For him, and all like him, it was better to be dead
than to be alive.
XIII. We have thus seen it to be the teaching of Scripture that
in ordinary circumstances life is better than death for the believer,
and that it is only in circumstances of great misery that death is in
itself preferable for them to life. We will now see that the inference
to be drawn from these considerations in the case of good men is also
borne out by what Scripture tells us of the wicked.
XIY. According to ordinary teaching, a wicked man when he dies
is plunged at once in Hades into greater misery than he had ever
here endured. The usual teaching is, that the pains which he endures
in Hades are of the same character which await him after judgment
in Hell. On this supposition death is in itself, and its immediate
and inseparable consequences, the most terrible idea to the ungodly,
and life here, no matter under what distressing, painful circumstances,
* 1 Kings xix. 4. t Jonah iv. 2—8. t Phil. 1. 23. § 1 Cor. iv. 9; xv. 19.
110 . LIFE OE DEATH ?
is infinitely to he preferred by him to death. But this is not the
teaching of Scripture. The general descriptions of death in Scripture
are precisely the same for all men, utterly irrespective of character.
While both Old and New Testament ever point to resurrection and
judgment as differing most materially, according to the character of
the persons raised and judged, we defy anyone to point out anything
like this in the Scriptural accounts of death. ''There the wicked
cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the
prisoners rest together ; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his
master."* Such are the general descriptions of Scripture, making
no difference in the state of death between one man and another. In
death one and the same event precisely happens to good and evil.
It is only in the day when God makes up His jewels, in the day of
Jesus Christ, that distinction is made "between the righteous and
the wicked ; between him that serveth God, and him that serveth
Him not."t
XY. But what the Scripture thus conveys by its general descrip-
tion of death, it also conveys when it comes to speak more particularly
of the life and death of wicked men. According to our Platonic
theology, death is in. itself an unspeakable calamity in the case of
every wicked man. In the judgment of Scripture, death is sometimes
in itself a great blessing to wicked men ! We turn to the prophet
Jeremiah for God's testimony to this fact, so monstrous in the eyes of
our Platonic divines. J The time has come for Israel's sins to bring
down Divine judgments upon the land. The voice of mirth and the
voice of gladness has ceased from its cities ; the voice of the bride-
groom and the voice of the bride are unheard ; the land is desolate
because of its sins. It is a time of mourning and of sadness. And
what does God say of death as compared to such a life ? 2'haf it is
to be preferred .' " i)eath shall be chosen rather than life by all the
residue of them that remain of this evil family." What is thus con-
veyed to us in the writings of the prophet of Jerusalem's woe is also
conveyed to us by him who saw, in the visions of the Apocalypse, the
calamities coming on the earth when the trumpets of judgment
should sound. "In those days," says St. John, "shall men seek
death, and shall not find it ; and shall desire to die, and death shall
flee from them."§
X-VI. From these passages of Scripture we find that when great
troubles fall in this life upon wicked men it would be a desirable
thing for them to be dead. This can only be upon the supposition
that Scripture supposes the state of death to be for the wicked a state
of unconsciouf-ness and sleep. In great trouble they wish to die, and
God, in righteous judgment, does not permit them to die. What
utter nonsense this would be if popular theology were correct! With
* Job. iii. 17—19. t Eccl. ii. 14 ; ix. 3 ; Mai. iii. 18.
X Jer. viii. 1—3. § Kev. ix. 6.
LIFE OR DEATH ? Ill
it, the torments of the intermediate state equal the torments of hell.
It would be madness in any wicked man to wish to exchange the
calamities of this life for the far more terrible calamities that await
him, in the judgment of our popular teachers. It woijld be mercy in
God, and not judgment, to detain him in the calamities of this life
from those more terrible evils by far.
XVII. We conclude, then, that, according to the teaching of Scrip-
ture, death is precisely the same event in itself to all men, and that
it is for all men a slumber unbroken by joy or sorrow, by hope or by
fear. Such a state alone answers all the requirements of Scriptural
statements. No other condition suits them all. What is to be pre-
ferred by a wicked man to an unhappy life ; what is to be avoided by
a good man in the happier circumstances of existence'; can only be
that state of sleep, where all are quiet, where there is no joy and no
sorrow, where man has returned to his dust again.
XVI I I. But we could not do justice to the great question of life or
death if we were only to compare them in themselves. This life and
the death which foUows it are only the preludes of greater events in
the history of man. As life is followed by death, so death is followed
by resurrection and by judgment. All men are to rise again with
their bodies, and to give account of their deeds. And, in relation to
this coming judgment^ life and death assume qualities which they
possess not in themselves.
XIX. This life is the period during which eternal life may be
secured, and made our own. Scripture knows nothing of Grospels
preached in Hades to bodiless souls by bodiless souls or angels.
"Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." It never
permits us to hope that aught good or evil can be done in the land
where all things are forgotten. As man dies, he continues through
the whole state of death, and rises up to judgment. If here we have
chosen Christ, we cannot fall away from Him in Hades : if here we
have rejected Him, we cannot choose Him in Hades. The period of
unbroken sleep does not permit change of any kind.
XX. Now all this invests the close of this life with a momentous
importance. It makes death a blessing or a judgment, exactly in
agreement with the character of each individual that dies. It seals
the choice of the believer to the eternal life, and that of the unbeliever
to the everlasting destruction that follow upon resurrection and judg-
ment. " The wicked is driven away in his wickedness ; but the
righteous hath hope in his death." Death to the former is a solemn
judgment, calling him away from further hope of salvation : death to
the latter is a blessing, calling him from further trial or danger of
falling. In reference to their eternal future, death is thus a judgment
or a blessing in exact correspondence with man's relation to God.
XXI. In regard of the wicked man he need not enter into further
consideration. We will, however, say a few words more on the indirect
benefits which death, as thus regarded, brings to the child of God.
112 LIFE OR DEATH ?
"We have, probably, in Paul's reflections upon his own approaching
death the best and fullest account anywhere given of all the benefits
which death can possibly bring to the most exalted believer. They
are negative, not positive.*
XXII. Paul, at Rome, looks forward to his being soon brought
before the judgment-seat of Csesar, where he knew he would be con-
demned to death. He has now the certain prospect of a death near
at hand. He contemplates it exactly as the criminal when he has
been condemned to die. He describes his feelings at the prospect.
No doubt they are full of faith, fuU of hope. We more than doubt
whether Paul would have looked at an approaching acquittal at
Ciesar's judgment -seat with the smallest feeling of satisfaction, or
that, if the stretching forth of his hand to plead for life would have
added to his life, he would have raised it from his side. We are
satisfied that he would not, of his own free will, have put off for a
day or an hour the fate that was rapidly drawing near. Now, such
are the circumstances, and Paul the man, to give rise and utterance
to whatever feelings of hope and joy God allows to the nearest and
dearest of his people at the prospect of death. It will be remarked,
however, that Paul uses no such expressions as Calvin tells us the well-
taught believer would use at the prospect of death. He does not call
it the period of his redemption, but, on the contrary, intimates that
it was not. Our popular hymns comparing the act of dying to the
passage of the Jordan go altogether beyond the ideas of the great
Apostle. The benefits he expects from it are none of them positive
and present^ but all either indirect or anticipative. Death is the
close of a perilous period, which has been successfully gone through :
or it is the waiting time for a glorious period which will succeed it.
But of the blessedness of the actual state of death he has not here
said one word. We will examine the passage.
XXIII. First, then, in death the warfare, the course, the pilgrim-
age, the toil, the danger, all are over and gone hack for ever. "I
have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept
the faith," such is the blessed result of death to the believer. There
is no more scorn of the world, no more danger of falling, of the
preacher's becoming a cast-away. In death Paul has reached the
position of the Grecian runner who has come to the goal and runs no
more. Yictory is his, and he ceases to strive. And what is the next
thing which the Apostle expects as the consequence ? It is the crown.
When ? As soon as he dies ? No ; not as soon as he dies. The crown
is his, hut it is not then given to him. It is laid up for him, and will
be given. When ? At the second coming of Christ ; at the resur-
rection : and not one hour before. *' Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them that
love His appearing.''^ Here, then, is the exact and particular state
* 2 Tim. iv. 7.
RESURRECTION. 113
in which Paul tells us that death places hira, and all wlio resemble
him: they are victors ivho have ceased to strive and who await the
reward of victory.
XXIV. And what, then, is the state of death itself ? AVhat is
til at condition which is not over, as some seem to think, in the very-
act of dying, but which continues from that act of dying to the
second coming of the Lord ? It is, so far as Paul here represents it,
a blank. It is neither the strife for victory, nor the reward for vic-
tory. It is like the condition of the Grecian runner, when he stood
motionless and exhausted at the goal, in a state of utter inaction.
The next act in the history of the believer, after he has closed his
eyes in death, is opening them in resurrection to receive the reward
of victory. All between is a blank.
XXV. Or, let us transfer the illustration to the kindred one of
the soldier, to which, probably, Paul here also alludes (Liddell and
Scott, ayu)v.) The armies have struggled in fierce contest from
morning light in this, the concluding fight of the war. Severe has
been the struggle, but it has ended in a complete victory. The
shadows of night are stealing over the scene, as the defeated army
flies in dismay from the field. Word has gone through the victorious
host, — '* The victory is won.^^ See yonder soldier ! He has stood his
ground ; he has watched the foe ; he has seen the waning and the
waxing of the tight ; he has charged home with fierce onset at com-
mand ; he has seen his foe retiring through the fast-falling shades of
night. With the shout of victory in his ears, to which he has lent
his own weak voice, he sinks exhausted on the ground he has won.
Sleep, unbroken by the memories of past struggle, unbroken by the
anticipation of the rewards of victory, chains him down through the
night that follows, and not till the bright sun of the morrow shines
full upon him does he awake to receive the reward of the soldier's
victory. His condition— asleep upon the battle-ground — is the con-
dition which corresponds to Paul's in the intermediate state.
' . CHAPTER XVII.
EEST7REECTI0N.
I. The low place which the second advent of Christ and the resur-
rection from the dead occupy in modern theology is very apparent.
Attempts to revive the importance of these doctrines, to which, on all
hands, it is allowed that paramount importance is attached in Scrip-
ture and the symbol of the Apostolic age, have often been made ; but
these attempts are felt to be of a spasmodic kind. The reason it is
not hard to find. The popular doctrine of the intermediate state
114
RESURRECTION.
renders the second coming of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead,
meanine-less and purposeless things to all who have died in the faith
of Christ..
II. To those who believe with Bishop Butler and John Wesley that
their organised bodies are no essential part of them, but that they are
in reality immortal spirits who have become connected in their life
with a material body which they lay aside, much to their advantage,
!n death, of what value can the doctrine of the resurrection be to
ihem personally? If they believed in it at all, they could only
regard it as an event for which, so far as their existence and well-
being was concerned, they could see no use. To one who believes
with Calvin, that the day of death is the day of redemption, of what
value to him personally can the second coming of the Lord be ? Of
none whatever. When Butler, Calvin, and Wesley, represent the
jieneral theology of Christendom on the intermediate state, we cannot
wonder that the doctrine of the resurrection, with which that of the
second coming of Christ is essentially connected, should occupy a very
secondary place indeed.
III. But all this is changed when we come to the source and
fountain of all true theology, — the Bible. We there find the resur-
rection to occupy a paramount position in Christian faith. We have
no hesitation in saying that Scriptural teaching on the subject of the
resurrection fully establishes the theorv we have throughout main-
tained. We maintain, and we will show, that Scripture does not
merely teach that without resurrection the believer would not attain
to the full consummation of his glory, but that it teaches us that
without resurrection there would be no future life of any kind for the
believer at all.
IV. We will not now occupy our readers' attention with any
minute examination of the teaching of the Old Testament on this
question. We have, indeed, already considered it in another form
in our ninth chapter, where we saw that the Hades condition was
legarded as one of death. For, if this state be one of complete death,
and if an after life be yet, as it is undoubtedly, taught in the Old
Testament, the after life could 'only be looked for in connection with
a resurrection. We here simply content ourselves with saying that
every passage in the Old Testament which affirms a future life for
the believer, does so in connection only with his resurrection. We
subjoin references to some of these places, and defy objectors to pro-
duce one passage from the Old Testament which tells us plainly and
openly that there will be life of any kind in Hades, or anywhere else,
during that time and state which intervenes from the close of this
life to the day of resurrection. *
V. What we chiefly wish in this chapter to do is to call our readers'
attention to the teaching of the New Testament upon this question,
and in especial to that chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians
* Job xiv. 10—15; xix. 25. Isaiah xxvi. 19; xxv, 8. Hos. xiii. 14. Dan. xii. 2.
RESURRECTION. 115
in which the clearest, fullest, and most minute, as well as grand and
spirit-stirring description is given of the believer's resurrection that
is to be met with in Scripture. We do this the more readily, because
it is only from the New Testament, and particularly from the writings
of Paul, that some few passages are quoted which are generally sup-
posed to teach a doctrine of the intermediate state different from that
here advocated. We would therefore show, before we proceed to the
consideration of those .passages, what we are to learn from the New
Testament about the resurrection. If we do not mistake, it will not
only guide us to the true interpretation of those passages, but will
enable us to explain satisfactorily the sense of some of the phrases
most relied on for the view opposed to ours.
VI. We will dwell but for a few moments on our Lord's words
previous to the resurrection of Lazarus. To us they seem very plainly
to teach the truth, that when the believer here loses life there is no
after life for him but in resurrection. This is certainly the apparent
force of his language. It will, more readily at least, dispose us to
accept the teaching of St. Paul, which is as express as words can
possibly be.
YII. Martha meets Jesus outside of Bethany.* Forthwith bursts
from her lips the pent-up feeling of her heart — " Lord, if thou hadst
been here, my brother had not died." That her brother was dead —
really and truly dead, whatever death might be — that was the source
of her grief. Does Jesus by way of comfort tell her that her brother
was then in the enjoyment of life and joy in heaven, or Paradise, or
Abraham's bosom, or wherever believers are popularly supposed to
go when they die ? Not a word of this kind, such as is readily
poured out now when mourners are being soothed by our Platonic
divines, fell from the lips of Christ. He points her on to resurrection
as the time when her brother should recover his life — *' Thy brother
shall rise again. ''^
VIII. But it may be said that Christ here only spoke of the hodxj
of Lazarus^ and not of Lazarus himself: that, consequently, while
he allowed that the body was dead, yet the soul — the true and real
Lazarus — might be alive and in joy. But we must surely take our
Lord's words as he uses them Himself. When He says something of
Lazarus it does not become us to say He means it of something that
is not Lazarus. And here we may see the danger of such alteration
of language, for it will virtually lead us to deny the reality of the
resurrection. If when Christ allows that Lazarus was dead, we are
to suppose He meant the body of Lazarus, and not the real Lazarus,
we must suppose, also, when He tells us that Lazarus will rise again,
that He meant only the body of Lazarus, and not the true Lazarus
himself. Hence we see that such an alteration of language as our
Platonic divines are compelled to make, leads them to one of the
earliest heresies — the denial of the reality of man's resurrection.
* John xi. 21.
I 2
116 RESURRECTION,
Only that can rise whicli dies. If the true man does not die, the
true man cannot rise. If the true man, then, does not die, theie is
for the true man no resurrection from the dead. We are compelled ,
therefore, in order to avoid a deadly heresy, to take our Lord's words
as He uses them Himself. We are compelled, therefore, to accept
from Him that Lazarus — true and real Lazarus, however we may
choose to define him — was dead, and would not possess life until He
who was the resurrection and the life chose to call him from his
grave. It ought not to be difficult to make us take our Lord's words
as He was pleased to use them. It is, indeed, presumption of the
most glaring kind to alter Christ's words so as to suit any theory of
our own.
IX. But it is sometimes said, that our Lord does in this very place
make use of language which compels us to believe that, while we
might popularly say that Lazarus was dead, because all we could see
of him, viz., his body, was dead, Lazarus himself was not dead. The
words of Christ which are relied on for this are His words in verse
26, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.^'' It is
often supposed from these words that while a believer may, in popular
language, be said to die, because he appears to die, yet that he does
not really and truly die, because his soul survives death, and is
truly himself.
X. It does not seem to occur to persons who put this interpretation
upon our Lord's words, that it leads them of necessity to the recogni-
tion of a theory which they are just as resolute to refuse as that
which teaches that believers, body and soul, in death lose their entire
existence. For it will be seen, from the most casual examination of
this place, that what our Lord here affirms, He expressly conjines to
believers. It is only of him who believeth in Him that He says that
he shall never die. If, then, the meaning of this passage were, that
while the bodies of believers died, yet the souls of believers did not
die at that period popularly called death, it would follow that both
bodies and souls of uiihelievers did really and truly die at that time.
For it is only faith that preserves from this death. But, according
to our Platonic divines, the souls of the wicked survive death just as
truly as those of the righteous, and, therefore, even they must allow
that the death here spoken of is not that first death which is common
to all men, but that second death which the ungodly shall endure
hereafter, but from which believers shall be wholly exempt.
XI. That interpretation which the reason of the thing would lead
us to put upon the words of Christ would have been seen at once to
be the true one, if only our Lord's words had been properly trans-
lated. That pioper translatioQ is, " Whosoever liveth and believeth in
Me shall not die for erer." Any one acquainted with Greek will see
this to be the proper translation. It is so translated in the Rheimish
version, following the Latin Yulgate, which exactly follows the
Greek. We thus see, at once, that our Lord is not here speaking at
BESURRECTION. 117
all of the first death, but solely of the second or eternal death, and
that, consequently, His words in this twenty- sixth verse do not pre-
vent our taking His teaching elsewhere in the chapter in its natural
sense. That teaching we saw to be, that believers cease to exist at the
period of death, and do not regain life until resurrection. We now
turn to the teaching of the Apostle Paul in.l Cor. xv.
XII. We will first attend to what he tells us in the thirty-second
verse. His words there are — " If, after the manner of men, I have
fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise
not ? let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." In the hrst part of
this verse, where he speaks of fighting with beasts at Ephesus, he refers
to the great perils and persecutions he endured in that city for the
sake of Christ. He had but just come from Ephesus when he wrote
his Epistle to Corinth, and hence we see the propriety of his reference
to dangers but very recently endured there. But in reality in this
reference he implies all the persecution and troubles of his life in-
curred for Christ ; the labours, the stripes, the deaths, the shipwrecks,
the perils faced or endured for the love of that dear Lord who had
chosen him to be His apostle. What does he say of this whole life of
his spent for Christ, and at Christ's command ? He tells us that it
would have been of no use or advantage to him if there was no resur-
rection from the dead !
XIII. Now, how is this for a moment consistent with the popular
view of the intermediate state of the believer, that view held by
Calvin, or Wesley, or Butler ? According to this view, the believer,
on death, is at once admitted to a new and happy life, without waiting
for resurrection at all. It may be, and is with some of this Platonic
school, that resurrection may add to their glory, but they all, without
exception, maintain that the intermediate state is for believers a con-
dition of true life, and true joy, far beyond anything here possessed.
All the sins, and troubles, and cares, and weariness of this world are
left behind, and the peace and life of God enjoyed. Such a condition,
though it might be possible to imagine a higher, would be worth the
toils and dangers of Paul's life on earth, were they multiplied a thou-
sandfold, to obtain.
XIV. But is this Paul's view of the matter ? No, nothing in the
smallest degree resembling it. He tells us, on the contrary, that all
his life spent for Christ would not be of any advantage to him what-
soever if there was no resurrection. Without a resurrection, he
would have endured all without any profit. Paul then knew of no
intermediate state such as Calvin and Wesley taught. He considered
the condition of man, from the time he died to the time he rose, to be
a blank.
XV. But he goes even farther tha^ this in the latter clause of the
verse. In the former he told us that all his sufferings for Christ
would have been of no advantage to him without a resurrection. In
the latter clause he intimates tliat the Epicurean maxim would be a
118 RESURRECTION.
more sensible one to follow than the Christian if there were no resur-
rection. If there were no resurrection, he tells us, then it would be
best " to eat and to drink, for to-morrow we die." This was the
maxim of the Epicurean school. We find it in Isaiah xxii. 13, as
existing among the ungodly Jews in t^at prophet's time. We find it
expressed over and over again in the writings of Horace and other Epi-
curean writers : "Be wise, decant the wine, and cut off long expecta-
tions from your short space of life. Even whilst we speak, envious
time has fled. Enjoy to-day ; trust not in the least to to-morrow." *
XVI. Such was the famous Epicurean maxim on which the heathen
world acted. They believed in no hereafter state. They knew that
they must die some time ; might die to-morrow : and they believed
that death was utter and final annihilation. Hence this short life
was their all. They taught then that it should afi'ord as much
delight as it possibly could, since, beyond its narrow confines, they
could have no delight at all. Death put an end to joy. How does
Paul regard this maxim ? He tells us it would be the wise maxim to
fullow, if there was no resurrection. Paul then knew nothing of the
popular creed of reward and punishment before resurrection, and
during the state of death. To him the idea of a shadow-land, where
ghosts enjoyed and suffered according as men lived now, was as
ridiculous as it was in the eyes of Lucian or of Horace. He lays it
down as his deliberate opinion that if there was no resurrection,
Epicurus was the wisest of philosophers ; i.e., that death was truly
the cessation of existence, as Epicurus taught ; during it there was
no reward or punishment, no pleasure and no pain. It was because
there would be a resurrection that Epicurus was wrong. Plato's
shadow-land, the shadow-land of Platonic Christendom, was, to the
mind of Paul, a foolish myth.
XVII. We will now turn to another verse of this chapter, to see
how Paul repeats this view of his in other language. He is speaking
of the resurrection of Christ as the seal of the truth of the Gospel.
He tells the Corinthians that if Christ was not raised, their faith was
vain (v. 17). The overthrow of the doctrine of Christ's resurrection
would stamp the teaching of the Apostles, of the New Testament, of
Christ Himself, and of the prophets who prophesied of him, as un-
true. The consequences of the overthrow of the resurrection of
Christ would be fatal to that entire revelation both of Old and New
Testament, which based itself upon the reality of that fact. Man
fould then believe in nothing in the Scripture, simply because it was
there. He would be thrown upon what natural religion could teach.
One consequence of the overthrow of the resurrection of Christ would
be that all "they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished^'
(V. 18).
XVIII. What is the meaning of saying that if there were no re-
surrection of Christ, and, consequently, no resurrection of His people,
* Horace. Carm. i. 11.
EESURRECTION. 119
then all there were at that very time perished ? Surely Paul does
not mean to say that they were, if the resurrection was untrue, at
that moment suffering the horrors of a misery which never was to
end ! Who will say that such would be the fate of men who had
truly, and at much self-sacrifice, followed what they believed truth,
and believed in Him whom they recognised as truth, simply because
He had not been raised from the dead ? But if anyone could believe
in a Deity capable of thus treating the best of mankind, it is quite
evident that even if the Scriptures asserted such a punishment, which
they certainly do not, their whole authority was taken from them on
the supposition that Christ was not raised from the dead. No doctrine
would then be true simply because it was in Scripture, and so the
same overthrow of the doctrine of Christ's resurrection, which over-
threw the hopes of believers, would also dispel any fears which might
be derived simply from the Scriptures. If men had nothing to hope
from their promises, they had as little to dread from their threats.
The Scriptural Hell would have as little credit as the Scriptural
Heaven, Paradise, or Kesurrection. We cannot, therefore, suppose
Paul to mean that believers in Christ, if Christ had not been raised,
would then be enduring the agonies of that Hell which Augustine
and his followers teach to be the Hell of Scripture. We are obliged,
by the very reason of the thing, to suppose that '* perish " here means
something else.
XIX. In fact, we are reduced to the terrible necessity of taking
'* perish," and the Greek word of which it is the translation, in their
proper, natural, primary, and generally recognised sense. " To
perish,'' says Webster, in his Dictionary of the English Language,
means "to be destroyed, to go to destruction, to pass away, to come
to nothing, to be blotted from existence, to be ruined, to be lost, to
lose life, to lose vital power." Such is the meaning of '* to perish,"
according to the highest authority in the English language. Exactly
similar is the sense of that Greek word, of which it is the translation.
(See Liddell's Dictionary on Apollumi.) The reason of the thing
only leads us to take the language of Scripture in its natural and
primary sense.
XX. Paul then tells us that if Christ were not raised from the dead,
they who have fallen asleep in Him would have come to nothing,
been destroyed, been annihilated. He here simply re- affirms the
Epicurean doctrine. As he quoted their favourite maxim in v. 32,
he here repeats another phrase of theirs when he says that believers
would have perished, if Christ had not been raised from the dead.
Now it is in the light of the Epicurean doctrine which is what Paul
throughout this chapter is combating that we are to read the meaning
oi perish. If Christ were not raised believers would have "perished " in
the sense in which Epicurus taught that all men perished when they
died. What was that sense? It was not merely that they had perished
for a time J but that they had perished for ever. In the mouth of the
120 RESUBKECTION.
Epicurean this perishing was an everlasting effect. An effect which
would only endure for a time : a death which would be followed by
an eternal life ; a destruction which would be followed by an endless
restoration : this was wholly opposed to the death and destruction of
the Epicurean school. At such a death, and such a destruction, they
would laugh as not death or destruction at all, as, in fact, little
beyond a sleep.
XXI. Now what is the teaching of St. Paul ? He tells us that it
is only the resurrection of Christ which prevents the destruction taught
by Epicurus from being the exact truth. Resurrection alone saves
from everlasting perishing and ruin. Then, according to Paul,
the dead in Christ are in that very condition which, if there were no
resurrection from it, would be the very condition which Epicurus
taught would be eternal. Paul here tells us that the actual condition
of the dead in Christ is what Epicurus taught. But what prevents
it from being Epicurus' doctrine ? Resurrection ! That changes its
character altogether. It is not Epicurus' destruction, Epicurus'
death, Epicurus' annihilation, at all ! That was eternal, everlasting,
this is but for a moment in eternity. Viewed in the light of resur-
rection, death and destruction become a sleep, because at a coming
day their power and sway will be broken for ever. Paul allows the
condition of those who sleep in Christ to be for the time the loss of
being, but in the light of the resurrection he shows all this reversed
for ever.
XXII. It is this view, and this view alone, which suits the reason-
ing of the Apostle immediately after. In the next verse he says,
" If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most
miserable." Paul here speaks of one life, that life here possessed.
IVhen does he look for another life f Calvin, Butler, Wesley, and
our Platonic School would say, he looked for it the moment he died I
But Paul says something quite different. His next life is resurrection
lije : "In Christ shall all he made alive. But every man in his own
order : Christ the firstfruits ; afterward they that are Christ's at His
coming.''^ Here are Paul's two lives. His idea is not that of one
unbroken life, begun here, continued in another form through the
intermediate state, continued in a yet more glorious form after the
resurrection. This is the common view. It is not Paul's. With
him there are two lives, distinct from and unlike each other. One
ends when man dies. The other begins when man rises, and never
ends. From the termination of the first life he passes on in rapid
thought to the commencement of the second. All between seems to
him as nothing, because it is a sleep. But when does the second life
begin ? At the coming of Christ !
XXIII. This grand chapter of God's Word then tells us very
clearly what is God's mind upon the intermediate state, and especially
what were the opinions of the Apostle Paul. With him death was a
reality, so fearful a reality that if there were no resurrection the
TIME AND SLEEP.
121
Epicurean doctrine and maxims would have been his also. The state
of death is, with him, a blank. But resurrection alters its character
wholly in his eyes. That which is to have an end — that whose reign
Is unfelt — is not the death or destruction of the Epicurean School.
It is the blessed sleep of the dead in Christ because it will be broken.
But otily because it will be broken. Unbroken, it would be that
hopeless, endless state of night and darkness to which the School of
Epicurus looked as the sad end of man and his hopes and joys.
CHAPTER XYIII.
Time and Sleep.
i. It will probably be objected to our view of Hades that it re-
presents the entire state of death, reaching, in the case of the first
departed dead, over a period of many thousand years, in a very
gloomy point of view, and in a view infinitely less cheering than
popular theology, represented by Wesley's and Calvin's description of
death, brings it before us.
II. We allow that it may appear at first sight to do so. But even
if it did, the question is not which is the most pleasing, but which is
true ? We fully allow that our view of Hades represents it, while it
lasts, in a very uninviting aspect, and that, if it were to endure for
ever, it would be a view of as gloomy a kind as it would be well
possible to conceive. But when we consider that this whole state of
death is represented in Scripture as a punishment, we do not know
how it could well be represented in any other than a gloomy view.
Punishments are rarely pleasant or cheerful in their nature. It is all
very well for Plato and other heathen men, who were not acquainted
with the cause of death, to represent it in the light of a friend whose
presence we should welcome as a blessing ; but for a Christian man,
who knows it to be a punishment to represent it in this light, is
strange and inconsistent. To represent it in dark colours, so far from
being an objection to our view, is a recommendation of it. This state
of death, the whole of it, is one of punishment while it lasts, and
therefore a cheerful description of it, or of any part of it, would be
simply making a mockery of what is represented in the Bible as a
sad reality. If God has infiicted it as a punishment, are we to come
forward and say that it is none ? Are we to presume to describe it
in the very identical terms by which God has described our redemp-
tion and deliverance from it ?
III. God meant that we should be impressed with the terrible
nature of sin by the aspect of its punishment, — death. And so we
should be, if a philosophic theology did not try, with all its might,
to defeat God's end. The aspect of death, the knowledge that it has
122
TIME AND SLEEP.
deprived of life and thought one who had rejoiced in existence, and
sent abroad liis thoughts through the immensity of Creation, this is
well calculated to impress us survivors with the terrible nature of sin.
It is not for us to say that this terrible death is redemption.
IV. But while it is a punishment, and meant to be taken as such,
and meant to impress our minds very much, yet God has so merci-
fully arranged things, that it is chiefly, or rather altogether, the
approach of death which is felt to be a punishment by the child of
God. It is preceded generally by weakness, by pain. The antici-
pation of it as consigning us to the grave, and darkness, and corrup-
tion, and robbing us of existence, this is terrible, as it was meant to
be. But when death has actually come and commenced its reign, the
punishment, though really endured, ceases to be felt.
V. And this leads us to consider a very important feature in this
whole inquiry. It is that death, being a deep, unbroken sleep, lias
910 perceptible duration. Tiine, to the sleeper, is nothing. Time,' to
one who lives, is long or short, tedious or pleasant, according to the
number of years, and their occupation. Time, to one who sleeps, is
not time, because its passage is not felt. One moment, or one year,
or ten thousand years, to him who sleeps throughout, are all the very
same. Each period is alike to the sleeper but as a moment of time,
or rather as no time at all. He sleeps, — he wakes. He knows nothing
else when he wakes but that he has been asleep. When he awakes
it seems as though but a moment before he had gone asleep. This
feature of death is a most important one, and solves some of the diffi-
culties connected with our subject. The view we have just given of
it as practically annihilating time is not our view, adopted for a pur-
pose, but is the view universally taken of it.
YI. Among the insipid ecclesiastical legends of the fifth century,
the historian Gibbon selects one which he deems worthy of being
rescued from the obscurity to which he would consign the rest. It is
the legend of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, a legend so recommend-
ing itself to the human mind, that it has been copied, in one form or
other, into the legendary tales that have struck the imagination of
mankind from the cold shores of Northern Europe to the extremities
of Africa and Asia.* Seven young men of EpLe&us take refuge in a
cave from the persecution of the Emperor Decius. The tyrant orders
the entrance to be blocked up with large stones, that they may perish
with hunger. God causes them to fall into a deep sleep, which con-
tinues unbroken for nearly two hundred years. At the end of that
period, so eventful in its transactions, when the ston-es that lay at
the cave's mouth were being removed for use, the rays of the bright
sun burst into the cavern, and the sleepers awoke from their slumber.
The interval was supposed by them to hare been but a few hours^ space.
That period during which the seat of empire had been changed from
Rome to Constantinople, during which the hordes of northern bar-
* Gibbon: Decline and Fall, ch. xxxiii.
TIME AND SLEEP. 123
barians had overrun and conquered the fairest provinces of Augustus
and Trajan, during which Polytheism had ceased to be the religion
of the 8tate, and Christianity had taken its place : all this period
was supposed by the sleepers to have been the period of a man's ordi-
nary sleep. Hours of that period had seemed to those who lived as
ages : by the sleepers those centuries of action, change, disaster, and
suffering, were supposed to have been short hours. To use the lan-
guage of Gibbon, ^'' the interval was annihilated^ the slumber of tivo
hundred years was momentary.'''' Such is the power of sleep over
time. It reduces a century to the limit of a day : it makes both
alike to be to the sleeper as no time at all. Between sleeping and
awaking is — not time — but nothing.
VII. To the legend of old time, whose sentiment has been endorsed
by the imagination of mankind, we will add" the testimony of the
poet. Tennyson is speculating on death and its nature. Taking
generally the Platonic view, he turns aside for a moment to consider
what it would be if the soul were wrapt in as true a sleep as the
body, during the period before resurrection : —
" If sleep and death be truly one,
And every spirit's folded bloom
Thro' all its inter-vital gloom
In some long trance should slumber on,
•' Unconscious of the sliding hour,
Bare of the body, might it last,
And silent traces of the past
Be all the colour of the flower
" So then wn-e vothing lost to man ;
So that still garden of the souls
In many a figured leaf enroUs
The total world since life began
" And love will last as pure and whole
As when he loved me here in Time,
And at the spiritual prime
Be-waken with the dawning soul." — In Memoriam.
Here the poet beautifully reviews death as a sleep, and pronounces
the important verdict that, viewed in this light, nothing is in it lost
to man.
VIII. To the common sentiment of mankind, endorsed alike by
the historian and the poet, we will add the conclusion of one of the
subtlest and truest logicians that has ever lived. Whately has ceased
for the time to reason and to think. The keen intellect that could so
readily detect a sophism, or Hash a clear light upon an abstruse
question, has vanished. But his thoughts, committed to the press,
have not perished. He, too, looked closely and searchingly into this
Hades state. It was, one day, to be his own, as it was that of so
many great minds, some greater even than his, that had shed a glory
before him upon the old halls of Oxford. Keble and Arnold, Butler
of Durham, and Locke, Bacon the monk, and old William of Wyke-
ham, how were they engaged while the slow ages were passing over
124 TIME AND SLEEP.
the living generation ? Whately has not told his mind, though we
think we know full well what his mind on this subject was. But he
has told us what his keen reason told him time would be to great
and little minds alike, if so be that man's whole state, from his
dying to his rising, were indeed a sleep. "The long and dreary
interval," says Archbishop Whately, " between death and the day
of judgment (supposing the intermediate state to be a profound sleep)
does not exist at all, except in the imagination. To the party con-
cerned, there is no interval whatsoever ; but to each person (accord-
ing to this supposition) tU& moment of closing his eyes in death ivill
he instantly succeeded by the sound of the last trumpet, which shall
summon the dead, even though ages shall have intervened." *
IX. And thus we see the true relation of sleep to time. And thus
we read the judgment of mankind upon the Hades' state, supposing
that state to be one of sleep. It has its terrors for the imagination.
It has for the imagination its true and real terrors. They cannot be
overdrawn. We shudder at the gloom, the silence, the darkness, the
corruption that await us. We shudder at the pleasant play of fancy
gone, the lofty flight of imagination in the dust, the consecutive
reasoning of the logician stayed, the sagacious wisdom of the states-
man departed, the throb of affection stilled, the sentiment of awe, of
delight, of praise unfelt. But who are we for whom death has these
terrors of the imagination ? We are the living. We are they whom
Grod would affect and save in life by the aspect of death. For the
dead these terrors have no existence. They felt them when they
might have been of service : they ceased to feel them the moment
they could be of none. The child of God has gone to sleep. Time is
for him annihilated. It passes over his head more rapidly than the
lightning flashes over the sky. We can follow its movements, and
therefore the flashing of lightning is a thing of time. The dead
cannot note the progress of time, and therefore time does not exist for
them. God's time is over. The light of the day of Christ shines
into the tomb, and Christ's sleepers awake and come forth. The
world's history has passed since some of them went to sleep, and still
that long period is to them no more than is his period of sleep who
died but the very moment before Christ appeared. The sleeper has lost
no time, whatever were the period of his sleep. Eternity now is his,
and time taken from eternity affects it no more than the taking of
water from the fountain, which in taking is supplied from the un-
failing source. Death, as a sleep, interposes no time between dying
and the coming of Christ, between death and resurrection.
X. Before we leave this chapter, we will just take the opportunity
of stating that in that branch of the Church Catholic to which we
belong, the doctrine of the sleep of the entire man, body and soul, in
death, is at least left at liberty for each man to hold or not as he
thinks to be true. Among the Articles of the Church of England, as
* Scrijyture Revelations of a Future State. Seveutli Edition, p. 96,
THEORY OF SLEEP I ITS DOCTRINAL ASPECTS. 125
drawn out in Edward YI.'s time, there was one which declared that
the souls of the deceased do not perish with their bodies, nor sleep
without sense till the last day. With a wise moderation, to say the
least, this Article of Edward was omitted in the revision of the
Articles in the reign of Elizabeth.* The omission of this Article was
made either for the purpose of leaving the question an open one, or
because the opinion upon it of the leading theologians in Elizabeth's
reign differed from that held in Edward's. With either view we are
satisfied, for either view leaves us at perfect freedom to put forward
what Scripture has taught upon the subject, without exposing our-
selves to the charge of putting forward opinions contrary to those of
the Church to whose Articles of religion we have cordially subscribed.
CHAPTER XIX.
Theory or Sleep: Its Doctkinal Aspects.
I. Before we proceed to consider the objections which we are
aware may be made from Scripture to our view of Hades as a
state of sleep, it will be well to consider the various aspects of such a
view towards various doctrines and ideas presented in Scripture or
entertained by men.
II. It is well known to all readers of Scripture how perpetually
the hopes of believers are pointed on to the second coming of Christ
and the resurrection, as the period when those long- cherished hopes
are to meet with their fulfilment. We may say that this is the one
sole hope placed before the mind of the Church. Men may find a
passage here and there which seems, in the case of an individual, to
make his hope receive its fulfilment at the period of death, as in the
case of Paul to which we shall by and bye particularly advert. But
we affirm that there is not a single passage in the Old or New Testa-
ment which directs the hope of the Church to any other event than to
the second coming of Christ and its circumstances. As a relief from
pain and persecution death may be often alluded to, but as the
period iihen the p?-omises in Christ are to be fulfilled, we defy any
man to bring forward so much as one text which directs the Church's
hope to any other period than the second coming of Christ. That —
and that alone — is the time of redemption.
III. Now, it is quite obvious that the theory of the believer's sleep
gives its full importance and place to this grand doctrine of Scripture.
If we believe that during the intermediate state there is no conscious-
ness whatever — that during it the believer is alike, as to every part
of him, precisely as though he was not, and had never been — that he
can expect no change to consciousness and joy before Christ comes
again — that, but for the resurrection, his present state, a perished
* History of the Chunk of ErigJand. J. B. S. Carwithen, a.d. 1562.
126 THEORY OF SLEEP I ITS DOCTEINAL ASPECTS.
one, must abide for ever : on this supposition, we see that the hope of
believers is, and must be, and can only be, fixed upon the second
coming of the Lord. In this case we can never for a moment lose
sight of it. Our minds cannot fix themselves for a single instant
upon any intermediate event or state as a resting-place. Beyond
the state of Hades, as beyond this sinful life, they spring forward
with a bound to the time when Christ comes to awake them up to
life. The second coming of necessity and as a matter of course
occupies that place in the faith and hopes of the Church which Scrip-
ture tells the Church to have.
lY. It is quite true, however, that such a hope and faith as a vital
influential active principle is scarcely ever powerful in the Church.
Believers, seeing the prominent place which the second coming of
Christ occupies in Scripture, are indeed, every now and then, trying
to awaken the mind of the Church to its vast importance. But some-
how the effort seems a spasmodic one. The eloquent preacher or
writer incites an interest, but it appears to be a forced interest, and
soon dies away. And it will be remarked that the great, often the
sole, motive which rouses even this passing interest is the belief that
the second coming is close at hand, as we here judge of time, i.e.,
that it will come this year, or a year hence, or within a few years.
"When the failure of the hopes thus roused becomes manifest by the
lapse of time ; when the Church begins again to think that Christ
may not come in this generation, or, perhaps, within a hundred years,
or even for a longer period, then at once, and irresistibly, the doctrine
of the second coming seems to fade away from the mind of the Church
as a practical thing, and though men may continue to talk of it as a
felt matter of duty, their speech savours more of cant than of
sincerity.
V. The ordinary doctrine of the Church on the intermediate state
of the believer accounts for this. We would say it necessitates it.
The second coming may continue to appear connected with great
general consequences, which are most desirable to be effected, and
which never can be effected at any earlier period, but to the individual
believer, so far as his great interests are concerned it dwindles down
to a matter of very secondary importance. Why ? The popular view
of death rises up between it and supplants it. What great matter is
it to him — the man who will depart this lite before the Lord comes
again — whether He comes within a hundred or a thousand years ?
lie will have gone to Christ in the full possession of all the powers
and functions of the higher life, and enjoy the heavenly pursuits
during this intermediate state. He knows, indeed, that his body
must, until then, slumber in the dust of the ground, and in accord-
ance with Scripture he must believe that his condition will not be
absolutely perfected until the resurrection. ' But this is all to him very
theoretical. He is wholly unable to see or to understand how the
union with his body can add either to his glory or his happiness. As
THEORY OF SLEEP : ITS DOCTRINAL ASPECTS. 127
he is told it he cannot well deny it, but also what he is told of his
state on death absolutely prevents his being able to conceive in the
remotest degree how it can be. Has not Pope thus sung of death ? —
" The world recedes ! it disappears !
Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring !
Lord, lend your wings : I mount ! I fly !
O grave ! where is thy victory ?
0 death! where is thy sting j* "
Has not Calvin, and the whole Church taught him that at the bare
mention of death he is to lift up his head because death is the messen-
ger of his redemption ?
VI. Here is what accounts for the apathy of the Church on the
second coming of Christ, for it is in truth that which produces it.
The moment it ceases to believe that the second coming will probably
be within a generation, that moment the second coming occupies and
must occupy a very subordinate place in its thoughts. Death, then,
takes its place, and must, on the ordinary view of death, do so. For
death gives to each believer what the second coming would give him
if it took place in his lifetime. What, individually^ does the second
coming leave him to desire ? Practically nothing. The resurrection, no
doubt, it places before him as a thing to be looked for, but then it renders
it impossible for him to see how this resurrection can possibly add to his
life or joy. It is no wonder that numbers who hold the common view of
the intermediate state should be perpetually sliding off into what is very
like the heresy condemned by Paul in the Corinthian Church, of saying
that the resurrection is a spiritual event, and has already taken place
when each believer in the second birth passed from death in sin to
life in righteousness. The old notion of things that don't appear
being much the same as things which do not exist comes before the
mind, and that resurrection ceases to be a reality which is not felt to
be of use. The theory of the believer's sleep in death, then, derives
vast support from the fact that it gives at once, and most naturally,
that prominence and importance which Scripture attaches to the
second coming of Christ, not merely as regards the general interests
of the world at large at the time when it takes place, but also as
regards the interests and happiness of every believer who has before
it fallen asleep in Jesus.
VII. Not only does the Scripture give a prominent place to the
second coming as affecting the best interests of all believers, and
therefore to be ever remembered in every age of the Church, but it
has also given a very prominent place to this doctrine as an event
represented hy it as practically near at hand to every believer. We
need not quote texts for a feature in Scripture which has been uni-
versally remarked by friend and foe. Xo the Apostolic age the second
coming of Christ was, throughout Gospels and Epistles, represented
as '* near," " nigh." It is quite evident that Scripture calls upon
all believersy every generation of the Church which has lived and died
128 THEOEY OF SLEEP I ITS DOCTEINAL ASPECTS.
since He rose to heaven, to regard His second coming as also nigh at
hand to them. There is no distinction apparently made by that Spirit
who inspired the writings of the New Testament between this event
as being nearer by any appreciable amount of time to one generation
than to another.
VIII. Now all this has excited a great deal of thought upon the
part of thinking men. Believers are puzzled by it ; unbelievers mock
at it. It seems strange how a warning could be given to any age of
an event as near them which in the ordinary calculation of men was
not near them, and how this warning could be kept hanging, as it
were, over the heads of every succeeding generation as near it, which
was not by common calculation near it. And so, as generation after
generation has passed away from the scene, as expectation after ex-
pectation of the second coming as to take place in such or such a half
century has been roused and disappointed, faith has often felt itself
confounded, and unbelief has very often felt itself elated, as though
the second coming were after all a myth.
IX. Now it is surely a matter of the deepest interest and importance
in itself, and one affording a powerful support to the theory of death
as a sleep to the entire man, that this theory appears to solve all the
difficulties and doubts which have been just alluded to. For this
theory of the sleep of the believer during the intermediate state,
when closely and candidly considered, practically and sensibly places
the doctrine of the second advent as not only near every individual
and every generation of the Church, hut as near to every individual
and every generatio?i of the Church as it is to any other. By it the
second coming of Christ is practically as near to the generation which
was contemporaneous with Christ as it is to the generation that has
but just passed away, though eighteen hundred years of busy life here
have intervened ! By it the second coming of Christ is as near to His
first martyr Stephen who died, we believe, in the very year of Christ's
crucifixion, as it is to the last believer who, but the moment before
Christ appears in the clouds of heaven, has commended his spirit into
his Saviour's hands and keeping, and fallen into the sleep which is
broken the very moment it is slept.
X. Now let us apply the ordinary view to the condition of the
Apostolic age. To them it was said, in numberless places and with-
out any qualification, " the coming,of the Lord draw^eth nigh ;" and
Paul said of a period some years advanced beyond that of his conver-
sion, " now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." The
ordinary theory makes these men alive for nearly two thousand years
since these words were said, and yet the Lord has not come to them,
nor has their salvation been as yet effected. Now it will be surely
allowed that the coming of Christ was not near to those who have been
expecting it and looking for it for two thousand years, nor could the
difference of some half dozen or dozen years be looked upon as any-
thing appreciable in a period of so great magnitude. But by our
THEORY OF SLEEP : ITS DOCTRINAL ASPECTS. 129
age, and the difference of a few years did make a very appreciable
amount when it was taken out of the lifetime of a man, and not out
of a period of centuries.
XL Regard thus the doctrine of the second coming, and its atten-
dant circumstances, resurrection and judgment, appear invested with
a solemnity and an importance both in the eyes of the righteous and
the wicked which they do not possess in the common view. The
believer in Christ is brought by it to feel that the second coming of
his Lord, and his own resurrection, are indeed nigh, even at the
doors. They are brought jjracticallt/ home to him as taking place the
very moment that he dies. Instead of this view putting a long blank
space between the believer's death and resurrection, it practically
obliterates the actual space that intervenes. No matter what that
space may be, this view reduces it, in point of feeling, to a moment of
time. The believer dies ! Centuries of struggle, sin, and appre-
hension may pass over the earth while he lies dead and unconscious :
to him all this time is wholly unappreciated. There is no waiting, no
expecting. All is to the sleeper but as the sleep of a moment. He
sleeps — he ivakes up from sleep — this is his experience.
XII. "We thus see that what we think may put a long blank between
the believer and his Saviour has, through the providence of God, only
brought them close together. While to die and go in the disembodied
spirit in full consciousness into heaven is opposed to Scripture, the
scriptural doctrine of the believer's sleep makes the union just as
appreciably near. The truth has the very advantage which the false-
hood pretends to claim. It enables the reader to take Calvin's words
in a true sense, and to regard death as the day of his redemption ; not
because while he is dead he obtains salvation, but because the sleep of
the period of death rohs it of any length. To him who sleeps time is
annihilated. To him who sleeps a century is as short as a moment^
ten centuries as short as the twinkling of an eye. To the sleeper, to
be at home in the body is to be absent from the Lord, — to depart is to
be with Christ, — to die is to rise again, — to sleep is to awake, — to lay
aside the corruptible body is to put on the incorruptible body, — to lay
aside the earthly house of this tabernacle is to be clothed upon with
our house whicli is from heaven ; for between the time that he sleeps
and the time that he awakes, between the time of his death and of
his resurrection, is to him a briefer period than would elapse while an
angel winged his way from earth to heaven.
XIII. Is there any undue straining of a point here? We are
speaking of the departed^ not of our feelings about them, — of the con-
dition of the dead, not of the thoughts of the living. He who has
watched the sleep of a sleeper who in dangerous illness has just fallen
into a sleep the waking from which will tell whether he is for life or
death, knows how long that sleep appears. The time between each
ticking of the house-clock appears to the watcher an hour — between
each revolution of the minute-hand round the dial appears a year.
180 THEORY OF SLEEP : ITS DOCTRINAL ASPECTS.
But not so with the sleeper. To him the hour-hand on the watch
goes as fast as the second-hand which marks the quick pulsations of
the heart. To Mm there is no such thing as time. That pale face, in
its deep slumber, shows no sense of the slow progress of the hours.
The sun has lingered ere it slowly set behind the hill — the shadows
of evening have one by one deepened — night has gone wearily on to
its darkest — the grey morning has gradually lightened to meridian
day— and still he sleeps on, and feels nought of the weary watching
of the faces that have gazed on the worn face to see its first return to
consciousness. To the pale sleeper there has been no waiting^ no
weariness, no time.
XIY. It is precisely so with the believer who has fallen asleep in
Jesus. The length of the sleep is nought to him, for he feels it not.
An hour, a century, ten centuries, are all to him precisely the same.
He feels the lapse of the century exactly as he feels the lapse of the
hour, i.e., he does not feel either at all. The living believer may be
straining his eyes to see the dawning of the day of Christ : he may,
through manifold temptations, feel the days of his temptations to be
lengthening themselves out into interminable years ; he may at heart
complain that the Lord delayeth either the time of His coming or the
period of His servant's release : but there is no weary waiting like this
on the part of the believer who has fallen asleep. The trumpet will
sound — Christ will appear — the day of salvation will dawn — the sleeper
will awaken out of the sleep perhaps of ages, and feel as though it
were but the moment before that he had fallen asleep.
" If death and sleep be truly one,
And every spirit's folded bloom
Through all its intervital gloom
In some long trance should slumber on ; "
if this description of the poet be, as we believe it to be, the teaching
of Scripture, then the age to unconsciousness slides by as rapidly as
the hour, and the feelings with which we wake at the "spiritual
prime " will be as fresh as when we lay down in our sleep.
XY. If the doctrine of the believer's sleep be thus full of hope to
the child of God, it certainly presents death to the sinner in a light
far more awful and terrible than does the ordinary view. For, for
him too, time is annihilated. He sleeps unreconciled to God through
Jesus Christ ! He may sleep, as the ages here roll on, a hundred or
a thousand years. But the hundred or the thousand years are to him
the very same, i.e., are to him as nothing. And during them there
is and can be to him no change. And so practically and appreciably
by him, the moment he lies down and sleeps that moment he wakes
and rises up to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and hear
his sentence to the unquenchable tire of hell.
XVI. Thus to all men alike life now is all in all. Now only is the
accepted time — now is the day of salvation. The grave is that " night"
which is fast coming, and in which '* no man can work." Solomon's
THEORY OF SLEEP : ITS DOCTRINAL ASPECTS. 131
words are true to the letter: "There is no work, nor device, nor
knowledge, nor wisdom, in Hades, whither thou goest." All is there,
for good and evil alike, a blank. But it is a blank which to all
alike vanishes as soon as it has settled down. There is no weary
waiting there. The cloud has gathered thick, and as soon as it has
gathered it is dispersed. This life is seen to stand upon the very
threshold of the next. The twilight of its departure is at once suc-
ceeded by eternal day, or the sentence to everlasting night.
XVII. And with this sleep of all men in Hades away fly a hundred
errors which have been brought into the Church. It is indeed re-
markable how many errors against which the holders of Scriptural
truth have, and often ineffectually, contended, are at once, by this
doctrine, dispersed into the air. It is on this dark mysterious region
of Hades that the teachers of error have laid hold, in order, upon
their appeals to human hopes, and fears, and imaginings, to base their
own false, but often profitable, dogmas. The servant of Christ will
have no field of labour hereafter among Hades and ghosts who have
not been saved. If he is to open his mouth and spend his strength
for Christ, if haply he may win one more gem for the crown of his
Redeemer, he must do so now, for he will be no evangelist to the
dead. If life eternal is to be brought to the myriads of China, of
India, and of Japan, who now *' sit in darkness, and in the shadow
of death," the Christian missionary must hasten now, with the words
of life upon his lips, and cry aloud, amid the cruel unclean scenes of
Heathenism, '' 0, hear now the words of the Life-giver while yet life
is yours, for there is no other world where we can speak or you can
hear." If the sinner is to receive forgiveness of sins, and that " holi-
ness without which no man can see Grod," he must receive them now,
ere his spirit — it may be struggling forth from the rent and broken
earthly body — has left his clay. For where sleep reigns unbroken,
and ears cannot hear, and the mind's eyes cannot see, and no change
can come, there can be no more sacrifice for sin, no purgation or for-
giveness of sin.
XYIII. Stay, poor mourner at yonder grave ! The body over which
you bend in sorrow is not more unconscious than its soul for which
you pray. Both are at rest till Christ comes. Your prayers are of
no avail for them. Your dead are in no pain from which you can
relieve them. Without pain, without hope or fear, without thought of
one kind or other, they are at rest. You need write no " Requiescat "
on that grey stone, need whisper into the ears of your God no " May
he rest." He is at rest ; a deep^ unbroken^ quiet rest, to whose depth
no lullaby of prayer can add. Go, and pray for thy living ones.
XIX. Stay, thou who in vain addressest prayer to some saint of
God. We stay not to tell thee that prayer to one unseen is for God
alone. We question not that he or she whom thou hast chosen for
thy patron saint was, indeed, one of God's holiest ones on earth. It
may be Paul the great Apostle, or Peter the first choice of Christ, or
k2
182 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT.
the pure maid of Nazareth, from whom He took our flesh, or that
true husband who believed ia the unspotted honour of his virgin
wife ! But what matters it to thee how near to God grace drew
these noble men and women ? They are now asleep. They cannot
hear. Ten thousand times ten thousand prayers uttered deep down
in thine heart or borne loud and widely on the air cannot reach
them. Let thy prayers be to Him who never slumbers or sleeps.
Stay, thou who callest thyself the priest of God, when all His believing
people are His priests. You stand at what you esteem God's altar ;
you offer up to God what you esteem God's Eternal Son. For whom f
For the sleeping dead ! For them all that man can do is of no avail.
Wert thou all that thou claimest to be, and thy offering all thou
assertest, the sleeper while he sleeps is beyond the efficacy of sacriiice,
beyond the power of the prayer chanted by a thousand priestly
choristers, and resounding with the organ's swell through the pillared
aisles of Canterbury, Milan, or Cologne.
XX. And stay, ye modern pretenders to come between the living
and the dead, and to convey the thoughts of either to the other. The
souls whom you suppose hovering on earth and air, attending our
footsteps as we walk, watching over us as we sleep, only waiting your
call to come and communicate the secrets of the other world, they are
in a slumber more deep than seals our eyelids when we sleep through
the watches of the night. Whatever be your art we abhor it. What-
ever be your art we bid you dread it. If it is mere cunning slight of
human hands, skilful use of mere natural powers, then dread the fate
of the impostor. If there is more than this in your art, then only
dread your art the more. For it is not human souls that aid you, but
those spirits of error who first deceived us, and seek to deceive us to
the end.
CHAPTER XX.
OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT.
I. Having concluded our argument from Scripture, we now proceed
to take notice of those objections from Scripture which are most com-
monly brought against it. We will not pass over any of these that
appear to us of any weight, or which are commended by the common
opinion of our opponents as possessed of weight. We will answer
them to the best of our ability. We are of opinion that in general
we will show them to be of no weight against us. It may, however,
be that in some instances our explanation may not appear satisfactory,
or may even really be unsatisfactory. In such a case we have only
to consider whether inability to explain some two or three texts which
appear to be opposed to our view is for one moment to be placed in
equipoise to that vast amount of scriptural evidence which we have
OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 183
accumulated in chapter after chapter of our work. If we are not to
accept any doctrine as undoubtedly taupfht in Scripture until we have
satisfactorily cleared up to our own and other minds every text that
may appear to be, or may be, connected with it, we fear that we could
not accept unhesitatingly almost any doctrine that could be named.
The general analogy of Scripture must overbear the apparent incon-
sistency of a stray text here and there.
II. In considering the objections brought against our theory, we
will make a twofold division of them as enabling us to arrange and
answer them in the easiest and clearest way. We will take as our
first division those objections which are drawn from what is supposed
to be taught of the Hades state of those who died before the cruci-
fixion of Christ ; and as our second division those objections which are
drawn from what is supposed to be taught of the Hades state of those
who died after His crucifixion. The former division we have called,
*' Objections from the Old Testament," although some of these objec-
tions are taken from the pages of the New Testament. Such are the
parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke's Gospel, and the refer-
ence to the spirits in prison in the first Epistle of Peter. We place
these among the objections from the Old Testament, because they
refer to the condition of persons who died ere the ancient dispensation
had been abrogated by the death of Christ.
III. The belief of the patriarchs in a future life is very often and
very confidently brought forward as a proof that our theory is incor-
rect. It is said that they expected a life of joy after death, that this
faith enabled them to serve God in an evil world, and that conse-
quently the idea that death deprives a man of all existence is contra-
dicted by that just faith of the patriarchs which trusted in life that
was to follow after this.
IV. We are quite satisfied that the Patriarchs had such a faith,
and we cordially agree with our opponents that their faith was a just
and well-grounded one. We do not, however, suppose them guilty
of the absurdity of believing that their future life would be enjoyed
while they were themselves in the state of death. It was not during
death, hut after death^ that they looked for their life. Belief in a
future life after death is not only a different thing from belief in the
continued existence of man during death, but is really, when we look
fairly at it, quite inconsistent with it. The Patriarchs did not expect
to be alive when they were dead, but to be alive when the power of
death was broken. They had not drunk of that Platonic philosophy
which blinds our modern divines and makes them believe that men
are alive when they are dead. If we will accept the account of their
faith which is given us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and we know
not where we can get a better account of it, their faith did not regard
the intermediate state at all, but had reference to the Resurrection,
The city thev looked for is yet to come, it is only prepared for them,
not possesse(i : they have not yet received the promises, the hope of
134 OBJECTIONS FKOM THE OLD TESTAMENT.
which led them on through their life : that which nerved them to
endure their cross was the hope of ^^ a better resurrection.''^* Calvin,
who cannot be consistent in error, explains the latter reference in a
way that is consistent with our view, but fatal to his own. He says
that the courage of the Old Testament saints would have completely
sunk if they had not been sustained by the hope of a blessed resurrec-
tion. And Moses .Stuart's comment on it is, " they looked to a resur-
rection of the body, and in view of this they refused to accept libera-
tion from their torments on the conditions prescribed. They per-
severed, because their faith enabled them to regard as a certainty
the future and glorious resurrection of the just.^'-f The faith of the
Patriarchs then bore reference to a life that is yet to come, a life
which Christ will give at the Resurrection.
Y. Our theory that a man is wholly unconscious during the inter-
mediate state is supposed to be overthrown by those passages which
represent the ancient believers as expecting to rejoin those who were
dead in Hades. Thus Jacob, at the prospect of death, said, '*I will
go down into Hades unto my son mourning. "J Eeference is sup-
posed to be made in such passages to some invisible place of abode
where the souls of men were reunited during death, and dwelt together
in a state of conscious relationship with each other, again enjoying
the society of those whom they had loved on earth. It would be
strange, if such were Jacob's idea of Hades, that he should associate
'^ mourning^' with that of his going down to rejoin in a happy life
the most beloved of his soul ! We should rather expect him to say
he would gladly go down to Joseph. But in reality language such
as Jacob here uses is altogether unable to support the theory sup-
posed to be based upon it. Language at least as strong is used of
man m the grave, where no one dreams of any life. Job says, "There
the prisoners rest together ; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
The small and great are there ; and the servant is free from his
master."§ Here the grave is spoken of as a place- of union and dwel-
ling together, though the idea of life is utterly absent. The Epicurean
poet, Horace, who believed in no future life of any kind, or at any
time, might, on such evidence, be shown to have believed that men
were alive when they were dead, for he uses very similar language
of the grave as the place where iEneas and Tullus and Ancus and
himself would unite, and yet immediately after this he makes the
confession that he and they alike would be but dust and ashes. ||
Language such as Jacob's in Genesis is common to mankind, what-
ever were their notions of the after state. Much better proof than
this must be given before we can believe, upon Scriptural grounds,
that man is alive in Hades.
YI. Another proof of the continued existence of man in Hades is
supposed to be drawn from God's words addressed to Moses in the
* Heb. xi. 10, 16, 30, 36. — Calvin and M. Stuart. t "Comment on Heb. xi. 35."
X Gen. xxxvii 35. § Job iii. 18. || Horace Carm. iv. vii.
i viu'ji liini< loht'H liti HfHiho fhiiHn iilil fatiiiin'/tH woi'o lioinif
lliil il, in Muriily \i s^n'y |ti'itrmiit|itiii>urt thiiiK:i wliiut out' Liint ttillM
I ittiuiiiiii^ ol' ilirt own woi'ih 1111)1 lli<< rui'iwi ul' \\\W (lid tuprimHloil
OIMVOTIONH KUOM lilli: Ol.l) TtCNT4MlliNT. 185
uiM I M .1 lloi'ub, ouupUd with tho I'timouH uiiiiimuiit ul' our \mA
ii|M>ii iIk'iii/ OimI Hiiiil to MiiMUN, " 1 mil (Jiti (IimI ul' (hy I'utliui'H, thd
(iod ol' AlH'iihiitii, tliii (lod ol' UiMiii, iiiid Mitt (iiid of Jiiooli:" mid our
l^oi'd NiiyM, " (iod Ih not ii (iod ol' tlio dmid, lull, of IJiu livlilK : l'<M' ull
livn iitilo iliiii." I'ViMii lidiinu It In iiHHtu'Utd lliiil.our Lord Uiifflit u** (•lutt
4it lh(U viu'ji liini< loht'H liti HfHiho fhiiHn iilil I'atrim'i'hH woi'o lioin^f
JHti/l.
liti Mmi niiuiiiii
ill MxodUM, to [Mil. upon I.IUUII <|Ui(n ml Hi. i ni. millf^', lUld 11 iitumiiiitf,
moiuiovor, «|ult»> o|»|Mirt«Ml lo our Loi.r . .u n i. .. Um^ lu iJiU vury pltuiu.
Our litu'd i|Uot(*N tli< \\"f'\ i<i provu " (haUho ilmul lU'o ('(tiMaiU* lit)
UMn UH tlioNit i»ld I' ii M II l> I lU'ti iltunt InU will ho t'tiitt^il fo t{/h. Our
ojipoiiiuilB iiuotit llin word.i III proof f/mt (ho i*it(run'vhfi aru itlitntf
Wo will luUti OlirUt'M tdtuiliiiig III iM'tdMrniKKt to thiit of uuluMpU'tiil
iiiitii. ('Iirlnt'ri lituiiliiii|j( in tliitt tliu I'utrimidiH iiro duud, hut tlitit iu
Mio proiiiiHo mid purpoho of (lotl tltoy iitiiy lioNiiid to liu liviiitf, bmmuHt)
(t'ttiiil lift) Im IlinirM. 'I'lio wiU'iU cd' (jt'id ill I'lModuu iiru proof of n
I . n, , . . fitin uf Iho l*ntriin'ofi» J'nnn itoitt/i, mid tliu Iduii tlitit tliuy
vvti'. Hot t'tiiiliy tlntid would only luiiku uoiu^uiihm id' tlio lii'guiiiuul of
ClIirlHt.
VII VV< liuvo III H(U'iptur« ulutiidaut proid' tliiit (Iod oiilln ii ttttittt
!> li I i, liH yut| no uxliituutm, but to wliioli llo iiituiiii^ (a
./ fhiiUf/h U hiiil (ilroiulu Oiuito into hoiiiif, Ht, IStul
lay« down Huh mlimipUi wluui lio wuyw lh«,t " <iiul oalloth ihtino thinf/n
l/nif. Im wtf., iiH llnmiik titojf woro,** f Noiiu hut (iod (iiill do illJM. Hub
Ho ill wlioiitt ImiimU thu I'uturo iu, on wlioNa willwliii.t In to hti dt^nuudNp
(Hill do Hum will) tlio »mii(i luopriuty tliut Wu ittiit tiiiy, " Hliuh tilUl HUuU
thin I..O u, .,,, '• I'rophiuiy. (iod'w WoVd, Itt full of «uoU
hill: M < Imi I A.in Itorii, Uiiitih Miild of lliiii, "llo M
d(imii.:< <i iiinl M inch A ..I III. II " !!( I'mKi tlio spiritual lliihyloii tii'ONti to
iiolliito tho (Mirl'li, .tnl.u mI .1 III umhU, " llitliyloii tV I'ulhui," Ho
tlio fiituro otoniiil hill ul lli< i i I, whilo It in iioii»tmitly Hpolcoil
of iiM liopdd lor mi<i noiiiiiig, i il |miIv(iii of aa iifroihlj/ honfiHVoiLl
Arrojjruiit liuiiimi prido noiiKluu |>i< i iIiIm ImigiitiHo lit only foi'
(iodliitiMl, 'i'lnih, wlitii till) (lii\<ii >i uf I'ortiiuiil IumL glvoii
olt'i'iii'ii I.I Nii|Mil(wiii lliiuiiiiiiiiilii, ImImii Iiii MoldinrH liiul HO iiiuoli
,.-! III. I. in I.. Il
Ik I in il III. .1.1 M. , " I In lloiIHa of
And jomI HO With thti wordn td' our LiU'd rolativo to Clio iititrimoliH,
who woro, if wo itro lo hulioyo ('hrUt, I'Miilly tiitd truly doiid whuii tia
< i'"i • ii. . .11.1 ii "livluu|"iii I'MfMruiiiiu to that fiitui'o »tumtil
III II I II Ii word uitd a proiiiic^u wlihih oouhi Hot ba
Inln In 'I Hn rv . M • I I \ t1, tlUMIU 11 tllUy WtU'U tllUU HH
<> I. IN . Ii I I 11 I. M iioid wliliili tliuy Hluiuhnrud. Ho
''•ll"l llxin II. Ml" I... Ill . Mill liii.iii'M tUuit WUH pi'MHUIlt to IliM till"
• f . -,' i^.H I ..I... kn, MN. ♦ U>mi, IV, If,
I iMitiHii au >i, Kmt ftyill, Uj I Jdliii y, II.
thu I'oiiiiiHuhi, to mirry out hin purpoHD.
MiHo of llrii^iiiuu /nm ooauoil In ruiffH,
186 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT.
embracing mind when He would raise them to immortality. God
called them not being as though they were.
VITI. The belief in necromancy, existing among the Jews as
among other people, is supposed to indicate that the souls of men
were alive when they are themselves represented as lying in the
grave. Necromancy certainly shows that those who practised it had
such an absurd belief, but this by no means establishes the truth of
their belief. What there was of reality in such necromancy was
probably in most instances the effect of diabolical presence. Scripture,
so far from countenancing it in the smallest measure, cuts away the
very foundation on which necromancy was supposed to rest, when it
says that ''the dead know not anything;" and when, with special
reference to this very necromancy, it ridicules the whole practice by
telling its votaries that the idea on which they based it was vain and
illusory. ** Should not," says Isaiah, " a people seek unto their
God?" And he adds, in mockery, ''/or the living to the dead ? " *
Here is a direct contradiction of the popular idea. They whom vulgar
fancy had invested with a knowledge beyond that of men living in the
flesh are declared to be in that state of death which would render the
application of any living man to them for knowledge the act of a
madman. And let it be recollected here that the especial reference
of Isaiah is to souls. The votaries of necromancy said that the body
was dead, but that the soul was alive. If Isaiah had merely said then
that the body was dead, while the soul was alive, so far from contra-
dicting them, he would have confirmed their opinion. What they
claimed to be alive, and all that they claimed to be alive, was the
soul. When Isaiah then ridicules them as applying to the soul, and
affirms that what they applied to was dead, he affirms the death of the
soul.
IX. The appearance of Samuel at Endor is sometimes thought to
establish the life of separate souls. f But in truth it can establish no
such thing. Supposing, as we have no doubt was the case, that this
appearance was a real one, it by no means follows, as is quietly
assumed, that it was the appearance of a separate soul or ghost. We
hold it to have been a resurrection of Samuel for a special purpose
from his state of death. His appearance and his words best suit this
idea. There is no change of any kind in him : such exactly as he
had looked in the chamber of sinking age, ere the sleep of death
covered his eyelids and stilled the beating [of his heart, such he
reappears at Endor. He steps forth for a moment from the interme-
diate state exactly as he would have stepped forth from that house of
Ramah where woman's love watched the old man to see when the
shadows of approaching night would steal calmly across the prophet's
brow. There is no shaking off the wrinkles of age, no return to the
vigour of youth, no putting on of the golden freshaess of immortalitv,
such as lightens up the faces and the forms of heaven, in that " old
* Eccle. ix. 5; Isa. viii. 19. + 1 Sam. xxviii. 14, 15.
OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187
man covered with a mantle," who, in the dimness of the night, rises
up out of the ground to the terrified gaze of the woman — the prophet
and judge of Israel. And as his appearance, so his words. '' fF%
hast thou disquieted me to bring me up ? " Q-uiet, unbroken rest,
such as a toil-worn man takes when he throws himself wearily upon
his bed and is oblivious of his toil, is the entire notion that Samuel
gives us of his state. We see in his words no idea of activity, of joy,
of praise, of glory. All such ideas are absent from his words. We
hear no sound of the hymns of Paradise or the occupation of angels.
Rest is the one idea conveyed by the words of Samuel.
X. The preaching of Christ to the spirits in prison is very often sup-
posed to indicate life in those who are dead, the life of their souls in
Hades. * We are not saying much when we say that we would not accept
any interpretation of this text which would put it into variance with
the declarations of plainer Scriptures. A text which has been ban-
died about in such various controversies, and claimed in such a variety
of meanings by men of learning and honesty, cannot be accepted in
controversion of any less equivocal teaching. Texts such as this
must receive their interpretation from other Scriptures, not force an
interpretation upon them. If we could not put upon it any interpre-
tation satisfactory to others or to ourselves, we should just lay it by
until we could find such an interpretation. But to allow it to over-
ride the general analogy of Scripture, or to hinder our arriving at a
conclusion until we could satisfactorily explain it, is what we never
can permit. We candidly allow that we are by no means certain
that we know its meaning. It was plain enough to those to whom
Peter wrote, but we may have lost the key to it. Of one thing, how-
ever, we are perfectly certain, viz., that it does not bear the meaning
which has often been attempted to be forced upon it, as representing,
namely, a Hades land of living souls, and the soul of Christ, apart
from His body, preaching to them there. We have shown Hades to
be the grave, the land of death : we have shown that the soul of man
is essentially distinct from his spirit : we have seen from Scripture
that the spirits of men when they die go not at all to Hades, but
return back to their source in the essence of the Grodhead. The spirits
in prison, then, in Peter's epistle are not spirits of men in Hades, for
there are no spirits of men in Hades at all. If the old Protestant
interpretation of Christ preaching through the Spirit in Noah to the
Antediluvians be rejected, we cannot take in lieu of it the interpreta-
tion of our modern Origenists, who would convert Hades into a land of
evangelisation.
XI. To us, we must say, the most probable interpretation of this
very difficult passage, is that our Lord, when He was Himself raised
to life, went to preach or proclaim something, we cannot be absolutely
certain what, to some fallen race of angels, who are constantly styled
*' spirits," probably those " sons of God " whose admixture with men
* 1 Pet. iii. 18.
138 OBJECTIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT.
in antediluvian times brought about that exceeding wickedness which
produced the destruction of the flood.* This view has been held by-
some eminent men, and we must confess we incline strongly to adopt
it. But we hold ourselves absolutely free from the necessity of giving
a satisfactory explanation of this text. Let us say we do not under-
stand it. That prevents us not from saying that, most assuredly, it
shall not be brought in controversion of what the concurrent testi-
mony of Scripture has established. It is too dark itself for that.
Let it lie by.
XII. It is sometimes said that there are in Scripture, and in
especial in the Psalms, passages which speak of the state of death
and of Hades in language of hope and joy, and that, consequently,
the speaker could not have regarded death as lifeless or joyless, but
must have expected, while his body rested in the grave, that his soul
would in Hades be alive and happy. We meet such an affirm-
ation with a flat denial. We affirm that there is not a passage in the
Psalms, or in any part of Scripture, which speaks of death or Hades
with any feeling of satisfaction, save in so far as it is regarded as a
relief from intolerable wretchedness.
XIII. We will give our readers the very strongest passages that
have been selected by our opponents as indicating that those who
uttered them regarded the state of death, or some part of it, at least,
with hope and joy. Here is one :
" I have set the Lord always before me ;
Because He is on my right hand I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth ;
My flesh also shall rest in hope.
For Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades ;
Neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life :
In Thy presence is fulness of joy, —
At thy right hand pleasures for evermore."
Here is another :
" As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness :
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness."
Here is another :
" Like sheep the wicked are laid in Hades;
Death shall feed on them
And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning;
And their beauty shall consume in Hades from their dwelling.
But God will redeem my soul from the power of Hades,
For He shall receive me." f
It is asserted of these passages, that they speak with hope and joy of
the believer's anticipated abode in Hades !
^ Xiy. Now, whoever reads these passages with the smallest atten-
tion will see that it is not of the believer^s abode in Hades^ but of the
* Gen. vi. 2 ; Jude 6 ; 1 Cor. xi. 10.
t Psalm xvi. 8 ; xvii.l5 ; xlix. 14. " The After Life," by Hoy. J. Jennings. Essay I.
DIVES AND LAZABUS. 139
believer's deliverance from HadeSy that these passages speak with
hope. ** Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades .•" *' I shall be satis-
fied ivhen I awake ;" " God will redeem my soul from the power of
Hades :^^ it is this which fills the soul of the Psalmist with joy and
hope. If he thought he was to remain in Hades he would have
despaired. He speaks with delight of deliverance from it, but when
he comes to speak of his condition in it he describes it as one of
silence, darkness, and death :
" In death there is no remembrance of Thee :
In Hades who shall give Thee thanks ?"
" The dead praise not the Lord,
Neither any that go down into silence."*
XV. The magnificent ode of Isaiah, in which he describes the
deceased kings of nations taunting the King of Babylon when he
descends to take his place among them in Hades, is sometimes advanced
in proof that Hades is a land of life.f But this grand composition is
expressly said to be a ** proverb," or parable, and is, therefore, not
to be taken as literally descriptive of the state of things in Hades.
The words of the kings and their thrones of state are neither of them
real. The whole thing is plainly a poetical image. For the Hades
which some dream of as a place of the living is here expressly identi-
fied by the prophet with the grave, the place of worms (v. 11). Isaiah
supposes them raised from their graves, given life in Hades, in order
that he may through them utter the taunt upon Babylon. The whole
piece has in this respect a strong resemblance to that parable of our
Lord about the rich man and Lazarus, to which, as so sadly abused,
we propose to give a separate chapter.
CHAPTER XXI.
Dives and Lazaetjs.
I. The story of the rich man and Lazarus related to us in the
Gospel of St. Luke, cannot be passed over in a few words.J It may
be said to be almost peculiar in the teaching of Scripture. The grand
parable of Isaiah of the Old Kings seated upon thrones in Hades, and
there conversing as the greatest of ancient kings came down to take
His throne among them, is probably the nearest approach to this
parable of Christ that we find in Scripture. In some of its circum-
stances, indeed, namely, as representing Hades as a place of life,
memory, reflection, and speech, it exactly resembles it. Both in the
words of Christ and of His great prophet. Hades is identified with
the grave, and the dead in Hades are represented as alive and speaking
for the purpose of conveying through the words placed in their mouth
instruction for the living.
♦ Ps. vi. 5; cxv. 17. t Isai. xiv. 20, % Luke xvi. 19—31.
140 DIVES AND LAZARUS.
II. But it is the position of this parable in the great controversy
that is now waging both in respect of the intermediate state and of
future punishment that compels us to devote to it our particular atten-
tion. The attention of the Church is being now drawn to questions
about which, heretofore, there has been little question within the
Church. Heretofore it was generally men of infidel opinions who
dared to utter objections to the accepted Christian sentiments upon
human nature and future retribution. Splendid exceptions there have
been indeed, but this was the rule. Christian men, however, are
now inquiring whether accepted views of human nature and future
punishment are derived from philosophy and tradition, or from Scrip-
ture. They are beginning to suspect that a vast amount of current
theology' has human philosophy for its source. Figures in the field of
religious thought, which they used to think figures of Christ, His
prophets, and His apostles, they are beginning to suspect are figures
of the evil spirit, figures of Plato, and various fathers who derived
their theology in a great measure from hira. Hence the advocates of
the hitherto accepted opinions are sadly perplexed. Driven from
various texts which they used to advance without hesitation, taunted
by the putting forward of text after text which have hitherto been
practically ignored, they fly with a desperate purpose to those few
passages in Scripture which may appear to justify their opinions, and
among these stands almost pre-eminent the parable of Dives and
Lazarus. Poole tells us what it is thought to teach, and in so doing
exhibits the reason why so much stress is laid upon it. It is supposed
to establish the Platonic doctrine of the soul as the true man, of its
capacity for life, joy, and sorrow, apart from the body, and of the
commencement of rewards and punishments when man, in death,
quits the garment of the body, laid aside as worn out. " The two
great points proved by it," says Poole, *'are — 1. That the soul is
capable of an existence separated from the body. 2. That the souls of
the good, when they depart from their bodies, immediately pass into
an eternal state of blessedness." * Yan Oosterzee, in his Commentary
on Luke, edited by Lange, expresses the same idea more briefly when
he says that " this much is evident from it, at the first glance, that
the life, both of the godly and ungodly, is uninterruptedly continued
after death.^^ f Here we see the reason of the great value set upon
this parable. Plato's doctrine of the soul is supposed to be taught in
it. Plato's doctrine of Death, as identical loith Life, is thought to
be here presented to us. Unknown, or rejected in other Scriptures,
these Platonic dogmas are here thought to find a countenance. Hence
those who will adhere to Plato, cleave with a desperate tenacity to
this parable of Dives. If it could be truly shown to teach their views,
the only effect would be that of establishing a contradiction between
* Poole's Comment on Luke xvi. 22.
t Clark's TheologicAl Library xvii. 106.
DIVES AND LAZARUS. 141
one part of Scripture and another, or of affording reason to think that
this parable of Lazarus, despite the authority of manuscripts, formed
no part of the original Gospel of St. Luke.
III. And hence, too, a growing disposition on the part of our
Platonic divines to regard this passage of Scripture not as a parable,
hut as a history. Aware that parables are dark sayings ; aware that
parables bear a very close relationship to fables, or, rather, are
identical ; aware that the stojy of the parable is not always true to
7'eality ; aware that if dead men are made to speak together, and hold
rational discourse in this narrative, trees are also made to hold political
discourse in another part of Scripture ; aware that the parable
must receive its interpretation from other Scriptures, and not impose
its interpretation upon them, our Platonic theologians, trembling for
one of their few remaining props, are growing anxious to change this
passage of Scripture from the domain of parable to that of history.
They would fain tell us that this is a literal history of what happened
to two men apart from the body, existing as two ghosts, feeling ghostly
misery or joy in the state that intervened between dying and rising,
and discoursing together just as they are represented by our Lord.
It is, however, curious that perhaps no single advocate of this view
dares to carry it out throughout. Some part of it they all allow to
he figurative, parabolical, in other words, not real. They nearly all
abandon the talk between Abraham and Dives as not having really
taken place. They, therefore, are fain to consider it as partly para-
bolical, partly historical. If you will only allow so much of it as
supports Plato's dogma about the separate existence of souls, they
will generously hand over to you the other circumstances to handle as
figuratively as you please.
lY. We will not admit of this. It is either a parable, or it is not.
If it is a history, it is all of it equally true. If it is a parable, it is
all of it subject to the law of the parable. We are free to accept the
story in all its parts, just so far and no whit farther than other
Scriptures permit us to do so. We are free to accept it as all true,
or as having a substantial truth, or as having only a resemblance to
truth, exactly as plainer Scriptures point out to us. And we are free
to do all this, even though Plato's dogma of the existence of separate
souls should suffer damage in this free manipulation. That it is a
parable, we believe, in agreement with the all but unanimous opinion
of eminent commentators. What Bengel, and Neander, and Olshausen,
and De Wette, and Strauss, and Lange, and Trench, and Alford,
accept, unhesitatingly, as a parable, almost all of them without
thinking it necessary to enter into any proof of it, may be taken as
expressing the general sentiment of Christendom that this discourse
of Christ is a parable. But as it is by some few Platonists disputed,
we will give briefly reasons why it should be taken, as it has always
been taken, as a parable. For that this was its general acceptation
no one can dispute. "The best commentators," says Bloomfield,
142 DIVES AND LAZARUS.
field, *'both ancient and modern, with reason consider it as a
parable." *
Y. Our Lord's mode of teaching the multitude outside of His disciples
was by parables. So invariable was this His method, that Matthew
tells us '* without a parable spake He not unto them." f It was when
He came into the house, or addressed Himself specially to His dis-
ciples, that He departed from the habit of the parable. Of course we
find language addressed to the multitude which is not parabolical,
but this will be found generally, if not invariably, to be merely con-
nective links of His parabolical discourses, or language uttered by
Him in answer to arguments and objections uttered against Him by
His enemies. Such are the discourses of our Lord in John's Gospel
in chapters v. to viii. There is here, however, nothing to call for
any departure from His usual method of teaching, while there is
everything that can be fairly required to induce us to suppose that
He adheres to it. There is just such an occasion in the derision of Him
by the covetous Pharisees, which, as on so many other occasions, gives
rise to His utterance of a parable (verse 14). It begins in exactly
the same manner and words as the two parables which immediately
preceded it upon this occasion. *' There was a certain rich man,"
the opening words of this discourse, correspond with "There was
a certain rich man " and '' A certain man," the opening words of the
parables of The Unjust Steward and The Prodigal Son, which go
before (xv. 11 ; xvi. 1). The entire discourse in its form and con-
struction exactly corresponds with the parables of Christ, while it does
not thus correspond at all with His didactic discourses not parabolical.
Add to this, that there is, perhaps, no commentator on Scripture who
ventures to say that all the circumstances of this discourse really took
lace ; and we make bold to say that this discourse of Christ must
e regarded as a parable, unless good proof he given to the contrary.
But nothing whatsoever can be adduced in proof of its being not a
parable, except that it is wanted in proof of the Platonic doctrine of the
separate existence of souls, and the commencement of retribution in the
state of death. As we shall see, the parable, even if literally under-
stood, does not teach the existence of separate souls. The one thing
in the theory of our opponents, which, thus understood, it would
teach, is that retribution commences during the state of death. In
teaching that this retribution aficcts the entire man, — i.e., soul and
body, — it goes rather farther than any known commentator has hitherto
ventured. It proves too much. The discourse supposes the body as
much as the soul to be engaged. We proceed, then, on the ground
that this discourse is a parable.
YI. Now all who are acquainted with the nature of parables know
that what is called the story of the parable need not he true. There
are some parables of Scripture in which the story is wholly untrue.
Trees never engaged in political discourse, nor did the story Nathan
* Bloomfleld's Greek Testament. t Matt. xii. 34.
i
DIVES AND LAZARUS. 148
told to David ever happen in reality.* The stories here referred to
are purely and entirely fictitious, without, in the smallest measure,
detracting from their parabolical character and truth. As thus the
entire tale may be fictitious, so also may particular parts of it. It
is quite plain, therefore, that we may suppose that the story of The
Rich Man and Lazarus was not true as it is here related, without
affecting that parabolical truth which can alone be contended for in a
parable. Christ relates that Dives was punished in Hades, and that
Lazarus was rewarded in Abraham's bosom, before the resurrection.
This may be contrary to fact. It may be perfectly incorrect to say
that either righteous men or wicked men receive any retribution
whatsoever, or are capable of it, before resurrection, and yet this
parable may be a true and proper parable, and suited, perfectly to
convey the moral truth it was intended to convey, and which moral
truth we hold that our Lord enunciates in the 31st verse, when He
says, — '* If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they
be persuaded though one rose f»om the dead."
YII. Now here lies the grand force of the usual theory that, call
this discourse what we please, be it history or parable, or admixture
of them both, the moral can only derive any force on the supposition
that the story is substantially true. Perhaps our readers may be sur-
prised when we say that we cordially and entirely agree with this.
We, too, think and are persuaded that if the moral of this parable be
that given in the thirty-first verse, or, indeed, be the moral of it
what it may, the moral would not and could not have its force if we
did not allow the substantial truth of the story upon which it is based
and from which it is drawn.
YIII. But our readers must attend honestly to that expression sub-
stantial truth. Substantial truth, we believe to be all that is con-
tended for here by any commentator, whatever be his opinions. Thus
Poole, who agrees fully with the Platonic view of this parable, com-
menting on verses 25 and 26, says, *' We must still remember that
all these things are spoken in a figure. The great gulf here men-
tioned, to be fixed between heaven and hell, is too wide for persons
on opposite sides of it to be heard communicating their minds to each
other." Thus Poole regards this whole conversation between Dives
and Abraham to be "purelj figurative, imaginary, i.e., never to have
been sjmken at all. In the judgment of the Platonic commentator
Poole, Dives never saw Abraham or Lazarus, and never spoke one
word to them either for himself or for his brethren. The dialogue
which Christ puts into their lips, and which occupies the greater part
of the parable, is as purely mythical as the conversation of the trees
when they " went forth on a time to anoint a king over them," as the
old Book of Judges tells us somewhat in honest ^sop's style. Dean
Alford, who so far differs from Poole as not to think the *' gulf" quite
so wide, for instead of placing it between heaven and hell, he adopts
* Judges ix. 8; 2 Sam. xii. 1.
144 DIVES AND LAZARUS.
the more classical idea and supposes it to separate between diffei'ent
divisions of Hades, the division for good souls and the division for
wicked souls, the Elysian fields and the Tartarus of the Heathen
poets, yet concurs with the more old-fashioned commentator in sup-
posing that there is some figure in the parable. Commenting upon
the phrase, ^^ Ahrahajii's bosom" he says that ''this, as a form of
speech among the Jews, ivas not even by themselves understood in its
strict literal sense ; and though the purposes of the parable require this,
verse 23, no one ivould think of pressing it into a truth, but all would
see in it the graphic filling -up of a state which itself is strictly actual."*
IX. Now our readers must remember this. No commentator on
this parable thinks that every circumstance in it is true. Ac-
cording to their ideas they suppose this or that circumstance,
this or that discourse, to be hctitious. They describe this by
a variety of terms which appear milder, such as "a figure,"
"not literal," "graphic filling up," &c. ; but this is what is
meant. What is not real is fictitious. And they all allow that some
circumstances of this parable are not real, that they never happened,
that if we were to insist upon them having really happened we should
be^ insisting on error instead of truth. Substantial truth loith cir-
cumstantial error is all they claim for the story of Dives and
Lazarus !
X. This is exactly what ive, too, maintain. Substantial truth,
circumstantial fiction. But our opponents must not be offended if we
use the license a little farther than they do. They must not denounce
us if we maintain, forced by the testimony of plain Scripture, that
there are other circumstances of this par able fictitious besides those which
they hold to be so. They who hold that Dives never pleaded for him-
self and his brethren across a gulf and never will do so either, and
that Abraham never rejected his eloquent plea, may not think it un-
reasonable if we suppose that the time of this whole occurrence is
antedated for a purpose, is a figure, a part of that ' ' graphic filling-
up " which the object of this parable absolutely demanded. And here
is the place for us to give our view of this most interesting and
important parable.
XI. We hold the story to be substantially true. We do not think
that we can be accused of denying its substantial truth when we state
that it is true in three great respects, viz., that it teaches us that
man's real prosperity is not at all to be judged by his circumstances
here ; that retribution, according to man's relation to God, awaits
every man in a future state of existence ; that if a man leaves this
present existence unsaved he cannot hope for salvation in that place
of pain and punishment to which his neglect of salvation here will
justly consign him, for that to pass from that place to the place of
bliss is utterly and for ever impossible. Surely, in allowing the story
to be true in all these respects, we allow its substantial truth ; we
* Poole and Alford on Luke xvi, 22—25.
DIVES AND LAZARUS. 145
allow it to be true quite sufficiently far to bear the moral it was
intended to enforce.
XII. And now for our view of what Alford would call its <* graphic
filling up," and Poole would call its *' figure." We agree witti Poole
in saying that its dialogue between Dives and Lazarus is purely
imaginary : not merely that it has not happened, but that it, or con-
versations of the kind, never will take place between the lost and the
saved. And now we will add another circumstance of the graphic
fiUing-up of the parable. Not only its dialogue, hut its time is Jicti-
tious. The dialogue is invented, t?ie time is antedated. WhatJKU
not happen to any man before the period of the resurrection Cflrist
here relates as happening before the resurrection, and He consequently
paints the lost as suffering in Hades, the only place throughout the
whole Scripture, as Poole tells us, lohere Hades is understood as the
place of torments.
XIII. This is what we hold at variance with the popular view of
this Scripture. We hold that Christ, for the purpose of His parable,
antedates it. What will really happen to such men as Dives and
Lazarus when they are raised up at the resurrection, He supposes to
happen to them in Hades before the resurrection ; and He consequently
supposes them to be alive in this Hades state, and capable of feeling,
speech, &c., exactly as Isaiah raises up his dead kings in Hades to
utter a taunt upon Babylon. We cannot be faulted for supposing the
circumstance of time to be a part of the graphic filling-up of the
parable, if we can only justify our doing so from other Scriptures, and
the object of the parable in question.
XIV. Our justification we find in abundant passages of Scripture.
The receiving of the good things and the evil things which this parable
places before resurrection, our Lord has, over and over, in His literal
discourses, told us we are not to expect until after the resurrection.
In this same series of discourses in which the parable before us occurs
He tells his disciples luhen they are to expect recomjjense ; it is " at
the resurrection of the Just." In His explanation of parable upon
parable He has Himself explained that it is not until " the time of the
harvest," until " the end of the world" or age, that His people are
gathered into His barn and shine as the sun, while the wicked are
sent as tares to the burning.* Over and over He has told us
that Gehenna, and not Hades, is the place of torment. f And when
He comes to speak of the Lazarus of real life and not the Lazarus of
a parable, when He leaves the graphic filling-up of a story, in some
of its circumstances purely fictitious, for that historical discourse
where perfect truth must be looked for in every phrase. He does not
describe the genuine Lazarus as " in Abraham's bosom," but as
*' sleeping " and *' dead."|. We arc, therefore, not merely justified but
absolutely required by Scripture to hold that our Lord, in this parable,
* Luke xiv. 14 ; Matt. xiiJ. SO, 40. t Matt. v. 22; Mark ix. 43.
X John xi. 11—14.
L
146 DIVES AND LAZARUS.
antedates it in time, a liberty which the nature and character of
parabolical discourse fully entitled Him to do.
XY. All that we can, then, be now called upon to do is to show
that such antedating is required here in order to suit the occasion on
tcliich the parnhJe teas spohen. This is very readily shown. It was
spoken altogether for the purpose of injluencing the living. It must,
therefore, adapt its time to the parties addressed, and must, therefore,
place it before the resurrection, for ovlj before the resurrection is
God's appointed time of grace. If it were to fix the time for retri-
bution after resurrection the whole dialogue between Dives and
Abraham would be absurd, and the moral drawn from it wholly inap-
plicable. It is therefore that our Lord was compelled to alter the
time of the action of the parable.
XYI. If it is still further objected that our Lord would not utter
language that would be generally misunderstood, as His language
here has been if the popular interpretation of it be incorrect, we reply
that certainly our Lord would not utter language that ought to lead
men astray, but that to lay down that He would not utter language
that iDould he misunderstood is to say the contrary to what He
actually has done. His language at the institution of the Eucharist
has been very much misunderstood, whether we take the Roman, the
Lutheran, or the Protestant view of it.* That He has spoken here
language that would justify misinterpretation we utterly deny. In
the first place, the fact that it is a parable, and was addressed to
parties to whom the laws of parables were familiar, was a sufficient
safeguard. In the next place. His own repeated teaching elsewhere
and on every variety of occasion, as to the real place and time of
retribution, should have guarded the Church from error on the grand
point on which it has generally gone astray. In the next place, it is
the Platonic view of the nature of the human soul, introduced in the
second century, if not earlier, against the faithful warning of Paul,
that has created the tendency to go astray in the interpretation of
this parable. Had the scriptural doctrine of the nature of death, and
Hades, and the soul, been adhered to, the popular error could not
have been fallen into. Abundant safeguard, therefore, has been pro-
vided, and if men have gone astray it is their own fault, and not the
fault of the language of the parable.
XYII. It only remains for us to say a few words more upon two
parts of the parable. The idea that "Abraham's bosom'' means a
part or division of Hades derives no countenance from this parable.
It is expressly stated to be separated from it by a wide gulf. There
can be no doubt, we suppose, but that Abraham's bosom is the same
as Paradise. On this latter place we will have more to say hereafter,
and will not here anticipate it ; but we will here merely say that
Lazarus reclining in Abraham's bosom points on to the marriage
supper of the Lamb, when His people shall eat bread in the kingdom
* Slatt. xxvi. 26—28.
DIVES AND LAZARUS. 147
of God.* The expression points to this glorious time and place, and
still further helps to show us that the real period intended is subse-
quent to resurrection, for certainly it is not until after resurrection
that the redeemed eat bread in the kingdom of God.
XVIII. We will now merely say, in conclusion, that the idea that
the retribution here spoken of, whether of reward or of punishment,
affects the separate soul only, derives no countenance whatever, but
the very opposite, from this parable. The parable does not speak of
souls either suffering or enjoying. That is an unfounded inference
from the Platonic idea that separate souls are capable of enjoyment or
suffering. When this idea was brought into the Church we find the
language adapts itself to it. Thus, in the Apocryphal Acts of
Thomas, the Apostle is made to say, " I saw souls hung up, some by
the tongue, some by the hair, some by the hands, some by the feet,
head downwards, and smoked with smoke and sulphur." f But this is
not the language of the parable, or of any part of Scripture. The only
place, so far as we know, where the separate soul is spoken of and per-
sonified, and made to speak, is with a connection that evidently shows
us that these souls were not possessed of life at all. J They are described
as ''under the altar," and calling on God to ^^ avenge their blood.^' The
expression in Revelation is evidently of one meaning with God's
words when He addresses Cain, " What hast thou done ? the voice of
thy brother'' s blood crieth unto me from the groundP
XIX. Our Lord's words do not give the smallest countenance to the
idea that He speaks of souls apart from bodies. Platonic commenta-
tors are sure to bring this idea in, but it is their Platonic dogma that
makes them do so. Thus Bengel, commenting on Lazarus' being
carried by the angels, says that *' He means his soul;'" and Ooster-
zee's comment on *' carried by the angels," is — " evidently, his soul.^'
But, if we are to take our Lord's words, the very contrary would
evidently appear to have been his meaning. Even in the graphic
filling-up of a parable, He who once said to His disciples, " Handle
Me, and see that it is I Myself^ will not countenance the childish,
heathen notion of ghost-lands, ghost-joys, and ghost-pains. His
words, speaking of the rich man, are — " The rich man also died and
was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments."
It is the same man who was buried that in Hades was in torment.
Christ, true to the Scriptural account of man, represents man made of
dust as the person who suffers. He does not draw His ideas from
heathen sources, but from the analogy of Scripture. He does not go
to Plato for the filling up of His parabolical pictures. Isaiah had
afforded Him the model — if He wanted such — when the prophet
describes the dead monarchs rising from their graves in Hades to
utter the triumphant taunt upon Babylon. The Lazarus who was
borne by the angels was a man, not a ghost : and so was the rich
* Luke xiv. 14, 15. \ The Apocryphal Goapels. T.T.Clarke. P. 48).
X Eev. vL 9; Gen. iv. 10.
l2
148 THE PENITENT THIEF.
man who lifted up his eyes in Hades. Platonism finds no countenance
eyen in the graphic filling-up of a parable.
XX. We have now gone through the objections that may bo
urged against our view of Hades from the Old Testament, and have
no hesitation in saying that they are of no weight whatever against
the overwhelming evidence that establishes our view. "We affirm
that every passage in the Old Testament which speaks hopefully and
joyfully of an after life does so in connection icith the resurrection.
We affirm that every passage in the Old Testament which speaks of
the state of death— i.e., of the entire period between our dying and
our rising — states it to be a condition of silence, darkness, unconscious-
ness, and death. Against some improbable inferences we place the
numerous and plain declarations of the Old Testament. Among them
are the following: *' The dead know not anything:" "The dead
praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence :" *' That
which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing-
befalleth them ; . as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they all
have one breath (or spirit) ; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above
a beast :" *' There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,
in Hades, whither thou goest :" " In death, 'there is no remembrance
of Thee; in Hades, who will give Thee thanks ?" "Hades cannot
praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee."* With these passages
before us, we see what the Old Testament taught positively of the
entire state of death, of Hades and the grave, of the body and of the
soul. The Old Testament is full, clear, and authoritative upon this
fundamental point. It does not, indeed, exhibit the eternal life
which Christ came to give in the bright light in which the Gospel
does. But of the state of death the Old Testament speaks more fully
than the K"ew, and without the smallest hesitation or obscurity in its
utterances. If it was reserved for the Gospel to bring life and immor-
tality to light, it was given, and with equal propriety, to the Old to
exhibit the gloom of that state from which Christ will deliver his
people for ever. It is, according to the Old Testament, a state of
darkness, silence, unconsciousness, and death, from which the faith
of the saints in the old dispensation hoped for deliverance, and hailed
the day of Christ which shone in the distance, and spoke of bringing
the body from the grave and the soul from Hades in the morning of
the resurrection.
CHAPTER XXII.
The Penitent Thief.
I. Having shown that the objections against our theory, from a
few passages of the Old Testament, have no weight, we now proceed
* Eccl. ix. 5; iii. 19; ix. 10, Ps. vi. 4, 5; cxv. 17. Is. xxxviii. 18.
THE PENITENT THIEF, 149
to consider those which are brought forward from the New. It would
indeed be a serious matter if they could be established. One part of
God's Word would then be arrayed against another. The best re-
sult that could be hoped for in a case of the kind would be the
rejection of those few passages from the text of Scripture which spoke
in contradiction of its general tone and teaching.
II. We are not, however, reduced to this sad necessity. Exami-
nation of those passages of the New Testament which are so often
paraded in opposition to us will, we are satisfied, result in the con-
viction that they are, one and all, readily and naturally reconcilable
with it. They are in number very few. Some four or five passages
are, we believe, all that have any show of opposition to our view.
We proceed to consider them in the order in wMch they occur in the
New Testament.
III. One of the te'xts which is most confidently brought forward
in proof that the soul of man does not die when the body dies is our
Lord's declaration^to His disciples, addressed to them to guard them
in the prospect of martyrdom, " Fear not them which kill the body,
and are not able to kill the soul,"* It is from hence argued, even
by those who believe in the ultimate destruction of the body and
soul of the wicked in hell, that in the intermediate state the soul
survives death.
IV. We have not the slightest hesitation in saying that this view
would derive very strong confirmation from this text, if this text
stood alone in Scripture. We do not hesitate to say that if there
were no other texts of Scripture which spoke upon this question, the
view above held is what would most naturally be held, and the view
which we would ourselves hold. This one text, we frankly avow,
long kept us to a view of the intermediate state which we now see
to be untenable — viz., the sleep of the soul, supposed to be still alive,
in a Hades distinct from the grave. But we know that the most
obvious view of a particular passage of Scripture, or of any book,
though generally, is not always the real sense. A less obvious
sense may be the one we are compelled to take from respect to other
passages of the same book, which compel us to abandon the more
obvious for the less obvious sense, unless we hold that the writer
contradicts himself. A supposition of this kind, which we are very
slow to admit in the case ot a human author of good sense and judg-
ment, is wholly inadmissible in the case of a book supposed to be
inspired. Here we choose, when compelled, the less obvious sense,
sensible that it must be the intended sense. The sense we would
attach to our Lord's words, when He says that man can kill the body,
but cannot kill the soul, is that although that soul, or life, be
actually dead and lost for the time, yet that in God's eye and mind
it is living, as reserved and destined by Him for a future and an
eternal existence. This sense we allow to be less obvious than the
* Matt. X, 28.
150 THE PENITENT THIEF.
former or Platonic sense, but we maintain it to be a sense fully jus-
tified by the language of Scripture elsewhere, and absolutely required
by its general doctrine upon this subject.
V. That Scripture elsewhere justifies this use of the language of
our Lord we will show by reference to two passages both of a kindred
nature, and one of them identical in expression. That there is a life
during the intermediate state which is not possessed but pledged is quite
certain from those words of Christ addressed to the Sadducees : *' God
is not the God of the dead, but of the living : for all live unto Him,'*
or " live in Him," as we prefer. There is a mine of thought and
truth in these words which has never been properly worked out from
the prevalence of Platonic ideas. As an heritage entailed belongs not
only to the actual possessor of it, but also to his heirs yet unborn, so
now we see of the believer's life. It matters not now whether from
these words we suppose, with many, that they prove an actual life
at the time when they were spoken for the old patriarchs. They cer-
tainly, if we will take our Lord's explanation of them, indicate the
life of resurrection which was not then possessed. Poole's comment
is so excellent that we gladly use it as the testimony of an opponent ;
he says, '' Though Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dead at the
speaking of those words, yet they were not so in God's eye, who was
determined to raise them up in the last day, and who with the same
eye beholds things past, present, and to come." * In this Scripture,
then, our Lord lays down the principle that life. is said to belong to
persons who have it not, but to whom it is pledged by God.
YI. The same principle is elsewhere declared by our Lord in these
words : *' He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that hateth his
life in this world shall keep it u7ito life eternal.'''' ■\ The words here
used by Christ are especially valuable as bearing upon Matt. x. 28, for
it is of the psyche, the soul, translated ** life," that Christ is speaking.
"We have a perfect right to use " soul " here for "life," and to trans-
late thus — " He that loveth his soul shall lose it ; and he that hateth
his soul in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Now oar Lord
here teaches us that the man who, for His sake, here loses his soul
really preserves it for eternity. Here the soul or life of the martyr,
that same psyche which Christ, in Matt. x. 28, says that man cannot
destroy, is represented as actually, for the time, lost or destroyed,
while, in reference to its eternal safety, it is looked on as most care-
fully guarded and preserved. This text throws a full light upon
Matt. X. 28. Christ cannot mean to tell us in this latter text that
• that cannot happen to the soul which in the former text He tells us
can and does happen. Man can, and does, destroy or kill the soul of
the believer, hut, — it is a momentary death. What he has for the
time extinguished is reserved by God to shine throughout eternity.
It is not, therefore, in God's eye and mind lost, destroyed, or perished.
As a writer, with whom on some important points we agree, while we
* Poole's Comment, on Luke xx. 38. t Jobnxii. 25.
THE PENITENT THIEF. 161
differ from him wholly upon others, has most clearly and beautifully
•written, ** When men kill the saints, they only terminate their mortal
existence. They do not touch that real life of theirs which is related
to the eternal future, and which has its foundation in their connection
with Christ in the heavens. This is in Christ's keeping, and can be
touched by no man. AVc are not to fear those who can only demolish
the corruptible body, and cannot do anything to prevent the coming
bestowal of immortality by resurrection."*
yil. We now come to a passage very much relied oa, as proving
that the intermediate stale between death and resurrection is, for the
people of Christ, one of life and joy.f Christ hangs upon the cross.
It is towards the close of that Jewish day which ended about six
o'clock p.m. Of the thieves who hung by His side, one was a believer
in Christ and His coming kingdom. Confessing his sins and his
punishment as well- merited, he turns to Him who had ever invited
sinners to come to Him, and in humble hope and faith asks to be
remembered by his King when his King should come into, or rather
in, His kingdom. His "Lord, remember me, when Thou comest in
Thy kingdom," is met with the ready answer, " Yerily, I say unto
thee, to-day, or, this day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
YIII. From our Lord's reply three things are generally supposed.
First, that by "to-day" is meant that very Jewish day of twenty-
four hours which was shortly about to expire, and that the entire
period of time here spoken of, during which the thief should be with
Christ in Paradise, was that period of three solar days during which
Christ lay in the grave. Secondly, it is supposed that by Paradise
Christ meant a part of Hades, — that part, namely, where it is sup-
posed that the souls of the righteous went separate from the body.
Thirdly, it is supposed that this part of Hades must have been the
scene of life and joy. And from all this, it is concluded that the
souls of believers, during the intermediate state, are in a condition of
life and joy, and not of unconsciousness and death.
IX. 'It may seem a cruel thing to throw down so fair-seeming an
argument for the Platonic Elysium, but we are bound in honesty to
say that the above ingenious argument, at its very best, is only a
rope of sand. Supjwsing the j)erfect correctness of the two Jirst sup-
positions, they loould not wei(jh one feather against our argument.
Supposing that our Lord did mean that portion of three natural days
during which He lay in the grave ; supposing that He meant by
Paradise a part of Hades ; why, in that case, nothing more could be
proved from His words, but that, during that short period of time,
He and the thief would be together in lohatever condition the righteous
were in Hades. For, it must be remarked, Christ does not say one
word of what the condition of which He speaks would be. He does
not say it would be one of life or of joy. He does not say that it is
souls separate from bodies that would go there. None of these three
* " Twelve Lectures," by Robert Eoberts. Fifth Edition, p. 64. f Lukexxiii.43
152 THE PENITENT THIEF.
things are said by Him at all. All these things must be proved from
some other source. It must from another source be established that
souls separate from bodies are alive. Tt must be established that the
Paradise which is part of Hades, if there be such a place at all, is the
scene of life. If it be in Hades, it is only natural to suppose that it
shares in the general character of Hades. But from the words of
Christ, supposing Him to speak of a part of Hades, and of the three
days during which He was in Hades, it could only be inferred that
Christ, in reply to the prayer of His disciple to be remembered when
He came in His kingdom, promised him that for a part of three days
he should be with Himself in whatever condition the righteous were
in Hades. This we have established from Scripture to be a condition
of lifelessness. Whether such an answer to one of the highest acts
of faith that was ever performed would be a suitable one, we leave to
our opponents. It is all that the words, granting them their own
view of them, can bear. We think it a lame conclusion. We do not
think our King so niggard in His reply to His people's suit. But not
one whit more will His words bear, supposing Him to mean by
Paradise, Hades, and by the time, the three days of His lying in the
grave.
X. And now we will present our view of our Lord's reply to the thief.
It has this great recommendation, that it is a direct answer to, and
granting of, the jirmjer. The thief asks to be remembered, thought
of, not absolutely forgotten, when the great King should come in His
kingdom. The meek and gentle King replies that at the time of
which His disciple spoke, on the day when He should come in His
kingdom, he should indeed be remembered ; for on this very day, that
poor man, man's outlaw and scoffing, should be side hy side with the
King of the Eternal Age in Paradise, His kingdom. Christ grants
his prayer, and more than grants it. He does not mock his soaring,
far-reaching prayer with the promise of a place near Himself in that
Hades to which He only could endure to go, because He knew He
would be delivered from it ! He tells him that, amid all the grandeur
of that day of the Lord of which he spoke, when the angels of
heaven accompanied the Son of God, when the saints of all times
thronged around, he who hung side by side with the Crucified One,
who was not ashamed of Him of whom His very apostles were
ashamed, who trusted in One in whom His nearest disciples had
almost ceased to trust, who recognised in the outcast, anguished,
frame-worn, and heart-broken Jesus of Nazareth the King of the
Coming Age, should once more be with Him, side by side, but no
longer in shame, but in glory. We think such a reply worthy of the
occasion. We will show that no other reply is admissible.
XI. And in the first place we assert that Paradise is not Hades,
nor any part of Hades, and that consequently our Lord could not
have spoken of that time and of that place during which, and in
which, He lay in the grave. Paradise is spoken of in but three places.
THE PENITENT THIEF. 153
The first of these is the passage of which we are now treating. The
other two places absolutely forbid us to suppose that Paradise is a part
of Hades. The first of these is the place in which Paul, speaking of
his vision or visions, tells us that he " was caught up into Paradise.''^*
Certainly the place to which Paul was caught up was no part of
that Hades which is in the heart of the earth. The second place is
found among our Lord's messages to the Churches of Asia, where He
promises that "to him that overcometh, He will give to eat of the
tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." t The
time of which our Lord here speaks is subsequent to the resurrection,
for it is then that we read of the tree of life restored to man, and par-
taken of by him. X No one dreams of the tree of life as growing in
Hades, the realm of death. It is when Christ comes in His kingdom,
raises His dead, and gives them their eternal place, — it is then they
dwell in Paradise. But this is the very time of which the thief
spoke—" When Thou comest in Thy kingdom." The Paradise pro-
mised to him by Christ is the Paradise of the Book of Revelation.
Xn. But while it is not attempted to be denied that the Paradise
of which Paul spoke and of which John spoke is not in Hades, our
opponents try to extricate themselves from their difficulty by supposing
that there are two Paradises ! We regret to say that such a man as
Alford lends his name to this wretched subterfuge. He supposes one
Paradise to be that of which Paul and John spoke, and another to be
that Paradise of which our Lord spoke to the thief in condescension to
Rabbinical ideas I His words are — " Paradise became, in the Jewish
theology J the name for that j^«r^ of Hades where the souls of the
righteous await the resurrection. It was also the name for a supernal
or heavenly abode (see 2 Co. xii. 4 ; Eev. ii. 7). The former of them
is, I believe, here primaril;^ to be understood." §
XIII. Against this principle of interpretation we absolutely protest.
Scripture is to be interpreted by its own analogy. Scripture speaks
of but one Paradise, and that not in Hades. The passage in Luke
does not give us the smallest ground for supposing that it speaks of
any other Paradise than the Scriptural one. It rather intimates the
very contrary. In the Greek the article occurs before Paradise —
" thou shalt be with me in the Paradise," i.e. the true and real one
to which faith looks forward as the consummation of its expectations,
not some mythical. Rabbinical, shadowy, flimsy, Paradise, such as
some heathens and some Jews who borrowed their ideas from heathens,
imagined in the ghost-land of Hades.
XIY. But it is said that Jewish theology was so unanimous upon this
point that Paradise was a part of Hades, that we cannot reject its aid
towards the interpretation of Scripture. It is asserted that so general
was the Rabbinical teaching upon this, so indoctrinated was the
popular mind with this idea of a Paradisaical Hades, that even the
* 2 Cor. xii. 4, t Rev. xxii. 2.
t Rev. ii. 7. § Alford on Luke xxiii. 43.
154 THE PENITENT THIEF.
mind of the thief upon the cross, whatever may have been the defects
of his education or the wild career of his life, was so thoroughly
imbued with it that the mention of Paradise would, as a matter of
course, suggest the idea of Hades, would of necessity draw him away
from that distant vision of Christ coming in His kingdom, on which
he foolishly thought, to that nearer time of bliss which should come to
him in that Hades of which Job, and David, and Hezekiah, yea, and
Christ Himself could think of only with a shudder ! In fact, so full
of Jewish opinion are our opponents upon this question, that they sup-
pose the well-educated thief would have been sorely perplexed if
Christ, in speaking of Paradise, meant any other place than Hades I
We will, therefore, say a word or two upon this point.
How is this Jewish unanimity of thought before the criicijixion
known to have existed ? We deny it, and ask for proof. The Septua-
. gint uses Paradise /or the Garden of Eden (Gen. ii. 15), but we do
not suppose that this gives much countenance to a Paradise of
Hades.
XV. But perhaps it may be said that opinion subsequent to the
crucifixion is so strong and so unanimous that Paradise was a part of
Hades, that it proves that opinion before the crucifixion was of the
same strong and uniform kind. Well, we meet this by saying that
this is not by any means the case. It is not now agreed, and never
has been agreed, that any part of Hades is Paradise ; and for the
opinion of some that it is, we can give as a reason for their opinion
the Platonic dogma of the soul.
XYI. It is true there are, and have been from very early times of
the Christian era, men, Jewish and Christian, who have held this
view. Dean Alford in our own time, the vigorous mind of Horsley in
the century gone by, various earlier writers of whom Usher and
others make mention, the learned Usher himself — if, indeed, we may
quote him for this view, when he says, that there is a part of
Hades in heaven itself, these, many in number and respectable in
authority, may be quoted as holding the unscriptural theory that
Paradise lay within Hades, the realm of the dead.* But to say that
opinion since the crucifixion is unanimous in thinking that Paradise
lay within Hades is to state what is contrary to fact. While we can
account for the opinions of many in favour of that view from the
prevalence of the Platonic theory of the soul, we assert that opinion,
at the time when it is most to be valued — viz., in the earlier periods
of the Church, rejected as a rule the absurd idea that Paradise was in
Hades. Tertullian, in a passage which exhibits the creeping in of
error into the ideas on the intermediate state, yet expressly states
that the general doctrine of his time clearly distinguished Paradise
from Hades. "No one," he says, "on becoming absent from the
body, is at once a dweller in the presence of the Lord, except by the
* Alford on Luke xxiii. 43; Horsley's Sermon on 1 Pet. iii. 18: Usher, Answer,
Ch. viii.
THE PENITENT THIEF. 155
prerogative of martyrdom, whereby the saints get at once a lodging
tn Paradise, not in Hades.^' *
XVII. The Yulgate translation of the Bible, which may be said to ex-
press the sentiment of the Western Church from the fourth century, re-
jects the idea that Paradise was in Hades, for in its version of Ecclesias-
ticus xliv. 16, where the Greek simply speaks of the translation of Enoch
as it is recorded in Genesis, the Vulgate says that " he was translated
into Paradisey f No one supposes that Enoch was placed in Hades.
The Roman Church from the sixteenth century to the present day,
in one of her authorised formularies, identifies Paradise with the
kingdom of heaven and the New Jerusalem which are to succeed the
resurrection. ''Very many other names," we are told, in her cate-
chism for parish priests, "are given in Scripture to this heavenly
bliss, of which kind are, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ,
the kingdom of Heaven, Paradise, the Holy City, the New Jerusalem,
the House of our Father." % "What we have seen to have been the
opinion of the more orthodox part of the early Church, was the opinion
also even of those heretical writers of the earlier centuries, whose
productions have been handed down to us under the sounding titles
of "The Gospel of Thomas," "The Gospel of Nicodemus," "The
Acts of the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul," "The Revelation of
Moses," "The Revelation of Paul," "The Passing of Mary," &c.
They deny that Paradise is part of Hades : they claim it to be the
place of glory, the third heaven, not to be revealed until after resur-
rection, in which no one has yet been able to live.§ The opinion,
then, of the early Church was adverse to the idea that Paradise was
a part of Hades, and we cannot therefore suppose our Lord to have
been induced by an opinion which had no prevalence, to give to the
Hades to which He and His disciples were going the unscriptural
name of Paradise.
XVIII. It may be, however, that some of our opponents may now
turn round, and, insisting on the true and Scriptural sensa of Para-
dise, say that Christ promised His disciple that on that very day, ere
the setting of the sun, he should be with Himself in his Father's
house at God's right hand. No doubt the words of Christ, taken by
themselves, will bear that sense. Unfortunately, however, for our
Platonic theorists, other Scriptures preclude the possibility of this
interpretation. Our Lord, body and soul, was, from the time He
died to the time He rose, in Hades, and the grave. If any one will
imagine the "spirit" which He commended in death into His
Father's hand to have been Christ, He corrects this idea by telling
us that as surely and as truly as the prophet Jonah was three days
and three nights in the whale's belly ,"" so was the Son of Man
* TertuUian's " Resurrection of the Flesh," ch. xliii.
t Ecclus. xliv. 16. Vulgate.
X Catechismus, Ad Parochos, Pars 1, Art. xii. v.
§ Apocryphal Gospels. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, pp. 241, 310, 357, 465, 502.
156
THE PENITENT THIEF.
three days in the heart of the earth. Even after His resurrection,
and hefore His ascension, He has taught us that He did not ascend
unto His Father.* The idea that Christ was not in the heart of
the earth, in body and soul, we must, then, abandon, unless we
choose, from a preference of Plato's fancies, to reject Christ's words.
XIX. But our opponents are not quite done with this text. They
boldly tell us that whatever or wherever Paradise may be, and what-
soever Hades may be, that yet, beyond a doubt, Christ and His
penitent were in Paradise on that very Jewish day which was so
soon to close, when the sun of that great day had set behind the
hills. They say that this cannot be questioned, because Christ said,
** To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." On that very day,
then, they say Christ and His disciple went to Paradise, and in that
Paradise the penitent has been for more than eighteen hundred years.
XX. If it were necessary to alter the punctuation of this passage,
in order to avoid the force of this argument, we should not have the
smallest hesitation in doing so. We should not hesitate to alter a
comma from the place where a human transcriber thought fit to place
it, in order to avoid the contradiction of a doctrine which God has
revealed. It is well known that the punctuation of the New Testa-
ment is the work of the men who transcribed the manuscripts, not
the work of the Evangelists and Apostles. We know of no law of the
Greek language which would />ret;ew^ our placing the comma after,
instead of before " to-day," and reading our Lord as saying, " Yerily
I sat/ unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." If i't
were required to avoid a contradiction of God's Word, we should
adopt it without a moment's hesitation.
XXI. But we freely allow that so far as our acquaintance with the
genius of the Greek language goes, we agree with the great body of
scholars who prefer the punctuation as it is, though we wholly dissent
from those of them who say that the above alteration of punctuation is
inconsistent with the laws of the language, and still more that it would
present a sense inconsistent with the occasion. But we see no necessity
whatever for any change of punctuation. We will merely alter the trans -
lation from " to-day,''^ to "ow this day^'' and read our Lord as saying,
"Yerily I say unto thee, on this day thou shalt he ivith Me in
Paradise.''^
XXII. That the Greek word translated '* to-day" may also with
equal propriety be translated "on this day," cannot be disputed.
We will merely give the explanation of it by two eminent lexi-
cographers, neither of whom agreed with us in our view of this passage
or in our general theory. Hose's Parhhurst thus gives it : " anfie^ov,
or according to the Attic dialect, rrjfispov, adv., q.d. ri] rjjxkpa ravrr], or
Tri^t ri] nfi'tpa, on this day— to-da,j, this day.^' And in agreement
with this we read in Schleusner's Lexico7i of the Ncio Testament,
" (Trifispov, in the Attic rrjuepov, is properly used as an adverb to sig-
* Acts ii. 27 ; Luke xxiii. 46; Matt. xii. 40; John xx. 17.
THE PENITENT THIEF. 157
nify this dai/, and is equivalent to rn^t r'mtpa, on this day^ With
this translation we address ourselves to the text.
XXIII. *' On this day thou shalt he with me in Paradise." Have
we any clue to discover what day our Lord meant by " this day ? "
Most assuredly it might signify the very Jewish day on which He was
speaking, but most assuredly also it might signify some other day, if
some other day were then spoken of between Him and His disciple.
Now the penitent in his prayer was spealdng of ajiother day. He
was speaking of the day of ChrisVs appearing when he said, " Lord,
remember me ichen Thou comest into Thy Jcingdom.^^ And it is only
most natural, most proper, most suitable to the occasion, that our Lord
should refer in His reply to the day which His disciple spoke of in
his prayer. Thus naturally interpreted, " On this day thou shalt be
with me in Paradise " means *' On this day of which you speak, when
I come in My kingdom, thou shalt be with Me as now thou art— side
by side." And so vanishes this text from the few that are objected
with any show of plausibility against us.
XXIV. And yet it may well be that our blessed Lord, in His
knowledge of the reality of the intermediate state as one of sleep,
brings in the idea of that very Jewish day in connection with the day
of His appearing as being both of them synchronical . There are two
occasions when time ceases to he. One of these is when eternal life
commences. John spoke of this when he said, " there should be time
no longer.''^ * Time is a measure, a portion of something. That of
which time can be aflB.rmed must therefore be capable of measure-
ment, he finite. Eternity, therefore, has no years, no time. He who
dwells in eternity is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever — a
thousand years are to Him as one day. The other occasion when time
is abolished is ichen death has come. To the sleeper in death's arms
there is no time as there is none to him who has entered on the limit-
less ocean of eternity. The penitent on the cross had come to the
brink of the river of death when time should cease for him. That
sun that had shone out again upon him when the darkness had passed
could not sink until he had ceased to live. He lived not to the end
of that Jewish day. He departed ere its hours were spent to the
region where time is not, the land where all things are forgotten,
where there is no hoping, no waiting, where myriads of years are the
same as moments of time. When the centuries are passed away that
sleeper will awake. He will take up time where he left off time,
under the blaze of a Syrian sky, in pain and weakness, with other
sufferers by his side, and jests and mockeries in his ear. That day
has not yet passed for him. The sun has stayed its course in the sky
for him. The hand upon the dial still points to the minute and the
second at which it pointed when he fell asleep, some half-hour to six
o'clock p.m., on such a day of a Jewish month in the year of our Lord
Thirty-three. The last half-hour of that old Jewish day the penitent
* Eev, X. 6.
158 Paul's desire to bepart.
thief will spend with his King in His kingdom, for it is there he takes
up the thread of time once more, only to merge it in the infinitude of
eternity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Paul's Desiee to Depart.
I. There are, that we know of, but two more passages in the New
Testament which are apparently opposed to our view. They are
both of them passages from the writings of St. Paul, where he speaks
in contrast of his present life, and of that to which he looked forward.
They are both very often supposed to express his expectation that
during that state of death which preceded his resurrection, he, i.e.,
his soul separate from the body, should enjoy a life of conscious joy.
"We will examine both these passages at some length.
II. We first come to consider 2 Cor. v. 1 — 9, which will upon
examination be seen, we think, to be conformable in its teaching with
our view, and in fact to lend it no small support.* In the first verse
Paul contemplates Death. He describes it as the dissolution of this
our '' earthly house." "We doubt very much if he speaks here only
of the body. We think he speaks of our entire present heing, which
is not body only, but body animated by its soul. Of this entire being
death is the dissolution. Paul does not here tell us what are the
consequences of death to any part of our present being, for this we
are to gather from other Scriptures and from experience of death.
He here then contemplates the state of death, and contrasts it with
another state for which he earnestly longs, and which, in contrast
with this existence, called from its transitoriness *' a tabernacle," he
calls " a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." f
III. Our first inquiry, and one which, we imagine, will be our
clue to this whole passage, and, perhaps, also to Phil. i. 23, is what
is meant by that state of death which the Apostle calls the dissolu-
tion of this earthly house. Calvin and most of our theologians sup-
J30se it to consist in a momentary act, — the departure of the soul from
the body. This, we think, is one of the gravest errors that it is pos-
sible to fall into upon this important question. That which Calvin
supposes to be at once the commencement and the end of death is,
in Scripture, and plainly in reason, only its beginning. The state of
death lasts from the moment that a man dies, to the moment that he
wakes up at the resurrection. The state of death is not a point of
time like the twinkling of an eye, but embraces all the period during
which the body lies in the grave, and the soul remains in Hades.
This is the teaching of Scripture, and, in especial, it is the teaching
of 1 Cor. XV. 54, 55. The reign of death remains unbroken during
* 2 Cor. V. 1—9. t Bengel on 2 Cor. v. 2.
Paul's desire to depaet. 159
the entire of this period, and this is the period which he speaks of
during which "our earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved."
This is a most important point, and one which Scripture places
beyond anj^ fair dispute. So far from contemplating here the moment
when man dies, Paul contemplates and speaks of all the time that he
is dead. The act of dying, so far from being the termination of
death, is only the entrance of death uj^on his dominioti. Our earthly
house of this tabernacle is dissolved, and continues in its dissolution
until the Lord wakes us up from sleep.
IV. This point being established, sets us at once free from a variety
of perplexities such as may be seen when we read the comments of the
clear-headed Calvin upon this place. We now see that Paul does
not contemplate, as the contrast with the dissolution of the earthly
house, any state of the believer before resurrection, for the believer is,
up to the resurrection, in the state of dissolution. Paul does not
contrast the act of dying and separation from the body with the con-
dition of the believer's soul in Hades or anywhere else. The whole
intermediate state is embraced in the idea of the dissolution of this
earthly house. What Paul, then, contrasts here with Death is, and
can only be, the JEternal Resurrection state. He contrasts this, our
present life, daily verging towards dissolution, and after a few years
dissolving, and remaining in this state of dissolution until the resur-
rection, with the glorious life which shall commence when Christ
raises His people, and shall continue for ever. This is " the building
of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
V. If indeed the general view of Scripture did not lead us to this
idea, the very terms here used in description of that which Paul con-
trasts with the earthly house, would establish it. On no idea could
the intermediate state be said to be ^^ eternal in the heavejis." We
have seen that the soul of the believer does not go to heaven upon
death, an idea regarded as heresy by the Early Church.* But, at all
events, the intermediate state, wherever supposed to be, is a tem-
porary one — one for the termination of which we long and pray — and
therefore cannot be thought to be that " house eternal in the heavens"
which shall never terminate, and which we should never wish to
terminate. We have, then, in the outset, these two things estab-
lished : first, that state of death which Paul contemplates as coming
is that state which embraces the entire intermediate state of soul and
body ; secondly, that state which he contrasts with it is the state
which commences when Hades is past and gone, when the Lord
comes and raises His people from the grave.
The second verse brings before us Paul's feelings when he contem-
plated the glorious eternal state. We need not dwell upon this. It
is enough to say that he earnestly longed for the time when he shoidd
enjoy it. Now this is 7iot his longing to die. Calvin and others say
it is. The Bible and Paul tell us it is not. What Paul longed for
* Justin Martyr, Trypho, ch. Ixxx.; Ireneeus, Heresies, B. V. ch. xxxi.
160 Paul's desire to depart.
was tlie resurrection state. In a life made sad through the hatreds of
men and the infirmity of his flesh, he longed, with all the longing of
his mind, for the resurrection-state. He passes in this verse over the
whole intermediate state. His mind dwells not there. There was
nothing there to make him pause. He sends his mind's eye across its
gloomy region to its end. His longing fixes itself upon the state
which only begins when the intermediate state is altogether vanished
like a dream.
YI. The third verse presents some difficulty. The difficulty turns
upon what Paul means hj ^^ naked.'' Many commentators suppose
that he here introduces no new idea, but that his nakedness is what
he mentions in the first verse as the dissolution of this earthly house,
and in the fourth verse as being " unclothed." * Calvin and others,
however, suppose that "a new idea is called in, and that here the justi-
fication of the believer by Christ's righteousness, suggested by the
context, is introduced. We are not at all inclined to agree with
Calvin. We think that if expressions of a similar sense, with an
ordinary meaning for '' naked" be met with in the immediate con-
text, which no doubt is the case, and if the taking of ''naked " in the
sense of those passages makes good sense in the verse where it occurs,
which we think it does, it is unreasonable and unjustifiable to sup-
pose it to be taken in any dififerent sense when Paul does not give us
the smallest hint that he meant to introduce a new idea.
Our view, then, of this verse is simply this. Paul in the previous
verse expresses his longing for the heavenly house, ^^ since" being
thus clothed we shall not be found any longer in the naked state to
which death leads the believer as well as other men. If this be Paul's
meaning, and we really do not well see how any other can be adopted,
it lets in a full light upon the ideas which Paul entertained of the
intermediate state. It was a state of nakedness, an unclothed state.
Now it is only of the intermediate state that he says this. It is not
of this life, far less of the glorified future life, that he speaks. It is
of that intermediate state of which Calvin and our modern theologians
speak in terms which can scarce be exceeded by those in which the
Scriptures speak of the glorified state of the resurrection. In the
glorified state we shall have our eternal house and home. But Hades
is not our home. It is a state of nakedness. It is a state which calls
to mind the many destitutions of earth. The stranger and the prisoner
are classed with the '' naked" (James ii. 15 ; Matt. xxv. 36). It is
not a condition which Paul looked for or liked. He would not have
echoed Calvin's words when the Genevese Reformer called on believers
to lift up their heads at the approach of death as the time of their
redemption. Paul would tell us to look beyond its nakedness to the
land of life, of the fresh breezes of heaven, of light and joy and busy
blessed occupation. Hades is naked, reft of all such things as these.
YII. In the fourth verse, Paul carries out still further the ideas
* Bengel, 2 Cor. v. 3.
Paul's desire to depart. 161
already presented. " We that are in this tabernacle," he says, '' do
groan, being burdened." Such is our present mortal state. The
world without, and Satan, and our sins, and our temptations, make
this state, brief and transitory, also one of painful burden. Yet all
our groaning cannot make us thoroughly to desire " to be unclothed : "
" Not that we tcuuld be uticlothcd!" We groan, and we long because
we groan, but for what ? Not for the unclothed Hades state.* We
cannot wish to be unclothed and naked. It is an impossibility to
nature. But we groan for the future clothed state of the heavenly
house, eternal in duration, the glorified body and spirit reunited, even
as the poor man would change his hut, through whose many crevices
the winds and the rains of winter penetrate, for one that would shelter
and warm him. That which the Christian here burdened desires, is
not death, is not Hades, is not the intermediate state ; it is that mor-
tality may be swallowed up of life. That is not Hades. Hades is
the swallowing up of mortality in death. Hades is the triumph of
death. Life here is death threatened and coming : Hades is death
inflicted and come. But we wish that that which is mortal and must
die may be swallowed up and lost in that new life which shall never
end. We wish the Hades state to be past and gone — a thing oblite-
rated and annihilated — and the life of the resurrection introduced.
Hades will be obliterated. We long for it; pray for it with every
breath of prayer that breathes after life.
VIII. *' He that hath wrought us for that self-same thing" — this
eternal house — " is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest" —
the sure pledge — "of the Spirit," or, as Paul said elsewhere, "if the
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you.
He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."t In con-
sequence of having this pledge and earnest of the glorious eternal
house, Paul says, "we are ahvays confident," always full of good
hope in whatever circumstances we may happen to be, confident
although we know that so long as we are " at home in the body,"
while yet our "earthly house of this tabernacle" is not dissolved,
" we are absent from the Lord." Here, in this life, we are not sen-
sibly personally present with Christ : He is absent from us, far off in
heaven, where we see Him not. Yet even thus we are of good
courage, since we have in us the Spirit, the earnest of our future.
IX. For this present life is one of faith, not of sight ; very different
from that future life where we shall see and know — ' ' we walli by
faith, not by sight," as yet.
But if we are thus confident, even in this present life with all its
infirmities and drawbacks, much more have we a good courage and
satisfaction to part wholly and for ever from our present vile body of
corruption, to bid farewell to our earthly house of this tabernacle,
and to enter upon that glorious eternal future, to obtain the house
* See Bengel. t Eom. viii. 11.
M
162 Paul's desire to depaet.
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, which shall he ours
when our resurrection ushers us into the presence of Christ, to see
Him with our eyes, and to be ever present with Him. This, we have
no doubt, is the "presence with the Lord," which Paul here speats
of, and not the intermediate state as Calvin and others dream. For
Paul had but just expressed himself that this unclothed condition
was not his desire or wish. He could not, with any consistency with
his just -uttered declaration, say that he should view it with a good
satisfaction.
X. But, it will be objected, does not Paul pass on from absence
from the body to presence with the Lord with a bound, as though
between these there was no intervening state f Does he not here
speak as though one followed another instantaneously, just as we see
the lightning flashing from the cloud, and straightway hear the deep
thunder crash ? Undoubtedly he does. And then it will be said,
How does this agree with your view of an intermediate state, a Hades
for souls which has received and detained some for six thousand
years, in which the soul of Paul has been detained some nineteen
hundred years, which may, for ought we can tell, last in its full
dominion for centuries to come ? How can you place this condition
between absence from the body and presence with the Lord, if the
latter folloivs the former instantaneously ?
XL We reply that the nature of this intervening state of Hades
answers the objection : It is a sleep. It is a nonentity. It has no
perceptible time. A moment here seems longer than its six thousand
years to the sleepers. And we answer still further that this is Paul's
own view of it. The departed in Christ are, he tells us, ^^ fallen
asleep J^ He adds that if they were to continue for ever in that state,
they would have "perished" (1 Cor. xv. 8). It is well an inspired
apostle has spoken these words, for had we dared to utter them we
should have been held up as heretics. But there is Paul's opinion of
the intermediate state. It is a sleep. If unbroken it would be
tantamount to destruction, to annihilation, to death, for is it not the
infidel's cry that death is an eternal sleep) f And now we see why
Paul passes on without a stop, a pause, from parting with the mortal
body to enjoying the presence of Christ in the incorruptible body.
It was because the intermediate state was in his mind a sleep which
would pass imperceptibly and as in a moment away.
XJI. Little more remains to be said of this passage. The ninth
and tenth verses confirm what we have all along supposed to be
meant by being " present with the Lord," for they suppose such to
be fulfilled when " all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,"
i.e., subsequently to resurrection. And from this whole passage
then we receive the most abundant confirmation of our view, instead
of finding any refutation of it. The intermediate state was not in
itself the object of Paul's desire. On the contrary, he regards it as
in itself not to be desired, thus agreeing with our whole argument
THE APOSTLES CREED.
168
which has supposed the Hades state to be punishment for the original
sin of man.
XIII. With respect to the passage in Philippians upon which bo
much reliance is placed by our opponents, little need be said after
what has been already seen to have been Paul's mind from 2 Cor. v. 7.
His expression here "having a desire to depart and to be with
Christ," must receive its interpretation from Paul's fuller terms else-
where. "To depart," means doubtless to die, and "to be with
Christ " means doubtless the glorified state at resurrection. They are
spoken of here as closely connected, as in fact synchronal, from that
doctrine of the sleep of the intermediate state which Paul so often
taught. To depart from life and die would be, he knew, to be fol-
lowed at once by the trumpet calling him to arise and be with his
Lord ; for time would, in the actual interval however long between
dying and rising, be annihilated for him who slept. We will here
merely add that the opinion that during the state of death believers
are " with Christ" in a state of life, involves a contradiction to one of
the fundamental doctrines of Scripture. If they are then with Christ
and see Him as He now is, St. John tells us expressly that such a
sight would change them into the likeness of Christ.* It would
hence follow that they would now possess the fullest glory that they
ever could look for and obtain. The popular view that believers
during the state of death are with Christ and see Him, involves in
fact the denial of the resurrection as taught by Paul, or teaches what
he condemned as heresy, that the resurrection is past already.!
Whoever is with Christ cannot possibly, according to Scripture, have
anything greater or better to look forward to than what he is already
possessed of. The popular doctrine is virtually the denial of that re-
surrection which Christ and His Apostles teach us to look forward to.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Apostles' Creed.
I. In bringing our work to a conclusion we are desirous of saying
a few words upon the support given to our view in the earliest non-
canonical writing. We freely confess that the general current of
patristic opinion is against us. While the Fathers are far from being
unanimous in their views of the intermediate state, they generally
concur in rejecting what we have put forward. One of the very earliest
errors introduced into the Church was upon this question. While,
however, we allow that the Fathers, as a rule, are against us, we yet
will show a powerful confirmation of our view from that document of
early times which is of the highest authority.
• 1 John iu. 2. t 2 Tim. ii. 18.
M 9
164 THE apostles' creed.
II. Among early Christian documents stands pre-eminent what i«
called the Apostles' Creed. This old document is, in our judgment, ab-
solutely unique. It cannot claim to be inspired Scripture : it stands at
an immeasurable height above the compositions of any or of all of the
Fathers. But exactly in proportion to its value and authority we
must be careful to keep it in its original integrity. Now, in this
Creed, as we now have it, there are two, if not three, articles which
were added to it at a date considerably later than Apostolical times.
It is not disputed that the article " He descended into Hades," was
an addition of later times.* Taking this as an indubitable fact, we
will say a few words on the bearing of the original omission and the
subsequent insertion of this article upon our theory of Hades.
III. It is beyond a question that in the Apostles' Creed, brief as it
was, it was intended to enumerate in order each distinct act in our
Lord's life as connected with human redemption. The Creed is par-
ticularly minute and circumstantial in regard of all the circumstances
connected with His death: "He was crucified^ dead, and huriedy
Js^ow in the Creed as it originally stood, the next article after " buried "
was — '' the third day he rose again from the dead."
IV. What is our inference from this ? It is this, that in stating
that our Lord was " dead and buried " all was supposed to be stated
that had happened to Christ until His next act of resurrection. It
was quite true that Christ went down to Hades, but as Hades and the
grave were thought one and the same, it was not deemed necessary to
repeat what had been already said.
V. Now if Hades had in Apostolic times been deemed a place and
state altogether different from the grave, if our Lord's going to Hades
was a perfectly different thing from His being dead and buried, if it
was thought that while His body was dead in the grave His soul was
alive and actively engaged in various ways in Hades, it is utterly
inconceivable that the article " He descended into hell " should have
been omitted in the original Creed. An article which is supposed to
express the state of one part of our Lord's human nature, the soul, as
distinguished from another part, the body, during those three great
days of His burial, could not have been omitted if the belief of the
Apostolic age in the nature of the soul and of Hades had agreed with
that of modern times. The only reasonable inference, therefore, that
can be drawn from the omission of this article from the original Creed
is that at that time Christ's death and burial were supposed to be one
and the same thing with His descent into Hades. Apostolical faith
was that Hades and the grave were one and the same. The belief in
souls existing separately from bodies in Hades did not then exist in
the Church.
VI. This view of ours derives powerful support from the circum-
stances of the first introduction of this article of the descent of Christ
into Hades into the Creed. This article was first introduced into the
* Bingham's " Antiquities of the Christian Church," B. x. ch. iii. s. 7..
THE APOSTLES CREED.
165
Creed of Aquileia. Now it is very significant that this Creed, which
introduced the new formula of the descent into Hades, omitted the
older formula of ^^ was buried." Why? Because the -descent into
Hades and the burial were judged to be one and the same thing !
That such was the case we will give in the words of one whose learning
cannot be disputed, and whose whole views upon this question were
diametrically opposed to ours : *' I observe," says Bishop Pearson,
" that in the Aquileian Creed, where this article was first expressed,
there was no mention of Christ's burial ; but the words of their con-
fession ran thus: *' Crucified under Pontius Pilate , He descended
into Hades " (m inferno). From whence there is no question but the
observation of Iluifinus, who first expounded it, was most true, that
though the Roman and Oriental Creeds had not these words, yet they
had the sense of them in the word buried. It appeareth, therefore,
that the ^rst intention of putting these words in the Creed was only
to express the bw^ial of our Saviour, or the descent of His body into
the grave." * It is indeed marvellous that Pearson did not see what
was the real sentiment of the primitive Church on this point, namely
that Hades and the grave were identical. But his Platonic idea of the
soul blinded him utterly to what he would otherwise have perceived
at a glance.
VII. "We have seen, then, the state of the early creeds upon this
point. The Roman Creed had the expression *' buried," and omitted
"descended into Hades;" the Aquileian Creed had the expression
"descended into Hades," and omitted "buried." It was not that
they dift'ered in sense ; they only differed in words, for Hades and the
grave were by both judged to be the same.
VIII. But a new idea had crept into the Church, and was taking
possession of man's faith. It was the Platonic idea of the soul, not
as the life of man which is its Scriptural sense, but as the true and
real man surviving the body and unaffected by death. Men's minds
were changing, or had changed upon the nature of man and the
nature of death. Plato had supplanted the Bible. The intermediate
state now was becoming or become fashioned after the philosophy of
Plato. The soul had survived. The soul was the true man. You
ninst have a fit habitation for this living man. That could not be the
grave ! What should it be ? The soul went to Hades. So Scripture
said, and so the Church correctly believed. Then Hades was not the
grave ! Hades was a place quite distinct from the grave ! Hades
was the abode of the living !
IX. And now for the Creed — the formula ! That must give ex-
pression to this new faith. The survival of the soul was now a
cardinal point, of far more consequence, in fact, than the burial of the
body. What was to be done ? The Creed of Aquileia, perfectly
innocent of the intention, afforded the hint and the means. Add the
formula of Aquileia to the Roman or Apostolic formula ! Thus added,
* Pearson on the Creed, Art. V.
166 THE apostles' creed.
they will no longer appear expressive of one act of Christ, but of two.
The burial will be a different thing from the descent into Hades.
And so Plato^ takes credit for our Apostles' Creed as we have it now —
**TFas crucified, dead, and buried, He descended into HadesT The
two expressions, originally of one meaning, and therefore interchanged
for one another, were henceforth used as expressions of a totally
different meaning, and to be kept quite distinct. The addition of the
Aquileian formula to the Roman or Apostolic formula was the indica-
tion of the triumph of the Platonic theory of the soul over that of the
Bible. The change of opinion produced the change of Creed. One
brief sentence from Theophylact expresses accurately this whole thing
that we have been reasoning out. " You shall find," says that writer,
'' that there is sotne difference hetwixt Hades and death, namely, that
Hades containeth the souls, but death bodies. For the souls are
immortal.''^* There is truly the whole case stated. It was discovered
from Plato that souls were immortal, — were the men who had not truly
died at all I These living men must have a suitable place, and Hades
was then discovered to be the abode of the living. But for the Pla-
tonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul Hades and the grave
would have been allowed on all hands to be one and the same place,
and the article, " He descended into Hades," would never have been
tacked on to the Roman from the Aquileian Creed. The sooner it is
left out the better !
X. And now we have brought our enquiry to its conclusion. If
Scripture, interpreted according to reasonable principles, and not
forced from its obvious meaning to favour the requirements of a philo-
sophical dogma, is to decide this question, we consider that it has been
decided. We have considered what the Bible tells us of our nature,
and have found that it teaches very differently^ from Plato. We have
followed it as it opens out the view of our intermediate state, and
have seen that it describes it as a state of death for man, and not one
of life. We have seen that its time for judgment and retribution is
not the period fixed upon by some few Heathen philosophers who
were but guessing, even in their noblest and truest speculations, but
is a period of which they knew nothing, viz. — the second coming of
the Lord, and the resurrection of the dead. We have seen that while
our view of death makes it truly in itself a terrible thing, suitable for
what God has pronounced to be the punishment of sin ; yet that, in His
mercy and wisdom, this state of death, passing unheeded over the
sleeper, does but bring the child of God nearer to his reward than the
popular view of an intermediate unsatisfying existence would do.
We have seen the all-important bearing of our view upon doctrine,
sweeping away at once and completely, the vast pile of falsehood
which has been built upon erroneous views of the intermediate state
from the earliest period of the Church to our own day. We have
calmly considered the few passages of the Bible, which even seem to
* Theophylact, quoted in Usher's Answer, Ch. viu.
THE apostles' ceeed. 167
be opposed to our theory, and have rather found them, when inter-
ftreted according to the analogy of Scripture, to be in favour of it. And,
astly, we have considered the most venerable document of Christian
antiquity, the Creed of the Apostles, and seen its important confirm-
ation of our views as drawn from Scripture. To the candid considera-
tion of the Christian student we now commend a work which we fully
believe to be most important to Christian faith in these dangerous
times, because it is agreeable to the revealed will of God our
Father.
WORKS BY THE REV. HENRY CONSTABLE.
Third Edition, Price 2s.
THE DURATION AND NATURE OF FUTURE
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